February 22, 2008

I've been to mecca .....

My hubby had the week off so we decided to take a little trip up to Mass and check out some museums in Springfield, MA. This group of museums is referred to as the quadrangle consisting of 4 different museums all for one admission price.

You know you knit too much when you look at this piece in the museum of fine arts and think .... gee I wonder how much yarn that would hold .....
Theodor Seuss Geisel aka Dr Seuss is from Springfield so there are a couple sculptures of his amazing characters in the center courtyard. As always I was amazed by the parents who let their kids walk all over this artwork even though there were signs everywhere saying to stay off.
We stayed overnight in West Springfield and the next day took a little trip up Rt 5 to Web's. Like a kid in a candy store! Seriously it would be easy to spend $500 without blinking an eye. Only $95.00 so I think I did well. Online sock yarn was $7.49 a skein, Meilenweit was only $9.70. Bargins! Ella Rae was on clearance for $2.99 a skein. Think I'll make myself a hat, mitten, scarf set since I realized yesterday that I don't have a winter hat, scarf, or mittens. How sad is that? It's like the shoemaker's kids having to go barefoot. The tofutsies was on clearance for $11.20. I've never used it so why not give it a try. And the one thing I love the most is that skein of green sock yarn at the bottom. It's named Fried Green Tomatoes. Love the movie and had to have the yarn.

I managed to finish clue #4 of the sotsii. I printed off clue 5 last night. The group is on clue 6 so I'm not that far behind.


On our way back home we stopped with the intent of picking up W and N to spend the weekend at our house. I had called the night before and N was sick with a temp of 102. By the time we got there yesterday W was also ill with the same temp. We stayed and visited for a couple hours. I spent most of the time sitting on the couch rubbing backs and talking.

N hasn't been eating anything so in his small little 3 yr old voice he said, "Gram, could you get me some cereal?" I went in the kitchen to ask his mom and came out with a bowl of dry cereal. "Gram, could I have a shrek bowl?" Back in the kitchen to transfer the cereal into a green bowl with shrek ears. "Gram I could use some water." So back to the kitchen to get him some water and that's when my daughter came out with, "What are you? N's Lorax? You speak for the boy because the boy can't speak?" Ummm yes .... I'm Gram and my job is to cater to grand kids. And I'm very good at it too.

Snowing here. Suppose to get 7-8" so I'll be starting on clue 5 for sure.

February 19, 2008

Think I've knit enough baby socks

These are the last 3 pair. I think I've knit enough baby socks for a while. They were fun but I'm on to lace knitting for a while.
58 pair total being mailed off the Afghans for afghans.
I'm almost done with clue #4 on my sotsii. No pictures as it's currently in time out due to a dropped stitch 7 rows before the end of the clue. Knit some, tink some, knit some more. Oh well.
Charlie says: Well of course I need to sit here. It's a box. Cat's love boxes.

February 12, 2008

Merrily we knit along

that is when we aren't ripping back ..... like these lovely Jaywalkers. Got finished with the leg last night and oops couldn't get them on over my foot. Rip .... change to size 2 needles and start over. Love the yarn so it's a joy to work on them.

I finished clue #2 on my secret stole. Lovely patterns but the size of the pattern makes it a little hard to work with. Clue 4 came out Friday so I'm still behind but I'll get back to working on it after I finish my jaywalkers and hopefully finish with everyone else. The nice thing about being behind is that all the errors in the pattern are caught before I print the clue. What can you say about black socks? They are socks. They are black. They are boring to work on. They don't seem to be moving along.
Just finishing putting together a couple of exchange packages to everything I'm supose to be sending out for contests, exchanges, and whatever should be out next week.

The shower is all set. Hubby went back to the store where we bought it and they gave him a clip. It's a new type of faucet so when Jeff installed it and turned it off and on a half dozen times it worked just fine. He does mostly commercial work so we all learned something new on this. And what did Moen have to say? Well they haven't responded back to my email so I've got to think they don't care.

D3 got hit in the parking lot at Walmart Saturday. I was sweating it out all weekend praying that the people that hit her had valid insurance. I called their company Monday and yes they do have coverage the the adjuster will be contacting us about repairs. Entire back door is trashed and doesn't open. That's ok. D3 and S1 were fine and that's all that counts.

Saturday was also W's 5th birthday. Very exciting stuff. Can't believe he's been around for 5 yrs. What did I do without him? I bought him and his brother those big balls with the handle that you sit on and bounce around. It took a while but they got the hang of it. If only those came in adule sizes .... looked like fun!

February 10, 2008

Dear Moen




I just felt the need to contact you to let you know how disappointed I am in your customer service. I purchased a replacement shower set and decided on Moen because you are know for quality products. I had a plumber install the new set. Perfect until the first use. Water started pouring out the back of the handle. The plumber felt this was due to a missing part.


My husband contact you by phone on Friday. When asked if there was some kind of clip to hold the unit in the correct position you knowledgable tech answered, "gee I don't know." Gee, thanks for all that great help.


