Post-holiday coma

Well under way on the first half of the sweater front.

Funny how only two days off, when strung together with a weekend to make a four-day mini-vacation, can create a feeling as though having to get out of bed and off to work is...I mean, REALLY? Because...well! I was just getting used to this whole "life of leisure" thing...

In other news, my left arm is KILLING me today. Turns out that taking about 62,000 garments out of a closet, sorting them, and putting them all away again can be hard on the dominant arm.

..owies...

(sent from my Treo)

Inscrutable motives

Today, it poured rain. So with gardening off the daily menu, I said to myself, “Hey! This would be a good opportunity to clean out the closet!”

I saw dust bunnies in there the size of deer while I was tracking down Moth-Ra a while back, which led to the realization that it had been about forever plus three days since the last time I’d cleared things out, shaken, stirred, and put them back.

Oh.
My.
Stars.
And.
Garters.

We own a lot of stuff.

A lot of stuff.

It took forever to haul everything out of there. I mean, forever-forever. And an awful lot of it hasn’t been put back yet – all the stuff that needs to be sorted through and figured out, all the crap that just sort of got shoved into there over the years pending somebody having time to figure out where it should go.

I always pick the best jobs for myself, don’t I?

As I went along, things began to get purged. The shirt that constantly tries to expose my boobs to a world that really would rather not see them, the pants that try to expose my other assets that, you know, ditto on the ‘really rather not’ thing. Pants that haven’t fit for five years. Shirts with frayed cuffs.

I filled up two and a half big old garbage bags with stuff to donate, and another one that was just trash.

And then I came to the sock drawer, and things ground to a sudden, inexplicable halt.

I had three (3) drawers that were full of (mostly) socks. Socks I haven’t worn in years, because they don’t fit right, or because I hate the way they feel, or because…well, because they have holes in them.

No. I…really can’t explain that.

I mean, I know the holes are there. It’s not like, “Oh look, these socks have mysteriously developed holes since I put them in here!”

I take them off the day the hole develops, and I say to myself, “Oh. Wow. These have a hole in them.”

And then I put them in the wash instead of the trash. I don’t know why. The whole cycle could be broken, if I’d just toss them into the trash instead of the laundry hamper.

But I almost never do. The wrist flicks, and they go sailing into the laundry.

And then on laundry day, I see them as I’m sorting and I say, “Huh, those have holes in them...” – but I don’t take them out of circulation and toss them then, either. Oh no. I go ahead and wash them.

Then I match them back together, saying to myself as I do, “Oh. There’s those socks that have a hole in them.”

Then I put them away. I put them away. In the drawer, as if there’s nothing different about them.

Like I’m afraid to hurt their feelings or something.

I never wear them again, because I look at them in the drawer and go, “Oh yeah. Those are the ones that have holes in them.”

But I do not ever throw them away.

Until I come to a day like today, when I take them out and go, “Oh. Yeah. These had a hole or something, didn’t they?”

And then there begins this farce where I poke at the hole, trying to decide if it’s a big hole, or a little hole, and maybe I could darn it, or maybe nobody would notice, and is it in an area where I’d get a blister if I just wore them anyway, and…

With the hand-knit socks, I can understand myself; there’s a lot of time invested in them, and furthermore with the hand-knit socks, there is a chance I could, theoretically, fix the problem.

But that’s not usually the case. These are mostly store-bought, machine-knit-by-the-bazillions, cheap socks. If they have a hole? There’s no darning it. There’s no fixing it. There’s no saving these things. They’re going to disintegrate if I try to wear them, after that first worn-through area appears.

I know this. I’ve gone through a lot of socks in my time. I understand the life-cycle of them.

But for some bizarre reason…well, it just takes a little more effort to actually say goodbye and let them go.

I guess for some things, my motivations are a little more inscrutable than for others.

And apparently, socks are pretty darned inscrutable.

Motivationally speaking.

The surest sign the holidays are coming

Even though almost nobody ever comes to our house to celebrate anything anymore, I'm still emptying out the hutch for dust-removal and spot-checking, polishing my silver (both pieces of it), and giving the "entertaining" side of the Den a thorough dusting, wall-washing, organizing and so forth.

I can't explain why I'm doing this. Thanksgiving this year is just us and (probably) one of our close friends and his son - who would actually be made squirmy if I went all Martha on them. Christmas dinner will undoubtedly be held at my brother's condo complex clubhouse on paper plates, or not at all. I'm working New Year's Eve day, so no action there, either.

And yet...the season is here. And thus, I prepare for parties that aren't happening, gatherings that will be elsewhere, and dude...it's really rather pathetic, ain't it?

..ah well...the wine cabinet won't organize itself...

(Most. Boring. Person. Alive. I DEFY y'all to challenge me...)

(sent from my Treo)

Ah, the bonus day off…

Among many other things, I had jury duty this week. We’ve got that deal out here where instead of just having to show up, you call each night to find out if you have to show up the following day; not knowing what the future would bring, I went ahead and worked like a crazy person the first three days of the week…so by the time I logged off yesterday, I was already at 37-1/2 hours on the old timesheet.

And MegaBank has a firm, no-exceptions policy that we contractors are not to work more than 40 hours a week.

So this morning, I leapt out of bed with a zillion and ones things racing through my mind that needed to be done job-wise…but as I opened my time tracker to start my day, there it was: everything after 9:00 was red.

