RIP dear friend

Tuesday morning I woke up at 1:40AM to see what all that noise was about outside my bedroom window (a firetruck, ambulance, several paramedic's and two police wheeling one of my naked neighbor's out to the waiting ambulance) when I accidentally pushed my faithful piggy bank off the dresser. (I have been rearranging my bedroom, hence the random shoe and the bear I got from grandparents when they went to Alaska when I was 12.)

Being so early in the morning, I didn't think to look and see what that loud crashing sound meant. I was still trying to wake up and was wondering what was wrong with my neighbor and "is that his tranny roommate with her new boobies?"*

Anyway, today I took a gander and noticed that the Pig was dead and its little piggy bank guts were everywhere. I was a bit sad since I've had this bank for about six years. Poor Pig, I could always count on him to keep my money safe and sound. And he was cute too.

:( Rest In Peace my dear friend, Rest In Peace.


PS, You've already been replaced. I'm sure you understand. I also got a baby bank for my desk at work.

*More later....let's just say I really had to work hard to avert my eyes, especially since it was chilly out!

Simba takes a break from sleeping

I don't know what the deal is, but Simba loves knitting needles. He likes to rub his face against them and if I'm not watching may even chew on them. A couple days ago as I was finishing up some socks, Simba leaned on my knee and did his thing. The Yarn Harlot's book is open in the background with the pattern I'm using.

Fashion victim or fancy free?

Periodically I try to take a couple photos for Faythe and Aimee so they won't forget life here in SD. You know, the average every-day stuff!


I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw this guy outside talking to Apollo and Tee. I think he was wearing flannel pajama bottoms with footballs and baseballs on it, but I'm not sure. Not to mention those shoes. Of course, Apollo insists on wearing his camel colored shoes with black pants. I'm being generous with that, they're more yellow than anything.

The final accessory to complete the "oh no he didn't" look is the bottle in the paper bag. At least he's happy. And hey, the sun is shining!

Can I have my yarn nerd membership card now?

I got my yarn from Blue Moon Fiber Arts today. I'm VERY pleased. I spent a lot of time obsessing over their site and was not disappointed.

(click image to appreciate)

From the top is Lovers Leap (very red, very pretty), Lucy in the Sky (better than I expected, i like the dye patterns), Lucy (can we say Siamese kitty?), and Blue Moonstone (so many light blue colors, it's icey blue goodness). Of course, they look much better an person.

I can't wait to finish up the socks I'm working on now so I can start on one of these!

Socken mit bohrungen

I recently found one of the first socks I ever knit behind the dresser. It was made with one of those self striping yarn, that was pretty exciting for a knitting newbie.


But look at this, holes! Holes throughout the sock! I have no idea where they came from. Sometimes my clothes get holes in them from the washing machine here in the building but we stopped using that machine. So where could they have come from? I haven't seen any moths here at all. I'm concerned about my other wool socks...and yarn! Ideas?

Yahoo disses west coast

No more algae!

I'm sure a lot of fish enthusiasts already know about the coolness that is an aquarium magnet cleaner, I had always thought of them as frivolous. WELL, after years of owning an aquarium I finally bought one. Can I say how AWESOME this thing is??


Apollo had a good time cleaning the sides of the tank. It's amazing how fast algae builds up. It seems like one day you see a tiny bit of algae and think "oh great, the fish will love that" and the next day it's all over the place. To the left of his hand you can see the algae that still has to be cleaned up. It's thick! So thick that with each wipe the algae would float off into the water in thick layers of goo if it didn't stick to the magnet. I used the fish net to scoop up the stuff that tried to get away. There's a lot in the net too, disgusting!

Anyway, it was good to see the fish again. I think the fish are happy too, they started swimming excitedly back and forth in front of us. But then again, they always do that. Little "no brains," that's what I call them.



The picture is dark but when I used the flash you couldn't see the algae in the net as well.

Hey Aimee...

