I feel like total crap...

which means that I feel sooo much better than I did yesterday.

Apparently I came down with a stomach flu (probably a Norovirus...like people who go on cruises seem to do a lot of lately...and no, I havent been on a cruise)

I think I must have come down with it sometime on thursday or friday, altho the bad stuff didnt "come up" until sunday morning. All I know is that I slept all afternoon and evening on friday...all day saturday, most of the day sunday, and part of today.

My dad, who will usually be down a week when this stuff happens, seems to have only been sick last night and this morning. (lucky dad) He actually ate some of my Mrs. Grass Chicken Noodle soup tonight.

I was supposed to have Jury duty today. Thankfully I got that postponed until november. (not sure if that's a good or bad thing)

I think I'm feeling better. Pretty sure my fever is gone...I just feel like I've been hit by a truck...repeatedly. I guess that's what happens when you're flat on your back in bed for about 3 or 4 days.

I wish I wasnt feeling so dang sore right now...I want to crochet or knit something, but my back is killing me. Maybe if I do something simple that wont be too painful. Either that, or I'll take another nap.

Look what I made!!! :)

I finally figured out how to whipstitch!

I made this little afghan for practice before I move onto making a larger one (which I've already started)

I'm giving the little afghan to my aunt's dog. Pudge (a pug) needed a new blanket that goes with my aunt's furniture. I also didnt have a lot of the two colors I used, so I couldnt really make it much bigger than it is.

I'm giving Pudge her new blankie tonight or tomorrow.

I'm so excited about figuring out the whipstitch. I'd tried it before, but it never quite looked like what the pictures in the instructions always look like. For some reason last week, I was playing with some squares that I had crocheted on my last attempt to sew squares together, and suddenly I was able to whipstitch and not have things fall apart on me or get all tangled up because I couldnt get the yarn needle in the correct spots on the squares.

I'm starting another granny afghan. This one is being made in red, white, and blue, and I'm making what I think are 9 Patch blocks (9 squares of 3 colors sewn together into one big square), and I think I'll make 9 of these 9 Patches to be sewn together into an afghan. (finally, I can make something resembling a quilt...)

I might also attempt this in knitting also. I was thinking about making squares on my straight knitting needles and sewing them together into an afghan. Which I think would look cool if I ever try learning how to knit cables. I think I'll have to take lessons on making cables. (tried it, looked good for a few rows till I made a mistake that I couldnt fix)

I'll be taking pictures tonight of my attempt at a patriotic granny afghan. I have my first block finished, and it doesnt look too bad. I need to go buy some new yarn to finish that one, but I'm kind of excited about this now. I love patriotic afghans, and making one out of a bunch of squares sounds like fun. Plus, if it goes as fast as my first block did yesterday, I should be finished fairly quickly. (I join the squares as I go...seems to go faster than making all the squares before joining)

Some interesting fauna and flora...

So, tonight I was sitting outside with my parents, looking our new landscaping, when something started to fly around some of the flowers. It was moving pretty quickly, and my mom thought it was a hummingbird.

I had my camera with me, so I tried to take some pictures...the damn thing was FAST! I think I only managed to get one picture of it, and even tho I was zoomed in, I couldnt exactly tell if it was a hummingbird. (if you cant see it, look at the top of the purple flowers)

So, when I got inside, I put the pictures on my computer and then zoomed in on the little thing. I was surprised to see antennae and and buggy legs on this thing. So, off to Google I went, and found out that the speedy little insectish-like thingie was actually a hummingbird moth.

I dont like bugs, but this was interesting to see, since I'd never seen one before. Now I'll have to be watching for more to appear in our flowers.
And for you to see more of my amazing (?) photography skills, here are some more pictures of some plantlife in my yard. The next couple of pictures are of a Henry Fonda rose in various stages of blooming. (and they're probably not in order of bloomage)

The third rose picture has a little bug sitting inside the flower, it's NOT a ladybug. Apparently the ladybugs are being overtaken in my area by some bug from China that looks a lot like a ladybug, but it's a horrible pest (another bad import from China) My next door neighbor had a swarm of these things inside her glass enclosed patio room a few years ago. They're just nasty, and very difficult to get rid of when you get a swarm swarming your house. So far, my house hasnt been bothered by them, but my neighbor seems to have problems with them every fall when it gets cold.

