Blood and lace

First the blood.



Mr. Nicholas is not so good with his scooter just yet. He came in screaming last night that he didn't want to die. I tried to calm him down and let him know that he would have to bleed much more than that in order to die. Then he cried out that he wanted to live to see the future. I just about died laughing. hehe We have now agreed that he is going to wear his elbow pads and helmet when he rides his scooter.

And now the lace.



This is the beginning of mystery stole 3. I'm done with row 56 of 99 for clue 1. I'm just too dang tired and my head hurts too much to keep working at it.

The yarn I'm using is from Yarn Treehouse. I'm thinking the name of the yarn is Bloom and the color is CO3. It is a color changing lace weight wool. The colors change from blue to brown with gray and a little bit of orange/rust mixed in.



I'm using some metallic bronze beads I got from Wal-Mart of all places. I'm going to save the expensive root beer glass beads for a second incarnation of the mystery stole using black alpaca fingering weight that I've had around for ages. I won't get to that one for some time yet though.

I did work on mystery shawl 3 today. I finished row 163 of 172. I got a horrible horrible headache and had to put the knitting down. I was literally sick to my stomach and had to come home from Mom's. Nick was not happy about that. He was in a much better mood later once he started watching a tape my dad got at a garage sale today. My son was laughing and falling over watching classic cartoons from when my folk's were kids. Thought they were the best thing he had ever seen. If only it were so easy to entertain everyone. It would be nice to go back and away from the brain drain cartoons of today.

I'm gonna go have a drink now and see if this damn headache will go away again. Not sure what it is from. sigh

Blame La

La posted an interesting little meme today.

Go to Wikipedia and type in your birthday month and day only. Then post three events, two births and one holiday that occurred on your birthday, then tag 5 friends.

3 Events:

• 1897 - Dracula, a novel by Irish author Bram Stoker is published.
• 1953 - Jackie Cochran becomes the first woman to break the sound barrier (she flew in a F-86 Sabrejet at an average speed of 652.337 miles per hour (1049.835 km/h) at Rogers Dry Lake, California).
• 1980 Mount St. Helens eruption: Mount St. Helens erupts in Washington, killing 57 people and causing $3 billion in damage.

2 Births:

• 1868 - Nikolai Aleksandrovich Romanov, Nicholas II, Last Emperor of Russia (d. 1918)
• 1912 - Perry Como, American singer (d. 2001)

1 Holiday:

• Festival of the god Pan in Ancient Greece

I chose the eruption of Mt. St. Helens because I distinctly remember it happening. For reasons that still defy me, I felt so guilty. Here it was my 8th birthday and I felt guilty because a volcano decided to erupt and kill 57 people.

For the births I had to chose the Czar of Russia. I've always had a fascination with his family and specifically his youngest daughter, Anastasia. I've long held that if I ever have a daughter, that will be her name. Anastasia Corrine. And I had to chose Perry Como, cause come on.. He is Perry Fucking Como. hehehehe

Participate if ya like. If ya don't, then just call me a lemming. :OP

Galveston Shawl update

Finally finished with chart F. 3 more to go I think. I won't be working on this shawl until I finish up the dark purple mystery shawl that Renee is running. I've got about 15 rows before the cast off. I spent quite a bit of time yesterday sorting out beads. I have some dark burgundy and purple beads along with some clear/yellowish beads that I'm thinking of using on the edge.

And of course tomorrow clue 1 of mystery stole 3 comes out. hehe I couldn't resist joining. I was a member during last years mystery, but I didn't have time to actually knit it. Someday I'll get to it. hehe

And now to the pictures.

The new pattern in the triangle sections.


The "piers" come to a point at the end of the chart.


Here is how they flow together.


The color is off in the next few pictures. I am not sure why they seem so pink. The earlier pictures are much closer to the lovely light lavender.


Here is what remains of the second ball of yarn. I'm pretty sure it is from Handpaintedyarns.com.


You can see here best how the color is not solid. It almost looks like I changed colors when I started this last chart. I forget where exactly I changed balls of yarn though.


An overview of the "pier" section. I actually took these last pictures a few rows before chart F was finished. I was in the middle of switching to longer needles and I was able to get a flatter view than I had before.


