Sock Yarn and stuff

I prefer shorter ankle socks to regular calf length, which means when I knit, I have extra yarn leftover. So I was wandering around the web and I found a blanket that is made from sock yarn. So I think I am going to take my extra yarn and start knitting squares for the Barn-Raising Quilt. If anyone feels like donating left over yarn give me a shout ;)

But first, tomorrow is our day at the Estes Park Wool Market, woot! Looking forward to the yarn barn. Last year I actually managed to get out without buying anything but some ground lamb, but this year... I do want to wander around downtown Estes too, it's been years since I've walked along Elkhorn! (We moved from Estes over 11 years ago, and I'm pretty sure it had been a few years before that!)

Then on Sunday I'm going bowling with the gang from work. It will be interesting to see how things sort themselves out between the children... Sadly, there's one kid going that no one really wants around, though she has latched on to another co-worker, convinced T's her new BFF, when really T just wants her to shut up, just like everyone else. I soooo hope she finds a new job soon, because I think once she goes, a lot of the childish behavior goes with her and morale will go back up.

Back to Junior High

*Sigh* For months now I have felt like I'm in high school again, thanks to all the bickering at work. We have a group of kids that just cannot get along. All of them are legally adults, but none of them are grown up!

So let me share with you my rules for the workplace:
1. Never, EVER, date someone you work with.
2. Never, EVER, date someone you work with, who is involved with someone else you work with!
3. You may not like someone, but guess what? You frequently have to work with people you don't like. Pull up your big girl (or boy) panties and deal with it like the adult you are supposed to be.
4. Leave me out of it. I don't want to get caught in the middle when you complain about each other. I'm old enough to be your mother, but I don't want to be. I'm not your BFF either. Nor am I your confessional.

Just... Stuff

Yesterday was a gorgeous day. By noon it was 85 and I decided it was time to hit the pool. We spent a few hours over there and then the sun got to be to much for me and we came home, changed and ran to the grocery store for a few odds and ends that I had missed on Friday. After that the heat and sun had me pooped, so I took a nap, lol.

I read for a while yesterday evening. I'm back in that rut where it doesn't seem to matter what I grab, it just doesn't hold my interest. I've been reading the Grace and Favor mysteries by Jill Churchill. Good books, I just can't seem to settle.

And I got the "last" book in the Clan of the Cave Bear series. I'd always thought Shelters of Stone was the last. And frankly, maybe it should have been (actually, Plains of Passage should have been the last, 'cause the 12 years we waited for SoS weren't worth it!). From what I have managed to read so far, Ayla is the biggest MarySue evah! And it's making me crazy. I'm not sure if I can make it to the end of this one...

Beautiful morning

I love spring mornings! Nice and cool, but comfortable. They are the best time to sit outside on my deck and listen to the birds and frogs sing. The pelicans are just starting to move around on the lake, searching for breakfast. Soon there will be babies in the osprey nest to watch as well. The sound of the redwing blackbird's call brings back so many childhood memories, good times spent at the pool while the parents played golf.

If I could drag my preteen out of bed I'd make her go with for a walk around the lake. I'm thinking I need to ban her current book of choice from the bedroom at night because I am pretty sure she is staying up to read. Yes, it's summer and there's no school, but she was awake at midnight when her dad came home for "lunch" the other night and when I woke up at 2:45 am that night I noticed a light on and found her wide awake and reading. No wonder she doesn't want to get out of bed at 9:30 am! Unfortunately for her, today is my day off, which means it's errand day. First stop, the bra shop, since my favorite (most comfortable) bra got eaten in the washing machine last night!

And now for something completely different...

The Estes Wool Market is only a week away! Yay!!!!

Minding my own business

I was walking up the sidewalk to the house, just minding my own business, and kind of spacing out after a long first day back from vacation. As I am walking my brain kind of registers that something is different about the sidewalk, so I stopped to take a look. There, just a few feet in front of me, was the biggest damned snake I've seen outside of a zoo!

