Urbanpagan Knits

And it begins again...

2009-08-06T19:14:00.004-05:00

Classes start on the 24th this month. I can't believe I'll be a Junior. A year and a half to two years and I'll have my degree. It's almost surreal. I've found myself immersed nearly completely in study, research and reading anything and everything with relation to crime scenes, homicide, the criminal mind, serial killers and the like. Not your average books but hey, truly fascinating stuff! You should see the looks I get when sitting in the break room at work and reading "Why They Kill" by Richard Rhodes. People think I'm reading a vampire novel like everyone else around me. Nothing against vampire novels... I'm just not into that right now.

My social life has struggled a bit. I've just been way too busy... I need to take more time for other things besides school. Well it's not like I haven't done that this summer. I did take the summer off from classes and that was a good thing. I was getting way too sick since I was so busy with classes, work and my internships. It was all too much for the system I guess. LOL! But taking the summer off also made me realize that I -really- need to be in the field! I miss it already and I wasn't even a real investigator yet. Oh well... soon enough.

I've been thinking about where I am going to do my internship in the Spring semester. I should head more toward the Raleigh area since that is my goal to be down that way. Problem is, it's got to be a weekend internship or I won't be able to do that hour drive after work and then and hour drive back!

I've gotten -some- knitting done. One of the gals in one of the labs I was with is pregnant and expecting a little one. So a bear is being knit! Here's proof! :D

I'll probably make a little pink sweater for it too. I think that would be really cute.

Well off I go... studying to start and classes begin in two weeks. I want to have a head start. ;)

I've been a bad blogger

2009-02-10T18:57:00.002-05:00

Yeah... I used to update this thing regularly. Not so much so... been busy. I'd love to post a grand note about all that's been going on but well, I don't have the time! :D Instead here is a letter I sent to all my family and friends along with a picture of Trouble. She says "Hai".

Howdy all,

It's that time again. Where I actually am awake and have a few minutes to check emails and reply even! I know, it's so rare that I get that chance anymore. LOL!

If it's even humanly possible, I've been even busier than before. I really didn't think it was possible. Wow was I wrong! I'm working M-F 8-5 and then on my internship every Monday evening until 11pm (or later), every other Wednesday evening until 11pm (or later) and in class Tuesdays and Thursdays until 11pm. And then once a month, I ride with a Deputy on patrol from 3pm to 1am on a Saturday. I'm so very tired. :P

First off, I got a new job. Yay! I left my old job mainly because of the two gals there that were just awful, awful people to work with. Seriously. Hateful. It was like being back in fucking High School. I got tired of it. So I left. So this past Monday, the 2nd, I started at my new job. The people there are great! It's a rather large company and a rather large series of buildings. But no matter where you go, everyone is smiling, joking and generally happy. I'm happy to be there.

So after my first day at my new job I was also busy with my internship that evening. I am interning at the Sheriff's Office Crime Lab this semester. I got there about 6pm and at about 9pm we got a shooting call. From that point on we (meaning the deputies, the lab techs and I) were at the hospital talking with the victim, documenting his wounds and then on the scene of the shooting documenting the scene, collecting evidence and looking for the spent round. We never found it and that's because the scene had been altered. You could easily tell it had been altered. There was blood everywhere! Literally. You couldn't walk on the floor without walking through pools of blood or on blood spatter. And it was on the walls too (about to my knee height). Yet this one beige cloth recliner had no blood spatter on it at all. Yet there was blood spatter on the wall behind it, next to it and under it. When we asked the home owner when that recliner had been moved there his response was it had always been there. Yeah right. Blood can be amazing, but not amazing enough to make 90 degree turns in mid air, not once, but twice. I was informed after we left the scene that the house we were at was a known drug house. It looked like the man shot was either one the people who attempted to rob the place or someone there buying at the time of the robbery. The deputies were still unsure of that situation when I left them at 1am but by the evidence we collected and witness statements, they were leaning towards the victim having been the set-up man in the robbery and him accidentally being shot in the leg by his accomplice.

The entire time we were there, the door was open, as well as a window that the victim attempted to jump through and it was snowing. And not just spitting snow. It looked like a good North Country snow in February. It was freezing! I think it was about 40 degrees inside the house while we were looking around. And let me tell you, those latex gloves do not afford you any protection from the cold!

It was a hell of a night and I'd be there again right now if I could.

Eric is doing well too. He's at work right now. His last flight lands at midnight so he'll be home about 3am. He's been taking extra hours mainly because I'm not home as much either and well, a little extra cash in savings never hurt anyone! He's still liking the job except for this past Friday. he called me, nearly foaming at the mouth because of the rude passengers he'd had all day. Seriously. Just being assholes. One walked up to him and asked him "Where'd you learn to speak Japanese?" then stomped off the plane. Eric said he was so surprised he didn't even know what the guy was talking about until he realized he must have meant when the Captain was making announcements since the Captain was mumbling so much. But of course, this jackass thought Eric was doing it and well, proceeded to be a jackass to him. I told him he should have replied "fuckyoutoo!" very fast with an Japanese inflection. I loved our friend Maura's reply she said Eric should have said "Where'd you learn to be an asshole?" That got him laughing again pretty fast. I talked to him again yesterday and earlier today. He said the passengers had gotten better (not by much though) and he was happy that he'd be home soon to see me and the kitties.

Speaking of the kitties, they are so stressed. They climb all over me every night when I get home. I usually fall asleep with them purring on the foot of the bed. When Eric gets home they lose their minds! They follow him everywhere like they don't want him out of their sight for too long. I think that's why they sit on the end of the bed with me. I'll wake up at night and hear the purring begin again like "Mommy's awake! Yay! Purr, purr, purr, purr..." As a matter of fact right now Fang is sitting next to me and attempting to get me to lift my elbow so she can rest her head on the keyboard and look at me while I type.

I should get going... I have a paper to work on and well, now that Fang's gotten her head on the edge of the keyboard she's starting to snore and nothing is more distracting than a cat snoring.

I hope all is well with all of you. Love you all!

Lisa (and Eric, Trouble and Fang)

Yes we did. Yes we still are.

2009-01-20T17:01:00.002-05:00

I've been watching the inaugural ceremonies/parade since 10am this morning. I'm sitting here in the CCE building on campus and streaming CNN. I -should- be reading my homework for Criminal Procedures class but I can't seem to pull my eyes off the new First Family.

Yes I'm swept up in all the joy. All the celebration. I'm an American. I carry a copy of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution with me wherever I go. (It's in my backpack. For a long time it was with my knitting...) Many people have said that they are proud to be Americans today. I've always been proud. I've not always agreed with my government and it's decisions and when I disagreed, I let them know. Tis my duty as an American.

It's a freedom others are still dying for. It's one that so many have died for before us. I pass historic monuments everyday on my way to work which mark different Revolutionary and Civil War battles. Their sacrifice, their spirit empowers me everyday. It's so wonderful to see so many empowered right now.

...

Now I better get empowered to do some homework... ;)

Hats, hats, hats, hats...

2008-11-24T22:27:00.009-05:00

Apparently this yarn really likes being hats. I finished one the other day and I am flying through the next one. I just might finish it tonight. :)

It's great yarn too. Really snuggly and comfy.

Oh these will be great! :D

Now I've got to start the socks for Eric.

Finish some little sweater ornaments for everyone at work.

Finish my paper.

Study for finals.

No pressure.

Holy knitting content Batman!

2008-11-08T22:24:00.004-05:00

Yes... I can't believe it either. I actually have a pic of knitting to post. :) And here it is:

Whoo hoo. Hat. :) I took that pic the other day. I'm at the PD now and I've actually gotten a lot more done. I think I may finish this hat by tomorrow. We'll see!

So speaking of being at the PD, as Shannon (one of the techs here) says "If you're not making a mess you're not having fun!" Here's the mess we made not too long ago:

Even with the fume hood on you would not believe how much fingerprint powder I still had on me. :) Good times!

Speaking of good times, I think Trouble really, really likes tiny boxes. I can't even think this box is comfortable but hey, I'm not the one in it... she is:

What? I'm getting comfy...

Ehnnh.

*snore*

Morning Y'all. Where's the coffee?

2008-10-26T17:37:00.011-05:00

(courtesy of Icanhascheezburger.com)

That's exactly how I've felt and looked the past three weeks. Between working 40 hours a week, 10 hours a week in class and 10 hours a week in the lab I've been looking very much like that cat lately. But this is not a bad thing.

On the 11th I was out searching in the trees and underbrush for a good footing and a weapon. Ten officers, the tech I was working with and me were climbing around a vacant lot between two houses dodging bad footing in the form of beer bottles, condoms and who knows what else. The place reeked! But I was having a blast! When we found the weapon and the shirt the suspect had been wearing we made our way back to the lab to log in the evidence.

On the 18th I helped process over 150 baggies, prescription bottles and ziplock bags for fingerprints. It took 10 hours. I think I went through nearly a half box of gloves, my feet were getting sore, my lower back was hurting but it was all worth the two partial prints we got. (One of them -I- found.) Whee! I was so happy you could have pinched me and I wouldn't have noticed. I found out last night those prints while not good enough to identify anyone were able to eliminate suspects so that is always a good sign!

And last night, I had my first body. A pedestrian versus a train. The train won. I had been waiting for this moment. Was what I was training for, spending all my time, money and energy for worth what I was about to get into? What if I couldn't do it after all? When we got to the scene it was pitch black. The only thing that pierced the darkness were the strobes of the police cars, our crime lab vehicle, and the ambulances. Shadows were flying everywhere. I waited on the side of the tracks because the techs wanted to be sure it was not a homicide. If it was, I wouldn't be allowed on the scene until they were done processing all the evidence (for legal reasons). But it wasn't. It was just a tragic accident. I was waved into the scene and led down the trail from point of impact, past evidence (his hat, one of his shoes, some blood spatter) and toward the body. I was ready. I swallowed and looked at him. And I was fine. Perfectly fine. I thought "Yup, I've made the right choice". Later in the morgue that thought was reinforced. As I examined his wounds closely I thought "I wish I could do more right now. I wish I had the camera in my hands. I wish I was rolling his prints". Yup. Good idea.

Now... where's the coffee?

I'm in love.

2008-09-28T12:11:00.015-05:00

And I'm so very sleepy. But this is not a bad thing.

Since early August every Friday evening I stay up until at least 1am (my goal is always 2am) so that I can stay up with no effort until at least 2am on the following Saturday. Why? I'm an intern in a crime lab and my shift is 3pm to 1am.

I've seen the horrible things done by and to human beings. Animal abuse, sexual assault, domestic assault, child neglect, arson, homicide and more. They are not pretty pictures and I look at every detail in those photos so that I know what to look for when I'm the one taking those pictures. I saw a pitbull mix, so emaciated you could see the gaps between her ribs, wag her tail at the officer, the crime lab tech and me as we fed her a few Snausages the officer had in his vehicle. I found out an hour later that she will be put down this week but I'm happy I was able to see her so that at least the last few humans she met were kind to her. I was happy to see her because that one kiss she gave my hand reminded me that even the smallest victims need my voice and love for my job.

I've seen cops being spit on, urinated on, sworn at and generally abused. I've seen crime scene technicians verbally abused while running breathalyzer tests. I've seen them lied to by witnesses to a double shooting in broad daylight.

One day I will be one of them and I just can't wait.

I have never loved a job before. I don't even have this job and I love it already. If I could quit my paying job and intern at the PD full time (without pay) I would. Without hesitation.

Why else am I in love? I go to school 40 miles from home, three nights a week. Every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday I can't wait to get out of work, drive 45 minutes and then go to class.

And one more reason I'm in love? Eric is still sticking with me through all my homework, crazy sleep schedules and crazy stories I bring home. He still smiles when he sees me. He still laughs when I growl at him from under the pillow because I've only had 4 hours sleep. On October 10th Eric and I will celebrate our 10th wedding anniversary.

I don't know what to do for him. There's nothing I can do or say that will tell him/show him how much I love him. At least nothing I can think of. I promised to knit him a scarf two years ago. I still haven't. I started one but it just wasn't right. I have to find the right pattern for him. I have to find the right yarn for him. And I think I have to realize that it may take me a good while longer before I do. :)

Fang shows her love easily... by laying on his hat.

Trouble does it by laying on a dirty shirt of his.

Maybe something will come to me soon...

Speaking of things coming to me, when I woke up this morning and saw this:

and then this:

Apparently this yarn has finally decided it needs to be hats. A long time ago I received this yarn from someone (I still don't know who, LOL!) and after beating me soundly in every game I played with it, it quietly retired to my stash to ponder itself and its purpose in life.

So hats... now where are my needles?

Yes I am indeed still alive.

2008-05-30T11:36:00.003-05:00

If only just barely. It seems that working full time and taking four classes at the same time might have been a bit too much.

I'm still catching up on all my sleep.

In the end I did worse than I had hoped but truly better than I feared. A-, B+, C+ and a C. Oh well. Right now I only have one class. Forensic Chemistry. This summer is gonna be so easy! Well not the class... but the ability to focus on only one class... sweet.

Most of my days were spent studying. Or attempting to sleep. That was pretty much it. Here's a shot of me studying with a little 'help':

I know she thinks she's helping but she's really not. :P

Now are you sitting down? I did manage to get some knitting done in there during that insane time of no sleep and lots of coffee. And I managed to finish I Do. I know, I can't beleive it either!

For the record these pictures were taken at 1am... that's why I look so torn up. :P

It's finally done and I'd never knit it again! The beads were a good addition. They look lovely. But the bells of the sleeves don't match. One is wider than the other. To hell with it, I'm going to wear it anyway! I earned it. No one should ever be allowed to design a pattern and plan a wedding at the same time. Good gawd it was a hard pattern to follow!

So much else has been going on as well... but I don't nearly have the time to update everyone it. I promise to do it this weekend.

See you all soon!

More cryptic fortune cookies

2008-01-18T20:02:00.000-05:00

As the years go on, I feel like I've begun to understand the world better. But lately fortune cookies have been confusing the hell out of me.

Once again, Eric and I were feeling lazy and so we ordered some take out. This is the fortune he got:

Another one of those "Here we go" fortunes. What the hell? Whole wheat green tea?! Does he need more fiber in his diet? Less fat? *scratches head*

But that one doesn't beat mine:

k...

...

Alrighty then.

...

Add the "in bed" and it looks like I got the "you need more masturbation" fortune! What. The. HELL?!

I've never had food mention masturbation before. I mean I may have had a near chocolate orgasm cuz Ghiradelli chocolate is frigging fantastic! But never anything like this.

I didn't realize Mandarin chicken was so amazing.

In cross stitch land, I finished a quick one the other day before my classes started again. Here it is:

I mean really... who doesn't like the club? :P

I've not gotten any knitting done this week. My first week back to classes and I already had a paper due by this morning (which I finished yesterday) and a lab due by Tuesday. Four classes... and I love them all!

Look here missy...!

2008-01-08T10:36:00.001-05:00

My cousin has been taunting me through email, my blog and text messaging.

Looking for Shaded Tunic pics and FINISHED I DO!!?!?!?!?!?!?

Love you too... *thppt!!*

Well dammit... I've been busy! It takes an amazing amount of energy to lay around and not do a damn thing you know! *snicker* But since you -have- to see it... yes, yes I have worked on the I Do a bit since I left your house. I opened up my pattern book. Stared at the pattern for about 10 minutes. Then cast on the Shaded Tunic.

See?

I -worked- on maybe starting to finish it.

Maybe.

But for everyone else, here's the progress so far:

It's so close to done I can almost feel it. Almost. That pattern is just so insane... Seriously. Next time I read something along the lines of 'I designed this pattern while planning my wedding...' I don't care how nice it looks. I'm passing! That should be a law. You are NOT allowed to design a lace knitting pattern AND plan a wedding at the same time. One of those two projects is difficult enough... But back to I DO... I have to finish it as some point just to be able to get a t-shirt that says "I finished I DO and no one got hurt. Mostly."

So like I said, I cast on the Shaded Tunic from Creative Knitting. Here's my progress so far:

The pattern calls for size 11 needles. I got gauge with a set of size 13's! It's cranking right along though so I've pretty happy with it. I'm knitting it out of all this Noro that people have sent me over the years. It's going to be all sorts of funky colored because I have a bunch of different balls of all sorts of colorways. I think it will be groovy.

Well... I should go so that I can keep working on I DO.... *thppt!* at you Ragan! *laugh*

I have a bunch of cross stitch patterns to plot out as well so I should get working on them too. I will post their progress soon too.

Happy Yule, Happy New Year and Happy Socks!

2008-01-02T14:00:00.000-05:00

I should have posted this some time ago but you know how it is near this time of year... you get really lazy and ass-dragging. :D

Eric and I had a great Yule. We got all sorts of goodies:

The kitties got some new mousies which they promptly started to attack:

We both got some AirHogs choppers:

The cats have a love/hate relationship with them now. The cats stalk the choppers as we fly them around but if the choppers get too close, the cats scamper off. It's insanely cute!

We both had a pretty good haul this year. ;) Eric got a new toaster oven (he's been wanting one for quite some time) a muffin cook book, some serving ware, and some DVD's. Here he is sucking on some premo chocolate I got him while perusing the new cook book.

I did very well as well. I got yarn! And some Knit Picks sock needles. *swoon* Some DVD's I've been wanting forever and a few knitting magazines. :D

I got us both some of those balsa planes for stocking stuffers. Eric promptly crashed his into the tree. It's been there ever since. :P

For the New Year, we stayed home, had some nice dinner, a drink or two and watched our DVD's. It was great.

Oh I nearly forgot, between Yule and the New Year, we went to visit our cousin. While there, I finished my entrelac socks.

In response to comments:

Molly said: Dear Lisa P, with this post you have dragged me over the line from interested onlookerdom to definite fandom. Your lead in to the gingerbread nativity cracked me up. And I always enjoy your cross stitch. Congrats on your grades.

Aw shucks. Thanks! I think I'm blushing. Oh wait no, that's the wine. *hic*

Ragan said: I think that the small frames would make it nice...maybe a selling point...cross-stitch in frame?also...somehow have to sneak your name in there so that buyer will have it permanently and can show friends.

Hmmm... I'll have to think about that. I'd have to make a logo of sorts for myself huh? *ponders*

Abbey said: oooh! what is your Etsy store name?

Theurbanpagan. What else would it be? *thppt!* *snicker* But I don't have anything in there yet. Soon though... soon...

Glittrgirl said: BOOBIES!

WOOT!

What in the hell...?

2007-12-18T18:31:00.000-05:00

We got some Chinese food the other day. For some reason we were given three fortune cookies for the two of us. This was in the third one:

*blink*

I had to read it twice to make sure it actually said what it said.

*blink*

And if you add the normal "in bed" to the end of it... well that just makes it -more- confusing. I can't even imagine what the hell that is supposed to say. The only thing I can figure is that I might need to go to the store and get some more duck sauce.

