Monday, December 26, 2011

PHEW! glad that's over.......

For anyone who knows me, you know that I am more "bah humbug" than happy holidays.
Maybe it was all those years in a retail environment, listening to mickeys clock shop, maybe it's the fact that the holidays truly bring out the "best" in folks. (sarcasm intended) Don't know. I'm usually just glad when it's all over and we can move on to spring.

I did get some goodies, though, a large and very cool yarn bowl, filled with some alpaca silk from zz alpacas. The yarn is a dark grey/almost black and I think I'm going to go and get another skein of whitish to do a two color something, probably shawl. The cool thing is, if you go to their website, you can see the exact animal your yarn came from. www.zzalpacas.com Love it!

I also got this cute little guy from my husband. A couple of years ago, I discovered the metal art of henry dupere and fell in love. I had a large hanging bat shipped home from santa fe and he hangs by my back door. I've loved the owls ever since, so here ya go. He'll look cute on the new house.













I've been working away at the violets scarf too. See those two tiny balls of yarn at the top there? That's all I have left. Not enough to finish. POOH! I already pm'd someone on ravelry who's also made this and she gave me the scoop. All the kits were short and when they had the class last spring, they handed out "extras" so the folks in the class could finish. I bought mine at sock summit as a leftover. I'm a bit disappointed that blue moon KNEW they were all short, and didn't include the extra in the kit I purchased. I've emailed the designer (she's awesomely great), hopefully she'll have a couple of extra ones kicking around from the class. If not, I'll have to invest $40 more and buy 2 skeins of STR I really wasn't planning on purchasing.
POOH! Again.















I'm also working on the knitty sweater, the one with the donegal tweed, but there's not much to show there yet.

In house news, we spent last week gathering up financial records and filling out loan applications. The contractor was ON his part and got it done within 24 hours. (they're a little hungry around here) Things are progressing nicely, but at a standstill due to the holiday today and our loan guy being on vacation this week. Now it's just a waiting game for the money, which I don't think will be a problem, just stressful.
Better go buy that alpaca!

Sunday, December 18, 2011

A much better week

Along about wednesday, the planets went back where they belong. No big fanfare, but I definitely felt them shift back into place with a quiet little "snick", and things calmed down considerably. Thank goodness. Enough was enough already.
So, I did what any good knitter would do. I bought yarn.












The pics can't even BEGIN to do these justice. When I opened the package, it caused me to suck in my breath, they're so beautiful. The 4 similar ones are bugga box jellyfish, purchased for the water and stone sweater, the more blue ones, which are really a gorgeous color of burple in real life, just sort of came along for the ride. They're skinny bugga. I was feeling a bit guilty for spending $ so close to christmas, but not now.

In other knitting news....I finished my irish hiking scarf for the neighbor. Blue's her favorite color, ya know










and started working on this fun little colorwork scarf/table runner that I bought at sock summit last summer. You can't quite see them yet, but it's tiny little violets.
It was love at first sight when the designer flashed it at a class this summer. I was lucky enough to find one of the few leftover kits at the blue moon booth.










In house news, last week the contractor told us we had already done the hard part by picking out everything. I totally disagree. The hard part is making the decision to go to the bank and borrow the money. Up till now, it's been a fun activity in "wouldn't THIS be cool?", now we have to make the commitment and figure out how to actually PAY for it. The other scary thing is that once we get the financing, the contractor is ready to start NOW. Like, RIGHT NOW!! (they're a bit hungry around here) We could be celebrating next christmas in our new house.
Exciting and frightening all at the same time.

Sunday, December 11, 2011

I'm blaming the planets

I usually consider myself a pretty even keel kind of person, not a lot of drama or bad days. This week more than made up for it. No real drama, but one crappy incident after another.
It all started when I went to work on sunday. The place was supposed to be prepared for the day and it was not, by a far cry. We had to scramble and make things look nice before the members came in and we were still scrambling after we were done to make it better for the next day. I should have taken the clue there and stayed in bed the rest of the week. It was just one crappy thing after another, the Y front desk person disn't show up monday to let us in, 3 our of 4 clients cancelled monday, tuesday, way worse, still feeling bad about that one. Wed, woke up with a sore throat and LOOK! Here's the territory manager there to evaluate me. Sure, why not...
By thursday, the best buy gift card I bought STILL didn't work (note to self, never buy anything from best buy again), and my sore throat had turned into a raging cold.
It IS getting better, though.......
My friend johnette says it was the a convergence of the planets. I'm kind of prone to believing her. I should have taken her advice and gone back to bed on wed and stayed there.














Darned plants! They're supposed to be un-converged (is that a word?)
by the middle of this week, and I'm ready for it. So I did what any good knitter would do in times of trouble.

I bought yarn.......
The winter knitty came out, and it was love at first sight for the skyisle sweater. I immediately went to WEBS and bought the required yarn. Now if it would just ship!
I also joined the newest Mary Scott Huff KAL, a colorwork "thing". I only had to know it was Mary to be in.
And...I'm seriously considering the unique sheep little prince KAL that starts in march.

The only good things this week? The hummingbirds are back!
















The landscape designer is working on our house landscape plans...and, we got the price tag on the house. The fact that I'm even writing this says that I didn't have a heart attack. It was somewhere between $1.98 and $1,000,000, a little higher than expected, but not unexpected. We want this to be NICE, and that costs some money. It will be the house we retire in (we'll probably be paying for it at least that long).
Next step, talking to banks about getting some money. That's the scary one, because it really means "commitment".
Next week....
hopefully scoring some bugga and finishing christmas knitting.
(gotta build up that stash, don't cha know)

Sunday, December 04, 2011

damask is done

really, it's been done for a while, but I finally pulled it out and blocked it yesterday. The pics don't do it justice, it's much more burgandy than pink, and it's beautiful.....











Now I'm working on my elizabeth shawl. It's pretty scrunched up, but here's about a half mile of this cable pattern. It should go pretty fast now, since it's all stockinette short rows......



and, by special request, here's the doggie brothers. They're going to a couple of other brothers that are 1 and 3.... I hope they like them








In house news....we'll be meeting with the contractor on friday to go over the price.
EEEK!!! Keep your fingers crossed it's somewhere south of what donald trump could afford. I should also be hearing from the landscape planner soon as well. I'm really excited to see what she'll come up with for our little acre.
We'll also be hanging out around the house on friday because they're delivering our new hot tub. We had a little (ahem) shopping spree on black friday and decided to trade in our old hot tub for the new racing model. No worries, we'll take it with us when we move......

Here, by the way, is my kind of christmas.