Quiz Time!

What Monty Python Sketch Character are you?

You are the Abuse Clerk! You dish out verbal (and some physical!) abuse all day long...as long as the customer keeps payin'! Aaah...such satisfying work!
Take this quiz!








Quizilla |
Join

| Make A Quiz | More Quizzes | Grab Code

Bad Blogger

I admit - I've been a bad blogger. I've been too tired and busy the last few weeks to worry about my poor blog. So - randomness today! And on Random Wednesday, too.

• My little brother is getting married in a week and a half. I'm very excited! I like his fiancee, I've never been to New Mexico before, and I get a couple days off work (and maybe there will be time for knitting). Yeah!
• I've been working on a lot of small knitting presents. My latest nephew was born last week (12 lbs.) and I made him some booties and a Mason-Dixon bib. I'm also making some things for my brother's wedding present. Then I need to make presents for my next nephew who's due next month.
• I did finish the first Jaywalker sock last week. I'll probably cast on for its mate before my trip. Pictures will be posted after both socks are complete. I do love this sock and can't wait until I have two so that I can wear them.
• I cast on for the first Lorelei's dad's sock (about 4 or 5 times). This will also travel to NM with me.
• The Irish Hiking scarf is going to move to the top of the list soon. I want it finished before it gets cold.
• Lantern Moon sent me a replacement for my broken needle. Yeah!

TV This Week

I normally don't watch many reality shows. There are only about 3 or 4 that I ever watch and 2 of them had finales this week. Yeah!

Hell's Kitchen
I didn't watch all of the finale episode (yet), but I did see the end. Heather had been my favorite from the first episode and I am sooooo happy that she won. If Virginia and her boobs had won, I'm sure that I would not be watching next season (if there is one). I'm glad that G. Ramsey wasn't fooled into giving the restaurant to Virginia since she was totally incompetent from the beginning. So Congratulations Heather! It's fun when your favorite wins.

So You Think You Can Dance
First of all, I was really happy with the final four dancers. I would have been happy if any one of them won. Donyelle had been my favorite since the beginning (and the only person that I've gotten on the phone to vote for). I had a feeling for a few weeks that Benji would win and I like Benji so I'm still happy with the finale. And I keep telling myself that at least now Donyelle doesn't have to dance with Celine Dion for a year. I wouldn't wish that on anybody. That said, the finale was way too long. I enjoyed seeing some of the dances again, but there were too many. Too many musical guests (what is that Fergie song about anyway?). Too much audition footage for the millionth time. I did find it interesting that there are versions of this show in many different countries.

Prison Break season 2 starts next week. I missed the season finale last Spring and I had been hoping that they would replay it before the new season starts, but it looks like I'm out of luck. I may try to see if I can get just the last episode from Blockbuster this weekend. Vanished premieres next week also. I wasn't planning on watching it, but I may take a look if there's nothing else on.

Hello Internets!!!

Hello to all in blogland. I've missed you, too. The insane heat coupled with a week of work training (far from my computer) have kept me from blogging for a while. Also from reading other people's blogs (very sad), but I'm slowly catching up on my writing and will soon catch up on my knitting and blogging.

Picovoli is complete except for the weaving of ends. Of course it's a little too hot to wear it now, but I'll try to finish it up this weekend if only to get it out of my knitting basket. I did take a picture already, but the picture is sitting on Lorelei's Dad's computer and I need to get it. I'll post the picture soon.

Jaywalker #1 - I have about 1/4 of an inch left before I start the toe. This should also be finished up this weekend. In addition to starting #2, I'm thinking about starting some socks for Lorelei's Dad. I already have the yarn and he wants plain boring socks (not that there's anything wrong with that), so I'm going to try to start them soon.

I'm still working on the Irish Hiking Scarf (occasionally). I've got about 57 inches complete of the requested 72 (or alternately, 3 1/2 balls of yarn out of 5).

I've frogged the sock from hell and requested a replacement needle from Lantern Moon. Soon I'll be able to put the whole incident behind me. I think I'll start looking for a new pattern for the hell socks so there won't be any traces of hell left. So any sock pattern suggestions for KnitPicks Simple Stripes yarn?

Random Tuesday

• Jaywalker - half way through the foot of the first sock. I hope the second sock goes faster (since I know the pattern), but I'm sure that it will take twice as long.
• Picovoli - only a couple more inches to go before it's finished. Right now it would make a cute belly shirt, if I had a cute belly to go with it.
• I'm sheep - like everyone else in the knitting world. I bought Mason-Dixon Knitting and I knit a dishcloth. I don't even use dishcloths (I'm a sponge girl). And that log cabin rug is starting to look like fun. What is wrong with me??



