I KNEW it! My Inner Hippy Is Showing:

Tonight on Saturday Night Live, they turned on the Way Back machine in honor of George Carlin's death and aired their very first ever episode - the one featuring George branching out into his more *edgy* stand-up.

As the first musical performance finished their song, I *knew*, just *knew* where I knew him from.

He's THAT GUY. Sgt. Freak'n Pepper himself.

I love me Mr. Carlin, but I also love Mr. Preston and Janis Ian.


An awesome tribute tonight, Just awesome.

You Just Gotta See/Hear This!:

You MUST click here for audio immediately.

It's called "crossstitch" and I found it on ravelry.com just now.

BRILLIANT. That there's a keeper.

Last post of the day, I SWEAR.

First Name Power, Last Name Trip

First Name Power, Last Name Trip, originally uploaded by ajdury.

He demanded that I "take that camera somewhere else", and I told him I didn't have to. He told me not to take his picture, so I took it anyway.

Who does he think he is? Telling me I can't stand on a public street and take pictures.

He was very rude and condescending to this young woman and I can see why he wouldn't want his actions captured.

Too bad for him he never realized the camera takes video too, lol.

Know your rights:

http://www.krages.com/ThePhotographersRight.pdf

( video is over on my flickr page, and yes, I really talked back to an officer of the law, lol. I'm nothing if not bull-headed. Surprised you didn't know that :snort:)

(also, between the light pole crashing down on a car on Henderson a few months ago, and a truck on fire at a residence last month, and now today's car accident down the street from my house, you should probably be worried for your safety when I'm around with my camera! these were all strangers though.)

Yuck Is In the Air:

This is what our air looked like this morning. Seriously gross.

Back in 2005 scientists predicted that if we didn't get a handle on some solutions, the San Joaquin's air quality was only going to worsen.

The Air Pollution Control District implemented a "Spare the Air" campaign (similar to the Bay Area one).

What's San Joaquin's "Spare the Air" been up to lately? From the Air Pollution Control District's website:

Spare the Air
Thank you for your participation and interest in the Spare the Air program. This program has evolved into the new Healthy Air Living initiative, which will continue to make available daily air-quality forecasts, in addition to providing you with additional resources to use in making healthy air-quality choices every day at home and work, in school and on the go!

Please follow the links from this website’s home page for more Healthy Air Living information, and check back for our Healthy Air Living website, www.healthyairliving.com, now under construction.

So let's go link jumping and see what their current plans are to deal with this serious issue, shall we? . . .

Apparently, one of their great ideas is to evoke the great power of the Flying Spaghetti Monster and all his compatriots to battle this evil.

The dairies are a major contributor to our poor air quality as well as our poor water quality.

The recent fires around central and northern California are certainly not helping either.


Smoke from the fire at Fort Hunter Liggett the other day

Our air quality forecast for today.

Gross gross gross. I can't wait to move out of the Central Valley for this and many other reasons.

Lunch Break:

I'm sitting at my desk, eating some leftover BBQ Chicken pizza, so I thought I'd chat some more about what I'm up to.

Yesterday I got the missing sewing machine bobbins purchased (did y'all know they sell them pre-threaded now? I had no clue!) and was ready to get right into the Making Of the Bags when I got off work. I checked over the printed instructions a few times and measured and cut the tulle, got the machine all threaded up (thankfully I have the owner's manual because sewing is not something I do often, or even rarely, almost never is more like it) and started stitching. I stopped stitching as soon as I could see what was going on. I'm no sewer but something was very wrong with my "two seconds of sewing" results. So I tried it again . . . with the same results. I fiddled with buttons and knobs and levers and tried it again . . . with the same results.

In the instruction book, there's a part that discusses "tension" and being a knitter, tension is certainly not foreign. I had set the top stitch tension, but it seems the bottom bobbin tension was so tight as to create thread *throwup* on the bottom of the stitching. I thought my pre-wound bobbin was defective but I figured I should go read about this magical bottom bobbin tension stuff anyway. Good thing I did because once I adjusted the bottom tension I was off and sewing in no time!

