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Wow, its been a while since I last caught up on things but the world has been busy. In the book department I finished #26 which was AWESOME!!! and then read #27 On Raven's Wings which is a Poe inspired short story anthology. I'm now reading #28 which is Cool for Cats. I have been busy making presents. The biggest of which was the belated baby gift for

american_knight and

duchess_asa of a personally designed Captain America Shield Blanket.

( Blanket )

I also made a cowl for Bryan, a thingy for Shanda, a Scarf for my cubemate and I'm working on a pair of socks for mel. Plus I've been working on a pair of socks for myself. So I've been busy in the crafty department.

( More pictures of projects behind the cut )

Work was a bit stressful the last few weeks. I've been trying to close things out for the year and meeting some resistance to change on other things. I wasn't supposed to be in the office this week but I clocked in 12 hours over days. Along with work stress Benton has been biting again. We haven't found a trigger other than transitions between tasks at daycare. He's been actively teething for weeks it seems and well things are getting kind of dire at daycare that we are now having to take some more radical action. My personal fear and real life worry is that we will get kicked out of this daycare for an "aggressive" kid even though he's uber sweet most of the time. Its been a trial and I've had to come pick him up more than once from daycare way early. Sighs. The joys of parenthood.

Other than that I have been getting back to the gym and have been meeting some fitness goals I have set. I'm now running 2 miles of intervals at a crack..not very fast but I'm still running the whole way. I've also been working really hard on my core and my stoopid pulled muscle is behaving itself. The fitness has meant that even though the scale isn't moving in the direction I want the clothes are starting to fit better and that is really what matters most.

We are having a mostly small Xmas. Have a few folks over for Xmas Eve and for Xmas day. I hope to get out and run tomorrow and try to get out for runs or walks with the boy the rest of the week or so we are off. I've been baking pies this evening and working on mel's socks. My goal is to finish the one sock for Xmas and the second sock for new years.

Oh, also in news I've stepped down as Seneschal and am now the emergency deputy. Still helping out and working on somethings but its kinda nice to not be in manager mode with things. I'm very happy I stepped in to help but I'm also very happy to be back to doing my own things. I've missed not hitting knit night every week. Seriously missed it.

Oh and in other SCA news I took

swordmage as my student. It was done at scribble since the Pas was cancelled due to field conditions but her head of house was there to accept the wereguild I got and I made her a nifty pennanular brooch with some of my glass beads on it to ID her as "mine". So if things work out in 6mos-1 year we will discuss apprenticeship.

( Student Stuff )

So, yes, we've been busy...seriously...way busy. Glad for some down time now. I will try to post more and probably shorter posts as the new year starts. All good.

she was getting ready to have a weekend before heading to business travel to the chilly confines of Boston Massachusetts.

But first we had to get through the weekend. Thursday was a bit rough. Laura was sick as was

duchess_asa so I got the trusty

scribe_ari to watch Benton so I could make house training night at the dojo. Had a good night there and then off to pick up the boy who had a nice evening with ari. Poor kiddo though. I had put him directly in the car after his bath, he'd fallen asleep on the way to Ari's and then was awake a bit to be fed and then play and then fallen asleep in the pack n play to then be woken up just a bit to be moved to the car and home. So he was grumpy when I pulled him out of the car seat at home. I was a bit grumpy tired too so I understand. It was a pretty early night for us though I did read for a bit as well.

Friday we all slept in and then I took the boy to daycare and mel and I headed off to the movies. Unfortunately, we didn't make it in time to see Tin Tin in non 3D so we made a day of antiquing and shopping. We had a grand time and had a great lunch at Amelia Grey's Tea Garden. If you haven't gone its really good and we had a nice cuppa and soup and sammies and it was very, very nice. We did a lot of antiquing and hit quite a few places and were home about 4pm. I got a nice wedding gift for

zippydclown and [Unknown site tag] and got myself some pretty pendants.

We had a quiet evening at home and Saturday I did laundry and worked on things around the house. I got myself all packed for my early morning trip on Sunday. My stupidity was the fact that I tried to stay up and finish my book and was up way, way late and then got up way, way early to catch my flight resulting in not enough sleep. Was I smart and napped on the plane? no, I knit. I'm working on this awesome cabled hat for Brian and its so awesome and I got sucked into its awesomeness. Seriously. My OCD took over.

