One Crazy Fiber Lady

My goodness, have you seen the new total??  You guys totally rock.  I have discovered a problem with my paypal account.  For whatever reason it is configured to not accept payments from non-US accounts.  I keep trying to toggle off that option to no avail.  I’m putting in a ticket with the paypal folks to see if there is a reason and/or solution.

I spent my last day of vacation lazing around, not doing much of anything.  After dropping the kids off at school, I returned with a big cup of Dunkin’ Donuts coffee and picked up my knitting.  Hanging out on my big comfy bed, with the company of my cats and TV, I knitted and relaxed.

I made some serious progress on the Humdrum Sweater and am in love with the fabric.  This yarn is just dreamy to knit with.  The color is divine.  All in all, an excellent follow up project to Celtic Dreams.  It is nice to get a simple garment at a large gauge as a break.  Best yet, it will yield a big comfy sweater in the same vein as Banff and Big Sack.

I had a bit of geek time too.  True to form with office provided telephone gadgetry, my crackberry died today.  It went white screen and refuses to respond to anything.  whatever.  I’ve had nothing but problems with the phone from the office, the Treo crashed and rebooted regularly.  I pulled out my personal cell, the Razr I bought a year ago, and charged that baby back up.  I’m going to go with the option that the company pay for my cell phone rather than carrying that huge crackberry.  I really don’t need email all the time.  So if you have my cell number that starts with 917, might as well trash it.  I’m going back to the old 201 number.  Then again as another update, I did away with my own telephone line and decided to save the bucks and share with the folks.  Not like any of us sit on the phone for hours, and well, there is call waiting if they did. 

But then again, I don’t have to go without email all the time.  I still have my iPaq and had noticed there was software available to sync a Windows Mobile device with a Mac.  There is.  After I bought it and installed it, I found there is an issue with my model iPaq.  Go figure.  Lots of googling revealed a patch that would enable the two devices to chat.  Though you needed to install the patch with a windows pc that already had a relationship with the ipaq.  Good thing I haven’t booted my pc off my desk yet. 

Many installs and reboots later of both the iPaq and the iMac, all things geeky are talking to each other.  My next trick would be to get the Razr to sync but it doesn’t start with an "i" so it will stay out in the cold

It was amazing how the iMac picked up the Rebel the first time I plugged it in.  Sweet.  Started up iPhoto, established communications with the camera and queried if it should download the photos, oh and when done, should it delete the photos off the card.  Nice.  PC never did that. 

We had the inspections today.  Failed a couple of things, like missing a front railing (nobody really wanted it and were trying to see if the inspector would require it) and that the shower allowed for too hot water without restricting as it should.  These things will be remedied asap.  i think the folks are moving upstairs tomorrow.

Back to work for me tomorrow.  Sigh.  I’m tired still, maybe the iron supplement I took tonight will pep me up.  Time to go relax for a bit before an early bed.

Craft on!

If I haven’t sent a personal thank you yet, I will, absolutely, be doing so.  Your generosity is overwhelming.  I thank you from the bottom of my heart!  I have to update the total, but you guys are totally awesome.

I knew it wasn’t much of a limb to go out on.  I finished Celtic Dreams yesterday afternoon, having spent the day obsessively knitting it.  It is blocking as I type.  Heck I even blocked it the same day.  How often does that happen?  I’m relieved to have finished it.  I love the sweater and look forward to trying it on.  With the weather forecast for the rest of the week, I might get to wear her soon too.  Now I just need her to dry.

It was the first opportunity I had to break out the wooly board that I picked up over the summer, really in preparation of knitting an item like CD.  I’m taking advantage of the not-quite-finished bathroom to stand this monster up in the shower-sans-walls. 

Project Details:
Pattern:  Celtic Dreams
Yarn:  Black Water Abbey – Bracken – 4 skeins (I have three left untouched if anyone wants to make a deal
Started:  December 25, 2006
Finished:  January 29, 2007
Needles:  2.00mm (ouch)

Tomorrow is the final inspection for the CO by the building inspector.  I would expect that the folks will be relocating into their new digs by Thursday night.  Which would make it just in time for their weekend away at the Atlantic City Boat Show.  My sisters and I bought them tickets and a hotel room for Hanukkah.   

