Wondering....

if these count as socks for Summer of Socks?

So its a crummy photo, but they are Debbie Bliss' Bunny Baby Booties from her Nursery Knits book. I knit them in Heirloom Easy Care. They are getting easier the more I make them (this is pair four).

I've also started 2 Argosy scarves from Knitty - the first is in a "time out" waiting for more yarn to show up (yes, I dreadfully miscalculated.....) and the second was started to stave off the craving to finish the first one. Since the yarn for scarf 1 showed up today I now have a dilemma.....

Okay - I'm now torn. I, in a moment of weakness, placed an order with Amazon last week. No, I didn't order Harry Potter. I ordered a couple of books - one The Harlequin by Laurel K. Hamilton. And all I want to do is read. I admit - it's 9:00 pm and I just finished my workday (yes, it started at 7:00 am and there was 2 hrs of commuting in there too) but hey - I'm done. So now what....knit.....read....knit.....read. If all decisions were so difficult.

I'll probably put a movie in the DVD player (since TV is just not cutting it tonight) knit for a while and read before I go to bed.

Well - everyone (assuming anyone is reading this!) have a great evening. I'm off to non-computer related activities!

Bright spot

Knitting was accomplished this week! It wasn't as bad as I thought....I finished turning my heel on my July socks and started on an EZ baby surprise sweater for a friend of mine who is due in October. I have a sneaking suspicion that the shower is coming up in the next couple of weeks....good news is it's a quick knit and I bought the buttons when I bought the yarn.

This week is shaping up nicely. Yesterday after many hours of cleaning we are now able to walk through the house with minimal walking over things. Except for around the mound of teenager "stuff" that is still in the living room. He's getting the you clean it or I will tonight with a tomorrow deadline.

Well, no pics of knitting yet.....we just found the camera (or should I say DS just found it). The bunny baby booties have gone to their new home, but I need a second pair so hopefully I can get a pic of them.

Proofs from DS senior pics are available here - http://orserstudio.com/seniors2008/adamhopkins1617/ Votes are in - he's a cutie (if I do say so myself)

There's also been a hardware disaster since last week. We've lost the wireless router.....so I'm sitting here with a laptop hardwired to the modem. On a very hard dining room chair.

Things left to do tonight - 2 letters to knitterly pen pals....ironing (yick), dinner (DS is grilling), more tweaks to furniture in my bedroom - yes, almost done after 3 months! The painting is done, the stash is organized and now it's just the last putting the pieces back!

Hope everyone enjoys their week!

Have I mentioned......

that my job seriously gets in my way? I mean. It's 7:30 pm. I have several hours of work to complete to be just behind instead of pathetically buried. I was in the office, on a conference call at 7am this morning (as I will be for the next SEVERAL weeks). I worked 15 hours over the weekend.

So here I sit on my lovely couch with a crabby teenager (girl trouble) upstairs waiting for dinner to be ready looking at my socks. I have May Day socks. I have the lovely green ones below all needing good photos. Oh - and the bunny baby booties. Then there's the serpentine cable July socks. The first one just about has the heel turned.....not gonna get that done tonight - or anytime this week I suppose. Mothers shouldn't let their babies grow up to e software test specialists. Did I mention my lace tank that the back is half finished? Sniff.

So, hi ho, hi ho it's off to work I go....so maybe I can squeeze in some knitting later!!!!

Ahhh, my June socks are done for the Sockmania KAL. Additionally, because I started these socks on June 24 - the also count for Summer of Socks! Two for one! Wahoo!

Here's the pic -

Photo quality - poor. Sorry. Camera phone. Milk crate - well after the water in my basement, let's leave it at my basement is still living in my living room.....and since it's 12:30 at night, really it was the best I could do.

Fiber is Lang Jawoll superwash in a color I'm calling celery. Unfortunately the label doesn't identify it.

Took DS for his senior pictures today. That was an experience. The first of his senior year. Kind of freaky for the mom. He's a cute kid. The photographer did an amazing job with him.

Mostly dry.....

And the report from the front.......we're pretty much as dry as we're going to get I think. There's one patch of mud under the stairs and it's in a place we really can't get to so I'm thinking it's time to put the panel back up. Close off that area and call it good.

The part of that which worries me is the sand outside. It's been a week. I would expect it was fairly dry outside. Not so much. It's still very damp. Like the waves just washed out on the beach damp. Think foot prints in the sand damp. It worries me a little.

Washer - an F11 error. Dryer - smells like it's burning. Freezer - chugging along like a trooper. Furnace - well, we need to turn it on and see. I fear this activity.

Summer of Socks update - I turned the heel on my first sock of the KAL! Yippee! That means sock 1 is half done. And since I am able to work from home this week - there's hope! I may actually get these socks done for Sockmania and also for Summer of Socks!

Last night DS and I assembled our new grill and cooked hamburgers on it. Pretty exciting. We both recognize we have a ways to go before we can consider ourselves "capable" at grilling. But we're working on it! Pork chops tonight!

Hope everyone is doing well!

The week in review....

