Announcement

First, I'm announcing that this blog is on hold due to the flu.  It's making it's way through the family and I have absolutely nothing to discuss unless you want to hear about the differences in Mucinex, Nyquil, Robitusin & Tylenol.

Secondly, I'd like to announce a VERY poorly planned sale in my Etsy shop.  I'd planned to make a big production of it and write a very nice blog post about D-Day and my dad, but....  the flu hit and that was the end of all plans.

The gist of the story, however, is that my dad arrived on Omaha Beach on Day 2, June 7, 1944.  His story was that before they left their ship, they were told to go straight to shore, dig a hole & get into it.  All they knew about the previous day's invasion was that "it hadn't gone well."   Well, Dad was never known to be a sheep.  He didn't follow anyone or anyone's instructions.  He was in charge of the radios & communications and had a half a million dollars worth of radio equipment with him.  He figured there was no way they'd send him into danger with all that equipment.  He hit the beach, found the only tree still standing, set up his cot & lay down.  Immediately, his tree exploded.  He'd been shelled.  Then, in the telling of the story, he'd laugh & say, "You never saw a white man dig a hole with his helmet so fast in all your life!"

But despite the tree shelling incident, Dad survived Omaha Beach and made his way over to The Bulge which he also survived.  To celebrate the anniversary of his survival, I'm offering a 50% off one item coupon in the shop.  Go check it out & if you see something you like, just use coupon code "DDay50".  Since I got such a late start making the announcement, the coupon code will be active until 9 p.m. tomorrow.

Sadomasochism

Today is proving to be another of those days where I'm torn between being ecstatically happy and experiencing abject horror.

First, I slept until almost 11:30 a.m. today.  That is NOT like me.  I must have needed the sleep though because I woke in the exact same position I'd fallen asleep in.  Of course, after laying for 11+ hours in one position, my back was so stiff I could barely move for the first hour after getting up.  I also don't remember having a single dream which defies my recent activity.  Lately, I've been having The Weirdest dreams ever!  And having them all night long.  But what ever.  I'm relatively kink-free now and feeling very well rested.  Granted, the morning coffee "hour" is taking me straight into the evening coffee hour, but I won't worry about that right now.

Then there's the fear I've become a sadomasochist.  Lord help me, but I've started another mitered square afghan.  And once again, I'm using fingering weight yarn & #2 needles.  I really enjoyed knitting the last one, at least the knitting part.  Not so much the weaving the ends in part.  But the knitting was fun.  I enjoyed being able to change colors so frequently.  It totally kept me from getting bored.  It was also nice to put some of the scrap yarn to good use.  So last night when I came home from the The Knitting Basket with the bag of new stash and none of it wouldn't fit into the stash drawers, boxes or chest no matter how hard I shoved & cussed at it, I knew it was time to make another mitered square afghan.  This time, I'm putting a black border around each square in hopes that it will look like stained glass.  So far, I only have a couple of squares done so it doesn't look like much of anything yet.

On a ecstatically happy note, Wendy Knits put the first installment of  her Summer Solstice Mystery Shawl KAL up for grabs today.  Which of course I grabbed.  I love Wendy's patterns and find them to always be well written & error free.  And best of all, when I have those duh moments & can't figure something out, she always responds promptly to my questions.  Can't ask for better customer service than that!

Another ecstatically happy point is that I don't believe I have any stashed yarn that will work for the KAL.  According to the pattern directions I need solid colored fingering weight yarn and the majority of mine is variegated to some degree.  And why does that go into the ecstatically happy column, you ask?  Because it means another yarn shopping trip!  Ooh!  And beads.  I'll need to go bead shopping because I am NOT knitting those dang nupps.

On a abject horror note, Zack is still feeling poorly & I fear there may be an ER visit in our future.  He says he doesn't feel like going bowling tonight.  Aack!  If that kid doesn't want to bowl, he must be on death's door!

And now, my daughter is asking me to go on a walk with her.  No matter that it's about 100 degrees and about 4,000% humidity out there.  And it's threatening to storm.  Oh well.  We could both use the walk.

Twisted Tuesday

You've heard of Freaky Friday & now I have Marvelous Mondays going on.  Today must have been Twisted Tuesday.  It was definitely one of "those" days.  

It started out around 1:00 a.m. when I finished one project and immediately and excitedly cast on another.  Around 3:00 a.m., I started thinking that I really should go to bed, right after this row.  Finally around 4:00 a.m. I was having to tink more than I knit.  It was obviously time to tear myself away from the needles.  Specially since I had to get up early.  The Higher Powers must have liked what I was knitting because I woke up a little over an hour earlier than I needed to.  I had time to get a few more rows done!  I knit a while then got dressed in record time & had a few more minutes to knit another row.   Things were going too well though.  As I was opening the door to leave for my appointment, Hubby calls.  Crud.  I now have to drop everything on my schedule & take care of some things for him.  It only took about 15 minutes, but still.  It frustrates the daylights out of me when he does that.  Plus now I have to drive 120 mph to make up for those 15 minutes.