Here is a full view. I haven't measured anything yet, so I can't really say how big it is.


And a view of the "waves" going into the pattern of chart F.

sorry

No new news on the job front. I'm just real tired.

I swear I'll have pictures of knitting tomorrow. I did finished Chart F of the purple monster that will not die and I took pictures. I want to finish the other mystery shawl before I continue work on the purple shawl. Cause I need lots and lots of stitch markers to do the next clue.

Promise that once I get some sleep I'll post pics of the shawls. Am halfway through the last clue of the dark purple shawl. Should have it done soon. I hope. lol

In the mean time go to www.tagsbyfrod.com and see if there are any new tags with your name on them. I've got 2 more that need uploading. I just have to format the pages.

Clue 3 done

Finally finished with the 3rd clue. 5th clue should be out today sometime unless Renee has gotten busy again. I'm in no rush. hehe

Weather is yucky outside, so the color is off in all the pictures. Hard to take natural light pictures when it is cloudy outside. I think I need one of those daylight lamps. Might help with the depression too.

Close up of the clue.

Crappy picture of the colors on the right side.


Crappy picture of the colors on the left.

And an overview of clue 3.

I'm not sure why the pictures are so blurry. Prolly should check the batteries.

But anyways, I'm going to go and finish chart F on the purple shawl and maybe I'll post pics of it tonight. Might wait until tomorrow as it is supposed to be sunny. And 90. bllllllleeccccckkkkkkkk

Things are going well

I had my second interview today. It went really well. This one was with another lady that I believe is the supervisor in the warehouse. She was real nice and I felt much more at ease with her. I think that people in "office" attire just make me nervous. Anyways, she moved me along to the next step. I filled out the paperwork for the background and credit checks. And I went and had a drug test done. My dad said that if they went through the expense of doing that then I'm definitely going to be hired.

I have to admit that the whole credit check thing has always made me very nervous. I don't like the idea that because I pay my bills late or I "owe" some asshole doctor a bunch of money that I already paid that it could cost me a job. I did default on a school loan years ago, but when the school took me to court, I won. It was because the new school I was going to messed up my paperwork and the government didn't realize I was back in school before the 6 months was up. I do owe a satellite company $75. I will pay them when I decide they deserve it because it pissed me off that they turned my service off and charged me for it when they didn't even try to take that months bill out of my account as was set up. No clue why they did it but I'm not paying it until I get a steady job and that $75 isn't going to hurt my bottom line. Not going to hurt my credit any more that it already is hurt. LOL

My bills do get paid. Eventually. I haven't ever had my electric or gas shut off. It haven't had my phone shut off since before my son was born. Probably a couple years before that. Well ok, my cell phone was shut off just recently, but it wasn't because I have a bill. The phone got shut off cause I forgot to put more air time on it. No outstanding bill. The satellite dish got turned off about 4 or 5 years ago. I haven't had one since. I won't get another one until I've had a job for at least 6 months. It's not the sort of expense that I really need. I have tons of dvds and vhs tapes of great movies that I love to watch. And the antennae picks up NBC and ABC perfectly and CBS comes in well enough that I can at least listen to the shows. I don't much actually look at the tv as I do listen to it.

I do have outstanding student loans right now. If I had had regular work at the beginning of this year, they would have been paid off in full when I got my taxes back. But I have barely worked at all this year. I've had to live off of that tax return. If/when I get this job, I'll pay off the smaller load in full right away. I'll have to make payments on the larger one. And they aren't that big of loans anyway. It is less than $2,000. Not like some people that have over $100,000 in school loans. That to me is just total bullshit.

I'm of the sort that thinks our country needs to take a real hard look at what other countries are doing. There are countries in Europe that have free health care and free education for all of it's citizens. Yes, they pay higher taxes in order to pay for these programs. I don't see the problem in that. I affords the right to basic human needs to every citizen.

