Moving day

I've moved over to Wordpress - come find me there!

Found here on Flickr, with the caption "Credit to Justin Wick for the idea, and Kevin Steele for the photo."

I don't really get into LOLcats, but this one cracks me up.

Wanted: Thief

Wanted: Thief
Item stolen: Bag of potting soil
Item last seen: in my car port, Tues morning
Reward: Um, not thinking you're crazy for stealing a bag of potting soil.

Seriously? Who steals potting soil? Am I to believe there's a rabid gardener in my apartment complex who had a gardening emergency? "Quick, we've got to get these pansies into soil stat! See if you can find any open bags of year old potting soil to procure for free! Preferably with old bit of dried up dead plants and broken pottery.....now go!"

Thief, if you're that desperate for dried out dirt, it's all yours.....

Etsy sale!

Happy St. Patrick's Day! In honor of St. Paddy's, and spring, everything in the store is 30% off - just wait for a revised invoice before paying.

A quiet weekend meant I made some good progress on my Lady Eleanor - I'm on ball #7 of 10. I decided to take a break from knitting last night and weave in some of the ends - I know it would drive me crazy at the end otherwise! Progress on my dad's socks is still slow going. I tend to be in a hurry about wrapping up socks (esp. when they've been lingering as long as this pair) and now I'm a little worried I'm making it too short - anyone have a good rule of thumb for how tall they make socks for their guys? I'm going by the measurements in one of my sock books, but it still seems to short.

All in all, good progress on the March goals!

Sweater finished!!

It's finished! The fit is great, and probably the first time I've done so much to customize a sweater to my seemingly long torso. If I were to do this over, I'd make the sleeves a little smaller, but I'm still pleased with it.And a closeup of the buttons - after an excruciating search at JoAnns, I picked these. Unfortunately, they didn't have enough, so I bought a toggle button for the top. I figure it's ok to have one button different :) Though I have no idea what I'll do if I lose one of the fish.....

Still sick, but not as bad as yesterday. Hopefully back to work tomorrow!

Sick day

I haven't had to take a sick day in awhile, but when the sore throat started on Saturday I suspected I might (damn illness, taking up my weekend!) I'd thought I might be ok for work, but when my stomach and I had a disagreement this morning I thought maybe I should just stay home....


...and here I am. A season of Grey's Anatomy and the first Harry Potter movie down and really hoping this passes soon. In good news, two hats were finished last week (one for me, one for M) and I got buttons for my sweater (which I hope to finish soon....maybe even tonight!)


Time to figure out what kind of dinner will stay put! Happy Monday all!

I know it's Sunday morning....

92%DRUNKARD

But I swear I'm not drinking.

Update today

Etsy update at 3 pm PST today!

Picnik

Can I just say how much I love Picnik? When I first thought about advertising for my etsy shop on Ravelry, I had to figure out how to add text to pictures - and at the time the photo editing software I was using (came with the camera) didn't have that option. So I used Powerpoint. I know - terrible idea. Especially since I couldn't resize my images small enough for Ravelry's specifications.

Then I remembered Picnik - I wish I had used this from the start (I know, if wishes were horses I would need a larger apartment). So in the start I just used it to resize my images, but last night I realized it may be better to use it to create my ads instead....

I like these so much better.

The yarn diet is going well and I'm actually finding that I'm not experiencing as much withdrawal as I'd thought. Sure, I still check out the STR or Wollmeise listings on Ravelry, but I'm less interesting in acquring yarn now. Of course, this has something to do with how insane it's become to buy yarn from indie dyers (no fault of the dyers). These yarns have become so coveted (and for good reason) that people stalk their stores and sometimes buy up whatever they can, whether they like the color or not. This bothers me, because it's not being bought to be used. It's being bought to be sold or traded or collected. Not that everyone does that, but I've seen a couple instances on the boards where people talk about just buying up whatever they can during shop updates....

Anyways. February didn't really result in any finished projects, but I have high hopes for March. I've already finished two hats (pictures coming later), but also on the goals for March are:

1. Finish Buttony Sweater. It's soooo close.
2. Finish my dad's socks.
3. Continue Lady E
4. Continue Clapotis
5. Pick up spinning wheel

Yes, I'm getting a wheel. After asking my mom for advice on choosing a wheel and what she thought of the one I wanted to buy, she offered up her old wheel. I vaguely remember it from when I was a kid, and I think it's single treadle, but it's definitely worth checking out.

ETA: I added a NotifyList mailing list to the sidebar for my etsy shop - so if you want to receive updates when I add to my shop, sign up! Though I'll probably continue to post here too :)

Things I want and things that make me laugh

Want:
Chef'N Garlic Zoom Chopper, found via AT Kitchen

Chef'n Palm Peeler, found via AT Kitchen (of course).

Laugh:

Jimmy's revenge on Sarah. It's crude, but star-studded. Found via CairoKate


Wow. Found via Le Blagueur a Paris.

