On shapes

I would like to state that I am in terrible shape. Well, my shape is mostly spherical, which is not a bad shape as shapes go, but I would prefer something a little more svelte. Anyway, toward this end, I recently started riding my bike to work. Recently meaning yesterday. It's a short ride - today it took 7 minutes - but I arrive huffing and puffing and generally in a disgraceful state. I can see the bloody building from my front yard (the 7 minutes is due to the presence of a gated community between me and the building) and I arrive sweaty and breathless. Oy. The only reason this is going to work for me is that it is ONLY seven minutes. I can do that. I can do that no problem. Then if I want a little more later, I can go around the back way, or go up the street further and cut back, or what have you. When I get REALLY good, my intention is to ride the additional 2.5 miles round trip with a little kiddie trailer, and pick the Bug up from his daycare. We shall see. In the meantime, seven minutes, four times a day.
And can I just tell you something? Even though it's only seven little minutes, my sit bones feel like I rode a marathon. With as much padding as I have on my butt, you'd THINK that I wouldn't feel it as much.
No knitting content to show. Tendrils and Clapotis proceed. They look like slightly longer versions of the last photos you saw. Switching buildings, working hours (now I work from 6:30 - 3) and modes of transportation have served to tucker me out right good, so I hope that sooner rather than later I will have the energy to stay awake at night and knit. (Last night was SnB, and I only had energy to watch my friends knit. It was sad. Apparently I looked so tired that one woman was concerned that I wouldn't be able to drive the two miles home without falling asleep.)

I would like to direct your attention

Please note the counter in the sidebar. 42 days, people. Six weeks, plus a few hours. That is not nearly enough, I promise. Six freaking weeks.
I cut the Bug's hair yesterday. I think it's pretty cute. Suddenly he's a redhead. I'm not sure why, but he looks so much more like a little boy and less like a baby to me now. Anyway, a few photos.


Small boy with yarn.


Ten years off my life.

Please note in that second picture - he's not just standing there, he's walking from end to end.

Clapotis proceeds apace. I have about four rows before I start the straight rows and get the entertainment of occasionally dropping stitches. I am easily entertained. No doubt that if I were Wannietta or The Harlot, I would have been done days ago, but I am a slooooooow knitter.

I am also considering throwing away the Heinous Purple Thing. I have plenty of that purple yarn, and I really think there's a project that would be less heinous. If I don't rip it, I'll never finish it, and then MIL won't have a knitted Christmas present.

Eye Candy

But not in the usual sense.


I'm such a good sport.


Remember Ed Grimley?


If only ALL the little gargoyles were this cute.

In the land of the living.

So, that barfing flu was actually probably food poisoning. I was feeling much better the next day (DH swears it was because it was SnB day) but he and The Bug got some cold/flu thing that still has them feeling ucky. Good thoughts for me that I don't get it, cuz UGH.
Tomorrow, our company is moving my department to a brand new, shiny happy people facility. We go from offices to cubes, but I don't care, because the new place is blocks from my house. Hooray, riding the bike to work! YAY! Anyway, since all of my office things will be in transit, I get to work from home for the day. This means I will get to catch up on the laundry while working. I can't tell you how much I am looking forward to being caught up on the laundry.
Last night during the second daily viewing of Cars (DH does love him some Pixar) and Criminal Minds, I cast on for Clapotis. The yarn is even lovelier knitted up than in the skein, if possible. I lurve it.

Softly shimmering little triangle of yarny goodness.

Jessie wasn't kidding when she said it stank, though. Anyone know how to make silk smell better after dyeing, because OMG, it's pretty rank.

Oooh, and I forgot that I read The Conjurer's Bird, by Martin Davies. Excellent book! I loved it. Good mystery, good adventure. Loved it. Buy it, read it.

