linen stitch scarf

This ended up not being quite long enough for what I had in mind, so I made a scarf out of it. It wraps all the away around once.

It’s made of a single row of this and that of the “good stuff” (mostly dk-worsted), in ordinary linen stitch on 10′s. I cast off on something humongous, maybe a 13, so it leans in to the cast on side. So I blocked it…

A good, quick trial run that let me know how many I need to cast on for the “real” project! It’ll probably be an xmas gift for somebody. I’ll blather details about it over on Ravelry soon.

look who was waiting near my car at the end of the week

Which was Thursday because we had a shut-down day on Friday.

I walked right by it and thought, oooh, furry, before my brain registered that fur doesn’t belong on an abandoned loading dock and that the fur in question was on the outside of a living, breathing animal.

I was a little worried something was wrong with it, even though they are somewhat pestilent little critters, because it just sat there while I took a bunch of pictures. But when I stepped onto the first step, it moved, and hid behind some wood. Which is what these critters should do, unless they have rabies, which, given my experience, is something I think about. (In case you didn’t notice, I have a whole category dedicated to the rabies thing… no comments on these posts because they came in from the livejournal blog and I couldn’t figure out how to transfer the comments with the posts).

I was actually after a photo of its fat little behind, but it said no way you’re putting that out on the web!

dancing chickens

Look what I found this morning at a yard sale in the neighborhood,

Robbie’s dancing chicken mugs! One dollar for the pair! (don’t tell Robbie!!!) These amuse me so much, and though I’ve gifted dancing chicken pottery, I don’t have any of my own… until now! She’ll be at the common ground fair, so you can get your own dancing chicken pottery if you’re there. (she has lots of other fun stuff, including sheep mugs). Though most of the chickens are dancing, there’s always a hen sitting on her eggs on these pieces.

I think it’s time for that second cup of coffee!!

Coffee Swap

My partner is Rose, who is a graduate student in California. Her package arrived yesterday! (I only shipped mine to her yesterday…)



She was inspired by my comment about wanting to be in the tropics having a rum boy attend to my needs! So there’s Jamacian coffee, a tiki spoon, Indonesian teak scented tea lights (these smell really good!), and little tropical umbrellas! The color on the yarn is perfect for me! (I may make and give away some baby item with it). And quite a load of chocolate, numm numm! You can’t see the mug so well, it looks like it has little tribal tattoos around the rim!


Given that we’d just gotten yet another few inches of snow, this was perfect. Here’s what my yard looked like at about 5:30 last night (note of importance, there was enough light to actually see at that hour!! woooo!!! the days are getting longer!!!!).

(front and back yards)

Thanks so much Rose!

Contest Winnings

Emily had a blogiversary contest a couple of weeks ago, and I won! Even though I got a bunch of other visitors over to Emily via Chris because y’all know I don’t need more yarn. But want? Oh yeah. And this is lovely, and just my colors too!

Bearfoot in the Sierra colorway

What Lisa Needs

Lifted from Mel. Here’s what you do… type your name in google, followed by “needs” and see what comes up.

Lisa Needs

1. Lisa needs braces (pages of results says this… I had them for a bunch of years, all’s I know is I started with oral surgeries when I was 9 and got my braces off in the 9th grade. One would think my teeth would be straight, but no.)
2. Lisa needs to get a life (I thought mine was interesting enough thank you)
3. Lisa needs a tree (apparently I’m a lemur living in a rain forest)
4. Lisa needs a home ASAP (gasp!)
5. Lisa needs your help (don’t we all need each other’s help? This one for a singing contest… truth be told here, if I was in a singing contest, you’d be the ones needing help, because, and I have this on the good authority of my brother, I can bring a nation to its knees, and not in a good way)
6. Lisa needs a new concealer (not that I wear makeup…)
7. Lisa needs a bigger grin and lots more warmth from an overly conscientious Julia Roberts (I had no idea Julia was even conscious of my existence…)
8. Lisa needs help with her vertical blinds
9. Lisa needs an init script (I have no idea what this is or why I might need it!)
10. Lisa needs to get away from her family (well, I almost did go to work this morning, with those nice tea light candles, to fix a couple of broken links on the web page…)
11. Lisa needs her gimmick! (OK, so this is more than 10, but it cracked me up… I think today my gimmick will be a bit of skiing, some knitting, some spinning… sure sure)

So you know I had some ice dam problems at home… and lately I’ve had rather a fascination with the ice at work. Here’s some pics from one week ago,

All (or so I thought) of that ice came off the roofs on Sunday.