Found via Serious Eats. And sort of how I usually feel midweek....

Shop update!

More sets uploaded to the etsy shop!

Is that good or bad?

15

(Thanks Catherine!)

Temptation, part III

Ah! Someone's selling their used Kiwi!

Temptation, part II

There's a used Lendrum DT for sale on Ravelry....From what I understand, this is equivalent to the "complete" package, which retails for $622. It's being sold for $550, including shipping/insurance/tracking. Here's my question for the spinners - are the extras necessary for a beginning spinner? When I was originally looking at wheels, I was looking only at the wheel and the bobbins it comes with (not lazy kates, plying heads, etc). Thoughts?

Little WIP update

Chevron scarf - I finished a skein of the blue (Sundara, in Dusk) and figured this was a good time to pause for a photo shoot.
And a close up. I've been playing with my camera more and trying to learn how to use all the different settings to make more of the light I have. The beauty of digital? Taking as many pictures as it takes to get it right. And then some more.
Little charms, shaped like hands, that say hand made. I spotted these on gradschoolknitter's blog and immediately headed over to etsy to hunt them down. Extra motivation for finishing things!
And finally, a hat to keep M warm (Thorpe) when he goes back home - his uncle died this weekend, so he may be going home sooner rather than later.

I'm off for an early night, after an incredibly early morning (6 am conference call. Seriously). Good night everyone!

Thanks to all of you for your comments. In the end I did email him, and it turns out he hadn't noticed my last email had arrived and had been wondering why it was taking me so long to respond. But the whole incident has led to alot of thinking about how we all deal with the difficult situations in our lives. Do we back away? Do we hover? There's no good answer for how to help someone through a difficult time, and you can't please everyone. But I'm glad this time I said something.

A dilemma

I'm facing a bit of a friend dilemma, and I'm not sure what to do. An old friend of mine from college (and high school actually) resurfaced on Facebook this month. In some ways we were close - I thought of him as sort of my conscience in college and he always encouraged me to pursue things outside of science because I think we both knew that I was sort of in between to two sides of the brain. We exchanged a few messages catching up and I mentioned my brother had died, and that dealing with it had been hard due to how he died.

I haven't heard from him since. This isn't the first time a friend has dropped off the face of the earth when I told them how my brother died. Things have been awkward with a number of friends, old and at the time new, since it happened. But usually I don't say anything. But for some reason this time it really bothers me, mostly because I never thought he would be one of those people. Not because we were extremely close, but because of who he is.

The dilemma is this - do I say anything, or do I continue to do what I've always done and ignore it. I feel like I've lost a number of friends in the last year and coming out and saying something to someone who has just resurfaced may or may not do anything to foster friendship. But in many ways I feel like I'm being 'punished' for something I didn't even do when people drop out of my life and I'm tired of it. It's hard enough dealing with what my family's going through without people backing away when support is what we all need most.

Shop update!

Shop update!

Um, am I losing my mind?

A couple of weeks ago, REI announced their winter clearance sale and I, being the retail moth that I am, quickly snapped up a larger backpacking pack for my trip to Mt. Whitney later this year (did I mention I'm climbing Mt. Whitney?) - in addition to a pair of shoes and a jacket (which will probably go back). REI ships with UPS, and I opted to have my shipments delivered to my home instead of work or the store because I was so excited about this new pack. And didn't want to have to drive to Northridge or carry a large REI box around work. The initial delivery estimate was for the 18th, but as of last week became the 15th. Which was bad, because I was leaving Friday afternoon to drive up to the Bay Area.

I crossed my fingers and hoped it would arrive before I had to leave. After 4 hours it hadn't, so I left a sign on my door instructing the driver to leave it at my front office and NOT on my doorstep. I arrived in Santa Clara and received an email saying my packages had arrived. Left at FRONT DOOR.

A call to my complex and UPS confirmed that FRONT DOOR really meant my front door, not the front office. Upon arrival yesterday, luckily my packages were there. But my sign was gone....

Here's where I feel I'm losing my mind a little. Any other package, it wouldn't have mattered so much because typically I don't order things that sell out quickly so they could have been replaced. And UPS insists that customers can leave delivery instructions at their door. I did that, and not only were my instructions ignored but they were removed. An email to UPS did nothing but result in a response that, "We checked our records and it says your package has already been delivered." Thanks, but the two boxes in my apartment told me that.....

In less ranting news, I'm almost done with the first sleeve of the Buttony Sweater. Ooh, and I saw a spinning wheel on Telegraph as Jasmine and I were walking around - it looked like an Ashford, but maybe that's just because I've been thinking about them so much :)

Hope everyone's having a good Monday, especially if you have the day off!

V-Day approacheth

I'm not one to do much for V-Day (and this year M will be on his way to the slopes), but this tutorial (found via not martha)on making your own conversation hearts made me grin with possibilities....