What a froggy week.

It has just been one of those froggy weeks for me. Never never try to knit a complicated pattern when your eyes are trying to close. 

I apparently have too many things going at once again- go figure. I was happily knitting away on my baby surprise jacket thinking I had a handle on it, when I realized something was rotten in Denmark. I was all the way to the neckline decreases and somewhere along the way I lost track of my increases. Now that I have a visual of how it is supposed to look, I realised that I had a stubby sleeve. WTF Chuck! 

So yesterday I ripped the whole damn thing out. Rather than try to figure out where I went wrong, I will just start over with a fresh mind. 

My poor Alien guy ended up with a lopsided face too, I lost track of where I was on my graph and skipped a couple of rows. Don't worry, I am not going to frog the whole thing. I am on motif #4 and I am only ripping back about 4 rows so it is not a tragedy. 

 

Since things were not going so well on those two projects, I worked on my bath mat. I  think I only need about 10 more inches and it should be a good size, I am trying to keep shrinkage in mind for this since it is 100% cotton.    The Rug is only 17 inches wide, I figured this way it will be about the width of floor space between the potty and the tub. Yes I know, not much space at all. I am planning the length for right around 37 inches. So yay- I am almost done with a project! I have found that commercial rugs are either ity bity or they are too wide for my bathroom. I think this one was an after thought in the house, because the other bathroom is much bigger.

 When we first moved in here I called dibs on the big bathroom, but that boy vetoed me. How does that happen? And since when do men need the biggest bathroom, I have way more junk than he does!

I finally gave up on Hobby Lobby getting my beads in. Whoever does the ordering for that department completely sucks!! I ran out to Michael's last night and picked up 5 more of those little flippin' tubes of beads. Paid more than twice what I paid for them at Hobby Lobby, but I am annoyed with them, so for now, they are on my boycott list. To top things off, the damn things, are just a little off in color and size. I am hoping that I am the only one that will notice there are actually 3 different beads in my scarf. But, even so, I happily sat watching the X-Files and stringing beads onto my yarn. Once the beads are strung, the knitting goes PDF ( pretty darn fast) so I should be finishing up the scarf in the next couple of days.  Not that I plan on being able to wearing it this year, I think we had our last freaky snow yesterday, but at least it will be done! 

Raine and I are going to see Horton Hears a Who today, so it will be good theater knitting ;) 

I am really going to work on finishing up some of these things here before I start yet another project. 

Peter Snow Tail

Friday we had another huge snow storm...gotta love the Midwest! The official recording was 10.5 inches but I  am thinking I should have stuck a ruler in my yard to see the actual.

Dawn, here is a big 'ole snow pile for ya after that boy finished cleaning the driveway two days later. Keep in mind we have several piles like this and a lot of it has melted already.  Apparently Saturday night the brothers decided to go 4-wheeling through it. The Goof Balls!

I hope everyone had a Happy Easter!! Mine was uneventful, which is as it should be.

Those folks in the Bluff are industrious. On my way into work yesterday I spied three mature adults building this right across from the station. Too Flippin' Cute! Peter here is taller than the average man, and I know that 3 people can stand behind him without barely being seen.

My co-workers tell me the trio had been out there on the Village Green for over two hours building him.  Since it was such a beautiful day everyone on the east side of town seemed to be out for a walk. And of course, they all stopped to take pictures of Peter Snow Tail with their camera phones.

Thank goodness for camera phones or I would have been pissed about missing a picture of this. 
It will be interesting to see how much of him is left when I go to work today.

Don't you hate it when someone moves your stuff???  Ok so maybe it wasn't the neatest looking conglomerate of things, and maybe I did over take the dining room table but, dammit, we never use that room! 

I think I have mentioned that the brothers play Wii on Saturday nights. I would not think this Saturday would be any different than any other right? Well - I guess it sucked to be me. Apparently the sisters were tired of not being included in the Saturday night ritual and when I came home from work, everyone was playing a dice game on the dining room table!!! 

Where were my projects you ask? Piled on the card table thats where!!!! Is nothing sacred? Men! He would have had a conniption fit if I moved his things!

Since I have ADD this month and am working on so many things at once, I really haven't made a lot of progress on any one thing. My bath mat is coming along, ( my standard mindless project for when I am too tired to concentrate). I am making pretty good progress on that one, so I must have been tired alot this week...LOL

I was seduced into starting the EZ Baby Surprise Jacket by a KAL group on Ravelry.  Yes, I have officially joined the ranks of EZ Knitter! I think it is coming along ok. It is kinda hard to tell. I am not real crazy about how the psso's are looking, but I keep going forward. I am blindly trying to follow Elizabeths pattern because I can't get the visual in my head yet. 

I haven't done squat on my alien piece, I haven't had a real clear mindset to work on it so it just sits for now.

Remember those toe up socks I was trying to work on? Well F@#%  those toe up socks! I realized if something is sitting in ZZZ land for too long, it is just not meant to be. If you hate the process, frog it! Because it will be a UFO forever!

