So Many Things To Do....So Little Time Off

Whooooboy. Yes, I was home for two months from August to the end of September. No I did not write a post during that time period because I was busy. Busy looking at houses (although to be fair, this had been a constant thing every month I was home since last January) but also busy actually buying a house. The end of August saw me in Oklahoma for a cousin's wedding (awesome, by the way) and afterwards, I closed on the house.

My spare time after that was spent in moving and painting. Seriously.

Not sure why they had gone with red, but I made it my job to get rid of said red before I moved in.

Trying to decide on paint colors by slathering the wall with paint by using my fingers because at this point (day one, actually) I had no paint brushes.

That purple color is the color of the mudroom by the front door. I gave up on figuring out their color and renovation choices after finding the counter that wasn't bolted down in the bathroom. And the eight layers of wallpaper they put more wallpaper over in the study.

Living room pre paint job. I like cozy living rooms, so a darker color is what I decided to go with.

Two layers in the kitchen and two (at this point) in the dining room.  It took four coats to completely cover the dining room. To be honest, both of my brothers stopped by to help paint which was a HUGE help.

Kitchen after things got put away and cleaned.

The bathroom I decided to do on my own because it's small and was pretty quick to do.

Blue tub! Why the blue tub?

Ah, well, tried to match the tub as best as possible. If you can't beat them, join them.

Yes, I painted the octopus towel holders.

The morning light in my living room is ridiculous. As in, can't see the TV for all the light ridiculous. 

A lot of the furniture I get I get second hand from estate sales or auctions. Mostly because I feel older stuff is made a lot better than newer stuff.

As you can see, I have been busy. That, coupled with the fact that it is impossible for me to add photos with the internet on the boat has been why I haven't updated as well as I should have. I didn't even knit for the longest time because I was busy and I was frustrated with a pair of socks I had been working on.

Eowyn Socks by Claire Ellen made with yarn from Sheepy Time Knits (Grapes of Wrath). Totally finished these suckers off this last hitch. Amazing what using a set of circular needles and not using a cable needle can do for finishing a pair of socks.

And, I was taking photos for the month of October. Awesome photos, I might add. Mostly of sunrises and, well, sunrises, because I got put on the midnight to noon watch this time. I did manage to snap a few horrible photos of this giant sea turtle I saw when it was flat calm enough for sea turtle sighting.

This is a turtle. Trust me.

Flat calm and a full moon made for a weird couple of days.

There's a good chance I'll be going to Connecticut with my mother this weekend for Stitches East even though I really, really don't need any more yarn. For a yarn addict like me to say that, you know I have a ton of yarn. Enough that I could probably clothe a small army if I could knit quick enough.

In Which I Apologize

I had meant to take photos of my berthing area on the boat. I had meant to also take photos of the engine room to share with those interested with that sort of thing. Unfortunately, this hitch was the hitch of "I can't be arsed" in which I couldn't be arsed to do anything productive (besides actually working) mostly because the people I worked with would slam doors during the time I would be sleeping, one of the worst things about working 6pm to 6am. Another bad thing about working 6pm to 6am when it's winter time in Brazil is the complete lack of sun. Thankfully I stole pictures from the Captain, although there weren't many I felt I could use in the blog.

Photo stolen from the Captain. I can take no credit for its orangey existence

Anyway, hitch was a bit of a rough one. The month on my second boat started out flat calm. Then, possibly because of the whistling crew (guys, it's bad luck to whistle on boats) the wind began to pick up a little bit.

As you can see from the maximum wind on the right side of those there anemometers, we had just a little brisk wind. Just enough to knock your hats off. Nah, I'm kidding, 98 kts? We could have flown the deck cadet like a kite if we tied enough line around her waist.

Thankfully the hitch ended and I got home without any delays this time, although I did finish a pair of socks the last time my flight took 8 hours instead of 3.

Yep, finally finished these socks. 

I've two months off, which is great because I'm finally able to buy a house! And be in Maine for the closing! That'll be in September, so be wary of the house project photos I'll start posting. I'm sure it'll be something along the lines of "Oh, I'm just here fixing the shingles on my garage roof....here are the photos of me messing up and falling through the roof...and here are the photos of me using the phone book to find a contractor to fix my mistakes." Good times.

Also going to be included are photos of the crafts I'll make to decorate the house. This was done with coffee and a fern and about a metric ton of Mod Podge. 

Epic Fail

I've strayed with writing blog posts this last month or so. I apologize, but don't worry, I have a reason excuse for it.

