There's yarn in my house....

who knew?

Not me, that's for sure.

Another weekend spent on the construction project. I really must take some pictures. I have a feeling Romi thinks it's a figment of my imagination so I don't have to do something scary like meet new people.

We finished running all the smurf tube for the electrical conduits for all the outlets and lights and ceiling fans.

A ton of insulation was purchased on Saturday afternoon.

Nathan and his girlfriend Tina came over on Sunday bright and early to help. I was relegated to wielding paint brushes and sprayers, in an effort to keep me a mile away from the insulation (just thinking about that stuff makes me itch). We do know that all exposed wood on the outside of the structure must be covered (at least primed) to get the permit finalled. So off with primer and the sprayer I go.

Here is where I am very glad I do NOT have pictures. Note to self when using a paint sprayer, especially to do eaves over one's head, is to wear a hat. At the end of the day I was covered in paint and primer. Hair shellac in bright white and copper coin dots, with some actual drips thrown in to drive me nuts.

Never have I been so grateful for my tankless hot water heater. I think I got all of it out. It's only took an hour. Sigh. I'll be taking sponge baths for the rest of the week to make up for all the water I used.

Tonight hubby finishes the insulation so we can get inspected tomorrow and find out what else has to be done to get the thing finalled.

Then my 'vacation' starts Wednesday, in which we will spend at least two days attempting to knock out everything required to pass the final inspection.

We almost might still be making quick (ha) jaunt down to the Arizona for hubby's 20 year reunion.

Since I had the paint out yesterday, after priming I managed to get about two thirds of the entire garage structure eaves painted in the CORRECT color. The really big thing was the trim on the front of the garage. A couple of years ago when we got a WORKING garage door opener installed we thought we were going with a different color scheme.

So the trim ended up a really really really dark brown.

Last year we finally finished the final paint job on the house and the main part of the garage and realized the brown had to go. So on the front of the garage you could see the ugly brown trim with some of the right base, where plastic had been put up to protect the garage door itself.

I got tired of the front of the garage having a split personality, so I tackled that yesterday too. It needs one more coat of paint, but still looks WAY better than it did. Once the eaves are done in front, it will be ready for the pic a friend of ours wants since we used his stone panels for part of the front.

Either way, a lot got finished. More could have been done, but sleep is a general requirement these days as well as cleanliness.

On a knitting note. A friend down the street is expecting. I wasn't supposed to know yet, but I'm observant and noticed the motion sickness wrist bands she was wearing the other day and asked about them. Unexpected, unplanned, she's older... so they are waiting to announce until the ultrasound this week, but all the blood work was fine, so all of our fingers are crossed. This would be baby number 2 for her and I have no idea what to make. Let's just say I'm tired of booties.

Any ideas?

Why couldn't I just say 'Hi'?

The fact that I am horribly shy seems to escape most people. Kind of like my fear of ladders. I'll get up on them because I have to, but I spend every minute absolutely terrified.

Meeting new people is the same way. I like to, I want to, but I am such a complete and total wuss (I think my hearing problem plays a big part here) that it is very hard. You have NO idea how difficult it was for me to just simply show up at Knit Night at the local Borders back in January for the first time.

You may be wondering what my point is.

Last night after being rescued by my husband (turning off your car and watching MASSIVE amounts of steam roll out from under the hood is NEVER a good thing - and I like my car, don't want another one in spite of occasionally drooling over a Mini Cooper or a Z3), we headed to the new Staples to get more ribbon for his label maker.

I saw someone during my wanderings in the store that I swore was Kathleen, so I admit to kind of stalking her around the store while trying to decide if it was her or not. Telling myself (I have lots of conversations in my head - don't you?)

"No it cannot be her."

"She doesn't live in Santa Rosa."

"Why would she come to the Staples when I think the Office Depot is much closer?"

"No it cannot be her."

"Stop talking to yourself."

"Ooh, I wonder how much the 4.0GB Sandisk thumb drives are here?"

