Funny thing the Boy said:

Mommy: Did you eat some chips?

the Boy: Yes, and I’m makin’ them into poop right now.

Halloween Festivities:

We took him to the Zoo Boo at Como. It was about 10 billion people’s worth of fun. Actually, it wasn’t that bad and the thing was set up pretty well. We had a good time and both the grammas came, too. the Boy chose his Dragon costume. He had a duck and a dragon and Thomas the Train to choose from.

Here he is trying to huff and puff and blow this house down:

Which one of these is not like the others?:

Dragon? Meet Dragon. :

Hey what’s going on out there?:

Funny thing the Boy said:

“Mommy, did you cut your hand on a dog?” (referring to my now mostly healed dog bitten hands)

Knitting update:

Yesterday, Monday, was a super fun day for me. I went to Chris’s place to spend a lovely, peaceful afternoon knitting. She knits like the wind!! I finished the heel and got an inch done on the cuff, while she knitted 12 or 13 baby bibs (slight exaggeration). Muchly inspired me to practice up on Continental as soon as I finish Dickinson Pullover. The kitties were so beautiful in person and it was quite nice to see them in their natural habitat. Chaos didn’t appreciate the Aretha Franklin and Rolling Stones ringtones on my cell. I got to see the Mayhem/Goldfish fun, too. Mayhem reminded me so much of my beautiful kitty, Babu. Really made me miss having a cat that likes hanging out with us. We have a cat, he just never wants to hang out upstairs with us. Anyhoo, I was a very bad blogger and didn’t bring my camera or anything.

Dickinson Pullover : Front, back and now one sleeve finished. Second sleeve, sewing up, and neckline to do. This project has definitely reached the “when will it all be over stage?” I’ve got about 1.5 inches done on the second sleeve.

Jungle Juggle Socks: Heel turned on first sock. Half way up the cuff. Going slow, but the yarn is a total dream to knit with.

Forest Plains: No progress to report. I still need to skein up the formerly kinky yarn.

Sorry for the crappy knitting pics. It’s evening here, but if I’d waited for the good daylight, I’d never get anything posted.

Knitting night: Held at Cafe Bene in St. Paul and I had a blast. We discussed a group yarn crawl, saying how fun it would be for 10 of us to descend on several different stores just to see their faces. It was even funnier when Theresa suggested we all dress as zombies for the event. So, you know, if you see zombies invading your local yarn store, don’t be afraid. It’s only us. Actually, be afraid. After all, it’s us.

Completely different from my usual bitching and moaning about one thing or another. Ha fooled you!! I’m about to bitch and moan. It’s not as bad as some of the other stuff has been, just a little icing on the shit cake, so to speak, and I promise I’ll follow up with some Boy cuteness and funny stories. So here we go:

Losing the use of half of my right hand turns out to be quite the inconvenience. and I don’t just mean loss of knitting time. I mean things like I have a hard time pulling up my pants and buttoning them, let alone wrassling my kid into his clothes. Seriously, you want funny? Come on over and watch me try to put socks on a struggling three year old. Not an easy task on the best of days, but lately it’s nearly reduced both of us to tears. Of frustration and pain for me, just plain frustration for him. And that’s the easy stuff. Close your eyes, I’m about to commit sins of TMI…It turns out you can’t just switch to your non-dominant hand for such delicate personal tasks as wiping your butt, and expect all to go well. Settle down…I’m not going into details. And just to top it all off, I’ve developed an allergic rash to the anti-biotic I’m taking. I’m red and bumpy around my collarbone and the waist band of my pants. I itch all over and I mean ALL over. Or all under, if you will. My girl parts are maddeningly itchy all the time. It’s not a yeast infection, I thought of that, it’s the rash. The rash is in my girl parts and I’m going further insane from the itching. Not the scratching…cuz I try to do very little of that, what with my lady like nature and all. No, the itching. It seems to be unrelievable by any sort of ointment. I finally called the doctor today, and they said to stop taking the anti-biotic and to try taking over the counter Claritin for the itching. It’s like Benedryl, but non-drowsy. I just took one, so hopefully by the time you read this the itching will be nothing but a bad memory. The Docs say the itching may last several more days. Please cross your fingers that the Claritin works, or my husband might make me go live in the garage. And no one would blame him.