The short version involves flights getting delayed over two days and me sprinting from one end of the Miami airport to the other and just barely making my flight to Rio on time. Sometime between waiting in Atlanta to get flown to Miami, my cell phone broke. The short version also includes Delta losing my luggage and me having to get put on a different boat until my luggage arrived because my original boat was leaving the night I got there. Five days wearing the same clothes and washing my underwear in a sink I can handle, but a whole month? Nope. Not going to happen.

New Boat spent most of its time in Rio, although we did go out for 15 days and hung out by an oil rig before being told we weren't actually needed. New boat also had no internet to speak of except for on the bridge and even then the internet was probably slower than dial-up. Once my "permanent" boat got back to Rio I was transferred, and I figured I'd be able to update the ol' blogaroo. No such luck. As with everything else this hitch, something had to go wrong. Between the internet dying and the three hours of sleep I've been getting, updating the blog kind of got put on the back burner.

I was going to put a few hilarious photos that include Grumpy Cat, since Grumpy Cat is my spirit animal for this hitch but the hideously slow internet wouldn't allow me to. Just like it won't allow me to buy yarn right now. How am I supposed to feed my addiction, Internet Connection, if you won't let me get on Etsy?

Fiber Frolic or How I Lost My Money Buying Yarn

My family had a yard sale on Saturday. It was quite interesting, actually. I had a bunch of kitchen stuff that I wanted to get rid of before I moved (if I ever find a house). I figured the money I made off of the yard sale I'd spend on the Maine Fiber Frolic in Windsor. I ended up making some money, but not enough to pay for all the yarn I bought.

I got me some purdy yarn that I'll someday turn into something wearable. Or just keep because it's lovely.

All right, I didn't buy that much yarn. I could have bought from everyone there, but I limited my buying to two shops. String Theory out of Blue Hill has some of the prettiest yarn I've come across. I've bought from her before, even when I was at school and I didn't have a lot of money (I once spent an entire night's worth of tips when I went into the shop, but that can't really be helped, her shop is a knitter's dream come true). The other yarn that's there came from A Hundred Ravens who mainly sells on Etsy. Such pretty yarn. I would have bought it all, but I'd really like to cut down on my stash this year.

Let's not talk about my stash. Ever.

My mother went to the Fiber Frolic with me, as I like to corrupt her with the awesome that is fiber. I almost have her talked into buying a sheep or two. Nantucket Baggs was there and I introduced my mother to Jo. If you like the bag I've been dragging to work with me but don't like the color, they have these beautiful looking tapestry ditty bags available. As an early birthday gift to my mother, I bought her one. She had a tough time figuring out which one she liked best, but eventually went with the one I would have gotten myself (thankfully, which means I can steal it at some point).

Jo and I at the Fiber Frolic. It was a gorgeous day for spending money on yarn. And bags.

After the frolic, we picked up my father and headed to Kennebunk so I could visit with my brother's family before I leave for work again on the 5th. He has a daughter and a son and both of them grow so much while I'm gone. We all went to the beach to walk around for a bit and I was able to snap a few photos of the bag, my license plate, and a knitting project. 

The yarn is from Spunky Eclectic in Lisbon, ME. She does incredible work and this pattern, called Show Off Stranded Socks, does a great job showing off the colors. Probably why it has the name it does.

I may have gotten a few strange looks for toting around a license plate on the beach, but I will be changing the plate this year to something other than "Knit."  

I need to finish yarn bombing the strap.

In other home news, the beehive I declared mine has swarmed (I chose the color so that makes it 99% mine, right?). Since I was home, I got to snap a couple of photos.

The middle hive was empty and we were hoping the swarm would decide to move in there. Bees have a mind of their own and decided to go somewhere else.

Some day, when my father isn't home, I'm going to stencil a bee-skull and crossbones on the side of this hive.

We would have moved the swarm into the hive ourselves, but they swarmed on a pine branch thirty feet in the air and none of us wanted to climb up that high to get a bunch of insects with stingers.

This hitch off has been deemed a success. I learned to spin on my wheel, finally, and figured out that embroidering isn't as difficult as it sounds. Come Wednesday, I'll be heading back to Brazil. Jo gave me a couple of ideas for my next blog post, so as soon as I get to the boat I'll start trying to take some decent photos.

Home and Hobbies

One of the best things about working overseas is coming home. One of the worst things is trying to fill your time with things to do that are productive or fun or both. If I owned a house I could fill my days with doing house stuff. Like paint a room. Then repaint it the next day because the color was wrong. Or pay someone to paint it because seriously, mariners should not be painting anything that's not a boat.

