Halloween Socks!

We did the carving of the pumpkins last night. The kids drew on the faces, Jeff wielded the mighty serrated knife and I helped on the scooping of the guts. I ran out of steam and decided to boot the very complicated, intricate pattern I'd picked out for my little albino pumpkin and decided to spike it with the old metal needles I had sitting in a vase. It actually was quite good therapy to impale the poor thing. Very good for taking out aggression and frustration!

The socks are Opal hand-dyed sockyarn and I love them! I finished them last night and even sewed in the ends right away instead of sticking them aside with tails trailing for another day...or another month as it usually turns out. They're going on my feet tonight for the COLD trick-or-treating evening. It was 76 degrees yesterday, sunny, a brisk fall breeze, and BEAUTIFUL!!! Today it's about 36 degrees! Ah well, we've had plenty of Halloween nights in sleet and snow, so I'm thinking we're still luckier than many out there. HAVE FUN TRICK-OR-TREATING!!!!



Needle Heads ONLY! This was posted on the door of my daughter's room after a night spent with all four kids. My girl had had enough of all those boys!! I got a kick out of it, because when I asked her what was going on, she said, "Mom, only you and I can come in here. If they want to come in, they have to learn to knit!" We had a lovely hour of peace and quiet while various grunting, farting, scratching and rough-housing was going on in the rest of the house. Needle Heads Only!

My finished objects!

I worked and worked and now have an official FINISHED OBJECTS link. Come & see if you wanna!

Walking down memory road

I have been working on my "finished objects" list today and had such fun looking over the things I've done. I can't believe I've only been knitting for a little over two years. This amazing way of creating things with a couple of sticks and some string has become such a part of me. What did I do before I had knitting to help me through stress, to do while watching tv, while sitting in stands watching kids play sports? sit through PTA meetings? wait in line at the drive thru? on road trips?

On a whim on a lunchbreak during another stressful day at the office (back when I worked in the dungeon with the spawn of satan who lived and breathed to try to get me fired and other cheerful people like her) (there were about 4 people that were nice, I liked them, I just had to hide in my little office for most of the day breating recycled air), I'd wandered down the sidewalk from a pizza shop and was drawn to this little tiny shop with a sheep welcome mat outside. I thought, what an odd little shop. I pushed open the door without even meaning to. The colors, the fibres, the textures, the smells, I can't explain it but I can feel it even now. I'd always been craftily creative. I cross stitched, I embroidered, I needlepointed, I crocheted, I sewed, I did just about anything you could imagine, but it was all just stuff and things to do, never quite what I'd been looking for.

Jan, the owner of KnitWits, smiled and welcomed me to look around and told me to please touch anything I wanted. After a few minutes, I ended up watching the ladies sitting and knitting and laughing at the table in the back. It reminded me of the old-time quilting bee I'd always read about. I felt this physical need to be a part of that, to create something so beautiful, so touchable, so wearable and to have such fun doing it. I must have looked like a lost puppy dog as I was told they had a learn to knit class the next night and they were sure I'd be knitting along within half an hour. The rest is history.

Here is the first item I ever knit. I went home that night after Jan taught me the knit stitch, the purl stitch, to cast on and to bind off. Literally everything I needed to know in about 20 minutes. I think I knitted that first night until 4am.

A plain old garter stitch scarf. Still my favorite next to the clapotis. Schaefer hand-painted Elaine yarn one big skein, size 11 straight needles. Made the fringe first, cast on 20 stitches and knit till I ran out of yarn. It ended up about 6 inches wide and long enough to wrap around my neck and still hang down on both sides longer than you need. Looks unbelievably good with my old beat-up denim jacket. Still smells a bit like vinegar from the dying process.

Have you ever eaten so many oreos that you shake for an hour and a half? Welcome to my world.

Damn orange middle creams. I was sitting and munching (I KNOW I KNOW BAD IDEA!!!) and instead of putting the FOUR oreos I was going to treat myself with on a plate and putting the rest AWAY I just sat down reading a book (re-reading the Harry Potter series because I am a total dork and I just like them) and was in the good part of the 5th book where the kids are in the ministry of magic fighting the death eaters...pages were flipping, I was munching faster and faster. I ended up eating one and a half of the 3 rows in the package. (ok, at the end I wasn't eating the chocolate cookies, just sucking the white sugar and crisco middles down. OH MY GOD. I am not exaggerating when I say I was shaking for over an hour! I'm still a little shaky this morning. I look like I'm a druggie going through withdrawal. I must be doing something right on this whole eating healthy and exercising crap because in the old days I could've finished off the ENTIRE BAG and still felt fine. Yes, the entire bag. I used to have amazing metabolism that has since fled away. Ate lots of protein and corn at dinner, so am hoping things, um, clear out soon. tmi, sorry.