So I'm riding down the road, doing just under speed limit instead of 120 mph because the county is in the process of mowing along the edge of the road & their mowers are taking up part of the lane.  I crested a hill and Bam!  There in the middle of the road is a twisting, twining, writhing pile of snakes.  Eeeww!!!!  The mowers must have disturbed a nest.  A giant nest.  No, a Ginormous nest!  It was the craziest thing I've ever seen.  It was like a big giant tumble weed of snakes moving across the road.  Of course, I plowed right over top of them.  Eeeww!  And because I have an inbred fear of snakes, I'm sure 15 or 20 of them climbed up my exhaust pipe and proceeded to make their way into my car.  For that matter, a few of them probably crawled up on to my bumper & up to the roof.  I bet if I go check the car out, there'll be at least 5 or 6 of them twisted around my luggage rack just waiting to pounce on me.

I finally made it to town & ran into Target to buy a birthday gift & some Sudafed for my son.  I grab the intended birthday gift & head to the pharmacy area.  Instead of finding boxes of Sudafed on the shelf, there's a sign saying to see the pharmacist.  I see the pharmacist, he grabs a box of Sudafed off his shelf & asks for my drivers license.  He scans my drivers license into their computer & the computer tells him he is not allowed to sell me Sudafed.  What??  We move to another cash register and try again.  Same results.  He manually types in my info.  Same results.  Target won't sell me Sudafed.  You have to be freaking kidding me!

I finally get to the restaurant where I'm meeting a friend to celebrate our birthdays.  Of course, after dealing with Hubby, the snakes & the Sudafed fiasco, I'm a few minutes late, but she's a good friend and forgives me.  We had an excellent lunch while discussing our old age.  (She turned 60 just a few days after I turned 50.) 

After lunch, I head downtown to drop off some keys for my husband's business.  And as fate would have it on a Twisted Tuesday and since I'm stopping at traffic lights every 15 seconds, the a/c in the car dies and decides to blow heat instead of cool air.  Nice.  After missing 3 turns, I finally arrive at the address.  I'm thinking I'm going to a small bank branch, but nope.  I've arrived at a 12 story office building that takes up a full city block.  This should be interesting because all I know is that I'm supposed to give the keys to a guy named Walt and no one else.  Finding Walt proved to be MUCH easier than expected and after only about five minutes, I was back in the sweat box I call a car and was headed to the yarn shop.

Ahhh..... the yarn shop.  Bliss!  I got it confirmed that I was either going to have to un-do the bind off or simply fudge the dropped stitch in my recently finished striped shawlette.  And believe me, I will be fudging, not undoing the bindoff!   Next, I got some help  picking out a ruffle color for a baby blanket.  The blanket was knit a while back and I was waiting to find out the baby's sex before I decided what color ruffle to knit.  It's a girl!!  Next, it was time for plain & simple retail therapy.  The snakes, Sudafed & lack of a/c problems had driven me over the edge and the only way back was to fill a basket with yarn.   

I ended up with a couple of skeins of Cascade Ultra Pima cotton for the blanket ruffle and one skein each of Lang Jawoll Magic Degrade, Pagewood Farm Yukon in the prettiest, muted purples you've ever seen although it's looking sort of brown in the photo, and Manos Lace in shades of red.  

Next on the schedule was a quick stop at Walmart for coffee & bread.  And maybe they'd sell me some Sudafed.  Yay Walmart!  (Boy, I don't say that very often!)  Walmart sold me the Sudafed with no problems.  While I was walking through the grocery area, I crossed paths with a family in the midst of an earwig ordeal.  The mom had just been bitten by one & was fussing about how bad it hurt while one child chased the bug around on the floor & stomped on it while another child mentioned she'd been bitten by one the other day.  A few aisles later, I run into this same family again and they are once again stomping an earwig that has just bitten another family member.  All I could think of was, what kind of living conditions do these people have that they are bringing this many earwigs with them to Walmart?  Eeeww!

Eventually I arrived back home to find that the kids had covered every inch of kitchen counter with dirty dishes & I couldn't set the groceries down.  Argh!  It was at that point that I deemed the day Twisted Tuesday & vowed to sit my butt down and do nothing but knit until bedtime.

I hope your Tuesday was calmer.  I also hope it included yarn.

