One Crazy Fiber Lady

I know its been a while, new job exhaustion, fighting a cold, blah blah.  Hopefully a real post over the weekend.  Happy 4th to all those celebrating!  We’re off on the boat for the long weekend.

Craft on!

It has been so very busy here over the last week that I’ve barely had a chance to sit still, let alone post.  It is past time for a recap. 

I have to thank everyone for their support and happy thoughts for my interview.  Wednesday I spent 2.5 hours interviewing with a variety of people at that company, including the CIO and the person who would be my boss.  I felt really good about the experience and within an hour of leaving, my head hunter called me and asked if I could go back on Friday for an interview with the CFO.  Oh for sure.

So Friday I go back and had a quick meeting with the CFO and a threatened meeting with the CEO (which thankfully didn’t come to pass as he was leaving the office early because the weather had turned nice).  They asked when I could start.  Did I have to give 2 weeks notice to the freelance place?  Well I had that discussion with the FP’s Thursday evening before I left.  I was actually going to be at a good breaking point by the end of business on Friday and could start immediately.  They liked the sound of that. A background check was in the works and an offer was going to be made on Monday.  Sooo, I finished everything I was working on, sent a thank you note hugged everyone goodbye.

Monday and Tuesday had me on pins and needles.  I even got twisted enough to develop a twitch in my right eye as I willed the phone to ring.  Which it did, just not the call I wanted.  The check was still in the works, they were waiting for one more thing, and then they would finalize it.  But they were still excited and hoped I was too.  Hell yeah, no other way to explain that twitch   Tuesday at 6 I got a better call, the check was fine, they were formalizing the offer package, but the Director of Comp had left for the day and would review it in the morning.  Yesterday at 11 I got the good call.  They were offering what I had been asking and were Fedexing the package to me, as well as emailing a copy.  I signed it and faxed it back.  I got the package this morning.  Would you believe it contained a temporary employee discount card?!  How cool is that?!  Anyway, I start Monday.  The job looks promising, Intranet Developer, and the company just seems so nice.  I’m looking forward to this one.

Woven in with the week of job stuff was my sister’s wedding on Saturday.  There was a rehearsal dinner on Friday night.  It was a lot of fun and a good evening.  A bit later than I am used to these days, but very very nice.  Thanks to the interview, I was already dressed for it

Saturday was the wedding.  After spending a few hours at the salon primping for it (I got a haircut and a style) we headed down to the hotel near the hall.  My sister was absolutely stunning in her dress.  I don’t have many pictures, including any of me (even modeling the shawl) as my camera battery conked out about 3 minutes after we arrived.  I did manage to snap this one of my sister and mom between the photographer’s shots.  Hopefully I’ll get some other shots soon.

The wedding was absolutely beautiful.  Tears were in her eyes as she hit the end of the aisle.  A look at my brother-in-law to be showed the same thing.  They really are perfect together.  I’m so very happy for them.  He’s a great guy and I’m happy to call him brother. 

That’s about it for now.  I’ve barely done any knitting, though I am up to the ribbing on the second of the Souza socks.  The trekking is next in the queue.  I did a tiny bit of spinning last night.  I picked this roving up recently from eBay.  It’s a pound of hand painted Romney that is just a dream to spin.  Tonight I’m planning on taking advantage of the whole built-in-babysitter thing of living with the folks and going to Stitch and Bitch (bullpucky on not being able to use that name) at Modern Yarn.  Not sure what I’m going to work on there, but I’ll probably bring the sock to finish, and the Lisa sweater.  Now that the employment thing is settling down, a bit of unpacking was done yesterday and we’re falling into a routine, I should be able to get more crafting time!

Craft on.

I left off the last post with a mystery picture.  There were quite a few correct answers.  Sara is indeed sporting a set of Soft Paws in brilliant orange.  Earl has a set of his own in black, which looks good against his slate blue/grey color.  They stay on pretty well and are doing a fabulous job of keeping pointing claws from making contact with tender skin, not to mention carpet and furniture.  Highly recommend these as an alternative to declawing and more effective than claw trimming. 

