I'm pretty sure today is Thursday..

Check out today's Google Doodle, it's for gameday - and today is the start of the NFL season and the corresponding rise in my stress levels.

Here's the only update on knitting I have.  I have gotten some work done on Sleeves.  I added 2 rows to the green section and then did the right neck/lapel in green, I did half the black and white section and then got the navy section right to the point of the left side neck and lapel..

I can't cast on for my Scoreboard cowl until Monday night (1045pm here!! there are 2 Monday night games this week and of course since I suppose most of the 49er fanbase is on California time we get the late one...) because I don't know which color to start with.  Although, I might start with black (the game break color) so I can get it joined in the round before the game starts or  I may end up with the world's biggest mobius... 


One last thing - check out my friend Grace's blogpost from the other day - she's running a contest - you could win one of her amazing beaded shawls - and it is support of Peyton Heart Project.
 

Exploding muppet guts

First another big THANK YOU to Thom from Thoms Place for well whatever  a few weeks ago, I won a gift card to Knit Picks from him.  So I finally decided on a 7 skein sock kit with patterns for 7 socks.  It came last week - 





And since I was treating my tootsies , I got myself a second 4 sock kit as well.



My toes are wiggling in anticipation!

I went through a  lot of my yarn-

Curt came home and asked what was up with the "exploding muppet guts" sounds like a comment in my friend Jen's blog ( see sarah winchester on the sidebar) She actually sort of inspired me - because I thought her method of sorting by yarn weight was better than my failed method of by color. ( I own way to much of some colors - not red , can't own enough red! and just one green skein.)  I also had to figure out, what to part with as I was in a side bet for the NASCAR All Star race and needed to send 2 people a skein out of stash.  And I was in a stash swap that I had to send a skein for.( The disaster you see above is about 1/3 of my yarn)





This is 12 pounds of yarn I decided I didn't want and wouldn't ever knit with ( most bought when I was first teaching myself to knit - I've grown out of it) and sent it to a teacher in Jersey City who works with kids after school teaching them to knit and looks for yarn donations. There are also a bunch of plastic knitting needles that I don't use anymore.  I realize school gets out this or next week, but hopefully she can use it next year.


Oh I also have a king size plastic comforter case, and half a twin sized one filled with acrylic yarn designated for afghans that will be sent to my friend Min, to consolidate a bunch of my Ravelry friends' afghans to be donated to Victory Junction Camp in NC.

 

You Are True

You make everyone around you relax. You just have a naturally easygoing vibe. You are completely genuine, and you appreciate every person's unique gifts. You love life, and you are quite content. When you smile or laugh, you mean it! Friends consider you to have a good heart, and for you, there is no higher complement.

The Happy Smiley Test

Blogthings: Cheaper Than a Therapist

       

I've actually won TWO blog contests! Robin Spoilers

Seriously!  I'm considering grabbing a lottery ticket.  FIRST  I won a contest on my friend Diana's blog.  Diana is an extremely talented knitwear designer.  I won 5, yes 5 of her patterns.  Check out her designs if you're a knitter  otterwise  And her blog is here. 
If you're wondering I got: Wild Cherry Bark Mitts, Corydalis Cowl, Winter Bud Cowl, Catseye Socks and Kiva bag.

Thank you so much again, Diana!!


The second contest was this past weekend on my friend Thom's blog.  He had a birthday contest for Quilly.  We had to guess her birthweight.  I guessed Angie's weight ( at birth not now!) and while she was smaller than Quilly, I was the closest so I won!!  I got to pick any internet giftcard.  So I'm getting a Knitpicks gift card ( so I'll have the yarn to work up Diana's patterns. LOL!


Thank you so much again Thom!  I really have fun with your blog every day!!

I  finished clue 3 on Sunday ( too bad clue 6 comes out on Monday) on my Stormy Robin.  I think I'm going to try to catch up on the Cotton Robin- since it will be more practical with summer coming up.  And once I'm caught up then work on the stormy.  It is going to be 32 degrees tonite!!  My tomato is coming inside so she doesn't freeze.  It's almost May!  I want my plants done already!! 

So here is the cotton Robin after clue 3:


The yarn is not quite so yellow.

A close up of the "robins"



Here is a shot of my Stormy Robin:
 

Great Blogger Contest.

