Is it fixed?

Big sigh.  We've been having recurrent frequent issues with both the cable service and internet service, for ...well, I guess it's actually been over a month.  The tech guy came out again yesterday morning, rearranged connections & oh hey -- found a cable incorrectly hooked up by the last tech guy that was here (on the 20th!  we like to keep them busy...).  So we are functional again.  I hope this lasts more than a few days.  Yesterday afternoon I finally got to see the Battle of the Bastards on GOT.  Hopefully, we'll be able to watch the finale tonight.  Oh, that is soul-crushing!  It's such a long wait to see more of this series!  Or even to read the rest of the story; George Martin needs to have his arse glued to the seat in front of his computer.  I'm sure he can afford to hire someone to attend to his food & drink while he's BUSY.  Quit goofin' off, George!
Knitting news:  I think I did some actual sleep-knitting on the Camping Half Circle shawl.  I was going over the last row 'coz I thought I'd missed a yarn-over (yep, I did), but then I found a dropped stitch about three rows down, and then I found four more dropped stitches further along that row.  So, I frogged back to the row before the doubling increase, and I'm on track again.  Lesson learned: when I start yawning over the knitting, it's time to put it down!  This morning I've been cruising Ravelry for some simple fingerless mitts.  One of the imagers at Box O'Docs has offered me some purple iris bulbs, and I'd like to make her some mitts in return.  It's pretty darn cold in Imaging, everyone working there stays wrapped up in blankies or ponchos, but none seem to have mitts.  I just happen to have some brilliant teal Caron Simply Soft, 2 skeins bought on an impulse, which could become several pairs of fingerless mitts, in several different patterns.  Team Imaging, FTW!
Disco went to another job fair during the week, and seems cautiously hopeful of becoming employed. She's got to get work, because she ran up a big bill at the dentist's office.  Her pay from working at Amazon is about gone.  Welcome to adulthood, Disco.

Let's not forget why I started blogging

It was to show off & brag about my knitting!  So, for the first time since I got on Ravelry back in '08, I'm actually participating in a knit along.  I'm in the Cowls group, and for the January theme we're suppose to work on "something new" to us as knitters.  It could be a yarn that I've never handled, or a technique I've never used, or what ever is outside my usual knitting "envelope".  I have always wanted to try double knitting, and had just serendipitously come across the Allotrope cowl by Lindsey Freeman.  I cast on for it New Year's Day, and have so far worked about 5.5 rows of the patterning.  I'm really glad I had some experience with stranded knitting & holding a yarn in each hand, as that has been the key to getting this project moving.

Oh, and it is a double whammy, as I've never knit with Rowan Pure Wool Superwash DK yarn before.  New technique + new yarn = interesting knitting.

And I think I'll find this a useful item, as it's been colder than that chunk of brass folks are always putting in a snow bank, at my desk.  

And of course I'm still working on Mi Kara, which is from a Drops free pattern.  Shh, don't say anything to the Plaidman, but I'm trying to buy some yarn from another Raveller.  See, I've got about half the amount of this yarn that I need for a particular project.  If I can get these skeins from one Raveller, and a few more from another Raveller, I'll have enough!  Cross your fingers.  

Teehee!  I just got this shirt from the Ravelry mini-mart.  I'd never ordered anything from Rav, but when I read the story I thought it was too funny, and had to have the names of many sheep breeds shirt.  You can see the error, running up my left chest.

Disco has been offered the chance to convert from a temp to a permanent position at Amazon, which I sure hope she'll jump on like a duck on a june bug.  Let's hope she's smart about it.

Happy Thanksgiving!

First off, I have to say I'm thankful I'm still here.  No one of us knows when our time is up, but that is something I'm always trying to plan for.  And now (drumroll) something really special to be thankful for (really BIG drumroll!) -- DiscoDame has got a job!  She's gone in today -- yes, on the holiday; she'll be paid double-time -- for her second day on the job.  She rather liked it yesterday, although it was a long day.  However, she's not at all sure she can keep up with her online course of study (sad trombone), so may have to shelve that for a while.  But goodness, she'll be able to get insurance and pay Social Security and Medicare taxes (and have those programs available to her at need).  Well, she has got insurance; I just paid her premium for December.  But it would be so wonderful if she'd pay for it out of her money instead of her parents'!   And she's taking a step in the right direction, as far as her future independence.  I keep telling her that neither Plaidman nor I will be around much longer.
The Plaidman started cooking last night, making us a pumpkin-pecan bread pudding for dessert.  He's got a small turkey breast to plop into the slow-cooker.  I don't know what else is planned.  I'm guessing that peas with pearl onions will show up, along with some sort of potatoes.

