110% Chance of Rain

It was chilly, rainy, very rainy, a bit thundery and windy enough to turn many umbrellas inside out for a few hours earlier today. It was unpleasant enough that college presidents and politicians reduced their speeches to "Congratulations!".

Why were we out in weather like that? Well, we had a very, very good reason, because, somewhere in this throng is my daughter.

Today, she graduated from SUNY Brockport with a Bachelor's in Accounting. There are not enough words to say just how proud we are of her!

Wow Update

The Scooba will also need a name. For some reason, I think both Roomba and Scooba are male. The little robot works really well, at least as well as the big floor scrubber, and much easier on me! Multitasking at it's finest...vacuuming the bedroom (Roomba), washing the kitchen floor (Scooba), and making my lunch for tomorrow, dinner & dessert for tonight...all at once!

I'll have to pace myself...one could really wear out one's pointy finger.

Wow!

As I may have mentioned before, I am a real sucker for gadgets. It amuses me and makes me very happy when said gadgets work as advertised.

This last weekend, we finished opening the pool. It is early, but Mother Nature lent a hand earlier in the year and shredded the winter cover. Yes, there was a gadget involved...a leaf vacuum that operates with a water hose (rather than the pool filter). I've gotta say, it worked quite well and sucked up all the leaves in less than 15 minutes. Way, way easier than trying to pick the things off the bottom of the pool with a skimmer net or, if one is up to it, actually getting in the pool and picking them off the bottom!

Today, I was surprised to see that Mom had stopped by for a visit. A nice surprise all by herself, but she brought early birthday presents. May I present my new, fabulously wonderful, best. toy. ever: a Roomba vacuum. Let me tell you, this baby really works. It just be-bops around the room, bouncing off obstacles and doing a really good job of vacuuming. It does, however, drive the cats nuts. The cats do not realize that there is another fun feature: a command center (fancy name for a remote)...this can only result in much fun at their expense!

Not only did Mom bring Roomba (which clearly needs a good name...any suggestions?), she brought his brother: Scooba. He needs to charge overnight before using the first time. I will, of course, let everyone know the results of his first run about the floor.

All I can say is: Mom...you rock!

I've Been Tagged

From Deb, at "Not Pretty to Watch"

Relationship meme
1. Where did you meet? High School...he looked like a keeper
2. How long did you date? 7 years, then finally got around to getting hitched and it will be 28 years worth of always-worth-it marriage!
3. How old is he? 49, I'm another "cradle snatcher" as I'm all of 3 months older than he is.
4. Who eats more? Him.
5. Who said “I love you” first? You know, I really don't remember, but probably him.
6. Who is taller? He is 6 foot 2. I am the 2nd shortest in my family at 5'6"
7. Who sings better? Neither one of us has a musical bone in our bodies
8. Who is smarter? We're both smart in our own departments. He can design the most gorgeous furniture and build it. Me, I seem to have developed a knack for computers (mostly software)
9.Whose temper is worse? I was going to say a tie, but I think mine can be worse.
10. Who does the laundry? I'm the laundress
11. Who sleeps on the right side of the bed? Me...I called dibs on closest to the bathroom!
12. Who pays the bills? Me, but we have another account that he uses for the furniture stuff.
13. Who cooks dinner? Me again and I do the grilling (all year 'round too). I'm sure that it looks pretty silly when I'm out there in the snow!
14. Who drives when you are together? He does, but that way I can knit. Although I'm thinking I should take over city driving when needed; he gets so frustrated with it.
15. Who is more stubborn? Me, no him, me...oh let's call it a tie!
16. Who kissed whom first? He kissed me.
17. Who is the first to admit to being wrong? This goes back to the stubborn thing again, let's call it a tie again.
18. Whose parents do you see the most? My mom.
19. Who proposed? He did.
20. What’s his best physical attribute? Legs...he has great legs, also arms, and hands.
21. Who has more friends? Hmm--ditto--we both have a lot of acquaintances, but few friends.
22. What are you most proud of him for? For designing, planning and being the contractor to build our house. Then he proceeded to build things like cabinets in the bathroom and laundry, a fabulous entertainment center and even my spinning wheel!
23. Who has more siblings? He does with 2 sisters; I'm an only brat!
24. Who wears the pants in the family? Both of us, except when it's summer, then we wear shorts.

