Knitting, with Dogs

Escalera Jacket

Apologies for the crappy bathroom mirror photo.  I'll get Dear Robert to take better pictures when he gets home.

Outside in the sun.  That's Bouncer's head shadow:

With dogs:

Pattern:  Escalera Jacket by Carol Lapin, from Simply Shetland 3: At Galiesteo.
Yarn:  Cascade 220, 8 skeins
Needles:  US size 6, and I was pretty much right on gauge for once
It took me 17 days to knit and finish.  This is the nice, roomy kind of sweater I might actually wear.

Aw, crap.

Bill and Star were sent home from the Greatest American Dog.  I guess I understood it, but I still cried.  Heck, even the judges cried.

But jeezopete -- anybody else think that maybe some of the stuff they wanted the dogs to do last night was DANGEROUS???  I mean, it's bad enough to stare down an approaching elephant, but doing all that stunt work?  Look like Galaxy got hurt, even though her and J.D's performance made me cry too.  They're a great team.

But Bill and Star -- y'all were the best and sweetest, and i wish you'd won it all.  I love you guys.

Oh, and the camera has turned back up, and my sweater is finished.  Pics soon.

Still housesitting, still camera-less

Dammit, WHERE is that camera??  Because I'm going to have an FO in a few days if all goes well.

I've been using my time housesitting to good advantage.  I'm over half-way through with the last piece of the sweater I'm making (no, it's not in Ravelry, not really).  I knitted both sleeves over the weekend and got the major body pieces worked together.  It's knitted kinda modularly, in strips.  Then you join the pieces with a 3 needle bindoff.  Easy peasy.  When I finish the collar, I'll join it to the body the same way, then join the side seams.  The only seams to sew will be the sleeve seams.

I am, however, on my last ball of yarn.  Keep your fingers crossed that I have enough.  It's going to be close.

I have no internet where I'm housesitting.  EGAD!  During the week, not so bad, because I'm back home during the day.  Last weekend I was there with the dogs from Friday late afternoon till Monday morning.  Just me.  And the dogs.  And my phone died early Sunday afternoon.  Srsly.  I was fine, but was really glad to get back to the house and see the husband and the dogs.

Really glad. 

But I'm getting a lot done.  I can use my Eee as an ebook reader.  I set it to autoscroll and churn out those garter stitch strips at an amazing rate.  The Mobipocket desktop reader has lots of options as far as color, font size and scrolling speed go.  It works great for me.

And I've never shared a bed with dogs that are about the size of cats before.  My dogs are somewhat bigger than that.  But the dogs are fine.

I do miss home, though. 

Away from home. Sorta.

I'm going to be housesitting for some doggy-type folks till the end of the month.  I'll be spending  the next ten nights away from home.

Ten. Nights.  And two whole weekends.  I will be home during the day during the week.  

Wow.  Maybe I'll actually get some knitting done.  I'm actually getting excited about making a sweater.  Believe it or not - a sweater.  And I've figured out that I CAN get Audacity to work off a thumb drive on my little bebe 'puter here.  Converting the .aup file to mp3 is a little time-consuming, but if worst comes to worst, I can always dump the file on my desktop computer and edit/convert it there

But being away from home is always a challenge.

One day at a time, I tell myself.  Just one day at a time.

Pesto!

I don't consider myself a good cook.  I look with envy on the dishes made by folks like Two Sheep and ESC and just sigh.  I can make stuff that's edible, but it's rarely delicious.  And honestly, most of the time I can't be arsed to put out the effort to make something that's probably just going to give me heartburn anyway.*  But tonight... we made pesto.  And it was GOOD.  DAMNED good.  I don't have any pics, because I'm not sure where I put the camera right now.  (It's in one of those eddies in the space-time continuum.  It'll show up when it falls back out again, the way my phone charger did.  AFTER I bought a new charge.  /head desk/)

So we're both happily garlic-stinky and replete, and waiting for the start of tonight's Greatest American Dog episode.

In the meantime, here's something different:  The Accent Game.  I sucked at it (scored 26 points, getting only half of them right.)

*I have the World's Worst Stomach.

I hate change

I know, I know.  Change is good.  Change keeps things interesting.  Change keeps your mind sharp (and Og knows my mind needs all the help it can get.)  Change keeps things from getting stale.

But change is stressful.  Change generates uncertainty.  Will things be better, or not?  There are all kinds of things for the anxiety-prone* among us to worry about. 

