Well...

I have spent more time on my book blog than here, obviously. We mostly skipped Fall here, Summer was officially over Nov. 17 when the temp went from nearly 80°F on the 16th to freezing and snowy the next day, haha. Until then, the weather had been unusually mild.

And with the cold comes the knitting! I am much more motivated to knit when it's cold out, haha. I finished my Blackrose socks in Blue Moon Fiber Arts' Socks That Rock, Morticia colorway. I love them in all of their purple and black glory! Now I am knitting a blanket square with the left over yarn.

It's weird not having a sock on the go though. Must be time to look through Ravelry again, see if I can find something fun to start. I am getting quite a bit more confident in the knitting now, changing patterns to suit me (I kind of winged it on the heel length, gussets and even the toe shaping of my Blackrose socks, haha. I got about 2/3 done with the 1st sock before I decided I didn't like the heel as written and tinked back.).

Next up is to umm, finish the thumb on the 1st White Witch Mitten and then cast on for #2. Maybe have a full pair before winter's end?? Maybe?

I'm stash knitting now, since I still haven't gotten a job and I have dental bills from hell to pay and therefore no yarn budget at all. Most of what I have is bits and bobs of sock yarn. I see multiple blanket squares in my future.

I have a ton of red cotton that I bought to make a Cherry Bomb, but it's been hibernating for so long I think it probably needs to hit the frog pond, since gods only know where I stopped, haha. And frankly, who wants to knit a tank top in winter, haha.

I even walked in to the teen's room the other day and found her knitting again, so apparently she's also decided the change in weather means knits!

Summer

Summer is officially here. It's even damned hot here in the foothills. Unlike a lot of the west though, we've been lucky *knock wood* We've had two small wildfires started by lightening, but both were contained the same night. Which was good, because we're tinder dry right now, after having a nice wet spring.

The good news is, my tomato plants are loving it and are flowering madly, with a few baby tomatoes on one already. The jalapeno, well, it's not as happy this year. I think we went right from too cool to too hot for it. It comes inside in the afternoon, as soon as the temp hits close to 90°.

As for me, as a result of the warm weather, the knitting has slowed down. Who wants to knit wooly things in 95° F weather? (Although I did just ball up a skein of yarn for a new pair of socks, and I also just finished another blanket square) So I've been spending a lot of my time reading. I am pretty well hooked on Cozy (though I hate the term) mysteries, as can be seen on my book blog, Give Me a Book. I have had a great time with NetGalley, getting books and reviewing them.

Sadly, this genre is being hit by major cuts. The genre is glutted. I mean, you name a subject, there's a cozy mystery based around it. Like popcorn? Yep, there's a popcorn shop mystery series. Cheese? Yeah, there was one of those too. Knitting, soap and candle making, crochet, paper making, scrapbooking, tea shops, gluten free bakeries, spice shops, the list goes on. Ever looked in the mystery section at your local bookstore? You're spoilt for choice! And even I can't read everything, haha. I certainly can afford to buy everything.

And a lot of those books are "Write for Hire," meaning that the publisher comes up with the basic idea, and the writer just fleshes it out in to a full-fledged book. So when the publisher says, "no thank you, we don't want any more" there's nothing the author can do. The author in fact, usually doesn't even write the books under their own name, think Carolyn Keene and Kathryn Kenny, of Nancy Drew and Trixie Belden fame.

No matter what, it means that some of our favorite mystery series have to go. Many contracts weren't renewed, with little to no notice, so we'll never see closure for some of these series. That makes me sad.

So I am doing my little part, asking my library to purchase the books I can't get, posting reviews on my book blog and Goodreads. Meanwhile, I've read some great books lately. And a few not so great as well, but those are few and far between.

Back to School

Tomorrow is back to school night for the kiddo.  Though she's not really a kiddo anymore, since she's 15 and about to get her driver's permit!  Normally I would skip back to school night, since she has a good idea of where all her classes are, but she's taking an AP class this year, and we need to get the info for that.  Blech.  Of course, G gets to skip it, because he has to work late tomorrow to get ready for inventory.  He's working his fanny off, trying to train someone to take his place so he can finally move on up!  *Crossing my fingers that it actually happens this time*

It feels like fall at the moment.  Last week we hit 97°F, ick.  But the last two days we've been in the mid 70s during the day, and down in the 40s at night, with some pretty wild and wooly rain storms, causing me to bring in my vegetable garden, as G. calls it.  No rain tonight, but the plants are going to start coming in at night, I think.