Second call after consulting with the plumber again resulted in a tech who said that yes there was a part missing and yes it would be shipped out ....and you should receive it in 4-7 days. When asked if it could be shipped quicker since it was your fault that the set was missing parts he was told that for $12.95 it could be overnighted.


So thank you for allowing me to spend money purchasing your product, paying to have it installed, and then not having use of it until you send me the missing part. It's a pleasure to have to wire the part into place so that I can turn on the water in the rest of the house without having the bathroom flooding. I love having a shower that I can not use while waiting for the part.

February 07, 2008

Ghost!

5elementknitr had a posting about experiences with ghosts and at the end she asked if anyone had a ghost story to share. Interesting timing because I had just told my family about the ghost cat that has been hanging around.

First let me start off by saying that I don't believe in ghosts. I've never believed in ghosts. But for the past couple months I've had a playful spirit that I think is a tricky cat hanging around in my room.

I have always felt that cats will live in a house with anyone but they always choose one person as their actual owner. Out of my current batch of cats my cat is Joey. He always hangs around me and every night after I'm in bed he will jump up at the foot of the bed, walk up my left side, and settle in for a nights sleep with his head resting on my left hip. When I'm on vacation he's lost without me.

So a couple months ago I went to bed and within a minute there's Joey jumping up on the bed. He walked to around my knee and stopped. I looked up and there was no Joey. Not only that but the door was closed so he couldn't have gotten in the room. I got up, opened the door and there was Joey waiting to come in.

Hummm maybe I was developing restless leg syndrome but I could have sworn that I felt the weight of this 14 lb cat on the bed. And then it happen a few more time. It's not threatening or frightening. More like something playing a trick on me.

I've been owned by a couple other cats in the past. My daughter thinks it might be my cat Ebby who was killed 12 yrs ago or maybe Willie who disappeared 4 yrs ago. Me? I'm not sure what to make of the whole thing. I don't believe in ghosts but there is certainly an interesting entity who seems to be playing with me.

February 06, 2008

An overcast day

Which means the pictures are awful. I finished clue 1 of SOSII yesterday. Only had to frog once when my count wasn't correct. I did a k3tog instead of a k2tog. That's what happens when you don't put down the lace when you get tired.
This is my lace knitting set up. Old stand formally used to hold paper when typing with a cookie sheet on it. A ton of magenits and magnetic business cards holding and marking everything. And coffee ..... lots of coffee.
My cat Oscar is a little pissy about it because she usually jumps up on the couch, walks across that table and the arm of the loveseat, and sleeps on the back of the loveseat. Now she has to just jump up on the arm of the loveseat and be done with it. Oscar is not happy.
Casted on and started the ribbing on my jaywalkers last night. I was watching the latest Harry Potter movie so lace knitting was out.

I was digging in my cabinet last night for something and found some yeast. Best if used by May 2003. Humm 5 yr old yeast isn't good so I emptied out the jar and recycled it.

This one is funny. We use to shop at Krogers when I lived in Ohio. I moved from Ohio 31 yrs ago so these bay leaves are at a minimum 31 yrs old. Probably should have thrown them out too but I didn't. Too nostalgic so I put them back in the cabinet.



February 05, 2008

Kid stuff

N: Gram I'm going to pick out your socks today.

Me: Ok.

N: I like picking out your socks because they have a lot of colors. I'm going to eat good food so that my feet grow bigger and then I'm going to take all your socks.

Me: Well then what will I wear if you take all my socks?

N: You'll just have to make more socks.

Me: Why don't I just make more socks for you when your feet grow bigger?

N: Because I don't like to wait.

N in his auntie's glasses: "These glasses soooo make me look older than 3. And I look smarter too. Now if only I could see more than 3" in front of my face."



W called yesterday. I asked how school was and he said, "Pants". I asked if he had played with Caleb and he answered "Pants." Hummm so the answer to every question would be pants. This could be fun.



"What did you eat for lunch?" "What do frogs wear on their heads?" "What do you use to paddle across the lake?" "What do you swing on at the playground?" After the 6th question he was laughing so hard he couldn't talk any more.




W says: Wouldn't it be nice to live in a world where the answer to every question is as simple as pants.


I was driving down the road and the light up ahead was red so I stopped to let 5 cars turn down a sidestreet. The guy behind me flipped me the finger. Asshole! Not like we were going anywhere anyways.


Terrible pics today. Too overcast for anything. Picking thru clue 1 of my secret of the stole II. I just finished tinking back 2 rows and found my mistake right at the beginning of the row. I knit 3 together instead of 2. Knew I should have put the lace aside when the news came on. Oh well, the count should be fine now and I might finish clue 1 today.
Only need 2 more repeats on the lace scarf to finish to 6". Then all I'll have to do is hide the ends and block. We all know how long that'll take.

No picture of the black socks. I'm to the heel flap on the first sock and really bored.