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Wait, where did my February go?

04 Mar

I swear it was just here on my desk; maybe I put some papers on top of it. If I find it I will let you know!

In February I tried to make an effort to walk the dog more, and sometimes that even happened. But mostly thwarted by my inability to make myself leave the house at less than 40 degrees, I was glad that Jenn brought Chloe over a lot and the puppies could romp instead. I learned how to do basketweave icing on a cake (it’s not perfect, but perfect is the enemy of finished! Also it was tasty!). I also learned how to make Lobster Ravioli and even with as easy as it was using the won-ton wrappers, I think I want to step it up a notch by learning how to make pasta. What’s wrong with me?! I hate cooking! Speaking of hate, I also had that horrible dentist appointment. And felted a sweater. GO TEAM A;DLJFA;DFJA;DJF!!!. Ending February on a good note, though, on the last day of the month Tim and I went to visit my mom.

Whoa – I guess since I have a couple of large projects on the needles right now, I thought I hadn’t finished much knitting in February. NOT TRUE. In this quicker month I actually beat out January by having one, two, three, four, five, six, seven finished objects. I blame bad weather and exciting Olympic TV watching.

Our plaza started to look closed as Joanne’s and Publix began to be demolished, but in the words of Dante Hicks, “I assure you we are open!”. I did a lot of dyeing in February (yay, sock club yarn!). And we also had a very successful Uptown Art Hop! And some days the sweetness in the shop just kills me.

And that was February.

 
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Visiting Mom

03 Mar

Sunday we had a lovely trip down to Edgewater to visit my mom, whose sister and brother-in-law were in town. It was a lot of fun, hanging out with the family; I don’t know Aunt Mary and Uncle Charlie very well but can see that if I lived in Baltimore I would want to hang with them a lot. We hung out, went over a few of my grandmother’s things, went to JB’s (duh, of course), came back, and hung out some more. It was a most excellent way to spend a bonus day off!

 
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When they are good, they are very very good; but when they are bad, my days suck a bag of dicks

24 Feb

I had such plans for yesterday. Part of those plans involved sitting on the couch watching TV on my one day off, while doing laundry in the background… but a good portion of that couch-sitting was also going to be while I had my laptop in front of me, catching up on a variety of things including…

- finishing the Hanks 10Q2 class schedule and getting it emailed out to our teachers for review

- switching out the photos on the front page of the Hanks webshop

- doing some much-delayed maintenance on the Hanks webshop

- uploading some photos to the Hanks Facebook page

- catching up on my regular email, my gmail, and my Ravelry messages

- finally fixing the Sandpiper Studios page (which was a priority as the piece that was scheduled to post yesterday sold already!)

- pre-blogging a few things on both this blog and the Hanks blog

So I started off my morning by plugging the laptop in and setting it on the table in front of the TV, and making coffee. As I was waking up and going through my morning “see what my peeps are up to” routine, I noticed that the little icon down on the bottom right corner of my laptop, the one that looks like a battery, didn’t have the “plugged in” look. I wiggled wires. I plugged and unplugged into three different plugs. I cursed a lot. I yelled at the dog for being underfoot. I determined that even though my power cord had been working PERFECTLY FINE 12 hours previously, it had somehow committed suicide in my bag overnight. Fucker. Didn’t this just happen like TWO MONTHS AGO?! a;dfja;lfja;dljf!!! (Turns out it wasn’t 2 months, it was 5. Whatevs.) Tim has since determined that the way the cord that runs from the battery to the laptop is poorly designed for the way I treat it (a nice way of saying quit bending it, dumbass) by wrapping it up and shoving it in my bag almost daily.

