Somebody needs to stop me.

I don’t know if you’ve noticed but my personal links are growing a little bit out of control. Plus, thanks to a buddy I’ve just found a new site to be creepy about.

But what I’m really saying is that if you like to read, you should join and add me as a friend so I can look at the books you like and we can talk about books and how much we like them.

It’s kind of scary though. I wasn’t like this before. It seemed like the only thing ever on TV were stories about people, especially kids getting abducted or murdered because of posting too much crap on the internet. They had me freaked out man. I would watch shows on how to evade kidnappers. How if you flipped the lights off and on really fast it was a sign to neighbors that you were kidnapped and if someone grabs you that pulling away only makes them grab you harder- you’ve got to pinwheel that arm to get them to let go.

Yeah.

Then the past year or so I’ve signed up for all kinds of stuff, giving everyone who asks more than enough information than they’ve ever wanted to know about a stranger. Suck it proper decorum.

Boy and kitty together in harmony.

No, but really, if you join goodreads, let me know and we’ll have chats about books and things. Or we could just talk about books without a website-

What are you reading anyways?

Today I had to broach the subject of where my money was with my boss. (Since my direct deposit isn’t set up yet.) He showed me the magical money cabinet that I would never have known about had I not asked. No really, I had to go through the wardrobe into Narnia and success! money time. What can I say except:

Thanks for saying it for me Married to the Sea.

Wouldn’t you vote for him?

I wish it were June 2008 already! (That’s when Dark Knight comes out.)

Well guys, I didn’t even know I was on the wagon until I fell off of it:

Now you know what I was doing the day after Thanksgiving. Temptations is having some sort of a yarn sale… I don’t know, it’s all a little blurry. I just remember thinking: “don’t I have some sort of rule about not buying yarn without knowing specifically what I’m going to use it for” and then telling myself to shut up, stop being a goody goody and I think I grabbed some yarn and rubbed it all over my face. Yeah, I was a mad woman.

Anyways, I hope this Karabella stuff is nice because I got some of it. I also got a yarn that’s called Snuggly. Just because how adorable is that? Snuggly.

I mean, I’m all for not judging books by their covers and whatever but would you buy a yarn called “prickly” or “hives”? Lets not kid ourselves here.

My SWF sweater is coming along nicely:

(Sorry about the dorky picture.)

Only I’m having some doubting issues… See, I went down a needle size after the collar and then it was also looking pretty big, so I went down to the size small instead of the medium. Now I’m thinking I might’ve made a mistake, which is why I tried it on in the first place. However, it fits really well. It’s just, what happens when I wash it and it shrinks to the size of a walnut? That wouldn’t be cool. Although I’ll have a very fashionable walnut.

Opinions? Advice? I’ve never worked with cotton before and my garment knowledge is limited. However, it is 50% acrylic, which makes me think I shouldn’t worry too much.

Also, remember Thanksgiving? Because I’m still recovering from going to so many this year. Plus, it seems like all the stores wanted us to forget about Thanksgiving before it had even happened.

Mom not doing our signature pose.
the signature pose.

Angel setting up dinner.

Granma’s homemade noodles.
Dad and demon Shadow hound.

It was pretty crazy this year. By the last one I was so worn out I didn’t even take my camera to get pictures, which is funny as it was the most eventful of the Thanksgivings we went to. It was at my PILs (parents-in-law, hahaha) and after dinner we all went out and raked their neighbors yard because he has some sort of condition with one of this feet that requires him to wear a special boot or something. (We also got roped into raking his neighbors yard who has a broken arm or something- I’m telling ya, don’t move to this neighborhood!) Then the menfolk went to some house to get some measurements to build a wheelchair ramp for somebody. Then my husband and his brother: R1 and R4, got all burly and manlike and chopped some wood.

No joke.

It seems like I make up stories about his family but they’re Methodists, which I feel explains a lot of it.

Stuff that makes me thankful!

Don’t let my last post fool ya, I’m totally a thankful gal. Even though I haven’t won any contests this year (or in my life) that doesn’t mean this year has been lame. It has actually been pretty amazing.

