Erica’s Blog

Dad, what’s a socialist?

Mom, what’s a beatnik?

Mom, what’s a homosexual?

Hmmmm.  Guess Clue wasn’t the greatest movie for them to watch.

GOOD NEWS:  My laptop has been fixed, and Nana picked it up from the “computer hospital” for me yesterday.  The “docs” there saved my data.

BAD NEWS:  The problem was that we’d worn out the hard drive with heavy use (in just under two years, when they usually last two to five years).  B/c they had to give us a new hard drive, we’ll have to re-load Office, Quicken, etc.  What a pain.  When we killed the old desktop, I lost my 1,000+ Outlook contacts.  I had just built it back up to around 200.  I’m hoping they can help me get them back.  Then again, I’m 87% sure that we still have the data disks lying around from a couple of years ago, so I might be able to restore the 1,000+ with some remote assistance.  Maybe.  If I’m lucky.  Maybe.  Oh, and Poppa’s working from home today, so I won’t have the laptop back till tomorrow.

KNITTING:  Finished knitting Scott’s scarf.  Now, I just have 87,000 ends to weave in. (OK, that’s a slight exaggeration, but only a slight one).  Good thing Scott’s tall b/c this is one big scarf.  ‘Nette called it a “Dr. Who scarf” to give you some indication of the size.  The flowers for Nana’s wreath are put together.  I’m felt a couple of extra pieces for the wreath part in an effort to stiffen it.  The scarf for Thing One’s friend got rave reviews last night at knit group as did the sweater for Baby A.J.  Hope I can get it done before he’s born!  FINALLY got around to weaving in the ends, bathing, and blocking the Morpheus Scarf.  It’s not as wide as I’d expected, but it’s longer than my bed. Kinda hard to use blocking wires when it goes down a foot past the end of the bed, so I just used pins on the sides.  Pictures of all this stuff eventually….

THE CRUD:  Thing Two went back to school today.  I’ve been expecting a call from the school about Thing One all day b/c this morning she said she didn’t feel good.  We’ll see.  She really wants to go to the slumber party on Friday night (I spoke w/the mom, and her plan sounds fine, so we’ll let Thing One go), so I’ll probably make her stay home from ballet today.  Rest and medicine would probably help her more than bouncing around the dance studio.

HUBBY’S 40TH:  Plans are going well for the party.  Food sounds terrific.  We’ll have a game (with prizes for the winning table) and a special surprise.  I’m getting excited about it.

No pictures, but an update.  I’m about half-way through the Child’s Rainbow Scarf from Last-Minute Knitted Gifts.  I’m using two shades of Kureyon (154 and 159, I believe), which I got via one of the aforementioned yarn swaps.  At first, I wasn’t too sure about it, but now I like how it looks.  I’m really enjoying the combination of Mistake Rib and the striped yarn. The rib is SO squishy and wonderful!  I envision many other Mistake Rib projects in my future…

Stalled on the sweater for Julie’s son, A.J.  Front is done, and back is done up to the armpits.  Gotta get back to it tomorrow.

Drooling over my Farmhouse Yarns Andy’s Merino — 2 hanks Orchid, 3 hanks Storm.  What to make?  What to make?

FINALLY delivered Ian’s sweater and Keiko’s kimono.  Sonoko was SO excited about the kimono.  Jim & Chen-Chen didn’t open Ian’s sweater when I was with them, but I made them promise to email me a picture of him in it or at least with it lying on top of him.

Well, Thing Two wants to snuggle, so I’d better go….

Bark!  Bark!  Bark!  (Or however you write down what a seal sounds like.)

Yupp, Thing Two’s sick.  Better now than the weekend of Hubby’s party, though.

Mom, it’s so cool.  Last night, I think God zapped me with magic.  [Followed by complicated description of how, when she rinsed her hair in the shower, shampoo was coming out, but none of it went into her eyes, even though she wasn't covering her eyes.]

Computer’s still in the “hospital”, so I’m relying on the free one at the library (1-hour limit per day or 30 minutes if there are people waiting) and Hubby’s laptop.  Bleh.

B/c of not having my computer, I don’t have any pictures for you, but this week I got LOTS of gorgeous yarn via a couple of trades on the Knittyboard.  THANKS, Barb & Melissa! 

 Made decent progress this week on Nana’s resurrected wreath.  Poor Nana!  Also made some progress on the 2×1 ribbed chenille scarf set aside in November, then picked up recently.