After successfully sewing up two sides of my first bag, I took a break and chatted with The Mike on the phone. While I was doing that, I got a call from a 661 area code. No one or place in Bakersfield would be calling me outside of KnittingSuzanne and we rarely talk on the phone, so I was perplexed. When I finished with Mike I went to the computer to pull up ravelry - Suzanne and I co-moderate a group, and we've had a couple of moderating issues not too long ago so my first thought was that something was wrong there. As ravelry was pulling up, I checked for emails and saw Suzanne had contacted me there too. Now I was REALLY curious to know what was going on!

She was calling and emailing to ask ME what was going on . . . with ME! Yesterday, my coworker told me she got the invite to join ravelry, so I ran right to it and deleted my blog link and my personal info and also, completely inadvertently, the ability to receive PMs from anyone! Woops.

Suzanne was calling to see if I was having mental issues since it appeared I'd drawn all the blinds, shut out the lights and locked the front door of my interwebs presence.


Ravely. Without it, I'da never known KnittingSuzanne and she wouldn't be calling to check into my mental health! With it, I gotta go hide all my bloggity blog stuff from my coworker!

This is where I tell y'all how the cow ate the cabbage. Sometimes that includes my work and my town and real live people (that although I don't mention real names, this town is the size of a postage stamp and she'll know who I'm talking about!) so for now my ravelry presence is but a mere shell.

You can always access my blog by bloglines or some other rss feeder or hey, do it the old-fashioned way and "bookmark" me. I'll be here, telling it like it is.

After all that, I did finish one entire produce bag and I am tickled pink with my results!!! Pictures later. More Making Of the Bags when I get home.

Oh, oohh, ohh, I almost forgot. Yesterday I emailed three places at the Coast
(the west one, Ellen) that are advertising with job openings and within an hour one of them asked for my resume! The only bump in our very probable move back home soon is my getting a great job. I can get A job but hopefully I can get a GOOD job. Fingers crossed.

Talky Talky**** Update:

Since I have another husband-free week ahead, I probably won't be blogging much - I'm too busy laying around the house naked and knitting! KIDDING! I'll stop knitting on occasion. STILL KIDDING!

Like I'd stop knitting. Please. But seriously:

#1 - Sick Dog: Prescilla (although we call her 'Scilly) has something Not Good going on right now and we're not sure EXACTLY what it is but we do know it has to do with her brain. She really went downhill for a few days, two weeks ago, and then she spent most of last week at Dr. Herriott's getting checked out and looked over and a bit medicated. She's been back home since Thursday afternoon and under my intense scrutiny. It started with her heavily salivating and not being interested in her ball. Scilly . . . and her ball? They're closer than Freckles and Madden. She has an unholy love of her ball and I ain't even kidd'n ya. Thankfully, she's back in love with her ball and barking her fool head off at every opportunity. Still not 100% but extremely better than two weeks ago.

#2 - The Mike Does a 180: Mike and I do not share the same views about animals and their domesticated roles vis-a-vis human being caregivers. I believe that if you (meaning me) have a pet, then that pet is allowed to roam the home and homestead in all places that humans roam. Mike is a dead-set believer that dog = outside only. At almost 5 years of wedded union, we still clash at this crossroads. I think that losing Hunter recently and 'Scilly's current brain sickness has softened the guy's heart . . . a little, but a little is a lot for him on this issue. We were talking about 4th of July (and the inevitable deluge of legal and illegal fireworks for the ten days before and after the holiday and as I type this the illegal ones are ex-frigg'n-sploding every few minutes) and how 'Scilly gets worked up - barking and running around the yard *protecting* us constantly. The Mike said, and I like to have fell out of my seat (but we were driving and thankfully I was seatbelted and locked in) "if you give her a bath that day then she can come in". THUNK.

THUNKED right the eff over.

#3 - The Elephant In the Room: I let 'Scilly (and I used to do the same with Hunter too, back when he was alive) in the house most nights that Mike is out of town. I've been doing this from as far back as when we dated in 2002. He knows that I HAVE done it, but I think he really doesn't want to truly know-know as it happens. I'm going to always do that - every chance I get. 'Course I scour and clean the bedroom before he gets home, lol!

