November 30th

How did it get to be November 30th?  Where did the month go?  For that matter, where has the year gone?

Other than that tiny rant, I'm going to try to keep this short.  We've been having massive internet problems all weekend.  We always have problems over Thanksgiving weekend.  Too many people & not enough cyberspace in our little corner of the world.  Which is why I haven't posted since Thanksgiving.  I've tried, but I either haven't been able to access the internet or it's tossed me off minutes after getting on.

Anyway.... our Thanksgiving was calm & joyous.  No 911 calls needed, the food was excellent & the company even better.  My niece (Great niece actually but I refuse to admit that I'm old enough to have a "Great" anything.) has just turned two & there is not a shy bone in her body.  She was wild and adorable.  And by "wild" I mean the good kind of active, not the screaming, temper tantrum throwing, breaking things kind of wild some two year olds can be.  She was just precious.  Full of energy, hugs and apparently underfed because she told anyone who would listen that she wanted bread and chocolate.  My kind of girl!

Anyway, Thanksgiving was great and I'm thankful for that.  I'm thankful for finally being able to use the internet for more than 3 minutes a day and I'm thankful that I like to knit.  Because I have been knitting, over & over & over again.  I was working on a secret Christmas lace tam whose pattern was charted with no written instructions.  When I got to the decrease area, the chart clearly showed the decreases but it also showed that the stitch count stayed the same.  It made absolutely no sense.  I played & played with it trying to figure out which chart stitches shouldn't be there & finally decided that it was way more effort than it was worth & ripped the entire thing out.

There's the beginning of the newest version of a completely different hat and the finished 3x3 ribbed hat.  With really horrible color.  Is the color that washed out & wonky on your screen?  The colors don't look like that at all in my iphoto version.  In case the wonky colors means I'm loosing my internet access, I'm going to quickly press Publish & get off of here.  Meanwhile, happy end of November.

11-12-14

Eclipse knitting continues, as does my 30 days of being thankful.  Today, I am oh, so grateful for driver's education teachers.  My daughter started driver's ed this week.  Need I say more?

Don't leaf the lights on

I'm making a public apology for all the times I've yelled at my daughter recently for leaving her bedroom light on when in fact, she hasn't.   The tree outside her window has such bright yellow leaves that it's glowing & lighting up her room.  From the hallway, it looks just like she's left the light on.

Meanwhile, the Eclipse knitting continues.  I hesitate to say it because it's a guaranteed jinx, but... it's almost finished.  Only a few more rows to go.  Well, maybe a few more than "a few" but I've reached the home stretch and the end is in sight.  It's taken a lot longer to knit than I expected. I think November's blogging every day thing has cut into my knitting time much more than I thought possible.  Or maybe it's because two new books have shown up in the mail this week.  Or perhaps I have been busy doing a summer's worth of laundry & housework instead of knitting while I was at work.  Whatever the reason, what I thought would take one week has now passed the three week mark.  It's starting to seriously cut into my budgeted Christmas knitting time.  Maybe I should skip the housework from now on.

But speaking of daily blogging in November.... Today I am oh, so very thankful for all my Etsy shop customers.  You'll never know how much I appreciate your patronage & kind words.  Thank you, all!

FO's 11-08-14

I am so excited to announce that I finally blocked my Pi shawl.  I'd finished it back in April and it has been sitting in a heap on the corner of my desk ever since.  Naturally, I noticed after I'd put it the tub to soak that I'd never woven in the loose yarn ends.  Let me tell you what a joy it was to weave wet yarn ends into wet knitted lace fabric.  Yes indeedy, good times!

There she is on the blocking mats.  I sure am glad I decided to photograph it being blocked.  See that flat spot near the bottom left corner of the photo?  I had not noticed that while pinning it out but it stood out like a sore thumb in the picture.  I'm so thankful that I caught it in time to easily fix it.  I'm even more thankful to be counting this Pi shawl as a FO (finished object.)

Speaking of being thankful, I sure am thankful for my blocking mats.  I don't know how I ever survived without them.  They were one of those things that I wanted, but when it got down to it, I always wanted additional yarn more than I wanted blocking mats.  Once I finally broke down and bought a set, I quickly learned that I needed a second set in order to block most of the shawls I knit.  The second set arrived in not so great shape.  They had muddy boot prints on them and a bit of what looked like hardened glue.  I was able to clean them up easily but I contacted the company anyway just to let them know, not to request a refund or replacement.  They insisted on sending me a replacement set anyway and now I'm the proud owner of three sets of mats.  Which turns out is a really good thing.  Blocking that Pi shawl took all but two squares.

Now, if I could ask you for your help.... Please say a little prayer that the blocking mats hold together.  The shawl is so wide that it's hanging about a foot off each side of the table.  I keep getting a mental picture of what the poor thing will look like if the mats break apart & pull the shawl down on those two sides.

