Is it finished, or is it not?

So, I'm wondering.....  What do other knitting bloggers do when they finish the knitting part of a project but still have a looooong way to go before it's truly finished.   As in, say, they have about two weeks worth of ends to weave in.  Do you consider your project finished when the knitting is done, or not?

I finished the mitered square table runner last night.  Or a least I finished the knitting part.  I'm dying to move it from the OTN list to the Finished list, but I know I have hours and hours of weaving in ends to go.  Part of me is afraid that if I go ahead & move it, I'll never get around to weaving in those ends.  Specially since another clue came out today for the Summer Solstice KAL.

By the way, Wendy, I'm pretty excited about the short sections of shawl we are knitting.  So far, at least.  At first, I was frustrated.  I knit the first clue and was left with the feeling of "That's it?  That's all I get to knit?  I don't get to repeat the pattern 80 times?"  But when I stopped and thought about it, I'm liking the short clues.  It means I can do the knitting during afternoon coffee or while watching TV one night.  It means I don't end up stopping my life for days and days or starving my family night after night because I'm knitting the KAL instead of doing what I oughta.  So, thank you Wendy.  And my family thanks you too.  At least so far.

Marvelous Monday & Plastic Cups

I can't believe that my favorite thing to ramble on about this week is a plastic cup.  Obviously, I have simple tastes.  But my new plastic cup from Walmart is awesome!

For several years, I've been using my Run Like a Girl sports drink bottle for all things cold but sadly, it's been leaking for the last few months.  I love the bottle - it's cute & has a pretty blue flower on it, but I was getting pretty tired of wearing my drink every time I tipped it up to drink.  So the other day, while at Wallyworld with my daughter, she pointed out a display of plastic cups.  They came in several different colors & styles.  Sarah got a blue one that doesn't sweat - supposedly.  I'm not sure she's used hers yet.  Mine is obviously red & is freezable.  It has some kind of gel in between the layers of cup and you put it in the freezer, the gel freezes, then your drink stays cold without the need for ice.  It works great!  The cup itself does sweat a bit, but your hand stays dry due to the rubber ring thing around the cup.  Dry hands are important to me.  I have no idea why, but I HATE having wet hands.  I'm a little bit OCD about it.

Oh, & the other thing I like about my new cup - it makes me feel like Nancy Botwin from Weeds.  She was always walking around with a big cup in her hand.  I also have to say, I rather admire her.  Granted, her claim to fame is being a pot dealer, but she does it with entrepreneurial  style.  She discovers she has a talent for something and she goes for it.  She's willing to learn as she goes.  She makes mistakes & recovers.  She never quits.  She never gives up.  Frankly, I like her style.  Anyway, every time I pick up my cup, I think of Nancy Botwin.

In knitting news, I'm almost finished with the mitered square table runner.  I've just got one and a half sides of the border left to do.  I'll post photos in the next few days.  I'm really happy with the way it's turning out.

Remember the baby blanket I knit & promised to post pictures "tomorrow"?  "Tomorrow" being so long ago I couldn't even find the post?  Sheesh.  Anyway, I finally took a picture.

I used an old Mac & Me pattern and Schachenmayer Nomotta Grande yarn for the body and Cascade's Ultra Pima for the ruffle.  The Grande had been in my stash for quite a few years and needed to be used up.   I realize that tan is an odd color for a blanket for a baby girl, but when I started knitting it, we didn't know the baby's sex yet & I was convinced it would be a boy.  But, the peach ruffle girlies it up a bit and the parents of the baby are both outdoorsy so it should be okay.

And now, I'm cutting this short.  The TV is suddenly screaming at me that we are having a tornado.  Better go put my shoes on & take cover.

Apology Not Accepted

Sorry USOC, but I don't think I'll be accepting your apology.

Sorry Yarn Harlot.  Apparently, I'm not that classy.  You are welcome to send me yarn from your stash, however.  (Hey, if it works for the USOC...)

Obviously, I'm still pissed.  I'm not "batsh*t" insane about it anymore, but I'm still pissed.  Actually, I'm even more pissed now after reading the USOC's second apology letter.  I mean, come on.  You are going to insult knitters world wide and then have the balls to ask us to give you our time, energy and money?  Come on!

