One Crazy Fiber Lady

I know I had promised less radio silence but this time I have a really good reason.  You see, two weeks ago on 1/11, I looked like this:

On the way to work on the bright sunny Tuesday morning, I was heading from the car to the train to get to work.  There’s a two block walk between my parking lot and the station and I was crossing the street.  I actually was in the crosswalk with the light for a change when a car making a left turn never saw me and hit me.  He caught me with the front left corner of his car at around my hip level, spun me around and I think I hit his sideview mirror with my lower back.  I stumbled a few steps and then found myself laying on the ground. The driver stopped immediately, a crossing guard was there within seconds and a police officer had apparently just missed the accident and was a couple of cars back from the light.  He was there within seconds.  A gentleman driving one of the cars I was laying in front of gave me his parka as a blanket.  The crossing guard had a blanket in her car that she put on top of me, and the officer covered me with one of those crappy table cloth like disposables they carry around.

The rescue squad (township volunteer ambulance) and local hospital paramedics arrived in somewhat short order, like 30 minutes.  I managed to call my mother and my boss to let them know what happened without falling to complete pieces.  “Mom, change of plans.  I’m not going to work today.  I was just hit by a car, I’m going to the hospital instead”.   I was less specific with my boss and a a result, the office thought I was in the average run of the mill accident, not the pedestrian kind.  Boy where they surprised when I spoke with them later in the day

Anyway, full neck restraint (pictured above), back board, head chocks and I rode off to the hospital with discomfort in my left hip and coccyx area.  Paramedic shredded my beloved J.Crew burgundy cords trying to look at my hip.  And because I had mentioned some discomfort in my left foot/ankle he CUT OFF my handknit malabrigo sock!  Just one.  Roundabouts.  Never did manage to photo them for the blog or Ravelry. Ugh.

Okay, ride to the hospital, made me pee in a bedpan before they’d x-ray.  Had to make sure I wasn’t preggers or something even more magical.  About a million x-rays, a percocet and a lot of waiting later, nothing broken.  Just bruised.  I’m ever so damn lucky.

I’m recovering slowly.  The first week totally sucked.  I couldn’t sit, I couldn’t get comfy laying down.  Just all around sucked.  Now, I can sit on a large donut which as actually one of the kid’s swim tubes.  Makes them giggle when I shift around and make that farting noise   I’ll survive.  I still can’t stand or walk for too much so I’ve been working remotely.  Thank goodness for that option and a totally understanding company.  But heck, they put up with it for six weeks last winter when I ouched my left foot.  Hopefully before the cruise I’ll even be able to sit or heck, make it into the office!  I have 3 weeks to go for that.  We’ll see.

Anyway….

What with the injury and all the other distractions, I haven’t been able to keep up on Serendipity’s evil coat grooming.  So she got a bit matted.  Mom took her to the groomer on Tuesday.  I thought she’d come home with that full body shave.  Groomer surprised me this time and left her with actual fur!  Looks funny though

It was a very expensive fancy haircut!  But at least she’s not matted!

Craft on!

Since the kids are off today and it is the only day that I need to go into the office, my awesome boss suggested that I bring the kids with me. They haven’t been into the city since the picnic in July. Right now we are on the train. We got lucky and managed to grab an empty three seater. They just dug out their Nintendos for a little quiet playtime before we get to Hoboken.

Should be an interesting day!

Craft on!

I thought I had missed it yet again, but evidently today is my blogiversary! I can’t believe its been six years, and I’m still at it (well maybe not as frequently – but work is getting in the way of the best posting time  I’m also somewhat surprised that I didn’t totally miss it like I did last year.  I know that it is around the time of the kids’ birthday, but never remember the actually date.  Talking with Carole last night, I was convinced I’d blown it again.

This is a recovery day, besides being Columbus Day.  Happy day to those who celebrate.  To me it is a day off, one where the kids are actually in school!  This past weekend was a very busy one.   As I mentioned before, blogiversary is around the time of the twins’ birthday.  Well that was Saturday.  I can’t believe they’re 7 already.