Marvelous Monday - Palette

It's Marvelous Monday once again!  Today I'm worshipping Knit Picks yarn, Palette.  It's a fingering weight wool, it's cheap ($3.39 - $3.59 per 231 yard skein,) it comes in every color under the rainbow and it's nice to work with.  While the skeins themselves aren't extremely huggable, the yarn knits into nice, soft, pettable fabric.  The yarn also blooms nicely when washed.  It doesn't get that fuzzy halo that some yarns get, but it softens up even more and creates a wonderful fabric.  And did I mention how many colors are available?  And that it's cheap?  That's cheap as in inexpensive, not cheap as in some piece of plastic junk from Walmart.   Oh, and did I mention that you can frequently buy it for even less because Knit Picks is constantly having clearance sales on kits that contain the yarn?  I love this yarn and I have drawers full to prove it!   Ok, I have drawers and boxes full.  It's my go-to 'I need to yarn shop or my head will explode' yarn.  And did I mention all the pretty colors?

Bigger on the Inside

Finally - a photo of my version of Bigger on the Inside.

I can't believe it took me so long to load the photo.  Sarah & I are both happy with the way it turned out.  As you may have guessed, it turned out not to be a surprise for Sarah.  After seeing other people's, I had started to worry about my choice of yarns and showed it to Sarah after only a few repeats of the lace. She seemed okay, although not 100% positive, with the yarn color.  I proceeded with slight trepidation.   We were both concerned about the slight green fleck/tinge the yarn has but in the end, we are both pleased and Sarah even said she's glad we stuck it out, and that she likes the color even more than the original pattern's photograph.  Hurray!!

And since I've talked about the yarn so much, I'm sure you are wondering what was used.  I used a little over two skeins of Knit Picks Palette in Marine Heather and a USA #2 needle.  I am totally in love with the Marine Heather color way.  It's navy blue with a bit of green mixed in.  And occasionally, there's a blip of purple.  But as with most heathers, you have to look closely, very, very closely, to notice any color other than blue.  I'm so glad that I over-ordered the yarn because I have enough left over to make myself a hat & mittens.  Actually, I have enough left over to make a second shawl.   Hmmm, maybe I'll save it for the Summer Solstice Mystery Shawl.  Which, Argh!  The first installment of pattern instructions comes out on the day we leave town for a big bowling tournament.  If it weren't for bad luck, I'd have no luck at all!

And yes.  It's Memorial Day weekend here in the ol' US of A and yes, that is a Christmas apron hanging on the door in the background.  Why, I have no idea.  I woke up one morning and there it was.  It was such an odd thing to be hanging on an upstairs door, in the middle of April, that I left it there.  It's not because my housekeeping skills are so pathetic or anything.  Nope!  It's because it's such an odd thing to find when you wake up in the morning.  It's sort of become art.  That, and I'm curious to see how long it stays before someone else decides to remove it.  Besides, maybe it will still be there in December & I won't have to decorate for Christmas!

Happy Memorial Day!

Marvelous Monday

I've recently discovered a few new products that I'm weirdly excited about and wanted to share them with you.  And since so many folks tend to bitch about Mondays, I decided to start Marvelous Mondays where I'll comment positively on a new product, place, or food group that I've bought or experienced.   So, today's kick-off Marvelous Monday is all about EOS lip balm.  I have a major lip balm addiction.  For way more years than I care to count, I've used Avon's Care Deeply lip balm but I worry about the petroleum content.  I started worrying about it when I began running.  All that huffing & puffing I do and gasping for breath....  I had to be sucking in some serious amounts of petroleum .  EOS is petroleum free so no more worries.  It glides on smoothly, tastes good, but only for a moment (which I like because I want to taste my coffee, not my lip balm,) and its affects seem to last longer than any other lip balm I've ever tried.    It used to be that the last thing I did before going to sleep at night would be to swipe on a layer of lip balm.  When I'd wake in the morning, my lips would have that crunchy, I Need Lip Balm! feeling.  Since using the EOS, no more crunchy morning lips.  I can even make the coffee & feed the dogs before I start feeling the need for a lip balm fix.  Another thing that I really like is the shape of its packaging.  While it may not be so great for someone who carries their lip balm in their skinny jeans pocket, the shape makes it easily findable in a purse or knitting bag.  I now have four tubes in various flavors (maybe I should call them rounds) of EOS - one in the knitting bag, one at the desk, one in the bathroom & one by the TV.  And next time I go to the store, I'm buying a fifth so I can keep one in my purse.  I'll also be buying some of their hand lotion.  If it's half as good as the lip balm, I know I'll love it too!

Now, on to knitting news....