DISALLOWED. Here there be dragons. Go not this way – this way lies madness. (And also a scolding from your manager, plus also you might not get paid for it, which kind of puts a damper on the love-fest, you know?)

{kraaaaaaaang!!!!!} My brain sort of rattled around in my head for a minute as this information settled into it. It isn’t that I don’t have other things I can be doing. I am never short on things that need doing around the Den.

It’s just the suddenness of the realization. Which is silly, really, when you think about it. I intentionally went ahead and kept on working into the night all week, because I didn’t know if I was going to have to skip out on work entirely tomorrow, or tomorrow, or tomorrow. And then I was surprised when, having been thanked and dismissed without ever having to actually take so much as ten minutes away from work, I find myself nearly a whole day ahead on hours?

Thinking Things Through: Not so good.

It’s also far from a rare occurrence for me to find myself working an abbreviated day on Friday. It’s just not usually this extreme; I’ll generally have between four and six hours left in the bucket when I log on Friday morning.

Not two and a half.

But still…I’m a little surprised that I was, you know, so surprised.

And pretty soon, I’m sure it will turn into a pleasant surprise; at the moment, I’m still a little fret-y about it. I have things to do. I have deadlines.

And there’s that whole thing where it just feels wrong, abruptly cutting your team off being all, “Ya, sorry, but, you know how it is! Hit my forty so now I’m gonna hit the beach! Talk to y’all Monday and good luck with whatever-all comes up today! Buh-bye!”

Even though I know I’m not pulling a slacker move on them, I’ve worked my hours, done my time, etc. etc. etc…even though it’s a direct order and all…it just feels…wrong.

But then, so would working without billing; especially when you’re a contractor, where you don’t get any of the little perks that (one hopes, anyway) sweeten the deal for the exempt employees who continue soldiering on long after they’ve fulfilled their weekday obligation. No bonus checks at the end of the year, no merit pay raises, no additional paid time off, not even the time-honored “unspoken understanding” that once the current crisis has calmed I’ll get to take a paid day or two off that doesn’t come out of my “official” paid time off.

…no promotions, no tenure, no glowing review in my permanent record…

Not to mention that if my agency billing department found out about it, it…could get ugly.

Sigh.

Yeah, yeah, I’ve logged off. Mostly. Apart from the occasional compulsive check of the corporate email. And having my cell phone in my back pocket “in case.” And possibly just a quick query or two when I suddenly wonder waitasecond, do you suppose that AU got mapped THIS way somehow…?

But other than that? Totally off the clock.

Mostly.

…except there was this one other thing, real quick…

…but I do not have a “problem” and I could stop aaaaaany time I wanted…

When Life attacks...

..knitting on is really the only SENSIBLE thing to do.

I was a bit surprised last night when the measuring tape informed me that I am a scant three inches from having to pay attention to the pattern again - the armhole shaping is coming up fast!

I'm still enjoying this project. It's still a slower knit than many, but I've got the pattern loaded into my short-term memory now, and it moves with reasonable speed.

And the fabric feels lovely. Beautiful stitch definition, awesome drape...as long as I don't fumble the finishing, I think this will be a Class A1 project!

Meanwhile back in my so-called Real Life...Daycare issues! Bill issues! Stalkers on the trains! Work! Parenting! Wife-ing! Cooking and shopping and chores, oh my!!!

AND, if you even THINK about asking, brightly like a happy little bluebird of @&#@ing happiness, "So! All ready for the holidays?" - they will never find your body.

OK! So! Love you all, kisses, hugs, warm fuzzy bunny slippers and all that! 'k! I'm going back to the asylum now...

(sent from my Treo)

Progress has many faces

This is one full pattern repeat on the back of the VIP Cardigan! This remains a decidedly slow knit - every knit on the front is twisted, almost every purl on the back is through the back loop...but the result has an elfin delicacy that delights me.

And this yarn is pleasing me mightily, too. I'm not usually a big fan of cotton, but this has a lovely softness, the 25% acrylic gives it a nice "spring" (which cotton often lacks), and the drape and stitch definition can't be beat.

Me like good.

In other news, I had yesterday off. Which made this morning all, "Whaddya mean, 'gonna miss yer train'?" *sigh* Feels like Sunday, but it's NOT.

But, I despair not...because tomorrow IS Saturday! So it's like, BONUS!

And thus it goes, and thus it goes, and thus it goes...

(sent from my Treo)

The slowest rib

This is the beginning of the VIP Cardigan...which is going to be one of those slow-moving projects. Twisted rib, smocking stitch, twisted seed, fingering yarn, small(ish) needles.

Funny how if you ask me to spend fifteen minutes on my hair or face I'm all "aw, COME ON!!!! It ain't worth it!"...but I look at an extra LIFETIME of twisted this and fine-gauge that for a seriously lovely sweater and, well, THAT'S DIFFERENT.

(sent from my Treo)

PSA: Vanna’s Choice Contest

Okay, all my knitting / crocheting friends!! The third annual Vanna’s Choice contest is ramping up!

Here’s the upshot: You make something using the Vanna’s Choice line of yarns (you can also use small amounts of other Lion Brand goodies).

The deadline to submit is February 1, 2011.

