Today's the Day!

I have to tell you. I spent quite a bit of time with Ray's computer last night, doing this and that, but it works GREAT now, and I'm pretty pleased with myself at the moment.

I also gave him my cordless mouse and turned off the touchpad so that he could get about without accidentally clicking on stuff--could be a major problem now-a-days.

I started another one of the Harlot's Unoriginal Hats for my mother in law. She doesn't know she's getting it. I like the hat so much that I might make one for everyone I know for Christmas! Now there's an idea!

So today, I have a full plate. First--coffee

After that, blogging..which, if you haven't figured it out by now, is what I'm doing right this very minute.

When it gets a little closer to 7am..and yes, it's early yet, I'm going to head out to Ray's house with his puter, new mouse and software/hardware. Hopefully he was able to get his peripherals back, and when I get there, I'll hook everything up, and with a little bit of luck, crossed fingers and a deal with the devil, everything will work again on bootup.

Afterwards, I plan to drive to Frankenmuth to get my wool at Zielinger's. Then I come back to Lansing, a proud and happy person, to my local Meijer's Thrifty Acres to pick up a few groceries, then home to make my famous spaghetti for my hubby and me. He's working overtime today, so I should be able to get all the tramping done that I want, and still be back home in plenty of time to finish the hat before HE gets home.

So yes, a FULL day, to say the least. I'll be exhausted when I get home, but them's the breaks, right?

I'm home EARLY

For once in the week, I suppose that I should come home a tad early, and make a real supper. There just never seems to be enough time!

So after my PT, I decided to go home and forget about life for a while. I bought myself lunch at "my favorite place" down the road a piece, and when I got home, I thought it would be a good idea to clean the kitchen, because if you want to make a nice meal, you really need a clean kitchen, right?

So I did that. Presto, and the dishes are stashed in the dishwasher and as it purrs my dishes clean--or did the cat hop in there? I decided to get going on my papa's hat. Yes, Virginia, I DID remember to get the size 11 double points, and four rows, a little sew up the inside to hide the threads, and it's done.

I model for you now....with Prince in tow...


















I really tried to get the same look in my eyes that Prince has, but somehow it's just not gellin'.

Hat for Papa-Part Deux

Last night, I came within 4 rows of being done with the hat for Papa. Yarn Harlot made this in an evening? She must be a FAST knitter, and I must be TURTLE-SLOW. But it's a process, right? Therapy, right?

I'm too competitive for my own good!

So now, I have to find Size 11 dpns to finish this little wonder, and then I can take it to him and have him try it on. I think I'm going to make another one--just for kicks--for his wife. She can wear hers to support him!

Anyway, had I bought my Size 11's last night, I could have finished the hat, and you'd be looking at a finished project, but could I stop off at the knitting place--considering I drove right past it without thought?

NOOOO!

So, I give you part two of Papa's cap, and will finish tonight with a picture!

My animals were posing last night--especially my TomCat, Chat Au Lait--ready to pounce on sleeping husband...


I can almost hear "Don't move! I've got you covered, and I'm just pretending to be uninterested in your hairless head!"

So alright, Chat, pose for the camera!








And he did this:






You, are a perfect cat.


See the box under the cat?

Ah, that's another story.

I received a panicy email from my friend Ray. "The computer isn't working right." He says. So I email him back with assurances and that I'll come up on Saturday to help him work things out. But he is adamant, and decided he'd broken it, I suppose, and he returned all his computer related stuff and tried to get his money back.

Only Best Buy has a 30 day policy for returns, and he was just a scant few days beyond that.

Mental note: DO NOT BUY FROM BEST BUY ANYMORE.

He was so frustrated and unhinged on the whole affair that he told Best Buy Geek Squad to junk it.

I'm shocked, you see? Well, of course you can't see, but I wrote back and said

"YOU WHAT?"

Well, to his credit, he called them back and told them that I would come over and pick it up, which I did. I'll fix the machine, no problem there. Geek Squad told me that they'd turned it on to see what was what, and they told me that Vista's operating system was corrupted. Ah, okay, that means Reinstall Vista. No problem.

Except for one thing. He returned all his peripherals. The router. The fancy wireless printer! Ouch.