So far this week has been a disaster. Follow along -

About 12:30 - 1:00 Sunday night/Monday morning I hear a weird noise outside. Figuring it's a poorly maintained car I don't think too much about it. After about 5 minutes I look out to see what it is. The water main outside has broken. Again. In the same spot as three years ago. Because my entry is below ground level, guess where the water is going. Did you get it in one? DS and I started moving things out immediately. Then we started bailing, and the neighbors started bailing. At the highest I had eight inches of water and mud. We were fortunate to only lose things that for the most part we had planned to send to Goodwill. DS did lose a tote of kids books and VHS tapes but we're inventorying and I'm sure eventually we can replace them. The bad part here is that my utility room is also on that level. Including the furnace, water heater, freezer, washer and dryer. Water heater and freezer seem to be working. Furnace probably needs a new circuit board. Washer and dryer - I haven't gone there yet.....

So we worked from 1am through to 9pm on Monday. While I was waiting for them to repair the main I sat down to eat a granola bar. Bit into a cherry pit that had been kindly left by the manufacturer and broke off a tooth.

Tuesday I thought all was going well. Things seemed to be drying well and I went to shut the garage door. The cable from the door opener broke and the pulley bashed me in the nose. Fortunately I don't think it's broken.

Today. Today also a treat. It rained in Detroit. And I mean RAINED. The drain in front of the garage is still apparently blocked because it backed up into my garage again. SEVERAL frantic phone calls later the township sent a truck to suck it out again. And the dentist - yeah, let's just leave it at I'll be spending some quality time there for the next few months.....

Hope everyone else is doing better.......

Summer of Socks

Bad blogger. Bad joiner. Lately I am just bad, bad, bad.

Case in point - Anni's May Day socks. Loved the pattern once I found yarn I didn't hate. Sock one is in toe decreases. Still no hope of a sock 2.

Anni's River Valley June socks. I just cast them on tonight. Now - Fate must be on my side with this one. I just cast it on. See the title of this post - Summer of Socks. Summer of socks kicked off on June 21.....YAHOO! I may be able to kill 2 birds with this one pair of socks. Assuming I can finish them.

I am hoping that with DS out of school and my bedroom nearing completion (yes, the painting and re-organization that started Easter weekend is almost done). I have however along with the re-org decided that I need to purchase no more fiber. Major fiber diet. I have an appalling number of UFO's and fiber for more projects than I may ever finish. And we won't discuss the amount of sock yarn that includes.

Hi everyone, my name is Barb and I'm officially a fiber junkie......and obviously unable to finish anything.

Hope everyone is having a good end to their weekend and have a great week!

Bad Blogger....

I am SUCH a bad blogger. I was so excited to get this set up and I cannot seem to find the 15 minutes (yes, 15 really not that much time) to keep anyone who may be reading this up to date. So here we go -

School is out. I cannot explain my joy. What does this mean? DS will no longer have those last minute requests. This year those requests have included - bake me a cake for German class, what can you make for our party in English class, I need for , tennis practice/banquet/matches - and so on. We're really just down to fencing and hopefully him getting a job.

Job - I have one. Good news as it allows me to buy yarn and pay the bills so I have some where to keep it.

Yeah. That's really the news. Not much.

The brighter side - The next Socks that Rock club package is on it's way. Summer of Socks starts on Tuesday. The June sock pattern from Anni is lovely.

Then there's Threadbear. A lovely yarn shop in Lansing MI. It is fantastic. Not that I don't love Heritage Spinning and Weaving (my "home" shop) but Threadbear is a lovely, lovely shop. We have planned a trip to the fiber tasting they have scheduled for July 28. It sounds like a lot of fun. This shop just has a bunch of fun things that they sponsor.

Vacation plans - none really. We'll be making a trip to Erie PA to view Penn State Erie in the next couple of weeks....now Erie PA is 8 hours from Manchester, NH and the same weekend is the Knit and Crochet show. I want to go. It is calling me. Will I go? Really need to make that decision so I can make reservations somewhere......

Bad Mom, Good Mom

So the kid's report card came yesterday. I had my standard knee jerk reaction and decided to think about it for a while. Thought about it.....Slept on it.....knit on my afghan square and thought about it....watched a couple of movies, made and ate dinner and decided that "yep, I had the approach.

Kid is now only to drive on Mon and Wed. And only those days because he has to get to college before I can get off work. Anything else and I will take and/or pick up. Let's just say it was met with the standard response of "I was going to start doing the work but now I'm not". To which I laid out the plan of proove to me that you are doing the work and we will re-instate car on a trial basis, but the minute the grades fall again - car is again lost. He's upstairs sulking.

I admit I am far more driven than he is - but honestly if he would just do is homework he would get passing grades. And since we are now in a position that he may have to go to summer school or not graduate on time (yes, he failed chemistry) - I'm done with agreements and working with him to a "reasonable" solution. You don't keep your end - I don't need to keep mine. The kid is smart - smarter than I am probably - there's no reason for this.

It's hard to beleive....

I have a blog site. Yes, me. The "I work in information technology and avoid it at all other times" girl. Is that really wrong? Well, probably. I should read up, I should check on things, I should remain current with the rest of the world. Yeah. Did I mention I fell into my career? Topic for another day.....

I started knitting about 18 months ago. It is my newest OCD focus. I do love it. Actually a friend and I decided to take a beginning knitting class and I stuck with it - she, well, not so much. I've met wonderful women who have taught me things about myself and also the aging process. Lets leave it at my role models for aging aren't all that great - I needed some good ones.

Single mom - always challenging. The Kid is 17. Trying. Very, very trying. Love him. He's a great kid - but wow.

So my hopes for this include showcasing my accomplishments - assuming I can locate some time to knit (always a challenge), things I learn and perhaps the therapy that professionals tell me come with a journal. We'll see how it all works out.

Hopefully photos to come soon!