In Which A Bad Weekend Makes For Good Crafting

It's all over. That's a plus. So Jaime's car tags expired at the end of July. But being broke now, and with the promise of money coming out our ears by mid-month, we really had no choice but to wait for the money to get him new tags. But I'm not doing a darn thing, so he had been taking my car to work. No biggie. Not ideal maybe, but nothing terrible.

Until Friday (only the 4th), when we both woke up from an afternoon nap (hey, just cause I don't do anything doesn't mean I can't get tired...) to find that his car was gone. We assumed that someone in the apartment office had it towed. Yeah, great! Jaime flipped out and after I finally calmed him down we spent the rest of the night trying to remember what "normal" was supposed to feel like. He talked to someone in the office Saturday, but she only works on Saturdays and had no idea what was going on. She seemed to deny that they had anything to do with it, suggested we try the police, and gave the name of the tow company they use. Hmmm, first hint that things weren't adding up.

So we searched for the phone number for this tow company, but they had no listing in the phone book or online. Must not get much business that way huh? Called the police station and they said that they can't tow a car from private property. Haha. Another dead end.

Meanwhile my wonderful Mommy, whom I may never speak ill of again, assured me that by Monday she would be able to get us the money we'd need to get the car back. Sure, she'd already given me $60 so we could pay our rent, but she's just that good. I got a lot of knitting done that weekend. Not much sleep, but my nervous fingers were flying! Here's some proof.

In honor of UFO August I've gone back to working on my Clapotis. It is so slow! And, I'm going to need another skein to make it as long as I want it. But I made progress none the less. You can click here for a close-up.

Sunday I went with my dad to Topeka (1.5-ish hours away) to see my Aunt Cathy in the hospital. She has been there for over a week now with some bad bladder infection turn kidney infection. I assume she isn't home yet, as I told my dad to keep my updated, but she was doing a bit better when I saw her. (Her kidney function was up to 25% and she had pretty much stopped hallucinating) On the trip, I got some work done on my socks. Gotta love passenger knitting.

Monday we called the office to get the number of the tow company. She apologized up and down, claiming that the tow company makes a sweep every so often and she didn't know whose car it was and she's soo so so so sorry. Hmmm. And gave us a cell phone number for the tow company. We called, they had the car. WOOOHOO! Yes it sucks, but it's better than it being stolen. Oh, and they'll even tow it back. No need to go to them. Again, I find this whole thing VERY ODD. But we want the darn car back, so ok.

We got the money they told us we needed, plus a little towards the car tags which we had to go get that day too. They called and said they were on their way, and to watch for them at around 11:45. Jaime, not wanting to miss them, goes outside at 11:30. At 12:30 they call and say they're running late (really??) and are probably 15 minutes away. At 1:00 they finally show. I watch from a window, and notice that they are having to jump start the car to get it parked. Hmmm, is that normal? I don't know much about cars, obviously.

Jaime comes back upstairs, not so happy. Turns out that the battery is beyond dead. The power locks wouldn't even work. The tow guys claim that the dome light was on when they picked it up. I don't believe it for a second myself. Oh, and they tried to charge us an additional $50 for towing the car back here. Which they didn't mention when totaling the charges over the phone and giving us no choice in the matter. Jaime said he only had $25 extra and they decided that was ok. People can be so kind.

So the car was back in the lot. And after an hour sitting on the floor at the DMV, we even had it's new tags on it. Sure, it won't move, but at least we know where it is. Jaime decided that he could change the battery, now we just needed the money to buy a new one. He was going to ask his boss for a loan, but he was away for a few days and it was making Jaime crazy not to have his car, and this whole ordeal, fixed and done. So I asked my mom for a wee bit more money. I will not complain the next time she asks me to vacuum the ceiling for her. At least not out loud.

Yesterday, Jaime got the battery and switched them out. I was terrified that after all this, something else would go wrong, but it seemed to do the trick. AHHHHHHHHHH!

I've also gone back to spinning again. I've been doing one length every day, and I can see such an improvement over the last skein I spun up. It isn't completely even, but much much more so. And I'm getting pretty good at adding in a new length of roving and even at reattaching the roving when there's a break. Those two things have been giving me the most problems so it's nice to be figuring them out. Of course, I still spin the spindle, park it and then draft, but it works for me so I'm not stressing it.


