down time

the bosses are all out of town. this in no way means that i have no work to do. however, it does mean i have a prayer in hell of getting my office organized this week, something i am dying to do. also it means i can get out of work a tad early and get home to the making of dinner (relaxing), and the couch (relaxing), and the watching of some battlestar galactica, to which the hippie and i have become addicted (also relaxing). i have had a headache for about a week, and i think the time has come to take steps to de-stress and get rid of that thing. tonight's going to be my night to sit, knit, and go to bed early. whoo hoo!

and tomorrow's my birthday, by the way--i keep forgetting... happy birthday to me.

roller coaster

man, this week! it's all up and down. the hippie's birthday was tuesday, and he loved his gifts--at least the ones that made it here on time! on the other hand he's sick. i've had long conversations with well-loved and old friends. on the other hand, it's mostly because some of us are going through a tremendously shitty time, and the others of us are rallying around them. it SUCKS watching your friends deal with the hard parts of life. stuff in the yard is blooming. except for the stuff that's dying instead. i am getting caught up at work, but my concentration level is for shit. i am just all over the place. oh yeah, and the car? seven hundred and fifty-one smackers. but hey--it's running now! so yeah. enough talk--let's look at pretty stuff!

the hibiscus bush that gave not a single flower last summer is bloming up a storm. it's been hot as balls lately, and this thing loves it! we will not speak of how much water it needs, and we will not tell the town how much we give it, either. but we will speak of the vibrancy and beauty of these flowers. i love them so much! and at long last, the crepe myrtle tree in the front yard has revealed itself as a white tree. i have mixed feelings about this. i generally prefer my crepe myrtles to be colorful because the white ones start to look like they have mud spashed on them when they begin to fade. that said, it sure is lovely right now! the flowers are so clean and delicate! this baby is just getting revved up, and promises to bloom like crazy in spite of my fears that the frost had killed it off. what is it about flowers? no matter how crappy i feel, flowers make me feel better.

and so does yarn!!!

jaeger, sadly, is going out of business. this means that webs is selling their yarn in super-cheap close-out prices! as you see--i stocked up. a few of these balls of yarn are for meredith, but most are for me! whoo hoo! it's all good baby sweater/dress amounts of wool and cotton in many colors with the exception of that stuff in the bag that's hiding in the back--that's 2000 yards of matchmaker 4-ply in anthracite, which someday... a day a long time from now... will be come a fine cabled sweater for me.

stupid car, redux

car has a oil leak that's going to cost me a bunch of smackers. suck. i'm getting to that point where i am like--the car is 10 years old and has almost 150k miles on it. it's sliding down the hill into old age and infirmity. when do i replace it? what to i replace it with?? a new honda civic? a used something or other? heh--a mini cooper??! i know i will end up with something practical and economical, because that's how i roll on the car thing. but man--i don't WANT a car payment! bleh! *whine*

dear car,

please last another year before you croak for good and please don't cost me thousands of dollars in the meantime. and if you could eject the tape you have eaten, i would really appreciate that as well. and also, please take a bath--you are NASTY!

love,
jackie

just thinkin'

so i was just looking for something back in my archive, and made the mistake of clicking on last november. i forgot i had actually written a post every day of that month, and then i got lost re-reading what i had written and remembering everything. compare that to this summer, and well--i should really write more posts. it's actually kind of cool to have that whole record back there, and i find i enjoy re-reading the snippets more than the long tomes i tend to write. there's no real point to this post--i was just thinking about it, this whole bloggety thing we do. i'm sure not tired of it yet, but i wonder occasionally if i am maybe just a TAD narcissistic. but then--i guess you have to be to start a blog in the first place, right? anyway...

