A tiny knit to keep me satisfied

I've started a new project: Saartje's Bootees. I figure they should be a nice short project that I can work on a little at a time between homework and still feel like I'm accomplishing something. I'm using a dusty lavender color from Baby Cashmerino that is subtle yet pretty. Apollo approved the color for boy babies but I won't have to put that to the test since the only upcoming baby I know of is a girl.

I was going to stay up late and study but instead I knit a few rows and blogged. No disclipine! None!

Last hank of medium weight STR yarn - phew!

Second pair of socks from the Blue Moon Fibert Arts Rock and Weave pattern. Love the pattern, hate the medium weight yarn! I still haven't decided how I feel about the colorway. While I like the colors mixing together, I look at them as socks and shudder. I also didn't care for the pooling in the feet. Pooling will be the death of me!!! Well, that and ice cream.

Avoiding a meltdown

The past month has been trying. I don't want to bore you with the details but yesterday, it all accumulated into the Mother of All Headaches. My head hurt all day long and though I did take something for it, nothing helped. Everything made me nauseated and I was mean to people I care about. I didn't even knit or pet Zoe! By the time I went to bed, my head hurt so bad I considered I might die in my sleep and that didn't bother me at all. (I know that may seem a little dramatic but at that point, I wasn't thinking straight.) I briefly wondered if a headache could lead to death and then pulled the sheet over my head and went to sleep. Needless to say, I woke up this morning with only a slight headache and am feeling much better, thank you. And I just finished the toe on the second of Mom's socks.

Zoe is still being mouthy about not getting pet. At one point, to get my attention she jumped into the built in shelves in the livingroom, deliberately pulled out one of the teddy bears and sat there meowing pathetically at me.

I've read that to help get yourself through healthy grieving, you're supposed to talk about the person you lost until you can't talk anymore. I don't really want to talk about that so instead, I've been thinking about getting a tattoo. I want to get something to help me remember my grandpa (and no, not a banjo or Chevy pickup truck), so I have decided on either a hibiscus flower or cherry tree blossom. The first being because grandpa loved Hawaiian images (Mom said he loved Hawaiian stuff because of the half naked women). He even had the seat in his truck reupholstered with gaudy flower velvet fabric. The second because of the fragility of life symbolism behind the Japanese cherry tree blossom. While looking at tattoo's online I saw some awesome white ink tattoo's so I'm giving them some thought as well.

Meanwhile, tomorrow I'm going to try to find a salon that will cut my hair without an appointment. Maybe something short so I spent the least amount of time possible on it. I just feel like I need to start over.

Saving up for a "rainy day?"

I learned some interesting news today at work that may or may not affect our future. With this in mind, and other aggravating factors, I've been thinking of making some life changes. These changes will directly affect my ability to frivolously buy yarn on whim. Thank goodness I've been stocking up!

Yesterday my latest purchases arrived from Hazel Knits. Obsessed? You decide. To the left is Weekend Warrior and Plum Glace. The photo doesn't accurately catch the colors, you'll have to check out the store for accuracy. I suggested to Apollo that I could make him some socks out of Weekend Warrior and he got a funny look on his face. Apparently, the colors aren't manly enough aka black. HMPH! Whatever! I'll make something for myself. Seriously, it looks so nice in person, I especially like the green.




This is Fireberry and Pink Tulip. The Fireberry isn't as pink/purple as I thought, but I think I love it more just the way it is! In fact, when I opened the package and took each yarn out, I fondled them all, sniffed them and held them next to my skin for a few seconds while Apollo stared at me as if something was wrong. As if!

Oh, and the two sets of yarn came wrapped in tissue paper with other bits of yarn tying them together. GREAT marketing idea! I fell in love with Greenlake just from a couple feet of yarn. SERIOUS ISSUES PEOPLE! Oh, and the nice little stitch marker Wendee includes in every order? Is it just me or would her stitch markers make cute earrings?? Perhaps I need more sleep.

I haven't decided what patterns I'm going to knit or who each color "belongs" to, but I'm tempted to save them all for myself.

I'm feeling decidedly needy.

He's not helping

I thought this sock would photograph well up against Simba's fur,considering his coat is the complimentary color to most of the colors. But Simba had something else in mind! The cord dangling from the camera was just too much for him to handle and he went into Attack Cat Mode.