Needless to say, I took a few quick steps back. The snake was stretched out across the sidewalk and not moving. No rattle, so I knew it was probably just a rat snake or something (the only venomous snakes we have in Colorado are rattlers), but I still wasn't getting any closer to it.

I pulled out my cell phone and called my hubby, just in case they should look out the door and wonder why the hell I was just standing outside, lol. By that point the snake was slowly moving off the path in to the rocks and shrubbery. Conveniently, hubby could see the thing from upstairs, so he told me I could walk past it without upsetting it. Now the kiddo was standing on the deck, and they were both watching it while I quickly scooted past it.

That will teach me to zone out on my way home! Poor snake, I almost stepped on you! Poor me, nearly had a heart attack when I realized it *grin*

Vacation!

We spent the first part of the week in Iowa with my mother. Mostly a good trip, though we had one night of terrible weather which brought back my storm phobia with a vengeance! Part of the problem is that they now sound the sirens for any severe weather, not just tornadoes. To me that is crazy! It's going to send folks back to the 70s when they sounded the sirens for tornado watches and people stopped taking them seriously. Sirens are going off and I am freaking out in the basement while my mom is puttering in the kitchen, totally unconcerned. According to the weather folks, they sound the sirens to warn people out of doors to seek shelter. After that it is up to the person to listen to a weather radio or watch TV to determine how severe the storm is! Great until you lose TV because of the weather and have no clue....

I'm sorry, but when I was a kid the sirens went off as a warning of an imminent tornado and to take cover immediately, not as a notice to turn on your bloody TV and check the weather.

Anyhoo.... Other than that night, the weather cooperated and we had a lovely time. We drove up the river and ALL THE WAY TO DAVENPORT (several times even!).

But I have to say I am happy to be home. Not sure I could live in the midwest anymore. The temp is the same here today as it in Bettendorf, and yet here it feels wonderfully comfortable. In Bettendorf it was muggy :( Blech. 7% humidity versus 70% humidity, we win, lol.

I don't go back to work until Tuesday. So today we bought some flowers and planted them for the patio. We also planted the starter plants my mom sent back with us. Wish I knew what the heck they are. They have narrow dark green waxy leaves and lovely clusters of small pink waxy flowers, if that rings a bell with anyone please let me know ;)

Over for another year

Whew. I managed to survive the daughter's birthday party! I think a good time was had by all the girls. We had pizza and soda, and ice cream cake for dessert, which sent the girls in to a sugar frenzy, lol. Then we tie dyed t-shirts. Unfortunately the weather was naf, so we had to do it in the bathroom. It mostly went ok, though it took me 20 minutes and a lot of Comet with bleach to clean out the bath tub.

After that they "settled down" to watch a movie, which apparently bored them, because they never did really settle down, lol. After the movie they wandered off to DD's bedroom to play really old Sega video games until the Party Pooper (that's me) stepped in and made them turn off the TV and video games and settle down (we live in a condo with neighbors below and next door, 11 PM is plenty late for shrieking with laughter, lol).

At that point I have no idea what they did because I went to bed. I had the alarm set so I could get up and make everyone breakfast before they went home, but Hubby decided that I needed to get up at 7:15. He came in and kissed me awake (which was nice) and informed me that, "The girls are hungry." Umm, really? You don't know where the pancake mix is?? *Sigh*

Then, since I go on vacation Friday!!!! I had to go to work. So I ran and took a shower, got ready for work, parents picked up there children and off to work (and quiet! Lol) I went.

I'm exhausted and it's only Monday, lol. I think Friday I will let DD set her alarm and get herself ready for school 'til the Hubby gets home and can ride herd. I'll sleep in ;) (Since the next morning I want to be on the road by 6 am!). We're off to Iowa to visit my mom. Hubby got screwed over schedule-wise so he won't be going with us. Though he secretly (or not so secretly!) might not consider that a terrible thing, lol, he is pissed at his employers.

