PITA

I'm waiting for my daughter to come home. It's about a three and a half hour drive. She probably has less than two hours to go. That drive is a PITA (pain in the ass). It's long and boring. I've done it many times myself. I'll be so glad to have her home for the weekend. And safe.

Here are some other things that are a PITA:

1. Britney Spears. Why oh why do we have to hear so much about her? Why won't they leave her alone? So sick of her. I'm not a fan and I don't hate her, I feel sorry for her, but I'm so sick of seeing her face in the news every day. I guess the real PITA is the paparazzi.

2. Hotmail. It's just been a real PITA for days.

3. Insurance. You gotta have it, you pay through the nose for it. But don't make a claim because it will cost you even more money for the damn deductible. House insurance, car insurance and health insurance. We're insured to death but never covered. What a PITA. And that big health insurance company, the first word starts with a B, rhymes with shoe and the first word is a color. They sure talk good in their commercials. But try contacting them for anything or making a claim. Try it. What a PITA.

4. Diesel fuel. OMG, that stuff just stinks. It's more of a PITH (pain in the head) when I smell that stuff. Instant headache.

5. U.S. postal service. What's with them? I mailed something and it took 8 days to get there. First class mail. In the U.S. I swear media mail is faster. So they have been a PITA for me lately worrying about that package.

6. This yarn. It bunches and twists and bunches up some more. It's been a real PITA to work with. But yet I keep knitting with it. I'll never use it again.

7. Income cuts. Yikes! That income cut from last spring is still a PITA. So tired of scrambling to pay the bills each month. But at least I have a job.

8. Gas and heating bills. What's with the price of gas? It's going up again. And home heating bills. Too scary to even mention. It's freezing in here, I keep the heat as low as I can stand it and I'm freezing even while wearing extra clothes. It's a PITA to put gas in my car and a PITA to heat my house. It's not even a big house.

9. DVD's. They really are a PITA. I just want to put a DVD in the DVD player and play it. But no, you gotta wait for it to load, then you gotta put up with all that bullshit at the beginning of the DVD, copyright info, etc., no matter how many times you click that menu button you gotta wait for all that crap to go away.

10. Cat puke. Nuff said, just a real PITA.


What are some of your PITAs?

Take Your Downspout to Work Day

We sure had some wicked weather last night and into today. It was freezing cold and I think the wind gusts were up to around 50 MPH. It blew one of my downspouts off the side of my house. I found it laying all cold and lonely in the driveway when I was leaving for work. I tried to fit it back onto the other part of the downspout but it would have no part of it, just couldn't fit the pieces together, it was windy and so cold and dark I said the hell with it and just threw it in my car. It was too cold to do much else with it. So my downspout went to work with me, it got a day on the town. How silly is that? We even went to the gas station. When I got home I managed to work it back onto the other part of the downspout and now all is well with my downspouts again. But it's still cold. Very cold. I have my little space heater on. It's helping to keep me warm today.

I actually cooked dinner today. That's the first in about oh two or three weeks. A real meal that is, not eggs or canned soup or Stouffer's. I made some oven fried chicken and Stove Top stuffing and some corn. It was soooooo good. So while the chicken was cooking I managed to get this fingerless mitten done.

I don't know. I just don't really like it, had so many problems making it. The yarn keeps bunching up, and the pattern is just written so weird, you have to jump all over the place to keep up with it. But I will make the second one and probably send it back to school with my daughter this weekend, she can give it away to a friend. Yes! My daughter is coming home this weekend! I'm excited. I'm looking forward to seeing her. I miss her so much and she misses home a lot.

I received this little beauty yesterday from an on line order I placed. So soft and pretty.

It's not a big ball of yarn, should be just enough for a pair of fingerless mitts. Time to try a new pattern. It's merino and angora. So so soft.

Gotta go clean up the kitchen. One of the pitfalls of cooking . . . dishes. Then I'm on the couch for the night. I'm going to finish season one of Grey's Anatomy that I rented from the library the other night and then American Idol. A good night of couch and tv and knitting!

Snow, snow go away

I finally finished the hat, yay me! I found the pattern on Ravelry, "Palindrome Hat". I used Lion Brand Wool Ease in frosted white, it has little strands of some kind of nylon or something that make it looks "frosty". It feels nice and warm. Here it is (don't you love the cat in the background?):

Now I can move on to something new. I've started another pair of fingerless mitts, I just love them. I want to make them in all kinds of patterns and colors and yarns. A fun quick knit. Here is the latest pair:

This yarn is weird though, it's like "bunchy" for lack of a better word. I don't know if it was spun really loosely or what. I just keep pulling on it to straight it out. But the little mitt feels really soft and I like how it's turning out, so I'll keep soldiering on. It seems to be snowing every day lately. So sick of it. But these little mitts are a bright spot in this LONG winter. I'm going to go visit Mom today and show her what I've made, I bet she wants a pair! That's OK, I'll make them for her, anything she wants, I'm just so glad she's home.

And speaking of winter, I bought these slippers from Avon. Aren't they just so darn cute? I love them, just had to show them off.