I'm about half way through the first of Mom's Rock and Weave socks. I also found buttons at Walmart for a fraction of Joann's price.

It shouldn't take long to finish them, it's just a matter of picking up stitches along both linen cuff strips.

Thank you

This year for Christmas, Faythe got me some glass double pointed needles from Sheila and Michael Ernst. They're gorgeous!


I haven't had a chance to knit with them. At first I was worried about the fact that they're glass but after handling them a bit, they seem strong enough. Plus they have a lifetime warranty for repair.

You should see them with the light coming from behind. So pretty! Thanks Faythe. :)

Hate yarn? Avert your eyes beyotches!

OK, so I will be the first to admit that I've been in a but of a funk lately. But rather than go into the details, let's talk about how I'm replacing food with yarn!! (YESS! Now if only I could get off my fat ass, maybe I can lose some weight.)

I've wanted to knit socks these past couple weeks but haven't had the brain energy left to even think about patterns. Then it dawned on me. Why not use yarn that creates its own pattern?

Last night after cruising for yarn online, it didn't take much (or any) arm twisting to pick up some more Hazel Knits Artisan Sock yarn. I'm learning to think outside of the box and try out something other than solids and thankfully, her yarns don't do any weird pooling that will cause me to rip out my hair. I placed my order at Hazel Knits (that's Weekend Warrior over there, can't wait to see how it turns out) and decided to do a drive by at Jimmy Beans Wool.

It was then I realized there were only a few hours left to the day before the next months Lorna's Laces limited edition yarn would be available for sale!

And then I did something stupid.

Even though I was so tired I felt dizzy and standing up after laying down made me nauseated and dizzy and even though I had no idea what the new limited edition yarn would look like, I decided to stay up until midnight just in case I wanted some. Especially since last month it sold out pretty quickly (I read one day). Yep, my dedication to yarnage has proved to exceed my desire for good health, sanity and sleep induced happiness. Long story short, the yarn wasn't on the site at midnight so I went to bed.

Sadly, the first thing I did this morning when I got up early (because a certain neighbor can't help but stomp around upstairs and make the windows vibrate loudly until I wake up) was check their site and there it was, SWAK in all its February-esque glory!

I've been waiting to purchase Duet Chocolate Crunch for months now and it's always sold out. SWAK seems to be the substitute I was looking for! I immediately placed an order along with a few other colorways I've been drooling over for months.

Meanwhile, poor Apollo will probably have to deal with my crankiness for another day since I can't take a nap while the Chargers/Patriots game is on. That's just crazy talk!

Maybe I'll surf on over to KnitPicks and check out their needles while I wait for my yarn to come in. I just got paid!! Who's going to stop me?? HAHAAHAHAAH#A@!!!

Tormenting my coworkers

We have seven working monitors on the wall (connected to computers) in the NOC with which we use to monitor live events. There's only one other female in our department and she's a temp so I don't know how long she's going to be working with us. So anyway, as you an imagine there's a lot of testosterone induced Mom, dick and fart jokes going on. One of my more manly coworkers replaces the desktop picture's weekly with the latest hot sports car photo. Now, don't get me wrong. I don't care. But today a sense of delirum fell over me and while I laughed hysterically at LOL cats, I started setting new picture's to the backgrounds of the monitors.

(click the pic)

Oh the horror's the boys face when they return to the office!! Kittens, princesses, unicorns, flowers! HA! I don't think it's going to be hard to convince me to go to bed early tonight. It's either that or sit around and think about whether or not I've made the wrong decision with the classes I've chosen to take and how discouraged I am.

Apollo meets an Oregon winter

We went to bed with less than an inch on the ground and woke up with four or five inches silently blanketing everything around us. I'll upload more snow pictures later and will definitely load the bulk of them to Flickr soon. I'll let you know when they're up!

Chocolatey yumminess

I rolled up a hank of Chocolatier from Hazel Knits and was surprised at its beauty. (The funny thing just now is how I typed "buty" instead of "beauty." I guess I need more sleep.)


OK, you may be thinking, "but it's just brown." But look closer my friend.


