The Monday Muster

Here is one guy who doesn't understand why his human won't budge off the sofa. Sick? The only thing he's sick of is the lack of play.

Sometimes it's hard to see the forest for the trees. This is one of two blue bins in the yarn room. I have no clue why the location of the Panda Cotton yarn wasn't more apparent the first time I searched the yarn room, but I'm pretty certain viral pollution had much to do with that problem.

Once again, all is well in my little knitting universe and the Pimpelleise shawl is back in play.

I had meant to take a couple of photos of the flowers blossoming in my garden for you. After all, permanent signs of spring are always welcome after such a hard winter. I just never got around to getting dressed to go outdoors and now, because this is springtime in Michigan (and nothing about that is permanent), it's too late. This photo, snapped from the shelter of my porch this morning will have to suffice.


Will somebody please tell Mother Nature that she's got her hemispheres mixed up? For cryin' out loud, it's the third week of April already!

Breakout?

Just today I'm starting to feel a wee bit better. What a rotten virus this has been and though I swore off Sudafed around last Wednesday, I gave in and took some this morning. So far, so good. To help myself feel better, I've been napping, knitting, reading and watching one funny movie after another. The Toy Story marathon on Starz has come in handy this weekend. It helps to laugh.

However, having wrapped myself in a bit of a cocoon here, I had no clue the weather in much of the country has been no laughing matter. I've been bundled up because it's cold, windy and occasionally rainy, but truly, I had no idea there was such a terrible outbreak of tornados.

I hope you're all doing well out there and that everyone is safe, dry and has a roof over their heads tonight.

Here's hoping Mother Nature lightens up a bit.

Three steps back

Despite feeling like death warmed over, I was going great guns on my second Pimpelleise shawl. With the lace edged pattern memorized, the knitting was fast and I had no doubt I'd finish it this week. None at all.

Until I lost half the yarn.

Now usually with sock yarn, one has one hank of yarn to deal with. It's all in one place and you don't have to worry about where it's disappeared to because it's connected to the needles and the project. For this particular project, I had two balls of Panda Cotton, a bamboo and cotton blend, perfect for summer. I was actually kind of pleased to be doing this project with two balls of yarn because I wouldn't have to think about when to start the decreases--it would be when the first ball ran out.

Since this is the house where yarn lives, finding one tiny 50 gram ball of fingering weight yarn is proving to be more than my Sudafed poisoned brain can accomplish. I've looked everywhere including the obvious like the yarn room, sofa cushions and project bags, and the not so obvious like the freezer, refrigerator, microwave, medicine cabinet, briefcase and my purse.

I'm throwing in the towel, but I'm not frogging yet. I know the minute I do, that stupid ball of yarn will show up and the project will be back on.

Oh well, at least I have my kindle to keep me occupied tonight.

Can you think of anywhere to look that you think I haven't?

Twit...I mean, tweet

If I had a twitter account, I could have regaled you all with little inane snippets from my day. It would have gone something like this:

• Gad...I still feel like crap. Honey, pass me your handgun so I can alleviate some of this pressure in my head.
• Leo! SHUT! UP!
• Leo! SHUT! UP! Your incessant barking is killing my head! (If I'd tweeted this every time I said it today, I'd have posted something about that bark 879,000 times.)
• It's so warm outside. Why do I feel cold sitting in the 80 degree sunshine? Damn virus.
• Sunshine and warmth are overrated.
• I don't think Tiger's gonna win this one dear, but he sure is on fire.
• What do you mean you don't feel sorry for that Irish boy? My heart is breaking for him.
• Is it starve a fever & feed a cold, or the opposite? Either way, it's useless. I have no appetite.
• MLTL threatened to throw out the lamb chops if my son didn't come home to eat them.
• MLTL is a mean old man. I'd like to show him where to shove those chops.
• Just cast on another Pimpelleise shawl. In blue.
• Why am I stuck on blue this month?
• It's really windy tonight. I better go find my broom.
• My village called to report their idiot is missing...just sprayed saline nasal spray into my left eye instead of my nostril. It stings.