Do not be intimidated by the picture of last year’s winner on that page – click through and have a look at some of the other winners as well. The caliber is high, don’t get me wrong, but I have seen lots of stuff on all-y’all’s pages that can rival anything here.

And there are prizes!!

There are four categories, and each category has the following prizes:
1 x $1,000 grand prize
3 x $500 second prize
4 x $100 Michael’s gift card prize

In addition, one of those four $1,000 grand prize winners will get roundtrip airfare, $500 spending money, and 2 nights hotel accommodation…so that they can meet Vanna White in person.

I am embarrassed to confess that I think that would be awesome.

You can use your own pattern, or somebody else’s (with credit given, of course). You don’t have to send your whole project in, just a picture of it. Only if you are selected as a semi-finalist will you have to send the actual project in.

I’ve used the Vanna Choice for a few things, especially for the Denizens (hello, machine wash / dry, and have I told you I love you today?). It’s a #4-worsted weight, and has a pretty wide color palette. It holds up pretty well too…with allowances given for the fact that the Denizens are horrible on their clothes in general.

…rotten little monsters…

The Baby is also a #4-worsted. Extra-soft, smaller palette, heavier on the baby colors (duh). I’ve used that for some of my charity knitting for the preemies; perfectly decent baby yarn.

And the Glamour…I haven’t actually used. They’re calling it a #2, fine / sport weight. Hmm. Interesting. It’s got “sparkles” in it, or “metallic polyester.” Hmm, think I just realized why I’ve never used it. I hate that stuff. It itches. BUT, it’s a fine-weight and one of the three that would be “in contest,” so if you have sterner skin than I and want something with some shazam to it – check out the Glamour.

In the interest of full disclosure…I’m not affiliated with Lion Brand or Vanna’s Choice or anything else on this deal. Just got the email and thought, Hey, I know some people who might be interested in this…!

And I’d love to have the boasting rights: “Ya, that knitter who won the $1,000 last year? Friend of mine. Reads my blog. A-yup, told her about the contest on mah blog…thousand bucks, BANG!, just like that…and you think blogging is a useless waste of time, HAH….!!!!”

Neglect the garden, let the ground harden…

Well, not exactly. This is California, dude…we’ll keep growing things all year round, since Gaia is so cheerful about it out here. But things are definitely slowing down. Buds are harder won. Growth is measured in barest of centimeters. The trees are shedding their leaves, things that love not the cold are shriveling up, the powdery mildew is back in full force…we’re heading into the slow time of the year.

For which I am actually a bit grateful. For a while there, it felt like I spent all my time in the kitchen, trying to do something with all the stuff coming in from the garden.

Tonight, I cut the last of the sunflower heads. What I planted were all grey-striped mammoths…but one of the heads appears to be full of black seeds. They’re definitely a different breed, too, squatter, fatter and thinner-shelled than the gray-stripes; I’m assuming that somehow, we got one “oil” seed (popular for bird seed and cooking oil) in the mix. But they are seriously different looking seeds so, I mean, really? How did that happen? Recessive genes coming to the fore?

Gardening, it seems, is full of such mysteries…


…the ones we planted…


…the one oddball…


…uh, sure, they TOTALLY look like twins…

I pulled out the last of the zucchini bushes, and found this monster hiding under all the foliage.


Holy smokes, throw a saddle on it, quick!

There was also a ‘bonus’ cucumber on the vine I was sure was dead.



I love the sound the dead corn rows make when the breeze passes through them. Kind of eerie, but kind of grounding at the same time.



Now, I’m not entirely sure what the beans think they’re doing; they’re supposed to love warmer weather, but yet here they are, erupting out with a bunch of new pods just when I was fixin’ to till them in for a winter’s worth of decomposing.


These are Christmas limas – big, flat pods and lots of ‘em!


Look like this when they’re all dry and ready.


These are pinto beans and holy smokes, they’re going to town too!


Why hello there, Future Chili…

Remember the artichokes the cats were chewing on and that I transplanted twice and then thought were probably going to die?


Who you callin’ DEAD?!

Now, far be it from me to discourage anyone’s dreams, but I think the pumpkins are being…a bit overly optimistic.


Um, really? New pumpkin babies? In November?

We’ve got three pumpkins still out there in various stages of orange-y-ness, and have so far brought in two adorable little specimens:


The other one got carved for Halloween by a neighbor kid. We’ve named this one “Pie.”

The lemons are getting nice and yellow.


Fewer than last year, but still impressive numbers.

The cupboards are packed with Mason jars full of stuff. Sauces, relishes, butternut squash puree, beans, soups and stocks. The freezer is still awfully full, with Ashley’s steer and Cheyenne’s hog.

My grocery bills have plummeted to around twenty bucks a week, most weeks.

Also, I have discovered something relatively easy (especially if you own a deep fryer), decadent and inexpensive for a lazy weekend morning: Homemade apple fritters.

2 cups flour
3 tablespoons sugar
3 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
1 cup milk
4 large tart apples

Start your fryer going (or heat about 2 inches of oil in a deep pan), warming it up to 375. Mix up the batter, which is everything but the apples. It should be mixed until more-or-less smooth, but you don’t want to overbeat it either.

Peel the apples and coarsely dice them. Mix into the batter – it should be pretty thick.