Landed in Boston and it was COLD!!!!! Like single digits and with the wind it was below zero. I have not been in that cold in a while but I was very happy to be wearing my handknit cowl, my hand knit half gloves (so I could operate my phone) and my alpaca hat (the cats stole my hand knit had in the night so I had to dig out my alpaca hat). I looked cute and I was warm!

Driving in Boston is odd. We were heading north out of the city but that means we were driving on parts of "the big dig" and tunnels with narrow lanes and not great signage was kind of harrowing. The thing I hate about east coast signage is Turn Left for X means turn LEFT RIGHT NOW!!! Got to our hotel and I luv Holiday Inn...they know me there and having good status means lots of perks. Then we headed out to a nice restaurant and I had crabmeat stuffed haddock...so good. Then it was to bed.

Waking up in a time zone 2 hours different always hurts but I managed to get up and down to breakfast looking very presentable. Had breakfast and then we all traipsed out to the cars. Drove to the plant site and I got working. I had a really good day on the floor and i managed to get a lot accomplished. Found out from texts from Mel that he was home sick but the boy was at daycare. I was a bit worried but not until I called him while I was stuck in traffic did I find that he had passed out in the bathroom at 5am, hit his lip on the sick, hit the door with his shoulder and hip (scraped them up) and then landed on a bottle of shampoo and bruised his hip. He woke up about 10 mins later and then threw up. Poor guy. He got up a bit later and got the boy up and realized that he was going to stay home. I called and the boy was good and Mel was feeling better. That made me feel better.

I managed to hit The Wild and Woolly Studio in Lexington MA. Its a neat shop and they were hosting a trunk show with Ann Weaver. She a neat lady and I got to chat knitting with her. I fell in love with her new sweater called Try-works and I bought both of her books. So many cool patterns. I also bought some yarn as you can see here.

Got into boston after battling traffic and got to the rental car return where they bent over backwards to fix my issue with them charging my personal credit card when I handed them my corporate card when I checked in. Its all fixed now but they credited me some bonus points and personally took me to my hotel. Very nice. The Hilton was awesome and comfortable and had hot apple cider in the lobby to enjoy. I grabbed up cup to sip while the shuttle took me to the subway station and then I made my way to the Union Oyster House and a few other points of interest. I had a nice meal and knit a bit while sipping Sam Adams Boston Red Brick Ale which is only available in Boston on tap at local businesses. Very cool.

I made an album of my trip and you can see it Boston Trip Here.

Got back to the hotel, had a cuppa tea and then a shower and then noticed it was snowing outside. Very neat to see but I was worried about the trip out by plane the next day. I slept kinda fitfully since I had to get up way early but it all worked out. I made it to the airport with good time, got through security with a full body scan and then out to get my Dunkin Donuts. I like being back east where I can say "coffee regular" and get it without a weird look and an explanation. I sat knitting watching them de-ice planes until ours arrived and it was time to board. My flights back were good. I knit the entire time and had a really good lunch at Champs in DFW. I was lucky enough to have the window and no one in the center seat on both flights.

Got to TIA and had a message that Benton's appointment was canceled. Checked in on mel and he was at work...poor guy. Got home and enjoyed the quiet and when mel got home he wanted a nap. I picked up the boy and chinese for dinner and then we had a family meal...though Benton wasn't very hungry. He was tired and a bit cranky. But we all were. We got him bathed and into jammies and then it was bottle and early bed. Though he squawked for a bit I think he was out in 15 mins. Mel and I watched some new to us episodes of NCIS and then it was bed time.

I slept pretty good but mel was up coughing a bit. He stayed home like a good boy. Benton was tired this morning and i'm not sure why but he's also a bit snotty. Poor kiddo. I tried to leave him at day care and he fell forward from sitting and threw a mini temper tantrum with tears and banging of feet. I comforted him a bit and tried to leave but he clung to my pant leg. Miss Lisa picked him up and we got him to smile. I waved to him and he waved back to me and looked much happier. I felt really bad. Oh, well.

So it looks like I'm not hitting knit night unless mel perks up a bit. I was hoping. Oh, well, gotta take care of my boys.

Current Mood: calm

So far this week I've made banana bread, a rhubarb pie and finished a shawl. The shawl has been in work for a while and should have been easy but I had to frog it back a number of times since I effed it up. I'm gonna blame the yarn...I bought A ball from Purls to make it through the shawl and I think their yarn is cranky. I finished it today and will wash and block it tomorrow. It turned out nice and it will be good to have at work.

