What I Did On My Summer Vacation

You may have noticed that I went missing for quite a few weeks. Things got busy here with the new house. But also, things went crazy with the new house and a visit from Granma. You remember Granma, right? Because I’m pretty sure she will adopt all of you.

This was my favorite picture from the whole thing. She hadn’t met my little step-niece before, my Dad always calls her Little Girl. I also didn’t realize until this picture that my father is a fan of tiny children.

Before she even got here though, Granma had a game plan. She sent a box ahead full of projects that she was stalled on and that she wanted finished. Plus she started a project on the plane that she was quickly making progress on. Well, until I hijacked that train of thought.

In that box there was:

A bag that was missing the handles. Although she had even gone ahead and threaded the buttons. She also told me that all of that yarn was the same dye lot. Color me confused. (ba dum tsh)

This shrug that needed some ends woven in and buttons attached to it. She didn’t plan on it but it really fits her perfectly. She has lost so much weight and seemed to be in really good spirits, which was comforting. Now she’s got a new shrug to go out on the town in.

This blanket! I’ve been constantly harassing her about this blanket because I love it so much. The yarn is super soft and I like the colors. It’s one of those Mary Maxim kits that she’s fond of. But the stitches were starting to fall off the needles so I showed her that two circular needles at one time technique. It’s not every day I get to teach her something, so I felt pretty special.

This was my favorite of the bunch. A crocheted Victorian bride doll. I put the hair on her while watching Downton Abbey. When I was done with her, I’ll admit I had gotten kind of attached. (Even if I am a grown ass woman and it’s a doll.) Luckily, when Granma came she told me that she had made the doll for me and was glad I had liberated her from her box. I figure, hey, I live in a Victorian, she’s a Victorian doll- kismet.

Then Granma went through my shame pile and got all of my projects sorted out.

She poked, prodded and cajoled. She said, “Oh Lindsey, finish these mittens. They’ll be quick and easy and everyone loves a good mitten.” Okay.

I’m so glad she visited and got me back on track with some things. Not only did we knock out some projects and get things organized but we also made a hot dish every night of the week.

So yeah, that’s partly what I’ve been up to. I also just did a quick stash killing project the other day for my cousin.

A mitered Kindle cover. You know why I chose it right? Because there was a button involved. Plus it helped me get rid of some stash and I’m all about that this year. Finishing projects and getting rid of yarn. Actually, I have a good idea for getting rid of some yarn and I really need to follow through on these ideas lately. Stop getting so sidetracked.

Plus our brief encounter with colder weather is making me so excited for knitting! Well for project doing in general. The other day I actually completed two sewing projects– and I’m not a fan of sewing. So something is in the air.

And on the home front? We had a window special built for an odd shaped window in our bedroom. This had always been a random dream/fantasy I had growing up and I never expected it to come true but maybe this is the house where dreams happen. (barf? But kind of cute, right?)

Granma’s house

It’s actually a house that was built by my great grandparents. They even built on a sauna. Although you almost need to have something like that, living in Minnesota. My Granma was getting rid of some of the things in her basement and just some of her things in general, so I made a video about the things that I brought back from her house.

She also showed me her most recently finished project. A scarf for a woman who mentioned wanting something with a zig-zag pattern. Granma actually whipped this scarf up off the top of her head, no pattern or anything!

I’m always so impressed with her knitting. Actually, I usually just so impressed with her.

She then took the leftover yarn and made a headband up, just to get the most out of the whole experience. When I told her I liked it she said, “of course you do, there’s a button on it.”

It got my ears zero to roasty-toasty in one minute flat.

In other news, I took a picture of my sock yarn and tried to get it all in once place.

It’s hard not to slip into denial. Say, oh that doesn’t look so bad. But then I remembered that I had two suitcases and my sock yarn used to reside in the smaller of the two cases. Now it’s in the bigger of the two and, to be honest,

the lid doesn’t even close anymore! It’s not like I can just take some of the sock yarn out and put it in the smaller case either. I’ve already filled the smaller one up with lace yarn. So, I really need to put my head down and commit to Stash Killers even more now. Guess I’ll go ahead and wrap this up with a picture of myself from the car.

Love ya!

-Lindsey

Meet Ernie!

So lately I’ve had a big FAIL! word bubble over my head. One day when I got home though, I found this guy waiting for me:

This is our new member of the family: Ernie. He was crocheted by my awesome Granma. You might remember her from previous posts. She pops up a lot. She’s cool like that, you know with her extra Granma senses and powers.

As much as I was willing to embrace Ernie almost instantly as a member of our family, the cats were a little weary. Which is weird. I mean, I thought cats and crocheted dogs went together like peas and carrots…

Can’t they take out all their aggression towards real dogs on his durable crocheted exterior? These are the hardball questions I ask every day. Along with questions like: why aren’t my projects knitting themselves?

Shmoo needs to get over herself. I mean a levitating crocheted wiener dog is a pretty normal occurance around here. I’m starting to worry whether or not she’s getting along alright. Then I see her sprawled out in the most random places, like right in the middle of the floor-

-and I figure, she’s fitting in fine.

Ernie’s ready to hit the road:

Pumpkin Show here we come!

