25 December 2005

Merry Christmas, with Handmade Gifts!

Just a quick post to fling a picture up here showing what my Sister-in-law made me for Christmas. This is just a close-up(ish) view of the blanket she made...


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15 December 2005

Houston, We Have A Problem. Houston? HOUSTON!!!

Oh, my scarf. My favourite one so far, mainy for the colours and the time I've put into it. See? Isn't it purdy?

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(I'm sorry, ignore the green felt of the pool table. It doesn't exactly compliment my scarf.)

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I got brave and was backtracking on the row with the Offending Stitch (read previous post for details). Everything was going swimingly for the first few stitches. I thought I was pretty handy! Until I had the thought of "WTF is THAT?!"

Here is a picture of "that"...

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Yeah, you see, I'm too much of a beginner to understand what I did to get here, and what I need to do to rescue myself. More pictures will be sent to Tracy, begging Her Brilliancy to talk me through it over the phone. If not, then thankfully she'll be up for Christmas and she can show me what I did and how I FIX the Bloody Thing. (!)

~sigh~

"All I wanted was a colourful scarf to wear when the skies are grey..."

Instead, I'm wearing a grey scarf. But it's soft and comfy and London Fog does pretty decent work.

12 December 2005

"But It's Good Practise!"

Oh, good practise my ass.

I noticed that something wasn't quite right. So I looked a little closer. Indeed, I made an incorrect stitch, and proceeded to not pay attention until the end of the following row. I've already backtracked on the one row, and now I need to undo the row the mistake is in. See what happens when I watch tv while I knit? DO YOU SEE??!!!! (Point of needle is directing you to the Offending Stitch.)

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And for the record, this is how much yarn I had left ... this is what I was going to try to finish up with tonight since I won't have time to knit this week. THIS, before I found the Offending Stitch. All I wanted was to be able to start with the 2nd skein when I picked the project up again! For Pog's Sake!!

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(But no. I'm going to bed now. I will unravel the row when I have time. )

[Oh, and I did get a cramp in my right arm, which made my index finger curl oddly. That's another thing that happens when I'm flying along, staring at my yarn, wondering how many rows I have left before I hit the end of the yarn, and gah!]

And for the record, it is three hours past my bedtime.




10 December 2005

Well, I Still Know How To Knit

Even though it's been a few weeks (months).

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Do you remember this scarf? My first and only yarn purchase ever from HPY? Well, we got reacquainted tonight. And I doubled its length! I didn't even mark the row I started from since I am finally confident enough to correct mistakes. Whew!

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And no, I still don't have the desire to wind the yarn into a ball. We get along well enough to work with it as is. =)

01 December 2005

A Very Important APAD

And there are actually TWO pictures to share. For those of you who don't know, my hair is very thick, and curly. Each strand is thick, and there's a lot of them. My hair can go from ringlets (if I help it along a bit by scrunching) to straight ... so I can do my hair in five minutes or over two hours.

The following picture shows the tools I had to use to get the next picture. From left to right: Matrix Vavoom "Smooth Me" smoothing gel; Redken Extreme "Anti-Snap" leave-in conditioner; Redken Smooth Down "Heat Glide" heat protector; Redken "Align" smoothing creme ("for stick straight results!"); Biosilk "Silk Therapy" because it's silky and I love it; Red Christmas Cup containing my brushes soaking in vinegar to get the gunk of styling off. In the foreground is my flat iron.

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This picture is the result of a lot of work. Day One was about two hours of blow drying and ironing, and I ran out of time before I had to leave for work. Day Two was this morning, and I had more time to finish (I did NOT wash my head this morning - I wasn't starting over!) - so this was using a bit more of the Heat Glide and Align with the Flat Iron. Trying to take pictures was ... entertaining. This is actually of the right side of my head; I was looking in the mirror to see what the display on my camera was showing so I could take a picture. Fun.

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28 November 2005

OH MY WORD! She lives!


Here I am!