Check out inspired mamamusings blog. She is having a contest from now until Feb 11. The prize is a $100 blog redesign by summer. GOOD LUCK if you enter. BTW: Curt found out about my blog the other day. Not found out found out, but happened to come up behind me when I was working on it. I wasn't keeping it from him because I had anything to hide or didn't want him to know what I was posting (pretty much anything I post here is only what I would tell my friends at work, so nothing overly juicy) But because he is a network manager computer/internet guru nerd. I was kind of afraid that since I basically just use a blogger template and don't do anything fancy and since sometimes my blog is pretty sad even to me, I thought he'd make fun of me. Yes mockery, and sarcasm are 2 activities we have in common. But he was actually impressed ( not sarcastically, genuinely) that 1. I have a blog 2. I figured out how to create a blog 3. It has colors and pictures and links and things. I was momentarily all happy and warm and fuzzy, when I realized hmmm, so he didn't think I could figure this meager amount out? His answer is well the internet is not really your thing and you really aren't interested in learning more about technology than you need to. Hmmm, but I use a computer at work and can get more info out of it than anyone in the building. His answer - because you need to be the best at work, at home you tend to get your teenage daughter to do stuff for you. He said next time he thought of it he'd pick me up a book I could understand and use. ( so written ala Dr Sueuss?? ) So he said he was proud of me and gave me a kiss. You really can't argue with the man when he kisses....

MS Walk yarn raffle

Hi everyone.  I am posting this to try to help support my friend Jen.  She was diagnosed with relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis in 2002.  She has the most adorable 4 year old son ( who loves NASCAR, and has a true appreciation for beautiful yarn)  he makes the funniest observations and I just want to eat him up.  She also has a daughter Lexie who is still a baby.  Her husband is in the Navy.  She will be walking in the MS Walk in Texas and is raffling off some of her yarn stash to raise money.  She has Artyarns Kid Mohair, Asian Trends Del Sur, Crystal Palace Creme, Knitpicks Gloss, Malabrigo, Plymouth Baby Alpaca among others.  Anywhere from 1 skein to 2220 yards.  There are 17 prizes in all.  Every $5 donation gets you one chance in the raffle.  So since most of the people who read this blog are knitters or crocheters  I'm linking to her blog so that hopefully she can raise some more money for her walk and my friends can win some yummy yarn!

Link to her blog  

Contest winners!

We have our winners! the random number generator picked 4 and 19. So Miss Monica Jean wins a gift certificate to scoutsswag. And Daisy Mum wins a skein of sock yarn from Penny Rose. I left them comments on their blogs to pm me on Ravelry with their real names and e-mail addy's so I can have Scout send the gift cert and I can Paypal Ruth.

Congrats ladies! I hope you enjoy the yarn you choose!

Check it out! Reactions!

Check out the bottom of this post, reaction boxes! right now I have them set to love, yawn, funny, agree and disagree. I may change that going forward but it is a start. How cool is this? Since most of my visitors come here from Ravelry, they will be familiar with these.

I had a great birthday, started out with breakfast at Cracker Barrel (grits, catfish, eggs & biscuits) Had homemade tex-mex for lunch and chinese for a seriously late dinner (breakfast was at 7a, dinner at 11p) My house is still a wreck (sigh) I guess I know what I'll be doing on Saturday. ( I have to work black friday, even though no vendors will be open and receiving will be closed, there will still be possible price changes and friday's orders and audits have to be done.) Plus I have to cover for Dennis in his 2 dept's. I do owe him - he covers my 12 day vacation at the end of December every year. But the real bummer is the building is closed on Thursday. They won't re-open it until 5am on friday. This means I have to work until 2 instead of 1. And since I'm working 4 days I can't use the extra time I have from the beginning of the week to leave early. As I mentioned before receiving is closed ( they make receivers work on the floor and attempt to help customers ) so no carpet truck ;( and unless my bound rems shipped first thing this morning I don't think I'll have a truck on wednwsday either ;( Sigh.

As soon as my daughter comes home from school to help me with the random number generator thing, I will have winners from my blog contest --- so stay tuned! Also, I have to download pic's of the sock I started and the hat I finished.

Later!

Last day!

Don't forget, anyone wishing to enter my ravelversary blog contest, today is the last day to enter. see the post from Nov. 14th and comment!

Ravelversary!!