• My favorite tv shows right now: Hell's Kitchen (go Heather!), So You Think You Can Dance (go Donyelle!), and Entourage (I love Jeremy Piven).
• Press Tour has gone downhill since the CW news. I found out Patricia Wettig won't be on Prison Break this season. The new Calista Flockhart show looks like it's going to have problems (they're rewriting and recasting), which is too bad. The promo I saw looked interesting and it has a good cast. Heroes looks promising even though it has Milo. I've never been a Milo fan and now that Alexis Bledel broke up with him, he has even fewer redeeming qualities.
• Lorelei is speaking in sentences now. And she actually sat still long enough for me to cut her bangs last night (well long enough for me to cut them badly).

Press Tour Week - CW

This is always one of my favorite weeks of the year - the annual television critics press tour, where all the reporters who cover television get in a big room with people from all the networks (one at a time) to talk about the new fall season. New plot twists, new characters, new excitement for old shows.

Yesterday was CW day, so today I've been reading all about two of my favorite shows - Gilmore Girls and Veronica Mars, which will be on the same night this fall. Some things I've learned:

• Mac will be a series regular next season (VM)
• Logan is staying in London on GG, but both Rory and V will still be involved with their Logans when the season starts
• Dave Rosenthal (the new head of GG) used to be crazy
• VM - instead of one big mystery there will be 3 smaller mysteries (not huge news, I've known this for a while)
• Lorelai and Christopher definitely had sex during the season finale
• Luke's daughter (and her mother) will still be around next season

CBS had their presentations on Sunday, but I don't really watch anything on CBS except for How I Met Your Mother. There was a presentation for Rachael Ray's new talk show which I just heard about over the weekend (from Good Housekeeping?). I love $40 a Day and I have one of her cookbooks, so this show might be interesting. She is really perky though - I'm not sure how much of that I could take.

For more press tour goodness, check out TV Guide's Michael Ausiello or E! Online's Kristin (most of the scoop is in the message boards).

Where did time go?

So it's already been a week since I last posted. How about a quick update?

• Jaywalker #1 - turned the heel, ready to pick up stitches.
• Picovoli - finished the waist decreases. Only a couple more inches before it's finished. I'm hoping that it will be finished this week or next.
• Charlotte's Web shawl - Oh look. I started a project and forgot to tell you. I started this last week, did the first 10 rows (the set-up rows on the pointy end) and I haven't touched it since. Once I finish Pico, this will be my main non-sock project.
• I swear I'm going to start some booties this week. Those little babies are going to be here before I know it. I might make some bibs too (from Mason-Dixon Knitting).
• I ordered some yarn to make dish cloths/dish towels for my brother for his wedding. It should arrive any day now.

It's crazy hot here in DC. My air conditioning may have been fixed this morning. I'm keeping my fingers crossed. Stay cool!

A Visit to Mt. Vernon

We took Lorelei and the sock to Mt. Vernon this weekend. The sock especially loved visiting the Spinning Room. Lorelei had a great time running around.


We learned a lot about George Washington - how he died, that he never had any children, that he decorated most of the house himself. The only bad part of the day was when we were visiting George Washington's tomb. Lorelei tried to run in. I hope Lorelei doesn't turn into a little Tomb Raider - Angelina Jolie might try to adopt her.

There were several buildings that we didn't get to this trip, so we're planning to go back soon.

FO - Wavy Scarf

I made this Wavy scarf for Lorelei's teacher. It's going to be her birthday/going away present since she's leaving to finish college next month. It took about 3 months since I've been working on a lot of projects all at once. It took about 1 and 1/2 skeins of Cascade 220. I had a lot of fun knitting this. It's simple - just knit and purl - but the 44 row pattern repeat forces you to concentrate. It's also a really warm scarf - maybe too warm for this part of the country. But it's definitely something I would think about making again if I find someone who needs a scarf (or I may make one for me).

(There's a full shot of the scarf on Flickr.)

Socks, Socks, Socks

I did it - my second pair of socks and my first finished during the Summer of Socks. I know, I know, I didn't start them during the summer, but they were definitely finished during the summer. I used Opal Prisma purple yarn and size 2 Clover bamboo DPNs. These are based on Wendy's generic sock pattern. I started these on April 26, so it took about 2 and 1/2 months. At this rate, I should be able to finish one more pair of socks this summer.


