Take a field trip down memory lane, back to when you were in high school. It’s early May, and you’re probably studying your ass off, preparing for your end-of-term finals. The end of the month, which marks the end of term and the beginning of summer break, seems far, far away, and you can’t wait for exams to be over so you can be free. You look forward to it – not only the freedom from rigid class schedules, homework assignments, and exams, but also the freedom to do the things you’ve been wanting to do all year but haven’t had the time to do because of school: camping trips with your friends, all-night B-grade horror movie marathons, catching up on that series of novels that’s been sitting on your shelf for ages, finally getting around to working on that afghan you’re knitting for your grandmother. Whatever it is you’ve been planning to do, you look forward to it eagerly, but you also look forward to a break. You’ve been working hard, so you decide to allow yourself a week or so at the beginning of your break to just do nothing. Sit around and watch TV, sleep in late, etc. That other stuff you’ve been wanting to do can wait – it’ll still be there after your week off, and besides, summer break is nearly three whole months! That’s plenty of time to get it all done!

But one week turns into two, and then before you know it, it’s already early August, and classes are getting ready to start up again. You’ve talked about camping, but you haven’t done it. And your afghan? You got maybe 20 rows knit before you set it aside to watch soaps instead. And now school’s starting again, and you’ve just wasted your summer break.

That’s sort of how I feel like this stretch of unemployment has been going. I justified not doing much the first two weeks because my best friends were getting married, my parents were coming to visit, and I had to prepare (and then, of course, participate). And then I had to recuperate. And then… Well, then I had gotten into the habit of staying up late, getting up late, and doing little of value in between. That’s not to say that I haven’t been productive – I’ve knit plenty of socks, dyed some sock yarn, designed a number of webpages, and learned some new computer skills. Still, I feel like I haven’t done nearly as many things as I could have (or would have liked to) these past 7 weeks. And now with the possibility of a job looming on the horizon, I feel like that 16-year-old who squandered away her break. Oops.

So today I decided I’d get serious about one of the things I’ve been wanting to do for a long, long time: learn Flash. I’m self-taught with just about every computer program I use, including Photoshop, which I’m now very very comfortable with. Even Illustrator and InDesign, which I was a complete novice with until last year, are not so foreign to me anymore (although it helps that they are very similar in layout and function to Photoshop, which I’ve been using for years). Flash, on the other hand, is a completely different type of program. With Illustrator and InDesign, I prettymuch just played around with it until things started to make sense. But with Flash, I’ve found that that isn’t cutting it – I don’t know what all the tools are or what they do, or where to look for them. So I’ve been playing with tutorial after tutorial, learning what the program can do and how to make it do it. And so far, I’m having fun. I’m not very good yet, but at least I’m trying. Gotta start somewhere, right?

Meanwhile, back in the world of knitting, the second round of Aurelia Socks is coming along nicely. I’ve got about 6 more rounds to go on the leg before I start the heel flap. I was a little concerned about the yardage, since Koigu is a heavier yarn than the base yarn for my Ellie’s Ewe Hues, and my (admittedly rough) calculations told me I’d need about 200 yds for one sock (compared to the 175 yds in one 50-g skein of Koigu). But I’ve still got about 21 g left of the ball, and I’m guesstimating that that’ll be enough for the foot. We’ll see. If I’m wrong, you’ll most definitely be hearing about it here – gotta have somewhere to vent about it!

Aurelia Socks #2 WIP – Just about finished with the leg of the first sock

Incidentally, you see that blue blanket in a lot of my photos. It’s a blue-and-white blanket with sheep all over it that I inherited when my Grandma Manning died. I enjoy sitting out on the porch at night (summer nights in NC are really quite pleasant, if just a tad chilly), and the blanket is just the perfect lap covering for those cooler evenings. The purple bag is a cute little quilted tote that my mom got me ages ago for carrying around my sock WIPs.

(And on another totally unrelated side-note, I’m highly amused that the WordPress spell-checker thinks that “guesstimating” is a totally valid word…)