Oh so clever, and so funny

A new addition to my google reader is dear blank, please blank.

Two of my recent favourites:

Dear Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry,

Please send me my letter already. I'm tired of the Muggle world.

Sincerely, the kid who still believes in magic

Dear Herpes,

Please stay in Las Vegas next time.

Sincerely, Anonymous.

Oops, wish I'd noticed that sooner.

I've been merrily zooming around the baby blanket, mostly at work. It's great fun, and I continue to be utterly charmed by quickly rows move along when there are only 10 stitches on the needle (Whee! Maybe I can make it to the corner before office hours begin! knit, knit, knit). Short rows, previously annoying and a necessary evil are now little treats in a sea of garter stitch.


Today, though, I was staring at it while I was eating my lunch, and it occurred to me that something wasn't right:

That's right, I borked up the corner. Last Monday when I turned it on the bus heading to a meeting. I wasn't even drunk.

So this is where I am now. Three days of knitting gone in about three minutes. The good news is, I get to knit more!

Random Wednesday

I uploaded the following pics from my netbook and then switched to my desktop:

Note the compost bin covered with snow. Not fun getting out there, these days.

I thought that was going to be a nice sunset, seeing as I was home an hour earlier today. Apparently, I was wrong.

And just for fun, self portrait, last Saturday. Damn, I am cute.

But, the purpose of this Random Wednesday post has been derailed by the need to upgrade my desktop. It took two hours to log in and wade through those horrible sign-ins; it doesn't help that I was doing a similar task on the netbook with mint.com.

I was home an hour early today; it's 8:30 - no dinner and no knitting, yet. Random Wednesdays suck.

Much better

I found some inspiration at the yarn shop on Thursday. This wasn't the vision I had in mind when I decided to make this blanket, but I am charmed by the bright green and purpley-blue nonetheless:

Colours are much brighter than they appear. I should really learn to use photoshop or gimp.

I think it will be perfect for a baby. Bright and fun. And even more perfect for the mom and dad. It's washable.

Well, bugger

I'm knitting a project on a deadline. One I thought would be easy, fun, convenient to cart around, and perfect for sitting in front of the tv.

It's the Ten-Stitch Blanket, which I think is just adorable.

Man, I love my new camera. Best use ever of Shoppers Drug Mart points.

I couldn't have been more wrong. I mean, the pattern is adorable, but this has been the project from hell.

First of all, the yarn I chose, King Riot, while pretty, is fuzzy and splitty. Not easy to work with, particularly in darker colours when it comes to ripping out. It took me three tries to get the first mitered corner correct (seeing as I have never done a mitered corner before). I wound up cutting the yarn and beginning again.

Then, my needle had a snag (again, with the fuzzy, splitty yarn; not good). A bit of sandpaper has improved that, thankfully.

The last straw was coming to a knot in the skein just as I was just getting into the rhythm of the project. Naturally, the knot completely screwed up the colour continuity. This is how far I got before giving up on finding a spot to cut the yarn and re-join:

Yes, one third of the skein.

Forget it. I'm done with this. I am not wasting another moment on a project that seems intent on pissing me off.

I'm heading to the yarn shop after work and getting something different. Problem is, after work is two hours away. Whatever shall I do? Certainly not work.

Colder than a nudist on an iceberg

It's been a remarkably mild winter until this past week (with the exception of the insane amount of snow), I think we can all agree.

So, why am I being an absolute pansy? Really, it's not that cold. I must be getting older and more cautious. Or possibly lazy, and willing to latch on any excuse to stay at home in front of the tv. I've even been drinking tea in the evenings instead of wine. That cold and lazy.

Sunday phone call

Holy crap.

My knitting teacher just called me, right out of the blue (well, not really, she had a two hour phone conversation with my parents last week).

I just had a two hour phone conversation with her myself (and why am I typing in a Scottish accent? Oh, yeah. Stargate. Dr. Beckett.)

Wilma, I told you on the phone, but it bears repeating: I love you. You have no idea how you've enriched my life. I think of you every time I pick up my sticks and string. You set me on the road to becoming the woman I am. I like the woman I am. Thank you.

My "helper"

Edgar had to help me block my vest pieces this morning. He especially likes to chase the tape measure.

After knitting four projects during the holidays, it's been kind of a bummer to work on one little project and have it take two weeks. Of course, not having 24 hours a day to knit had something to do with it, but...

Well.

This pattern sucks.

It's not difficult, or even time consuming, and the finished vest is quite cute, otherwise I never would have persevered. But, this is the most poorly written and edited pattern I've ever come across. So much so that zero was typed as O (as in upper-case o) and there was ranDom capitAliZation. Furthermore, the instructions for the armhole decreases leaves a lot open to interpretation. To maintain pattern consistency, I totally had to fake it. I had to do the same for the v-neck as well.

