Finally making some progress

Doesn't it seem like the mail takes forever when you're waiting for something you ordered? If it's bills, they come faster than you can say "all out of money". If you're waiting on some yummy yarn, well, it feels like I'm 5 years old again and waiting for Christmas when it's still only April. I'm waiting right now on my sock yarn to come for my Hogwarts Sock Swap 2 pal (Nick keeps checking the mail, too-his LL Bean book bag should arrive any day now.No mail for Makenzie, she wanted a Vera Bradley-so we hit the Phancy Pheasant yesterday. My dear husband was not thrilled when he saw the price tag!). I can't wait to get started. My pal's a Ravenclaw and from the emails we've exchanged, I've got a GREAT pal.

In the meantime, though, I'm almost done with my Debbie Bliss raglan sweater and the second uptown boot sock. We're going to the pool in just a few so I'll start on the sleeves of the raglan sweater while I'm there. I hope I can knock those out by tonight. I had set a deadline of August 1st for the completion of my socks and the sweater and as of today I don't think it's an unreasonable deadline. We'll see as the next week comes and goes however.

We're getting ready for back to school and I have to say I'm dreading it. This has been such a great summer with the kids. We've had such a fun, lazy two months; just going to the movies, the pool, playing games (our most recent favorite is Scene-It, the Harry Potter edition), and just hanging out. I'm going to miss them dreadfully. But they're excited and hopefully it will be a great year.

By the way, the Harry Potter book was great. I'm sad it's over, but I'm one of those people who read their favorite books over and over again-I'll be fine. I finished it Monday after we had gotten our out-of-town company on the road on Sunday. It was sooo hard not to be antisocial and curl up with my book and shut out the rest of the world. Don't worry, I managed to be a good little hostess and hold off until they left. Makenzie finished Monday too. That girl can read really fast for a ten-year-old!!! She loved it too.

Here's the eye candy for the week. It's a sunrise shot I took on the way to work Saturday. I happened to have my camera with me and managed to get a shot while driving and managed to not wreck as well!

We're off to the pool-have a great rest of the week.

Harry Potter Sock Swap Two and other stuff

As I said in my last post, I'm joining the Harry Potter Sock Swap Two (notice the link and some shameless plugging I'm doing for the swap-if you're interested, visit the link. It's going to be a lot of fun for everyone! Sign ups started July 14th and it looks like they're filling up quickly, so hurry if you're interested.) Here's the questions that I have to answer in order to take part in the swap:

Hogwarts Sock Swap Questionnaire

1. What Hogwarts house have you been sorted into?

Gryffindor (YEA! Go,Go, Gryffindor!)

2. Shoe size?

5 1/2 to 6

3. Foot Length?

9 inches

4. Foot Circumference?

8 inches, let me know if you have any questions about the other diameters

5. List your three favorite double-point needle brands, including size and length.
a. Lantern Moon
b. Crystal Palace
c. Brittany

*all brands in size 3 or 4. I usually use a 7 inch, but sad to say, I have some delicious Lantern Moon sox stix in a 5 inch that I have yet to use. Any wood or bamboo brand works for me!

6. Would you like to try a new brand needle? If so, which brand? Size? Length?

Blue Sky Surina Wood Sock needles (they only come in 5 inches I think) and a size 4 would be great. Also would be interested in trying the Knit picks.

7. If you are a RAVENCLAW, do you prefer the colors in the film or the book? Do you have a strong preference?

N/A

8. Allergies? Do you have any? Will your knitting be exposed to smoke or animals?

I don't have any allergies unless you count penicillin. No one in the house smokes and we do have a kitty.

9. Are you an international participant (outside US)? Are you willing to have an international Hogwarts Sock Pal?

I live in the good ol' U S of A, but I definitely would not mind having an international sock pal.

Also, my camera has been more at the ready this week compared to last. The crepe myrtles are blooming great and the front porch ferns are doing so good I had to take a picture. Oh, and Nicholas wanted some Harry Potter glasses to go with his wand. Cute, huh?

P.S. I guess being that this is a knitting blog (or relatively so) I should mention that I'm finally working on my second uptown boot sock and making good progress on the Raglan sweater. Hope to see you all at Hogwarts soon!

I'm still here!

