The story of a sock

There were once these socks I had the idea to knit. Socks. Pshhh... they're fast. I'll whip these up in a few week's time and give them to my step-mom for her birthday. That's what I thought back in April of this year. I had a yummy yarn to use-- Schachenmayr nomotta Regia Design Line Kaffe Fassett in the colorway Landscape Earth. I chose Ann Budd's undulating ribs for the pattern. Enough depth to give these socks some life, but not busy enough to be obscured by the color changes in the yarn.

They were lovely but just wouldn't ever seem to grow. I'd knit and knit, and they'd just stay the same size. Anyone who knits knows what I'm talking about. It's the same reason that I have a hard and fast rule about sweaters. When I think it's long enough I make myself add about 5 more rounds, or another repeat, whichever is the greater of the two.

I finished the first one sometime around July, I think, cast on, and did the cuff of the second. Then came my sordid affair with crochet, which ate up all of my time, and made it easy to cast aside my eternal sock companion. You see, somehow, when I separated the stitches for the heel, I separated in a different spot in the patterning than I did on the first, and when I started working down the foot of the second, I decided to try and fix it the lazy way-- by a series of stitches cast on on one side and cast off on the other. Should have just ripped, but I'll be damned if I'm going to rip out a heel that took me nearly 4 months to get around to doing! It was much easier, and a lot less painful to ignore them. Finally, a few weeks ago-- after finishing Delia's blankie and finding myself captive in the car loop with nothing else to knit, the socks and I had a heart to heart. I agreed to finish them, as they were, if they'd promise to behave for the rest of their time on the needles.

And, now I present to you my eternal undulating ribs!




In other news, my car, Gertrude (yes, her name is Gertrude, and it's much cuter when you hear Wil say it with his accent!), and I shared a tender moment:


I feel like I should treat her to an oil change or something. I'm truly surprised that she's continued to lurch along this far. I'm hoping for about another 20,000 more.

Happy Monday

Just a little blog update while I have 5 minutes to myself.

Not a whole lot of interesting stuff is going on around here. Hubby's car finally broke down on Friday. We've been wondering how long it would go before finally doing so. It's been a great car, so I'm not begrudging it one bit. We were hoping it would give us a couple more months because we're currently on the lookout for a new one, anyway. Looks like we're going to have to fork over the repair money and keep it a little longer though.

The only inconvenient thing is, it broke down on the very top floor of the parking garage, making it impossible to get a tow truck to pick it up. This morning after dropping J off at school we had to go up and push it back down to the street so that the tow-guy could get to it. Fun times, I tell ya. There's nothing like pushing a car, in the cold and rain, through a busy hospital parking garage. We got some ugly looks. But it's done, and it's now at Mr. Bruce's shop waiting on a new front axle and serpentine belt. The beast should run another 100,000 miles after this, given it's track record.

In the knitting/crochet arena. I have lots of projects I'd like to be working on, if only I could find the time. I've got the Granny cardi version 2.0 currently in the works. All I've managed to accomplish is the back and part of one front. Alas, I need to set it down and get to work on some baby goodies. Two of the girls in my knitting group are expecting. One of them in the next few weeks. I picked up some lovely purple wool/silk blend yarn the other day on clearance- $2.00 a ball. I'm thinking little eyelet cardigans for both, along with some booties? I'd better get crankin!

And that's it. Nothing much to report. I promise a better post when I have the time.

More drugs, please

Good lord, sometimes life can be crueler than fiction.

As of Sunday we didn't have a single operational vehicle in our driveway. It always seems to happen that way, and usually when the bank account is at it's emptiest. Why is that?

Fortunately, hubby's car was an easy fix-- just needed a new battery. At least, that's what we thought. But after purchasing said new battery and installing it, the little beast still gave trouble starting. Ends up there's a bad terminal, too. Not a major problem, but one hubby wasn't interested in addressing at 10 pm while hunched over the hood of his car in the dark, flashlight between his teeth, in a drizzle. It got him to work today, so I'm assuming that it's still ok.

My car, on the other hand. Well, has anything ever been cheap or easy to fix on it? Nope.

So, after just paying off all of our credit card debt, I had to go and plunk down a huge sum of money this morning for a new serpentine belt and tensioner. Who knew that a tensioner was an expensive part?