Then you drop them by the dollopful into the oil and fry for between 1-1/2 to 2 minutes per side. Dust with cinnamon sugar and serve up. Try to look exhausted so that maybe someone will let you have an extra one. Hasn’t worked for me yet, but I keep trying because hope springs eternal and all that.

Hmm. Apples are healthy, right?

Soooooooo…apple fritters would make an awesome dinner, right…?

(…aw, c’mon, work with me here, people…)

(…sweet rolls! I could use whole wheat flour! Huh? Huh? Totally well-balance nutrition, right there! I mean, throw a handful of ‘whole grain’ into anything and it’s instant sainthood, right…?)

(…oh, fine, be that way…works for General Mills, ya know… “whole grain nutrition, now with 62 cups of sugar per ounce!” and we’re all, “ooooh, whole grain nutrition, you say! Well, I’ll take fifteen boxes!!” so, I mean, I don’t know what your problem is…)

(…sweet rolls would be an awesome dinner, I don’t care what you say…)

(…with frosting…with lemon-infused frosting…)

Petal Jacket Stats - condensed version

For this latest one, I used not quite half of a "Pound of Love" - acrylic worsted, 10-1/2 needles for the body and 8 for the rib. (I wanted it a little bigger.)

I found an unfinished one that attempted to use one skein of Simply Bright to make the larger size - fail. Ran out of yarn. Still pondering options.

AND I made another one a while back in the smaller size, using worsted black wool left over from the Celtic Vest project, which I got from Cheryl Oberle's booth at Stitches. (I tried not to swoon. Or snivel. Or throw myself on her gibbering like an idiot, "Ohmygah, I looooove your Folk Shawls book soooooo much!!!")

It's a very different sweater in the black wool. In the brighter acrylics, it's very "kid." In the darker wool, it's rather sophisticated.

This is a fun knit. Interesting enough to stay awake, but not so "interesting" that you lose your mind doing it.

(sent from my Treo)

…but at least I finished the sweater…

This has been a heckuva week. Lessee. Monday (which I had off from work), I got a call from the new daycare center about four seconds after Captain Adventure arrived there. Come get him NOW.

Tuesday, I got a phone call from the new daycare center saying, “Uh, yeah…his bus is here? But he wasn’t on it.” The bus driver sort of forgot him. But she didn’t realize she’d done it. So she drove on over to the daycare, and only when the teacher was climbing around in the back of the bus looking for him did she realize that she had totally not picked him up.

I know. Boggles my mind, too.

Wednesday, I got a call while I was standing on the platform waiting for the ACE train – he was pitching an epic tantrum about something. And as I hung up the phone, I realized that I was totally expecting the call. It’s become routine. Every single day, something. And I sort of went, Hmmmmmm… and then I counted up the days and I realized that what we had here was a Childcare Fail.

It’s nobody’s fault, really. It’s just a bad fit; their environment and his condition don’t go together at all. Unfortunately, his method of dealing with his unhappiness involves things that make him a danger to himself and others; and their methods of dealing with such behaviors don’t work for him, because his little brain doesn’t work like a typical first grader’s would.

Words are not your friend when he’s heading into a meltdown. Actions are. Pictures are. Touch is. A star on a behavior chart, about to head down a notch. A button being removed from the button box (fifteen buttons earns you a trip to the reward basket at home). Having someone take him into a quiet corner and rub his arms, scratch his back, stroke his cheek, help him reboot the system, be the lightning rod that focuses all that crazy energy into a harmless discharge – or, just leave him alone and let him calm himself down.

Today, I ran interference and just picked him up straight from the curb after school, snatched him right on out of his bus. And soon his bus will start coming to the Den instead of the center because guess what?

Captain Adventure and that daycare center?

Yeah. Parting ways.

And tomorrow, I get to start looking for something else for him. I have no idea what at this point. All up in the air, and starting over from scratch.

…I can’t wait…no really, don’t let the utter lack of joy and enthusiasm on my face fool you, I’m ecstatic…

But at the same time, he was soooo happy to see me this afternoon as the bus pulled up. He turned around to his driver with the biggest grin since teeth were invented and shouted, “OH YEAH! DAT MAH MOMMY! OH YEAH! DAT WHAT I TALKIN’ BOUT!”

And then he started chattering as he hopped down from the bus, putting his little hand into mine for a split second before the need to hop-hop-SKIP, hop-hop-SKIP took over his whole body. “Dat right, dat what I talkin’ bout! I am not going to {pffft!} center! Dat mah mommy! Yeah! Dat mah mommy! An’Iiiiiiiii’m going wif her! YEAH! DAT WHAT I TALKIN’ BOUT!!!”

It’s nice to be popular, yo.

So, yet again…the only constant around here is change. The husband and I are going to be tag-teaming the work-from-home thing for the duration (to the eternal joy of our managers, I’m sure) (although mine might actually be pleased…I get more done and work longer hours from home than I do when I’m in the office, and am considerably less constrained, time-wise) (yeah, the five hours of daily commute kind of tends to put a squeeze on your day – go figure), the Denizens are confused, the cat still thinks there aren’t enough laps around here, and I found another disgusting mass of moths downstairs in a basket of rotgut “practice my spinning” wool I’d forgotten I even had. (I’m sensing a pattern there.)

A million spent moth casings. A couple live moths fluttering weakly around. I don’t want to know how many live larva. All of them now out in the trash can in a plastic bag.

