why i don't need to have children, little transmitters of illness, that's what they are *sigh*

today is my day off. i planned to spend it as i spent yesterday, lounging, with a break to go to the yarn shop to drool, best buy to get a memory upgrade kit for my computer, and the repair shop to sign over my too-expensive-to-fix car. instead i spent it lounging, with periodic breaks to take my nephew's temp. i dropped him off at school, only to return an hour later to pick him up (temp of 99, and stomach ache). well, i guess he wasn't faking 'cause now it's up to 101 and he's vomiting. i am of course sympathetic, i bought him his mother's laptop, i bought him a cold drink, i took his temp. but lines must be drawn. i am not cleaning vomit!!!!! meanwhile, i have called and texted his mom, who is supposed to be on her way home. i don't know how to take care of a sick kid!!! when i'm sick, i call my mom and whine. what am i supposed to do with a sick 15 year old????!!!!!

this has of course given me ample time to work on my 2nd pair of no purl monkeys. i don't know what the yarn is, but it's a pretty shade of blue.

it's also giving me plenty of time to wonder, "am i next????" I just got over bronchitis. I can't get the flu!!!!!! i don't wanna be sick!!!!!

Welcome to my madness! « RocketGirls48's Blog

Welcome to my madness! « RocketGirls48's Blog

sick sick sick....

well, not so much now. interesting bout of bronchitis, with resulting lingering cough. ugh.

anyway, life on the home front is boring. about a week ago sunday, i spent the day cleaning. stirring up dust, cat hair and mold - thus the bronchitis. my place looks a little better now, but it's still pretty bad. thankfully my sister l came over to help that day, or it wouldn't be done. because she helped, i have been able to do a little more each week, and now i feel like i might be able to take some stuff to storage. with her here, i was able to toss out a lot. i have also reached an amicable agreement with the irs, so i am much relieved!!! still a little depressed, so not much knitting has been done. several pairs of socks started and frogged. one promising pair looked okay, but turned out to be too big for everyone in the family, so out it came. not sure what to do next......

need to get back to writing.....

I've been spending a lot of time on facebook recently. not necessarily a good thing, since I spend most of my time there playing Mafia Wars. There are a few folks from work, and my family that hang out there, so it kinda limits what I write about. Also, I am not inclined to write especially long posts.
I have had the last week off and it's been glorious, except for the 29 mosquito bites and their maddening itchiness. The bite sites come in a range of sizes, from tiny to Holy Crap!!! The HC bites are on my index finger on my left hand (thing goodness I am right handed) and on the back of my right ankle. The entire side of the tip of my finger is swollen, as is the back of my ankle. They look kind gross and they itch like mad!!!!! We (the sisters and the neices and nephew and I) went camping at Point Lookout State Park. It's a beautiful, and peaceful place, and the mosquito capital of maryland. After last year, I thought that was Jane's Island, but now I know better. At PLSP we had a lovely cabin in the woods. The 6 cabins in our area were paired, and faced the trees, so you wouldn't have a view directly into your neighbors abode. The 4th area was for a camper hook-up, and was used by the camp host. They had a truely sweet setup. In the center of the 4 areas was the bathroom/shower building. It wasn't the cleanest place (Jane's Island was cleaner) and it was home to a large number of mosquitoes (as proven by the 6 bites on my ass, but only on the right cheek - 'cause I know anyone reading this really wants to know that little detail :-)
We used 2 cabins, one for my sisters, and the other for the 3 kids (18, 15, and 13) and myself.
Point Lookout was a civil war conferderate prison camp (the largest in the civil war) and hospital. It's located where the Potomac River and the Chesapeak Bay meet. There is a lighthouse, although I (snob that I am) don't consider it a "real" lighthouse because it's a house with a light on top, I prefer the more romantic towery light.
We went fishing (I bought the first pole I have had since I was about 12) and fed a lot of fish. That is the purpose of fishing, right? Were we actually supposed to "catch" something?????? We had fun anyway. We had s'mores. One is my limit, after two, I feel a little sick. We had terrible cheap wine. We swam in the Potomac (not allowed to swim in the bay there). We cooked over the fire, and used the propane stove only once. We saw foxes, and I laughed at my sisters who ran away from them, as the foxes ran in the opposite direction. I would go again, with stronger insect repellent and more bite stuff. It was a great time.
I am half-way through my latest knitting project (a tank top) and have started on a pair of socks from the latest knitty.
I have decided I am going to write a romance novel.

been a loooooong while

Okay, I am still into the bento thing, even though I haven't made myself one in about a month. I have been so lazy when it comes to lunch. I just get stuff at work. They have this crazy gorgeous new hot bar and salad bar thing and it's just awesome! If only the food was as good as the set-up is beautiful. Oh well, they are hiring new folks like crazy, and hopefully some of them can cook. Anyway, knitting has been slow going lately. I've lost my knitting mojo, I think. I am working on the Brioche tank from Interweave '06. It's really cute, and my friend K liked it so much, she is working on it too! Except I started mine first and have completed only 5 inches and she is half done. See, I told you I lost my mojo :-)
Anyway, I spent today helping one of the decorators decorate cakes. It was soooo much fun! I haven't done it in a while. Tomorrow I will help her again, and this time I will take my tools in. I hate looking for tips and spatulas. Fun.
I think the rain is making me crazy.

mdsw, and other stuff

Well, it's hard to believe it has been almost two months since my last post.  Wow, where has the time gone.  

The biker boy cardi is done and currently adorning my nephew as he heads off to see Star Trek.  

I did the sheep and wool thing with K and we had a blast!  She bought lots of yarn.  She found yarn for me to buy :-)  We ate lots of great food.  We saw lots of cool stuff!

