Greetings from the dark side.

The dark side where your child is having nightmares and you've had three hours' sleep (and not all at the same time) in the last 48. I'm juuuuuust a bit punchy right now. Usually in this zoned out state, I go off on some rant or other that amuses the hell out of all you readers.

At the moment, all I can think of is, whoever decided to divert food crops to create biofuel for people who drive too much, needs to have a mile of barbed wire shoved up their ass and be forced to drink a gallon of herbicide.

Once a plant freak, always a plant freak.

Oh. And these assholes who keep insisting corn is the way to go, to create biofuel, need drowned in a vat of corn syrup.


Anyway. Started the next zen project, worked on several gauge swatches (that I fucked up because at the moment I can't count to eighty), and got something REALLY COOL in the mail from Historic Stitcher. Tune in tomorrow for details.

And here's some humor for all of you, from the husbeast. I don't know if it's really as funny as I think, or if it's the lack of sleep making it hilarious. Either way.

Bugger.

I killed the doily. Worked on it for a couple hours last night while on migraine meds, woke up this morning, looked at it, and couldn't figure out WHAT the hell was going on. This is it before I pulled it off the needle:

Not to worry, I wasn't quite up to round fifty, and I learned a lot about how this guy's mind thinks. I'm gonna give it another shot, just not right now. 'Cause I've figured out what cable knit I am gonna do (really a twisted-stitch pattern if you discern between the two), and am doing the swatch.

And I've started spinning up the yarn for the next Zen project.

I'll try not to do this on migraine drugs. Ha.

I am proud of me.

Today I dug in to knit those gauge swatches that I should have started Sunday. (We will still not discuss the Knitty article due June 1.) I got one done - for the next Zen project - and was about an inch into the next when I had this really crazy thought:

Why am I making things harder on myself than I have to? More, why am I doing it when I've got a two year old to chase and am fighting with ongoing thyroid problems?

So I jerked out the swatch. I was planning to knit Morrigan, with male styling, for my father-in-law. And while I do someday want to knit it (quite a challenge, can't resist), trying to do a cable-knit with cables EVERY ROUND at this point is just idiotic. There would be no enjoyment, no feeling of accomplishment, just "fuck, three inches to go".

So I'm looking at other, simpler cable-knits. My father-in-law truly doesn't know enough about knitting to know what's complicated and what's not; he thinks cable-knits in general are quite mystical. I've knit them right beside him, showed him how they work, and still thinks the 3-D effect is amazing. I can certainly do 3-D without having to cable every bloody row.

Plus now I get to flip through my pattern books for hours, going "I like that one... and that one... and, oh, that's cool..."

(Bells, you know that discussion we had about quality of life and keeping it in mind? Yeah. I needed to hear it again.)


Otherwise, the Goob is turning into quite the smartass: The husbeast told her to quit whining last night, and she yelled 'NO. I not done whining!' And last Sunday, I raised my voice at her, and she kind of sniffed and said 'Mumma. Calm down.' (I guess that's kind of cool - she repeats what she hears, and she's not saying 'shut up, you little fucker'. Is this evidence of good parenting? Sorta?)


The husbeast has been tested for sleep apnea, and it has been confirmed that he has it. I have been saying this for sixteen years, since the morning after the first time I slept with him. Pardon me while I revel in being right for a moment.


Oh. And still spinning the green stuff, which I hate, and want to finish it so I can then start on the next Zen project (yes, I'm spinning it and THEN knitting it - very Zen).

Christmas? It'll get here. Whether I want it to or not.

I've been tagged.

For the know more about me meme thingie. I don't know how interesting it'll be, but here you go.

1. What was I doing ten years ago? Oddly, ten years ago, almost to the day (May 30, 1998), I was breaking my hand in a motorcycle accident, which would lead to two surgeries, a nasty lawsuit, and a major overhaul of my attitude. Probably for the worse. Odd that question would come up right now.

2. What are five non-work things on my to-do list, today?
-knit
-spin
-dye a half pound of wool that just showed up on the front porch
-cook dinner
-make supportive noises at the husbeast and Goober as they deal with their own stuff

Boy am I a bundle of energy.