#4 - Divvying Up the Chores: Mike and I had the plan on Saturday to clean and get some financial housekeeping done. This guy is such a hoot! He was SO intimidated by the financial paperwork that he opted to clean most of the house while I filled out the forms. Flashbacks of our tax return preparation anyone? I do forms every day and all day long at work. Forms and paperwork are my wheelhouse. There isn't a form or questionnaire that makes my knees knock in fear. I say BRING IT! Mike? He says "please go away and I'll do anything to avoid you and gee, look over there, a shiny object and dessert!" He informed me first thing on Saturday morning that I'd be in charge of this Filling Out Of the Forms and he'd scrub toilets, vacuum (with the attachments!) every square inch and also bust out cleaning supplies he had never heard of, let alone used before . . . all this for the sole purpose of not Filling Out Of the Forms.

Eventually I stopped snickering and got down to paperwork business.

2 hours passed and I needed to stretch. I went wandering down the hallway for Mr. Clean himself. I almost buckled and 'fessed up about the ease of my part of the bargain when I saw him emerge from a bathroom with sweat streaming down his face and a scrub brush in his mitts. Then I remembered how much I HATE housework and cleaning and if I could find anyone else willing to do it? I'd hand over every shiny object and dessert in my possession with wild abandon. Yin, meet Yang. Something tells me we were meant to be.

#5 - Hello My Fabric, Hello My Sewing, Hello My Envi-ron-men-tal Conscious-nesssss!: Everyone (and by Everyone I mean Karin of Lime & Violet, Laurie and CJ - scroll about 1/2 way down) has been touting the Environmentally Friendly ways to shop.

(this topic title brought to you by I Can Has Cheezeburger)

Holy crap I laughed my ass of when I saw this the other day! Talk about a perfect caption!

After I did alot of The Forms and Mike did most of The Cleaning, he wanted to get out of the house and to hit The Big City. :eyeroll: I was only willing to hit The Big City if we could stop at a fabric/knitting/anything even remotely interesting/ store.

So we did. My shopping list was for the sole purpose of enhancing my sewing stash as it relates to green grocery shopping. SCOORRRRRRE. I had a kick-ass time wandering the fabric aisles of Joanne's and picking out my produce bag fabric and my grocery purchase fabric. Mike was tailing my every move and yet I still had a kick-ass time. We perused the sale fabric, and then locked on the cotton print fabric and throughout it all His Royal Assness kept repeating the same two sentences: "I'll NEVER take this into the grocery store EVER" and "You know the ONLY way I'll ever be seen with this is if you bring it with you and I'm there too, so you better not EVER make me take these without you. EVER." Then he got sidetracked with shiny objects and wondered if any of the fabrics had bass fish on them. Unfortunately, we never did locate fishing-themed fabric. Fortunately, he picked two cotton prints and I picked two cotton prints for me to turn into purchased groceries bags. Also I got the tulle and some appropriate cords to create produce bags as well.

I'm SO EXCITED to haul out my sewing machine and get to stitching on this stuff! When we got home from The Big City, Mike popped off and said "if I come home this weekend and you haven't done anything with this stuff? I'm throwing it all away." No lie. He uttered those very words. Has he 1) not met me and 2) taken a good look at all the bass fishing lures he's bought and not used in a year? Let's revisit number 1. I'll tell him how the cow ate the cabbage in a New York minute.

#6 - We swung by Tokyo Gardens while visiting The Big City and Yum Dee A Licious like we remembered. They originally sat us near the front door and did the customary "is this alright?" query. I glanced around and saw tables full of . . . is there a better way of saying this? Little Kids. Free-range sproglets. Them Things enjoying all the running around carpeted areas that their parents assumed were 'safe zones' in restaurants. No Thank You and Can We Please Be Reseated? Our hostess was kind and sweet and realized we (I) weren't about the Free Range Sproglets. She took us past the main dining room and through the bar area into our own little niche. Cute as all get out! There were only two booths back there (and no one else ever got seated). We enjoyed views of one of the Teppanyaki (sp?) rooms and the bar area ***. The other awesome thing where we were sitting was a floor pool right next to us. The owner (? not 100% sure, but a good guess) even fed them while we were eating. It was awesome! Until I looked back at my plate of raw fish and then back at the Koi and then back at my raw fish. Kinda creeped me out, I have to admit. Still ate the food though! It was a perfect meal.

