First square complete!

Finally, I finished my first square! I know, I know... at this rate, I'll never finish the blanket. Seriously, I've got to start knitting faster! The pictures are not the best, sorry about that! I used my little camera and the flash tends to wash out colors, so it's actually a lot brighter and prettier in person. One thing that sort of shocked me about this blanket is that it's a lot thinner than I expected. I guess I thought it would be a little more blankety. I know that's not actually a word, but oh well! So the first picture is of all the four miters and how I think I'll arrange them for the blanket and the second picture was my attempt to be a little artistic. Yeah, I know... it didn't work!

Work was rough today. I had to work with a budget today, which always gives me a headache. It's not difficult for me and I know it's something that has to be done, but it always gives me a headache. I have about 16 projects going on right now and while I don't have any problems juggling all of them, I think I'm internalizing everything too much. I keep having this odd dream during which I drive my car into a flooded area and drown because I can't get out of the car. Obviously, this dream is my brain telling me I'm stressing about things. I should stop doing that.

I checked out some freelance job sites (thanks, Devon!) today and am really excited about the prospect of possibly starting a freelance career. I've been thinking about it so much lately, and I have so much to do in order to get things started. I think I'll redesign my web site to make it look more professional. It's very pretty right now and I like it a lot, but I don't think it says what I want it to say. Not at this stage, anyway. It's a tough decision, though, because my best friend designed it and we're currently not in contact with each other (I'm not sure why) so I don't want to change it and have her thinking I did it because I'm upset with her or something. That's not the case at all and I'm probably being paranoid, so maybe I should just forget it and start looking into alternate designs. I'll do some research and see what I can come up with on my own. I did this blog, so hopefully a site won't be too difficult. Of course, the site will be a lot more professional than this blog!

Have I mentioned my recent obsession with beading? I really want to learn how to make jewelry. I blame all my trips to Michael's for knitting and mosaic materials. I kept walking through the bead aisle and going "ooo" and "ahhh" at the pretty beads. I can never find necklaces and earrings that I like, so I think it would be fun to try to make my own. At some point, I'm going to buy a book about making beaded jewelry so I can I'm so craft-obsessed lately! It's odd. I feel like I'm starving, you know? Like I haven't eaten in weeks and the only way to satisfy the hunger is to create something. Writing, knitting, creating mosaics... these things fill me and get rid of the starved feeling. I want to find more and more ways to satisfy that hunger. I know that sounds odd, but it's just how I'm feeling right now. I'm doing more writing these days than I ever have, and it's all because I need to create. I like it. It makes me more productive! I think this whole starving for creative activities has something to do with how not creative my job is right now. Or maybe it's something else. I don't know...

This week, I've been working on a few short stories. I didn't put them on the sidebar because they are mainly an experiment. I haven't written a short story in awhile. I thought I might write a few so I can enter them in several different contests that are coming up. There's a writing conference in my area in October and I'm finally going to go to it. They always have a short story contest associated with the conference. This year will be the third annual and I've never been able to go. This year, I'm making my reservations as soon as they announce the dates!

Wow, this was a long post! I'd better go now... time for bed!