Although I have to confess, I did wonder: Can you spin moth-eaten wool? Because on the one hand, ew, but on the other hand, let’s say the world order has fallen apart and the social order has collapsed and there is no more mall and everybody has to make their own everything: I wonder if you can make serviceable yarn out of moth-eaten wool. Would the spinning process make up for the weakened fibers? Or would you be basically making pre-frayed yarn that way?

I do not intend to find out. I’m just going to sit here and idly wonder about it for a while. Because, ew.

{pause to ponder}

And then I’m going to show you a finished Petal Jacket:



After which, I am going to show you a close-up of those buttons because how cute are they, and every single one is different:



And then, I will show you a Boo Bug wearing it. (Boo Bugs are much cuter than wool moths.)



She likes it. Score!

So, you know, I’ve got that going for me. Everything Else may be falling apart all around me this week…but at least I finished the sweater. Yay me!!

S.O.U.S.

“But wait! What about the S.O.U.S’s?”

“Stashes of unusual size? I don’t think they exist…”

{and then they both get eaten by a ginormous ball of worsted, the end}

Ahem. On this day in history…I finally finished the moth-inspired stash toss. Yea verily, I have pulled out from its hiding place (almost) every single ball, skein, and sad remnant of same.

I have cataloged. I have handled. I have shaken, stirred, tossed, and picked apart my whole stash. I have vacuumed everywhere, twice, even all the way under the bed and between the mattress and the box spring and the tops of my floor-to-ceiling shelves. (That was some trick, let-me-tell-you.) I have wept over victims. And I have started decontamination procedures on suspicious looking balls. And many not suspicious looking balls, but who wants to take the chance, NOT ME.

(First, they are going to spend a few days in the freezer. Then I’m going to take them out and let them sit at room temperature for twenty-four hours. Then they go in the microwave for three separate fifteen-second bursts, with a one to two minute cooling down period between them. Then they go back into the freezer for another three days. And then I repeat the microwave thing. And then…we’ll see.) (I will never actually trust any of this yarn again. Which is unfortunate, but then again if it will go tramping off with a bunch of vagrant moths, well, really…fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice…)

ANYWAY. I put (most) of my stash up on Ravelry as I went. I left out partial balls of this and that, and the occasional skein box of weird acrylic or random wool I had no genealogy for, but for the most part, I now have everything up there in my Ravelry stash.

In related news, sweet sainted sheep o’mercy, but I have a lot of yarn. I made the mistake of asking myself, Just how much yarn do you suppose I’ve got?

So I exported my stash database from Ravelry to a spreadsheet. And then I used the SUM function and guess what?

I have admitted to 654 balls, skeins and cones of yarn, which together are 187,845 yards in length. That’s 563,535 feet of string. In my bedroom.

And, that’s just the ones I’m willing to discuss. There is probably about 25% of that amount that is still my little secret. (So, that’s just between you, me and the whole entire Internet, ‘kay?)

So, you can imagine how I felt this afternoon when I opened up my front door and discovered a box sitting on it – a medium-ish box from KnitPicks.

That’s right.

I’m so excited I can hardly stand it! Because guess what?! It’s YARN!

{sarcasm}…thank DOG, because I was just about out…{/sarcasm}

Heh. OK, all kidding and sarcasm aside, it’s a whack of Knit Picks Comfy (75% Pima cotton, 25% acrylic, machine washable, fingering weight), and a “What A Character” hoodie kit, which, it appears, is no longer available from them. Dang. (Although I shouldn’t be surprised, when I bought it precisely because it was on drastic sale with banners that warned “LAST CHANCE!” and “SALE SALE SALE!” and such.)

But I did find some pictures of the design options. Still charmed by this thing. Still can’t wait to make it for Captain Adventure, although I may tweak it around a little bit so that the monster is going after a yarn ball, because he is still my little Yarn Monster. And, the yarn in the kit is also Comfy, in worsted weight.

I bought the other stuff because I am going to be making a sweater for someone who is sensitive to wool – and guess what is in every.single.skein of even semi-decent fingering weight yarn I already own?

Oh yeah. At least 75% wool.

And I find it rather amusing that my first thought when I saw the box was, Oh, GAH! I’ve gotta keep the moths out of this!! QUICK, ANOTHER SPACE BAG!!!!!!!

And then I thought, …wait…cotton/acrylic…

And then I opened it up and groped at it and found myself thinking, Wow, this is nice stuff…I totally need MORE of this…AND ALSO IT IS SAFE FROM MOTHS!!!, because this is a huge selling point, and after all, having lost a whole entire bag of Ancient Llama Yarn I Was Never Going To Knit Anyway, well…there’s a hole in my heart, right? A terrible rift in the fabric of my stash!

Obviously, I need a box or two (or three…or maybe just one RRRRRRREALLY-REALLY BIG ONE) of this wonderful cotton-y stuff to fill it…

(Kidding, kidding. I have enough yarn.) (Well, mostly kidding. Except that really, this stuff feels gooooood. Soft, sweet…only three bucks a ball…)

(…curse you, Knit Picks, why can’t your yarns suck so I am not perpetually tempted…?)

