And the last pattern wins!

Well, of course it does, lol. Once you have a winner you don't keep looking. But it looks like the Goddess afghan is a good one :)

Hooray! Off to work on it some more.

The spice must flow ...

Your Score: Cardamom

You scored 75% intoxication, 50% hotness, 50% complexity, and 25% craziness!

You are Cardamom!

Not many people know you. You're kind of sweet, subtle, and maybe even shy. You're definitely understated and totally underrated. But once people get to know you, they can't get enough. You touch some esoteric, ancient place deep inside people and they love you for it.

Link: The Which Spice Are You Test written by jodiesattva on OkCupid Free Online Dating, home of the The Dating Persona Test

Blast from the past

Instead of crocheting I was digging around YouTube in search of music that I remembered from high school. When I was one of the arbiters of oddball music among my friends. When I wanted to kill my father because he changed my very carefully tuned car radio back to the local station whenever he worked on the car. I was driving a 1981 Ford Crown Victoria Ltd. that was a police cruiser in 1994 and listening to what became 107.9 The End (damn multimedia mogul bastards who changed the format ... grumble grumble grumble). Anyway, I remember loving this song. I'd embed it, but it appears that the record company has blocked it. I can't be too pissed since I found it. Anyway without further ado, if you wish to click through that is ... Material Issue's song Valerie.

I've got project ADD

I was gushing over that cable pattern. I loathe it in the yarn I have. It's too dark for the cables to show up well and if they don't, what's the point of all the work? So I'm frogging, yet again. So for those of you who are convinced that you are project polyamorists, then just look at me, lol.

I have a new plan. A scathingly brilliant idea. I always intended to make the Goddess afghan for my MIL. I think this is the universe trying to kick me in the butt again. So another 200 some chains tonight. Although with worsted weight and a K hook, I'm going to have to go up to an M hook on the chain. I made the discovery this week that I need to go up 2 hook sizes on the chain. Then I can just chain and don't have to concentrate on loose or tight. Hopefully I'll like this one and won't be looking for another pattern tomorrow.

I got my surprise this morning :) Two pounds of chocolate from Montana, lol. He's a sweetie. I just have to make sure not to make a huge pig out of myself. There really should be some for him when he comes home, lol.

Surprise!

Okay, so I get my present from DH in the morning. We forget to grab it from the semi and with a bag of laundry and 2 calzone boxes, he had enough on his lap.

I also finally managed to remember to bring the pattern in so maybe I can work on that while he's working on his podcast, when I'm not needed for voiceover work.

Anyway, this is my basically waving hi post. All the books that needed to be out by 11/29 are out and I'm kicking back for the night. Maybe watch some Iron Chef America :)

Serendipity again

The ripple is frogged. It was irritating and I kept adding stitches at the beginning so that it wasn't a straight edge. So I quit, I'm done with that one. So I went online to look up another pattern I'd seen so I could just print it and didn't have to pull the ballband off something else. As I was looking I noticed another pattern that looked really familiar. Except the other times I'd seen it, the only way it appeared to be available was with $50 of new yarn. The cabled afghan I've yammered about is a freebie here. And miracle of miracles, required the same amount of yarn. I'm really taking this as a sign now :)

So tonight, another chain in another hall. Okay, that sounds so much better in Evita, lol. Oh well. I have to run tidy up the house a bit. I'm getting DH back for a night ... with a present

Squee!

One more week ... a miscellany

One more week before the great grand push to get everything out for the year will be done. Woohoo! I just spent about 3 hours doing some work from home and I'm ready to kill. Hopefully my coworker won't find my comments too snarky. She's going to have a bird when she sees how much work needs done (and how much weird stuff appears to have happened that I don't think she can control).

Just when I thought I was safe, both of my parents called me today. Both fishing for info. Is there a way that I can get a caller ID unit that will allow me to forward their calls to other parent when I know they are going to do this to me? Sigh, gotta stop whining and worrying about this. Oh well.

Started on the ripple today. It's kind of a slow go, it is single crochet and single crochet in the back loop only. So basically it is a crochet rib ripple only with the ribbing following the ripple. I'll take a pic when I'm a little less into slamming thing around. I'm not really angry, just feeling pent up. Maybe I should have spent like Friday afternoon with my inlaws. I was genuinely enjoying myself (and I really didn't expect that).