And of course, being us with our luck, it's going to rain the entire bloody time we are in Iowa. Sheesh!

Since I'm in a craptastic mood

I'll put up one of my favorite commercials of all time. Still makes me laugh

Loverly weekend!

I was lucky enough to have Saturday off, since it was inventory day and I thought I was going to have to work it. The kiddo and I got our errands done and I sneaked off to one of my favorite stores to get myself a little Mother's Day pressie, new inserts for my Magnabilities pendant. Marci has such neat things in that store! I've fallen in love with the Miche bags, I just love the whole concept of the interchangeable things! Though Hubby has already informed me that if I spend $100 on a purse he'll bean me, lol.

M and I also plotted birthday secrets for the kiddo, so that was fun ;)

On Sunday we ran one last errand and I let the kiddo pick out a box of puzzles for her birthday, then we went home and filled the new bird feeder (they've found it already, greedy little birds, lol). Then I looked at the outdoor thermometer and decided if we were going to go for a walk we'd better do it before the temp climbed any higher.

So we went for a nice ramble around the lake. Along the way we met Ruby, a bloodhound who had wandered away from her owner and of course the kiddo called her over to us. While we petted her and kept her distracted her owner finally caught up, lol.

But it was bloody warm. And I looked in the mirror this morning and the back of my neck is sunburned!

Well, enough rambling from me. I have to interview a few people for a job opening we have, not looking forward to it, since I've never had to before, lol. Better get moving!

Budget

Looking at my previous post, you probably think we don't have one. And technically you'd be right. We don't have a set budget, but we know what we can spend and we try not to go overboard, mostly.

Cable/internet. We changed providers because the cost was out of hand, and while I actually think we are getting more for our money, we are still paying more than we thought we would be paying. But TV and internet will never be cut to save money in our home. We have pretty much given up gaming, but we are still internet addicts. And with hubby working nights and therefore having nights off work with not a helluva lot to do, we need the 'net & cable.

Clothing. I just bought several new t-shirts and a couple pairs of capris for the summer. They were all on sale and I got a good deal on something I really needed. The kiddo got a new outfit and a new shirt today, from the local kid's clothing re-saler. Everything is in beautiful condition and we didn't pay much for it, yay.

Workwise, I need to replace my work pants. I have worn the same two pairs of black pants 5 days a week/ 8 hours a day, for almost 3 years. And I bought them on sale for $20 each. Replacing them for that price is going to be tough, lol.

Groceries. I have discovered that in most cases, generics are just as good, if not better than name brand products. I used to only buy one brand of mayo, for instance. Guess what? Mayo is mayo. Walmart's bread is just as good as the name brand, Sam's Club's laundry detergent is as good as Tide. Peanut butter, fruit snacks, applesauce, oatmeal (I actually like the Great Value oatmeal better than the leading brand name!) they're all just fine in generic form. There are a few things that are exceptions to the rule. I only use one brand of toilet paper (though we did switch to generic grudgingly when we were broke), and Ritz crackers are just better than the generic version (you don't save any money when you throw something away because it's inedible, lol).

Eating out. Ugh. This is where we take a serious hit. I come home for lunch every day, so I don't eat lunch out and hubby has lunch in the middle of the night when everything is closed. It's after work that I am really bad. It's so much easier to swing through a drive thru on the way home then to come home and scrounge something up for just me. (Kiddo is a picky eater so I rarely cook anything but breakfast for us both and hubby doesn't want dinner when he's only just gotten up for the day!). I have been trying to cut back, but...

We do avoid coffee out for the most part. We have our own espresso maker, so we buy flavored syrups and make our own flavored lattes. Yum! Our espresso maker has paid for itself numerous times.

Entertainment. Aside from TV/internet, our main entertainment is reading. We go to the library at least once a week. Thank goodness for the library, because the kiddo and I are both voracious readers! We're dumping our WoW accounts as soon as they are up this time, I get my game fix through the free games on Facebook and the kiddo loves the free kids sites like PBSkids.org and Club Penguin. We don't spend a lot on movies or anything like that. In fact, I am pretty sure the last movie I saw in the theater was Finding Nemo!