Looking through my projects on the needles I have a lace shawl for myself and a scarf that I've been wrking on for my MIL. Unfortunately, the scarf is quickly running out of yarn and the yarn is no longer produced...so I've private messaged a few people on ravelry to see if they will sell me 4 balls so I can finish it. Annoying but we can see what we can do. I'm gonna frog mel's socks before the house meeting and it will be cathartic.

So, I will have to hunt through my patterns to see what is next once I get through the yarn I do have for the scarf. I have quite a few things queued up so we shall see. I might re-try socks for mel with a good swatch...we shall see.

Current Mood: calm
Current Location: Turtle House Brewery

Well, wednesday was pretty busy with all day meetings. I was exhausted when I was done and left work to head to knit night. I grabbed a tuna sammy at beyond bread, saw Becky from knit night and she commented I looked exhausted. Yup, sure was. Enjoyed my sammy at knit night and worked on my mitt. By about 7 ish I had used up my yarn I had. So I shopped around and got two books and some yarn. I got Folk Shawls and The Knitter's Book of Wool and some lanaloft from brown sheep.

Got home and tore through my stash to realize that I didn't have another ball of yarn for my project and that I had bought that yarn in Maryland. Sighs. Called around today and the colorway is discontinued but Tempe Yarn might have a close substitute. I'll check when I'm there on Saturday but I will probably have to order it from Webs. Annoyed that my pattern told me I would have enough yarn and I didn't. Oh, well...my increases in the cuffs etc probably used up my extra. Oh, well. I need to remember that mods update the yardage. So, I managed to start a little crobot from a book I got from xmas. And its gonna be super cute.

Work today has been brain draining and I'm tired. Hopefully the gym will perk me up. Not sure though. We shall see. I'm going to head home, grab food to take to Dan & Amanda and then collapse and finish the little crochet robot. All good. Oh, well, time to start shutting things down and go to do some WORK!

Current Mood: blah
Current Location: the cubical

Well, I worked hard and then worked out. Bob, the gym guy, was wondering where the heck I've been. I told him "I was being lame" and he replied, "well, at least you are honest with yourself about it" and yup its so true. I could have made it to the gym last week if I hadn't been dumb and forgot my bag.

Was chatting with Drew on IM at work and we both agreed its better to kick you own ass than have people do it for you. Yesterday was a lot of work to not be very productive....course I guess the last few weeks have been that way so I kicked my own. I had to wait for the pullup machine so I did all of my ab work out and my legs before I did the pyramid of pulls/chins/dips/pushups and squats. I only made it 1-2-3-2-1 but I was beat. I headed off to vote and then home. Mel had made dinner and I ate a bit of it and drank more water. I'm trying to flush all of the allergy fluid out and I'm not sure if its working, I was lots of puffy after my workout. Mel, Malius and richard moved the work bench out of the carport. Mel headed to practice while Richard and Matt worked on chisels, I think. Not sure. I sat down to finish my hat...and the tassles were the correct thing..it is uber cute. I also put up pictures from Barmaids, Coronation, the Fiber Retreat and Grail.

( Pictures )

If the links in the cut don't work, email me off list. I know kodak gets odd at times. And that is what I spent my night doing. Pictures and updates to my stash in ravelry. Oh, so I guess, here are more pictures of the Yarn fiber I bought at the retreat.

( Yarn and Fiber )

So I guess I had a productive evening. I also chatted with Mughi for about a half hour. He's doing good and I almost wish I was heading up to phx to spend time with him...though I think Phoenix comic-con will be soon enough. Mel got home from practice early and we chatted before showers and bed. Obsidian was grumpy and whiny all night. I gave her some hairball stuff and that seemed to help a bit...though we still had some hissing this morning. Eh.

Tonight is knit night and I shall head there after I kick my butt some more. Legs are hurting today and I think that is a good thing. I'll do back and biceps tonight and some cardio to get things loosened up. I will also be trying to get on my bike for some short rides this weekend. I really need to start training on that if we plan to do the full tour. Uffdha. Time to kick my ass in other ways I guess.

Current Mood: groggy
Current Location: the cubical

Having a good time and my class went well. I've got another student to teach and that will be cool.

Slept good and that is a good thing.

I finished my first spinning and am now working on my second.

Having a really good time.

Posted via LiveJournal.app.

