the good, the bad and the ugly

The good...
WE HAVE AIR CONDITIONING ONCE AGAIN and it's only 1:50pm!!!!!! WOOOOOO HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Sweet mother of mercy. ANDDDDD we didn't have to replace the whole unit, only part of the compressor so it only cost us about $260.
I spoke too soon.....we have a new capaciter but only moderately cool air is coming out of the vents. It's just craptastic around here. It's gone down ONE DEGREE in the house in the 2 1/2 hours we've had the supposedly fixed air conditioner. I know it's hot, but seriously, something's still freakin' wrong. Called air conditioner man, he said to see what happens when the sun goes down and it cools down outside, see if our house cools off any then and call him tomorrow. WTF? I'm thinking that would be mother nature, not our freaking air conditioner. cripes. May have one more night spent on the office floor, but we'll call it "camping out". Kids'll love it.

The bad...
The blazer's air conditioner is NOT the part that would have cost us $287 including labor, nope. They're very very very sorry but it's the part that with labor will cost us $680. I don't care anymore, I just want to be able to drive my truck without getting out of it with wet pants. Do you know how embarrasing it is to be stuck to BLACK fake leather seats and then have sweat spots across your hind end? not pretty.

The ugly...
All this has been very hard on my hair. When I have a bad hair day (and I've now had TWO in a row), it's not a good thing.

welcome to summer in kansas city

So, you know how I said the blower on my air conditioner in my truck went out last week? No real biggie, got it to the dealership yesterday, drove Jeff's truck when I needed to. Though it was 102 in the shade and humid as a motherbugger, I could just stay in my nice slightly cool house. (boyfriend was born on the sun and it's our compromise to keep the house between 79 and 80 degrees or he freezes and any higher and I get REALLY REALLY crabby. R.E.A.L.L.Y. crabby. it's not pretty) No biggie, right? just stay in our house. Yeah. That's the ticket.

So, for some unknown reason, I decide yesterday is the day to get back on the ol' exercise track (fall trip to Hawaii is one month closer and I'm only 3 pounds lighter) so I go work out, create more sweat than is humanly possible. Then I figure, wtf, why not load up the pickup truck at mom & dad's with more crap of the kids to load over to our house. why the heck not? More sweat. I lug it all in myself since Jeff's outside working in the ungodly heat laying carpet in our screened-in porch (I told you he was born on the sun). I somehow can't seem to get cool. I'm getting a bit crappy, even a bit bitchy though that is hard to imagine. So, by about 10pm I'm getting downright nasty. I finally take a cold shower and am STILL hot about 10 minutes after getting out. I stand directly on top of the floor air vent in the kitchen and realize the air blowing out is not cold. my heart almost stopped.

Yes, we have no airconditioning left. We test breakers, we pour cold water on top of the unbelievably HOT outdoor air unit. It starts chugging, but still no cold air. THANK GOD Jeff spoiled me and gave me a tiny window air unit for the office on the top floor (since he was tired of me being cranky and bitchy all the time when I worked up here.) He is a good good man. I lugged the kids upstairs and the three of us slept on the floor with that little air conditioner chugging its heart out all night long. Kids slept well, I'm working on about 2 hours sleep.

I sat on our bed with Jeff trying to relax and watch some tv. not only could he not touch me since the heat was unbearable, I couldn't even touch me. If my arm rested against my leg, it was HOT.... It was so hot I couldn't even bear to knit. THAT's hot. Now, I'm sure some of this truly was in my head at this point, as the house was only 84, but mental or not, I was miserable.

I lugged myself up to sleep on the floor between the two kids and curled between our two big desks and just laid there most of the night.

Jeff's already got a guy ready to come over and used the whole "house full of children" thing to get them over hopefully today. He is a good man. He also slept like a baby for the first time in months since we turned on the air. I think his body temperature is 102, not 98.6 like the rest of us. cripes almighty.

One neat thing, my daughter woke up early and I heard her turning pages. I looked up and she's going through about 4 of my knitting books. She picked out the one tank top out of the Hollywood Knits that was the reason I bought the book and said "Mom, I wanna make THIS!" How cool is that?

GOD I hate humidity. How did I ever survive childhood without air conditioning? I think that's why I'm occasionally scatterbrained. My good sense part of my brain cooked itself. Everyone cross your fingers that the air-conditioning man can do something soon!

****added note**** Thanks for all the offers of air conditioning! So far we're doing ok, with that little baby window unit cranking away and the kids are playing in the basement where it's still about 78. We're just avoiding the entire middle of the house for now. If it gets rough, we've got mom & dad's old basement apartment that I vacated to move here, so we should be ok. THANKS ladies!!

Lake-in'

Much knitting was accomplished (almost done with the somewhat-cowl neck deal, I tried, I really tried to count and make it even, had enough of it and said WTF a few beers into it and half-assed it. I'm NOT going to count now, I'm NOT going to measure, I'm just going to hope. hope is always good.), much beer was drank, much catching-up was caught up, fish were pulled out of the lake, too much food was ate, and good times were had by all. I even did a few cannonballs, where I realized that I am not quite built for that as I got enough lake water up my nose so far I think it went directly into my brain. It was so hot and humid that even my eyelids were sweating. I spent most of the weekend floating around in the water, just loving every minute of it. I am so lucky that I LOVE my family! We have a great time for any occasion. Here's a few highlights...

off to the lake again

Well, we're off again to the Lake of the Ozarks, or as Jeff calls it, "the O.Z." so trendy, that boy. The great "Schieferecke Splashdown" is being hosted by my folks and about a 1/3 of the immediate family is coming out, should be about 30-40 people crammed into mom & dad's lakehouse. We're staying the nights at Jeff's folk's place to help make room. (it was that or camp in a tent in the 100+ heat and ungodly humidity and up on the hill with the TICS--not me, nope)

I get to knit for 2 1/2 hours down and 2 1/2 hours back and I'm bringing my sweater that's almost ready to be cast off at the waist and then I get to pick up stitches and do the cool half-cowl neckline and sleeves and I may bring along the lace shawl just in case. I haven't done one stitch on it in over 2 weeks.

Have a great weekend everyone!

My sweater's back!

Picture time! I had left my somewhat cowl over at Jeff's cousin's house on the other side of town and I have been without it for about 2 weeks now, just when it was getting good. I'm cranking away. Isn't it funny how at the beginning of a sweater, it seems to take FOREVER and then all of a sudden it goes into lightning speed? Anyway, here's proof that I do ACTUALLY sometimes put the stitches onto waste yarn and try the damn thing on. The only thing I hate more than taking stitches off the needles onto waste thread is a sweater that doesn't fit. I have finally learned my lesson. The picture is a small cut as I had a REALLY bad hair & face day yesterday as the fan went out on my air conditioner and it was in the upper 90's with about 90% humidity. Not good. Isn't that just the prettiest little seam? I'm still always amazed how that turns out. Yes, the neckline is looking a TAD BIT low, but it's supposed to be as the sorta-cowl thing on the neck pulls it all in. No worries. It's in the yummiest softest baby alpaca from knitpicks. LOVE that stuff!

Any resmeblence this picture may show to the Huck Shawl in the Merino Farms book is just a coincidence. I would not have started yet another shawl. No, that would not have made any sense whatsoever. Isn't it pretty yarn though? It's laceweight merino hand-dyed by a lady in our sunflower kntiters' guild.

And because heaven knows this is never a strictly knitting-only blog, here's some gratuitous family shots.



The welcome sign was waiting for us back at home, courtesy of Jeff and his two boys. Very sweet!

We got our Elizabeth back!

Well, the five weeks seemed to last forever! My daughter goes with her dad for the summer and it sure gets quiet around here with just Joey. We went to Salina, KS for a cousin's wedding and partied down at the Salina country club and the Holidome. Much swimming, drinking, dancing, ping-ponging, poker playing and eating was had by all. Good times, those family weddings. I am so lucky that I LOVE my family and all its parts!

Jim brought Elizabeth back Friday night to the holiday inn and we were VERY HAPPY! Then he opened his trunk and this stench of rotting fishparts hit us like a mack truck. I am NOT exaggerating here when I say ACTUAL BUGS flew out of the trunk. I don't know if I mentioned that the ex took my daughter and a new woman "friend" to Corpus Christi and South Padre Island about two weeks ago. Well, they picked up a huge ziplock bag of shells there. two weeks ago. Some of those shells still had critters living in them. two weeks ago. The "washed them off" aka rinsed once in gulf water. two weeks ago. Well, apparently those critters died and were rotting for two weeks in this same freaking bag. TWO WEEKS. I'm telling you, it was this HORRIBLE stench that you couldn't even be within 6 feet of this bag. THANK GAWD I brought my daughter an extra dress for the wedding and a change of clothes as I had to throw out the tote bag she brought her clothes back in as it reeked. I got a few trash bags and put everything inside to be washed and disinfected at home. cripes almighty.

I tried, I really REALLY tried to get those shells cleaned up. I went out and bought a cheapo foam cooler and a buncha bleach and had them soaking for two days and they STILL smelled horrendous. "We" decided to take a picture of the shells and throw them down the drain. OH it was bad. Funny part was it was a NEW CAR he stuck this stuff into.

My daughter and I wore our matching koigu foulard shawls at the wedding, it was absolutely cute. I probably won't get away with stuff like that much longer as she's so PRETEEN now. I'll make sure to upload a few pics in the next day or so.

I got a lot done on yet another shawl, (startitis strikes again) this one is EASY and I am using up some stash hand-dyed yarn, so it's not as bad as buying new yarn and then starting another shawl. really. it's not. I didn't bring my silk complicated lace shawl along as I knew I wouldn't get any untinterupted time to knit on it and I'd just end up frogging and getting all pissy.

I got my somewhat cowl back from Jeff's cousin's house where it's been stranded for TWO WEEKS. I cranked along on the bottom waist ribbing and have 1 of the 3 inches needed done now. I'm feeling much more soothed working on it and think this may have been part of my insatiable startitis lately. We'll see. The thing still needs the neckline and sleeves done, it's yummy.

the clap strikes again

WELL, after about 6 different attempts to find the perfect shawl for my best friend, I FINALLY figured it out. What is the most amazing, my most favoritest thing that I've ever made that wraps me in lusciousness and just happens to be the exact shape and weight and design that my friend needs? YES it's the clapotis! Also one of my favorite things TO knit, it's the perfect shawl! Now I've got to find the yarn and I'm gonna get going! I'm entirely too excited by this discovery! I feel all misty like I'm visiting an old friend. Making an old friend for a new friend....damn I shouldn't be allowed to write anything before 8am. It's not a good thing.

