Snow day knitting

I love snow day knitting, don't you?  They were calling for up to 30 inches of snow!  Around these parts, 3 inches is enough to cause panic at the grocery store.  I knew I needed a snow day knitting project but I wasn't feeling the love from the rainbow chevron scarf and my car was having a major hiccup so I couldn't go to the LYS to pre-storm yarn shop.  I decided to cave into the urge to start a Wendy Knits fair isle scarf of my own.

I grabbed needles, made a chart, drug (Or should that be dragged? Neither seems right.) the scrap fingering weight yarn bin over to my "nest" and started knitting.

One snow storm later, I have almost a third of a scarf.  The majority of my sock yarn is dark, subdued colors & I obviously didn't have enough lighter colors to copy Wendy's exactly.  Besides, who wants to be a total copycat anyway, right?  What I did have was a lot of Sweet Potato orange Palette yarn.  The plan is, the foreground will be knit with the orange, the background will be knit with scrap sock yarn & no two backgrounds will be the same, nor will the fair isle patterns repeat.  In other words, it's going to be a wild mess.

As for our snow storm, we did not get 30 inches, but we got some.  When I went to bed Wednesday night, it looked like this,

It was coming down at a rate of slightly over an inch an hour & we already had almost 7 inches.  I woke up Thursday morning to find,

Six inches plus a thick, thick layer of ice on top.  At some point, it had turned to freezing rain which had smashed the snow down. (And no, that's not a hole in our fence, just a hole in the boards.  As is typical, less than a week after installing the fence, a tree fell on it & smashed the boards in that one area.  So now, the wire part is still there, just not the boards.)

The dogs were NOT pleased with the conditions.  They love to play in snow but they definitely did not like breaking through the ice with each step they took.  They ventured out, reluctantly, did their business & came straight back in.

As snow storms go, it was a crazy one!  It started out on Wednesday afternoon snowing hard, changed to freezing rain in the wee early morning hours, then it freezing drizzled most of the day on Thursday.  In the late afternoon, it began to thunder, then it hailed.  Hailed!!  Dime sized hail in the middle of a snow storm!  Then it returned to snow, a few hours later it thundered some more and continued to snow, then at the tail end of the storm, it turned back into freezing rain for an hour or so.  And as is typical in Virginia, on Friday, I'm riding down the interstate (thank you, VDOT, for doing such an excellent plowing job!) with the window almost half way open because the sun was making the inside of the car uncomfortably warm.

Valentine's Cowl

I finished knitting the pink & purple striped Valentine's Day cowl a few days ago.

Good thing I was planning to keep it because it's got a few hiccups.  I passed several hours waiting on my son by knitting & reading in the Barnes & Nobel cafe one evening.  The yarn used for this project (see details here) looks like unspun & apparently, I'm not coordinated enough to knit unspun without looking.  I kept splitting stitches & ended up doing a lot of tinking.  This yarn does not appreciate being tinked.  Once knit, it wants to stay knit.

The cowl is reversible though so there's what the reverse side looks like. One side is textured, the other side not so much.  I'm not sure how much use it will get.  Pink really isn't my color but I caught the Valentine's Day knitting bug when I saw the yarn.

The rainbow chevron scarf is coming along slowly.  I hope I like it better once it's blocked.

So, yeah, that's a silly picture but being unblocked, the edges are curling up horribly & it doesn't look much better when spread out.  I'm about at the half way point on it.  I really hope that blocking it will help me like the colorway better.  It's just a bit too bright, glaring, primary color for my tastes.  Which is why that the yarn has been in my stash so long.  I'm now remembering starting a pair of socks with it & quickly deciding, no.

As for non-knitting news, I wanted to give a shout out to Bee Well Orrganics.  The owner's kids are in a homeschool creative writing group I lead & they gave me an awesome goodie bag for Christmas.  This Honey Lemon Ginger jam is the only thing left & it's still here only because I hid it.  In plain sight.   Instead of putting it on the pantry shelf with all the other jellies & condiments, I put it on the shelf in the dog food closet.  That's the shelf we use for weird things that we only use a few times a year.

My daughter became slightly feral over the cinnamon apple jam.  The minute she tasted it, she claimed it as her own & would growl slightly if anyone else even looked like they might want to taste it.  So, if you are looking for organic giftables, or are simply in the mood for some awesome jam, check out Bee Well Orrganics.

Knitters Drink

Have you ever noticed how much knitter’s tend to like wine?  I’m no exception.  But I’m not exactly adventurous or knowledgeable when it comes to wine.  I decided to change that.  At least the adventurous part.  Hopefully, the increase in knowledge part will tag along for the ride.   How will I become more adventurous you ask?  One of this year's goals is to try a new wine each month.  