Sparky agrees.
He also says “Happy Thanksgiving, now throw me a freakin drumstick already!” Heh. That one bottom tooth makes me giggle.

Anyways, my blog has gotten more traffic in the past day than it has in its entire existence since Crazy Aunt Purl linked me on her site, which rocks! What doesn’t rock is that no one can actually leave me a comment because WordPress is a pain. I unclicked everything possible to make my comments not so top secret and still nothing! Sorry guys

What else am I thankful for?

Plus there was this:

This year has been a big one. I guess I went and tried to cram all my living into one small time frame. 2007 decided it was going to be a year I remembered and I just couldn’t argue or disagree.

Still, let’s all remember why I’m actually around:

Nothing would happen without her approval.

I’m also amazed that when Thanksgiving rolls around everything seems so much BIGGER, take these grapes for instance:

Anyways, this Thanksgiving is only a third of the way over for me. Having so many families means that I’ve got to make all the rounds, so I’ll have a better update for anyone who’s interested next week.

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

EDIT: Comments are finally working right! (It was a dumb problem but it’s solved now.) I just wanted to say thanks to people like Cath and Betty who actually signed up with wordpress so they could post comments on my previous nonsense. You guys seriously rock.

Stuff that makes me sad

Let’s start with the obvious:

Now that I work at a library it’s like “oh hey, I can check out any book I want to!” Plus since I’m there all the time, I can return them on time… although I don’t think it matters since (supposedly) I don’t get fined. Yeah right.

My copy of Little Women is so badly abused. The spine broke, pages are all shifted from where they’re falling out. Yet somehow the libraries copy has withstood the test of time? Jesus, I need to check myself. (Before I wreck myself. Word.)

What else makes me sad? Contests.

I entered two knitting contests this year. The first was earlier in the year, it was the knitty calendar contest.

(There was another photo I submitted, it’s around here somewhere…)

Yep, that’s Victoria from knitty. Those are from our wedding, in Hawaii. So, maybe they felt like I’d already won.

Cat hate.

This one also didn’t win! It was for the Crazy Aunt Purl sweater contest. However, it is chillin in the photo gallery for the contest, which if you haven’t checked out yet, you should. Although, it’ll take a while to go through. At least a loooot of people get to see it thanks to her gallery, which it hardly sees the light of day in my flickr.

Anyways, I don’t want to get myself down thinking about how I’m a total loser. Lame.

Oh great! Another downer. Garter stitch is getting me down man, it’s like… the man, man. Especially when you have to go out of your way to make it garter stitch. It’s one thing when it just happens naturally, you’re like alright, fine. Then when it’s time to actually knit one row, purl another to get the illusion of garter stitch it’s kind of like let’s smack this pony on the ass and giddyup. (To take a phrase from my dad.)

Also, I’m on dessert duty for Thanksgiving. Which is great because I love to bake (and never get to since someone doesn’t eat sweets. Or read this blog so my guilt trip will go unnoticed.) but at the same time… everyone wants pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving right? Nobody wants Thanksgiving muffins. So, I’m resigned, pumpkin pie. Maybe I could slip another dessert in without anyone noticing? Eh?

You know what doesn’t make me sad though? You. Leave me some love. <3

Why have I been such a lazy biatch lately….?

Oh yeah, that’s right, because of:

Super Mario Galaxy!!!

Plus there’s other life stuff going on. Silly life. Which I’m sure everyone knows about since I’m terrible about email. People ask me a simple question, like “what’s up” and get back a ten page diary about everything. Isn’t that terrible? It’s like, er, thanks.

Anyways, I don’t know about y’all but my attention span has been shot. If something doesn’t have at least one picture now I start to get antsy. Here’s a picture of my shithead cat:

That’s how she lures you. She lets you take a really nice picture of her, acts all nice and cuddly then BAM, cat puke in the middle of the hall at night. Yick.

Also, it was R4′s birthday the other day (a while ago), so I took some pictures of that. Although, I’ve got to be honest, it’s ridiculously hard to get a picture of R4 where he doesn’t look stoned.

