The view from here...

July 5th at the Beach! These are not the greatest photos, but they show the view from where I sat in the heat and sunshine and just enjoyed the peace of the beach. And The Mom and I spent a LOT of time feeling smug about how much easier OUR canopy was to put up than everyone elses' poor canopy choices!



Don't you agree we have the best shade going?? We are cool like that! (Man, though, is that sucker heavy when you have to heave it from the car!! Good thing that we will be right on the ocean when we go on vacation, huh??)

And here is the view of the bizarre DMZ that has developed while The Mom is away, right down the middle of our couch:


Since most of you don't live at my house, you wouldn't know that the cat has muscled her way into the dog's spot. Don't let her name fool you, Buttercup is one tough wildcat sometimes! It is like a little game she plays, sit in the dog's seat and growl like a mountain lion if anyone ventures too near! Yesterday, I caught her not only laying in the dog's seat, but on the dog's rawhide, as well. Doesn't the Maggie-Dog look terrorized? Everyone here knows who rules this roost!!

Right now, I think scary cat is in Maggie-dog's perch in the front window. She lives dangerously!

I like to imagine....

...while I am sitting here having my coffee and apple fritter, working in the cubicle, that my mom is in a cafe in Paris, having a demitasse of coffee and a croissant. Sigh.

Today is her day of meetings where she learns about the tour company, but with the time difference, she has probably moved on to "free evening in Paris...." She is planning to go to the Sacre Cour and recreate a picture of her father from WWII. It has great sentimental value in our family, so it will probably cause tears all around.

I am very, very excited for her. Not at all seething with jealousy that I am in a cubicle and have a dog that likes her so much better she waits in the window for The Mom to come home the entire week while SOMEONE is seeing the sights.... Not at all.

Mom, hope you are having the time of your life and can't wait to have you home! Love!

Things to look forward to....

Sometimes when I am depressed, I will feel like I have nothing to look forward to at all. We are raised on a schedule of deadlines that we are working for. You remember, every week, working toward the weekend. Every school term, working toward either Christmas or Summer. Every year, working toward the next. Working for Junior High, High School, College.... Being a grown up sucks for lack of those short term kinds of goals. Now I work for each paycheck, but that is about it. Same cubicle, same kinds of phone calls. Same. That is what I think, anyway....

Recently, I have realized, though, that right now I have a lot of things to look forward to:

1. July 4th long weekend. This is particularly nice, because I have worked all but one of the "floating" holidays that we get since Thanksgiving of last year. Why do I keep volunteering for this stuff??

2. Aveda facial tomorrow. I can't describe how much I am looking forward to this! Meredith is having a hard time recently, so I am driving up so we can have a girly day. It is the most relaxing thing on the entire planet, I am convinced. Last time I did this, I actually snored while I was awake. I get so relaxed that I can't feel my fingers. Ahhhh....

3. Vacation coming up. We are renting a house at Topsail Island for an entire week, and I am so happy. It is very nice and peaceful there, and this is the first time that the doggie has gotten to go.... The whole family will be together and I look forward to a week of nothing but ocean breezes and knitting!

4. SAFF. My beloved friend Courtney is coming (if I have to go get her myself!) and we are going to have a knitters holiday to end all knitters holidays! I love SAFF anyway and can't wait to see Courtney!! And the yarn, all the pretty yarn....

5. Italy and Greece in 2011. I am beside myself with joy that I am going to be a chaperon for The Mom's school trip next summer. It is a long way off but CERTAINLY worth a whole year of anticipation! It will include Rome and Athens, then a four day cruise in the Greek Islands. Short of winning the lottery, I can't imagine that I will come up with a better way of spending a holiday!! Calamari by the sea, here I come! (Is it weird that I am already considering knits to get done for the trip??)

That is all I have right now, but I feel better when focusing on the positive, so I will keep the list going in my head if not on the blog. Happy days are in front of me!

WIP Pictures!

Or, Why Jennifer should not cast on anything new for the rest of 2010! I promised a picture heavy post of works in progress, and here it is. In no particular order, because I CANNOT figure out how to drag pictures in f&%$#ing Windows 7!!!!

First, the most recently begun project, Bondi from Berroco Origami. I am powering along on this one with the added motivation of the Mom working on hers across the room.... I love the yarn (though I use that loosely, since it feels more like twine....). The lack of wool content bodes well for actually wearing this one. It works up much smoother than it feels like it would, and the variegated colors are broken up enough to not pool horribly. It is a combination of teal, yellow, tan, white, etc. It blends to an overall cool turquoise that calls to mind swimming pools and sunshine. With any dedication at all, I will be done with this one to be worn THIS summer....

Next up, a strangely pink picture of Aeolian in progress. You can't see anything useful or impressive from these photos, but it is well neigh impossible to take a picture of a shawl on circular needles that looks like anything less than an amorphous blob. At least (other than the weird pink band at the top), it is pretty true to the real color and you can see the sparkle of the four kazillion beads that I have strung onto it in the last hundred years that I have been knitting this. I have high hopes that it will be transformed by blocking. I saw one on Ravelry that grew to the size of the Shawl That Ate Chicago, and mine looks puny in comparison! I will take more pictures, with Reece's Cups for scale.



Then I give you Passiflora. Looking here, I can't remember why I gave this up. It was going fast, and look how pretty it is!! Maybe it was the giant pile of wool in my lap when it was over ninety degrees in the house.... I believe this is going to end up being a transitional piece here in the armpit of hell. Perhaps I will pick this up sometime after the dog days of August....