ANOTHER thing that's got me all aflutter is EVERYONE'S got their new issues out NOW! KNITTY has its new Summer issue out and have you SEEN the cute little glovelets on the cover? OH baby I'm gonna be making them! Crochet Me has its summer issue out and have you seen the cute t-shirt on their cover? Very cool! I don't think I'll be jumping in yet on that crocheting string thing, but I am loving the idea of modifying a tshirt with crocheted edges like that. AND MagKnits has its July issue up as well. Go out and wander, inspire yourself!

Shawlitis part 2

SO, great 4th weekend was had by all! We spent part of the weekend with mom & dad & my brother Will & his wife Raegan from Florida and the other part with Jeff & his boys and just had a GREAT time! I continued in my shawl startitis addiction and knitted my ass off. Almost finished my 2nd foulard out of the blue koigu (the big one in the pic) until I ran out of yarn, have one half ball left here at home and should have it done within a few days! woo hoo! I decided the first one was too small for my best friend Jildo and she wanted more of a rectangular thing anyway, so I am going to have matching shawls for my daughter and I....all together now, AAAAWWWWWWWWW! sweet sweet sweet.

The blue & green & purple thing was supposed to be a lovely start on Jildo's shawl, the Wave & Shell shawl, but due to a not so great yarn choice (needs to be something lacier or ribbony or something) it now looks like part of one of my grandma's old afghans, not quite the look I was going for, so it'll be frogged soon. I had run out of knitting things, so I just kept on going fully knowing I'd be frogging it. How sad is that? It was actually quite pleasant to be knitting as we were bobbing along on the pontoon boat with Jeff & the boys all fishing and the cool breeze and sunset. Ah well.

Anyone notice the little TINY orange thing is a bit, um, SMALLER than the last time it was photographed? Anyone want to ask me how many times that damn shawl has been started, achieved at least 30+ rows and then frogged when it was too knotted up to be unknit stitch by stitch? Go ahead and ask me. GO AHEAD AND ASK ME!!!!! SIX TIMES. 1--2--3--4--5--SIX times. I think on the final time I finally learned something. This is NOT a pattern to do around children. or boyfriends. or neighbors. or FIREWORKS. I thought I really had it on the 5th time, and one got stuck in the metal rigged-up launching thing that Jeff created as a teenager and went BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BBBBOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMM! In the middle of which I grabbed two small boys and my bag o' knitted lace and took off for the safety of the cabin. I didn't choose the bag over the 3rd boy, he'd already high-tailed down the hill and dove into the boat for cover. (I'm not THAT bad. I'm sure I would have grabbed him AND the knitting should I have needed to.) I did leave the boyfriend causing the ruckus to fend for himself. Anyway, I think this time I will make it. I need to only knit it when I'm totally by myself listening to bad tv or maybe a book on cd. Yeah, that'd be good. Then I can count out loud and not be interrupted.

Got to get back to work, I was supposed to be doing that HOURS ago...gotta run!

I think I'm turning into a shawlaholic

Seriously. I'm packing for the trip to the Lake for the 4th weekend and I'm bringing THREE shawls, none of which is any longer than about 4 inches. I think I've got a problem. I hope to have SOMETHING to take photos of afterwards.

Happy 4th, hope you all get to go spend time with family & friends watching fireworks in the sky and hope my damn boyfriend doesn't blow himself or my child up. (I really REALLY hate the ones you set off yourself. I prefer things blowing up at a big distance to myself and those I love.) We went to Fireworks World in south KC. OH MY HOLY HELL this was the redneck center of the universe. Seriously. Over 50% of the women were over 300 lbs and many of them were wearing tube tops. I do not exaggerate. It was a trip! It's had all these ads on tv & radio about ALL KIDS RIDES FREE!!! The kids actually did have a blast. There was a dunk tank you could throw softballs at and the kids could get up and be dunked. I'm thinking something creepy is probably growing in that dark water, so my kid didn't get up there, but there were 2 boys happily going under over and over again while their parents shopped. Joey had a good time going down this slide set up on top of a mountain of hay bales and riding sleds. There were little old cars set up on a merry go round that some poor kid had to push around and around. There was free water and lemonade as it was about 100 degrees, some blown up jumping things, and the best part (one which I took a shine to after trying) was the "beat 'em up cars". They had two old cars with windows & windshields & mirrors removed, you put on a pair of big ol' safety goggles, picked up a sledgehammer and beat the hell out of them. I think I see where those crazy girlfriends on COPS shows go all nuts beating their cheating man's car. After the first tap or two I got the hang out of it and beat some serious frustration out on the side and hood of those cars. We left with a modest bag of boomers. Jeff has agreed to only do "the pretty ones" while we're at his lake place and save the more dangerous and violent ones for when we're at mom & dad's lake house.

Got to run, Happy 4th people! Happy knitting!

gossamer fairy guts

I recently joined a shawl yahoo group and stated that I was trying to make this VERY COOL Feather and Fan Comfort Shawl by Sarah Bradberry out of my laceweight hand-painted silk on sz 10 needles. One sweet knitter replied that it must look like gossamer fairy wings done with those choices. Let's just say it didn't QUITE turn out that way. About 50+ rows in, it resembled gossamer fairy guts. frog city. I really REALLY want to make that shawl, but I think it would be much prettier in a sport-weight yarn.

SO I'm determined to wear something around my shoulders while I'm on the beaches at Maui this fall, and what better than my sunset-colored silk yarn? dammit! SO I left on a mission and found a new pattern that was actually written for laceweight or sportweight and I think it's a MUCH better first big ass shawl for me than going off pattern yet. (I'm such a follower I NEED the direction). I cast on and made it through 29 rows of Fiber Trends' Shoalwater Shawl and it's a pleasure to knit. I am enjoying the heck out of it. I'm not going all brave and reading the chart included, no, not yet. I'm following line by line the written instructions on this baby. I don't have quite enough yarn (about 200 yds shy) so I figure I'll just try to stop earlier and then do the little picot cast off which looks like a BIOTCH to do, but I know where to find some of you experienced knitters to beg a mini lesson from. bwa ha ha haaaaa!

I am turning into quite the happy little home-maker

Seriously, who is this woman? She cooks! She knits! She crochets! She gardens! She even got out her sewing machine! Don't worry all, she also drinks, curses and pouts. She's a well rounded individual.

In one week I have made chicken enchiladas, lasagne (the shorter version), sloppy joes and had the man grill burgers and steaks. We even had a leftover night. I have never in my entire 37 years of existence had enough actual dinner material to have a leftover night. It was quite impressive. The man does most of the house cleaning (even scrubs showers!) so I'm able to pick the things I enjoy and do them.

Here's some pics of the little flower box in our front yard. I have an herb garden. I don't actually know what the heck to DO with them yet, but I have been picking mint leaves and adding them to my tea and think I need to get a good recipe for mint julep drinks and have them on our new screened-in back porch that the honey has almost finished building. It's freaking wonderful sitting out there reading the paper in the cool of the morning.

Here's my ONE BLOOM of the four big gerbera daisy plants that's still standing in the yard:

Our rabbit population is enjoying biting the heads off my damn flowers. Most of my plants look like this, green globs with stems sticking up.


Here's part of my super hardy double knockout rose bush.


And lest you think I haven't been knitting....here's some baby bibs. Click the image to see a close-up version.


I've also gotten busy on my somewhat cowl and have it ready to switch to size 4 circs to do the waist ribbing, but have no size 4 needles. cripes. THEN I left the damn thing over at Jeff's cousin's house where we went for a kid's one year old swimming birthday party (where his cousin saw me quietly knitting while everyone else is just sitting around after we ate and said "what is this, like an addiction for you?") So, no pictures of that. I'm heading over this afternoon to pick it up as well as stopping by the LYS to get a new circ. I have those denise interchangeable things, but they only go down to 5s. I still have to pick up stitches and knit the neckline and sleeves and waist ribbing, but I'm hoping to be wearing it soon!

Funniest damn thing I've seen. seriously

OH you need to go here and see this guy Judson Laipply's evolution of dance! You won't be sorry. Some serious flashbacks to the music came to me.

swimsuit shopping, oh the fun!

Well, I waited too long and now all the cute suits that cover and push and pull your body without looking like a grandma suit or a fat hooker suits are all gone from Target. damn. Now it's only XXL tops and S bottoms available. hmmmmmm. Not on this body. I went and found my Prevention magazine's swimsuit issue, and they do have a cute site where you can find suits to flatter your flaws and try them on virtually on a model you create. Prevention's Virtual Swimsuit The site is pretty cool, but it mostly gives you ideas of where to start.

I found my digital camera AGAIN and have now made a special spot for it. cripes. I'm like a little old lady with no memory left. I PROMISE to take pics this weekend as I've been cranking along on my baby bibs and such. I got tired of my cotton binge and thought I'd go back to the good stuff and work a bit on my somewhat Cowl sweater, and OH how I've missed my pretty alpaca yarn. Cotton can be so rough....nothing sweeter than a bit of fluffy soft baby alpaca running through your fingers. Ahhhhhh

Happy weekend everyone!

fun little post

From Vicki's post with a fun idea...

Please leave a one-word comment that you think best describes me - it can only be one word long. Then copy and paste this into your blog so that I may leave a word about you. So, any takers?

I'm totally overthinking myself on those damn baby bibs. I got too smart and thought I'd just knit the ends right in as I attached them all...I then realized that the little nubby ends poke through both sides as they get worn and washed. well crap. frogged again. I have reserved myself to just weaving in the damn ends and it's not that big of a dang deal. Get over it. It's still the cutest dang bib and I still do NOT have any pictures. One of the other knitters from our Sunflower Knitters Guild (Laura maybe? I'm so bad with names) said she had a pattern for a cute cotton hat that looked like a flower with little petals hanging down and she got it at the studio, so I may have to find that to go with the little bibs. HOW cute is that? (btw, these are not being knit for actual babies...I just thought they were cute as heck and I never have baby gifts ready when I need them.)