I've heard similar things about other patterns this company has published, so I'm not really surprised. But if it were my name or company associated with this, I would be embarrassed. Especially since it's a pdf file. Not exactly hard to fix.

I am so excited about having this done and moving on to the next project. And if the damn vest doesn't fit after struggling with it for two weeks, I'm going to cut a bitch.

Worse than my addiction to books

My obsession with all things Stargate continues. Sadly so much so that I've been short on sleep all week and race home after work to watch teevee. I'm watching the season one finale of Stargate: Atlantis right now.

I'm amused by this spin-off series, mostly because of these ships:

(image ganked from this video game website)

These ships are integral to the plot because they hold several people, can travel long distances, blah, blah, blah. But, there is no bathroom. How is that possible?

In conclusion, I haven't quite suspended all reality, but I sure am enjoying pretending.

I'm a filing madwoman

Look! I even have helpers.

Thankfully, my feline overlords do not fit into the tiny baskets. That's one year of interac, credit card and cash register receipts, filed by month:

It was extremely depressing to catch up on a year's worth of filing, because filing is one of my favourite things (yes, I am a dork - that is not news). Even more depressing was the number of MLCC receipts. It's common knowledge I'm a boozehound, and for the most part, I'm OK with that. I just don't like reviewing the evidence.

Woah. Productivity is under-rated.

I'm waiting for my snow removal guy to come and pick up his payment. He usually stops by between six and seven.

In the interest of politeness, I did not have my shower and get into my pajamas as soon as I got home, as is my usual practice. Instead, I puttered in the kitchen, put a load of laundry in the machine, that sort of thing.

Roger is late. Very late. So, I have made tomorrow's lunch, folded that load of laundry, ironed three shirts, gotten the coffee ready, changed the sheets on the bed and done some other things I can't remember now.

It's nearly 8 pm, and everything I wanted to accomplish tonight, and more, is done.

Having two whole hours to sit and knit before bed is an amazing feeling. I should try this more often.

Not a resolution, but it is.

A while ago, I bought a 15 gb thumb drive to back up a bunch of my stuff and clean up my computer. It was part of the general declutter and organize program of 2010 that got derailed about last April.

It didn't work. So, I consulted a techy friend, ran a bunch of scans, deleted a bunch of registry keys that the Microsoft forums told me were the problem, and generally tried to figure this out on my own.

Eventually, I gave up, because my computer did not recognize the device, no matter what I tried.

Now that I have this shiny new netbook, I thought I would figure out a way to transfer data from my desktop and come up with a shiny new organizing system that will make all my crap easy to find, archive old stuff (do I really need my resume from 2004? Apparently I do) and meet my need to have everything at my fingertips, all the time.

Just for kicks tonight, I stuck the thing in the USB port. It works.

So now, I'm looking at everything, and I don't know where to start. I have over 15 gb of music alone, most of which I have never listened to (not a rap fan, just sayin') and the thought of making a bunch of it go away is just paralyzing. Never mind the budgets, the meeting minutes, the spreadsheets from a contract I had in 2005, the photos, the knitting patterns.

I might be here for a while. Send wine.

And now we are four (fucking finally! maybe?)

It's become clear, over the past couple of weeks, that Edgar is no longer the cat that lives in the basement/outdoors. He is now part of the household, even though he is still skittish and Parker will kick his ass given any opportunity.

Edgar is frequently near the door waiting for me when I come home, and not in the ohgawdletmeoutofhere kind of way, but rather the squee! food! kind of way.

And when I noticed that, I stopped delivering food to him in the evenings (I am not entirely heartless - breakfast is still delivered to the basement). Instead, I poured two dishes upstairs, one on the counter, one on the floor, and plunked him on the counter to eat his dinner, while the other two did their usual business (eat, barf) on the kitchen floor.

This cruelty/training (of him or me, I remain undecided) has resulted in a cat that now hangs out upstairs of his own volition.

It has been delightful to see him jump up onto the sofa in front of the living room window to stretch out and supervise the pedestrians outside in the cold. And it's been even more delightful to watch him wander over to the other sofa, where I am sitting, to see him cuddle down by my side, occasionally with Scout only a few inches away.

Then, there was last night. Edgar followed me to bed. I am not a fool, so I shut the door on Parker, so that Scout, Edgar and I could cuddle. That worked for about ten minutes, and then Parker started scratching at the door. That was the end of that.

Tonight, I was having my pre-shower pee, with Scout in the bathroom with me, as is our habit, and a wee nose poked through the door. I nearly shut it, thinking it was Parker (he really is that much of a shit-disturber), when I realized it was Edgar. Edgar wanted to hang out with us, in the bathroom. I feel rotten for attempting to shut him out, but he wasn't having anything to do with me, after that. Fair enough.

Two days, two milestones. Edgar has lived here for 19 months. It's been a long time coming.