My biggest predicament with the car being broken today, of all days, was that not only did I have to get J to school, but had to be back by 11 because his class was putting on a "funny feet parade" in honor of the letter F. Cute, right? J proudly designed his own funny foot coverings out of some of those little foam craft sheets and lots of stickers. He was quite proud of them. How could I miss my baby boy's shining moment as leader of the parade?

The mechanic assured me that he'd have it done on time, and I'll be damned if he didn't pull it off-- I pulled out of the shop at 10:50! I made it just in time to watch J throw a temper tantrum and refuse to participate in the parade because a piece of his little costume had come undone. So we sat and watched the rest of the school and I cheered them on while he stood in the corner, arms crossed, sulking.

After that, it was a trip to the dentist for me. I could stop here, but why?

You see, I've got this weird sort of tolerance for local anesthetics. It's happened in the past on three occasions in this particular dentist's chair, and he's well aware of it. He has me come in about an hour before he's ready to get started, he gives me the good stuff, and then leaves me to sit so it can take effect. Today it didn't work. We went two rounds- four injections each, and only the slightest bit of numbing. Finally, I told him to go ahead and just start drilling. Two excruciating hours later, I've got a new temporary filling holding a tiny fraction of tooth together, and he stated that when I'm ready for the actual root canal and crown, he's going to refer me out to a surgeon who can do full anesthesia, then drops the bomb that in order to get a crown on this tooth I'm going to require gum surgery as well. I'm now strongly leaning towards simply extracting the offending molar and being done completely and forever. I'm waiting on insurance to give me quotes to make the decision final. Even the dentist agrees that it won't be too much of a loss to go that route. Maybe he just doesn't want to see me back in his chair, white knuckling the armrests. Really, he's a great guy, and it's not his fault.

Perhaps the only saving grace of the day is that J fell asleep in the car on the way home from Abuela's at 6, which means I can probably drink myself into oblivion before he wakes up at 2 a.m. ready to start a new day.

And really, I do have cute and uplifting things to share with you. But it'll have to wait until the right side of my face stops throbbing.

So much for productivity

I woke up this morning wanting to accomplish so much, but sometimes whatever cosmic force you might believe in has it out for you.

After finally getting both J and hubby motivated and out the door, which is a small feat in and of itself, we headed to the produce store to get, well... produce, of course. J pitched a fit right in the middle of the shop, which I'd like to say is completely uncharacteristic of him, but lately it seems to be his normal routine. Quite frustrating. He's always been a fun and agreeable shopping partner, but lately, he's been ridiculously difficult. After assuaging whatever it was that had him all askew, we had a good time picking out all sorts of yummy stuff-- some plantains, an acorn squash, some apples, giant tomatoes, snap peas, a watermelon. Yum!

When we got in the car to leave, the damn thing wouldn't start. Now, we just spent $500 less than a month ago to correct this very problem, but apparently, my car's got just as much attitude as my kid. Some helpful kids who work at the store came to the rescue and were able to get it jump started. We drove it directly to the auto parts store where they diagnose it with a dead battery. It makes sense, driving it with a faulty starter for so long just put an early end to the battery.

The good news to all of this is that the battery was still under warranty, so we only had to pay half price for the new one.

Wil borrowed some tools and installed it while J and I sat in the shade on the sidewalk and shared an iced tea and swatted the gnats. Believe me, I was more than grateful for the simple fix, but what a crappy time of year to be stuck in the heat with a broken car and a whiny kid.

After the battery was installed, we brought the veggies home, and then went to get something to eat because the last thing I felt like doing was facing the mountain of dishes in the sink so that I could make more by cooking dinner.

Dinner sucked out loud. The food wasn't terrible, but the service was awful, it was crowded, their a/c was just barely blowing, and J, again, was being a booger. Seriously, I've never had to deal with this sort of phase before with him, and I'm somewhat at a loss for a solution. Do I drag his whiny butt out of every place? Or does that simply give him his way?

Sometimes just when I think I've got the parenting thing all figured out, he throws me a curve ball. I just wish I knew what was spawning this particular brand of behavior.

*sigh*

And I still need to go to the grocery.

