Some of My Thoughts

Time flies when the sky is falling.

2007-10-18T11:17:00.001-07:00

So It's almost six months since my last post.
Where has the time gone?
Away.
What did I do on my summer vacation?
I don't remember.
September was very busy
I drove over 3,000 miles, but if you know me, you already know that because I am sure I have repeated it ad nauseum to anyone that would listen.
My baby sister is about to have a baby! any minute! I can't stand the suspense!
Why is it when you buy something you could really do without, something you really need breaks?
I should really start writing stuff down. I am beginning to forget things. Like people dying and stuff and a year or two later I forgot that they died. Its kind of embarassing... "how's so and so doing?" "He/she died." "Oh, no!, when?" "Two years ago." "Awkward!!!"

Podcasts

2007-04-23T05:55:00.000-07:00

I have to recommend two podcasts that I am enjoying.

One is the Elf and Dwarf at www.theelfanddwarf.podbean.com

and Nobody's Listening at http://www.nobodyslistening.net

The first is mostly about World of Warcraft and other Roleplaying games.

The second is a couple of goofy guys who are sharing their life stories and encouraging us to share with them.
Which I have done in Episode 17.

so stop by and listen up.

I Swore I Would Never Do Something Like This...

2007-02-10T17:43:00.000-08:00

Here you go...
What kind of flower are you?
I am Echinacea? WTFO?

I am an
Echinacea

What Flower
Are You?

Adventures in Coldness

2007-02-08T09:17:00.000-08:00

So I was sitting in my office, minding my own business, when someone brings me a box...What could be in this box?

Rocks? What on Earth is this person doing with a box of brown gravel?

Well, what do you know? It's Diet Pepsi! a victim of the frigid temperature in Michigan!

I was curious about the red smudge on some of the Pepsi rocks. Until...

I found the culprit, and the survivors of a night in the trunk.

I just had to share this with you all.

Thanks for stopping by,
Now get back to work!!

Cold Enough For You Yeti?

2007-02-07T07:32:00.000-08:00

So for the past week I've been freezing my tushie off... And that's a LOT of freezing... Badum bum.
The heater core on the van was clogged and the heater control valve went south last week, although we've not had heat for a couple months and the radiator went three weeks ago. I was able to pay for repairs on the valve but the core will have to wait since I was given a quote of over $300 for labor and I just don't have it. I now have partial heat, which is okay when its like 30-40 degrees F, outside, but when the temp has been in negative double digits, it makes not so much difference. my feet still get numb and I am wearing two pairs of pants and three shirts plus a sweater and jacket, two hats (with two hoods) and two pairs of gloves to drive around town. To top that off. the temp in my office is around 57 - 60 degrees F. so I leave on the sweater.

Been a knitting fool too. Finally got the KAL done:

and a couple of grandma's favorites as well as working on a craft project from Lion, a celtic themed trivet using icord. But since none of the stores around me had the 5 inch spool knitter, I just used my size 5 DPNs to do the job. will post final pic when complete.

Other than that I am just very tired and unusual for me but I have a headache today. I would really like to go lay down.
Hmm... maybe I will.

January KAL Progress

2007-01-18T07:00:00.000-08:00

Here it is, folks! My KAL for January... so far. It seems to be going well. I only had to frog one row, because of miscounting.
I had a cold last week and the Burning Crusade expansion pack came out a couple days ago. I was 2nd in line at the store to receive mine. Then I was up until 3:45 a.m. playing. But I made up for it ahead of time by knitting 8 dishcloths over the weekend. of course most of them stayed at Mom's and one went to DH's cousin, but I like to share. I met some new friends who like the game, so thats good, more peeps to play with.

Christmas mouse story

2006-12-26T07:12:00.000-08:00

So I get up on Christmas morning and its about 6:30 am. I'm walking through the living room and looking at the clock and thinking...." Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse, because I poisoned him." So I let the dog out to do her business, and then I let her back in and turned on the dining room light.. and there on the carpet was... a dead mouse. What a coincidence.

SD is having a nice time at EPCOT for Christmas. I'm so glad she had an opportunity to go. The Lord provides in His own way.

and now... back to work.

Dun Dun Dun.... Done!!

2006-12-21T06:17:00.000-08:00

Finally finished!!!
Here it is bumps and bruises included.

I had some trouble with the ssk stitch until I googled "ssk knit" and came up with a nice video showing exactly how to do the stitch (the written instructions were very hard to follow, for me anyway).

I think on this picture the pattern pops more than in real life.

What's nice about the Monthly Dishcloth Yahoo Group is that there are so many helpful people and lots of blog links as well as posted pictures of what the dishcloth is supposed to look like.

I'm really excited about all the images in my head I would like to capture in yarn!