Just a quick update: I have been out of town and / or have had no internet access for the past six weeks. It looks like I will be home for the time being. Whew! Now I can clean my room, set up my bike and start riding again, finish my two scarves that I have on the sticks, and just plain get back to my world, rather than living out of my travel bags.

Coming up when I have more time on the computer:

A reminder of what my two scarves look like, and how far I have (not) come on them.

And?

"My Visit To Tracy's" aka "My Personal Yarn Store". =)

24 September 2005

The One With 100 Things

1. I am a daughter, sister, niece, and aunt.
2. I do not wish to be a mother.
3. I never rule anything out.
4. I started getting along with my brother the day he moved out.
5. I have been paying into Social Security since I was 9.
6. I have worked for the family company, for a vet clinic, in retail, and for myself as a farrier.
7. I enjoyed them all.
8. I have never asked for a job.
9. I don't mind working hard.
10. I have had a lot of schooling.
11. I greatly dislike homework.
12. I have an AA degree in Math & Science.
13. I have an AA degree in Human Services (Counselling degree).
14. I am about six classes away from having a BA in Mathematics.
15. I am also about six classes away from having all prerequisites completed for Vet School.
16. I would go to vet school if I didn't have to work.
17. I will finish my Math degree, but not right now.
18. I love to draw.
19. I am good at almost everything I try.
20. Most things don't interest me enough to continue doing.
21. I love to listen to music.
22. I greatly dislike Jazz, Heavy Metal (if it's still called that), and most Rap.
23. I have a love for classical music, especially if it has piano, violin, and/or flute in it.
24. I like talk-radio and listen to it almost daily.
25. I am a Fiscal Conservative, first and foremost.
26. I was a registered Republican until about six months ago.
27. I am a registered Independent.
28. I don't like either of the "main" political parties.
29. I think they have their heads up their collective asses and no longer represent what they once did.
30. I don't mind talking politics, but will throw a fit if others talk about their views then refuse to listen to mine.
31. I don't believe in organized religion.
32. I am very spiritual.
33. I don't believe in coincidence.
34. I sense things about people within the first ten minutes of meeting them.
35. I am generally correct in what I "see".
36. I am not good at lying, so I don't.
37. I am incredibly honest.
38. I have very strong morals, and I stand by them.
39. Those who don't like that don't need to exist in my world.
40. Even if you are family.
41. I do not trust people easily.
42. I am very picky about who I let into my world.
43. I have been hurt anyway.
44. I am incredibly sensitive in many ways.
45. I cannot stand the sound of a ticking clock.
46. I hear things other people don't.
47. I pay attention to my dreams.
48. I have had dreams come true.
49. I almost changed my flight to Hawaii last year because of a dream I had about it.
50. I love flying.
51. I want to learn to pilot a helicopter.
52. I can go to sleep anywhere, anytime if I am tired.
53. Cleaning the shower drain makes me gag and sometimes dry heave.
54. Smelling steamed broccoli gives me the same reaction.
55. I am texture sensitive when it comes to food.
56. I love canned asparagus, but hate it fresh.
57. I will choose salty foods over chocolate.
58. I played with bugs, lizards, worms etc. as a child.
59. The older I get, the more I hate bugs, rodents, etc.
60. I've only hit one animal while driving, a goose.
61. I have had two deer hit me. Once when my car was parked, once when I was driving.
62. I love animals, particularly horses and dogs.
63. Nobody else in my family particularly likes horses.
64. Animals tend to trust me more than most.
65. People tend to instantly like and trust me.
66. I have had strangers start telling me their life stories.
67. It always seemed to happen when I was running late.
68. I let it continue, as I am a Conversation Encourager.
69. People seem to feel they know me simply because I let them talk.
70. I don't say that I hate someone unless I wish them to be dead.
71. The only person I ever really hated was my old doctor.
72. He died in a single car wreck.
73. I have a general dislike of doctors and dentists.
74. Several years ago I think I broke my right patella.
75. I refused to get it x-rayed or to see a doctor.
76. I have, and continue to, pay for my stupidity.
77. I never had fillings in my teeth until I was 24.
78. My teeth never hurt before then, and have since then.
79. I have never been back to a dentist since.
80. Having my wisdom teeth removed was the only surgery I've had.
81. I have weird eyes.
82. One is dominant for distance, one for reading / close up stuff.
83. All my eye doctors said I didn't need glasses since both eyes were being used fairly equally.
84. I was told my headaches were from reading too much - "something you get from being a student".
85. I made them give me reading glasses.
86. I love studying equine anatomy.
87. I can name all the bones and most tendons in a horse's leg, front or hind.
88. I know nothing about human anatomy.
89. I have to look in a book to find which bone is the tibia and which is the fibula.
90. I am a very logical person.
91. I am a very emotional person.
92. Those two sides don't communicate very well.
93. I know what it's like to panic.
94. I didn't start drinking alcohol until about three years ago.
95. The smell of beer and wine have always made me gag.
96. Only once have I started drinking to get rid of a bad day.
97. I will never do that again.
98. I love to write, pen on paper, and I don't care what.
99. I love fountain pens.
100. I got my first ever headache in my senior year of high school - it was a migraine.