Red on the head

I've been wanting to show you a picture of J-man from last weekend. We took him to get his hair cut, and the girl made him feel like a total rock star, complete with glitter and red dye. Of course, it was washable, and came out the moment his head met water. This meant it took me until Monday night to get him to wash his hair in the bath. Oh well, no one ever died of dirty hair, right?


I know it's not a good picture, but he's in this "no cameras" phase right now. I guess it just plays along with his rocker mentality. Seriously though, I haven't figured out a way to sneak up on him yet. We have better luck with Wil's iphone than with the actual camera because he doesn't see it coming.

This week my car's been in the shop, which has been interesting, figuring out how to get here and there without transportation. But we've managed to get by, and the car is now home, $500 and a new starter later. Why must my car be a total pain in the ass?

The knitting continues to be mindless with a pair of stockinette socks going on, and a pair of ankle socks requested by one of my doctors at work. I'm not using a pattern for either, as they're just plain old socks, but I'm not really happy with the requested socks. They're cute, but the yarn is more of a DK weight, and so acrylic that they squeak (loudly) on the needles! I think I'm going to try and find some 'real' yarn in a similar color and reknit them at a different gauge. These fit and all, but I just can't see how anyone would enjoy wearing socks this bulky. They'll be good for me to wear around the house. My feet are always cold, so it's not like this pair is a wasted effort.

Pictures eventually. I still haven't charged the battery in my camera, or located the cable required to load them. Call me lazy.

When it rains

My car is cursed. Seriously. It has a mind of it's own, and works on it's own schedule. Usually, when it's feeling snarky is exactly when I need it to be on it's best behavior-- much like my son.

For months now, intermittently, it's left me stranded somewhere. You get in, turn the key, and nothing. It's not the battery because I can still roll the windows up and down and the dome light works, as well as the radio. Twice, I've pulled it into the auto parts store to have the alternator checked, and it's passed with flying colors, too.

Yesterday, while out running errands in the too-hot-to-breathe afternoon heat, it decided to play it's tricks on me. Every time I give in and call someone to come 'rescue' me, it starts right up when they get there. And true to form, once Wil arrived, driving 20 miles out of his way, in his company van, it did the exact same thing.

Fortunately, I have a pretty cool mechanic, who graciously allowed me to bring it straight over. He thinks it's the starter. That's a simple fix, I suppose. The bad news is he'll need to keep the car for a couple of days while the starter gets rebuilt. Apparently, that's the cheaper way to go, and I'm all for that. The problem with him keeping the car is that I NEED my car. It's the only car that's really safe enough to put J in. I suppose the chances of having an accident in Wil's car in the two days or so that I'd have to depend on it are fairly slim, but still... who wants to strap their kid into a car with back doors that stick, has no a/c, and sounds like armageddon when it runs?

Yeah, it's only a temporary thing, but still... I'm going to have to suck it up. Right now I'm on pins and needles every time I start it up, not sure when it's going to decide it's done for good.

As a bonus, this means that I won't be going to Stitch N Pitch this weekend, which I really wanted to do. J would have loved the game, and how often do I get a chance to hang out with a bunch of knitters?

*sigh*

In good news, I got my new-to-me computer this weekend, thanks to Michele. Soon I'll have pictures to share and I can get back on track with all things net related.

And speaking of Michele, it seems we manage to find some excuse to get together almost every weekend for a little knitting time, and yet my FO count doesn't seem to go anywhere. Funny how that happens. I did finish up my puke monkeys this weekend. Pictures soon, I promise. Let me say this: I adore the monkey pattern! It was a great and quick knit, and the result would be fabulous in a different yarn. I can totally understand why Knit Picks discontinued the Dancing line. I love the elasticity of it, but the color? Total Fug. Still waffling on whether to overdye these, or just leave them as is. I don't know if I know anyone who's got a loud enough personality to pull off wearing them as is.

I cast on a new pair almost immediately. That says a lot for the pattern. I've never once had a desire to knit the same thing twice. There are just too many good patterns out there that I want to do. But Monkeys are great lunch hour, car ride, tv watching socks. Unfortunately, I didn't like the way this yarn looked in the pattern, either, and they were turning out huge, even after starting them three different times, on three different needles. So they got frogged. I contemplated Jaywalkers, but with instructions to cast on 72 stitches for the smallest size, I feared disastrous results, and so frogged those too. I think this yarn just wants to be plain old stockinette socks. Oddly, I've never done plain socks before. I'll keep these in my purse for mindless knitting, and maybe go stash diving for something more mentally stimulating.

