Because I've moved!

Over the past little while I've been working pretty hard on opening up my own yarn and fibre shop! I'm very nearly ready to go, but in the meantime I'm blogging at the new URL and I'd like everyone to come and join me:

http://www.dyedinthewoolhandmade.com/blog/

See you there!

Our friends have gone and the house is quiet. Debbie and Randy are so easy to live with (even in a house with only one bathroom) that the visits always feel too short. Today I took a long nap to try to recover from the weekend's drinking and staying up too late.

Tomorrow we're celebrating my mom's (belated) birthday by spending the day and having dinner over at their place with them. Then I've got SnB which I'm really looking forward to.

This weekend I learned that I'm really no longer a smoker, even though it's been 6 months and 13 days since my last cigarette. We had a little get-together on Saturday and all the smokers refused to smoke anywhere near me. Even though we were all outside, they left the deck and went to stand in a smoking section of their making. Believe it or not, but I felt totally left out. I know that everyone was being respectful and kind, but I wanted to shout, I'm still one of you! But I guess I'm not. And while this is a good thing; indeed a very good thing, it's disconcerting and weird.

I am without social subculture.

Tomorrow afternoon my Jersey friends arrive and the drinking begins! I have about 24 hours left to get the place in shape, and I'm almost there. But first, I there is procrastination to be attended to. Like checking out the new Magknits. Only one thing appeals to me, though: Lemonade. I love this! I'll probably go with wool and make it long-sleeved for fall wear. I'll probably have to redesign the whole thing to make it work for me, but it looks pretty straightforward and easy. I love the shape and the neckline and the single button.

I don't know when I'm going to make it, since I seem to be way more interested in spinning lately than I am in knitting at all. I'm on a fat singles kick since they're so fast and fun. Here's the yarn I spun last, the polwarth I mentioned before is on the left and on the right is a skein of corriedale (both hand-dyed). The yarn is lighter than worsted weight; I'm having some trouble making the singles fat enough. I'd like a worsted to heavy worsted single for felting. So far, corriedale is my favourite fibre to spin this way. The skeins are about 4 oz. each. I spun them on the Lendrum, which I am starting to prefer for thicker yarn now that I have the two wheels.

I also just finished this merino 2-ply. It's a squishy worsted weight, maybe a bit on the heavy side. I didn't measure WPI or YPP or anything on these yarns. I'm trying to keep a notebook with these kinds of details but it's hard to force myself. I dyed this fibre too, in shades of peach and silver-grey. There's lots here, 218g. It turned out just right. I love this one.

I just want some tuna. Is that too much to ask? We bought a new can opener since the last one rusted shut and it worked just fine until today. It just won't grab the lip of the can. I'M HUNGRY WANT TUNA. I've opened two cans previously with it to no avail, and now the universe has suddenly decided I should be out $8 and that I can't have lunch.

Tonight we're going to hit the drive-in on cheap night to see the new Harry Potter movie. Alex saw it last week at the IMAX with his dad, but Jeremy and I have not, so we're all going. I should get some good knitting time in, hopefully. I've cast on for yet another pair of socks...I'm making some cute ankle ones.

Spinning has been uneventful. I'm plying my second skein of corriedale (for the Flower Basket Shawl), playing with some BFL that I dyed and I want to try to make a few worsted weight singles yarns for felting projects. Not enough hours in the day! Plus, too much laundry. And in two weeks, these freakazoids will be in town, staying in my house, cramping my styles. Can't wait! Can't wait!

I know you want this pattern.

Mezzo Diva is participating in the Weekend to End Breast Cancer. Sponsoring her is the only way to get the sock pattern, and it's well worth it! Check out more photos here.

Jeremy's got the week off right now so we've decided to take care of a few things. First, I'm very happy to finally have light fixtures in the bedrooms instead of bare bulbs hanging from wires. We have planted our front garden and put some plants on the deck. Tonight we're going to secure the new shelf we mounted above our television so that we can actually put stuff on it. Also, I've got plans tonight to touch up the ceilings in the bedrooms so it no longer looks like a kindergartner painted our house. I would have also painted some of the trim but I'm totally sluggish from being drunk last night. Margaritas.

The other day, our across-the-yard neighbour's tree decided to break and fall into our yard. It didn't damage anything, but it's sitting on top of our fire pit. No storm, it just fell. Scary! The neighbour is a totally good sort who understands it's his tree and that he's responsible for clearing it off of our property. He's going to chop it up so we can use it for firewood.

Tomorrow is going to be a hard day. Cuba's going in to the vet to get some teeth removed. The cats were in for their yearly checkups and the vet found a lot of damage. We had no idea because she's always been a happy piggy who has had no problem crunching up her food. Her front teeth are a mess and have to go, but she'll keep her molars and fangs.

Knitting-wise, I've started a new project, Grow With Me from Knitty. There is errata. Apparently the editors accidentally edited away the stitch pattern for the bodice. The missing information can be found on the Knitty message boards here (you have to be registered to follow the link). I'm using Cotton-Ease. It needs to be washable and I just can't justify the cost of Rowan Denim.

I don't have much else to share since I've been spending time working on a project I can't discuss, as well as sporadic spinning and dyeing. Mostly I've been sweating and praying for rain. Just not on Sunday night, please. It's triple-feature at the drive-in, starting off with the new Die Hard movie, and Jeremy and I are going to try to sit through the whole thing.

I got an email today bringing my attention to the fact that The Knit Café is serving as a drop-off point for items being collected for Afghans for Afghans. They're looking for garments and blankets, knit or crochet, in natural animal fibres to clothe Afghan people.

• No synthetic fibres
• No representational imagery (faces or animals), no religious imagery
• Avoid white and light colours that are hard to keep clean
• No used items or scarves
• Please knit items to standard sizes, keeping warmth in mind

More information, guidelines and patterns can be found here. Thanks to Anita for helping to organize this. The Knit Café is located at 1050 Queen Street West. Deadline for items is September 25, 2007.

As of yesterday, we've lived in our little house for two years! Time is getting away from me, obviously. Over the past two years, we haven't finished a single reno project. We always get bored and quit with just a teeny bit left to go. I still don't have any art on my walls. I never did get around to touching up the ceiling in the bedrooms (it's a mess). The only room in which we have permanently installed baseboards, they remain unpainted. There is still no trim around Alex's bedroom door. The trim in our bedroom and most of the hallway has not yet been painted. I could go on. Eh. Whatever.

Instead of doing grown up things like making dinner and caring for myself and my family, I've been spending a lot of time on Ravelry. I got in there really early on and it's already changed and evolved so much. It's a really great little community. My username in there is, crazily enough, Maggie. Come friend me!

Rochelle came over today to hang out and spin, and she brought her big Secret Pal haul for me to see. I left a comment on her blog today that, if you happen to be Rochelle's Secret Pal, you wouldn't think is very nice but I was pretty much astonished when I saw what she got. I can't imagine that the person who sent along all that stuff actually thought they were sending nice things in good faith.

We had a wonderful time, and I really miss them. After visiting us, Marjon and Ivon headed down to the Finger Lakes in NY. While they were here we ended up going to Centre Island and the CN Tower, which I hadn't been to in ages. I'll post a few shots of the weekend as soon as I feel like going through all of our pictures.

For now, I've got some shots of the stash I scored in Oakville at The Wool Bin. They're really friendly and they carry Koigu! We happened to be in the area a few weeks ago for my cousin's wedding with a couple of hours to kill between the ceremony and reception.

I got two skeins each of four colours. I didn't like any of the colours for a shawl, so they're going to be for socks. I started a pair of Monkeys with the yellow.

I also got a couple of skeins of Sea Silk - one in gold and the other in shades of sea blues. I thought I'd combine them to make a shawl, since I was in Sea Silk Shawl Withdrawl. I managed to finish my Leaf Lace Shawl in time to wear it to the wedding (finally, a finished object to show off!).

The shawl used up almost exactly two full skeins of Sea Silk, knit on a 3.5mm needle. I had just under half a skein left after the 19th repeat, so I decided to knit the edging at that point and as it turned out, I had exactly enough yarn leftover to add seven 12" strands of yarn, looped in half and knotted, as fringe along the entire shawl. Perfect.

