What the Ladies Have Been up to...

Yay!

I have tomorrow off! Yay!

My mom and her friends are coming to visit this weekend! Double Yay!

There are crafts fairs, garlic festivals, and alpaca farms to see! Triple Yay!

And...PAMMY'S GONNA HAVE A GIRL!!!!!!!!!!! WAAHHOOOOOO!!!!

:)

Ugh.

Between Joe getting me tipsy last night (yes, it was entirely his fault), my sinuses going haywire, and sleeping in some odd position that is now causing me severe neck pain...

I feel like I'm falling apart today, one piece at a time. It's 8:07am - can I go home now?

Cruisin' with the Socks...

...and NO, they aren't done yet. I'm determined to get every inch out of this yarn, so the socks are still going - I'm almost to the cuff part, though.

Here's what I did for a few hours on Sunday...

And here's a link to the gallery, but be forewarned that there are a lot of scenery shots with me just playing with the new camera.

Oooh, Lookie!

Check out what we've been doing...

Of course, this means not much knitting this week. Last night I got a few good hours in at the knitting circle (and more while watching Kill Bill: Vol. 1, a personal favorite of mine). Today I spent most of my time moving large pieces of furniture (from guest bath to outside for Freecycling, from den-aka-master-bath-staging-area to guest bath), because the den is the 2nd guest bedroom, and right now it looks like a drywall factory exploded. And we have guests coming in 5 days or so.

Tomorrow I go on my knitting cruise, so hopefully I'll finish the socks!

Woohoo - I don't have to go into the &$*(#$@*& office!!!!!

Priorities

This is the first weekend in over a month I won't have to work. I got back from a Knitting Circle meet-up about 1.5 hours ago. I've been up since 4:30am, but I can't sleep. I have one athesmatic cat who also has a sinus infection, and another cat can't seem to pee in the litter box these days. I have a messy kitchen, and I've been fishing clean clothes out of laundry baskets for the last week. I have my mother and friends coming next weekend, and a gaggle of knitters coming 3 weeks after that. So what do I do now, at 11:30 on a Friday night?

Pour another glass of wine, pop a good movie in the DVD player, and knit some more.

Joe's Timing Sucks...

...or, This is for Amy! :)


So Joe went out of town this week, and he took the new snazzy camera. Trouble is, he also took all the batteries we had left. So the older camera (which is still a decent point-n-shoot, thankyouverymuch), which had very little life left in the batteries, was what I had to deal with last night.


And Amy mentioned that she was jonesing for a new post (well, those are my words, not hers).

Anyone want any veggies? Huh?

And a close-up of the Mutant Tomatoes of Death...

I was trying to get a picture of our FULL! freezer when the batteries gave out.

Then I felt something cold, wet, and weird on the back of my arm. Strain to look behind me - nothing. Start to clean out the cat box, feel the cold thing again. Check myself in the mirror, and it was...






Yeah. No picture. Thanks, Joe. >:P

It was the teeeeensiest weeeeeensiest slug - must have come off the corn when I was bagging it. I held him on my index finger while I frantically searched for camera batteries, but no such luck. He barely covered half the width of my fingernail, he was so teeeniney. I released him into the yard, where he'll probably die a tragic death, but at least in my mind he's got a second chance.

Tonight - I begin to paint the bathroom! But no pictures...

Party Clip

Let's see if this works...




ETA: The pictures are now up here. And yes, Joe and I have a thing for fire...

Progress! And Partying!

By Friday evening, I'd gotten done with almost all of the gusset increases on my Snarkalong socks. I really liked how the colors were pooling around the ankle - kinda makes them look a bit clowny, but the yellow and orange are so lovely and vibrant. They're very happy socks.

On the one day I could sleep in this weekend (Saturday), I woke up at 6:00am and couldn't get back to sleep. So I wandered down to the living room, popped some old favorites into the DVD player (Old School and Grosse Pointe Blank), and went to town on turning the heels. Got a few rows into the heel flap, got confused, sent out an SOS email to my knitting friends, then got back on track. By the time we got to E's birthday party Saturday afternoon, I was well on my way to the leg of one sock.