Remember when I asked you during our phone conversation a few hours ago if should frog part of this almost completed sock and do the heel over? And you said, "well I know what I'd do" (frogging goes against your value system). Well, I did it. I ripped back the foot and am doing the heel over. But it's all good, I did it wrong the first time. This time it looks so much better!

Update: It's 11:15pm (I had to break for dinner) and I've just finished knitting the heel flap...the correct way! On the first flap, I K1, Sl1 repeat for each knit row. WELL apparently how you slip the stitch makes a big difference. I had been slipping purlwise...that's ok for the first stitch of each row but you can't do that the entire row! The stitches have to be slipped knitwise! Slipping incorrectly results in a heel flap that's half it's intended length and fabric reminiscent of burlap.

The sock on the left, which will not lie flat because I completed the short rows, has a correctly knit heel flap. The sock on the right is the bad bad bad heel flap. I drew in some lines so you can see where the flaps start and stop.

Also, I know these are terrible photos, but can you see the difference in the texture? The sock on the left has slipped stitches which creates an elongated type stitch and elasticity. The sock on the right has tiny stitches and after I knit the foot, the wrong heel flap was tight and unforgiving.

Thinking back, it's possible I may have even done something like slip every other stitch on the purl row too! I'm glad I ripped back. :)

War update

Worms: 0 Me: 1

HAHAHAHAHAH!

Let the suffering commence..well not yet

One of my coworkers recently tried a special diet and lost a lot of weight. Basically, she ate a lot of veggies, fruits, soup and drank a lot of water. She cleansed herself and made her body burn fat to exist. I've decided to give it a try. I went to the store tonight and bought all the ingredients of doom and am going to mix up the potion tomorrow. Meanwhile, tonight I have decided to eat filth to make up for the pain and suffering I'm going to experience this week. As I chew my cheesey gordita crunch from Taco Bell, I am a tiny bit concerned about my coworkers this week. Hopefully I won't be too mean.

War: Brought!

So much has happened since I last blogged about the worms. First, I went out to check on the plants and three of them were lying dead in the dirt. Actually, one of them was moving slowly but I think it would have died eventually. I dropped them on the ground and sprayed them with soap water, cementing their demise.

Tonight I checked on the plants again and found these two worms! Mocking me! It seems they doubt my ability to do them in!!

I was wondering how I miss them to begin with...how is it there always seem to be a new set of caterpillars? Well see that little guy in the upper right corner? That baby probably only takes a mere few days to turn into something like the monster on the left!

I called around to Home Depot, Lowes and Ace Hardware and they all recommended BT Caterpillar Killer. Unfortunately, none of them had it but thankfully, Walter Anderson did. So Apollo made an emergency trip over to one of their stores with only 40 minutes left until they closed and then had the nerve to come back with something totally different. *sigh*

Which reminds me of this other time when Apollo went to the store to pick up the ingredients for banana bread. Before he left I ranted and raved about how much I hated instant banana bread mixes and how I grew up making it from scratch. I even had the almost rotten bananas ready. Anyway, he goes to the store and returns, not with the items hand written onto a list I had given him (eggs, sugar, flour) but with, you guessed it, bags of banana bread mix! Oh yeah, I do think he had one of the items off the list too. How that was supposed to help, I don't know. His reasoning? It was on sale, 2 for 1. Both packages are still sitting in my cupboard, several years later.


Suffice to say, I was annoyed. Very annoyed. So, when he returned today not with the B.T. Caterpillar Killer but with something else, I was...well, I started to act like Faythe does when confronted with Cool Whip. The sales person at the store convinced him that it's better. For Apollo's well being, it better be. *mumbling*

Notice the bag of leaves and worms to the right that I had originally intended on taking to a nursery for identification purposes. I guess we can dispose of them. I'll let you know who wins this round!

OH IT'S ON!!