I'm off to the walk-in clinic to have a major debilitating disease inserted into my body. TB tests, fun, fun, fun! Only because I dearly love my cousin would I do this. (no guilt Miss K, I know I'd ask you to do the same thing for me if I were needing a backup person for my state daycare license too!) I know I'll have to do these again if I ever finish up my teaching degree, they're just a fun part of life. ick ick ICK!

I think I'll bring along the dreaded jaywalker sock to work on while I wait at the dr's office. I've got ONE done and don't think I'll ever finish this other one if I don't force myself. Cute pattern, great looking sock, just a PAIN IN THE ASS to make myself finish. Is it just me or does it take four times as long to make this freaking sock? Must just be me. Ah well. It's a loverly opal yarn in shades of falling leaves, so I'm hoping to have it done before the season's over.

A chilly morning prayer

Dear Lord,

Thank you for heated seats in vehicles. And merino wool.

Amen.

PS-->and all that happy, healthy family and warm place to live, etc.

Damn Old Ladies!

OK, I have a serious weakness (BESIDES beer, mikes hard limeades, hand-dyed yarn and all things chocolate). A big ol whoppin weakness. Old ladies. Old ladies armed with acrylic yarn are my absolute worst fear. I can't go into a church bazaar without LOSING MY SOUL. I buy more crap that I don't use and don't need and don't even really like only because of the damn old ladies. They're so SWEET and so YARNY I just can't take it! I end up with at least 4 of those damn crocheted topped towels at every freaking sale. I have nothing against the crocheted topped towel, it's a wonderful creation. I just have got to draw the line somewhere. I am a total sucker for little old ladies who are so proud of those wal-mart kitchen towels cut in two and topped with matching yarn. I not only end up buying more of these than a woman could possibly use in a lifetime, I also am versed in the whole button debate. The button debate? Yes, the button debate. Much like the way some knitters are yarn snobs and look down on the craft yarn knitters (hey, I buy it ALL baby), the crocheted button closure crocheted towel topper ladies look down on those who just sew a button on. SEW A BUTTON ON? the shame, the scandal. Those that are truly the cream-of-the-towel-topping-crop start with a little plastic ring and then do some kind of magic where it produces a YARN button. Eminently superior to the standard plastic button. Go ahead, I dare you. At your next craft fair, ASK one of the ladies about the button. Lets see how many of those damn things you end up buying!

Why the rant? I was saved, glory hallelujah! I stopped by this roadside pumpkin patch JUST TO TAKE A PICTURE of the creative pumpkins sign made out of PUMPKINS. Too cute! And then I figured I'd better get a big ol' pumpkin so the honey can make his traditional scary creepy creation. I was just about out of there, when the little ladies started arriving. One after another, their little old husbands unloading their cars. Toilet tissue covers shaped like snowmen, those bags you hang in your pantry to save the little plastic baggies from the grocery store, afghans galore, magnets, the works. Then I saw it, a WHOLE CAR FULL OF THOSE DAMN KITCHEN TOWELS!!! This sweet little lady who I swear was over 90 kept trying to help me pick up the pumpkin weighing at least 35 lbs while telling me about her kitchen towels. Don't freak people, I didn't make grandma moses carry the pumpkin. She told me I could even come in EARLY and shop BEFORE the general public since I was so sweet. NOOOOOooooooooooooo! I pretty much threw the money at her, gave her a "bless you too!" (pumpkins & craft fair was for the poor or something) and ran like a little girl with the pumpkin on my shoulder. I think I may have even burned a titch of rubber leaving the parking lot.

A little too much drama you think? Let's just say I was able to wrap ALL my dishes and glasses and cookware in crochet-topped kitchen towels in our last move. No paper towels or crumpled up newspaper was needed. Hell, I could've wrapped the children in them too. Someday I think I'll make a halloween costume out of them, but for now, the whole collection is just too scary even for that.



OK, back to the knitting news. I wore my lovely skb sweater to a cousin's kid's wedding this weekend and just loved it. We ALL went, the whole brady bunch with Jeff's kids and mine. Everyone pretty much behaved themselves and got along. Scary, I know. I did spend about half the 3 hr roadtrip with a cd player blasting in my headphones, but all in all it was a good time. And, um, that really wasn't MY DAUGHTER that slid into and knocked over one of the big columns on the dance floor and almost beaned the bride which would've given her a massive concussion if one of my cousins hadn't reacted quickly and saved the day. The fact that she had a massive scrape and bruise on her shin and a big long sliding mark on the back of her skirt are just coincidences. really. (you know you think it would've been one of the wild boys there, wouldn't you?, cripes!)