I exercised again today (didn't make it to Jazzercise, but did do a workout video and sweat off some poundage.) I made it through ONE and ONE HALF days of eating sensibly. Dang late nights kill me. Damn snickerdoodle cookies. Did better today, starting over.

Think I'll cast on again for a shawl with my new hand-dyed laceweight 100% silk stuff. Does that sound stupid to make a shawl out of stuff that is pretty much not wearable in any unusual weather? What else would you do with 1000+ yards of silk?

Let me just say....YARN CRAWL!!!

OH I had a good time! The Sunflower Knitters' Guild went yarn crawling from about 9am till about 5pm on Saturday! I'd love to say I had pictures to share, but remember how proud of myself I was that I found my lost digital camera? Well, when I cleaned the house for the big family dinner last week it got put somewhere that hasn't been found yet. Ah well. I spent too much money and had a great time! I will at least run over to mom & dad's and scan my goodies so you may drool electronically with me! Let's just say I got something at each place we shopped....Knit Wit in Olathe, Yarn Shop & More in OP, Lunch at a heavenly pizza cafe outdoors in the breeze, Cottage Knits in Mission, and ended the day at the Yarn Barn in Lawrence. Seriously, I've got to show you what I bought!

I'm on a new mission, ok, a not-so-new mission, but THIS TIME I'm SERIOUS! I've got about 90 days before this red-headed WHITE WHITE WHITE pale-skinned chic is going to be on the BEACH in HAWAII with my kids. I'm NOT going to be all icky in my photos, no. I've decided to use this excuse as my last ditch to get my butt in shape. quite literally get this butt of mine and the thighs attached to it in swimsuit shape. To look at me from the waist up, you'd think "oh that silly Christine, she's a skinny little thing..." (the waist up I'm a size 4-6). Let's just say below the waist I blossom into a size 12+, and I just found out my bmi or whatever percentage your fat is is over 33%. SO, let's just make this story shorter and say I'm on a mission to lose 30 pounds in 3 months. I'm so serious I even took before pictures. (before I lost the damn camera). I even made it to Jazzercise where I saw TERESA! WOO HOO lady you worked us HARD! I wasn't the only one sweating buckets, everyone in there was panting and working it! You are such the pro, I'd never know you just started teaching!

SO, back to knitting...I cast on and frogged and re-cast on and frogged again for a shawl with some hand-dyed silk I picked up at Cottage knits Sat. night, got too frustrated and decided for a "quick knit" and started the world's cutest cotton baby bib that looks like a little flower from a book I picked up One Skein. (buy it from Amazon as it's hard to find in the shops and is MUCH cheaper than the $19.99 I paid for mine) This little thing is adorable. I did finally get it figured out and knit, but there was some cursing involved as it was a gigantic pain in the ass rather challenging with short rows, wrapped stitches, hiding those wrapped stitches, attaching an i-cord (actually VERY cool to do) and TWELVE freaking yarn ends to weave in all on this cute little thing. TWELVE YARN ENDS. The first one I actually had to pay attention and count and crap, which I was knitting while talking with 6-10 yr old children on a boat in the middle of the lake of the ozarks and imbibing a few strawberry margaritas, so let's just say I knit the damn thing about 3 times before I got it figured out. NOW I'm just whipping those puppies out. I promise to scan a pic.

Jeff job update. We talked a bit more and he's decided to go for a career change and is applying for jobs and my dad's got some influence so we're using his connections as well, and things are much less stressful around here. Jeff actually took Joey to the lake on Sat. morning with his boys so I would have the whole day to go hang with my knitty people and have a breather. It was wonderful. I went down Sunday morning, had a day and night of lake-ishness, just about enough for me, and Joey and I came home today. The boy has learned that when I get overly pissy and stressful, he sends me out to do something with "those knitter people you go hang out with." I need to do more hanging out with knitter people as it is good for the soul.

I'm gonna Jaywalk it!

Yes, yes, I am aware that everyone on the face of the earth has probably already made jaywalker socks, but dammit, I just decided I needed to make them. You know that antsy-pantsy can't sit still don't wanna knit anything you got going on don't like what's on tv don't wanna do ANYTHING ARRRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHHH kind of feeling? (humor me if you don't). For some reason the fact that it's 90+ degrees and about 80% humidity made me think of how I need wool socks. Pretty, sassy, obnoxious wool socks. It makes perfect sense to me. So last night in a fit of agitation I cast on and started off. No gauge was made, but I measured one of my in-progress-forever socks that I had almost to the toes and used the same dpns and yarn (opal handpainted LOVING that stuff!) and started in. I have heard a lot of bitching about people's socks being too small, so I'm making the bigger size. If they're too small on me I'll either frog them and start over after much cursing or I will just give them to my daughter. "Yes, dear, I made them just for YOU!" Anyway, I'm highly enjoying them. Have I said how much I love Magknits? Thank you thank you thank you for coming out MONTHLY! LOVE that!

Well, Jeff had another NYC interview with another water chemical company to do regional sales. I meant to write something yesterday but the blog entry was so long (hard to imagine me rambling on, isn't it?) that I thought that would be cruel. Plus, I had a feeling that something just wasn't right anyway. SO, the boy gets all gussied up, flies off to the big city at 5am, comes home in the same day at about 11:30pm (long day) and is not so excited about this company either. Apparently the owner didn't answer all of Jeff's questions to HIS satisfaction. I'm like, "um, sweetie" (see how supportive I can be?) "in an inteview, the OWNERS of the company interview YOU, not the other way around." Not in Jeff-world. In Jeff-world, Jeff interviews the employers and decides if they suit his purposes before we even begin to be nice. hm...k...well... I knit the CRAP out of my sock rib let me tell you. After some discussion we realize that Jeff isn't really WANTING a job now. I understand that. Really I do. BUT though he has money put away to last him until the end of the summer, you can't wait until then and expect the perfect job to just *poof* appear in front of you at the perfect time, ready to pay you well and let you work out of the house on your own schedule....can't you just see my little size 2 wooden toothpicks SMOKIN here?

Basically we talked it out and I did NOT put down the needles. He realized he's looking for more jobs in a field he hates, so it's probably not a good idea to continue that. We're going to look at another area of the science field and he's excited about that. I've volunteered to do the backup work if he'll give me a list of companies he'd like to work for and then we can move on from there.

I swear I was so freaking stressed out last night, if I didn't have those needles in my hands I probably would have been a screaming tearful mess of a thing. Somehow having the concentration of those little sticks and yarn kept me sane and grounded. I was able to COMMUNICATE and I think we even made some progress, but time will tell. Thank God for knitting. Oh, and Mike's Hard Limeades. especially that. Amen.

WOW it's been a whole week, where has the time gone?

Jeez. Life got nutty there, I know, I know imagine that...

First of all, PICTURE TIME! Yes, I FOUND the camera AND then found the battery charger and THEN found the cord to plug the damn thing into the computer. No, none of those things were in the same boxes, that would have made SENSE!

We've had family reunions out the wazoo lately, one more big one to come in July at Mom & Dad's lakehouse and we're about done. These are a few pics from Jeff's mom's side of the family reunion. We had a blast! First, I was VERY proud of my beer bread and spinach dip (Tastefully Simple mixes from my cousin, TELL me if you want some of this amazing stuff!) OH MY GOD I totally impressed the family! Every bite was eaten! One bottle of beer poured into the mix, stir for 30 sec's and toss into the oven for HEAVEN!!! That's the latest foulard in progress next to my tray. I am not only a dork, but a multitasking dork!

Jeff and I never do get pictures of us together, so I tried for some that day. We had FOUR taken in a row. This was the best of the bunch, we went through one where I looked like the wicked witch, one where Jeff looked to be grunting in pain, one which was just plain u.g.l.y. and this is what was left.


Joey had fun running around with Jeff's cousins' kids. Remember these old third-degree-causing lead-paint peeling slides from our childhoods? MAN those were the days!


We've had family in town, my wild aunt Dot, otherwise known as the Knitress! My other knitting relative, woo hoo! She is a trip! We compared notes and admired and oohed and aahed appropriately and had a blast! I think I got her hooked on the clapotis and she had a tank top I could DIE for! We hosted a big ol' family dinner last night and had a BLAST! We'd not done an official "welcome to OUR home" thing since Jeff & I officially moved in until now. I got hit with a big ol' migraine the day before, so was moving very slow and still couldn't bend over or pick up anything heavy until late yesterday evening. Jeff was a doll, vacuumed the whole house, picked up and finished moving furniture, basically worked his ass off and put Joey to work as well. It was sweet. My cousin's husband and Jeff were even DOING THE DISHES afterwards while we sat and chatted with our aunts and Joey ran around catching lightning bugs with the kids. Good times! My cousin & her family, my brother, his wife & baby, 2 aunts and Jeff and Joey and I. It was a house full! It's so cool having this KC outgrowth of family! LOVE THAT!

On knitting news, I was just ready to start the handles on this felted purse I'm making out of cascade. I actually FROGGED AND REKNIT the top half of it to get it "just so" since I read the pattern wrong. I kept telling myself, MAN this is awfully floppy & loose gauge, MAN....... FINALLY figured it out...can you guess it? KNIT ENTIRE PURSE WITH TWO STRANDS OF YARN HELD TOGETHER. crap crap CRAP! I am the queen of felting and thought of many ways to avoid reknitting the whole damn thing...make another one slightly smaller, whip stitch them together...etc. but I spent $50 on some stinking shelled bead things to stitch to the damn thing and I really like the look of the bag the way it's supposed to be, so I'm just sticking it into the chest and gonna frog it again later. damn damn damn. Back to some cotton dishcloths to cool my mind.