3. Three snacks I enjoy:
-popcorn (this is what I eat when I wanna graze; low cal, high fiber)
-chocolate
-potato chips (Lay's Original, in the yellow bag; I try to stay away from them but I looooove them)

4. Four things I would do if I were a billionaire:
-finish a botany/organic chem degrees, set up and fund my own lab
-found a group that would go to impoverished areas and teach sustainable farming methods
(golly, I sound so philanthropic)
-Build my own house out in the woods somewhere, far away from people
-Buy my brother a house

5. Five places I have lived:
-Lexington township, Ohio, where I grew up
-Columbus, Ohio for a few years of hell-raising
-Norfolk, Virginia the start of the Navy crap
-Honolulu, Hawaii
-Charleston, South Carolina technically Dorchester County, but no one knows where that is.

Now I'm supposed to tag more people to do this, but I think I'm the last person on earth to have done this meme. So... anyone who wants to, join in.

Genius. Fucking genius.

Remember that scene in Amadeus? The one where Mozart has some paper on a pool table (billiards?) and is writing out a new work entirely from his head, with no piano, no humming, no hesitation? This one? Well, knitting this doily, I get the distinct impression that's exactly how Herbert Niebling wrote lace. No swatching, no fooling around. Just sit down with a graph, write out the pattern. Maybe have someone knit it for an example to show. This guy was the freakin' Mozart of lace knitting. Now I want every pattern he's ever written. I'm not compulsive or anything.

My mother-in-law today told me she's knitting herself a wrap sort of thing with the skein of Sea Silk that I gave her for Christmas... I kind of casually said "So you wouldn't mind a lace shawl sort of thing from me?" and she oohed and aahed and said she'd love one. (She's got about three of my doilies in her house, she knows it'll be cool.) The pattern I've got my eye on looks kind of Art Nouveau, and Niebling was designing lace then, so it's possible he did it on purpose. I'm thinking black silk with peacock iridescent beads as accents. Small beads. Don't want it to weigh a billion pounds.

Of course I'll probably change my mind in a week and go back to Newgrange.


Otherwise, it was a week of crankiness and lung snot. The hub's job has been really irritating lately; they're doing a repair job he has to inspect. Yet no one seems to know quite when he'll need to inspect it, so he has to hang around the house, waiting for the phone call. With cell phones it's a bit easier, but still, we could hardly haul the kid off to the waterpark or something, with that hanging over his head. So he's cranky because his weekend sucked, waiting for phone calls that never came. The Goob has a molar coming in and is cranky, but at least she's finally figured out that she can tell us her teeth hurt (Mumma, my teef hut.) and she'll get some Tylenol to take the edge off the pain.

Me? Well, I've got a nasty cold, have had it all weekend, but... you know... otherwise it was kinda nice. I like hanging around the house. I did all that dyeing yesterday, spent today knitting. Listened to the Goober and the husbeast chasing each other around the living room, giggling. It wasn't much different than any weekend, but I like most weekends.

It's hard to motivate myself to get out of the house. I like it here.

Except when the Goob has an innocent look on her face, and I don't know what she's broken.

A productive day.

Even if my head IS full of snot.

Got all the dye projects done for the impending Knitty article... now I just have to write the thing. Here's a teaser:

Incidentally, I don't suggest dyeing anything when you've got a bad head cold; I had blue and yellow dye on my hands today, blew my nose, and for a second, I thought my brain was rotting out. (Sure feels like it.)


While in the midst of all the color and chaos, I wandered through the house to get a soda, and noticed THIS in the bedroom:

Somehow I don't think I can blame Sekhmet for that one. (It is officially summer here; the husbeast has taken the doors and windows out of the Jeep.)


My latest brainwave for my mother-in-law's Christmas present is one of these Herbert Niebling doilies, knit with larger needles and black silk/alpaca and some beads, as a shawl/wrap. Yes. Another idea to kick around. I tell myself I've got to make a decision on this, but with the way I keep pushing back the Christmas knitting projects to knit doilies, scarves, sweaters, and the odd nuclear reactor, how urgent is it, really? (If I wind up knitting a 300 round doily in three weeks, the husbeast will gladly buy a plane ticket so one of you can come here and smack me in the head and yell "YOU DUMBASS.")