This year we held the party at BounceU on Friday night.  There were 12 kids, including my pair, bouncing, climbing, sliding and otherwise having fun.  This was followed by pizza and ice cream cake.  By the time we got home, opened all presents and finally settled down for bed it was almost 11pm.

Saturday, I treated Kat to her first manicure and hopefully started a new mom/daughter birthday tradition.  Heck, maybe we started a new bi-weekly tradition.  I have to admit, I like having polished nails.  I think the last time I polished them myself was during my staycation a year ago.  Last manicure was for my sister’s wedding in 2006.  I think its time.  We spent a good deal of time chasing Alexander’s new remote airplane, tracking it down from various neighbors yards.  I spent some of the evening hours revising Knit Counter and adding features/functionality that Android board members on Ravelry suggested.  Unfortunately I found there was a problem for those who newly installed the new version rather than upgrading.  I fixed that problem last night, but I’m getting ahead of myself here now.  Anyway, I added features, and flubbed it for the new installs, and uploaded to the marketplace.

Yesterday was a very long day, covering many miles.  It was Jessalu and R’s wedding!  I headed up north at 10am and didn’t get home until 12:30 am.  A long, but beautiful day indeed.  The wedding was sweet.  The reception was lovely and the food was yummy.  I got to hang with a table of other knitter/spinners whom I all know well.

Unfortunately I wasn’t tired after getting home, and had found a complaint from a new purchaser of the app, so I sat down to see if I could find the problem.  Fortunately, before too long, I had narrowed it down and was able to upload a new version to the marketplace.  So whew.  I feel badly that I had released it that way.  I guess I’m used to having a team of QA people at work and not accustomed to doing more than the unit testing that I normally do.  I am my own SQA team here!  This won’t happen again.

I tossed and turned last night after finally going to sleep, having decided that the geek stuff needs its own home, and not here.  You guys kind of fuzz over when that side of me pops out.  So this morning after the kids went off to school, I got busy and set up a new blog for the software dev stuff (might notice it in the navigation at the top), change the page that you hit if you just go to crazyfiberlady.com to be a main screen rather than the default redirect siteground put there.  Sadly, my browsers are caching the page that had been there, but that should expire shortly I hope.

So now, I have two hours before the kids come home.  I’m going to spend the rest of the day relaxing with a spinning wheel.  I’m hoping the down time will help me shake the cough that’s been with me a couple of days now.  Maybe i should nap.. hmmm.

Craft on!

We’ve hit yet another mile marker in the development of my youngins.  They finally entered public school!

I can’t believe my babies are now first graders.  They looked so small standing with their new classmates this morning outside the elementary school.  The school is, incidentally, where I went K-6.  It was odd being back at that place.  

Beyond being in public school (can I get a YAY for no more weekly checks to Tutor Time!), they are in separate classes for the very first time.  They are quite happy about it.  Their KG teacher was also very supportive of the decision (which the school made for me) to split them as they’ve been bickering in her class.  Logistically it is a bit tougher but no more so than two other siblings in different classes.  At least they’ll both be at the same building!  Will make Back-To-School night a tad difficult.  I’ll probably have to draft the grandparents to attend as well.  Will be a bit of a flashback for them   Alex’s teacher is someone *I* went to school with!

Oh yeah, I’ve been knitting and spinning   Hopefully a post on that stuff soon.

Craft on!

I’ve been meaning to show this picture for a couple of days now.  We hit yet another milestone last week…

We’ve lost those little bottom teeth, but this is our first big chopper front tooth!  Its neighbor is quite wiggly and will be out shortly.  Figures.  Alex had a cavity a while ago that the dentist has been having a dickens of a time getting the filing to stay.  We sort of gave up as the enamel on baby teeth is very brittle and won’t hold the filling for long enough to count.  As a result, he’s got this visible drill hole that bugs most of us, dentist included.  Not surprised that those teeth are hanging on!

Tooth fairy is going to get very busy around here!

In other news, I’ve never had much of a green thumb.  Yes, I’ve done okay with growing things like basil or oregano, but they are essentially nice tasting weeds.  We have a garden each year, tomatoes being the primary crop.  This year, thanks to encouragement by Ina, I planted soybeans.  Its a small garden, so I only sowed a few seeds.  I have 3 plants, one of which has twisted itself around its neighboring tomato plant and is climbing it like a fence.

