Pi Psychosis

I think I have have lost my mind. I have been knitting away at this same lace pattern for so long now I have reached a zombie-like state. Is this pi psychosis???? I just started the 1st row of the last repeat of the trailing vine. I only have 11 more rows to go in the 96 row section and I am *so* looking forward to getting this over and done with. I can't tell you how tempted I was to cheat and skip the last repeat, but I didn't. Besides, I need a bigger Addi to do the border. I ordered a 60" from Knitpicks last weekend and it won't get here until Saturday at the earliest so it's not like I can go on anyway. I'm just eager to be finished. Mom was sitting out on the deck with me tonight while I was knitting and she asked me why I was torturing myself. ROTFLOL! Uh, because it's LACE! Then she asked me what I was going to do with it when I was done. Oh duh, Mom! Sometimes she has no vision at all. I told her I was going to wrap myself up it in this winter and be warm and cozy--that I was going to drape it over the back of a chair and stare at it and smile and say "I knit this! Wow!" And this from the woman who readily chimed in with the rest of my family to tease me about my lack of imagination and humor as a child (the attributes she and my sister possessed in abundance). Of course people in the real world all think I have a delightful sense of humor and am very imaginative & creative. Only in my family am I the fuddy duddy. Geez......

I have been having a good time scrolling through the ebay listings for patterns and yarns and such. I've purchased several promising issues of the Burda Anna magazine. The neatest one was a "buy it now" lot of 5 issues for about $7. The seller was promoting cross-stitch but when I emailed her I learned there was lace knitting too (as I suspected). I snatched that one up fast as I knew the seller had no clue how popular the lace content was and that folks were gladly paying $8-10/issue for the lace knitting. Groovy for me! I was watching several bids last night and I was *so* tempted to join in the fun but my June allowance is mostly spent and it's not even halfway into the month. I finally had to admit to myself that buying on ebay was addicting and that I needed to simply turn the computer off, walk away from the desk, and do something else. I have enough patterns, newly acquired ones at that, and lace yarn to keep me busy knitting for at least a couple of months. I think the pi psychosis was to blame in part for this crazed state of mind. LOL

My garden is doing quite nicely and I have most things pretty much planted and set for the summer. I have been pulling the overgrown pansies out of the rose garden and replacing them with lantana, verbena, and a few petunias. The lantana is a new hybrid called sunrise peach and it is my favorite shades of blush pinks and yellows--very soft and pretty. I found the verbena on the half-price table and decided it would be the perfect ground cover plant to help keep the weeds at bay. Its a hybrid called Aztec Pearl and the flowers are also a blush pink. They are a perfect border companion to the peach lantana I set in behind them. I filled in the otherwise barren little spots with small pony pack petunias (also 50% off). I would have chosen other things, but I needed to be budget conscious and the petunias will do fine. The only downside is getting *down* to keep them deadheaded-a must for standard petunias. But I deadhead all my wave petunias anyway, so it's not that big a deal. I just trot around the yarn with a little pail and some snips and deadhead every morning &/or evening, so adding a few more plants to the routine is NBD. It's what I do to destress--I deadhead plants. It's better than deadheading people I suppose ;-)

I'm still waiting to hear back from the IRB about my research proposal. Sandra hadn't heard anything as of Tuesday either, so I guess I'll just have to wait another week. If I don't hear back by next week, I'll email Dr. Hall and see where's she's at with the thing. I figure it's passed the College of Nursing committe by now and I'm only waiting on the University board to approve it. I'm anxious to get going on my study so I can get done! I am ready to graduate and move on with my life. Can you tell I'm very restless and bored today????