We took the Boy to a Fire Department Open House this weekend and it was lots of fun. We got to ride in a fire truck, go up in the lift bucket, spray the fire hose, eat free hot dogs, and get a goodie bag filled with fire department swag. He received a kid sized fireman’s hat, a t-shirt, a frisbee, along with many stickers and magnets. It was a very fun day for him and us. Here are pics of him in his t-shirt and hat. He wore the t-shirt to bed, and we had to peel it off him the next evening for washing, but as of this morning it’s back on him.

On Sunday we were able to attend a baby shower and stop off at a pumpkin place. the Boy wanted a pumpkin and this place had those and much more. Here are a bunch of pics from there. We had lots and lots of fun!

Thats a pit of dried corn he’s jumping into. It was about 10 inches deep and very fun to roll around and play in.

All in all a very nice weekend. Except for the itching.

As if losing my dog wasn’t bad enuf, today I was bitten very badly by a couple of client dogs today. Two small terriers were fighting and when I tried to break it up, they both bit me. My left hand wasn’t punctured but the compression wound to my palm is going to bruise badly and hurts like hell. My right hand is a mess. There are six punctures on my thumb and index finger. Those fingers are swollen up like snausages. And on top of all that I had to get a tetanus shot, so my arm is going to ache for three days. I spent the afternoon at the doctors office, getting it all cleaned up and bandaged. Xrays were taken to make sure there weren’t any chips on my bones. I have to take an antibiotic for 7 days.

I was so upset and couldn’t stop crying after it happened, my husband came to get me. I couldn’t have driven even without the hysterics. I have a call in to the dog’s owner to talk about what happened, and I’ll check to make sure their shots are all up to date, but I’m pretty sure they are.

I have no idea how long it will be before I can knit again. Just this morning I was thinking, I never have anything to blog about besides feeling sad…What was I thinking!?! Here’s a couple pics of my poor lobster claw hands. See how I’ll never be able to knit like this?

Holy lack of posting, batman…yeah, well this ain’t one of those, “sorry, guys, I haven’t been posting posts.” Well, kinda it is. It’s really just my excuse. Here’s my excuse. Fucking depression. If I ever manage to feel good a few days in a row, you can bet your ass something will happen to bring me down again. And what with the way my depression (bi-polar-ish) works, I stay down a few days. I’m not that good at processing emotions, so says my therapist. It’s true.

So anyhow, the Rupert thing has had me up and down and back up a bit, then way down again, for more than a week now. She was doing really good for a few days there, but now she’s not doing good again. For the last 2-3 days she hasn’t been able to get up on her own, and even when I help her…she can’t seem to stay up. And it freaks her out. The other night, I found her whimpering in a corner, soaking wet with pee, and the entire foyer floor was covered in it. I think she may have tried to stand up, couldn’t, got freaked out, peed on herself, then drug herself around on the floor. By the time I got to her, she was just a mess. The remedy was not comforting to her either. My husband helped me get her in the tub and I got her washed off, but she hates being picked up, restrained, bathed…all of the above and we were doing it to her. By the time I got her out and dried off, she was shaking and upset, and so was I. She seemed a little better the next morning, but not much. She has good moments, but they’re getting fewer and farther between.

I’ve got a message in to our vet. I plan to tell him how she’s been since last week when we saw him and she got the new pain pills, how she was better, and is now bad again…and ask him what other things there may be to try for her. I have the feeling, based on our last visit, that there’s not much else to give her. It’s kind of a matter of how much longer I can stand to see her like this. If he says there’s nothing else medically we can try, I’ll make an appointment to have her euthanized on Friday morning. We’re going camping that day, so I can just try to relax and deal with my feelings all weekend…then come home to an empty house on Sunday. *sigh*

I’m in the process of adjusting my medication and that has the potential to help, but it’s also difficult for me to transition through. Lowering the dose of one of my meds always gives me terrible dizzy spells and my mind feels out of control. And raising the other one which tends to agitate me. *shaking head* fucking depression. I hate this. I’m a week into it, and its getting better, but it’s been a bad week.