On a completely unrelated-to-sushi note:

#7 - SOCKS SUCK: Truthfully, I suck. Not just at socks but at complicated knitting in general. Right now I'm sucking at knitting socks. My beautiful Noro socks . . . I'm past the heel turn and back into noodling through the patterned part. I'm just not happy with it though. I'm pretty sure I'll be ripping that bad boy back to (at least) the completed heel turn. If I do that, then really, I'm very tempted to rip the ENTIRE thing out and start over. I don't like the color change at the ribbed cuff and it's going to continue to irk me if I don't fix it. It's not like I've completed three-fourths of a sweater and hate it. It's just a sock, thank goodness.

And I really really want to make my idea that I've started so I *will* pick it right back up and start again. Stop laughing! I will! *

#8 - Socks don't suck, but my knitting does: My 3/4ths done BEAUTIFUL
HazelKnits yarn sock got frogged back almost to the heel turn. 'Member? You 'member** when I wrote that one of my personal sock preferences is another rib section at the ball of the foot? Loves me that slightly snuggy feel. Unfortunately, I started that ribby section too far down past the heel and even then, it just didn't look right. Suzanne advised that I go down two needle sizes to get the ribbing I want, so a'frogging I went.

Seriously people. Wendee's yarn (HazelKnits) is SO freak'n gorgeous that even the pile of frog was a delight to gaze upon. And soft, oh my good gravy I think part of it's content is melted butter.

Butter or not, I'm dating two socks that I have issues with. It's not them, it's me, but these issues have caused me break up with The Making of Socks. Splitsville. I know I'll let The Making of Socks back in pretty soon, but right now I'm wallowing in the freedom away from The Making of Socks. The Making of Socks has been hanging around alot lately, carving space for themselves in my abode and getting all comfy. They even cleared out a drawer (entire shelf) and started bringing their *stuff* over. Yarns, needles, fresh boxers, patterns, toothbrush . . . I had to put a stop to it and tell The Making of Socks that we need a break.

* Suzanne has heard my cry for sock help and she's going to come visit me Saturday to either teach me the "short row heel" or to hold my hair back while I throw up in sadness . . . cuz, you know . . . that's what friends do for each other.

** The Mike says this all. the. time. now. All the time people. He's a huge fan of the George Lopez show and George utters this phrase frequently. Wonder what Mike loves so much about this show? I got two reasons and both belong to this woman !

*** I swear on my unbought yarn's life that I saw our current Deputy City Manager, Mr. John Lollis hanging out at the bar with a group of cougars and not a one of them looked like the wife I saw him with a few months ago . . . just say'n . . .

As an aside: Pretty soon I'll explain why I ditched all my personal info over on ravelry.com today (06/24). Suzanne found me In Real Life this evening and I swore to her (because it's true) that I'm peachy-keen and not in the midst of shuffling off my mortal coil. I love my friends so much!! Thank you guys for the care and concern.

**** Didn't I warn you this one was all about the Talky Talky?

On My Mind:

I read alot of blogs about The Knitting and about The Fiber and about The The The. Stuff in general and very interesting in their own right.

Y'all knowI'm reading alot.

Last night I, I read something so heart-breaking that I have to speak out.

Faith blogs very frequently about Violence against Women and Violence against Mankind in General.

Why? Why does one human do this against another Human?

Us proud and centered and fully able-bodied women need to figure out a way to stop the pure and unadulterated violent abuse that is going on against us in other countries.

I can't adequately express how I feel - I just feel sick when I read Faith's blogposts.

She makes the Human World . . . you fill in the blank.

The Post After THE Post But Before:

I have a big 'ole Talky Talky already written up, but I'm still in edit mode - probably tomorrow I'll post it.

This one here is just a little update from my break from socks.

I thought (and there's my first mistake) that I'd take a break from The Making of Socks to whip up a little something easy in my stashed Alpaca & Silk from Blue Sky Alpaca. This yarn is absolutely divine to knit with. Soft? Ohhh yeah. So very soft.

Since the yarn is so dreamy to touch and the ply has a great stitch definition, I had a particular idea in mind. Something mostly knitted on the right side with a bit of a border around.

I went through my ravelry queue with a fine-tooth comb (and lemme just give you a good tip - from me to you . . . TAG YOUR SHIT. The queue area is hard to navigate by "what" if you don't put your own tags on your stuff. I stuck with basics: *sweater* *scarf* *lace* *house* *baby* *socks* and spent about two hours getting every single item I have queued tagged. Seriously. When that box pops up after you "queue" something, put a tag in!)