So because there was one thing that I very much needed off my laptop – the Hanks 10Q2 class schedule – we decided to go to Best Buy and check out power cord prices. I had bought one online in September for $20, and was thinking if they had them at that price I would buy two; one for home and one for work and that way I wouldn’t have to wrap them up – I could just leave them lay where they are. We also decided to have lunch while out Butler Hell way, and go to Sweet Dreams. mmmmmm. That would make the trip better! Well… Best Buy was a fail – they had one at $79 and one at $99 and since we have no income right now I am a cheap motherfucker and didn’t want to shell out that much, even for something I really desperately needed. We stopped at the nearby office supply store to see if they had a generic… and they did. For $89. Fuck it. We went to lunch, where I had a margarita as big as my head. While we were eating lunch, I remembered that I had just posted the 10Q2 schedule to Google Wave, for Sharon and Ginger to see – which meant that there was nothing on my laptop that needed emergency power to get to, which meant that I could safely order another $20 battery and cord, even if it took three days to get to me. I could do most everything else on my desktop computer, since the majority of that was internet based. I couldn’t upload recent photos, but I could take care of a lot of other things. We decided to swing by Radio Shack just in case, but same thing – one, at $89. ON TO SWEET DREAMS! We decide the most logical thing to do – the most cost effective – is to buy another $20 battery online. I decide to buy two, so that I can have one at home and one at work. Good news: later that night Tim was able to solder back into place the wires for my first, original dead battery and cord. So it looks like Frankenstein but my laptop now has power.

By the time we got back home, it was close to 3-ish, and I really needed to start laundry. HERE IS WHERE THE DAY SUDDENLY GOT WORSE AGAIN. See, I normally do not put my handknits in my laundry basket. But the last time I wore my Gathered Pullover was Sunday (I love it so much I’ve been wearing it once a week), and last Sunday was the day that at 10:30 at night on the way home from a party, Tim’s car died in the middle of the intersection and we had to start walking home. Jeff was staying with us and I tried calling him, flagging him down as he drove past us, and calling him again… and fortunately he did eventually come and get us but… by the time we got home I was tired and frustrated and tired and amped and a;dja;dflja;dfj. So I got into my pj’s and apparently just threw all my clothes into the hamper. Which yesterday, also being tired and frustrated and off-kilter, I just dumped into the washer. While the laundry was going I decided that I needed to regroup a little, so I sat on the couch and knitted a sock and caught up on two episodes of Ace of Cakes. When the laundry was ready to put in the dryer… guess what I pulled out? Yes. A now-felted Gathered Pullover. QUE THAT PIECE OF CLASSICAL MUSIC THEY ALWAYS PLAY IN HORROR MOVIES LIKE THE OMEN. The thing is? It’s felted… in places. One sleeve is completely felted – so small I can’t even get my arm through it – yet the other sleeve is barely felted at all. One bottom side is now as thick as a rug, as is the opposite shoulder. One bottom side is merely fulled, not felted. It looks like fucking Escher knitted a sweater. I just really want to cry. It’s not necessarily the price of the yarn, it’s not feeling like all those hours were wasted… I mean, it’s partly those two things, but I also really, really loved how it turned out. It fit beautifully, I looked really hot in it, and it was completely the wrong gauge yarn for the project and I still made it work out perfectly! That sweater made me so happy, the four or five times I got to wear it.

Sigh.

At this point I decide the day is a GD wash, and spend the rest of the afternoon and evening knitting and drinking.

And that was my Tuesday. I’d ask how your Tuesday was, but I have to be honest – I don’t really care. I just feel like bitching about mine.

 
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To compete, or not to compete…

11 Feb

So, I hear the Olympics are starting! No! Really! It’s true, I read it on the internets.

Long time readers may remember four years ago – holy crap, was that *really* only four years ago? – when they saw photos like this every day for two weeks while I grappled with The Knitting Olympics. I  had a good time, I learned new skills, I challenged myself, I felt like I joined a large community of people all working towards the same thing. My god that really doesn’t seem only four years ago. It feels like forever. And even though at times I felt I was really just slogging the fuck through with miles and miles of unchanging lace, I stuck with it and I finished. I can’t find a photo of the whole thing, but a friend even sent me a beautifully embroidered towel to celebrate my winning finish.

Two years ago I sort of ignored the 2008 Ravelympics, mostly because … well, I’m not sure why. Probably because I was busy teaching classes and already had so much on my plate that adding some sort of large challenging timed project might have pushed me over the edge.

So … this weeks starts the 2010 Ravelympics/2010 Knitting Olympics. And although up until about three days ago I hadn’t given it much thought, now I’m wondering… should I join? I’m not feeling particularly overwhelmed by anything I have going on right now, so it’s not like picking up one more project would push me into insanity. More into insanity. WHATEVER. But I have to say, I’m totally on the fence here. I sort of want to, but I don’t really feel motivated enough to. Any *normal* person at this point would probably say “well if you don’t feel motivated to, don’t do it, and shut the fuck up already”. But me? Normal? HAHAHAHAHAH. So of course I have to… examine my feelings. oooOOoooOOOOoo.