January’s wine was Bully Hill Vineyards Barnyard Red.  And it was good!  Normally I’m not a big fan of reds (something I’d very much like to change) nor am I a big fan of overly dry wine.  Yes, I'm embarrassed to admit that I prefer sweet, Kool Aid type wines.  But although the label said this wine was on the dry side of the spectrum, I thought it was delicious.  It wasn’t Kool Aid, but it was good.  I hope I can get my hands on more.  This particular bottle has been sitting on the rack for over a year, maybe even two.  It was originally purchased from Grapes of Taste, a tiny little local wine store, tucked behind our local post office.  Which may explain why our mail service is so screwy.

If you have any suggestions for which wine I should try next, please share in the comments.

As for the knitting, there’s been basically no progress on the rainbow scarf originally shown in this blog post.   The yarn I needed for a custom order arrived & I traded knitting rainbows for maroon & gold stripes.  Now that the custom order is finished & shipped off, I've moved on to another cowl.  

It's knit in a staggered rib pattern that isn't showing up in the photo.  When finished, the cowl will be reversible & the other side will have a much more textured appearance.  I'm using Red Heart Boutique Unforgettable yarn in the Winery colorway.  (I really am into wine these days!)  Normally, when I think of Red Heart, I think of that horrible, scratchy, stiff as cardboard, worsted weight acrylic that probably 90% of us learned to knit on.  Nasty stuff!  And it amazes me that those of us who did learn to knit with it, ever continued knitting after the first project.  But, Red Heart has made a few changes over the last several years.  They have a sock yarn that's fairly decent & I really do like this Boutique yarn.  It's soft & one skien has 280 yards.  There's enough yardage to do a cowl & a hat or a cowl & fingerless gloves.  And it comes in some very pretty colors.

Do you have a Red Heart story?  Please share in the comments & don't forget, I'd also love to hear your wine recommendations.

Motivation

There’s nothing like a summer job to motivate me.  Remember me talking about my summer job    last summer?  Well, I decided to do it again this year.  I received my “processing” date & immediately entered panic mode.  First, let me explain.  “Processing” is another word for  taking a drug test plus the tortuous task of being fitted for my uniform.  Good Lord!  Do you think it’s possible to loose about 50 pounds over the next 8 days?  Facebook does keep showing me ads about how Oprah & Rachel Ray have both lost a ton of weight over a short period of time.  Maybe I need to go take a closer look at those adds.  Do weight loss drugs show up on drug tests?

Although “processing” is next week, I don’t actually start work until March.  So that gives me one full month to do a boat load of stuff.  If this season is anything like last season, I need to catch up on my sleep as well as store up some for the future.  I need to make sure the laundry is all caught up & the house spotless because neither will be touched again until next November.  Any and all custom orders I have on the books definitely need to be completed & shipped.  A summer’s worth of lunches with the girls need to take place.  It would be awfully nice to pack in a few date nights with the spouse too.  Maybe even some spend some quality time with the kids.  A new lunch box set needs to be purchased.  And that’s not as easy as it sounds.  All containers must be clear so that security can see what I’m eating & drinking for lunch that day.  (One of the joys of working in the money vault area.)  I could stand to get some exercise in so that being on my feet for 8+ hour shifts doesn't kill me.  A winter of sitting on my butt watching Netflix while knitting has not exactly helped my leg muscles prepare for that.  And then, there’s those pesky 50 pounds I wouldn’t mind loosing.  Good Lord.  My 8 page to-do list just jumped to about 12 pages.  

It's hard to believe I'm in Prepare for Summer mode when this is going on outside. 

Yep, more snow last night.  This time, they said we'd get up to one inch.  We got closer to four.  It's also a balmy 13 degrees at the moment.  Seems like a good day to stay home and knit.

No ice here

That folks, is how you chemically treat a road to prevent ice.  There will be no ice in Caroline County, VDOT is making sure of it!

I can’t believe VDOT put down that much chemical for last week’s Storm That Wasn’t then took a hit from residents because of icy patches on the back roads.  Just goes to show that you can’t please everyone.  And hey, if you want to see icy patches, come to my neighborhood.  We can’t use chemicals because all of the drainage ditches drain back into our lake.  Here all that can be done is throw a little sand on top of the ice, plow if it’s deep enough & wait for the sun to shine.  

In knitting news, well, there really isn't any.  I've been fiddling with a custom order scarf & haven't made enough progress to make it photo worthy.  Hopefully tomorrow....