Anyway, long post, no pictures. I'm sure you're yawning.

What's going on

Not a whole lot of anything, really.

Why is it that time seems to pass by so quickly in the summer? I mean, the days are longer, so you should be able to get more done, right? Maybe it's just that the heat sucks all life out of you.

Actually, something really great happened Saturday.

Anyone who's read this blog for any amount of time will be familiar with my lamenting over the fact that no one knits in Florida. Sure, I've got this great community of online knitters to hang out with, but nothing can compare to sitting in a cozy chair in a coffeehouse with a friend chatting about yarns and needles and patters, and laughing over your first project bloopers. Well, Saturday I got to do just that.

Bless Michele and her super-great husband for making the drive down from Merritt Island in a torrential downpour to do it. And hubby gets double gold stars for patiently sitting by and keeping a smile on his face while we gabbed like a couple of old hens. We were a wet and soggy trio, but I'd do it again in a heartbeat.

Michele is super-crafty, toting her current sock around in an adorable little hand-made ladybug drawstring bag. I was envious of it's simplistic perfection. Really, I've oogled the Goknit pouches a time or two, and her bag was a perfect little knockoff. I'm going to have to break out the sewing machine, I think.

I hope that we find time to get together again soon. This time, I'll make the drive.

Sunday we had a fun day of shopping for nothing in particular followed by swimming and dinner at the parents.

Today my car got dropped back off at the shop to have the air conditioner fixed. While it was being worked on, J and I ran our usual errands including a stop at the scrapbook store for some pirate-y paper to make his birthday invitations, an then a run to the party store for decorations and supplies. We went a little overboard, but not horribly so. The good news is, I don't have to stress about last minute stuff now. I've got just about everything I need besides the food. Yay!

The car's still in the shop, and I don't even know if I want to venture a guess as to how much the final bill will be. Ugh!

Knitting... yes, I've finally finished the first clue on my Mystery Stole. I know, I'm about 4 weeks behind, but I'm not in a big hurry, and it's a project that requires undivided attention, which I don't have most of the time. I really do like the way it's turning out so far, though.

I'm itching to start on a new pair of socks just to give me a more mindless sort of thing to carry around with me. Right now my two WIPs are both attention hogs, and they don't travel nicely.

End pictureless ramble.

Go ahead, kick me while I'm down

This morning, while driving the whopping 4 miles round-trip to pick up donuts with J-man, the OTHER service engine light came on in the car. I just sat there at the red light slowly banging my head against the steering wheel.

I don't want to stew over this and ruin my already rotten mood, but now I am exactly back to where I started with the car before I spent the original $1400 on it. Just what the hell the mechanics did to it, I'm not sure, but it was a far cry from fixing it.

I've been looking online at cars this morning. Not that we can afford a new car payment, but I'm starting to wonder how much money we'll have to throw at the current lemon before it's drivable again, and whether or not it's worth the effort and the hassle.

Wish I lived somewhere hilly where I could "accidentally" forget to set the parking brake and have it roll right off a cliff. With my luck it would land on some sort of endangered tree or something. Ugh.

Anyone have a dependable car (color, style, etc. not important) they'd like to sell me for next to nothing? I'm so fed up.

Hace Calor!

It's been just about a month since the air conditioner in my car decided to take a crap on me. Yep, that's the way my luck goes-- it works perfectly all through winter and spring, only to go kaput right at the beginning of inferno season.

Now I'm not as big of a wimp as I sound. Sure, it's hot, but I can deal with it. It's J-man that I feel bad for. You know when it's 104 with the heat index outside it's about 50 degrees hotter in the car. That's just inhumane. Add to that the fact that the wind in his face freaks him out and he wants the windows rolled up, and it's something like driving a preheated oven around.

So, as you can imagine, we're not getting a whole lot done, other than sitting on our butts in the house. I've got cabin fever in a bad way. I'm used to being out- trips to the library, shopping, whatever. I hate feeling trapped at home all day, but I can't justify going out unnecessarily when it's this damn hot.