knittin' for littles

i've been running around like a mad-woman latey, and work has been kicking my ass--thus the lack of posts. even so, i've been knitting when i can, even though i have way less time for it than usual. i spent some time this past weekend project-wranging and trying to assess my overall knitting progress. i haven't gone ANYWHERE on the baltic sea stole as it takes all my concentration not to mess up. some people won't let me work on it on sundays because they think i am BORING when i knit it--it's probably true. however, i have been making some headway. get ready for a long post about knitting! (tom, you may as well stop reading now...)

this is the garter stitch baby cardigan from simple knits for cherished babies, which, if you recall, i hae made before. i really love this pattern, and i like how it comes out with this mission falls 1824 cotton. it's a heavier gauge yarn than the pattern calls for, which makes for a sturdier garment; i like that in a cardigan. it's got a wonderful hand, and the colors are fabulous--they remind me of beach glass. i am also all about these little wooden buttons. i think this will look smashing on kimmie's new baby boy, matthew!

this is the same sweater as the cardigan above, but this one's for baby matthew's twin sister katherine (katie). these itty bitty babies are only a couple of weeks old and are quite a long way away from fitting into these sweaters, so i am not in a gigantic hurry to get them finished. (plus--hello? it's a hundred degrees out, even way up north in michigan!) however, they're fun to knit, so they are going quickly anyway! i can't decide which of these two buttons to use on katie's sweater, although i am leaning heavily toward the green ones. you can't tell from the picture, but the grey ones are actually iridescent shell buttons, and also look smashing. any opinions would be welcome and appreciated.

ah, ella's hoodie. i finally sucked it up and did the finishing work on this on sunday. i am embarrassed to say that i have procrastinated sewing up the casing for the drawstring on the hood and finding a button for this thing since NOVEMBER! ugh! seriously, people--that's just crazy. that said, i think this might be one of my favorite things i have ever knitted. i LOVE the noro silk garden and the way the colors just fade into each other. (look at this detail!) i am going to block this tonight, and hopefully ship it off to little ella in a couple of days. it's going to swallow her whole, but that's kind of the idea. hopefully, she will be able to wear it for a couple of seasons.

yet another basket weave baby blanket made from paton's melody. i just keep knitting this thing--it's so fast and practical, it's almost hard not to! this one's for our friends, jeff and carrie's new son isaac who was born in may. i knitted this in two days, and then it took me a month to get around to weaving in the ends. i picked something bright this time, just to try something different, and as you see--there's some pooling and flashing going on up there. it doesn't really bother me, but it's something to consider if you are thinking about using this yarn for anything.

in addition to all this, i am also about 2/3 of the way through yet another felted bag, this time in red. that's my current knitting-in-the-dark project for. you know--movies, road trips at night, and such. i also started another baby blanket for a co-worker who will be having a second squeaker in january. that one's my knitting-in-front-of-the-tv project. and there's still the baltic sea stole in the wings as well--that one will be on hold until i can find a day to myself somewhere in my crazy life.

in other, un-knitting-related news, the hippie's been away at a conference since last saturday, and it's time for him to come home. i miss him! look how cute he is knittng me some pippi kneestockings. how i do love my man!

beautiful

a couple of weekends ago, we took the kid home to pennsylvania. it's been like 3 years since we have been up there when it wasn't winter: cold, rainy/snowy with iron grey skies and ice on the ground. i forgot how beautiful it can be in the summer, with the blooming and the ripening and the sunshine and the kitties. i think we managed to hit the Perfect Weekend up there. i took a lot of pictures, which i will now attempt to show off, using this pictobrowser thingy i discovered on another blog. let's see if it works.



ok, so there are a couple of scaling issues to work out. not to get too technified, this thing wants to be 500 pixels wide, and my template only allows for 400. when i try to scale it, things are getting a little pixelated. there must be a way around that, but it's going to take some time to figure out. till i get to that, here's a link to the set on flickr, if you feel like having better picture quality: click here for the set. oh, and for good measure, here's a link to the un-pixelated pictobrowser thingy too: click here for the un-pixelated pictobrowser.