Finally, here's my (almost) latest handdyed handspun. It's all superwash merino. Both yarns are similar in grist, but I didn't measure yet so I don't have any details. The green one is from the fibre I dyed here, and I rather think it looks more like green grapes than it does olives. The green and orange fibre was dyed the same night.

The latest spun yarn is sitting in its finishing bath right now, and I'm about to go slap it about and hang it to dry. It's 4oz of the polwarth that I dyed with Rochelle back in April.

Marjon and Ivon are here. Time for drinking!

We're having Marjon and Ivon stay with us soon, which means we need to get their room ready. The spare room, over the last few months, has become my yarn/fibre dumping ground. Instead of organizing my stuff, I've just been tossing it in the room and shutting the door to keep the cats out. Toss. Shut. Toss. Shut. You couldn't even walk in there.

Today I decided to pull everything out and try to get organized. I'm in the middle of filling three huge Stearlite bins with yarn and fibre, bringing my stash to eight full bins. One of the bins I filled today is entirely spinning fibre and another one is full of half-finished projects and things that need to be ripped back.

While cleaning up, I found an old notebook I was using for pattern notes and stuff. On the last page with content I found this:

1. Breasts Thighs too big
2. Possum
3. Big fart in the morning
4. Curls his toes
5. Cooking
6. 2nd

It's my handwriting. I have no recollection of this, and I don't know what the hell it means. Big fart in the morning?

Alex turned 13 on Wednesday. We didn't have a chance to celebrate because he left that morning on a 3-day camping trip with school, where he gets to ride a ZIPLINE. I'm expecting him back this afternoon missing at least two articles of clothing and possibly the Nintendo DS I made it clear he was not to take. Grr.

I can't explain how much I've missed him. He spends time away from home a lot, visiting his aunt and grandparents, but this is the first time he's on his own, responsible for his own stuff and his own behaviour and bunking with other kids...but I'm coping. I had some trouble sleeping, but he called twice while he was gone and sounded like he was having a blast, so that made me feel more comfortable.

Monday is a holiday and we're going to celebrate his birthday at my parents' house then. He's 13! I can't believe it.

I can't take it anymore! The colour of the light coming in my window is horrifying! Gloomy. Grey. I moved out of a basement apartment because I couldn't handle the lack of light, and now I have giant, taunting windows that want to imprison me with their sadness. It really bothers me that I have to close my shades and turn on my lights as early as 2 PM because I just can't handle the bluish cast to everything.

And the gloomy weather gave me fever blisters. That's right, I got my herpes on. I don't know if this stuff works, but I am paranoid about sores like this spreading, so I've been bathing in it. I'll let you know. Who wants a kiss?

I couldn't get any good photos today of my stuff. I plied the Clown Vomit and finished spinning the Bruise. They both look great, although I couldn't capture it. Instead, here is some progress on the afghan (that's Bruise in the corner).

I had to admit to myself that bright colours just aren't my thing, so I went to Michaels. I bought Patons Decor in much more muted shades. Yeah, it's mostly acrylic, but it's dirt cheap, the colours are nice and it's at least got some wool in it. I'm finally happy. I have crocheted, ripped and re-crocheted so much, trying to find a decent stripe combination with the other yarn, that I could have had about a fourth of the blanket done by now. At least I've ended up with something I really like.

My birthday was nice! First I had my spinning class on Saturday, which was a lot of fun. I learned that I'm definitely on the right track, which has given me a lot more confidence. The best part was hanging out with a bunch of people who were all spinning! Later that evening my friends popped in to hang out for a bit, which was fun even though we were all so very, very tired. I was so tired that I actually failed to get loaded.

On Sunday afternoon my family came over and my sister gave me a little stovetop espresso maker and milk frother. I have been having lattes every day since. No chance of falling asleep now...I'm so coffeed up I don't know what to do with myself. David (her fiancé) gave me a little sampler of all kinds of Starbucks latte syrups and stuff. You totally want to come to my place for a coffee and some very, very fast conversation. I may or may not seem a little tense. Don't be afraid!

My Knitpicks yarn finally showed up, so I'm ready to get started. I've got 9 colours, but after playing with them and trying to come up with an attractive combination of stripes, I decided I don't like the green in there. The other 8 suddenly look so much nicer. I haven't decided if I'm going for a random stripe pattern, or a particular sequence. I've got the initial order planned out, and once I've completed one pass with each colour, I'll decide what to do then. I have no idea how wide to make this afghan!

Continue reading "Afghan Colours and Birthday Plans"

The title says it all, really. I haven't felt much like posting here and that's due to the fact that I haven't been knitting much, spinning much, doing much at all, and I am so sick of the way my site looks that I don't even want to look at it anymore. I'm also ready to move beyond the smoking-quitting and get on with the rest of my life. Today is Day 42 without cigarettes and I'm just so sick of this being the focus of my days. When will this just blend into the background? I've been having a particularly hard time with it this last week, and while there is no danger of me lighting up (I have never been more determined), I am just exhausted from the sheer awareness of my non-smoking status.

Continue reading "Stale"

I'm supposed to be at my mom's this morning at 10:30 in order to go to a wedding shower. My sleeping schedule has been so crappy lately that I was worried I'd sleep in and be late, but I managed to get up with the alarm today and get in the shower. I had lots of time to sit and have my coffee and read weblogs, when I noticed that instead of 9 am, it was 10 am. BRAND NEW DST FUCKED ME IN MY ASS. I swear I thought this was happening in 2008 - the DST change, not the assfucking.

Yeah, so I didi for 30 eays. 30 whol.e days! ANd i celefrated woith some peole, her and the jusband, and my own husband. An he did 30 days too! Bvut they did 100+ days. WE all did lots of days, and no cmokes. but we daranks with no smokes! That's the real test. Alchol with no smokes. And wie didi it. Because we boweled Wii bowling. I didn't win.

So. I dyes some fivbrfe yesterday and today. Yesterday came out nice, but on tstarurated. the colours wer ckind of a bit light. But I'm spinning it. ANd I think it's nice. Rochelee came over and spun too, she bronght firber she bought and it's nice and pretty . I tried the woolee Winder...I thinks i must get it. But I dont need it right away. I like itd, though.

Also, I had a good time. Don't forget o good time, because so improtant. Esprciially when you achieve not smoking, and have som ewine. It s good drink.

It's the weekdne. I enjou the weeknd witgh my fiends and xome fun and drinks. Thank Girl is on tv. I c tEa is th gy with theears. Kangaroo. Black ars look betert in the shade.

One of the biggest side effects I've been experiencing from having quit smoking is my diminished attention span. I'm usually the sort of person that gets really absorbed in what I'm doing, so much so that I have no idea what time it is, or even what day it is, when I come up for air. And over the past four weeks I've just been floundering, unable to really do or make anything. I stare a lot. But not at you. Because that's rude.

I have barely touched my wheel since I smoked my last cigarette. I've knit NOTHING. Part of that, though, is because Jeremy showed up one day with one of these, so I played this obsessively until I finished it and now I am free...FREE! It took me a week. I guess I have no problem with attention span when the activity in question involves staring at the tv while waving my hands wildly about.

To add to the surrealist nature of our current, smoke-free state, Jeremy had some surgery and has been at home for the past week and a half. Dude had a hernia, if you can believe that. The first few days were pretty rough, but he's recovering well. While I like having him home every day, my regular daily routine is out of whack and I can't seem to snap back.

I just want things to feel normal again, or at least get used to the new way so that it becomes normal.

A lot has happened in the past few weeks. It turned out that the first doctor (walk-in) we saw about Alex's arm was wrong and the arm was broken after all. It didn't seem to be healing, and Alex's regular doctor thought it was broken as soon as he saw it. No harm done, he's almost done healing and soon he'll do some physio to strengthen his shoulder muscle which has diminished from being in the sling. Personally, I can't wait until he gets better because I really enjoyed when he used to load and unload the dishwasher.

Continue reading "Day 12"

The boy is fine. After a little rest he feels so much better. He can't raise the arm 100%, but he can lean on it and is having no trouble holding books. Also, there is no swelling or bruising, so I think he's just strained it. We're going to keep an eye on it for tonight. Yay! To celebrate we're having Chinese and I'm going to make a pan of brownies.

