Condensed: Common Room Chatter

Hi again one and all. I’m all refreshed and ready to rock after my week off from blog updates – thanks again to the brilliant inkslinger1121 who covered for me last week, she did an ace job!

On Monday many Claws checked in with progress updates and despite a mild bit of panicking everyone seemed to be quite positive and productive. Bobbilicious linked us to a free audiobook of Alice in Wonderland in post 19527. Jayannell opened discussion on planning ahead for OWLs (post 19531) and crankyangel won a Star of Isis for her first pair of socks! 13moonsago showed off her pirate tattoo and awesome socks in post 1956. Kitchener was really the topic of the day in the common room as discussions ranged from page 782 onwards on uses and techniques. Beyby and CMelvin commiserated on exam stress and minsue and tangledskein discussed stressful mommy moments. Isis showed off her huge/beautiful sock in 19593, while others discussed the merits of toe socks on page 785. Then Isis linked us to Ravenclaw Barbie in post 19615. Brineydeep discussed the merits of handknit socks versus storebought socks, many agreed that storebought aren’t necessarily worse. Greenegirl shared her technique of doing all the cooking at once which seems pretty smart to me, and Brineydeep offered advice on cycling as exercise.

OWLs and NEWTs were the topics of choice on Tuesday with many claws considering their chances for completion and badge-earning potential. Zanahoria12 popped by to add to the conversation too, making us realize there’s more to life than OWL points! Also many people consider Ravelympics to have affected their knitting output this term. In contrast to Monday’s upbeat attitude lots of us were feeling the drag on Tuesday. Luckily Gazebogal calmed us all down with some deep breathing and a video of wrist stretching (post 19682). xoxoMargot announced that she got into Wagner College – yay Margot! DevonC was looking for webdesigners, GG bemoaned the character of Umbridge in book 5, TriGirlJ managed to douse all her precious belongings in coffee and inkslinger1121 published last week’s update to the blog. SarahJoKnits (Sadielou’s evil twin) has published an awesome House Tie pattern and popped by to ask for test knitters (post 19743). Several people volunteered and she mentioned that it might be nice to wait till next term to do it so we can earn some points. Insanknitty told us about the RL knitting club she’s planning on starting, check post 19762 for more details. Sadielou introduced the work ‘internetually’ into our vocabulary in post 19782. Isisonearth showed off the little presents she’d sent out to our much loved and highly valued House Staff this term (post 19796). MightyGoodYarn got herself all worked up in the midst of her fever and started planning her next devilishly difficult OWL (post 19819 for evidence of her madness!) SFCorgi showed us a pic of her husband spinning, and we all ooohed and ahhhed at her clever deviousness… and then admitted to feeling a bit creepy for oogling her man. MightyGoodYarn made us all laugh by nagging soprano1 to get off the internet when she should have been knitting (post 19861).

Wednesday brought more updates and sock plans, with batfink popping in to ask about afterthought heels (post 19887) to which CMelvin posted a wonderful reply which is well worth a look for an easy sock recipe (post 19890). SFCorgi and Jayannell discussed unreasonably companies behaving badly when dealing with redundancies. It was St Patrick’s Day so we all had a Guinness and wished MightyGoodYarn a happy birthday even though she was horribly sick. Gazebogal had a day of discussing whether or not foodstuffs left on the table were for puppies. The puppy tended to disagree with GG on this matter (page 797). SFCorgi posted a list of Things That Are For Puppies so that GG would remember in post 19931. Pertela stepped in as a substitute for one of our Square Chasers as she’d gotten all her squares done already (post 19927 for a pic). LadyDamiens popped by to say hi and ask a question about silk content for CoMC. We discussed ungrateful gift recipients and how they should be handled (ie, never gifted to again!) in page 800, and dixiehellcat got the 20,000^th post in the Tower!

TriGirlJ started off Thursday with a picture of her feet in her brand new (Ravenclaw blue!) five-finger running shoes (post 20003). Bandbabe was feeling a bit down about how slowly her square chasing was going but GG reassured her that she really didn’t expect for people to be fast! Tangledskein announced that it was robot time again this weekend, yay! Poor soprano1 told us about the hard time she was having at work with a co-worker AND at home with her son so she got lots of replies offering advice and support from her Housemates. Theflyinggoat announced that she’s considering returning to school pre-vet (post 20032) and asked for other people’s experience of career changes like this. Gazebogal posted a Puppy-in-the-bath pic (post 20045) to cheer us all up and boppingbeth championed the 15-minute timer plan to Get Things Done. Isisonearth showed us her very impressive CoMC assignment in post 20069. Bandbabe told us about her student teacher who refuses to be helped and InsanKnitty asked for some opinions about her Harry Potter Camp that she’ll be holding during the summer (post 20101 for details). CMelvin, um, brightened our day (read: thwarted our innocence in literature) on page 805 as she was going crazy from reading too much criticism Soprano1 came back and told us the result of her various meetings (post 20159) and reassured us that she’ll be ok. MightyGoodYarn posted a lovely message about how she sees the Tower in post 20169.

