Rain Rain Go Away (No, really don't!)

You know, for a depressive, moody type such as myself (well, particularly during a few days per month), I shouldn't like rain as much as I do. I love the way it sounds on the roof, I love the way it makes everything look faded and yet reflective, and I love the smell.

It's raining again today. We're supposed to have lots more in the next few days.

The only thing I find hard to deal with regarding rain is the fact that I don't easily have homemade potato soup accessible. One needs potato soup on a day like today. Potato soup and knitting. And CSI.

Speaking of knitting, I'm progressing like mad on my shrug:

Noel is worried I won't like it once I get it done, because I tend to hate things that make me look puffy and/or like the Michelin Man. This sweater is a little bit roomy thus far (those are the sleeves and back of it) and the sleeves in particular are a little big. However. I usually have the opposite problem, that the sleeves are too tight! So I'm going to reserve judgment til later. If all else fails, I can make the sleeves smaller.

I'm pleased with how fast it's coming along though. Maybe if it turns out nicely, I'll make another one. (Ha. Who am I kidding? I love making new stuff with new patterns, and already printed out 3 patterns today that I like).

It looks like this weekend will involve a trip up to NC to visit my mom. It was her birthday a few weeks ago and I wasn't able to go, so this will be a belated birthday trip. I'd love to get some real bbq while up there. YUM.

Kilts and kittens and knitting, Oh My!

Hello, all! Long time, no post. But I will more than make up for that here, with the copious numbers of photos I'm about to post!

So, just to get us all started with Photo Extravaganza 2009, let's discuss work.

My job has descended upon me like an avalanche of paperwork lately. I somehow end up taking on not only my work, but also the drudgery of paperwork that no one else wants to do either. So! Fun stuff. Here's my desk:

Note that there seems to be a bit of clear space on the front corner, but that's only because the stuff that's supposed to be there has been temporarily relocated into a box on the floor. Insanity! I'm trying to clean it off, but really? It's hard to care sometimes, especially when people keep coming by and dropping off more and more stuff. Awesome. So. There's that.

Moving on!

Now that my Mom's birthday/Mother's Day has gone by, I can show you the shawl/wrap that I knitted for her:

I was very pleased with how it turned out, and I love the delicate leaf pattern on it. It ended up being around 6 feet long and the yarn is a bamboo blend, so it's super-soft and cuddly. MMMmmm...soft yarn!

Since my niece's birthday hasn't come yet, but she's not likely to go onto this here blog and search around for pics of her gift, I'll show you her birthday sweater as well:

This is a crocheted pattern and is super fast. I completed this really quickly, and I just loved the button so much I wanted to make it a focal point. My niece loves her some pink fluffiness, so I figured this yarn would be a good choice. It's also probably going to be a bit big, so she can wear it for a while I hope.

Since I got that done so early, I started on the shrug (see previous post) and am making out like a bandit on it. Here I am so far, done with the back and most of 1 sleeve:

I love this yarn. Too bad I don't have this done today though, because it's cold and rainy out.

Now onto other things! I know that some of you must be wondering what the title is all about, with the kilts and all. Well, if you read my last post you'd know about the Scottish festival. We had a great time. Irn Bru was drunk in large quantities. We watched caber tossing, which is impressive any way you look at it. These guys take this telephone pole and try to throw it to go end over end. To prove that Shorties Are Capable Too, the smallest guy out there was one of the only guy able to actually get it to go over! (This isn't him, but it gives you some perspective on how huge those cabers are.)

Throw it, buddy!

And I was able to finish Noel's kilt in time! Isn't this fetching? I love this picture.

He loved the kilt so much, he wore it a few days later when we went to Charleston to visit the aquarium. Here he is in the swamp room:

He did get some "What's up with the skirt?" comments, but also quite a few "cool kilt!" and "what tartan is that?" and "man, that thing looks comfortable!" comments too. He was very proud to wear it and that made me feel good. I was pleased with it too. Next up, one made out of a khaki fabric, like a utility kilt. Fun stuff! :)

I have to say though, the moray eel didn't seem impressed with it.