"Where the heck are the label ribbons?"

"Where the heck is my husband?"

Hubby and I ended up in the checkout line behind her and her two darling daughters. That would be the point at which I KNEW it was her (recognized her youngest from the blog) but I still didn't say anything.

So Kathleen, you weren't being stalked at Staples last night by a total weirdo in a Grumpy t-shirt. Just a minimal weirdo that was too much of a dork to say anything.

One of these Saturdays I'll make it up to the Saturday morning knitting group at A Good Yarn in Windsor and actually get to meet you and Rosemary (Taunya cannot have all the fun) and I might even say something then. :-)

My evening of dorkiness was rounded out by finally trimming the front roses (our house is actually starting to look habitable) and then dragging Oscar the dog around the neighborhood behind my bike. I then proceeded to tear the house, RV and all vehicles apart looking for a little slip of paper hubby had some notes on that he needed. I haven't found it yet, but I will, since it will bug me until I do.

No one has yet to guess what yesterday's picture was going to be. I guess I either need more people reading my blog, or I need to make more of them and see if someone gets it then.

Justifying your fears....

shouldn't hurt so much.

There are two things in the world that I am absolutely terrified of and hate with ever fiber of my being (okay most vegetable fall in that category but that's another story):

Ladders
Bikes

One is justifiable, the other wasn't until last Tuesday when the two of them came together in a really bad way.

Go back 28 years. Picture 8 year old Jenni, her mom and her big sister Chrissie riding through Hartenberg Park in Mainz, Germany on a lovely summer day.

Now Jenni hasn't been riding a bike without training wheels very long since well she's really really short. So she's a little unsure of herself. She sees that they are approaching a really big hill that promptly whips right back up into a steep incline and stops dead in her tracks.

Her fearless sister keeps on going - down and up quick as you please ( such a show off ). Her mom heads down after telling Jenni to walk her bike down. So Jenni does as she's told and starts walking down. The bike is heavy, she's little, she's thinking (her first mistake) that if her sister can do it, she can do it and up on the bike she goes and ...

The next thing Jenni knows she's on her mother's bike screaming "GET ME OFF THIS BIKE" at the top of her lungs while a kind German lady helped her mother push the loud little banged up banshee back up that evil hill while Chrissie flies back home to get their dad.

One concussion, broken nose, banged up elbows and knees later Jenni vows she never getting on that stupid bike again - it didn't even have the decency to get a single scratch after flipping her over the handle bars because she didn't know how to ride the brakes down the hill (in hindsight Jenni now assumes that she freaked out and accidentally hit the brakes for the front tires first and that's what flipped her off the bike, but she was unconscious and doesn't remember and therefore can continue to blame the bike). Thankfully Jenni doesn't remember the point of impact. And Jenni kept that vow for 2 years till her father made her get back on the frakking thing. Thusly, do this day, little Jenni hates bikes in every way imaginable, but she still occasionally rides, even if she is certain her demise is imminent.

Back to present day - or at least last Tuesday.

Hubby and I have rejoined Jenny Craig. A certain someone in our household has atrocious eating habits (who me? - perhaps) and let's just say my cooking skills are less than stellar.

So to get on the exercise part of the JC bandwagon, I decided to ride my bike to the post box to mail some bills for hubby.

Well my bike lives in the rafters of the garage. If something is going to mostly spend it's life collecting dust, it should be out of the way. However I am still insanely short and cannot get it down without a ladder. Next time I think I'll just pull over a chair. They like me better.

So up the ladder I go and I get one wheel down. Move the ladder over to the second tire. Get that one down, flip the bike over so the wheels are pointed down. Hold the bike in one hand, assume I'm balanced (physically - obviously not mentally), head down the ladder.

Next thing I know, I'm on the very HARD concrete floor with one hand up keeping my bike off of me, in pain, with a little Scrat monster on my chest (he must be part cat - the little opportunist) trying to figure out how the heck I ended up on the floor with a twisted ankle, lovely bruised hip and yet another bike without a scratch.