I do have some exciting non-knitting news though.  I am SO proud of my son.  He bowls, religiously.  This season, he left the youth league behind & moved into the adult world of bowling.  He could have waited until he turned 21 (a 20 years & 364 days old person is still considered "youth" in the bowling world) but he chose to make the switch when he turned 18 (the youngest you can be in adult bowling.)  Anyway... he bowled in a tournament yesterday and won!  He didn't just win one of the five games, he won the whole tournament!  Over the five games they bowled, he averaged 250.  The most exciting part is the prize money.  After taking out the entrance fees, his winnings were about what he makes in a week at his full time job.  He's pretty excited about that!  And I'm pretty excited about the idea of trying to talk him into buying me a new camera instead of buying more bowling balls.  I swear, that boy buys bowling balls like I buy yarn.

Knitter's Hell

Dammit!  I must be in knitter's Hell.

Don't these socks know how badly I want to be done with them & how badly I do not want to have to un-Kitchner them, frog the toe, get the stitches lined up on the needles properly, reknit the toe & re-kitchner them?

Shades of Gray

My entire world has turned gray.  It snowed on Tuesday.  We were supposed to get eight to ten inches which is huge for this part of the world.   Instead of getting almost a foot of snow, we got less than two inches, which was pretty disappointing as blizzards go but honestly, I can't say I'm upset about it.  What I am upset about is how cold it turned just as the snow was ending.  It's rare for Virginia snow to last more than a day before the sun melts it away.  Not this time!  It's so cold even the sun can't melt it.  So here it is, three days later and our schools are still closed because there's one inch of snow on the roads.

See how gray it all looks?

Okay, well that picture has a lot of red Virginia clay sand in it, but you get the idea.  Everything is gray.  The snow is dirty gray now.  The sky is gray, so gray I'm wondering if it might actually snow again.  The interstates are so gray from the chemicals VDOT put down that you can barely see the lane markers.  And every car that's ventured out of it's driveway over the last three days is gray.

Poor old Blaze is looking rough!  And so are my pants.  I can not get in or out of the car without rubbing against that nasty gray stuff.  I look like I've been on a major powdered sugar donut binge.   But at least Blaze made it home in time for the big snow fall.  Mike had taken her out of town for work (again) & made it home just minutes before it started snowing.

On one of his recent trips, Mike was a bad car daddy!  Blaze celebrated a big mileage milestone & Mike failed to photograph it happening.

Blaze, our youngest Chevrolet, (we have several) hit 300,000 miles!

I just hope Blaze gets to see 400,000.  I had my doubts yesterday.  I took the boy child out to teach him how to drive on ice.  We went to a nearby unplowed church parking lot that had plenty of open space to practice skidding & sliding without having to worry about ditches or other cars.  I gave him the lecture about what to expect & how to handle it.  We traded seats & I told him to carefully, very carefully try to take off a little too fast & feel the car start to slip.  He instantly floored it & began doing donuts all over the parking lot.  Controlled donuts, I have to admit.  When he'd start to get too close to a light pole or curbing, he'd steer out of the spin, move to a better spot & start us spinning around in circles all over again.  I have no idea how he learned to do that but I assume it has something to do with video games.  I'm still not sure how he'll handle driving on ice on a straight road with other cars around, but he can damn sure handle doing donuts!

Meanwhile, in knitting news.... after all, this is a blog about knitting....  I finished a cowl & fingerless mittens to match the hat mentioned in my last post.  I had planned to put them in my Etsy shop but I was cold today & the cowl matched my outfit.  I put it on & decided to never take it back off.  And yes, I'm wearing the mitts too.  Have I mentioned how cold it is outside?  (And inside for that matter, thus the need for the mitts.)  Even the hat looks cute on me & hats Never look cute on my big old head.

That's a close up of the mitts.  They are reversible!  One is turned inside out in the photo.  They are knit in an unevenly numbered rib pattern & on one side, you don't notice the rib hardly at all and on the other, the rib stands out & becomes the pattern.

And looky!  Look how well the KnitPicks Caspian dpns match the yarn!  How cool is that?  The needles arrived on the same day I finished knitting the mitts.  But do you know the coolest thing? Those are #2 dpns.  I meant to order #3.  And you know what that means....  I get to place another order!  Maybe my world isn't so gray after all.

That's the beginning of a chevron scarf I started while I waited for my KnitPicks order to arrive.  It's a simple chevron pattern with alternating double rows of white & an unlabeled rainbow sock yarn from my stash pile.  This scarf will have to wait though.  Now that my yarn order has arrived, I have a custom order scarf to attend to.  Yeah, life is rough when you get paid to do what you absolutely love!