With all the holiday hububb, I've not gotten around to the seahorse or scallop shell patterns I was working on, perhaps in January I can nail those down. I really want to do a themed throw (i dislike using the term 'afghan' anymore, it sounds like a racial slur) that is nautical in nature, using some of the monthly patterns on the site there.

Well I am off now to spread some more holiday cheer.

December mid month KAL

2006-12-20T10:29:00.000-08:00

Okay here is my KAL.

I had to frog twice and as you can tell the third time I just said "What the heck are you thinking, your gonna be using it to WASH DISHES, stop fretting. So as you can see on the left bottom of the picture is the area where i lost control of the pattern and when i got to the end of the row i had an extra stitch or two so on the way back on the next row i just dropped the yo stitches to get back to teh required number of stitches. And then i just continued on. somewhere along the line i must have figured out the pattern because the area where i screwed up the first time does not show up the second time. .. yay me.

AND i figured out how to resize the photo so its not taking up the whole page.

Till Next Time...
See ya

The Bees Kness

2006-12-07T05:54:00.000-08:00

So a couple weeks ago, the girl scouts and I went to the Bees Knees in Northville to create masterpieces of ceramic art.
We do this every year. The first year I made a coffee mug which was of a tree where the handle and surrounding area was the trunk/branch and the mug part was where all the leaves were. I called this my "Lord of the Rings" mug because it reminded me of the tree guys.

Anyway, the following year, I painted breakfast on a plate: Eggs on toast with bacon and sausage. It looked good enough to eat. will have to show you later.

This year's entry is my "World of Warcraft"(tm) cereal bowl.

I think I could have gotten a better representation if I had better brushes.
What I found incredibly interesting was that amongst the greenware available for painting were two steins - one was Obi Wan Kenobi (the original) and Chewbacca. Who'd a thunk it?

Okay off to work now.

Almost December

2006-11-30T06:42:00.000-08:00

I'm way behind in my work, so I thought as long as I am going to be here for a while I would post some thoughts.

World of Warcraft is a very addictive game.
Previously, I had trouble with MMORPG's in that they seemed really boring.
But this game is ... well, better.

Things I've learned from World of Warcraft:
Running from Orgrimmar to Gadgetzan does not burn as many calories as one might think.
I am really tired in the morning.
All my toons have different personalities.
I am a persistant fisherman
I am as much a packrat in the game as I am in Real Life.

Okay, now I am going to get back to work. I mean it, really.

Done!!

2006-11-22T08:24:00.000-08:00

Finally finished the KAL from Yahoo Groups.

here it is.

The hardest part was the bobbles. I think I tried to do them like four different ways, which is why they all look so not the same.
And at one point near the end thought I hadn't done day five and i did it twice before i realized it. That was because when I did day 5 the first time I didnt have access to a pen with which to mark off the rows. So I had to frog it for 8 rows once i realized the pattern wasn't comeing out right.

oh well all's well that ends well.

KAL on Yahoo! groups

2006-11-17T04:19:00.000-08:00

So, as you know, I have designed a couple of Dishcloth sized blocks. And the mid-November KAL started yesterday. Well, I was working on one of the new blocks on Wednesday night before turning in and got about 10 rows done on it in teal. I started the KAL block in wine Thursday morning. so they were both in my bag. After work I was waiting for my daughter to finish her job and I pulled out some knitting to work on the block I had designed. I started knitting after checking my chart for what stitches needed to be made. I got about halfway across the row, when I noticed that the stitches were not lining up properly.. I counted and recounted and thought well maybe I am on the wrong row... turns out I had grabbed the KAL and was trying to add to it. Silly me. I mean I spent like five minutes looking at the work and thinking "how can I be that far off?"

That's the story so far...
more to come as I am now printing out this morning's KAL

Getting to Know Me Thursday

2006-11-16T17:31:00.000-08:00

So, One of my Yahoo! Groups posts "Getting to Know You Thursday" questions for us all to answer, these are my answers this week I think you can tell what time of month it is for me.

1. Where will you be spending Thanksgiving?
Thanksgiving is at my house this year. RSVP if you can make it. (and bring something yummy) LOL. Joke, no really, My father in law is going in the hosp. for knee replacement surgery on Monday and my mother in law will be staying with us while he’s in, because the hospital is near our house and she doesn’t drive. Sooooo… I will be chief cook bottle washer and chauffer for Thanksgiving day. ( I haven’t been to see my parents for Thanksgiving since 1984, btw, if anyone wants to “awwww” now is the time).

2. What's your favorite pet store chain? Why?

Petsmart is really big and has lots of stuff and they will clip the dog’s toenails for five bucks.

Petco lets your pet poop on the floor and the friendly staff just smile and scoop it up for you.

Those are the only two I know and/or have ever been to.