Ok, for those of you living under an even bigger rock than I, the USOC sent Ravelry a cease & desist letter regarding the Ravelympics.  The letter was supposedly a standard form letter but it had some pretty derogatory language geared towards the knitting community.  The knitting community instantly went "batsh*t insane" to use Yarn Harlot's term.  I completely understand the USOC's desire to protect their trademark name and their logo.  In fact, I've been surprised that people were aloud to use the Olympic Rings in their own creations and then post pictures of those items on Ravelry, or anywhere on the internet for that matter.  And yes, changing Ravelympics to The Raverly Games would not be all that difficult.  But it's the spirit of the thing that gets me.

I guess a big part of why I'm so upset is because my Olympic knitting is geared towards charity.  My knitting group has always had the Knitting Olympics where everyone signs up for a "sport" (a sweater, a shawl, a hat, mittens, dish clothes, an afghan, something lacy, something with cables.....) then they knit as many of that item as they can while they watch the Olympics on TV.  Once the Olympics are over, our group gathers all the knitted items and donates them to various charities.  There are no prizes involved other than the satisfaction of knowing that you knit X number of items for a good cause in a relatively short amount of time.

I'm also upset about the USOC's wording... "a competition that involves an afghan marathon, scarf hockey and sweater triathlon, among others, tends to denigrate the true nature of the Olympic Games.  In a sense, it is disrespectful to our country's finest athletes and fails to recognize or appreciate their hard work."  Well, what about knitters' hard work?   Knitters have to train their fingers, hands & wrists to form the stitches.  We build our biceps by holding the needles.  We train ourselves to wield a variety of types and sizes of needles.  We train ourselves to read what is basically a foreign language. Many knitters train for a lifetime, not just for the first third of their life like most Olympic athletes do.  While we may not run for miles and miles in the hot sun, we tax our bodies in other ways.  For example, we've been known to stay awake for 36+ hours straight when we are under a knitting gift deadline, or simply when the project we are working on is just too much fun to put down.  We skip meals so that we can continue knitting.  We occasionally fail to feed our families and/or wear dirty underwear rather than pause our knitting to do laundry.   And hopefully, I'm not the only knitter who's been late picking up their kids because I had to get in just one more row.   I'm sure an Olympic athlete has special dietary concerns, but hey - I've been known to eat beans three meals a day for days on end so that I can afford that special skein of cashmere.  I bet I'm not the only knitter who's had to make the choice between food and yarn before!   We pay for our own "athletic equipment" and training classes/coaches.  Knitters are not government sponsored either.  And heck, a few of us even take steroids just like a few of those "real" athletes.  And then there's the accolades.  After the games, many of the athletes make a small fortune selling their name or image & promoting products.  They win medals.  They win fortune & fame.  Meanwhile, knitters, specifically charity knitters, end up with nothing to show for their efforts, not even a tax break.

This whole Ravelympics thing has gotten knitters in a panic.  The Knitting Games just doesn't have the same ring to it as The Knitting Olympics.  It just doesn't give you the same feeling of competition.  And frankly, the idea that we might have to change the name irritates me (and plenty of others) to the point that we won't be participating this year.  In fact, I plan to boycott the Olympics entirely.  To be honest, I only enjoy watching the swimming.  I really couldn't care less about the other sports, I only watch so that I can chat with my fellow knitters about how when X happened, I got so excited/horrified that I dropped a stitch.  But this  year, I won't be watching at all.  I think I may even boycott the Olympic sponsors.  Curious about who they are?

The VISA thing could be difficult.  It means I'll have to use cash instead of my debit card.  But that's doable.   I'll also have to find a new brand of deodorant, toothpaste, razor blades and soap - but I can and I will.  There's also a different gas station right across the street from the BP that I normally go to, so that won't be a problem.  Not using UPS just means I either won't be ordering yarn off the internet or checking out Amazon for a while.  Cool, since I won't be using my VISA card anyway.    No McDonalds or Cadbury products - no problem.  Think of the weight I won't be gaining!  GE, well, that one may take some research.  I may end up knitting in the dark while I boycott the Olympics, but if that's what it takes....

So yeah,  my feelings are hurt and I'm still a little pissed about it.

Marvelous Monday - Fructis Triple Nutrition

It's Marvelous Monday once again & today I'm blathering on about Garnier Fructis Triple Nutrition shampoo & conditioner.  I LOVE this stuff!  LOVE, LOVE, LOVE!