Chaotic Rants Of A Card Carrying Dreamer

I have the barfing flu today, so I am home trying to not think about barfing. Bug made it extra hard this morning while he ate his banana slices. Bananas make me gag on a good day, but when I'm already feeling gross AND the bananas are in the hands of a toddler... oy.
I am feeling a tad better, though (woohoo, drank a whole glass of water without barfing) so at some point I imagine I will have time for fiberly pursuits.
This last weekend, we went to a little wool festival in Tucson. It was on one woman's farm, and there were all of about ten vendors. It was fun, though, and Bug liked the animals. DH even got him to pet a freshly shorn lamb, but sadly, no pictures were had.
I only bought this:

Scratchy fluffy Shetland.

The spindle is an Ashford that Bug got me for my birthday a while ago. (Such a big boy - his 13 month old self got online and ordered it all the way from Montana.)
Anyway, I have yet to spin anything on it, since the only fiber I had before this weekend was silk, and I'd been warned that I should probably know what I'm doing before I tried to spin it.

Oh yeah, and Deb is doing that November calendar thing. I apologize for the glare on this picture - there was no way to position it that didn't cause some, and this is the best.


I do love me some moosies.

The picture was from a calendar of all moose. A Year of Moose or some such. Given to me by the friend who gave me the moosey sweater for Bug. Mooses. Rock.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go recline on the couch with the back of one hand on my forehead. That water doesn't seem to want to stay where it is.

Oh. My. Gawd. Y'all.

Jessie is a color genius. This is three skeins of Henry's Attic Andromeda (50/50 wool and silk) she dyed for me when I couldn't find the color of Lion and Lamb I wanted for my aunt's Christmas Clapotis. I haven't taken the picture below yet (it's dark, I'll add the picture tomorrow before I post) but I can guarantee that no piddly amount of camera skills I have will do this yarn justice. I can't freaking wait to knit it.


Sorry for the lack of artistic posing - the Bug was headed for the yarn.

Below, 6 skeins of elann.com Peruvian Highland wool, in rainbow colors. For a Dulaan hat pattern that has been swirling around in my head. Yeah, someone has probably knit it before, but I haven't seen it, so in my reality, I thunk it up all by myself.



Not pictured: the skeins of Knitpicks yarn I ordered on 10/24, that shipped on 10/25. La's opinion notwithstanding, I like Knitpicks yarns. But seriously, do they pick "extra slow" at the post office or what? It shipped on 10/25 according to the website, and it's not here. The Elann.com yarn and A Piece of Vermont (Jessie) yarn both shipped on 10/30, a full FIVE days later, and BOTH of the later packages arrived first. Really, it's my only complaint about knitpicks thus far.
(Okay, after I wrote this post I wound five balls of Andean Silk into center pull balls and strung two with beads. Out of the 10 balls I ordered, three had knots. I think that's a little excessive. Even for cheap yarn.)

After all the new and wonderful yarns, it seems almost anticlimactic to show you Frill.




No, I don't know how to wear a stole gracefully. Why do you ask?

Bug-a-BOO!

The Bug's second Halloween has passed. He was a little more alert this year.

Then:

Bug as Wombat

Now:

The Flash!

We had fun carving pumpkins last night, and of all of them, the Bug and Boo ones were the biggest hits with the kids. (Mommy! That one says Boo! Look, it does! And that one says BUG!)


Punkins!

We went to four neighbors' houses, and then got in the car to go visit friends with a boy Bug's age. We didn't get two blocks before he conked out in his seat, so we turned around and went home to dole out more candy. All in all, a fun evening.
(Well, except for when I started to pin out Frill and found a hole with two live stitches right in the middle, but we won't talk about that.)

Do you see what I see?