Speaking of inlaws, I should start pestering my MIL to get reservations soon. She told me that she wanted an excuse to go somewhere for my birthday (and to blame it on me, lol). So I got this great grand idea. One Iron Chef, 2 area restaurants :D I talked her into taking me to Lolita for my birthday. Squee! His food seems a bit more down to earth than some I've seen, so hopefully I'll be okay. I've never done the fine dining thing in my life, so I figure the slightly more casual one would be the way to go. Yes, I've led a sheltered life, lol.

Anyway, time to ripple away what's left of the evening

4 lbs

Okay, so I'm nuts. I went out and bought the yarn I needed for the ripple that I was rambling about yesterday. It's crazy, but I'm taking the fact that the yarn that I picked was on sale as a sign that I'm supposed to be making it. I can't complain, yarn that normally sells for $6.99 was going for $4.59. Woot!

Off to chain 250, joy. :)

Actual crochet content ... lol

I love it when you are racing against the end of your skein and win. It was actually a little over 12" I had left of the yarn when I finished the row of blocks, but that is getting really really tight when you are doing tunisian crochet. Teehee!

Small things amuse me, what can I say?

I'm making incredible time on this afghan. I think taking it to the coffeeshop is really helping (when I don't spill on it that is).

I'm thinking I want to make an afghan for MIL for the winter holidays (I'd say Hanukkah, but I probably won't get it finished by then, even with the 7 extra days and giving it to her on the final day and besides, she'll call it her Xmas present anyway). I started working on one particular ripple that I've liked for a long time (it has alternating chevrons of openwork in the ripples), but it it irritated the hell out of me the first time and this time wasn't any different. So, as boring as it will be, I think I'm going to do a plain ripple (single crochet in the back loop only, yes I am indeed crazy). I even found the yarn color I want. I had a hell of a time finding the dark dark green I've used in the past, but in looking for it I found Caron pounders in leaf green. More character to the green :D So yayness. Although even attempting to do this sounds dangerously like an exercise in futility.

Happy Thanksgiving!

It went better than I thought. Only one uncomfortable moment where dad went fishing for info. Other than that, it was stories about movies and pets and general family news. Whew! I'm just amazed that for once I kept my mouth shut. But once I answered his question, it just would have gone on and on forever.

My SIL has cooled out ... a lot. She's kind of an oddball about food and I'm guessing she always will be, but that's okay. My nephew is utterly cute and provides much entertainment. Besides, what's not to love in a very enthusiastic excuse to watch Cars? Besides the oddball admission that I will watch the Thomas the Tank Engine series without the provocation of children, it went well. :)

Hope every one else had a great Thanksgiving too!

A letter

To the jackass that called me at 4 am:

I do not know Brittany. I don't want to. Why in the hell you were calling her at 4 am, I have no clue.

As for me telling you who I am, nu uh buster.

May you have a sleepless night over this, you idiot.

Sigh.

I'm so tired.

I want to work on my afghan, but screw it. I'm going to bed.

I'm fried ... how are you?

moar funny pictures

Picking and choosing Stitch Stirrers memes, lol

I was kind of at a loss for something to write today. I kinda took the day off from crafting and I have to mow the lawn tomorrow which means that I have to get into work early so I can leave early to have daylight to mow (joy!), so I can't stay up late (I will anyway, but that's beside the point). Anyway, the latest Stitch Stirrers prompt is come up with 10 things you are thankful for and I thought, how appropriate for this week. So, in no particular order and without further ado ...

1. Friends that are there for you through ... whatever.
2. Having family to complain about visiting (love even when they irritate the life out of me).
3. My husband, my great white rescuer from various forms of hell :).
4. My cats, the furry faces make the house much less lonely.
5. My house, it provides shelter even in all it's quirkiness.
6. My neighbors, without which my life would be less entertaining.
7. Chocolate, just 'cause.
8. My job without which none of this would be financed. (I kid, I like my job).
9. The skill and the free time to practice my hobbies.
10. Ravelry, enabler of my hobbies, lol.