I have pods growing!  You can just make out that one in the center of the picture, near the tomato plant leaves.  And no, I didn’t notice this picture was sideways  I’m looking forward to having edamame!

Time to get the monkeys into bed so I can relax with the knitting, sims and the sox.

Craft on!

We hit another one of those childhood development milestones.  On September 8, they started kindergarten:

This past Saturday, they graduated:

I blinked and the school year was over.. well maybe it was longer than a blink, I did manage to read a bit, knit a few things and write a bucketload of computer code.  But still, time moves seriously fast when there are kids involved!  I’m proud of their accomplishments this year.  They are now readers, can tell basic time, and do addition and subtraction.  I don’t remember doing those in KG!  I remember cutting and pasting, snacktime and naptime  Well done my monkeys.  I can’t wait to see what this next year brings… (and even better, they start public school! – no more tuition…yaaaaayyyy!).  I love you guys.

Craft on!

Bye bye vanpire.

I really enjoyed the Sienna. She was a good ride for a vanpire. The lease was going to end this fall but the loyalty program right now at Toyota made me go look early. I drove off with it this morning.

Re-entry was tough.  There’s no getting around that.  Didn’t help that it snowed within the first week back and we won’t even talk about what happened this week!  All I can say is thank goodness for being able to work remotely.  Ugh.  The kids might be relieved to go back to school tomorrow as they get out of the trash the room/clean it cycle.   They are currently cleaning their rooms under threat of garbage pail currently.

I had a couple of inquiries into the status of the foot.  It is much better.  I think partially because it had time to heal, but also because I’ve chosen to ignore it.  Didn’t have much of an option on the cruise as our cabin was way in the bow of the boat and everything else was way in the stern.  There was a 1000ft walk to get just about anything. I wore sneakers and just took it easy.  The hardest walking was on the beach, but it was a worthy suffering We’re back to the point where the old right ankle is the more painful, so yes, life is back to normal now.

Yesterday, while the kids did this:

I played with this:

This is my new-to-me Baby Wolf!  I sold my LeClerc and used the proceeds to buy it from a friend (who was selling it to finance a brandy new 8H BW).  I got it last weekend and was finally able to play with it yesterday.  She’d left it warped so I could play immediately. How awesome is that???  I love it.  It has the Wolf Trap and the Stroller, so I’m  a happy camper.  I can keep busy for a long time with 4 harnesses.  I might pick up a small 8H table loom for those times when I want to do something more complex, but that can wait a bit.

When I was finished weaving, no I didn’t warp it for more.  I’m waiting for the warping reel I ordered to arrive, as well as a couple other doodads, I went back to spinning.  I’m in two spin-a-longs right now, so I have to get busy.  First up on the Schacht is fiber from Zarzuela Fibers that will be knit into a shawlette.  This is some superwash in “Purple People Eater” colorway:

I have one bobbin done and the second well underway.

In another project, for the Into the Whirled SAL, I’m working this yummy merino into a true three ply on the CPW.  Here’s bobbin 1:

Having only one bobbin is a bit challenging.  Now I’m really glad I bought that electric bobbin winder (which I used earlier in the day to wind my paper bobbins for weaving)!  I have a surplus of Kromski bobbins with 5 regular and a bunch of WW version.  I unwound this CPW bobbin onto a Kromski in no time with the electric winder.  It was awesome.  I finished up the second of three and am halfway through the third.  The CPW likes to spin FINE.

Work has been INSANE for me since getting back.  Shortly before the cruise, we had a little team re-alignment in the development group.  The five developers were split into two teams. Three were put on the User Story team which meant they worked on tasks towards adding new features to the software.  The remaining two were put on a Maintenance Team, to support customer service and fixing defects.  Lets just say I’m not writing new stuff.  I’m hunting and killing defects.  The split should be for the next 6 months to a year.  Could be worse.  It’s a less glamorous spot, but I’ve done worse.