That little counter in the sidebar is now showing less than 60 days. That means less than two months. That means the time to panic is getting C-L-O-S-E-R.
Over the weekend I finished the knitting and weaving of ends for Frill. I have yet to wash and block her, but I hope that will happen soon. In the meantime, there is still Tendrils (10 repeats and counting) and HPT. Jessie has just sent my yarn for Clapotis, the partner for Tendrils. Good grief, I hope it is a faster knit than Tendrils is.
On another note, can I tell you that I have rediscovered the library? When I was in high school, we were urged to buy books so we could take notes in them. (What a way to kill the joy of reading.) I got in the habit. I got in the habit of being super-selective about my reading. I learned to scan the artwork on the cover and read bits here and there to decide whether a book was worth the obscene price they're charging these days. (It amazes me how often it has worked out that if I like the artwork on a fantasy book, I have liked the book, and vice versa.) Anyway, recently (last week, I think) I got a library card with the idea that I would check out Generation T. Since then I have picked up a couple books that looked like they might be good, checked out a couple that I wanted but couldn't find locally, and have two more on reserve. Brilliance! If I don't like the book, who cares? It's free! My only complaint is the lack of popular knitting books in my local library. I suspect publishers don't like pattern books in the library to minimize copyright infringements - no way to control who's making copies that way. Anyway, I love it. I was reminded about how I used to go to the library with my mother when I was a kid. It was always a fun outing, always exciting to browse and find new books. And what a privilege it was when I was given my very own library card! I had forgotten. DH thinks it's mildly weird that I am so excited about it. I hope I remember all the time now. I hope I can pass on the excitement of a smorgasbord of books to The Bug.

fly by

I have nothing to tell you except that THIS is the cutest dolly in the whole wide world.

Knitting content

But it's not mine.
The Bug and I have been under the weather. Well, the Bug has been under the weather for a solid month now. First the cold from Montana, then an ear infection, then pneumonia (!) and now a viral throat thing. This kid should have more immunities than a whole continent, but unfortunately, new bugs keep finding him.
DH has been in Montana for the last few days for his mother's birthday, so the Bug and I have been flying solo. Given the extra work (how do people do this by themselves every day?) and the yuckiness, no knitting has happened here.
However.
My good friend has made the Bug a sweater. She and I share, among other things, a love of all moose-kind. So, naturally, what better for her pseudo-grandson than a moose sweater?




As always, click to embiggen.

I dunno the pattern, I dunno the size, she made the chart up herself, and I think she said she knitted it from Lion Brand Microspun. It's just a little too big for him right now, which means it should fit him for most of the winter, and hopefully any bits of next summer when he needs a sweater too. At the beach, maybe, or at the lake. When it's too small for him, I think I'll frame it.

(As I sit here typing at my hideously messy desk (it's not my fault, there's no storage) I have discovered that the Bug is tall enough that he can reach everything that I have pushed back from the edge. When did he get so tall?)

16 inches

That's what I have left on Frill. 16 inches before I graft the second frill on, block the puppy, and never think about her again.



For blocking considerations, though, I may stop after nine more inches (for a total length of 80 inches) and call 'er good.

It turns out that I am not terribly in love with the stitch pattern.



It's very easy, but I think my desire to do the pattern was more about the colorway of the sample in Knitty, here. The pattern is simple enough, I am just not in love with it the way I was when I saw the pictures of it the first time. Since it is not for me, though, I don't have to love it once it's done.

Anyway, this is the weekend of Rhinebeck, which I sadly cannot attend. This is also the weekend DH is road-tripping with his youngest daughter and friend, helping them to bring youngest daughter's car from our house to her mother's house, where it shall live out its days as the receptacle of all the detritus from the life of a teenaged girl. It was a good vehicle for us, and I hope it's happy there. So, while DH is visiting family and seeing beautiful countryside, and the rest of you are engaged in a wool orgy of epic proportions, Bug and I will be here all by our little lonesomes, knitting and/or trying to shred balls of yarn. I am looking forward to hearing all your exploits and seeing the pictures of your haul. Fondle some fibers for me, please.

a meme

Cuz it's a contest, and I can't not enter a contest.

1. Where is your favorite knitting spot?

My cushy chair with ottoman. I have good lighting (at night - during the day my knitting is backlit by the picture window) and my stash is in boxes next to the chair.



You can't really see the chair, but you can see the stash boxes off to the right and the lamp posts behind (one is an Ott light, YAY). It's also right next to the fireplace. Aaaahhh.

2. If you suddenly could never knit again (shudder) - what would you do instead?

Go back to quilting.