Really should get to that swatching. Really.

I've got all this block-print stuff laying here to play with, though.

Aieeeee.

All this week, over on her blog, Alwen has been discussing this lace knitter/designer named Herbert Niebling. I made the mistake of e-mailing her and asking her about it. She promptly e-mailed back a slew of links, including his works on Ravelry. There's a site with patterns available, and... and...

I'm on round eleven. Of a hundred and twenty.

Maybe I can give out doilies for Christmas.

The husbeast can put his on his desk at work.

Sekhmet, you fucker.

Last night, I awoke at four AM. I was laying on my right side, and Sekhmet was sitting directly in my line of sight, right next to my head. Eyes bright, ears perked, whiskers on red alert. I suspect she had patted my face to wake me up. I stared at her for a moment, and shut my eyes again.

So she smacked me in the cheek.

Then I threw her off the bed.

(I would like to add, the cat's got all her claws and could have ripped my face off if she'd wanted. Near as I can tell, this is playing, to judge from the look on her face.)



Anyway, I'm tinkering with the blog, which should be pretty obvious. Knitting half a dozen gauge swatches, I hope. (I'm afraid it'll wind up being a dozen.) Am cooking up my new semi-zen project (lots of stockinette, but with some funky decreasing in certain obvious places); I'm dyeing pre-spun yarn for part of it, and spinning some self-striping yarn for the rest. Should keep me busy a while. Plus I'm dyeing silk and wool for this Knitty article. Yay?

Go, Penguins!

(Shut up, Ang. Redwings suck.)

Finis.

Finished Zen 2 last night (a ten-day sweater, new record). Darned in all the ends, washed it, blocked it, went to bed. While it was wet, Sekhmet wadded it into a ball and slept on it, so this morning it looks like, well, like a cat wadded into a ball and slept on it. So I'm gonna wait on the photo. The yarn didn't relax as much as I'd hoped, so I'm still not sure it'll fit me, but I'm thinking it'll fit the Goober for a year or two the way she's growing, and that's just fine. Who knows, maybe I'll lose more weight (I am finally down ten pounds) and it will fit me by next winter.

And maybe purple piggies will fly on stealth-bomber wings.

This is the start of Memorial Day weekend for those of us in the US. Monday is a federal holiday, and the long weekend is treated as the official start of summer. Mother nature has started things off with a bang in the form of a massive thunderstorm this afternoon. You know, since that rant of mine on the environment, we seem to be having an awful lot of close lightning strikes. I tell myself it's just that I'm noticing now, but DAMN, I hate hearing that zap.

My plan for the weekend involves dyeing some silk and some wool, writing a Knitty article about it (I'm calling it "Dye Another Day"). I'd like to re-code this blog, with a different template, and I wanna fool around with this lino-cut printmaking idea I've had, and making my own logo sort of thing. Had a bit of a brainwave last night, sort of Japanese iconography meets Meg Swansen. Here's hoping it works.

A quick word on the sulfur allergy - it isn't a true allergy, in that I doubt my immune system is involved. I just call it that, out of habit, because otherwise doctors ignore me, give me weird drugs, and I wind up in the emergency room (yes, it has happened). Sulfur compounds of all types that I know of give me vertigo and nausea. It varies, from mild nausea lasting two or three days after a heaping dose of guacamole full of raw garlic, to being unable to stand, walk, or drink water without vomiting, after a couple doses of sulfanomide antibiotics. For a long time I thought it was me, but I did some research and realized a lot of other drugs I had bad reactions to - Vioxx comes to mind - have sulfur compounds in them. So... whatever it is, it isn't an allergy, but I think it's a legit reaction to nearly all forms of sulfur. A friend of mine is a chemist and has told me to buy some granulated sulfur for some learning experiments; I haven't had the nerve to do it.

So there you go, far more than you ever wanted to know about things that make me puke.