Ok, November 14th - I have been a member of Ravelry for a year!! I've been thinking back and it seems like I've been on for more than a year. I tried to see how Ravelry has changed my knitting life. I started to keep track of my stash and needles when I first joined, but I haven't really been keeping up. I used to search the net more for patterns, now I start my search and often end it on Ravelry. I used to use google as my primary go to when looking for info on yarn.. Now I click on the yarn tab. Kudo's to Casey (codemonkey) for adding the shop link to buy the yarn I look at. the forums. I belong to a handful of groups on MSN. But it is like 3 knitting groups, a NASCAR group, a Tony Stewart fan group, a Home Depot group. But the forums is cool 'cause it's NASCAR fans who knit, 49er fans who knit etc. So it starts co-mingling my interests which is nice. I mean when I comment that the race made me lose track of my pattern and caused me to tink back 17 rows, there are people who understand! There is also a LOT more activity on the Ravelry forums. And since MSN is getting rid of groups next year anyway.... I also like having my projects from start to complete in one spot.

The amount of charity knitting is awe inspiring as well. There are groups dedicated to just charity knits of one sort or another! I made 4 afghans and a whole bunch of squares for Victory Junction Gang Camp. I still don't know what the final tally will be , but I wouldn't of even known they needed the 'ghans without my Ravelry Go Fast Knit Left group!

But I think the best part of Ravelry is the people I have met through the site. Love being able to keep up with their blogs on the friends page , seeing what they are marking as fav's etc. But the absolute icing on the cake is the real life friends I have made. There is Grace and Sandy , Jacqui and Mary that I meet with at Mara's for coffee and knitting ( ok it's right after work so lunch too) and I am still going to get down to Philly to go out for sushi with Min.

Now for the contest part. Reply to this post with one thing that has made a serious impact by Ravelry. Is it a friend you made? A techinique you got support to try? A place to vent about spouse/or kids? A place to market your etsy??

Contest will run from now until November 22nd ( my birthday) All commentators will go in a hat and the winner drawn from there. Please make sure I have a way of reaching you. ( since I would assume you have a ravelry name - I can then pm you if you win) The 2 prizes will be a gift certificate to Scoutsswag and I am working on a way to get a credit at Pennyrose's etsy shop (If that doesn't work out it will be to another hand dyer for sure) 2 great dyers I would not even know existed if not for Ravelry!!

Good luck!

Feeling slightly more upbeat today at work, although not hugely motivated to do a lot. Had no trucks to play with, so had to do my actual job. I did have some overtime so I got to leave half an hour early, YAY! Two of my friends (both guys) finally were able to help me resolve my hurt feelings and make up with Curt ( and they say women are the complicated creatures!) so I am definitely happier on that front.

Went to meet with my Ravelry knitting friends in Denville. Had some yummy new england clam chowder ( a cold rainy day today) and a turtle cappucino. definitely had some fun although the "F" aura kicked in and Grace who just complimented a fellow customer on a sweater go the whole story of just about every sweater this lady ever owned, and a story about a scandanavian woman who used to fix them. Wish I could just veg tonight, but Angie has a fencing lessona half hour away (good thing me and curt are getting along again - he'll keep me company ant least) hopefully he'lldrive - I really want a nap!


Don't forget to come back tomorrow for the start of my ravelversary blog contest! (still trying to figure out the details)

Have to take some pics

Ok, haven't taken any pic's haven't looked for any pics. Will bring pic's back soon. Mailed Min the yellow squares today. Seriously, no more afghans. Love Tony, want to get him points, not that bad! Next year, granny squares, no afghans, definitely no ripples. The last month knitting was actually more stress!

House still a mess, not working on it right now. Pondering laundry, not looking good for today. I didn't get out of work until 2:20 this afternoon. ugghhh. I knew I'd be paying for the 4 day weekend. Do you want to know what was the worst part of it?? The last half hour was doing my sorta boss' paperwork that was supposed to be done by Friday. I usually do it, because if he starts changing counts etc, it will make me nuts trying to fix what he screws up. But I had a lot to do last week. So on Wed when I was leaving (after 3 - I'm supposed to be out by 1) I had it about 70% done. I gave it to him to finish. It was taped to my computer this morning. then he wanted to know how soon it would be done because it was due on fri. I told him I'd do it before I left but my job was getting done first. Then I have no idea who taught the guys at the DC to load a trailer, but seriously they have got to be kidding. The biggest problem is we have these drop down beams in our trailers. The trucks from the vendors don't so our trailers are practically 6 inches shorter on the inside. So these guys take stuff off the vendors trailers, and slide them onto ours. Which you can do pushing the pallet along the floor. The only problem is to get them off you have to lift them at least a hair because you are pulling them off. Well they don't leave the hair. I have been getting very creative, both with my machine work and with the constant stream of curses coming out of my mouth. I almost dumped $2000 of light bulbs that were balanced weirdly on a skid of my tile, and you know nothing was going to happen to my tile (that's why I do the trucks with my tile on them.) And being Monday, I'm supposed to get to play with my carpet truck. I had rems ship on Wed. When they ship on Wed I usually get them on Friday or if they're late on Monday. I also had a roll of commercial carpet ship Wed. So that should have been in today. So I was actually happy because I have a bunch of stuff on Wed afternoon ( my re-scheduled nail appt and an equip inventory at my daughters school) so I was going to leave early. Well by 130, I called the terminal and no, no truck today. So it will be here Wed. Great. Still haven't found anything out at work. Getting to where I don't want to care but I can't stop myself and there is a very un-Ria like pessimist inside my head saying it will turn out exactly how I don't want. Need a shovel, must start digging a hole.

