I started

to blog the other day. I got one whole sentence written before my attention was diverted elsewhere, lol.

It's been very Autumn-y here lately, 40s and gray and rainy until yesterday. Yesterday the sun came back out and we made it to 50 degrees. It was absolutely lovely :) The cool, wet days reminded hubby of home and he's battling a touch of homesickness at the moment. He and the munchkin wet walking in the misty rain a few days ago whilst I was at work and in the damp the next day as well.

The Cherry Bomb is moving again. I've knit a bit here and there over the last few days, most especially whilst we all watched The Princess Bride last night. Now I love me a good fairy tale and a cheesey chick flick, but this has never been one of my favourite movies. But hubby loves it and well, on Talk Like a Pirate Day I ran into a bunch of movie clips containing pirates and The Dread Pirate Roberts moved into other clips online whilst the daughter sat next to me which lead to the promise of watching the entire thing some time.

We all had a lovely time and enjoyed the movie. Still not one of my favourite movies (there's no chemistry between Cary Elwes and Robin Wright! The scene where he is leaving Buttercup to go off and make his fortune and he's talking about true love, he swear his stare is totally dead. But anyhoo...) but we all giggled our way through.

On the reading front, Eightfoldrabbit asked if I'd read Patricia Briggs. Funny you should ask, as I just finished Cry Wolf. What seems like ages ago now, I picked up an anthology called On the Prowl, purely because it contained a Monere story by Sunny. I read the Patricia Briggs story, liked it and that was that until I was wandering through Barnes and Noble one day and happened across Cry Wolf on an end cap. I picked it up and realized from the blurb on the back that it was the continuation of that short story.

Loved it! So I now have the first two books of her Mercy Thompson series on hold at the library. Yay. And thank goodness for libraries, I tell you. With a voracious reading appetite like I have I'd never be able to afford to keep myself in books with out my local libraries! And one library has this cool system called Prospector, which connects to a bunch more libraries and allows me to get books from them if my library doesn't have them. They send the book I request to the local library and I just go pick it up, read it and return it like a regular book. Brilliant! And it's FREE! I think at any given moment I have at least 10 books on hold ;)

Anyway. I finally found me some guild love in WoW for Alas. Joined yesterday, so hopefully I will have better luck with this guild than I have in the past. Why is it so blasted hard to find a decent guild Horde-side on my server?? This new guild is just what I am looking for though. They are all pretty casual, though they do raid. But I don't have to do anything. My main interest is in making some friends before the expansion comes out so I can go explore then.

I had to laugh though, the person I was talking to about the guild before I joined was all, you can't raid unless you are geared up first. Ummm. Did you not look at my character on the Armory? The only top of the line piece of gear I am missing is a new axe. But since I am primarily a long distance damage kind of girl, that's not a big issue. Yes, all my gear is PvP rather than PvE, but it's just as good as any PvE gear and makes me rock in any setting, lol.

Well. Better finish breakfast and hit the shower. Today is one of the few shifts I actually work this week, so I had better get to it!

Yeah well...

Still no knitting going on, but I did buy myself a set of cable needles and now I am looking for a decent (read: simple) cable scarf pattern to knit for someone for Christmas. Not sure which stash wool I will use, most likely the Plain & Fancy, because while I have no idea what I am going to do with the Brooks Farm, using it on a scarf for someone else is not in the plan ;) Yeah, I'm feeling totally selfish about that yarn!

The good news is I did find one book in my stack that kept me enthralled all the way through. One Foot in the Grave was a much better book than the first in the series and now I am eagerly awaiting the release of the new book, At Grave's End, in December.

And I finally finished the Kitty book, along with the next in the series, Kitty and the Silver Bullet, (which I enjoyed more) and now I'm eagerly awaiting the next two books in the series, due out in January and February. Yay.

And of course the old stand by authors are coming out with new books soon (see my wish list) as well too, so that part of my ennui will hopefully end soon ;)

Anyway, I've the day off, so I am going to go see what kind of trouble I can get into today ;)

Yum!

I love October and Halloween. We've got our smashed witch on the front door and our ghost lanterns lit.