So that is what I did, frog the damn sock that was going no- where, and started one I knew I would like. 

I love this yarn, and I think it was just crying out for a great pair of slouchy socks. :) Now I am a happy sock knitter and have a portable project again.

 Isn't it funny how, when you like what your working on, it goes pretty darn quick.

ET phone home

What have I been up to?? Oh Boy...well where do I start. Hmmm I guess with work, work and more work. My department hosts an annual Polar Plunge for Special Olympics.  March 1, it was a balmy 29 degrees...yes, that's right, I said 29 degrees! The water temperature was posted at 34 degrees, I seriously think that was completely false! I was not one of the 219 insane peoplethat plunged into the icy waters of Lake Michigan but I did get wet and it did not feel like 34 it felt more like minus 34!!   

The park district had to bring in a back hoe to clear a path for the plungers. The beach was so covered in snow and ice that you could not see any sand at all and it was exhausting to walk through.

 Usually myself and my fire department cohort sit on the rocks to take pictures of the event but there was so much snow and ice covering it that we could not climb the rocks, we could not tell where there was a solid place to stand. Not only that but the Chief strictly forbade us to even try (WTF)! I suppose it did not help my cause that I fell right in front of him.  You can see in the picture below how much snow and ice was on my usual perch. 

My poor son-in-law was coerced into plunging, actually I believe my exact words were " if you're going to marry my daughter you have to do the Polar Plunge" Good hearted boy that he is, he braved the elements and plunged.  (That is him with his arms in the air.) And, bless his heart, he plans on doing it again next year! I don't know how he did it! I personally did not think I was ever going to thaw out. In fact this was the coldest I have ever been!!

Note the shelf of ice where the photographer with the tri-pod is standing. I am not sure if he realized there was nothing but water beneath him. 

For anyone who is interested, our Plunge raised $110,000 this year for the Special Olympics!! The best one we have had in 9 years! More plunge pictures here!

Still in charity mode, Lynda from California sent me two dozen hats and two dozen scarves to donate to our local homeless shelter. Lynda is amazing!! This is the second installment of hand knitted and crocheted hats that she has sent to me, the scarves are made from fleece about half of them were made and the other half purchased. I've been feeling pretty lax, because with everything that has been going on the last month or so, I haven't been able to make anymore myself. Lynda sure puts me to shame when it comes to this endeavor. I will have to kick it into gear and get that sewing machine out and make those fleece hats I planned on making a couple of months ago. 

Here is what is happening on the home front. A big fat nothing! I am so disgusted with Hobby Lobby! Probably my own damn fault for buying the beads there in the first place, but at the rate they replenish, I will not get this scarf finished until next year. I have learned my lesson, I will buy beads online from someone that counts them!

My pretty beaded alpaca scarf has been living unhappily in this basket in the meantime. I had to ask for the beads to be ordered today since the last three times I have been to the store the hook as been empty.  And go figure, the damn things were 50% off today. 

My toe up socks have been placed on the back burner as well because I was being too retarded with them and have had to rip back several times. I guess I am not in the right mind set for them right now. 

Yesterday my sock swap package came. Sarah and I opened it together and what fun, she kept pulling stuff out of the little read bag, 3 balls of Peruvian alpaca, a ton of adorable stitch markers, a little bag to keep them in, beautiful hand painted sock yarn and the best....a pound of Brazilian coffee...absolutely divine!!

The one thing that I have been able to work on is my alien scarf. It is slow going because it is my first real experience in chart reading and I don't want to screw it up. I am so enjoying the process of this scarf. I keep stopping to stare at it as those little green faces start to pop out at me. I am in love with illusion knitting!! It is so magical and I am still in love with it. Of course my daughter wants one too now. And freak that I am, I have been showing everyone at work pictures of it like it is a new baby or something. 

Of course, I am pretty darn sure I don't have enough yarn to finish... yet again, poor planning. I would have sworn I checked the yardage when I ordered, but clearly I do not have enough yarn. How aggravating!

Here is ET

Now you see them...

Now you don't!

It has been a sad day on Sesame Street today. I had to go back to the bone doctor about my elbow. Apparently when he said "don't lean on it" he really meant DON'T LEAN ON IT!

Ok, so maybe I leaned on it, a little bit. I couldn't help it, I don't do broken or sicky very well. The damn thing started filling up with fluid and, instead of getting better, the pain was making me nauseous.

  He had to aspirate it today. In layman's terms that means take a big freakin needle, jab it into the most painful part of your elbow without warning your first or numbing it. Then draw out this disgusting liquid, and show it to you. Then give you a shot of cortisone in the same freakinplace, which burns like a MFr! Lie and say it will feel better soon. Well apparently his definition of soon and mine are two different things! 

Ok - to be honest, it is starting to feel a little bit better, but I still feel nauseous from the pain and had to take some Vicodine to take the edge off. I've been feeling pretty muzzy today and just wanted to whine about it. I know, got any cheese to go with that? I am going to try really hard to take better care of it. 

I need to find myself something mindless to work on, since there isn't much mind to work with today.