So anywho, I found exactly what I was looking for, pattern-wise. It couldn't be easier. The wrong side is nothing more than a border and purls in between and the most difficult stitch is an ssk. Goodness I've knitted some WAY more involved patterns successfully and was way greener when I did.

Now, at 10:30pm of day 2? I've casted on two times unsuccessfully now. WHAT THE HECK IS WRONG WITH ME?

There were two things that conspired to make me an incompetent knitter.

#1 - x7+4 I took this to mean that the pattern repeat is seven stitches and the border is 2(on each side) to equal 4.

And then I knitted it up. SO didn't work. I had too few stitches left at the end of the row to complete the repeat and the border.

#2 - Row 2: B2,k3,*ssk,k5,yo,* end k1,B2. I never did see that first asterisk. Not the first cast-on and not the second one either. I added up these stitches six ways to Sunday and never ever took note of that first asterisk. The second star was clear as day. My pea-brain just assumed the pattern started out after the two stitch border - at the knit three mark.

FAIL.

EPIC FAIL.

Face. Desk. Repeat.

I'm beginning to think that knitting is passively trying to break up with me before I break up with it first, lol! At the very least, I'm wondering if knitting wants me to find a different hobby to pursue.

'Scept I already did! I've invested in the products it takes to sew some green produce and grocery bags up, went to get to started tonight after work and . . . realized I have ZERO bobbins for my sewing machine. Not a one.

Maybe this is all a sign that The Reading Of Books misses me terribly.

Crash and Burn, Knit Style:

First off, y'all can step away from the ledge I was teetering over. I just went ahead and jumped headlong and guess what . . . ? Cracked my damn skull open upon landing.

This Kauni Cardi "inspired" sock has sucked the love right on out of me. For the last 8-10 rows, as I stitch, I see where I done did wrong and my mind mulls over how to do this thing right. Like right-right. Not "oops, I forgot to stitch Pink when I shoulda stitched Mint". That there just needs some tinking and everything gets back to right as rain. Ohhhh no. My eff-ups aren't that basic.

It all started when I finished the heel turn. Easy Peasy and Moving Right Along thankyouverymuch. I know from heel turns and starting gussets on both sides and doing, you know, Vanilla Socks. Vanilla is my middle knitting name (not technically, but it should damn well be!).

Here's where I thought The Mathz was going to trip me up, 'scept . . . I remembered my original number of cast-on stitches, and I remembered how many "squares" in this pattern I started with. I had a hazy recollection of how many picked-up stitches I had with the S1K1 heel. With all that Mathz running through my brain I got kinda worried. How could I divide all this patterned Mathz onto the right stitches and still account for the gusset part?

Oddly enough, I did The Mathz correctly and I'm knitting along with the right number of stitches. My problem lies in two other arenas that are NOT my forte . . .

1) Colorwork

2) New Mathz

New Mathz wouldn't even be on my about-to-hit-40 radar except it's clearly tantamount to Successful Knitting.

So, you might ask yourself, what do you do when stymied with New Mathz and a sock you *want* to love, but just . . . don't . . . ?

Whooo boy do I have two answers to that question!

1) You look at every finished object Suzanne has ever made, and then you peruse every favorited item Suzanne has earmarked and then you just convince yourself she wants to be your knitting friend(mm'kay, that's me talking).

2) You look at every finished object Carolyn has ever made , and then you peruse every favorited item CJ has earmarked and again . . . you pinch yourself that she's your knitting friend. (mm'kay still just me jawing . . . )

My two friends inspire me SO much.

This isn't to say that I don't have other knitting friends (which I do and THANK YOU ravelry.com!) All's I'm trying to pass on is Knitting Inspiration and, to me, Suzanne and Carolyn are truly inspiring.

Thank you Zanny and CJ.

Push It Real Good:

I'm at a crossroads of sorts.

Thank you ALL for the nicest things I've heard/read about something I've knitted in a super-duper long time!

If I knew what I was doing on these socks, then all this praise would probably swell my head.

But I don't.

Know what I'm doing.

On these socks.

I just looked up a pattern repeat and started knitting with an idea in my head.