The Bigger on the Inside is finished and blocking as I type.  The pattern was a lot of fun to knit.  The lace pattern at the beginning drove me nuts until I had the lightbulb moment of putting stitch markers in between the pattern repeats.  From that point on, the lace was easy-peasy.  Trying to pick up the 311 stitches evenly spaced across the side of the lace gave me a few gray hairs until I had another light bulb moment & marked off quarters of the shawl & picked up even numbers of stitches within each quarter.  The first few rows of knitting those 311 stitches seemed to take a lifetime & I thought I might die of old age before I got the shawl finished but perhaps I stepped into a Tardis without realizing it because suddenly, the rows didn't take any time at all to complete.  I got down to the ribbing section and excitedly told my daughter I was almost finished with it, although it may take me weeks to do all that mind numbing ribbing.  But once again, time warped and after a couple of episodes of Buffy, the ribbing was done and so was the bind-off!   I'll post photos as soon as it's finished blocking.  The pictures I took before blocking were all horribly blurry for some reason.

Now on the needles, I have a Color Affection shawl in shades of green & blue and one of those ruffled scarves knit with netting.  I'm a little late jumping on the ruffled scarf band wagon and it's one wagon I probably won't ride for long.  While I like the look of the scarves, I'm not a big fan of knitting them.  I'd already bought the yarn for two of them, (one for me, one for my daughter) so I'll do those and then I'll be unhitching that wagon for good I think.  Besides, I have about four more color ways for the Color Affection that I'd like to try.

Meanwhile, Sarah's slight lactose intolerance has suddenly become a severe intolerance.  Teen friendly dairy free meal ideas and/or recipes would be MUCH appreciated.  Specially foods that she could/would cook for herself since she finds herself frequently home alone for dinner.

Thanks, Chris

I'm sending out a big Thank You! to  Chris Guillebeau from The Art of Non-Conformity.  Being beyond technically challenged, when I decided to start blogging I read everything I could find about how to start a blog.  Every single source I came across said I needed to sign up with AdSense, so of course, I did.  But having those ads on my page has always bothered me a little.  Ok, a lot, actually.  I'm not a big fan of other blogs that have ads plastered all over them, not to mention, most of the time, the ads that were showing up here had absolutely nothing to do with any of my topics.   And then there was the money - or lack of it, in my case.  I never made a dime off having those ads on my blog.

So, where does Chris come into play, you wonder?  Yesterday, Chris gave me permission to get rid of AdSense.  To be honest, I basically spent the day virtually hanging out with Chris yesterday.  I started off watching a video that ThinkTraffic posted which lead me to his website, which lead me to hours and hours of free downloadable reading.  Somewhere along the way, he discussed the option of not using AdSense and I found myself saying, "Yes, yes!"  So today, it's gone.  Wiped from the screen.  Hallelujah!   Not that I have anything personally against AdSense, I just didn't like the look of the ads on my blog and having them there was not doing anything for me.

Now, if I could only get rid of the Amazon ad.  I tried.  My blog layout screen says it's gone, but when I look at the blog, there it still is.   Hmm....  Maybe it has something to do with the thunder storms we're having.  I tend to blame everything on thunder storms.

In knitting news, I'm finally finished with the roof section of the Tardis's (Tardi??) on the Bigger on the Inside shawl.  Boy!  It must be bigger on the inside because it is taking FOREVER to knit!  I'm sure having 311 stitches per row & each row is different from the previous so there's not a memorizable pattern involved is part of the problem, but...  Anyway, I'm making progress.  Slow progress, but progress.  From this point on, the pattern is quite simple so it shouldn't take too long to finish it.  Or at least it shouldn't take too much concentration.

The other shawl I started recently, the striped one, is coming along nicely.  It's a true joy to knit.  I'm using two skeins of Mini Mochi in a two row striped pattern.  I LOVE the yarn and I always enjoy knitting with self striping yarns because the color changes keep me from getting bored.  This shawl is an awesome watching new (to me) episodes of Supernatural  project.   I'm still trying to figure out why I never watched Supernatural when I could have been watching for free on TV.  Maybe it has something to do with the fact that I don't actually watch TV, only DVD's that the kids talk me into buying because "it's a great show."  What ever.  I'm totally obsessed with it now.

For now, I better go see what I can do about my hair.   I went to bed with it wet last night & expected to wake up with rather flat hair from sleeping on it instead of the normal waves.  But nope!  I'm looking like Shirley Temple today.   That is, if Shirley Temple stuck her finger in an electric socket.  It's beyond curly.  Like freak show curly.  I'm not sure even my trusty hair clip will be able to tame it.  I'm starting to wonder if I was struck by lightening while I slept during last night's thunderstorm.  Good grief!

Some Things Never Change

Some things never change, like my shirt.  Good grief!