I also finished Jeff's mountain colors socks and think I will make Joey some smaller ones with the left-over yarn. I still have to kirchener one toe together and weave in a few ends, but they're ever so yummy for boring brown socks.


And can I get a WOO HOO for the Chiefs pulling the game out of their ass? WOO HOOOOOO! WAY TO GO!! After we finished watching the game, Jeff took the kids out in the front to play some football of their own. I wimped out as it was chilly and decided I'd rather sit inside the garage where it was warm and watch.

Picture-heavy post

OK, I admit it, I have a serious problem. Not the sock yarn pictured below, even though I've made all of 6 pair of socks and have enough to keep the whole family in socks for eternity, nope. The problem is that I have that sock yarn (um, plus another bag of lorna's laces sock yarn & 4 more big-ass balls of opal). Nope, the problem is that while I have ALL that yarn, I went out and bought more. After blowing the budget for yarn for the rest of the year. But seriously, can you blame me? I am trying very hard to find brown, black and grey yarn. Not hand-dyed multi-colored, nope, BLAH yarn for Jeff's socks. He loves the one pair I made him, but they were artyarns and a bit too flamboyant for him (dark blues & greys & greens). I have tried very VERY hard to knit boring blah socks, but I just can't do it. Then I wandered into Knitwits in Olathe. Damn that store. I do love it. I said, "I'm just wandering, just getting ideas..." then mentioned I was looking for man socks that had to be muted but that wouldn't make me insane to knit and if they happened to be heavier weight to be knit on 5's...but of course you wouldn't have anything like that, right? BAM. I'm hooked. Mountain Colors in the most luscious browns you've ever seen. It's muted, it's understated, it's LUSCIOUS in my hands, and the boy loves it.

Why, Christine, that looks like quite a tacky table you're using to photograph that yarn! Yes, yes it is. It's an authentic (chewed gum was even under the table when we got it) old diner booth and table that Jeff found and fixed up and now it's in the corner of our kitchen. We LOVE it! Welcome to the Big Heiny Diner..."get the hate off your plate" I'll give the man some credit, he is creative. The bulletin board and the trivet hanging on the walls were made from wine corks he put into heavy wood frames he made. I'll make brown socks for this boy anytime he asks!





Come back soon, ya'll!

Ta Da!

I LOVE THIS SWEATER!!!!!! Details:
Pattern: Simple Knitted Bodice by Glampyre
Yarn: Silky Wool by Elsebeth Lavold color #16
Needles: sz 7 and 5 circ addi-turbos
Time: I think around 1-2 weeks total
Adjustments to Pattern: knit garter stitch rounds instead of the purl bumps called for on each side of the lace, at end of sleeves and neckline. It just looked more flattering for me.
Fit: Like a freaking dream

(Please ignore the fact that I'm wearing this over my workout pants, I had to get the bf to take the pic before he left for work and I've got to go walking and working out in a few minutes!) I think I need to keep making sweaters. This one and the sizzle are the only ones I actually wear. All the rest are laying in wait for a frog session and to be re-knit into something that FITS! Yes Virginia, there is a swatch goddess, and she gets really pissy if you don't MAKE SWATCHES and then KEEP MEASURING and TRYING ON sweaters as you go. I think I'll wear this one every day. If you click the pic you can see a close-up of the lace panel. I'm making another one in the short-sleeved version, but haven't decided what color of yarn yet. I think I'll make a smaller size for it and will absolutely use the same yarn. It almost never split and has a fabulous drape, isn't too heavy but is quite warm.

All in all, a keeper!

Answer: Shaky Legs

Question: What do you get when you mouth off to your personal trainer that you haven't really been feeling the exercises he gave you to practice?

Holy crap I about fell over while trying to sit on the toilet. Not an exaggeration. My left leg when all jimmy legs on me and I very delicately slammed myself onto the pot. Nice. Apparently the new workout this week is working already.

I've made it through about 2 weeks of eating mostly healthy and walking almost every day. I also do some strength training about 4 times a week and I feel like an absolute goddess (ok one with very shaky legs today). Seriously people, start taking a multivitamin. Find out if you need to take iron pills (I'm always anemic) and eat a few more veggies and fruits. Walk a little bit. It SUCKS when you start, I can still hear the nutty bars calling....but it gets better all the time. I've not dropped much weight yet, but I feel ENERGETIC AS HELL. LOOKOUT WORLD! Only drawback I see is that I get entirely too excited about things like knitting and shopping as well. Um, a little bitty bit too much koigu was purchased this weekend.