So I have a weekend project--getting his puter running again. I think that this time, I'll put it together so that it immediately goes to the world wide web and his particular website, and a shutdown sequence that is a lot easier than Vista's--not sure what that will be--perhaps a more understandable icon on the desktop than the circle at the bottom of the screen--now that, I'll have to consult with my own Geek Squad--but otherwise...it's not impossible, and how to explain to my friend Ray, that the computer isn't BROKEN, just the software is acting up, which you can EXPECT to happen when you're a new user...which actually, I thought I'd explained to him. But maybe he didn't hear it?

My dog looks on with doubt in her eyes...











No, seriously. This isn't rocket science, unless you don't understand how computers work. I'm sure that he doesn't want it back. He has a friend who said that he'd buy it from him, otherwise, he's out $700+, and while I'd like to have the machine, I don't have $700 to buy it. Hell, I don't have $100 to buy it! I'm not sure that Ray's friend will give him the money he paid for it. My hubby said that his friend could probably sell it for more than what Ray's friend would give for it--after all, the operating system has to be rebuilt, right? That's a real difficult process, right?

Wrong.

Stick a disk in the cdrom and let her run. Then allow the machine connection to the internet to update. It's a no-brainer. But Ray? Like I said, he went into meltdown before I had a chance to work on it.

Well, it sort of ticked me off. Yes, it's true that I can't just drop everything and run up to his house and spend the entire day working on a computer. I do remember the days when I got really anxious if my puter wasn't working right. Now, however, it's "just one of those things" you deal with on a day to day basis if you have Windows as your operating system, and that goes triple, IF YOU HAVE VISTA.

Not that I'm bitter.

So, having said all that, my other cat, Smokey/Cherise (we really haven't made up our minds what we want to call her--she's been in our home for 6 years)...tries to hide from me, knowing what the weekend holds. I'm sure she thinks that I'm not up to the task--and depending on what transpires over the weekend--remember I need to finish the hat--I should be done with the reinstall before bedtime, Friday. Leaving lots of time on Saturday to return the Cool Machine to Ray, and the massive effort to try to convince him that probably the only thing he did WRONG was to try and shut down the computer when it was updating--or downloading an important update, then disconnecting it from the internet while downloading--who really knows what happened. This old gal can fix it.

A hat for Papa

Having finally located a pattern for a perfectly wonderful hat for papa (my father in law), Prince found the perfect yarn, and so we cast on for the hat for papa.

The Yarn Harlot's "An Unoriginal Hat". Two cables and knit and purl--she did the hat on dpns. I'm doing mine on a circular, because I don't HAVE size 11 dpns right now (will have before I FINISH the hat, tho...) And Prince shows off the results so far. I realize that it's sort of a wad of nothing--but I'll take a better pic of papa when it's on his head. So you'll just have to take my word for it that it's coming along well.

Introducing!!

Prince and Runt!

These guys have been helping me work on my mother's piggie socks...See how far I've managed to knit!?
That's the cuff and the top of the piggie plus the ear on the right hand side, just in case you couldn't decide what was going on. I finally managed to find some straight needles (as opposed to circs), and the knitting is going much better. I opted to use a little fair isle on one side, and intarsia for the rest, otherwise, I'd end up with far too many bobbins. It's going well, I think, and I've made some progress, as you can see.

I found these guys hanging around at Linen's & Things, a store that's going out of business and having some bonzer sales. Bonzer is good for the pocketbook. I bought curtains for 4 windows--at 30% off--Prince and Runt were in a basket at the checkout counter. Since I was hunting for a present for my mom's birthday coming up, Runt was the obvious choice. Prince followed directly after that, as he (and Runt, too) have VOICES. Yes, my new friends can talk. Prince says "Rippit" (a valuable tool for knitters) and Runt--well, he sort of grunts...but it sounds suspiciously like part of Prince's voice...

Prince will very likely make himself available now for every knitted article I work on from here on out--and perhaps be a stalwart mate for my blogging. He's a cool guy that way!