Now, the beloved and yet neglected Peasy Cardigan. All done but the sleeves, and only 3/4 sleeves at that! It fits a little snugly right now, but I made it from Silky Wool, and I remember how the Beachcomber Tunic stretched like mad.... I feel that a moderate blocking will make this the absolutely most perfect cardigan ever knitted. Seriously! Finally, a decent picture of the color, too (again with that bizarre pink band... don't TELL me that the camera is going bad!!) though still very slightly more purple than reality. I am pleased that you can see some of the detail of the sweet lace at the neck, too....



And, oh, my poor Minimalist Cardigan. Another one that I believe will be a wardrobe staple when I finally get around to finishing it. This one is a definite no-go for summer knitting, as it is a slightly hairy alpaca and peruvian highland wool blend. It is a lot more green than it appears here, but definitely a blue-green. This project is the one that taught me that I don't hate moss stitch. But take a look at the biased fabric that it creates! Never seen anything like it!! (Blocking to the rescue, once again....) I have coveted this sweater for a long time, and my only excuse for putting it aside is a rampaging case of startitis.... Bad Jennifer, bad!



Here is the project that has brought the most knitting humiliation, the Cosima. Yep, this is the one that I knit two of the same front panel for. Could it be more embarrassing?? And I didn't even notice until I had the sleeves sewed to the back and tried to sew on the front panels. Wow. It has been in a time out for a while. It may soon be the time for frogging and more careful following of directions. How can I let this one languish? It is made from a fabulous yarn, Berroco Cuzco, soft and nubby. The texture is great, the un-frilly lace pattern is graphic and neat, and it is my favorite color in the entire world! Must finish!!



Last but definitely not least, we have the project that has taken me the most time.... the beloved Lizard Ridge afghan! Below is a random arrangement of blocked and unblocked squares. Then more pictures for sheer prettiness...! Honestly, blocking is the only hold up on this one. When I was working with my single homemade blocking board, I could only do one a day, letting it dry overnight. Now I have the modular ones, I need to get my butt in gear and do big batches of them. I have invested a lot of work and a lot of money in this one, and eventually I will overcome the inertia holding me back from the final steps!





That is it. My photographic parade of shame, lack of willpower, and self-indulgence! Hopefully, I will now be embarrassed into finishing something!! We shall see how the summer progresses!

I don't trust meteorologists.

This is how hot they SAY it is going to be today.... But it is how hot that it said it was going to to be yesterday, too. The heat index at 6PM yesterday was 108. that is right, ONE HUNDRED AND EIGHT DEGREES. That is evil hot. It turns out that I now live on the surface of Mercury and nobody told me. It is so hard to knit under these circumstances....

Which explains the fact that I don't seem to be on track to finish ANYTHING ever again. I am apparently in a spot where I would rather start things than finish them.... Passiflora is passe. I have gotten to the confusing part of the neck and don't wanna work on it anymore.... Aeolian has fallen by the wayside. In the middle of a row, no less. It is exhausting to work rows so very, very long, and I don't have the patience for it! This one will probably bite me in the butt later, halfway through that row, and so close to being done.... Sigh.

No, instead, I cast on Scylla socks in my beautiful rainbow Mini Mochi. They are so cute, and true to the color changing nature of the yarn, I can't stop knitting on them until the next color is here, then the next, and the next.... Except that we got the incredible Origami yarn from Berroco on Saturday in a completely financially ill-advised trip to the beach, and I could not resist casting on the cutest t-shirt in it. Something about the colors really appeals to me today. I am like a magpie, flitting from color to color, apparently!

Begin the justification:
1. I needed a portable project for the car trip to the beach. What is better for that than socks??
2. The Mom is working on her Origami t-shirt like a speed demon, getting it ready for her July 7th trip to Paris. I can't go to Paris, but I can't let her get ahead of me on the t-shirt, right?
3. Passiflora is made out of thick, fluffy wool and silk. Very pretty, but HOLY COW is it hot here! Who could stand to have that in their lap right now?
4. You are talking to a woman who today deleted her network card on her work computer, by accident. Is that the woman you want working the rocket science charts of the Aeolian shawl?

For the next post, I am going to call myself to accountability. I am going to drag out and photograph all the works in progress that I have going and decide what to do with them. I probably won't take action until after this t-shirt craze dies down, but it is always good to know where you stand, right? Now if only I would apply the same logic to my personal finances!

I don't like Mondays.

You know the day is going to go just FANTASTICALLY when you spill coffee in your lap on your way to work. Raspberry Mocha, so that the stains will be strangely pink all day. Perfect!

Not what I was planning on posting. First I wanted to send love and thanks to everyone who wished me a happy birthday last week! It was a positive outpouring, and it absolutely made my day!!

Knitting wise, I have finished nothing, and at this rate, may never finish anything again! Do you remember the scene in Ferris Beuler's Day Off where the kid saw the clock tick BACKWARDS while waiting for the day to be over? That is what my knitting feels like after this weekend.... How could the Passiflora POSSIBLY not be done after the power knitting I did all last week???

Happy Birthday to me!

And here is what I bought myself as a present! This is Miss Babs Yet Lace yarn in Smooch. I decided I needed something cheerful as a present to me!! Isn't it pretty?? (I only bought one, but since I just ordered it today, I had to borrow the picture from the Miss Babs site. Everyone go there and buy her fantastic yarn!!) This is for the Knitty Surprise pattern, Annis. It is a happy little crescent shaped shawl, whose nupps I will not be knitting! (Bead store, here I come!)

I will spare you any lament about aging and childlessness.... Not to mention dying alone. That can wait for tomorrow! Mostly, I am not feeling that way.... Everyone has been so nice today, got lots of wishes! Big smiles to the world!!