Since the house thing is not going according to planned right now (mixing house hunting with shipping out is a bit more difficult than imagined), I try to fill my days doing things I've wanted to try but previously was unable to afford it. Number one on my list was gambling at a casino. Got that one finished and ended up breaking even. After the gambling came the various hobbies I've been itching to try. This hitch off I tried embroidery.

Super successful. My lettering is a bit off, but I like to claim that I meant to do it that way. 

I thought for sure that embroidery would not only be difficult but expensive to start out with. To my surprise, everything you see in that picture cost less than six dollars. I'm sure you can go out and get super nice silk thread made from silk worms fed silk-worm-ambrosia to embroider with, but since I've just taken up the hobby I don't think it's wise to be choosy like I am with yarn. Look up yarn snob in the dictionary and I think you'll find a picture of my yarn stash. I'll use that yarn...someday.

Another thing I like to do is go to flea markets and yard sales and antique stores. Not to find anything super serious, although once I get a house I'll start trying to find furniture (right now there's no where to put it). Today was a good day at one of the antique stores I went into with my parents.

I love chickens. The more hideous the better. 

For the price, I couldn't resist the bronze whales.

And the piece d'resistance, an iron octopus  towel holder. This would go in my tentacle themed bathroom. I'm going to try to figure out a way to make more of these without pulling out an anvil.

On Monday I'm going to learn how to do the one thing I've been meaning to learn for years, ever since I bought that non-working spinning wheel from the antique store across the street from where I lived. Yes, I'm going to try learning to spin yarn, although not with my antique wheel. That one's still in Vermont with David at Merlin Tree.

I'll post my hopefully positive results of my spinning attempts.

Back At The Sand Mines

I'm back at work. I got put on a different boat, this time with a two month on one month off schedule that maybe I'll stick to this time. I had less than two weeks off before coming back down to Brazil, but it's okay seeing as maybe I'll be able to attend my cousin's wedding in September. Also, I know the people on the boat and while I like the people, I don't exactly like the boat (something to do with it being smaller makes me more susceptible to sea sickness).

Anyway, I had one evening in Rio before going to the boat and spent some of it out near the beach. In my haste to pack for work, I forgot my camera. Luckily, one of my shipmates let me use his.

That's Sugarloaf in the background there. I may have yarn-bombed the bag during my week stint in Louisiana and on various flights, but only because I'm a little tired of doing hexi-puffs. 

Not much else to say in the mean time. The internet is extremely slow on this boat, but I'll do my best to make an update as soon as anything interesting happens.

Homeward Bound!

Ah, yes, one of my favorite views. Leaving the anchorage and the boat behind as I begin my journey home.

So, yesterday I started the journey home. We made our way into Rio de Janeiro yesterday morning where we immediately set up on DP so some contractors, who arrived as soon as we did, could do some tests on the DP system. The assumption was that we were going to sit in the anchorage until all the tests were completed instead of crew changing first thing. Thankfully, the crew relieving us showed up earlier than expected and we were able to leave. Finally being able to leave the boat and begin heading home is one of the best feelings in the world. Right up there with taking your shoes off after a day on your feet.

Unfortunately, it was too muggy to get any good pictures of Rio as we entered the bay. So I'll end this month's hitch with some more sunset or sunrise photos (mainly to placate my father who asks for pictures of the ocean even though I've tried telling him again and again that the ocean pretty much looks like the ocean on any day of the week) and a couple of photos I took when I had a day to visit the Christ the Redeemer Statue.

This sunset rated about an 8.7 out of 10. Plenty of pink, orange, and lavender to suit me. 

This is a sunrise from one of my previous hitches when we got up to a rig in order to either load groceries or finally pick up the cook. Once we were finished and started pulling away it got all cloudy and I managed to snap a photo of a rainbow. 

A sunset that kind of reminds me of the beginning of the Lion King. Because of that, I gave it a 8.9 out of 10.

Figured I'd share this photo. It's not the greatest because at the time the screen broke on my camera and I was shooting from the hip, so to speak. I was with a coworker, but the only photos I got from him were pictures of me trying to "high-five" the statue.

Currently, I'm sitting in the Atlanta airport waiting for my plan to start boarding. I hope to be home by 3pm at which time, I can get myself a ham Italian from Amato's (sort of a coming home ritual), take a shower, and attempt to stay awake until a decent time so I can get back on a good sleep schedule (darn you red-eye flights).