A disturbing experience.

Okay, so first of all I want you to know that I have been so lazy lately. So I’ll show you the knitting first so you don’t have to skip down to see it.

My good intentions scarf.

I had such high optimistic hopes for this scarf. Had the yarn for a year, its just been sitting around… It was supposed to be for a brother in law for Christmas and I thought, I can do it!

Turns out I can’t. Since I knit so many scarves the first few years I was knitting it turns out that I’m totally burnt out on them. Even though sweaters are just big scarves with shaping, I’m still mildly interested in the sweater I’m knitting…

My progress so far…

See, I haven’t taken any pictures of it lately because the work is slow and unimpressive. Also, for some reason in this picture it looks like I decreased or something but really I’ve been adding stitches in whenever I felt like it. I’m just making all sorts of bad decisions when it comes to this thing!

Oh yeah and Baldy? He just sits in his bag crying.

People were getting all crazy and demanding with their Christmas “requests” but luckily Granma was there to save the day! My MIL is a bit of a… over reactor? She was creeped out by the fact that all the Barbies in her house are naked. What else are Barbies supposed to be? Whatever, Granma to the rescue!

Oh yes and my personal favorite, it’s Hammer Time:

How amazing are those pants??

Okay, so in other news: I’m seriously frightened to go out to dinner anymore.

Earlier this week we went to Longhorn, for what I was hoping was going to be a delicious meal. What I got was pop spilled in my lap and a pretty unapologetic waitress. If you’ve been to one of these steakhouses or types of steakhouse, you can verify that their glasses hold a lot of liquid. a lot. She went to go get a towel and mumbled one “I’m sorry” and I kind of grumbled… it’s okay? Although it wasn’t okay. She completely got me and they had sat us right next to a door (another complaint of mine, since it was pretty much empty when we got there, why did we get sat next to the door…?) so I was pretty much freezing.

Did a manager show up to ask if everything was okay? No. The hostess watched it all happen and didn’t do anything either. They were all talking to the waitress like they were all BFF’s. She brought me some chicken fingers and dropped one of those two and was just like, oops! Seriously- worst waitress ever. She was completely uncaring about treating us like crap. Every time I looked for a manager to complain to, nothing. There was a guy who looked like a manager, who I’d make eye contact with and then he’d go the other way. This place was ridiculously shady.

Then the final insult? She charged me for the drink.

Anyways, I emailed them and got ahold of the district manager who assured me that’s not how they typically do things and would I like some gift cards…? Did my pants need dry cleaned? Am I going to murder everyone who works there? Honestly, when people give you the worst possible service, why is it always protocol to give them gift cards to get them back in again? Why not just refund their original meal? Anyways, supposedly I’ll be getting some giftcards and we’ll probably use them at a different location to see what the deal is. (If you live in or near Columbus- NEVER go to the one at 161 and Cleveland.) The real burn is that we went waaay out of our way, passing other better steakhouses (Texas Roadhouse) to get to this one to have dinner with my mom.

Also, since I’ve been insanely lazy (you have no idea how bad I’ve gotten) and haven’t been cooking ANY food, we’ve been going out a lot this week. Last night was our first time going to Jason’s Restaurant and Bar… I feel like this blog post is getting long since there haven’t been any pictures for a couple of words, so I’ll skip right to the reason I’m terrified right now. We ordered potstickers and they were the most delicious potstickers I’ve had, maybe ever. However, we get to one and guess what? There was a metal shaving on the bottom of it!

A freaking metal shaving guys!

Why does the food industry just have it out for me? I think it’s telling me to be less snarky or something… otherwise they’re going to kill me through sharp metal things in my food, or through hypothermia from spilled drinks combined with being next to a door in winter. Yikes!

At least at this place the waiter was awesome. He was upset, explained how it had happened (metal wok, metal wisk = internal bleeding) and comped our wonderful potstickers. Then made a joke about it, which put me at ease and we finally got some attention.

I’m not a food critic, I just eat out when I can, so you can disregard this next part. Something about Jason’s was totally not jiving with me. First of all, it was really busy, there were these huge parties there and they were all quite loud. So I’m not about to blame them for the Really Loud Person (RLP) that was next to us. Not only was she an RLP but she was also a clapper. I mean, she clapped about every two minutes. Like we were at a concert or something.

The thing was, the acoustics in the restaurant were just bad. I’m not the type of person to notice that kind of thing either- unless something is really wrong. Well it was really wrong. On one half of the booth we were in, it was so loud you couldn’t hear the other person. On the other half it was still kind of loud but it wasn’t too bad and it made you go… why is the person across from me yelling?

Jason’s seems like the kind of place where the owner, Jason, makes really good food. However… that doesn’t necessarily mean you should have a restaurant. The parking, like all parking in Old Dublin, sucked. It was really loud. It seemed like a nice place and all but then they had white sheets of paper on the table. That takes the class right out. The acoustics were messed up and there was a metal shaving in my food. However, the food was really good. I think we might go back… on a night that’s really dead. Although, I wouldn’t order what I got because it kind of sucked, since it’s me… and there was probably rat poison in it or something.

You’ll never take me alive food industry!