(…also, I found no fewer than five works-in-progress that had gotten on the bottom of other things and been forgotten…two different socks, another petal jack in yellow, a vest I’d forgotten all about, and a little chenille jacket that is such an absolute mystery to me that I’m seriously wondering if it belongs to someone else, although how it would have ended up in my knitting basket is beyond me…)

(…my gah, I am the poster child for ADD Awareness right now, aren’t I…)

(…oh look! A squirrel!!!!...)

(...mmmmmm...new yarn smell....mmmmmm...)

The Nest of Moth-Ra

Tonight when I got home, I saw another moth. I promptly lost my ever-loving mind and went berserk searching every nook and cranny of this room…and then I found it.

Under the bed. WAY under the bed. So far under the bed that I had to get a broom to get to it – forgotten, forlorn, lost, and alone, a battered-up leaky bag from which there wafted the unmistakable chalky scent of alpaca.

Except it wasn’t alpaca. It was llama, a bag of llama yarn I’d gotten at a fiber festival, Lord, years ago. I’d messed around with it a bit, found it a bit unnerving thanks to the guard hairs (longer, whisker-like hairs that are a large factor in what make a wool scratchy) and strange soft-but-yet-coarse texture, put it into this bag and shoved it under the bed.

For all I know, those moths have been chewing on it since Day One. I wouldn’t be surprised if they had, because when I opened up the bag and pulled out what remained, it was like pulling out a random ball of short little strings, barely held together by some cotton ties. Whoa.

And just to put a little icing on it, a few moths even fluttered out, thumbing their noses at me and going, “Ha, ha, we ate yer llama!” (So I squished them. SO THERE, Sons of Moth-Ra!) (Although sweet Moses on buttered toast, have you ever tried to swat yourself a clothes moth?! They fly like little drunken Celts, swerving randomly around and somehow never being where by the laws of physics they really ought to have been. Also, they have super powers. Because nothing else can explain how I, at 128 pounds, can slam my hand down on something no bigger than the head of a really big pin and have it spring right back up again, fla-whittering around like it’s going, “Whoa! Duuuuuude! Yer harshin’ mah mellow, dude…!”

Fortunately, Everything Else that is beloved of moths and their progeny has been safely bagged up all along – I haven’t found a single frayed ply on anything else in the stash.

And, now that I’ve found the Nest of Moth-Ra…I will be able to sleep tonight.

On…the bed…

…above the former moth-nest…

…oh dear, I seem to have given myself a raging case of the heebie-jeebies…

Running late but still on time

The sweater is coming swiftly along. I'll be starting the first sleeve on the homeward trek today – I have to admit, I'm really enjoying the semi-instant gratification thing right now.

Yesterday, I missed my train; the alarm went off and I sort of didn't take it all that seriously, you know? But…well…I was tired. Because, see, thing is? I saw a moth in my bedroom Tuesday night.

Twenty-some-odd years worth of hoarded-up wool, silk, alpaca, and cashmere yarn in that bedroom, and here's this drunken-flying little critter just skittering along all, "La la la, never mind me, I'm just here to ruin your life…"

So naturally, I was up until after midnight Tuesday night ripping my bedroom apart trying to find where the little @*^&@er were nesting. (Didn't find it yet, either. All the 'good stuff' is already safely wrapped up in Space Bags and Ziplocs, and I can't find any evidence that they've suddenly developed a taste for acrylics and cottons, nor can I find a single chewed-up strand of any wool/synthetic blends. AND I HAVE LOOKED. I don't think I have a single skein of "neat" yarn left in the whole lot. Sigh)

My bedroom looks like Moth-Ra and Godzilla stopped by for tea before heading off for their epic battle and tried to knit up tea cozies during their visit. It is so astonishingly bad in there right now that it defies description. I should totally take a picture of it, because it is a whole new kind of crazy how chaotically destroyed it is…and yet so OCD at the same time, because I have been taking this opportunity to finally get my <I>whole entire stash</i> up on Ravelry, updating locations so I have a prayer of finding things, taking pictures, etc. etc. etc. And of course I'm also organizing the yarn as I go, because things had gotten rather haphazard, storage-wise. So now I've got the 100% wool worsted in this bag, and the sock yarn in that bag, and the hand-dyed stuff here and the rotgut acrylics there and the baby-worthy stuff in here and the fancy-blends there and really, how a room can look like a hoarder's trailer that was hit by a tornado on the one hand, and yet be so compulsively organized is…kind of miraculous, actually.

But I digress.

ANYWAY, then the alarm went off at 3:40 the next morning as if Moth-Ra hadn't visited at all. And I was all, …meh… and then when I did motivate myself out of bed, I was all, …shower… and then the water was so warm and the clean-feeling was so lovely, and then I was all …I am going to stay in this shower for the rest of my life… and then, well, my train was halfway to San Jose while I was just slipping into the car trying to bend time to my will and make it so that leaving at 4:45 was totally going to get me to the station in time to a) park, b) walk up to the platform, c) validate my ticket and d) get on the train by 4:49.

Which so didn't happen.

Which is why I was an hour late yesterday.

Which brings me to this morning. Last night, I resisted the urge to continue the cataloging (I have the whole day off tomorrow – I think it can wait just one measly day) and went to bed at a semi-decent hour. AND, I took my shower last night. HA HA, I am cunning, am I not?! My bags were packed and sitting by the door, all my knitting requirements for the day already put away, train tickets and badges dangling off the back of my bag where I could grab them easily, and I had even taken care of the other major time-sink the night before as well, to wit, answering the "what shall I wear today?" question.