Really, there have only been a few nights this summer that we haven't been able to turn off the AC and open up the house to the cool air, but I am really happy when I can just leave the house open all day so I love this cool weather.   Yeah, I know, we're sure to go back up in temp in the next day or two, but I am enjoying it while I can ;)

I finished Isabel's socks, and a blanket square with the leftovers, today.  Tomorrow I will ball up the other yarn I got at the Interweave Yarn Fest (that I talked about here.).  Going to go with the Vanilla Latte pattern, since it's a little different without too much pattern getting in the way of the color (and sparkle!  We can't forget the sparkle!).

If you hear someone cursing loudly, it will be me, as my yarn invariably tangles, haha.

Pssst...  Halloween is right around the cornet!  Along with all things pumpkin!  I love this time of year! 

Spring

It's cold. And raining. Like lots of rain. So now Winnie the Pooh is singing in my head,"And the rain, rain, rain, came down, down, down, in rushing, rising rivlets." Funny thing is when I looked it up on youtube the first one was in Swedish, haha.

It's good, we need the rain, but everything is already saturated, which means the rivers are rising. Obviously, it's nothing like the big flood in 2013, but a lot of the areas that are starting to flood are still recovering from that flood. Hubby works in an area that they're still fixing the roads, and the roads in and out of Estes are still not permanently fixed. (It's sad driving up highway 34, the river is so changed and there are still houses that must be condemned, but haven't been pulled down yet. The dam along 34 that used to have a lake and a rest stop is completely gone. But I digress...).

Anyway, I think we'll get some lovely wild flowers out of in when it finally stops raining. And of course, being spring in the Rockies, we're also under a Winter Storm Watch at the same time as we are under Flood Warnings. Ahh, spring :)

In other news, I'm still not working. I'm going to try and pick up something part time, but I also think it might be nice to spend a summer with my kiddo before she flies the coop in a few years. And she'll have her driver's permit soon, so that will be loads of fun, haha.

Yep, tomorrow is her 15th birthday, and she's asking for Driver's Ed. Watch out Northern Colorado!

I've put my Barn Raising Quilt squares on hold again, since I'm knitting the first sock out of Rainbow Bright for the kiddo. I'm at the gussets now, and it's a pretty basic sock, so if I actually sit and work on it in the next few days, I should have it done. Just in time for warm weather again, oops.

Er, Ummm

Oops. Somewhere along the way I wrote a big long post. I never posted it.

So what's been going on? Well, nearly 4 months ago I decided I was fed up with being taken for granted and given the same old promises to change things by my boss, over and over again, only to have him do nothing, just like the previous time. I walked out. They can Make More Happen with less, just like they expected me to.

Frankly, I gave 6 years of my life to that P.O.S. company and they never really gave a crap. My husband on the other hand, was hired by a new company. His starting rate was higher than mine after SIX f-ing years. He's now gotten a raise, and a chance at even more $ come July in a new position with the same company. So I am taking my time looking for a job that I will hopefully be happy at. And hopefully, they will appreciate me.

So now I find myself gaining back all the weight that I never actually meant to lose, but lost anyway through pure stress and constantly missing lunch because no one even noticed I was still stuck in the freaking corner. Time to stop being such a couch potato, hahaha. The weather this winter has mostly been unseasonably mild, so I have no excuse but pure laziness!

I have managed to get a lot of my TBR list read, and multiple squares worked on my knit crazy quilt. It's honestly been nice to not have to be anywhere at any given time, to do any given thing. Low on milk? No problem. Kiddo needs to be somewhere as soon as school is out? Okey dokey. New book in at the library? Off I go. The one place I am avoiding like the plague at the moment though, the yarn shop! I have quite a bit of sock yarn bits and bobs, so I am knitting up a storm. Maybe, some day, my crazy quilt will be done, haha.

Anyhoo, back to my book.

Weird weekday

Instead of being at work this morning, I am at home, on hold with Century Link. I had a rare 3 day weekend, and while it's great, taking care of all the stuff that I have put off because I am never home Monday-Friday 9-5 is taking forever.