 So far, so good.  I acquired yarn this week, but it was via trades, so that’s OK.  I *did* just order a bunch of cotton from Elmore-Pisgah, BUT that qualifies under rule   2.b. If someone asks for a specific knitted gift that we really and truly do not have the yarn for, we may buy yarn to knit that gift.  OK, the recipients didn’t exactly ASK for the gifts, but they are worthy gifts, and b/c I spent the same as what I’d spend on non-knit bday gifts for said recipients, the money comes from the gift budget, right?  (I also got a great deal by buying online; WITH shipping, it came out less than buying in-person from a store, especially since stores only carry a fraction of the colors.)

Finished the third Fun Fur chemo cap.  No more for a while.  One can only deal with so much Fun Fur at once.

Must knit the second Cashmerino Aran mitt for Angela.

Knit up to the armpits in the round and the whole rest of the front of a gift for Julie’s soon-to-be-born son, A.J.  Shower’s tomorrow, and I can’t make it, but I want to get the gift done before this kid arrives, or at least soon afterwards.  After all, I still need to knit for the following expected babies:

Yupp, lost a pound this week.  It was one of those weird weeks where I was SO SURE I’d gained a bunch of weight, yet I lost.  I’m sure it helped that I “walked with Leslie” three times this week, even when I didn’t want to.  I know it also helped that I didn’t go into total “vacuum mode” at Baby Thomas’s funeral last Saturday. 

I really like that my BMI has already gone down a whole point.  That’s really good and means a lot for my health. 

Before I weighed myself at home this morning (I only weigh at home on Saturday morning, nekkid ‘cept for my glasses, before my shower, before a single thing has entered my mouth), I was really battling with not wanting to go to WW today.  Even after I weighed in, I still couldn’t just accept the loss and be glad; I was telling myself that I would have lost MORE if I’d done xyz or not done abc, etc.  That book I’m reading, The Search for Significance talks a lot about this kind of stuff, how we get our self-worth from the wrong things, believing the lie that my performance + other people’s opinions of me = my worth.  It’s so easy to be on top of the world if I have a good loss and feel worthless and like a failure if I gain or don’t lose much.  Stupid, isn’t it?  Funny b/c the WW topic today dealt with how those who succeed slip-up as much in a 3-week period as those who fail, but those who fail choose the wrong path after a slip-up, whereas those who succeed get back up, dust themselves off, and continue on the right path….

We are currently experiencing technical difficulties here at Casa Erica.  Shortly after I posted yesterday, my laptop coughed up a lung.  The prognosis is good — the Techs to Go guys say it should be easy to fix it — but my ability to check email and post here will be hit and miss the next couple of days (at the moment, I’m at Poppa & Nana’s, using Nana’s computer).  Please don’t rely on email to reach me. 

Thank you, and we apologize for any inconvenience this may cause you.

Lookie what ‘Nette gave me last night as a belated bday gift:

 Yupp, a Namaste Executive Bag.  Wow!  I feel so…so…hip and cool!  I love that it’s a combo knitting bag & purse.  Way better than tossing my wallet, keys & cell phone into the depths of my current bag.  The only bummer will be not having my family pictures on my bag like I do now.  I’ll have to figure this out…

THANKS, ‘NETTE!!!!  You are TOO generous!  (Not that I’m refusing the gift or anything.  )

This is the second of the Fun Fur hats for charity.  I’ve got one more on the needles now in some Fun Fur Stripes in Raiders colors, then I’m going to call it quits.  I’ve got far too many things on the needles right now and need to get back to some overdue promised things (Nana’s wreath, Scott’s scarf, Auntie’s mosaic lunchbag)…

I promised Kat the details on Baby Keiko’s kimono, so here goes…

Outside

 “Built-in” side ties.  This is on the left front.  When you get to the row where you want the tie (for the upper one, the row where you stop the increasing), on the end that will eventually be the seam side, you CO 30 sts.  Knit the next 2 rows, then BO the 30 sts.  Voila!  A tie.  When you do the seam, you fold the tie forward before you sew that section. 

 “Built-in” ties on right front.  On the row where you finish increasing, at the non-seam edge, you CO 30 sts.  Knit the next 2 rows, then on the next row (heading back toward the seam edge), you CO the 30 sts.  Do the same where you want the lower one.  Voila!  Built-in ties!

 The inside “built-in” ties.  For the ones coming from the left front (the solid white side), I did them like previously described EXCEPT, they’re only 2 rows, so you CO the 30 sts, then bind off the 30 right away.  I figured that thinner, less bulky ties were better for the inside.  B/c the ones on the seam side were an afterthought (if they were truly built in, they would have been knit when I did the back, but I hadn’t come up with this idea yet when I did the back), I just picked up 2 sts where I wanted the tie, knit for a bunch of rows, the bound off. 

 A (marginally) better picture of the afterthought ties.

And there you have it.  Knit on.