Join Me in Snarkville

First, before I tell you of my adventure yesterday, I must attempt to explain the swatch. Remember the 10 balls of orange yarn? The 10 balls to become some type of blanket for Duke? Well, at the suggestion of Niki, I am trying entraloc as the plan to get other colors into said blanket. The swatch, while not in the right yarn why waste any of my 10 balls), nor the same weight, nor the colors I’m using, is a swatch of the technique. This is key and it is an amazing technique — makes you feel all sorts of clever. Make sense. I’ve got the first row of triangles done now. I have no idea what I’m going to do next, since I did decide to double the sport weight yarn and thus my plan of sock yarn won’t quite work, but I will try.

Ok, what I did yesterday. I was tourist and tour guide to one lovely Amy Singer. Now, she fully expects me to be all snarky, but I can’t — one must have some fodder for snarkiness and she does not provide much. So, I must share with you our adventure — in photo. (more…)

Warning: I was not in the best of places this weekend. Not for the normal reasons I’m out of sorts mind you, but I was totally hormonal and the words ‘total bitch’ come to mind. I wish I could tell you that I had the clarity of mind to declare myself not fit for humans and give myself a time out. Oh, but no, that would be calm and rational of me, which unfortunately I was not. It was not pretty, I know — but we all have lived through it and for that alone we shall be grateful.

However, there are a few things I have learned this weekend: (more…)

First, a HUGE thank you to anyone who supported my friend.  I checked in with him last night and I think he was just shy of HALF of the replacement iPod — guys, that’s half in something close to 7 hours.  That’s about the most amazing thing I can think of, since frankly neither of our two blogs get HUGE traffic numbers, after all this isn’t Mir or the Yarn Harlot.  I digress.  Thank you for the bottom of my heart.

Now, in other news, I think I may have finally stopped crying about it.  Yes, I totally think I’m an emotional wreck because of the PMS thing, but seriously if I thought about it yesterday I teared up and not just those wet eyes that you can wipe away tears.  Oh no, because apparently my hormone levels were at an all time high, I was in full on tears streaming down the face crying.  It was really rather embarrassing.

Prince came home last night and asked about how Healy was at his follow-up vet appointment (the one for his booster shots) and I said, “I couldn’t even take him, I’ve been too emotional.”  Prince tried to use this as a reason for me not to go to knit night, but seriously as if that was going to happen.

So, today, Healy and I MUST set off for his booster shots.  While I’m gone, I’m opening up Healy’s room for the other kitty’s to smell and try to get used to the fact there may be another cat in this house.  I’m REALLY hoping that we might begin the Kitty Summit sometime this weekend or next week.

Finally,  I need to reach out for some advice.  I have a fair bit of traveling coming up over the next several months.  I’ve been trying to plan my knitting out for these trips.  Which do we think makes more sense:

1. Attempt to see each trip as a challenge to complete a project and begin it while waiting in the airport with the intention of being done by the time I return to my house?  This should/would yield three FOs, but if I were foolish to only bring it to work on, then I run the risk of being done knitting well before the trip is over.
2. Seek out the one big project with the hope that over the course of my three trips that I’d have it done. I’m not entirely sure what this project would be, unless it was one orange blanket (for which I want it noted that I started and ripped out my entire first square — I really need a REAL plan and not a ‘fly by the seat of my pants’ plan.
3. Suck it up and knit socks, and have the traveling sock with me?
4. Something else I’m not thinking of yet?

Happy Friday, folks.  Enjoy the weekend an wish us well as we attend birthday number 4 (or is it 19?) of the season this weekend.  (At least this one is NOT in the land of the Rat Pizza Joint.)

I know, two posts within minutes, forgive me.

When I was really little, my grandparents house was broken into. They were doing some construction and a window was left unsecure. A lot of things were stolen, no one was hurt, but things were taken. To say it hurt would be an understatement. To say, I’m not still teary talking about it, almost 30 years later would be a lie.

I’ve conquered many of my fears in this world, but that is one I still have. To this day, I have nightmares about having something stolen from me. I know they are things and they are replaceable, what was stolen from grandparents then (and even me) there were things that were not replaceable, thus it is my greatest fear. In my most sane moments, I know my fear is based on the timing of the theft. I know I was young enough to still be forming the bonds of safety and security and those were damaged.

To give you an idea of how lasting this fear is, after conquering so many of my childhood fears, I still have this rock in the pit of my stomach every single time I return to the house after being away for any length of time. When the house is empty I worry. I push it as far to the corners of my mind, but there has never been a time I’ve returned to my empty house that I’ve not looked around fully expecting to have been broken into. (Fair warning: I own nothing of value beyond sentimental. I hear there is no market for sentimentality.) I don’t think anyone who knows me knew until reading this how deep my fear goes. (Yes, I’m pretty sure I need some therapy for it.)

So, I open my fear to you for a very important reason. A very good friend of mine had his broken into a few nights back. In the most frighten ways, they (he and his son) were asleep when it happened. Thankfully, everyone one is ok. Thankfully, nothing of sentimental value was taken (those are things I fear gone the most). But stuff was taken. Their safety violated.

My friend, Don (or db), is a single dad. He works hard to raise an amazing teenager. I’ve met his lad and I can tell you two important things about him, first, he is mature beyond his years in his ability to relate and talk to people; second, my Duke truly loves him. The Lad (what db calls him) was the first person outside of our family who Duke had no problem having for a sitter. We all love the Lad.