OK, Deb, happy now?

Let's see now...who to tag? How about Mouse and Denise?

Weekends

Weekends can be really wonderous events. I've even had two great ones in a row.

Last weekend was our 3rd annual spinning retreat at Stella Maris on Conesus Lake. We have been truly blessed with first-rate spring weather every time. My weekend spinning project was to spend some time spinning up all those small samples of different sheep breeds and other fibers that have been populating my stash. I put a really big dent in that pile, so that mission is close to being accomplished. During the weekend, I found out something really good about a fellow spinner...not only is she a fabulous spinner, felter and photographer, she makes the best. ever. pina. coladas!

Yesterday was filled with a bit of gardening and getting the pool cover (or what was left of it) off the pool. Since the cover got torn up in a wind storm back in January, we really need to open the pool earlier than usual...before it gets all green and ugly.

Today was "Same Ol' Days" (really called Old Fashioned Days) at a farm just south of here. The local draft horse association gets out their teams and equipment. It's also a good opportunity to catch up with folks you haven't seen all winter. Many people (including us) bring their dogs, so they get to have a bit of fun, too.

There were alpacas, sheep & lambs, mares & foals, horses, arts & crafts, and a whole variety of food (ice cream and kettle corn topping my list).












Sorry, the battery went dead the other night and I decided to follow it and went to bed. Latest weather oddity...it was 85 F here on Saturday; two days later it is now 43 F...going from shorts to mittens in that short amount of time, without traveling anywhere, is just wrong!

Promises, promises...

I kind of promised myself that I would really, really try to post at least once a week, preferably twice. So much for that plan.

At any rate, I'm on spring break right now. I really like the time off I get on this job; the only drawback is that the breaks aren't paid. Other than the bit of snow in the air over the weekend, the weather is actually acting a bit like spring. I even saw these (and there were 4 of them) wild turkeys on my way home the other day. It's amazing at just how fast they fade into the brush.

The sun is shining and I ought to be tidying up the great outdoors while Gypsy is off at the groomer's getting her summer "do".

What am I doing instead? Well, blogging and taking pictures, of course! Daffodils have got to be one of my very favorite flowers and this one is certainly enjoying it's patch of sun.

Hyacinths are in my top 10 favs. These ones are very, very blue (as is the yarn). I just finished up spinning this. It's a mystery wool dyed by my friend, Joan, that found it's way into my stash during her moving sale. I'm thinking that I may knit up a pair of sideways gloves.

Other knitting projects on the needles include the latest traveling sock that so desperately wanted to go to Toronto for the Yarn Harlot's book launch and a lace vest that's well on it's way to doneness.

These swatches are for the Colorado Lynn sweater that I fell in love with a few months back. I'm going with the green plied onto white as I think the green shows up better.

Later this day...Gypsy is back from the groomer's and looks like an Airedale again. To be honest, she looked like a scrofulous, black and tan sheep. Much better now; it's really like having two dogs...the difference is that much.

Here she is destroying yet another toy. Clearly, it takes much too long to roll the toy around to get the treats out. Gypsy takes the more direct route and just chews through it.

This coming weekend is our spinning guild's now-annual retreat. I'll try (but no guarantees) to be a good blogger and take pics.

Sock Picture Scavenger Hunt

Even though my just begun sock cannot make it to Toronto for the Yarn Harlot's Sock Picture Scavenger Hunt, I thought I'd take a few pictures on this side of the lake (Lake Ontario) anyway.

The sock started out the day gazing wistfully across Lake Ontario, wishing he could swim.