WW Update
I lost another good amount this past week, 4.2 pounds. I've so far lost 22.4 pounds and I'm so happy. I'm just a little over 10 pounds away from making my big 10% mark and I'm hoping to have it gone before my birthday in September. Wish me luck!

Have a great week everyone. I sure am going to try to :)

August Already??

Sakes! I start school again on the 17th. Guess I better get in as much lazy time as possible before then, huh? hehe


Here's a picture of that yarn I mentioned spinning. It's about 60 yards of, uh, some kinda wool, and just all over the place as far as gauge. Mostly pretty bulky though I'd have to say. Oh, and with SEVERAL knots from some plying incidents. But I'm thinking they'll just add character if I ever knit it up. Click here for a close up.

I actually haven't gotten back to spinning since finishing up this little skein. I was really enjoying it, but I did all the plying in one sitting and it got me a bit frustrated. And I've actually been somewhat seriously looking at wheels, which doens't motivate me to use the spindle much. I enjoyed using the wheel MUCH more. I'm thinking today I might pick up the spindle again...

It seems that there has been a UFO bug going around blogland lately. I actually joined the August UFO KAL to encourage me to finish up some projects before the fall knitting season. Check the sidebar for the link. My UFO's are all listed in my sidebar as well, feel free to click on them for more details as usual. Some are getting pretty old now, so I think it's time to get moving on them. I have put down my socks and picked up good old clappy again. It's going well, but still awfully slowly. I'll have pictures soon.

WW Update
I had a good loss this week, down 5.6 pounds for a total of 18.2 so far. Of course, there was one day where I wasn't feeling that great and sorta "lost" my dinner. But I still think I deserved the loss for the most part. I'm trying to really stay on plan this week to make sure I can keep all of that loss and not backtrack.

Sky And Cake And Crafts, Oh My!

I'm a Kansas girl, what can I say? This looks to be a picture heavy post, so beware.

First off, my first ever on-time Saturday Sky.


And of course the end of the birthday celebration. For those of you with delicate sensibilities, I edited this picture of Jaime's cake.

I bet you just have no idea what's under that airbrush huh? I decorated it myself. Aren't I an artiste? Ha. We're goofy, what can I say...

Here's one of the birthday boy blowing out the candles. He wouldn't tell me what he wished for.

Sorry for the fuzziness. That's one of those tricky shots. So, all in all we had a great day yesterday.

So, when I haven't been partying with Jaime, or reading books like they're melting, I really have been knitting. Here's proof!

Getting closer.

There's even been some spinning. I picked my spindle back up three days ago and for once it seems I haven't forgotten everything I'd learned. I've spun a section a day since then. I might eventually have enough yarn to knit something with. Imagine that.

For those of you who've made it this far, a special treat. This is the second thing I knit. The first being a "scarf" that was probably 14x40 inches, with variegated acrylic yarn, in garter stitch. Was fun fur a step up? That's debatable. Well, this scarf has been well loved and is now looking a bit mangy so I'm giving it to Goodwill. But first I had to take a picture.


WW Update
apparently my intuition about those gummies for breakfast was right. I gained .8 pounds this week, but I know I deserved it. Just means I'll have to get my butt back in gear this week :)

A Good Day

Although you probably can't tell it from my blogging schedule, I've finally gotten over the summer lazies and have begun the productive phase. I do this same thing every break, waste a couple weeks doing nothing and then suddenly decide I have to DO something. I've been making lists and getting stuff done all week.

*I've started my online class, Technical Writing. It shouldn't be too bad. I have to write a sales letter and a user manual among other things, but no 10 page papers. Thank God!

*I've applied to a few places for a job. So far I've applied at Michael's, JoAnn's, a scrapbook store and Kohl's. Still hoping for a call...

*There was a bit of a booboo in my mom's taxes from '04 (which I did for her) so I had to write a letter to get that straightened out.

*More cross stitching (progress pictures eventually, it doesn't grow very quickly though).

*I've finished up a bit of spinning. I spin until I feel it's about full, then roll it off onto a toilet paper roll and try to spin the same amount to ply with it. Halfway to a skein of yarn, woohoo!