I used to use a different version of Garnier Fructis shampoo & conditioner and liked it okay.  And although I liked it & my hair dresser recommended the brand, I switched to something else because they didn't sell it at my warehouse club and/or I had a coupon for something else.  Plus, I'll admit - I get bored with the same product over & over again.

As I've mentioned before, I have the world's worst hair!  It's thick.  REALLY, REALLY thick.  As in, so thick that new hair dressers always call all the other hair dressers over to examine how thick it is.  On top of it being weirdly thick, the underside in the back grows in ringlets, while the sides are wavy and the front & outer layer of the back grows perfectly straight.  Oh, and it all grows towards my face.  I'm like a female version of  Cousin Itt.

Okay, honestly, my hair looked more like this:

Actually, it looked just like that.  Thick, frizzy, uncombed, and hanging in my face.  (Sorry, Bella, but that's really not a good look.)

Because of the curls & waves, my hair tends to be dry, except right at the scalp where it tends to be so oily, I could set up my own oil rig.  A friend lent me the book, Curly Girl, and I followed it's directions for quite a while.  The main direction was to not use shampoo.  Use conditioner, but no shampoo.  It worked fantastically, except every six weeks or so, I'd wake up and my scalp would feel funky and I'd need to shampoo.  Eventually, I ran out of what ever shampoo I'd been using and went to the store to get some more.  For some reason, the Garnier Fructis Triple Nutrition jumped out at me and I bought it.  And instantly fell in love!  My hair is never, ever greasy.  Even when I was sick a few weeks ago and didn't bathe for more days than I care to admit, my hair never got greasy.  What my hair is, is soft and way less frizzy and much more manageable.  Instead of each individual hair going it's own separate frizzy way, the hair on the sides of my head form nice beachy waves.   Beachy waves like this:

And the ringlets in back look more like:

So granted, it still looks strange that the sides have beach waves and the back is in ringlets, but it's still WAY better than frizzy Cousin Itt hair.  And have I mentioned how much softer my hair feels?  I really do love this stuff!

As for knitting news, I finally wove all the little ends into the baby blanket this morning while I was waiting for a particularly slow email video to load but I still haven't taken any pictures.  Instead, I've been busy working on another mitered square project.

It's going to be a table runner or dresser scarf, depending on how the yarn holds out.  I'm hoping for a table runner.  I absolutely love the colors, except they are not showing up well here.  At least not on my screen, which is weird because the same photo viewed from my desktop looks fantastic, but loaded to the blog, it's washed out and rather icky.  Weird.  But anyway, I love it!  The color saturation in the yarn is fabulous and the yarn itself is Heaven to knit with.  I believe that if I could only knit with one yarn for the rest of my life, Mini Mochi would be it!

Okay, I'm going to end this post with a shout out to Snow White & the Huntsman.  My daughter and I went to see it a few days ago and I really enjoyed it.  I have to say though, the Huntsman turned a good movie into a GREAT movie!

Phew!  I'm having a hot flash!   Even Mini Mochi yarn can't beat a hot, scruffy guy wearing leather & toting an ax.

Benefits of being sick

I've discovered a few benefits to last week's illness and I'm pretty excited by them.  If you'd asked me last week while I lay dying on the couch, or at least wishing for death, I'd have said there were absolutely no benefits to being sick.  But this week...

• My medicine cabinet has miraculously been cleaned out.  All the old, expired medicines are gone as well as the many, many bottles & boxes that contained only one or two doses of various cough, cold & flu meds.
• I didn't spend a dime on groceries.
• I didn't spend a dime on yarn.
• I didn't spend a dime on new books for the Kindle.
• My refrigerator is now even emptier than the medicine chest & is ready & waiting to be wiped clean. 
• Since I ate nothing but watermelon & ginger ale for six days straight, I lost seven pounds.
• Since I ate nothing but watermelon & ginger ale for six days straight, I kicked the '3 deserts a night' habit.
• Since I ate nothing but watermelon & ginger ale for six days straight, I kicked the processed foods habit.
• Since I didn't have the strength or mental power to knit during several of those six days, I lay on the couch pretending to watch TV.  Since the only choice daytime TV offers you is cooking shows or shopping opportunities, I watched a lot of cooking.
• Since I watched so many cooking shows, I have a lot of ideas for new, healthy meals to make.
• Since I didn't spend any money on groceries, yarn or books last week, I was able to replace our broken food processor this week.
• Now that I have a new food processor, I'm dying to get in the kitchen and chop something.
• Since I didn't spend any money on groceries, yarn or books last week, I had extra money in the budget this week for yarn.  (Notice I said "had", not "have.")
• I also had extra money so I could go ahead & order the kids' end of year homeschool tests.  One less thing on my to-do list.
• During one of those cooking shows, Rachel Ray taught me to make my own tinted moisturizer.  Since I don't have to buy my normal expensive tinted moisturizer this week (it just happened that I was running out) I can spend the money instead on taking my daughter to the movies.
• Because my memory is pitiful, I no longer have the 40 gazillion craft project ideas running through my head.  This means that I can focus on the current projects and maybe actually finish one of them.
• Since I didn't knit for several days, my fingers, hands and wrists are ready to rock the needles.  Which is a damn good thing since I have a bit of yarn coming via UPS (see above.)
• Since the yarn is all coming UPS, I have a day or two to cook all those healthy meals I've been thinking about.