And this evening we baked a lovely apple pie. And soooo simple. Just preheat the oven to 350 and get out a medium saucepan. In the saucepan mix a 1/2 cup of each: White sugar, brown sugar and butter, add 3 tablespoons of flour and a little water and slowly bring to a boil. Simmer. Then take 6 Granny Smith apples, peeled, cored and sliced and layer on pie crust in your favourite pie plate (mine's a deep dish, 10 inches so you might want to do less apples). Pour the caramel over all the apples, top with a second crust, vent a bit and bake. I recommend a cookie sheet under the pie plate in case of bubbling over!

We baked ours for probably 45 minutes 'til the crust was golden brown.

Things we learned: with juicy apples you really don't need to add much water to the caramel mixture, next time I may not add any. Maybe toss the apples in the caramel before pouring in pie plate. Add a bit of vanilla to the caramel for an extra bit of flavour. And have ice cream or whipped cream on hand to eat with the pie, yum! Lol.

This pie was wonderful though, just the tart tang of the apples with the sweet caramel, not hidden under all the cinnamon flavour you usually get in apple pie. Hubby liked it so much he threatened to eat the whole pie right then and there ;)

Ennui.

I can't get into anything right now. I don't believe I've knit a stitch in more than a week. I have several books on the go at the moment, none that holds my interest for longer than a chapter at a time.

I've got the "at work" book, Kitty Takes a Holiday, the after work books, Death Perception (this is one of those authors that has more than one series and I like the other series better, but...), Hungry Ghosts (ok, I have to be fair, I only just started this one tonight and I'm only a few pages in) and somewhere in this house I have my traditional spooky-ooky-it's-Halloween-ghost-book, along with the latest Christine Feehan book, Dark Curse (I'm losing interest in this series unfortunately, they are all so very similar now and I'm really starting to get tired of the overly macho dominating males, I've not really enjoyed one of these books since Dark Melody), another called One Foot in the Grave, which I've not even opened yet, and umm, another in a series that I was half-hearted about at the best of times and now have really lost interest in. Nothing has grabbed my interest and held it since I finished the last Odd Thomas book.

Not one of them am I any farther than a few chapters in, well, except for the spooky-ooky-it's-Halloween-ghost-book because that's all short bits and interesting ;)

TV isn't really doing it for me either. Even good ol' Ghost Hunters is paling this season. *Sigh*

And WoW. Well, I hit 44 with my gnome mage. She's out of rest experience, so she's in the inn for a bit until I get that back. Alas is 70. Got my last top tier item last week. I made the guys at work freak when I jokingly mentioned that I'd had to do some dailies to earn some money back after I got my new helm and had to gem it, which dropped me under 10k. "10K? You're freaking out about dropping under 10k? I've barely got 100 gold!" Ummm. No. But they don't seem to grasp that I've been 70 for quite some time now. There's nothing more I can spend money on in game, so of course I have the money. I'm bored. I actually took up fishing in the game, just for something different. I'm really looking forward to next month and Wrath of the Lich King.

*Sigh* This too shall pass. Soon I hope.

Under construction!

Pardon the mess whilst I change over to my October look ;) It's going to stay a bit messy for the rest of the day as I don't think they'll let me work on my blog at work, lol.

Happy October, y'all!

Sad and silent

We just can't win

Our new computer arrived early last week. We thought that was a good thing. But honestly, it has been trouble from day 1. It constantly disconnected from the wireless network, froze and gave us USB errors, causing bad shut downs similar to the old machine we were trying to improve upon. So we did some reading online and followed the instructions. Some few hours and another $20 later things seemed more stable.

Until my hubby went raiding in WoW that night. Then it froze and we had to power down. Again, USB errors and aggravation. I went in to work the next day and bitched to my boss that Vista sucks and it's a power hog and he looked at me like I had grown a second head. "Bring it in."