*I've managed to clean up a bunch of my clutter, like my desk and our file drawer.

And the biggest accomplishment, I finally got my butt in gear and signed up for Weight Watchers. My aunt goes on and on about how amazing it is and finally convinced me to try it. Well, and a girl who works with my mom's financial planner wanted to start too so I had a buddy. I'm so pumped to get going and lose some weight. I'l try to post my progress from time to time to keep me honest.

Mom Update
I really should rename this the Mommy and Me blog ;) My mom is doing really really well. She's now been through two sessions of chemo and still she's up and active. There has been a bit of nausea and constipation, but nothing bad at all. SUCH a relief.

Summer Of...WHAT?

Everyone is getting ready for a summer of great crafty projects. Some are getting ready for a summer of lace, others for a summer of socks or a summer of tank tops. Me? I'm a week into my own "Summer of Cross-Stitch." Thanks to some amazing inspiration from a friend I decided that I can manage an hour a day of pretty much anything, even this darn cross-stitch. And of course me with my obsessive personality haven't been able to put it down since. Here's the latest picture.



Ignore the hoop, I'm too lazy to take it off. So yeah, that's what I've been up to.

Actually last night I couldn't get to sleep and got out of bed at midnight to do a little spinning. I haven't done it in a while and it didn't go terribly well. I have such a problem with starting up again when I let the yarn get too thin and it breaks. So frustrating! But I'm going to try and practice a bit each day (maybe I'll actually do it this time) and hope I can get a little better at it. I have to make some progress if I want to be able to justify buying a wheel.

I finally updated my sidebar too, just FYI. So, back to cross-stitching :)

Springtime...ish

Ahh, spring break. Not so much spring-like, but I'm enjoying a bit of chill. Better than getting to nearly 80 again. 65-70 is ideal, but 80 is just too freaking hot. Especially when the pools aren't open... Anyway, it is sooo nice to do nothing. Of course it's nearly over, have to go back Tuesday. So what have I been doing with my time?



That pretty much sums it up. I started a new scarf, Ruffles from Scarf Style using some of the yarn my SP got me. I had to buy a couple extra skeins, but no biggy. And yes, I am a bit behind on the trends, but are you really surprised? Considering I put my clapotis to the side AGAIN to work on this... I've been listening to my podcasts while knitting, especially when Jaime's watching crappy tv. LOVE LOVE LOVE my podcasts. I added all the ones I listen to to my sidebar (except Knitcast which bloglines doesn't see...) so check them out.

I've also been reading a book from the library, Knit One, Kill Two by Maggie Sefton. It's not amazing literature, but I'm enjoying it.

And finally you'll note some spinning. After months and months of not spinning I finally got up the courage to pick it back up. It was one of those things where I got really frustrated with it so didn't want to do it, and then when I was ready to try again I figured I'd forgotten everything. So guess my surprise when I went back to it a day or two ago and it went really really well. I don't really know what the difference is, but it's coming much easier to me now. Ok, so admittedly I still can't let it spin and draft at the same time, I spin it then stick it between my feet and draft, but I'm still making progress. I'm even hoping I might be able to knit something from this eventually. Something kinda funky and uneven, like the yarn, but something none the less.

There She Goes Again

Just when I think that I couldn't possibly find something else to fill my free time (like I have that much anyway)...



Those are my first attempts at spinning. I'm. In. Love. Sunday I went to an all day beginning spinning class at the Yarn Barn in Lawrence. So much fun! And I came home with some actual yarn which I can't wait to use. Not sure what I can use it for really, my skein there at the top is the only one plied and it's 56 yards I believe. Here's a close up.



Of course I also came home with a drop spindle, an issue of Spin Off, some pretty colored roving, and a catalog of spinning wheels. Yeah, like that'll ever happen. Someday though...

I've been practicing some on the drop spindle since Sunday. Not quite as fun as using a wheel, but still sooo nice. I think I might be getting better, although I'm still struggling. Here's what I got out of the extra white I took home from my class supplies.



So that's what I've been up to. There has also been some non-photo-worthy progress on the sock and the baby sweater. And a huge scary Financial Accounting III test was taken Monday. Cross your fingers for a good grade for me :)