Gifts in the mail

Today I'm showing my appreciation for friends who send me unexpected gifts in the mail.  Snail mail in general is so much fun to receive but finding an unexpected package in the mailbox just makes me giddy.  It rates right up there with the UPS guy having to use his handcart to make a yarn delivery!  Over the years, I've received some pretty weird things in the mail.  I've received a pair of used Crocs, a six-pack of Coke in the old green glass bottles, a cheeseburger & fries and even rum soaked sand from a friend in Key West.  (Yes, there may be a story behind a few of those gifts.)  Most recently, I received this adorable tin of popcorn from my friend Kate.

I absolutely loved receiving this!  Not only was it unexpected but the popcorn delicious, & it's an adorable Halloween decoration.  But what makes it even more special is that I can set it on the shelf over my desk with the "side view" facing out & all I see is the black with white polka-dots.  It's a perfect, year-round, scrap yarn ball storage container!  Thank you, Kate!

By the way, Kate runs a fantastic genealogy research company, so if you are in need, look her up at www.historyandheritage.co.  Besides being a wonderful friend, Kate is a trained historian with mad research skills.  

Honesty

I am so thankful for honest people.  For those of you who follow me on Facebook or Twitter, you may be sick of hearing this story but I thought it was worth mentioning one more time.  One day last week, I went to my local Chinese take-out place to pick up dinner & accidently left my wallet on the counter after paying.  I'd also forgotten to take my phone with me.  By the time I got home, Lin's had already left me a voice mail telling me I'd left my wallet.  As if that wasn't enough, they had also called my neighborhood's security company in hopes they would be able to flag me down & let me know.  And if that wasn't enough, the restaurant even offered to bring me my wallet so that I didn't have to drive back there without my driver's license!  Talk about service!  I didn't take them up on that offer but when I drove back to the restaurant, I was happy to see that all of my money, credit cards, id's.... were still in the wallet.  Thank you, Lin's for having such honest, service oriented employees.

Monday Night Knitting Group

Today I am thankful that my schedule once again allows me to attend my Monday Night Knitting Group.  Not a meeting goes by where I don't either learn something or get inspired by someone else's project.  Thank you, knitting group!

I'm slowly making progress on the Eclipse wrap.

Sorry the picture is so blurry.  I was shivering.  The picture was taken yesterday on my final day of work, when it was 45 degrees outside and I was hanging out in an unheated concrete building wearing shorts while the cold outdoor wind blew through the air conditioner vents.  (Someone please remind me next year to trade my uniform shorts in for a pair of pants.  Please!)  I knew I'd be cold so I'd taken a beach towel to use as a blanket over my legs.  (The towel took up less room in my backpack than a blanket.)  I was the epitome of a little old lady knitter sitting at my desk all bundled up with my "lap robe" knitting.

I'll leave you with a bit of useless trivia.

Have you ever wondered how much your average Cash Control teller writes?  I started the season with a brand new Pentel R.S.V.P. pen (my favorite) and used it 99% of the time I was at work.  As you can see (maybe) the ink level is now down below the finger grip thingy.  What's amazing, or scary depending on how you look at it, the only writing we do is to initial things.  That's a lot of intials!

November 2, 2014

Today I am very thankful that tonight marks the end of the work season for me & I have the next five months off.  Tomorrow morning, while everyone else is posting on Facebook about how much they hate Mondays, I will be crawling into bed, thinking how much I love Mondays and how I will sleep until noon,  maybe even later.  So, thank you Monday & a big ol' thank you to KD.  It's been a great season.

By the way, for those of you wondering, there will be normal blog posts during November.  I don't plan to only post what I'm thankful for.  It's just that there's not a lot of time available this weekend to put towards blogging.

To give you something to look at, here's a random picture of a leaf floating on the water.

Giving Thanks

Each year several friends send me Facebook challenges to post something I'm thankful for each day in November.  For years & years, I've done this in my journal so you'd think it would be simple to remember to post my thankfulness to Facebook.  Nope, every year, I get a few days or weeks into the project & forget to post.  One day without posting leads to another day and before you know it, it's Easter & I'm realizing that I'm a total failure at being publicly thankful.  So this year I decided to do something different.  This year I'll post here on the blog instead.  I'm not sure it will help but a girl can dream.  Right?

So.... today, November 1st, I'm thankful that it is the last Saturday the theme park where I work will be open this season.  Don't get me wrong, I love my job, I love the people at my job & the uncomfortable uniform shorts are worth the paycheck.  But I am SO looking forward to a weekend off.  Multiple weekends in a row off!  Ahhh.... the glory of being able to go to a Saturday morning yard sale....  Okay, so I don't really care for yard sales, specially early on a Saturday morning.  But the point is, I could go to one if I wanted.  I do care about going to various festivals & craft fairs & weekend barbecues & going to bars to watch friends' bands play.  I can't wait for next weekend!  Next weekend I will be spending my money instead of counting someone else's money.  So, thank you End of Season!