I have survived the great flood and am still throwing out stuff as i find it.  Just tossed probably $200 worth of books yesterday.  I didn't open the boxes except to see that the books I thought had kept dry, were soaked and were now blue.  I didn't check to see what they were.  At this point it didn't matter.  They were a total loss.  My next think is to take all the stuff that belongs to my sister that is sitting here, probably contributing to my clogged sinuses, and dump it in the garage.  If she wants to go through it, she can do it there.

She gave me some news that didn's suprise me, so I don't know why it suprised her.  Her daughter is 17, 5'4" tall, and weighs about 280lbs.  Her pediatrician told my sister that her cholesteral is extremely high.  This should be a suprise?  My sister is in denial.  

Anyway, I should talk.  I am going to spend more time planning my meals for work.  The stuff there has been making me sick lately.  

Anyway, I am finishing the red sweater.  It's been 4 years now, it's time to put this to bed.  It's actually not that hard, the pattern is fairly easy.  I picked up with the intention of possibly frogging it, then I noticed the stitch markers and decided to give it a shot again.  So, we'll see.

meanderings

Well, I have been sucked into the phenomenon that is Facebook.  I am now totally hooked on Mafia Wars and play everyday.  I am also now quite well aware of the drawbacks of this thing.  First, I have made "friends" with lots of people I don't know because I have to build up my mafia family enough to keep from being beaten up and robbed by the masses of folks playing.  As a result, I have ended up with some weird and wacky folks on my page (had to draw the line at the guy who became a fan of "upskirt.com", the picture showed up on my page and I un-friended him asap).  Also, quite a few folks I work with are on it, so I have to watch what I say. Do I really want to talk about my sucky day where there is a chance my boss can see it?  He is also on Facebook, but we aren't friends.  I am also privy to my niece's more off color comments to her friends.  Lordy that child can swear (well, one of her first words was "gah-dammit" - she was about 2 at the time and that is exactly how she said it :-).  Trust me, she has progressed (is it actually progress???).   I did join a group called "I knit to keep from killing people".  I thought the title appropriate.  Some days that seems to be the case.  

I am putting myself on a little bit of a yarn purchasing hiatus.  I have a small cabinet full of yarn, maybe 20 pairs of socks worth, and no plans for any of it.  Yes, I know, many folks say sock yarn doesn't count, but if it takes up space, it counts.  This may change if I come across some fantastic yarn, a great project, a phenomenal sale, a stupendous sock club, or any other excuse to ditch this plan :-)  

Oh, and that brings to mind my original purpose in writing today.  I love knitpicks!  I broke one of my harmony options, in the middle of one of the sleeves of my biker boy cardi.  I was going to blow it off, but then I decided I should replace it.  So I ordered another set, and some short cables to work on the other sleeve (two short cables instead of one long).  When my new cables and needles arrived, one of the needles was loose and kept slipping out of the base, and one of the cables was defective and I couldn't screw the needles in.  Slightly unhappy.  Sent off a quick note, they responded with a very quick apology and a new set of needles and cables.  These guys have such totally great customer service.  And I will continue to get the options needles, even with the arrival on the scene of the addi turbo interchangable needles.  $125 is a lot of cash for so few cables and 9 pairs of needles.  The options needles come with an additional cable and the same range of needle sizes (but I think the addis have one additional size).  There is the nice case it comes in, but I'm not sure if that is really worth the additional cost.  The system does sound good, though.  The snap on needles vs the screw on needles.  The options needles do have a tendency to come loose (of course that could be because I am too lazy to use the little pin thingy to properly tighten them when I connect them).

Any way, it's almost 5 am and I am supposed to be sleeping.  Just read an article about the importance of proper rest for women and the link between sleep deprivation and heart disease.  Good thing it's my day off!  Can sleep all day.  Joy!

piffle

I came home, tired and in a good mood.  Until I opened the fridge door, and saw it.  Or rather didn't.  My freakin' guacamole and salsa fresca, gone.  All I wanted was my snack.  Instead, those PEOPLE ate it.  All of it.  They had their own salsa, they could have opened the jar.  There weren't even any chips in the house.  I left the bag in my car.  But they ate my stuff.  I am totally beyond peeved.  *sigh*  Living with family sucks sometimes.  My sister wakes me up because she thinks I should be awake and socializing with the family.  I work weekends.  If I have to be at work at 4pm, I don't want to wake up at 8am, and I don't think I should have to.  I'm not digging this right now.   And to top it off, my 2nd yarn shipment hasn't arrived.  She was sick.  Not to sick to collect her paypal payment, but too sick to send out the yarn.  She said she "didn't want to include germy special suprises".  I guess that was considerat, but a nice short email would also be nice.  Just a brief "hey, due to illness your shipment will be late", quick and to the point.  It let's me know I didn't just send money to a scam artist.  Speaking of which, I have been getting text messages, about 1 every week or so from someone purporting to be from a credit union.  They say my card has been deactivated, and I need to call them.  Out of curiosity I did call yesterday (from work where we have lots of extensions - I'm not a total dweeb)  and the recording asked form my card number.  I immediately hung up the phone.  The guy sitting in the office with me told me about the newest scam.  I am wondering if I should notify someone about this, continue to ignore them, or change my number.  It's annoying.  Between that and the "you have just won the Irish Lottery" emails, I am a little peturbed.

i must be bored

it's 6 am and i should be asleep.  i must be tired because i am playing mafia wars on facebook, and answering customer comments on the whole foods website.  i really need to go to bed:-)

Happiness is......

finally figuring out how to carry the yarn for the vertical stripe in the biker boy cardi.  It's also getting your spring Interweave Knits.  Think I'll just take a look at that riiiiiight now :-)