I like this one best because he’s in the family stance: smiling and laughing while also subtly threatening you with a fork. He mentally turned 9, however he’s technically 16 now. Geez. That’s scary. Both him and my stepsister are now 16, they were born on the same day. Friggin creepy to me. What happens when they turn 21? Will I just poof out of existence in a cloud of dust?

Also, I promised you knitting. I’m glad I didn’t promise any specific quality of knitting. Whew!

This is the glove I’m knitting for my MIL. It’s still weird to me that I have a MIL but that’s a different story for another time. These gloves… well, they’re a labor of love. Mostly because of the ridiculous amount of stitch holders I needed for… well everything. I still need to knit the cap and put on the button and blah blah blah before this one is every done. They’re pretty easy to make (once you understand what the hell the pattern wants, don’t think just do) it’s just tedious. I mean. Joyful. Hopefully she’ll put them on and experience all the joy I have had making them. Or to paraphrase Garth: I just hope she doesn’t think they suck.

This is my newest project… Okay guys, it’s story time. Hopefully you already know what my stories are like, so brace yourself. I’m calling this my SWF Sweater. Why? Because I totally got all Single White Female on some poor lady without even realizing I was doing it! That’s how freaking creepy I am. I was on ravelry, checking out what my friends were working on and I love everything this one girl does. LOVE. I saw that she was making this really cool sweater, so I was like, alright! a sweater. Because I’ve been in a serious sweater mood since it got cold. I mean, it’s snowing outside people. Or at least it was an hour ago.

Well, if you’ve talked to me lately you might be wondering why I’m not doing the Simple Knitted Bodice and that’s because of a very ‘me’ excuse, which is that the yarn for that will be hella expensive. Even if I sub out what they call for and get Knit Picks instead. However, this sweater, you can sub out and use some Cotton Ease. Hells yeah! So, I’m going through Ravelry, looking at everyone’s tree jacket. Seeing if Cotton Ease really is a good yarn to use, since my last sweater had yarn substitution “issues“. Well, I saw that even the designers are making one out of it and if it’s good enough for the designers of the pattern, it’s sure good enough for me.

So, we run down to JoAnn’s and yes! they have the yarn I want. However, they have some really wonky colors. They also only have random stray balls of the wonky colors. Except for this one color that my husband seemed to like as he was loading it up and walking away with it before I could even check if it was the right dye lot. (Did he like it or just want to get out of the store ASAP? You be the judge on that one.)

I get home and start knitting. Feeling pretty awesome. I swatch (which I’m going to admit, to everyone’s horror- I usually don’t do) and find out that my needles are too small, so I move up a size and it’s right but the fabric looks really weird. So I’m like, cool, I’ll use the big needles, then switch to the smaller ones for the body. (Okay, this is a really boring story so far and kind of knitting slang heavy but I swear we’re almost there.)

Something clicks in my brain. Wait a second, this all sounds familiar. So I go back and check the person who originally inspired me to do this sweater and I freak out. Not only am I knitting this sweater in the same yarn, it’s the same color. Not only is it the same color, but she also swatched, got gauge on the same size I did but liked the smaller size better so is switching them out at the body.

Oh geez, I’m subconsciously creepy, which is probably worse than being ‘just creepy.’

LazerPaca

::pewpew::

Yes, he will shoot you up with his lazer eyes.

Earlier today (yesterday now?) we went to Alpaca Fest 2007, woooo! The other day my husband saw an actual ‘Girls Gone Wild’ van, sitting in a hotel parking lot. It’s my guess that they were waiting for Alpaca Fest.

…jealous yet?