Karma can bite you in the butt

SO, guess who's going through a nasty breakup, heartbreak, and probably divorce? My ex-hubby. I got a call from him yesterday pouring out his heart and just sobbing. I really felt bad for him. She's fallen in love with an old flame through internet and chat rooms and loves her hubby (my ex) but loves this other man too, needs to find herself, clear her head, etc. (for those of you that don't know my life history, I was just starting my 8th month of a high-risk pregnancy where I was in early labor and bedrest and COULD NOT GET STRESSED OUT OR I'D POP BACK INTO FULL LABOR when I was sat down and told it wasn't my fault I wasn't as interesting or pretty as my husband's girlfriend--from the internet--, it wasn't my fault I was fat & didn't have the long legs, long hair and pleasing personality....etc. etc. and that he loved me but.... bullshit) ANYWAY, the man was sobbing to me what she told him which was WORD FOR WORD the same crap he gave me way back when. He really is having his heart broken and it's sad. I liked this chic, she's good to my kids and pretty good to him. I think he finally grew up and was becoming a good husband and father and got his heart tramped on. My daughter's out there in the middle of all this crap, but seems to be doing ok. They're staying with his folks for now. I have my fingers crossed for him, but it doesn't sound good. The irony of the situation didn't occur to me until I got off the phone. I didn't point out the irony since I'm not totally evil. Karma. don't mess with it.

Got tired of knitting beautiful amazing creations, so I pulled out some old peaches & cream worsted weight cotton from the craft store stash of long ago and knitted a couple of the lion brand dishcloths. I am loving them, now I can USE my knitting on a daily basis. It feels good. It's a cute pattern, 2 rows of knit 2 rows of k1,p1 with a 2 stitch knit border all around. It turned out quite textural and should be good for scrubbing and hold up well. First I cranked out a crocheted granny square dishcloth from a pattern on the yarn ball. It made up in a couple of hours, but was quite flimsy and don't think it'll last long. Knitted Dishcloths. It's a good thing. Damn I miss my Martha. I'm gonna have to find out if her show's still on in the afternoons or not.

I'm back

Whew. Tired ass out. Couldn't get onto blogger for anything last Friday, so just gave up and headed out of town.

Family reunion out camping at Lake Webster in Western Kansas with my dad's side of the family (aka the Calmer side of the family) and Jeff went along with Joey and I. Sent my daughter out with her dad to New Mexico on Friday morning at 7:15am. We'll see her again in 5 weeks. It's a heck of a long time, but she usually has a good time and Joey always gets to do special things as well, so it shouldn't be too terrible. It still sucks, though.

What a great weekend! Four and a half hours of knitting time on the way out was wasted making more of my plastic canvas camper-looking coasters for the various uncles & aunts but we ended up not needing them done until Christmas now. Ah well, I would've just put them off until then and freaked out during my prime-Xmas-gift-knitting-and-not-sleeping-time anyway. So, I did get some knitting time in the afternoons and evenings and on the way home when I wasn't sleeping. I now have another half of a foulard done (still the coolest pattern I've ever seen, you get to cram this beautiful shawl into a cute little knitted bag, carry it around in your tote and then shake it out and voila, beautaceous shawl appears...kinda reminds me of those old plastic folded things my grandma used to make me put on my head whenever it rained and we went outside, remember those little folded up packages?)

Anyway, tips for camping.....ALWAYS ALWAYS look down before you sit on a camp toilet. Don't just look down, PICK UP THE LID and look down. Big ass hairy spiders like to sit just below the rim. Good to know. Tip #2...do this looking when your small child isn't close enough to SEE the big ass spider or the boy will NOT sit down the rest of the weekend. Good thing he was a boy and could stand to pee or we'd have had a serious situation on our hands. Let's just say we stopped about 3 times on the way home to unload his system and leave it at that. We ATE and ATE and ATE (man my aunts can COOK! and those uncles can deep fry and smoke turkeys like NOBODY's business!) and drank and played cards and sat around. GOOD TIMES! Jeff seemed to fit right in, so that was a plus too! We take over a whole area of the camp site, ranging from the amazing super-campers with fireplaces, air conditioning, cable tv, etc to the old time campers that are doing good to get there, to tent alley. We were in tent alley, but Jeff's tent was like a mansion. We had all kinds of room and a nice breeze blowing through and almsot NO bugs made it in.

Got to run, SHOOT! I just forgot this am was the Sunflower knitters guild meeting, dang. I'll try to make the evening one.

I am truly a knitting goddess!

OH MY GOD! I totally GOT intarsia. Ok, it's not the stranding a million colors across the back intarsia, but I made a little square with a funky shape in the middle of it and IT WORKED! It's so flippin' cool I just couldn't hardly stand myself. I also FOUND MY CAMERA in a BOX!!!!!! WOO HOO!!!!!! Battery's dead, so I'm charging and LOOK OUT photobucket, pics are a-coming! I went and watched the help video at KnittingHelp.com and that was all she wrote, baby! There's NOTHING we women can't do with pointy sticks and fiber!

Has the Studio totally gone insane? OH OH OH I'm gonna be spending some serious time at 47th Street this summer! FREE HOUR CLASSES to brush up on your skills including: ribbings, cables, increases, decreases, gauge, creative cast-ons, picking up stitches, simple seams, etc. I'm also doing a class to learn how to line a felted bag and sew a zipper. PLUS they have this cool "Flash your stash" deal on Sunday, June 25 where you can set up tables and SWITCH, TRADE, BUY and SELL your stash with everyone elses!!! Go to the studio's site and check it out. You won't be sorry. They also got in more malabrigo, you know you wanna....go for it, you have GOT to try to this yummy yarn!

Weekend was the lake! BOTH lake places, going back & forth between mom & dad's lake house and Jeff's dad's lake house at the Ozarks. TOO much fun, kids were in the water almost the entire day and evenings until I forced them out. I swear I almost didn't recognize my kids. Joey was doing running cannonballs off the dock and Beth was flopping around with the fishes and turtles (and snakes though they didn't know it at the time, ick!--there was a family of black water snakes hatching & swimming around the other side of the dock ICK ICK ICK!). My wimpy little not-touching-anything-icky-that-water-smells-like-dead-fish kids turned into lake rats! I love it. You know, life is just nicer at the lake. Everyone's got their beer bellies hanging out in the sun, a beer in one hand, floating along and waving at each other. Sea doos, boats, tubing, family, it doesn't get much better than that.

I'm going to teach myself intarsia

I think I may have lost my mind, but I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna do it without having a million ends to darn in as well. I have an idea of the ULTIMATE MUST-HAVE FASHIONISTA accessory felted bag in my mind and have bought the yarn, and even some expensive beads (what is this $1/inch crap? I gotta get myself to the CRAFT STORE next time) and I'm gonna do it. I think I'll check out the KnittingHelp.com site for my favorite online teacher video and just DO IT dammit.

I know I have stated I'd rather poke needles in my eyes than learn intarsia but there's just too much cute stuff I've got to make. wish me luck. No I didn't finish everything else I was supposed to, it's 90 degrees and humid as hell so I felt like buying 100% wool! You gotta problem with that? All right then. PLUSSSSSSSSSS it's Malabrigo. yummmmmmmmmy yarn no less!

Knitter's thumb is better now that I put the sz 2's away for a bit and am giving it a rest. Maybe I'll do a test patch and felt the crap out of it and call it a coaster. Yes, that's what I'm gonna do. wish me luck!

He didn't get the job. :(

Well,

We got the call that the big ol' company that Jeff flew out to interview with decided not to offer him the job. I felt so bad for him. Of course, he heard the news 30 min's before I came home bouncing with joy over the whole Hawaii thing, so he didn't tell me until later so I'd still be all happy. I told him there's a reason for everything. Look what a fluke it was that he and I even met. We had to have all these weird things fall into place and the planets aligned just so for it to happen and it's just what both of us needed. He's got another interview next week scheduled and we'll get serious about getting that ol' resume out there again, but it still sucks. One good part of not getting the job is he would've had to travel A LOT and that would've gotten old fast. Of course, when he was traveling I could have been QUEEN OF THE THERMOSTAT and crank the air conditioning (HAH) but that doesn't make up for not having my honey around. OK, it's only 80 degrees and not yet too humid when I write this....if it were 90+ and sticky, I may not be so lovable--I'm a cranky biotch when I get hot and sweaty, it's not pleasant.

I started on the cute envelope holder for my shawl for Jill, but ended up giving myself knitter's thumb. My right thumb wasn't able to grasp onto anything, I was like an anti-evolutionary ape, couldn't hold a cup of diet coke or anything in my right hand, so had to NOT KNIT for almost a whole day. I never realized how damn often I've got needles in my hand. I waited in the drive thru and had NOTHING TO DO WITH MY HANDS...I sat with Joey while he ate lunch and had NOTHING TO DO WITH MY HANDS...waiting in line in the car to pick up Beth after school....NOTHING, after my kids and my cousin's kids were sleeping while I was babysitting watching TV with NOTHING I couldn't stand it any longer, got out the yarn and little sz 2 needles and DID IT ANYWAY! I had to move my thumb in all these weird directions to keep from dropping the yarn, but was using circs, which made things easier to pick up when I did. Somehow this wrangling around of the thumb made things better and I'M BACK BABY!!! (you must scream that part as George from Seinfeld in your head to get the proper feeling here.)

I'm now able to hold my diet coke this morning (glory of glories) but still have to watch how I move it around as every so often I get this weird stab of pain. Probably not good, but it's working. How weird is that that I was feeling all discombobulated and antsy without my knitting. What an addict! I couldn't even think straight without my hands doing their thing. Ah well, just think about this.....KNITTING on the beach in HAWAII! woo hoo! Ok, so I'm as obnoxious as a 3 yr old child on the same topic, but WOO HOO anyway! How good would one of those cool foulards be on my trip for me to tote around and whip out in the air conditioned chill of the hotel from the heat of the beach? Yup, I'm making a big size for me as soon as I'm done with Jill's. Maybe Beth needs a small one as well? Yes, I think she does. Poor Joey, boys get screwed on the whole knitting thing. I'm going to whip him up some of the hacky-sacks from the Mason-Dixon book so he gets something too. He's learning to juggle, and could probably use those for that.

I know Aloha means hello and goodbye, but how do you say HOLY COW in Hawaiian?