Speaking of hell... more like going to it anyway, I have a question for all of you. First off, how do you eat your animal crackers? I ask because I've noticed a lot of people have a very particular way of eating animal crackers and with many reasons behind it. I bite their heads off because I am merciful and don't want them to feel any pain. Eric bites their legs off so they can't run away. Another friend of ours bites them on the butt because that is the way predators usually take down prey in the wild. (Think of a lion taking down a gazelle.) So with that in mind... take a look at this:

It's a gingerbread nativity scene. We sell the hell out of these at Michael's. I kept looking at getting one of these. Why? Because knowing the way I eat animal crackers, I -know- I'd end up biting the head off of Baby Jesus.

...

...

Is that wrong?

*Insert innocent look here.*

...

...

*I think I can feel my little devil horns growing in now*

...

...

*insert wild, witchy cackle here*

Speaking of Jeebus, I finished that cross stitch and started on another. See:

I'll probably finish the Boobies! cross stitch tonight. I'm going to start on some others designs I have. I'm going to have so much stuff to add to my store once I can get frames for them. :) I was contemplating selling them without frames but I just think it would be better with frames. Don't you think so?

On the college grades front... I got my grades. I got an "A" in both classes. Hells yeah! I got a 4.0! Now let's see if I can keep that up with four classes next semester...

Fall 2007 semester... DONE!

2007-12-15T10:41:00.000-05:00

I can't believe it's over. I took my last final on the 13th. I wasn't feeling 100% on it but I know I passed. I'm hoping though that I keep my "A" average for the class. I have no idea what I got on my presentation so I have no idea if I've even still got an "A" for that class. I know I've held that "B+" in the other class as well. I would have really had to screw up on my final paper to lose that grade and I don't think I did. My peer reviews were very positive. I'm keeping my fingers crossed though... Oh well, I know I passed both classes easily enough. Now it's time to start preparing for the Spring 2008 semester.

I know a lot of people say it, but this year went by fast! I mean really fast. At least for me it did. So much has happened it's actually quite surprising.

1. I was dismissed from my job at UNC in late October. I've never been happier either. That place was becoming toxic for me.
2. I started college again and have completed one full semester. I'm still proud of myself for finally getting the courage and going back.
3. I got a job at Michael's Arts and Crafts about two weeks after I was dismissed. Yeah it's crap for pay but I've been having fun playing with the yarn, beads and the like. Plus that 25% discount never hurt anyone! :D

Before I left UNC, I had a bunch of interviews. I actually had 2 more this week. I've had 38 interviews since July. It's getting kind of tiring but I know it's a numbers game. Someone will hire me for a full time job soon enough... I just have to be patient. In the interim though, I started an Etsy store! Yeah, I have nothing for sale in it yet, but I'm working on it. As a matter of fact, here's my first project:

Jeebus! *giggle* It just came to me so I had to do it. :D

I've gotten very little knitting done in the last month but I did finally finish that one entrelac sock I was working on. Here it is:

It fits perfectly. I'm very happy. I frogged the other one. Yes... it hurt to do so but it had to be done. :P I'm going to cast on probably today or tomorrow for the other sock.

So what Yule knitting have I been doing? Not one damn inch of it. I was so busy with studying that I really never picked up my needles much at all these past few weeks and when I did, it was only for a few minutes at a time. Everyone is getting cards this year anyway. Our refrigerator decided to die last week so we had to go buy a new one. That pretty much killed our shopping budget. That's okay though. I may just attach pics of the fridge to all the cards I send out so everyone knows why they're not getting anything this year. :P Behold! Our new fridge:

We've had it three days and already, started covering it with pictures again. :P

This Yule will be a good one still though. Things have been good. Eric and I both have the entire last week of December off so we'll be going to visit my cousin during that time. We both can't wait to go see her. :) We put the tree up as well and this week we got a box of presents from my mother in law. :D I can't wait to see what she got us! We also got a sailboat ornament this year. Eric learned to sail and it was such a memorable vacation for us both, we thought a sailboat would be a good addition to the tree. You can see its sail on the front of the tree:

And of course, the light shot:

I love buying a new ornament every year. When we put up the tree and start putting the past years ornaments on, it always brings back memories. Especially our penguin with a cello. It was our first ornament and it was a gift from a friend of ours named Allen. Allen had full blown AIDS in 1994. He'd had full blown AIDS for 8 years by then. We lost contact with him in 1997 when our store closed and then when Eric enlisted in 1998. Every time we put that ornament up, we both smile. We're both sure he's passed away by now since he had stopped taking his medication all those years ago, but no matter what he was going through, he was always such an upbeat guy. I'd bet anything he's telling dirty stories and playing card games with the God and the Goddess right now or he's returned as a cat and is lounging on someones couch. He always wanted to be a cat and I think his next life as a cat would be a deserving one.

There's the bell that my mother in law gave us. It's an antique and one that was given to her by her mother. If and when we ever have children/adopt children that bell -will- be passed down through the family. It is very small, fragile and it's one of the first that always goes on the tree. For me I knew it was the true sign that I was truly part of the family. It's sappy I know but I know how important those bells are to her (it's one of a set), and for her to give one to us... well it made me cry. :) It's always the bell and the penguin with the cello that go up first. Funny huh? We just always seem to go that route when putting up the tree. Both of those ornaments have such meaning for us both that one of us always grabs one or the other first. *laugh*

All of them mean so much to us both. We have 14 years of ornaments on the tree. We missed one year though or we'd have 15 years up there. It was 2001. It was a rough year for many reasons not just because of 9/11. But neither of us regret not having one for that year though. We had looked at many ornaments but nothing struck us as wanting to join our family of ornaments so nothing did. Personally, I don't mind it so much.

Of course the cats love this time of year too. Within minutes of us putting the tree up, they were both laying on the tree-skirt. Rotten kitties. Fang was enjoying the tree's box too:

Well it's time for me to head off to work. I hope everyone is having a good holiday season so far. And I hope that those of you that are knitting... get your knitting done on time... or at least post the story of how on the eve of gift giving you were sitting up, knitting furiously trying to finish the project. *laugh*

Tilted Duster done!

2007-10-25T20:00:00.000-05:00

Yup, I finished it last night. I couldn't be any happier with it if I tried. Here it is:

It was such a fast knit and so easy too. I decided to steam block it once it was seamed up and I'm very happy with how it sits now. I had knit the pattern out of order because I had originally wanted to knit it with a longer skirt but actually I think it's good where it is. I finished it this past weekend at my cousin's house. She gave me the idea to use some buttons of our grandmother's. Actually she was Eric and my cousin's grandmother but I couldn't help but think of her as my grandmother as well. The first day I met her, I knew I was family. I was called "ShitPot", hit on the head with wooden spoons, fed ceaselessly and yelled at for not visiting more often than the two times a week I visited... just like all of her blood grandchildren were. *laugh* I love her and I can tell you my only regret is that I didn't have the opportunity to know her more than the 12 years I did. But I still feel great love for her and am very pleased to use four of her buttons on my duster. She would smiled. Then probably fed me something. So I'll proudly strut in my duster with those buttons. :)

While I was visiting my cousin, I also worked on my I Do shrug.

...!

...!

I know I can't believe it either! I'm telling you, she is my project mojo. I'm nearly done with it and I just can't believe I was able to figure out where I was in the pattern. I have about 9 more repeats to finish and then it's seaming and then wearing.

...

...

I think I can get that far. Heck it's only been like a year or so since I've touched it. :P

Wish me luck!

sniff Sock disaster

2007-10-07T17:38:00.000-05:00

Okay, I had a long hard pout over this. I finished my one Entrelac sock... and it won't slide easily over my heel. Once it's on and with some fighting it gets on, it fits fine.

I think I'm going to cry.

So once I was done pouting, I started the cast on again with a new one. I've decided I'm not going to frog the other one yet. I need it as a reminder of my stupidity. Where did I go wrong? Well see, in my infinite wisdom, I decided to change the number of stitches I cast on and to do a different toe-up cast on than the one recommended in the pattern.

Yeah.

*pout*

I guess I kind of deserved that. So, for all those of you interested in these socks that like me, have a thing for altering patterns.... don't. You'll cry. On the good side, I learned the Middle East cast on! :) At first I thought the designer was on crack but now I see, it's a great cast on! A bit clumsy to work with at first but it looks great.

The Tilted Duster is coming along nicely too. And no, I didn't alter that pattern at all. I'm done with the first of 11 repeats of 8 rows for the skirt. Oh it's a lot of K2, P2 with the occasional M1 thrown in here and there and I don't do any of that very fast so it's slowed down a bit but it's looking fabulous!

On the college front, I just aced my second test in my Computers class. *struts* I'm feeling so good about these classes and not just because of the grades. I'm just feeling so much better about all sorts of things when I'm there and/or on my way there. I can't explain it. It's like I said though to one of my professors "Of course I'm glad to see you! Every day that I see you is one more day closer to my degree." He smiled. I did too because I realized it is true. Midterms start this week and I can't believe it's already upon us. Next month I'll be registering for my Spring Semester classes and that's where the fun will begin! I'm going to try to get into Intro to Forensics, Cell Biology, General Botany and/or Intro to Criminalistics. Oh I can't wait!

Have you seen this travesty?!

2007-10-03T11:01:00.001-05:00

Alrighty folks... I've always been a political person but I've never really brought that to my blog but this time, I kind of have to. Actually, I really have to. I know this may make some of you not want to read my blog anymore and you completely have the right to do so and I'd be sad to see you go. But I have to do this and I hope you will read on.

For everyone in the US who can do something about it; have you seen this bullshit?

I know a lot of people have issues with immigration but I think a lot of people forget... this country is what it is because of immigration. Legal or not. A lot of people forget about all the folks fleeing the potato famine. Fleeing the wars overseas back near the turn of the century. Hell, my own grandfather came here in 1917 (not so legally I might add) and worked in a munitions factory making shells during the war.

Do you realize how awful this is? The man's child (who is a US citizen! Legally thank you very much!) could be sent to a place where his wife fled as a little girl for her very life! Our nation has sent this man over to the Middle East THREE TIMES and here our country is saying thank you to her for giving up having a husband at home by telling her to take her ass, her kid and get the fuck out. That's some messed up shit folks! Look at this woman who's husband DIED on their honeymoon, trying to save two children from drowning. Now that he's dead, she's probably going to be forced to leave the country. That's fucked up folks!

Now I know some of you might say that they should have applied for citizenship a long time ago. I agree... but... BUUUUUUT the first woman listed missed it on a technicality and the second woman was in the process of doing so. What the hell? Both were technically here legally already but now, that is in jeopardy. I know some people don't realize just how long or how much it takes to become a citizen. It can take years in some cases. Like upward of 5, ten or even 20 years depending upon the money you have.

So I ask you all. Have we all forgotten what Lady Liberty says?

"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

Apparently we have.

So what can we do my fellow Americans? Write your representatives! This is what I have always said about anything. Write them. You may not have voted for them but you know what? They have the job and that means, make them work for you! Remind them that the power lies with the people. A lot of them have forgotten that...

This is what I sent out today:

Dear Honorable Congressman Coble, Senator Dole, and Senator Burr,

A travesty is occurring in our nation. Soldiers are fighting, being wounded and dying over seas and all the while, they are faced with the prospect of their spouses/families being deported.

We have an issue here, Sirs and Madam, that needs immediate action! Our soldiers are fighting for our rights and our nation and yet our nation is disgracing them by committing such an act of callousness.

I say that we should allow amnesty for all active duty and reserve soldiers whose spouses/family members are not US citizens so that they are allowed to stay here on US soil while their loved ones are deployed. This will also allow them to legally apply for citizenship. It's bad enough these people who we owe so much have to serve away from their families for so long but then to add the thought of their families being forced out of our nation to places where their very lives could also be at stake is horrific!

Senators, Congressman, call for a Bill to make this action possible. We all owe our soldiers (veterans, active and reserve) so much already. This is something simple that can be done to make their lives easier as they bleed for us.

As the wife of a Disabled US Air Force Veteran, the granddaughter of a KIA US Army soldier and the sister of a retired US Army Solider, I plead with you... please do what is in your power to help our soldiers. They suffer for us all enough as it is. Take this bit of suffering off their hearts and minds.

Thank you.

Mrs. Lisa P

Now you may not agree with me and you are well within your right to do so. But if you do agree... please help do something about it. That's all I ask.

*hugs*

All things urbanpagany... and them some...

2007-09-30T21:24:00.000-05:00

It's been a busy time (as usual) here at chez urbanpagan. Eric has been flying all over so he's been gone a lot buuuuuut he has been home on weekends so it's been nice. :)

Classes are going alright. I got my first official paper back on Thursday. I got a B-. Now I know I should be happy but you know, I really thought I had a kick ass paper there. *shrug* Oh well, the nice thing is I can revise it and resubmit it. I'm going to get right on that. I had a voluntary test this past Saturday. It was the Quantitative Literacy Exam. (Big words for math test.) If you can score a 70 or better then you don't have to take a required math course. A free test? Pass it and not have to pay tuition on 4 credit hours? Hellz yes I'll take it! I should know what I got by Tuesday at the latest. I had problems with only one question. The worst part is I -knew- it! I -KNEW- it but I just couldn't seem to get the formula to work out. I showed Eric when he got home and within about 2 seconds, he showed me my mistake. :P He's always been a huge wiz at math.

On the knitting front, I've been rocking! I can knit in one of my classes so I've been working on my entrelac socks while I'm there. I'm kicking right along with them too but man, they are time consuming! But I'm going to love them when they are done. :D

Here is the first sock so far:

I think I'm going to make them only a bit taller and then bind off. The pattern calls for them to be knee length but I'm not really a knee length sock kinda gal. ;)

The Tilted Duster is coming along really well too! Here's the progress so far:

I'm at row 5 of about a zillion for the skirt. :P But it's a very easy knit and I'm sure I'll finish it up fast. The only reason I didn't do any more this week was because of homework assignments.

Through all the hub-bub and hectic life here at chez urbanpagan, the cats took it in stride, laying under the window as usual. I think I woke Fang up for this photo:

My crazy kitties.

On the "Lookie what I saw!" front, lookie!:

It's the third annual Hats with Heart contest at UNC Chapel Hill. No I was not able to put a hat in this year... (see above for reason why). :P But check it out... someone did the Sock Monkey Hat from Knitty!:

I'm now on a mission to see if I can find out who did that hat. I could have another knittyhead in my midst and not even know it!

Dude! Entrelac is awesome!

2007-09-12T12:09:00.000-05:00

So a long time ago I mentioned that I was in love with the Entrelac socks from Interweave Knits. You can find them here. They are the first ones pictured. And yet, I waited. I thought, maybe some day... Then my cousin gave me some Knit Pick Essentials yarn that I thought I would use some time and while going through my stash the other day, I found some Knit Picks Socks Memories yarn I had forgotten I had. Voila! Yarn that would go perfectly well together and they weren't on the needles?! For shame!

So I started them and here they are so far:

I love them! I'm not going to make them as tall as I don't have enough yarn to do so, but I'll make them normal height I think. :D And they are very easy to make too. I don't know why I was so daunted by emtrelac. It's easy! Just very, very time consuming!

While I was at my cousin's house over Labor Day weekend, I started a cardigan too. I started the Tilted Duster from Interweave Knitting. You can find it here. It's the one in the third row down, center. I fell in love when I saw it! And lo... I had 18 balls of gray Knit Picks Wool of the Andes lying around. :D

Here's how far I've gotten:

I'm flying through it! I decided to do it out of order of the pattern, knitting the collar piece before the skirt piece because I want to knit the skirt part of the cardigan until I run out of yarn. I think it's going to be lovely!

I also joined Ravelry. Thanks Marlene for the invite! *waves!* I only just started on adding projects and pictures. I'll have to look through and get a list of my stash to add it all. Whooo... that's gonna be a chore! If you want to have a look-see, my handle is urbanpagan (oh so original right?) and you can see me here.

On the college front, I got my first paper back last week with an "excellent job!" written at the top and last night I had my first exam. I aced it! 50 out of 50! I was nearly floating on clouds...

Well time to head off... as usual, I'm a bad girl, blogging at work and well... it's very nearly time for my lunch so it's time for me to go! ;)

Sockapalooza 4 socks... DONE!

2007-08-27T15:29:00.000-05:00

Hurray! I finished them while I was visiting my cousin Ragan this past weekend. We've pretty much both decided we are the other's knitting mojo. :)

So, not to hold you in suspense any longer...

...

...

...

...

...

(Ain't I a stinker?)

...

...

Here they are!

Boy I hope my sockpal likes them. *wrings hands* I have to get some goodies to go into her box and then I'll be sending them off tomorrow. :)

Once again, it was a great sock exchange all around. I had a wonderful woman to knit for and the woman who knit for me was just fantastic!

Classes have been going well as well. I've already decided what my research paper for my Intro to Computers class is going to be on. Computer Forensics. I know almost nothing about it and it has something do with computers. That was his stipulation. It had to be something about computers. I decided to just go with something I didn't know so that I could learn something. :)

But back to knitting. While I was at Ragan's house, I started another pair of socks. I decided to go with some funky, chunky stripes. I finished one in one day. Check it out:

I might do some other designs over the stitches. I haven't really decided yet.

To all those that sent birthday wishes... thank you so much! It really made my day. Trouble was pleased too:

She's thinking... "It's your birthday? Well then, you can rub my belly. Right there."

booty shakes Go Urbanpagan! It's your birthday!

2007-08-21T10:16:00.000-05:00

Yup. I'm 33 today. And I feel fantastic! My first classes as a college student (again) start this evening, and I got my sockapalooza 4 socks too! Check it out:

She sent me the most amazing box of goodies! And just for the record, the socks fit perfectly. I'm wearing them at work right now. ;) She sent me some yummy looking jam that her kids made:

I can't wait to have some of that! :) She sent me some yummy dark chocolates that Eric promptly broke into. *shakes fist!* But he only had the one. She also sent me the most lovely hand made pen and bottle stopper. Just gorgeous! A nice tape measure that looks like a little crocheted cake. Too cute! Some tea, some bath salts, and some honey cream. Oh... good stuff!

And check out the detail on these socks. And the colors... I just love them!

Thanks sock pal. You are AWESOME!

As for my socks... well, I'm nearly done. :P (I'm such a bad sock pal this time around.) I normally would have had them done by now... but I started late and well... you know how these things go. You ever knit for anyone at the last minute? Yeah. Thought so. :P

But I'm much happier with this fix than before. The bird is supposed to be the bearer of good news. :) Hopefully that means she'll have her socks soon. *laughs!*

Well back to work I go. I think I'm going to go treat myself today. Yeah. I need a cupcake.

More sock progress... now only if I had my camera...

2007-08-10T15:27:00.000-05:00

Well I finished the one sock. And here it is:

But then I tried it on. Nope. Too tight. So I ripped out the mountains on the top there and reknit the whole thing with a bird instead since birds are supposed to be bearers of good news. Now it's great! I wish you could see it but... my silly ass left my knitting at home today. Oh yeah, I have the camera. Just no knitting! Do you realize that's twice this week I've left the house with no needle craft?! It must be this heat!

That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

So, Eric and I have been roped into reading the Harry Potter books. Yeah. Can you believe it? The urbanpagan hadn't read books about wizards and witches?! :P And I can tell you... they are really good books! Eric just finished the fourth one and I'm in the middle of the third one as we speak.

