Happy New Year 2009

My first post of 2009. I haven't spent a whole lot of time thinking about today beyond planning to take down my Christmas tree and knitting my scarf designed by Cosmic Pluto. I'm very excited about this project. I haven't knit anything for myself since this past summer's sweater. I've been wearing a lot of scarves at work the past few months because my new desk is next to a window and it's very cold. I'm anxious to have a new one to add to my wardrobe.
I worked on the gauge swatch a few nights ago. I chose size 9 bamboo 29 inch circular needles for my first attempt at the swatch. I wasn't even sure if I could get 200 stitches on 29 inch needles. The swatch worked out and I was ready to cast on. All of the stitches fit and somehow I managed to miscount and get 210 stitches, knit the first row and then caught my mistake. So I did the cast on again today and knit the first six rows.
I like to cast on about as much as I like to wash my daughter's dirty diapers. The thought of casting on 200 stitches was enough to make me procrastinate a few days. Counting stitches on circular needles that twist onto themselves is not fun. Now it's almost the end of my "vacation" and I still don't have my new scarf.
To try to make the counting easier on myself I decided to use a stitch marker every 10 stitches. This turned out to be a mess. I used hair ties because I couldn't find my stitch markers and a hair tie every 10 stitches was a visual distraction and actually made the counting more difficult. So that's how I cast on 210 instead of 200. The second time around I still used the hair ties (I still couldn't find my stitch markers) but I only used one every 50 stitches.
Happy 2009 everyone.