Saturday, January 28, 2012

Because I Really Need Another Hobby...

I mentioned the other day that I took a spinning class. One of the women in my knitting group hosted a class, and for $30 we got a bunch of roving (I think that's the right word...), a spindle, an instruction booklet, and a two hour class. Here's my spindle:


I'm so smart, so of course I forgot to take a picture of the roving before I started spinning it...oops. But here's the teeny batch I made during the class itself:


I wanted to practice more all week, but since it's something I'm very new to I didn't want to work on it until I had several hours to sit down and work on it, so for a little while the long days at work were translating to no practice time. Then I had to get a tetanus shot, and they tell you that your arm will be sore for a few days, but THEY LIE. My everything was sore for a few days. Especially my spinning arm. So I finally felt better last night, and after I got home and took a much-needed nap, I spun for several hours last night and came up with batch number two:


...which looks considerably crappier than batch number one...

I think I'm getting worse.

It's going to take quite a bit of practice before I'm any good at it. Once I get better at it I'll decide if it's something I want to keep trying and if it is, I'll look into buying a spinning wheel. Until then, I'm going to make baby batches of yarn until I'm sick of it.

In other yarning news, I finished a sock:


It's Pyroclastic from Knitty.com. I know it's hard to see the pattern in this picture, but it's very pretty and hugs my feet like a little bit of yarny heaven. I'm in the middle of the cuff for the second one, and then I really need to get started on a wedding shawl for a friend (off-white baby alpaca laceweight, oh yes!).

Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Story Time!

Today at work I had a little accident.

I'm okay, don't worry!

Here's what happened:

In the fume hood at work we have these glass bottles with plastic pumps on the top that we use to dispense measured portions of acid. The one I keep concentrated nitric acid in was empty, and pretty filthy, so I (with gloves on) brought it over to the sink to rinse it off. I turned on the water, and started to rinse it, and the long plastic tube part of the pump-the part that goes to the bottom of the bottle-flipped upward and sprayed my face, neck, and arms with acid.

I immediately went into OH SHIT PANIC mode and started flushing myself with water (good thing the water was already running!). I flushed for a good five minutes before my shirt was soaking wet and so was my hair. At that point I let my boss know what happened, then went downstairs to the bathroom to keep flushing it with water. I flushed for another ten minutes or so, then went to report the accident to the production manager. We started filling out paperwork, and I was totally fine with keeping an eye on it and going about my day, but we all ended up deciding that I ought to go to WorkMed and make sure it was going to be okay.

So I went in and went straight to the front desk, and immediately said "I've gotten acid on my skin, you need to take me back NOW!" and they were like "YEAH." So we went in the back and immediately I had to disrobe and get into their therapy shower and two nurses hosed me down for another fifteen minutes. I would have complained about the water being freezing cold, but it actually felt really good on the burns!

After that I got changed into a hospital gown (so sexy) and they started putting antibiotic ointment all over the burns and started applying ice packs over that. Next I got a tetanus shot! Hooray! The I had to take a drug test, presumably to prove that I didn't get hurt while doing something stupid because I was high. I hen got some Advil for the swelling and I have to go back tomorrow to get checked on.

I took some pictures, but it's been a while and they don't look half so bad as when it first happened.

So here is the left side of my face, and it isn't really apparent in the picture, but the acid got all over this side of my face and chin (you can see that it's red all over). I also got a few bits on my forehead and next to my eye (but not IN my eye, thank goodness).


This one shows how swollen my lip is. It was the first place to start blistering and it still hurts even now.


The worst of it is on my neck.


I know it doesn't look very bad in the pictures, but you should see it in person. I just couldn't capture the color very well.

So that was my acid adventure.

I was really mad at myself, but I was wearing my safety equipment and I wasn't doing anything stupid, and frankly, one chemistry-related accident in eight years of chemistry-ing is a pretty damn good track record.

This did make me incredibly grateful that I was wearing my safety equipment, though, because my eyes and my hands are fine. NO KNITTING IMPAIRMENT. I freaking win.

Monday, January 23, 2012

Text Time 21

Me: I'm going to try to get to Knit Night early today. We'll see if Chemistry cooperates...
N.: You bend Chemistry to your will!
Me: I try to every damn day and somehow it just doesn't work that way...

Me: I'm taking a spinning class tomorrow!
Mim: Let me know how it goes. They're supposed to yield amazing results.
Me: I meant with a spindle!
Mim: Oh!

(Because spinning classes are the devil's handiwork and making yarn is just awesome)

Kwiddens: What is it called when you misplace your doobie?
Me: What?
Kwiddens: A dislocated joint

Kwiddens: On a weird note, I'm going to write a book called "Fissures Of Men"
Me: Haha, about what?
Kwiddens: I haven't decided. I just like the pun.

Me: You know, if anyone ever went through my text messages, they'd find out more than they ever wanted to know about your and my bowel habits and sex lives...
Kwiddens: Haha right? It's almost like an anti-theft thing.

Thursday, January 5, 2012

SO Grateful...

For those of you who haven't been made aware, there was an incident last night in Ogden. Several police officers were shot and wounded severely, and one even died. The news has been buzzing about it all day.

It's all so sad. These men literally put their lives on the line to keep people safe. There's no higher calling, in my opinion, than being in the police force or the military.

And this is all I can think about today: I am SO grateful for Scott's asthma...

And here's why:

Scott's asthma is so severe that he has landed in the hospital for it several times. He'll be on a controller for the rest of forever and has to carry around an inhaler just in case. Most of the time it is totally under control, but it gets pretty bad sometimes, particularly when he gets sick.

Scott wanted to go into the military, to serve his country and protect its people. But they wouldn't take him because of his asthma. When he found this out, he wanted to become a police officer.

Scott is a very loyal, strong, protective person. If something threatens me, he jumps in and takes care of it, no matter what. He's protective of me emotionally, too. I love this.

He would have made an excellent police officer. And I would have been so proud of him. But because of a lot of different things, he ended up being a computer engineer, and he enjoys it most of the time, and I feel more secure about it.

But I'm just very very grateful that he ended up where he is, because I don't know what I'd do without him. I can't even imagine how it would feel to wonder every single morning whether he would be coming home from work or not. My heart goes out to the families of the police officers who were shot or killed.