My first day of classes start on my birthday... August 21st. I'm panicked! I'll be 33. I'll be a college student. I'll actually be on my way to my dream. It's pretty freaky to realize that you know. Seriously. I've been reading my old Biology books to catch up/refresh myself and well every now and then I look up and think "wow... I'm really gonna do it!"

In response to comments:

Marlene said: Never had coffee. Huh. Wow. I got started loving coffee with coffee ice cream. Don't go with an espresso right off. They're kinda...strong. Definitely go with a latte until you get the hang of it.Also, if you e-mail me, I'll send you some good coffee. Really good coffee. Sell your soul to the devil coffee. Seriously.

I can't do coffee ice cream. *shakes head* Just can't. But I will most certainly take you up on the offer of free coffee! :)

Helen said: try lattes. espresso with steamed milk, so the coffee is almost (but not quite) an afterthough.

Thanks for that tip! I'll give it a shot.

Stephanie said: If it's tastes burned, it usually is - either in roasting or brewing. If the local or 'bucks style cofree houses come off a bit strong, try Dunkin Donuts instead of a fancy brand. You might be pleasantly surprised. I read a WSJ article re: starbucks v. dunkin'. It was pretty unanimous that people liked one and not the other.

Ah, I wish I could hit a Dunkin Donuts but we're in Krispy Kreme territory and well... they are rather particular about who they let in. I think the nearest DD is in Raleigh! But I will try it next time I am near one. Thanks for the tip! :)

Abbey said: Oh, I meant to say - if you want to try a REALLY good coffee drink, I'll take you to Cafe Driade sometime.

Hells yeah woman! Call me sometime. We'll go. :)

Ragan said: Holy crap batman!!!!!!!!!!! Wow. I am in shock!

Me too.

Ragan also said: Now I can offer you coffee when you come over?????Down side of coffee....peeing lots. Hahahahahahahahahaahaha.:-P

Yeah I did notice that. I ended up having two that day! Can you believe it?! And yes, I was peeing all night after that. :P

I can't believe it's come to this...

2007-07-27T11:50:00.000-05:00

Yes boys and girls...

I had a coffee today. And here it is:

I've never had coffee. Ever. I was exhausted this morning after having not slept very well this week.

A Mt. Dew just wasn't right. A Coke either. They don't sell Jolt on campus and well, I wasn't in the mood for a Red Bull either. So I walked up to the counter and said "As weird as it sounds I have never had coffee. I need something but I don't want anything insanely bitter. Any recommendations?"

The guy behind the counter (what do they call them, barristas?) said "How about an espresso mocha with whipped cream?"

Me: "Fire it up."

It tasted 'burny'.

I was told that's normal and that through time, I would grow to like it. It actually wasn't that bad. :)

I feel all grown up now!

Look! A doggie!

2007-07-25T14:25:00.000-05:00

My adventure into intarsia in the round is going pretty well! See:

I'm so proud of myself. It's bunched up a bit, but I think I can live with it. I'm hoping my pal can too. :)

Now it's time to turn the heel.

Sockapalooza 4, sock progress

2007-07-19T14:29:00.000-05:00

I'm in Sockapalooza 4 this year. This will be the fourth sock exchange and well, it's pretty neat! I started late. Very late. Like, Sunday. Socks are due by the early August.

...

I've already emailed my pal to let her know her socks are gonna be late!

Funds were tight this year so I couldn't get the yarn I -really- wanted to get for these socks. As a matter of fact, I picked some yarn I found totally at random. :) And of course, I'm going nuts with the colors and the pattern. Yup, I'm still doing intarsia in the round and yup, I'm free forming the pattern.

Stand back.

Trained professional.

Here's my progress so far:

I'm very pleased with it. Of course, I'm hoping my pal will be too. I bought a copy of Andean Folk Knits and that's where I am getting the patterns from. Each pattern has a meaning. The waves express our movement through life. The other pattern I have just started is a dog. I've always thought about adding a llama near the cuff. We'll see!

Thankfully, her foot size is very close to mine and so far the socks fit me pretty well so I think they should fit her as well. *crosses fingers*

On other things, Eric made an interesting discovery the other day. He was inspired to do some work around inside and outside of the house. While cleaning the deck on the side of the house he noticed this:

Yeah, that's our now defunct grill. It rusted through last summer so we just haven't fixed/replaced it yet. So of course you're wondering as I did... what the heck is that?! Well it's this:

A nest. Complete with tiny, discarded feathers. Talk about a good place to raise your little ones! Those were some of the most protected eggs! We were both so happy it was there, we left it. It looks like it's abandoned for now, but whomever built that nest is welcome back to use it again until we get rid of the grill... which most likely won't be for a while. :)

Yeah, we're sappy, sappy people. We used to have a squirrel soap opera...

He started it by taking note of it and giving me updates.

Yeah. Saps.

Now onto something else that caught our eyes, take a peak at this. Without looking at what it actually is, what is your first thought?

If it's feminine hygiene products, you had the same thought Eric and I did. Actually, he pointed it out to me! Seriously. Look at it again. It looks like the same folks that made this box make boxes for tampons and pads doesn't it? :P

Well , back to work I go.

Time to play catch-up

2007-07-10T11:28:00.000-05:00

Oh it's been a while since I've posted. I've been busy, busy, busy! Also, Eric and I were on vacation for a while so that kept me away from a computer as well.

So, where to start? Well before I went on vacation I went to a Durham Bulls baseball game. While there, I finished my socks!

And then started a new pair:

All the while, doging foul balls and yelling at the batter. "Hey batta, batta, batta!"

Then it was off to Plattsburgh. I had a change over in DC. While there, I was able to take this shot:

The Washington Monument. That's the closest I've ever been to it. I was in DC for about an hour and a half. Not nearly enough time to swing by the White House and tell W he's "number one". ...But I did think about it anyway. :P When the plane took off again for Burlington, I flew -right- over the Pentagon. It was amazing. Just amazing. I wish I could have taken a picture of it.

Once I got to Plattsburgh, it was cold! COLD! 56 degrees my ass! When I took off that morning in Raleigh, it was 83 and that was at 7am. Yeah, I forgot how cold it still is even in summer up there. I officially have Southern blood now. :P Eric's father had rented a cabin pretty much right on Lake Champlain:

And no for the record, I did not see Champ... but then I wasn't looking either. *giggle*

The water was not nearly warm enough for swimming (at least not for Eric and I!) but Eric did take me sailing and did a lot of sailing himself. See:

Having never sailed before in his life, he's pretty good at it now! :D

But that doesn't mean he didn't capsize it. *laugh* Cuz he did. I even have the scars to proove it. It was the second time he went sailing, so the time after he had taken me. He decided that he'd go out pretty far and try to work on making his tacks. I decided to lay down and get some sun on the dock. Every few minutes I would raise my head, see the sail and keep sunning. The fifth time I raised my head I thought "Where's the sail?" That's when I spotted the keel sticking straight up. I thought, if I didn't see him in 10 seconds I was in that water no matter how cold it was! But thankfully, I saw him come bobbing back up out of the water, waving at me. (Yes, he had a life vest on.) So I comandeered a row boat and rowed out to him. It was pretty far out, but I got to him pretty quickly. The sail was still completely extended and completely upside-down. In the current. Yeah, that sucked. Eric's father had the motor boat because he was fishing so Eric climbed in the row boat and we tried to fight the capsized sail boat back to shore. (That current was strong!) Once we were nearly back, his father returned, and giggling like a madman, pulled us mostly back to shore. As we got close to shore Eric's father yells out "Watch out for that man's plane!" This plane:

So of course, without any warning, Eric dives (yes, dives!) off the rowboat into the water after the sailboat. He nearly capsized me and the rowboat in doing this. *shakes fist* I flung myself backwards toward the center of the boat to balance it out and in the process, caught my fingers under one of the seats. Here's the result:

It was bleeding like crazy and looked a lot worse than it was. But I still teased him mercilessly about it. I told him if I couldn't knit on my vacation he was done for! *laugh* After that, he and his father went sailing and then Eric went sailing again just about every day, at least twice a day. Now he's looking for a boat for us!

While we were there Eirc's father, Dennis, went fishing a few times and had a pretty good haul too! He took me on one occassion and got a few bass and perch. Eric cooked them up for us. They were so tasty! The best fishing Dennis did though was the first night I was there. He caught a 17 inch Bass. This is him in the 'Mighty Fisherman' pose: *laugh!*

When we got back in town, I had a wonderful letter waiting for me... I've been accepted to Guilford College! Yup, I'm going for Forensic Biology and classes start on August 20th. Phew! I was so worried about that for the longest time. Now I just need to figure out how to pay for it all. I have a meeting tomorrow with my counselor and the financial aid counselor so I'll see what they both say.

I was also hoping to tell you I got a new job (because I had an interview this past week) but they decided to pick someone else. Oh well. It's all good though. I can stay where I am and I'm still looking for something different. Hell, you never know. I may get an offer on a different job tomorrow!

Hello from Plattsburgh!

2007-06-27T14:25:00.000-05:00

Right now, I'm in Plattsburgh, New York, visiting relatives, tanning, and generally having a good time. I've gotten knitting done by the fire, roasted smores and more.

But my internet accesss is VERY limited so I just wanted to post something so you'd all know I was still alive. :)

I'll post all sorts of stuff when I get back. Cya!

Rage socks. Done! Norberta. Done! New socks. Working on em.

2007-05-31T11:05:00.000-05:00

This past weekend was pretty busy. I went to my cousin's house again. She's so great! She took me to the beach! It's been forever since I've been to the beach. And I think it's been a bit longer since I swam in the ocean. Here's my toes in the sand:

We broke out our knitting while the kids built sand castles:

I did get in the water for a bit too. Oh it was so wonderful! I can't wait to go back. :)

While I was there at her house, I finished my rage socks. They are done. I'm happy. They don't fit me in the slightest and make me cringe when I look at them because of how much effort it took to finish them, so I'm just going to donate them to a charity. Most likely Afghans for Afghans. I've sent them things before and I really like what they are doing. I plan to knit up a bunch of kids socks from some spare yarn a friend gave me. They can really use kids stuff if you have an inclination to knit anything for a child. Just check out their site and you can learn all about what they do and get a few free patterns too. :)

But here they are:

I also started on a pair of socks for myself out of some Dancing yarn from Knit Picks she gave me. (The stuff is awesome!) Check out the patterns it's making. Here's the instep:

And the sole:

I just love this yarn! I'd love to get some more of it sometime soon.

When I got home on Monday, I finished Norberta as well. :) Azuredrake gave birth to her little man on Wednesday. He's a cutie. I brought over Norberta today and she just loved him! I decided that once I was done, especially since I did a bunch of colors, it just felt more like a Norbert than a Norberta. A little boy dragon is a good dragon too! :)

Once again, the colors are not coming out well in the picture. The back is royal purple. The belly is Kelly Green. The spines and wings are fire engine red. The legs and arms are Carolina Blue. I'm so happy with the way it came out! Oh and if you ever want to get stopped and made late for work... walk with a dragon in your hand. It took me 10 minutes more to get to my office than normal because I kept getting stopped and asked about him. *laugh* I was glad to tell them about it though. Working attached to a hospital, I always see people with bears, bunnies, balloons and flowers. But never any dragons! Another reason to knit one. I think I'll do a few more over the next long while, for the Children's Hospital. :) It was a fun and quick knit. Even Trouble enjoyed my knitting Norbert(a):

Since it was going to be for a baby, she decided it would be best if it was sent pre-chewed on:

My crazy animals. ;)

In response to comments:

Kate said: Yep. Nuts. A whole big jar of honey-roasted macadamias, is what you are. Go for it.

Okay that got a big laugh from me! :P Then I thought.... macadamias? Nah! Almonds! They have big bottoms just like me. ;)

LaBean said: Intarsia in the round? I didn't think it was possible, let alone sane.

Oh I've heard it's possible. Sane though? I think you're right there... ;)

Kathryn said: from what I understand it's actually supposed to be easier to knit colour work in the round. You don't have as much to weave in cuz the colours continue around with you.

Sweet! I'm all about not having to weave anything in. Oh and thanks for the link you sent me. I'll check it out. ;)

I'm stark raving mad...

2007-05-24T08:02:00.000-05:00

But then we all knew that. But why I am stark raving mad more than normal? Well because boys and girls, I'm gonna try intarsia. In the round!

:O

Yup, I'm part of Sockapalooza 4 and allegedly am also an expert sock knitter. So what's something I haven't tried? Intarsia. But let's kick it up a notch. Bam! In the round.

So, I've looked for articles on how to do it and I think I've got it.

But let's kick it up a notch again. Bam! I'm going to design my own socks too. Have I ever designed anything before? Nope.

Have I knit intarsia?

Nope.

Do most knitters, even experiences intarsia knitters, find knitting intarsia in the round easy?

Nope.

Yup, out of my flipping mind. But then, like a friend of mine says, if I didn't come up with some of the most ludicrous ideas, my knitting wouldn't be half as fun. :P

So now I just have to go buy some yarn...

Knitting a dragon and cross stitching a blinkdog.

2007-05-21T13:32:00.000-05:00

Yeah I know... it's been a while. For all that's been going on in my life, I have very little to show for it, but whoo hoo, I've been busy!

So I decided it was time to get back to stuff for myself. Well, hobbies that were for me but things for others.

You know what I mean! :P

So what have I been up to? Work. What else? Seriously. Work has been so awful lately that it has pretty much consumed my brain. Sadly not in the most positive of ways. But that should be over with soon.

So back to the needles!

I'm working on a dragon, Norberta to be exact, for a friend of mine. She's due on the 31st of May (by way of C-section). You know her as the Azuredrake. So I thought it would be great to knit her (and her new little one) a dragon! Here's what I've got so far:

Sadly, the colors did not come out well in that shot. It's actually a royal purple, kelly green, fire engine red, and Carolina blue that I am working with. I think little Norberta is gonna be awesome! I started it this Satruday evening. I should be able to finish it tonight. I want to be able to bring it to her this week since I'm not sure when I'll see her again the closer she gets to her delivery date and of course, there after.

While knitting this, I tried to get into the mood... so I put in some Godzilla DVD's! What's more motivation for knitting dragons than a shot like this?:

or this:

or even this:

I love Godzilla. I really need more DVD's of Godzilla movies. :) I can watch them to the point of making Eric want to tear his hair out! :P

But back to toy knitting. I really have to knit Heather something too. She had her daughter on the 29th of January. I have all sorts of patterns... I just haven't gotten around to doing any knitting! I swear, I'll knit something up before her daughter is six months old. *looks at calendar* Okay maybe seven months... :P

So how are the rage socks coming you ask? Yeah right! They ain't. *grumble* But they will soon enough. *nod* Yes, soon enough.

As for cross stitching, I've been working on a blinkdog. Why you ask? Well we went to a camp set up by friends of ours the beginning of this month, and we stayed in Cabin Blinkdog. Oh yeah, I had some wild notion that I could stitch this up, complete with neat little Latin saying, by the time we got there. And I was on track to do it too! And then work got ugly. *grumblegrumble* But we'll be going again next year so we'll try to get in the same cabin so we can use it then. :) It should be easy since Eric is the organizer for it next yeat. ;) But here's what I have so far:

It's coming out a lot better than I had ever hoped. :)

What else is going on? Oh not a lot. Still looking for money for college. Still stressing about work. Still got more projects on the table than any sane woman should have. Am I gonna change that? Oh hell no. *looks for more patterns to knit and cross stitch*

;)

Still looking...

2007-04-27T13:39:00.000-05:00

Not a heck of a lot has been going on at chez urbanpagan. Between work, tae kwon do, and looking for scholarships, not a lot of knitting or cross stitching has been done. I didn't realize how difficult it is to find scholarships for adult students! It looks like I may end up having to pay for some of it myself. I really hope not because we can't really afford it... but oh well. I'm still looking.

In between all this, I of course keep an eye on the news and on Fark. I love Fark. You can find the strangest news stories and some that don't even break on the major news media outlets until long after Fark has run them.

Now a quick tangent, everyone knows I am insane for four legged, furry mammals. Just nuts. People sometimes react oddly to the way I get about them. But I keep trying to tell them "It's not just me!" There are plenty of other animal nuts out there. And with the help of Fark, I have proof.

Someone obviously knows me and more people like me. :)

To stay on the topic of all things non-fiber, I always seem to be drawn to or notice the weirdest/oddest things. Well weird/odd to me at least. Like this sign for example:

I pass this sign every single day on my way to tae kwon do class. What is with the little guy right in the middle of the sign? Doesn't he look like he's about to go ass over tea kettle? Or is he dive- bombing his mama? What is up with that little guy?

Then there's this sign:

That's a stop for the "A, G, NS, and T" buses. Mind you, there is an "N" and an "S" bus as well so they really could have spelled "ANGST". I was undergoing a bit of angst while waiting for -any- one of them to show up since I was 20 minutes late getting back to my office by the time I took this picture.

Then of course there are the great questions of the universe:

I'm thinking if they did, it was a brontosaurus with black olives. Who doesn't like black olives?!

Then there is the clever stuff:

Can you believe it took me a minute to get it? *shakes head* It had been a long day. After that though, I was craving some Chinese buffet.

Oh well, I guess I should get back to looking for scholarships... you know, that or working. Since I am at work. :P

You just never know...

2007-04-20T11:06:00.000-05:00

Obviously, you all read about the tragedy at Virginia Tech. I didn't hear about it until Tuesday. I was home sick on Monday and didn't look at any news at all.

When I got in to work that day, someone had put these on the bulletin board in an attached building:

and:

I thought it was nice that someone did. A lot of people are forgoing their Carolina Blue here and wearing maroon and orange. I am as well. Well... maroon anyway. I don't have anything orange.

I did it to honor a friend of a friend. See, when I heard of the tragedy, I was shocked and horrified as I'm sure most of you were, but it hadn't affected me. I suffered no loss. I know none of these people. And after reading some of their bios, I really wish I had. They all seemed like wonderful people. But it was only yesterday that I learned two friends of mine lost a dear friend of theirs to the tragedy. His name is, or was, Jamie. Please take a moment to read about him. He seemed like a wonderful guy and knowing that he was very good friends with my two friends... that means he was 'good people'. They are not the sort to have friends flippantly. They make close bonds. I am grieving with them now.

Like most of you, I'm sure, I feel powerless. Could it happen here at UNC? Could it happen again anywhere? Sadly, the answer is yes. What can we do about it? I just don't know. The only thing I can think is that at least he had said goodbye to his wife when he went to work. She at least has that. Really that's all I can think of. Remind those you love daily that you do.

I'm going to go call Eric right now.

You ever have one of those days?

2007-04-12T14:37:00.000-05:00

You know the ones... where you get to work late, you get your shirt wet because you obviously have a hole in your bottom lip and/or you were never taught to drink properly and then you get called into your boss' office and told you were a bad girl? All before 9am? No? Yeah well that was my day yesterday. Not a good day at all. Kind of made me feel like this:

And if someone crossed my path, they would get a bit of this:

Yeah, it was a hell of a day.