For someone who is so not a fashion-hound, it perpetually amazes me how long I will stand in my closet on the average workday morning, just staring at my options. Which, by the way, are limited. I have several pairs of nice work jeans (not to be confused with my gardening jeans, even though I frequently do confuse them and end up at work in jeans with worn knees, frayed hems dangling at my ankles, and permanently ground-in dirt), and four (4) dressier pants (two of which are significantly too big for me, and one of which is tight enough to give me a stomach ache after a full day's wearing, but not too tight to zip up so therefore obviously they're Still Good). And about nine shirts. That's it.

So why it can take me fifteen minutes to settle on something to clothe my nekkidness is kind of a mystery. And yet it happens. I just stand there, frozen with indecision, staring at this vast array (ahem) and going, "Uhhhhhhhhhhhhh…" like the Fate of the World™ is riding on my next move.

I blame the earliness of the hour. Which is a convenient excuse for just about everything. Including the "wearing gardening jeans to work" thing.

ANYWAY. With all that groundwork for success having been laid the night before, I was doing so well on time when I made it downstairs to make my coffee (ominous music begins to swell) that I felt it was totally acceptable to scan through yesterday's newspaper real-quick while it was brewing.

I glanced at the clock on the microwave as I finished up the main news section. 4:25, doing fine.

Then I scanned through the comics and glanced again. 4:30. Yeah, better move it.

Then as I was taking the milk out of the microwave and going through the daily ritual of creating my morning mug of ambition, my gaze shifted to the clock on the oven.

And that son-of-a-beached-whale said 4:39.

And I said…well, never mind what I said exactly. Suffice to say that I said it with tremendous emphasis. A check against my cell phone confirmed that the oven was correct. The microwave was slow.

I was late. Again.

And then I went through a spasm of indecision.

The absolute latest I can leave the house and make the train is 4:35. And that's going to require pushing the speed limit, not getting behind any turtles on the road, hitting the lights right, parking fast and getting to the platform faster…and my coffee was. not. READY.

I finished making my coffee – fast. And then I grabbed my stuff and ran for it. I did calming meditations all the way to the train station. It's just one hour. It's OK. You're not a bus driver or a heart surgeon. Nobody will die if you're an hour late again. We'll get there when we get there. You can work on the train. You can work from home tonight. It's oooookaaaaay…

It didn't exactly work. It helped, but I was still white-knuckled on the steering wheel and having to make myself drive safely.

AND I MADE IT!!!

I made it in time in any case (barely), but then the train was four minutes late. So I didn't even have to run for it.

And I said to myself, said I, "Self! This is a sign! The Universe is with me today!!"

And that's the kind of day I'm insisting on having. Woot!

(sent from my Treo)

A little vintage in my life

This is the child's petal jacket from a (I think) 1958 Coats and Clark booklet. I made one in black for Danger Mouse last year...it was recently found in the "finishing" pile (where "finishing" entailed sewing on buttons - why this took a YEAR is one of those Great Mystery sorts of things), and now she's wearing it, and now Boo Bug wants one...so, here we go. It's a relatively fast knit, EXTREMELY like the famous 5 Hour Baby Sweater...so hopefully we'll get some instant gratification, knitting-style.

It has been a long week, and it's only Wednesday. Hope to blog allllll about it...because blogging is cheaper than therapy and I'm gonna need me some by the time this week is over!

(sent from my Treo)

Why Having A Stash Of Ridiculous Size Is Actually A Good Idea, Reason #17

When you find yourself with a knitting emergency and really, really, really would like to be casting on, you know, soon, it’s far better to already have the yarn on hand than to find yourself agonizing over whether or not it’s worth the extra $11 to have it “express shipped” so you can have it up to two weeks sooner than you’ll get it via the “free standard by which we mean slowest possible” method.

Sigh.

I made the mistake of calculating out how long it would take to finish a certain sweater in terms of ‘X hours for the front and Y hours for the back’ and then figured out how long that translated to how many days I was talking about considering my average number of available knitting hours per day and then I was all ohmygah and then I ordered the yarn (which naturally, I don’t have on hand because that would be convenient) and then…there it was. Staring at me. This order qualifies for free standard shipping! Hooray! Only it will take between 5 and 14 calendar days!

And then I clicked on and off the upgrade button for shipping.

{click!} 3 Day Express Shipping.

Stare at additional $11 added to the total just to get it in three days instead of up to 14.

{click!} Free Standard Shipping.

Stare at estimated delivery date of approximately forever plus two days from now.

{click!} {stare}
{click!} {stare}
{click!} {stare}
{click!} {stare}
GAH!!!!!!

And all this internal torment could have been averted, if I’d just had the wisdom and foresight to buy four warehouses of assorted colors and weights and fiber-contents at the last Stitches marketplace, instead of only three.

