Friday, July 20, 2007

you can't make this stuff up

today i made a ninja strike on the grocery store to get tampons. ii saw this great bottle of wine we like on mega sale (ravenswood sonoma county old vine zinfandel—yum!), so of course i grabbed it. as an afterthought, i added a couple of those hershey's dark chocolate and almond nugggets. so i went to get in the checkout line. there were two women in front of me.

the first woman was buying the following: a six-pack of bud, a box of kotex maxi pads, and a 2-pound bag of peanut M&M's.

the second one was buying a 4-pack of peach wine coolers, a box of tampax tampons, and a snickers bar.

and then me.

funny.

and now, we're on the road to PA to deliver the kid back home. the kid's in a foul, foul mood, angry to be leaving in spite of having declared that he wanted to stay another week. can you believe how MEAN we are?!

the trip is being made easier by the spontaneous last-minute purchase of the audio book of harry potter and the order of the phoenix. the book? 75 bucks. the peace? priceless!

ps—writing from my phone, so please forgive my typos. (not that y'all aren't used to those...)

Friday, July 13, 2007

poor kid!

being an insta-parent for a cople of weeks isn't all fun and games. the kid is sick. i've filled him up with ibuprofen and apple juice and piled him on the couch with chicken soup, tissues, blannkets, pillows, cough drops, and a big glass of water. he's watching the mummy and will probably talk me into a sequel before i stick him into the bed for the night. the sad thing here is that he's probably not going to get to go sailing with his big brother and harry tomorrow, which blows--i feel bad for him. anyone with good tips for entertaining a sick 10-year-old, feel free to pass them along.

Wednesday, July 11, 2007

sum-sum-summertime...

it's summer alright. i can tell by how days and days go by without me writing any blog posts, and i end up SHOCKED and APPALLED that i have been so slack. but then the truth is that i have NOT been slack--i have just been running my ass ragged. we have the hippie's family in this week, so i have been focussed on them and not my own pursuits. in fact, we've put the hippie's baby brother, who is only 10 years old (almost 11!) into camp here for two weeks, so we'll have him till the 21st. so far, he's liking camp, which is awesome--he's been home schooled till now and hasn't spent a ton of time with other children, so the camp thing was either going to be pure love or pure hate. i am so glad for him that it seems to be LOVE! hopefully this will help him adjust to going to a public school this fall--just being on a tight schedule is something of a shock to his system. it's kind of funny, having this kid in the house--i feel like an insta-parent a little bit. i am sure that feeling is going to get worse when his mother leaves tomorrow. heh, maybe this is good for me, too! we'll see--ask me in a week! :)

in other news--DAMN, it's hot! thank the sweet baby jesus for air conditioning.

in still other news--those rocking chairs are getting a WORKOUT. it already seems like there aren't enough of them. and we should have gotten a smaller one for G--that's clear.

in knitting-related news--i am back to work on the sweaters for kimmie's soon-to-be-born babies, since thery are you know, soon-to-be-born. the blue one's almost done... the green one's yet to be begun. poor neglected baltic sea stole. poor neglected project spectrum. poor sock, resting in it's cool dark bag waiting for october when i have decided i will knit socks and nothing else. poor bags in need of felting. poor ella's hoodie that's ben done except for sewing up the casing for--oh--about 7 months. do all knitters have this problem?

and last but not least, a moment of extreme sadness for crazy aunt purl--laurie's lost her sweet kitty, roy, and every time i think about it, i start to cry. i keep reliving the horrible day when my mean josephina died in my lap. losing a pet just blows, especially when one has seen you through a lot of time and rough patches. hugs for laurie today, people.

Thursday, July 05, 2007

front porch livin'

rocking chairs

bistro set
one of the major selling points of our house was the front porch. we are front porch people. all my life, i have heard my mother longing for a big front porch, and since i moved back to raleigh, i have made it a point to try to have one. even our old apartment had a good one, and believe me, we used the heck out of it! this is something that people not from the South don't always understand, but let me tell you--there is no better place to relax than in a comfy rocking chair out on the front porch, especially if you have a big glass of iced tea, a bowl of cold grapes, and a ceiling fan. last weekend (which the hippie and i have been referring to as "the weekend of acquisition") we bought 3 brand new rocking chairs and two little tables for the porch. they were made here in NC and sold by a cool old guy at the local flea market--our favorite. add them to the wonderful little bistro set that i inherited from my grandmother's house, and the porch is really coming together. we even have homes for the bugs of benefit we bought years ago. i want to pick up a few more plants and some wind chimes to complete the environment out there, but it's already becoming my favorite place to be in the whole house. there's already been some knittin', some readin', some drinkin', and the smoking of a cigar or two out there. the porch tells me that it's really summer. i may not go inside till fall.

Wednesday, July 04, 2007

baltic sea stole, the early years

my, time certainly flies by, doesn't it? especially in the summer, when we are tremendously busy and there is so much going on. you can expect a few catching-up style posts today, as i have the day off. :)

blue heron beaded rayon

blueberry yarn cake

lace on the porch

last sunday, i finally got a chance to sit and knit for a whole day, something i haven't managed in months! i now have a good foothold (knock on wood!) on the baltic sea stole. the pattern is from fiber trends (designed by faina letoutchaia) and calls for a sport weight mohair, but i didn't want to knit it with anything that fuzzy. there's a beautiful sample shawl at my LYS that's made out of this super soft alpaca from curious creek fibers, which is what made me want to knit this pattern. however, the LYS doesn't have that yarn in any colors i love, and upon further investigation, i decided that the yarn was also way too inconsistently dyed for its cost. it's soft as hell, but i don't know--not really worth it. i found some yarn i like even better at bella filati a few weeks ago, this beaded rayon from blue heron yarns. neither THK or i were certain about how well this yarn would do with lace, but so far, it seems to be about perfect. the proof will be in the blocking, but that, my friends, is a long way away. even though the yarn is turning my hands and my needles blue as the beejeezus when i knit with it. however, the results are so soft and drapey, i am finding it hard to care too much. i'm knitting on size 9 straights and it's working out pretty well. the only downside is that i have to seriously concentrate on the pattern. THK and amy spent all day sunday giving me crap for not talking as much as usual and begging me to go back to working on washcloths, but i wasn't about to waste a whole day NOT working on it, especially after the whole train debacle. now that i am getting further into it, the pattern is starting to make more sense to me. i can see the structure, and the repeat is burning itself into my brain. hopefully the concentration level can drop to something like 87% in the very near future. i am afraid this thing is going to take me a year to knit, but i just don't care. i am loving it!

the beginnings