So, today is my birthday.  It's one of those BIG birthdays, one of the ones where everyone sends black balloons & the number ends in a zero.  One of the ones where, as a special birthday gift from the government, you get to deal with DMV and renew your driver's license.  Thank God for on-line renewal!  Specially since I thought my old license expired on the 31st, not on my actual birthday.  Luckily, I've been working on my procrastination problem lately & I logged in to DMV this past Thursday.  Saturday, my new license arrived in the mail.  And since they used the same photo as the last license, I'm wearing the same shirt.  The same shirt I was oddly wearing for the license before that one!   This means my drivers license will show me wearing the exact same shirt for 15 years in a row!   Good grief!

Oh, & I thought the colored version of my driver's license photo was bad.  You should see the new black & white version.  It's down right scary!  Oh well, at least I am well past the age of being carded & rarely have to show ID anymore.

In knitting news, I've been making slow progress on the Bigger on the Inside shawl.  I finished the lace area & have started the Tardis section but I've only gotten a few rows into it.  It's my family's fault I'm not further along.  God bless them!  They gave me a new season of Supernatural for Mother's Day & quiet time to watch the DVDs.  It was a true gift!  But, I quickly realized that I can't watch new episodes & continuously count stitches.  I promptly tossed the shawl aside & cast on a new one in a much simpler pattern.

And, Friday night I was at the bowling alley waiting for Zack to bowl and trying to knit on the Bigger on the Inside shawl.  The dark bowling alley & the dark blue yarn I'm using weren't compatible with my aging eyes & I had to put down the shawl.  Luckily, I had some spare yarn & needles in my bag so I cast on a pair of mittens.

Obviously, the knitter's ADD continues.

Since today is my birthday, I'd like to take a moment to remember my parents & to thank them for birthing & raising me.  I know I didn't always make it an easy or enjoyable task.  Personally, I've always thought it was odd that the child receives the birthday gifts & acknowledgement, not the parents.  Don't get me wrong - I love gifts.  Bring 'em on!  But wouldn't it make more sense to celebrate the parents for bringing the child into the world & for raising him/her in a manner that allows the child to survive another year?  Anyway, thanks Mom & Dad for having me, and keeping me all those years!

Knitters ADD

I'm suffering from Knitters ADD.  I have way too many projects OTN.   Too many projects that I want to finish.  Projects that I want badly to finish.  So of course, I can't decide which one to work on.  I've spent the past few days rotating through them, knitting a row or two on one, putting it down & picking up the next.  I'm making no progress.  I need to just pick one & finish it.  But instead of doing that, I'm sitting here immobile, unable to choose.  I'm also sitting on my hands trying to ignore the impulse to go browse Ravelry instead.

One of those OTN projects is the mitered square "thing."

It turned out to be a lap robe.  It could easily have been an afghan - I had plenty of scrap yarn & I was enjoying working on it.  Wasn't getting bored in the least.  But I was super excited about the Dr. Who shawl & wanted to be done with the miters so I'd be free to start the Tardis's (Tardi?)  The miters are almost done, I just have to finish the border.  I'm struggling though because I know when I finish the border, I'll have to deal with all those loose ends on the back.

Oddly, the loose ends don't look all that dramatic in the photo.  Maybe I'll have to make that picture my screen saver until it's done.  Just a little something to remind me that weaving in the ends may not be as bad as I imagine.  Obviously, I'm not a big fan of weaving in ends.  Thus, the project languishes.

Next up is the Bigger on the Inside Dr. Who shawl for my daughter.  The yarn arrived on Friday & I promptly got busy knitting.

Wow!  Have you ever seen a dirtier computer screen?

Not a lot of progress has been made on this shawl but I keep reminding myself, it's bigger on the inside.

I also want to knit a Color Affection shawl but I can't decide on the colorway.  I may have to knit five or six of them.  I keep rearranging yarn & coming up with new colorways.

On Saturday, this appeared in my mailbox.  And it's so much prettier in real life!  Not sure exactly what it will end up being, obviously a lace shawl of some sort, but I don't have a specific pattern in mind.  Yet.

There's a pair (or two or three) of socks OTN, as well as five or six other projects I have absolutely no interest in finishing.  Maybe one day...

Luckily, I did finish the twin baby blanket set.

For a closer view of the detail...

I very much enjoyed knitting these baby blankets & I understand the twins' momma was happy to receive them.

Meanwhile, it's homeschool bowling league day.  I better log off Ravelry & go get dressed.

Twins & a Doctor

Just a quick update...  The twin set of baby blankets is finally finished.  No photos yet but as soon as they've been blocked I'll take some.  I'm quite happy with the way both blankets turned out and hope the customer will be as well.