This is why I don't twitter. I have nothing useful to say in a hundred and forty characters or less. Consider this my public service to you.

You're welcome.

Perfectible? I think not.

Ask any knitter how difficult it is to take yarn that looks like this:

and produce a pair of anything, much less socks, that are so closely related, you'd think at first glance that they're clones. Knitters would agree, it often seems down right impossible to make things line up so well.


While they aren't completely perfect, I'm sure they'd have been identical had I knit them side by side, or at least one right after the other. At the least, they're much closer than the kissing cousins I usually produce when working with painted yarn.

Maybe you remember when I started these Fake Isle socks back in September. Around Christmas, I set the first sock down to finish up holiday knitting and there it lingered until I came upon it forgotten and nearly complete last Sunday. Inspired, and so close to a pair, I finally finished the second sock yesterday. Even with jumpiness, courtesy of Sudafed, I think I did a pretty good job of matching things up.


Fingers crossed, toes, too, the potential roommate for Rachel's Place seems ideal. She'll be spending some parent free time at the house to gauge whether she likes the home and all involved get along.

I'm as geeked about that being a perfect fit as I am with the perfection of these socks.

The yarn I used is Opal Zirkus, Color #2002.

Blindsided

It would appear that I have been felled by our little friend, Mr. Rhinovirus. If I didn't know better, I'd say this particular cold was a sneaky devil since it just crept up on me, hung out a little while, and set up shop before I knew he was in the neighborhood. What happened to that harbinger of all bad viruses--the sore throat--that lets you know to stock up on things like water, juice, saline spray, vicks chest goo, honey, whiskey and chicken soup? No sore throat, but plenty of stuffiness, coughing and a generalized feeling of, well, ickiness.

Today is a bad day for being sick. In the first place, I'm off work, dammit, and I don't want to spend it feeling like crap. In the second place, Rachel has been short one roommate for about 5 months now and my husband and I have absorbed the cost of three women living in that home instead of four. Today we're to interview a family for that spot and this one looks promising. We've interviewed others for this vacancy, but because the last roommate was an abysmal failure due to many factors, not least of which was her crazy guardian/sister, we're being picky, picky, picky.

The last roomie had developmental disabilities, physical disabilities and more than her share of OCD and mental illness. She. Never.Stopped.Talking.Ever. As though she were worried she'd be told to shut up, she talked really loud and fast. When we met her, she was on Lithium with decent symptom management, but soon after, developed kidney failure and was no longer able to take this drug. Doctors never found a suitable alternative and her mental illness escalated and stayed there. Rachel, who can't speak, never could verbalize her discomfort with the tension in the home, but her relief was almost palpable when that client moved out. It was as though the residents and the staff could finally exhale. All are much happier and Rachel's Place seems almost peaceful now, but the burden of supporting half that home is beginning to wear and it's time to do something about alleviating our financial burden.

I'm off to go buy a few cold masking agents to get me through the afternoon. I can always allow myself to succumb to this bugger later. Right now, I have other plans that are too important to allow interference from a lousy cold.

Cheese, Stat!

I need it to go with my whine.

I'm just now clocking out from work, and if I didn't know better, I'd say the full moon was upon us, but it's not. It's still more than a week away.

To give you an idea of how bad things were tonight, I drove 36 miles round trip to see a patient. As soon as I returned home, I had to turn around and drive 74 miles round trip to see the second. While at that visit, I closed my car door which, for some reason, wouldn't shut. Frustrated, I slammed it again...right on my Blackberry...which now has a broken LCD screen. Did I mention it's my work smart phone? Smart, as in has a bazillion essential numbers, emails, contacts, addresses and notes stored upon it? Yes, that one.

Disappointed, famished, but happy to finally be home after such a night, I sat down to eat the hummus and salad my husband bought me on his way home from work when the answering service paged on my personal cell phone. I promptly headed out for a two hour visit and another 40 mile round trip.

With y'all as witnesses, I'm formally crying UNCLE to the hospice cosmos.

Enough already!

Oh...and while the hummus was excellent, the salad was too wilted to eat. 8>(