Just because there are no shower walls, nothing should stop us from using the giant jacuzzi tub now should there?  Not surprisingly, the twins were the first to use the tub.  It was hard trying to get the wiggly kid at the back edge of the tub when she didn’t want her hair rinsed!

I look forward to my chance to use the thing. 

That’s about it for tonight.  I’ve been working on the Sea Silk Swallowtail since finishing CD.  I hit the first Lily of the Valley chart this evening.  And yes, there still ain’t no nupps on my shawl.  I did try it.  I swear.  The problem is that the yarn has absolutely no stretch to it, making that nasty p5tog impossible.  Considering that I am happy with the way the last one turned out, nupp-less and all, I’m not too broken up about it. 

I did start a new sweater for myself last night.  This one is a bulky yarn at a regular gauge with no fiddly work.  It is the Humdrum Raglan Pullover from Jenna.   The former lawyer in me got a serious giggle from the way she wrote the pattern up.  Quite different.  Though I must admit I have a little idea hatching in my mind that I’d like to write a pattern in programming format.  DoFront(), DoBack(), CO(x int)   The coding part is the easy bit, it is coming up with the garment that troubles me!  Anyway, I’m using Lavold Chunky AL in a gorgeous deep blue color and am well into the back.  Maybe a picture of it tomorrow.

Which, btw, is the last day of my mini-vacation.  It has been good for the soul.  I had a good time with the monkeys today.  Mom and I took them to the mall (Garden State Plaza for those curious), bought candy, rode on the carousel and had lunch at Johnny Rockets.  Man, that Vanilla Malted was to die for! YUMMMMMMMY.  A quick duck into J.Crew to check out the markdowns revealed the last burgundy cashmere cardigan, which so happened to be my size and available for ridiculous cheap.  It is so the same color as Shetland Tea Shawl!   Naturally I couldn’t leave it there.   It was a nice day, made especially nice that we all took a nap after we got home.  Not sure what tomorrow will bring as the guys will be back for the last minute things like door knobs and the inspector drops in.  I’m pretty sure there will be knitting…and thank you email typing!

Craft on!

To make life easier for all, I’ve set up a paypal donation button for anyone who would like to make a donation to the MDA for the kids’ hop-a-thon.  I’ve added the button to the left side column of the blog, and am adding it to this post for convenience.

I very much appreciate the offers of support after my last post.  While I shouldn’t be, I still am constantly surprised by how very wonderful a community we have. 

As a thank you, there will be yarn prezzies.

There is definitely a light at the end of the tunnel, which for a change might not be the headlight of an oncoming train!  We are definitely winding down with the house construction.   Carpet was laid today in the new section!  Painting was finished on Friday.  Final inspection for the Certificate of Occupancy will be Wednesday.  Do you believe it?  They ripped the roof off the house on November 17th.  I can’t believe it is almost over.  Probably late this week the folks will move to their new digs and the work would begin in the old bedrooms.  Whew.

Also finished on Friday?  The first sleeve of Celtic Dreams.  I’ve really been battling myself with this sweater.  I’ve enjoyed it for the most part.  Probably would have liked it a bit more if I hadn’t had to use 2mm needles for it.  But still, it is my first aran sweater and a nifty one at that. 

I spent my first "vacation" day huddled in the den, while the rest of the house had been invaded by the painters.  It was too damn cold to go outside, so other than dropping the kids at school and a short outing for lunch, I knitted and caught up with the DVR.  Shortly after the kids went to bed that night, I finished it.

Because I’m struggling with the temptation to put the darn thing on its own vacation, I picked up the second sleeve last night.  By the time I went to bed, I had progressed through the flat section and had just connected the sleeve to knit in the round.  I made some amazing progress today. 

Counting repeats of the 4 stitch cable, I have 6 more repeats before starting the cuff.  I wouldn’t be out on too much of a limb to suggest that this sucker is going down tomorrow. 

I got a packet from the kids’ school.  They are participating in a Hop-a-thon for MDA.  Would anyone be interested in making a donation to sponsor my monkeys?  I could set up something with PayPal. 

Craft on!

Sorry to have essentially disappeared.

