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Six months in 500 words or less

May 1st?? May freakin’ first?!!! Wow, someone needs to kick my ass. Let’s see if I can summarize the past holy-wow-six months.

May:
TroubleBad news first: My cat Trouble died. It was a terrible terrible thing, and I still blame myself for being too busy to take her to the vet sooner. She spent almost a week in the vet hospital before she passed, and I visited her every day. I wasn’t with her when she died, arriving about 30 minutes too late. 🙁

June:
Was the “official” photographer for a meet and greet fan event with Nick Brendon.

IMG_6450Got a new friend for Jack–this is Dr. Zeva Tinycat, although she’s no longer quite this tiny, as she eats like the shelter cat she was. She’s two and a half, loves string and meowing a lot, doesn’t like people food, and bounces on the stomachs of my houseguests when they sleep on the couch.

Started seeing a therapist. She’s cool, albeit expensive. The expense adds a little to my stress, but I feel it’s the one thing I can’t really talk about with her.

July:
Spot of my perfect momentDrove out to Zion National Park in Utah by myself and spent a couple of days hiking. It was an incredible experience. The park was beautiful, and being on my own and beholden to none was very freeing. Next time, though, I’d rather share the beauty with someone–and the little travelled trail I’d discovered.

August:
For my birthday I got my first ever kidney stone. Yeah, it sucked donkey balls. It hit two days before, at work. I was taken to the hospital in an ambulance, where my boss hung out with me until I was released (and it was *his* birthday). Spent the rest of the week on my couch in much pain. Bonus, I still have two more stones hanging out in my kidneys that could drop at any time. Yay.

September:
IMG_8398Spent nine days at Disney World with nine friends and relatives to celebrate my sister’s 40th birthday. We had a BLAST! Seriously, one of my best vacations ever.

October:
Work project kicked into high gear and the stress became the center of my life. Not the greatest month ever. However, I did make it to Carnaval in West Hollywood for the first time in about seven years, so that was cool. It’s still just as fun and crazy as I remember. And I spent four hours on a Saturday helping to assemble holiday boxes to send to troops in I believe Afghanistan. That was cool.

So now it’s November. The work project is still in progress and still stressful, but should be launching in a week and a half. Unfortunately it coincides with a Fitness Challenge being held at the work-site gym, where eight teams of eight are competing to lose the most (percentage-wise) in seven weeks. I’m blogging my progress with that little event over here, but I must say, not being able to eat chocolate when I’m stressed is doing bad things to my general disposition.

I’ve been crocheting this whole time. All summer I’d work on granny squares–boring, basic squares, each made from a full ball of Plymouth Encore. I now have 20 squares that need to be joined into a blanket. Don’t know when that’ll be happening. I also made one ginormous granny square blanket for my sister’s birthday.

IMG_8734

So that’s the past six months in a nutshell. Hopefully it won’t be another six months before my next update. 🙂

Bored with my projects

I haven’t updated in awhile because, well, I’m bored with my current projects. They’re taking too long, and as usually happens with my short attention span, I’m losing interest.  On occasion I’ve even found myself staring at my purple Dakota and wondering what I can do with it, but I stop myself from picking it up, because I have four projects that need finishing, dammit!

And really, “four” is a conservative number, given the other projects I’ve dropped before they’re completely finished. Even from where I’m sitting, I can see the tank top that is only half a back; the My So-Called Scarf that’s about six inches long that I’ve since forgotten the stitch for; and the red and white purse that has a few more rows to go before it can be bound off and felted. And I know, hiding behind those, are a couple of to-be-felted purses that need handles either kitchener-stitched together, or attached to the insides of the knitted bag. Not to mention the UMass granny square scarf; the spring-colored granny square scarf I started last summer; the felted purses that need holes punched for the i-cord handles; the log cabin blanket I haven’t picked up in months–oh, and that reminds me that I have a niece due to be born next month who’s going to need a blanket! Gah!

But first, there are two hats and two scarves to be finished. How to get my mojo back, I do not know. 🙁

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Knitting and Crochet Shopping

Kitties and fibers and LYSs, oh my!



Gabby admires my yarn haul from WEBS

Remember that trip to WEBS that I took back in late December? The one right after Christmas? No? Probably because I glossed right over it–too holiday-weary to write out a long involved post, I’m afraid. But finally, here is a picture of what I came away with, with my sister’s cat Gabby keep a very careful eye over it all. Isn’t it pretty? It raises the dead! (Ok, not, but in my head, that’s what logically follows “isn’t it pretty?”)

The white and maroon balls on the left are Amherst Yarn in UMass Amherst colors–they are currently on their way to becoming a granny square scarf. The autumn-colored hanks in the middle were purchased by my sister so I could make her a lacy scarf. The rest of it–the purples, the oranges, the whispy multis at the top–all caught my eye for one reason or another, and I don’t know yet what I’ll be doing with each (per usual).