I'm still here folks. It's been a very busy previous two weeks. Week before last, Makenzie went to Camp H2O at the Georgia Aquarium and we also had 3 birthday parties . Two of them were in Fayetteville, about a 45 minute drive from our house (Happy Birthday Tammy and Brock!) and then the other was the Steve's (Happy Birthday, honey) party at our house. What with getting ready for his party, being gone every night that week, and then some serious yard work and redecorating the house, I only managed to work on my uptown boot socks and nothing else. Then this week I agreed to fill in for my manager at the hospital (I used to be the supervisor over L&D and mother-baby). Let's just say that when I stayed until 1:00 in the morning this a.m.(after getting there at 8:00 in the a.m.yesterday) I was beat down like a dog. And the rest of the week was no better-the new computer fetal monitoring system went down, the air conditioner broke for the whole hospital, and we were way out numbered in the nurse to patient ratio. I'm probably looking at about 50 hours of work this week, and it has throw my part-time self into a major tail spin. Anyone who's ever worked anywhere near a birth unit in July knows that there are better times of the year to be a nurse. So suffice it to say that there has been absolutely NO time for knitting. I 'm trying to tell myself, "suck it up cupcake, it could be worse", as the kids will tell you is our family motto. The one blessing was that my dad and step mom were able to keep the kids for a greater part of the week so that I didn't have to worry about them not having good care-what a blessing to have such great parents in my life. Still, Steve and I missed them both horribly and I don't think that we can go more than about a day or so without having them with us. It's nice to be home tonight, our happy little family in the nest. There's nothing like good Chinese food on a Friday night with some new knitting started. The new knitting is a sweater for my nephew. The Baby Albert coat just didn't feel right for me, I don't know if it was the yarn or what, so I started the Debbie Bliss Raglan baby sweater using Lion Brand's cotton ease. I love this yarn. I know that some knitters out there hate cotton, but I love the feel of it in every way, from how it is on the needles to the finished product. Hopefully I'll have some pictures of it to post next time.

Well, I'm off to join the Hogwarts sock swap II that starts today. (Most of this was drafted on Friday night with this last paragraph started on Sat morning. I was too tired to finish) -As yet another example of how bad the week has been, I haven't even been able to see The Order of the Phoenix, and that is highly unlike me, but I digress. Hopefully today will be a good one-the kids are having a "Harry Potter Fan Club party" for a couple of their friends, I'm going to join the sock swap, and we're going to see OofTP tonight. All that and knitting too, what a lucky girl I am!!!

P.S. I never got to post my 4th of July pics-here's one I liked a lot

It's Gone!

For some reason, I haven't felt like knitting much lately. I don't know if it's the heat or what, but I'm not finishing near the amount of projects that I thought I would this summer. It's not that I haven't finished anything- the Miss Dashwood #2 is complete, as is the Operation Fuzzy Toes sock. It's just that it seems like it's taking me forever to finish my uptown boot socks (or anything else I work on). I'm not really sure why, because I love the pattern and I love the yarn. I just can't get up to my usual speed. I'll read about someone knitting, see someone knitting, or read about something having to do with knitting, and I can't wait to pick my stuff back up and start knitting away. But once I'm actually there, my mojo is gone. I guess I shouldn't be too worried that my love for knitting is gone (as shouldn't my dear husband after all the money I've spent on yarn, needles, etc)- I still love even the idea of knitting, but productivity and I don't seem to have a meeting of the minds now days. As Scarlett O'Hara said, tomorrow is another day, and maybe tomorrow will be my day.

I'm off to comfort my baby girl-the turtle just died-Dang the store at the beach-we buy the turtles, frogs, hermit crabs and the like, and they never make it more than a few weeks. Now, I have a crying girl on my hands who thinks that it's her fault the turtle died (this time she really did do a good job taking care of the turtle..we won't talk about the previous hermit crabs and frogs)- when it's really the fault of the those evil stores who sell children futility in a cage!

It's Christmas in June!

I just found out about the Southeastern Animal Fiber Fair in October!!!! I dug this up when I was surfing the web. I had really given up being able to visit one of these without having to hop on a plane. But TADA! look what's in my neck of the woods this fall! (Or least just a few hours away by car). Is it just me, or are there not any (or very few) opportunities for knitters in the Georgia area? (I just wish that there was a local knitter's guild that didn't require a 1 hour commute) When I go on Lion Brand and check their listings for knitting, fiber, etc events in my area-nada. When I Google fiber fairs, etc in Georgia-nada. Maybe I haven't been checking hard enough, or maybe my Google skills just aren't what they could be, who knows? But I am definitely planning on attending this! Any takers????

