Come To Mama

I lack words. Mostly because I’m tired.

Spending nearly an entire day at a Toyota dealership will do that to a girl. But I got the deal we wanted. I was ready to walk, not once, not twice, but three times.

Who knew Toyota’s were popular? (Ok, I did.) So popular that the dealership is “backed up”, and we won’t be able to get the van “delivered” til next week. Bummer.

I loooooove it. So much nicer than our usual Dodge purchases.

Music Monday (and getting back in the swing of things)

It is so hard to post after such a long hiatus. Part of me wants to sit here for hours and tap out a long update.. but I’m not going to do that. I’m just going to try to pick up where I left off, and get back into the swing of things.
Summer is off to an interesting start though! The kids finished their school year last week, just as Richard’s office has decided to transition from maintaining a working office to everyone telecommuting. Great in theory.. and with gas prices so high, its a money saver. But starting off.. during the kid’s first week of vacation, when everyday is barely managed chaos. Well, lets just say, we all hope to work out the kinks quickly.

As for knitting. Boing! is still in progress, though I’ve taken a little break from it. The Celtic felted bag is in hiding - I actually hated the pattern as it was slightly confusing. And when I hit a glitch like that in a pattern, I’m completely turned off. Maybe I’ll go back to it.. I’m not sure.

What I am rather obsessed with currently is Lizard Ridge. I’ve watched Paige knit on hers a few times on Saturday mornings when we all get together and well, I was smitten. A weird thing for someone like me who tends to walk right past the Noro at every yarn store. Its pricey.. and its scratchy. But I couldn’t resist any longer. And whatta ya know.. I actually don’t mind the feel of the yarn. Its also incredibly helpful to my wallet when Beth at Sheep Thrills gives us Ravelers a sweet discount.

The pattern tells us to knit 24 individual “blocks”, much like a quilt. Screw that. Too much seaming! So I’m working panels using the equivalent number of blocks. One panel down (left) and the second one in progress (right). I’ll be making four total. I’ve definitely slowed down a bit this past week with all of the changes here at home, but I’m still making steady progress.. and I’m not bored yet.

And oh, Its Monday! That means Music!

Love Rise Against.. And love Little Boxes. For those unfamiliar, Little Boxes is the theme song for the tv series, Weeds (Monday evenings on Showtime) Every episode features a different artist singing the theme (see here for the most recent release). If you have never seen the show *gasp*, get the first few seasons from Netflix and catch up. Its one of the best tv series, ever. Fantastic writing, great acting, hilarious!

Happy Loving Day

If you don’t know what Loving Day is, read here.

Loving Day is an educational community project. The name comes from Loving v. Virginia (1967), the landmark Supreme Court decision that legalized interracial marriage in the United States. Loving Day celebrations commemorate the anniversary of the Loving decision every year on or around June 12th.

I forgot to post about it last year. And while I planned to the year before, something else happened.

To borrow a paragraph from Devilstower at dailykos.com:

It’s also a good day to remember that this kind of legislation, including the “Defense of Marriage Acts” now in effect in more than half the states, will one day be looked on with the same distaste as the law that put the Lovings in jail.

Now I’d planned to celebrate this day, much in the same way that Richard and I would celebrate our anniversary. However after spending the better part of the day at urgent care, I came home with a diagnosis of an anular tear in my L5. Pain patch, vicodin, mass quantities of motrin and ice packs. What a way to celebrate an anniversary, huh?

Whew!

You know, whenever I take an extended break from blogging, I always come back and say that it wasn’t intended. This time however, I rather purposely avoided the blog. Maybe my blogging steam has run out.. or maybe it hasn’t since I’m back here today blogging. But, I have seriously thought about giving it up. And just when I do, I think of all the time I’ve invested into it and reconsider. So since I’m sitting here right now tapping out an entry, you could come to the conclusion that I have indeed reconsidered - I’m just not sure how much time I’ll be devoting to the blog in the next few months.