As you can see, I've already made some good progress on my Jaywalker. Confession time: I've only really been knitting for about 6 months (though I learned 2 or 3 years ago), and this was the first time I'd seen a DD (double decrease). So for the first 4 pattern repeats, I was doing it wrong. And I don't care - I'm leaving it the way it is. I may even do the same thing on the second sock for consistency. But now that I'm doing it right, it looks pretty good.

So I've started 4 pairs of socks now (and finished two) and used different DPNs for each pair. Let's review:

1. Practice socks made out of LB microspun acrylic - Size 3 Clover bamboo. These DPNs were fine for practice and I had an easy time learning how to knit in the round with them. The bamboo holds the stitches on the needle pretty well, even though the acrylic was a little slippery.
2. Socks from Hell - Size 1 Lantern Moon. I really liked knitting with these needles, even if it did feel like knitting with toothpicks. But they are very bendy and I broke one. And they're expensive.
3. Purple socks - Size 2 Clover bamboo. Same as the Size 3. These are pretty strong and don't bend. I may try to find some of these in size 1 (I haven't seen them in my local stores).
4. Jaywalkers - Size 1.5 Crystal Palace bamboo. I love these needles. These are pretty thin but they seem a lot stronger than the Lantern Moon. They have little ridges on the needle, so it's not too slippery (which is important to me because I always lose the stitches off the end of the needle). The only (tiny) problem I have with them is that they are really pointy. My fingers are a little sore from stabbing myself with them. But since I'm not bleeding yet, I'll have to say that these are my favorites so far.

For reference, I'm a big fan of my Susan Bates aluminum needles and my Lantern Moon ebony needles for straight knitting. I'm afraid to use the SB DPNs though - I'm afraid my stitches would slide too much.

Happy 4th of July ...

yesterday.

It's still a little weird to me that I live in our nation's Capitol (well, in the suburbs of our nation's Capitol). I turned on the fireworks on tv last night and thought - I could totally be sitting right next to those people. Except that it was past Lorelei's bed time and the fireworks would probably freak her out. She would have loved to see Elmo.

One reason I'm glad we skipped The Mall, the heat. Yesterday was the hottest so far this year - 95 degrees. My apartment was so hot that Lorelei and I spent the day at Tyson's mall shopping and enjoying the air conditioning. We also did some mother-daughter bonding over ice cream from Cold Stone Creamery.

In knitting news, I finished the ribbing of the Jaywalker and moved on to the pattern. I really like the pattern, it looks complicated, but I had it memorized before I finished the first repeat. I'm half finished with the leg of the Opal sock and I worked a few more rounds of Picovoli. The Opal sock should be finished in another week or so and I'm still hoping to have Picovoli finished by the end of summer. I need to start working on baby stuff soon. Less than 8 weeks until the next niece or nephew is born.

Productive Weekend

I've had a very productive weekend.

• I finished the Wavy scarf - yeah! I'm waiting on Lorelei's dad to take some nice pictures of it, so I'll post pics then.
• I turned the heel of the second Opal sock. It's coming along nicely.
• I cast on for my first Jaywalker sock. Pictures soon.
• I did ALL of my laundry - that hasn't happened in months.
• Went shopping. I bought some new shoes for me and for Lorelei. Lorelei's new shoes are soooo cute!
• Got my travel plans made for my brother's wedding. New Mexico during Labor Day weekend - should be fun. I just need to make reservations for the dog and buy a dress.

I'm hoping to get a lot of knitting in this week with the holiday. We'll see how much Lorelei allows.

Floating away

Well, I haven't floated away yet, but I've come close a couple of times in the last few days. After days and days of rain, I think DC may be starting to dry out.

There has been no knitting for almost a week now. It all started last Wednesday when Lorelei woke up sick. Stomach-flu-like sick. I'll try to leave out all the disgusting details. Then Thursday, Lorelei's dad and I came down with the sickness. The rain started, the air conditioning broke, and the cable went out. Luckily the cable came back in half a day, the air in a day, but the rain kept coming. Monday, it took me 4 hours to drive to work. Finally, everything was starting to get back to normal. Then Lorelei gets an ear infection. Fever of 102.

Hopefully, there will be knitting soon. And sun.

I really don't like basketball, but ...

Yeah, the Heat won!!!! (and yeah, basketball's over for the season)

Now I do like baseball and my Florida Marlins are on a 9 game winning streak after having a very shaky start. The team is very young this year, so I'm really excited that they're doing so well. Sadly, I can't make it over to Baltimore this week to see them play the O's (and kick some Baltimore butt), but I'll be cheering them on from home.