Stripes

I'm on a stripes kick.  It wasn't a conscious decision but the last seven or eight things I've knit have been striped.  I finished the blue & gray striped socks last week but never blogged about them because I wanted to sew up the toes before showing them off.  Apparently the urge to post them is stronger than the urge to Kitchner them because here they are, still hanging out with open toes:

One of these days, I'll find myself in a quiet, well lit corner with my handy-dandy Kitchner cheat-sheet & I'll sew them up.  I hope that day comes soon.  I've recently worn holes in three pairs of my socks.  It's been a sad few weeks!  But hey - those socks have been worn routinely for over 10 years.  Wow!  Ten years.  That's amazing!  And I'm sitting here thinking that that can't possibly be right, except that I distinctly remember wearing two of them in our old house & it's actually been almost 12 years since we lived there.  Wow.  Just wow!

And then there's this striped hat.  It may last 10 or more years as well.  It's knit from Red Heart!  Shhhh, don't tell.  (Yes, I am a yarn snob!)  The yarn is actually Red Heart's Boutique Unforgettable.  I have no idea how it came to live in my house but I'm glad that it did.  Although it's a Red Heart acrylic yarn, it's just as soft as it can be and I absolutely love the color.  The photo doesn't do it justice, mainly because it was taken at night in horrible lighting on my very messy desk.  But in real life, it's emerald green with stripes of purple that vary from almost black to grape.  Besides the softness & the color, I also like the way the hat's appearance changes based on the size of the head (think man vs. woman.)  On a smaller head, the hat is a bit slouchy and has just a hint of a ruffled shape around the face.  On a larger head, the ruffle smoothes out and looks like any other ribbed hat.   Anyway, I liked the hat so much, I'm knitting a matching cowl.  No photos of the cowl as I've only got a few inches of knitting done so far.

So, on a totally different note, how's the weather been treating you?  Here in Virginia, it's been typical.  Not typical as in normal temperatures, but typical as in you never have a clue what to wear and you need to have both your harshest winter clothes as well as your summer clothes available.   Our "average" winter temperatures are are the mid 40's during the day & the upper 20's at night.  Recently, when the big cold wave hit us, the daytime temperature dropped 41 degrees in a matter of hours to give us a balmy high of 6 degrees one day.  We tied a record for cold temps that day.  Three days later, we broke another record.  This one for high temperatures when we hit 68 degrees.  It's no wonder practically everyone in the state is sick & we have a reputation for dressing funny.  The extreme temperature swing brought massive, massive rains and house shaking thunder storms.  It also produced heavy fog to go along with the flooded roads.  Here's a picture of our lake.

You can see the fog rolling across it.  The picture was taken around 3:30 in the afternoon & I don't think I've ever seen fog like that in the middle of the day before.  Being a Stephen King fan, it freaked me out just a teeny tiny bit.

So, what's your weather doing?  Feel free to rant or brag about it in the comments.  Meanwhile, I'm off to knit a few more inches of cowl before bedtime.

2014

Welcome, 2014!  I hope everyone had a safe & happy New Year's.  Mine was obviously not spent blogging!  Actually, New Year's snuck up on me this year.  I kept thinking I had an additional day in there.  And I'm quite certain that if I had of had that extra day, I could have finished accomplishing all those 2013 goals.  Oh well.  That's the fantastic thing about New Years.  It's like having a giant Do-Over button.

I'm thinking that I may have accomplished more in 2013 than I realize though.  Each year, I make my goals list, a list of 101 things I want to accomplish in the coming year.  I used to do 101 goals in 1001 days but that never worked for me.  I work much better under pressure.  Those far away deadlines are just way too easy to ignore.  So, I changed it to 101 things to do this year.  Most of the items are to-do list type of things, not necessarily things like vacuum (although that is a lofty goal for me!) but non-routine type things like power washing the house.  A few of the goals are of the stress inducing variety that will give me a good laugh in December when I review my list & have a good chuckle over thinking I could ever accomplish such a thing in only 365 days.  And of course, there are a few purchases I'd like to make.  But this year, for 2014, I couldn't come up with 101 things.  I only have 96 on my list.  Part of me is patting myself on the back for not having such a bad case of the I wants, part of me is thinking that maybe I'm actually making some headway in having the perfect life where to-do lists don't even exist, and part of me is going flipping insane trying to think of just five more items to complete my list.  For some reason, starting the year off without 101 goals is driving me stark raving mad.

Meanwhile, I'm very, very slowly working on one 2014 goal.