And now as the weather improves, I really would like to start spending more time outside. The complex pool opens at the end of May too, so that will be awesome.

My main expenditure for entertainment is for my knitting, and frankly I am pretty restrained in my purchases, not to mention slow in my knitting ;)

Too much!

Ok, not really tooooo much. But a lot! We got a "new" (new to us anyway!) car last night. It's hubby's new toy, or at least I let him think it is, really it's MINE, but I might share ;) I will admit it is absolutely sexy and I am totally looking forward to driving around town in it. It's a 2008 BMW, black with black interiors. Yum!

And tomorrow I get to get my haircut at the same place DD went a few weeks ago. My turn to be pampered! Even more yum!

Anyway, I'm going to go drive my new car now, ciao! Or should I say Auf Wiedersehen!

Awesome Sunday

Yesterday was a great Girls' Day Out.

The Pink Princess before her haircut,

The kiddo and I went and got her hair cut, where she was pampered and treated like a rock star *grin* Warm oil massaged into her scalp, then shampooed. She also had her hands dipped in paraffin. Then it was time for the actual hair cut. She went from not even wanting it trimmed to suddenly wanting it cut into an inverted bob! I would guess the stylist cut off at least 6 inches at the back. And oh did it want to curl up back there, haha.

After her haircut - side view

After the cut, she was allowed to pick out 5 strands of hair tinsel to be put in. Needless to say the Pink Princess picked 2 hot pink strands and one lighter pink strand. The last two were a bit of a surprise, she picked a bright blue and a purple one. I honestly think it was the lure of the tinsel that convinced her to get her hair cut, haha. (No, I'm not above bribery lol).

Seriously though, the stylist did an awesome job and made D.D. feel so special. I keep calling her my kiddo, but really she is right on the cusp of being a young woman, and that's what yesterday was all about. For anyone in my area, I can highly recommend 10 Salon & Spa! I want to go back and have my hair cut there now!

Afterwards we went for a nice ramble through the nearby sculpture park and then just went home and spent a quiet afternoon.

Oooo, pretty!

Shibui Sock, Anime colorway

I saw this yarn last weekend and it just screamed SPRING! So I bought it. It is so bright and cheerful, yet so unlike anything I would normally buy, haha.

Those bright skeins shall become (hopefully) these socks. I wanted something more than plain jane socks, but the last lace socks I attempted pissed me off something fierce and I went back to simple socks. Hopefully I can handle the Emily pattern ;)

All done!

Hmmm. Now what? All I have left on the needles are my mittens. I don't want to knit mittens when it's 70 outside!! Waaaaaaaaaaaaa.

So apparently

I live under a rock. Because I'd never seen this before:


I laughed so hard I. My hubby and daughter were like, "what the heck??" So I had to show them, and I was still laughing. I literally was laughing so hard I couldn't talk, lol. There was just something about the mother panda's reaction that tickled me!

I'd never seen this video either, and it's one of the most watched videos on YouTube EVAH!

Sheesh, I gotta crawl outta my cave a little more often...

*Snicker*

I totally take where I live for granted. But not in the way most of you are thinking I mean. For 10 years I lived in a small mountain town that rolled up the sidewalks at 11 PM in the summer and 8 PM in the winter. Groceries are much higher priced there than in stores down in "the valley" and forget the cost of gasoline! There is no Wal-mart, Target or K-mart. No running to the store in the middle of the night when you run out of diapers or formula or just want ice cream.

So on our days off, we would climb in the car and spend the day in the valley. It was a 45 minute drive down the canyon in good weather, on a winding mountain road. Back UP the canyon could take much longer, depending on the season. (Summer tourists + windy roads = slooooooow moving.