So, yesterday I got to hear the phrase "there is no white space in my calendar" and I had to agree with that statement. I had more meetings yesterday than I've had in the last two weeks. Bleah. Found out that there was a big cluster miscommunication while I was gone on travel/vacation about who was covering one of my projects. No one called my direct boss, they called the dept manager who was out, called his second in command who didn't know and said I wasn't working the issue and assigned people who were not at all in the know about the project. Panties got in wads, hamsters got spun up and it was a comedy to figure out yesterday when people were bitching about charge numbers. Sighs. Got it all worked out and I have lots of paperwork to do today. It was comical.

It was even more comical when I answered my cell during a meeting cause mel called. He never calls so I took it. He had a flat on the truck (the tire was staked like a vampire with a chunk of wood) and the spare was flat. I was stuck in a meeting that was heading into its 3rd hour. He managed to get someone with an air compressor to fill the spare and get things changed so that was good. I called him when I got out of the meeting after finding out all about the above cluster and said I was still working and would be heading out soonish.

I did a good thing though. Even though it was 530pm I went to the gym and then knit night. I pushed really hard through my workout and even added in leg lifts/curls at higher weight since I wasn't doing cardio. I got out of the gym by 615 or so and headed out to grandmas. Got there about 10 to 7 and relaxed. Lots of cute things had been finished. My brain was blitzed though...so blitzed that I didn't read a label really well and

scribe_ari bought me way to expensive of yarn for my b-day. I'll have to make her something extra special to go along with her b-day gifts. I have a plan, I just need to see if I have the yarn...though it won't be done in time for her b-day its gonna be cool. Or I might shift gears and make something I can finish..we shall see what Ravelry pulls to me in the ether. I'm just kinda gobsmacked, thank you dearie but dude...I didn't intend that at all.

Got home, showed off my prezzies, got to see the forge and snickered at the cats who were uber whiney at the front door crying through the screen since all of the family and Reynier were in the shop. Got back in..hunted ravelery for patterns and worked on the afghan. Richard was awesome and netflix'd Vibes for us. I believe I will be watching it tonight for craft time. Got to bed at a decent time and read a few more chapters in my book. I need to re-listen to all of the Puritan stuff from Craftlit about Ann Hutchinson. I think I got the readers digest format with more drama but I'm not sure. Then it was bed time.

Work has been interesting so far but lots of folks are out for Easter. I'm not so I have lots of work to do on the project from above...though I'd luv to spend a rainy day at home reorging the studio some more. Eh, work pays the bills.

Oh, but the girls throught the baby booties were a cat toy. Sigh. I think they are okay...but grrr....

Current Mood: crazy
Current Location: the cubical

I'm not sure how virtual it will be. I have lots to do on some reports and not enough time to work on them. We shall see how I feel at the end of the day. I have lots to do for the weekend as well.

The morning is going weird and well, I'm unmotivated. Last night was a bit rough, still icky from Tuesday and I got home, got some dinner and headed to Knit Night. Grandma's is having their second anniversary sale on Saturday. There will be in store specials. Just saying.

I did manage to finish the baby blanket I've been working on for Autumn at work. Here it is:( Read more... )

So, at least I accomplished something. I need to clean up the studio and get my dress sewn tonight cause I'm running out of time. I also need to cast on for mom's shawl and but I have to do some gauge swatching and pattern figuring out on that. I've also got all of twila's ornaments to do and I think that will be my coronation take along projects. I don't think I'll be fighting at Queen's Champion but we shall see.

Lots to do this weekend and still more actual work that pays to do. We shall see how things pan out.

Current Mood: cynical
Current Location: the cubical

Well, work was busy...I'm almost done, completely done with two reports and found out i have the data to write a 3rd...sighs. But my part of things is almost done and I can get back to my normal job...hopefully.

Got home a bit later than I planned and I got into biking gear, charged my phone up and headed out. I did the same route as yesterday...the bike was clicking oddly in high gear, not grinding but I'm not sure what is up. I'm lacking in bike maintenance skills and that is the suck. I think I might have tweaked something taking it out of the car on tuesday. not sure. Did the ride. 6.5 miles at 15.0 mph, including a big head wind. I almost put another mile or so on but the clicking was driving me bonkers. Hopefully,

reynier can give me some help on that. Got home and had dinner and got changed for knit night. Kung fu just didn't appeal and I was tired and a bit saddle sore from the new seat. Its comfy but I can tell its different.