On the good side, I did some more work on the Cut Your Teeth Socks. I'm pretty much back to about where I was before I frogged them. See...:

Realizing I'm a fool, I cast on the correct number of stitches to accommodate the cuff but didn't think about my gauge and you guessed it, they are too big around my instep. *sigh* But I'm going to finish them dammit! Oh yes I will. It's not a promise, it's revenge. You ever have revenge knitting? I think this is my first. I will finish these socks no matter how much swearing, screaming, tantrums and the like it takes. I'll finish them.

I have never hated a pattern so much in my life. It's pretty sad. But thinking about it, I only seem to work on these socks when I'm angry in the first place. I think they are my rage socks. I think that's what I'll call them from now on; Rage Socks. *nod* Much more fitting.

I was back at my cousin's house again this weekend. We got some cross stitching done. I finished the one I was working on for a friend of mine. Now to iron it and frame it. Here is it post hoop:

She doesn't even know I made it for her so I have to get it all framed up by Sunday. I am watching her kitty while she is out of town so I want to be able to have it all framed and wrapped up for her so when she gets home, she'll see a giftie sitting there for her.

In response to comments:

Helen said: great colours on you! very nice. close call with the black!

Thankies! I'm liking the colors too. And I know what you mean by close call with the black. I was sweating!

La Bean said: YES. You finished!! It looks great!! The blues are a good color on you.. I'm seeing a silver chain with a pendant with one of those light blue stones.. Is it Aquamarine? or Opal? The light blue is bright as hell, and I love it!

Thankies to you as well. And actually, I have a dark sapphire necklace I wore with it the other day that was just stunning!

Deawn said: Love the tubey on you. Very nice, indeed. Thank you for making it, because I now know that actual women with actual breasts can wear it, and not look as if they're in traction. (The model used for the pattern basically scared me off)!

And thankies to you too. Yeah, I know what you mean when you said the model scared you off. I looked at the neckline on her and thought.... hmmmm... my breasts are -definitely- bigger than hers. I'll let you know, I had to seam in the neckline about an inch extra on either side to get that neckline right for me. Without it, I was popping right out! :O

Heather said: Hi Lisa, the Tubey is fantastic, and I think it looks great on you! Super colors, and it's gonna look great blocked, too. Congrats!!!

Oh now I'm just gonna start blushing... thanks. :) Yeah it blocked very well. But the back is a bit poofy. I'm not too sure how I feel about it. I may have to see if I can alter it in some way so it lays flatter but for now, I'm not worried. :)

Ponytail said: It looks really good. I'm just finishing off the arms, and then I have the body to do. I was starting to feel it was never going to get finished (I have a few other things on the go too) and wanted inspiration from someone else who'd finished it. And I got it !
It looks great - different to the original pattern photos, but great nonetheless. Congratulations !

That's it, now I -am- blushing. :P I'm glad I was able to give you inspiration. What size are you making? I made the large. I knew I wouldn't need to but I wanted it looser than the pattern called for.

When I showed Eric, he said:

Eric: "Well, I'm not sure about the neckline, but it's nice."
Me: "Well hell, it's not bad for my first sweater."
Eric: "It is? I was sure you had made one already. Well in that case, I love it!"

He's such a nut.

Tubey. Oh yeah baby!

2007-04-02T11:52:00.000-05:00

Brace yourselves.

I finished Tubey.

Yup. I can't believe it either.

Voila!

This is it unblocked. I finished weaving in the threads and put it right on. I'm so happy! I made it in the large on purpose. I wanted it to be a bit loose and flared before I washed/blocked it.

I can honestly say I finished it so quickly in this past week because I went to visit my cousin. :) I even finished one of those Cut Your Teeth Socks I frogged and started over. *blink* I can't believe it either!

Oh and remember how I was worried I was going to run out of black yarn? Yeah... this is all I had left:

I was mighty close!

I got my yellow belt on the 23rd too. You can see the pics here. I don't have any taken with my camera. Sorry! Eric was supposed to be there but unfortunately, he had to be up at 3am the next morning so he had to pass so he could sleep. If you look at the pictures and you see a young man getting his hair cut off it's because he decided to donate his hair to Locks of Love if he got his black belt. And he did! I was so happy for him. :) His father is a professional hair stylist (even has his own business) so he did the cutting and supervised all our cuts to make sure we were cutting long enough strands of hair.

Everything else is the same old, same old. Just a lot more of it so I've been busy as hell. I've sent out so many applications for scholarships I think my head is going to spin. And I have even more to do. I'm getting seriously nervous about going back to school. On the one hand though, I am feeling better because, based on advice from one of the Profs, I pulled out my old General Biology book and started reading. I didn't forget nearly as much as I thought I had! I still forgot a lot, but I was pretty surprised at what I even remembered.

Oh well, off to go fill out more applications. Wish me luck!

The children are our future.

2007-03-13T13:33:00.000-05:00

So I was sitting in the dojang last night, waiting for the family class to finish so the adult class could start, and I pulled out my knitting. And panicked. Have you ever had that feeling when you realize, you have no idea where you were in the pattern and you realize you may need to start the entire damn thing over? Of course you're scared because it took you this long to pick the damn UFO -back- up and now, if you have to rip out even further back, well hell, you might as well just rip out the whole thing and use the yarn for something else!

So I sat there and stared at it for a good long time. I counted the stitches at least four times and made sure, yup, 60 live stitches on the bottom of that cuff. I pondered... I couldn't understand why on one cuff, the stitches were perfect and on the other, it seemed that I had started a short row. Was this an error? Had I dropped stitches? Was I on crack? As I sat and really began to wonder about my sanity in picking back up this project, a girl (about 12 or 13) sat down next to me on her water break and said:

Girl: "That's cool."
Me: "Thanks."
Girl: "What are you making?"
Me: "Socks. This is the cuff."
Girl: "It is hard? You look worried."
Me: *blink* "No it's not hard, and I didn't realize I looked worried. I was just trying to remember where I was in the pattern."
Girl: "Why didn't you just write it down? I do the same thing with my taekwondo forms so I remember where I am. Especially, like, before school breaks because then, I know where I was when I come back and I don't forget."

With that she smiled and jumped back up to finish her class.

That girl is a genius! When I knew I just wasn't going to be working on these socks for a while, why didn't I just mark where I was in the pattern? I sat there and pondered that then calmly looked at the pattern to figure out where I was and made a check mark right near the row it was now painfully obvious I was on. Genius I tell you!

So once that was all sorted out, I cast on and started working on the toe. And that's when I remembered, I really dislike this yarn. Oh yeah. That's the other reason I put this project down, I hate this yarn. Can't stand it. That look must have been obvious too because once again, my little friend was there.

Girl: "What's wrong now?"
Me: "Oh I'm beginning to realize, I really am not happy with this yarn."
Girl: "But you put all that work into it already. You're not going to give up are you?"
Me: *blink*
Girl: "You know, cuz I really didn't like the form I had before this one but if I had, like, given up, I wouldn't have the belt I have now."
Me: *blink*
Girl: "So finish them because you can't give up, cuz then you'll be all upset and you won't know what to do and then you won't do anything else. And, like, that's stupid."
Me: *blink* "Good point. Thanks."

The whole rest of the evening, I thought about what that girl said. She's right you know. I've agonized over these socks for a long time now. No more! I'll finish them and wear them proudly.

And then I'll thank her.

Socks done. On to a UFO...

2007-03-09T14:36:00.000-05:00

I finished my travel project... socks. I just love taking socks with me to work. They're small, easy to work on and of course, I get all sorts of "oooohs" and "aaaaahs" when I'm working on them. :P So here they are, a quick pair of ankle socks:

I have really come to like ankle socks... especially with the weather here. It's supposed to be in the 70's for part of the time next week!

So true to my word (well mostly) I decided before I started anything, I would work on a UFO. I pulled out the Cut Your Teeth Socks I was working on... many, many moons ago. I sat there and stared at them.

Just stared.

I had no inclination to knit them. None.

I have come to the conclusion that I really dislike cuff down socks. Yup. Can't stand em.

So how do I fix this? Well... frog it! And start over with toe up. But I've kept the cuffs though. I'll graft them using a three needle bind off.

So here we go...:

Brace yourself...:

Okay you can open your eyes now...:

Voila! Now to start over. ;)

I give you Tubey.... soon!

2007-03-08T13:54:00.000-05:00

Yeah, I know... I said I'd be done with this by now but dammit... Eric and I bought a copy of Civilization III for a mutual Valentine's day gift and neither of us have done much else since that day.

So this week I decided it was time to get back to my knitting. Mostly because Eric accidentally took the disk with him. Tee hee!

So I got to work with a fury last night on Tubey. Here's the progress so far:

I just started the last color stripe. So only 16 rounds of the Carolina Blue, then round and round of black until I'm done. I can't wait to put this sweater on. I've decided not to put a bit of waste yarn in the stitches so I can try it on. No... I'm waiting for any and all disappointment/joy to hit all at once. I'm sure it will be joy though. It's just coming out great!

Of course, my socks are doing well as well. Socks are just such a great work/travel project. Sorry about the bad pic though... (damn camera phone):

Oh and I realized it's been a while since I posted so you all don't know about Fang. She's 100% healthy again. Princess Piddles has lost her crown. Here she is at the vet:

She was -not- coming out of that carrier. Nope. I thought I was going to have to disassemble the carrier just to get her out when the vet came in the room, but Fang finally popped out. She was not happy at all. Little does she know... she and Trouble have to go back on the 17th for their yearly check up and shots. Oh she's going to hate me something fierce...

On the holy cow, that's nifty side of life, I had this arrive in my office today:

One of the 4th year medical students gave it to me as a thank you for all the help I've given her this year. Yup, a card and genuine Columbian coffee and chocolate... from Columbia. She picked it up while she was there on a rotation. Now I guess I need to start drinking coffee...

Oh well, lunch time! Time to go knit.

I'm a workin'. Yes indeed...

2007-02-12T14:38:00.000-05:00

So over the weekend, I didn't get a damn thing done knitting-wise. Nope. I played games all weekend instead. :) Eric was home on Saturday night and on Sunday he decided that it would be our Valentine's Day since he'll be out and about, winging his way across the eastern seaboard on the 14th. We went out and had some Indian food (I love Lamb Saag!) and then we decided to get some munchies (e.g. Nutty bars!) and a few computer games that we could play together. Yup, that's romance in chez urbanpagan. Ain't it grand? ;) I had a great time. :)

So when I got to work today, of course, knitting was on my mind because I got my copy of Interweave Knits Spring 2007. I love the entrelac sock pattern then have in there. Oh and just when I thought I might have the number of knitting projects under control... I see those socks.

Must.

Knit.

Them.

In Red. Or maybe blue. Hell, some nice green would work too... Ooooo! Or some purple...

Dammit! *shakes fist at Interweave Knits!*

So I started working on the socks I carry to work. Mainly because, I had to get working on my knitting resolution and it's February and I'm already one month behind! Also, because, I so want to just start on those entrelac socks, that I -had- to knit something. So here's the progress so far:

This past Friday, I stopped at Maura's house ( a non-knitting, muggle, girlfriend of mine.)

I love you Maura! :P

Anyhoo, she has this great kitty named Duncan. And he loves boxes. So much so that if you pick him up in said box, he won't move!

and a close up:

He's such a nice kitty. He smiles like that all the time. Oh and by the way, Maura's eyes aren't closed in the first pic. He's a heavy boy (17 pounds) so she wanted to make sure she wouldn't drop him and was looking at the box the whole time. :)

I call Maura a muggle because when we were chatting, we heard her neighbor, Joyce, downstairs, come home. She's got a little dog that is a bit of the yappy sort but she herself is a knitter and works at Yarns Etc in Carborro, not too far from where I work. Joyce I knew, could do some lovely work as I had seen some of her proejcts at the store and some of her patterns that she had for sale. But I had never seen any of her personal works. Oh my goodness! She has made some truly beautiful sweaters over the years! She uses the pattern for all her sweaters out of Knitting From the Top. And every single one of them is just gorgeous! I wish I had thought to go grab my camera and snap some pics so you could see them. The best part is that almost every single one of them is made with multiple types of yarn and/or crap yarns. They are just so lovely. And she told me that all you need to worry about is measuring your guage. After taht, it's all a series of calculations to see how many stitches you need to cast on. I may have to look for this book. :)

Well off I go to do some more knitting on those socks and contemplating what yarn in my stash I have that would be perfect for those entrelac socks. :P

Traffic court does great things for your knitting. :)

2007-02-07T16:44:00.000-05:00

I had to go to traffic court today. When I was in that fender bender back in December, I found out that I was driving with a revoked license! :O See the reason this was is because of a speeding ticket I got in June of 2005. Well what happened was... I owed the county a fine and well, didn't know I did, thus my license was revoked in January of 2006.

*blink*

*blink*

Now I begin to wonder, how exactly it was that I was able to register not one but both cars in 2006 (online even) without one mention of the fact that hey, you ain't got no license chica? *shrugs* So $280 later ($120 fine plus $50 late fee plus $110 to the DMV for the replacement license) and I'm legal again. No matter what though, I still had to go to court today.

So when I got in the building, I saw a lot and I mean a lot, of people in line. I got in line and started working on my socks. As time went on, a woman came in and announced that there were 1,400 people on the docket this morning and we probably wouldn't get out of there until at least 11:30. (Did I mention I was supposed to be there are 9am?) So I settled in and knit.

About 45 minutes into my wait, one of the Assistant DA's stopped by to see if she could get some folks out of the line by offering plea bargains. Me, I got my case dismissed. :) I won't getmy $280 back but at least I didn't have to deal with any other fines and be in that line for any longer either.

So the fruit of that wait is here:

I highly recommend court for knitting time. It was very productive. *laugh*

With regards to her Highness, Princess Piddles, Fang is doing well with her anti-biotics. Although she's not too happy about the syringe down the throat twice a day but she's getting used to it I think. She's not had any other accidents and is actually drinking lots of water on her own now. That makes me feel a lot better! Thanks for all the advice you folks gave me on the knittyboard and here. She's one of my babies. I couldn't stand not knowing what to do for her and not realizing she was sick. I think that was the worst part. She's forgiven me though for not realizing it. She fianlly snuggled with me last night while I was on the computer. :)

In response to comments:

Molly said: I hope piddles is feeling better. She surely does know how to get her message across!

That's true. Nothing says "I gotta go to the vet" like soaking a few blankets! :)

Molly also said: Your view from your office is lovely. Do you work at a university?

Yes I do. I work for UNC Chapel Hill.

Stephanie said: Please MAKE the vet do an ultrasound to take a peek at the bladder if not already done. trank the cat if necessary to get a good picture. Our cat suffered needlessly for a year b/c the first vet to look at her wouldn't trank her to do a proper ultraound. Turns out she had these nasty *spiny* stones that had to be removed.

Oh your poor kitty! Thanks for that head's up! I have already scheduled the follow-up appointment. I'll talk to Dr. Beagle about getting an ultrasound done on Fang.

LaBean said: How DO you bind off socks? Do you use the EZ sewn bind off? If not, check it out, it might be what you need.

I do use a version on the EZ sewn bind off but I just wasn't sure it would look right. But then, looking at the top of the sweater where I cast on the front 52 stitches... screw it. I'll do what I'm used to. It'll look the same. :)

Sweater progress and Her Highness, Princess Piddles

2007-02-05T15:01:00.000-05:00

We weathered the snow pretty well here in North Carolina. I did end up going to work for the entire day. Hell, no matter what, I was going out in that rental minivan. If there was enough snow in the parking lot... I was gonna go turn some donuts!

What? *insert innocent look here*

It's a rental. *insert devilish grin here*

But this is all we got while I was at work:

That was about the worst of it. By noon, most of my office was gone. When I left at 5pm, there wasn't any snow left on the ground and it was raining. The only bad part of the day was that night. Whoo! It was -cold- in the house. I didn't do anything but sit near the heater, snuggling with my kitties, wrapped in the comforters that we leave on the couch.

I didn't get much work done on Tubey, but here's the work I did get done:

The reason I didn't get much work done is because of Her Highness, the newly crowned (by Eric) Princess Piddles. Here she is, resting on her kitty bed, throne:

Yup, it was about 10pm, Eric and I went downstairs to get into bed and when I turned down the bedding, there was a big puddle of pee in the middle of the bed... right near the pillows. *sigh* She went through both comforters, the heating blanket, the sheets, and into the pillow top of the bed. All day Sunday was spent washing -everything-. The heating blanket had to be done by hand (that took quite some time!) and then put into the machine through a partial cycle. Then hung to dry. The bed couldn't be flipped once we had cleaned it because it's a pillow top so we had to turn it and put towels on it (now near our feet) for the rest of the night.

Of course this seems so odd for Fang. She has never done anything like this before. To make it worse, we had only just started letting them sleep on the bed with us so that they could stay warmer at night. Now it's all kitties banned from the bedroom, all the time until, we could figure out what was wrong and if it was indeed Fang that was the culprit. It made us both ponder all the rest of that night and the next day, if she might have a Urinary tract or bladder, infection. So while I was at work today, Eric took her to the vet. He even warmed a blanket up for her to put in her carrier by throwing it into the dryer before he put it, and her, in the carrier. (He's so sweet!) $100 later and yup, she's got something. Dr. Beagle (great name for a vet!) couldn't find any crystals in her urine but the protein count high and she's got blood her urine. So my poor Fang has to have anti-biotics twice a day and then go back in two weeks to have all that poking and prodding done to her all over again. Eric said she was a good girl while at the vet too. Didn't cry, growl, fight or anything. Even when they took her temperature. I -knew- that means she is sick because she normally fights, growls, and yells (in a most unlady-like fashion) when at the vet.

My poor kitty.

Sweater progress and how do you drive these things?!

2007-01-29T12:44:00.000-05:00

Tubey is coming along pretty well. I've decided that instead of trying to get a skein of black yarn to make the center stripe, I just extended the two color stripes that were on either side of where the black stripe was supposed to go. Normally there would be a black stripe in between the dark blue and light blue stripes. I think it looks fine. Now I'm nearly half way done. :)

Here's a close up of some of the stitches so you can see the colors a bit better:

and:

Oh I can't wait to finish this! I'm a bit worried though about the bind off. See... I need it to be really stretchy and I knit kind of tight. If I go to larger needles, I wonder if that will give me enough stretch. Of course, I could bind it off like I do socks. That makes them pretty stretchy but it doesn't look that great. I'm just not really sure of what to do. I'll need to figure it out soon because at this rate, I'll probably finish it soon.

I dropped off the Jeep to get the repairs done and got my rental car. They gave me this:

Holy crap! Who can drive these things? Certainly not me. I hit the brake pedal three times when I instinctively went for the clutch. It steers like a bus and doesn't exactly turn on a dime. :P Funny enough, it was the smallest vehicle they had. I can't imagine them giving me like a Durango or something along those sizes! :O I'm just so happy I got it into the lines on the first try. *laugh* As you can see, I parked all the way at the top of the deck so I wouldn't have to worry about being near anyone else's car.