So, that’s the WEBS stash! Can’t wait to go back next year!

In other, more dire, news, I have a mission today, and it’s a very dangerous mission. You see, my friend Kristen would like a hat to match the scarf I made her for her birthday. I would love to oblige her, but to be honest, there wasn’t enough yarn left over after the scarf to make anything bigger than a head band. This is where the mission comes in: I have to walk into a yarn store today. Worse, it’s my favorite yarn store. ?!!! I’m doomed! I can’t just walk into my favorite store, buy one ball, and walk back out again without browsing! It’s inconceivable! And I know what you’re thinking–WEBS has that very yarn on sale, just order it! It’ll arrive in the mail! Safe as houses! Except, WEBS is sold out of the chocolate brown, which is the color I need the most.

It’s going to be scary, and I’m not sure how I’ll make it out with my bank account still in the black. I’m toying with the plan of leaving all my debit and credit cards at home, and walking in with only a $20 bill. That could work.

Or maybe a fifty. That would work much better, don’t you think?

*THUNK*

Categories
Knitting and Crochet Shopping

2008, so far

Don’t look now, but I’m closing in on post #100! 11 more posts after this one, woot! I should probably do something to celebrate, but I don’t know what–I’ll have to think on it.

I’ve been contemplating the new year, as I’m sure everyone has, and trying to decide what I want to try to accomplish this year, or if I even want to try to set goals. Let’s face it, few people actually stick to the goals they set on January 1st, and I’m no exception. Of course, 2007 was the year when I finally learned to crochet, so goals aren’t always useless.  I haven’t been over-the-moon happy with my life for a long time, so obviously something needs tweaking, so I’ve been trying to compartmentalize stuff to set specific tasks for each aspect of my life.

One of my new goals that’s near, if not at, the top of my list is to meet new people, and to that end, I’m going to try to go to the WeHo stitch and bitch group once I return to L.A. (I’m still in Massachusetts with my family.) I’m terrible at meeting new people, as it requires effort and I’m notoriously lazy (and poor), but the SnB group is near where I live, doesn’t cost anything, and, as an added bonus, I’ll already have something in common with the group. And hopefully, now that I’ve “said” it out loud, I’ll actually do it.

ION, yesterday I taught my friend Jane to crochet, one year and two days after I taught her to knit. We did chains and single crochet for awhile, then she pulled out my Happy Hooker book and taught herself to double crochet a circle. She’s getting on a plane in a couple of hours, where she will hopefully continue practicing her loops and chains.  I love sharing my crafts, and am very grateful to her for her desire to learn new stuff.

Earlier this week, I finished a wool hat for my brother-in-law–forest green knit cap with a ribbed brim and a stockinette body.  I’ve finished seven granny squares for a new scarf in UMass Amherst colors (maroon and white). I started a new sc scarf with a wool/soy blend from…Patons? Bernat? The yarn is on the table and I’m too lazy to get up and look. (Jane and I were at Michael’s a couple of days ago, and I couldn’t resist the 30% off all yarn sale.) It’s a self-striping yarn, ’cause I’ve been getting tired of working in solids.

And in completely non-yarn-related news, my face feels like it’s been sandblasted.  I hate having a cold.

Categories
Knitting and Crochet

Squares and bags, bags and squares

squares for a scarfAs promised, pictures of fun, bright squares, to be used at some future date for a cheery scarf in spring-like colors. The yarn is Plymouth Encore, worsted weight–basically, whatever was leftover from the scrap blanket that I haven’t touched in months. I adore these colors and smile whenever I see them. I just need to pick up some more green, and then I have to decide if I want join the squares together, or border them all in one unifying color before joining. (There are more pictures in my Flickr–just follow the image link to find the photostream to click through.)

In other news, I got started on the Christmas bags last night, and so far I adore this first one.  It’s a deep blue (Lamb’s Pride chunky) paired with two skeins of shiny blue Aura from Trendsetter.  It’s sparkly and shiny and glittery and yes, I know that’s three words that all mean the same thing, but I don’t care, but that’s what it is, to the nth degree.  (Perhaps double stranding the Aura was a bit overkill, but it’s too late now, it’s already half done!) Yesterday I went through my feltable yarns and my novelty yarns and paired complementary colors wherever I could, then assigned each set a pattern based on available yardage. Right now I’m looking at a possible five balloon bags, two little cocos and one clutch, and there’s still an enormous bag of Gjestal in three different colors that I haven’t even touched yet.  It’s nice to have a plan, though–no more wondering what to do next.

That’s all for today.  I hope y’all are having a marvelous Saturday!