We got a lot of snow early this morning, which is usually nice for the kids. Unless, of course, the kids are fooling around at recess, slip and fall and the school calls to tell you your kid ended up at the bottom of the pile. Jeremy drove over there to pick up Alex who was soaking wet and unable to move his left arm. He's hurt pretty bad, somewhere between the shoulder and elbow of his left arm. He came home and changed (with some help) and now he's lying in bed, having a rest. I gave him some Advil and told him that when he gets up we'll go over to the hospital for some x-rays to make sure it isn't broken.

Alex says it only hurts if he tries to move his arm or use any pressure, and then the pain is sharp and severe. This leads me to think that he's probably got a fracture of some sort. I hope not! It's in such an awkward location. Whatever it is, we'll figure it out this afternoon. He's in good spirits and doesn't feel too badly right now so I'm not overly worried. What's childhood without a broken bone or two, right?

My guests are due to arrive any minute and then I am getting smashed! Happy New Year!

I'm exhausted! I love the holidays but they consume so much energy! This year we have my aunt from San Diego visiting, and last week I had her up at the house for a couple of days. Then she went back to my parents' house, and we joined them all (we even brought the cats) for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Natalie and I decided that this year we were going to do the formal dinner on the eve so that we'd have nothing much to do except open gifts and nap the next day, and my mom admitted it was nicer this way. Even though dinner was at my parents' house, the cooking was up to me and I made a big prime rib with yorkies, potatoes and parsnips, and a red wine gravy. I also made an overnight french toast for breakfast the next day, which we ate while opening presents.

Yesterday I got an email from Jeremy's mom about a collaborative birthday gift they're all planning for his grandmother. We need to take a decent photo of the three of us and send it over because they're putting together a memory quilt full of phots for Grandma's 87th birthday. We'll be visiting them the weekend of her party so we get to see the quilt when she opens it.

In horribly sad news, my Peace Fleece cardigan is just not right. Blocked and half-seamed, I had to face the fact that the armscye doesn't work for me and it sits funny. Usually I work out my own armscye but this time I followed the general numbers for the set-in sleeve pattern in this book. The armscye ended up too shallow which made the sleeve pull a bit and the front didn't fall over my chest the way it should. I'm putting it aside to worry about later. I'll probably frog the whole thing and knit something completely different. I'm spending the rest of the year spinning on my spindle instead.

Happy New Year! See you in 2007.

Rochelle tagged me, so I'll happily post six weird things about myself, but I won't do any tagging. Feel free to copy the meme anyhow, the full rules are on Rochelle's blog. For this list I had to ask Jeremy to help me because weird is a matter of perspective and I think I am totally normal, ha ha!

1. I think buttermilk is a delicious, refreshing beverage and I'll often eat a bowl of buttermilk with rye bread cut up in it as though it were cereal.

2. I have memorized most of the dialogue from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, one of my all-time favourite movies.

3. I can move my eyes independently of each other. Some people think it's really gross, others think it's funny.

4. My jaw dislocates and in the past 6 years I've had to go to the emergency room twice to have it relocated - it got stuck open. That's a whole new kind of pain, kids.

5. My name is Margaret and I'm named after my grandmother, Margarita. When I started grade 3, my teacher thought Margaret seemed too old for me and asked if I'd like to be called either Maggie or Peggy. What if I had chosen Peggy? Would I be a totally different person right now?

6. When I was 8 and my sister was 6, she got a Strawberry Shortcake bike for her birthday. It came disassembled in a box and my father promised to assemble it for her the next morning. I was so jealous of her and I wanted to ride the bike so bad that I got up in the middle of the night, assembled it myself and rode it all around the house. The next morning my dad was shocked. He told me how proud he was of me for being able to put the bike together, then he grounded me for a week for appropriating my sister's birthday present.

On Wednesday I got 2 braids of some Fleece Artist merino and got started. Yesterday I plied it, and now I have this. It's a bit heavier than I had intended...my goal with the spinning is to make my own sock yarn. It's a light worsted, so it looks like I'm going to end up with some heavy socks. I don't know how far it'll go, so I'm going to knit toe-up until I run out. I can't tell you how proud I am of this skein. I made it myself and it's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.

Last night I taught Jeremy how to spin - he's a natural. He said he'd been watching me over the past couple of weeks and wanted to give it a shot. I showed him step by step everything that I know, and he ended up with a plied strand of yarn far better than my first attempt! I'm going to wash it today and then take a photo. He's so proud!

I decided not to post the pictures from my trip to Jersey because I don't feel comfortable posting shots of people and their kids without permission. I uploaded a very few to my Flickr site, though.

We got back from our trip on Monday evening. We all had the greatest time. I haven't sorted out my camera yet so I don't have any photos right now, but my lazy ass will get around to it this weekend.

We arrived last Wednesday afternoon and finally got to see the new Freak/Geek house. Seriously, Freakgirl's photos don't do it justice, it's beautiful. Very big and airy and the layout is perfect. The next day we went out to get our hair done and I finally got a decent haircut - so happy. We also did a teeny bit of shopping and I got a couple of nice tops for $2.98 apiece. I'm totally serious. I love Target. Thursday night was really fun which I'm sure you already know if you've read my previous two posts.

On Friday the guys headed into NYC to see a comic exhibit at the Jewish Museum, but it was closed. What a disappointment! Freakgirl and I nursed horrible hangovers and then shopped and did prep for their holiday party. Saturday was all party, all the time - here's the evidence.

Sunday evening we went over to Lisa's adorable apartment for dinner. She made us a strata (layered bread, sausage, veggies, cheese soaked in an egg and half-and-half mixture and baked) which was the most delicious thing I've ever eaten. I'm thinking of making it for breakfast on Christmas morning, maybe Lisa will be willing to share her recipe with me.

Leaving Jersey always sucks and it takes me a few days to get over missing my friends. Charlie gave us a gorgeous tile he made himself, which was just so thoughtful and a complete surprise. I'd been coveting it for ages. I need to find a plate stand so I can display it on our bookshelf.

Thanks for the hospitality, fun, booze, smoked gouda, outdoor fireplace, company and Tivo, guys! We miss you.

WE are sitll hanging in there.

We are durnken. There was a deer and it ate the bird feeder. We had so many bogttgles of wine. We laughed about I peed outside. No one saw, don't worry, it was too ark. I frgihtened the deer when I gbot up to get myu laptop. Anyway, I spun things during Survivor. It's warm enough outside that we have been sitting on the patio drinking wine. It rained, but we hung in there. We're hardy. I love visiint ng New Jersye.

I guess we got a decent amount of kids this year. Not so many you'd go crazy from getting up to answer the door, but we bought way too much candy and now I have to eat it. Also, Alex brought home more loot than we gave out.

So...want pictures of the cats?

Continue reading "Halloween 2006 (and Kitties)"

Last Tuesday at SNB I finally finished a pair of socks. The first sock was completed months ago and all I had left on the second was the toe. I'm not thrilled with them because even though I took great pains to match the stripes, my second toe came out differently and this is really, really bugging me. Pictures to come.

I haven't knit a stitch since then because this woman lent Alex this game for his DS and I have been obsessed with it since. There go three days I'll never get back. But I'm almost finished, so last night Jeremy dug the Nintendo 64 out of the basement so we could play this game. Yeah, I'm a sucker for Zelda. I also found out that my sister just bought this game for her Gamecube, so I'll be borrowing that soon and maybe I'll come up for air sometime before Christmas. But then again, that's when this one is going to be released for the Gamecube, so who knows. We may never see each other again.

Rochelle from my SNB had a much more productive weekend than I did. She went on the TTC-Knit-Along and it looks like she had a blast! Great pictures!

Tomorrow is Halloween and it's supposed to rain off and on all day. Which is a real bummer, considering Alex has decided that this is probably his last year trick-or-treating since he's getting too old. He's going to be a pirate and today we're finalizing his costume so he can wear it to school tomorrow. They're having a dance after lunch, and Alex has a date. Suprisingly not shy with the girls, this kid of mine.

