Okay. I am officially having a bad week.

Last Thursday, when I was about 75% done with a paper that was due later that same day, my computer froze and I lost part of the paper. After rebooting, a few minutes later, it froze again and I lost the whole thing. I panicked, but luckily was able to re-write it and get it submitted about 15 minutes before it was due (after much crying and panic, of course).

The paper fiasco happened maybe an hour after I found out someone had hacked my e-mail account. Well, I changed the password, changed over to a different e-mail provider, and cleared out my contacts list in the old account. Then I changed whatever online accounts I had that were associated with that e-mail. Or so I thought.

Well, today, just before my class, I happened to log onto my checking account and found more than $300 worth of charges to iTunes that of course I didn’t make. (What person legitimately charges $300 on iTunes in less than a week?!) Anyway, I try to log onto iTunes and the password had been changed. I contacted iTunes and they banned that card from making purchases on iTunes and reset the password for me - I changed the e-mail on the account as well as the security questions and the password - called the bank and canceled the card and made a claim to the fraud dept.

While I was doing all of this, I missed the first 30 minutes of my class, during which time the teacher had everyone divide up into small groups based on the subjects of our papers we turned in last week. She then had each group make a presentation to the class on their subject. When I got into the class, my audio went out after 5 minutes and I couldn’t hear anything. By the time I got that fixed, apparently my group was finishing up their presentation and quite literally the first words I heard when my audio came back were the professor saying, “Rebecca, is there anything you’d like to add?” I was completely thrown for a loop. All I could say was, "I’m sorry Dr. A, I lost sound and I’ve been trying to get that fixed." Eeeek!

What a crap day.

Oh, and the idiot that hacked my account put his name and birthdate into my account info. Guess what info the police and the bank’s fraud dept. will be getting?

I have been having the craziest fall so far. But, I have finally settled into a routine for schoolwork and have gotten the hang of all the reading and paper writing that is expected for my classes - so far in one class I have 8 100's and got a 92 on the midterm! Hooray! As for the other class, I have 2 A's and am waiting to hear about the third paper. I shouldn't have been so worried, but if I hadn't been, maybe I wouldn't be doing as well - who knows?

Anyway, we've had a lot of snow so far this year, and it's snowing yet again - and it's not even Halloween yet! According to the Winter Storm Warning, we may get between 12 and 24 inches between now and Thursday. Ilex will have a great time if we do - she has been excited every time we've had snow so far, and since we got her on pain meds for her hip, I almost can't keep up with her. She wants to play all the time! It's like having a puppy in the house again.

I'm not complaining - I love watching her run around and play. We wanted to make the time she has left as comfortable as possible, but we really didn't expect this big a difference! It's been a nice change, and she's loving life right now. I can't wait to take her out in the snow in the morning.

I'll be devoting my efforts today to the 9/11 Day of Service by knitting baby caps for charity. There are all kinds of projects and service opportunities to fit anyone's interest. Every little bit helps someone.

If you are interested, go to the link above and post a comment about what you plan to do - if you need ideas, just scroll down and click on "Find a Project".

Now that we're moved in and I'm starting to get settled into classes, I've finally found time to take a picture of the kit I got in the HSKS 8 camp swap. I was really excited to find this in the mail:



There's a project tote bag with sheep on it in the back, Claudia's Hand Painted sock yarn and two mini skeins of sock yarn along with a pattern for a cute stranded bag. There are sheep note cards, a woven bookmark, some candy necklaces, buttons, a mini watercolor set, Burt's Bees cleanser, a box of herbal tea, and some cute Sesame-Street ponytail holders. Plus a cool origami box. Thanks so much, Selena Starfire! (I apologize that it took me so long to post a photo - the last half of August was so busy for me!)

August was really a hectic month for me. Starting from mid-month when I flew down to Alabama for the MLIS orientation at the University of Alabama. I was excited to be visiting my alma mater, but the five days were jam-packed with sessions and information. I was left reeling!

Classes started 2 days after I got back home and the reading has been insane. I don't think I've finished the reading for a class session yet! Today I actually posted my essay for the Tuesday night class 18 minutes before it was due. I had extenuating circumstances, but still!

This past weekend we moved to a new apartment. I can't tell you how stressed I've felt about this. It wasn't nearly so bad as I'd anticipated, and nowhere near as stressful as last year's move from Virginia to Colorado, but moving is always a big pain in the butt. It didn't help matters that I woke up sick on Friday ad then injured my knee somehow or other at some point the same day. It's been mixed-berry colored since then and going down the stairs with boxes was not a lot of fun. We were lucky to have our fried Meredith helping us, but since it was Labor Day weekend, it was just the three of us. It took us all four days to completely move out and clean up the old apartment.

I am so glad it's over and I survived it. Now to just get through the next two years of school!

A little sneak peek at my Christmas knitting so that I can try out a photo tip from RheaH (thanks!). I am really excited about this little piece of knitting (my second foray into intarsia). It's coming along pretty quickly, but I won't say anymore about it, or for whom it's being made!



And a nice little close up of the buttons I found for my Quidditch Jacket. I made this jacket for a History of Magic OWL in the Harry Potter Knitting/Crochet House Cup. I thought the buttons were perfect since I wanted to show off my Lion Pride!

Ken and I headed out again this weekend to see some more of beautiful Colorado. This time, we were planning on Garden of the Gods park outside of Colorado Springs. Unfortunately about a million other people had the same great idea, so we decided that we'd try that one again some other week. I did get to go to a yarn shop in Old Colorado City and got this:



The colors are much more red-violet in RL. I did make a tiny mistake though. I picked this up under the impression that it was Mini Mochi which is a sock-weight yarn with the intention of adding it to my sock yarn blankie. It's not - it's Mochi Plus, which is Aran weight, so now I have 95 yards of this beautiful yarn and I need to figure out what to make with it! Horrors! Anyway, I picked up "101 Designer One Skein Wonders" at the library today, so hopefully I will find something I like.

After the yarn shop mis-adventures, we wound up doing what we do most weekends - driving around in the mountains looking for interesting sights for Ken to photograph. Now, when I say that Ken takes photos, it doesn't mean that he snaps a few shots and then we move on. It means he has to take each shot from multiple angles, at multiple settings, and multiple exposures. We never make a photo stop that lasts less than an hour.



As beautiful as Colorado is, I do sometimes get a wee bit bored.



Luckily for me, I have my knitting.

Well, actually this time, I had my crochet. I am teaching myself, and Saturday afforded me lots of time to practice! I think I pretty much have chaining, slip stitch, and single crochet down. I also picked up a basic crochet book today when I was at the library - I am confused about double crochet because I'm not sure if I'm supposed to skip a stitch when I put my hook in to start or what, and what exactly constitutes a stitch on the next row. If anyone has any tips or links, I would really appreciate it!


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Last week was also the premiere of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Let me just say that I can finally forgive Michael Gambon for everything. He did justice to Dumbledore and I am satisfied. There were parts of the movie that irritated me (and I knew there would be), but because of Gambon's last two scenes in this movie, I can overlook the rest.