I've been working on a poncho, a Drops design called Kara poncho.  I actually started it a couple of weeks ago, and had ten rounds done when it became obvious that the thing was twisted on my circular needle.  So, it got frogged and now I'm at about 8 rows in, and it looks ok.  Not great, just ok.  It's the yarn, Roslyn by Cascade.  Lovely in the store, very deep red & very tweedy.  But it looks like red string with lots of dryer lint stuck to it, when it's pulled out of the skein. And it sheds tweed neps like mad!  I'm having trouble envisioning this as my poncho.

Shh!  Don't tell Plaidman, but I bought a huge bunch of MadTosh yarn from another Raveler.  3 colors of the 80-10-10 worsted, just lovely stuff.  I haven't received it yet, should have it on Monday if all goes according to plan.  We got refunded some dough from medical bills, I guess insurance kicked in some more on them so I got back part of what I paid.  Anyway, I've just spent a bit under half of the refund on this yarn.   Hey when I break a yarn moratorium, I really smash it.  

Weekend To-Do's

I'm hoping Disco & I can go over to the costume shop today, and get some medieval gowns for All Hallows.  I don't want to do a lot of walking and/or standing around to accomplish this!  And I would prefer not spending a small fortune for these -- I'm hoping to rent rather than buy! 
Well, that plan has already hit a snag -- the shop closes super early on Saturday.  I will have to go after work next Tuesday & get the family to meet me there (I have a feeling I'll need a dresser).
This week I've been digging deeper into the jewelry boxes, for some oldies but goodies.  The Plaidman & I went on a canyon vacation out west many, many years ago.  One of the mementos I've kept is a little choker of bugle beads, turquoise chips, and a shell -- it's older than DiscoDame!

And, appropriately, I wore it with paisley!  The earring featured in the middle pic is one (of a pair, of course) that Disco made for me, I just love them.  And check out the sweater chain!  I found that in an antique shop, and boy howdy was it a rare find.  I'd been looking at antique shops, yard sales, and just wherever I thought I might find one.  I can't wait till November...when I can get a haircut!
The Plaidman & I went over to the library, to verify that he can pick up held books I've requested.  While there, I found French Girl Knits Accessories.  Some nice stuff...makes me wonder why I haven't already bought it!  I mean, accessories are just perfect for giftables -- tiny, portable, not much of an investment in yarn...Although I think the yarn buying moratorium has expired.

Busy and not

I thought I would be working this Saturday, but we're caught up in coding, so I took the day off.  Woot!  We went out -- on this rainy chilly windy day -- to High Meadows Alpaca Farm in Leiper's Fork.  The first thing I did there was to buy a chullo, because my hair was braided back and my ears were f-f-freezing!  Of course, I didn't get any pictures of it until we were in the car on the way home:

Car Selfies!

It made the visit a lot more pleasant.  We (Disco & I) did manage to get one alpaca to come right up to the fence, after the owner gave us her name.  And isn't that just the cutest thing, that she knows her name!  Meet Cinderella, a lovely chocolate color alpaca, and her two nameless buds:

Oh, their faces are so darn cute!  Got these little mop-tops, and big eyes beneath.  

"Don't hate me because I'm beautiful."

These two ladies had been shopping, and had an alpaca figure covered, of course, in alpaca hair -- and Cinderella wanted to check it out.

When the rain started getting serious, the alpacas in the meadow came down to the shed -- and that tall fella there is a llama, likely their big defender and leader.  I got a lot of video of several more of these cuties, but my vids are all too big for Blogger use.  

I went shopping too!  I have a large skein of bronze alpaca lace weight, and two small balls of bronze alpaca & wool fingering.  I had a brilliant idea that I could make a bronze chain for my Halloween costume, out of I-cord links of one or both of these bronzey yarns!  Quicker than knitting a shawl, and certainly lighter in weight than actual bronze chains.  If only I liked making I-cord...hmm, come to think of it, I've got a spool knitter that would make it a little quicker still.  That's the ticket.

Oh, BTW, the Weekday Outfits Challenge page has been updated.  I gotta figure out a way to make separate posts on that page, or maybe put all that stuff on a separate blog?  There doesn't seem to be an easy way to post there like posting here.  