Has it been two weeks since I even looked at this site? I guess so. The last little while has been really busy and hectic. We were supposed to make a trip to Ottawa for Thanksgiving but it turned out we couldn't. There were two deaths in our not-immediate family, people who were very loved and will be missed. And a lot of personal stuff thrown in there as well.

I didn't have much time for knitting but I did finish the back of the new Peace Fleece cardigan. I think I may have worked 3 rows total on my shawl and I haven't touched anything else.

Over the past few days we painted our bathroom. We hadn't done anything with it since we moved in here, thinking we'd wait until we had money to renovate the whole thing. Just like with the kitchen, reality sets in and there will be no renovation any time soon, so we painted it, added baseboards and generally neatened the place up. My first choice of paint colour was horrible, so we repainted and I still don't love it (too bright). In any case, I can't deny it's miles better than it was before and I'm pleased with the work we did. I forgot to take "before" pictures, but you can kind of see what it used to look like here. (The purple squares in the photos denote colours more similar to that of the towels and bathmats because they didn't pick up accurately.)

We need to add a wall cabinet and some shelves, and Jeremy has just finished replacing the outlets with new white ones. We also need a couple of new light fixtures but those can wait. The hanging blind hides our water heater, which is tucked into a crappy makeshift closet panelled with badly applied fake wood. Ideally we would have liked to move it into the basement and knock that area down, but that's out of our scope right now. The tub/shower has sliding glass doors and they looked rather cold so we added a shower curtain. I still need to find something decorative to add over the liner. I am mostly pretty happy with it, I'd just like to tone down the brightness of the wall colour and it'll be perfect. Maybe next spring.

Not much going on this weekend. For a minute I was extremely excited because it looked like I'd be getting a long-coveted bookshelf for my living room tonight, but as it turned out the thing is out of stock and won't be available for about a month. Unless we want to drive to Etobicoke, which we do not. Well, I've waited this long, I can wait a little bit longer.

As I've mentioned, last weekend we celebrated our anniversary at Sandra and Jay's wedding. I posted just a very few of the photos I took over here. They make a lovely couple, and the bartender at the reception made a lovely gin and tonic. I had a few of those. At the end when everyone was leaving, Jeremy and I stuck around pretty late, dancing our asses off. I am in such bad shape! I used to go to clubs 3 or 4 times a week and dance the whole time I was there without feeling a thing. Not so, this time. I woke up the next morning feeling rather geriatric. But I had a lot of fun.

I'm now well into the 4th ball of Classic Wool for my afghan. It's reached the point where it just. doesn't. grow. In fact, every time I pick it up it looks smaller than it did before. I'll take some pictures tomorrow, along with the Fleece Artist socks I finished last week. They're in the wash right now.

This afghan is making me want to cast on for something else, something smaller. Something I can knit up in a few days and be done with. A lacy scarf of some sort, but I can't decide on a stitch pattern.

Today marks the eighth year that Jeremy and I have been together, and our second wedding anniversary. We got married on the 6th anniversary of our first date. We had our ceremony on the Friday because we really wanted to keep the date, with only our immediate family around us. Our reception was the next evening, and it was a LOT of fun. It was bride-drinking-wine-straight-out-of-the-bottle fun. Jeremy, here's to many more years of that kind of fun with you.

Just for fun, here's my drunken blog post from my wedding night, two years ago:

We’re married now adn I’m a li6ttle dringk. Ok. A lot drukn. Today a lot of my family was in my home. I saw my cousine for the first time in 10 yeras. I saw my other cousin who is 11 and the cousin of the other cousin. I made flower arrangements and took them too the restaurant where we are haming our receptinon. I love the families. I saw some food that was a lot of fuood. I did not eat it, because REmy and I went out for dinner. We ate steak. And carbs. Carbs are teh henemy. I said I wasn’t going to get thsi drun k because I have a party tomorrow, dammit. BUt the people came and it’s truie., no one put a gun to my head. I was having fun. I was enjoying the families that were here. I was embarassing my mother. I was married today! I had some drinks. Remy is my husband whome I love and he married me. I drank a lot of drinks. I love you.

Tonight, we'll be spending the evening watching our friends Sandra and Jay get married. Congratulations, guys!

We share a little strip of the leftmost part of our front lawn with our neighbours. This is where they leave their garbage on pick-up days, right next to their driveway. Every week some garbage spills out onto the lawn during pick-up and our neighbours NEVER pick it up. This makes me insane, because they go out there to bring their bins back in but never clean up THEIR OWN garbage mess. One of us does it every time. I'm a big chicken, so tomorrow I'm going to send Jeremy next door to politely ask the neighbour if he could please keep an eye on that kind of thing, because we don't think it's right that we always have to clean up their mess. I don't want garbage on my lawn, and I'm really disappointed that the neighbour doesn't seem to care at all that it's there. I think it's disgusting.

It's giving me the rage. My blood boils every time I think about it, or look out the window and see it, like right now. Ugh.

School started today! Alex is now in grade seven. Even though it's been over twelve years, sometimes I look at Alex and think, I have a kid? It's still a mindfuck. And now he's in grade seven and wears giant, size-11 shoes.

I spent most of Sunday knitting swatches for an afghan. I have to work from stash, and I've got twelve balls of Patons Classic Wool in natural. At first I thought I'd knit a big Cozy, but I couldn't make the stitch pattern look good. Then I tried about seven different stitch patterns that I found online and hated them all. I don't know if it was because I was frustrated or because the Patons just knits up like shit. Maybe I just need to go down a needle size or two. I'm going to try again this afternoon.

I've also been working on some plain stockinette Fleece Artist socks. I just finished the gusset on the second sock. The second same sock in a row! I'll have a new pair of socks with a photo soon.

Remember Starsky? I'm almost finished. All I have left to knit before blocking and seaming are the sleevecaps for each sleeve. Because I couldn't get proper row gauge and because I needed to widen the tops of the sleeves, I have to redesign the caps to fit properly. Afterward, I'll just have the collar and belt to go. I may run out of yarn. Hopefully I can finish the collar with what I've got and will only need to use a different dyelot for the belt.

I haven't posted a picture of the cats lately. Here is Pippa. I took this a few weeks ago. This is how she likes to sleep.

My friend Kimberly gave me a good-sized ball of Jaggerspun Zephyr at SNB on Tuesday. She has had bad luck with it (said it was cursed) and was reduced to giving it away. I've been wanting to knit with this stuff for a while so I was really excited to get it. It's a pretty silver-grey colour.

This is the first time I've ever knit with laceweight yarn. I'm trying to enjoy it, but I think I need to come to terms with the fact that I really, really don't. It's just too fine. It makes me feel like I have giant meat hands and the yarn seems way too delicate to be knit by a sturdy woman such as myself. It makes me nervous as well; my hands get sweaty and grubby and I end up struggling.

I started off with Eunny's Print O' the Wave stole (although a much narrower version) and after a couple of pattern repeats I decided I didn't really like the motif. So I cast on again to make a really simple vine lace scarf, but I'm not sure if I like it. The pattern looks okay as it is, but when I stretch it out to mimic what it'll look like blocked, it seems too airy to be able to see the pattern. This stitch pattern itself is a breeze to knit and very easy to memorize, but the knitting doesn't flow because I barely feel like I'm holding anything in my hands. And why are my hands getting so sweaty?

I'm going to keep trying because I have visualized the finished laceweight scarf around my neck and now I really want it. I'll give it a few more hours of work before I decide.

Also at SNB, I got to see the new Knitpicks needles firsthand, as Rochelle brought them in with her. They're just fabulous. I love the pointy tips, the joins are wonderful and I am ready to sell my child for them. I keep thinking that perhaps this laceweight would be a lot easier to knit if I just had some new, pointy needles, because my Addis are so painfully blunt.

Natalie and David got engaged earlier this year and had their party on August 6th. It was beautiful and a lot of fun. Unfortunately Natalie didn't think so, she was so busy running around greeting guests and making sure everything was running smoothly, so she didn't really have a chance to enjoy it. We don't get to see many of our cousins very often, so it was great to spend some time with them. The weather was perfect, the food was delicious and the booze was plentiful, thank god. The back garden looked great...my mom and sister did a lot of work to make it look good, and they should be really proud. There are a few more pictures up at my Flickr site.

I almost finished that sock last night, I've got only the toe left to knit. As I mentioned, that will make the fourth individual sock without a mate that I've made. I know it's wrong, but I'm itching to cast on for a fifth instead of completing a pair. I have some Fleece Artist sock yarn in my stash that's been there for over a year, and after using Regia and Meilenweit, I just want to knit with something really soft.

At SNB last night, we missed the company of our friend Rochelle, who had gone to New York to visit her daughter. She'll be back with us next time, along with her new Knitpicks Options needles. I can't wait to see them in person. I hope they're as great as everyone says because I want a set, too.

I whipped these up as a birthday gift for Astra, whose party I talked about here. I used most of two balls of Noro Shinano, colour #9 from my stash. They're knit from my own pattern on 5mm needles. I didn't discuss them while I was making them because they were a surprise. I've got a few pictures from the party posted here at Flickr.

I haven't been doing much knitting lately. I let my Non Soleil fall by the wayside since I realized I wasn't going to finish in time to wear it to Natalie's party. Instead, I completed my first toe-up sock with gusset and heel flap.

Knitting this way is kind of fiddly. I knit my socks using magic loop and I wasn't quite sure how to align my gusset stitches on the same needle while I was turning the heel. I used dpns, then transferred them back to the circular when it was time to knit them to the heel flap. Now that I've done it once, I see how it works and for the second sock, I'll be able to forego the dpns. While I'm pretty impressed by the construction, I still prefer to knit the gusset and heel flap the other way; I feel like I have a lot more control in terms of altering the size on the fly when knitting from the top down. However, I'm still going to do the other sock the same way because I don't want them to feel different on my feet.

I've got SNB tonight, and I'll be finishing up another sock that I started a while ago. When I finish this sock tonight, I'll have four individual, unmatched socks. Why can't I just knit two of the same socks in a row?

Tomorrow: Pictures from Natalie's engagement party!

I decided to finally spend some time organizing my photos from the last couple of months. I put my Canada Day photos here on Flickr. The photos are from the butterfly conservatory and our party. Enjoy.

Astra's party on Saturday was a big success. I got pretty drunk and enjoyed myself thoroughly. I took a few pictures before I got too drunk to operate my camera, and I'll be posting those soon. At one point during the evening some of us decided to play I Never and discovered that at our age, we couldn't really come up with a whole lot that we'd never done. Ahem. I won't get into detail, but we're NASTY!

I made Astra a pair of mittens for her birthday. I thought it was a logical gift because while the party was in July, her actual birthday is in the winter. Pictures of the mittens to come as well.

Today I'm going shopping for clothes. This is one of my least favourite things to do. I'm meeting my sister at her place this afternoon and I'll be looking for something to wear to her engagement party next weekend. I was hoping to finish my Non-Soleil in time, but it's not looking good. I'm just past the underarm bind-off now on the first piece. I'm going to bring it with me and look for a skirt to match on the off chance I can get it finished. I'm also looking for a new pair of jeans and Natalie will be shopping for something to wear to her friend's wedding.

Since we all know how bad I am about getting pictures on the blog, in the meantime you can look at this: Stuff + my friend's cat = AWESOME!

So far so good. I'm surprised that I'm really enjoying knitting with the Cotton Fleece. I have a bias against cotton, but I like this stuff. I'm hoping that the 20% wool content will be enough to prevent the lace from curling after blocking.

Here is one of the photos from the butterfly sanctuary. I have more to upload, but they'll have to wait for another day. We didn't end up going back this weekend like we'd planned. Instead, we hung around the house and Jeremy's dad FIXED OUR DOOR. Yes! It's square and it swings in the jamb and all that's left to do is paint it and add the trim. What a relief.

Yesterday I went to Sandra's shower and had the most wonderful chicken. It was a variation of chicken parmasan but with lots of basil, fresh sliced tomatoes and mozarella cheese. Delicious. It was a lot of fun. I fought with my shoes and my pantyhose, though.

This coming weekend we're going to Astra's belated birthday party. Her milestone 30th birthday was during the winter, but she was pregnant and couldn't drink. So her husband is throwing a belated birthday bash barbecue thing, there will be lots of boozing and bashing and barbecuing. I'm always up for all three.

Tonight we had the thunderstorm of my life. I've never seen anything like it before. I'm guessing storms like this aren't so rare in our area because of the lake, but in the year we've been here I haven't experienced anything like what I saw tonight. Usually I love thunder and lightning...I was in our carport enjoying the show when suddenly the storm became so severe that the back gate of my carport flew open and banged around, shaking the whole house. The rain blew in at me and I got soaked in one gust. The rain appeared to be running uphill on the street because the wind was so strong and lightning occured more often than not. It might as well have been the middle of the afternoon. The thunder was angry. I ended up getting scared and going inside. Jeremy was late coming home from work because he was on the flat, open highway when it hit. Windy.

Yesterday afternoon I cast on for Soleil from Knitty. I'm not actually following the pattern at all, hence my name for it. I'm knitting it flat rather in the round, because in my experience I do much better with the structure of seamed garments. Also, I'm not shaping the tank the same way. I've got the giant boobs, you see, and I don't want the tank to fit tightly in the stomach area. I'm going to make it in an A-line shape...snug in the bust and flaring out slightly to my hips, which have a bigger circumference than my chest does. I find that this kind of shaping ends up looking like it's shaped at the waist, whereas if I actually shape it at the waist, it will look too snug and small. I'm also making it longer than the pattern calls for.

My gauge is also different. I'm using Brown Sheep Cotton Fleece and knitting at 5st/inch. So basically I'm designing the entire tank from the ground up, the only similarity is that I'm keeping the horeshoe lace trim at the bottom. So far I've got the lace part finished for the back, and now I'm about to start the miles of stockinette.

This weekend Jeremy's dad and his girlfriend are coming to visit for the first time. They're arriving late afternoon and staying until early Sunday morning. Tonight we're just going to hang out on the deck with beers and barbecue some hamburgers. Tomorrow we thought we'd take them to the butterfly sanctuary we visited when our American friends were here. It's cheap and fun, then afterward I'm going to be making this lemon and basil pasta for dinner.

On Sunday I'm going to Sandra's wedding shower with my mom and sister. Do you know what this means, Sandra? It means that your wedding is exactly two months away. Can you believe it?

Freakgirl and Geekboy left for their foreign homeland yesterday morning. Visits with them are always too short. We missed them as soon as they left.

We had a pretty fun weekend, though. Even though it rained on Saturday and we ended up packed like sardines in the carport, it was still a pretty fun party. At least, I had fun. I managed to have everything done and organized in advance so that I had minimal work to do and could just sit back and relax and drink myself stupid. Which I did. The rain stopped long enough for us to set off a few fireworks, though! Unfortunately, after owning my camera for over a year I still don't know how to use it properly so my night shots didn't turn out as well as I'd like. But all is not lost! Destructogirl to the rescue!

When we ran out of good wine we tried a bottle that was given to me at my housewarming a couple of weeks ago. It was decidedly Not Good. Freakgirl ended up with a migraine because of it, but on the other hand, her back relaxed quite a bit! Her migraine, my hangover and general exhaustion made for a lazy Sunday. I felt like shit until about 4 pm.

That night we went to the drive-in to see Superman Returns, where we witnessed a couple of people fighting over a spot by trying to push each other out of it WITH THEIR CARS. Sadly, this event proved slightly better than the film itself. It was fun to watch, but they really could have done so much better. I never thought I'd ever say this, but I missed Margot Kidder.

Hopefully I'll have some pictures of the butterfly conservatory sometime tomorrow. I may even have a few knitting pictures! Tonight I'm going to stitch with ma bitches.

Oh, I almost forgot...Happy 4th, Americanos!

I can't stop having parties.

Today is Canada Day and I've got Americans in my house. They arrived Thursday afternoon. That night I made salmon for dinner and we polished off a few bottles of wine. Yesterday we visited a butterfly conservatory, which was just amazing. Butterflies landed on us and I think I got a bunch of really great photos. Today we're having a party with these lovely people and getting SHITFACED. I had planned to sit on the deck and then have a campfire in the evening, but it's probably going to rain and we'll all end up huddled in the carport. Tomorrow night the plans are to see Superman Returns at the drive-in. So far the forecast is clear for that. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Have a great weekend!

Our housewarming party went really well. Everything was done in time, the kitchen looks fabulous painted and I was proud to show it all off. What an exhausting day, though! We cooked barbecue for 22 people. That is a lot of meat! The barbecue caught fire twice, but no one exploded and everything was fine.

I was so stressed about this one stupid party that about an hour before people were supposed to show up, everything caught up with me and I burst into tears. I blamed it on chopping onions for my salad.

Before the weekend, I had a couple of pots of fuchias strapped to my deck railing, but they didn't do so well there and I think they were just getting a bit too much sun. I've since taken them down and put them in a shadier spot and they seem to be doing a bit better. I even have a few new blooms. To replace them, we went to the garden centre and got a few plants that are more sun- and heat-tolerant.

My mom is retiring this year. Today her friends at work are throwing her a big retirement party and as soon as Alex gets home from school we're all heading down there to celebrate. Her retirement date is sometime near the end of September but she's got a lot of vacation days that she never took so she won't have to go back after her plant shuts down for summer holidays at the end of July. I'm so happy for her. She's had lots of health problems over the past year and she's finally doing much better, so it's nice to see that she's going to retire while she still feels good and can enjoy her free time.

Tomorrow morning we're saying goodbye to a lot of our stuff. In our area, different charitable organizations do clothing drives, and this time we'll be donating books, shoes, clothes and toys to a local Cerebral Palsy foundation. They come around with a truck to pick up donations. When we moved last year, we donated and threw away so much stuff, it's amazing we still have so much more. I guess it takes a while for me to really come to terms with the fact that I don't need these things anymore. I've been working on decluttering for a long time but I can't just part with everything right away. I worry that I'm going to suddenly need it, fit into it, want to read it again. But that never happens. I hope they have enough room in their truck!

Jeremy and I are finally throwing our housewarming party this Saturday, a whole year after moving in. My reasoning for this is that we wanted to get some significant work done before we threw the official party. Since our house is small, the party needed to happen in the summer because I can't fit 25 people in my living room.

We are almost ready. The coffee table and plant stand table (pictures in the previous post) have been stained. They look terrific. Unfortunately I haven't been able to varnish them, it's just been too windy outside. As soon as I wipe the dust from the surface, the wind blows it right back on so I'm just going to wait for a still day. This means I won't be able to varnish them and have them be dry in time for Saturday. That's okay. I'd rather not rush them anyway.

Most of the yardwork is done. We dug some big rocks out of the front garden when we were planting and they're still on the driveway, they need to be moved to the back. Lawn needs mowing, weeds need whacking, but for the most part, everything is pretty presentable and I'm happy with how it all looks.

This past weekend I washed all of my curtains and my sister helped me iron them while we drank wine and watched Muriel's Wedding. I highly discourage you all from buying cotton curtains because they're a total bitch to iron. No matter what I do, they are still somewhat wrinkled. I decided that I am okay with this. My mom is not...she tried to buy me some new curtains for the living room, but I wouldn't have it. I've got plans to make my own sometime soon and until then, the ones I have will have to do, wrinkled or not.

Yesterday, our friends lent us their reciprocating saw so Jeremy spent a couple of hours sawing up one of the kitchen cupboards to house the dishwasher. We cornered our plumber neighbour who confirmed he is happy to do the plumbing part of the hookup for us, but that will have to wait until next week some time. I'm just thrilled to have the dishwasher under the counter for now. Saturday morning an electrician came in to wire the dishwasher for us. He charged less than his estimate so we got the bright idea to use the money we saved on some paint. As though we don't have enough to do, today we're going to paint the kitchen. We won't be able to actually renovate it for a couple of years, so we decided we could at least paint in the meantime and try to make it look a little bit nicer. We've got lots of primer and ceiling paint leftover from doing the rest of the house, so all we'll need to buy are a couple of tray liners, some rollers and a gallon of eggshell.

Still on the to-do list are things like organizing the bedroom closets (the closets don't have doors and I want our guests to feel free to peek around), cleaning up the office (it's degenerated into a storage area and I want to remedy that), cleaning up the laundry room, and a final mop, sweep, vacuum. I think we can do it.

I feel like a crazy person, trying to do all of this stuff before our party on Saturday. Despite the lunacy, time constraints like this actually help me get things done (I am SUCH a procrastinator otherwise) and I know I'll be happy in the end. I plan to be completely finished by Thursday evening, so all I'll need to to on Friday is prepare the food. Oh god, the food.

Pictures of the kitchen and living room to come later. Will I ever knit again? I'll let you know after Saturday.

Here are the pictures I promised yesterday. The living room originally looked like the photo below. Not bad, it was nice and full but I have fallen out of love with blond wood and the bookshelves just looked very boxy and plain. I've wanted to get rid of them for some time, but didn't know what to replace them with. I have a nasty habit of buying things too fast because I need a shelf or the room looks empty, without taking the time to find something really nice. Also, getting a discount at a certain Swedish furniture store means that we usually end up with something from there, just because it's cheaper.

Continue reading "New Living Room"

Yesterday we spent money we didn't have and bought two pieces of furniture from the local antique shop. We got a couple of non-antique end tables that have been refinished that we fell in love with. Last night, after dinner, we spent hours moving our furniture around.

The result is...different. Do I like it better? I don't know. We used the end tables as a tv bench, which meant we had to shuffle around our big Ikea bookcases. I have been tired of these bookcases for a long time, but they did pull the room together. Without the bookcases we have a lot less storage out here, including places for my yarn. We now have piles of books everywhere (yard sale!). The office has become a big storeroom again and I have a big headache. I love the new furniture but the room looks unbalanced. Hopefully with the creative altering of some things we already have, we can make it work.

We've come to terms with the fact that renovating the kitchen is financially out of the question. Our dishwasher has been sitting in the corner for the past year, unusable, because we were waiting until kitchen reno time. Since that's just not happening we thought we might as well take care of the dishwasher now so we could at least use it. We got some estimates for the electrical and now we're wondering if the plumbing part of it is within our dope skillz or if we should hire a professional. Our neighbour is a plumber and he's offered to help us out, but I don't know if he was just making conversation or if he really wants to help us out.

Tonight I'm going to my SNB and we've got some stuff to do around here before we leave, so I don't have time for pictures. Tomorrow, fools.

I was wrong to be hopeful about the weather for gardening this past weekend. It was windy and freezing. However, we are hardcore and did it anyway. I was really regretting purchasing bag-your-own topsoil for the garden when we had to go in the car to get warm in between bags, but in the end it was worth it because we saved some money.

Gardening is hard work! I think we did a lot in two days. We got rid of all the weeds in the front flowerbed, tilled, added topsoil and even got around to planting two euonymus bushes. They're teeny now, but we decided not to spend the money on bigger bushes when these ones will grow. We put mulch around our bushes, but the other half of the front garden where the flowers will go will have to wait until Saturday. I'm thinking of getting some full-sun annuals for the front for now, and then deciding next year about a long-term perennial garden. I took some pictures, but it was totally overcast, unfortunately.

Continue reading "Bad Weather for a Long Weekend"

I woke up today to find my kitten has gone insane. See the crazy lines coming off the cat here? Those lines are radiating from Pippa now. Because she crazy! She turned 10 weeks old yesterday and all her kitten energy exploded this morning. I don't think she understands our laws of physics because she's running horizontally across vertical surfaces. Also, I'm astounded to see how much she's grown in the two weeks she's been with us. At first she was so fine and delicate but now she's gained weight; she's sturdy and very, very fast.

Alex's birthday on Tuesday was a big success. As it turned out he loves his new mattress. He also loves his new bike, which is blue. Unfortunately the weather around here has sucked so we haven't gone for a ride yet, but I'm hopeful today will remain clear. He scored some other loot, too, like games and headphones for his DS, a book he's been waiting for and a hefty gift certificate for Amazon.ca and can't wait to shop online.