PoorFish is modeling the sock I'm knitting.  It's been a long time since I've knit myself any socks.  I knit so many a few years ago, I swore I'd never knit another one but since I wear my hand knit socks daily & have the tendency to walk down the driveway to the mail box sans shoes, they tend to wear out.

Item #2 on my 2014 goals list is obviously to clean PoorFish's bowl.  Yikes!  That water is looking a little cloudy.  But hey, doesn't PoorFish look good?  Since liberating him for his poor living conditions (& thus his name) at the pet store, his color has improved tremendously.

And since I never blogged about Christmas....  Looky what I got:

Yep!  Yarn salt & pepper shakers!  I'm not really sure why the one has yarn on a thread spool, but who cares!  They are yarn themed salt & pepper shakers!  My daughter gave them to me & she is now the official favorite child.

My son received gifts almost as exciting.

A one pound Reese's Cup and a crystal handled Solo cup.  Red, of course!

And a few other Christmas related photos...  My sister's neighbor:

Minnie pulling down her Christmas stocking:

And Max, who always waits patiently.

Happy New Year!

Fire in the Sky

Last night my daughter & I went driving around looking at Christmas lights.  At one point, we were driving down a dark road & we could see a weird orange glow off in the distance.  We had the conversation about how we hoped someone's house wasn't on fire & kept driving.  A few miles later we entered a neighborhood and what did we find?

It wasn't a fire making the sky glow.  It was a Tacky Lights tour house.  It was impossible to get a good picture because there was a line of cars waiting to see the house & when you made it to the front of the line, you were too close to get a picture of the whole thing.  Here's another picture, very blurred because we were rolling but I like the way the lights squiggle in it.

We made our way across town & entered Windsor Farms which is an old money, extremely well to do neighborhood in Richmond.  Big mistake!  Those old money folks don't waste any of it on street lights or road signs.  We got so lost!  The neighborhood is not laid out in straight, rectangular blocks like most city neighborhoods.  The roads twist & turn and vee off of each other.  And did I mention there was a distinct lack of street lights & road signs?  Anyway, we drove around in there trying to find our way out for almost 30 minutes.  We finally ended up depending on the car's compass & just kept trying to go in one direction.

We finally found our way out of Windsor Farms & headed down to the James Center.

Being a Monday night, we were able to find a parking space so we stopped, got out of the car & walked around in the lights.

Rudolph!  I just love Rudolph!

And a shot of Sarah standing in front of Rudolph.  And yes, the photo is cropped strangely.  I swear, the pile of trash by her feet that I cropped out was not there when we were taking the picture.

After the James Center tour, we warmed up with a stop for ice cream because any Richmonder knows, there's nothing like the cold wind that blows up downtown Cary Street.  In comparison, even ice cream felt warm.

As for knitting news, don't ask & I won't start screaming.

Christmas Smut

Well, I'm not in jail.  Yet.  A week of no knitting and I haven't killed anyone!  Instead, I have read two self help books & several trashy romance novels.  For some reason, I always get the urge to read Christmas smut this time of year.  Coming Home for Christmas, by Jenny Hale doesn't qualify as smut but it was a great read.  I worked for the author's father for years & years & am quite proud of Jenny for writing such a wonderful, clean romance novel.  Since I knew her before she was even old enough for braces or boys, it would have been just plain weird to read a bunch of 50 Shades of Grey smut coming out of her mouth.  Or maybe I should say coming out of her pen.  Whatever.  It was a nice, well written and well edited story.  In fact, it was the first book I've read in quite a while where I didn't find a single typo!  Go Jenny!  Another book I really enjoyed was Rebel by Elle Casey.  It also doesn't qualify as 50 Shades of smut but it did have a bit of an edge to it.  What I enjoyed most about it was the silly situations the main character kept finding herself in.  She made me laugh out loud many times, once while sitting alone in an Arby's restaurant.  Quite embarrassing!

So, reading is what I've been doing instead of knitting for the past week.  I'm afraid I may be reading for another week too.  My hand has been healing much faster than expected and I even began to knit a little last night without pain.  Yay!  I didn't get much done yesterday though, only one mitten cuff.  I didn't want to push it & reinjure myself so I only allowed myself one TV show's worth of knitting time.  First thing this morning, I cut off the tips of two fingers, one on each hand, with the new packing tape dispenser.  Okay, that may be a slight exaggeration, but only a slight one.   The cut on the finger on my left hand is only a little worse than a bad paper cut.  But you know how paper cuts can hurt! The cut on my right hand is ....  well, I might have needed stitches.  Or at least some of that emergency room glue they have.  This cut is much deeper and much wider and hours later, it continues to bleed if I look at it funny.  But you know me.  I don't do doctors.  As long as the old ticker continues to beat, I'll treat myself thank you very much.  I learned long ago that enough antibiotic ointment and a tight enough Bandaid will seal just about any wound.  But, with two hands with cuts, one of which is sporting a bandage oozing ointment & possibly bodily fluids, I'm back to not knitting.  For today at least.

