Thursday,
January 22, 2004
Does
anyone use a gift certificate in the calculate-the-projected-total- including-shipping-and-make-sure-it's-only-a-buck-or-two-over
way? Because my way is more like select-an-arbitrary-amount-which-feels- almost-but-not-quite-like-not-spending-anything-and-add-the-gift-
certificate-amount-to-it-then-proceed-as-above.
Which
is sort of nuts.
But
fun, as I just ordered some Peruvian
Uros in Arizona Clay, potentially for a Rogue
hoodie, and some Peruvian
Highland in Oxford Grey Heather, for a plain-ish raglan (Hi, Em).
Nothing much to report. The house got appraised this a.m. There is a very
large hole out front, but the sewer guys were called away on an emergency, and
will return tomorrow. Drove all day, to preschool and back. Cleaned the refooderator
at the other house to truly scary sparkling state while there. Actually sat on
the couch for 5-10 minutes, just appreciating its upholstered-ness.
Mildly
amusing: only report of discord at preschool today was a bit of a tiff over the
color of a rubber band. Boy: RED. Girl: PINK. This was a self-reported conflict,
but Miss L said it was not a big deal, and she just let them work it out. (Yay
for this approach.) But when Boy was recounting the tale to me, with Girl nearby,
she looked at me, with the most withering look a super-cute four year old girl
could possibly have mustered, and said:
"It
was PINK."
posted
by Ann, 11:59 pm + 12 minutes
(I don't want to deal with archiving, which I would do if it were really
Friday...)
Wednesday,
January 21, 2004
Yesterday
was a school day, which meant being on the road from 10 am until about 7 pm, since
we decided to make a stop at Archie McPhee
before going home. DH and I have loved Archie's for a long time, but neither of
us has been there since they moved to their new
store, and this was kiddo's first trip. We came away with some tiny pirates,
a wee gargoyle for the garden, a pterosaur foam glider plane, an alien acrobat,
a grow Dinosaur, some Pez, Spanish conversation hearts, and probably some other
stuff, as the kid got each of us to fork over money at the cash register, and
I'm not entirely sure what was in the Daddy batch of toys. I was grooving on this,
and these, oh, and
this, but ultimately
refrained.
(While
school was in session, I did finally get to do some cleaning, and I intend to
continue tomorrow.)
Today,
we had a very lazy morning, then went to the park for awhile, then to Wal-Mart
and Target. The mission was to get some thermals for my husband, but alas they
were only available in sizes L through XXL. I did find a cute black hoodie for
the boy for $2.50 (woo, Target clearance), and I caved and bought him the new
Pokémon movie. Actually, I didn't cave. I just knew it would make him
really, really happy. Which it did.
And
then I skated off to the yarn shop, where I purchased more yarn for the red cables,
some Lopi for a couple of felted tea cozies, and something else, for another reason.
And a Pinocchio tape measure (see here,
only it's really much cuter), which I was entirely unable to resist, and it's
a good thing it's so cool, because I paid $2 more than the MSRP. To top it all
off, I was treated to a adrenaline high from spending at least 10 minutes backing
out of my parking space, avoiding collision with two other parked cars by only
inches.
Tomorrow,
the sewer guys come out and dig a big hole. If you've got good sewer karma, send
some this way, please. And no need to explain how you got it.
posted
by Ann, 9:37 pm
Monday,
January 19, 2004
Deleted:
boring, slightly indignant real estate stuff.
Retained:
photo of goofy kid holding up knitting progress. Color correction attempted, but
not entirely successful. The yarn color is in the neighborhood, but the kid's
hair is not quite so magenta-y. Anyone know what is UP with photographing red
knitting?
I
have about four cable repeats to go before I need to stop working on the body
and churn out a couple of sleeves. It seems possible that I might be able to do
this on the way to preschool tomorrow, because YAY the Daddy-man is driving.
I've
had some internal monologues that amused me lately, but as I can't seem to recall
any of them, I guess I'll go preheat the oven for the frozen pizza expected to
arrive from the store any minute now. Wait, make that NOW.