- PRO: I have a job that not only encourages me, but downright needs me to knit during the day. So I’m not worried that taking on a huge project would only leave me 90 minutes a day to work on it.

- CON: I feel a little different about challenging projects now that I’m a yarn store owner. I kind of feel that if there’s something I really want to make and it’s really, really, hard, there are probably five or six people in town who would also be interested in making the same project and would be up for taking a class. So if I want to do something tough, I should teach a class on it.

- NEUTRAL: I would have to knit a pattern I already own or can get in the next 24 hours, and use yarn that I either already have or can get in 24 hours.

- NEUTRAL: I have eight things in my queue right now; four long-sleeve pullovers, one tank top, one hat, and two pairs of socks. The way I whip out socks, I feel I should take that off the table right now. Socks in 16 days is not a challenge for me. The hat is for a class in March, so I can’t make it until then. That leaves the pullovers and the tank tops, and out of those while I own all five of the patterns, I only have the yarn on-hand for three of them. Four, if I make one massively multi-colored. Also out of those five, three of them (the ones I have the yarn for) are all mindless stockinette. The complicated cabled one I definitely do not have the yarn for. The somewhat cabled/somewhat boring one I could do if I did in many colors. So it’s sounding like Death by Stockinette, wherein the only challenge would not be stupefying myself with non-stop stockinette stitch.

There are some other things that have been in the back of my mind to do something with. I have some wool I picked up in Scotland that I’ve been thinking of making a Ruana or poncho with… but I don’t have a pattern picked out so if I did that I’d have to write or find a pattern in 24 hours. Or go in with a handicap of not knowing what I wanted to do. THAT SOUNDS FUN. Actually, that does kind of sound fun, sort of. But only sort of; I just don’t feel the fire I did last time.

Yeah.

Doesn’t sound much like I’m joining in this time around, does it? I mean, I’m not scoffing at it… but I’m just not feeling the fiery love, either. I guess I’m just of a different mindset than I was four years ago.

 
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Let me just try to describe yesterdays level of crapitude

10 Feb

A friend of mine once told me he thought my worst fear was probably getting a root canal by a clown on an airplane. That pretty much sums up my day yesterday!

New readers might not know this, but I have severe, severe, dental anxiety. I try to be logical about it and I try to tell myself to calm the fuck down, but it is what it is and without anti-anxiety medications I have been known to cancel appointments. Repeatedly. Fortunately I have a very understanding dentist office, and even though they are going through some staff changes they are very responsive to my needs. If Valium is what it takes to get me in that chair, Valium they shall give me.

Yesterday started off pretty fun. Wake up, have coffee, play a little Farmville, and then on Facebook my back-yard neighbor, JJ, drops me a message and says he’s up and to call him, he has something for me. So we meet in the back yard, he comes in and we have some coffee, Tim wakes up and they start talking programming, and I hop in the shower and get ready for The Ordeal.

So I took my lone Valium at 10 AM, after my shower, in preparation for my lovely, gentle, patient friend Jenn to pick me up and take me to the dentist. After that we were going to go to lunch and have some quality girl time. I had not eaten breakfast, having totally forgotten to do so while hanging out with Tim and JJ, so I was really looking forward to either Harry’s, or Chopstix, or really any place that had good food and Jenn and I could sit for a while and just hang. Both of us run businesses (this is Jenn’s, and I highly recommend it) and we don’t really get as much quiet together time as we used to back in The Day.

So we get to the dentists, and I start getting a little anxious in spite of the Valium when it turns out I have to have yet another new hygenist. I had the same one for about 14 years, relaxed with her to the point where I didn’t need valium for about the last ten years of seeing her, and then the anxiety started all over again a little over a year ago when she retired and I got a new one. Now there’s a third one, and I’m all NOT FREAKING OUT I AM FINE NOT FREAKING ME OK.