Meanwhile, I've returned to the mitered square item.  I'm still calling it an item because I can't decide if it's going to turn out to be the intended afghan, a lap robe, or a table runner.  I'd really like it to be an afghan, but an afghan knit in fingering weight yarn on size 2 needles really will take a lifetime.  It will most likely end up being a lap robe because I think it's past table runner size.  Maybe a small table cloth or table topper.  We'll see how the patience level holds out.  So far, it hasn't gotten the least bit boring because I change colors so often.  If it wasn't for patterns I keep seeing on other blogs that I want to knit, I think I could probably be happy working on this one item for the rest of my life.

One such pattern that's recently caught my attention is a Dr. Who shawlette.  Actually, it's called the Bigger on the Inside Tardis shawl.   Sadly, I have to admit, I'm not a big Dr. Who fan.  I've only watched one episode & I was so confused I couldn't get into it at all.  One of these days I may try again.  But my daughter, my daughter is a HUGE fan.  And she's been asking me to knit her a shawl.  I am SO excited to have found this Tardis pattern.  Sarah will absolutely love the pattern & knitting it for her may even make me likeable to her teenaged brain.  I just hope I can contain my excitement and keep the knitting a secret.  Luckily, a knitting blog is the very last thing she would ever read so I don't have to worry about her finding out here.  It will be interesting to see if she notices that I'm knitting something in Tardis blue.  Meanwhile, I await delivery of the yarn.

For now, I'm off to bowling.  Counting today, only three more weeks of homeschool league bowling left.  Zack's Saturday morning youth league ended last week.  Which means I now have Saturday mornings free!!   Of course, summer leagues start up the day the homeschool league ends.  But that's okay.  The summer leagues Zack will be bowling in are all at night so I won't have to get up early.  Not getting up early is always a good thing.

Oooh!  The mail is here.  I wonder if the Tardis blue yarn magically arrived in one business day instead of the expected five to fourteen.  I better go check.

Wishy Washy

It's been a pretty exciting weekend in the Wiant household.  First, the USBC youth bowling league season ended which means I now have my Saturday mornings free for a while.  Pretty dang exciting if I do say so myself!  Also exciting was that Zack won several awards for various bowling achievements and very nice plaque for having an over 700 series.  He's happy, I'm happy.  It's a good day in the Wiant house.

But most exciting, was the purchase of a new washing machine.  I'm not sure what it says about the patheticness of my life that I'm this excited over a new washing machine, but....  I am VERY excited.  While I enjoyed meeting new & exciting people such as rodeo cowboys, folks from the World Wide Wrestling Federation, or the interesting girl with the tattoo of a snake that came up out of her butt crack (yep, quite visible!) and presumably wrapped around her body because it slithered out of the top of her shirt, around her neck & down one arm, I am HUGELY excited to end my time spent at the laundry matt.   Hubby has spent the last six weeks ordering parts & replacing them on the old washing machine.  The old machine, which after only three short years decided to go bonkers & cop an attitude.  Rather than starting like it was supposed to when you pushed the "start" button, the status screen would either read "Err," "LOC," or I swear, occasionally "LOL."   I swear it said LOL!  Anyway, Hubby apparently hit his frustration limit yesterday afternoon.   Maybe the machine finally LOL'ed him too, I don't know.  All I know is that I was upstairs, he was downstairs replacing the most recently ordered part.  I heard some loud cursing, some banging, more cursing, a dull thud.  A moment later, hubby sweetly called up the stairs to me that we needed to go buy a new machine.  He'd gotten so mad at the old one, he'd shoved it out the back door & over the edge of the deck.  We now have a very nice metal container garden waiting to be filled.

In knitting news, the first of the twin baby blankets is finished & I'm about a third of the way done with the second.   Progress on the second one is a little slower than the first.  I guess the excitement of a new project is wearing off.  But it's coming along and I'm still on schedule, as long as I continue to knit 23 hours a day.  Thank goodness for Lost, Supernatural & Downton Abby DVD's.  They are getting me through the blankets quite nicely.

Well, I'm off to throw in another load of wash & knit a bit more.

Gators!

So, I'm used to the blue tailed skinks that crawl all over our house and occasionally visit with me when I sit out on the porch, but I draw the line at sharing my house with a baby alligator.

Ok, so it's not really an alligator, but it sure looked like one when it confronted me.

The twin baby blanket project continues.  I finally finished the body of the first blanket this morning & have started on the contrasting border.  I'm pretty excited because I'm still a day & a half ahead of schedule.  If I can continue to knit 23 out of every 24 hours, I may actually finish the pair when I said I would.

Meanwhile, Max continues to guard against intruding bumble bees.

And gators.