I honestly don’t know too much about alpacas, just that I like to knit with their protective layering. Exposing them to the harsh environments BECAUSE I CAN. What I found out today is that alpacas are total camwhores. The second they see a camera they start mugging it up, striking poses, working it, thinking they’re going to strike it rich on the internet. This one in particular caught my fancy:

They were convincing. I took a bunch of crappy camera video recordings, mostly of them eating. It was like seeing a bunch of giant cats in pens. They ate. They pooped. Some slept. Most of them stared at you angrily. We walked around the area where they were showing them off for a while before realizing there was like a whole huge building full of alpacas and some yarn. Only some. I wanted more. There was a woman sitting on a couch and spinning yarn, that was cool… however she was just there to tempt me, she wasn’t actually selling any of her handspun yarn. Friggin evil.

(covet)

Okay, well it’s getting late and I’m trying to embed one of those pointless videos and the intarwebs are not feeling me on this. However, I’ll be back soon to talk about what I’m actually knitting. (*gasp* I’m actually knitting??) Also to talk about my plans for future knitting. Plus, I want these stitch markers. Although they will make me fat. (Check out the donut ones, they’re so amazing and detailed.)

working now?

Go Team Venture!

This weekend has been up and down. However, I did manage to finish my FIRST pair of socks. Hoo yeah!

SHPLADOW!

Actually, knitting socks was weird. I definitely did feel my interest waning during the second sock. Although to be fair that second sock had it out for me. If you look at the socks together, you’d think the second sock was the first since it looks so wack.

(which do you think I made first?)

Either way, I feel super accomplished. Although it’s made me wonder, what next? I’m tired of the big project. I think we’ve given ourselves a ‘whenever the hell it gets done’ deadline on that sucker. So that leaves things wide open. Gloves for John’s mom? Dad’s hat? I’ve been thinking about finally knitting that turtle. He called to me last night said “You know you want to knit me and when I exist, you can call me Archibald.”

Thanks Baldy.

Also, here’s me and my new best friend:

My mom wants to borrow my car.

Edit: I just decided to edit this and not complain like a whiney complainer. I’m having troubles with my mom and I think I’m going to talk to her about it tomorrow. Because supposedly I’m an adult and that’s what we do, we talk about things.

At least Jessica and Joey’s party was a lot of fun:

Most of the men folk. We played Apples to Apples for at least three hours. Seriously. It was some xhardxcorex game playing. I was seriously winning, then everyone turned against me, as they typically do when you’re winning and they wouldn’t let the game end until someone had more than me. However, after the game ended, Jessica was looking at the rules and it said the first person to 8 won, so IN YOUR FACE SUCKERS! Ha! I’m a totally gracious winner.

Goodbye October :(

Well Halloween is done. Sad face.

Sax was busy being creepy.

I was a little disappointed. Nobody was going to show up here, so I went to my mom’s. Half the kids weren’t in costume and after only an hour most of them were complaining about how their feet hurt…!

Suck it up kids! Halloween isn’t for the weak.

In other news, what happened to October? It was here, then it was gone. Yikes! Is anyone else totally creeped out by this or am I in some sort of time warp where every month is like a week long? Speaking of time warp, sometimes I find myself wishing that I could bust into musical numbers with a full supporting cast.

Sorry there’s been sparse knitting news. I have been knitting, there just hasn’t been much to report on. We’re supposed to have this topsupersecret project done tomorrow… uh. It ain’t gettin done. It’s too GIGANTIC. (Also, irritating.) I would post about it but the people it’s for might randomly read this blog. It’s highly doubtful but I’m a paranoid creature with delusions of musical numbers, so you probably get the point here. However, I have been crafting:

This is what I sent my Retro Video Game Swap partner. What do you think? I’m most pleased with the ornaments. I took about a million pictures of them in various situations. Not because I’m bored but because I’m creative. Total difference.

Action shot!

Also, this was my mom last night in her very yellow kitchen.

She was on the phone talking to my granma about trick or treaters. Every year my mom calls and every year it’s the same story: she ran out of candy. They must be bringing the kids in from the country and dropping them off on her street because she doesn’t see these kids running around the neighborhood on a day to day basis. This year she went through eight bags of candy and still ran out.

I’m sure there’s other stuff to post about… but how about random pictures of my cat instead?

Don’t mess with her- she crazy.

Also, here’s a green pepper I drew for a future project: