A bullet post

I feel like life has been crazy lately. Both good and bad crazy.

• Last week, Eric's car was in the shop. We thought it might be important to repair the leaking gas line. The sneaking suspicion that we could explode over-rode the need to hoard money and we took the car in. Thankfully, the bill wasn't as awful as it could have been. It only cost an arm.
• September is Eric's vacation month (med school schedules make no sense). We decided that we would keep Caleb in daycare during the month in the mornings so that his schedule isn't completely off-kilter. With the time off, Eric has been given the responsibility of getting Caleb to daycare and from school. Apparently while his car was in the shop the boys were riding their bikes to school and Eric was riding back home with Caleb's bike on his handle bars. I would have loved to see a picture of this!
• On Friday, my car wouldn't start after work. Eric walked with Caleb nearly a mile to the repair shop and picked up his car (which was completed, thankfully) and came to pick me up. My car ran fine over the weekend and Eric changed out the spark plugs and wires as well as the valve gasket. Yesterday my car wouldn't start again. It wasn't the battery and today we had it towed. Turns out the started was shot... But it is running again and I am thankful. This did cost an arm and a leg.
• On Saturday I received a great surprise in the mail from Annie. I was the 2000th commentor on her blog and I won a great prize. There were 2 skeins of Koigu KPPPM and a very cute book. I can't wait to knit up the Koigu!
• I spent some time over the weekend dyeing up some Frog Tree Alpaca that I have. Unfortunately, the original color is a bit eye-searing. Honestly, I have no idea what possessed me to purchase 13 skeins of the stuff. Granted it is soft and cuddly, but there is no way I can hope to wear that color. So, in an attempt to salvage the yarn, I decided to overdye it in a crock pot. Unfortunately, my crock pot isn't as cool as some others. I am pretty happy with the results of said dyeing adventure. One skein came out a bit darker than the others, but overall, am satisfied. On that note, I reserved a bunch of books at the library about dyeing yarn. I can't wait to pick them up this weekend and try out some new ideas.


• The boys are leaving for California on Friday and won't be back until Wednesday. (Is it inappropriate to celebrate this fact?) It does mean that I won't have the camera while they are gone.
• Today at work someone posted a couple suggestions on how to reduce stress in the workplace. I would love to find something that actually works. These tips on the other hand appear to have been written by someone who telecommutes. The first tip was that every 1-2 hours spend 5 minutes practicing deep breathing. Not a bad idea, especially working in customer service. The second tip is to take a visual vacation (i.e. imagine you are someplace more relaxing than work). Again, not a bad idea, in theory. Um hellO. What exactly will be the reaction of my co-workers if I spend 5 minutes every hour breathing heavily with my eyes closed? How often can I pull this off before I am accused of being a slacker or a pervert?
• Last but not least, we purchased Caleb's Halloween costume today. It cost entirely too much, but he LOVES it and will definitely use it more than just once. I can see that he will play with it a lot.

I keep trying to upload photos but blogger is having none of that tonight. When I can, I will post before and after shots of the alpaca.