Baa Baa Knit Stitch

>Happy Birthday to Our Boy!!!

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Oscar Worf, His Royal Lowness, is 14 years old today! Seems only yesterday that he was a little 3 month old pup that was an impulse purchase from a pet store (never go by one when you’re having a bad day, and yes, we know all about buying dogs from pet stores now, but we consider him our own little rescue). He is the love of our life, and we hope he’s with us for years to come as long as he’s healthy and happy. We like to say he’s in touch with his inner puppy.

So we’ll be treating him to a meal spiked with Grandma’s roast beef and a trip to PetSmart, where the smells are oh-so-interesting. And then we’ll come home where he’ll curl up next to me, right where I want him to be, and he’ll “hold” my pattern while I stitch or knit. He’s very, very good at that.

So please join me in wishing a happy birthday to our little man! We love you Oscar, and we can’t imagine a day without you.

>A New Hope

>A wonderful weekend with my friends… lots of laughter and food… no pictures, I’m afraid on my part. Lots of other people were taking them, so I’m hoping I can sneak one onto here when I can snag one. We did our annual ornament kit exchange from last year’s Just Cross Stitch Ornament issue, and I have lots of kits to work on. 🙂

When we last left my spinning efforts, I was, at best, in the remedial class. My wheel was spinning too fast, and I couldn’t get the speed cranked down enough for a beginner like me to be able to handle it. There is some speculation among folks that I’ve talked with that there’s a defect with my current wheel, so I’m going to take that up with the folks from whom I purchased it.

My hubby, aware of the horrible pun he was about to make, suggested that I look for a “training wheel”. On Friday, I got a goodie courtesy of UPS and my new friend Bob of Winderwood Farm. Above you see an Ashford Kiwi, and I’m happy to report that Richard assembled it for me today while we were watching the race, and the purple stuff you see coming out of the front is some roving I’ve already been spinning into some crude, hideously overspun yarn. I’ll be taking the wheel to my spinning class tomorrow night. I’m very excited at the potential of being able to do this right! I can’t say enough good things about the great customer service Bob gave me through his Ebay store, so please check it out when you get a chance through the link provided above (this is not a paid commercial, just a very satisfied customer!).

Not much either knitting or stitching this weekend, altho I did start an ornament from the 2005 ornament issue and a pair of Jaywalkers for my friend Judy (who bought the yarn during a run to the Whole Nine Yarns on Friday morning).

This week will be busy with work, and on Monday night I’ll be staying with my friend Andy who is having a lumpectomy for breast cancer. The prognosis is very good, and we feel blessed, but it’s just another reminder for all us girls to keep a check.

>Not sure where the week went….

>… I think it was taken up with far too much work and far too little fun! Had a lot of work to do for clients this week. Work = money, which is good, but it really eats into my stitching/knitting/blogging time, ya know??

We’re currently getting ready for the Big Stitch Weekend, where all of our stitch group will gather for merriment. Vicky is graciously allowing us to invade her house. I’m psyched because Judy, Teresa, and Ann are all coming into town. Haven’t seen Judy since Feb., and it’s been Oct. since I saw Teresa and I think that long since Ann was in town (altho if memory serves, she may have made a December weekend…. It was a long time ago anyhow). Even tho I talk to my buds nearly daily either on the computer or on the phone, it’s always great to have them here. And Judy’s bringing her friend Joan with her, who I believe is about to become a good friend of mine as well. She’s a fellow NASCAR fan and a knitter and stitcher, so what’s not to like??? 🙂

New Vista computer is now behaving much better after I deleted the Evil McAfee security program that was bogging down my surfing and (gasp!) not letting me onto my fave NASCAR site that’s hosted by ESPN. Oh, the humanity!! Alpha Geek Hubby figured that out late last night so I zapped that sucker this morning, and even tho Vista is issuing dire warnings that I’m “unprotected” (I can only imagine that I’m about to get some dire computer social disease), I’m a much happier person.

So I hope to maybe post some pictures of the merriment early next week (or, at the very least, have some good blackmail material). Maybe I’ll even get a little stitching or knitting done. But I know I’ll do a lot of laughing, and that’ll be good for my soul.

>Blogging from the new computer

>It’s just flat out dangerous to let me loose in a store when I’m under stress. I was in Office Depot on the fourth of July, and there was an awesome deal on a Gateway laptop that I just plain couldn’t resist. So, it came home with me. I hadn’t wanted a computer with Vista, considering *none* of my work software runs on it, but this one will be nice to play with for all my stuff at home. 1G RAM, 160 G Hard Drive, 4 USB 2 ports, firewire, modem, wireless built in, SD card reader built in, PC card reader built in, DVD R/W (I found it amusing that the blurb on the box says “Watch movies and be productive”… yeah, right). It probably has more geeky stuff that I can’t remember right now. The kewlest thing for me at the moment is being able to have the computer on my lap while sitting on the sofa and watching the big TV. My previous system had no battery life, so I’m kinda enjoying surfing while watching NASCAR coverage. 🙂

Many thanks to my Alpha Geek hubby who spent most of the afternoon transferring information files and such from one computer to another. He’s very handy with that; of course, he never has to worry about having his taxes done. 🙂

As for the stress, I’m hoping that it’s coming to an end. Had a very productive meeting regarding Lynne’s estate this week, and I think maybe now everyone’s finally on the same page as to what needs to be done to finish stuff up. With any luck, I can close it down by the end of the summer.