In response to comments:

LaBean said: Tubey's comin along nice!! Finish this!!

Yes Ma'am! ;)

I could have sworn you finished I DO.. My mind's eye tells me there's an FO pic with YOU in it...

Nope. I have a pic of me with half of it on. *laugh* But I will finish it soon. I pinky swear!

But I know what you mean about projects that go by the wayside.. I have a few of my own I'd rather not talk about

Oh yeah. We ain't talkin' bout those Cut Your Teeth socks. Nu-uh. I won't talk about them. :P I just keep them in a box.... in the closet. *hangs head in shame*

Ragan said: Hey...my list looks like that too. heh heh. I think that I have more things that I want to make than I can make. And...you have to come down and visit...I actually have a yarn stash now.

O_O You do?! Oh yeah, I'll have to come on down now. Tee hee!

I've got more UFO's than Roswell, New Mexico!

2007-01-23T10:43:00.000-05:00

Well I decided to get out all the UFO's I have and see where I stand. It's pretty sad ya'll.

I have:

I Do.
A tank top from Creative Knitting.
Cut Your Teeth Socks. (I can't believe I have a pair of socks I haven't finished!)
A baby blanket from 7 Day Afghans (been almost a year!)
A scarf for Eric that should have been done two Yules ago. (*hangs head in shame*)

I'd take pictures... but the shame is too great. Shame, shame, shame. :P

So this begs the question... why can't I focus? I know that we knitters love to just dive into new yarns and new patterns. But why can't we stick with a project that when we started it, we were just nuts for? Where did the love go? Was it that last slipped stitch that was the final straw? Was it that last k2tbl that put you over the top? I tried to pick all of them up last night.. but I just couldn't do it. They were mocking me. I could hear it. I Do said: "Oh yeah... you were gonna add beads to me. Yup. So pretty. All the beads are done... why can't you finish and then block me huh?" The baby blanket said "You know that baby you were knitting this for? Yeah well she's gonna be two years old soon you know." The Cut Your Teeth Socks had nothing to say to me and the scarf for Eric just laughed and laughed.

I will make this vow. You know...the same one I have made before... but a bit different this time. ;) I vow to complete one UFO a month. Starting next month. (yeah, that's the ticket.)

In response to comments:

Anonymous said (with regards to the unknown bird in this post): Its a coopers hawk

Thanks! I'll look up stuff on them now. :)

Holy fuck! Is Bush still in office?!

2007-01-22T16:52:00.000-05:00

You can imagine that question crossing my mind when I saw this the other day:

I couldn't believe it. I haven't seen gas this 'cheap' in years. It's still nearly $0.25 more expensive in Chapel Hill though. One of the benefits of living in a tiny town. Of course this would affect my heating bill too... if I had one. We finally called PSNC Energy to cancel our gas service. Of course they were surprised we would be doing that in the winter. When I told them it was because they wouldn't finance us with a new HVAC unit the gal said: "Oh. Well thank you anyway." *laugh* On the good side, we'll be getting back nearly $150 from them for a deposit we had had to put down. That's always nice. That will go toward the electric bill to pay for the space heater. :P

I've made some more progress on Tubey as well. See...:

Yeah it's a crap photo but I kind of took it right before I was running out the door this morning on my way to work so I really didn't have a chance to set it up nicely. I figured you would all want to see some progress. :) Oh and it's official. I'm going to run out of black yarn. Damn. I'll have to call Ragan to see if she has a skein I can snag from her. If not... I'm not sure what I'm going to do. I don't really have the funds to order another skein and well... I really want to finish this sweater. Maybe I'll finish it off with different colored stripes. *shrug* I'll figure something out. :)

In response to comments:

Mouse said: awww! My cat wanted to go out this morning onto the deck until she realized it was covered in a sheet of ice and that it was about 20 degrees out.

Fang is not an outside kitty, only Trouble enjoys it outside and she was in no mood! Not with that snow out there.

Janna said: Cute! And what would she do if you opened the door? Would she want to go outside?

That is a negative Ghost Writer. The one time I took her outside on a leash... she broke the harness, and bolted for the house (thankfully instead of the road) and has refused to go outside ever since.

Helen said: that is so, SO sweet. not being an animal-owner, i have never seen such a thing, nor even imagined a kitty getting so excited about something she's never seen. oh, thank you for sharing!

Oh no problem. I'm always happy to talk about pussy! ;)

Batty said: So cute! I used to live in upstate NY too. A lot of our free time was spent watching snow.

Tell me about it. I'm pretty sure that was the first 24 years of my life...

Bezzie said: Ha ha! Too cute! It's those little things that make cat rearing all the sweeter!

Oh yeah. Especially this animal along with her big sister. We refer to Trouble and Fang as Princess Headbutt and The Instigator. :P

Fang's First Snow

2007-01-18T15:31:00.000-05:00

It happened last night... a rarity for North Carolina. It snowed. Fang woke me up this morning... her tail whipping back and forth excitedly, pawing at my arm and meowing at me to wake up. I thought it was because she wanted some crunchies (cat treats) but it was because she wanted me to see the snow. (Sorry about the blurry photos.)

As I stood there looking at her eagerly pawing at the glass of the door and meowing at the flakes (purring the whole time) I realized that even though she is two and a half years old, this is the first time she's seen snow. The last time it snowed, she was still in the shelter, in a cage. Then last year, it didn't snow at all. I went over and scratched her ears while she gazed at the snow.

It was so cute to see her sitting there. It reminded me of being little, living in Upstate New York and doing the same thing... my nose pressed against the cold glass, watching the snow fall.

I'll bet you anything, she's still looking out that window when I get home tonight.

Lazy weekend

2007-01-16T14:59:00.000-05:00

It's been a lazy weekend at chez urbanpagan. Pretty much Trouble and I had the same thing in mind all weekend:

Racked out on the futon, not doing a damn thing.

The weather has been rather clement, thankfully, so we've not had to worry about heat. Although there was one night where there was a bit of a cold snap. I had to crank the new space heater than night. Fang was so happy too:

I guess her paws and her nose were cold...

While things like the dishes and the laundry did suffer a bit, I did get a lot of knitting done. I even finished the sleeves on Tubey. Here's a shot from the front:

And one from the back:

I'm making it in the large since I've got big hips and wide shoulders. I think the sleeves fit nearly perfectly! I started on the body as well. Picking up all those stitches was a bit of a bitch. Tip one for all knitters with cats... when laying your current project on the ground to pick up stitches, it is best to feed your cats something truly stinky that they love so they will not bother you and allow you to blast expletives at the top of your lungs and pick up all your stitches without twisting your work. I'm doing this every time from now on. It's so much easier than pushing cats off your work and losing count of how many stitches you have picked up...

Atta' Boy!

2007-01-09T16:35:00.000-05:00

Last week I posted about my husband, Eric, and about how he's a flight attendant. Well on Friday, on his way off the plane, he was handed a letter stating that for all of the flight attendants in PSA, for the year 2006, he was rated number 1 for on-time departures. It got him two extra days off with pay. :D (He was shocked. I guess it was completely unexpected...) So he's been home for three days now. It's so nice. It's a rarity that he's home for more than two days at a time.

In interesting schtuff, I saw this the other day:

I can't tell if it's a red tailed hawk or a falcon, but either way, it was sitting on the rail of the visitor's parking deck of the hospital. I walk through that deck on my way to where my car is parked. He sat there for quite some time. Ruffled his wings a bit. Looked around like he was surveying his domain and then flew off. Such a sight! I wsh I had gotten a better pciture though. I was about 10 or fifteen feet from him and it was just that right light where I was worried to use my flash and scare him off. Isn't he just lovely? I wonder if he's got a nest nearby. It's not uncommon to see them near the highway and near my home, but I've never seen one near the hospital.

Well this is a short post because I just got back from the eye clinic and well... my pupils must still be dialating because it's getting a bit hard to see. Tae Kwon Do class is gonna be fun tonight! :P

Hell of a start to the new year.

2007-01-05T11:42:00.000-05:00

Well it was Saturday that we noticed the heater wasn't working properly. For some reason, it would kick on, run for a minute or two and then shut off. So Eric went outside to poke at the machine and while I was standing there next to him, we both realized we could smell gas. So he closed the valve and called the gas company. Lo and behold, we did indeed have a leak.

But this didn't fix our heating problem. The damn thing still wouldn't kick on. So I called a technician out to the house. $150 later he tells me we need a new heat exchanger. The one we have now has cracks and holes in it and most likely the reason it would run for a bit and then kick off was because there were flames shooting out of it. Did I mention the biggest crack was only about two feet from where the gas had been leaking? O_O

So three estimates of $6900, $7200, and $8900 later, we obviously can not afford to get a new HVAC unit installed. So yes it's January and we have no heat. But... it's not all bad. Yes the house is about 50 degrees in the morning right now, but that will change soon. First off, the weather has been rather clement and well, we just got paid today so we're going to go buy a couple space heaters. I found some really good ones for really cheap at Lowe's Home Improvement and well, with our house being as small as it is, we won't need but two or three.

I guess this means I need to finish that sweater huh? :P And maybe some more socks. Speaking of which, here's the pair I am working on now:

I love Knitpicks yarn. :)

In other news, check out this pic of Eric:

If he looks bleary-eyed it's because he is. This was taken in the airport at about 5am while he and the Captain and First Officer were waiting for their plane to arrive so they could start their day. That means he's already been awake for an hour and a half by then and has a full day of work ahead of him. One of the flight attendants known as a Check Flight Attendant saw Eric sitting there and asked him to hold the sign for the picture. Check Flight Attendants make sure that flight attendants are doing their jobs properly, and they make sure that flight attendants like Eric pass their certifications and are able to fly. :) So if you are ever flying a US Airways Express flight (little 50 or seventy seater) on the east coast, run by PSA and you see this guy... he'll be friendly to your knitting and may even talk to you about it if he's got the time. And don't ask for coffee in heavy turbulence. If he says it's too bumpy to hand out scalding liquids... trust his judgement... it's too bumpy to hand out scalding liquids. I really don't understand why people fight him on this. But then people fight him a lot. You should hear some of the things people 'ask' of him (it's more like demand of him). They will make you laugh and shake your head. People, he's there to make sure you make it off the plane alive if there is an emergency. He's not your personal bitch boy. (I married him. He's my personal bitch boy!) But you'd be surprised how many people think he is. Next time you fly, take a look at how people treat the flight attendants. You'll be surprised. :P

In response to comments:

Helen said: yes, fondue will go greatly with game playing. my friend got one shaped like a hershey kiss, hehe. we will have fun using it. yours....plugs in though? like a crock pot? cool!

Shaped like a Hershey Kiss? That's awesome! Yeah, ours plugs in but we can also use a solid fuel on it as well. It's pretty neat. I can't wait to use it. :)

Mouse said: Husband and I bought some board games this year too..

Kewl! Which ones? I'm always on the lookout for new games.

(With regards to the sock monkey wine cozy)

Thanks to everyone that thought it was nice. I was really worried she wouldn't like it. :P

Molly said: Adorable! I hope you got in a "touch my monkey" joke.

LMAO! I didn't even think of that! *snaps fingers*

Okies, off to work on my sock I go. It's lunch time!

Ah Yule... gotta love it.

2007-01-02T12:40:00.000-05:00

Oh we had a good Yule this year. No we didn't have many gifts or much money but you know what... it was still great! There was definitely some excitement in the air. The cats helped me with the wrapping of the gifts the day before:

Apparently, attacking the wrapping paper helps in some way. (I'm still not sure how that is... but she was determined to attack... er, help.)

Right up until the day, the kitties were constantly sleeping under the tree. They even brought a toy mousie with them too:

That morning, right when we woke up, Eric wished me Happy Yule and then said: "So let's go open our presents!" He was like a little boy! You should have seen him. He went flying up the stairs. :)

Even the kitties were excited. See:

Well Fang was. Trouble was lounging in the rising sun. So the first gift we opened was for the kitties:

Tuna! Trouble is so happy. Can you tell?

That was Eric's idea. Of course I ran with it... Like he said, everyone has to have a gift under the tree!

Then it was Eric's turn (and Trouble helped him unwrap it):

(You can see her in the back, still attacking the ribbon, now wrapped around her belly.) Ah, Memoir 44. He was soooooooooooo happy! We played -all- day. We gave the kitties their tuna and then they promptly passed out with full bellies and let us play.

Here we are all set up for the first battle in the game: Pegasus Bridge. I can say with pride that the Allies were victorious! (I played the Allied Forces.)

It is such an easy game to set up and you can play with as few as two players. It's one of the reasons we really wanted it. I think we've played almost 11 games so far and he's only been home four days. *laugh*

We saved the rest of the presents for opening the next day because we were having a Yule dinner with friends. It was originally supposed to be on Yule, but there were some schedule conflicts and well... you know how it goes. We did open one gift we got for ourselves the day of the dinner, just because it was part of the dinner decorations:

It's amazing how nice candles can look on a table. :)

Eric made a pork roast this time. A pork butt to be exact. He used the McCormick rub again (for pork), put it in a roasting bag, and poured a family sized can of condensed cream of mushroom soup over the top:

We also made cheesy rice, gravy, and Eric's carrots like he made at Thanksgiving. Our friends, Ulysses, Maura, Nate and Alesia came over. And they all brought good food. Ulysses brought the most amazing looking (and tasty!) cake. Maura brought a salad with a personal recipe for vinaigrette dressing, and Nate and Alesia brought some yummy potato salad. Check out the spread!:

Of course we all pigged out. But before we actually got to all that, we opened gifts! :)

We started off with Maura because well, she was closest to the camera:

Some silver earrings which she promptly put on. I was so happy they looked good on her. :)

Then we moved to Alesia. She's 18 weeks pregnant in the photo (I don't know if you can tell) but of course this means she can't drink alcohol, so we tried to get her the next best thing. Coffee with liquor flavors! She and Nate love coffee:

Yes, the bow on her forehead is for you Ragan. :)

Then it was Eric's turn:

His brother Joel sent us this game of UNO Attack which Maura just loves! You can see her hand pointing on the right side of the picture as she yelled, "Ooo! Ooo! Ooo! I love that game!"

Then it was Ulysses' turn:

I'd have a better picture of his gift, (A copy of Treehouse) but my ability to use a camera that day was obviously not up to snuff. I took a picture with the camera strap in the way! *smacks forehead!* He's moving to Cape Town, South Africa at the end of January so we wanted to get him something that would travel well. :)

Then it was my turn:

(yes, the oh so sexy, tongue out while concentrating picture.... thanks Eric!)

A copy of Jungle Speed. Another great game that I've been wanting for some time.

But wait, there was more:

Ticket to Ride: Europe. I love this game too! It's got some pretty crazy strategy and it's lots of fun. We ended up playing it that night. As you can see here:

Lots of fun!

Then it was back to Eric. We didn't realize Ulysses had brought us something too!:

A fondue pot and fondue cookbook with some really great recipes in it. We're going to get so much use out of it! Especially with all these great new games we got. :)

After that is when we all went downstairs and pigged out. Then Ulysses brought out the cake. Look at this thing:

It's a castle filled with fruit!

While we played and yelled and ate, the cats changed positions to under the tree:

Too cute.

A good series of days all around. Eric left on Christmas Day to head to work and he said the airport was pretty busy and he had some of the worst turbulence he'd had all year. But he said his five flights that day were pretty calm. Me, I stayed home and rested until he got back on the 27th. It was a pretty lazy vacation... I loved every minute of it!

I'll respond to comments some other time... I've let this post go on long enough. :P

So there I was... 4:15 am and knitting furiously!

2006-12-20T16:37:00.000-05:00

I finished the wine cozy.... but at the expense of my sleep. I got up at 4am on Tuesday (my eyes just kind of flew open because I was dreaming about knitting) and grabbed the needles. As my alarm went off at 6:30 telling me it was time to get up and start getting ready for work, I was seaming. At 7:00 am (when I should normally be getting out of the shower) the cozy was done! I flew into the shower and pretty much left a stream of soapy water all the way to work since I was brushing my hair and my teeth at the same time. The poor cats... they were tip-toeing around all the wet spots in the bathroom. ;)

I managed to get to work about 5 minutes late but... the cozy was done. Mostly. I still had to do the twisted cord, pull cord. Let me tell you, the design of this cord is genius! And so easy too. I hooked the yarn to a door handle here in the office and made the cord in about 10 minutes total. I got a lot of strange looks though in the process...

And here is the cozy:

I really liked this pattern. Very easy to do. The only gripe I have is the seaming. But it's not the designer's technique. It's mine. I suck something fierce at seaming! Can you see that on the back side there? Tragic. But then, the gal I was giving it to thought it was wonderful so that's all that really matters. Even though I can see all the mistakes pointing and laughing at me.... laughing like I'd come to work without any pants on or something. (Okay maybe that was a bit much... but you know what I mean!)

Well, back to work I go. I'll finally get back to that sweater I started... and maybe those socks. And maybe that scarf. Hey, I've got a hat I was working on too...

Damn. It might be time for a UFO hunt to see where I'm at. *ponders*

Lookie! My neck brace matches my Tae Kwon Do belt!

2006-12-18T19:19:00.000-05:00

Yup... that's right. I passed! Yay! I got my orange belt. This is me warming up. Sort of...:

Here I am working on my form. Why I have my eyes closed, I have no earthly idea! Um, er, I mean... look at that concentration and focus... ;)

And here I am showing off what's known as my "one steps":

In the picture above, you can see Master Erik Neill in the black uniform with white piping. His mother Merilee next to him (she's a second Dan black belt) and his father (and my colleague) Jim taking pictures to the right of the kid in the blue uniform.

After all that, I passed! And there I am all the way on the right with my certificate and my new orange belt:

If you'd like to see other pics of the belt test you can see them here.

So the very next week on Thursday, the 7th, I was on my way to class after work when I got rear-ended. Yup. The Jeep needs rear work now too! And this was not my fault at all! I was sitting in stopped traffic when I saw a car coming up behind me that I just -knew- was going too fast. I realized she was going to hit me so I put my foot on the brake and braced myself. (Yeah, stupid I know.) She hit me so hard that it threw the Jeep forward one full car length into a truck in front of me. I must have looked like a bobble-head doll as my noggin bounced all over the place and hit the headrest at least twice. She was in one of those new, pretty VW Bugs. Versus the our Jeep Wrangler... I won. She nuked the front of her car! The damage to the Jeep is minimal. Well, $1327 minimal. I can't believe Eric beat me by $70 on the damage to the Saturn. I took it to the same exact body shop to have the estimate done. At first he kind of raised his eyebrow at me when he saw me pull in and then he laughed when I told him, my husband was no where near this car nor were any tacos involved. ;)

So back to the accident, a cop pulled up right behind us and after about an hour of paperwork, my head was just killing me! My girlfriend Maura (the one that made the checkerboard cake) took me to the Emergency Room. Here I am in all my glory!:

And here's that smile!:

No... it's too sexy! *averts eyes* I had to get a CT scan and was sent home with the note to take Motrin and try not to stress my head or neck too much. So I ended up missing about three classes (which was kind of upsetting) but I'm pretty much back to 100% now so it's all good. My neck was killing me the next day and I know it's because I had braced myself.