I wish I had been able to convince my hubby to heed my boss' advice. Instead the problem grew steadily worse. We finally called Dell who had us run the diagnostic and told us it had to be software and that we needed to go back to factory settings and start again. *Sigh*

Guess what? It's even worse now! I started up this AM and no sooner had I established my wireless connection than it just crashed. No freeze this time, just a blue screen and error code. It then restarted itself, and seems ok now, but I wasn't going to push my luck, I'm on the old computer now.

So basically what I have learned is that Vista is conflicting with one of the three programs I have put on the new machine, but not entirely sure which one:
1. Firefox
2. Thunderbird
3. World of Warcraft. Now that would just be brilliant, seeing as how this machine is literally built for gaming and it won't run the one game we want it to. And unfortunately, up until late last night this seemed the most likely culprit as the crashes occurred most often whilst WoW was running.

The damn thing is going into work some time today. I would quite honestly love to box the bloody thing up and send it back to Dell and call it good :(

Good news and bad news. Bad news is it was Warcraft that was conflicting. Good news, it wasn't conflicting with Vista. And it didn't have to go into work with me after all. Bad news, it's conflicting with my virus software. Good news, all I have to do is turn off it temporarily whilst playing. All in all, it's still a pain in the arse. I'm tempted to put McAffee on instead...

Ahoy!

By the Powers! Ye didn't think I'd let Talk Like a Pirate Day pass without notice, did ye? Grab yer grog and some dubloons, matey and plunder!!

If ye be a WoW fan, head yerself to Booty Bay and party with the Dread Captain DeMeza, where it be Pirate Day. And don't ferget yer pirate togs and grog! See, there be the Dread Pirate Alastrine. Ye don't want to be tanglin' with that wench, do ye? I have me a big axe and I not be afeared to use it! ;)

And go get yerself a pirate name. I be the newly named, Pirate Val the Staggering Drunk. Yo ho ho and a bottle o' rum!

Chugging right along

The knitting is going. That's all I'm saying, lol.

I've been reading a lot lately too. A co-worker introduced me to Dean Koontz's Odd Thomas series, I'll start book 3 tonight. I used to read a lot of Dean Koontz in high school and early in my marriage. Somewhere along the way I just stopped reading for some reason. So when my co-worker offered to loan me the first two books I jumped at them.

One reason is because it's a series. I love series books, I love watching the characters develop through out the books, learning more about them.

And of course, it's fall, with All Hallow's Eve approaching, my favourite time of year. So the ghosty books have hit my reading list as well.

I've started keeping an Amazon wish list again. Mostly to remind myself of which authors I like are coming out with new books so I can remember to request them from the library ;) But Amazon also has a Universal Wish List now, so I can add links from anywhere I like, lol. So now I have knitting things on my list as well. I've stuck the link in my sidebar so y'all can see what I'm reading and what I'm lusting for ;)

In other news, we've bought a new toy. It will hopefully arrive next week. Our computer hard drive is dying. It keeps freezing up, leaving us no choice but to shut off at the power source. That inevitably screws with Windows XP and we have problems.

So now I shall be switching to Vista. I've played with it a bit at work, we shall see.

I think perhaps

I should just not blog about my current knitting project status. It seems that every time I do, I end up in Frogville.

This time it wasn't because of a mistake, at least not that I know of. This time it was because of the way sets of stitches were lining up funky. I noticed that every once in a while a small section, usually for an inch or so, the stitches would look off. And if I flipped to the wrong side of my knitting, you could see that the purl stitches were absolutely lined up.

Instead of looking like this:
- - -
 - -

They looked like this:
----
----

Which in the grand scheme of things wasn't really noticeable to anyone. Except me. And it finally got to me enough that I frogged. So we will see if it's something I did unintentionally or if it's the funky twist of the cotton yarn or what. I just know I couldn't let it continue without at least trying to fix it. *Sigh* The joys of perfectionism, lol.

Lovely

What a difference a week makes! Labor Day weekend was truly the last summer weekend if this week has been anything to go by. Last weekend was hot and I remember wishing for fall to hurry up and get here ;) Come Tuesday, autumn arrived. The temps dipped and I am loving it. This next week should stay in the 70s as well. Of course, this means I need to tidy the spare bedroom up a bit, so I can move my geraniums indoors before the first frost (Which I am begging for now. Just one hard frost to kill off all the weeds that are making me miserable, lol).