Not much knitting this week. I did take a wheel spinning class, only to determine that I’m a remedial spinner. We think the problem may, unfortunately, be with my wheel, but I came up with another solution to that to be revealed in a later post…..

As for stitching… I’m still working on a sheep that I’m **almost** finished with. With any luck I’ll have a picture here soon!

>Socks for Mom

>Another pair of socks finished for my mom! Made from the Lion Brand Wool Ease and from the same pattern from Creative Knitting magazine. Not my favorite yarn to work with, but they work up pretty quickly. I changed from size 7 to size 6 needles to make them fit her a little better… after working with the size 1s on the Jaywalkers I’m working on, I feel like I’m knitting with railroad spikes!

I’ll be giving them to her when I go to Rome on Thursday.

>It’s Not (All) My Fault

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New sock yarn from The Loopy Ewe! The bottom skein is a Duet, which is a skein of yarn for the main body of the sock plus a smaller solid color skein for the toes and heels. Way kewl. And the shipping from there was lightning fast, so my desire for new stash was quickly satisfied.

From there, my tale of woe begins. Enter my two friends Jill and Andy, who lead little ol’ naive me, innocent as a lamb, to the slaughter (Richard tagged along as pack mule because we promised him lunch). First we go to the needlepoint store in Buckhead. I was successfully resisting the urge to purchase when I hear Andy say “Sheep!”. She has found the Sheep of the Month. July and August, plus all the fibers to do them, have to come home with me immediately. I was powerless. After all, it was sheep, right?? I mean, look at them!!!!

The store is In Stitches, and I have to say I’m very impressed with Laura, the owner, and her knowledge and suggestions as far as a stitch guide for how to gussy up the sheepies. I’m anxious to get started on them, particularly August, because it’s going to be way cute. And yes, arrangements have been made to get the rest of the sheepies to my house…. (**sigh**) At least if I went down, I dragged Jill with me, because she’s in the process of purchasing a snowman canvas and fibers, and Laura’s doing a stitch guide for her. 🙂 It’s her first needlepoint project, so I’m anxious to see how she likes it.

From there… to the knitting store, which turns out to be the one that has a branch in Highlands, NC that Heather found. Again, I didn’t intend to buy anything, but there it was: the highly coveted Opal sock yarn that I hadn’t been able to purchase….
And as you can see, there was this dandy little Lantern Moon sock-project-sized holder that also jumped up onto the counter with the Opal. Jill got some sock yarn too…. just not quite as much. Andy exercised remarkable self control during the entire shopping trip. As we all know, I have no self control. I was led into temptation and quickly succumbed.

After a lunch at a restaurant near downtown Atlanta, we went our separate ways. I’ve been led astray. Note that it’s not difficult to lead me there, as I didn’t put up too much of a fight. Thank goodness for a bit of disposable income.

Say, did anyone else notice that Silkweaver has grab bags on sale???? 😉

>Earnest Looking Black Dogs and Other Thoughts

>Just got home from spending a couple of days at my mom’s house. Didn’t bother to take a computer because I’d have to deal with (gasp!) dial-up… how positively primitive… and none of her neighbors so far are technically savvy enough to have a wireless network I can poach from. So I feel like I’ve been blind… having to rely on actual TV news for my NASCAR fix (dreadful — although they appear to have been up to the minute on Paris Hilton’s whereabouts). So I’m happy to be back home with my little laptop, checking e-mail, blogs, and websites. After all, Drema at Needlecraft Corner might add something that I desperately need and I wouldn’t know it! (Even tho she does have my back on the sheep patterns… working on one now that I’ll share when it’s looking a little more like a sheep and not a blob.)

So to the left there you see two very large black dogs. Magic, the very earnest looking poodle is to the left. Cassie, the not so earnest looking but very sweet giant schnauzer is on the right. The non-canine in the center is my sister-in-law, Sandi. She’s kneeling; the dogs are sitting. The dogs are very large.

To the right for your viewing pleasure is Magic, Cassie, and Richard all laying on the floor. Note that I didn’t capture Richard’s best side. Did I mention that the dogs were very large? 100+ pounds apiece? We refer to dogs that size as “ponies” in our house, since Oscar is sure that he’s a “big dog”.
This, of course, is Oscar, His Royal Lowness, the original “big dog”, all 12.5 pounds of dachshund fury, doing what big dogs do best…. toasting his tummy on the heating vent in the wintertime.