Not much else is going on. I've decided (because it's painfully obvious that I'm stark, raving mad) to knit a wine cozy for my my Secret Santa. And I'm knitting it with a sock monkey's face in it because she loves monkeys. And it has to be done by tomorrow. And I only started a few days ago.

Off to my knitting I go!

Did I mention I must be stark, raving mad?

Thanksgiving, the sweater and my poor car.

2006-12-01T11:37:00.000-05:00

We decided to do Thanksgiving at our house this year. Eric felt he had to redeem himself from last year. See it's a family tradition for he and I to have Chinese food on Thanksgiving Day and then go see a movie. We started this when he was stationed at Hill AFB and we were so far from family. Well last year, all the Chinese restaurants were closed! And the lines at the theatre were loooooooong. We had invited some friends over last year and well, he felt he hadn't given them a "traditional" Turkey Day.

So this year, the heat was on him! :P

I didn't do a damn thing but take pictures, and eat. Well, and help with the cleaning... but still. All during that food prep and cooking, I was doing other stuff. Here's Eric preparing the turkey:

He got a self basting turkey, some poultry rub, and then with spread some vegetable oil on the turkey with a brush and patted on the entire can of rub. We thought it would be a bit much but that it came out sooooooo good! And good looking too. See...:

I had wanted to get a typical "here's the bird" shot but he started carving it before I could get the camera out! *shakes fist* Either way, you can see how golden brown it came out. Juicy too! He made stuffing (which you can see sitting wrapped in cellophane on the counter in the pic below) and some carrots with brown sugar. (That's what he's working on in the pic below.)

Our friend Maura stopped by and decided to make a checkerboard cake. It was her first try making it and it was really good! But a bit messy to make. :)

It required that you make three layers with alternating flavors of cake and then you had to stack them up to make the checkerboard pattern. To get the alternating pattern, you had to pour the batter into a mould that allowed you to keep the batter separate until you had it all in, then lift the mould out and bake the cakes. Voila! They looked like this:

There were actually three layers total and of course required delicate stacking:

She then came over the next day (Thanksgiving day) to finish making the icing for the cake and it was done!:

When cut it was nearly perfect. The squares were a little lopsided but the cake was moist and yummy! I'd say it's not bad for her first try on that recipe...:

Our friend Justin came over too. He's studying to be a chef so he roasted some hazelnuts then made a quick sugary coating for them and rolled them in it. They were soo good too!:

We then set the table and prepared to stuff ourselves:

It was great having Justin around. He's a pro at cake cutting. Look at him go!:

Once everyone left, I did a bit more knitting on my sweater. It's coming along and I'm nearly done with the sleeves. I should finish this weekend and be able to start on the body. :) Here's a better close up of the stripes:

My sock progress has slowed somewhat though. I have a belt test tonight for my TaeKwonDo so I've been pretty busy with all my free time at work practicing my forms for that. Wish me luck!

Oh , I almost forgot! Right, so on to my poor car. Eric had to work the day after Thanksgiving and on Saturday, decided he wanted a taco. Really, really wanted a taco. He had a two hour lay over in Charlotte (his base) which meant the car was there and he could leave the terminal to get some food. His original plan was to spend under $5 for lunch. He called be right after and said "Um, I think I spent a bit too much on lunch." Yeah...:

Whoooooo! $1397 worth of damage. He more than doubled me when I destroyed the nose! I only did $642 worth of damage there. Thank the gods for USAA and a small deductible. It'll only cost us $50 to get it repaired. Of course, while we're there getting the estimate Eric realized, "Hey, I'll save $5 on a car wash. Heck my lunch is down to $45 now!"

I love how he can see the good in nuking the ass of the car. Oh by the way, the way he did it was when he got out of the car, he forgot to set the hand brake (and one would assume put it in gear) and while he was ordering his lunch, a man came into the restaurant to ask "Who's driving a silver Saturn cuz it just smashed into my trailer." A homemade, steel trailer that didn't even end up with a scratch on it. You can see what that steel did to our car.

So the grand total for damage on that poor Saturn?

This will be it's third ass (he got rear ended a few months after we bought the car)
It's on its second nose (see above)
It's on its second driver's side mirror (a dangerous sapling destroyed it many months ago)
It's on its third windshield

Not bad for having 120000 miles on it. :)

Sweater progress... meh.

2006-11-14T09:31:00.000-05:00

Well, I've finished the one side, picked up the other stitches on the other end and started the second sleeve. Progress is slow because I've been so damn busy with other stuff. *yawn!* My boss is still out of town with her husband (who's cancer treament is progressing well I last heard) and she's still not expecting to be back until after Thanksgiving. Maybe even as long as right after Yule!

So I had to be here at 7am this morning for a meeting that she normally takes minutes at and I'm already tired as hell. *big yawn* Sorry I've got no pics of the sweater because I left the house this morning at 6:15 and well... I guess I just wasn't awake enough to remember to grab the camera.

I started another pair of socks at work too. ;) One nice thing about being in a meeting so early is I got in some knitting while I was waiting for everyone to arrive. Nearly done with one toe already.

The leaves are turning, the air getting colder (slightly) and my hatred of Bank of America is complete. Yup folks. They are screwing us. They have jacked up our checking account so bad that this is the second week in a row that I've had to file a claim to get our money back. So to remedy this problem, we've already switched to the NC State Employees Credit Union. Oh they were more than happy to accommodate us and our switch from Bank of America. So I'll say it now... you were al right. I was wrong. So many people told me "Don't use Bank of America! Get out! Get out!" I should have listened sooner. Can I just say one thing about the credit union though? Why can't I have one of the kiddie debit cards? Huh? It's a debit card. It's got cuter pics on it than the other ones. Why can't I have one? *sassa-frassa*

In response to comments:

Old Knitter said: I noticed you do your socks toe up...I have always gone toe down. Do you advocate toe up for some reason? I've always wanted to try it but am stuck in this rut because I know this particular pattern fits so nicely.

Actually yeah I do. I find it's easier to make corrections and make sure the sock fits well when knitting toe up than when knitting cuff down. At least for me it is. I've known that angst that is realizing that I've jacked up the heel and having to rip back all those stitches, re-knit, pick back up the stitches from the heel flap and keep going. I'm just not that patient and neither is my vocabulary. ;)

Ragan said: I like your first sleeve! I can't wait to see the rest!!! I think that it will be lovely. "lovely darlink" tee-hee...

Thank you darlink. ;)

I am so tempted to drop everything I have in progress and work on a sweater. Darn-it. Oh, how you influence me. First, the toe-up socks (which I cannot stop making) and now sweaters? Eek. Next I too will be making offensive cross-stitch. heh heh.

Muwhahahahaha! My evil plan is working!

Socks? Done! Sweater? Still cooking...

2006-10-31T14:04:00.000-05:00

Remember a long time ago, I started a pair of ankle socks from some left over sock yarn that I had? Well, I -finally- finished them.

And another shot:

I am officially out of that yarn. I made those nearly knee length socks and then these ankle length socks out of all that yarn and I now have just enough yarn leftover to use as waste yarn for a crochet cast on. :)

Like I mentioned in my previous post, I started on Tubey. Here's the progress so far:

By the way, the colors are -not- showing up well in that pic. You can't tell, but it's purple, gray, dark blue, light blue and green. I'll have to take a picture of it in the sunlight so you can see the colors better. I have just about a half an inch to go on that side and that sleeve is done. Then I pick up the stitches on the other end, join, and start knitting in the round to complete the other sleeve. I'm so excited! Oh and by the way... if sleeves take about 1/3 of the yarn... I'm screwed! Well... if not screwed then mighty close to it. I'll be able to tell once I start the body of the sweater because in Tubey, the main color is actually not used nearly as much as on the sleeves. Keep your fingers crossed for me!

Of course, while I was working on my sweater, Trouble came over to help me:

When I told her "Hey, why don't you take your little, furry bottom off my book and let me knit!" she gave me this look (like those ears?):

I do believe this look means "Um... no. I'm comfy. Piss off."

Rotten kitten.

The entire time Trouble was on my knitting book, Fang was relaxing next to me:

I don't think it's physically possible for her to get more comfortable than that.

In response to comments:

Molly said: LOL!! I think that may be the best cross stitch I have ever seen.

Thanks! I've been looking at some of the other patterns in the book and none have yelled anything else offensive at me yet. Once they do, I will stitch something up. Yes, only I look at books for offensive inspiration. :P

Janna said: I've never knit a sweater either, but Tubey is on my list of sweaters I'll knit when I get the time/courage. I think I'll do the body in all one color, though, and just add a second color on the sleeves (all these plans....)

I was doing the same thing. "Maybe I'll add a ruffle to the cuff, or do some crochet edging..." Yeah like I'm not insane enough as it is!

Margot said: FYI, In my experience the sleeves use approximately 1/3 of the total yarn for a ls sweater. Front and back each take another third each. Fingers crossed that you have enough yarn!

Well, when I look at the total amount of yarn I've used, then I'm right on track, but I'm still panicking because the black is the main color and I'm really, really low already!

Ragan said: Ok, now I need your help. Every time I try to add your button to my sidebar....it comes out HUGE. And I mean HUGE. It is beyond huge, and could be a background. Ok, tech girl...HELP ME! I am html challenged.

Hey who you calling Tech Girl?! *Laugh!* But anyhoo, you have to tell HTML what size you want the button to be if it does not already have a set size. I assume that most people don't make their buttons a standard size so I set my sizes when I blog.

For example, the link I have on my Links page for "Back to my blog" with my UrbanpaganKnits Button looks like this in my template:

<
a href="http://urbanpaganknits.blogspot.com"
>

<
img src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v225/urbanpagan/Other%20Schtuff/Urbanpaganknitsheader1.jpg" border="0" width="132" height="48" vspace="10"
>

<
/a
>

A width of 132 and a height of 48 are pretty standard. Well at least that's what I've noticed. Hope that helps!

Feel free to cut and paste the entire like of code above to link to my blog just remember to take the spaces out before and after the "<" and the ">" so that it all lines up nice and neat.

I started a sweater!

2006-10-26T09:40:00.000-05:00

Yes folks, I started Tubey from Knitty.com. Sorry I have no pictures because I was very silly and left the camera at home. *laugh* But I started my first sweater. And wow, I'm either a worrywort or I'm overstressed. I'm flying through my main color and I'm not even done with the first sleeve! I called my cousin Ragan to ask her if that's normally the case... that one really cooks through yarn when working on sleeves and she told me yes. I guess I can breathe now. I was so worried I hadn't ordered enough yarn. I even over ordered (well at least I thought so when I got the yarn a few months ago.) Keep your fingers crossed for me and hope that I don't run out. :)

I'm also nearly finished with the socks I've been working on. And no, no pics of them either. My camera phone has been taking some really blurry photos lately so I guess I'll just have to remember to bring the camera with me next time.

In response to comments:

Helen said: yay! i've always been interested in that as well. you ever read Patricia Cornwell books??? fab!

No I haven't. But just about everyone I know has. I'll have to borrow one of them from a friend of mine and check it out. :)

Tamara said: Forensics always interested me too, but I don't think I have the full constitution needed to deal with actual corpses. You GO girl!! Good luck.

Who said I have the constitution to either? *laugh* I've been near prepared cadavers on many occasions and twice did view autopsies when I was young (looooooong story) but I myself have never been up-close and personal with one either. Eric suggested I go on a ride-along with a local CSI squad (if I can). I'm going to have to see if I can go! I think it would be great.

Ragan said: Did you know...that our anniversary is the SAME as gramma & grandpa's???? Cool huh!

No I didn't know that. That's pretty neat. :)

She also said: Anyhow, I love the hat!!!! AND...I HATE HATE HATE that stupid commercial!!!!

*nod* Oh I know what you mean. Thankfully they now have a shortened version of that commercial but it still sucks! :P

Stephanie said: Thanks to a lack of network TV at my house, I think I've missed that commercial. I like how the (presumed) husband is in the background cringing.

You lucked out with missing that one. It's awful! And yes, that is supposed to be the husband of the one on the left, cringing after he spilled his coffee on the carpet.

A knittin' and a purlin'

2006-10-10T20:20:00.000-05:00

Okay well there really isn't much purling going on but a whole lot of knitting. :) I finished the hat for my boss' husband. Voila!:

He's a simple guy (according to her... I've never actually met him) so I went with a simple color scheme and pattern. Done in a flash!

I'm also making some good progress on my socks. No piccies as the camera batteries are charging but I'm very nearly ready to turn the heel on the second sock. I think I'm going to run out of yarn though. It's okay as these are just scrap socks anyway so I'll just use some other sock yarn I have left over when I run out of this colorway.

While I was knitting, I got a phone call from a friend of mine so I paused the tv (I love DVR!) and congratulated her on her new job. When I hung up the phone I looked back up and realized I had caught this:

I don't know what it is about this commercial but I really can't stand it. It's for this rug cleaner, you know the one where they say "Squeeze, rub, groom and done!" Makes me want to clap my hands over my ears and scream "Lalalalala! I can't hear you!" the entire time the commercial is on. And you can tell by the looks on the actresses' faces, they can't stand it either! You can tell on the one on the right's face that if she has to say "Squeeze, rub, groom and done" one more time, she'll probably go postal. I have no idea who makes this product but it bothers me on so many levels. More so than the spongemokeys from those Quizno's commercials. Those things just creeped me out. They never made me want to buy a sub.

Besides trying to get that awful jingle out of my head, not much else is going on. Well that's not true. I've decided to go back to college. Yup. Gonna work on my degree in Forensic Biology. Yup. I wanna be a crime scene technician. I want to be part of the police force but I'm not interested in walking the beat if you know what I mean. I have no real desire to get shot at. *shakes head* Nope. But I've got no problem showing up once everyone is dead. *shrug* Morbid? Most likely. But I've always been fascinated by it and well, it had always been my number two when I was in college originally... in 1992. If I couldn't get into vet school for whatever reason, I would stay, get my Masters in Biology/Forensics and join the State Police or the FBI. So I applied to Guilford College in Greensboro. It's one of the best schools in the nation for Forensic Biology. I wish UNC had the program because, well... I wouldn't have to pay to go to school but since I work for UNC, and Guilford is a college in North Carolina, UNC will help me pay for it if I get accepted. So cross you fingers for me! I won't know for some time if I'm accepted. I hope I get in. :)

Well time to go. I've got some stuff to do around the house and then going to have a drink. It's mine and Eric's eighth wedding anniversary today. Too bad he's not home. :( He's out on a trip right now... flying somewhere above me. But he'll be home Thursday evening so we're going to celebrate then.

All the news that's fit to knit.

2006-09-24T10:56:00.000-05:00

Well I know it's been quite some time since I blogged. Been busy. Like I said before, money is tight but things are looking good on the horizon. :)

So this gave me the chance to get back to knitting and pick up the needles. It's amazing how hard it is to knit when you have too much on your mind. But funny too how easy it is to knit when you have a lot on your mind. I guess I was at that point right in the middle. I would sit with my needles in my hands and just stare at it for a while.

I'm glad I'm over it now. :)

So here's what I've been working on:

And here's its mate:

I've also started a hat for my boss' husband. He was diagnosed with cancer not too long ago. They are at the Mayo Clinic right now and between chemo and the dropping temperature, I thought a hat would be the best thing for him right now.

Here's how it looks so far:

It's not that fancy but then according to my boss, he's not the fancy type himself. :P I really want to finish it this week so that I can send it out by the following weekend.

Well I've got people coming over in just a bit and thought I would update the world while I had time! :)

What can I say...

2006-09-01T16:24:00.000-05:00

Things have been a bit rough here at chez urbanpagan. Money is uber tight, (and I mean tight)! Hurricane season is upon us and what's left of Ernesto is blowing debris across my backyard. I've had so much on my mind with money, bills, work, and the like that I really didn't pay much attention when my birthday came and went. (It was on the 21st for those of you that are curious). So when I got a message from Eric letting me know that I had a box full of pretty yarn waiting for me at home, I was surprised.

He opened it?!

He said he did because it looked like it had been sat on all the way across the Atlantic and he wanted to make sure nothing was broken. But lookie what I got!:

You can see, Trouble is very interested in this box. :)

She sent some cross stitch patterns and a cool card with a cow on it:

A set of DPNs, some nifty pepper sauce, a lovely bag of lavender and some Noro and some groovy French yarn. :) Thanks SP!!! I really needed that boost.

But I won't start knitting with any of it until I finish the projects I am working on now. I swear! I have to finish this other stuff first. :P

So now that I'm feeling a bit better I think I'll try to look over the finances and figure out what I need to do to get out of this hole. Sorry to sound down... but man it's rough! I think I'll go squeeze my yarn first though. :)

In response to comments:

Stephanie said: areyou going to hit dragon con in Atl? or is it just the gamer conventions you prefer?

I would have liked to hit Dragon Con but it's all about the $$$ right now. We had to choose what we could afford to do and what we couldn't afford to do. Sadly Dragon Con was on the chopping block.

Lookie, lookie! Cross stitch and knit stuff! Can ya believe it?!

2006-08-16T20:40:00.000-05:00

WARNING!WARNING!

There is a fabulous (well at least I think it's fab) cross stitch representation of a naughty, naughty word, in this post. You may want to shield the eyes of everyone that can't take it. For everyone else... fuck it.

You have been warned!

(I sound so deep don't I?)

While I was at GenCon Indy this past week, I broke out the needles. Well, on the plane anyway. I was playing and running way too many games to do much else. :)

Here's how far I got on a sock I started some time ago before my wrist started bothering me:

I love this pattern in the yarn. It's so funky! I'm using the leftovers from my knee length socks to make myself some ankle socks in the same pattern.

I also finished some offensive cross stitch. Here it is... the F-bomb!:

Here's a close up of the 'u':

I just love the way it came out. Now all I have to do is let it dry, iron it, then mount it and frame it.

Well I'm off to bed since it's late as all hell and I'm not quite done editing all the pics I took at GenCon. See you all later!

I was blocked?!

2006-08-15T20:10:00.000-05:00

I've been out of town at GenCon Indy and when I got back home the other day, I had about four messages from my faithful readers saying that my blog had been blocked because of a counter I used to use. *tilts head to the side like a stumped puppy* I swore up and down that I had removed that counter. *shakes head*

Oh well. It's gone now and thanks to everyone for letting me know. I had no idea!

Well right now, I'm not going to post anything as I'm trying to finish some actual play posts for some of the games I ran at GenCon Indy 06. I'll get to the knitting and cross stitching tomorrow. Promise! :)

A quick post for my SP

2006-07-23T17:12:00.000-05:00

I've been pretty busy this weekend so I wanted to just add a quick post. My SP sent me a quick treat.

Some great stitch markers, a card, a bag to put other stitch markers in, gum, a blow pop, and some Jelly Beans.

Isn't she great? Eric's eatting the gum right now. ;)

I'll add some knitting content (yes really!) and reply to comments later.

Thanks SP!