Gonna be an interesting weekend. I can tell.

A compendium of weirdness.

Because I'm at a loss for a topic, I'm going to follow Alwen's idea, and give a list of things I've been researching and reading about lately. Brace yourselves. It's a freaky list. (Big shock.)



The most interesting thing (maybe) is the Lizard Man of Lee County. Evidently, South Carolina has its own variation on the Big Foot legend; this time it's a seven foot tall lizard thingie that lives in the swamp. I was hoping for a long tradition, but the legend only goes back to 1988, which is kinda disappointing. The Jersey Devil goes back to the 1700s, after all. Anyway, a seven foot lizard with glowing red eyes makes me wonder exactly what kinds of mushrooms are growing in those swamps. At least I know what to throw at the husbeast tonight, when he gets home, to freak him out. We're in a swamp. By golly, I think I see a seven foot lizard out there RIGHT NOW! AAAAAAH!



Another thing I've been looking into is how glow-in-the-dark pigments 'work'. I can't get into gory details though... for some reason they seem reluctant to get into atomic structure in articles. But it all puts me in mind of an old Bloom County cartoon, where Oliver (the boy genius) builds a nuclear warhead for Science Fair. When the teacher asks where he got the fissionable material, he says he scraped the glow-in-the-dark paint off several thousand old watch faces. (In fact, that's a running joke around here, building a nuke with silly ingredients like that, since the husbeast is trained to work on nuclear power plants.)



And then there's leeks. Yeah, like the food. The blame for this one I lay squarely at the feet of Alton Brown; his Good Eats episode on leeks was on last night. (Incidentally, there's a great selection of quickie how-to videos by him, available here.) He was doing freaky leek facts through history, and being me, I started wondering where/when they'd been domesticated. So a quick pop over to Food Timeline ensued. (I should know better, because I can't hit that site and spend LESS than half an hour reading things I never knew about all kinds of foods I've never eaten, while going "oh, cool".) Onions (to which leeks are related) were eaten back to the stone age, but it's thought they were domesticated somewhere in the middle east/central Asia around 3500 BCE. They became popular in Europe particularly, and according to what I've read, vegetables in Europe during the middle ages were pretty much cabbage, onions, and beans. That's it. Yum. (Which puts me in mind of that joke, "British cuisine has three vegetables, and two of them are cabbage.") I also find, in my cruising of the 'net, that some research group is trying to genetically 'fingerprint' garlic, so they can trace it's evolution and migration. My first thought on that is WHY, but hell, it beats research on nuclear warheads, right? Maybe? Can we develop some new antibiotics yet?

Ahem. Where was I? Right. Leeks. They seem to be native to the Mediterranean area, and have been domesticated for about three thousand years. They're popular in Europe, but haven't spread in fame like regular onions have. The reason for my curiosity is, I'm allergic to sulfur, which means I am allergic to the 'hot' taste causing chemicals in the onion family - they're all based on sulfur compounds. (And the reason cutting onions bothers your eyes is, those compounds turn to sulfuric acid when they hit the moisture in your eyes.) So years ago, unable to consume big portions of onions and garlic, I began fooling around with using leeks instead. And I found that not only was I able to eat them, but they were yummy! These days I use leeks in place of onions in almost everything. And when a recipe requires mirepoix (carrots, onions, and celery), I just use carrots and leeks - the taste of the leek is sort of like celery and onion together, and I can get away with it.

Damn. Now I wanna make cock-a-leekie soup.



Anyway. I'm now going to go knit while brooding over a Knitty article I can't write until an order of silk and wool gets here. (It is due tomorrow.) Since I am almost pain free for the first time in weeks, I may babble again later. On the history of handkerchiefs, or cartoons, or, I don't know, Chinese ceramics. Or maybe I'll build a draw loom on the back porch. You never know around here.

Not a bad day.

Which is odd, 'cause everyone in the house is sick, and we spent most of the day like this:

Even the cat has a runny nose.