(PS
- How come I can never talk anybody into buying ME a dolphin-shaped mylar balloon
at the store?)
posted
by Ann, 9:05 pm
Sunday,
January 18, 2004
So...
(I
could say, "Sew...buttons on my underwear" and make my kid laugh. But
he's asleep.)
Sewer
situation is in limbo. DH has chilled slightly, which is a great help to the overall
atmosphere around here. He was definitely MAD about the whole thing.
Doing
some paid work—the project has a fabulous new February 9th print deadline,
and my task is to tighten up a lengthy timeline as much as is humanly possible.
I was working in MS Word, using the Track Changes function, and started seriously
freaking out when I'd check my results and not lose any page length in the document.
When I actually gained a page, I surmised that the program must be invisibly
retaining the old text along with the new. A quick cut and paste gave me my real
doc length, and praise be, it's shorter than when I started. Let's just not tell
anyone I am such a goof, okay?
I've
been mostly knitting on the boy's sweater, and I am clearly in need of more yarn.
I bought four hanks of Cascade 220 to start with, thinking that 880 yards should
be plenty for a ~30" pullover. Well, that was before I started cabling my
fool head off. At the end of the first skein, I had only 4" of the body complete,
so I'll probably need two more hanks. I'll probably buy three, because how could
it hurt to have extra bright red 220? Or I could return it when I finish, for
that "Whee! Free money!" store-credit-thrill.
Picked
up a copy of Men in Knits at the
library today. Haven't looked extensively, but the Cabled Rib Cardigan really
caught my eye. My guy wouldn't wear it (even though he would be so much
happier if he wore wool), but I certainly would. At least my little sidekick digs
the mamaknits. He specifically asked for the red sweater, and today, wanted to
wear Cashel (but as he was
already wearing a pair of navy blue sweatpants, I nixed it).
Must
get the small town librarians to arrange for reciprocal borrowing privileges with
the metro library system. I will melt down the next time I have to prove eligibility
(September-ish) to use the system, and, having sold the city house (she says,
optimistically), cannot do so.
Alright.
Enough random rambling. Off to finish a cable row, read a bit, then sleep.
posted
by Ann, 2:13 am
Friday,
January 16, 2004
The
sewer inspection did not go well. Too bad I can't upload the video from the sewer-cam—it's
very Fantastic Voyage. At least
for awhile; then it's just depressing. Add more question marks to the punctuation
of my life.
(Related
aside: today was one of those days I was quite glad to have a small child in the
house with me. The rooter man was nice enough, and fairly helpful, all things
considered, but he was vaguely creepy, especially when I made a Fantastic Voyage
quip and he started carrying on about Raquel Welch. For whom he clearly had a
long-standing thing. Small, talkative people are often helpful in taking the edge
off these situations, I've found.)
Progress
on the kid's sweater amounted to regress. That is, after completing 15 rounds
of ribbing, I discovered that I'd cast on too few stitches. Like, 100 stitches
too few. So I ripped, and began again, and twisted the knitting sometime after
the first round. (I know the first round was correct; I checked it several times.)
So the yarn is now wound into a ball once more, and is waiting patiently. For
me to get it right.
I
read an interesting article in Yoga Journal
about moving into intense emotion rather than running from it. It's an abstract
but not alien concept—the eye of the storm and all—but the author (Sally
Kempton) managed to convey her ideas about how to actually accomplish this
in an oddly concrete way. For instance, this made a deep sort of sense to me:
It's
important to realize that you aren't just trying to make yourself feel better.
You are in a process of shifting your perspective about this feeling. Your intention
is to explore its energy and to let that energy resolve itself back into its root,
ito the core energy of every feeling.
"Feel Your Way," Yoga Journal, p. 67
It's
something that's been on my mind lately—finding ways to be positive and joyful
when a lot of circumstances are provoking my advanced tendencies toward anxiety
and panic. I'm grateful to be conscious enough to know what I have to look out
for, but staying 
out
of the swamp requires constant attention...which is not a bad thing....
And
it's another area where small, talkative people are a great blessing.
posted
by Ann, 12:56 am
