Weight slowly lifting

I guess I over schedule myself. Work has been hectic. In addition, I've been trying to get another orchid out in the span of a week and that added to it. I would wake up and have a headache within an hour and go to work. I'd come home from work, take a quick nap and continue with the orchid and my head would continue to hurt. Well, work is still...work, but the orchid is done. I spent most of the day today at Bead Obsessions working on the orchid and just hanging out and socializing in a non workplace environment. I needed that because I haven't been able to get out because I've had to be some place where I could work on it. So, the finished piece is now at the shop. Class is scheduled for August 25, 2007 (Saturday). I will be sending the pattern to my two testers in the next day or so.


I also knitted a little on a Monkey< for myself in Schaefer Anne:
This is just the first sock

I also started in on Mystery Shawl 3. I actually started last night with black (Toho #49) hex beads but they blended in with the yarn too well. My initial instinct had been to go with this pewter/gunmetal colored hex bead that I thought I had. But I didn't have any, until today, when I was at the shop:


While I was at the shop, Patricia was playing with some earrings and that inspired me to make some earrings with the silver beads because well, all I had was the knitting! So while I was looking at beads for the earrings, I saw the silver curved tubes and remembered that I had been wanting to make another bangle bracelet, so I did both:


This is basically the bangle bracelets and beginning earrings class at Bead Obsessions. It was quick and easy and just what I needed.

So after all of that, I came home and took another nap, and my brain doesn't quite feel like it's just in seizure mode, but just a little bit. It's getting better. Tomorrow is a force 4 hours in front of the ultimate brain musher...the new tv :)

Venting

A little quiet this week, been busy at work. But right now, I'm not venting about work. Lesson learned today: It's a good thing I religiously check my credit card account balances every week.

This morning, I looked just to see exactly how much damage I did over the weekend at Home Depot. I'm scanning through the list of recent charges and see a charge of $435.27 to Amazon.com and go, "hmmm, what did I buy for $435.27?" I left it alone because I thought maybe the amazon.com was a place holder name for something to be determined since it was my amazon.com credit card. I checked again tonight because it still nagged at me and no. Okay, so, I spent money on a new tv...but that was on a different credit card. I spent money at Home Depot and Ikea, but each of those charges were for < $100. I can't say the same for the total, but I did make a lot of trips to Home Depot. So, gee, it's not like me to not remember what I spent $400 on, especially when it looks like I bought it a couple of days ago! I called up the credit card company and they said, "No, we don't use amazon.com as a placeholder. It really is a charge to amazon.com. You'll need to talk to them." So, I called them and found out that someone ordered a Sony Handycam. Just the words "SONY HANDYCAM" told me that I definitely did not order it. You can all read my incoherent post on photographs and I can tell you it applies even more so to video capture. I personally see no point in video capture because you are pretty much wasting moments of your life reliving other moments of your life. Time that you can spend doing something else productive. And you end up with more crap to lug around. So thankfully, amazon was able to track this order and saw that it was going to Springfield, VA but was undeliverable and is on its way back to the warehouse. I've told the cc company to change my account...and man...well...I had beady things to do tonight but I may just go to sleep now.

Unauthorized use of your credit card. Yes, it happens. Be warned. Check your accounts often.

What I've been doing all weekend

First, Friday night, I painted. I needed some way to de-stress from last week and it seems that destruction/construction on my house does a good job of that for me. So I taped and got 2 coats on the wall in about 4 hours and went to bed. When I woke up in the morning, the color was a lot bluer than I had expected but that's okay. Saturday, I had a class at Bead Obsessions where I ran into this pretty little girl


and found that I couldn't leave the shop without her. I'm going to make her little beady arms and today at work, Svitlana gave me a suggestion on how I could position her arms so it doesn't look like she's being crucified! After the class, I stopped at Costco to check out a tv to see what it looks like in person. I think you all saw that post :) Sunday, I went to the Fairfax Costco and picked up the wall mount since I figured that would save time for today and then had fun with a power drill. Mwhahahaha! Now I'm dangerous. Today, I talked two of my friends into helping me go get the tv. I figured 2 guys to move a tv would do the trick. They got into cuz well, it was a tv. And now, this is my basement:



No I don't have an HD signal coming in, but I'm still happy with it. See the painted wall behind it. The guys were impressed with how quick this was and how all they had to do was lift. So...who wants to sit in my basement this weekend and knit? The first MS3 clue comes out on Friday!