So yeah, not a great week.

We had a really great time on our camping trip. The drive there was easy and I got lots of knitting done. The campsites at Sibley State Park smallish, but we found a nice one and set up. We were putting up our tent around 6:00 pm. As we were unpacking the dry box we started making a list of all the things we forgot. We always forget lots of things. Every camping trip we drive to the campground on Friday night, set up, spend half of Saturday in the nearest town buying all the stuff we forgot, then pack up on Sunday morning and drive home leisurely. We resolved this time, that we’d just make do. No trips to town. mm-hmmm, right. That plan lasted til we figured out we’d left some crucial prescription drugs at home. *sigh*

After the roaring campfire turned to coals, we put a couple racks of ribs on. mmmmm, I just love ribs for dinner when we’re camping. We let the Boy set his own bedtime on camping trips. Whenever he’s sleepy enough, he just lets us know and we help him get snuggled into his sleeping bag. This time the Rock Star had purchased a new pad for my sleeping bag. It’s about twice as thick as the thermarest I’ve been using. It was super comfy but Ididn’t sleep all that well, cuz the meds I left behind were my sleeping pills. The next night I slept like a rock, though.

Boy Pics:

I knit every possible moment. I absolutely love knitting by firelight. I have a very nice headlamp called a Petzl. It works great!! I always bring a supply of charged up rechargeable batteries and between that and the firelight, and even a bit of help from the nearly full moon, I can see just fine for knitting.

I worked on the Dickenson Pullover the entire weekend. I got about 12 inches of the back done. It’s turning out great!! But. There’s always a but. My gauge is way off, so the sweater is knitting up small. I’m actually ok with that. It’s big and baggy on the model, and I think I’ll like it closer to form fitting. This is my first serious cable project. At first I had a hard time figuring out how to keep track of all the different pattern repeats, but once I figured it out it was easy. The work is immensely satisfying!

Here’s what I have so far:

That color isn’t really accurate, but it was the nicest picture. Here’s one of the main cable section:

Here’s me eating breakfast, notice the knitting bag within reach:

the Boy’s third birthday was this past week and much fun was had. We held a big open house last Sunday and his daycare had a little birthday party for him. He got lots of prezzies and had a great time! His big gift from us is the big boy bed. He really likes it. Can you tell?

Recipe for Squeeeee

1 tiny baby
2 tiny knitted booties

Fold baby into booties. Don’t shake or stir. Preheat your camera flash. Take pictures until the other coffee shop patrons start shooting you dirty looks. Serve warm. Makes 1 serving, 0 carbs, 0 calories.

This is a high smile, high squeee treat. Very rich, but you can never get enough.

Well, time to write a bit about our recent trip to California. The impetus for the trip was the Rock Star’s cousin S’s wedding to the beautiful M. The wedding was planned for the day before Labor Day, but we went out 10 days early so we could visit the Rock Star’s father and step-mother. After the parental visit, we planned a few days in San Francisco with his brother (including one night of extreme debauchery for the bachelor party). Then we drove north the Anderson Valley area of California for the wedding. This first vacation blog entry will be about the parental visit and the drive to SF. Parts of it are not a pretty tale, so I’ll try to go over them quickly…and get to the parts where I molest, fondle and buy yarn.

(more…)

…and keeps on ticking. Remember that old Timex (?) watch commercial? Well that’s me right now. Depression is a terrible thing. I’ve been plunged back into the darkness and am having a bit of trouble finding my way out. I’m sure I’ll make it, just need a bit of time.

Vacation was really great and there are many stories. or Yarns, if you prefer. Everyone loves a good yarn, especially if it’s about yarn. There are some stories about yarn, and about my family, and about a beautiful wedding and seeing/meeting friends from far away. In a bit of time.

Here’s some natural beauty in the meantime.

It involved oversleeping, missing appointments, diarrhea (the Boy), lack of coffee, giving up all my walkies (and the accompanying pay) to take my mom to the dentist only to find they couldn’t perform the procedure, not getting any of my desk work done, not getting any getting ready for the trip done, tiredness from staying up all night on Crackelry, and the worst part? No knitting at all.

The plus side? Yeah there were a couple good things.