Work has been draining in oh-so-many ways. Just as I thought a project was wrapping up, I met with the ultimate user of the thing, only for him to declare that there were big bits missing through gaps in the initial project requirements. So a deadline is not going to be met. The fellow who was supposed to put together the project specs was a big-arsed-slacker and left it for far too late. No reflection on me, thankfully, but still. I also have a director who looks only at dates. If we miss ‘em, it is our fault. Great. I’m meeting with him tomorrow to discuss my project calendar.

There’s also lots of other drama going on at the office that is just leaving me exhausted by the end of the day. On the up side, I still have 4 more vacation days to use before February 1 and will be taking them starting Friday. Woot!

There’s been progress on alot of fronts to report.

1. Construction is, for all intents and purposes, over. Last Friday, the GC packed up his stuff to come back for a day or two to put on door knobs and the like. The painter started on Monday and is finished in the addition and has started working in the rest of the house. Carpet guy is next and then the folks move into their new digs. Definitely a light at the end of this tunnel! Downside is that the smell of paint is making me dizzy.

2. I finished the right front for Ribby while watching 24 last week. Progress.

3. Turned the first heel on the plain-jane Blue Jeans sock. Still only knitting this one while serving Sleep Nazi duty, but that’s okay. I can always use plain knitting.

4. Halfway through the first sleeve on CD. Still loving it, but I am ready to finish that sweater.

5. Halfway through the first heel flap on the other socks.

I haven’t been doing a massive amount of knitting. Being all twisted up from work has led to a bit more spinning. There are times when I can’t relax without transfering that twist to something else. I have hopes that I might actually finish the second bobbin of this pink/white stuff that I seemingly have been spinning FOREVER on the Lendrum.

I’ve also been spending a decent amount of time playing with the new computer. Okay, I’m seriously sold on the whole mac thing now. Pretty sweet. Oh and I decided to learn a new programming language, well, because it was there and I’ve always been partial to its name: JAVA. I picked up a book, have eclipse on a few of the active computers and try to do a chapter from the book each night.

I’m still trying to get over a cold that knocked me down on Friday. I spent a good part of the weekend in bed, sniffling. It sucked. I felt badly enough that I knit not a stitch on Saturday. Amazing.

Figured it was time to post the Knit from the Stash progress – only purchased 2 skeins of sock yarn! WOOT. I have to admit, while I’ve seen nice stuff come up on the Destash blog and elsewhere, I’m not even tempted. While I still have quite a ways to go to succeed, I’m seriously beginning to think that I can do this!

Time for some fiber therapy.

Craft on.

I’ve done almost no knitting since the new computer arrived on the scene so I hope to distract you all from that fact with this little meme I found over at Deb’s.

The Page 123 Meme
1. Grab the book closest to you.
2. Open to page 123, look down to the 5th sentence.
3. Post the text of the next 3 sentences on your blog.
4. Include the title and the author’s name.

Well understandably so, as I am at work, this is from the closest book:

"2  CURSOR occupancy_cur IS
3     SELECT pet_id, room_number
4        FROM occupancy WHERE occupied_dt = TRUNC (SYSDATE;) "

From "Oracle PL/SQL Programming" by Steven Feuerstein with Bill Pribyl.

Interesting eh?  Not so much.  Sad thing is I understand it.

Tonight is knitting night so I should hope that I actually get some knitting done.  What have I accomplished?  Well I did get Windows XP running on my iMac   That’s enough geekiness for today.

Craft on!

What a long day.

I’m so out of practice being a single parent, I’m exhausted. My folks still aren’t back but at least their plane did leave tonight, even if it was several hours late.

Alex has had a cold for the last couple of days and was running a low grade fever last night. I kept them home today. Tuesdays are ‘home’ days for them anyway, but they usually spend them with the folks. Except I got permission from the school director for them to go today. Oh well.

They were really good, generally playing quietly; alone and together, or watching TV while I sat on the couch with them working remotely on the laptop. As an aside, can laptop keyboards suck any more? Eww. I ordered a full sized USB keyboard to use with the thing though sadly it won’t arrive until tomorrow night. Oh wait, I could have borrowed the Mac’s keyboard. I also had trouble with the laptop’s wireless and the office’s VPN. The solution was to hard wire into the router. A pain for sure, but it did work and so did I.

