Woot woot

I know, I know. Two posts in three days. Sit down before the astonishment overtakes you. Amazing how that can happen if one has peace and quiet.

But, I had to post again today. Yesterday after returning home from some hellacious running of errands (more on that later), I found a very pleasant surprise sitting on my doorstep. Yes indeed the lovely people at KnitPicks outdid themselves and my new options needles were here!

I immediately sat down and put the little case together, labeling all of the pockets for the needle tips with the sizes. Shortly after that, I pulled out my Ribbi Cardi and proceeded to add 3" to the back last night.

I also put 6 more skeins of the Frog Tree Alpaca into the dyepot yesterday. I will be taking them out today (I left them overnight to cool.) One lone skein was left over because it wouldn't fit in the pot and because it is actually 2 smaller balls. I still haven't decided what to do with this one yet. Once the boys are back from Cali, I will take a picture so you can see the before and after. The after is so much easier on the retinas. I have no IDEA what I was thinking. According to the ball bands it is color # 38, but on my monitor it looks way to subdued... The discount offered by the shop because of some samples I had knit must have overwhelmed my sense of reason. Either that or I had a blackout of some kind.

So - about 11am yesterday I set out for a quick run into downtown to go to the main branch of our public library because I had a bunch of books on hold, including Wrap Style and some books on dyeing. It should have been easy-peasy because I got off the interstate at the correct exit and managed to overshoot the street I was looking for by only 2 blocks. No big deal I thought, I'll just go around the block so that I don't have to make a left turn and block traffic.

That's when I noticed that every freaking cross street was barricaded. I went nearly 20 blocks and they were all blocked by the police. For a moment I thought that maybe there was some sort of bomb scare or something, but it dawned on me that they wouldn't cordon off an area that was 2 blocks wide and 25 blocks long for that.

As I had also wanted to stop at Whole Foods to see if they carry the dried papaya that I love, I headed over that way. On the drive over, I saw several people running a race and realized that must have been why the streets were blocked off. But, my luck being what it is, the dang route went right past where I wanted to go. I did eventually make it to Whole Foods and they did not have the papaya I wanted. After that, I was able to make it to the library and pick up my books. What should have taken about 45 minutes tops, there and back, took nearly 2 hours because of the race.

From there, it was a trip to one of the malls and pants shopping. I know, thrilling. I tried on eleventy hundred pairs of pants and came away with one pair that fits okay, needing only minor alterations that I can do myself.

However, it looks like they will require a new pair of shoes. What a bummer, I might just have to get myself a pair of cute ballet flats like this or this or this. I have a pretty firm policy that if I am buying trendy shoes, I buy them on the cheap. If I am buying a classic then I will spring for the good stuff, but I won't spend a lot of money that I will only wear for one season.

Today I need to run to Best Buy to pick up a new pair of headphones for my iPod because I accidentally yanked them out of my ears yesterday and now one of them is loose and makes a staticky noise. Here's hoping that I can get away with a cheaper pair and not pay 30 buck to Apple, but my guess is that they have designed the connectors so that you can't use different brand headphones. Bastards.

Caleb's best friend is having a birthday party weekend and I've been invited to family party today even though Caleb won't be there. I haven't decided yet if I want to go. The parties at their house are always great with lots of fun people but I'm concerned that it might weird out the birthday boy to have me there and not Caleb, who is having a great time in California.

More later.

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.

The answer to the burning question

I know it has been on everyone's mind. What was the drawing actually supposed to be?

The majority of you guessed it as a Rocket Ship and that is what he insists it is. Personally, I was a bit concerned that the people who moved into the apartment upstairs would be upset because they have a 13 year old daughter. I didn't want the new neighbors thinking that we were a bunch of pedophiles.

In actual knitting news, I worked a few rounds last night on the Pomatomus socks. (Is there a hidden meaning to the fact that I originally typed sucks? I thinks so too.) I am about half a repeat before the start of the heel flap on the second sock and it just seems to be taking forever! Although in all fairness to the socks, it would probably be faster if I actually picked them up from the knitting basket.

Honestly? There were so many pairs on needles in the ziplock that I was momentairly baffled. The sock is currently on 3 needles instead of the 4 that I prefer to use (the patterning definately needs to be on 3 needles...) The 5th dpn was floating loose in the bottom of the bag. There were 3 circular needles in there also - 2 from KnitPicks and one from Clover.

I sat there for a minute completely not understanding what I was seeing. Then I remembered that I had been knitting the foot of the sock on 2 different sized circs (one that matched the dpn size for the top of the foot and a smaller size for the sole so it would wear better). Halfway through the first foot I changed from the clover circ to the knitpicks because of the join and apparently never put the clover circ away.

For the record, here are the two skeins that I dyed with Caleb. The first is handpainted with leftover Paas and was done at Easter time. The second is from the Kool-Aide dyeing done the other day. It came out much more purple than I had anticipated. I am planning on doing a simple beanie for him with stripes. Even if it isn't a perfect match, the dark purple will help tone down the, um, vividness of the handpainted.