NOT!

A little after 4 pm today, some folks from Geology came upstairs and said “you drive the Subaru, right?” (which is a little funny since probably it is the most common car around). Um, yes…

What I tell people: Do not park along the side of this building in the winter, especially in that corner.
What I did: Parked in that corner.

In my defense, it seemed like all of the ice fell off of these roofs over the weekend and there was no visible ice on any of the roofs, and not in this area either… it was all on the ground. But no, more found its way into the valley of the roof and from there to the ground. And demolished the entire back end and passenger side (both doors, the rear quarter panel, the roof, tore off the mirror, and buckled the inside headliner in back-and maybe more!) of my car and the hood of J’s car. We were parked in appropriate and legal parking spots… I am fairly certain that within a day or two these spaces will no longer be available.

J says she just received a check for some contract work that she’d done… She says: “And God said Thou shalt spend that money on thee car“, whammo!

Risk Management is adjacent to us, and I figured they were as good a place to start as any… and in fact they were the place to go. So S came out and took photos and started claims for us. We’ve also called our insurance companies. The person I spoke with was totally amazed that ice could be so powerful…. Me: You’re not from the northeast are ya? She: I’m in California.

If a person had been standing behind my car when that happened, we’d be going to a funeral. Seriously. There were enormous chunks of ice on the ground. I knew of somebody in Syracuse who died that way. And her twin sister saw it happen… one of them leaving the old library, the other walking on the sidewalk next to the church that has since then had big signs about the ice.

So instead of cooking we ordered pizza, and I purchased some wine. I opened the Hyena and the Baobab because the name amused me, especially given the day’s events. I had trouble getting the little foil wrapper off. The cork broke! And the rest of it was too far into the bottle for the corkscrew to get… which I found out after I pinched my thumb and got a little blood blister. So I pushed the cork into the bottle, splashing wine EVERYwhere. DH said “step away from the wine” (he was getting a blow by blow accounting). Thankfully he poured me a glass. And then that weird adreneline I’d been running on started to wind down.

lunchtime walk

Five of us went for a health walk at lunchtime. Really what we were doing is going to the nearest store to purchase chocolate. I was interested in the patterns and lines of the buildings on the way back,

Or maybe it is the general state of decrepitude of the place… or its starkness… or its sadness…

We walked under that catwalk, and to the left, and right past our cars. We have no idea when the ice fell… If it was before 1 pm, we totally missed it. I can’t believe that 5 generally observant people would have totally missed that.

If you’re into the whole Google Earth thing, search for Elkins Lane, Augusta, ME. Then go to 44°18’5.79″N, 69°46’11.93″W to see where we were parked….

treats!

Look what came in the mail today, from my hairdresser,

From Lynspirations, which she sells in her shop. I had to call her right up and say how wonderful it was to have a treat, especially today.

the hair

(I am not especially photogenic… I don’t think I am unattractive, just not photogenic)

And I’m not sure that’s a great pic anyhow… but you can see the red does OK… brings up some pink in my face.

More fun

These Artfull Bras are incredible. Fun, colorful, and for a great cause… not to mention that I secretly (OK, not so secretly now) want many of them! (as long as they fit comfortably…)

I’m not sure if this Coke commercial is beautiful or disturbing. Perhaps both.

This is in season, as it is the Knitter’s Coffee Swap time… something we talked about on our lunchtime walkabout… Cat Poop Coffee. I had no idea…

Woooo!!!

My partner is Rowena, somebody totally new (OK OK, new to me)!!