And just so that there's some kind of photo in this post, I'll leave you with a picture of my deal of the season mini Christmas tree.  It's only about three feet tall, but it was a steal for $4 at GoodWill & came with working lights & decorations.  Can't beat that with a stick!

Total knitting panic mode

Where do I even start?  With the Christmas countdown on 20 Panic Days remaining and 18 projects on the Get It Done Or Else list, I hurt my hand/thumb and can't knit.  You've heard of "shopping till you drop"?  Well, I shopped until my thumb fell off.  Good grief!  I was carrying one of those plastic shopping bags hooked over my thumb and the weight tore something in there.  My palm & base of my thumb ended up bruised, swollen & miserable.  Unfortunately, in the panic of realizing I couldn't knit, I failed to take a picture of the fairly impressive bruising.

Luckily, minutes before going on that fateful shopping trip, I cast off this slip stitch hat.

So, that's a horrible picture taken in bad lighting with a flash.  In real life, it's "regular black" not the shiny black it appears to be in the picture and the colors are like muted stained glass.  As simple as it is, I think it may be my all time favorite thing I've ever knit.  Too bad it's too small for my head.  December has NOT been my month!  But that's okay.  I have more yarn and one of these days, the coloring in my hand won't be matching those greens & purples in the hat & I'll be able to knit another one.  A larger one, large enough for my freakishly huge head.

So, what have I been doing with all my non-knitting time?  Well, I have to admit, I have watched a Hell of a lot of Netflix, eaten my weight in self-pity Twizzlers, I've thrown a few more temper tantrums than normal, I've threatened to poke out the eyes of anyone who comes near me (with knitting needles of course) and I cleaned out my linen closet.

Yeah, that before picture isn't pretty.  Everyone had just been cramming stuff in there every which way & when ever someone dropped something, they left it where it landed.  For many, many months we've all been putting off changing our sheets as long as possible because no one wanted to have to fight trying to get the door re-closed.

So, the "after" isn't exactly pretty or decorative, but it's a lot less junky.  The door closes now, the sheets may not be folded perfectly, but they are once again stacked by size & the first aid supplies, medications, batteries & screwdrivers are back in their respective baskets instead of all jumbled up together.  Once I finished tossing the medicines that expired in 2007 (why was our family so sick in 2007??) and getting rid of the hundreds of pillow shams that don't match anything we currently own, look what happened -

An empty shelf!  Oh My God!  I have an empty shelf!  Think of all the yarn I can cram in there!

And for those of you paying attention & wondering why I have a kitchen strainer in my linen closet....  It's for cleaning out Poor Fish's bowl.  Or his rocks I should say.

Something else I've been doing is learning to paint making a mess with paint.  Apparently, I can hold a paint brush, but not knitting needles.  Argh!  But the painting has been a lot of fun.  A friend got into mixed media painting a while back & I've been pretty jealous of her creations.  I can't even draw a recognizable stick figure!  Recently, I found this book and have been following the directions and having a blast with it.

Actually, I haven't been following the directions so I've been making a lot of mistakes but I learn something from each of them.  For example, on that page, I was supposed to paint "media gel" over the black lines with a small brush before I watered down the rest of the water color pencil colors.  I failed to do the media gel step & the black lines smeared all over the place.  But whatever.  I had a good time playing with the pencils.  (And now I have the verse from Alice's Restaurant about sitting on the Group W bench & playing with the pencils running through my head.)

So yeah.  Instead of working on Christmas gift projects or shopping for items to replace the handmade ones, I've been attempting to paint & spending all my money on art supplies.  So, if you actually do receive something knit from me for Christmas (or maybe Easter - yikes!) and it's covered in paint, you'll know why.

And, now our power is starting to flicker so I think I'll rush this to a close before I end up loosing it.   We are in the midst of a three day ice storm.  We had freezing rain thunder storms yesterday which were fun!  I just pray (& so should everyone else) that our power doesn't go off.  I'm not sure I can survive if I loose both the internet and knitting at the same time.

Ketchup

There's a lot to catch up on.  Let's talk knitting.  It's been quite a while since I posted here & much knitting has been accomplished.  I've knit six pair of fingerless mitts, several boot toppers (none of which I photographed) and two scarves similar to this one.