Maple syrup is very big here in New York State. Our state tree is actually the Sugar Maple. To celebrate, this last weeked was Maple Weekend, so we checked out a sap bucket and went to a pancake breakfast.













On our travels, we tried to match some of the items on Stephanie's list. It wasn't easy, but we did come close on a few.

"With one of TO's finest"...nope. "Mounted"...nope. Miniature horse...yep.

"at St. Lawrence Market"...nope. "With eggplant sandwich"...nope. How about with peameal or bacon...sort of...meet Lula.



"With the geese at Eaton Centre"...nope. "With actual Canadian Geese"...yep. The sock was within 12-15 feet (4-5 meters).



"At a Tim Horton's, with a maple-glazed donut, held by a Tim's employee"...yep.



And finally: "With a beer"...nope. With Screech...yep. (Thank you, Mom!)

Things That Never End

Yes, folks the theme today is things that never end...

First item, theme music:



Second item, these socks.

To be honest, they are finished. Finally. Through no fault of the sock pattern, gage, yarn, or stitch pattern, I managed to make almost every mistake in the book on this pair...including ignoring the fact that they were just too small (knitted an entire sock on that premise). I also managed to mess up the toe once, the stitch pattern a couple of times, tried to redesign said stitch pattern to make it bigger. I think I may have actually knitted something like 4 or 5 socks by the time I was done with these.

For those of you interested, it is Cat Bordhi's toe-up Foxglove sock, using the Dragon Skin stitch pattern from A Second Treasury of Knitting Patterns (Barbara G. Walker) and from Cherry Tree Hill Supersock Peacock.

Something I discovered along the way...Cat's 2-circular needle method allows you to use US 2's on the sole and US 3's on the top.

Third item, winter:

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Here it is, St. Paddy's Day about to be. With a little luck, I'll get to the store tomorrow after work and see if they have any corned beef. It just doesn't seem right without it. Besides, it's the only day my family lets me have cabbage without whining hugely.

For now now, I'm settling for a loaf of soda bread, made with all white flour, as I was not feeling like digging around the freezer for the whole wheat flour.

The good news is that I actually finished (or almost finished) the sweater just in time to wear for the holiday. The only thing left to do is to sew on some hem tape to cover the raw edge from the steek. I tried to roll the edge under and stitch it down, but that made the white floats pop out on the edge. Not a good look. I'll do that tomorrow evening.

It's also still a bit damp from blocking, but as long as Bubba leaves it alone, it should be dry by morning. That cat is just in love with this sweater. I had to arrange/rearrange knitting and cat innumerable times.

Blizzard? No.

Well, we finally had a good, old-fashioned snow storm this weekend. Of course, the weather folk were all up in arms over it. It was a storm, even included thunder-sleet and added up to about 16 inches worth of snow.

I did what all reasonable northerners do...stocked up on milk, bread and cocoa krispies. Since there are currently 3 active knitting projects and at least one spinning project, I wasn't going to get bored.

Today, DH cleaned out the driveway with the snowball machine. If you look closely, you can see that Gypsy is impatiently waiting for said snowball machine to get in in range for her.

A couple of weeks ago, I was tipped off to a sale on Lopi-Lite at a LYS. I rummaged about and found some grassy green (9 balls) and some blue (6 balls). I also found, much to my delight, an issue of Knit n Style that I was hunting for. I seriously covet the cover sweater...must visit stash for something suitable to spin.

My friend at work had the perfect pattern. That is the beginning of the yoke. It is pretty much a Lopi-Lite pattern, but I knit up a swatch and wound up reworking the numbers to match my size better (thank you EZ).

Yes, those are Knit Picks Options Harmony Wood needles. I love them to no end; they are smooth, just the right pointiness, the cables are flexible and they are just plain pretty. Thank you, Mom...great Christmas present, that.

I'm hoping to finish it before St. Patrick's Day, as it really is the perfect color. However, Bubba is slowing progress down a bit.

Fired, with cause

Fired.

Fired.

Fired.

Cause:

What I did on my winter vacation.