The 'All Clear' and the Ghost in the Bathroom

2006-07-17T13:45:00.000-05:00

So my wrist has been pretty good lately. Well enough that I have been given the all clear to use it like I always used to. YAY! I can knit again. You have no idea how happy this makes me. So, I've decided, before I start up with a new project like say the sweater I have been wanting to do and just got all that yummy yarn for (THANKS SP!!!!!) I am going to finish I Do and the tank top that I am working on. That's it. Gotta do it. I can't have too many UFO's hanging around you know. ;)

I was supposed to have my follow up for my surgery this Wednesday but the doctor's office called me and said he had to reschedule... Until August 31st! Holy crap he's a busy man! I guess that's one thing I have to deal with when the Division Chief is my physician. Oh well, I'm willing to wait to have him check me out rather than have a surgeon/physician I don't know look at his work. Call me crazy but I'd rather stay with the man that did all the work on my sinuses in the first place. Besides, if I'm having another nasal endoscopy... I want the guy with the gentlest hand doing it, know what I mean? So, I literally am kicking myself for not bringing my knitting with me to work. But I do have my offensive cross stitch with me. ;)

So of course this brings me to the next part of my title... the Ghost in the Bathroom. Now I don't know how superstitious you are, but me... the urban pagan, I kind of am. I won't walk under a ladder, but I have no problem stepping on cracks. I don't worry if I spill salt, but I did worry about Eric seeing my wedding dress before it was on me. I worry about breaking mirrors, but I don't mind a black cat crossing my path. It's kind of hard to mind when you have a black cat... it's what they do. They walk in front of your ankles as much as they possibly can. Mind you, this is not restricted to black cats... all cats do this... well at least mine do. *Shakes fist* I'm pretty well used to it unless it's 2am and I'm trying to get to the bathroom to potty. Tends to make things rather loud with the crashing, the hissing and the cursing.

But anyhoo, the ghost. In our new building, the Ladies room is all the way at the end of the hall. Like our old building, there is one Ladies Room and one Men's Room per floor. Most of the time, like I'm sure most of you do, I use the one on our floor. But sometimes, I'll stop in other ones like on my way to or from my car. But I digress. When we moved into the building, there were a few times where I went into the Ladies Room and if you go into either of the last two stalls, the door to the other would slam. Loudly. Sometimes repeatedly. I began to test this, wondering if they were just hung badly or if it was just the way that I closed the door to the stall. I could never get it to do it when I wanted to. Sometimes, the door would slam quickly, three times. Sometimes, only once. And never at the same times. Also, it never feels like you are alone in there. I'm not sure how to describe it but you know when you walk into the bathroom anywhere, you just know there is someone else in there even if they are not making a sound. Same thing here. I thought it must just be me, and/or thought it must just be the building moving because there was still some minor construction going on and I thought it must be the fact that maybe I just finished talking to someone else so thus, my brain was still fixated on a person (or what have you). I ignored it.

About a month after we were all settled in, I heard a colleague of mine, Lisa...:

(That's a shot of her in our old office) ...talking about how odd she feels when she's in the Ladies Room on our floor. As if we moved as one, myself, and about five other women all popped around the corner to add our agreement. Then it hit us. We all felt the same way? We'd all had the same odd occurrences in there and in none of the other Ladies Rooms? Well of course, my mind jumped to conclusions. "Well it's obviously haunted" I said. We all laughed but then we all started talking about it.

Could it be? I mean, people get hurt and/or killed all the time on big construction projects. We've had at least two deaths on this campus alone in the past year due to construction accidents. As a matter of fact, I pass the wreath that hangs on the New School of Public Health Building every day that I drive to work. That building will be finished in two years I believe but a man was killed there so I guess it's possible that he could still be there with the building. So we all began talking about this. How could we find out? I called the City Clerk. The woman who answered told me I would have to search the Sherrif's database or the City Police's database but unfortunately, this could not be done online. But she agreed, that it was an interesting circumstance and that it was worth checking out. She transferred me to a Sherrif's Deputy who was fascinated by my (our) thoughts on the topic and even told me that he'd have a hard time going into the bathroom if it were him but he could offer me no other avenues for research than what the City Clerk told me.

So where did that leave us? Well we had to name it. I mean, it's rude not to say hello when you see someone in the bathroom right? ;) So we decided on Leeloo. Lee because that can be a man or a woman and Loo because well, it's in the Loo. :P So most of us now go in and say "Hello LeeLoo!" and go about our business. It seems though that one gal can't even go down there anymore. She goes into our old building to use the Ladies Room in there because she is too scared to go into ours now. *laugh* I have no problems with LeeLoo. Someone mentioned we should bring in a candle for him/her. If we could have candles in the building, I would. Maybe I should bring a flower then or knit something instead. Maybe some knit flowers. Something for LeeLoo to enjoy.

Yeah.. I'm a freak.

Well... I -am- the urbanpagan after all.

Origins, The Sultana of Swag, and Yarn Pr0n!

2006-07-06T19:47:00.000-05:00

*Warning!* This is a picture intensive post, loaded with pics of geeky people doing geeky things. If this might be too much for you and/or if you are just here for the yarn pr0n, then shield your eyes and skip to the bottom. If you are a geek like me and/or you are feeling brave, then read on! You have been warned! ;)

(Quick note, click on the thumbnails to see a larger version of the pic.)

Eric and I went to Origins again this year and as usual, had a great time! This year, both Eric and I decided to run some games. It went pretty well and I guarantee that I'll do it again next year too. Hell, they give you a free badge if you are a GM. Free badge = $65 that I don't have to shell out for.

Right out the gate, even though it was early Wednesday, there were plenty of people around:

As usual, we went right to the Dealer Hall first. Here are some shots of the area:

I didn't see as many people in costume this year as I did last year. *shrug* Oh well. Here are some of the interesting people we saw:

There were also these guys. I watched some of their fight and let me tell you, it was rough! A great fight to watch. Sometimes you see people get dressed up and kind of play fight... nope. These guys were actually doing shoulder throws, kicks, and of course swinging their foam weapons. They were all panting and sweating pretty hard by the time they were done:

Of course the miniatures and board game room was pretty busy. I was in there for a while running Apples to Apples when I saw a celebrity:

Yup... William Hung. I'll be honest... I was surprised. I heard through the grapevine at the con that he's always been an avid gamer and been to Origins a few times before. Most people left him alone. Some said hello. Some got autographs. Most did like I did and snapped a photo from a distance. :P

But anyhoo... the board games and miniatures room... behold:

Of course we ran some of our own games. Sadly, I didn't get any pics of Eric's tables while he was running games as he was running some at the same time as myself. But here are some of the folks I played with:

For the Shab-al-Hiri Roach:

For My Life With Master:

For SPANC:

Of course we got our own demo in (that's Eric in the middle in the red and white shirt):

People were literally in every possible location, playing games:

When we got home, it was time to tally all the swag (free stuff) we got.

Eric's is on the left, mine is on the right:

I rock. Eric called me the Swag Mistress but I prefer the Sultana of Swag myself. Swag Empress works well too. The Goodie Goddess, the Gimmie Guru and the Queen O' Freebies are close runner ups. :P (For the record... I actually got more than what was in the picture but I gave some of it away.) :D

So once we were -really- settled in, I started going through the mail. And to my surprise, my box of yarn from Knit Picks had arrived! I used just about every cent of that gift certificate. I'm pretty sure I have about $1.46 left on it. :P

I'm such a happy girl!

In response to comments:

Marlene said: Are you publishing an rss feed? I can't find it.

Um... *scratches chin* I have no idea. How would I find that out?

Ragan said: WOW!!! $75!!!! Cool!

Jennifer said: That is an incredible gift!

Marlene said: That is so effin cool! I still can't get over how cool that is! Get knitting!

Helen said: oh, what a lucky gal! no one deserves it more.

Thanks ladies! I sure as hell do feel special right now. I have been playing with all the yarn I got and well... just enjoying petting it all at the moment. :P

As soon as I'm done with this last cross stitch project, it's back to knitting! Hooyah!

You could knock me over with a feather...

2006-06-26T20:59:00.000-05:00

Well you could. I got the mail today and nothing seemed all that special. Gas bill. Cell phone bill. Junk mail. Even more junk mail. Insurance bill. And something from the Crafts Americana Group. *raises an eyebrow* It's from Knit Picks. *scratches noggin* Why would Knit Picks send me something in a brown envelope? They usually just send a catalog and heck, I just got one. So I rip open the envelope was not even remotely ready for what I saw. I saw this:

A new catalog and a gift certificate for $75 from my Secret Pal!

...

...

...

My knees buckled. I was suddenly weak. What did I want to order? Holy crap the ideas were endless! Sock yarn. Oh yes... I needed more sock yarn. But then it hit me... I could knit a sweater. I could knit this sweater. And a cardigan that I saw in Vogue Knitting not too long ago. Yup... it's apparent I need to get my wrist back to 100% because apparently, it's time for me to get back to knitting!

Hooray! I was so happy that I gave the kitties some tuna to celebrate the happy yarn purchase.

And here's another amazing sight... they aren't fighting. They are sitting calmly next to each other, eating tuna. No hissing. No fat-tailing. No batting each other on the head.

Thank you Secret Pal! You totally made my night! :D

A quick update before lunch time...

2006-06-20T11:43:00.000-05:00

So I'm sitting here at reception, and I realized I haven't updated my blog in quite some time. I'm a bad blogger. Bad blogger.

So I realized that I hadn't posted a pic of what I got from my Knittyboard SP. Check it out!:

She made this kewl bracelet, I got this yummy Earl Grey tea, some Noro yarn (I lurv you SP!) a card, some mini Toblerones and a pack of Bacci candy (which Eric promptly ate!). Thanks so much SP. Eric said the candy was good. :P

Still no knitting to speak of but I think my wrist is ready to give it a shot. It hasn't hurt in a while. (Yay!) But of course, I've still been doing a lot of cross stitching.

Here's the gift for Dennis (my father in law) all neat, pressed and in a frame:

Eric picked the frame out and recommened that I add the rats on the side. I think it came out nicely.

When I came into work last Monday, I saw this sitting on my chair:

It's a "Good Natured Girl's" book. That made me laugh more than anything else. I am soooooo far from good natured! But it's all very nice letters and I saw a lovely pattern for letters that I want to try out. It's got leaves wrapped around the letters and it's five colors. Eep! Of course, I plan to spell something highly offensive out. ;)

Of course, the cats haven't been up to much lately. Well nothing beyond their normal habits:

Fang really does like that knit kitty bed I made. She never let me take it from her to felt it so I just left it as it was.

In response to comments:

Marlene said: Be careful who you 'dis' on your blog (even if they deserve it...hell especially if they deserve it!) You might get banned from the next round of what ever exchange you're in for 'bad behavior'. Even if you were the greatest damn exchange pal ever. Me? Bitter? Naw it's just that enormous chip on my shoulder that's makeing you think that!

Yeah I know. I'm a baaaaaaaaaaad girl. But I didn't mention her name. So there. :P

Stephanie said: great new socks; your pal did some bitchin stitchin and it's *really* nice of you to knit for someone who was dropped.

I know, I lurv them! I did volunteer to be a sock saviour again this round but Alison decided to pass on my offer this go-round. It's all good! I was glad I was able to help the last round. :)

Well back to work I go. Lunch time is almost here... ;)

A post for my Sock Pal

2006-06-06T10:43:00.000-05:00

I got my socks! YAY! Once again I was in the Sockapaloooza sock exchange. And once again, I got some great socks. Check them out:

Aren't they kewl? I love, love, LOVE the color! She also sent me some wild flower seeds. Those are going right in a planter.

But back to these gorgeous socks. Here they are on me:

And another shot

:

They are a bit too big, but I still think they are the greatest. One turn through the washing machine and they will fit perfectly. :) Thanks so much sock pal!

But I give a *shakes fist!* to the gal I was knitting for. She never once responded to any of my emails, nor our sock sister's emails, nor let me know if she's gotten her socks. I sent her some goodies too so I really wanted to know how she liked them. *sigh* And I also heard that she has ditched on the gal she was knitting socks for. :(

This will be the second sock pal that -I- have knit for that has ditched out. What's up people? I sent an email to Alison (our sock momma) letting her know I would knit for my pal's pal. Poor thing. I got ditched on round two and it sucks! :P I understand that things in your life happen... but damn. At least reply to an email. Let -someone- know.

Oh well. I guess I'll stop bitching now and get back to work. :P

My husband, the free man. 82 car pile up. Bad shoes. And still no knitting, but more cross stitch.

2006-06-04T09:13:00.000-05:00

Well it's official. Eric is an ordinary civilian again. Yay! We got this in the mail on Wednesday:

His Honorable Discharge. He's not even on Inactive Reserve status anymore. So this meant cake, ice cream and Bacardi and Coke. We accepted our mission and ate and drank the night away. Just for the record, I -am- moving a bit slow this morning. :P

You have no idea just how nice it is to have that piece of paper. Every time I saw an official envelope in the mail, I got that tiny twinge of worry that they were reactivating him. Especially when I saw this one. It was big, heavy and from Denver. I tore the envelope open, bracing myself for having to call him and let him know that with only a handful of days to spare, they wanted him back. I was soooooo relieved to see that certificate. I took a picture of it and sent it right to him since he was out working. When he landed I couldn't even contain myself and let him see the email on his own. I told him "You got your final discharge papers!!!" (I was nearly bouncing with joy.) When he got home on Friday night, I called him "Mister". (It was our joke where I would call him "Airman" when I wanted him to do something.)

But that wasn't all the excitement I had on Wednesday. On my way to work, I was five minutes late leaving the house and got the shear joy of avoiding this:

There were a lot more cars involved and it was odd to see cars that I normally am passing in the morning, involved in these crashes. I was rather thankful for having missed it all and only being delayed to work. Since I was there at the beginning of it all, I got to work in under an hour and a half. It was not nearly as bad as the wreck back in October. That was amazing! It was past where I needed to get off the highway and it took me nearly two hours to go three miles. I had mistakenly stayed on the highway when I noticed everything was backed up, rather than get off the last exit before my house and take the back roads. I was just glad that in this accident, very few people were hurt. You can see all about it here if you want to.

Later on that night, after work, my girlfriend, Maura, wanted to go shoe shopping. Who am I to decline? ;) So while I was waiting for her to try on a pair of shoes, I began wandering around looking at some myself. And happened upon these:

All I can say is, they look better in this blurry photo than in real life. Yes boys and girls, those are sequins sewn onto the -entire- shoe. It was truly hideous and begged me to take it's picture. Maura squeaked in fear when I showed them to her. Then she wondered aloud if they had them in aqua. I threatened to hit her with the shoe to knock some sense into her. She laughed and them began trying to get me to agree that a different color of sequins would probably look nice. I was firm. I held strong. Nothing and I mean nothing that covered in sequins, not matter what the color should go on your feet. That's my story and I'm sticking to it! :P

So once I got home and all settled in, I pulled out the cross stitch. I still can't knit. I tried the day before and am now regretting it a bit. I have a follow up appointment on Monday. I don't know but I'm thinking I might need the injections. I can't imagine taking 2400 mg of ibuprofen a day and still not being able to knit. Screw that!

So I finished the "Rat Bastard" for Dennis:

And then I blasted out one for a woman in my office:

Now here's the odd part about this. I really do not get along with this woman all that often. She is rude, crass and belligerent and in all the wrong ways. (Yes there are right ways about those qualities.) *Wicked grin* Yet, I felt I had to make it for her. She deals with a lot of students that want stuff immediately and for her, that is really impossible. The things she has to do require that forms be certified, notarized and the like. These things take time. So I sat down and did this for her and I'm still not sure why but I always follow my gut. It has not failed me yet.

Speaking of gut... well tummy really, here's Trouble asking for some tummy love:

She's such a nut.

In response to comments:

LaBean said: Do you wind up with a bunch of ends to weave in, or is it ok to have floats all over creation?

Well I do a little bit of both. I really just have floats when I am doing one word or words that are close together. After that, I weave the threads in.

Still no knitting.

2006-05-27T17:55:00.000-05:00

Nope. My wrist is still bothering me a bit so I'm still on orders to rest it. So that means, no knitting. But I can cross stitch so I have been. I finished the one I was working on for my friend Lisa:

I got a silver frame for it and gave it to her on Tuesday. She loved it and put it right on her desk.

So it was on to another one. Eric had been looking through the book and said the "Rat Bastard" would be perfect for his father, since he says it all the time. So I thought it would be perfect for him for Father's Day. Here's a pic of the progress after the first day:

I finished it pretty quickly too:

Now I just have to wash it, iron it and find a frame for it. I think it came out great!

I hope I get the all clear soon. I'm itching to knit something but my wrist is still bothering me. I guess I'll have to figure out which pattern to do next...

Done with one and on to another...

2006-05-19T15:26:00.000-05:00

I finished my first cross stitch pattern. Yay! Here it is pre-wash:

And here it is in its pretty, new frame:

I popped it right on the shelf in my cubicle. I think it looks great! :D I've had so many comments about it too. Most people want to know what it says. Of course, after having so many people come by to look at it and then take a peak at the book, I had one of the gals in the office say I should make one for everyone with a little something that they are known for saying. Of course I smiled at this thought... yeah... I want to cross stitch for 33 people. I'll get right on it... But I can honestly say, I am going to do one for Lisa. The other Lisa. *laugh* That's how everyone refers to us: Lisa and the other Lisa. I'm still not clear on which one of us is supposed to be the 'other' Lisa. But I digress... Here it the one I am making for her:

I modified one of the patterns in the book. And nope, it's not perfect but I'm happy with how it is coming out. First lesson learned...? ALWAYS chart out your cross stitch pattern. I eyeballed this one and have had to redo the "I" and the "..." but I'm happy with it either way. So while I'm sitting on the floor last night, stitching away, Fang decided to come beg for some loving. Out of nowhere, she sits up from what looked like a really good nap, sauntered over and then sat down and stared at me like this:

How can you resist that face? I gave her some ear love and some forehead love (which she loves a lot!) and then got back to my cross stitching. After I was editing the pics I had taken last night, I realized... she most certainly no longer has a kitten face. It's so funny too... how one day they look like kittens and the next their face has changed and they look like cats. And then their face changes again and they look like old cats. Fang most certainly had grown fully into her cat face. Yet she still acts like a kitten most days. But then it's the same for Trouble. I mean, you all saw the pic of her laying on my pattern. Right after that, she decided that head butting one of my breasts while I was trying to knit was a good idea. I disagreed. It's quite distracting is what it is! Take your hand, ball it into a fist and then with the side of you fist, bop your breast from underneath. Yeah... it's just like that... but furrier and purring. You try and keep up with a pattern through all that!

Rotten kitten.

Cross stitching, kitties, memes and more.

2006-05-16T07:51:00.000-05:00

Okies, I got tagged for not one, but two memes and by not one, but two people! I guess I better get these answered before I get tagged with any others and I end up too far behind. :P

The first meme:

Seven things to do before I die...

1. See the Pyramids in Egypt
2. See the Mayan Ruins in Mexico
3. Go snorkeling on the Great Barrier Reef
4. Get my Forensic Biology degree
5. Become a crime scene technician
6. Open our bar
7. Renew my vows with Eric

Seven things I cannot do...