If I had had the money to actually finish school the first time I went, I would be in a much better situation financially. Yes dear readers (all 2 of you) I have gone to school before. Right after high school, I worked full time for 6 months to save for school. I went off to Chicago and went to a business school. I couldn't find a job that had hours that I could work that paid enough to foot my bills while I was there. My folks wanted total control of what I was doing and I was too far away for their comfort, so I came back home after a couple months. That was the school that took me to court. Within a month or so after coming back to Iowa, I went to the local community college for two semesters. When it came time to go the next semester, I was told to get my own loan for school as my dad wasn't going to give me another dime. Yeah, um, nice thing to find out the day it was due to be paid. So, it was 10 years before I was able to go back to school. I'm one class shy of a degree in Internet Administration. Unfortunately I don't understand marketing. If once I start working I can get enough money saved up, I would love to try and take that class again. This time with a tutor that can explain shit to me.

But anyways, the interview went well. It looks like I might have the job. Won't find out till next week after the drug test comes back. I have never been a drug user, so I should be find. Well unless it picks up the paxil I took last week. lol I was sick and hormonal all at the same time and breaking down in tears over the dumbest shit. So, I took some low dose samples. It was just enough to take off the edge. I didn't even take all 7 pills that I had. I do think that once I have insurance again, I'll go back to my doctor and see about getting on some sort of medication again. Not the Paxil or Effexor though. They both make me tired and I do NOT need help in getting tired. lmao ( write this as I'm tired enough to take a snooze but it's way too early to think about going to bed )

Just cross your fingers for me and send some good mojo that this all works out. I miss being able to go nuts on eBay. hehehe

So far so good

I made it to the interview ok this morning. No thanks to the wacked out weather in Iowa. When I woke this morning at the ungodly hour of 6am, it was storming outside. By the time we left it was a torrential downpour. And I had to stop for gas. And the card reader at the pump wouldn't read my card. lol

I dropped the kid at my folk's house and made it to the store with 10 mins to spare. I sat in the car for about 5 mins listening to the radio and the rain finally stopped. I ended up having to wait 10 mins inside. Thankfully they had a radio playing. Unfortunately it was country music. Not my favorite.

I don't think I did too bad, but I totally loath interviews. They ask questions that frankly I find hard to answer. I was granted a second interview tomorrow morning with the lady that does the training. And I did come up with an answer to one of the questions that I stumbled on. If it comes up again, I'll mention what I came up with. The question was about coming up with something you did for an employer that saved money or time for them. Turns out I did actually do something like that last year, but I'm a lil slow and didn't think of it til later.

It was a simple idea but it did get a thank you out of the supervisor. I was working in a bindery. I worked on a shrink wrap machine where different books or books with inserts and cds are shrink wrapped and labeled prior to shipping. Mostly for schools and for college bookstores. Anyways, they purchased this super expensive new machine where the books are placed on a short roller line that feeds to the front of the machine. A person stands there and picks up the books and puts them on the conveyor system to go into the machine to be wrapped. Well, some of the books are soft cover or spiral bound. They didn't roll down the rollers evenly and many times they fell in between the rollers. This caused the machine to be shut down because there were no books in reach to put on the conveyor.

Anyone that has been in a bindery knows that the different sections of a book are held together with pieces of wood on each end and then a tie is put around them. There was always a piles of these wood pieces, which are squares of ply-wood, near the shrink wrap machine. I told the machine operator that I didn't care if she liked the idea or not, I was going to put the books on top of the wood and put the wood on the rollers. The wood pieces fit perfectly on the rollers and didn't tip in between them. So, no matter how large the books are that are put on them or how flimsy they are, they rolled right now the line with no problem. And I know for a fact that the company still uses them.

Not brain surgery by any means. But it had been driving the operator and the mechanics crazy trying to adjust the roller system so that the books wouldn't fall between the rollers. I suppose that if I hadn't of been a temporary employee, I might have gotten a bonus of some sort. In actuality, I got let go a couple weeks later because of a very very annoying person that finally got me to yell at her. Oh well.

But anyways, I have another interview tomorrow. They are really looking for people that want to work the weekends. That is really the shift that I want because I won't really have to pay for day care and I'll only have to work 3 days a week.

Now, I'm off to work on the shawls. I really need to kick it in the ass cause I am way behind the rest of the group in both of them.

wheeeeee!!