When we first moved to Colorado, the only discount store in the closest city was Kmart. If we wanted anything else we drove another 15- 20 minutes to the nearby college town that has everything.

For 4 years I commuted to that college, many semesters 5 days a week.

Even now that I live in the valley, I still drive to the next town over at least once a week, even though we now have much more than just a Kmart. For me, to drive 20 minutes to go to the library or grab dinner is nothing.

So when my mother (who sparked this whole post this afternoon on the phone, haha) says, "I took the printer back to the store. I had to go all the way to Davenport," I have to roll my eyes and laugh, because all the way to Davenport takes 10 minutes even if it's way the hell on the other end of town. And then I strolled over to Roggey's a few minutes ago (sorry Roggey, but really?? Hahaha.) and saw that she likened driving to JoAnn's in Davenport with driving to Montana I again rolled my eyes.

Because though my hometown may feel like a small town, it's a nice-sized city that shares two main streets with the next really good-sized city. And the area isn't called the Quad-Cities for nothing! My mom has never had to drive more than 10 minutes to get anywhere, to get anything, even in what she calls traffic (my cousin from Seattle is the one who rolls her eyes over that one, lol). Hell, I road my bike everywhere when I was a kid, to the library for books, the 5 and 10 for books (yes, there's a theme there...) and even out to the farm where my horse was pastured, because ain't anything far away there! ;)

So I guess I take where I live for granted. I know I have to drive 20 minutes to get my books at the library (to be fair, we do have a great library in town, but the nearby library has a free book delivery program that will get me just about any book I want from libraries all over the state, my local library does not) and yarn from my LYS (my really LYS closed, waaaa). I am still willing to drive 45 minutes to see my GYN in my old town, because he's awesome. Driving, even with these ridiculously high gas prices, just isn't a BFD (gas is still cheaper than supporting my book habit any other way and if I'm there for books, why not go a little farther and pet yarn?!).

On the other hand, I live 2 minutes from work, Target and JoAnn's and at least 10 restaurants, and only 5 minutes from Super Walmart and a mall with even more restaurants, so the rest of the time, I really don't drive far at all!

PS. On the foot of girly sock #2, woo hoo!

Girly Sock #1

Complete! Time to cast on for sock #2. Woot!

Bits of this and that

The kiddo is sick, which is no fun for her. I had to go pick her up from school Tuesday, but Wednesday she seemed fine. Then she developed a wicked cough. So home she stayed yesterday and today she will stay home as well, since she was up and down all night last night. Lucky for me, it was hubby's night off, so he was here and awake to take care of her.

Better news is that her sock a) fits and b) seems to be going well. I am past the gussets and have maybe an inch to go before I start the toe. Woo hoo!

My plan this weekend is to go buy some jump rings or toggle clasps and redo all my stitch markers. I made my own a few years back, but the loops of wire just get squished and frankly they are a bit bulky for sock knitting. So I want to get some small rings and only attach a few beads like this. I looked at buying some, there are some adorable ones out there, but most seem awfully large for sock knitting (Ring-wise. I need small rings, not rings that fit a size 10 needle, lol). And frankly, for the price I pay to buy and ship them, I can make a ton of my own! I already have beads, and the rings and head pins are pretty damned cheap. Although I may have to look at new beads anyway ;)

But ummm, my point is, I really need stitch markers :)~ I tend to ladder if I don't move my stitches around, so my stitches travel from one needle to the next, so I really need markers to let me know especially where the top of the foot is so I can knit in pattern. Plus, it will be nice to be able to stick the correct stitches back on the correct needles before I start decreasing for the toe!

Anyhoo, going to go knit for a bit before I go to work. Ciao!

The kiddo's socks

I am working on the gussets on sock #1. It's going so well I am a little scared, lol. But I have my lifeline, so I think it's all ok for the moment ;) DD loves they way it is striping. Narrow stripes on the cuff, a bit thicker on the heel flap, even thicker as the heel turns and now back to narrow around the foot.

Done and Done!