I went to the Studio on Sunday before the Chiefs game (which sucked, but OMG how great was that hair-pulling tackle? Best part of the game for me. I think the part I liked the best was when we got not only tackled by the hair, but then picked back up by the hair afterwards!) ANYWAY I went for TWO things. #1. To get 2 more skeins of the Koigu I made my socks of doom star wars socks out of to make another pair for me. #2. To get some brown heavier weight sock yarn for Jeff (I found a Koigu kersti that should work.) but then ended up somehow these other 6 skeins jumped into my cart along with a novel and a few magazines. $150 was spent, WAY MORE than the budgeted $50 for yarn for the month. cripes.

Knitting tonight! Toto's Coffeehouse, 6915 Johnson Drive in Mission, KS. Just east of Metcalf on Johnson Drive next to Don Chilitos Mexican Restaurant. The Heartland Knitting Guild meets there on the 3rd Monday evening of the month. Tonight one of the ladies is putting on a demo to teach this COOL wavy stitch scarf/shawl pattern. If you're coming bring worsted weight yarn, sz 9-10 1/2 needles depending on the yarn, and I think they said 200 yds would be a scarf and between 300-500 for a shawl. I'm using some of the yarn that jumped itself into my basket at the Studio and am hoping it will be the perfect project for my best friend Jildo's shawl that I was supposed to have to her about 4 months ago. I've started and dumped at least 4 different shawls thinking it would work and none have felt right. I'm thinking this will be it. I LOVE the yarn, pics tomorrow I promise.

Guess what I'll be wearing tonight???? YES the simple knitted bodice! I'll have someone take a pic since I still haven't figured out my damn timer button. on the to-do list, no worries.

So I'm officially dead, but I have pictures and toasty toes!

These were waiting for me at the post office this morning. I even had this cute card inside showing a roadmap of the trip my socks took from the initial assasin on the east coast out to Carrie in Seattle to me in KC! The kids got quite a kick out of it! Socks fit and are even hand-painted wool and LOVERLY!! I'd totally do sock wars again the next time around!

I was sitting at a yarn shop the other day knitting and said something about having startitis. This lady that was shopping said, "but don't you ever get finishitis?" Yeah, right. Well the closest to finishitis I've gotten is all of a sudden I'm in a hurry to start on my Xmas crap but want to get a few loose ends finished up. Last night I finished Joey's pioneer colorway socks out of Lorna's Laces which I LOVE!!


OK, enough knitting crap. Here's some pictures from the field trip the other day with Joey's 1st grade class in the COLD COLD COLD morning air. Mine is the one in the ski mask. We had an absolute BLAST! I'm going back to the Red Barn Farm in Weston, MO sometime to wander through the big ol' gift shop and to just be outdoors in the pretty surroundings! Have a good weekend people!

Sock wars continues...

First pair of socks OUT IN THE MAIL baby! WOO HOO! MAN it was hard to mail these off, I didn't want to let them go. Good thing my target had itty bitty feet so not only were they FAST to knit, but they wouldn't fit me either! Let's all admire the pretty koigu..... (ok, so I'm totally going back to get another 2 skeins to make myself a pair too, can you blame me?)

Now the waiting game begins....will my socks get here before my target's unfinished socks come to me to finish? What a fun concept this sock wars thing is!

NOW I'm going to start on the neckline of my sweater to get it done. Of course, the honey boy who, um, NEVER wore the big ol' socks I knit for him for valentine's day last year....Ok, he wore them ONCE. He starts pouting about me making socks for some woman instead of for him. Now he apparently LIKES the socks I made and wants about 4 more pair. cripes. I have about 45 projects I need to start. Somehow through the tank-top knitting craze that took hold of me recently, I totally forgot that Christmas season is coming! HOLY CRAP!!! When did this happen? I went on a field trip with Joey's class and would have frozen my ass off, but for the wool products I was sporting (socks, sweater, clapotis, wrist warmers, ear band) YEAH baby, WARM WARM WARM! I'll put up pics tomorrow, the farm was so cute! We went to the red barn in Weston, MO and toured pumpkin patches, apple orchards, bee-keeping stuff and saw the animals and talked about WOOL in the blindingly cold wind! They even had a felted wool blanket covering the bee-hive thing to keep the queen and her minions toasty warm. I need me some minions. I have children and people that annoy me, I could totally work the minion thing.

