Hello again!

Goodness, it has been a while. I have a whole list of excuses, but you'd just be bored. So basically, AP exams are eating my life, but now, the hard ones are finally over! So I have a bit of free time!

There's actually a lot of news to report this time. First of all, I'd like to introduce you all to the newest members of my family, Hera and Artemis:

(sorry for the bad pictures, the mice move so fast, it's impossible to get a good one!)

Aren't they adorable? Hera is the dark brown one and Artemis is the white. Don't you think it's ironic to name mice after the queen of the gods and the goddess of the hunt? Me, too. That's why I like it. I got them from my AP Environmental Science teacher. She also teaches an animal behavior class that did some sort of project with mice. Well, their original mice started having babies by the dozen, so she needed to get rid of them. So, I volunteered to take one home.

I did some research, found out all about how to take care of mice, bought a big aquarium, set up an elaborate cardboard jungle gym in it, and bought food and litter and stuff for them. Artemis was the first one I brought home, on monday (April 6th). I wasn't really sure whether she was a male or a female, so I looked it up on the internet. My original plan was to have one male mouse, because 2 male mice together will fight like crazy (they're really territorial) and a male and a female will breed at an alarming rate. But, it turned out that she was a female, so her name changed from Bartimaeus to Artemis and I decided to get another female mouse. See, mice are really very social creatures, and a female all alone will get depressed and sleep all the time.

So the next day, Tuesday the 7th, I took my little hermit crab cage to school again to pick out another mouse. But when I went to the teacher's classroom after school, the mouse cage was completely gone! It turns out, another student had volunteered to take them home over spring break and had taken them out of the classroom early. So I had to run to the bus loop to find her and pick out a mouse in a hurry. It is extremely hard to determine a mouse's gender, especially on the fly, so I took my chances and just grabbed the prettiest dark brown one. Luckily, she is a female, so her name's Hera. They are so cute!!

In knitting news, here are a few updates on my various projects on the needles (no pictures, though, because I don't feel like it):

1) Seascape Shawl

I need to come up with a new name for this project, because it's lime green and not ocean-y. Like, Winding Vines or something. Well anyway, I've got quite a bit done, at least, I've exceeded my own expectations for my progress. I finished the border section and now I'm a little over halfway through the first chart. This is going to be awesome when I'm done!

2) Garter stitch cowl

This is a new one! I went on vacation recently to the beach, and we went through this tiny, tiny town called Plymouth, NC. We were going through the pitiful little downtown Plymouth when we passed a store called Yearning for Yarn. So of course I was like MUST STOP. So went in, and was greeted by the store owner, a sweet little old lady named Catherine. She immediately introduced herself and the other woman in the store and took us on a tour of all the yarns she had. It was a little bitty store, and really long and thin, but it had a good selection! Catherine was SOOOO nice and sooo sweet that I HAD to buy something, so I bought a bag of used needles in various sizes (for 3 dollars, what a deal!!!) and a skein of Plymouth Yarn Co. Baby Alpaca Grande. This yarn is so soft I want to roll in it, or knit bedsheets out of it, it's incredible! I could only really afford one skein because it was 14 dollars, but I had to have it. And I didn't feel bad about paying that much, because I wanted to support such a fantastic store!

So anyway, one skein isn't enough for a whole scarf, unless it were really skinny. So instead I'm making a cowl. It's completely garter stitch, with 21 stitches per row on size US 13 needles.

The only sad thing is that it's getting warmer every day here, so I've got to wait until NEXT winter to wear it!

3) 3-2-1 Scarf

I just finished this one today! It's based on the pattern here: http://laughingpurplegoldfish.blogspot.com/2008/10/3-2-1-and-youre-done-its-curlicue-scarf.html
Mine is made with purple Caron Simply Soft, with a border of some teal Knitpicks Suri Dream. It's gorgeous! But again, i have to wait until next winter to wear it. :(

4) Crochet Earrings

I made the first pair of these for my mom for mother's day. They're basically tiny crocheted flowers made from embroidery floss and put on earring wires. I've done the first flower of the second pair now.

So, that's about all for now. I'll try to post again in a reasonable amount of time....