GUESS WHAT Joey got in a box delivered from UPS this afternoon???? go ahead, GUESS! WELL.......it was a big box from the Children's Wish Foundation International. I cut the tape, Joey opened the flaps of the box and a big ol' silvery balloon floated up in the air! It was attached to a beanie baby bear called Lanai and had a Hawaiian poem in it along with a letter saying Joey's wish was approved!!! How cool is that? Forget a boring old letter, NO they send a BALOON! very cool! We get to give them info about Joey and ideas of fun things to do, but they're taking care of EVERYTHING for us! They try to give kids with rough diseases a time to treasure that they can remember forever. (my son has Cystic Fibrosis--a genetic lung & digestive disease and he was referred by Children's Mercy) I am so excited I can't see straight. The kids are having a BLAST just thinking up things to do.

So far on our list of hopefuls is a helicopter ride over a volcano, playing on the beach, surfing lessons, metal detector treasure hunting on the beach, swimming with the dolphins (in an aquarium, not out in the wild in the middle of the ocean--too intense for my kids), riding the sugar cane train, the Drums of the Pacific Luau with fire dancers (Joey's in total awe of those fire eating and dancing guys, maybe he can meet one of them) and I'm checking out which resorts are the most family-friendly.

Went to the library to check out a few books on the islands and think that Maui looks the best for us, but don't really know yet. I also grabbed a few knitting books. The library at 95th and I-35 (Oak Park branch) has a HUGE selection of new knitting books, I was very impressed! Finished the medium foulard (from Morehouse Farm Merino Knits book) out of koigu...mmmmmmm...koigu.... for Jill, but haven't sewn in ends yet. HOW do you weave in ends when your knitting is all lacey and holey? I'm gonna work on that tomorrow. I've already cast on for the cute envelope case and am going to town. Pictures as soon as I find the camera! I'm SO making one of those puppies for myself too! Went to the Studio and met Miss Amanda (HI!) and got her hooked on my favoritious yarn ever, the MALABRIGO! She's going on the wild ride of felting....can't wait to see her get hooked! I tried to be good, but then had too much time to kill as Joey was playing with the owner's boy and I had all that TIME to look around. Picked up some unbelievably COOL shell/bead things and some cascade to make a cute purse. Like I need another felted bag! Ah well.

Then I realized, BEACH....SWIMSUIT...BUTT WHITE READHEAD (chubby tan people blend in. Chubby WHITE pale people stand out like there's a spotlight on us, we can't hide) so it's back to Jazzercise I go! Reese, when are you teaching??? I have had a nice start (remember the horrible tummy trouble of a few weeks ago?) I am still about 10 lbs lighter than I was and am fitting into clothes from over 2 years ago. Now I'm getting SERIOUS!

Actual knitting content

Well, since I still haven't figured out which box of crap my camera is in, I'm stuck scanning portions of my knitting. I've got about 2 inches past the join on the somewhat cowl, am LOVING this sweater. I'm going to put it onto waste yarn and try it on and hope it fits. It looks good enough when I hold it up to myself. Time will tell.

Here's a scan of the COOLEST fun shawl I'm making for my best friend Jill. I'm using KOIGU and loving the heck out of it. I'm using the pattern for the foulard with case pattern from the Morehouse Farm Merino Knits (my new VERY favorite book)and OH MY GOD it's the coolest thing. I'm making one for me too!


Ok, now for the color. Story provided by my dear friend Russell. Russell went home to his little town in Arkansas last weekend and was talking with his little nephew who goes to preschool. I think the kid's about 4. He got in trouble at school by saying "I'm gonna snap a knot in your butt" to this little boy that was bugging him. (said with a BIG ASS ARKANSAS twang) this is what his grandpa said whenever the boy needed a pop on the butt. He, understandably, got in trouble for saying "butt." So what did he say the next time the kid was bugging him? "I'm gonna kick your ass!" OMG I laughed and laughed. He said "teacher said I couldn't say butt so I didn't." HAH!

PS-->a few more finger crossings please, Jeff's out in NJ interviewing with the big boys for this company that may hire him. He'll get to still live in KC (whew) but will travel about 30-50% of the time. Just think of the frequent flyer miles....Hawaii anyone?

what a weekend!

WOW, let's see, where to start...

Friday, Joey learned to ride his bike without training wheels. I'd given up entirely as every time I try to get him going along with me hunched over holding on the back and panting he is all crying and scared to death. I've never let either of my children fall, but they are sure they're going to DIE a horrible death if I let go of the back of their damn bikes. I take Elizabeth out to pick up some KFC for dinner, come home and see this kid riding down the middle of the street and realize it's MY KID going to town. Jeff's walking along beside him, I swear you'd never know the kid just learned. He's on that bike every moment he gets now. YEAH! Beth suffered one of those "got to get out of something" headache/tummy ache things that night, so I told her she'd get on her bike Sat. one way or another. Repeat of the sobbing "poor me" child and then she just got going and said "Mom, this is no big deal." cripes. Now they're both riding all over the playground near Jeff's house, but sidewalks and turning left are still not in their bike repetoire. Soon.

Sat & Sun Jeff built the frame for a screened-in porch part of the back porch. It's amazing and I am going to LOVE it! We have a very pretty yard and I just love the idea of sitting out there with NO BUGS eating me! We basically rode the bikes forever, then went to my cousin's daughter's 2 yr bday party. We celebrated 3 birthdays there that day as other family came in. My favorite part of the party was when the little girl's grandma picked her up to see her cake. She leaned in close like she wanted to see it and then stuck out her tongue and LICKED the cake with a sly smile. LOVE that child! HAH! Kids all had a BLAST blowing bubbles and running around in the backyard while I sat in the sun and chatted and knitted.

Mothers Day dawned without be being awakened to see it! WOO HOO! My kids let me sleep in till 8:30 and it about killed them. They brought in handmade cards and some cool clay stuff made at school. Lots of snuggles to start the day.

We had another cousin's baby's baptism at 1pm. Church was at noon, but I was lazy, so we snuck in at 1 in time for the ceremony. We see a fire truck and ambulance with lights flashing right in front of the church. The kids asked what was going on and I said, "oh some old guy probably got sick and needed help". It was MY uncle. Had a heart attack during the service. He was actually having one at the beginning of the sermon but didn't want to get up until the sermon was over. He got the LONG WINDED priest, so it took forever. My uncle was very lucky that there was a doctor sitting right in front of him and a bunch of dr's and nurses there to help out, got him some nitris and aspirin and to the hospital. He's doing much better and they're going to run some tests to check things out. I think it was a miracle as he's a farmer from western Kansas and has been out planting corn in the fields all by himself far from his house for the last couple of weeks. Unreal.

Went to the library later that day with the kids and I found some GREAT knitting books and the kids got books. We probably spent an hour in there, having a good ol' time. Go to the counter to check out, I don't have my damn wallet. NO id. No problem, but the kids were so excited to take their books home then, I pulled out my sweater in progress, makeup bag and that's all I had. She said do you have ANYTHING with your name on it? I opened up the pocket and there's the good ol' BIRTH CONTROL. With my name on it. She laughed and said, that ought to prove you're you. Checking out books with birth control. Only in America.

Gotta Love those Mason-Dixon women!

Guess what??? My daughter Beth & I made the Mason-Dixon blog on their recount of the visit of the knitting chics to KC! (gotta scroll down a ways)OH I'm so glad they got taken to Jack Stack BBQ. mmmmmm. I must be feeling better as I'm hoongry now. towering onYON rings...mmmmmm. burnt ends. mmmmm. Still keeping the skinny by trying not to eat more than I have to, but damn it's hard. Beth was SO SO SO excited to see herself on their blog!

PLUS they've now got an official Mason-Dixon Knitalong going! Well, sign my ass up. I've not been this addicted to a group of patterns since a few issues back on Knitty. Heck, I'm even all excited about making DISHCLOTHS for the love of all that is yarny.

OK, I just couldn't stand it, I've got to put their pic up here too for my own record. I am LOVING this knitting with mom & daughter thing. Thanks again Kay & Ann!

Thanks for the finger crossings!

Well, we're one step closer to Jeff landing what we hope is a great job with the big-ass chemical company!! woo HOO baby! He had a great interview here yesterday and was just called and told to book a flight to New Jersey for the next step of interviewing! He's going next week, so MORE finger crossing then please! I may even cross a few stitches just for good measure.

Only a moment to type, so here's a few tidbits...

Survived a tour of KC with 48 3rd graders in the FREEZING ASS COLD today (is it really May or did we get hit with a freak November day?) in a BUS from 8:15am to 2:00pm with only about 5 quick little breaks outside. GOD BLESS our little overanxious and overachieving parents of our public school that really want to pretend we're a private ritzy school. The pta sprung for a VERY ritzy tour bus. We passed green and greener and barfing children bailing off their normal yellow school busses all day and just smiled. Gotta love southern johnson county, HOyeah. I'm thinking the cold was actually a GOOD thing as the kids were too damn frozen to go flying off like crazy children. I enjoyed the trip, learned a few things and am tired out. Beth walked along holding my had for part of the trip, I got teary eyed thinking this is probably about it on that now that she's almost a 4th grader.

Stomach is finally handling normal food. Guess there's a particularly violent thing going through the school and some are seeing a mutant rotovirus thing, so my one and a half day of hell wasn't so bad from what else I'm hearing about. ick ick ick. I did lose a mighty 12 lbs in 2 days from total dehydration and let's just call it "toxifying the system". Of course, I put on about 4 lbs immediately, but am loving the way my jeans look, so am trying to delay the return of the other weight by eating much less chocolate and processed foods. How long will this last? I'm not holding my breath.

GOT a TON of knitting done on the bus today, LOVING my sweater-to-be, still hitting gauge, am actually impressing the heck out of myself. STILL can't find the damn camera, narrowing it down to about 4 or 8 boxes. maybe this weekend.

Getting ready for the mother of all garage sales at my folk's house next weekend. Can't WAIT! Gotta unload some serious crap.

I'm alive

I'm eating bananas and drinking gatorade. I can't find my damn camera during this move, so I'm going to have to scan part of my somewhat cowl to show progress. I'm really enjoying this knitting project, can't wait to see what it turns out like!

Jeff's just left for his big interview, it was rescheduled from last week to today. CROSS YOUR FINGERS for him please! I know she's interviewing all over as she flew into KC from Little Rock from another interview. He looked SO FINE in his new suit and power tie. mmmmmm boy.

The man took very good care of me while I was sick, I think that's a WONDERFUL sign of times to come.