Anyway, MAJOR feelings of stress......wrist warmers for teachers, socks for honey, sweaters for both kids and the honey and shawl for Jildo, not to mention I need to finish some socks for ME to keep my little toes all toasty (one and a half pair just won't work out for the entire winter). I'll most likely get in another major fit of startitis and say screw it all, and start another totally inappropriate project. Life can't be all planned and make sense, can it? I think I may just spend the evening after the kids go to bed tonight sorting through the stash and getting inspired.

May the force be with me...

OK, so I'm a sock warrior in serious trouble. Yup, there's almost completed socks gunning for me. I've just gotten started and knit my ass off last night and have ONE half of ONE sock, just turned the heel. They're on sz 5's, so it's going fast, but will it be fast enough? OH MY GOD I'm having a blast with SOCK WARS! You knitters are so damn creative, it's amazing. At least I'm enjoying the hell out of the yarn I bought for this....koigu kersti in the most loverliest shades of greens and browns and I got myself a treat!!! Lantern Moon Rosewood double points. Life is too short to use crappy needles. I'm telling you, the beautiful colors of the yarn, the dark amazingly smooth pretty shiny needles, have you ever seen anything prettier? *sigh* So, in a nutshell, I'm screwed, soon to be dead, but I'm going down fighting! knit, knit, knit, knit (the neckline of the sweater will have to wait a few more days) I think I'm gonna have to go get some more of this yarn as it's just so perfect for the fall weather.

I got to see my best friend in the world yesterday! WOO HOO for Jildo! I'll take pics of the beautiful early birthday presents I got from her! We are the very BEST kind of best friends because we're both lazy and crazy and the queens of all enablers and rationalizers. It's the kind of relationship where when life gets going and everything gets hectic and we don't talk for a few weeks, we start up just where we left off. OH I love that lady!!! I owe her a major trip to the farm so we can just talk all night. Got to convince the grandparents that they WANT to take my kids for a weekend!

My favorite Jildo/Tina memory? It's GOT to be the time we were weaving our way home from Bruff's bar in Emporia back to the sorority house. My future ex-husband was trying to look like a gentleman and following us home in the car. (Jildo used an electric wheelchair that sometimes would have the battery die in the most inopportune of times and places.) It's got to be about 2:30am or so, I'm riding on the arm of her chair or wobbling along on the sidewalk, Jim is driving his car with the windows down, Jill calling out to him to change the radio station because whatever was playing stunk. A cop car comes up and flashes his lights, pulls up to us and asks if everything's ok. Jill (a pretty blond with big ol' eyes) says "Oh, Officer! We're so scared, this creepy guy is following us!" and bats her eyelashes at him. The cop gets all tough looking, pulls out the big monster flashlight aka beat-the-crap-outta-someone stick and heads for Jim's car, Jill takes off down the road humming a little tune. HAH! OK, so you had to be there to fully appreciate it, Gawd, I almost wet myself just remembering... We often lament that I went back and explained the situation and averted an arrest that night. Ah well, if I didn't have that first marriage, I wouldn't be the woman I am today and I wouldn't have those two amazing kids of mine.

Computer problems at work may just help me have a few minutes time to get back on those sock wars socks!

Guess what I have?

One of THESE

one of THESE


which creates one of THESE


I still need to do the neckline edging and sew in a few ends and BAM it's almost DONE!!! WOO HOO!! Please ignore the lovely neck creases there, I swear by the end of October I WILL sit my ass down and learn how to use the timer button so I'm not doing these funky stick your arm out and lean and point the camera and don't breathe shots. ANYWAY I've even been thinking of how cute this would be in a smaller size with the short sleeves in another color. quite cute I think. Let me finish the first one before biting off more than I can chew here.

Did absolutely NONE of the fun things around KC I was talking about on Friday. We did have a good weekend with ALL of the kids. Holy crap-a-mighty, I am not cut out to be a full-time momma of four children. We survived better than most weekends, I did not have a migraine, that's a plus. I realized I'm not getting more mellow, I'm just caring less about the little stuff. I have pretty much given up having any control of the situation, I'm just trying to keep anyone from getting killed. All survived, so we're good to go. I realized I was getting my once-a-month migraines NOT because it was that hormonal time when the little blue birth control pills go to the white pills and that fun Joy of Womanhood gets ready to visit (I swear that's how my mother put it during the talk with the charts and pictures of fallopian tubes and such, the JOY OF WOMANHOOD). Anyway, I don't think the migraines were due to the lack of estrogen, nope, it was a fun combination of the full moon, the impending JOY, AND having four children in my house, two of whom are used to doing whatever they want whenever they want and yelling at their momma in their own house. Kind of like those deaths you hear about when people combine medications? It's just too much to handle all at once. Did much better this weekend due to a LOT of knitting, sitting on the back screened-in porch and discussing the NEW HOUSE RULES (#1 is NO ONE yells at THIS momma. NO ONE. Not if you wanna grow up to see 5th grade.)