The good news is:
-The kiddo now has an appointment to get her last round of immunizations
-There's a gift card for $90 on its way so I can replace my "office" chair that has its left arm hanging by a thread and threatens to tip over whenever you lean back at all.
-Century Link just dropped my bill by $57 a month! And gave me my long distance service back to boot!

So now all I have to do is:
-hit the bank at some point today to deposit a few checks.
-go to the library
-visit my LYS, since it's right across from the library and drool over the Big Bag O' Fun again!

And on a completely unrelated topic, when the heck did OTC allergy meds get so expensive?? My nose is stuffy, my eyes are itchy and I thought I would grab something and see if it helped. OUCH!

We did get some very sad news over the weekend. My husband's grandmother has died. There's absolutely no way he can get back for the funeral (airfare is nuts and then add in the fact that his passport has expired and that's the end of that!). I wonder how much it costs to send flowers overseas??

Dammit!

I sat down to start a new square for the Crazy Quilt and cannot find my 10" dpns! I've looked everywhere I can think of. I know they aren't in anything, because I only use them for my squares and I've none on the go. Figures, the first time I actually feel like knitting in ages and I can't find stuff!

I started surfing the web to see if I could find another set (I bought these at the Estes Park Wool Market) and came across these. The Loopy Ewe does have the advantage of being my newest LYS, but.... $120 for knitting needles??? Really? Do they knit on their own? Will I come back to find all my squares done? I said something to G. and he told me that would be grounds for divorce and I said, "No honey, that would be grounds for involuntary commitment to the local mental health ward!" Lol. That's like the glass needles we saw in Estes last year. Pretty, but you wouldn't want to actually knit with them, and at least they were only $60 and pretty enough to have on display!

But I did finally find a set of size 2 wooden 10" dpns on eBay. I had to buy two sets, 'cause I need 5 needles instead of 4, but even then I got them for $6 including shipping!

In other news, Spring has officially sprung here in Northern Colorado! Our ospreys are back tidying up their nest, the trees are leafing out and soon we will get nailed with a big snow storm ;) Or not. But Mother Nature does seem to have that kind of sense of humor!

And speaking of Spring, did I show you my gorgeous new Miche shell?? (Yeah, I got it months ago, but the colors yell "SPRING!" to me.) Love it!

Another eBay find! It's called Izzy, which of course sealed the deal for me, since my dd is an Izzy (though if you call her that she's likely to give you a "drop dead stare" and cooly tell you her name is ISABEL! Lol.

The polka dots make me smile and the little bow is just perfect.

Anyway, off to enjoy this glorious spring day. Temp is supposed to hit 80! Ciao!

What's the capital of Ohio?

Just watched the season premiere of Glee. Ok, watched is a bit of a stretch. Fast forwarded, more like. Hmmm. Glad to see more of Blaine, hope it doesn't become the Blaine show. Loved Quinn's new look, can she move along now? Glad to see Rachel taken down a notch, or two or ten. Still adore Kurt.

So far, Fall tv just isn't really doing much for me.

There's America's Next Top Model, re-run edition. Didn't like most of the women on there before, why should I care about them now??

Then there's Project Runway. Or as I now like to call it, Project Extra Sleep. Boooooooring. There's not a single person on there that I am rooting for this season, most of them I just want to see go home! Thank goodness for DVR, since I can fast forward to the end, see the finished product and listen to the scathing criticisms, lol.

As a result of lousy TV and a lack of books, I have gotten some knitting done. One of the ugliest socks I've ever seen, and by the end of today I shall have another square for the Crazy Quilt completed. The sock was done in a yarn I wish I had never bought. Full of different lengths knotted together, and really much better looking in the skein than knit up. And the second skein for the second sock is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay more red than the first.

But the square is fun, it's got little bits of glitter in :) Probably why it knit up so fast, since I love it, lol.

Edited to add: Argh. I'll say it again, can Quinn just move along now? I find this storyline personally disturbing and sad. the Quinn-witch is a selfish, spoilt brat and only thinking of herself, not of her child. We have enough me, me, me! with Rachel & Santana. Move along, nothing to see here....

Speaking of Rachel. Really? Like Finn doesn't have enough issues without her trying to plan his life for him, just so she can be happy?