Tomorrow I'm going on the tour of KC field trip with the third grade. I sure didn't do this one right, as it's ALL DAMN DAY on a bus with 55 9 year olds. WOOOOOOOO hoo that should be fun. :) Ah well, life's short, party all night.

My daughter's limerick was published in her little class thingy. I got a kick out of it.

There once was a cat named Bread
Who wouldn't go to bed.
Along came a sheep
who said "go to sleep"
but he went to a party instead.

That's my girl!

payback's a bitch

You know what bad karma is? I truly do. It's when you call in sick on a Friday afternoon when you're mildly under the weather but really should be working. What happens to you on Monday morning when you really NEED to get your work done? Lordy Lordy I got stuff coming out of me in quantities you would not believe. Let's avoid the whole tmi thing here and just say BOTH ends of me. nice.

How do you know when you are a psycho-knitter? Is it when you have your tv project, your thinking project, your car project (waiting in the car), your DRIVING in the car project? No, no, no. That's not psycho-knitting. Psycho-knitting is when you're spending so much damn time sitting on a toilet that you think, hmmmmm, this could be some prime knitting time. At least I have the decency to not knit a gift in there, just something for me. I truly hope that I won't think of my somewhat-cowl as the stinking sweater or, even worse, the shixxing sweater. nice, huh? I can't be held responsible for when I'm suffering major dehydration.

I got my damn flu shot. Is this the bird flu striking Kansas City? cripes almighty. I'm thinking it could be a nice little case of food poisoning. I don't really feel bad, no chills and no fever, just barf-o-rama with the bonus stuff. We're so far past any slight food substance, now it's like a freak show. I've tried meds to stop this stuff, but they came up too. Another bonus beyond uninterrupted knitting time (seriously, no matter how much my kids want to bug me, they're NOT coming in there when mom's moaning and groaning) is my boyfriend is being the total sweetheart and spoiling the crap out of me. no pun intented. He realized how sick I really am when my daughter brought her piece of chocolate cake over to see if I wanted a bite and I started shuddering. He said, "You don't even want CHOCOLATE???" and got very concerned in a hurry. Yes, when my body rejects its main dietary substance, it's scary.

Think good tummy thoughts please people. Mine has had a workout from hell. I should at least get some six-pack abs out of this, right? Seriously, I've gotten more progress on my sweater in one day than I have in three weeks.

How much fun is this?

I'm having entirely too knitterly much fun lately. I go from knitting all by my lonesome for a long Loooooooonnnnnggggg time, too busy to get out to see the knit chicks, too busy too busy too busy. Screw that. I'm having too much fun now to go back. First a weekend of Nicky Epstein and local knitters, then I get out on a Thursday night and not only KNIT with other KNITTERS but they feed me too! WOO HOO! Happy bday to Teri! And oh my GAAAAAWWWWWWDDDDDD such chicken tetrazini (see, I probably can't even spell it, let alone cook it) and now my very favorite ice cream cake EVER or was it a frozen custard cake? I don't know, I don't care, I'm just getting more of it! AND then when I dropped Joey off at tae kwon do (for the love of all that is holy, never EVER call tae kwon do "karate" to the tae kwon do guys. They get really pissy) Beth and I zipped over to the yarn store to see some of my favorite bloggers, Ann & Kay from Mason-Dixon Knitting and got our book signed and sat and got to knit with Colleen too! I love putting faces to bloggers, it's awesome. Colleen, the sweater you were wearing was amazing, you rock!

Back to the knitters who fed me, OH people we need to get out in KC on Thursday nights as these are some GOOD knitting women to hang with. OH and I told my mom she wasn't the only total QVC freak that I thought she was because I was sitting with women who knew the personalities and also got signed bday cards and phone calls from the girls at QVC too! LORDY it actually made me go home and turn the damn thing on. I caught myself saying, "I do need that. I absolutely do. My life would be so much simpler and more complete with that." Don't have a clue what "that" was anymore, but I'm sure it was cool. My mom cracked me up today as she saw the UPS truck pull up outside, but didn't hear the knock, because *gasp* he wasn't there for HER *dammit*. She was all pissy, cracked me up. I'm bad enough just going to the mall, bringing the mall to me is a very bad idea.

Anyway, go buy the Mason-Dixon Knitting Book. Seriously. Go.buy.it. There are some linen washcloths, cotton dishrags and OH OH OH those blankets. I, who have cursed more than a drunken sailor on my few attempts at knitted afghans, MAY have to reconsider and make some of these things. AND good lord above, I'm going to make the knitted nightie in there. Yes, Yes I am. I don't know what the heck it will look like on me, but holding that thing in my hands (they brought nice samples) I knew I must knit it. Unbelievable. Go, spend money and prosper.

show N tell

OK, so here's the picture overload... I did make myself take off the pics of the books I bought too, so count yourselves lucky. You only got half the pics available...

First, here's the lace bottom of my soleil tank. click to see larger view. Notice the lace isn't quite right. I had knit & frogged so many freaking times that by the time I got it figured out, I just didn't care any longer. Where are the beautiful FEW straight lace edges? In front where everyone can see? NO, on my side under my right armpit. Nice.

Here's some of the flowers I made in Nicky Epstein's classes. The dark one is actually my fave, but hard to see in the scan I took. I wear it on my denim jacket and it really pops. It's made from two different knit edgings twisted up together and layered and tossed in with the felted stuff. LOVE it! Then there's the cabbage rose with leaf and the VERY VERY cool green one, cut from a felted $2 thrift store sweater. HOW cool is that?


Here's some of what I spent my cash on...Six skeins of the gorgeoso blue koigu destined to be a shawl for my friend....I've got to find a pattern that will only use 5 so I can sneak one for myself. toooooooo soft and tooooooo beautiful! Then I got 2 skeins of the mimosa hand dyed lace yarn from a sweet girl from our guild, and I can't dig out her info yet from the bags and bags and BAGS of crap I came home with. When I find it, I'll post it as I really liked her colors!


Somehow I reached home with MORE books...somehow. Needled to Death mystery by Maggie Sefton, 2 Nicky Epstein books--Fabulous Felted Bags and Knitted Flowers, The Morehouse Farm Merino Knits book (beautiful), and Shahman's Shawls & Scarves (LACE can you believe it?)

I'm like a junkie, man, I can't get enough!

OK, enough knitting content, this is totally screwing my rambling everything-but-knitting style. Got to go work to earn enough to keep satisfying my yarn cravings!

my weekend of knitting

OH I had such fun! I'm totally hooked on the knitting classes thing. I need more of these weekends as they're inspiring and FUN! I have no pics now. Most of the stuff I have is at Jeff's and the camera and scanner is at my house. We're getting closer and closer to having most of my crap over there, can't wait for official MI-Day!

Nicky Epstein is a hoot. I swear, she's got so much bouncing around in her head, it's a wonder she gets anything done at all. She just cranks stuff out and BAM there's another cool design. I had a blast. I took edgings & embellishments and also her class on knitted flowers. I spent WAY WAY WAY too much money at the market and had fun doing that too! OH the books I have, OH the yarn I have, OH the projects that are waiting for me!!!! I also got 6 skeins of the most luscious deep blues of koigu to make a shawl for my friend Jill! Haven't decided what pattern to use yet, but it's going to be REALLY hard to give away! I also love making new knitting friends! I'm going to have to get my butt over to the guild meetings more often and am planning on starting to do the Thurs night knitting at the Yarn Shop & More in downtown OP starting in a week or so. There's just nothing like sitting around with other women and knitting and talking and sharing and petting each other's yarns!!!

Mom & Dad survived the weekend with my children at the Lake and they all had a blast. Jeff also had no children, so we were just us two. It was wonderful. Friday night we painted the living room and munched on overpriced chinese food. OK, I painted two wall's worth of the bottom edging next to the trim and then was delegated to do the cracks where the walls fit together and he did the rest of the work. I've not got a steady hand, it wasn't pretty. SO, if you come to our home sometime, move the couch away from the far wall to admire my work. We used this lovely dark shade of brownish green, hard to describe, but I LOVE IT! What did Jeff do while I was out from 9am -5pm knitting my heart out on Saturday? Put a second coat on the living room, painted the dining room (2 coats) and then moved all the furniture back and hung pictures up AND built me a little cubby-hole thing to keep my shoes in our closet AND vacuumed the entire house. DAYYYYAAAAMMMMM I was so impressed!

Sat night we decided, hey, we've got no children, we need to go out and play. ***I totally forgot to go get some of my little chasers anti-hangover pills*** We went bowling with my favorite friend of Jeff's and his wife and had a BLAST and too many margaritas. GOD BLESS my old friend from the bowling alley as we should have paid over $100 and ended up paying $22. AWESOME! THEN we had too much fun to go home, so off to Scoreboards for karaoke and entirely too much beer. Long story short, I need to remember that now that I'm over 35, I need to pick ONE thing and stick with it if I go out drinking. Beer all night, fine. Wine all night, fine. Beer, margaritas, more beer, shots, more beer, NOT fine. Jeff was right with me. I always know when he's lit as he starts dancing. WOOOO baby we tore things UP that night (don't worry, I wasn't so bad that I sang or anything--I don't get THAT drunk any more!) I did get a bit mouthy, I know, I know, hard to imagine! OH LORDY LORDY my hands were shaking like an old lady's the next morning. Good thing my am class was on learning about fibers and all that was expected of me was to nod my head gently and knit a few swatches. By lunchtime I was better, and by night-fall I was ready for bed at 9pm and tired ass out.

SURVIVING HANGOVERS 101.....
FIRST of all, take those damn chasers pills with your first drink and again at some point in the night. If you forget like I dID, take 2 alleve pills before bed with a big glass of water. The next am, take 2 more alleves and another big glass of water. Move slowly. Drink something with caffeine, I've heard green tea works well, I do diet coke. When you can tolerate food, around lunchtime, eat mashed potatoes. Get some form of protein in you, I find fried chicken from KFC to do the trick for me. Avoid greasy burgers by all means. Later that evening, take a few sips of a beer or something mildly alcoholic and throw the rest out. Drink enough water during the day to drown a cow and you'll be feeling better in no time.