At some point I'll post a picture of the evil bike and damage inducing ladder so you can see what they looked like before I reduced them both to scrap metal.

In construction news - the roof shingles are on. Hubby got the sky lights installed while I was in the SF visiting my sister Sunday. It's officially weather proof.

I got a night off and made it to the local Borders Knit night last Wednesday, where the evil bamboo scarf has morphed yet again.

If you can guess what it will be, I'll send you something (probably stitch markers made by yours truly).

T you cannot guess as you know what it's [supposed] to be lol. And besides, I already made you stitch markers.

When inanimate objects hate your guts...

In some ways the yarn we use has a life of it's own.

You think you know exactly what you want to do with it, but the yarn has entirely different ideas.

The bane of my knitting existence right now is a gift for my mother. The woman who's birthday was 6 months ago. The woman that told me that she adores bright yellow. That would be the same woman that professed 9 years ago that she hated yellow and wouldn't wear it in my first wedding. She went with pink. Sigh.

I had yarn in the stash intended for some kind of scarf. I wanted to try my hand at lace. It's bright yellow - because I happen to adore the color even though it makes me look like I have jaundice (I don't by the way) - and it's Alchemy Bamboo and I have another skein of it in a variegated blue that is supposed to be a color Mother likes as well.

This seemingly innocent enough skein of yarn is super soft, the variegation is so subtle it should work for lace, or something else without detracting from the pattern, it's a joy to handle (did I mention it's really soft).

It is also the most evil thing on the planet. See how it resembles Top Ramen (thanks for that analogy T - I'll never eat the stuff again), it's been frogged so many times it should be green by now.

It start out as this: The Branching Out pattern from Knitty Spring 2005. Frogged three times because I kept losing a stitch. I know how to count, I know I do. I have a physics degree, basic math is kind of a requirement for that.

Next it became this: Knit Picks Lace 1, 2, 3 a really really simple 4 row lace pattern where you only have to think about ONE row. I lost my place. Sigh.

Third time's a charm: Jesse Loesberg's Danica scarf from Knitty Winter 2005. Entrelac - doesn't look that hard. The variegation would work, the blue could be added in random squares. After the FOURTH frogging, I threw it down on my friend's sofa last night. Can someone PLEASE explain to me how the heck to pick up a stitch purlwise if you aren't slipping the first stitch of the row you have to pick up from?

So it is currently about to become the Wide Scarf, from Victorian Lace Today, sans beads. (the brown one with the beads at the very beginning of the book) Knit, knit, knit, knit, put in a cute little picot, yarn over, knit, turn knit.

You get the idea, super stupid easy, my fish could knit this.

Now I just have to figure out how to incorporate the blue.

Cannot wait to see what it turns into next (perhaps focused could be a good start). Actually I can since this yarn is like the car from the book Christine, in that I have no idea what kind of trouble it has in store for me next. But it's on the list of things I have to finish before new yarn may enter my house.

Hmm I wonder if making a giant yarn ball out of it for the cats counts as a finished object? If so, I'm halfway there.

Decisions, decisions

For you knitters out there.

If you had a chance to spend $190 on knitting books no questions asked, would you?

We have this system at work in my department where you can get reward points for not pissing off the client you are working with too badly, dealing with an ugly client issue quickly and competently etc... Needless to say, in spite of my usually less than tactful approach to many things I have $190 to spend anywhere I want.

Okay, anywhere I want that is on THE LIST and it's a stupid list. Not a knitting shop in sight. Their definition of hobbies, is apparently limited to golf and hunting and camera shops. I don't golf or hunt and our camera situation is fine. The travel section is apparently limited to cruises and anyone that's ever been on one knows that $190 doesn't even cover gratuity.

I don't eat at any of the places on the food list, and I certainly don't go to spas. The clothing stores range from Kohl's (which I love but don't need anything) to some place called Yoox.com which apparently deals in really high end clothes that a T-shirt and jeans girl like me will NEVER wear.

