been a long time

This last week or so was very busy for me and the kid. Two weeks ago, my folks decided that I needed to take the kid on vacation. Ummmmm ok. They suggested a water park in Rockford, Il or the Mall of America. I have heard nasty things about that water park and well that isn't really my speed.

So, last Monday, the kid and I took off for Minneapolis. We took dad's van because he has a dvd player and well I need to update my plates. heh We made real good time and got to the mall about 11am. I swear I've never spent so much time driving in circles though. There was lots of construction on 35N. Nick spent the afternoon riding on the rides. He only freaked out once and that was because his bumper car wasn't working right. He ended up getting a tummy ache after riding on the Fairly Odd Coaster.

It was a long drive back to the hotel in Owtanna. Big mistake booking a hotel so far away. Oh well. The ride back into Minneapolis took forever. A semi tipped over on a frontage road and spilled corn all over the interstate. It took about a half hour to go about 5 miles. We had to get back into town though because I wanted to meet Bubbo and Joy!! Monday was Joy's last chance to meet up with the Minneapolis knitters because she is moving to NYC like tomorrow. heh I recognized Heather right off even though she went from pink hair to purple. :) She was so totally sweet. Irene and Betsy were cool too. I'm not sure if they are on Ravelry or have blogs. oops

We sat and chatted for a while. They were all so completely funny and super sweet. I could have stayed all night but Nick was getting antsy. He kept asking to go outside but ummm not gonna happen in Minneapolis even if it was uptown and not downtown. I got a bit of a shock when I went to leave. Bubbo grabbed my ass. hehe I totally should have given her a hug. I'm hoping that in the spring the kid and I can make another trip up to the mall and I intend to correct that.

I had to call my dad to figure out how in the heck to turn the headlights on on his van. I think he was ready to reach through the phone and smack me. hehe It was a long ride back to the hotel and we picked up McDonald's for supper. We fell asleep watching Transformers. Unfortunately, the kid woke me up a couple hours later. He ended up puking his guts out in the bathroom. He fell asleep while I was cleaning up and slept all night. He woke up just fine and dandy but boy was I sore. hehe

We drove back up to the mall Tuesday morning and went to the aquarium. We actually went through twice with a break to walk all 4 levels of the mall. Well we really didn't walk around on the first floor cause we did that on Monday. I saw tons of shops that I would love to visit when I actually have money to spend. All in all, I bought a puzzle and some postcards. I should scan them and share em with y'all. The best part of the aquarium was getting to pet the stingrays and the baby sharks. Nick totally chickened out and wouldn't touch them. After that we made the long trek home. It sucked having to listen to the dvd player instead of my mp3 player. (It hid itself in the van and I couldn't find it for the ride home) We didn't get home until 8pm because we stayed at my folk's house for awhile after getting back.

Nick went back to school on Thursday and it was so nice. hehe He did go to vacation bible school for a week, but that was only 3 hours a day. So not the same. I took Saturday and Sunday off from work because my folks were out of town. I was originally going to go with them to Chicago for my cousin's wedding. It's a good thing we stayed home though. When they got there, they found out that the didn't have a hotel reservation like they though. That will teach them to go to Chicago on Stitches weekend. hehe Y'all stole my folk's room dang it. They ended up driving home after the wedding. I think they got home at like 3am. Yuck!!

Nick and I had a better Saturday though. We went to a local nature preserve with Big Brothers/ Big Sisters. It was part of Take A Kid Outside. It's a fairly local program designed to get kids outside doing something productive. A park naturist gave a talk about the geology of Iowa and the local plant life. They primarily focused on the prairie and the push to convert more land into prairie land. After a quick lunch we got to put that into action. The park had torn down a house on their land and we helped plant prairie grass and other prairie plants on the hill where the house was in order to help stop erosion. Out of 80 plants, the kid and I planted 9 plants. Not too shabby when there weren't that many of us there. After getting cleaned up, we went on a little hike to see a prairie that was planted a year ago and to play in a stream. By the time we climbed back up to the welcome center, I was ready for a nap. hehe Thankfully, it was time to climb on the bus back to town. I treated the kid to an ice cream cone as a reward for helping out.

Not a lot of knitting going on around here. I've got a little over one side left to do on the edge for the never ending purple shawl of death. I'm trying to finish it. I swear!! hehe

I is so tired

I swear I could just lay down and cry right now. It was a very long weekend and I spent today cleaning off and on all day long.

The kid decided to start the weekend off with a bang. As they were lining up to leave on Friday, he fell. Instead of just telling the teacher that he hurt himself, he threw himself on the floor and had a tantrum. He will be 8 in June. And his mode of coping is to scream and carry on because he tripped. So instead of just picking him up in the car line as per usual, I had to go in to school because he was in the time out room. It wasn't until 15 minutes after his regular time to leave that he finally told the teacher what freaking happened. sigh I love the kid but some days he is a total pain.

We made it to Cedar Rapids with no problems. I found Hearthstone Gifts without a hitch. The ladies there were extremely helpful. They only have a small selection of yarn, but it is well displayed and sorted by fiber type. I definitely will visit again if I'm in the area.

I picked up 2 skeins of a wonderful yarn called Loft by Zitron.