My greatest frustration was that the other person on the team with me was terribly unhappy.  He was a software architect type person and miserable in the less glam role.  In many ways, he made my job harder.   On Tuesday, we had a company re-org. Several people were let go.  My Maintenance Team partner was one of them.  That leaves me as the only developer doing maintenance work.  To say I’ve been busy is a bit of an understatement!  My boss, when he sat me down right after my partner was let go, explained to me what was happening before I heard it on the street, so to speak.  Then he outlined what he saw coming down the maintenance pike.  It won’t be all defect work, but some smaller development projects geared towards empowering client services and customer support to do more things on their own and freeing me up from tasks that don’t really require a developer to do.  I’m content with that.

Off to play some Wii with the boy.

Craft on!

Where to begin?  It feels almost surreal to be sitting in my room again, computer with internet access near at hand, after 9 nights at sea.  Wow.  I figure I’ll give you a day by day run down of the trip.

Day 1 – Friday Feb 5th:  Departure day.  We left from Port Liberty, also known as Bayonne, NJ, on Royal Caribbean’s Explorer of the Seas.  We had a family cabin in the bow of the ship, right below the bridge.  While this was a great spot for the view, it did have its dark side.  Here’s the view as we left NY harbor.

Day 2 – Sat Feb 6th:  At sea.   I don’t remember much of Saturday.  Unfortunately we sailed through the storm that pounded the east coast with snow.  This translated to 20ft seas and winds of up to 100mph.  I awoke in the middle of the night with the boat pitching rather violently in my mind.  There is where being in the bow totally sucked.  In the middle you get rocking and rolling, but not the up/down.  Blech.  I got sick.  Quite a few times.  Alex joined me for some joint sessions in the bathroom.  We skipped breakfast and headed for the Medical Bay where i got a shot for the nausea and Alex was given some benadryl.  The two of us slept off the rest of the day.  Kat spent the day with the folks who took her off for her first onboard show, which she loved!

Day 3 – Sun Feb 7th:  At sea.  The combination of lots of sleep and calmer seas made for a much better day for all of us.  The kids spent some time during the morning at the Adventure Ocean day camp until my father picked them up early as he was missing them.  He then took them in the kids pool in the aft section of the ship.  Kat was too short for the slide, so he went with her.  Poor little monkey.  Mom and I deemed it too cold yet to so we watched  In general, it was a quiet, relaxing day on board.

Day 4 – Mon Feb 8th:  4pm arrival – San Juan, Puerto Rico.  Monday was the first really warm day of the trip.  After breakfast, we joined the 0ther 3000 or so passengers on the pool deck.  I went with the kids on the slide and spent some time relishing the warmth.   We had lunch at the onboard Johnny Rockets.

I also did a little shopping on the boat and bought myself a new camera.  The poor little Elph had been showing some signs of age and I’d been considering replacing her.  I picked up an Olympus FE-5020 in the lovely purple color.  Being on the trip gave me a good chance to use it as at 4pm, we pulled into our first port of call, San Juan.  This was the view of the port area from our cabin.

We hired a cab for a trip out to el Morro, where I got to play with the new toy

And a rare shot of me…

I’ve been to San Juan before, but only very briefly to board the ship for my honeymoon cruise.  We never saw any of the island and certainly not el Morro.  It really is beautiful.  We did a little shopping, making stops at Radio Shack to replace the forgotten charger for the DS, and Del Sol for some color changing t-shirts.  This was a brief stop and the ship pulled out at 11 that night.  We were back long before that at 8 for a late dinner in the Windjammer cafe.

Day 5 – Tues, Feb 9th:  St. Thomas.  We arrived in port early on Tues, at around 8am.  Mom and I got up early, dressed, ate quickly and were out shopping in the Havensight Mall right next to the docks.  Mom bought herself the same Olympus that I bought on the ship (for a touch better price), while I treated my Rebel to a nice 75-300mm telephoto lens.  I also picked up a beaded/shark tooth necklace for Alex, and a set of hoop earrings for Kat.  Another visit to a Del Sol added a color changing t-shirt for myself.