I have given up on Ruth (the Yarnarian's) mystery sock. I was trying to squish the top to make an ankle sock, because neither Angie nor I wear socks over our sneakers. There is no way in hades to squish the top. So looking for a new pattern to use on the pink sock yarn. I still have to finish my lacey anklet so I can start on the 49er sock yarn. I am tempted to join the holiday swap on my msn knitting group. if I do , I'm making the unpurled cowl and the matching hat. I have yarn don't know if I want to deal with another knitting deadline. quick question - can one knit in a hole? Need superwash yarn, need superwash yarn now!

I'm not mad at Curt anymore, but my feelings are seriously hurt. Seriously. Now he's getting pissed about that. But I'm not going to lie and say they aren't. I don't even know what to tell him I need to feel better. I really don't. this has so far transcended our original argument it isn't even funny. I really feel like if my promises aren't sh*t to him why did he marry me?? There are only maybe 4 people alive on this planet right now who actually have access to that part of my brain/heart/soul whatever, that allows my feelings to be hurt ( sad to say my mom is not one of them) and he does. Not helping my whole " the world is crumbling I want to crawl into a hole thing" Not one bit. Must make the hole big enough for alcohol!

Still have managed to avoid all news regarding last weeks election. I am in serious don't want to deal with this denial. So I guess I have to bring enough chocolate for 4 years in my hole. Hmmm, maybe need a cave, don't think I want to actually dig a hole that big. to much work. Although I always wanted to operate a back hoe. Do you think I could learn to do that and get a job on a back hoe?? Then I won't have to seal with whatever crap happens at work. yeah that's the ticket. Find a backhoe school, or maybe crane operator? I don't want to drive one of those paving trucks - that looks too hot for my taste. Oooh speaking of hot, I can drive a backhoe around hot shirtless construction workers!! ok this is starting to sound like porn. With my luck I'd get the bald, beerbelly hairy crew. yuck!

Now for the "big" news. if you've actually made it this far down my rant you can be the first to get a heads up. My Ravelversary is Friday. 11.14. My birthday is Sat 11.22.. I am working up a scheme for a blog contest between those 2 dates. I am not prolific or skilled enough to give away finished goods. I don't really know what yarn would be the most popular as a give away. So ( I use that word too much I think) although I have no idea what the contest will be about, I am going to do a gift cert to scoutsswag she's the one who dyed my 49er sock yarn - does awesome work. And to support the jersey gal from whom I bought my most recent yarn I am trying to work out something with Ruth (the yarnarian) for a gift cert for a hank of yarn and pattern. She doesn't do gift cert's but is going to try to work with me on this. So mark the date and remember to check back here on 11.14!!

Visit NaBloPoMo



November is apparantly National Blog Month or something. So one of the bloggers on my ravelry group created a group for needlecrafters on NaBloPoMo. You join ( don't actually give your full name unless you want it all over. i thought just your nickname showed up, but I was wrong so i changed my name to tony fan. Then you post every day for a month. Apparantly they do this every month, but November is the BIG month. There are prizes and stuff as well. I don't know if I am going to make it for the whole 30 days - we may have in addition to the ever popular wordless wednesdays - Mute mondays, silent saturdays, shh sundays, tongue tied tuesdays, ---- would that be cheating??? Just kidding , although I'm not ruling some of it out!

Also kinda cool in the world of blogging : ceci9293 (ravelry id) had a contest on her blog. Apparantly my comment on the best way to deal with computer issues is to marry a sugar "it" daddy came in runner up so I win a prize! How cool is that?

Worstedknit (also on ravelry) also had a contest a few weeks ago and I won something! And i never win anything!!

i think I'm going to have to come up with a contest here. My blogversary isn't until May, but my birthday is in November. Stay tuned for further details, once I think of them!