Happy Happy Joy Joy dammit

Things to do in KC this weekend

Going for my morning walk in the cool fall weather and, well, my ears were cold. yeah. A knitter with cold ears. Is there nothing sadder? I have NO hats or ear bands or anything. so very sad. I have a cedar chest crammed full of malabrigo yarn and I got nothin. Before I finish my other sleeve I will at least make a ribbed band to wear over my ears. cripes almighty. Hey, I could cover myself in felted bags or sleeveless sweaters, and I do have a scarf and a pair of wrist warmers, so it's not totally pathetic....yeah, it really is. Embarrasing, actually.

Anyone interested in making the simple knitted bodice I've been raving about needs to check out the sexy knitters blog I've got linked with a button on the right. I've gotten more help and ideas and inspiration and yarn choices, etc from reading all these ladies' posts. Right now they're working on both the simple knitted bodice and the sleeveless sweater sizzle.

Cool things going on around KC this weekend...
Missouri Town 1855 Big fun craft festival Sat. & Sun. with activities for the kids, people dying wool in big boiling pots over fires, spinners, native american crafts, FOOD and all kinds of fun. Click the link for info as well as a $2 off coupon. It's only $7/car without the coupon and the food & crafts were pretty reasonably priced. I don't think we'll be able to go this year, but I'm trying to work it in since we had such a good time last year.

Kansas City Chocolate Festival on Sat. at Bartle Hall. mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm Can't go. Must not go. chocolate samples? mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

OctZOOberfest at the KC Zoo. Each weekend they have hayrides and other outdoor activities and crafts as well as the animals which are usually much more active and interesting in the cooler weather. On the 28th and 29th, they have the big trick-or-treat festival which is absolutely INSANE but the kids have a blast.

Home Depot Kids Workshops First Sat. of each month free kid activities. Adult works with kids (and the home depot helpers too) to make cool projects with kits. Kids LOVE it and they get little orange aprons and pins with pictures of the projects they've made. My kids have made step-stools, crayon-holder fire trucks, picture frames, flowerpot planters, all kinds of creations they were quite proud of. FREE and fun. Contact your local store to sign up in advance. I have found the store at 95th & Metcalf to have the best helper staff.

American Royal BBQ Festival OOPS I totally forgot this one. I am hungry just thinking of all that unbelievable BBQ mmmmmmmmmm Thanks for reminding me guys!

OK, I totally enjoyed my morning walk. I was gone for AN HOUR and just loved it. Then I got back and ate an egg, some chocolate milk (love my shatto) and fresh fruit and LIKED IT. This healthy living crap may just start to grow on me. Cripes, even green tea sounds good now.

Check out the water tower we saw on our trip

How cool is that? I can't remember the name of the little town this was in, maybe California MO? somewhere near there. The kids and I saw this on our way to & from Jefferson City MO for a wedding of one of my cousins last weekend. I just thought it was cool as hell. In the middle of rolling green hills, cows grazing, a big ol' eight-ball.

I can see the END of one of my sleeves. I am about ready to do the final edging on ONE sleeve and then have to start on the other. I just love the lace band on the sweater and the sleeves, it adds something really distinctive to the design of the Simple Knitted Bodice. LOVE that glampyre!

Workout update. I am a total idiot. I absolutely HATE walking on treadmills. Hate it. H.A.T.E. I.T. I have been forcing myself to walk/jog for 20 min's each day and want to get up to 45 mins. I'm constantly watching the timer count down each second, trying to read the captions on the stupid-ass shows they have on the tv's without losing my balance and falling off, getting all sweaty and generally quite pissy. This morning after walking the kids to school it was such a pretty day I took the long way home and had walked 20 minutes without even REALIZING it since it was a beautiful fall morning. DUH. Leaves changing, squirrels hopping from tree to tree, dogs playing in yards, what a beautiful thing. cripes. Hopefully this little brainstorm that I may actually LIKE walking/jogging OUTDOORS will help the ol' workout plan along.

I did the trainer workout and we're working on my core. Apparently I have no core. No, that's not true. There's something in there because it was shaking all dang workout. WOW. I was doing the plank thing, feeling pretty proud of myself because now I can make it 30 seconds without shaking like a 4th grade girl doing the bent arm hang (remember that in school, poor kids having to hang up on that damn bar with everyone watching while you shake like you're having a major seizure? Yeah, I was the girl that started shaking IMMEDIATELY upon hanging). Anyway, the trainer guy's like "wow, I've never seen anyone shake like THAT before while doing the plank. Are you ok?" I think I scared the poor boy. Ah well. One week of getting some form of exercise done and eating responsibly and I feel GREAT! Empowered even. Look out world, this chic is serious.