Which really was another part of the day from hell. I’m really close to finishing a project, at least schedule-wise. I’ve been waiting for specifications since early December on one part of it. Last Wednesday, after a number of reminders that I was still waiting for it, I was promised the thing Thursday. Okay, today is Tuesday and I still didn’t have it. I sent the “gotta have it or delivery on time is compromised” email and the dude sent it asap. Except the doc wasn’t complete, required things that were impossible and just not completed. I responded with comments and questions. Took 4 hours to get a response. In that time, I started drafting an email to bump the problem up the chain of command to my manager and director. I don’t like missing deadlines but I don’t think its fair that in order to make said deadline, I’m going to have to work like a slave. Just night right. I didn’t need to go that route, but I do have the email chain to prove that I’ve requested this information on numerous occasions. Still, not the most ideal way to work.

Should I mention that I hadn’t knit a stitch all day? Until 15 minutes ago while I sat in the rocking chair in the twins’ room playing the sleep nazi I hadn’t. Plain socks are perfect projects that I can work on while glaring the evil mom glare at disobedient children who will be miserable tomorrow morning when I wake them up at 7am for school. Sigh. Not really how I prefer to spend my evening, but I did make it further on the Jeans sock

I know, I have a collection of cameras so now I’m subjecting ya’ll to photos from the built in jobbie on the iMac It really was so much easier than um finding my purse, pulling out the elph, taking a dozen photos, downloading them to the computer and generally futzing around. This was too easy. Open app, hold sock out, click button, quick edit photo for size and save. Done. Ridiculously easy. Even a caveman could do it .

Thank goodness I can go to the office tomorrow! I hope to have good quality time with the new toy in short order but will have to content myself with the quickies. But now, I need some serious fiber therapy while watching my favorite part of American Idol, where vast deluded masses try out sprinkled with the truly talented. You can keep the later stages, especially after the unwashed masses start getting to vote, these are the rounds I enjoy.

Craft on!

As the salesperson asked me after I said “I’ll take it”, what is your favorite flavor of koolaid. From my perspective, I’ve now gone over to the dark side. Mac. My computer was getting a bit aged and I’ve wanted to replace her. The scary part of it was that I kept being lured to the iMac sitting there off to the side in CompUSA. What the heck? I’m a hardcore PC girl. Heck, I’m a microsoft developer for crying-out-loud. How could I possibly even consider the iMac.

Well, enter the new Parallels software, the Intel chips and I can have best of both worlds. I sit here typing this entry on my new iMac 17″ 2.0ghz dual core with 1Gig of ram and a honking big hard drive. I did pick up the Parallels but have not had a chance to install it. It has been a tortuous day!

My folks are out of town in Arizona to attend a memorial service for my father’s step-brother’s wife who past last week. They were supposed to be back tonight but that lovely weather around the country has them staying there another day. They’ll be home late tomorrow. The kids had school and I blessedly had the holiday off. I toyed with the new computer thing for a while and then just headed to the Apple store at the mall to play. Before I knew it, I said yes and wrote a pretty good sized check.

I got home, all ready to play, get files off the old machine, check out the iMac and see what the heck it could do. Not so fast. I headed up to my room to find the builders working in my room. Argh! There was another guy in the hallway and a third in the kids’ room sanding the spackle the used to fix the area around the new windows. I did the only thing I could do. Put the box in mom’s room and head back to the kitchen to await my bedroom freeing up. Sadly, it did not until 5pm, which is incidentally when I had to go pick the kids up at school!!! GRRRRR. I wasn’t able to get to the new toy until the kids went to sleep a few hours ago.

For the second shocker of the day, probably as close to a shock as my buying a Mac (”macs blow” a friend reminded me when I IM’ed him), was that I didn’t watch 24 tonight as I was too hooked into getting the new girl set up.

Yes, you read that right. No 24 for me. I did watch it last night. Was glued to it as a matter of fact. Managed to finish off the back of Ribby and start the right front as I sat obsessively knitting and watching. Thank goodness for the DVR as I confirmed it recording. I’ll watch it tomorrow. Or not. Depends on how much my geek blood is roiling for the new toy. I’m ever so ecstatic that I’ve found couple of nifty cool applications already, have been able to vpn into the office and even remote connect to my work desktop, which is windows xp. Amazing. Whodathunkit?