20 September 2005

18 September 2005

17 September 2005

16 September 2005

15 September 2005

APAD #20


This is what happens when I try to take a picture of the beautiful moon when it's not *quite* dark out.

11 September 2005

10 September 2005

08 September 2005

07 September 2005

Redemption



I did it. I really did. I dug my leather backpack out of my closet (okay, I didn't dig. I slid the door open, picked it up off the floor where I put it the other day, and slid the door closed.), put my two projects in there, and took pictures for your viewing pleasure. I think this will work perfectly for the time being! I'm happy to be out of the [tacky] boxes and crate. ;)

Lessons Learned, Lessons Shared

Lesson #847a: Keep your digital camera with you at all times. Don't leave it at home, go ahead and put it with your daily crap that gets carried to and from the truck each morning and evening. The best scenes that would be great pictures are those you see while driving.

Lesson #847b: Don't stare at the sun while looking at the really neat Almost-a-Sunset while driving. It's hard to see the road through white spots. And other drivers don't appreciate you driving by braille.

I'm sorry, but...


I have been receiving so much spam on my blog lately (in the comments) that I turned on the "word verification" setting -- so, you will have one extra step if you choose to post to my blog. Hopefully there aren't any problems and it works smoothly!

06 September 2005

APAD #16


(Those black things? Five bats. That we walk under unknowingly during the day.)

Busted!


So Tracy was in town this past weekend. We were able to get together for a few hours on Sunday, and during that time I had a scarf that I so badly wanted fixed so I could start working on it again! (She is so batass; I did watch while she fixed it [in mere seconds...] and got the stitches on the needle correctly - woohoo!). Anyway, she was absolutely apalled at how I had my knitting! [Hey, let me explain!!] You see, when I'm working on everything at home, I have my project and yarn and needles all nicely spread out on the pool table. Nice and out of the way, but very easily accessible. Sounds perfect, right? Right. So, someone comes through and cleans the pool table off, and puts my knitting stuff in those cardboard flats that you buy a case of Coke or something in. So, to put that "safely" in my truck, I put the cardboard flats in a crate. In this picture, you're looking down on my knitting from the back door of my truck, so you're looking down on the back seat. Green blanket is Morgan's (the Black Lab - the back seat is his).

And so it goes. "Kalah!" [I cringe.] "What is this?!!" [Still cringing... "it's my knitting!"] "But what is THIS!? Oh, I MUST take a picture of this."

But if you see the post below, I'm really WANTING to organize my stuff. I think I found an old backpack that will work (for the time being) to transport knitting around - it's a small leather backpack. Will have to try it out and post a picture of THAT if I'm satisfied.

05 September 2005

My Craft Corner?