Sinking Ships

To honor the anniversary of its sinking, I signed up on Twitter to receive “real time” tweets from the Titanic a week or two ago.  In all honesty, the tweets have been a bit of a pain in my butt.  There have been a LOT of them.  But while my phone’s constant buzzing over the last week has driven me slightly mad, I’ve learned quite a bit and enjoyed the sensation of being a part of the adventure.  

But tonight is a different matter.  As you may know, Titanic sunk in the early morning hours of April 15th.  Because of the time differences between our locations, that means that for me, it’s sinking just before midnight on Friday, April 14th.  I knew the tweets during the actual sinking would make me uncomfortable, but I wasn’t prepared for the depth of emotion I’m feeling.

All evening, I was getting tweets about how Titanic was receiving numerous messages from other ships regarding ice & icebergs in it’s path.  And how the various crew members basically ignored the warnings.  Thinking about the human ignorance involved and how many lives would have been saved if just one of those messages had been noticed upset me to the point that I actually got down right hostile towards my family.  (Good thing they are used to me blaming them for things way beyond their control.)

But now that the boat is actually sinking.... and the reports of half empty life boats being launched are coming through....  and knowing what’s to come....  I’m actually shedding a few tears.  

I’ve been on my share of sinking ships.  Actually, they were all boats.  Some were canoes.  Some small, one or two man sailboats, a few ski boats, several larger sail boats, but the largest of them all was probably only about 20 - 25 feet.  No big sinking ocean liners for me.  Just small, manageable boats.  But I have sunk my share.   I’ve also had to either swim or paddle a boat home because of broken masts,  broken rudders, lost or missing paddles and engines that refused to start.  Honestly, I’m not sure which is more embarrassing - the number of boats I’ve sunk, or the number of times I’ve had to swim a boat home because something went wrong & I was without a paddle.  The sinkings were all just bad luck.  The paddle problems were pure stupidity.  Well, except for a few cases when the boat rolled & the paddle was lost in the process.  But still, those paddles should have been tied down.

But the point of all that is that I’ve ended up in the water plenty of times but the water was always warm.  Well, mostly warm.  Warm enough not to have ice floating in it, that’s for sure!  The air temperature was also always warm.  Or at least warm enough.  Another point in my favor is that every single one of my mishaps took place in a river, the Gulf or a gigantic lake.  I take pride in the fact that I’ve remained dry every time I’ve ever ventured onto the ocean.  That’s not to say that the various mishaps weren’t exciting.  There were massive numbers of jelly fish involved in a few of the adventures and at least one of them involved the super nasty “blood sucking” kind.  There’s been electrical storms.  There was the sinking without life preservers & one of my fellow shipmates didn’t know how to swim.   Luckily, we were fully stocked with coolers.  Coolers float.  Of course, all those coolers may have had something to do with why we were dumb enough to go out without life preservers, but I digress.  There was the 4th of July when each time we shot off the flare gun, passing boats would return fire with fire crackers & bottle rockets.  And if you consider my wind surfing accident a “boating” accident, there have been extremely large fish & a broken back involved.  

But throughout all those accidents, I was in control.  Well, as much control as you can be in when you are sputtering and wondering what the Hell just happened to your boat & why on earth are the paddles & coolers are floating away from the upside down &/or swamped boat at such a high rate of speed.  With the exception of the wind surfer, each accident was resolved by (1) making sure everyone else was accounted for & conscious, (2) righting the boat if possible, & (3) either climbing back into the boat & paddling for home or grabbing a rope and swimming the boat back to shore.  And while I will admit to screaming like a little girl while swimming through massive amounts of jelly fish &/or while lightening struck all around me, I was never in a true panic situation.  The situation was always under control.  Even the wind surfing accident which resulted in a broken back was dealt with without panic, mainly because, although I couldn’t feel anything from the waist down, I still had the use of my arms and a bit of control over my situation.

But those folks on the Titanic....  The air is freezing.  The water is even colder.  They don’t fully understand or comprehend what is happening to them.  They have no true control over who makes it onto a lifeboat & who doesn’t.  There are so many people & fear breeds fear.  Panic sets in & it’s all over for them.

And while the panic grows, the water rises.  The bow sinks.  The stern follows.  Titanic is no more.

And I shed a few more tears & sing...

For Those In Peril On the Sea:

Eternal Father strong to save

Whose arm has bound the restless wave

Who bids the mighty ocean deep

It's own appointed limits keep

O hear us when we cry to Thee

For those in Peril on the sea

    Phil Coulter

Baby Blanket Progress

I'm making progress on the set of twin baby blankets.  Well, okay, I'm making progress on the first of the blankets.

I've got 10 pattern repeats completed which puts me slightly ahead of schedule.  Which I probably should never have mentioned.  Something disastrous is bound to happen to it now.  Not to mention, I said it on a Friday the 13th.