3. If you could travel anywhere in the world - where would you go and why?

Ireland first. It's GREEN, people, and I live in the DESERT. Then a really long time in the Caribbean, wandering from dive spot to dive spot. Then Toronto, to Lettuce Knits. I think that store has everything.

4. When you were little - What did you want to do "when you grew up?" Are you doing it?

For the life of me, I can't remember what I wanted to be, but I guarantee it wasn't what I'm doing now. (Well, except for the Mom part, that rocks.)

5. What is your favorite flavor of ice cream?

Moose tracks or Chubby Hubby.

As a funny, I clicked the link that said "Translate this site to English" on my Yahoo toolbar. (I'd never noticed that there.) Amazingly, things were changed, and it gave me this:

1. Favorite Where is your knitting spot?
2. Yew you suddenly could never knit again (shudder) - what would you C instead?
3. Yew you could travel anywhere in the world - where would you go and why?
4. When you were little - What did you want to C "when you grew up?" Are you doing it?
5. Favorite What is your flavor of ice cream?


Oy.

Hellos and goodbyes

I was going to title this post Lazy Sunday, but I do believe that was last Sunday's title. I sense a theme.
Thanks to everyone for the birthday wishes! There were roses, lots of fettucine alfredo, and an Ashford Spindle that has yet to arrive in the mail. Can't wait.
Anyway, I must say goodbye to an old and dear friend. He served me well for many years and kept me going when I was at my wits' end.



He gave it up the last time yesterday morning while trying to steam milk for a latte. I wish his end was dignified, but he went out spewing steam from every orifice. He will be missed.


Well, he was missed until yesterday afternoon, when my new love came a-calling.



He's so shiny.

Bug says, "Sometimes, dinner is just too boring.

Happy Birthday to ME!

And to Dave.
The bedroom has been put back together, but the guest room is still a roiling mess, and the rest of the house looks like a band of Cornish pixies swept through. (In reality, it was just one little Bug.)
The wedding we were to attend is not in the cards for us, so I have a free afternoon. I need a nap in the worst way, and I think I might actually have some time for one. DH is taking me out to lunch and we're going to run to JoAnn's to get the supplies for the Bug's Halloween costume, but other than that, it's just me, a nap, and maybe some knitting. Tomorrow is supposed to be rainy, so more knitting time for me!

It turns out

That DH didn't want to rip out the carpet and let the girls walk around on asbestos-filled tiles from the 50s. Weird. Anyway, I called about extraction. I was given a quote and an appointment time. I left work early and met DH at home and we ripped all the furniture out of those two rooms. (How long has it been since YOU looked under YOUR bed? Yikes.) Anyway, the extraction people arrived right on time, amazingly enough, and wandered around those two rooms testing for water. There was A LOT. It went under the walls and soaked the closets. (Did you know that walls and floor are only minimally connected?) They got to work.
When my bedrooms look like this,




The rest of the house looks like this.





Turns out that there was too much water. They sucked out all they could, left big giant fans, and told me they'd be back tomorrow to finish the job. Oy. The three of us camped out in the living room.
(An aside: Bug scoots around a lot when he sleeps, and I was concerned he'd scoot off the edge of the bed, so I moved the recliner against the bed, and was happy to see that the seat of the recliner was at the same height as the top of the mattress. When I woke up this morning, the Bug had scooted, face down, on to the seat of the recliner and turned around so his head was on the bed and his legs were on the chair. It was pretty damn cute. I'm extremely glad I put that chair there!)
Anyway, the guys say they'll be back at lunchtime to finish the cleaning part, and I will have shiny clean carpets that should be dry in time to move back into our bedroom tonight. We're both pretty sure we're going to leave the guest room ripped apart and let the stepdaughter and her friend put the stuff back where they'd like it. We're pretending to be accommodating, but really we're just lazy.

PS - it's after lunch, the carpet is clean, and the creepy guy is gone! YAY!

Serenity

That was a really kick ass movie, by the way, which is causing me all sorts of weird dreams involved Reavers and yarn. There was no yarn in the movie, although that would have been the only thing to make it better.
No, the Serenity I experienced was brief and wonderful.