Eventually, I'll get some crochet/and or knit projects finished and will post them here soon. Just thought some people might like to see my roses and that moth.

So, it's been an interesting few days.

I've learned how to do a couple of knit-ish type things (k1, p1 ribbing, loom knitting) and I finally got to replace my poor yarn winder with a new one. Bought some wool yarn that I'm either going to make a hat or a purse out of.

I went to the doctor last week because I was having some bizzare vertigo. The doctor put me on a steroid taper to try to lower some apparent inflammation in my middle ear, because he thinks I have otoliths (little microscopic rocks) in my ears. When these otoliths roll around in my ear canal, it causes vertigo. Which. is. not. fun. at. all. So...I've been on this steroid for a couple of days, and I see why people like and dont like to be on steroids. I'm all up and feel (I'm assuming, since I've never been) a wee bit high. I'm crocheting/knitting all sorts of things, I'll have all sorts of projects started that need to be finished when I'm done with the steroids. The steroids are interesting. I can now tell that there was some sort of funky inflammation and goo going on in my ears. I can hear...I can breathe better too.

Apparently my entire head must have had some inflammation in it. I didnt realize how long I havent been able to breathe. It's kind of neat to be able to breathe thru my nose without encountering a "roadblock" or two in there. The steroids are helping with one or two of my other problems that I've been having. The doctor told me when he gave me the Rx that I might see improvement in other problems I might have been experimenting. My back doesnt hurt anymore! yay! So hopefully whatever this steroid has done, it'll last awhile for my back.

Ok, back to the knitish type stuff I've been doing. I learned how to do ribbing this week and this is totally cool, it's become my favorite knit stitch. I'm trying to make a scarf with it now. Then, yesterday I went to Hobby Lobby and wandered around looking at all the cool clearance stuff they had. I didnt want to spend a lot of money, so I looked at a spool thingie to make knitted cord...decided I didnt want to spend 3 dollars on it when it originally only costs about $4.50. So, I walked around a bit more until I found a bag that the HL employees just threw a bunch of knitting/crocheting stuff into a slapped a price tag on it. Bought that! It had 2 crochet hooks, 2 pairs of knitting needles, a knitting gauge thingie, stitch markers, and a knitting loom. I've already got yarn on the two pairs of needles, and I'm playing around with the loom thing. It didnt come with the little tool that you use to manipulate the yarn, but luckily I have a bazillion crochet hooks and found that one of my grandma's old steel crochet hooks works perfectly for pulling the yarn over the pegs. I sat up till 3am last night learning how to loom knit. Havent finished anything, but it's an interesting technique.

I'm planning on knitting some Harry Potter scarves. I want to do them in k1, p1 ribbing. I just love the feel of that stitch. I just need to find the right shades of yarn for a Gryffindor scarf. My dad likes the Harry Potter stories (we listen to them on cd) and he said he wouldnt mind a Gryffindor scarf. I might try to make him a hat with the knitting loom once I get it figured out.

I missed the HP book premiere last night. I had gotten to the bookstore too late yesterday to get a wristband, so my dad said we could buy it off of Amazon. We ended up getting the entire series of books. (Dad's claiming them as his) and I'm just waiting impatiently for them to be delivered. Hopefully they get here soon, I'm having problems keeping from getting the ending of the series spoiled by the news and morons on the internet who have never heard of "spoiler warnings"!!!

I am SO MAD!!!

I just accidentally broke my yarn winder. ARGH!!!!

I have to go look and see if I can buy a new one somewhere...cheap.

Now I'm depressed...

I just watched the final episode of Stargate SG-1. (No, I'm not going to spoil it for anyone who hasnt seen it yet)

This has been one of my favorite shows for ten years (except for a season or two when Michael Shanks {Daniel Jackson} was off the show) The only other show that I really enjoyed as much as Stargate was MacGyver (and gosh, how happy am I that Richard Dean Anderson was in both shows!)