I've got a job interview tomorrow morning. Cross your fingers for me. I sooooo need some work. And the cool thing is that it is a weekend job. Three 12 hour days and you get paid a full 40hrs. I think I can deal with that. hehe

gratuitous kid pics

Today the kid is officially 8 yrs old.

And I feel 108. hehehe

First some pics from the folk's house on Sunday. We celebrated my bro's bday (the 13th), Nick's bday and Father's day all in one.

Mom getting the cake and Dad cutting up munchies. Oh and the kid hamming it up for the camera.

The birthday boys getting ready to blow out the candles. The kid adores his uncle Joe.

The kid is a lil slow. Or maybe the bro is a blowhard. hehe

My brother hates having his pic taken. hehe Kept looking away from his wife so she couldn't take his pic. I don't mind if the person isn't looking at the camera. Although you wouldn't know it by the pics I take of the kid. hehe

Talk about patience. lmao Dakota ate way too much sausage and cheese thanks to her papa.

And here are pics from today. I didn't want to throw a regular birthday party for the kid cause he does NOT need more presents. So we went around the neighborhood and invited a few kids over to play on his new slip-n-slide and eat cake and ice cream.

I didn't take pics of the other kids. Not sure their Mom's would appreciate my putting their pics up on the net. Just sayin.

So, lots of pics of the kid turning blue. hehe







Love the look on his face here.





He had a blast. He did mange to piss me off a bit though. I baked him a cake. One box of white cake mix and one box of confetti cake mix. Covered it in chocolate frosting. Bought a gallon of ice cream for $7 at the damn gas station. He didn't eat one bite of the cake. He loved the ice cream of course, but wouldn't touch my cake. And it was good. I mean, real good.

Making dinner tonight sucked ass too. Got a taco kit out of the cabinet. Thawed some browned hamburger and tossed in the water and seasoning mix. Once it was simmering, I went to heat up the tortillas. Opened the sealed foil package and flopped the tortillas onto a paper plate only to discover that they were covered in lil piss ants. Picked em up to look close and the plate was literally covered in ants.

So into the garbage with the soft tortillas. Figured I had 6 hard taco shells so no problem. Opened the sealed plastic package only to find that the tacos were covered in ants too. gggggrrrrrrr No tortilla chips in the house, so I had to run to the gas station yet again. Bought a bag of chips and a root beer. (gonna have a root beer float before bed if my tummy stops screaming at me for eating too much taco salad) So, my tacos turned into taco salad. It was saved by the fact that I keep shredded cheese in the freezer all the time and I just so happened to have a can of black olives in the cabinet. ( no ants thank god ) Kid of course wouldn't touch it. He ate bologna. sigh

And now I'm gonna pop a tums and work on swatching for the mystery stole using US3s.

Green thumb

Tonight we decided to do a little gardening.



For Mother's Day, Nick gave me this little planter of flowers. So far, I've managed to not kill them. Although they have had a few close calls when I forgot to water them. lol

He grew the one in the middle from seed at school. The crazy ones on the sides were my dad's addition. Not sure what they are but the orange one is weird. It refuses to stand up and the flower is at an odd angle.

And here we have the new planter all done.

Yes I do realize that the one plant is a spider plant that is normally in a hanging planter, but I'm fairly sure I can keep it alive and that was the important thing when choosing. hehe

And here is the little gardener.


I wish the boy would smile like a normal person.


He didn't get his hands dirty during the gardening. Would have had to touch the potting soil to do that. lol He just watched and then got the water so I could give the plants a drink.

The plants are now in their new home in front of the back door. Yes, I have a planter on my living room floor in front of the door. Only place in the house I can guarantee that it will get sunlight. I generally keep all the blinds closed and that is the only one that is up a bit. I have issues with people being able to see into the house.

Anyways, I've been trucking along on the purple shawl. Nothing to show yet as I've only done about 20 rows of the chart I'm on. 14 more to go before it is done. It's still taking me about half an hour per round thanks to the easy patterning.