I made the world's best roast last night. Really. Best in the world. I always thought I didn't like roast. Apparently it was the 2 packets of lipton onion soup mix my mom always put in hers and then I always put in mine that I didn't like. I thought it was the rule of the roast or something. I cut up 4 big potatoes, 2 white onions and tossed them in the bottom of the crockpot. Then browned a HUGE 3 1/2 lb chuck roast with some good fat on it, patted in a butt-load of steak seasoning salt on all sides, put it on top of the taters. Poured in a can of Campbell's mushroom & garlic soup, one can of water and put it on high for 5 hours. I even took the juice and did the mix cold water and corn starch and then pour it into the juice in a pan and whisk to make non-lumpy gravy. AND IT WAS GOOD and NOT lumpy. Warmed up some green beans, served with a salad and it was a freaking feast. I ate a nice portion of all the good food and I'm telling you, that roast tasted GOOD!!!

BEST part of the trainer meeting thing? I get to EAT MORE and MORE OFTEN!!! woo hoo! OK, so I have to eat a lot more fruits and veggies and protein and calcium, but we found stuff that even a picky eater like ME can do! Chocolate milk (helloooooo Shatto milk) is my favorite addition to the whole eating healthy plan.

I realize most of you do serious cooking, but I'm still in the worshipping all things Rachel Ray stage of my cooking experience. She had a chicken wing chili recipe on her show this morning that looked to die for! I'm also using the joy of cooking book and taught myself how to boil eggs. Stop laughing. I had to look in a book to do that.

These are the sleeves that never end....they just go on and on my friend...

OK, so now I'm getting why I'm such a fan of the knitted tank top. Holy crap-a-mighty! Why is it that the body of a sweater can go so fast and the sleeves take for-freaking-ever? At the widest point of the sleeve, there are only 85 stitches. The body had 188 stitches. It is statistically impossible for it to take me longer to make ONE FREAKING SLEEVE than the entire body of this sweater. I know, I know, I am a bit more excited at the beginning of a project, I'm sure that's it, but I'd better get my butt moving or I'm gonna have to stick to sleeeveless sweaters and freeze my ass off all winter. STILL have about 5 inches to go on the FIRST sleeve of the skb. I'm loving the sweater, just tiring of the sleeve knitting. Must. keep. knitting.

I haven't replied to ANY comments because my stinking email is giving me fits. I tell you, it was hard enough convincing my living-simple-kind-of-a-guy to accept the idea of having high speed internet in his house. OH what a struggle. I finally get him going on that (got to have it for my job since I work from my home computer logged into our system at work). I even get him to LIKE it. We use roadrunner. Roadrunner's like all the rest, it's got its own particular glitches and pain in the ass moments, but I've dealt with them for years and am finally getting used to them. Then some massive kablooey happens and the work system no longer accepts any communications from roadrunner systems. nice. Work says "you gotta switch." Not gonna happen in this lifetime with this man. SO now our home office has BOTH roadrunner AND yahoo dsl for me. We also have digital phones and with some weird phone system from the previous home owners, we have ONE working landline plug (in the home office) and ONE digital phone plug (in the home office) that's been split into 2 sets of hand-held phones. Let me tell you, we have wires coming out of our EARS up here.

To shorten this long boring story, I'll just say we've not quite figured out how to deal with little glitches in the dsl system yet AND we had some interference going on with ALL our phones and add in a ton of stress and we had a MAJOR blow up in the upstairs office. OMG Jeff was hollering, moving wires all over the damn place, I've gotta take a picture, it looks like HELL in here. We've got every phone wire and power cord and ethernet cord and you name it cord now not touching anything else. We have them hanging on push-pins stuck in the walls, hanging off pictures, lamps, bookshelfs, everywhere! We even have them hanging up and over the corner of the mini-blinds across the windows. nice. He also decides to do this in the middle of the 2 hours I have left to solve a massive problem with my JOB's communications system and I lose it. I start yelling, I'm crying (I always cry when I get mad which serves to piss me off further) and at one point I'm even THROWING four heavy plastic crates across the room against the walls and door. seriously major fit. My point was #1. I was having a stressful day on its own and didn't need him adding to the stress, #2. I told him I didn't have time for him to do his major unplugging and rerouting thing RIGHT THEN, and #3. He was just generally pissing me off. OH LORDY I was PISSSSED! All is better now. I got a very nice backrub out if it and a chinese dinner without having to cook. Plus can we get a "hoh yeah!" (spoken like Peg from King of the Hill) for make-up sex? hoh yeah!