Summertime

Yeah, today is the start of Summer of Socks so I thought I would prioritize my sock projects for the next few months.

1. Finish Opal socks (I'm not participating in the Most socks, so I don't need to worry that they were started two months ago).
2. Socks from Hell - I think I'm going to frog and start from scratch using the Opal socks as a guide.
3. Jaywalkers - my first pair. I have a couple balls of yarn that might work well, so if I like the first pair I may make a second.
4. Socks for Lorelei's Dad - I just bought some black and white Opal that he likes.
5. Socks for Lorelei - I think I'll have plenty of the purple Opal left over for some Lorelei-sized socks.

This should take me at least the next two months (if not the next two years). I also need to make some booties for my sisters-in-law who are having babies in Aug and Sept.

The Traveling Sock

We took the sock into DC yesterday for it's first adventure. This first picture is of the sock at the Jefferson Memorial looking out over the Tidal Basin at the Washington Monument.









The second picture is of the sock at the Washington Monument looking at the WWII Memorial and the Lincoln Memorial. A tiny bit of knitting was completed sitting by the Washington Monument and the sock also visited the George Mason Memorial and the Holocaust Museum (for about 2 minutes).

My knitting goals for this week: Finish the Wavy scarf (it's at almost 80% complete) and finish the second Opal sock. These seem a little ambitious for me, but if I concentrate I think I can achieve them. Oh yeah, and if Lorelei cooperates.

Wow, it's Friday already!

I was in a technical writing class for work this week and somehow the week just flew by. So to sum up:

• I started the second Opal sock. I'm getting close to having half the foot done. Everyone in my class was so impressed that I could knit socks!
• I found out that the English language has changed since I took English in high school. I think they change the rules just to confuse people.
• My brother is officially engaged. It looks like the wedding will be Labor Day weekend. My first trip to New Mexico, how fun!
• One of my friends is getting married in Tampa in Oct. I haven't been to a wedding in about 5 years and now I'll have two in two months.
• I watched the first episode of Windfall. I'm not sure I like it, but it does have Luke Perry. I need to watch the second episode and see how I feel.
• So You Think You Can Dance - what is it about this show that sucks me in??? I've never watched an minute of American Idol, but I live for SYTYCD. My favorites are Donyelle and Travis. The format is a little different from last year's, but this year's dancers also seem to have a lot more training.
• Entourage returned on Sunday. Still a great show. I LOVE Jeremy Piven! I like how Debi Mazar was hugely pregnant and they didn't try to hide it.
• Make the Connection bracelet kit - I already ordered mine.

Happy Friday!

Finally - WIPs

Last night was picture night, I FINALLY took pictures of all my WIPS. So I can prove to everyone that I do knit, I have been knitting, and one day I'll have more FOs.

First is my Picovoli. It's coming along pretty well. I tried it on a few days ago and the arm holes are a little tighter than I would like but not too bad. Unfortunately, my bust is a little larger than the pattern was written for, so I'm not as far along as I had thought - I need to knit a few more inches before I can start the waist shaping. Still, I'm happy with the progress I'm making.

Irish Hiking Scarf - on ball 4 of about 5. The cables were a lot easier than I thought they would be (or my knitting is a lot better than I thought). I'm pretty proud of how it's turning out.

Finally, the Wavy scarf. This is about 60% complete. I'm making this for Lorelei's teacher, but I like it so much I may have to make another one for myself.

A sock and a dog

It's been a while since I had a FO and I was starting to get a bit overwhelmed by my WIPs. So I finally finished a sock. And you can see that it does fit my foot. Success is mine! Now all I have to do is make another one.









Because she's cute (and not puking on my carpet), here's a picture of my dog - Angel.

Best Monday Ever

Yesterday was a very good day!

• I found out my promotion/raise was effective on May 15. How did I know? My bank account told me.
• I also got a monetary award - in my bank account.
• Lorelei used the potty for the first time at daycare - TWICE!
• My brother bought his girlfriend an engagement ring. I just met her last weekend and I'm really happy for them.
• I finally finished a sock (except for weaving in the ends). The first Opal sock is now 99% completed and fits my foot. I switched to a larger needle for the bind off just to make sure that it was looser. I think in the future that for all toe up socks I will change to a larger needle for the ribbing/bind off. One sock down, one to go. And only two more weeks until Summer of Socks! Pictures will be forthcoming.
• My dog was very sick on Sunday, making messes all over my carpet. But yesterday she was feeling much better - no messes! She went to the vet, the vet thinks the baby fed the dog something bad. I need to keep a closer eye on Lorelei.