Ah well. Everyone's a critic.

I suppose that's enough for today. Have a lovely week!

Will Miracles Never Cease?

I don't believe it. Hell must have frozen over. I actually finished a birthday present ahead of time. Unreal. And even more unbelievable? I finished TWO birthday presents ahead of time. What's happening to me? I'm suddenly able to plan my time? WTF?



I finished my mom's present (I do have pictures but I can't post them until she gets the gift this weekend) and also my niece's birthday present. And I found out that the pregnant woman in my knitting group has registered at Target & Babies-R-Us, so therefore I'm off the hook for handknitting anything for that party on Monday. She probably needs fewer handknit hats and more wipes anyway, right?

So for those of you keeping track (all 0 of you), that mitigates 2 of the issues I had with knitting the shrug on the Lion Brand knit-along that starts tomorrow. The third issue was that of yarn, and needing to buy some and Oh The Horror of having to buy new yarn! Whatever shall I do? Gasp!

Then I went digging in my stash. And guess what I found? Some gorgeous Italian yarn, enough to make the shrug (I hope) and it's lovely - turquoise, with glints of shiny metallic pieces in it in all different colors. I'll take a picture for you. I tried to find a picture of it online, but this yarn must be discontinued because no one seems to have any for sale. Glad I bought out the store when they were going out of business! :)

So obstacle #3 is gone now too. So! Guess what I'm starting on?

Very exciting.

What's also exciting - our plans for this weekend! The Scottish festival will be in town, and I do love some telephone-pole-throwing Scottish people. The festival isn't huge, but it's still fun - vendors, dancing, heavy athletics (see aforementioned telephone pole) and of course, Scottish food! YUM. The Scots are southerners at heart, really (or maybe southerners are Scottish at heart?) because these folks can deep fry anything. Including candy bars. It's good stuff, their meat pies and such. I'm excited. They also sell this:

I don't know how to describe Irn-Bru to you if you've never had it. It's...kinda like orange soda, but with more battery acid. But it's good! Scotland is supposedly the only soda-drinking country on earth where Coke isn't the soft drink of choice - Irn-Bru is. It's a particularly Scottish soda and I do plan on having at least one for old time's sake. Ah, St. Andrews, how I miss thee!

It's supposed to be HOT this weekend though. They're saying Saturday will be up to NINETY degrees. Wow. Better bring some sunscreen. I also hope they think to shear the sheep before the herding competition, or we might be having some broiled mutton at some point in the day. Sorry sheep! That was mean! I do hope someone thought of that though....poor little sweaty sheep.

Do sheep sweat? And if so, wouldn't their wool shrink? Huh.

On that mind-bending note, time to get to it. Ta ta!

Warning: Knitting Ahead!

Hi everyone! Happy May Day!

Because of spring and warmth and such, I decided to change the look of the blog. Also? The dark color was REALLY dark. Sometimes the words didn't show up right. So! New colors. La la lovely fun!

I'm excited today because they're having a knit along on Lionbrand.com with my favorite knitwear designer, Stefanie Japel! (Check out her stuff at http://www.glampyre.com/ - fabulous). They're making a shrug that I've been eyeing for a while - most shrugs make me look like a linebacker, but this one is fitted, lean, and lovely. Here's the link to it:

http://blog.lionbrand.com/

Of course, there are a few reasons why I shouldn't participate in this knit along: (1) I need to buy more yarn for this project (oh the tragedy), and (2) I have 3 other projects waiting to be finished: my Mom's birthday present (will be done probably tonight for shipping tomorrow), my niece's present for her birthday in May, and an emergency baby gift for a woman in my knitting group. Apparently I'm unaware of how long babies gestate, because for some reason I was thinking that I had still 3 or so months before the baby arrives. Um, no, 6 weeks. Oops. So our knitting group decided on Monday to have a shower for her on the 11th, which doesn't leave much time for dawdling! I think I can crank something out pretty fast though.