So, in case you don’t already know,

1. Whole bean or ground? Whole bean.
2. Fully loaded or decaf? Usually fully loaded, but I do like a hearty, rich decaf.
3. Regular or flavored? Regular please.
4. How do I drink my coffee? HOT and with some half and half. Oops, just finished a mug with a bit of likker, it being after dinner and I having missed my afternoon brew…
5. Favorite coffee ever? Um, I blather rather a lot about it, Carrabassett Coffee, but I am open to new adventures. I haven’t had that wicked good Jamaican or Kona stuff… that’s what I want out of the swap, to be sitting in the tropics on the veranda sipping the good stuff, with a rum boy to attend to my every whim.
6. Am I fussy about my coffee? Um, well, you saw (scroll down to “exfoliate”) what I did with the Green Mountain stuff…
7. Favorite treats to have with coffee? Oooh, lots… chocolate dark and rich, rich chocolatey cake, chocolate, oh, did I say chocolate? M&M’s have to make do at work sometimes…
8. Anything else about coffee preferences? I like rich coffees… they don’t have to be dark, but I like rich over winey or acidy… like Tanzanian Peaberry, Guatamala Huehuetenengo, Sumatra, Papua New Guinea… and I love a good French Roast
9. Yarn/Fiber I love? Yes. OK, love natural fibers… all sorts.
10. Yarn/Fiber I hate? Plasticy stuff. Though I admit to thinking lately about fun fur, in several colors of green to make a grass skirt using board shorts as a starter (I saw this someplace… is nearly 48 too old for this sort of behaviour??)
11. What’s on my needles? Yawn. Navy cotton fleece garter stitch baby sweater, though it’s looking more toddler-sized. And right now that’s it! OH NO, forgot about the other dh sweater…
12. What’s on my mind to go on my needles? Slinky greenish scarfy/headwrap; finger puppets (spider, maybe centipede, other bugs, snake?); baby surprise jacket; crazy mittens with liners; a lopi sweater for me… the list goes on and on and on…
13. Favorite colors? Earthy, deep, warm, autumny, natural. I like to look at the deep blues, but mostly they don’t do well for me (though sometimes they do…), not much for the pastels.
14. Allergies? No.
15. Anything else? Time, I want more time.

ZERO

Stay tuned… More about Zero tomorrow!

First some knitting… I have no idea how many inches this is… only that there is no way I’ll be done by DH’s birthday on Sunday. But we’ll be watching the football games, so maybe he won’t notice?

My finger and the knitting needle are pointing out the ends of the double short-rows. It puckers a little bit, but I needed to go back and forth and back and forth again to keep with the fleck pattern. I’ll do this again, and I’m thinking I’ll do it after I split for the armholes. The one set of short-rows added an inch, so I think two times should be ok. Even though I wrapped the stitches, and then knit them back up, the side where I did it purl-wise has gaps. Maybe blocking will help? Or if not, I’ll snug it in with some extra yarn.

abbondanza!

These guys saved me from crappy coffee. I’d run out and purchased several bags of this and that coffee from the supermarket, with none of it meeting my snotty standards. I’ve blathered on about Carrabassett Coffee before. Their coffee is amazingly alluring and agreable. Their customer service is ace (is that appropiate here Conan the Grammarian?). I’m telling ya, I ordered this late on a Saturday night, and it was in my breezeway Tuesday. OK, now for some fessin’ up, it’s not all for me. I split the order with a couple of coworkers.

Couple shots of the icy trees Thursday morning. I just can’t capture the flecks of light that glitter on the branches from the hoarfrost.

And then there was this weird mist…

(not sure what was on my camera lens… it was very cold, about zero)

More fessing up… as Andra pointed out in the comments in the previous post, the term monkey long arms comes from her DH (a double B!). I learned this term one day when the kiddo was still a babe in arms because although I am some few inches taller than her, she can as easily reach the ceiling. Maybe it’s also that I have rather stumpy arms for a tall person? Let’s not talk too much about how our bodies are made, because I have such a hard time finding clothes that fit right (for all sorts of reasons) that I begin to feel as though I am a freak of nature (though I know this is not really true).

I was browsing through my New Century Dictionary, looking for some good ‘a‘ word to blather on about the coffee, when I came across a word that was totally new, different, and not something I would ever have figured out… aberglaube. Apparently I’m clueless because I don’t speak German (I was just looking for a link). It basically means ‘superstition’. I really like this dictionary, it has the best sketches of the oddest items.