Managed to get a wee bit of stitching and knitting done during the trip up to my mom’s. I was there because she had to have an endoscopy done, and I ended up staying an extra day because she doesn’t react well to anesthesia. I’m happy to report that the test went well and they didn’t find anything seriously wrong, so she’s chugging along pretty well for a fiesty 78 year old. I wouldn’t have her any other way. 🙂

>Specifically for The Magic That Is Heather….

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Yes, I’ve bought this much sock yarn in the past two weeks. Did I mention that I’ve been under a wee bit of stress?? Well, ok, the orange skein and one light blue skein came from another binge when The Whole Nine Yarns was having a sale (ask Teresa about the amazing talking skein of sock yarn), but otherwise, that’s pretty much it.

And the sad part is, I’m not through… Went on a bit of a binge at The Loopy Ewe a couple of nights ago that should be coming in soon. I’m not affiliated, but geez, Sheri’s got some very kewl sock yarn there!!! Plus the Stitchkeepers are just magic for double points.

So the next time anyone’s husband/mother/family complains about them having too much stash, I’m a living example you can point to…. and they’ll realize you’re not all that bad after all. 🙂

>The best of intentions…..

>I’m really not sure where the past couple of weeks went, but it’s been an appallingly long time since I’ve blogged. My apologies to you who actually check this on a regular basis, as I know I check some of your blogs and go “Geez… she hasn’t posted anything new yet??? What’s up with that???”

We had preparations for the trip to see Richard’s sisters in VA, then the actual trip. I’ll try to get some pictures uploaded at some point, but we spent the night in Charlotte on the way up and got to make a pilgrimage to Lowe’s Motor Speedway while we were there. Way Kewl!!!! The Richard Petty Driving Experience was there, so there were actual cars on the track. They were very loud. HRL was not amused. I can’t imagine how loud 43 of them would be at one time, but I imagine hearing protection would definitely be needed.

(As an aside, Richard encountered an actual cop arresting an actual hooker at the hotel we were staying in near the Charlotte airport. Never saw that happen before….)

From there we visited Hendrick Motorsports, future home of our fave Dale Jr. While widely viewed as “the dark side of the Force” by many in Junior Nation, I was thrilled at the announcement that he’s going to join the team next year. Hendrick has without question the best equipment in NASCAR, and besides, every race Junior wins still keeps Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson, his new teammates, out of Victory Lane. 🙂 Hendrick has a nice museum, including 4 Daytona 500 winning cars all lined up in a row, and a car that went through “the big one” in Talladega that was smushed into a smallish ball of sheetmetal, but the roll cage was intact and the driver walked away. Amazing. We scored some actual race-used lugnuts from Casey Mears’ Cup car (he’s the #25 National Guard car), but we haven’t decided how to display them yet. (Yes, we amuse quite easily.)

From there it was off to Roanoke for the visit with Richard’s sisters. Sandi has two rather large dogs: Cassie, a 100 lb giant schnauzer, and Magic, a 105 lb “standard” poodle (the “standard” part is up for interpretation). That’s a lot of dog. Magic has, without a doubt, the most earnest looking face I’ve ever seen on a dog. And the face was easy to see considering he came up to my waist. He looked like “Hello, are you all right? Can I get anything for you? Really, are you ok? You can tell me if you’re not.”

Until I get the pictures uploaded you’ll just have to imagine the earnest looking black dog. Needless to say, with the two very large dogs, Oscar spent a lot of time either airborne being carried or in our laps. We were trying to avoid the Dreaded Butt Sniff dog greeting, since Oscar doesn’t realize he’s a dog and he gets mightily offended if another dog treats him like one. For the most part we were successful.

In other news, Lynne’s house closed today. There have been some, ahem, “issues” with the estate, most of which exploded while I was in VA. I think they’re temporarily under control, and the lawyer and I are working on a plan to get this whole thing closed down. If you can, please say a little prayer for us over the next couple of weeks that we can convince her mom to cooperate…..

I did console myself by buying a hideous amount of sock yarn. 🙂

>Stuff that makes you think

>Most of you reading this blog know that I lost my friend Lynne last year and that I’ve been struggling through the process of being executor of her estate.

Today, her house sold. I’m happy, but I’ve gotta admit to some mixed feelings. Yeah, I want this whole process to be finished and done with, but on the other hand, while it’s going on, it’s like a little part of her is still around. And I know I’m going to have to take her mother to the closing (even though she really doesn’t have anything to do with it, she’ll want to go), and that’s going to be hard on her.

On the plus side, the man who is buying it is going to remodel it and re-sell it… probably to some nice family who can make some happy memories there. Or, at least, that’s what I hope.

I guess the bottom line of all this rambling is: appreciate each day, and appreciate each other. Sometimes we need a reminder of that. Today was mine.