Oh man... we were right!

Okay, I thought we would have until tomorrow, but... s&*# is hitting the fan in Lizzie Bennet Diary world. I won't spoil it, but it turns out the DC and I were right in our first guess about what was going to happen to Lydia after all. And it's pretty awful.

If you are planning to catch up, may I suggest you do so soon? Very soon? Like, before Valentine's day soon?

(I can quit anytime... but I don't wanna!)

In which PhysicsGirl is mildly obsessed

Update:I am retroactively including this as part of the P&P Bicentenary Challenge.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that the first sentence of any discussion of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice must be in want of those first words. As I have said many times before, I am nothing if not cliché.

Today is the 200th anniversary of its publication. I could go into some kind of analysis about why this is one of my favourite books and how I have a giant poster of half the book on my wall and why I'm kind of meh about Colin Firth as Darcy because David Rintoul^* had captured my 8-year-old heart and I wouldn't forsake him or how awful the Grier Garson/Laurence Olivier version is, despite the charismatic leads. But I won't.

**


Instead, I would like to encourage you, again, to watch The Lizzie Bennet diaries on YouTube. Since last April, I have been extremely happy at noon Mondays and Thursdays, because that means another 5-8 minutes of happiness coming my way. And I can include Tuesdays and Fridays now, as well, because Lydia has been posting vlogs of her part of the story on those days.

There have been 83 episodes plus 8 Q&A's and Lydia's 30 or so videos... oh! And the 6 videos from Maria Lu (Charlotte's sister) PLUS the Collins & Collins and Pemberley Digital stuff. There are Twitter accounts and tumblrs and just about everything a person who likes to get totally obsessed really involved in a story could desire.

When it started, I said that I kind of wished I had discovered this after it had been all done, so I wouldn't have to wait for the next video. But I'm so. very. glad. that I am experiencing this in real time. Even though the anticipation sometimes kills me. Darcy Day, for example. Oh lord.

I'm about to get all spoilery and a tad long-winded, so if you don't know the story at all or want to experience it on your own or want to skip my blithering, you might want to jump to the part of the post where I put the various links to Watch. All. the Things.

Pancake of the Month: Fruit and Nut Pancakes

What's this? Three postings in four days? You'd think I was trying to avoid something important. Like marking several tests and labs. Laundry. Going out into the cold, harsh world for groceries. Responsible stuff. /whistles nonchalently...

What better way to cushion oneself from the snow whirling all-a-flurry outside than by some fortifying fruit and nut pancakes!



I love looking at the reviews for recipes, particularly the ones where someone makes a million substitutions and then says "it turned out great!" That's so not helpful.^*

So naturally, this post will be about the various substitutions I had to make to this recipe from Self, January 2012 because I ran out of oatmeal, didn't have sliced almonds, and didn't have sliceable bananas. I did half oatmeal, half oat bran (same difference, right?), chopped almonds (which I chopped even more to make them smaller), and mashed both bananas instead of slicing one. I did use almond milk.

Result?

To the Coffeeneur go the spoils

Lookie what came in the mail for me the other day!

That's right. Pins for completing chasing mailboxes's Coffeeneuring challenge. I really like that pewter pin.

Some might tell you that the fun of participating in the challenges is reward enough. And they'd be right. But swag is nice, too.

(You might want to pop over to the Cupcake Ride blog to see Hyedie's photos, once she puts them up. She always takes nicer photos.)

Upcoming Women Who Bike Brunch

Hyedie and Denise from the Cupcake Ride (and I, nominally) invite you to another Women Who Bike brunch!

Date: February 24, 2013
Time: 11:30
Place: TBA

To learn more, sign up for the mailing list. Details on the Cupcake Ride blog.

Subway art: Dufferin

I've always considered Dufferin station to be the armpit of the TTC subway system^*. It is a necessary evil because it's the station closest to me. It's got a depressing hospital green tile and seems generally dingy and ill-lit. It's not just how it looks, either; it's beyond ridiculous that there is no shelter for masses of people who often have to wait 20 to 30 minutes for a bus. And don't get me started on the dirty pools of water that gather in the stairwells when it rains or snows or the safety hazards therein.

So I was very happy to learn that it is undergoing a much-needed update, and today I got to see what the new tile will look like, and let me tell you... I think Dufferin may turn into my favourite station if the practicality upstairs matches the looks downstairs.

Why the stegosaurus... is late

Happy belated New Year/Perihelion! That is kind of the theme of this post: tardy things.

Those of you who know me well and read my gift post might have been wondering to yourselves "Wait... doesn't she have two brothers? What about P1^*?" Well, I was on track to making his gifts on time when I got derailed by two things: a bright idea and the fact that he was staying in BC for Christmas.

P1 likes a certain dinosaur, so I thought that for his gifts I would incorporate said creature. Or two. This meant that my previous gift plans got scuttled modified, and when I learned a few days before Christmas that he wasn't even going to be here, I'm afraid I put his stuff aside to be finished later so I could concentrate on the rest of the insanity.

The first thing I started was this stegosaurus amigurumi. A couple of notes on the pattern: as someone mentioned in the comments, the stitch count on row 11 is off. I did a (3 sc + 2 sc in 1 st) repeat. Also, I will put two rows of plates (not spikes... sheesh, you'd think this person didn't know anything about dinosaurs^*) along the back. It's a really quick pattern, and the only reason it's taken me more than a day or two to make it is that I didn't have anything to stuff it. The acquiring of which involved getting out of my pyjamas and going out into the cold. And finding a place to sell me a small amount of stuffing that wasn't Walmart. Which I could not do. It's also taking me a long time to finish making the legs, plates, and spikes, because it's time to get ready for school again, plus I've started another project. So here she is in all her unfinished glory, and I promise to finish her soon.



And now what the heck am I going to do with the rest of the stuffing?


The hat is finished (yay!) and inspired by the T-rex hat from Interweave Crochet Accessories 2011. The steg is crocheted in intarsia, which means you have to have a chart. I used this sweater image to create said chart. I'm afraid the steg came out more dragon-like than I would have like, so I tried going around it with a line of crochet embroidery. It looks better now.



This is what intarsia looks like before you weave in the millions of ends:


While I was waiting for stuffing, I got distracted by crocheting a sweater for me out of the leftover yarn from P1's projects. It's the Jenny Sylvia sweater from Interweave Crochet Fall 2012. I won't have quite enough to make the whole thing in burgundy, so I'll do the bands and ribbing in grey. Probably.

I spent a few days solidly crocheting the back and fronts and got this far.

Then I reread the pattern and realized that the neck starts much earlier than I thought, so I will have to pull back the right front to just after the armhole starts. And the back a few rows. This is actually a good thing, because that means there will be more yarn to do things like sew up the seams. Except that upon further examination, I realized that I've completely messed up the stitch count at the top back because I've buggered up the armhole on one side. Likewise for the right front. Oh well, at least the left front will be mostly correct on the first try.

Ahem. Intentional mistakes are my signature!

Maybe I should go back to crocheting stegosaurus legs now.

^*Not his real name. But you probably knew that.

^**This from the person who probably knows even less about dinosaurs.