Congrats on becoming a teenager, E! Everything that happens in the next 5 years will be wonderful and horrible, all at the same time. You'll be glad you got through it, happy about where you ended up, but you'll never want to do it again. Ever.

Back to the socks...I knew the best thing for me to do while drinking wine was to just stick to the easy stuff (going round and round and round with the ribbed garter stitch). Well, I was 3 rows into the leg when I realized I was still doing the back of the leg in st stitch (much like the bottom of the foot), rather than starting the pattern all around the leg. D'oh! Tinked back, had some more wine, and kept on truckin'. At some point I certainly had to stop knitting (what with all the wine), but considering how bad it could have been, I think I got off easy by only losing 1 needle near the fire.

I had to get up early this morning to work (booo! hissss!), but now I'm back, will wind down with the 2nd heel flap, and then start helping Joe with the painting.

Oh, didn't I tell you? Joe finished sanding the drywall Friday night...

The bathroom is looking awesome! Joe, however, wasn't loooking his best...

Today Joe is priming so we can put up the shower walls, paint, and refinish the floors. I, however, am taking a break while doing laundry and freezer-diving for dinner. I think there's a chicken-and-swiss-chard-enchilada-lasagna in there somewhere...

LOLme

This? Totally me.

GMD Hangover...Again...

As with every General Montgomery Day, much fun is had, many drinks are consumed, and many heads ache the next day - and not just because of booze. The entire day - sunshine, noises, crowds - everything overwhelms to the point of utter exhaustion. Combine that with the fact that I normally have to go into the office on the Sunday after GMD, and I'm reduced to a puddle of flesh, barely able to string words together and make sense, much less be interesting. So I leave you with mostly pictures. But oh, the fun...

The porch was Party Central for GMD - or "Beth Day" as my friends have now named it.

As Joe likes to say, "It's like putting a nice dress on an ugly woman."

Coworkers with bikes. Now if only I could work with THEM on Sunday, I wouldn't mind it so much.

Neighbor kids.

Matt - aka our-friend-with-a-pool. Also a coworker I never mind spending time with.

Vonya - our neighbor's smart dog. Not a coworker.


This was the scene outside our house when our last guests were trying to leave (around 11ish). I have no idea what the deal was, but 4+ state police, at least one Village cop, one ambulance, and a couple of folks who looked really involved were questioning a very belligerent drunk who had blood on his shirt. Lots of yelling, lots of worried people, Paula and I swear we heard "car bomb" said more than once, although we were both a weeeee bit tipsy, and then just as suddenly everyone left - no arrests or anything. It's just not General Montgomery Day without some drunk-vs-cop action blocking your driveway.

I'm done now. I think I'll think about doing laundry for a while. Maybe think about knitting. But thinking is just about all I can do. Action just isn't in the cards right now. I'm soooooo going to be last in the Snarktember Sock-a-long.

200 Posts, One-Year-Plus, and Again with the Tomatoes...

Yup. Just realized I started blogging here last August, 200 posts ago. Wow, I'm wordy. I'll just leave you with tonight's tomatoes, which are rapidly becoming sauce at this very moment.

Here are those same tomatoes, after about an hour simmering with sauteed onion, garlic, peppers, carrots, celery, and basil...


So, yeah. Anyone who visits within the next year will be served some kind of Italian dish. With lots of tomato sauce.

Movin' Right Along...

(Dug-a-dun...dug-a-dun...)



Yes, ever since I thought that I'm "moving right along" on these socks, lo-and-behold this song has been in my head. So I must share it with you. Ahhh, the joy of Muppets. In a Studebaker.

Lest I get distracted from the progress that IS being made, here is a picture of my wonderful hubby as he begins work on the ceiling with this cute little contraption...

This doohickey holds the drywall boards so you can put them up on the ceiling without killing your arms. Yay, inventions! The bathroom really IS coming along. Schweeeet!