About a week ago I started knitting the Pomatomus socks. Clever pattern, that. Not particularly difficult although it's very easy to make a mistake if you're not paying attention. I've been alternating working on sock number one with the baby blanket I should have finished 2 months ago, so neither is growing very quickly. I've just finished the gusset on the sock and neared the halfway point on the blanket. I'm still not feeling the knitting, so when I do knit it's slower than I'd like. What I really need is something absorbing to put in the dvd player. Pictures to come; I've gotten very lazy about unloading the camera.

The forecast for this weekend was originally supposed to be 72 hours of straight rain, but since I first checked it has shifted. Right now we've got rain scheduled only for tomorrow, but I have faith that will clear up, too. That's because Jeremy miraculously has the weekend off and I've declared it to be Gardening Weekend. We are finally going to try to tame our abysmal front garden. I've done nothing but complain about it to anyone who will listen for weeks, and tomorrow we're finally going to do something about it. It's horrifying; there are more weeds than anything else and these aren't your typical weeds. These are huge, man-eating dandelions. There are other weeds too, and they look equally mutated and frightening. The constant rain has done nothing but fortify these things and I'm sure the neighbours think our place is an eyesore. More importantly, I think our place is an eyesore, so much so that I'm rather ashamed of it. We don't have much to spend and we don't really know what we're doing, but tomorrow we're going to the nearby garden centre and throwing ourselves at their mercy.

Alex turns twelve on Tuesday. Natalie is coming over today to bring his birthday gift from her and my mom. It's a big one, she's got to tie it to her car to bring it over. When he sees it he could be extremely excited or very confused. Hopefully he won't be disappointed.

It's a mattress. What twelve-year-old kid doesn't want a mattress for his birthday?

Personally, I think it's a great gift because it means I don't have to go out and buy him a mattress. He needs one pretty badly, the old one is just awful.

We're getting him a bike. This will be Alex's third bike. The first one he grew out of before he learned to ride it. Alex has short tendons in the backs of his calves and this combined with the fact that he is a little clumsy and has trouble compensating for balance means it takes longer for him to learn. His second bike was stolen from my parents' garage, in the middle of the day, just as he was getting the hang of it and could glide without help. That was frustrating. Now we're trying again, we have a shed in which to store the bike, and I have a good feeling he'll be riding around all summer long. The only problem is that with Jeremy's hours the way they are right now, I have no idea when we'll be able to pick up the bike. I'm hoping we'll be able to get it by Tuesday, but it might have to wait until next weekend. In the meantime he can enjoy his exciting! new! birthday! mattress!

In kitty cat news, the house is upside-down. Up until now, Cuba and Jonah co-existed without a definite pecking order. They deferred to each other, sometimes Cuba would dominate, sometimes Jonah. Now with Pippa in the mix, Cuba and Jonah seem to want to redefine their relationship. At first they bonded against Pippa. They ignored her and stuck together like glue. Now I think they realize that Pippa is here to stay so they're constantly tussling and taking their frustrations out on each other. I don't mind except that they've gotten a bit rougher than what I'm used to. No one's drawn blood yet and hair is not flying around in a whirlwind, so I'm sure it's all fine and normal.

I do worry a little when they go after Pippa, however. Although watching her right now with Cuba, she's holding her own and I really don't think she has any clue how small she is. She's ballsy. Also, with Pippa I think it's partly about keeping her in her place and partly just good fun. Cuba has taken to grooming her. It's the cutest thing.

This afternoon Astra is coming over with her kids to hang out and meet Pippa. Does anyone remember this baby blanket? It's for Astra's son. I had to rip it down a whole bunch, but now I'm pretty much back to where it was in the photo. I am really going to finish it soon, my hands have actually felt a little like knitting lately.

See the lovely Wobbly Tote KAL button in my sidebar? I went to the trouble of making it. I got excited. I even got a bunch of lovely yarns donated to the Wobbly cause by Chelle at Tuesday's SNB. Yesterday I cast on and didn't get too far. I posted about my horrifying experience on the KAL site, here. I withdraw. I honourably discharge myself. Screw that noise, bitches!

Aside from yesterday's attempt at intarsia I still haven't knit much. Why this knitting funk? It's really frustrating me. I just want to enjoy my hobby again, is that too much to ask? I need a positive success. I've gone back to the baby blanket and I will be getting it done...a finished object should bring back all the good, fun feelings of knitting.

Yesterday I had plans with Astra (Littlestar from my comments) and her kids, but they fell through due to a logistical error. A bit disappointing, but we made even better plans for tomorrow. I'll be heading over to her house in the morning for a visit and then some shopping. They live in an old brick schoolhouse-turned-home, and I really can't wait to see it. The rest of the weekend should be fun, too. Our first trip to the drive-in is scheduled for Saturday where we'll see Scary Movie 4 and Silent Hill. The forecast is calling for rain, but I'm holding my breath. It can't rain! Organizing a common Saturday night off from work between us and our friends is like trying to hit a puppy by throwing a live bee at it, and I'll be damned if it's going to rain and wreck my plans. Damned!

Our first party, barbecue and campfire of the year were great. My food turned out just the way I wanted, everyone had a great time, I drank a lot, no one fell into the fire, the kids enjoyed themselves and our guests even bought us breakfast in the morning. It really couldn't have been better.

I got a lot of compliments on our house this weekend. Sure, we still have lots of work to do and it's not perfect, but I'm beginning to see it through more than just my own overly-critical eye. I don't know why it's so hard for me to do that, why I can't just enjoy my home instead of constantly having a running dialogue with myself about what needs work and what needs to change. Sometimes I feel like I should be apologizing for the state of my home, which is just stupid. I'm proud of my house and what we've done with it. I'm doing myself a disservice every time I make excuses for it and I know this is detrimental. I am going to just stop it.

Compliments have always been hard for me to take. I love receiving them, but my first instinct is to deny it and either act the martyr or expose myself as some kind of fraud. Instead of saying thanks and being pleased, I'll put myself down or illustrate that in fact I did not do a good job, I missed a spot here, see? Then I'll point out other faults. I'm going to just stop this, too. Part of this stems from the fact that I want people to be honest and tell me when something sucks, be it my knitting, cooking or home improvements and decorating. Another part is upbringing; I'm supposed to be humble and modest. I know I'm taking modesty too far when I will go to the trouble of pointing out the flaws in my own work. I am cutting this out, now. There is a difference between being constructively critical of myself and my work in terms of wanting to improve my skills, and putting myself down needlessly when someone says something nice.

Anyway, I'm good enough, smart enough and people like me.

We did our taxes this week and without going into financial details I'll just say that the words taxed and fucked are synonymous. Fucked. Taxed. Taxed. Fucked. FUCKED. Wheeee! To say we were unprepared for the results would be putting it mildly. FUCKED! Whoooo! Taxed. Fuck.

Continue reading "We've Been Taxed!"

I'm not actually depressed or down or anything, but in a funk all the same. I can't seem to really get going on anything. I've been sitting here pretty much all day, fucking around online, not really reading anything or doing anything, but lacking any drive to get up and get started on the stuff I need to get done around here. I have the urge to do so much in terms of organizing the house and spring cleaning (I did all my windows!) but can't seem to get started. I don't know where to begin and so I sit here, staring at the walls like a slack-jawed, uh, slackjaw. There may even be drool involved.

My knitting, similarly, is going nowhere. Over the past week or so I haven't done anything. Last night I knit a few rounds on a sock while watching reruns of CSI, but it was like I wasn't really knitting. I was just going through the motions, like how eating a ricecake isn't really eating. Every time I get the urge to pick up my knitting, I can't decide what to work on because nothing is near finishing and spending a couple of hours on a project seems pointless because it's not like I'm going to finish it. More slack-jawed staring, more drool.

What is wrong with me? I want to be invited to a party. Won't someone invite me to a party? I wish to get drunk.

This weekend Jeremy and I cleaned out the closet in the office, finally unpacking the last of the boxes from when we moved last June. We threw out a bunch of stuff we decided we could live without, set aside some books and toys to be donated (we still have more books to go through) and repacked the rest of the stuff we want to keep but don't know what the hell to do with. We painted the inside of the closet and covered the shelves so they're nice and clean. I also took advantage of the fact that Alex is staying at his grandparents to prime and paint some of the trim in his bedroom.