Live and learn, my friends, live and learn…

(Nah, I didn’t pay for the faster shipping. It would have brought me out in hives. And because I didn’t, it will take three weeks to get here, because that is how my luck goes. If I don’t care when it shows up, it’ll be here in five days flat. But the very fact that I am anxiously awaiting that box on the porch causes some kind of disturbance in the Shipping Force, rippling out into the Universe in such a way that the GPS systems of every major shipping company in the world suddenly begins to malfunction. It’s true! It’s like parking spaces. If I don’t care, I get a spot right in front of the store. If I’m all, “Meh, I don’t wanna hafta walk, I wanna spot right by the door…”, well, you’d have more luck trying to sneak a canvas bag marked “Warning: Explosives” bristling with random wires and ominously ticking electronics an unopened water bottle through airport security than I’ll have getting any parking space within three miles of the supermarket.)

The ritual of Friday night

Every Friday, there comes a moment when I say to myself, “Right. That’s it then.”

I close all the open windows. Disengage the SQL Servers. Close the spreadsheets, disconnect the links to Sharepoint sites, close the Word documents, click the little ‘x’ in the corner of the too-many emails I somehow have managed to open concurrently. (I can’t explain that. Really. Just about every afternoon I say to myself, “Oh for heaven’s sake, why, WHY do you always end up with, like, fifteen emails open all at once?!” – and yet somehow, throughout the day, I end up with a card-deck worth of emails sitting open all at the same time.)

I hit the ‘sync’ button. Files scan. Your folders have been successfully synchronized.

Cntl+Esc…S…Enter…bing-bing-bing-bing-biiiiiing…

…and the screen goes dark…

I put away the power cord, the mouse and pad, the networking cable. Slip the laptop into its case and tuck it safely away in the closet, away from rampaging Denizens and their friends. Fold up the portable stand and put it back in the closet.

And in that moment, as I’m emerging from the closet empty-handed, there is a feeling of near euphoria.

Two days off.

I don’t have to get up at 3:40 tomorrow morning.

I don’t have to be on time to any meetings.

I don’t have to focus, a thing which by Friday has become nearly impossible as the combination of fatigue and brain-clutter builds up over the week.

I don’t have to think about source feeds, misbehaving scope flags, missing records, or how to go about sizing the potential downstream impact of the latest proposed logic tweak.

Another week is in the books. Another timesheet filled in. Another paycheck coming.

I’m blessed to have this job. And I love it. It’s about the most fun I’ve had while working this hard. It’s interesting and challenging and fast-moving. I know a lot and I’m still learning a lot and I’m not dreading Monday much at all.

But that doesn’t mean I’m not also wallowing in the joy of my weekend.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh…weekend.

It’s a good thing.

Observational psychology, now with woolly fins

Working on this hat is a marvelous exercise in observational psychology...ESPECIALLY when you get started on the fins!!

People always watch you knit on trains and buses and planes. They can't help it, really...the human eye is drawn to movement in any case, and then here is this fascinating THING going on: Two sticks and some string are making a "something"...something beautiful, and/or practical, and/or warm...and/or whimsicle.

But for the most part, they watch from the corner of their eyes, working hard at pretending they most certainly are NOT watching. It is rude to stare, and strangers mad enough to be wielding pointy sticks are probably dangerous, not to mention the likelihood of "artistic temperament"...prone to some combination of emotion and lecturing at GREAT length about something mind-numbingly boring, like the relative virtues of this or that mordant, or the vegan properties of bamboo, or how many spectrum-bands are absorbed by this PARTICULAR purple.

But this kind of project creates a terrible conflict in the human mind. Obviously, it is a fish...logic clearly says that Fish != Hat, and yet the overall shape clearly leans toward this being a HAT...but the hat has fins...does not compute, does not compute, does not compute...

And then finally, driven too near the chasm of madness...they MUST break the invisible wall, shatter the unspoken law that says we commuters must at all times maintain a certain sangfroid, they must, MUST!, brave the potential horror speaking to a stranger-than-usual stranger ON PUBLIC TRANSIT NO LESS!!!...and ask.

What ARE you making?!?!

(This morning, a weathered man in about his late 40s with obvious true grit grinned like a boy and said, "I'd love one! But in blue. Gotta protect my dignity with the boys at work." The Fish Hat - helping people everywhere find their inner whimsy!)

(sent from my Treo)

Half a tail may be better than none...

..but still makes for lopsided swimming. By George, I think I'm going to make it!

..as long as nothing goes horribly awry, of course...

..(shiver)...

This week is zooming by on me. Being busy-busy-busy has a way of making time do that. In typical human fashion, I'm not happy either way: If it goes fast, I whine about wanting things to slow down. If it drags, I groan about uuuuuugh, will this week never END?!

Onward and upward, dear friends...and may our tails be strong for the swimming...

(sent from my Treo)

Bring on the Monday!

The Fish Hat grows a-pace. And confuses people who like to watch from the corners of their eyes and guess at what I'm making...always fun to guess who will give up and ask, and who will suffer on in deepest, darkest mystery...what WAS that thing that woman was knitting on the train this morning?!

I engaged in Advanced Slacking Off on Saturday. Then Sunday, I made five pints of pinto beans, three of kidney beans, two quarts and eight pints of salsa, twenty-four muffins, two loaves of bread, a batch of Parmesan crackers, a butternut/potato/lentil curry, sixteen pork turnovers, a chili-cornbread casserole, got a London broil into marinade and six pork chops stuffed and ready to go in the oven tonight.

And then I went to bed with a million things still not done...which is always the case so I guess I've become rather hardened to it.

Only seventy-eight more years to retirement, right...?

(sent from my Treo)