I got some good progress done on the socks today (and hopefully tonight, if I don't feel too guilty that Joe is wrestling with a modified construction-grade easel while I knit). I met a knitting friend Thora for lunch today, and we'll hopefully make it a frequent thing. You see, Thora is a local knitter who had the ingenious idea to start a knitting circle at a local cafe. At the first meet-up, about 12 knitters came! We had such a grand time. And - small world - Thora works about 200 yards from me. Right now there aren't many great places to hang out for lunch, knitting, but we're making do. It was such a nice break from the hectic budgeting season I'm in right now. Thanks, Thora!

Here's Ghetto Kitty, inspecting my toes for any loose stitches. He loves to enjoy late summer evenings on the porch while the sun sets - I can't say as I blame him.

On a totally different topic - I wanted to express my gratitude for, and brag about, our neighbor Hal. Hal invited us over for wine and cheese on Monday night - he had some opera friends coming over and wanted to just hang out for a while. Well, the NYC folks couldn't make it, but their loss was our (and our neighbors') gain. Wine and cheese turned into wine and dinner (HOMEMADE Eggplant Parmesan, with local tomatoes, eggplants, etc, wonderful broccoli, HOMEMADE garlic dressing on the fresh salad, and local bakery seven grain bread), which then turned into dessert (fresh peaches and local vanilla ice cream, doused in very strong rum), and then after dinner drinks (bourbon, anyone?). I think I'm in love with Hal. He sent us all home with leftovers, and they were even better the next day. When you knitta ladies are up in October, I truly hope you can meet our wonderful neighbor. He has such amazing stories, and he has The Smartest Dog Ever.

That's about enough for me now. I'm a long-winded soul tonight. This weekend is our General Montgomery Day celebration - there are sure to be plenty more stories, mostly about drinking and smoking cigars on the porch. And knitting, of course...

Just Knittin' Along...

I must admit, I'm a bit pleased. Even after taking out the foot rows I'd done and starting over with a smaller toe, I'm going faster than I thought I would. Ask me in a week when I have cracks in my fingers and no housework done...but for now all is well. Took the socks to a party last night - got a good bit done before it started getting dark. Although, I have to confess - there was one pattern row that I had to redo FOUR TIMES. Chalk it up to the 4+ beers I'd had. But I successfully tinked and got back on track...eventually. It was a k2p2 row for 2 needles, and I started just k all the way across. D'oh! Tink back. Thought I was at the 2nd needle, which starts as p2k2. Nope - I was at the first needle, and now totally off pattern. D'oh! Started with k2 then forgot about the pattern altogether. D'oh! You get the idea.

Of course, all this is going on with me just mumbling to myself, also participating in the conversation in Matt's backyard, all the while Joe leaning over and asking, "Did you have to frog it? Did you screw up?" what seemed like every 5 minutes.

Believe it or not, I didn't find any booboos when I saw the socks in the light of day this morning. Dobby evidently didn't either.

Had to go into the office around 9 but got back around 1. Yay! Tonight going over to Neighbor Hal's house for wine and cheese with his opera singer friends.

Hope you have had a lovely weekend, and I wish all of you productive knitting (except for Sharon, you speed demon, you...lol).

And...We're Off!!!

Thus begins the Snarktember Sock-a-long...

I woke up around 4am (for NO apparent reason) then stumbled downstairs for some premium knitting time. Started my first toe no problem (just needed a little tightening) and got a few rounds into the pattern before starting sock #2. This will be the first time I've done two at once, and I kinda like it. Of course, no early-morning knitting session would be complete without kitty entertainment. Dobby thought that the Snarkalong was worthy enough for sacrifice...Mousie #2007-06 is now resting in peace, but not before Dobbster kept following me with his mouth full, "Hey, Mom - look what I brung ya" or something to that effect.

This should be a productive weekend around the house (when I'm not knitting), finishing up with beer and swimming at Matt's house Sunday night, then me going into the office on Monday (yes, I get to work on Monday - joy).

Happy weekend, everyone!