Eh? You see? Look at the cinnamon, plum, chestnut and chocolate colors blending in together. Doesn't it just make your mouth water? It certainly looks yummy to me! Every time I see something this nice I want to knit plain stockinette just to show off its "buty-ful" colors. I just may do that this time.

...And I'm back! - the novel

So the past few weeks have been very eventful. First, I heard my Grandpa's health had deteriorated substantially, so I bought a couple tickets for myself and Apollo and we went up to Oregon to visit him. While we were visiting, he passed away. It was pretty emotional so I'll spare you the details.

Apollo and I didn't go to the funeral since I needed to get back to work. But it was more important that I see him in person and get to have some time to visit so I'm ok with that

The day we were supposed to fly out it snowed and all the major highways were closed due to white out, landslides or fallen tree's. After we got over the shock and disappointment of missing our flight, we went outside and enjoyed the scenery. It was absolutely beautiful! Once I can find my camera, I'll upload some photos.

That night we learned there was another storm coming in and since Aimee had to take a class the next day Or Else, we hopped in her Corolla and drove 10mph down Indian Creek Road and then took a long route through Some Other Town to get to Aimee's place. I'm guessing it was about a five hour drive. We spent the night and the next day managed to get a flight, at an additional fee, to San Diego. Sure, it took over five hours to get home (let's not forget the six hour lay over we had in LA on our way up) but at least we were home!

But when we got home we were in for a big surprise. See, we were supposed to get new carpet on the 8th and when our landlord heard about the storm, he started moving things out of the living room into the dining room. This made us nervous just due to the whole invasion of privacy thing, but we assured him we'd be home in time to clear everything else out. Well, when we got home at 12:30AM on the 8th, we walked in to discover everything had been moved into our dining room and on the patio minus our mattress and cushion-less couch. We couldn't find any blankets (everything was in black garbage bags on the patio) but made do with a sheet. The cats were in shock but happy to see us.

I worked the next day from Starbucks since I didn't have any clean clothes other than those I had worn in the snow and on the plane. I learned some bad news from Faythe and I can't even comfort her since I live so far away. The carpet was installed (apparently our other carpet was rotting from the bottom up) and we've started going through everything in boxes in bags. Happily, we we have consequently thrown out two bags of clothes and more.

Then I noticed something weird. The fish tank is hidden partially behind a dresser, cat tree, TV and some boxes. The light was on and everything seemed to be functioning normally, but I couldn't see any fish swimming. So I moved a box out of the way and saw all but one fish were dead! Their little fishy bodies were draped all over the bottom. I couldn't figure out what happened and thought maybe our landlord had added some city water straight from the tap after moving it. But then, I opened the lid and STEAM CAME OUT! That's right, STEAM!! We tried to turn down the thermostat but it seems to be stuck permanently on high. I'm guessing the thermostat sustained some damage while it was moved by my landlord.

SO. It appears my fish were boiled alive. One seems to have survived, I guess his tolerance to extremely high temperature is a bit higher then all the other fish. He's swimming around right now and I'm sure whatever brain cells he had have seriously been depleted. We'll see how he reacts when we buy him a buddy.

Meanwhile, we lost cable and Internet connection, possibly related to the landlord moving things around. When the cable guy came out to fix it, he left without fixing the Internet problem. After a series of phone calls and appointments that were missed by my cable company, and yet even more phone calls involving myself behaving highly inappropriate and consequently receiving a partial credit towards my account, they finally showed up today and fixed the problem. It seems the Internet problem was caused by the first cable guy failing to remove a protective piece of plastic from the cable cord.

Well, at least now I have access to my class assignments, websites I need to access to complete projects and I can work from home again. And no, Cox Cable, I am not going to upgrade to a business plan just so I can get immediate technical support and yet again pay for something I am not receiving. And yes, I work in customer support and I am on to your games of putting me on hold for 15 minutes when I ask for a supervisor and really, is that a supervisor or a teammate that has worked there longer and has more experience in calming down customers?

Anyway, now I have the blues.

Conversations I'd like to avoid

Me: Call Aimee.

Headset: Did you say, "Call Aimee?"

Me: Yes!

Headset: Did you say, "Call Audley?"

Me: No!

Headset: Did you say, "Call Graham?"

Me: No!

Headset: I'm sorry, but no matches have been found.

Me: ARGH!!