Wednesday, July 30, 2008

It's What We Do

Monday morning the Husband called me to let me know that Miley Cyrus' tour bus would be at a local shopping center. He suggested I take the Girl seeing as how she is just one of the horde of screaming pre-pubescent girls that, like, think Miley is the best, ever.

I wasn't going to say anything to the Girl, because I had, like, laundry to do, lots. The Husband thwarted my plans by coming home from work early and telling her. Did he take her? Hail, no.

This is what we saw when we arrived.Picture 025

You can't tell from the photo, but this line snaked around three times. We waited in line, in the blazing sun while standing on asphalt, for 3 1/2 hours. 3. and. one half. hours.

To see this..Picture 029Miley's bed on the bus.

And this..Picture 030Billy Ray and wife's bed with actual costumes!

Guess who the hero of the day was? Dad.

Thursday, July 24, 2008

Another sock

I've started Summer of Socks 08 pair number 4! Can you hear the fanfare? Yeah, neither can I.

Its Yarn Treehouse yarn in a kicky orange. I said 'kicky', sheez. I'm attempting the Bluebell Rib pattern from Charlene Schurch's Sensational Knitted Socks.

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Funny story about this stitch pattern. Well, not really LOL funny, it's more like a 'huh, you don't say' funny. Several months ago I decided that it can't be too hard to 'design' a sock pattern. I came up with the Husband's aran out of my head after cobbling together several cable stitches I thought would look good together.

I have this Sockotta yarn that I started to use for a utility vanilla-like sock, except I didn't like the way the color was pooling. A stitch pattern is what was needed to break up the pooling. I bumbled across a stitch pattern in an old book I have, and started using it for the sock. It was perfect, except I kept forgetting what row I was on in the pattern repeat. I kept thinking that if I could work through it and it turned out o.k. I would submit it to knitty.com or something.

Guilt of not working on the Husband's aran took over, so I decided to frog the sock and start over fresh after the sweater was done. Then the Summer of Socks took over my soul...

I finished pair number 3 yesterday, Picture 021and needed to cast on for pair number 4. I grabbed this yarn and started swatching. I grabbed Charlene's book to see what would work with my gauge since I had such good luck with the other socks I worked from this book. I wanted something lacey.

The picture of the little swatch of the Bluebell Rib was beautiful. I read the chart for the pattern and I realized that Charlene had the same idea I had about this pattern. She just managed to get hers published in a book. All of my modest dreams about being a 'designer' were deflated.

I guess it's just as well, I wouldn't want all that fame and fortune to go to my head. The next thing you know, my marriage would have fallen apart because the Husband and I would have been at 'different places' in our careers and rumors would be swirling about my alleged affair with George Clooney. Why can't the media leave us alone, already?

Yeah, I think it's all for the best.
40 Days and Nights

This past week has been rather trying. Thing 1 started with some viral thing that gave him a fever and sore throat (tested negative for strep). He passed it on to Thing 2 and the Girl, and I've had a bit of it on top of insomnia.

Today Thing 1 has done nothing but whine and complain, and it's only 9am. He asked for a bagel with ham and melted cheese for breakfast. Once it was ready, he decided he didn't like the cheese and wanted something else. He's complained that his twin won't play with him, he doesn't like anything anyone is doing. Now, let me ask you something. Is it really illegal to choke an 8 year old? Really? Merde.

I awoke with a headache and immediately had to take a hit on the inhaler. The Husband had the fan set to 'full on wind tunnel' blowing the cat hair (to which I am allergic) into a swirling vortex of death in the bedroom, thus my condition this morning.

Let's look on the bright side shall we? 40 more days and nights until the kidlets are back in school!

Wednesday, July 09, 2008

He Still Surprises Me

After nearly 15 years of marriage the Husband still manages to pull one out of his hat and do something totally unexpected. Yesterday I had to go work my silly little part time job (merchandising). It was going to be a little project so I was only going to be gone 3 hours.

As I was leaving the Husband and the kidlets were sitting in their usual summer positions - in front of the t.v. I yelled on my way to the garage that I would like to have the load of whites in the dryer folded and the kitchen clean by the time I got back.

I returned to an unclean kitchen and underwear and socks dropped in intervals from the dryer across the kitchen floor to the family room. I suppose they were leaving crumbs so they could find their way back to the laundry room seeing as how I'm the only one in the family that knows where it is.

I only had an hour on my return before I had to drag the kidlets to karate. So I knuckled down and took a 1/2 nap. When I got up I grabbed the Araucania that I have in the stash to start on pair number 3 for the Summer of Socks 08. Picture(Here's completed pair number 2)

I got out the ball winder (I have no swift - must remedy this), cut off the label and proceeded to cuss because I had cut the yarn at an inconvenient place. Now I was going to have 3 balls of yarn from this hank!

I wound two of the balls, started on the third and ended up with a pile of yarn vomit on the table but could go no further because it was time to leave. Again, on my way out the door with the kidlets I yelled to no one in particular in my most sarcastic voice, "Thanks for cleaning the kitchen,guys!"

During my two hours at the dojo the Husband called wanting to know what we were doing about dinner, and to let me know that he straightened out the yarn vomit and wound it. Wow. He said he knew how much I hated it when the yarn got tangled, so he finished for me. Wow.

And the kitchen was clean when I got home.

Tuesday, July 01, 2008

Very Busy, Very Busy

I've finally finished my first pair of SoS08 socks. I was hoping to get one pair per week done, and I went a little over a week on this pair. I started them June 21 and Kirtchnered the final toe this morning. Note to self, using a purplish yarn with purplish needles (Knitpicks Options dpn's) in low light leads to mistakes. This is why it wasn't finished till this morning.

This is Trekking XXL on 2.75mm needles using a basic sock pattern. I love the color.
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This is the way they will most likely be worn...Picture 018

This is currently on hold while I work on socks, socks, socks.
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This out of focus blob is the Sitcom Chic.

Remember this picture?
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How about this for a change?
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They now have 2 coats of primer, and one wall has one coat of primer. Tomorrow I hope to have all of the primer done (including the ceiling) and at least one coat of paint on it. All this while getting ready for a family party for approximately 30 on July 4 and knitting on SoS08 pair number 2.