It's too pretty

Our weather has finally decided to change over to "spring-like", temp was 65F earlier with almost no clouds in the blue blue sky.  We have these odd paper cell shades in the living room, which were here when we moved it.  They are really rather nifty, as they'll adjust up from the bottom, or down from the top.  We had light without sacrificing privacy, an important consideration in a housing development!  Alas, the middle one had a complete failure last night, coming unglued from the top frame.  Plaidman & I went down to a local home improvement store for a replacement, although we have not a clue who made these.  We did find paper cell shades, in the right width, but without the nifty feature of the ones we had.  And we could have as many of those shade as we wanted, as long as we wanted them in "champagne" color -- which looked rather dark to me.  They only had one shade in solid ecru (ours are a lighter base color with a print of fine lines).  The clerk thought they'd have more in store in a few weeks, so we brought home the one they had.  But I didn't even want to come home!  It's too pretty outside to be cooped up inside!  While we were shopping, we picked up some nice drapery rod sets, so we can hang the drapes & sheers we bought (two months ago?) at another store's sale.  That's entailed hanging the rods, and figuring out that we need one more bracket for the living room.  Lordy, my man has lint in his head.  He was getting all upset about that extra bracket, saying the store was unlikely to open up one of the drapery kits just to get us one bracket.

ETA: Well, that was last weekend... and I never did come back to publish it.  I've been thinking about this post all week (when I wasn't too frazzled to rub two thoughts together...it's been a WEEK).  I was interrupted right there in my story about our lovable goofy Plaidman, when Disco told me he was on her phone.  He was calling from the home improvement store, with a problem.  Seems he opened the trunk of his car to look for a tool, setting his keys down in the trunk,  When he had the tool, he closed the trunk with, you guessed it, his keys inside.  Thank goodness he had his phone.  So he called & I had to run out to the store's parking lot with spare keys; which would probably have worked a lot better if I'd remembered to take the spares with me.  Grrr...turn around, run back home & get the keys, back to the store.  All this to hang sheers that I've decided are a) too dark and b) too short for the living room windows.  And I guess he & I are two of a kind in our modest goofiness.

In the Knitting Knews, I'm still working on my Color Affection, elebenty million garter stitches relieved by M1L, M1R, and short rows.  I know why I have such a hard time with large projects: I have a life outside my knitting!  Yep, working full time sure cuts into the knitting time.  I'm forever finding sweaters or shawls or afghans on Ravelry, that I'd really like to make if it wouldn't mean spending months on each item.  I call this Glacial Knitting, as that's about the speed of it.  And I've been so sorely tempted by yarn sales lately; this is usually the first sign of startitis so I'm resisting the urge to spend on yarn.  However, I'm still buying magazines:  just bought some back issues of one mag, and re-upped my subscription to another.

The calm before the storm

Last Friday I submitted to a CT-guided biopsy of one bony mass on my hip.  Dog, that was one unpleasant experience. For starters, I had no pre-op instruction such as "Do not eat!", so I ate a cup of yogurt at 5 a.m.  The procedure was scheduled for 8 a.m., and I had to arrive at 6 a.m. for all the paperwork processing, and to allow the radiologist to view the CD of my earlier CT & MRI scans.  Hey, I had a greatest hits CD!!  Folks who know me, know I cope with humor -- even very bad humor.  As soon as my breakfast became known, the service was postponed to 11 a.m.  I was confined to a very uncomfortable gurney from about 7 to 11.  The only bright spot was finding Shark Week on the Discovery Channel (we're Luddites, and haven't got cable at home), very cheering altho rather bloody.  The rest of the Plaid Patrol was present, but took turns running down to the cafeteria for breakfast.  Some 36 years ago, I herniated a lumbar disc, and have not been able to lay on my stomach since then.  So, when I finally rolled into the CT procedure room, I was appalled to learn that I'd have to be on my tummy for the whole thing.  And the CT table is very hard.  They kept promising me some good drugs, otherwise I think I would have made a run for it.  So, I'm on my tum, with an extra cushion under said tum, and the gown opened in back, and the nurse tells me the table is defective in that it won't slide back under the CT scanner unless I can pull my arms off the edge to a "Superman" pose -- does she know I've got a broken C-7 vertebra?  Much groaning followed.  Well, the whole thing took about 40 minutes, and the drugs were good; I dozed a bit near the end.  I  had no pain from the needle aspiration biopsy itself, but every core collected involved a loud crunch -- let's try not to think about that too much.  This Friday, I'll discuss the results with my Alpha Team Leader (oncologist), and we'll make some plan.  Enough of this topic.
Yesterday I found a "fatal error" in the second sleeve of the Gramps Cardi, so it's been frogged & restarted.  I looked at a lot of my knitting books & magazines yesterday; I still have so much to knit and possibly even less time to do so.  I surely wish I could get Disco interested in knitting, I hate to think my rather large knitting library and collection of yarn will go to some stranger.  Maybe I should consider destashing? 