On Thanksgiving, I finished the above slipstitch scarf.  In real life, the colors are much more muted & not so mustardy looking.  I liked the pattern so much I immediately cast on for a matching hat.

I also started a white scarf in a simple lace pattern.

I love the feeling of the knitted fabric on this one but I may end up ripping it out anyway.  I bought this cone of yarn at GoodWill the other day.  There's no content label on it & I have no idea how much yarn there is but the price was too good to pass up.  Knitted up, it feels like cashmere but the price made Red Heart look expensive.  Anyway, about this scarf, I'm just not sure.  Not sure I can stand to knit an 11 inch wide scarf in white in a simple, one row lace pattern.  The boredom had already set in before I had four inches of knitting.  And have I mentioned I like looong scarves?  I'm pretty sure this one can officially be classified as a permanent UFO.

It's probably a good thing the boredom set in on the white scarf though because I got three custom orders yesterday!  Three!  That may not sound like a lot, but to me it is.  I don't normally accept more than two at a time and I've never had multiple orders come in on the same day, but....  They are all relatively simple projects that shouldn't give me any trouble.  (Wow!  That was a close call.  I'm knocking heavily on wood just in case I jinxed myself for even thinking it.)

Changing the subject....

So, why is this post titled "Ketchup"?  Have you ever seen the movie Pulp Fiction?  I love the ketchup joke and every time someone says "catch up" I automatically think "ketchup."  Anyway....  I had a lot to catch up on.  And why is that, you ask?  Because I completely screwed up.  I decided to go pro & buy my own domain name & move everything I sell onto my own website.  What a disaster!  First & foremost, what in the world was I thinking when I thought the beginning of the Holiday shopping rush would be a good time to make that kind of change?  Good Lord!  Apparently, I wasn't thinking at all!  And secondly, I've been having massive issues with the site.  Even my IT guy is having problems with it.  I won't go into details, mainly because I am NOT an IT guy & don't understand the details, but let's just say it's a disaster & not much of anything works on it.  And every "fix" just makes it worse.  So, for now, I'm back here and in my Etsy shop.  Mr. IT continues to work on it but I'm thinking I may have to pay him more than the pizza & Mt. Dew I've been supplying.

So, that's my story.  Please forgive me for the confusing excited announcements about new sites & locations that led you nowhere and for not posting here for so long.

My Summer Vacation

Summers are normally a very relaxing time for me.  By the time May rolls around I'm usually feeling a teeny bit of burn out after homeschooling all year, which in our household means, I spend 90% of my time in the car driving the kids places.  I always look forward to a summer spent at home, not in the car.  I love those lazy summer days where we simply walk down to the lake, park our butts on the beach & vegetate until dinner time.  If we vegetate long enough, Hubby will come home from work & fix dinner.  I love summer!

But this year, I traded my vegetative state for "spending money."  I went & got myself a part time job at the local theme park.  What was I thinking??  Actually, I was thinking I'd work a couple of days a week & earn a little extra yarn money.

That's not exactly what happened.  The part time, couple of days a week job turned into 60 - 70 hours a week.  It's my own fault.  Jason, Creator of the Schedule, who's young enough to be my grandchild, would look at me with his sweet little face & I'd hear myself saying, "Sure, I can work that day."  I'd hear other worker-bees mention that they'd been scheduled for a day they wanted off & I'd hear myself saying I'd cover for them.  My work load would be finished & I'd find myself sticking around to help out everyone else.  I'd tell myself that since I'd put the uniform on & was going to have to go home & wash it, I may as well get it good & dirty.  So, it's my own fault.  But good grief!  After not having worked outside the house in 18 years, it was quite a shock to my system!

It didn't help that my hours were so screwy.  I'd leave home between 1:00 & 2:00 in the afternoon each day & get home around 3:00 or 4:00 in the morning.  And I'd be starving, which usually meant stopping off at the local all night truck stop for something either full of sugar or horribly greasy.  After gobbling down the truck stop food in the car, I'd get home & watch Netflix for an hour or two while I washed my uniform & my stomach settled.  I'd hit the bed around 5 a.m., sleep until noon & get up, shower and go do it all over again.  That was my summer vacation.

I can't complain though.  I really enjoyed the job, the people, & the atmosphere.  Oh, and the strawberry slushies.  The employee cafe's strawberry slushies were what kept me showing up for work day after day.  I'm not sure how I'll survive the winter without them.  They are more addictive than crack.  More addictive than sock yarn!  Hand spun, hand dyed sock yarn!!  Hand spun, hand dyed sock yarn on sale!!!

The job continues through the end of October, but it's weekends only now.  Finally!  I can return to knitting.