• It was two hours at SnB.
  
• It was Sarah reminding the waitress, who is also cool, that I like piles of whipped cream on my nonfat latté. (what?)


• It was actually knitting to the end of the ball of yarn.
  
• It was winding one of the other balls on my little swift and winder at home.



• It was NOT the discovery that I have two balls of Frill left, not one.
  
• It was NOT the discovery that the toilet has an issue shutting itself off when it refills the tank after a flush.
  
• It was NOT the realization that the toilet ran for close to two hours while we were out to dinner.


• It was NOT the fact that two hours gives the water a LONG time to seep into the carpet of both my bedroom and the guest room, which will be in use on Friday.


• It was NOT the realization that my carpet is so dirty underneath that it looks like mud and smells like wet dog.

New carpet to be had when I can figure out where DH, the Bug, three dogs and I will live while all the bedrooms are ripped up.
Very soon, there will be a break in the busyness and by all that's holy, I will have some good knitting time.

out of time

Isn't it weird how all the big time-sucking things happen all at the same time? Somehow it's always in the fall. The Bug's birthday starts it off, and there's my birthday, and MIL's birthday, punkin-pickin at the local patch, Halloween camping trip, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. DH likes to head to Montana for his mom's birthday, Thanksgiving usually takes up at least two weekends and many weekdays for planning, cleaning and cooking, and Christmas... well, we all know about Christmas. Anyway, this year we have the added events of a family wedding and a visit from the youngest SD followed by a road trip for her and DH (she's receiving her car and they're driving it back to Montana together). Oh yeah, and a baby shower I have to plan and throw. Couple that with two major product releases that I'm working on and you have a recipe for NO KNITTING AT ALL. I can't stand it. Tension and stress abound, and I have no time for knitting, and then that increases the tension because I'm NOT WORKING ON MY CHRISTMAS PRESENTS. Aaaaarrrrrrrrrrgggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.
Maybe I'll go home at lunch and wind a ball of yarn, just to take the edge off.

Lazy Sunday morning

We are home from our short camping trip. DH got to ski his little heart right out, and the two guys from work who came with us turned out to be one guy and his seven year old son, whom we nicknamed The Dash. (This is the best weekend EVER!) The weather was pleasant in the morning and evening, and when it got too hot, we fired up the generator and napped in Air Conditioned Comfort(tm). On our way home, we stopped at the pizza place in the little nearby town and had some fan-freaking-tastic calzones. The Bug LOVES him some pizza.
Not much knitting was done. I brought some paperwork from the office and alternated it with knitting rows while the Bug napped yesterday, but I still haven't finished that last little bit of the third ball of Frill. Today, hopefully.
I was mostly busy all weekend checking this out.

...sigh...

Things that make me sigh with contentment.

• The house is clean, thanks to a little bit of cleaning three days in a row, followed by a visit from the cleaning lady.


• Dinner is in the oven right now, simmering its little gringa-green-chile heart out.


• It's cloudy and only 90 degrees out right now.


• We are going camping tomorrow at the lake, and it will only be in the 80s there. (Almost cool enough to wear jeans outside)


• It is 2pm and I get to go home a little early today.


• I am almost at the end of the third ball of Frill. (Since the second frill was knitted from the last remaining ball, that means I have less than one ball left to knit on this project that has taken me a million years.)

I read a few posts back and noticed that it said I'd knitted 7.5 repeats on Tendrils at that time. I don't know what has happened to my counting abilities, but I've knitted at least two repeats since then, but I only have 8 repeats now. Is it too late for a WTF Wednesday?

The Aftermath

We had The Barbecue To End All Barbecues this weekend, in honor of the Bug's first birthday.
I didn't know I knew that many people. They kept coming in, and I kept saying, "Oh yeah! You!" Due to some weird Fly Convention in my backyard, most of the forty or so people were crammed in my little house. The Birthday Boy spent a good portion of it in his bedroom sleeping off the fever and ear infection he developed the day before. Even so, he was a good sport and snuggled with everyone before his nap, and played with his buddies after his nap.
And now, I have this.