Many schools in this area have had a winter break this last week. That means that I got a week off and other than the not-paid part, yippee!

Lest you think I was a complete slacker, I did spend quite a bit of time with my spinning wheel, a bit of organizing and other stuff.

Let's start with my little Hitchhiker. Other than deciding what do to with the knobs for the orifice hook and tensioner, he is done. OK, I actually finished up last week, but no pictures til now. As far as the knobs, there are many options...leave them as finished wood, paint them, cover them with beads or, my personal favorite (at the moment) is to find someone who likes to mess with glass and have 2 knobs made.

The living room got dusted (or more accurately, undusted). There was a really good coat on everything. My excuse(s): my DH, the furniture maker, has his shop in the basement, we heat with wood and, lastly, I am an easily distracted housekeeper.

Along the way, I consolidated the angora stash. I keep most of it in 3-lb coffee cans. Yep, I'm pretty sure that I have enough angora to last me a lifetime. I also found temporary homes for the bins that I previously filled with stash overflow. Who am I kidding? Those bins will be in their temporary homes for quite some time.

I finished up the CVM (at least what I think is CVM) and dyed it a nice cranberry red. The small skein is the original color. It's slated to become a lace vest.

The small, bluish skein is Cotswold that I got at our spinning guild's Christmas fiber exchange this last year. It's very easy to spin quite fine and, hopefully, I got it fine enough. The intent is to knit up one of the "Ice Queens" from Knitty.

Also on their way to becoming something else are various fleece samples. One of our guild members has organized a fleece study for us. For minimal expense, we get approx. 2 oz. bags of various sheep breeds to wash, process & spin. This particular batch includes Ramboullet, Romey, Corriedale, Karakul, Polworth, and Leicester Longwool.

In my stash, there has been this nifty net storage unit from Ikea. I originally picked it up for my daughter to use, but she said she didn't have room for it. I'm glad she didn't have room, as it makes a dandy drying space for fleece and would likely make wonderful yarn storage, too. Yet another reason for a road trip as the nearest Ikea is in Missasauga, Ont.

Snow Day!

More accurately, really, really cold and windy day. But who cares, same result...one gets a surprise day off.

Of course, first I went back to bed. After getting up at a reasonable hour, I read the paper, had a chunk of homemade coffee cake and then contemplated what else to occupy myself with.

I continued to work on my Hitchhiker wheel. I decided that it was about time that I got some finish on it. The parts that have been stained look really good. The parts that are to be painted are also looking pretty good, but I think I want them a darker shade. I'll go out tomorrow and get some darker colored paint.

I spun a bit. Yes, I have more than one spinning wheel. Funny thing, when I started spinning, I could not imagine why you would want more than one wheel. There are now 5 spinning wheels and a few drop spindles around here. Hmmm, future blog material.

I knit a bit on the forever socks. There is an entire blog likely to be written on just how many ways I managed to screw them up before finding my way.

Are there any pictures of the above. Not yet.

Noses?

Well, we've had some crummy weather lately. Last week brought snow, ice, sleet, rain, back to ice, then snow again (yes, that was all in one day). That's supposed to happen again tonight. Wonderful.

In the interest of being somewhat creative, I tried taking some pictures at night, outside. Interesting, as the LCD on the camera back just shows black, so you really are in point & shoot blindly land. If you don't press the shutter all the way, the flash will go off to show you what you might get.

Gypsy likes snow. She especially likes it when you throw snowballs at her to catch. It is surprisingly difficult to take a picture of that, in the dark, when you're also the one throwing snowballs.

Gypsy's nose is very large and just fine. Mine, not so good. At least the meds have finally kicked in to evict the darn bugs that took up residence for the last few weeks.

I've gotten a bit of spinning done...I found this in my stash and I have a really good vest pattern to try with it. I'm also planning on dying it as I've already got a couple of vests in this color range. Pretty neat the way it was put up. I think it might be CVM; a friend is going to check her much better organized stash to see if she's got the same stuff, maybe even with a label.