OK, I now see the light and I totally posted a picture of a fat chick's butt on my knitting blog. How many blogrings will that get me knocked off of? HAH! I'm still wondering who that woman got to PAINT her ASS? Are you sure it's not a fat baby? I still think it could be. Ah well. Madam Inappropriate strikes again.

Weight-Loss Bet update...
Jeff's decided he's got it made. He's predicted he's going to end up with a skinny chick who'll be exactly 3 pounds over the betted weight AND get to keep his money AND get to have his lawn mowed all summer long while he sits on his ass and drinks beer. Nice. I've now officially GAINED 6 pounds since beginning the damn bet. I have actually been working out for about 45 minutes 4 times a week and eating healthy until about 10pm when I lose my mind. Damn junkfood. I'm trying to get SERIOUS to get this thing DONE. I go for my first of 5 free trainer workouts today. I joined at the 24 hour fitness gym and am LOVING it! I told the guy I know all about the don't use the scale as your measure of fitness kind of crap, but it IS all about the weight. If I turn out looking like a hottie, well that's ok too. Basically I want to be able to walk into a store and buy a pair of pants. That's it. And take serious cash from my honey and avoid total humiliation and sweating all summer long too. We're going to work on CORE stuff and I quote "the weight should just fall off." I'm ready for some falling action. Wish me luck.

Sheep Invaders

First of all, I should point out that the picture from Friday's post was of a BABY's butt. I got a scathing email about my site becoming a porn site and about my lack of morals (had she EVER read my blog before? morals be damned!) and seriously people, get a grip.

This game is courtesy of my kids. They found it for me and I played all night. Ok, I played for about 20 minutes, but that's a long time. Too much fun!

Sheep Invaders

Dodging sheep poo. Unbelievably fun.

On knitting news, I have half of one sleeve completed on the SKB and on non-knitting news, Jeff is now a cowboy. He and a friend who has some land in southern KS went into partnership and they went and bought themselves 2 cows and 2 calves. Jeff spent the weekend fixing barbed wire fence and going to a cattle auction. They're putting a bull from the farmer across the road in with the 2 cows for a month and are hoping to grow their herd. I thought it was quite cute and fun and was SO freaking supportive.

Right up until about 45 minutes ago when as Jeff sat on the bed next to me rubbing my shoulder, I picked up his hand to kiss it and saw a FREAKING TICK CRAWLING ON IT!!!!!! OH MY HOLY HELL I hate ticks even more than BEES (which is way more than the spiders and moths I've had issues with in the past.)! It was a teeny tiny thing, but it survived a 30 minute shower to be almost crawling on me. He was smart enough to strip his clothes off in the laundry room (on the floor though) and I found ANOTHER ONE crawling on his jeans!!! Clothes are now boiling in hot water in the washing machine, floors and walls were vacuumed (I know this doesn't kill them, but it made me feel a little better), sheets, blankets and such were stripped from the bed and they're awaiting a good hot washing in bleach as well. I'm trying to figure a way to bug bomb the car so he doesn't bring MORE of the fuxxers each time he gets into his car. I then made the poor boy strip down and examined every inch of him while holding a tweezers with a double shot of crappy rum sitting close by to drop the fuxxers into (only alcohol we have left in the house since I just downed 2 mike's hard limeades FAST) and nothing seems to be crawling. He was nervous with me holding a sharp metal implement near his nether-regions but it was either humor the psycho chic or sleep in the tick car. I think he figured I'd just jump him with the tweezers again in the morning, so he gave up the fight. (Plus he's seen me after the moth came fluttering up out of the bag with my almost completed clapotis last fall and witnessed the crazy microwaving of the yarn after the crazy running around the house cursing and smashing a bug scene, so he knows it's a losing battle.)

I'm off to go pour what's left of the bleach all over the shower and on anything I think may be moving. I have to admit I totally freaked myself out a few minutes ago because I get those floaty things in my eyes and thought it was a swarm of ticks. OOPS. Ah well, the bathroom floor probably needed a good dose of cleaner anyway.

I'd even been trying to appease any strange bug mojo that may have been off. I let at least 3 bugs LIVE by nicely scooping them up on paper and dropping them NICELY outdoors in the last couple of months. If tick central is how I am rewarded, I'm about 1 limeade away from declaring outright war on anything creepy and or crawly. And I have big feet, so that means BIG SHOES to schwack things with. cripes almighty.