Now I'm past the heel turn and kinda/sorta/really scared to proceed.

People. This is why I don't do socks with REAL patterns! I love so many patterned socks but I get to the jumping off point, look over the precipice (sp?) and sit my ass down in fear.

That's where I am on these puppies.

Suzanne (and you know who she is on ravelry by now I'm sure) passed on some stranded colorwork info at our every-other-Thursday Visalia group last night . . . which I *get* on an intellectual level, but I haven't ever personally fleshed out in my own knitting.

I know you guys all want me to succeed and when you read this you'll all get together to . . . push my ass over the Ledge of Fear. Out of love and knowledge and maybe-a-little-part-to-snicker (and you know I'd so do the same for y'all if the roles were reversed!)

This decades-old tough facade is melting in the face of socks!

Socks, People! Plain 'ol wear on your feet socks.

I'm so embarrassed, but apparently not embarrassed enough to talk about it.

I really-really want to rock these socks.

If I can noodle through the gusset and pattern repeats everywhere else, I'll be the first to shout about it. If I can't? I'll be trying to change the subject with info about my sick dog, my handsome (yet loud as fuck) husband, and any one of our 8 cats (6 ours and two abandoned! That's a story and a half unto itself, believeyoume).

See you 'gators later.

Because Suzanne Told Me To:

Hey all - I *am* alive still.

This is the reason why all my time has been sucked away from blogging:

Noro Sock Yarn
purchased at Stitches West 2008

(same picture, just with fish-eye)

The pattern is something I *borrowed* based on the wildly (and for good reason!) popular Kauni yarn. The other day I did an interwebs search for the Kauni Cardi repeat pattern and found it EXACTLY, lickety-split. I printed it out and cast on last Sunday evening. That's all I've knitted in hours and hours and hours of after-work free time.

Weirdly, I just tried to re-find that search result and have completely wasted 45 minutes of my life! This isn't exactly what I found originally, but page 2 of this pdf is what I used.

So don't none of ya go stealing my idea until I get at least one of these babies done and posted up on ravelry! :grin: I was afraid to show it until I had at least one done, but Suzanne told me I should at least blog about it, lol.

Dear Ellen Bloom:

Have you heard of this yet?

The Big-Ass Backyard Sale!

While checking out Crazy Aunt Purl's blog post today, I went link-wandering to Apartment Therapy and happened upon this flyer.



It seems like something you'd be interested in, so there ya go! Now the whole wide world of 4 readers (including you, Ellen) can check it out, lol.

Sock It To Me*:

Back at the tail-end of April I joined the Pair A Month Challenge. Luckily I 1) had a pair of socks pretty much done to hit the April deadline and 2) didn't even notice the date when I joined or I probably wouldn't have . . . joined, that is.

So, I hit my April mark.



Those delectable Lisa Sousa Decadent Socks(1). All mine!

Then, before I knew it, I hit my May mark.



These were made with Jollyewe's (or if you're not on ravelry, then it's Jollyewe here) sock yarn in the "Oceano" colorway(2). The Mike kind of (before I knew it) offered these socks to his mom as a Mother's Day present . . . while I had barely finished the first one and ON Mother's Day. Luckily, my MIL is the one that would graciously accept an anigarumi (sp?) pile of poo and gush over how 'cute' and 'special' it was. She's just nice like that. She also would be just as excited to get a hand-knit "Mother's Day" gift three weeks after Mother's Day and never say a word to the negative. There's really no other relative that would be as appreciative as her, so it didn't hurt to pass them along.

At this point, it was mid-May when I handed those off, so I immediately cast-on for another pair.

I love knitting socks SO MUCH. My third pair was also given away by The Mike, and this time he gave me less than a week to make the second sock! It was kitchenered in a fevered frenzy Sunday mid-morning and was driven to Pismo Beach and the intended recipient Sunday night. Sorry - pictures taken but they're still in the camera. It was Tess' Yarns - sock yarn - in a beautiful mocha/chocolate/hint-of-burnt-sienna colorway. Purchased at Stitches West. This pair went to (get this!) my brother-in-law's girlfriend of two years even though he's still married to my about-to-be-ex-sister-in-law . . . got all that? Despite all the weirdness going on there, this chick is cut from the same mold as my MIL. Sweet as all get-out and completely cognizant of what a hand-knit means. She's the only one that not only sent us a Thank You for her Christmas gift this year, but expressly made it a point to relay her appreciation of something handmade. The time it takes to do it. Sweet. We hand-makers love moments like that.