Having shopped ourselves out, we headed back to the boat to meet back up with the family for a ride off to Magen’s Bay for the afternoon at the beach.

I was able to take this picture of the twins using my new lens  On the way back to the ship, the driver pulled into a lookout over the harbor area for photo opportunities.  Here’s our ship along the pier.

The beach was nice, but very crowded.  There were two other cruise ships in port with us, which made for a lot of tourists soaking up the sun.  Still, better than wearing a winter coat!

Day 6 – Wed, Feb 10th:  Dominican Republic.  Another day, another port of call!  We anchored off the coast of Samana in the Dominican Republic.   On the advice of our waiter, we opted for one of the ship sponsored excursions.  At 10am, we boarded a small speedboat and headed for the island of Cayo Levantado.  It was a 15 min or so ride from the boat to the island, and what a fabulous island it was.  The beach was magnificent.  The water was warm and calm.  Drinks were plentiful and served  Kat had a few braids added:

She totally surprised me and still has the braids in.  I figured they’d be out by dinner that night.  She wants to wear them to school tomorrow.  Good girl.

More pictures from our day trip:

We didn’t return to the ship until 4pm.  While I protected the kids pretty well, I was haphazard in my own use of sunscreen and managed to fry a good bit of myself.  Ouch.  Worth it though.  I love that little island.

Day 7 – Thurs, Feb 11th:  Labadee, Haiti.  This is the one stop that had me concerned.  I felt guilty about a stop that would have us frolic in the sun at a location where there was such misery not so very far away.  Labadee is RCI’s private beach area on the north side of Haiti.  The cruise line was invited by the Haitian government to continue to make this port call as it provides jobs and income for an area that desperately needs it.  So the stop is made and over 100 pallets of aid are offloaded from the ship.

There is a local artisan market on Labadee and I did my part for the local economy.  I came away with too large bags of maracas, carved bowls, necklaces and bracelets, as well as some metal work that I’ll be giving coworkers. (There’s a tradition of bringing souvenirs amongst the development group at work.)  We spent the remainder of the day snorkling and enjoying our last port of call.

Before too long, it was time to return to the ship..

Day 8- Fri, Feb 12th:  At sea.  As we spent the day heading north, the sea was getting rocky and the temperature was dropping.  The water was too rough and the pool was closed.  We spent most of the day sitting on the pool deck stubbornly hanging on to the last bit of non-coat wearing weather.  I started the day feeling a bit seasick again as we’d passed through a small storm during the night.  I found the back of the ship far more conducive to peaceful enjoyment.  It was mom’s birthday and she treated herself to some nice time at the salon for a massage.  Nice.  Sadly, the nausea prevented me from enjoying the broiled lobster dinner though in hindsight, it was have been enjoyable at least going down

Day 9 – Sat, Feb 13th:  At sea.  Our second full day at sea heading north.  We hit another huge storm during the wee hours of the morning.  I beat a hasty retreat from the cabin first thing in the morning before I could get queasy.  The family joined me in short order where Alex got sick again.  Poor kid really takes after me.  We commandeered a table in the Windjammer cafe where the majority of us felt good with a view of the horizon and the most reduced motion.  The kids did some of their homework while I read.  And because there was close proximity of food, we all sort of nibbled our way through the day.  A farewell dinner had the kids hugging our waiter and assistant waiter goodbye.

Day 10 – Sun, Feb 14th:  Port Liberty, NJ.  It was over far too quickly, especially with the seasickness a memory.

A short car ride from the terminal and we were home.  Sigh.

Lessons learned:

1. Alex and I get motion sickness.  Will need patches next time ( bonine and those motion bands don’t do quite enough)
2. Never get a cabin right in the bow.  Midship is the best place that is the area with the slightest range of motion.
3. Never get a cabin and either end of the ship as the stuff you want is always the other end!  There was a 1000ft walk between our stateroom and the dining room!

I can’t believe its over already!  I’m glad I had today off for the holiday.  Tomorrow is going to be tough!

We (the folks, the monkeys and yours truly) are off for a ten day cruise to the Caribbean. See you in 10 days! Ahoy!