*Sigh* I will keep DVRing it, but I'm not much liking anything to do with the main characters, though I love the fact that there's more Beiste and the fact that Puck really seems to want to be part of his daughter's life. Though again, I would like to see him do the right thing and tell Shelby what the Quinn-witch is cooking up.

So...

Not much has changed since I last posted. We're even having Cornish Pasties for dinner again tonight ;)

I've finished 4 squares for the crazy quilt, and I've another sock on the needles now. last few squares have been very pastel, and I felt the need for bright. So now I am knitting up my bright orange and red Bonkers yarn. And it's fitting, since what better way to celebrate autumn than to knit autumn colors?

Yes, fall is finally here. At least for the last two days. We've been in the mid-70s and I love it! Windows are wide open, all except for the dinner hour, and then once the house has cooled back down after dinner the windows open again. Wonderful!

We've had one rather significant change. The kiddo started junior high a few weeks ago (Ack! My baby!). And with that comes trumpet lessons. So we have a sick goose in the living room at the moment. But she loves it, so I guess my ears will recover ;)

And since Blogger decided to eat the rest of my post I'm going to stop here. I've got a heel to turn. See y'all in a month, lol.

Random bits

Cornish Pasties for dinner tonight, yum!

County Fair this evening when it cools down a bit. Swimming pool in a bit.

My blanket square is coming along slowly, mainly because I've had my nose in a book more regularly. I found a series of tattoo shop mysteries (because there's a series for EVERYTHING now, lol) and I've been reading them, and a few other odds and ends.

So, books I've recently read:

-The new Sookie Stackhouse book, Dead Reckoning. My reaction to it was just, "Meh." Didn't love it, didn't hate it.

-The new Queen Betsey book, Undead and Undermined. I have to say, I'm not enjoying them as much anymore. Betsey is just annoying and self centered and frankly, there's not much happening with the series, it seems stagnant. Betsey disappears, then has sex with Sinclair. Betsey fights with her sister, has sex with Sinclair.

Donna Andrews's new book, The Real Macaw was as enjoyable as always. The characters are fun and quirky and we finally get to find out what sex the new babies are :)

Cricket McRae's crafting mysteries, with Wined and Died most recently released. Cricket is actually a local author so I found her in a local display at the library. I've enjoyed all 5 books in the series.

And surprisingly, I like the latest Anita Blake book from Laurell K Hamilton, though I'm not sure where we go from here. Maybe back to Anita helping solve crimes? I'd like to see Edward toughen up a bit again too, that was the one thing I didn't care for, Edward just can't go soft lol.

Old favorites that I can't read any more:
Sherrilyn Kenyon, Christine Feehan (funny I used to love this series, but I went back and re-read one and just thought, "What was I thinking??"

My Amazon wish list is looking pretty thin again, since I use it to remind me of books I want to read and now I've read most of them. Time to make a trip the the bookstore to scope out new releases lol.

My crazy quilt so far

all three,
originally uploaded by zukeeper.geo.

The squares are actually quite quick to knit. Well, when I don't have a smashed middle finger anyway. Amazing how much that finger just gets in the damned way.

Two nights ago it got in the way of my sliding glass door as I went to shut it. Wouldn't be surprised if my mother heard me swearing all the way in Iowa, lol. Goodness knows, I swore long and loud, along with some crying and whimpering. Yep, I am a baby. Poor G was trying to help by making me stick my finger under cold water but anything touching it just made it throb worse, so of course that made me whinge more. I wouldn't even look at my finger for ages, I was convinced that if it hurt that badly I must have lost part of it, lol,

Today it's still swollen and sore, so I managed only one round on the light blue square. Waiting to see if the nail goes black and falls off. Ick!

Crazy Quilt

I'm cruising right along on my crazy quilt squares, two down and number 3 on the needles. I'm going to run out of yarn before I run out of love for this project. I just love the squares, with it's itty bitty hole in the center from where you start knitting in the "square" ;) they have a bit of a lacey look, and I can't wait to have enough to start putting some together. Lucky for me and my marriage, JoAnn's carries some decently priced sock yarns now so I can occasionally buy yarn just for my blanket.

Barn Raising Project

Started my first square this morning. This could be a fairly quick project if I actually had more yarn, lol. The square pattern is easy and quick (once I got used to fumbling around with 5 needles and 12 stitches!)