Through the weekend, I realized that there are a LOT of advanced and intermediate knitters who don't get felting. They want to, but don't quite know how. I was asked top share my tips, so I'll work up a FELTING 101 tomorrow or Wed, depending on how much work gets in the way of my fun.

Knitting in the Heartland

Well, I'm going to a bona fide WEEKEND of knitting! woo hoo! I'm so excited! Nicky Epstein (knitting on the edge, knitting over the edge and knitted flowers & embellishments or some such thing plus other amazing books) is going to be teaching and I'm taking her classes! How much fun is that? PLUS a little vendor's market. ca-ching, ca-ching, can anyone else hear my money being spent? OOOOOOOOh can't wait! I get to bring scrap yarn for the knitted flowers class to share. OH I have some good stuff to bring to share & play with! Yes, I am a dork. No, I don't much care. The weekend is put on by the Sunflower Knitters Guild. It's being held at the Radisson at I-35 and 95th in Overland Park, KS (suburb of KC). Vendor's market is from noon to five and they're going out to eat with Nicky Epstein on Sat. night. You can come out to eat even if you don't go to class, think about it! Email me or leave a comment if you want to come and we'll get your name added to the list. Know what's the BEST PART of the weekend???? My folks are taking the children to the lake! WOO BABY! No kids AND yarn in one weekend? I'm even thinking of getting a room at the hotel so I can sit around and knit all night long. Whataya think?

I have about 4 inches so far of my somewhat cowl. I'm using some knitpicks baby alpaca yarn in a heathery purple and OH LORDY LORDY it's heaven to knit with. HOW did I survive knitting with cotton so long? My fingers, they are singing with pleasure at the lovely soft strands being knit right along. I have now decided. I am not a cotton knitter. I keep trying as I love some of the patterns, and the IDEA of a knitted cotton tank top is delightful. In theory, it's a big gigantoid pain in the ass to knit. Sticking with the lovely animal fibers for a while now. Please ignore the large pile of orange cotton yarn in the cedar chest that thinks it's supposed to be knit up next. Maybe I can find some nice orange alpaca or merino. Orange merino. That says summer in kc doesn't it?

Jeff's got his 2nd interview scheduled (yeeeeeehaw!!) for Tuesday and went out to buy a new suit to get all dolled up. He's been really active and has about 3 other interviews scheduled, but all for less glamour and less moulah than the big one. I'm hoping he finds something he can really enjoy. He's also been on a home improvement kick, replacing the old kitchen sink faucet with this super cool thing, putting in closet organizers, painting, you name it, he's doing it. MAN there's nothing sexier than a man that can DO STUFF! LOVE that!

Story Time

First of all, I finished the soleil. I have it wet and sorta-blocking. I've basically got it all flapped out on a table, but don't have pins sticking in it yet. Actually, I have never blocked anything. *shhhhhhhh* guilty secret. My clapotis with its rolling points, all kinds of stuff. The sweater actually FITS and I like it! Who'd a thunk it? TWO sweaters that FIT? woooo baby!

And now for story time! Some of you that know me know that strange things happen around me. I've this weird mojo thing. It keeps life interesting. Jeff used to laugh at me, but beware to those who scoff the mojo! It rubs off on those around me also sometimes....

Jeff took his boys and a dog-crate full o' pullets (I think that's what you call chickens that are older than chicks but not yet chickens) as a birthday present for one of his best friends down to his farm in SE Kansas for the weekend. They lived in a tent, did 4-wheeling, built fires, lived on canned hash and beer and pepsi and basically were regular manly men doing manly things. At one point, they had to give a horse two big ol' horse-shots of tetanus and horse antibiotics and sedatives. The two men tied up the horse, Jeff held the hind quarters and his friend stuck it with the first needle. The horse bucked, and the needle ended up in Jeff's arm. He called me later that night and sounded pretty loopy. I was freaking out, he said he was ok, his arm muscles were just very sore. I asked which medicine did he get? He didn't really know and wasn't concerned. Freaking men. Once he returned home and doesn't seem to have any big side effects and was still alive, I laughed my ass off at him.

Started swatching some of the knitpicks yarn to make the somewhat cowl. I also ripped out a few starts on projects I was just knitting because. Just because. Probably because everyone else was making them. I sat down and thought, will I actually WEAR this? Do I actually LIKE this? If it was no, frog pile.

Jeff had a 2 hour phone interview on Friday, which sounds pretty promising, we're supposed to hear from the head hunter next week and the chic that would be his boss will come to town to meet him and have the 2nd interview.

Hula Hoop champion OF THE WORLD!!!!!!!

Guess who's the third grade hula-hoop champion of our school? My Elizabeth! She was so proud. How fun is that? They had a competition with each grade and cut to the final 5 for each class. Elizabeth ended up going for AN HOUR. My tummy hurts just thinking of it! Towards the end of the competition, they had to do a bunch of activities while still hooping. She had to jump up and down, stand on one foot, get down onto knees and up again, do the macarena, and a bunch of other fun stuff. Talk about a creative gym teacher getting kids excited about exercise, she's the best! Beth is all excited as her name gets announced "DURING THE ANNOUNCEMENTS, MOM!" and she gets a prize of some sort also.

Jeff (my man) has a phone interview today with a big chemical company to do sales. He'd have to travel 30-50% of the time, but it'd be good money, so I'm crossing my fingers and toes and even a few stitches just to make sure. Have good "HIRE JEFF" thoughts, everyone!

Haven't done much knitting on my purple sweater as too much WORK here. Bossman's on vacation, so I get to hold down the fort. HOLY CRAP I forgot people actually WORK around here sometimes.

Had fun paying almost 40 freaking dollars for the cheap gas last night. Nothing like a $.12 jump in gas in 3 days. nice.

FINALLY!!!! a picture!!!

Can you believe it? An actual photo of a knitted object? I got some SERIOUS knitting done last night and ended up putting it down after the first 2 rows of the v part of the neckline started! woo hoo!

I'm in a beter mood today.

OH guess who's freaking BACK? In his old spot of the ceiling and wall? Yesterday in the midst of a major freak-out-boy-irritating-me-moment, I look up and see a shadow. I say "are you FREAKING KIDDING ME????" The spider Gus is back. Jeff said, "hello Gus!" can you believe it? cripews almighty!

Grrrrrr

Any and all persons over 3 feet tall with a pen1s (spelled funky so the other damn pervs with theirs won't hit my blog and start leaving weird comments) are pissing me off royally today. I'm taking my kids out to dinner at Denny's tonight and God help me if I get a waiter with an attitude. I may just stuff some pancakes up his right nostril, no, I think I'll put waffles up there as they're square and harder than pancakes.

No real reason, just ALL of them are irritating the living hell out of me. I normally am not a man-hater, and I still love the men, just from a DAMN SURE DISTANCE for the rest of the day. I think Jeff got the idea as he offered to take the kids outdoors to play in the front yard. smart boy. He may live to see tomorrow. maybe.

Still knitting away on Soleil, have no pictures as I finally got ready and the damn battery needs charging. grrrrr. that's the way the day's gone. BUT I have suddenly made progress. I'm almost to the end of the 7 sets of 1 increase row followed by 6 knit rows. Should be able to see the underarm shaping soon. woo hoo! I may wear this thing yet! Only problem is I cast on too tightly and the edges are rolling majorly. I'm hoping and praying that I can block it good and stretch the FUXX out of the edges. If not, I'm sure I'll be calm and good natured about the whole thing and not take a power tool to it.

I did have good parts of the day, my cousin's little kids came to play with Joey and me at lunch-time and the little boy told me "I missed you so very much" when he came in with a hug! AWWWWWWW love that! My kids have been pretty good and (I probably shouldn't type this as I don't want to curse myself here) GETTING ALONG really well. scary, no?

happy bunny day!

OK, so the cute as heck picture of the world's cutest bunny bread can't be posted due to a "short maintenance" by Photobucket. Take my word for it, it's damn cute. The Great Harvest Bread Co. has this wheat bread masterpiece baked in the shape of a bunny complete with long ears and round tail and raisins for eyes & nose. SO freaking cute! I think they're around $10/piece. I'm bringing one to Jeff's family Easter celebration and one to my aunt and her older single lady friends who I'm meeting for breakfast at 8am (what was I thinking saying ok to that EIGHT o'CLOCK in the morning on the ONE day I'll not have children or a boyfriend to wake my ass up?--kids going with Dad this weekend for Easter and Jeff's due back in town Sat. afternoon). ANYWAY they're cute. I'm going to bring it on a platter on top of easter grass with jelly beans scattered throughout. It should be sweet until we decide to carve into the thing with a big ol' knife. Mebbe that wouldn't be best in front of the children....hmmmmmm

Here's a link to see a pic, but it's not as cute as mine! Honey Bunny Bread

ANYWAY, I'm off to work some more, plant some flowers I bought at the Home Depot, and do some SHOPPING with Russell & his beau at the Oak Park Mall! They now have SEPHORA! and I think Dillard's is having their monster 75% off sale. Maybe I can find something to WEAR for Easter. I've not dressed up for a LONG time as we Catholics take it pretty easy with jeans, slacks, etc. I'm heading out with the Methodists and Presbyterians, so must wear something Eastery. At some point in the night, I'm sitting my butt down in front of the tv and knitting without interruption too. I promise to take pics of the never-ending soleil in process!

Happy Easter!!!

mystery solved

No, not the spider thing, he's still MIA and I have 2 new bug bites that I'm not sure of the source. We'll see. I survived my first night at Jeff's house without Jeff since he was out of town. Just me & the kids. Have I ever told you guys I'm a total wimp? Jeez I get creeped out easily. Ah well, woke up this am and both kids were still breathing and no hatchet-bearing creatures had broken in, so we're all good. (always remember, to kill a zombie you have to kill its head and don't let them bite you. good to know.)

