Tuesday, December 23, 2008

Why has there been no blogging?

Don’t you hate it when you read a blog on occasion and then the person doesn’t blog for like a month? Me too. Sorry for the lack of witty blog posts for the last few weeks, things have been absolutely crazy.
Most of my time has been devoted to work. Last week I was in training and I was expected to do my regular job on top of that. It was complete chaos. Things have been so bad that I do not even have my Christmas shopping done. I have never had presents left to buy and/or make this late in the season.
I am not done with my husband’s present, although I am almost through, so I am confident that he will have it under the tree come Christmas Day.
I made a felt hat for one of my co-workers and it was not completely dry by this morning so I had to give it to her damp. She was happy to get it as she had liked one that someone else in our department had bought. My one co-worker put in a special order for fingerless gloves. Easy peasy you say because there are about 10 million patterns out there for fingerless gloves! Well, yes and no. She wanted gloves that she could convert from long fingers to short. I had to come up with a new design to handle it. So I only made one because as I was coming to the end of the 1st one, I realized I had no hand measurements and was not sure what I had designed was what she wanted. I finished the one and gave it to her and told her I would make another one if this one worked. It was a good thing I did it this way because she has longer fingers than I thought and I am going to have to rip back a couple of the fingers and knit them longer. Otherwise, they are what she wanted. Hooray! So over the weekend, I am going to make the other glove. I made a hat for another co-worker who does not celebrate Christmas (she was raised a Jehovah’s Witness) and she almost cried just getting a gift because she had not expected it. She did like the hat, so all around, it was successful. I did not take pictures of any of these items because I can not find the camera and well, I just did not have the time.
I was going to make a hat for The Boyfriend, but I have not had any extra time and I do not think I will get it done at this point. It makes me sad, because I did have a great idea for a hat for him. Oh well, if he is still around next year, I will make it then.
It has been cold and snowy here. Which is fine by me really, although there have been a couple of days when the cold has made it unpleasant to walk from the bus stop. It was well below zero several days last week and the one day the wind-chill was -25 F. This is a tad bit chilly to walk in and I have to take my glasses off because they fog up from by breathing into my scarf. Overall though, it is not bad if I have my long johns on.
I am going to be off of work for until next Monday. I will try to blog over the weekend and I will try to get some photos up.

Wednesday, December 03, 2008

Chaos to Spare

Are you looking for some chaos? I have extra to go around. Things have been just crazy. Ahh where to begin?

Work has been just awful. One problem after another, which means I have been spending extra time there, which has been very stressful. Have I mentioned I am sick of work?? I am sick of engineers. I am sick of buying parts. I am sick of dealing with problem parts.

I had a dentist appt last Wednesday and I have a cavity. On the plus side, the dental hygienist said I did a great job of brushing. She did not even ask if I flossed! Which is always good, because I do not floss, I just brush really well. The Girl had an appt at the same time. She did not tell the DDS she was pregnant and he took an x-ray. He thought it should be okay, but that they normally do not like to take x-rays on pregnant women. I had to explain to The Girl that doctors and dentists and such need to know if you are pregnant so they do not do any damage to the baby.

Thanksgiving did go well. My hubby did a fabulous job of the meal. He gets better and better every Thanksgiving. This year we had turkey breast for The Girl, shrimp and venison steak. It was awesome.

I went out shopping on Black Friday. I was disappointed in the sales. I really did not find very much. It was so crowded in some stores, I did not even bother and the lines in some stores were crazy. So much so, it was not worth my time to stand in them. I think they had less people running the registers. Anyway, I still have a bunch of stuff to buy.

And to knit. It is already December. I can not believe it. I have been knitting, mind you, but there is still plenty left.
Here is some photo prove!

Here is the hat I made for my co-workers grandson


Here is my progress on L’illo.


Here is the hat I made for my co-worker in exchange for the venison steaks we enjoyed on Thanksgiving.


Here is the 6-hour throw I made for my in-laws. It is being held down by our troublemaking dog (more on that later).


Here is a hat I made out of Noro. I think it is lovely. It is darker in real life.


Here is the Opera Stole I have been talking about. I am using this picture because it shows the color off well. However, you can not see the sparkles very well.


So I have been working. I have also been working on my hubby’s present, but he reads the blog so no photos of that!
I also knit a hat for Save the Children over the weekend. I just did not get a photo of it taken. If you have some spare time, maybe you too can knit a little hat. They do not take much time and it can do so much good.
I have much left to do… we will see if it gets done.

On Saturday I went to the movies by myself. I saw “Let the right one in (Lat den ratte komma in)”. It is a Swedish movie. It was haunting and beautiful. If it is playing in your area, it will probably be at your local art house. It is about a 12 year old boy who lives with his mom and is bullied at school. He gets a new neighbor who is not exactly a girl, she is a vampire. I think it takes place in the 1980’s. I am not 100% sure, but there are some clues like the Rubik’s cube and the record player. I am sure there are others, but I did not live in Sweden during the ‘80s so I probably missed them. There are a lot of beautiful knits and one scene with actual knitting! It is a lovely movie. There is blood and such because it is a horror film, but all of the scenic loveliness of Sweden and hand knits makes up of any horror. I am giving it 3 ½ knitting needles out of 4.

Since it is the holiday season, I find myself in kitchen stores. I always like to buy something for the kitchen for my husband. I do not cook. I occasionally bake, but mostly, I just eat what my husband makes. So I find kitchen store fascinating. It is like an anthropological study. I always see something that I did not know existed and do not always know why it is needed in the world. For instance, I was in a store over the weekend and I saw an egg cuber. It allows you to make your hard boiled eggs into cubes. I don’t mean chop into cubes, rather make the whole egg square. Why is this needed? I would I want a square egg rather than an oval one? I stood staring at the box for a long time until I realized people wanted to get by me. But still it puzzles me. Sometimes, I see things and my first reaction is “Cool! I should buy that!” At the same store I saw a 24” balloon whisk. It was as long as my arm and I just thought it was awesome. I have no idea what any one would use it for, but it was big and therefore cool. If I lived on my own, no doubt I would have stuff like this all over my kitchen walls just for decoration. I really do have some sort of problem!

I have a friend who is going to give me her crib. Her girl has moved up to a big girl bed. So we have to get the nursery cleaned out by Thursday. My husband and The Boyfriend have been working on it all week. I also hope to get the walls ready to paint so we can get the taken care this weekend. It has thrown the whole house into chaos because everything that was in there has been displaced. We have no room for our Christmas decorations. Normally, we have our tree up by now.

On Monday, the troublesome dog (see photo earlier in posting) got into The Girl’s room and ate her Chips Ahoy cookies and her cat’s food. The Girl pitched an absolute fit and demanded that the dog go. Yesterday she refused to go to school unless we called the pound and got rid of him. We refused because he is part of the family and truthfully as much trouble as he is, I really do like him. I explained to her that it is just not that easy.
Instead, my hubby put a lock on the outside of her door. And he made The Boyfriend help him empty the nursery. She was calm by the time I got home. So I guess everything is okay for the moment.

Last night I hurt my foot. I don’t know how. I stepped and suddenly pain went shooting through my heel. I have been limping around ever since. I am fine so long as I do not move. My co-worker who sits in the next cubicle thinks it Plantar fasciitis. Then she implied it was because I was fat. Isn’t life grand? For the record, I do not think this is what the problem is. This is the 1st pain I have had in my foot and it is very painful.

Hopefully the rest of week will be less exciting.