Guy moments

I've decided to start another category. This is the "I'm such a guy moment" category. I think this is because a good number of my good friends are guys and I have this tendency to run off for a weekend for sports related events and drinking. So today's moment...

I went to Costco to check out this 42" LCD tv because it's going on sale on Monday and I've read "love it" reviews and "I really hate that shitty thing" reviews. I had to go see for myself. I liked it. The images were sharper than the tvs around it and the settings weren't even turned all the way up. I was getting a little excited...you could even say, turned on. And then, somewhere in the loop that Costco has playing was a commercial for "NHL on NBC". THIS was the reason I started madly looking at HD. OH. MY. GOD! I was ready to cry tears of joy. I was turned on/excited by a piece of electronic equiptment of the audio/video variety.

Some fiber to look at

Way back at Stitches East 2006, I bought this ball of alpaca:



I had started spinning this up a while back, aiming for a 3 ply yarn that's somewhere around worsted weight. It was frustrating because I had to keep picking the vegetable matter out of the fiber and 3 bobbin fulls take a while to spin up, even though I was pretty much doing the long draw. But over the weekend, I sat down and finished the 3rd bobbin and immediately started plying. I like plying because you're just SO CLOSE to the finished product. I plied and set and it's been hanging out to dry. Now, this first skein is dry and ready to use. It's inspiring me to finish the rest of the ball, which doesn't look like it has gotten any smaller.

Just throwing stuff out there

My brain hurts and I have some pictures.

Progress of the Maple Leaf Shawl. I'm into the 2nd leaf pattern repeat here.

The orchid I was working on for the last couple of weeks. I'm taking a breather and then will be starting on the shop piece for Bead Obsessions. Class is on August 25th.

Me and my Tims. I've known these two guys since high school and are still two of my best friends. One of them is moving to Arizona next week so this was the reason for my trip up to NYC.

Laceweight! Laceweight!

I just ordered a 1 lb. cone of Jaggerspun Zephyr in black. I only need 4 onces but I figured that:

1. I shouldn't have to join ends
2. I could always use black
   

So there. It's done. Anyways, I love how Zephyr knits up.

Look!

Chicago Pics

I've put the pictures from the Chicago trip here. You'll all get the see the psuedo-fam whom I spend holidays with. I grew up with Lynn and Tina. I met Lynn when she was 2 and I met Tina when she was a week old. And now Lynn has graduated from college. Aww...

I also finished the first of the grasshopper socks during graduation. Hey, if I had to sit somewhere to wait a couple of hours for a ceremony to start and then sit through a ceremony where they read off 1000 names, you bet I'd have knitting! The last picture in the set was a picture of the sunburn I came back with.

I'm not dead, just tired

Right, so, I went to Chicago this weekend for a college graduation. I got some really good sushi and also incredibly sunburned. Why didn't I use sunscreen? I've never been sunburned before and so never thought about it. SPF 15 tends to help me tan lightly and SPF 30 turns me white. I've been working on an orchid for Beth, not so much time for other beading though you'd better believe I've got ideas in my head, cleaning my house and doing some light re-org, and going nuts at work, so...the usual! I still haven't found much motivation for knitting though the Elann Esprit is helping to inspire me with a couple of ideas. I also just got my invite to ravelry.com so I'm loading some of my projects and stuff in there. It comes in at a good time when I'm trying to gather all of my yarn and it will allow me to inventory. Pictures to come at some point. I'm still too tired and lazy :)