Ok, now that the “business” is out of the way, on to a few photos and a little bit of a catch up..

Do you remember the We Call Them Pirates hat I was making? Well, it has been gifted..

Meet Steve (or depending on who is reading this - you may already know him!)

Steve is a former co-worker and an excellent friend of Richard’s. Steve has ventured all the way to the other side of the country for a change of scenery. And since where he moved sees way more snow and cold than upstate New York, I figured he’d need a warm hat. It really warms a knitter’s heart to hear her gift called “kick ass”.

We’ll miss you Steve! And we can’t wait to see you again around Christmas time!

And while I’m not knitting a whole lot lately, I do have a few things going - I’m just not in any sort of rush to finish..

This would be the very popular Boing! by Anne at Knitspot.

And here it is pinned out just a teensy bit to see the lace. I’m using Celestial Alpaca/Merino that I picked up at Mission Rose sometime last year. The yarn is meant to be sock yarn, but when I started socks with it, I just couldn’t stand the feel of the fabric it created. It makes for much better lace knitting - nice, halo-y and soft.

This is the Celtic Tote from Interweave Knits Fall 2007. I was going to wait until Boing! was finished to cast it on, but startitis got the better of me. I’m almost finished with the back portion after using it as TV knitting for a night or two. I’m using of course, my favorite cheap felting wool, Patons Classic Merino.

Other than the knitting..

So, I had an urge to play with manic panic. And I was totally urged on by Ravelry friend Bethoff who recently did some purple streaks. I originally planned to go with a bright pink but Alex talked me into Rockout Red. For my first time, I bought the demi permanent Hot Topic brand, so in other words, its not at all permanent, and will likely be totally faded out in a few weeks time. I didn’t bleach out where I wanted the red dye either - this was just the test run. I do like it however, so next time I’ll be bleaching out some strands before adding a more permanent dye. Should I go with red again? Or my original inclination towards pink? Hmm!
For reference, the image on the left is the night I dyed it. The image on the right is the next day after washing a few times to tone it down just a bit.

Now it just occurred to me that this blog entry has a red theme - Hmm.

Lastly, since I missed Music Monday, two weeks in a row, today you get a youtube - sort of new, but sort of not!

Anyone who knows me, knows that I am a huuuuge Journey fan - When I was a teen, my bedroom walls were plastered with Journey posters and I wore out at least 4 copies of Journey Captured on cassette. So if you missed CBS Sunday Morning last week, where they told the story of Journey’s new lead singer Arnel Pineda, then you need to see this video.

Journey is playing the State Fair this year (and Beth already has tickets! Whine!) But instead I think we’ll try to see them down home at Montage. Jill? Tracy? Want to babysit? Please?

Its A Major Award!

This little something arrived via UPS about 2 weeks ago. Because we stashed it away, saving it for a day when we were all home to work on it, I sort of forgot about it…

If you read 5 Minutes For Mom, you’ll know all about their contests and giveaways. Well I finally won one!

This represents one thousand teensy tiny pieces. Joy. But the family is hard at work putting it together on one of the old train table platforms, so that if we get bored (or tired) we can safely tuck it away without losing progress.

And since its Monday, lets play Whats On My iPod? Ironically, one of the songs plays along with the Lego City Police headquarters theme, in title only I suppose..

“Calling All Cars” by Senses Fail. I love this song. I mean, really love it. I love even more, the acoustic version. But what turned me on to Senses Fail, was this bonus track on Guitar Hero III…

This is my warm-up song on Guitar Hero. And Connor, loves this song - he knows every single word and loves to sing along when I play. Actually, he asks me to play it over and over. This song also has an acoustic version - actually I think the acoustic version of “Can’t Be Saved” is way better. Give it a listen.

Stay tuned tomorrow for a rant about a moronic, inhumane kindergarten teacher in St Lucie, Florida. This story kept me up, shaking and infuriated until nearly 3AM. Mental note: do not move to St Lucie Florida.. and especially do not enroll our children in their public schools.

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