A few things I'll point out just to stretch this post out a bit....  Yes, that blue, green & purple pile of knitting there behind the baby blanket is the same pile that was there for the last photo session.  It's a scarf.  A scarf that's been awaiting having it's ends woven in for a few weeks now.  It will probably still be sitting there in a few more weeks.  Weaving in ends is not exactly my favorite thing to do.

See that yarn bowl?  I LOVE my yarn bowl.  My mother-in-law gave it to me for Christmas this past year & I've blogged about it before, here.  I still love it and use it daily.  Sometimes it holds paper clips & Post-It's instead of yarn, but most days it's full of yarn.  I like it so much I'm thinking about buying another one.  A bigger one.  One that will hold a great big skein of yarn.  I wonder if anyone makes them in a hotdog shape so that it would hold a long skein - like Lambs Pride comes in.  Google, here I come.

And there's my coffee cup.  I LOVE that coffee cup even more than my yarn bowl.  It's huge.  It holds a little over two cups of coffee, the handle fits my hand perfectly and the cup itself is thick & substantial without being too thick to drink from comfortably.  I worry about my cup though - it's got a crack on one side from where some horrible, disrespectful family member put it in the microwave.  It doesn't leak though so I continue to use it and guard it with my life.

And of course, there's a bottle of wine and a box of crackers.  Doesn't everyone keep wine & crackers on their desk?

Operating Heavy Machinery

Please pardon my insanity today.  I started a new antibiotic for my rosacea last night and all I can say is, phew!  Last night, I took the first pill in the middle of drinking a pot of coffee (fully caffeinated of course) and within 5 minutes felt like I was stoned out of my mind.  I read the warning label & all it said was that I shouldn't operate heavy machinery until I knew how I'd react to the medication.   I couldn't imagine trying to operate heavy machinery - I wasn't even sure I knew my own name!  About 20 minutes after finishing the full pot of coffee and about 3 hours before my regular bedtime, I decided that I was not sleepy, but too stoned to function & I went to bed.  Fell asleep instantly & slept through the night.  In fact, I slept better than I have in years!

This morning, I took my pill and immediately felt like I'd had a shot or two of morphine.  Every sense is dulled & I'm not positive I can feel my fingers.  And then the manic thoughts kicked in.  Good Lord!  My brain is in manic overload with thoughts of what I should do, what I can do, what I'd like to do... whirring through my head while my body refuses to budge and doesn't even realize I have a brain.  I'm starting to worry that I may spontaneously combust due to the friction of the two.

So that's my condition today.  Please pardon me while I ramble madly and make thousands of typos with my non-working fingers and a brain that's struggling to read.

Yesterday's trip to the dermatologist was .... interesting, I guess you'd say.  The doctor has been hoping to get me off the antibiotics for quite awhile but the topical medications just don't work for me.  I wish my rosacea was just the red face people associate with rosacea, but it's not.  Nope, I'm special.  A few rosacea suffers get, on top of the redness, giant sized zit type things and their face swells and their eyelids swell closed and it's quite painful.  It stings/burns like a bee sting and you get the sensation of bugs crawling across your skin (always pleasant!) and your skin feels like there's ground glass imbedded in it when you touch it.  So, each time you try to swipe away one of those imaginary bugs....  Ouch!

So, I walked into the dermatologist's office yesterday after being off the antibiotics & on the topical for two weeks with my face exploding.  All I could think was that I was going to have the opportunity to show her a big, gigantic, "Told you so!"  But I didn't even have to say it.  She walked into the examining room, took one look at me & said, "Honey, you look awful.  Does that hurt?"  Then she proceeded to give me a prescription for a new antibiotic (they stopped making the old one I'd been taking,) a second prescription for another topical lotion and a coupon.  A coupon for $50 off the topical.  $50!  Fifty dollars off, not five.  Yeah, that was a fun trip to the pharmacy.

Meanwhile....

I started a mitered square blanket or table runner (depending on my patience level) last week.  I'm not sure what I was thinking but I'd decided it was time to use up some of the scrap & stashed sock yarn that was lurking all over the house.  So, sure.  A mitered blanket made out of fingering weight yarn on size US2 needles.  No problem!  I should be able to whip that out in a week, maybe two if I'm a slacker about working on it.  Right?  Sure.  No problem.  So far, after a week and a half of obsessively knitting without taking time out to even wash dishes, I have this:

It's looking much more like a table topper than a blanket.

I set the mitered square monstrosity aside yesterday to start on a new project.  Two baby blankets for twins. Twins that have already been born so the pressure is on to knit fast.  So far, all I've accomplished is

I'm blaming the lack of fabric on that new antibiotic.  Sure hope my body adjusts quickly & I can soon return to operating heavy machinery!