Now that I've shouted my joyous news, I better go get baking. My step-dad's family are in town from Cali, and they're making homemade enchiladas for all of us for dinner. I'm talking everything-from-scratch, take- all-day, so-good-you'll-slap-your-mama enchiladas. Therefore, I'm making a hummingbird cake and some black-bean salsa (thanks Ramon for the recipe) just so that I'll feel like I'm even a little bit worthy for this great meal we're having.

But before that, I'm meeting my dad somewhere today so that he can give me the the chili rellenos he and my step mom picked up on their RV trip out west. YUM!! Do you see at least 5 extra pounds on my family's horizon?

Here's the family on father's day morning. I think they liked the waffles and pancakes, huh?

Click your heels together three times......

Whew! It's nice to be home. There's nothing like a good vacation, but there's also nothing like coming home. I changed my ring tone on my phone to Michael Buble's song "Home" just in anticipation. We did have a great time though. The beach was absolutely beautiful, the Gulf of Mexico looked just like the Caribbean. I have never seen so many shades of blue and green in the water. At the shore the water was so clear, you could see straight to the bottom. It was great for snorkeling. We also visited the local state park and I got some really

good eye candy. (The cutie pie in the top right is my niece- I thought it was a really cool picture, not that you can appreciate how cute she is, though!)

I was able to get some knitting done, but definitely not as much as I thought I would. Usually, I would have completed the operation Fuzzy Toes sock, the Miss Dashwood hat, and at least started on my second Uptown Boot sock. I'm not usually a slow knitter, but it just seemed like I couldn't concentrate while sitting by the ocean. I guess the heat made it hard to keep my mind on my patterns. Also, my evil anal retentive side would not let the slightly sloppy picked up stitches along the heel flap on my uptown book sock remain, so I had to frog it and start my heel flap and heel turn over. As far as the hat and the sock, all I have to do on the baby hat is sew on the ties and the ear flaps and I just need to sew the toe together on the fuzzy toes sock. I'm ready to get both of these done so that I can really get to work on my Klaralund sweater. My friend Tammy also wants me to make her a booga bag when I get the time. So I'll guess I'll be making booga bag number 3.

Hope everyone has a great Father's Day. I'm going to make linguine with white clam sauce for the man of the house. I'll let you know how it turns out. (However, he shouldn't be hungry after the huge breakfast of bacon, chocolate chip pancakes and blueberry waffles that he had, though). Adios mis amigos que tejen. (translation: Goodbye my friends who knit.-my brother is bilingual and he spoke a lot of Spanish this week at the beach, can you tell?)

Vacation Here I Come!

Finally, school's out. You would think that it would be easier on the mom when the kids are in school, not out. NOPE. When school's in, there are at least 46 million things to remember-did you include the money for the field trip, make cookies for a class party, make 2 lunches EVERY SINGLE DAY before 7:00 am- I could go on and on lamenting my sad fate but I'll spare you the monotonous details. Anyway now that school's out, I can sleep late (at least on the days I'm not working, and I love sleep more than a good glass of wine), go to the pool, knit, knit some more, and just generally not get all stressed out with the details that type A people like me get freaked out about. And with school being out comes-VACATION!!! We're going to the Gulf for a little more than a week with my parents and my brother and his family. So, being the cliche queen that I am-Let the good times roll. Oh wait, that isn't a cliche, but a Cars song-I know, I know, I'm dating myself. I once heard somewhere that using cliches a lot is a sign of inferior intelligence. I prefer to think that I've read a lot of good books and remember quotes well, kind of like being good in English class?

Today's the first day that I can enjoy just being home with the little ones, since I had to work Monday and yesterday (that means getting to work at 6:45 in the morning and playing with the stork-I'm a L&D nurse and no it's not always a happy job-trust me, sometimes we have more whackjobs than a meth lab). So without the 48 million school details to attend to, that means more knitting. Hopefully the operation fuzzytoes sock will be finished today. I turned the heel last night and it's working up really quickly.

Also, my Miss Dashwood hat is going better than the first one. I really love the yarn I'm using. It's Crystal Palace's Bunnyhop. This is the first time I've used it and it feels great. I also got some recently to make my nephew a blanket. This stuff rocks!! It doesn't split and it feels heavenly.

Is there anyone out there who's making the uptown boot sock from Favorite Socks? I'm having the best time making these. The pattern really isn't hard, just enough knit stitch in the round to be easy, but cabling every fourth row to keep you interested. I've seen lots of people making the embossed leaves socks, but no uptown boot socks. Let me know.

Well, off to get ready for the beach and finish my sock. Here's some summer pics for you

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