Ahhhh. That’s much better. Focus on the positive. I’ve fixed myself a lil cocktail. I have a book my mp3 player (The Thirteenth Tale, by Diane Setterfield). And I mean to get at least a round done on the LFFCS/BOBA before retiring to my comfy bed.

Ravelry. OMG. Crazy, amazing!!! You can just click for hours, and never get bored. I love, love, love the part where you can look up a pattern and see everyone else’s version of it, complete with all the details of knitting it. And it’s very intuitive to use. It only took a moment to get my bearings and enter my very first project. There are interesting forums, groups, and every kind of knitter you can think of. I imagine I’ll settle down a bit after I’ve been on it…just one day, and I’ve got knitting projects planned for the next seventy years.

I read a great forum thread that included info on Combination knitting and now I’m very interested to learn it. The post was actually about getting faster with your knitting.

Latest progress pic of LFFCS/BOBA? Here ya’ go:

Wondering how that all turned out?

Doing fun stuff with my hair was one of the things I promised I’d do when I reached my goal weight. Since I’m within 2 lbs, I figured it wouldn’t hurt to get started. Plus it’ll be fun for the trip to California next week!

Oh my flip-flap-freakin’ god!!!! I’m in!!! I just this second got my Ravelry invite and just about broke my keyboard hitting the link and getting over there!! squeeeeeeeeeeee!!!

What a soggy weekend. Yesterday was a merry-go-round of walking a dog in the rain, drying it off (hands and knees, face in wet dog fur, trying to reach the foot on the other side), driving to the next house in my wet rain coat and doing the whole thing again. Go home and put on dry clothes and just about the time I’d get over being cranky, it was time to go out and do it all over again. I had vacation walkies in the morning, afternoon and night. That means at 10 pm last night I was changing into dry clothes for the last time of the day. On some of the visits I get to scoop out cat litter boxes in my wet clothes. Fun! It’s been the same so far today. This will be my schedule for at least 3 more days and wouldn’t you know it’s supposed to rain the whole time.

One very sad thing on my morning rounds this today. As I was going up the back walk to a house, a bird came swooping out of a tree and ran smack into the chrome barbeque grill. It was completely stunned and fell to the sidewalk at my feet, kind of twitching. I could see it was a juvenile Cardinal. I was so shocked and all I could do for a moment was watch it helplessly. I kept saying I’m sorry, I don’t know how to help you. After a moment, I knelt down beside it and gathered it’s wings together and moved it over to the shrubbery. It’s head kind of hung as I was carrying it, and it sort of moan/squawked. I laid it under a shrub, where it wouldn’t be rained on steadily and stepped back. After a moment I helped it get sort of sitting up with the wings tucked in. It was kind of blinking and looking around. It was easy to tell it was young, it still had those young bird eyes, kind of some extra skin around them. It’s poor feathers were all bedraggled and I could see some left on the barbeque where it had smacked. It was still sitting there knid of blinking at the world when I returned from the dog walk. I go back this evening, so I can see if it’s still there. If it is, I don’t think it will survive. This kind of thing just breaks my heart. There is so little we can do to help wild animals. That doesn’t mean it’s easy to just leave them alone, possibly suffering…

There is so much rain falling this weekend I brought the planters and pots with my lettuce sprouts up on the porch to drain out. I’m afraid it may be too late and they may have gotten just too soggy to survive. Once the pots drained they seem to be standing up alright…between the wild animals and the weather, gardening can be very disappointing! I so had my hopes up for fresh salads in the fall…

And just to brighten up this post, here’s a picture of the Boy from May when the sun was shining:

the Boy, the job, the phones…gack!! Everything all at once.

This sums my reaction to this morning’s chaos very nicely:

(image snagged from icanhascheeseburger.com)

Tuesday adventure: I had just finished eating a salad in the McDonald’s parking lot when a scruffy guy came up to my open car window and showed me a piece of paper that said something about God bless love on it. I shook my head no, I wasn’t interested (I absolutely NEVER respond to begging on the street), and he turned the paper over and pointed out the lines that said he was deaf and could I spare any change. I shook my head no again. I’m not rude about it, just firm. So he points to the deaf, spare change line again and again, I shake my head no. Finally he seemed to get my message and flipped me off as he walked away. How’s that for God bless love?