I Can Just Hear My Father Yelling "Stay Away From the Windows!"

Tonight, the seas were almost flat calm and the moon was bright, so the sky was a rich midnight blue instead of black. I tell you, Orion never looked so bright. Usually, I think the ancients were crazy when they say "that constellation looks like a dragon" because they almost always don't, but out here, man, out here Orion looks like a hunter (apparently, he doesn't have a bow like I always thought, thanks, Wikipedia, for ruining that for me). These big, fluffy cumulus clouds started rolling in, all silver and gray encroaching, perfectly, like a blanket being pulled up to your chin and thin, skeletal branches of white lightning spread across the clouds, making the night brighter. Once in a while one of the streaks of lightning would snap out across the midnight sky instead of staying in the clouds. I've never seen a storm like it where part of the sky was pewter and part of the sky midnight and stars.

Nights like this are why I'm thankful to be a sailor.

Schrodinger's Grocery Box

The other day I promised to wake up early and take photos of us getting the grocery box from the drill ship. Luckily, I did not have to wake up early since they called us just as I was about to get off watch at midnight. Unfortunately, this meant that it was dark out so my photos aren't the greatest.

This is the FPSO that now has our grocery box. At this point, I'm really jonesing for a diet coke.

So, we start moving up to the FPSO (floating production, storage and offloading vessel). There's all sorts of protocol that you're supposed to follow, like move to 500m away from the FPSO or rig, then do a drift test and make sure that everything is working. Then, while using the dynamic positioning system, move into the 250m zone, do some more of the making sure everything's okay, and then move closer.

This is the DP station.

So we did everything we're supposed to and then moved in up to the FPSO. I had to take pictures from inside the boat because every time I went outside my lens would fog up. You'd think I'd have remembered that from when I was in the Middle East.

Look! A drill ship! The windows on this part of the bridge are all scratched up.

The guys on the FPSO were a bit impatient to get things done. It was midnight, they'd been taking stuff off the supply boat before us and they had plenty of grocery boxes to go.

Egads, impatient much, guys?

They had the grocery box swinging over the water by the time we got close enough for them to put it on the boat. Eventually, they got it on the boat and we moved away.

I expected the AB's to start putting the groceries away immediately, but when I went down to help they had a chain around the door of the grocery box so no one could get in. I dubbed the grocery box "Schrodinger's Grocery Box" because, well, the box may or may not have had groceries in it.

Thankfully it did. I really do hate it when the boat runs out of food.

This Is My Job; I Love It

When I was at school I would stand watches on the school's ship in order to make some extra money during school vacations. Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, entire summers were given up in the pursuit of some money in order to survive during the school year. For $10 an hour, I couldn't have asked for a better job. I'd stand watch on the quarterdeck making sure that no one came on the boat. Every hour the other watch-stander and I would take turns doing rounds; if I were on watch with an engineer I'd do all the weather rounds on the bridge so that I wouldn't have to go into the engine room. If there were no engineers around, I figured myself mostly competent enough to do the engine room round on my own. I could even go down into the murky depths of the engine room and no break something (well, most of the time). If I were lucky, I'd get put on the midnight to 8am watch where I wouldn't have to deal with people coming on the boat to work, tour groups, or faculty. This meant that I'd be able to knit all of watch. Not watch movies, of course, because that would be inappropriate. Cough. Cough.

 

This is where I sit, mostly. Yes, that's my knitting right there and yes, that's my coffee cup. You can't have a proper watch without coffee.

I never figured that my job working on the school's ship would actually prepare me for something. Work on the ocean was supposed to be exciting, breath taking. Days in port were supposed to be filled with on-loading and offloading cargo while my days at sea were supposed to be filled with navigating and chart-work and celestial navigation. I'd go to the far flung reaches of the world, visit places I never thought I'd never thought I'd get to see.

These are the radars. Not a whole lot there, but you can see the drill  ship at the bottom left of the circle.

Instead, I'm stuck in a situation similar to that of Bill Murray's character Phil in "Groundhog Day". Wake up, fluff about cabin until it's time to go on watch, stand watch, do a change of watch, fluff about room, sleep. Rinse and repeat until crew change. My vessel is a standby vessel, so we pretty much just run weather patterns around the drill ship and rig until we're needed. At some point we're supposed to get groceries, which will be handed down from either the FPSO (floating production, storage, and offloading vessel) or the rig near us, so that'll be something to break up the monotony. I'll try to get some pictures because it is kind of cool to see how close we get to the rigs using Dynamic Positioning.