I think the real cause for my semi-good mood is this:

I'd been talking to a friend of mine about unloading some art supplies I'll never use on her... she insisted on making me something in return. I mentioned I could use a small cup-shaped something to hold little knitting snippets. That's hand-formed Fimo clay on the outside, with glass beads. Sooooo pretty. It came in the mail today, kind of unexpected, and was a VERY nice surprise. (My friend is, sadly, blogless, or I'd hook you up. When she gets her web site going, I'll let you know.)

To keep myself entertained, I've been knitting away. Almost done with Zen 2.

The swatch relaxed when I washed it (I'm keeping track of these things now, after telling Bells it wasn't worth the bother) so I've got high hopes that this thing might actually fit. So exciting.

Otherwise, I've been cruising Ravelry like a fiend, plotting Christmas presents. STILL haven't made up my mind about what I'm knitting for my mother-in-law. Newgrange is still distantly possible but now I'm off on a tangent about cables.

Oh. And the Goober quote for the day: "I love spitting!"

Good times.

A heaping dose of stupid.

Yes. I've been back to the pharmacy. (For those just tuning in, I deal with a military medical facility that inclues a pharmacy run by, to quote my doctor, "Drug Nazis".)

I saw the doc this morning about some stuff. Nothing terribly exciting. Adjusting dosages, refills, sinus problems, blah blah. So off I go to the pharmacy to pick up my medication. (I am leaving out the part where the Goob threw a screaming fit in the middle of the waiting room.) Okay. Now. As a chronic pain patient, I take or have taken a lot of different medications. Some of them have a very high resale value on the street (tranquilizers in particular are very popular; I've taken them for my nerve damage). So I've always been aware of the safety issue; keeping track of my purse at all times (if there are medications in it), not pulling out big bottles of pills in public, etc. While it is not a common occurrence, there have been muggings here in the US involving people walking out of pharmacies getting their drugs stolen. Again, I'm not totally paranoid, particularly not on a military base, but you know. Be aware. Don't be an idiot.

Don't be an idiot.

I go to pick up my medication, and what do the PHARMACY PEOPLE put the drugs in? The people who should know better? A BRIGHT RED BAG WITH A PHARMACY STICKER ON IT. I might as well put on a shirt that says "Attention addicts: fun drugs here. Help yourself, just hit me in the head first."

I hope to hell these aren't the same people handling the nuclear warheads.

Still slow.

I've spent the weekend hanging out, knitting, and reading. It's been glorious.

Started the second sleeve of Zen 2. I'm hoping to get it done by tomorrow and the whole shebang joined up. Watching the colors come and go is way more entertaining than I'd expected; I'll have to try it again some time.

I'm also getting back to that dark green wool I had a while ago. Remember?

It'll get turned into a hat and scarf for a Christmas present.

The husbeast asks I put up a better photo of his work; apparently the last picture I posted was a before photo:

His welding rig is a "Fender Mender", the name of which just cracks me the fuck up. Sounds like the name of a garlic peeler. Or something. Not a big he-man welder. Anyway, anyway. There's his after photo. All nice and fixed.

The one big blot of ugh on my weekend was yesterday. We had to go to a child's birthday party at the Inner Ring of Hell. (Also known as Chuck E Cheese.) If I were to sit down and make a list of all the things that make my nervous system go funky, you would wind up with a description of Chuck E Cheese. Flashing lights, loud noises, screaming children, hordes of people. Yup. The Goob, of course, loved every minute of it.


We agreed that the cake was pretty good.

Sekhmet, you FUCKER.

I have begun the first sleeve of Zen 2. Which leaves Sekhmet free to sleep on the body. Fucker.


The husbeast's been creative in his own way:

He's been welding. (Of COURSE we have a welder. Don't YOU?)


And the Goober says, "Come play in the sand box!"

Not quite what I had in mind.

I didn't expect this handspun to be so... stripey. And we all know how much I love horizontal stripes. Can't really find it in me to care, though. The colors are pretty and it's a relaxing knit and to hell with it. It's practice spinning. (The colors aren't quite right in the photo, either. Some of those stripes that look medium blue are actually a screaming pink-purple.)