I have this space that would be perfect for organizing my crafty things. Various stamp stuff, many coloured pencils and standard graphite drawing pencils, knitting stuff, you know. Art stuff. I'm just not sure how to go about *really* organizing this space. In the picture, you see this cool little cubby that was built for sports equipment storage. My skiis are downstairs with everyone else's, my bike is (sadly) outside waiting for me to clean space in my room to bring the trainer in (so I can hook my bike up to it), and only my golf clubs live in the sports storage area. What I want is to have shelving in there. I'm tall enough to where I can leave the bottom part available for golf clubs etc. to live, but to have shelving that's 18" or so deep would be WONDERFUL above that! That little wall on the left has electricity running through it somewhere, and the wall on the back and right may have plumbing running through it. I JUST put my yarn and some needles in that very small shelving unit in the picture - I can't put anything else in there! Oh to dream of shelving... I'm sure I can buy smooth 18" deep boards at Home Depot ... and I know exactly where to get my L Brackets, and ... well, sure sounds like a weekend project, doesn't it. Now that I'm done organizing the back of my truck, I have weekends (sort of) free enough to start another project. See, I'm rambling. What I really want? To wave my magic wand and have the shelves already cut and stained and put up. So that I can go straight to organizing my STUFF. :) (And yes, my bedroom walls are all dark green. It's a very calming colour for me. I also have glow in the dark stars covering my ceiling.)

APAD #15

04 September 2005

03 September 2005

02 September 2005

01 September 2005

APAD #11a and 11b


APAD #10

[Edit {29-Aug-05}: I thought I was being soooo smart by dating my APADs for future dates this week, as I will not be around a computer this week to upload them each day. I thought that perhaps Blogger was brainy and would know that if I put Sept 1st as the date, it wouldn't show the post until that date. Just so you know? Blogger isn't that brainy.]

*

(Petrified Rock)

31 August 2005

30 August 2005

29 August 2005

28 August 2005

27 August 2005

26 August 2005

25 August 2005

24 August 2005

APAD #2

Seatbeltbags = Happiness

I am such a happy girl. I've waited a long time for these bags (well, the red one anyway), as poor Tracy can attest to! But here, first I have to show you what I'm using now. The black thing is a purse that met my needs, even though I didn't care for it when I bought it and still don't care for it. It's .... too rectangular. The tan thing is my leather attache that contains all my "non-purse-essential" stuff. Appointment book, receipt book, client info, writing pad with clipboard, map book (that actually belongs in the truck), banking envelopes / deposit slips, reading glasses, calculator, "feminine products", tissues, bandaids, sunblock, you name it, if I need it, it's there. I spend a lot of time on the road. My purse basically has my checkbook w/ credit cards, my cell phone (which is generally in my truck), my Rescue Remedy oral spray, sunblock, lipstick, and one or two pens.

Okay, yeah, I carry a lot of crap. But it's all crap I USE.

So, the "before" picture (they look like a sad lot, don't they? They're asking for a vacation from use, you can see it.)



So, after THAT, I switched everything over. Now, I did have stray papers in my purse that I didn't swap over (because really, they need to be thrown away...), and from my attache, there was a magazine and a file that I no longer need in there, so those didn't make the transfer either. But other than THAT, here's what happened!

23 August 2005

APAD #1

Tracy Made Me Do It!!

I will now (attempt) to do the "A Picture A Day" thing, herein known as "APAD".

I just thought you should know who to blame.

31 July 2005

And An Update!


Wow. See? I have been kind of knitting. We are now just shy of 30". This is going to be a nice long scarf, and I'm happy about that. Thin enough to be perfect for the chill, long enough so you can wrap it twice around your neck. Yay!

24 July 2005

The One Where There's Progress


I love seeing progress. We're about 11" long here. I love the gentle striping the yarn is doing, and with the lightness / airyness of how the scarf is coming out, it's going to be perfect for fall/spring weather. And, I've figured it out. Purl the bumpy side, knit the smooth side. As long as I remember that, I can put the needles down at any time and be able to know what I'm s'posed to do when I pick them up again...

Well, well, well ... !