Friday was the day that Jayannell’s daughter was having a complete rhinoplasty and skin graft after an accident she sustained years ago so we all wished them well and eagerly awaited updates. DevonC managed to wake up the family she was staying with by setting off all the house alarms at 4am… oops! Gazebogal showed us a Foxy-shaped scarf square she’d made for a Travelling scarf (post 20200). SFCorgi’s dogs requested that all other Ravenclaw dogs receive a treat in honour of their day at the agility trials over the weekend. Gazebogal showed us the lolcat bible (post 20237) and rncrowthers stopped in to say hi and to give us an update on her living situation which you can catch up on in post 20267. Ielith, Sadielou and inkslinger1121 compared dying computer stories. Boppingbeth told us about the horrible week she has to come, so she’s going to need some House love. Wildlilly came in for a bit to reassure us her absence wasn’t anything to be worried about, and Beyby brought a huge box of goodies from Honeydukes when she came in (post 20316), YUM!

On Saturday Isisonearth discovered that BPAL were going to be making a limited edition Giant Squid perfume oil and decided she must have some! Ravelry’s new login page appeared today, it looks lovely. Gusgus showed us the cakes she’s been decorating (post 20340) and Jayannell took a census of all the Merry Beasts (completed list is in post 20672) to keep us right and so we knew who each of them belong to. Gazebogal offered an easy approach to kitchener in post 20359. Lupingirl told us that official midterm OWL points are up in the OWL thread, yay! (A Ravenclaw OWL update will follow on the blog shortly.) Bandbabe posted a lovely picture of the DevonC necklace she received (post 20376) and then… someone tried to break into eightlegeddj’s apartment! She was totally calm and rational and did all the right things but we were so worried for her! Post 20377 has the details. QallieQ told us about her baby shower gifts from her Big Snakes, and DevonC thought we should do something like that for all our pregnant Eagles! GG announced that she’s finished the Argyle portion of the Socks of Doooooom, well done! InsanKnitty stepped in at a moment’s notice to rescue poor MGY from her Quidditch duties as seeker as she’s in bad health just now so a big thank you to insanKnitty! Her seeker post is 20528, it’s brilliant! Brineydeep posted pictures of her OWL design sample in post 20443. Then a new Merry Beast came to stay in post 20482, his name is Oscar and he’s a Fennec Fox cub. He’s so cute! Plans continued for Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival. Dixiehellcat posted a pic of her beautiful Charms socks (post 20549) in another entry for the March of Socks! Pretty the teacup pig joined the ranks of the Merry Beasts in post 20581. Sadielou’s laptop caught a Trojan virus on Saturday night, and Akasha111182 offered some advice for fixing it in post 20604.

Sunday was quite a quiet day in the Tower. Potions grades went up, CMel appealed for Farmville neighbours and Isis was looking for Fishville friends. For some reason emus continued to feature in the conversations but I think it was decided that they wouldn’t make very good Merry Beasts after all. GG asked for some Ravenclaw Tower spirit for a Ravenclaw anonymous person who needs a little love just now. A few last-week plans appeared, a few OWL moans and cheers popped up. InsanKnitty’s Merry Beast made an appearance in the form of Flitter, a teeny hummingbird (post 20715). Old friend Hotrodhc came by to say hi, she hopes to be joining us again next term.

It’s now Monday and the new Knitty is here. CMel’s application for funding was rejected at Newcastle, so keep your fingers crossed she gets it from Durham instead! Beyby sang to us on her lunch break (post 20741) and Isis showed us her Charms homework in honour of Prof Flitwick. This is the chatter upto page 830.

That’s all for this week. Next week’s update will either take the form of two smaller updates (midweek and then after term finishes) or one major update after term ends, depending on how much time I have and how panicky I am about my OWLs. Good luck everyone, let’s rock this last week of term! See y’all on the other side. x