I'm thinking it could be a long winter though. The high country had its first snow a few weeks ago, actually leaving several inches behind in the lower mountains and it has certainly snowed above tree line since. But that's ok, I have plenty of knitting to see me through ;)

Speaking of knitting, I'm plodding along on Cherry Bomb. I've reached the first repeat of waist shaping on the front (so about 5 inches, lol). I joined the Big Girl Knits group on Ravelry last night and went through the posts on Cherry Bomb whilst I was there. I am now very glad that I added an inch to the length, since the biggest lament of CB knitters was that it needed to be a bit longer. I tend to like my tops a bit longer anyway, and looking at pics of FOs on Rav made me decide to add a half inch. Fortuitously, I lost track whilst watching TV the other night (new Ghost Hunters) and when I checked length it was 4 inches instead of 3.5. I didn't have the patience to unknit for half an inch, so I left it and just changed my notes on my pattern. I think the extra half inch is better.

My next plan is to pick up a cable needle tomorrow and try my hand with some leftover yarn at cabling. I want to make sure I can turn out a nice cable before I commit myself to yarn for the Susie Hoodie ;) I've priced the yarn though, and figure I can get it for a reasonable price, so that's good.

Anyhoo, I have to work today so I had best get moving. Ciao!

No laboring on Labor Day here

For the first time in years I have Labor Day off. We haven't planned a bloody thing, other than I know I have to go to the grocery store at some point today.

Not sure what I will do today. I've been doing very little knitting. I've only just begun Cherry Bomb (nothing like waiting until autumn to start a summer tank, lol).

There's been a lot of reading. Nothing spectacular that stands out though, just quick reads, like a bunch of cozy mysteries. I do have Acheron in the bedroom, waiting to be cracked. It's a tremendous volume, 736 pages, and I just can't seem to be too terribly interested. *Sigh* I will read it soon though, it's a library book and must go back soon.

As always there's been a lot of WoW. I've got Alastrine kitted out in top gear, although she could use a new helm at some point, I think I will start work on that today in AV.

I've started playing one of my old Ally 'toons again yesterday. Gnorma is a level 32 gnome mage who needs a lot of help, lol. But at least she's high enough to have a mount to ride instead of running every where. I sadly don't have the patience for that any more, Alas has spoilt me, with her flying mount and her very fast Cobalt Riding Talbuk. Gnorma's mechanical chicken mount is almost too slow for me, (And so incredibly stupid looking!) lol. It's been a bit tough getting used to soloing again, after having a pet to help Alas kill things, and the whole magic thing is odd too. Gnorma is an incredible squishy compared to Alas at this level, so I have to be careful about what I take on or she ends up dead.

Anyhoo. It won't be long before the family is awake, so I think I shall take the last of my quiet time and head for WoW. Ciao!

Well what do you know...

I was looking for a recipe on the 'net this afternoon and as I went to close out my browser I got a pop up window that said "Warning, your computer is infected!" And it claimed to be Windows XP Antivirus 2008. When I tried to close the window without installing it tried to install the software anyway. I hurriedly turned the computer off.

McAffee is running on it now, just to make sure, but I think I caught it. This is the evil virus I was talking about. It's not an anti-virus program like it is claiming to be.

Unfortunately, most people don't know that and they immediately click on the "Remove all threats now" button.

So word to the wise, don't visit web sites you don't know and don't trust anything that tries to download automatically.

Since I've not done one in ages...

Snagged from Pollyanna Rainbow Sunshine and the Needles of Doom

1) Copy this list into your blog or journal, including these instructions.
2) Bold all the items you’ve eaten.
3) Cross out any items that you would never consider eating.
4) Optional extra: Post a comment here at www.verygoodtaste.co.uk linking to your results.