SO, Jeff and I redesigned and moved crap all over his poor house. We have each of our 2 kids sharing bedrooms and the office is in the top floor of the split level, in a lovely big 4th bedroom. As we were moving stuff up here, we wondered, why oh why don't the kids ever come up here to play? It was a big room, full of toys and just waiting to play until we came along bearing desks and computers and boxes and boxes and boxes of crap. We moved the playroom to the bottom level den/living room thing. Well, MYSTERY SOLVED! The children must have realized that when the temperature outdoors goes up to 78 degrees, the top bedroom retains a general temperature of 428 degrees. I am sitting here with the lights out, the window shades down with windows open and 2 fans blowing directly on me. I have just finished moving my 2 big-ass desks into position and think I'm going to melt. The room isn't even in direct sunlight, but is on the south side of the house. OH FREAKING HELL, I think this is a new level of Dante's Inferno. Going downstairs, it reads a pleasant 75 degrees and I am now living with "nature man" who doesn't "believe" in turning on the air conditioning until mid-July. We'll see. The boy wants some loving, his honey wants the cold air! Don't they make little personal air conditioners at the Sharper Image or something? I may have to go shopping...

Still doing the soleil, some darkish purple color of Classic Elite Yarns "Provence", 100% mercerized egyptian cotton. What does mercerized mean anyway? Anyone know? I only bought 3 skeins from the Yarn Shop & More and am half-way through the 2nd skein and have a LOT of knitting still to go, I may have to run by and grab another one just to make sure. I was thinking of wearing it to Easter (if it fits) but since I've only got enough to cover the belly done and have to get going on the ponchos, probably won't happen. I'm still making gauge, though, so that's something.

random things in my head today

I'm not feeling very writerly today, so here's what's been buzzing about in this head of mine:

**Went to the boob dr for my follow-up appt. I have a few new cysts, but they all seem to be liquid and not masses, so all is well. My dr is such a dry guy and 99% of all humor goes right on by him, but Lordy he is SWEET and GOOD. If, God forbid, something ever goes wrong with these little boobs of mine, he's the one I want in charge. ANYWAY. He was listing the different locations, 4 o'clock, 12 o'clock....on and on, and then he ended with saying "so it makes four on the left and three on the right." and I swear it sounded like he was chanting it. My mind instantly went to "four on the left...three on the right...stand up, sit down, fight fight fight!" and since I am physically unable to just THINK something without it instantly popping out of my mouth, I completed his little chant out loud. Yes, he already thinks I'm retarded as when he had to remove a lump two years ago, they put you on these drugs that make you feel like it's about 4 margaritas into a long night but you're still conscious and it has some kind of amnesia properties to boot. The assisting nurses said they were cracking up at my attempts to convince him to either pump up the existing cysts while he was in there or to go on and pop in a few silicone beauties with humor that went right on by the poor dr. He always just shakes his head and smiles in an odd way when I say something stupid. SO, yeah for me and my healthy yet full o'cyst boobs! woo hoo!

**that chant got me remembering high school football games of long ago. I was a band geek (flute and tuba baby) and we played for a yuppie school with no talent and would get CREAMED by all the tougher schools. Our big "oh yeah" cheer for each time they scored against us was..."that's all right...that's ok...you're gonna work for US someday."

**spider Gus is still MIA. still majorly creeped out and jumping every time something brushes up against me. damn, just got chills again just thinking of him.

**STILL knitting on soleil and I SWEAR it's not getting any longer. I know. I've measured. I got all crazy last night as I was organizing part of the stash for the big move. Each UFO I pulled out I felt I'd better work a few rows/rounds on. Said hello to the French Market bag, panta (yes I totally should have been done with that by now but it's sitting in a bag patiently), traveling ribs scarf, an off-white shrug and even did a few rounds on my daughter's purple purse (I know that's so wrong, but I just couldn't help myself so SHHHHHHHH!) and a few other odds and ends.

**Do they make a pill that makes you keep your big fat mouth shut for at least a 5 second buffer??? You know, like when you have the i-control thing with Time Warner cable. It plays everything a short delay after the normal tv's so you can record it, or freeze it, or even better, REWIND it. That's what I need. Let's just say my big ol' mouth was working overtime today. At least 5 times I did the Homer Simpson "DOH!" and seriously needed a magic remote. Ah well, I guess I do make life more interesting this way.

**I think someone snuck some crack in my diet coke. I was chatting with Beth's girl scout leader and said "sure, I've got those 2 poncho's done that I said I'd make. sure! When were they needed again?" idiot. stupid freaking idiot. NEXT Friday night. sweet. Got um, NOTHING done on them yet. Good thing they're for young girls, as I should be able to crank out something.

Gus is missing....

and not missing in a good way as in "oh, wow, where-ever could he have gone..." while thinking "heh heh heh" in my mind as I secretly concealed the fact that I squished him, NO!!! Missing as in he was just sitting up there on the ceiling/wall crack and had been there for 4 days now so I thought I'd wait until Mr. Jeff left the house for a trip for a few days (TODAY). I go up to the office, glance over to see if he's still there and HE'S FREAKING GONE GONE GONE as in SOMEWHERE IN THIS DAMN OFFICE WITH ME and I don't know WHERE. damn damn damn damn DAMN I really HATE spiders. The thing so much as shows a shadow in here and he's toast.

OK major chills here, as I was typing, my hair flipped against the back of my neck and I freaked out. Swatting at myself and fell off my chair as the rollers don't quite stay on the little rollypad thingy. Sitting on my ass on the ground I realized I need to relax. I am bigger than the creepy crawly thing and it would be stupid to land on me, so relax max. I've still got goosebumps ick ICK ICK

Knitted away on my soleil with the beautiful egyptian cotton purple yarn, wonder if this puppy will fit? I HATE taking things off the needles onto waste yarn to try on, but I guess I'd better. Probably should measure gauge again to see if I'm anywhere near where I'm supposed to be. At least it's pretty. The lacy edge was knitted THREE times and still has two small blips, but I think I'd be the only one to notice so I don't care.

Off to work and to spider hunt. Enough of this nicey nicey woman thing. See where it got me? ick.

meet my officemate

Hello knitbloggers! My name is Gus. I currently reside in that little crack where the wall meets the ceiling in Christine and Jeff's new home office. Jeff is my good friend and named me. I cannot be killed as long as he's around. Christine looks at me with a gleam in her eye and a shoe in her hand. My days are numbered. If I decide to go to the other half of the office, the shoe and I will meet. I have been warned.

Can you freaking believe this? Seriously, this man of mine. He NAMED the spider. I said, "what is that spot up there? Is it dirt or is it a bug?" Jeff said, "It's Gus. He's my friend. You can't kill him." I have let the spider live for now. My new office is officially over here now, for 2 days Gus has stayed on his side of the office. He takes one long leg in my direction, and he's squishmeat. See how humanitarian I can be? or is it spideritarian? ick ick ick. The thing is not even tiny. He's like an inch long from leg to leg.

I made this sweet baby hat and need to post a pic. I've also got the first 2 repeats of the lace bottom edge of soleil and it's looking pretty dang good. I'm not the fan of cotton knitting as I am with wool or merino. It's WORK instead of gliding easily around the circs I'm always having to crank it around by hand every half turn AND it just doesn't feel so smooth and soft on my hands. I know, cry me a river, huh? It's too bad I like to WEAR cotton... I just can't see myself sporting a 100% wool tank top in the humid July KC weather.

Anyway, I'm off. Gus says "hey". Have a great weekend Ya'all!

busy busy busy

Where have I been? Holy crap it's been a long time since I was blogging.

I've been swatching my ASS off thinking of turning piles of these (click to see them in all their loverliness) into soleil in the purplish-blue wound ball of Classic Elite Yarns Provence Egyptian cotton, picovoli in the apricot knit picks shine cotton blend, and somewhat cowl in the lavender knit picks baby alpaca. Can we all say "mmmmmmmmmmmmm"? Can I get a woo hoo for startitis? WOO HOO baby. Yes, I'm still working on my panta and a cool traveling rib scarf that was meant to be worn with it, but peoples, I got me some new yarn.

Did I mention I got myself this?????? Denise Interchangeables? Oh lordy, I may never leave the house again. Unless I run out of chocolate (which I haven't yet, thanks to my cousin!) I never got them before as they cost $50. I ended up with a filled card at the Yarn Shop & More (imagine that!) and faced with the idea of buying two more addi turbo circs at $20 a pop, suddenly they seemed quite affordable. OH MY GOD how did I LIVE without these????? LOVERLY!!!

Weekend update...totally enjoyed the time to myself. Friday night was special for Joey and I as my daughter went to a lock-in with girl scouts and had a blast! I was cracking up at her description of the poor moms locked in with them. Apparently those moms were "kind-a cranky for some reason." Being locked in a church basement with 50 girls under 13, up until 2:30am and back awake at 6:00am.... "kind-a cranky" doesn't sound too bad. I'd have been massively psychotic, so I very smartly declined from volunteering. I'm smarter than I look.

Sat night the kids went to my cousins' house for a sleepover and I hit the town. Had a BLAST!!! and was a lame old woman in bed by midnight. Ah well. The best part of the weekend? ***those of you easily nauseated by excessive lovey-dovey stuff, click away now*** Best part of the weekend without a doubt was when my honey came home. Awwwwww. I know, I know. I'm a strong modern woman but there's just something amazing about being held by a man that loves you.

Jeff had been gone since Thurs with some old friends down to Tablerock MO. We stopped by his house before I took my kids to see Ice Age II (loved it) and he came home, took me in his arms, and held me tight, telling me how much he missed me, how much he loved me and kissed the crap out of me, then just held me. I could hear my kids laughing as they played in the backyard, the sun was shining, a fresh breeze blowing through the kitchen and my heart was full. THEN he offered to go to the grocery store for me when we were at the movie, and I just thought that was the sweetest thing I'd ever heard. I just love that Jeff shows his love for me in these simple kind acts he does without even thinking of them. Last weekend, he went out while I was in the shower and drove to the gas station down the road to get me a diet coke to have waiting when I came down to the kitchen. You know, all the crap I put up with in the man department may have just been worth it to make me realize how good life is now.

OK, got to go. Entirely too much warm fuzzy crap for one day. See what happens when I quit blogging? cripes. I'm off to play with my new toys and new yarn.

OH and the amazingly sexy beautiful prarie tank I was making? I CAN do lace, I just can NOT do it when watching a movie. I frogged and reknit and frogged and reknit and decided the damn thing is NOT worth this much effort. I still have some poor deformed thing that resembles a snake coiled around the needles, but it will not be knit by me. nope. not in this lifetime. Hence the startitis.