Got to knit night and it was small and subdued but that was okay. I relaxed and enjoyed the company and ignored the fact that the Ashford Tekapo is on sale. I might not ignore it Friday. We shall see. Got home and realized that I had done two rows completely wrong on the hat and had to tear it back to the brim. Sighs. Its a bitch to frog back to due to the yarn. But I managed to do that, re-ball the yarn and get about 8 of the "pebble" done on the redone row. It makes much more sense now by that point I was uber tired and headed to bed.

Mel had a rough evening...he was tired and when I came home he was running a low fever...lots of water, Vitamin C and meds got him better for bed. Not sure how he slept but he was still tired this morning.

I got going for work on time and headed out. My ipod was being rather quirky. It played Uptown Girl, then So it goes by Bill Joel, Breathe by NIN and then Irving by Dr. Demento. Isn't that odd?

Well, onto the engineering. Thank goodness its Virtual Friday.

Current Mood: blah
Current Location: the cubical

Well, the headspace started clearing after I had my chiro appointment and some silk garden shopping therapy. Glenn put me completely back in place and I couldn't believe how far out things were. Wow. Then I headed to the mall to do some shopping. I managed to hit all of the sales at Gap Body and Eddie Bauer. Did you know that Tuesdays are an Extra 10% off of stuff at Gap with their card? And I hit the sale at Eddie Bauer for Buy one, get another 50% off and an additional 30% on all of their sale stuff. Very awesome. I made out like a bandit. Lots of shirts, 3 pairs of pants, 1 pair of jeans and some bras. During the trips around the mall I got another phone added to our plan for richard...hey, he's a Kemp(in). So he's family. richard, I think you'll need to activate it or something...its still listed as "pending/suspended"

Got dinner at Chipotle for mel and I. Got him a big carnitas burro and I got a steak bowl with lots of grilled veggies. Then hopped by bevmo for beer and home. Mel was into beer when I got home. It will be a miracle if he doesn't kill a coirker this week. Had a nice dinner and richard came over with Watchmen and we enjoyed the flick thoroughly. I managed to kill the battery on my phone and had to do a reset on it this morning. It wasn't happy to have no juice. Oops. I had a nice evening...work wasn't too heinous. I'm just plugging away at things and not really worrying about the deadlines. People will just have to cope that things are tight on time and I'm getting to things as I can.

This afternoon, I'm gonna leave on time again and get working in the shop and then hit knit night. That should put me fully into a better mood and I'm happy about that. I need the pick me up of girl company and crafting.

Current Mood: content
Current Location: the cubical

Boy it is humid!
We headed to knit and knibble yarn store from the airport. Very nice shop. Lots of cozy places to sit and work o. Projects. Nice selection. I got some baby cashmirino and some wool/soy, another wood crochet hook and some chibi needles. As seen below

( Clickey for pictures )

My room has an iPod dock. Not sure if it will charge my phone but I will see. Going to finish my hat and gets pics of that and then head out for dinner

Posted via LiveJournal.app.

So, I have this fascination with socks right now. I personally love socks in general...I think its my north upbringing and I've been fascinated with the knitting of socks since I started listen to podcasts in march. But I knew I wanted to learn to crochet first so I've done that, I think I'm pretty good at the basics and I can follow a pattern...socks keep tempting me. The girls at knit night tease me about not knitting yet and further tease me that I say "Oh, I'll learn in october!" which if you've been paying attention is after A&S. See, knitting will be my pat on the back you've done something big and happy and survived, here learn something else.

So I've been enhancing my stash a bit but today, while reading The Yarn Harlot I found out that Socks that Rock (STR) has an entire RAVEN CLAN colorway!!! OMG SQUEE!!! I stopped writing on my report and had to paw through the website to admire the lusciousness of it and I don't even knit socks let alone anything else yet! GAH!

So, I sit and ponder yarn and get back to reports and regurgitating details. Sigh, yarn.

Current Mood: devious
Current Location: the cubical

( The Yarn )

Well I think I'm tired and should relax before bed with some crochet.

Posted via LiveJournal.app.

We ended early enough that I could head to the Mosaic Yarn Shop. They had a sale on some alpaca which I picked up along with sock yarn. Squee. Then I hit the Virginia Tech bookstore and got a tshirts and an ornament from Blacksburg.

Now we are at the brewer and I'm kinda disappointed they really don't like hops sad. I'm having the maroon which is nice beer the beer menu behind

( The cut )

Good ribs thouh. Really good ribs. I think I will have to around a bit.

Posted via LiveJournal.app.