I think I spoke too soon

I thought I was going to make it through these holidays injury-free. I hoped, I even blogged about it.
I wasn't quite so lucky.
Sunday, I was scheduled to work from noon until 5, and my boss asked me to stay until 8 to close the department.
Around 4 pm, I was unloading stock in a cooler (I work in a grocery store), came out and went to page the store manager, and felt a sharp stabbing pain my my left chest area. It was hard to breathe, and I couldn't quite see straight.
I sat down on the counter for a bit, trying to relax and take a few deep breaths. That hurt even more. I tried to wait it out, but the pain just got worse.
I eventually called the manager over, saying I needed to go home or something.
I took a cab to the hospital, and waited in emergency for about 3 hours. When I finally saw the doctor, he diagnosed me with what I assumed I had: a pulled/sprained muscle in my chest wall. He suggested just Advil, and ice, and to take it easy. I haven't been able to knit much, which has just made everything boring. I am used to sitting around and knitting, and this whole not doing anything with my hands is an entirely foreign feeling.
It has started to feel better, which is nice. Still not 100%, but I didn't expect to bounce right back.
All this to say, better safe than sorry. Because it was the left side of my chest, and the recent occurence of heart problems among some of my parents friends, I didn't want to take a chance.

Merry Christmas!

Well, Christmas day has come and gone, and I am still knitting.
I finished all but one of the gifts. I have been working on it off and on lately. Since yesterday afternoon, it;s been mostly off, though. I tripped and fell on some metal in my Dads garage (while looking at my new freezer! More on this later) and I cut up my hands pretty good. They're feeling a little better tonight, and I think I may do some knitting before I head to bed.
As for everyone else, they all seem to love their scarves or neck warmer.
In other Christmas news, Santa spoiled me again this year. A new freezer chest (small sized, because it's only me at my place!), cast iron pans, baking sheets and muffin tins, some clothes, candy, and other things. My boyfriend's parents gave me a Michael's gift card and a few other things.
So far, the holidays have been fairly normal. No flooded basements, (yes, this happened) no trees falling over, (this one too) no severe injuries (my hands aren't TOO bad). Yeah, I'd say I'm surviving these holidays so far! The 29th is the last Christmas celebration, and then we have New Years Eve, and then my birthday. Such a busy season!

Christmas Knitting Progress

I am getting there!
I have finished the first three scarves, and I have two cowls to go! Rick and I decided to use 2 scarves that I had already made, both to save time, and because they were pretty much exactly what he wanted.
I have not gotten tired of knitting these, at all. I think it's mostly that I have several small projects, rather than one large one.
I think I may have stressed out about all this for no good reason. We will see if this is the case when it comes time to exchange gifts.

Christmas Gifts

I do believe I posted too soon.
I was asked on Sunday, by a particular person to knit his family members each a scarf for Christmas. Now, let's see, Sunday was the 13th, Christmas is the 25th. My very basic math tells me that makes TWELVE days to knit SEVEN scarves.
I may be crazy, but I started yesterday, and I'm almost done the first. It is knit out of Phentex "Fashion Twenty-three" in the seasonally-appropriate "Icicle White" colourway. I got this at Zellers
The next one will be In Lion Homespun, I can't remember the name of the colour, but it's a wonderful blue. Pictures of that one will come when I start it.
I have two scarves that I made recently out of Wool Ease T&Q that will be used. They were supposed to go to Made In Windsor, but are appropriate for the recipients.
Pictures of all of these will happen as soon as they arrive in my inbox. I took a couple pictures with my cell phone, and it's terribly slow sending photos.

I FINALLY got some of my dishcloths to Made In Windsor today. I sent in fourteen to be sold, and an other eight or so to be given away as gifts, or in gift baskets or whatever. They were significantly smaller than the other cloths, and I would have felt bad charging for them.

Thinking about using Ravelry

I signed up for Ravelry quite some time ago, but I rarely use it.
I do sign in when I want to see some patterns, and when I want to look at yarn, but I don't have my stash listed, or things I'd like to knit, nor do I use any of the other features that I am not even sure if they exist.I am thinking of starting to use it for those purposes in the near future. Stash more than anything. I never know what I have, and what I need to get when the sales at Michael's are on. Also, when I get requests for custom items, I would like to know if I have the require yarn "in stock", so to speak. This would save me a lot of time, simply by eliminating extra trips to the yarn store, or wasting time online looking for yarn that may be out of my budget.
I do have some issues with Ravelry though, and it's not the site itself, but me and my stash. I am given a lot of yarn that is not a full skein, is missing its label or is otherwise difficult, if not impossible, to identify. Also, I am often without camera, so I wouldn't be able to photograph the yarn to add it to my stash. Lastly, I rarely, if ever, use patterns. This could make things sort of goofy when I use the yarn, and have no way of recording how or when it was used.
Maybe I'm complicating things, and Ravelry is much simpler than this. Like I said, I haven't really used the site. What are your thoughts on Ravelry?

My first Adgitize payout!

Recently, I started advertising with Adgitize. I have been a member since May, but I've not placed an ad until November 23rd.
I've seen a spike in traffic ever since. The number of comments on here has gone up. My ad revenue (through Adgitize, and other sources) has increased greatly.
I can't recommend Adgitize enough!

Just a few days ago, I got my first payout from them.
They deposit into PayPal after you earn $10, or send you a cheque after $50. I chose the PayPal deposit because I often make online purchases, and PayPal can be difficult when you are transferring from a Canadian bank account.
As you can see, I earned $10.18, around half of that was earned since I started advertising.
If I can make back at least my $24 investment, I will likely continue to advertise through them. Their system is incredibly simple to use, any questions that are sent in are answered promptly (as little as an hour, in my experience!) and there is a high likelihood of earning a fair bit of money!
If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to ask! I will answer them in the comments.
Please note that I included my referral code in this post. If you do sign up, please do use it!

Knitting Machine Yarn

My mom was recently given a large bag of cones of knitting machine yarn. A woman who was friends with both of my maternal grandparents had it sitting in her basement for a while. She heard through the grapevine that I knit items for charity, and wanted to give me the yarn. (I haven't been doing as much charity knitting lately, but I have been trying to do some.)
I am trying to think of what I could make out of this yarn. So far, nothing has come to mind because it is so fine.
My other option is to donate the yarn to Blankets 4 Canada, to see if they can use it. I know that in the past, machine yarn has been used, held double, or even triple, to make some of the squares.
If you were given about 15 cones of knitting machine yarn, what would you make? (If you didn't have access to a knitting machine, of course.)