Whew! I did it. Was almost afraid I wouldn't be able to. :)

Lazy Sunday

Yeah. I was going to do dishes, do laundry, get groceries, work more on the coffee-spill afghan (which is no worse for wear, yay!), and finish off the stuff I brought home from work to do.

What actually happened?

I slept until almost noon (I went to bed around 12:3o am), messed around on the internet, played with the cats, ate some pizza, and watched TV. Le sigh.

I suppose I better go finish up the work stuff before it gets to be midnight and I realize I have a couple of hours of work that HAS to be done.

:)

Just when I thought I could go out in public ...

I manage to dump about half of a large iced coffee on myself and the afghan I'm working on for my husband. Sigh. I got most of the coffee out at the coffee shop ... getting myself soaked while I was at it. I'm getting to test the colorfastness of the yarn a lot sooner than I expected. But it's RH so it's fine. I just took it out of the washer. So yayness! LOL, if you give Teesa a coffee, then she'll spill it, and lots of laundry will ensue.

I'm just waiting for the dryer to finish so that my itchy fingers can go back to working on it. :)

My swatch, let me show you it

I've been whining and complaining that I have a shawl/stole pattern roaming around in my head. I took a concrete step toward starting it and swatched the specialty stitch I want to use. It's a bit of a pain, but quite pretty. I'm a bit worried about drape though. However, right now I'm working it in yarn that would have gone into an afghan that I've given up on for the moment. Easy to replace. Anyway, without any further ado, thistle stitch.


It's a very textural stitch, and I'm planning on using it sparingly. It's kind of bizarre to be working them this close together. Thank heavens it is easier than it looks like. Now to plan the rest of it. There's probably going to be at least three more swatches before I start working out exactly what I want to do. At least it is forward motion. :)

Family ... sigh

Warning: this is another navel gazing day with no crafting.

So I have a choice for Thanksgiving. I can go to my inlaws, see my BIL and SIL with my adorable nephew and get poked to produce a granddaughter so my MIL has a matched set; or I can go to my grandmother's to get poked about my parent's impending divorce. Actually forget the or. I have to do both and I'm not entirely happy about it.

Grandma's pisses me off because I can feel them wanting me to choose sides. Especially since the whole list making process of what my mom wants out of the house happened last weekend. It wasn't pretty from what she said. So we'll see.

My MIL's isn't that bad per se. But I'll be damned if I actually know how to deal with my nephew. I've never gotten past his baptism party where my MIL had to ask SIL's permission to hold her grandson. Never mind that my SIL's sisters were toting the kid everywhere. I know she hates us all, but damn. Sigh. I know, it's whiny.

Well, it's the busy season, I should actually get some of the work I brought home done now.

In dreams begin responsibilities

Okay, I've had my U2 fix for the day. I love the song that the title is taken from, it just has so many quotes for so many occasions.

I just got a new book today, for April mostly it looks like. I've been clamoring for a book from "the other side" and now I got one. Woot! And I'm also going to be a liaison to the mothership (corporate HQ) for some things now too. Damn. It's almost scary. Okay, forget the almost. It's really weird though. I spent years having "jobs" and this one could turn into a career. Which was always the goal with the whole college thing, but, it always seemed really far away. And kind of scary that it took me until my early thirties to get there. Evidently, I have now arrived.

No snowflakes today. Have gone back to the afghan while I rebuild what !@#$ iTunes took away from me yesterday. Corrupted, my ass. It just wanted to delete every podcast I had. So I'm taking the opportunity to listen to a favorite from the beginning. Unfortunately, I lost all my placemarkers in all of my podiobooks. Grrrrrrr. It isn't the end of the world, just irritating me.

Okay, I give in ....

More snowflakes, unfinished since the store didn't have the yarn needles that I wanted. Sigh, but that's okay. So here's the pic :)


Not the best pic, but trying to fit six snowflakes, three of them big, was interesting but oh well. What I want now is some Glittalic. I got in touch with a friend of mine who is heading for a really crappy Christmas, so most of the snowflakes are probably going to her. But I found a pattern for popcorn stitch garland. So I think I'm going to make her some. It isn't a hell of a lot but I thought it might brighten her day a bit.

Ah well, off to watch Torchwood and make bumpers for DH's podcast.