My summer knitting pile is pathetic.

That's all I accomplished all summer long.  A few hats, a few scarves & a couple of shawls.  Pathetic.

The problem I face now is that there are so many things I want to knit, I don't know where to start.  Instead of casting on, I sit here staring into the yarn bins for hours, frozen in indecision hell.

Maybe some music will help break me out of indecision mode.  I'm weirdly excited about my new gadget.

It's a little tiny, portable speaker that hooks to an ipod.  It works great & I use it constantly.  I carry it around the house & use it instead of headphones, I take it to work & subject my workmates to my music.  (They deserve it!  I did spend months listening to their Justin Bieber & some girl playing cups. I really don't understand the whole teen fascination with musical cups.)  I even use it in the car so that I can blast my loud obnoxious rock music while driving home from work at 3 a.m. when there's nothing worth listening to on the radio & I'm trying to stay awake.  That little $9 speaker has probably saved me from taking quite a few ditch naps.

So, I think I'll go turn on the music, close my eyes & simply grab something out of the yarn stash.    After all, any knitting is better than no knitting.

Growing Gills

I'm starting to grow gills.  June 1st marked the beginning of Hurricane Season & while we haven't had an actual hurricane yet, we certainly have had a lot of wet.  Tropical Storm Andrea arrived the first week of June & brought flooding rains.  I'm not sure how much rain we actually got, but they'd been predicting 6 inches.  Here's a photo of the Rappahannock River.  Every other day since, we've had massive thunderstorms which have each dumped 1 - 3 more inches of rain on us. This afternoon's storm is supposed to be the wildest so far as far as wind & tornados & may give us another 3 inches of rain.  In other words, I'm growing gills!

So, my new "real" job where some other company that I have no ownership rights to pays me is kicking my butt.  Rather literally.  I am so beaten up!  I fear I'll loose a fingernail from where I dropped a bag of rolled coin on my hand, that same hand has multiple cuts & scrapes, my forearm is bruised, both of my calves are bruised and I have a scrape/cut on my ankle.  And let's don't forget the first day's shin splints.  (Luckily they went away after only a few days.)  Who knew counting money could be so dangerous!  The job is a lot more physical than I'd ever have thought possible.  The actual counting of the money, not so much, but gathering & storing the money takes muscle.  But, injured or not, I still love the job.  So much so that I sort of feel like a Stepford employee.  The people are fantastic, they don't mind my constant questions (not yet, at least,) they are friendly & kind to the clueless newbies & everyone in my area seems to get a long well.  We also have a nice bathroom (which can be dang important!) with THE absolute coolest toilet paper dispenser.  So, yeah.  My life is so pathetic these days, I'm excited about a toilet paper dispenser.  But this thing is awesome!  It doesn't appear to be all that freakishly large, but it holds about 8 rolls & when one roll runs out, you just spin the dial & a new roll is ready & waiting.  I so want one for our house.  They can keep their money - they'll never have to worry about me stealing the cash, but if I can figure out a way of smuggling that toilet paper dispenser out of there, I'm taking it!

The only problem with the job is that it's severely cutting into my knitting time.  In the two weeks I've been working there, I've only knit one shawl.

And it's not even that large of a shawl nor did I use a tricky lace pattern that took forever to knit.  It's just simple garter stripes of gray & red with a solid red stockinette ruffle.  I like it though.  The red is bright & cheerful but the gray tones it down so it doesn't look like a stoplight & the ruffle girlies up the gray & red stripes just a bit.  It's another one of those shawls that I was planning to put in the shop but I may end up keeping for myself.

To add more color to this post...

My sad attempt at rose gardening.  I'm not sure you can call it "gardening" though.  Several years ago, my husband's buddy dropped by with a pickup truck full of plants he'd been hired to remove from someone's home.  He knew our "garden" consisted of not much more than crabgrass & thought we could use them.  Anyway, most of the plants have done exceptionally well.  This poor rosebush, however, has not exactly thrived.  First, it died.  I cut the trunk of it back just about to the ground & the next year, it came back & started to grow.  It just didn't grow roses.  For the past 3 or 4 years, it's produced a few leaves & grown a little in size but hasn't produced more than one or two roses.  But this year...  Blooms galore!  Of course, if you look closely, you'll see that the leaves are covered in brown spots which I'm sure mean something dreadful will happen to it soon.  Time will tell.

Can you tell?  I consider myself a naturalist gardener.  At least that's what I like to call myself rather than someone who kills plants constantly due to my lack of effort & caring.

And with that, I'll bid you adieu as I need to go hop in the shower & get ready for work.