This past year the Lad had problems in school. Slacking, as teens do, db tried to encourage his son’s focus and goal setting. Finally, they struck a deal, while not wanting to pay for grade, db agreed to an iPod Video (30GB) for a total turnaround in school. This offer had been there in the fall and the Lad didn’t step up. But the spring came and the lightbulb flicked on and he performed, no he excelled in school. I, frankly, think he found his stride. He’s set himself a high bar for the school year coming up, but there are no doubts of his abilities. So, db with pride bought the promised iPod. In fact, I happen to know it arrived the same day as my first illfated MacBook Pro. (I saw the box while playing with the iSight Camera.)

That iPod, along with his xBox, and db’s wallet were all that were stolen. Now, db will get the bank stuff fixed. And I’ll be honest, I’m not a huge fan of the xBox thing. But that iPod needs to be replaced. It just has to be. So, I pinged db and told him it wouldn’t be wrong if he asked for help. Heck, if I have friends who will help send a guy to BlogHer, I have friends who will help with the iPod.

So, here’s my beg. If you can, help out — even just $1 or $5 will go a long way to do two things:

1. Restore the THING lost.
2. Help with the healing and hopefully the violation of it all.

In return, db has made me three promises:

1. Thank yous from the lad.
2. To move and move soon.
3. Renter’s Insurance!!!

Here’s the donation button:

Now, to wash my face — yes, I’m still a little lot teary.

I have closed the book.  I am done reading Harry Potter. I will not spoil it for anyone, so feel safe to continue reading.  But I’m glad it is tied up in a nice little bow — with a few ends hanging out for fun and debate.

But I am done now.  Now I can talk to Prince again. (more…)

No, eating is really not main reason.  That might mean I’d have to start cooking and not just randomly heating and burning things.

Allow me to back up.  When I was little girl, I had great fun playing Monopoly with my parents.  I remember sitting at the dinning room table and we’d play for days.  Yes, we’d leave the game set-up and play for what would probably seem like weeks, but was in reality a mere day or two.  I would be the banker, I’m sure it was my parents top-secret plan to teach me counting and money, but I (even then) craved the power of it all.  We’d buy, we’d sell, we’d make side deals, we were kings of Monopoly.   But what I remember the most was the laughter.  (more…)

(Geez, drama much?)

I learned two important things this weekend.  (Only two you ask? Well, yes, why?)

First, do not EVER go to the grocery store while PMSing.  I’m serious, you will come home with a bunch of bananas (for Duke) and two packages of cookies, a 12 pack of Vanilla Coke Zero, a box of cereal, and nothing else.  Do you have any idea how I’m going to make dinner (or lunch for that matter) with COOKIES???? Bonus points, if you correctly guessed that I told Prince I bought one of the packages of cookies for him and not that I decided he could have one or two before I bit his head off.

The other thing I learned… (more…)

What a week. Seriously this week couldn’t be more of a roller coaster over the least important things possible. Here’s the brief run down before getting to the important stuff:

• The McBook Pro:
  • Good: It arrived two WHOLE days earlier than expected by even the FedEx tracking site!
  • Bad: This new McBook has the same problems as the first one! One call to tech support leads me to the point that this is problem with no solution — well, none that don’t cost me money (and perhaps tears).
  • Good: After a short chat, Apple agreed to send me a new Airport Basestation — hopefully arriving SOON.
  • Weird: All day yesterday, I was able to use the wireless connection without a problem. Yep, you heard me right, not a single shutdown.
• The Kitten:
  • Good: The kitten seems to settling into our life. He isn’t concerned over the dog and the dog seems nonplussed by the kitten.
  • Bad: He went to the vet and we found out that he has an upper respiratory bug which means he must be kept out of the general population for 2 to 4 weeks.
  • Good: The kitten seems to like his new people. He purrs like a madman.
  • Bad: He needs to have meds 2 times a day, which since Prince is too skidish to hold the cat and ram the meds down his throat, I must do. This has the side benefit of him not really LOVING me as much anymore.
  • Good: We have a name. I gave in and we have decided to name him Healy. So far it works, but he’s not coming when called yet.
  • Bad: Healy could not spend 2 to 4 weeks in our bathroom.
  • Good: I got the joy of cleaning and converting the laundry room/bedroom into a full time kitten home.
  • Bad: Yet ANOTHER box to clean.

Now for the important thing — (more…)

Ok, to put everyone’s mind at ease, the MacBook Pro DOES NOT have a problem with Firefox (I don’t believe it fully, but Apple tells me that is in fact NOT my issue). My issue seems to be a problem (limited to the MacBook Pros) that the Airport card in my laptop and my router don’t like each other. This is now a “known” Apple issue with developers working on the solution (which for those keeping score at home, means I didn’t REALLY need to send back MacBook #1). However, today (before the developers can get around to FIXING this issue) I was given three little choices: (more…)

The laundry list of new things in my life is getting longer by the hour. Shall we sum up:

1. Yesterday the FedEx man (who is alot afraid of me), brought me the NEW McBook Pro. Oh how I LOVE my shiny new computer.*
2. Yesterday I also got my invite to Ravelry.com**. This is also one of my new loves in life, but it will be months before I get all my stuff up there — months I tell you.
3. New bowling bags arrived yesterday. I have needed for some time a 2 ball bowling bag, but kept putting it off. I have one now. Anyone want to guess how many pairs of socks I found in my OLD two bags?
4. Since nothing else was going on, I decided to change out the theme of the blog. Yes, it is like changing shoes to me, I like to change the theme so much. Anyway, I’m still working on the normal “clean-up”, but take a look and let me know your thoughts.

(more…)