The economic suckage is responsible for a lot of the crap that's going on.  And 2008 is just a crap year so far.  I just have to hang on and do my part and work on not worrying too much.  I'm sure everything will be fine when the dust settles.  But the dust storm may be ... large.

I think I'll start referring to 2008 as the Year of the Flatulent Whirlpool.  It either stinks or it sucks.

Cross your fingers for me. 

Jeezopete, I sure whine a lot lately, don't I?  Sorry about that.

Oh, and mosquitos?  Get OUT of my damn HOUSE, you blood-sucking fiends!!!  Dammit.

*raises hand sheepishly

Quizzes - i luvs them

Your result for The Perception Personality Image Test...

NFPC - The Artist

You perceive the world with particular attention to nature. You focus on what's in front of you (the foreground) and how that fits into the larger picture. You are also particularly drawn towards the colors around you. Because of the value you place on nature, you tend to find comfort in more subdued settings and find energy in solitude. You like to deal directly with whatever comes your way without dealing with speculating possibilities or outcomes you can't control. You are in tune with all that is around you and understand your life as part of a larger whole. You are a down-to-earth person who enjoys going with the flow.

Take The Perception Personality Image Test at HelloQuizzy

Park walking

Today, after a BBQ* lunch in Sewanee, we went up to George Pierce Park for an outing.  Dear Robert used to play street hockey or softball up there, and he wanted to see what the park was like now.

It's a heckuva nice park.  We stopped at the Community Center, which has a pretty nice gathering place for seniors, if you're in to hanging out with (other) old people.  Lots of senior activities too.  I just have a hard time thinking of myself as a senior.  But hey, if you WANT to give me a discount because of my age, I'm totally ok with that.

The have the usual softball and soccer fields, but they also have paved and unpaved trails.  I discovered the existence of a hitherto unknown-to-me trail that connects several north Gwinnett parks.  Since Dear Robert has started thinking that maybe trail running with Jasper would be good exercise, this is good info to have.

Anyway, we went off on one of the unpaved trails  and walked through the woods.  No pictures, because I was totally camnesiac today.  We walked for about and hour, dodged a couple of mountain bikers, and had a good time.  I wore my Vibram Five fingers, and they did great for me.  Part of the path is gravelled, so you do have to pick your route a little, but I really didn't walk much more slowly than usual.  (I'm a slow walker at the best of times.)

The biggest thing is that I feel more sure-footed in them than I do in sneakers.  That's  a BIG plus for me.
Still lovin' the shoes.

And remember:  Barbeque is MEAT.

Geek humor alert

There's funny stuff going on in this post on Making Light.

Retail therapy

So I thought maybe getting out of the house would help me to perk up some.  There are a number of LYS that I haven't visited because they're off my usual routes.  With the rate that LYS are closing lately, I figured I better go see some of them lest they close without my ever having visited them.

Today I headed over to Only Ewe and Cotton Too.  What a nice little shop!  That's what I'd always heard about it, and it was nice to find it was true.  They have a nice and eclectic collection of yarns and a few spinning fibers, and several Louet spinning wheels.  They share a space with a bead shop.  I looked around in there and resolutely turned my eyes away from it.  But I filed it away for future reference.

On the way over, I was listening to the Stash and Burn podcast.  Jenny mentioned buying some Cestari 2-ply wool.  I guess it was on my mind, because when I went into the store and saw some Cestari wool/cotton sock yarn, I bought it.  8 skeins of it.

It's a nice soft heathery green.  My favorite.

I also bought a new oiler for my spinning wheel (I managed to bork my old one somehow) and the latest IK.  Just because.

And when I stopped at the groc on the way home, a happy sight awaited me.

Scuppernongs are in season!

I loves me some scuppernongs.  They're seasonal, so you have to get them while you can. 

Here's how I eat a scuppernong:

• Pick out a scuppernong and pop it in your mouth 
• Crunch down on the firm skin just hard enough to pop it open and squirt out the pulpy center
• Reach into the center of the pulpy bit with your tongue and find the seeds.  Spit them out.
• Eat the pulp and enjoy the texture.  That's my favorite thing about scuppernongs.  They don't really taste like any other grapes, and the texture is also different and yummy.
• You can either eat the skin or spit it out.  The skin is definitely not as tasty as the pulp, but it's eatable.  I eat it.

Scuppernongs - nom nom nom.  I've already eaten about 1/3 of this package.

And Mouse is right -- "I"m feeling MUCH better" is the line that Buddy (John Astin) used to say on Night Court.

Buddy spent lots of years in the loony bin, btw.