This is to the right. Yes, those are socks I'm knitting. I'd tell you the pattern I'm using, but it's kind of unfortunately named and I'm not sure who's reading this thing, so I figure I'll keep it PG in here.

Now, don't think I'm complaining about my job. I love my job. I take my knitting up to the bridge with me, put on some quiet music, and contemplate life while making sure we don't hit anything. I get to see sunsets uninterrupted by geography and trees. We had a gorgeous one the other day that I, in my ineptitude, forgot to take pictures of although my photography ability is pretty much nonexistent and wouldn't have done it any justice. A lot of sunsets have streaks of pink and orange that seem almost garish as they scream across the sky (although not as much as sunrises). This sunset was subtle; a ball of orange cradled by a haze of pink, then lavender and periwinkle. Brushes of bright orange peaked here and there, melding from the clouds, giving a bit more color to the sky. As far as sunsets go, I gave it a 9.1 out of 10 even though it wasn't the most vibrant sunset ever. This sunset wasn't a swan-dive sort of sunset, it was a graceful actress taking a bow as velvet curtains fall softly around her.

I took this earlier tonight before I got off watch. I thought the cloud in the upper right sort of looked like a whale if you squint a little bit.

I guess what I'm trying to say here is that I'm sorry I haven't been posting. Not a whole lot has been going on and it seems unfair to continuously post about sunsets. I've a few ideas for future posts, though, that don't involve sunsets. Maybe I'll sneak into the engine room and snap a few photos. Maybe I'll regale you tales from my one month semester in Ireland and the miserable seven hours I spent hungover on the flight home. Maybe you'll hear of my cadet shipping time in the Middle East. Maybe I'll even see if I can hunt down pictures from my freshmen cruise and whip out the ones from junior cruise. Maybe I'll save all these for the times I get really desperate for something to write? Who knows? Right now, I'm going to run down and get some oatmeal because we're running out of food and I'm getting empty-stomach-nauseous. For someone who gets it a lot on the boat, I have such a difficult time spelling "nauseous". Thankfully there's spell check.

LOOK! A SUNSET! (Gave this one a 8.3 out of 10).

I'm On A Boat! (and that song is so overdone)

This is all you see when you look around the boat. Muggy gray skies and the murky depths of the Southern Atlantic. Doesn't help the AC is broken on the bridge and my coffee was chewy (darn you coffee grinds!).

I got to my new boat yesterday (finally) after sitting in the hotel for a week. I was a bit nervous, because I had heard "THINGS" about this boat (seriously, sailors gossip way more than any little old lady I know) and one can never be too sure when one goes from vessel to vessel. Luckily, the "THINGS" I had heard were all false and/or were with a different crew.

Okay, so I lied earlier. We're sort of yo-yo-ing between this FPSO and a rig, so we can see at least two things on the horizon.

We got underway yesterday, too, and the Captain was telling me they have a pretty fast turnaround time. Not because the Captain wants one, but because the company in Brazil claims that the every time the boat comes in, something breaks. Which is kind of silly. Of course something breaks. This boat is 15 years old and they aren't doing the proper maintenance on her because the boat isn't in port more than twelve hours. Common sense is lacking here.

I didn't get seasick last night, which is fantastic. I'm a bit nauseous now, but I did drink a lot of coffee and broke into a bag of dark chocolate M&M's. I'll have to cut back in the future.

The Ditty Bag with a glaring sunset behind it. As far as sunsets go, I'd rate tonight's about a 5.5 out of 10. Not enough pink and orange for my liking.

One of the things I'm glad about is that I'm on noon to midnight watches this time around instead of my usual midnight to noon, so I finally get to take some sunset pictures. Sunrises are all good and fine, but I think sunsets usually have a bit more panache. Tonight's wasn't that great, but I have twenty-something more days to get photos of some good ones. I keep hearing stories of whales coming up along the ship last hitch, so I'm crossing my fingers I'll get to see some this time. I've only managed to catch glimpses of smaller Minske whales and dolphins and have never had my camera on hand to photograph them. Maybe this time I'll luck out?

Don't tell me you wouldn't miss this. Look how pretty it is! I got one good storm when I was home and missed two since I've been gone. Okay, I admit, there may be some wiring loose with me.

As much as I love it down here, I'd rather be back in Maine enjoying what's left of the winter and what's starting of the spring. Maybe if I luck out, Mother Nature will save a snow storm for me for when I get home.