Speaking of Miss Serendipity, she had a big day today.  Early this morning on my way to work, I dropped her at the vet’s office for an overdue spaying.  I meant to have her done in April, but we know how busy I was then.  Then 2 weeks ago she had a brief heat.  Thank goodness it was only for a couple of days.  So when it ended, I made the call.  Today was the day.  I picked her up after work.  She came through with flying colors, weighs in at a hefty 6lbs.  My girl is getting so big.  She’s not digging the  cone so much though.  She has to wear it some 4 or 5 days.  We go back in two weeks for suture removal.  Right now she’s out cold on the bed next to me and the mobile blogging platform!  I have to note now that Kat was disturbed this morning when I told her that I was taking Sara to the vet.  "She not sick!" , Kat cried.  I think she was worried that Sara wouldn’t be coming home.  (I do have to add that my mother had to put her 16 year old cat, Shawn, to sleep the Friday before Memorial day).  I guess we aren’t completely over the Baron experience.  Needless to say, Kat was very happy to see Sara come home tonight.

Today was also an excellent mail day.  I got a gift certificate from Amazon for those diapers a bought a while ago.  Not hard to put that to good use!  I picked up a few titles that I’ve had my eyes on.  Books are a good thing.

The mailman also brought me some other presents today.  My favorite yarn pushers over the ocean helped me get in some pre-SOS wire purchases.  They were paid for before Memorial Day, so they are kosher   I’m now the proud owner of a bag of Rowan Wool Cotton in that gorgeous Poster Blue, why they discontinued that one I’ll never know!  The other is that pack of Wendy Guernsey that I mentioned the other day. 

Sunday I did get to block my Flower Basket Shawl as I planned.  I dug out the blocking wires, figuring they would make the points so much easier to deal with.  Kat and Mom helped me with the blocking.  I unpinned it this evening and tried it on.  It will be perfect, big enough to cover my shoulders with enough overlap that I can use a small pin to keep it closed if necessary.  No pictures of it on yet, hopefully I’ll have one after the wedding along with the coordinating dress!  It is late and I want to get this posted so I’ll put together the completed project page at another time with all the details.

I got a call yesterday from a recruiter that I had been put in contact with through another former BN coworker.  She had a position that she felt I would be perfect for.  After hearing the job requirements, all computer languages and technology that I have expertise in, not to mention a great deal of ecommerce experience, it really did sound perfect.  I gave her my consent to submit my resume to them for considering.  Within a half hour, she called back.  They wanted to see me.
I have an interview tomorrow morning at 9:30. Here.

Wish me luck!  Now that would be a good employee discount

Craft on!

Okay it has been a long time between posts even for my recent sparse frequency.  Time to rectify that.  The kids are napping, as is their grandfather, mom is downstairs I suspect she’s at her computer finalizing things for my sister’s wedding next Satuday and I have some quiet time as my shawl is soaking in the sink for its blocking.  I’ve tried a couple of times to put together a post, but it seemed that circumstances were conspiring to keep me from doing it.  One night our DSL connection was incredibly slow, the second one, it wouldn’t connect at all.  Some pretty violent thunder storms two nights had the computers off entirely.  Oh well, just wasn’t meant to be.  I have alot to catch y’all up on so lets get moving.

First and foremost, an update on the job thing.  Last I posted, I had received an offer and was waiting for the Freelance Place (heretofore known as FP) to counter.  Well, the boss lady and I had a serious talk Wednesday morning on the deadline.  While she couldn’t offer me a permanent job, she did indeed have enough work for me to do to keep me until the end of the third quarter.  The 4th quarter was more than likely, but they don’t plan that far ahead (interesting for a large corp, but whatever).  Doing the math, the freelance gig was paying darn well, even without providing benefits (I’ve picked an individual health plan with Blue Cross for $475 a month so that is covered) that it seemed silly to take a pay cut for the theoretical security blanket that a "permanent" job offers.  We all saw how permanent my last position was.  Also keep in mind that two of the three people I’m working with, now permanent employees, started as freelancers as well.  I also didn’t have to take the first offer that came around.  The this job or that was an artificial limitation that just didn’t need to there.  Freelancing offers me a great deal of flexibility and freedom that I couldn’t get at the other company.  It seemed silly to not stay at FP.  I did the calculation, to match my gross income from BN.com, I just need to work 23 hours a week.  Not too shabby when you really think about it.  So there it is.  I’m working and happy.  We’ll see what happens as we close in on the end of the 3rd quarter.  In the meantime, I’m getting experience in .NET that I didn’t have before and found to be the necessary technology currently in my market.  The real upside to this is that one interview I went on early in my quest kept the door open that if I gained .NET knowledge I should call them back.  Options are good.

Now that summer has begun, the boat and the pool are seeing some usage.  Last weekend, we inaugurated both over the holiday weekend giving the twins their first tastes of them as 2 year olds.  Over the course of almost two hours, the pair got pretty darn comfortable in the water.  The lifevests gave them the security to keep their faces out of the water and freedom to do things without clinging to the nearest adult.  Speaking as one of those nearby adults, it was a most pleasant change.