1. Venison and elk.
2. Nettle tea
3. Huevos rancheros
4. Steak tartare
5. Crocodile
6. Black pudding I know what this is made of ;) Likely no, never.
7. Cheese fondue
8. Carp
9. Borscht Not a big beet fan.
10. Baba ghanoush
11. Calamari
12. Pho
13. PB&J sandwich
14. Aloo gobi- haven't tried it, but I love curry so I'd likely eat it ;)
15. Hot dog from a street cart
16. Epoisses
17. Black truffle- it's a shroom, and an expensive one, chances are no, never...
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes Grapefruit wine from the Amanas.
19. Steamed pork buns
20. Pistachio ice cream
21. Heirloom tomatoes
22. Fresh wild berries Itty bitty baby wild strawberries! Yum!
23. Foie gras Goose liver. It's the entire animal part thing again. But I have had pate and it's good so I'd try it.
24. Rice and beans
25. Brawn, or head cheese There's a reason this is called head cheese
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper I've tried dried ones. Made me sneeze, lol.
27. Dulce de leche
28. Oysters Do Rocky Mountain Oysters count? ;)
29. Baklava
30. Bagna cauda
31. Wasabi peas Yuck!
32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl
33. Salted lassi Sweet Lassi
34. Sauerkraut
35. Root beer float Black Cow, anyone?
36. Cognac with a fat cigar
37. Clotted cream tea Yum!
38. Vodka jelly/Jell-O
39. Gumbo I would try this given the opportunity.
40. Oxtail
41. Curried goat
42. Whole insects Not intentionally, but I've had bugs fly into my mouth while outside ;)
43. Phaal This I would try, as I love hot curries!
44. Goat’s milk
45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more
46. Fugu Sorry, I don't feel the need to tempt fate by knowingly eating something that is poisonous if not prepared just right...
47. Chicken tikka masala Brilliant!
48. Eel
49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut
50. Sea urchin
51. Prickly pear I'd try this.
52. Umeboshi
53. Abalone
54. Paneer
55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal
56. Spaetzle
57. Dirty gin martini
58. Beer above 8% ABV Don't like beer.
59. Poutine I'd try this given the opportunity
60. Carob chips
61. S’mores
62. Sweetbreads Sorry, but I have enough problems eating regular cuts of meat, innards are not happening.
63. Kaolin Hah, if you've ever had Kaopectate you've had this ;)
64. Currywurst
65. Durian Ha, I saw this one on Bizarre Foods. I don't know that I could get past the smell.
66. Frogs’ legs
67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake
68. Haggis Animal parts again.
69. Fried plantain
70. Chitterlings, or andouillette
71. Gazpacho
72. Caviar and blini
73. Louche absinthe HATE anything black licorice flavoured
74. Gjetost, or brunost
75. Roadkill Well, maybe if I were starving....
76. Baijiu
77. Hostess Fruit Pie
78. Snail
79. Lapsang souchong
80. Bellini
81. Tom yum
82. Eggs Benedict
83. Pocky
84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant.
85. Kobe beef Can't afford it.
86. Hare Wouldn't order it on a menu, though I'm not against trying it.
87. Goulash
88. Flowers
89. Horse Nope, never.
90. Criollo chocolate
91. Spam
92. Soft shell crab
93. Rose harissa
94. Catfish Yum, mud.
95. Mole poblano I would try this given the opportunity
96. Bagel and lox
97. Lobster Thermidor Can't afford it and really wasn't impressed enough by the lobster to order anything with it again.
98. Polenta
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee YUM! A restaurant in Moab, UT used to serve this with breakfast. Brilliant.
100. Snake

I'm a pretty fussy eater. I tend to stick with what I know. The few times I've gone out of my comfort zone I've found things I really liked (curries) and things that were nasty (why didn't Rocky Mountain Oysters make this list?). But I do occasionally try new things.

As for the alcohol related items, I'm not a big drinker. I don't like beer at all and usually only drink sweet white wine (travesty, I know!).

Watch out!

I work in a store where we provide tech service and computer fixes. There's a nasty virus out there that seems to be spreading quite rampantly in the last week. Update your anti-virus and get yourself a spyware removal tool. Ad-Aware and Spybot Search and Destroy are both free and easy to use.