So Amazon.com maybe be the saving grace for this stupid list. I like the rewards program, but I wish we could just get it in the form of a VISA gift card or that places like Home Depot or Best Buy were on the list, instead of Pottery Barn (three dogs and four cats mean I shop at IKEA) or Sharper Image or Hammacher Schlemmer.

When I win the lottery and pay off all our debt, and put my husband through law school (he's not in it now but I'd love to be able to send him - he'd be great), build my own observatory and open a dog shelter on Tahiti, I'll shop at places like that. But for now I really need drywall, electrical wire, flooring and three more doors for the garage shop addition. I don't think Amazon carries those, and certainly none of the other shops on the list do.

So, I'll settle for books. Knitting books that is, with maybe a Clive Cussler or Dean Koontz novel thrown in for even more fun.

Here is what is in my wish list so far:

No Sheep for You by Amy Singer
Crazy Aunt Purl's Drunk, Divorced and Covered in Cat Hair by Laurie Perry
Cables Untangled by Melissa Leapman
A Gathering of Lace by Meg Swansen
Victorian Lace Today by Jane Sowerby
Nancy Bush's Folk Socks and Knitting Vintage Socks
Elizabeth Zimmerman's:
Knitting Without Tears
Knitting Workshop
Knitter's Almanac

So ladies, what am I missing? I have all the Yarn Harlot's books already. Romi's isn't out yet (hurry up would you? ;-) ).

So if you had a chance to add all your favorite knitting books to your library, what would you choose?

When the cat's away...

...the dogs are grateful. Hehe

It appears that my colleagues have lots of time, ink and post-it notes on their hands. Or rather in this case, my desk:


Back story: I'm the OCD freak of the office (or at least the only one that admits it). All my co-workers are aware of this and go through extreme efforts to drive me nuts on a regular basis. Granted, that is generally a short trip, but there are SO many different drivers. :::vbg::

We have had a lot of personnel turn over lately, no major reason, just people coming and going. I made myself responsible for the mailbox labels (it is MY label maker after all). We just had a rush of newbies come in, so it was time to rearrange the mailboxes again and print up new labels.

Now vacations are ripe times for practical jokes, read that as rigging cubes while the occupant is otherwise occupied. Therefore, they all opted to label almost all of the items in my office. I have to admit I was laughing and they will all stay up till they get in my way, or I go on a cleaning binge (thankfully those don't happen often and can be stopped with a dose of chocolate). I'm doubly thankful of the unspoken "don't go in other people's file drawers" rule, else I'd probably need a couple of new label cartridges.

More on the vacation specifics later (I have to pull all the pics I want to post from the laptop). But I do have this!

This is my first sock ever! Using the Yarn Harlot's Basic Recipe from Knitting Rules! I am doing short cuffs - I don't like long socks. I worked on it during the trip.

Ms. Susan, the wonderfully whacky owner of A Knitting Beehive in Grants Pass, Oregon, was kind enough to show me how to pick up my stitches, even though I wasn't that far yet when I managed to stop by. So I have a K2 P2 rib (about 11 rows), with about 4 rows of straight stockinette, then on to the heel flap and beyond. It looks like a sock and there are NO holes where I did the pickups.

While carrying this thing around in my purse, I found out just how much I hate dropped stitches, and I was dropping them regularly, because the needles would shift inside my purse. On the heel (hehe first typed that he77 and it was ripped at least three time so it's apropos) flap with the S1, K1, that can be a nightmare, let me tell you.

So dig out the Dewalt container of the knitting notions and low and behold, those cute little plastic spring things from Clover (I think). I can push all 5 needles together (three are too loose - but of course the sock is only on three at a time with one working needle) and VOILA! no more dropped stitches! Woo hoo!

It's good to be home.

Flying through

Trying not to leave my work in a mess, get everything packed, and enjoy my vacation without worrying about anything else.

Everyone have a great week. If I can blog while gone I will, but it won't be a priority.