I got a lot of knitting done yesterday. Finished the body of Celtic Dreams finally, reducing for the hem and binding off. I also did the collar before picking up for the first sleeve. It was somewhere around then that my fingers got a little sore and I moved on to other projects.

(oooh, love the built in camera on the iMac.. will be seeing some interesting pictures from there!)

I moved back to the Sea Silk version of Swallowtail and completed another couple of repeats. I’m getting close to the nupp-less Lily of the Valley portion. Another 4 repeats or so and I’ll be there.

Alas, I didn’t get much knitting done today. Between the shopping online and at the mall, and the jumping up to see if my bedroom was free, I was just too antsy to knit. When i did take out CD, Earl took a nap on it when I got up to answer the phone. Just wasn’t the day for it.

Its late, I’m on my own tomorrow getting the kids out to school before catching the all-to-early train in and I have to clean up the disorder I caused by evicting lots of things in my breathless rush to get the iMac out of its nifty box.

Craft on!

Today was a day for errands including trips to buy diapers and make deposits at the bank.
In and out of the house, with an on and off again drizzle.  Thank
goodness it was mild out and the drizzle wasn’t frozen.  We picked up Duchess and Sara from the vets office, where they’ve been since Wednesday.  Everything was fine, it was for a front declawing.  Please don’t judge or flame.  I have my own mixed feelings towards the procedure.  I only use it as a last resort.  But everything we’ve tried with these girls wasn’t working and they were destroying the living room furniture.   They’re both doing well as the surgery was on Wednesday. 

I’ve been meaning to show this picture for a while now.  There was another casualty of the construction around here.  Poor Sara traipsing through the dust and debris totally wrecked her coat.  I took her to the groomers during my week off and told them to do what they had to do.  While only her tummy was badly matted encouraged by the dust, they couldn’t salvage her coat and resorted to the lion cut.  Thankfully it will grow back.  In the meantime, she sure does look funny! 

She’s sitting in one of her favorite spots; the very edge of one of the new steps.  Excellent perch for a creature who likes to be up high!  She can still sit there for at least another couple of days, but I expect the bannister people will be putting spindles on those steps this week.

Having finished all my active lace projects, socks don’t count towards the lace WIP regulations (1 sweater, 1 lace, 1 kids’, 1 sock) and even though I’m not quite in compliance as I have two socks and sweaters going, I felt compelled to start a new lace project.  The bounty of lace yarn around here speaks towards the need to keep knitting as well.  While the monkeys napped, I pulled out the ball-winder and went to work on the Handmaiden Sea Silk I picked up right before the holidays in the Pumpkin color way.  It really is gorgeous.  I had intended to do Eunny’s Print of the Wave pattern, but for some reason, it just didn’t seem the right project for this yarn.  I let google do my pattern hunting for other things that bloggers have made with one skein of Sea Silk.  I hit on an old favorite.  Swallowtail.  After digging up the requisite needle, I got started. 

I’ve now finished 7 of the 14 Budding Lace repeats.   The color is proving very hard to photograph, especially at night, but this photo is pretty close.

The yarn is just dreamy to work with.  It is, well, silky.  Seems kind of lame to say so though.  It isn’t hard on the hands and I’m really enjoying it.

Tonight the family went to a local diner for dinner.  We spent the time out in public keeping the twins talking at reasonable levels, sitting in their chairs and just being good.  Halfway through our meal, they sit another family at the table next to us.  They have two kids, one is probably late elementary school and the other is just shy of three.  Dad is the loudest of the bunch and he’s having a business meeting with a fellow who accompanied this family of four.   Oldest son can’t sit still, he’s running to the window each time a train passes through, he’s dumping 8 packets of Sweet & Low in his lemonade {cringe} and the folks aren’t doing squat to try and control them. 

Dad finally had enough right before our dessert came and turned to them as they are fighting over where a plate of mozzarella sticks should sit and told em to keep it down.  "For goodness sake there were other people in the restaurant and they were all louder than our little kids.  So knock it off already."  Paraphrasing of course.  They were noticeably subdued and quiet for the remainder of the time we were there.  I also saw some relieved looks on other diners faces after dad spoke up.  Good for him!  I’m just glad the twins didn’t pick that moment to act up

Craft on!