My tomato plants are being invaded by inch worms aka caterpillars!! I've been killing them when I find them and even sprayed the plants with soap water. Well, the two plants which got most of the soap water (I was experimenting to see if any of them would react badly from the soap) are not doing well. They look like they're dying! So I've started looking on the undersides for the worms and each day, EACH DAY I find huge worms!!


They're so sneaky, look we thought there were two worms on this leave but after I took the photo, I realized there were actually three! 3!! ARGH!

I have declared war on the caterpillar/worms! Apollo is enroute to Walter Anderson right now to pick up a specialty killer just for these little guys. Oh it's on! It's on like Donkey Kong!!*

*For those of you who are too young to know what Donkey Kong is.... Just forget it! Forget it I say!!

Bring on the Celebrex!

Ok, so I started up with The Knit again. I decided to make some socks. Funny thing is, I've started knitting socks with this yarn at least twice but ended up frogging. This time I picked a pattern that's a sure no-fail. It's the Yarn Harlot's basic sock pattern from one of her books, with a minor change (mucho mucho ribbing).

I've been avoiding needles this small, but this time I decided to bite the bullet and use 2.25mm. It's possible these needles combined with my death grip are bringing on early arthritis. At least this is what my aching fingers are telling me after knitting two 7 inch sock legs in two by two ribbing.

This afternoon I started on a "sturdy" heel flap. If I don't wake up with my fingers curled up stiffly in a claw-like manner, then I'll be surprised. But it'll be worth it! (right?)

News flash

I was promoted today!

Not a fan of grafting

Or seaming, or whatever you call it. The sweater is done (it's all in one piece), it just has to be put together.

So, there it sits.

Loving this weather

It's such a beautiful day today. Of course, I worked but at least I worked from home where I could open my windows and doors and listen to the wind blow through my bamboo windchime. The cats love staring through the screen at bits of leaves and other plant debris that seemingly crawl across the pavement and spark their imagination.

The plants are doing very well. As you can see, we have quite a few tomato plants. What can I say? We love tomatoes. The bell pepper plant is doing great too, but I'm unfamiliar with this type of plant so I'm not sure if it's as big as it should be. I had just finished watering them in this picture, usually there isn't any water on the ground.

We also have a few hanging planters on the fence. This year we decided to put a plant similar to an ice plant (but with tiny purple flowers) in them. Since the planters can't seem to hold water and every other plant we had in them died from dehydration, we figure these little guys should do really well. After all, they seem to thrive in this dry climate.

I'm loving this weather. Not too hot and not too cold at 75 degree's with a nice breeze - it's perfect!

Does this sound right to you?

I've had this aching tooth for some time and I could tell I was just about ready to reach "Angry Troll Under the Bridge" aka Red Alert, so I decided to schedule an appointment with a dentist. My insurance helped me pick out a dentist for sissy's and I was lucky enough to get in on Wednesday. Well, they decided I needed a root canal. Fortunately, they had a time slot for me Thursday. Despite there being some swelling in the area of the roots, the dentist said it was OK to go ahead with the root canal. Coo'. The dirty deed was done. Well, it's Saturday and despite the high dose of antibiotics I'm taking each day, the swelling isn't going away. In fact, it seems to be getting worse. I'm concerned. And I'm sweating penicillin. Is this normal? I'm swishing salt water right now. Oh, and if certain coworkers keep getting on my nerves, they will know the pain I'm in.

PS, these are some flowers on my patio. I don't know what the plant is called, but they're beautiful.

Crocs

I recently tried on a pair of Crocs at Nordy's and they were surprisingly comfortable! Sure, maybe they don't look very fashionable but they're very nice on the foot. And incredibly light! If you're interested in buying them online, try the promotion code: Eventrunners. You'll get shipping free ($9.95). The following is just a sampling of what you'll find.

And no, I'm not selling them or anything. I was just amazed at the comfort and how they form to your feet. Plus, I knew this would annoy Faythe. Oh yeah, and they have cute shoes for kidlets too.