Otherwise it's been a slow couple days around here (evidence above; I started knitting this thing on Sunday and it's almost to the arm pits). Slow is good.

Musings on Ughs.

For the last couple weeks, to amuse myself, I've been cruising the Ugh section on Ravelry. (Found here. For those not on Ravelry, it's basically a gallery of projects gone horribly wrong.) With a thought toward design and pattern writing, I originally started off looking for what people hate about patterns. (Biggest complaint seems to be lack of detail on finishing. So noted.) But I learned a lot more. Here are a few of the more obvious things that leapt out at me:


-A lot of it is what I call 'user error'. Goofy gauge, bad yarn substitutions, too steep a learning curve, whatever. There's nothing much to be done about that, but for crying out loud, at least you can read the pattern through before you start knitting, so you're not shocked by anything. (I'm amazed at the number of people who don't.) My own thoughts on gauge can be read here and here, yarn substition here.

-Face reality. If you've got DDDD boobs, you've got no business knitting yourself a strapless tube top, so quit being shocked when it isn't flattering. Ditto on size. No matter how much you WANT to be a size small, quit knitting them unless you ARE. Get out a tape measure and actually measure yourself if you have to. On a related note, figure out what cuts are flattering on you and stick to those. Again, you may WANT to look like that willowy model in the Rowan magazine, but knitting the sweater isn't going to turn you into her. Sucks, but there it is.

-Awesome yarn does not equal awesome project. It sure as hell doesn't equal FLATTERING project. You know what colors flatter you. So no matter how much the orange and yellow self-striping yarn appeals to you, if you know you look like shit in yellow, STAY AWAY. Or knit socks with it. Or a gift for someone who does look good in yellow.

-Anything fitted is harder to knit than anything loose. Fitted that FITS is even harder. If you're doing something fitted, you can't just get gauge and happily knit away. You've got to measure as you go, keep track of relaxation and shrinkage and whatall when your swatch hits water, the works. Or at least you have to if you want it to fit. Did I mention that part is hard?

-I know how it is to get this major urge to cast on something new at three in the morning with nothing but kite string in the house. I've been there. (Okay, I've never knit kite string. But I have knit butcher's twine.) If you absolutely HAVE to do that (I suggest not), can you at least find something appropriate for whatever yarn you dug out of the back of your stash? (I knit a pot scrubber with the butcher's twine.) WHY are people casting on size XXXXL cable-knit sweaters with 300 yards of discontinued yarn?? (I know, we all run out of yarn sometimes. But often we KNOW we don't have enough. LISTEN TO YOUR BRAIN.)

-Felting seems to go horribly wrong at least half the time. No matter how much experience the person has with felting. Beware. Very ware.


Ultimately, what a lot of this comes down to is thinking about it before you see a project, spend $200 on yarn, knit half of it, and decide you hate it. The yarn will still be there tomorrow. THINK ABOUT IT. My rule of thumb (unless I'm spending gift certificates which are mad money purely for fun), is that I have to want yarn, or to knit a project, for at least a week before I do it. If I still think it's a good idea at the end of a week, then I move on to the next step, buying yarn or knitting a swatch or whatever. That's why so many ideas get thrown around on this blog that never happen. But at least I'm never left saying "What in hell was I thinking?" (Well, okay, there was that Bohus-in-two-months deal, but it wasn't the sweater that was insane, it was the deadline.)

Food for thought.

Right. Where was I?

I think I found my brain... it was in a puddle of green snot, over in a back corner of my skull.

Oh yeah. Knitting.

That's what I did yesterday. Cast on in the morning and happily knit off and on all day. Finished up last night with a hockey game (go, Penguins!) still knitting away. The cast-on edge turned out perfectly, if I do say so myself:

Still have some spinning to do, but I'm using the old 'knit alternating rounds from different balls of yarn' trick to avoid the more obvious weirdness. However, I think this yarn is going to be too much, even for a simple pattern. This may be one of those sweaters I only wear around the house. (Assuming it fits and I don't felt the hell out of it, like last time.) The texture of my handspun is really... interesting. It's very soft and fuzzy, and I can't distinguish single wool fibers. It's kind of like two strips of felted wool twisted together, for lack of a better description. Anyone else get that?