Happily sitting in my own domain (snicker), with the kids asleep and the weekend started, not to mention it has been far too long since I last regularly posted, it was time for an update. 

It was an up-and-down kind of week.  Monday was definitely a down day as I woke up with a killer migraine.  Thank goodness the kids had school and mom got them ready and out.  I hid in the den, the quietest room of the house during the construction, sleeping on and off.  After two doses of Imitrex, and a later cocktail of Ibuprofen and Tylenol, I was better, if not a little fuzzy. 

Needless to say there wasn’t much knitting on Monday.  Then again, thanks to the glorious weather on Saturday (took the kids back to the Van Saun Zoo and saw all sorts of animals that should have been in hibernation but weren’t) there wasn’t much knitting over the weekend either.  I still can’t get over the fact that it was 71F at 10:30AM on a Saturday in January, in NJ!  I know it got even warmer, but I didn’t take that photo. How times have changed though as two days later, the same outside gauge in my beloved car read 32F as I waited for the train.  Sigh.  Spring will come.

Tuesday, hung over, I returned to work.  Commuting/Lunch knitting was Forest Canopy.  If anyone is looking for a good beginner lace piece, this one is certainly it.  It isn’t dental floss like yarn on toothpicks and the pattern is easy to learn and see if one screws it up somewhere.  Hands down, a nifty and quick project.  I finished binding off one stop before home Tuesday night.  This is in the Claudia Handpaint sockweight and the Plumicious color.  Hopefully after she’s blocked, I’ll get a good sunny shot and catch the gorgeous colors.  This is reading a tad too red, at least on my monitor.  The darker color should be far deeper purple.

Wednesday’s daily knitting returned to the Mountain Stream Scarf that I started ages ago on July 9th.  Thank goodness for blogging, I’d never remember anything!  I’d be willing to wager that I didn’t touch the thing again between the day I took that photo and Tuesday when I picked it up again.  While the pattern is pretty easy, I found I really had to pay attention to it.  Made some mistakes at lunch yesterday and just had to put it away at the SnB when I just couldn’t keep on top of it.  I managed the last repeat on the train tonight and finished it all up catching up with the DVR a little while ago.  I have some serious blocking to do this weekend! 

As a reminder, the yarn was the Habu Textiles Mohair/Silk blend that is slightly finer than crackRowan Kidsilk Haze.  It is sooooo very soft.  I enjoyed everything about it, except for the whole winter static thing, but that’s what dryer sheets are for.  (Hint to keep on in a knitting bag

Since I was incapable of knitting lace at the SnB (nearly blew up
the Whisper Rib socks last week when the hands got too tired knitting Celtic Dreams – I just need to reduce and bind off the body) and the only things I had with me were lace, I just had to find something else.

Not something terribly hard to do while sitting in a yarn store.  But there is that pesky Knit From Stash thing.  I’m still on the wagon.  I know, still very early and there’s much temptation out there, but I feel strong so far.  Thank god for the sock yarn exception!  I wandered over to the Lorna’s and picked out two skeins of Shepherd Sock in Jeans colorway, headed for the ballwinder, grabbed some US0 DPNS and cast on for new socks.  I totally dig the Lornas.  Excellent sock yarn.  I’d trade some for some Vesper though   The picture shows how far I had gotten by the time I left to go home.  It was a rockin’ good evening last night too! These socks, as well as Ribby (I started the armhole reductions Tuesday night during House), will be 24 knitting.

To be fair to the Whisper Rib socks, I keep them in my purse and work on those on the PATH train.  It is a little more crowded than on the NJ Transit leg of my trip.  Socks make excellent PATH knitting as I can do them standing on the platform while waiting or crammed between people on the train.  I started the heel flap on the first sock this morning.

Construction is progressing far more rapidly than I ever would have believed.  The outside is essentially done now.  This picture was Saturday, so there was more work since then (shutters, trim, etc are now done) but you get a very good sense of where we are.  The inside is moving right along too.  The tile guy is coming tomorrow to do the bathroom.  The tub and shower are installed.  The Sheetrock is up and the plasterer has been here, still has some more sanding and patching to do elsewhere.  The doors are hung.  The railings are in place on the stairs.  I think the painter is scheduled to come THIS WEEK.  Holy.

It’s been a long week and I’m ready to relax.  Have a good weekend!

Craft on!