I joined another german knitting group--Not that I can read, speak or write german, but because they do sock kals--and we all know how much I love socks, right? Can't stay away from them? Addicted to them? Buy yarn after yarn, even though I know that I don't have enough time left in my lifetime to knit everything I see that I want!

Actually, I tell my husband that I'm saving for retirement--because I won't be able to afford any of this stuff once I'm retired. Am I right, or what?

Below is my last pair of socks that I knitted. Not that you should really care, since regular readers here should realize that I'd already posted about these, but I am also in SAM 6, and the person who runs the blog there needs a pic of my last pair of socks because I only gave her a picture of one sock, and to post on SAM, you need a pair...so the obligatory entry here so that she can use it for SAM 6.

Piggie Socks, Revisited

I restarted the piggie socks with a knitted on cast on. I started the k2tog, and suddenly, the cast on was so tight that I couldn't get it beyond the join.

I cut the thread and pulled it off.

These socks have it "in" for me.

They simply do not wish to be knit!

So, I'm thinkin', maybe I'll just make some regular socks and stripe them, and CALL them "Piggie Socks"--when in fact they'll look like strawberry/chocolate socks? I'm likin' that ide'er, but I hate feeling defeated by a pair of socks.

Oh Gawd, did I just say that? At 4am?

----

Yesterday went pretty well at the office--no major meltdowns, and I got a TON of work done. When I got home, I gave my husband fair warning about the "paybacks" he was due, and to never EVER wake me that way again. We'll see how well that goes.

Mandy the Border Collie got on the treadmill in the afternoon to take her walk, and then got off and ran to the door instead, and got a "no, we're not going outside yet" reaction. After that, she really didn't want to get on the treadmill, but I stood firmly by and she got on the treadmill and did a 5 minute walk. She's so hyperactive that I don't want to make her walk on the treadmill more than that until her hyperactivity is quelled some by age. I'll try 6 minutes today.

I tried to stay up and watch "Monday Night RAW!" on television, but became exhausted just watching, so I flipped off the tv at about 9:30pm, and crawled in under the covers. This morning, hey! I'm at my "witty best". Go figure.

Maybe I should start those socks NOW?

Piggie Socks

I've still not begun these socks. I think the holdup is the cast on--It's a difficult one for my wrist AND for my eyes. I'll take the yarn to work with me today, and hope to get something done on them, but I think I will change the cast on to a knitted on cast on, then k2tog, k2tog, p2tog, p2tog, instead, since I don't particularly care for the k1, p1 look on socks, preferring k2, p2 instead. This knitted cast on might make an easier first row as opposed to the long tail cast on that I learned as a child--I also considered casting on to a larger needle, but the look of the finished article is sloppy, and I might decide to go down yet another needle size if I don't like the look I get with the knitted cast on. I also considered a provisional cast on, as well as a bohus, which is sort of like a double knit edge like on my dk hat...more work, meaning less time.

There's also the issue that my Father In Law would like a cap--now that he has no hair from chemotherapy--I found a great hat, and have JUST the yarn for it in stash--but I'm scared if I knit it for him, he'll die--

(I had a really good friend of mine--made a beautiful quilt for her, she died within 2 weeks of giving it to her...so you can see why I get scared when I make things for people--)

So this morning, my husband decided to wake me up to tell me something, laughing when he scared the bejesus out of me, turning on the light in total darkness and yelling my name. I think I pulled an exorcist--I lifted off the bed an entire foot!

BOY WAS I MAD!

I mean, it's not enough that I wake during the night, several times, then have trouble getting back to sleep--when I DO get some quality sleep time, he's got to ruin it for me....soo..

I'm just going to pull it on him. Maybe I'll poke him from the other room with a broom handle so that I don't get WHACKED doing it--but let him start snoring in his chair, get the broom, poke him (not softly either!) and yell at him--rather than by the name I usually call him, but by his GIVEN name, which I never use--

And then stand there and laugh at him when he falls out of his chair to the floor?

What do you think? Is turnabout fair play? Afterward, I can let him know that paybacks are a terrible thing, you know? Maybe he won't pull his freaking little cruel jokes on me anymore.

And with that, I let the dog into the house, wipe her little feets, and gather my belongings to head to the office. It's going to be a long day!