The Big Box of Yarn

There it is . . . the big box of yarn! Look at all that yarn. Isn't it gorgeous? Don't you just want to sit and knit 24/7? I do! Where did it come from you ask? One of the readers of this very blog is a former knitter. She has gone on to new pursuits and doesn't have time to knit any longer. She is doing photography (for a yummy cookbook which I can't wait to buy!) and needed the room to store her photography equipment. She offered to send me the yarn and in exchange I would knit her some fingerless mittens. I have mailed the fingerless mittens to her and am hoping they have arrived. I'm so paranoid they will get lost in our wonderful postal system. So, there you have it . . . the story of the yarn. With all that yarn she sent me, I feel like I should send more fingerless mittens, and maybe I will!

Just look at these cute needles! They are for big needle knitting, and they are absolutely adorable.

It's been like Christmas all over again going through this yarn! It's wonderful to know there are some truly generous people out there.

I finally got the fingerless mitts done that I was making for myself. I had put them aside to get the gift mitts done.

Finally, it's Friday Sweet Friday! The work week is done. I stopped at the library on my way home from work and picked up a couple of books and some videos. I got season 1 of Grey's Anatomy. I've recently gotten hooked on that show and I want to see how it started. I'll be knitting and watching videos this weekend. Peaceful and relaxing!

Have a great weekend!

My Sock Disaster

Yes, I've tried socks. Disaster. I tried knitting a sock last spring. It took me forever to get done what I did. Not sure if it was the pattern or I'm a slow knitter, but it took forever for this disaster to get as far as it did. I did the cuff, turned the heel, and once I did that the damn stitches kept sliding off the needle. It was frustrating. I'd pick it up try to fix it, put it away, try again a week or two later. More sliding off the needle. I finally gave up and cut the yarn and put it away. Wanna see it? Here it is, if it was finished it would fit a giant. I put a regular sized sock next to it for visual contrast.

So your either laughing at me or crying with me. This is why I haven't tried socks again.

Moving on. I got this yummylicious yarn in the mail yesterday. I ordered it through Sonny & Shear (link over at the right if you are interested, wonderful customer service!). Look at that turquoise color! Is it gorgeous or what! Can't wait to use it. I've never tried this yarn and am dying to get at it.

The tan one will probably become mittens. Oh the decisions I must make on what to do with this yarn. It's gorgeous.

Playing With Yarn

Brrrrrrrrrr, it was so cold yesterday, so I stayed in all day. All day. Didn't go out once. I only opened the door to grab the newspaper and closed it real fast. This staying in thing was kind of cool. I played with yarn most of the day! I decided to bite the bullet and do some two color knitting. I think it's fair isle? I think two colors is fair isle and more than that is intarsia, or is it the other way around? I did two colors. It took me an hour to knit this little square, I think it's a snowflake.

Just never mind those screwed up knit/purl rows at the top and bottom, it was just to practice working on the colors and . . . reading a chart. Talk about screwing up. Left, right, main color, contrast color, knit, purl, left, right, rip out the row, do over, swear, read left to right, then right to left, and so on, arghhhhhh So I fiddled with it and fiddled with it and finally knit the 13 rows in the little practice chart. That's it . . . 13 rows. Took an hour. But, I did it! I'm sure I didn't hold the strands correctly to do the back as they were quite tangled after a couple of rows, had to untangle them and continue.

Here is how the back looks:

It was a learning experience for sure and I will practice it again. Maybe I can do it in 59 minutes next time. I'm determined to learn this.

Truth is Stranger than Fiction

OK, so my son calls me last night to give me the latest update on my granddaughter. It's not cancer, a tumor, no malignant or benign or radiation, nothing like that. Wanna hear what it is? This is so weird . . . she has Cat Scratch Fever. Yep, it's a real disease. They got a new kitty a few months ago and she got scratched by it on her hand and it caused an infection which spread up her arm and caused the nodes or glands or whatever it is in there to swell and look like a tumor. She's been in Children's Hospital for the last few days (don't ya love how I'm updated? grrrrrr). The only way to treat it is with IV antibiotics, no regular oral antibiotics will work. Not sure when she'll be coming home. This is just the strangest thing. Now I can't get that damn Cat Scratch Fever song out of my head. But she's going to be ok and that's all that matters.

I went to a local landmark yesterday, one of the last surviving dimestores. They are going out of business, just had to go and pay my last respects, I love that place! I will sure miss it. They had all kinds of oddities in there, and yarn, mostly the big box brands, but it was so fun to look around in there. I bought these two skeins. They are purple, a beautiful pretty purple, but I just couldn't get the camera to show the beauty of the color.

And next to the dimestore is a bakery. Just had to go in. I just HAD to. I bought these yummy pastries.

mmmmmm, a donut with blueberry fililng, a chocolate and nut and cream filled cannoli and a cherry square. There are no calories if the picture is in black and white! I ate the cannoli this morning. It was so good I think I died and went to heaven.

Such a wonderful treat with coffee on this absolutely frigid freezing good to stay inside and knit kind of day.