Discuss among yourselves

Hello Hokitka.  Hello whomever reads this in San Antonio; wish you'd comment!  I really like San Antonio a lot, been there several times and always find some fun. 
The Peerless Bunny Hop has been shipped off to its new owner & intended recipient, Princess T.  I sent it inside another gift for her (& for Sis, sort of), a storage bench that is, if not spot on, a really close match for the off-white furnishings of the Princess' room.  See, I usually sleep in her room when I visit -- it's full of toys, and some nice girly furniture, but the bed is super high (I'm only 5'1") and unsuitable for seating, and the only chairs are all tiny kids' chairs with the seats about 1' from the floor.  It's kinda hard for a "traditionally built" gal to use those chairs while trying to get into her trousers or socks & shoes.  So...I bought a sturdy storage bench for T's room.  Shipping cost about two thirds again the price of the item, but it  was quite a bit less than the Postal Service wanted. 
The Plaidman has been under the weather since mid February, having been hospitalized twice and had two procedures.  Dog, he's just falling apart since he retired!  And couldn't wait on this mess until his Medicare starts....oh well.  I think he's finally getting serious about his diet, at least.  Nothing like being kept fasting for long periods, with a threat of liquid diet only after, to make you think about what you put in your mouth! 
Hopefully, DiscoDame will be attending a job fair this afternoon.  Let's all think good thoughts for both her & The Plaidman, please. 

Picture Time -- check yer cowlick, honey

The sun came out for a few minutes, so we have picture time! I recently restarted a pair of socks in my size, in a very citrusy colorway. This is Red Heart’s Heart & Sole, but as the ballband is long gone I couldn’t tell you a color # or name. I’m working Mellis’ Socks from Kristin Benecken/Wollkistchens Pattern, and I think they look great in this colorway:

I also restarted the Steeler’s (Claudia’s Hand Painted) socks for my Dad, using a pattern called Cenotes by Linda Jo Park aka The Bead Knitter, because the 2X2 ribbing was just too boring for words. I haven’t gotten very far, but already like this pattern a whole lot better:

And I kinda fell down the rabbit hole, agreeing to make a woolly headband for a coworker’s niece. I’m “winging it” as far as a pattern, having only a picture of something the niece admired. The yarn is called Bazinga, by Patons. It’s very bright! The first pic was indoors, at night, and doesn’t do the yarn justice:

Hmm, I just realized that I didn’t get a picture of the button that will close this headband. Maybe next time; the clouds have already rolled back overhead.

Plaidman & I have had another discussion about his unilateral decisions, and the benefit that might be derived from running his ideas past another adult with a stake in the outcome, like his wife, and maybe he’ll remember that the next time he wants to make a major change in our financial or mental health status. Nothing like stressing the wife to the near-breaking point is to occur, ever again (dream on….).

So far, I’ve bought 3 Christmas presents for DiscoDame and none at all for the Plaidman, but there is a plan. Disco & I did go shopping last night at Stein Mart, and I found some shoes I liked, and I bought them. Don’t look at me that way; I needed some dressy brown heels.

Here they are!

I've got pictures of the stitch markers DiscoDame created for our giveaway. I'll let you look; the first commenter on the "Cha-cha-changes" post earlier this month will get to pick one of these two sets:




I had a really hard time getting a decent picture of the "tiny" set, which will fit up to 5 mm needles. They are quite simple, just a jump ring with a bead for 5, with 1 ring also having a couple of teeny "crystal" accent beads on their own itty jump rings. The larger set up accomodate up to US sz 13; the beads on 5 are approximately the same size but different shades of green, with the one for the start of your row being a much bigger bead (still green!). Let me be clear: these two sets are the only ones in this month's giveaway. I had to say that, because she's given me another set which is just wonderful, so lovely that I don't want to part with it! Check out this set; she's upcycling buttons!




Now for the really big news: DiscoDame will be co-authoring this blog! Look for her to add her profile (or maybe we have to have a joint profile? IDK; she's the techie so I'll let her sort it out!); she's agreed to allow me editorial control -- which means she's to write up her posts but let me review them before they're published. I am nothing if not a control freak.