Now, if I only had some food in the house to cook.....

Marvelous Monday - Hawaiian Tropic Sheer Touch

It's Marvelous Monday & today, I'd like to talk about Hawaiian Tropic Sheer Touch sunscreen.  I LOVE this stuff!  I have to admit, the scent of Hawaiian Tropic (and Coppertone, for that matter) sends me into scent Heaven.  One sniff and I'm instantly on an island, a sailboat, or the beach I where I spent my childhood.  A second sniff and I'm tan and model thin. And 20 years old.   That coconutty smell instantly takes me back to my youth and a zillion different awesome times I've had with friends and family.  Which is sort of odd actually, because I was never very faithful about wearing sunscreen during my youth.

These days in my old age, I have to be faithful about wearing sunscreen.  I've mentioned before that I have Rosacea and the medicine I take for it makes my skin HIGHLY sensitive to the sun.  Which is not a good thing because I could happily spend every warm day of the year sitting on the beach from sun-up to sun-down.  Unfortunately, these days without sunscreen, I get sunburned just driving to the grocery store.

On my last sun screen shopping trip, I picked up a bottle of Hawaiian Tropic Sheer Touch.  I've always liked Hawaiian Tropic but I've never used Sheer Touch before.  The main reason I chose this particular bottle was because it was one of those "Bonus 35% More" bottles.  I love a bonus and I'm so glad I chose it!  I LOVE it!  It's got that fantastic coconut and summer smell, but the smell disappears very quickly - which I also like.  As much as I love being instantly transported back to my carefree childhood, I don't want to walk around smelling like sunscreen.  A tiny bit of the lotion, as in a glob about the size of my pinky fingernail, covers my entire arm.  In other words, that bonus 35% is going to last me a long time!  But best of all, it makes my skin feel so soft and smooth!  After applying a tiny bit of $8 sun lotion, my skin feels 40 times smoother and silkier than it does after I've applied gobs and gobs of $20 specialty moisturizer.  I've also noticed that after applying the sun lotion, my hands (palms) feel soft, but not sticky.  After applying my specialty moisturizer, I always have to wash my hands because if I don't, they feel sticky for hours.

So, go get some Hawaiian Tropic Sheer Touch then go spend a day worshipping the sun without guilt.

As for knitting news, I got zilch accomplished last week when I was sick.  At one point, I didn't have the strength to hold the knitting needles and even if I could have held them, I didn't have the mental capacity to know what to do with them.  Talk about miserable!

Over the weekend I perked up a bit and almost finished the mitered square lap robe.  I only have three more squares plus the border to knit.  Except I'm thinking I'm going to make it into a regular afghan size and not just a lap robe.   So, while I try to make that decision, I put it aside and started another in autumn colors.  This one will be a table runner rather than a blanket.  I've only gotten two squares done so far so there's not much to look at.  I also started another lace shawl.  Although I'm 40 some rows into it, there's only a few inches of fabric and again, not much to see yet.  Oh, and I finished the ruffle on the baby blanket.  That was quite an accomplishment!  I didn't count the number of final stitches but I do know it took me a little over two hours to knit one round.  I haven't woven in the ends yet, or blocked it, but as soon as I do, I'll post a photo.

For now, I think I'll go smooth my skin with some Hawaiian Tropic then go sit in the sun and knit.

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.