I got the beads for the mystery stole today. They are tiny. Much smaller that the ones I was testing with my yarn. I may have to order some laceweight yarn and give up on the fingering weight. I can't get the crochet hook through the metal bead at all. The hook is a size 14 and tiny. I can't get the yarn pulled back through the larger rootbeer bead. Ya know, I think I'll swatch with some brown and blue laceweight I have. I've got a bunch of the beads I was swatching with and might have enough for the pattern. Maybe I'll do one stole in the black fingering and larger beads and one stole in the laceweight and rootbeer beads. Why not? I've already got 2 shawls going as it is. lmao

Pictures

I finally got some quality knitting time in today.

I finally finished the clue from hell for the Galviston KAL. If you are doing the large size square, clue 4 takes a lifetime. hehe

My mom says it looks like a huge hairnet. hehe

A closer look at the wave pattern. I'm glad that I no longer have to do this part. In the last part of the clue, you repeat the pattern 13 times.

And I also got some knitting done of the latest mystery shawl.

Another look at clue 1.

And here is clue 2 done. I really like how the colors are moving along. I really do like how this yarn turned out.

And a look at the full shawl to date. It's a little scrunched up on the right side. I do believe I need to order myself some long Addi needles. The cable on this set is drivin me bonkers.

And since I have nothing better to do, I joined the latest Mystery Stole from Melanie at Pink Lemon Twist. I was a member for MS2, but I don't think I actually knit the stole. I remember that it was quite gorgeous, but I don't think I had the time to knit it at the time. This one calls for either white or black lace weight yarn and optional beads. I do think I may dye up the rest of my Pony 2-ply and try for a very very dark version of what I already have with larger areas of color. I think I'll wind the yarn off onto the backs of my dining chairs and use a large aluminum pan to dye the yarn in.

Anyways, I'm finally starting to feel a little more human. Still not my normal healthy self just yet. lmao (as if I'm ever healthy) Nick is having a bit of trouble with his breathing thanks to the pollen and lingering cold viruses. Managed to fix his scooter, so he had fun playing outside today while I got to do laundry. Oh joy!!

The parents are back from Michigan and Mom is makin me nuts already. Nothing major. It's probably just the damn headaches and hormones talkin. They bought themselves some fancy new bikes and are planning on getting healthy. Supposedly they are going to quit smoking. Again. Ummm not gonna hold my breath on that one.

Ok, I'm going to go work on the next chart of the GAL KAL before I get too damn tired. Not gonna take too long really.

candy

Snickers

Nutty and gooey - you always satisfy.

What Kind of Candy Are You?

Had to post this one as Snickers is my all time favorite candy bar. I love them mixed in my ice cream or just frozen. I've been known to buy large bags of the fun sized bars and put em in the freezer. They last longer that way cause I have to go out in the garage to get em. hehehe

Oh and get this.... Blogger has decided that I'm a spammer. I have to do word verification to post. Not sure if I can post from Flickr while it is on there. I've requested that they review my blog and take the damn thing off.

So, dear Mr/Mrs Blogger Reviewer, please remove the word verification from my blog. I'm not a spammer. I may be a bit boring, but I swear I'm not spamming anyone. Shoot, I only have 9 people that subscribe to my feed on Bloglines. lol I don't eve link to books on Amazon any more. It's much too dangerous to my pocketbook. lol

Somebody stop the world

cause I want off!!!

It's been a long time since I've been this sick for this long.

Granted, I have my tummy issues and other health problems, but this is annoying. I thought I was getting better. Unfortunately the cold is now in my chest and I've got an annoying cough. Hopefully I'm not going to take a page out of my mom's book and end up with pneumonia. She has had it a couple times this year.

I haven't been up to doing much this last week. I have knit on the purple shawl. No pictures as it looks like a pile of knots on my needles. I tried adding another set of circulars so that I could get a picture, but it still was bunched up. I'm about 5 rows from finishing the never ending clue. I can't wait to move on from this clue.

I've only done a whopping 4 rows on the new mystery shawl. The yarn is so soft and yummy. I just feel guilty when I work on it because of the purple shawl. Yeah, I've got issues.

OK, I'm off to try and clean up the house. I've let the housework slide majorly. Hard to clean house when you can't breath though. :O(