The glow-in-the-dark goo got here. Still trying to get a decent photo of THAT. (First I need to remember to put it in direct sunlight for a couple hours.) I'm now teaching myself chemistry in a half-assed way, to try to figure out how exactly I'm going to use this stuff. In the mean time, the husbeast is shaking his head and suggesting I paint my spinning wheel with it, and the Goober is going "oooooooh".


Oh, and the Goober. Last week she got stuck in one of her toy baskets.

And she has begun sleeping like this:

We've begun sneaking in as soon as she falls asleep and dragging the blanket off her head. Oy.

The Goob has managed to pick up yet another Kid Germ of some kind or other and is now running a low fever, covered in a rash, and laying on the floor, speaking Mandarin Chinese. (Yes, really.) I think it's Fifth Disease, which is a lameass name for a germ. The fun never ends.

I think I'm gonna go knit. Or possibly make chocolate cupcakes. And read about covalent bonding.

Sheesh.

Crawl under a rock for a few days, and you've got 800 bloglines articles to read.

Anyway, I have a sinus infection, the Goob's having sinus migraines, we're both drugged to the eyeballs, and Sekhmet's been eating my ice cream.

Then it rained blood and the space pirates attacked and a plague of locusts came through and ate all my wool.

Or something.

Sorry. Green snot makes me a bit existentialist.

Finished another 375 yards of the Really Fucking Blue, and it looks like REAL YARN! I think I might be getting the hang of this spinning thing. Soon I'll be starting more Zen Sweater yarn. Yay?

Normal blogging to resume when I can find my brain. Anyone seen it? Pass the chocolate.

Oh, and when I took the Goober to the doctor's this morning, she solemnly announced to every person she saw "I sick." and then did a fake sneeze.

Even better than Monday!

Argh.

Spent an hour driving up to Summerville and back to get a cable box for the TV that turned out to be a dud. Now I've got to drive BACK on Thursday and deal with it. And did I mention today's trip involved towing the Goober along?

I feel like the Goober turned two today. She didn't, but she sure as hell acted like it. Every time I turned around she was sticking her hand in my drink. Almost pulled the cat's ear off - "OOOOH! Fuzzy!" (Sekhmet did nothing. Fucker.) Was into SOMETHING the instant I turned my back, all day (not being able to go to the bathroom alone makes me cranky) and finished things off by deliberately throwing her dinner on the floor.

At that point, she got put to bed. An hour and a half early.

Excuse me while I huddle in a corner, knitting, and chanting "There is no internet in prison. There is no internet in prison."

Sekhmet, you fucker.

For the last two weeks or so, the Goober has been driving Sekhmet wild. Not in a mean sort of way. In an 'I'm two and curious about everything and oh, look! a flicking tail!' sort of way. I've been dragging the Goob away from that poor cat for weeks. So when the Goob started in today, I thought I'd let her start on the curriculum at the School of Hard Knocks and let her and the cat duke it out. Sekhmet's a bitch, right? Snarls at everyone, bites the hand that feeds her, and is an all around pain in the ass. I figured she'd nip the Goob's hand a couple times, the Goober would get the message, and I could quit yelling. Problem solved, Mum's proven right, the cat is left in peace, and all's right with the world.

Yeah, right. When did this cat ever do anything she was supposed to?

The Goober loves grabbing Sekhmet's tail. Sekhmet kept walking away. At one point she (the cat) was trotting across the living room while the Goober ran after her yelling "HEY! Give me my tail! That MY tail!" Does this fucking evil bitch cat from hell bite? No. Does she scratch? NO. Does she do anything but walk away? HELL NO.

Finally I broke down, rescued the cat, and put the Goober down early for her nap with a stern lecture about how tail-pulling hurts and is mean. Sekhmet spent the duration of the nap wrapped around my neck and later puked up her dinner.

Honestly.

Sekhmet, you fucker.

Oh yeah, gonna be a good day.