Anyway, I've been wanting a shrug to wear over my sleeveless dresses but not a bulky one that makes me look like a refrigerator. This one fits the bill I think. I'm thinking a turquiose color would be nice. :)

This brings me to a point I wanted to discuss, of being stuck in clothing ruts. I realize that I've been stuck in one for a long time, primarily because of my former figure (pre-surgery), and now that I'm smaller and more fit, I could be wearing more fitted things, sleeveless and (gasp!) even strapless stuff! But I haven't been, for the most part. I've slowly branched into fitted things, and occasionally will wear a sleeveless dress, and I even bought 2 strapless maxi dresses recently, but then sewed straps on them. I find I'm not very comfortable showing my shoulders yet, probably because of years of always covering up.

The shrug is, in that sense, a security blanket - I can take it off, or leave it on, but that way I can decide my comfort level with a sleeveless dress or whatever. If I feel too uncovered, I can put it on and not feel like I'm wearing shoulder pads or a poncho or something. I love little summer dresses and have fabric to make 3 more of them. Now I need to sit down and make those too (Now that the weather is regularly in the mid 80s!).

Ok, enough about knitting. No, wait. More: One of the women in my knitting group is opening a yarn shop, and the big grand opening is tonight. Should be fun. Noel is going with me - poor guy, exposed to so much alpaca. :) She has said that she needs people to teach classes and bring in samples to hang up, but I don't really have any samples of anything, except another sweater designed by Stefanie Japel that I made out of cotton (big mistake - it droops and sags and is just a little sad). Maybe I could donate that to the cause. Hmmm....

Anyway.

It's a beautiful day outside - the kind of day when it's hard to stay in your seat! I'll have some finished object photos to post soon, so stay tuned!

Orlando Conference!

Guess where we went this week?

(Ok, so yeah, this looks like Savannah, but it's not.)

It's ORLANDO!

We went down to Orlando on Monday through Wednesday, because I was scheduled to speak at a national conference there. See? Here's my little presentation thingie on their website:

http://www.aaohn.org/education/symposium-expo/Advance_Program/Tuesday.cfm

I did two presentations, one on Plain Language and one on Presentations (I call it my Presentation Presentation). They both went quite well. I had about 50-60 people in the Plain Language class and about 130 in the Presentation class. I had forgotten how much I enjoy speaking to groups like that. Anyway. Here's the only picture I got of the conference center:

It was BIG. The hotel was right next to it, but because my classes were on the opposite side of the conference center building (and I am not exaggerating at all - they were in the far corner!), it was about a half mile walk just to get to the right room. We got a lot of exercise, but not enough to compensate for the delicious food that we absolutely buried ourselves in. Yum. More on that later.

Here is a picture of the hotel, from the pool area:

The pool area was nice, and the hotel looked really pretty on the inside, but the rooms were just average. Nice, but not incredible. Also? Everything cost a ton of money - guess they expect people who stay there to be able to afford it. I dunno. It did have seriously snazzy furniture in the lobby though:

Love those chairs!

We went out the first night to an incredible Greek restaurant called Taverna Opa. I HIGHLY recommend this place if you're going to Orlando. The food was amazing - we had gyros with lamb and beef, and they tasted like the ones I had when I was actually in Greece. They also had baklava. YUM.

There was also a belly dancer. I tried to get her picture with Noel in the foreground, but the flash wasn't cooperating. See her in the background, with a sword on her head?

Here's a better picture of her:

One other fun thing was the floor decoration. :) We overheard the manager say that they weren't allowed to break plates on the floor like they're supposed to, so instead they would throw handfuls of napkins into the air and they settled on the floor (or your drink, or your head). Then people would get up and start dancing. Fun stuff!