I've had it looked at by two different mechanics now. The first ones were complete morons who couldn't tell a dipstick from a valve stem. I had no confidence in them at all, but hubby insisted that the car go there- that he knew someone that worked there, and he'd treat us right.

Yeah, $1400.00 worth of right, and while a few of the things that needed doing were done- like new brakes, spark plugs, transmission flush, etc. I STILL DON'T FREAKING HAVE AIR!! It was the one and only reason for me deciding to put the car in the shop anyway.

So, idiot mechanic tells us that the compressor is working fine (whew!) but that every time you turn it on, it blows a fuse. We'll need to take it to the dealer in order for them to trace the electrical problem.

I don't do dealerships. I'm afraid if I take this lemon of a car to them I'm going to tell them exactly how I feel about it, and it's probably not in the best interest of anyone for me to do that. I did the next best thing and took it to the mechanic that my dad recommends. Turns out, he used to work for my dealership. Woohoo. Score one for me.

I dropped the oven... er, car off on Thursday, and he worked and worked on it. He kept it overnight and all day Friday. He's found the problem. You see, some moron, and I won't point fingers, decided to try fixing it over and over again by replacing the blown fuse with bigger fuses, and ended up melting the wires. Now I need a new compressor as well as the wiring that's shot. Hmmm... wonder how that happened?

And it pisses me off to know that if idiot mechanics #1 had just stopped when they were stumped and said "You know, we have no idea what we're doing here. Maybe you should take it to the dealership" instead of charging me for multiple hours of service and a few outrageous diagnostic fees, the compressor probably wouldn't need to be replaced at all.

Oh well, can't change the facts now, can we?

So, new mechanic is looking for parts. Apparently they're hard to come by--as if I drive some sort of rare and fancy car. Apparently, they're also quite pricey. Great.

Not much else going on. The mystery stole continues to grow very slowly. I still haven't finished the first clue, and the third has already been released. It's ok though. I've never been the world's fastest knitter.

The housework is piling up. It's not like I'm not home all day and don't do it. It's just that I'm home all day, and so all my work gets undone almost immediately. Trying to clean up after a nearly 3-year-old kid is an impossible task. Sometimes I wonder if I'll ever see the day where I don't have crap piled up all around me. Chances are, the answer is no. Dishes, laundry, dog hair, cat hair, litter, aquariums that need cleaning, a lawn that needs twice a week mowings, tile floors that stay clean for roughly 10 minutes after you put the mop away, well water that stains the showers orange. No matter how much work I seem to do, the house persists in looking terrible.

*sigh*

Don't mind me, I'm just irritable today.

Pictures forthcoming

It's been a wild and wonderful weekend, and I don't even know where to begin with it. Brother and nephew came to town for the weekend, and that alone is enough to make it great, but add into it a trip to the cape to watch the shuttle launch, and a trip to Disney, and it makes for a lot of excitement. I won't be surprised if J-man sleeps until noon today.

The nephew is an amazing kid, and I'm not just saying that because he's my nephew, either. He's insanely smart, witty, and a sweet big cousin to Jonas. Of course there have been the squabbles and a few bouts of crying (mostly on J's part), but for an almost 4 year old and an almost 3 year old, things couldn't be any better.

I haven't even really had a chance to go through the pictures on my digital to see if I've got any decent ones, but once I do, you know I'll have to share at least a few. Right now I'm still trying to recover from carrying J through much of Disney. He didn't like the stroller riding much, and his legs just couldn't keep up with us. Right now my lower back and legs feel like they're filled with lead jelly, if that makes any sense. But it was well worth it.

And with all the good going on, there always has to be some drama, and that part is being played by my car. When we got home from Disney in the wee hours of Sunday morning, we discovered that, along with all the mechanical problems that were already on our list of things to fix, the air conditioner had conked out. Figures... first week we've had temperatures in the mid- to high nineties. Now, I can drive around and ignore the "change oil" light for a while, and the brakes needed doing, and it needed a tuneup, and there's a whole list of other stuff that was being neglected, and I probably sound really spoiled, but I cannot drive around with J-man and no a/c. That's just cruel. And so, almost $1000 later, I'm still carless, but once I get it back, it should be virtually new. But talk about bad timing!

Anyway, just a fly-by sort of post just to confirm that I haven't abandoned the blog entirely.