Aiming to misbehave

I miss this show. The movie was great, but I miss the series. Hence, the YouTube goodie :)

Pleased with myself :)

So I managed to get through a dinner with my mom without any arguments. We came close, but only because she was convinced the restaurant was a family-style thing, which would have sucked. DH will eat very few vegetables and we try to avoid pork, so picking stuff out by committee had every feeling of a minefield. It was a buffet, thank goodness, and an excellent one. I got to give my mom a year's worth of presents, watch my husband corrupt a 12-year-old with sci-fi, and watch a grown man eat 2 plates of ice cream (not my DH, by the way, lol). It was worth driving to Smithville, even if we were grousing.

Crocheted snowflake creation continues apace. I would take a pic, but I'm starting to feel remiss for not working in my ends first, so there isn't one. Not to mention that I didn't realize there was a limit to the total amount of pics that can be posted for free on Blogger. Oh well. I'll link to Flickr when I run out.

I won the recording war today. DH wrote a flash fic and we were trying to record it. He was trying to direct me, which felt kind of stilted but didn't sound too bad. Then we listened to the playback and the way it sounded deleted so many IQ points it wasn't even funny. So he recorded it his way and I recorded it mine. He liked mine better. It's only a matter of time really before I start attempting to podcast for myself, lol. Then I can amaze/bore lots of people with the crochet stuff that I've taught myself over the years :)

So it has been a pretty productive weekend. Now I'm going to switch back to yarn for a while and work on the the afghan.

More snowflakes

And after I posted yesterday, I made these 3. Two snowflakes and an icicle. I'm on a roll with these, lol. Although I think I need another snowflake book because I'm not liking the other ones in the 101 snowflakes book at the moment. Oh well.


I'm using snowflakes to avoid today's other activity. I may blog about it later, but complaining about my mom complaining about having to go through the house in preparation for the whole divorce thing. I'm just hoping dinner is good.

It's November, you can't blame me :)

I've been thinking about doilies for a while now, but not really been in the mood to commit the time to the ones I love, which have a tendency to be huge. Although that would be helped if I didn't use size 10 thread when I'm supposed to use size 20, but these things happen, lol. Then I had a brainstorm. I do have a couple of books of fast doilies. So behold ....


My first snowflake in a couple of years. Totally unblocked, unstarched, and I haven't woven in the ends yet. But that's okay.

I mentioned making these to a coworker and she wanted to commission me. Only problem is, I can't promise that I can get a set amount done. I haven't done threadwork in, pretty much a year. I don't have problems with cotton dishclothes unless I'm really cranking on them, but damn, the little thread hurts the wrists somewhat. Also, snowflake patterns are usually made by word people. I love symbol crochet. You get such a better idea of exactly what's going on. And you won't get what happened to the other snowflake that I wanted to take a pic of. The instant I ripped it back, I figured out what I needed to do. Would have been so much faster with a diagram, but oh well. I can rebuild it, I have the technology :)

Random stuff

I keep seeing the 8 Random Things meme and since I'm kind of dry on stuff, I'm tagging myself. It will be more entertaining than my rant about driving in to work this morning. I'll spare you all that one (trust me, you are better off). So here goes.

1. I'm a quarter Irish and a quarter German. About the other half, I have no clue because no one will talk about my biological grandfather. Have to wonder what happened to force a divorce in the mid-40s.
2. I'm addicted to documentaries. I will watch the same ones over and over, especially if they scare me.
3. There are really only two scents of candles that I like lately, honeydew melon and ginger pumpkin. The melon is for summer and the ginger pumpkin is for fall and winter.
4. I was never a cat person until I got the two I have. Never liked 'em. Now I purposely try and get them to hop in bed with me, lol. And they like me better than my DH, who is a cat person.
5. I'm on the second generation of the latest Tamagotchi. Yes, I do know that I'm 31.
6. Until I married my husband, I had never left the country and barely left the state of Ohio. He took me to Toronto because that little fact about me drove him nuts.
7. The first car that I bought for myself (with help from my DH before we got married) was financed by a loan from his parents, one of the terms of which was that I marry him.
8. I used to watch baseball games just to irritate and confuse my father.

So there I am, in all my randomness :)

Celtic Horoscope

You Are A Cedar Tree

You are elegant yet unpretentious, modest yet vivacious. Attractive and friendly, you are full of imagination but might lack passion. You abhor vulgar people, and you don't like anything in excess. You have little more ambition than to live a calm life and enjoy nature. You create a content, peaceful atmosphere for others.