While I was at it I painted some trim in the laundry room but since that's where we keep the litterbox, I couldn't lock the cats out. I used really thin coats in the hopes that there would be no cat hair/paint transfer. Good thing I did, because 10 minutes after I finished Jonah decided he needed to sit on the window ledge. I chased him away but the paint was dry to the touch so no harm done.

This home renovation stuff is starting to drive me mad. We've been here 10 months now and there is still so much to do, like proper baseboard trim, installing new doors in the hallway, lowering the top of the doorways in the living room so we can add crown molding, painting the trim in our bedroom, getting a whole bunch of light fixtures, redoing the entire bathroom...I could go on but I won't because it's giving me a headache.

Tonight we're heading over to my parents' for Easter dinner. Since we celebrate Easter twice every year, we'll be doing the same next weekend, too. This week is what my family calls, Canadian Easter and we have dinner together and eat chocolate bunnies and stuff like that. My family is Macedonian Orthodox, so for our Easter my mom and sister will dye some eggs during the week, my mom will make a raisin bread called, kusinyak and on Sunday when eggs are given out we play an egg-breaking game. You choose your victim, tap the pointy end of your egg to the pointy end of theirs and if you break their egg while yours remains intact, you are the King of the World and get to wear a bra on your head. I'm kidding, you just win their egg.

We're pretty secular. My grandmother was the religious one in our family. While my parents and sister do believe in the religion somewhat (I don't), we all enjoy the traditions of our culture.

Want to see some cats?

Continue reading "Long Weekend"

Here we have Cuba posing underneath my latest pair of socks, which I finished on Sunday. This picture is from a few weeks ago. I have one of the completed pair, but I've been too lazy to dump my camera. Maybe tomorrow. The yarn is Ja Woll, a cotton and wool blend, and the socks are very, very comfy. This is only my third pair of the year and we're already into April!

Things around here have been pretty ho-hum and I'm in a kind of slump, knitting-wise. I'm uninspired and bored. The truth is that I have just too many projects on the go which is rather overwhelming. I'm going to sit down tonight and try to get some stuff done.

The cats seem to be doing much, much better. When I last posted we were about to try a second variation of special food for them in the hopes that their insides would start working properly. They hated the new food and only ate when they were very hungry and the diarrhea didn't clear up by the time the vet had hoped. Luckily, the vet allowed us to return the opened bag of food. Apparently that brand comes with a money-back guarantee which was great since they barely made a dent in the bag. The next step is bloodwork for both cats, but we have to wait on that because it's expensive. In the meantime we went back to the special food they liked and the good news is that over the past few days we have achieved solid poop! Unfortunately it's not all solid poop, but I'll take what I can get.

Want to see a couple of photos from my birthday? I got an awesome tripod from my awesome friends.

Continue reading "Socks, Cats and Birthday Crap"

It's my birthday tomorrow. I will be 31. I've got the place mostly cleaned up and ready for company tomorrow so I've got nothing to do today except spend some time knitting. I'm going back to Starsky and getting those damn sleeves done! Also, a big happy birthday to my friend Ivon, he's an April Fool just like me.

We talked to Jeremy's carpenter friend and it looks like we can make a deal. He's free in a couple of weeks and I can certainly live with the door in its current state until then. Ah, relief. Depending on what he's willing to charge for his time and expertise, I'm sure we'll call him for help with a bunch of things around the house in the future. He's willing to work out friend prices as long as we share some of the labour, which is how we'd like to do it anyway.

On the kitty front, we've still got problems with runny poop. While the giardia has been confirmed to be cleared up, something else is bothering the kitties and we don't know what. On the vet's advice we've tried a few things but they don't seem to be working so we're just going to have to take the cats in tomorrow morning. Jonah enjoyed himself at the vet last time, but Cuba was scared. Maybe if they both go together it won't be so bad for her. Wish us luck, cat diarrhea is so frustrating! At least Jonah is not messing himself as much anymore and I don't have to chase him with wet paper towels before he sits down. In any case, the cats seem healthy. They're happy and active, well hydrated and maintaining their weight.

We've given up on the door. We spent hours and hours and hours and just couldn't get it to hang right. In the photo above you can see our first attempt at shimming the jamb into the frame. We thought we did a great job since our level told us it was perfectly straight and square. Apparently the level lies, because no matter what we did we could not get the door to hang correctly. One corner insisted on sticking out and scraping the jamb.

Continue reading "Door Debacle"

What have I been doing lately? I've been disillusioned with my knitting. The last time I picked up the baby blanket for Astra, it looked a bit funny. I folded it over and realized I had loosened up in my gauge so much that the width of the blanket was almost 2" wider than at the cast-on edge. I was horrified. I argued with myself about letting it go and working it out in the blocking, but in the end I just couldn't continue. So I'll be ripping about half of it out and reknitting. Sorry Astra! I swear Sebastian will get this blanket before he goes to university.

Starsky went swimmingly along until I got to the plain stockinette sleeves. I knit the back and two fronts in record time but for some reason, when I started working the sleeve, I just couldn't keep gauge. What is wrong with me? I ripped out the sleeve back to the ribbing twice. I think I need a smaller needle to get gauge with the stockinette. I was using a 4.5 mm for the rest of the sweater, and I'm going to try again with a 4 mm for the sleeves. Believe it or not, the pattern calls for a 6 mm. How tightly do you people knit?

In the meantime I have almost finished a pair of socks. I made the second one a bit too short, so I have to rip back the toe and add about 4 rows before I reknit the toe. Not only can I not keep gauge, I also cannot measure. I have just been so frustrated!

Jeremy had the last couple of days off, so we decided to get something done around here. We used a gift card from Christmas for Home Depot to buy a new door for Alex's bedroom. We have plans to replace all the doors because they are awful, but Alex's came first because it was hung the wrong way. It opened into the centre of his room instead of toward the corner; when the room in question is so small this is awkward and stupid. Particularly awkward was the fact that the door, when opened, obscured the lightswitch. You had to enter the room and close the door in the dark before you could turn on the light.

We've never hung a door and jamb before, but lack of experience doesn't stop us. We tore off the trim, ripped out the old jamb and started shimming. On the top and left side it was easy to get the jamb plumb. The other side was a nightmare because the framing for the door was way too big. The new door is exactly the same size as the old door, and we discovered only after ripping out the old jamb (which was shimmed in the most creative manner!) that we were going to have to get creative as well. What we ended up doing is screwing the old jamb directly to the 2x4 of the frame, and then shimming the new jamb from there. It sounds confusing but I took some pictures and it'll all make sense when I post them later on.

Anyway, with some struggle we managed just fine, and that jamb is perfectly square! We are awesome. It's probably the only square thing in our house. Right before we went to hang the actual door, we decided to read the instructions.

Now, we used some vague directions we found online. That combined with watching countless doors hung in countless frames on countless home reno shows gave me the confidence that we knew how to do this. When we looked at the instructions that came with the door, they said we should hang the door before we shimmed the jamb. Wha? I guess that would work when your jamb actually fits into the frame with millimetres to spare, but we were working in a space that was about 3" too wide. Anyway, the door hangs correctly, but it doesn't swing because the bottom needs to be trimmed about a half-inch to allow for the bedroom carpet. Jeremy's going to saw it off this morning, and tonight Alex can have his room back!

We spent the entire day at my parents' place yesterday so we could eat some of my dad's birthday cake. Alex had spent the last few nights over there for March Break and Jeremy took me over yesterday morning before he went to work. I'm a big lazy ass and couldn't be bothered to get ready before we left, so I went in my jammies and showered there. I got some work done on Starsky before dinner and the left front is about 4 rows away from being finished. Afterward Natalie and I tried to drink a bunch of wine but somehow it didn't work out and we couldn't make it past the neck of the bottle. How sad is that?

Alex has been sick with a cold of some sort; it's afternoon and he is still in bed getting some rest. I've missed his company since he was away. The cats are also asleep and the house is way too quiet. Jeremy has been working late every night on the tv pilot and doing weekends at his day job. I'm starting to get lonely! I haven't spent any real time with him in almost two weeks.

We managed to fit in a few episodes of BBC's The Of