Sunday morning the family trouped to the marina and spent this year’s first overnight on the boat.  These kids are definitely water babies.  They took very nicely to the boat this year, which is a good thing as we’d planned to go to Kingston, NY, up the mighty Hudson River, for the extended July 4th weekend, via boat naturally.  Nice that they do so well on it.

This next picture isn’t from the holiday weekend but one that I downloaded from mom’s camera of a day trip that they took with the kids to the boat a couple of weeks ago.  I just loved it and wanted to share.  As always, click to see the larger photos.  I love seeing my dad with the kids.  They really look so great together.  Dad is just amazing with them.  The sun rises and sets by their PopPop.

As this is purportedly a knitting blog, I do have knitting to report.  First, I’d like to publicly declare my membership in the Summer of Stash.  I’m not sure what my reward to myself at the end of it is going to be, maybe the Mermaid kit or another Dale of Norway.  Who knows.  Really though I seriously have enough yarn in stash to keep busy all summer long without buying anything.  My exceptions are going to be the Sundara Petal’s Collection as that is already paid for and not technically purchased between the end dates.  I withhold the right to buy myself a yarny birthday present in July as it is a birthday that end in {shudder} a ’0′.  I also will claim as an exception yarn purchased as a souvenier should I actually go anywhere, like Kingston and find some.  So there we have it.  I did get some purchase in under the wire including two eBay buys of some Wendy Guernsey in Slate that is pegged to become The Danish Nattr√∏jer from the Winter ’04 IK Issue.  I also picked up a pack of some Rowan Wool Cotton that is destined to be a Chicknits design, just not sure which one yet (Eyelet Cardi or Cutaway).

As it isn’t always about buying yarn, but actually using some of it, I have been knitting.  And I have a completed project.  The ever present socks. They took a while for me to finish and with everything that has been going on, I honestly can’t remember when I finished them, though the Thursday before Memorial Day weekend is a likely candidate.  I just won’t swear to it. 
I did start new socks the very night I finished these though.  I picked up a few skeins of Lisa Souza’s wonderful Sock! yarn.  Having seen Wendy‘s socks naturally I bought the mahogany colorway, as well as the What-A-Melon and Earth Birth.  All are just gorgeous.  I eagerly started
the What-A-Melon, working toe up on the same needles.  I finished the first one on Memorial Day and am now slowly getting some work done on the second one.  The yarn is just delightful to work with and is making some gorgeous socks.  Here you see the second sock posing as a modesty shield during little peep bath time.   Gave me something to do while they played.  Just have to work on that whole splashing thing.

In other knittings news, I’ve been working on Wendy’s Lisa and finally started Reid for Kathryn.  Having had 2 days off in the middle of the week as Kat ran a fever, I got some knitting done during naps.  I’ve finished the back for Lisa and have a good start on the first sleeve.  The knitting is easy and good for tv and/or toddler watching and the drape of the Silky Wool is just to die for.  I sooooo love this item.   Reid is coming along nicely too, though the cotton yarn (Patons Grace) is not the easiest on the hands.  Alternating between the two, Silky Wool on Addi Turbos and the Grace on Addi Naturas is making my hands a little sore.  The socks enter stage right for hand relief knitting! 

Yesterday I needed to get the kids out of the house so that mom could get some things done, including hemming her dress for Rikki’s wedding.  She’s doing mine today and just ran out to buy a different thread for it.  Anyway, we needed to get the shorties out and the weather was just dreary.  Immediately this mall rat thought of heading to, where else, but the mall.  In the end, it didn’t work out that way, but much better.  We went to visit these two!

It’s Deb and Chappy!  Who where, as always, great hosts.  Even if Chappy gets perplexed by the fact that even after the initial excitement the toddlers are still moving around!
I hear you Chappy, I still don’t quite get it that they JUST CAN’T SIT STILL! They once again adopted the underneath of the desk in Deb’s kitchen as their own personal playcave.  Goofy monkeys they are. 

That pretty much brings us up to date with the bigger goings on around the CFL household.  Except this, what is it?  I’ll leave that to you all to figure out

Just as an FYI, I had to set the blogs comments to requiring approval after I got some serious comment spam of over 75 in one evening.  I spent too much time deleting them.  Bastards need to get a real hobby and not promoting their real estate, pharmacy or porn sites in my comments!

Gots to go block my shawl.  Ta for now!

Craft on!