What's Your Celtic Horoscope?

Stacking turtles!

Okay, so I never spend money when they have the 10,000 Villages sale at work. I'm excellent at resisting. The thing is, I have this SIL and she's very earth and socially conscious. Then there were all these recalls of plastic kid's stuff for lead paint and small parts. Then, sitting on a back table in the lobby at work was this ....


The bright cloth stacking turtles! Aren't they cute? Fair trade and less chance of lead paint. I'll wait until next year to upgrade my nephew's Little People animals. So, it's official, the holiday shopping season is on. I'm just hoping that an almost 2 year-old little boy will like this (crosses fingers).

And wow, on the way to work this morning ... snow ... damn. I know it is about time, but wasn't expecting to see it for real. Now it's really windy and they are calling for possible accumulation tonight and tomorrow morning. Hopefully there isn't too much, it makes rush hour too interesting.

Ah well, enough doom and gloom. I give you as the final thought, my favorite of the turtles:

:)

It's funny ...

I used to get upset thinking about all the WIPs that I had. Now that I am whittling them down, I'm a wee bit frightened of not having 400 million projects over my head. Sigh, it never rains but it pours I guess, lol.

Of course, there really isn't any fear that I will be project deprived for long. I want to make my MIL an afghan, I want to make my nephew bath puppets, I want to make an afghan for my own bed, I want to try my hand at socks of some sort, and so on and so on and scooby dooby doo. Sorry, my brain works in oddly musical ways sometimes.

This has absolutely nothing to do with anything else, but I need to go looking for some sort of a pumpkin tealight holder or something. I really want to burn the ginger pumpkin tea lights I bought, but I only have the Hannukah tea light holders and it's a wee bit early for that one. Oh well, I'm sure I can come up with something :)

Sigh ...

I will not go into what I think of my cell phone company at the moment. So, I give you a list of stuff that I want to make for my nephew (instead of lead from China).

• Dragon bath puppet
• Frog and snake bath puppets
• Octopus bath mitt (can I do this on dpns? I didn't like it knitted flat)
  
• Slightly less scary bath mitt for my SIL :)

Anyone know of a good soap type stuff that I 2 year old boy might like that a mother with green sensibilities can stand? Just curious ....

Avalanches above ... business continues below

Sigh. My neighbors are throwing another one of their raucous outdoor parties. Oh well. Soon it will be cold enough to keep even their drunk butts inside.

I'm going to watch Gone with the Wind and work on the blanket some more. As for everyone else, a little frontier psychiatry :)

At last ... it has arrived

I have come to love CEI some days. About 2 o'clock this afternoon, we heard the characteristic sound of the HVAC shutting off which means, power outage! Anyone who has been in this building for any period of time recognizes the sound of silence that comes along with it, but the interns were confused, lol. So, silly that I am, I hung out and did a little bit of cleaning up only to have ... the power come back on before I was planning to leave. Oh well.

At least it is now the weekend and DH's laptop is now here finally. Yay! He was calling me twice a day to ask if it was here yet. And he's passing through town again this weekend so we may actually be able to get him all set up :) ... yayness!

Oooh and during the power outage, the swag box from the conference arrived. There was a really nice tote there, but I just recently bought the new knitting bag and there are not many that I know who'd carry a tote with a logo from a law firm on it. I got this little Korean box. Very pretty black box with an inlaid mother of pearl like pattern on the top. Looks like it was meant to hold a deck of cards, but I may use it to corral my jewelry from the kitties.

I'm feeling deliriously tired right now. I shouldn't considering how much I slept, but it was really broken sleep (a protesting stomache will do that to you). I think I'm off to crochet for a bit ... afghan ahoy!

I've evidently gone off the deep end ...

And in an attempt to possibly garner free stuff (maybe, lol), I have joined NaBloPoMo (aka National Blog Posting Month). So for all of November, you may get more lifey stuff with the crafty stuff. And today, since I am receiving an enraged DH back home today (he wants to be working, they grounded him for the day, sigh) I give you ... music.

Anyone who has had to sit next to me knows this is true of me :)