I guess I should include a photo of myself. This is me cheesing it up in the hot tub. Good stuff!

Just call me Busty Sinclair.

One weird thing we saw in Orlando was a hands-on museum that was designed to look like it was picked up by a tornado and dropped intact but upside down into the city. How cool is this?

I loved that the palm trees by the building are still hanging there upside down. We didn't go in (they were having some fancy-schmancy conference cocktail party going on when we went by there). Anyway, it was certainly interesting!

So we got back Wednesday evening and I had to go to work on Thursday to the boringness of everyday life. We had a great time though - the weather was beautiful, the presentations went well, and much food was enjoyed by all!

The end.

A Story of Springtime!

Ah yes, chickadees. It's that time of year. Spring! When the weather turns nicer (except for the cold spell we've had for the last 2 days - freezing last night! Brrr!) and my general feeling is one of not wanting to be inside. I get antsy, ready to move, ready to go, wanting to not sit in an office and file papers. It's hard! I suffer miserably! I'm like a child who is impatiently waiting for summer break to arrive, fighting my urge to heed the siren call of verdant growth!

Everything is frolicking!

Bright green tree frogs are singing! Butterflies are fluttering their way from flower to flower! Ladybugs daintily flit from one leaf to another! It's lovely! It's magical! It's enchanting!

So I go outside! I want to be part of the effervescent life of spring! I run outside, ready to frolic as well as any fuzzy caterpillar! (Do caterpillars frolic?) I want to be one with nature! I want to breathe in the deep scented air of spring!

I throw open the door and leap into the great green yonder!

And immediately lose a pint of blood, because every mosquito and sand gnat within a 5 mile radius can smell me coming and hone in like bloodhounds (pardon the pun there).

Then in a flank attack, every particle of pollen that was released around the house mysteriously finds its way into my nasal passages, where it attacks my sinuses like so many fluffy golden viking berzerkers.

So I frolic my way back inside to the couch and Spike Channel's CSI marathon and my knitting bag.

Cue Benadryl.

The End.

It's raining, It's pouring, the old man is snoring!

See this?

Yeah, we're right in the middle of that. Helloooooooo flash flooding! Also possible tornado problems tonight. Hurrah!

Also, please see the following link:

http://www.wtoc.com/global/story.asp?s=10119103

That's where I was today - shaking hands and explaining to children at a local middle school how important water is. And getting my picture taken by the media. 2 news stations were there, so I expect to be on the tv news tonight too. Looking slightly pudgy. Sigh. I must lay off the doritos. Sersely. One of my coworkers told me that tv cameras make you look 25% bigger than you actually are. Which makes me wonder how much (or little) do those teensy little women on the weather channel weigh? Because...wow. Eat a burger. Take mine. No really.

What else is happening here other than doritos and rain? Hmm...knitting. I've been knitting a lot lately which is nice. :) Surprises! So I can't elaborate. But I will be taking pictures.

Also yesterday was a big family holiday for us: April Fool's Day. My sister came up with a fun idea - get everyone (everyone!) to tell my mom Happy Birthday, despite the fact that her birthday is actually in May. hee hee. I sent an ecard from the kittens, and one of Rachel's friends made her a little cake and brought her a balloon. hee hee. Fun stuff.

Of course, Noel got me good by pretending his arm was broken at work, and I went running for my car keys before he started laughing. And then I kicked him soundly in the rear end. Because yes, he got me good! Not many people can - I'm usually pretty cynical. However, I am apparently also gullible when not properly caffeinated.

On a totally different note a blog I've been enjoying lately is http://www.cakewrecks.blogspot.com/. Hee hee. You should check it out if you have time.

Also, a great knitting blog is http://www.brooklyntweed.blogspot.com/ - this guy is a phenomenal knitwear designer. Gorgeous stuff - I love me some aran cables and this guy has serious talent. Too bad we're about 3 weeks away from sweltering down here!