1. Anything easy or easily. I'm gonna make it more difficult.
2. Skydive. I see no reason to jump out of a perfectly good airplane.
3. Keep my opinions to myself.
4. Not squeal when I see a kitten or puppy or really any four legged, baby, mammal.
5. Make my ass any smaller.
6. Not blame myself for things out of my control.
7. Not talk fast.

Seven things that attract me to my man...

1. His twisted sense of humor.
2. His smile.
3. The way he laughs at the dumb ass things I do some days.
4. His eyes. (One is green and one is brown.)
5. The feel of his arms around me.
6. The way he knows exactly what I'm thinking.
7. The way he teases me when I cry at movies and then hugs me until I stop pouting.

Seven books that I love...

1. Ender's Game
2. A Wizard of Earthsea
3. Blue Moon Rising
4. The Wheel of Time
5. War of the Worlds
6. The Stand
7. Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Seven things I say...

1. Dumb ass.
2. Fuck me Agnes! (Long story...)
3. Twitchy McSissy Pants (Said to other drivers)
4. Happy ass (i.e. "Well why don't you get off your happy ass and just do it yourself?")
5. Learn to live with disappointment. (Once again, said to other drivers)
6. Hey, how's it going? (Used when I want something from someone)
7. "Fut the Whuck?" and also "Nucking Futs!" (Used in the office.)

Seven movies I've loved...

1. Ghostbusters
2. The Princess Bride
3. 13th Warrior
4. Ronin
5. The Usual Suspects
6. Unbreakable
7. Any Godzilla movie

Seven ladies I'm gonna tag...

1. Bean... cuz she tagged me for a different one! Ha ha!
2. I'll have to get back to you on the other six. :)

And the other meme:

1)What's your favorite LYS?: Shuttles, Needles and Hooks in Cary, NC. It's the yarn mecca.

2) What about it do you like most?: The place is so big and so well stocked, if you can't find it there, it doesn't exist!

3)What is your 2nd favorite?: Yarns Etc. in Carboro, NC

4)What would you improve about it to make it a tie with your first?: Oh that's a tough question. I'd say probably increase their stock with some quality, lower priced yarns. Yarns Etc. has some very lovely yarn but most of it is quite pricey.

5)What's the last thing your bought at your #1 LYS?: Some Koigu for my secret pal.

6)Who's Next?: Ragan!

So now that I'm done with that, I can get on to other stuff. :)

So you all know I bought a copy of Subversive Cross Stitch. Of course, I work in the medical school here at UNC so I have to conform to the 'image' that is displayed while working at the medical school. I looked through the patterns... I pondered who might give me trouble with what... and then finally decided on one. And here's how far I've gotten:

It's coming along very quickly too! I would have probably finished it last night except that my wrist has been bothering me for the past week. I went to the Orthopedics clinic and had it checked out because I honestly getting worried about it. They took nine x-rays and told me I have nothing to worry about. It's not a fracture, there's no tendon damage, and no muscle loss. It just looks like that I may be in the extreme early stages of carpal tunnel (sp?). So I've been told to rest my wrist and take 2400 mg of Ibuprofen a day for two weeks and then a week later, I'll go back in for another evaluation. Let me tell you, I felt a lot better about that!

But sadly this puts all my knitting, crocheting and cross stitching on hold for a while. I can knit and it doesn't really hurt to do it but my nurse said rest my wrist and I want to do what he says. :) But of course what really worries me is... Jeri is due to be induced on the 25th and I still have all sorts of stuff to finish making for her little ones. I have a feeling I'm either going to throw my nurse's advice to the wind and finish up, or Jeri's going to get her gifts late. Any one placing bets on which path I'll take? ;)

Over the weekend, I did get a little further on the tank top I am working on:

And here's a close up:

Here's Trouble helping me out by laying on the pattern:

I swear, I do not understand why or how a magazine can be more comfortable than a comforter! *laugh*

Well back to work!

New Office! Now with blurry photos!

2006-05-09T15:29:00.000-05:00

Yes folks. Here it is. My new office. In blurry camera phone motif. Take a gander:

I was in and unpacked so quickly, I even had time to pile some papers up. :P

Here's a shot of the window I can see including the back of my colleague's head:

At first, that cabinet was six inches to the left. I can honestly say I did get a bit selfish and asked that they move the damn thing so I could see the sun. I am a delicate flower after all... *bats eyelashes*

I've got nearly all of my personal stuff up. The cards one of my secret pals sent me:

A few pics of Eric, my old car, my mother in law's log cabin, and a card a secret pal sent me:

The lovely panel that is missing...:

And my all important tea pot and honey:

Oh yes! Gotta have my tea!

Well I hope you enjoyed the tour. Now it's back to work.

UPDATE!

I forgot my turtle. I don't know how I could have done that. *shakes head*

Those are some thank you cards that some of the visiting medical students have sent me as well. But mainly I just wanted to show off my turtle. He snuggles with my scanner all day and night.

Okies, back to work again.

Bitchin' Cross Stitchin'

2006-05-03T20:56:00.000-05:00

Most of the time I go into any store that sells yarn and other threads/fibers, I pass the embroidery thread without so much as a thought. My mind is focused on yarn! But not anymore. I just got a copy of a great cross stitch book:

Subversive Cross Stitch. I love it! It's offensive AND crafty. I had to have it. I can't decide which pattern I want to try first. Of course, this means there are all sorts of tools I need to buy. Now I have even more excuses to go to the yarn store! I think Eric will faint when he sees it. *laugh*

I got home tonight pretty late. About 9:00. I stayed late at work to pack more of my office and well, I'm not even nearly done. I was in no mood to do anything. And yet, I sat down and started flipping through a copy of Family Circle Easy Knitting that I just got the other day. Mind blank, I turned the pages and then stopped. After realizing the I hadn't turned the page for quite a few seconds I realized that I was looking at this:

I glanced toward the closet that holds my stash and thought... "Do I have any cotton yarn right now?" *ponderponder* Why yes I do! A while ago, my lovely secret pal sent me ten skeins of this:

Ah ha! I jumped up and grabbed a skein to see just how much I had. After doing some quick calculations, I realized I would not have enough to make the tank top -and- the cardigan so I decided I would just make the tank top. And here's how far I've gotten:

Here's a close up:

I have come to realize a few things:

1. This is an easy, and nice pattern.

2. It takes an amazing amount of skill to knit with cotton yarn on metal needles. A skill I haven't quite mastered yet. I must have dropped a stitch (or more) at least six times just getting to this point and it was quite aggravating for me, yet liberating for my inner sailor. Right now my cat Trouble is hiding under the futon because I began swearing rather loudly at the last stitch I dropped.

Ah knitting... Such a relaxing hobby. :)

As I sit here and wonder what else I should blog about, I am reminded of something. As I was leaving the parking deck yesterday to head home, I saw this guy:

I have no idea where he was going but I had an urge to follow because it definitely looked like he was heading toward something fun! Oh and before everyone starts sending me emails telling me I'm crazy for taking pictures while driving, I just want you all to know that I was sitting at a stop light. On a hill. Slipping the clutch. :P LOL!

Well it's time to get back to my cotton and cursing. :)

4 Booties, a building and a begging kitty

2006-04-28T12:09:00.000-05:00

So I finished the second set of booties last week. It' s just been a crazy week so that's why I didn't post anything sooner. My crochet skills are getting better already. This second pair took me a little over one hour. :) Here's both pairs:

Here's another shot from the side:

Call me happy with how they came out. So now it's on to finishing the hats and the onesies. Jeri was getting big near the party. Seeing her this week, she's even bigger. I may not have as much time as I thought. I mean... she can't get much bigger than she is now!

As you may remember, this past Friday (the 21st) we went to the dedication of the new School of Medicine building now called Bondurant Hall. It was a big shindig. They had a small band playing:

There were waiters walking around with plates of crab cakes, fried eggplant (yummy!), mini quiches, little cups of parfait, and juice in wine glasses. *laugh* It was a lot of fun. When I left the dedication party I was absolutely stuffed because we had also had the baby shower that morning. I didn't need to eat dinner that night. :P So of course, we all got to wander around in our new offices so we could take in some of that "New Office Smell". Here's my new area:

Now I know... you may think "There's nothing special about that." Oh but there is! I can see the sun... sort of:

Well hell, it's better than what I've got now. When I turn around in my office, this is what I get to see right now:

Right now if I want to see the sun it requires me to get out of my office, go around a corner and if someone's door is open, then I can see the sun. *laugh* I'm a delicate flower. I need sun. Of course you may ask what type of flower. I say I'm a peony since peonies have a fat bottom. But the women in my office have decided that I am a venus fly trap. *insert big, sly grin here* I'll take that as a compliment since their other choice was a morning glory. *shakes head* I ain't no mornin' glory!

On the kitty front, I have decided that I have one of the strangest cats on the face of this earth. She eats popcorn. Will even beg for it too. Here she is, staring at the bowl of popcorn sitting on the futon next to me:

Once I just couldn't take it anymore... cuz she's just so funny wanting popcorn, I gave her some:

She only usually eats two or three pieces and then moves on. It doesn't even have to have salt or butter on it. Does anyone else's cat eat popcorn?!

In response to comments:

Stephanie said (with regards to giving my bitch neighbors some cookies for Yule this year): Don't even *think* of putting exlax in the chocolate chip cookies. (It may be a felony.)

*innocent look* I never thought of that. Not once. *shakes head* Nope. Not me. (Tee hee!) Oh and it's a misdemeanor. (I looked it up... out of curiosity... yeah...)

Bean said: I saw a newborn in at a LYS yesterday and I so wanted to cuddle him. Then I remembered holding babies always renders me extremely fertile and grabbed some Trekking instead!

*rolls on the floor laughing* I can just see you know... getting that look on your face where you remember what affects your fertility and then bolting toward the bins and grabbing some yarn! :) Okies well off I go to start packing my office up. I haven't even started one thing and it's all got to be done by next Thursday. Yes for the record, I know I'm out of my mind and should have started sooner but hey... no pressure!

Kickin' booties and some estrogen overload

2006-04-21T11:58:00.000-05:00

Well last night, I came to the realization that I was not going to have everything done for the baby shower today. That's okay though. I just went to the store and bought a couple things so that I can now take my time and make sure the hats, onesies, and booties come out good. :) As a matter of fact, here is the first pair of booties:

And another angle:

I'm really happy with them since they are crocheted. I haven't crocheted since I was in my teens and well... I never even knew what the names of the stitches were. I couldn't help but laugh at myself as I slowly followed the pattern. It took me nearly two hours to make that pair! LOL! (I'm sure Ragan is just going to faint when she reads that. She's a crochet goddess with a lightening fast hook!) By the way, thank you Ragan! She sent me the pattern for the booties and was most kind to me when I called her for advice yesterday... Twice! *snicker* I was so glad I had bought a book about crochet because I didn't want to call at 10pm to ask how to slip a stitch. :D Now that I understand the pattern, I'm so going to make some for the Children's Hospital.

So of course when I got into work today, I instantly had to run upstairs and start with the decorations and putting out the food. It was a great party, And Jeri (the mama to be) never even realized that we were having a shower for her. :) Here she is in all her big tummy glory:

She's having twin girls. Here she is modeling some of her presents for the girls (letting them try on the outfits as it were): :P

And of course since it's a shower, we had to have a theme of sorts. That's when one of the women in our office started laughing and wrote "Welcome Jeri's Kids" on the board. We all laughed so hard when we saw it. Jeri did too:

We all pitched in and got her a stroller for her twins. The poor thing, she had given away all her other baby stuff since she thought she was long since done having kids. (She's got a 14 year old, a 12 year old and a 5 year old at home.) So of course that means she didn't have anything! I couldn't believe how expensive it was but you can tell it's a nice one and well worth the cash.

Well time to head off for the new school of medicine building dedication. Yup, it's a busy day of partying here a work.

Can you believe it? I'm knitting baby stuff!

2006-04-19T22:31:00.000-05:00

I never thought I would. But here I am and there is baby yarn on my needles.

One of the women in my office is having twin girls. These will be kids number 4 and five. Her current youngest is turning four. She had gotten rid of -all- of her baby stuff about a year ago. So now she's got nothing so I felt I just had to knit stuff now.

We're holding a baby shower for her this coming Friday and I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to finish everything I want to do for her by then. I decided to make two Miss Dashwood hats. Here's one so far:

And here's that picot border:

I'm going to let you know... that picot border is really easy to do... but seriously time consuming! It took me -forever- to cast on those 125 stitches for the small size. *whew!*

I decided to alternate the colors between pink and yellow for one hat and yellow and pink for the other on Ragan's suggestion. The gal I am knitting them for really likes pink and yellow so I think she'll like them.

Before I head back to my needles (cuz I still have to finish the hat's ties and then make a second hat, then some booties, and some onesies...) I wanted to reply to comments.

In response to comments:

Alden said: I'm doing Sockapal3za too, and let me tell you I have NO IDEA what to send (besides the socks, obviously) to my sockpal! Do please post about it when you come up with some ideas? So I can shamelessly steal said ideas?

Oh hey no problem! I'm actually going to go pick up a few things tomorrow. A few people emailed me with some suggestions and they were awesome! Thanks folks!

Stephanie said (with regards to my sewer issues): I'm glad the pipe is fixed and I think you should give her cookies anyway. kill 'em with kindness. That way if the neighbor turns nasty again, it's her bad karma.

Heh. *insert sly smile then witchy cackle here*

Bean said: Crochet! That's great. I don't really do it anymore except maybe edgings and stuff but I think it's a good idea for knitters to know this craft too. I just can't understand why all the warring between knitters and crocheters?

You know I've never understood it either! Frankly it makes no sense to me. *shrug* Come on people. Love thy fellow needle crafter! *hugs*

Marlene said: I used to crochet, but I had a wrist injury a few years ago, and crochet hurts now. It's why I took up knitting. I still like the look of crochet lace better than knitted most days. But knitting makes a better fabric.

Geez I'm sorry to hear that. Does crochet really take more wrist movement than knitting? I knit english and my hands, arms and wrists fly all over the place! :P

Penny Karma said: Bravo for sending thank-you notes! Especially the one to the neighbor. A kind word to an enemy is like putting hot coals on his head. Kill 'em with kindness. Brilliant! And PS, I thoroughly enjoy your blog.

Thanks! Like Eric said, nothing says "Get bent" more so than a smile and a flipping of the middle finger. Since we couldn't do that, a thank you card worked just as well. Thanks for the comment on my blog too. I really do try to make it semi-legible and enjoyable. :)

Okies back to the baby stuff!

PS... you should have seen the look on Eric's face when I pulled out the Miss Dashwood pattern and cast on. He calmly looked at me, raised one eyebrow so high it hovered somewhere near the ceiling and said "What are you doing?" *insert wild laugh here*

Stick a fork in 'em! They're done!

2006-04-11T21:11:00.000-05:00

I finished my sockapaloooza socks. And I couldn't be happier. Take a look see:

The colorway matches perfectly too! I hope my sock pal likes them.

Now I've got to figure out what else to get her before I send them out on May 1st. *ponderponder*

In other news... not a damn thing is going on. :D See you later!

"The sewer saga is over" or "Hooray for Poop!"

2006-04-09T19:48:00.000-05:00

Oh yes boys and girls, the sewer line has been fixed! I can do my laundry. I can take an actual shower. I can wash my dishes. But best of all, I can poop! You have no idea how good that makes me feel! (No pun intended.) :D

I don't even care how the lawn looks:

and a close up:

I danced when I saw it was done. Danced! Then promptly went to the bathroom and took a half hour long shower and shaved my legs. It was so nice!

And the final damage? $1100.

:D

I ended up sending thank you cards to the City Manager, the Assistant City Manager, the Director of Public Works and at a suggestion from a friend, the Mayor. Oh and our neighbors too. Oh yes. Yes I did. *insert huge sly grin here* See as Eric says, nothing says "fuck you" more than a thank you card in a time of strife. I put so much in that 'thank you' note that I had to type it. I explained the entire situation to them in that note. Hell, they had a right to know. *laugh* When I came home from the store that same day, I saw my neighbor lady outside washing her car. She yelled to me "Thank you for the note and the best of luck." I accepted. But they still ain't getting cookies at Yule this year.

I got a letter back from the Mayor too saying thank you for the thank you card. *laugh* To tell you how small of a town this is, he knew of our problems and was glad to hear that all had been taken care of. And he was also happy to hear such nice things about his staff. I really did tell him how kind they had been to me and how they all helped me.

In knitting news, I'm almost done with my sockapaloooza socks. See:

It even looks like the colorway is matching up too. Sweet! I hope she likes them. :)

When I was outside running around taking pictures of the house, the kitties were of course, looking at me:

They've been so happy since Spring has sprung. Oh and since we've stacked the bean bag chairs downstairs so they could sit comfortably and look out the window:

Wow I baby these cats!

Oh and guess what I'm up to? Crochet! Yup, one of the gals in my office is having twin girls sometime in June and well Ragan had this great onsie that she crocheted (it was on her previous blog which has since died or I would link you a pic). It's been a really, really, really long time since I crocheted and really I only knew a few stitches and not even what they were called so really, I am learning all over again.

I'll post pics once I have something to actually take a good look at. :)

Holy crap I got "shooshed" in a bar!

2006-04-04T10:22:00.000-05:00

My mother in law and her husband are in town this whole week. They are really good people and I'm so glad they are here. So when Eric got home last night, we decided to go out for a drink (cuz I've been needing one for a while with this sewer issue).

Well as we're sitting in The Lantern (my favorite place in Chapel Hill) we have having a few drinks when the couple sitting next to us asks us to please keep it down becasue they couldn't hear themselves talk and well, it was quite rude of us to be doing so. (Direct quote by the way.)

*blink* Do I have a rude people magnet on my frigging forehead?!

Let's just say, it threw all four of us for a loop. They were eating dinner in the bar for some reason and well, they said they couldn't hear themselves talking and after the woman in the couple had been going on and on about how loud we were, the gentleman said "That's just enough." The concensus between the four of us weren't sure if he was talking to her or to us. *shrug* Mind you, everyone else in the bar was just as loud if not louder than us. All I could think of was "Um gee... it's a bar. People get loud. Why aren't you eating in the restaurant? ... you know, where people eat."

But of course I didn't say that. No, instead I just stared at her for a second and said, "...'kay..." and then looked back at the rest of my group. I must have had a great look on my face because they burst out laughing after that.

And if Eric hadn't been there, I would have handed her a $5 bill and said "here... have a drink on me and loosen up!"

But he wouldn't let me! *grumble* I would have done it too!

So yeah... shooshed in a bar. Beat that!

Oh and no knitting news nor a stash flash yet. Sorry ladies and gentlemen but this whole sewer thing isn't completely done yet (soon though... soon) and well once it's done I think I'll be able to get back to normal. :P But I will flash my stash soon. I promise. :D

Update! I forgot to share this with you as well. I've been thinking about taking up cross stitch but I've never really been all that crazy about the patterns I've seen. Well check out this site!

Pussy got me dizzay! (I love that one!)