Random cuteness:

Yesterday was Monday and somehow I managed not to get much work done. After all my hard work planting seeds Sunday I found that something, rabbit or squirrel maybe, had been digging in my lettuce seeded pots. GRRRRRR!! I got me to the garden center and found something called Liquid Fence. My biggest mistake was spraying it as soon as I got home, right before dinner, because the way this stuff works is by putrescent smell. After it drys, it’s not supposed to be noticeable to humans, but it took it’s own stinky time drying. I have to remember to spray it on the garden at the end of the evening as we are on our way into the house.

There was a HUGE thunderstorm last night. Thunder and lightning was fast and furious, right over our heads. I was just getting ready to shut down my puter for the night when a huge thunder shook the house and the lights dimmed and one of my monitors went out. We haven’t been able to get it back on, so it may be a goner. The keyboard was out for awhile too, but it’s working now.

Random cuteness:

the Rock Star had to work much of the weekend, so the Boy and I entertained ourselves a lot. But on Saturday we went to a friends big party/picnic at Hidden Falls Park and had a fun day.

It was hot as hell, but I set up our little camp in a shady spot and sat down to knit, and soon lots of people had come to join me. I didn’t get far on the knitting, there was a mistake in my lace and with so many people visiting, it was hard for me to concentrate to find it.

Sunday was a day of accident and injury! It started with the Boy playing his usual game of running full speed across the living room to throw himself up onto the ottoman. He does this repeatedly some days. It’s just good fun. His legs fly up behind him and he giggles and runs back to do it again. This time it was set to close to some wooden boxes we have stacked to form shelves and he ran his head into the edge of one of those boxes with all the force of his weight and running across the room. There was a sickening thud and he looked up at me with surprise for one whole long second before he started crying. I rushed out and gathered him up and after he stopped crying was able to examine his forehead where a huge goose egg had formed. His pupils seemed to dilate normally and he wasn’t dizzy so we gave him some tylenol to help with any headache and continued on with the day.

Later, in the yard I was using twine and the utility knife to bundle up some brush I’d cut down and jabbed my left index finger horribly. the Boy and I were alone and he was such a good little guy. He came into the house with me while I washed it and put a pretend bandaid on it. It bled so much I felt faint. I laid down on the grass outside with my feet up and asked him to please not wander off…I was afraid I’d faint and he’d be all alone. So he laid down next to me and put his head on my chest and talked to me. So sweet. I love my l’il guy!! I was able to get up after a while and get some cold water and a snack and I felt better pretty soon. Cleaned the cut with peroxide and bandaged it up.

After all the blood and head banging, it was a reasonably peaceful day. I put potting soil in a bunch of pots and planted lettuce seeds. There is is some hope they may actually yield before the first frost. the Rock star came home and we fixed some dinner and got to bed reasonably early.

Here’s a picture of the Boy pre-head bang:

My blog was down all weekend and Monday. I didn’t even realize it til Monday morning. But now the super responsive Candi of Nohasslehosting.net got me going again. Too bad I can’t sit here and blog…I have to get out and get 5 visits done, some cat, some dogs. Then at 3:30 I get a haircut and waxing (underarm, bikini, legs). Yowch!!!

Well, shit. What a roller coaster day. This morning I was over the moon thrilled with finishing Hemp Skirt, and now…totally bummed. Not knitting related totally bummed. Garden related totally bummed. Some critter came along and took/ate/destroyed the peppers in my little garden. I had no idea how attached I’d gotten to my few little plants. Every day I go out to water them and see how big the two banana peppers and one green bell pepper have gotten. Every day I just love to see how they’re doing. I checked on them at mid-day and gave each pot a nice drink of water and all was fine. This evening when I got home from picking the Boy up…all the peppers were gone from the plants. The fucking little critter had the gall to tear my darling little peppers up and leave the remains on the back porch.

I just feel so darn defeated. I haven’t felt much like gardening in years past and now that I have the energy for it and was enjoying it so much, I just wonder what’s the point if the rodents are going to ruin all the fruits of my labor?