Although I've knocked out three pairs of socks (all kitchenered I might add!) in about a month and a week-ish, those people that churn out 52 pairs a year? Holy Cats that's just unbelievable! Honestly, I think I've only been this prolific for two specific reasons: I knit 'vanilla' socks. No real pattern. Mike being away has freed up SO MANY freak'n hours every evening!

All this free-style, no-pattern sock knitting has helped me figure out how to knit what *I* like in a sock.

(1) Decadent yarn is wonderful to knit with, but it's really not practical to wear. They're already pilling.

(2) Short cuffs and heels are not for me.

(3) Negative ease (thank you Suzanne for the lesson!) is not comfortable.

My perfect sock:

Two inch mid-tight cuff (2x2 ribbing)
Loose and scrunchy leg for 4 inches
Loooong heel
Decreased stitches after the gusset pick-up.
Ribbed knitting between bottom of heel and ball of foot
Kitchenered toe

My fourth sock has been started, with Hazel Knits' beautiful yarn. If you recall, this yarn was purchased when Suzanne and I went to Stitches West . . . and STILL hit up an off-site yarn store! I'm so glad we did though. Hazel Knits had some beautiful stuff and Bobbin's Nest was very nice. At this pace, I should have a sock off the needles by the weekend. Just don't notice that I haven't started back in on my Pinwheel Sweater (two sleeves and that baby is done) or my Fair-entry lace project (about six rows in so far) or . . . the basquillion things I've queued on ravelry. Socks Rock and that's all I have to say about that!

*I know - bad blog title. I'm too busy knitting socks to come up with anything more clever.

Hello, I Must Be Going:

YAY!! The Mike has left and I have the house all to myself again! He's already touched down in Pismo. I've gottn work laundry started and the dog has been fed and played with. Tonight she shall be snoozing on Mike's side of the California King :smirk:

I've just completed the heel-flap of my second brown sock (Tess' Yarns I think it is called) and the heel-turn is coming up shortly. The latest podcasts are freshly loaded in my iTunes and the headphones are tucked away for now.

Oh, I have to tell you guys this! About an hour ago I was listening to one of the Miss Flip Knits podcasts, laying down on the couch out of sight of the backyard sliding glass door. All of a sudden the volume jumped up considerably, in the middle of some men talking and I like to tell you, that dog of mine started barking her fool head off, right at the slider. I jumped up and she had all the hairs on her neck and back standing straight up while she kept barking away in an unusually menacing tone.

Lordy, I think that dog thought her house had just been invaded by Unknown Men and she was ready to come in and kick ass.

She finally spied me and immediatedly her whole body went wiggly from wagging her tail. She knows I got her back, lol.

So. Another week husband-free (and thus free of grocery store visits and fretting about what to make for dinner and television noise and dirty clothes piled up on the floor and messes in the kitchen, but alas also free to fresh-brewed coffee every morning . . . ). I'm taking the rest of tonight to wallow in my man-less abode.

I have a game plan for this upcoming week. The almost two hours every night after work that is usually wasted with the Shopping Of The Groceries and the Cooking Of The Groceries and the Cleaning Of The Cooking and the Putting Away Of the Leftover Cooking will instead be spent on Tackling One Cleaning Job A Day. Vacuuming, bathrooms, clean out bottom of closet & organize laundry. I only get three free evenings this week because Thursday is my bi-weekly Go With Suzanne to Meet Up With All the Visalia Knitters.

Outside of having Man-Free time, Thursday will be the highlight of my week. I can't wait.

Until tomorrow then, I leave you with a pictorial montage of two cats, that although having no biological relation to each other, being a few years apart in age and having entered this house in different years, are very close. This series of shots was taken over a few hours - starting about 7:30 or 8pm, and ending probably just around 11 or 11:30pm. It was that last SUPER hot day we had here in the valley before the weather broke - around two weeks or so ago.

Freckles and Madden:
A Love Story

(Mike saw this last picture and said "looks like the cow's jumping over the moon".

To me it makes me think of a cat-version of the ying-yang symbol)