It's a bulky yarn that puts up in 110 yrd skeins. It's 100% Merino. Both skeins I got were color 590 which they claim is Pumpkin. Ummmm well I guess the orange running through it could be considered pumpkin. On my monitor, the colors in the second photo are very very close to true. I'm thinking that I'll use the yarn to make a small felted bag. I'll add another yarn for the bottom and the handles. No clue what I'll use because this yarn has no twist to it and frankly, I've never seen anything quite like it. Although it does kind of remind me of a very thick version of the yarn I'm using for the purple shawl. lol Oh, the yarn was on sale too. 25% off of the 10.95. Still kind of expensive for lil ole me, but I had to get something. hehehe

Next, I went in search of Beads & Beyond in Cedar Rapids proper. Be warned, the address on Yahoo maps and Yellowpages.com for this shop, is wrong! Instead of turning on to Czech Lane, the shop is at 4316 Center Point Rd on the left just as you would turn to go to Czech Lane. Believe me, when I got to the shop on Czech Lane and saw a big ole cardboard sign in the window that they had moved, I was NOT happy. I do not know my way around Cedar Rapids for the most part. Thankfully, I realized that the address on the poster was on the street that I just turned off of. The store is basically a block from where it used to be.It is a very small shop, but they packed a whole lot of yarn in a small space. They have lots of yarns that I've only ever seen online. They even had Noro. :O) They have lots of beads too. Duh! hehe If Nick hadn't have been bugging me continuously about leaving, I could have spent more time looking and drooling. I did pick up a set of dressing wires and a pattern from Fiber Trends. Maybe I'll use what is left from the green shawl to make a scarf.

Actually, I have to admit that the green shawl is only going to be a shoulder scarf. I've rounded the point of the shawl and well, it is gonna be small. sigh

Only made a little wrong turn on the way to the hotel. Yahoo Maps are not always that clear. (see above) We got to the hotel a half hour before check in, so we did a dry run to the hotel where the reception was. Easy peasy. Took all of about 3 minutes to get there. Coming back was another matter. The turn off I took going to the hotel in the first place doesn't have a corresponding one on the other side. I had to go one exit up and find my way back. It wasn't that horrible though.

As I was checking in, I got a call from my mom. She got herself really lost. hehe So, we played cell phone tag and I located her behind Lindale Mall. Told her to just follow me and I would take her right to the reception. Well, she kept getting behind me, and I kept watching in the rear view mirror to make sure I didn't lose her. So of course, I missed the exit to the reception. Thankfully, when I took the next exit, which was another interstate, it had an exit right away that ended up close to the hotel.

So, Nick and I headed back to the hotel to get ready for the party. I decided that I was feeling too fat to wear the lace top. Nick told me that I'm not fat, I'm perfect. He earned some bonus points on that one. hehe I ended up wearing an old sweater though. Felt much more comfortable. Next problem came when I went to put on my dress shoes. Ummmmmm, not happening. I remember digging them out, but somehow they didn't end up in one of my bags. So, I put my tennis shoes back on and we went to check the car. No shoes. That is when I looked down and realized that I didn't have on a matching pair of tennis shoes to begin with. hehehe Well, they do match, but one is about a year newer than the other one. I cheated the last time I bought shoes and just bought the same exact pair. Only difference that day was the fact that my right shoe was quite dirty and the right was clean. hehe And of course on the way to the reception, I missed my exit again!!!

All went well at the reception until my cousin tried to get my son to play a game. He refused. And then when it was time to eat, he refused to eat anything but a hand full of cheese. After dinner, he was fine again. He and his lil cousin went off and danced like loons for about half an hour. By that time he was totally sweaty and I decided it was time for him to go rest.We made it back to the hotel just fine. We went for some Hardees later on so the kid would stop yapping about being hungry. hehe I let him stay up until 10 and we hit the sack. Thankfully, right after we went to bed, the air conditioner kicked it. For some reason it wouldn't work earlier. We slept in until 9am!! I still can't believe we stayed in bed for 11 hours. hehe We both slept fitfully, but the room was nice and dark, so I didn't know what time it was and just kept falling back to sleep.

Yesterday it was cold and icky. Instead of trying to find something to eat, we just headed out. I picked up some chips when we stopped for gas. The wind on the way back to my folk's house was insane. I saw quite a few cars get blown into the gravel on the side of the road. I kept my speed down a bit and didn't have too much trouble. We were back to Mom's by 11am. We ended up spending the rest of the day there. Turns out that Saturday night's NASCAR race had been rained out, so I got to watch it Sunday. :O) Very good race even though none of my guys won. I managed to get quite a bit done on the green shawl. I got all the way around the point of the shawl and started up the other side a bit. Unfortunately it is going to be too small. I am not happy, but it is still pretty.

I do believe that the next shawl I make, I'll design myself. I do like the shetland style of construction. It just needs to be bigger when it is done. hehe But first, I need to finish off the shawls I've got going already. Not to mention the 3 sweaters and various scarves that are still on the needles. I tossed out the acrylic brown Hiking scarf. While it looked pretty, it felt horrible. Ack will do that. lol

Ok, I need to go work on my email and see if I can't get the damn kid to go to sleep. He is such a booger!!! lol