Now for some late-breaking fun news. Last night, while DH was surfing, he saw a local ad for a loom. I sent off an email saying that I was interested and what did he want to trade for it or how much. He didn't know how much and I know so little about looms that I really shouldn't consider buying a used one. Well, $50 later, I now own this: a Nilus LeClerc, 4-harness table loom, including floor stand. Other than a pin missing on the front, everything seems to be there and in quite good condition.

I always regarded weaving as a retirement project and that the right loom would show up for me eventually. Since I'm not ready to retire, I guess I have to move weaving up the project list.

Chill Chasers

It's that time of year again.  The time of year that brings day after day after day of gray, often accompanied by nuisance snow.  Nuisance snow is any snow that amounts to less than 6 inches in any day.  Just enough to make things a bit slippy, but not enough to get out the shovel.   

Gypsy looks a bit sad in this picture, but she's actually gloating over getting to snuggle (and warm up her nose) in Mommy's blanket.

With that in mind, here's a few items to chase away the grays:

Clear boots (or almost clear).  How can you not get a charge out of something that lets you show of your socks?

Cookies...these cheerful-looking little numbers have got it all:  graham cracker crumbs, sweetened condensed milk, mini m&ms and dark chocolate chips.  Yummy!

And, to top it off, Deb, of Not Pretty to Watch, is having a contest.  Go check it out.  I already sent in my entry.  Things that have been 
know to amuse me are:

• Turning the digital clock upside-down in one of the classrooms.  It's pretty funny to see how many even notice it, then think that the clock is broken, finally, someone will figure out that it's upside down.
• In my old job, one of the guys had a stuffed duck (taxidermied, not roasted) in his cubicle.  When he was out, I would move the the duck to another spot in his office.  Drove him nuts.
  

I'm having a knitting problem right  now.  The problem is that I have started this pair of socks so many times that there should be 3 pair of socks done by now.  First, I thought I had too many stitches, then I had too few (did a whole sock with too few...delusional, I know), added more stitches, foot was fine, leg still seemed to small, started over, now have something that seems to be working out.  Hopefully, the knitting gods are done with me for this project and they'll just work out this time!

If you don't like the weather...

We have a saying around here: If you don't like the weather, wait a few minutes, it'll change.

This is our thermometer from a week ago, 6:30 am. Is that unbelievable or what? A more normal temperature for this time of year would be 6, not 64 F!

Like I said, wait, it'll change. 75 mph winds brought winter back to us. Not severely, just more normal temps and a bit of snow. To be honest, it was almost a relief, that kind of weather in January just isn't right. We didn't have any damage to our home, but many others in the area did (and lost trees). We were only inconvenienced for about 12 hours with no electric...just long enough that you decide that it is time to haul out the generator before it gets dark, which is, of course, when the electric magically comes back on!

Good thing that Gypsy got her "winter do" at the groomer's, not the "summer do" that the thermometer said she should get.

The other day, when I probably should have been doing the housework/laundry thing, I decided that I had had about enough of using those little soap bars from hotels. You know the ones, small, brittle and don't last long. Mom and I had gone on vacation last year and we picked them up all over the place. I decided that it was time to biggify them by milling them into larger bars of soap. This is clearly only a reasonable option if you happen to have quite a few pounds of homemade soap, ready to mill, in your freezer (doesn't everybody?).

I chopped up the white/off white bars into one bowl and the colored soaps into another bowl. Then I melted some plain soap with a bit of water; colored chips got added to the white soap and white chips got added to the brown (made brown with cinnamon).









Look pretty good, don't they? I wouldn't recommend snacking on them , though.

There has been actual spinning and a small amount of knitting done around here. The vest is an EZ Ribwarmer. I finished it quite awhile ago and just started wearing it without getting a picture. The blue yarn is superwash wool, dyed by my friend, Linda, of High Bid Farms. The white is Navajo-Churro that I picked up last fall.