Ohm Goodness!! She can knit! Yes, yes, yes. I ~gasp~ picked up the needles again after a long time of not, for whatever reason. (Mainly sleep reasons I think.) So, I decided to go back to the green boucle scarf. Good choice! But I picked it up and thought, "Huh. What on Earth was I doing?" You see, being a baby knitter, which I hope you can remember, I don't immediately (or even slowly) recognize the kinds of stiches I used and what its overall general classification would be. I finally figured "Ah, stockinette!" and opened my trusty Stitch 'N Bitch book to figure out if I was to knit the nooses and purl the scarves or what. I couldn't figure it out. So, I thought to myself, "Well, if you were smart when you stopped last time, you would have stopped so that when you picked up again, you would be using the knit stitch." ... so, I started doing a row of knit stitches. Then a row of purl. Then another row of knit. And low and behold! I don't have to go redo it! :) Hooraaah!

Cute Dog.


This is Lucy, our neighbours dog. I had to include her here because she's cute. She's still a mental puppy (and at under 2 years, I guess she's a puppy in general still anyway), a bit hyper, and looooves to play. She's fun ... and I think she's going home this week. Which is nice, since I don't exactly do well at walking a dog - on leash - at just after 5 in the mornings. The coordination thing just isn't there. Our dogs don't require leashes so that's not a big deal. Who knew that figuring out how to snap the leash on the collar would be so difficult before the sun came up...

18 July 2005

Tracy Has Slugs, We Have Beetles.

Okay. What I want to know is why bugs of this size actually need to inhabit my side of the planet. This little dude could do some serious damage to my panicking issues! Imagine the Panic Dance if this thing were to be alive still and ... and ... and flying. Yes yes, I know it's outside and I could just go inside. But honestly? I think I would have to go back outside armed with our tennis racket bug zapper thing, cans of whatever bug spray I could find, and ... and kill it. Or else I would know it is still out there to haunt me. ~shudder~ (I just want you to know. I did look at him through binoculars first to make SURE he wasn't moving before I got close with ruler and camera. I'm not a complete idiot!)

03 July 2005

But Seriously. Back to Kanitting.

So, I figured out that I'm simply bored to tears with kanitting scarves. I mean seriously. I had finished Red and was happy with the way she turned out. So I ordered my yarn from HPY to start a new scarf that wasn't a simple knit stitch the whole way through. And while I managed to tweak that one a bit (as in, "Fuck it up"), and still haven't spent the time to sit down and fix it, I started on a new scarf out of a green boucle.

Speaking of...

Tracy sent me a package awhile ago. She said she had a lot of extra needles of various sizes that she could give me. Yay for needles! I only had a pair of 10s and 8s of my own (I think that's what they are, anyway), and it would be simply sa-weeeet to have a nice array of needles. So, I get a box. "Uh, that's a tad heavy just to have needles in there, isn't it?" Right-o!

So, here's the box. (I love getting boxes.)

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(That "here's the box" reminds me of that thing we used to do when we were kids with our hands and fingers ... "Here's the church, here's the steeple, open up and see all the people!".)

The yarn! The yarn! I got yarn with the needles! (I deleted some stupid jokes that I had put here to spare you my odd humour.) Here we have a nice green boucle, a dark blue boucle that is not as thick, and a blue and silver boucle. I love, love, love (!) the blue and silver. I have absolutely no idear what I'm going to do with it (okay yeah, a scarf would be nice because I would always wear it, but I don't want to do another bloody scarf!), but I do love it.

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Oh, the purple hawaiian print background? That's my sarong. From Hawaii. I love it very much, and since it was there I used it instead of my purple sheets on the bed. (Thought I should explain for some reason.)

Here are the needles! You will see that one of the needles has yarn attached to it. That's my last bloody scarf. But it's a simple stockinette or seed stitch. (See, it's been so long I can't even remember.) Oh, in this picture you will also see my purple sheet. There shouldn't be any drool marks on that section.

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Okay, so that's the update. How exhausting. (Actually, I just can't think of anything else to say right now.) (Not true, I can always think of something to say, but nothing that belongs here.) :)