1. It is Monday.

2. Today is the day I start back on my eat healthy and go to the gym goals.

3. There was a cockroach toes-up in the middle of my kitchen this morning (hey, it's the south). I assumed Sekhmet had killed it. When I went to pick it up to put it in the trash, THE MOTHERFUCKER JUMPED ON ME.

4. It is 7:45 AM and some asshole fuckwit moron is out there running an air hammer. The Goob isn't awake yet, and when she's awakened (instead of being allowed to wake up naturally) she is really cranky. I'm about to go out there and stuff that fucking air hammer up their nose and push Play.



And that photo yesterday is the cast-on to the half-hex spider shawl in Victorian Lace Today. Bells, you're still a boogerhead. My in-laws are going to kidnap your brother and feed him German food. Let that be a lesson to you.

This is all Bells' fault.

315 yards of yarny goodness.

The plying is erratic, to say the least. Mostly because I was experimenting with different methods, and obviously some of 'em didn't work. But it's got enough twist to be knittable, and that's all I care about.

Casting on for Zen 2 to commence, as soon as I bind off the Reactor Coolant scarf. (I'm tracking this stuff over on Ravelry, if anyone cares. I'm SamuraiKnitter.)

So far have still resisted the urge to cast on something Pi-based on small needles. Bells, you're a bad influence.

If at first you don't succeed...

Do something really fucking stupid.

What is this, you ask?

This is more of the wool I used to knit the Zen Sweater I killed last weekend. (For refrence, it is 8 oz each of Colonial Wool multi, one bag blue and one bag teal, from Kendig Cottage. If you need to buy fiber, go to them. They're awesome. Excellent customer service, and really fast shipping.) That's right. I bought more. I don't know if this makes me dedicated, stubborn, or just crazy. But I figure after I'm done with the RFB I'm spinning now (second bobbin done, plying imminent), I'll spin this stuff up, and hopefully that will be enough practice to start on my Christmas projects.

At the moment, my to-be-spun crate looks like this:

And that's not counting the pound of Black Diamond carbon fiber I got today, or the other pound of it on back order. (I'm gonna make the husbeast a bullet proof sweater. Photo and info here; scroll down to the gray stuff.)

Pretty sure I'm crazy. In fact, on further reflection, I know I am. Because last night at the craft store (have I mentioned I should never be allowed anywhere near a craft store, particularly with no clear plan and some spare cash?) I bought myself a beginner Lino-Cut kit (considering the tutorial contains a margarita recipe, well, it should have given me pause). Because I need another hobby. And with my hand problems, any new hobby should REALLY involve sharpened cutting tools. (I sort of hope the husbeast steps in and takes over the cutting part, but since I've never seen him show a microgram of interest in any form of carving, I have a feeling I'm shit out of luck.)

-... -

Today the Goober found my shopping bag from when I went to the book store last night. Inside was the receipt, which she immediately declared was a treasure map. (Only with her lisps, it sounds like 'tweasa ma'.)


Then she filled it with toys, pretended to find it, and told me it was a goodie bag. ("Gooie ba! Mumma! Wook! A gooie ba!")


I'm blogging this so that when she goes on her usual evening whinefest tonight, I can look at this and remember how cute she is.

And now, I must ply. Possibly on the back porch, while the Goober plays in her sand box.

Bugger-all.

I have figured out that one of the reasons I've been so down in the dumps is because I've been laying in bed at night (unable to sleep due to the damn migraines), feeling sorry for myself. So I've begun getting the hell up and doing something to entertain myself. Last night was this:

Second bobbin. I start plying soon. Tonight may be a blog post on some odd food history subject I've been brooding about, or the color white, which I've been half-assedly researching for weeks. I'm going to keep writing articles like the sericulture thing, until I can write personal stuff without whining.

And for a happy moment, here's another photo of the Goober in her short-lived Zen sweater. I love how her smile is so big you can see it through the blur:


Over at Bells Knits, she's casting on for her second Pi blankie, and now I have the urge to knit something similar for my next Zen project. Forget the whole idea of finishing old projects... who cares about goals? It's all about FUN!

And there is a cat face tucked under my sweatshirt and mashed into my arm pit.