It’s getting close to crunch time.  I’ve got 1 week left to get the elephant done if I want it given away before I go off of work, and I don’t know how likely it is that I’ll be finished in time.

Jakob slept at my parents’ place last night, so this morning I snuck in some study time while Henri was still strapped into his booster at the table.  He’d finished eating but was on an art kick, so between helping/admiring/cleaning as he colored with crayons, painted with water, then smushed around various colors of Playdough, I sat next to him a the table with my school books and tried to get today’s studying done.

I DID manage to get tonight’s work finished by the end of the afternoon nap time.  I would have preferred to have been finished earlier to get in some knitting time during the nap too, but at least once the kids were in bed for the night I knew I didn’t have anything else to do but sit back, put my legs up and watch some TV with the elephant on my lap.

I’ve finished the first half of the elephant, and have started side 2.  I included the Addi bag for scale, since Maaike had asked how big it’s turning out.  I would have preferred it a little larger, and I think I could have done it easily by using larger needles, as my fabric is quite dense and even if I stretch it I can’t see light through it.  Still, I’m NOT restarting, and it will make a nice, solid toy.  As of this writing I’m about 10 ridges away from splitting for the head and body, and the rest of it is done on shorter rows so hopefully will be done by tomorrow night…or at the latest Monday afternoon.  That will leave me OH…wait.  Hmm.  Technically that would leave me until next Monday to knit the underbelly and ears, seam and stuff.  Possibly doable.  The problem is that I don’t work on Saturdays ‘cus I’m home with the kids, and the store is closed on Sunday.  Which means that if I want to be able to give the gift to the baby’s family, I have to have it ready for Friday.  And since I can’t work on it AT work, it needs to be complete by Thursday night before I go to bed.  I really wish I hadn’t JUST figured this out as I was typing.

Now I’m not sure if this will be possible.  I’ll have to really try to squeeze in each night’s studying while still at work, to leave me the nights free to knit.

I’ve realized that I often mention the study schedule, but I wonder if you all think I’m just talking about a vague outline, or something.  NOPE!  Last year we were just studying each section as it became available, and only looking at each page as it came.  Some nights we’d work harder than others, but there was nothing formal about how we tackled it.  If we didn’t feel like it one night, we’d just put it off, and stay up later the next night.  Then one session we got totally blindsided.  We knew we had about 10 different sections in that session, and each had a decent amount of textbook sections, or notes to read, or whatever.  Then right towards the end, when we’d nearly reached the deadline for our test on that section, we get hit with having to read 2 chapters from our textbook.  Not bits here and there from the chapter, as had been the usual so far.  No- we had to read the ENTIRE 20+ page chapters, of detailed lens/wave theory/algebraic formulas/etc.  I don’t know how we pulled it off, but ever since I have made us a monthly schedule.

I actually go through the section BEFORE it is due, and break it down by pages so we can see exactly what we have coming up.  I break that up into manageable chunks for each night (with Thursdays off, of course) and as long as we do at least what is required for that particular day, we are on track.  (Actually, ahead for this year, since I have us doing everything early, as I’ve mentioned).  I know it looks like there’s only 5-10 pages-worth of studying each night…but those 5-10 pages require about 2-3 hours to process into cohesive notes and some actual comprehension.  Especially when those pages are comprised of stuff like this:

Just for fun, this is just a quick example of the kind of stuff we’re covering.  Now can you see why stuff like converting the pattern to the round is easy for me?  It’s a relief, compared to the obnoxious calculations we’re doing in school!!