We have at least 10 computers hooked up, waiting for spyware and virus removal. Each owner originally came in to buy a brand new computer because theirs were so screwy. But virus removal isn't cheap. $100 will get your computer cleaned, but you'll still have to buy an anti-virus (or renew your original one), so you're looking at $150 at least. Save the money and get the anti-virus now and keep it updated!

And speaking of computers... We got a new monitor a while ago. It's a lovely thing to behold. Lovely vivid colours, all in a fairly compact package. It's a larger monitor than my old one, yet we gained more space, purely by losing the huge bulk that was the old monitor. Yay!

But because of the new monitor, this blog looks sad. It's overly bright to me, and oh so dull. And of course with a different resolution than this was built in, and fixed spacing, there's way too much "white space." So look for a change soon. I just have to decide what I want. That's the hard part, lol.

Technical Difficulties

I can't connect to Blogspot, so I can't see my own blog, and I can't get to my blogrolling list or see any other blogspot blogs. No idea why, but it's pissing me off. Hopefully be fixed soon. See you soon!

Speaking of Big Girls...

I decided that the tank I am going to knit is Cherry Bomb, from Big Girl Knits. I love the shaping on this pattern. I've tried store bought tanks before and by the time I get one to fit my chest I end up feeling like I am wearing a sack. So I am quite hopeful that this one will fit nicely. I am going to add about an inch of length to it though.

And I found another pattern I really like too. The Susie Hoodie, from More Big Girl Knits. I've always loved the Rogue Sweater. But now I've seen the Susie and I think it would work better for me. I rarely wear sweaters. A jacket I could just pull on, now that's the thing for me! The cables have me nervous, but I've been wanting to try them anyway so why not on something like this?

I've started to post several times now...

And each time I get a few sentences in before I run down. Work is turning out to be ok. I like the people I work with, I really like not having to deal with the unemployment jerks, but I am already tired of sore feet at the end of my shift.

I have cool shoes. They really do help. But there just isn't any escaping the fact that I'm on my feet seven hours a day and I'm a big girl. I guess I still need to be looking for that dream job, the one where I surf the internet all day and only deal with people through email

I've done absolutely no knitting in the last few weeks. I just don't feel mentally awake enough by the end of the day to knit lace and days off are spent running errands and such. I need to start something simple, I guess. I have some lovely red cotton that I was going to use for Soleil, but for some reason the lace on that killed me. Maybe a more simple tank? This maybe? I really like the Flow tank the Harlot did, but I can't pay $16 for the book A.t.M.

Anyway, I'd better go. The family will be up soon and I'll never get any WoW time, lol.

Irony?

I don't have a problem with alternate religions. In fact, at one point I researched Wicca and thought seriously about becoming a Wiccan (I will admit now that it was mainly to freak out my mother, though I find many of the Wiccan beliefs appeal to me still, but anyhoo...), I don't post this out of malice but it did tickle my funny bone.

"A woman accidentally stabbed herself in the foot with a 3-foot-long sword while performing a Wiccan good luck ritual at a central Indiana cemetery."

Was this an example of her luck and the reason she was performing the ritual?

WTF?

This morning started like any other day. I got up, put the coffee maker on (it turned out to be clogged and we cleaned it at home rather than sending it away, yay!), and then booted up the 'puter.

I got a message from McAffee that my virus protection was expired, so I deleted the old and went to download the new from my ISP. In the process I restarted the 'puter and lo and behold no wireless connection. It didn't exist. Somehow, some way, our wireless disappeared.

And not just on the desktop. Neither laptop would connect either. Not a provider issue, we still have tv and phone. Several resets later and the dragging of tower and monitor to the physical connection to the internet and resetting the network later we have the 'net again, but... It's still odd. Still can't connect on the laptop. The networking card doesn't want to work. And well, the settings of the network aren't right. Like we missed a step along the way?

I'm tempted to pick the brain of the compu-geek at work if he's there tonight but I don't know him very well yet, and it seems a bit presumptuous, lol.

Speaking of work, so far so good. I am hoping I can finish all of my certifications there tonight, I've only been doing exactly what they are for for a week now, I should be able to pass easy enough. ;)