While she’s all up in my mouth looking at how good or bad my teeth care has been, she hears my stomach rumbling. When asked (I’m a terrible liar) I admit that I haven’t had breakfast. NOTE TO SELF: LIE NEXT TIME. This turned out to not be the smartest thing I could have done because after she looked at my teeth she decided I needed a much deeper cleaning that I had come in for – ONE THAT WOULD INCLUDE NUMBING AND HORSE-SIZED NEEDLES AND PERHAPS CLOWNS – and they wouldn’t give it to me then because I had not eaten. In the back of my head I was thinking “well this isn’t so bad because now Jenn and I can go to lunch early and I’ll just blow this popsicle stand and come back in a couple weeks” until it seeps into my ears that she has said she has something open at 3 PM this afternoon. Then all I could think of was that this Valium, which suddenly wasn’t doing much of a job being all anti-anxiety whatsoever, was certainly going to not be useful four hours later.

They promised me nitrous, they gave me a sheet for me to sign over my firstborn – I mean, a sheet that told me how much this torture was going to cost, and they told me to go have lunch and come back at 3. I did much crying and snivelling out in the car, and bless Jenn’s heart because she talked me into going back in and asking for more Valium. They offered me nitrous a couple more times and I kept crying and hiccuping hysterically until finally Jenn came out with “look, this is what she’s like and she just took Valium about an hour and a half ago. What do you think she’s going to be like in FOUR MORE HOURS? It would behoove you to get her more Valium.” I love my Jenn. More Valium it was, and we went to go pick it up and then were off to have lunch at Harry’s.

Fast-forward to back at the Dentist’s at 3 where I will gloss over my panic, crying, screaming at the needle, and hysterics (and yeah, that was after TWO Valium that day, so HELLO ANXIETY I BELIEVE YOU ARE REAL). Lots of scraping and high-pitched sounds and my iPod with Norah Jones as loud as I could get it. Jenn sitting near my feet with one hand on my leg to reassure me that she was there to take anyone down should they need killin’.

And I have to go back in a month to make sure the antibiotics they gave me are making everything that was messed up look better.

I CAN’T FUCKING WAIT.

 
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January both flew and crawled by

01 Feb

January was both the longest and the shortest month ever.

It started off with Uncle Joe still in the hospital, but New Years Day went on like reasonably normal. When he got out, we finally celebrated Christmas; but because not everyone could be there, we celebrated it again later. And again later, although I didn’t break the camera out for that one. I went to the loveliest wedding ever, even though I haven’t uploaded my photos yet. I had such big plans for this month, but when it was about 25 degrees in the middle of the day for about a week, I got too cold to move. Then once it warmed up, I got sick for a week and didn’t press myself to do anything other than work and sleep – so I got behind on some things I was already a bit behind in. Like blogging. Sigh. Best laid plans, and all. Oh, and in a personal coup, after years of trying I finally got a photo of one of the slightly feral Neighborhood Chickens. It’s the little victories that mean a lot.

I whipped out one, two, three, four, five finished objects this month – crazy! Most of them were small, though, so I don’t feel too Crazy Knitting Lady. Too much. Ahem. Stop looking at me.

Speaking of yarny things… we had two big things happen at the shop in January. The best thing is that we had fabulous sock designer Charlene Schurch in for a day. She taught a class and autographed books. She is a lovely woman and we are hoping to have her back again next year! The other thing that happened was to our plaza – the JoAnne’s and the Publix both closed. JoAnne’s is GoneDaddyGone, but the Publix will be renovating – including taking over the JoAnne’s spot – and reopening hopefully in nine or ten months. I hope business in our plaza can survive that long. I am not looking forward to this summer. (Hey kids – buy locally!)

It seems like a million years ago that Chris served us all breakfast in Aunt Gay and Uncle Joe’s kitchen, the morning of the 1st. And yet time has flown by, and I haven’t uploaded many photos of events this month nor blogged nearly as much, or as deeply, as I wanted to. I have so much on my mind; so much to share. I hope I can make a better commitment to doing that in February.

 
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If found, return to any Haldeman

11 Jan

When I was young, like maybe 6 or 7, that’s what was written on the back of my nametag at science fiction conventions. “If found, return to any Haldeman”. Then I’d be off on my own, terrorizing the halls.

Lately I seem to be losing things. Forgetting things. Leaving things behind. In the last week, I have..