3. Do you buy organic at the grocery store or just buy what looks good?

Are you nuts? Who can afford organic? I don’t even think looks have anything to do with my grocery store purchases. What I go for is how much can I get for the least amount of money. You know that bag of blackening bananas taped shut with fifty cents written in sharpie marker? Yeah that’s mine! I’m gonna make banana bread. And the kids are gonna like it!!!

4. Is there a store you like that doesn't cater to any theme? It has
neat things that you would never think of shopping for on purpose?

I hate shopping. I only enter a store when I have a clear picture of what I am going in for… then I go straight there, no dilly dallying, pick it up and get out as soon as I can even if it means running through the self scan line. The debit card is my new best friend. I no longer have to deal with surly cashiers and know it all baggers.

5. Do you have sentimental attachment to a piece of furniture you own?
Not an heirloom, but something you bought? What makes it memorable?

My king size bed cost more than I could have gotten it at a the fly by night discount mattress store, but I bought it at a major Furniture store, because, well, at the time I had the money, and just once I didn’t want something that somebody else might have used in some seedy hotel room and had upholstered over it. (I’ve seen the hidden camera stories on the news)

Also my LayZBoy sofa with the dual recliners that cost way more than I had ever spent on a sofa before. Or even all together. But, for the same reasons as above. Sometimes I just have to do something to make myself believe that I DESERVE NICE THINGS TOO.

Okay, I want to apologize for my attitude, I am really MS ing (no P) if you know what I mean.

Didn’t mean to bite anyone’s head off, just venting a little.

Thanks for putting up with me.

Linda in Detroit.

Knitting

2006-11-16T06:01:00.000-08:00

Okay this week I've been in knitting frenzy mode. If I had money I probably would have run out to the store to buy a bunch of yarn. Unfortunately, no money, however I do have a stash of unused yarn I dove into last night to get the yarn I needed for todays KAL "dishcloth" on Yahoo Groups. I won't be using it as a dishcloth, as I have no cotton yarn. It took me about a half hour to knit up todays rows. now I can't wait until tomorrow.

In the meantime I am working on a couple of patterns I designed myself "sort of" and maybe will post them when I get the stitches worked out. This is what happened: Yesterday, I was looking at the past list of KAL's on the YG and reading through some of the posts, when I saw that several people are using the blocks to make an afghan. That's what I was thinking! But being mildly OC, I need to have a theme of some kind (can't have turkeys and lighthouses on the same afghan). So I looked and saw there was a lighthouse, a fish, a dolphin, and I thought, "if there were like a seahorse and a scallop shell, and some other nautical themed items it would be perfect. So I started searching through Google for other dishcloth patterns that might carry those Items. I spent about an hour looking and kept seeing the same few dishcloth patterns so I decided to make my own. I went into my graphics library and pulled up some promising templates which I enlarged then transferred to grid paper. Now I have a couple of patterns to start, and while I'm typing two more items come to mind for consideration. a boat of some kind. probably sail since that would show up better on a dishcloth than say a speed boat, and an anchor. I don't know why I didnt think of that one first, I was, after all, IN THE NAVY.

Another senior moment brought to you by ME-No-PAUSE.

OMGoodness

2006-11-15T19:34:00.000-08:00

It seems I can never keep up on this sort of thing.
I have joined like three yahoo knitting groups in the last two days.
I lost my car keys for about 45 minutes today and went into peri pre menopausal meltdown today.
I was so excited about starting the KAL dishcloth tomorrow that I went and downloaded some of the earlier ones and completed one today, just so I can get warmed up for tomorrow.
will post pics when I have a chance.
laytah

Starting over

2006-08-08T07:10:00.000-07:00

Hey, I finally remembered that I had a blog here. LOL. My last post was in May 2005, so I deleted those and started again. I am trying to understand this blog thing.

Things I like to do:
Play World of Warcraft.
Play D&D or other RPG's
Knit
Read
Camp

I have been playing WOW for 8 months on my son's account. He wasn't using it for a while, as he was playing lots of other games on Xbox Live and other computer games. But last month for some reason he got interested in it again, so I had to get my own account, and START ALL OVER. I just got my main up to level 56. I keep telling myself. It's just a game and I should be able to level faster this time since I know all the waste of time stuff to avoid.

I play D&D once a week with some friends who I've been playing with for over five? years now. Wow, that's a long time. Not everyone has played that long. And some of you have played longer. We went camping a couple weekends ago and played a Call of Cthulu RP by tiki torches. It was spooky and cool.

I am in the process of knitting myself a cardigan. I got the pattern off the Lion Brand site. I am having a little problem with the front left side instructions. Had to frog from about 3/4 done back to the beginning. Will try again next week.

I've not read anything all summer except PC Magazine and OXM (the Official Xbox Magazine) and the World of Warcraft Game Guides. Hehe.

Anyway that's all I'm gonna say for now.
KKTHKSBYE!!