… lost one of my two pairs of jeans that fit, causing me to drive out to Old Navy to buy more (I was also on a hunt for PJs, of which they had practically none; but they were well-stocked in bathing suits!). Also lost my favorite purple flannel PJs.
… a folder that contains all of the patterns which I am currently knitting, including notes on complicated cable changes to a cardigan. Also contains some paperwork I need to turn in to my car insurance place (they just realized they don’t have the VIN for my car – wtf?!).
… I left the power cord to my laptop at work. Brought the laptop home, just forgot the power cord. Spent the whole night bitching to myself about what an idiot I was, and how if I wasn’t so tired and cold and if I really wanted to use my laptop I’d drive back and get it, and how the morning was going to be rushed if I only had so much battery power to my laptop and I wouldn’t be able to slowly sip my coffee and play FarmVille and I’m planning on knitting this complicated sweater (not the one I lost my notes for, a different one) and I wouldn’t be able to spend an hour or so researching yarns that get the right gauge bitch bitch bitch yadda yadda yadda bitch bitch bitch. Then I woke up in the morning and remembered that I have a desktop computer. Which I have had for Y E A R S. But somehow totally forgot about that night.
… I have a Christmas present from Jag and Antony that’s been sitting in front of the TV for almost two weeks now. I keep forgetting to open it. But at least I know where it is.

Clearly I have “the ‘tard” this week. Not to insult any actual ‘tards.

OK, this one first happened a couple months ago, but it’s still funny. Probably because it still keeps happening.
… I drive to work, maybe a 12-minute drive depending on traffic. I get to work, pull into my spot, turn off the car, pop the trunk to get my bags, grab my iPod, get out of the car, shut the door, ready my keys to open the trunk, walk the nanosecond around to the back of my car, and SEE THAT MY TRUNK IS ALREADY OPEN. Oh my god! Have I been driving across town with my trunk open?! What the fuck! I hope my yarn didn’t blow out! What if I’d hit a bump and something blew out of the trunk! Oh my god! I’m such a dumbass! Driving with my trunk open! How could I not have noticed that?! … … (wait for it…) … … Oh. Yeah. I just popped the trunk from the inside, before grabbing my iPod.

Sigh.
My brain.
If found, return to any Haldeman.

 
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New Year’s Day

07 Jan

I can’t thank Chris and Sharon enough for New Year’s Day. Long time readers know that Uncle Joe usually makes breakfast for anyone who comes to the house on New Year’s Day– most years the food starts flowing at about 9 AM and goes until after lunch. After the bacon and eggs disappear, Aunt Gay starts bringing out leftovers from the night before; plates of vegetables, cookies, breads, dips… the food never ends.

But Uncle Joe was in the hospital this year, and that meant… meant what? No breakfast?

Up steps Chris, ready with egg casseroles and pounds of bacon. Ready to cook and step in for Uncle Joe. I have not the words; I can’t tell you how much that meant to me. My friends are wonderful.

New Year's Day 2010

1. Hungry?, 2. We’re more awake now, 3. Early in the morning, 4. Good morning!, 5. Egg, egg, stuff, and egg, 6. My guys

 
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New Year’s Eve 2009

06 Jan

Uncle Joe was still in the hospital, but this party has been going on since before I was born so we were pretty sure it would happen even if Aunt Gay locked the doors and turned off the lights. Instead, she let us step in and take care of things for her; Barbara, Chris, and Sharon were a huge help (as were the trio of trouble – Tim, Antony, and Jeff). A lot of my photos are blurry because for some reason I thought it’d be fine to not use a flash. Dur. (Also, that first photo of Chris is actually a video – check it out!)

New Year's Eve 2009

1. Chris juggles fire, 2. My friends are wonderful, 3. Food, friends, and music, 4. A toast, to awards, 5. Audience in rapt attention, 6. Cheering him on, 7. Flames a-leaping, 8. Chris has an audience, 9. Chris juggles fire, 10. A quiet moment, 11. Boys in a whirlwind of activity, 12. Picking and playing, 13. Blurry in the living room, 14. Sharon and Chris, 15. John and Jaybird, 16. I fell into a crown of fire

 
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Christmas, part one

04 Jan

This seems like forever ago, I’ve been so busy! But just about a week ago, the family gathered to celebrate Christmas. There were a couple of different things about this year; my mom and Dave drove up to celebrate with us, and Uncle Joe was still in the hospital so we decided not to open gifts yet. But we did gather for lots and lots and lots of food, as you can see below!

First Christmas, 2009

1. Around the dinner table, 2. Around the dinner table, 3. Around the dinner table, 4. Around the dinner table, 5. Dinner wreckage, 6. Future dinner, 7. Hanging out, 8. How I spent the day, 9. Delicious!

 
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