At least they're going to have two direct-to-video movies coming out probably within the year. And at least I still have Stargate: Atlantis to watch, and at least one person from the original Stargate will be jumping over to Atlantis (Amanda Tapping)

Hopefully Santa Claus will bring me the entire series of Stargate in a box set for Christmas. I still have to catch up on those seasons I missed when Michael Shanks left the show.

I did something I never thought I'd manage to do. I somehow managed to use up about 3/4 of my yarn stash (it was mostly scrap yarn) I recently got a new bed, with storage underneath. So today I was finally getting things put away, and in a rare burst of energy, I decided to straighten out my yarn cabinet. So I opened it up and pulled out all the little yarn cakes and was surprised that there was not as much yarn in that cabinet when I filled it up last year (or was it the year before?)

I managed to get almost all of that yarn into the really nifty craft tote I bought on clearance at Joann's Crafts the other day, and also into a blanket bag (the kind when you buy new bedding that have zippers and are made of clear plastic) The blanket bag isnt even that big. So, now that I have a newly emptied out cabinet space, I decided to get my old laptop out of it's exile to my dad's office and it's now happily purring away in my yarn cabinet (which used to be a computer cabinet before it became a yarn storage device. Now it's a computer cabinet again.) When I start back to school this fall, I'm probably going to use that computer for schoolwork and that desk just for doing homework. If I manage to get my certificate for medical transcription soon, I'm going to probably also use that desk as a work area if I can get a transcription job working from home.

I'm now thinking of cleaning my closet tomorrow. I probably wont, but I am thinking about it.

I want to go buy new yarn since I got rid of a ton of scrap yarn, but I think I'll see how much more yarn I can get rid of before I start to stash it again.

Havent blogged for awhile...

So, I've neglected my poor little blog for a bit.

In my defense, I'll say I've been busy. I went on vacation (at the beginning of May) to the Black Hills. LOVED IT! (I have pictures, but am too tired to mess around with posting them right now)

I saw Mount Rushmore, Crazy Horse Memorial (which I was surprised to learn was commissioned by the Lakota), went to Wall and shopped at Wall Drug, saw the Badlands (my favorite place in SD), went to Rushmore Cave, which is a big cave full of stalactites and stalagmites. Amazingly enough, I, a sworn claustrophobe and acrophobe actually went on the tour. I managed to make it thru the cave without curling up into a fetal ball, screaming, and rocking back and forth with my hands over my head. Outwardly I was very calm, but inside I was screaming in terror. I was almost to the end of the tour when my mind started to think about earthquakes (in South Dakota??!) and cave-ins, so I was a bit anxious to get out of the cave, but at least I didnt panic.

Also went to Deadwood and Sturgis. In Deadwood I went to the Midnight Star, which is the casino that's owned by Kevin Costner. I was thrilled that Costner's slot machines were generous enough to give me a $100 jackpot to go along with the $30 that I was able to accumulate before the jackpot hit. :)

On the way home we went thru Custer State Park, nearly got t-boned by a HUGE American Bison (buffalo) that wandered (ran) down the hillside towards the road we were on. Ironically, after we dodged the bison we drove a little further down the road and encountered a sign that said "Caution. Large Animals on Road"... The day after that we also saw Scotts Bluff and Chimney Rock in Nebraska...dodged some tornados on the way back to Omaha and then came home in time for the vision problem that I've had since last August to finally start to resolve itself to a point where I'm almost happy with my vision now. (knock on wood it stays that way...or gets even better)

I got a late b-day present! (my b-day was May 24th). My dad bought me a new bed. Not that I didnt have a bed before, but it was just a bedframe, and a mattress and box spring. My dad took us to Nebraska Furniture Mart last week, and I picked out my new bed (not a new mattress, I kept the one I had) It's really nice. It's a Captain's Bed...which just means that it's got a wooden pedestal base that has drawers (four) under it, and a nice headboard/bookcase.

Finally! I have storage! (not for yarn) I could have gotten even more storage if I got the pier that goes with the headboard, but alas...when we bought this house, I had the misfortune to get a bedroom with a funky shaped wall on one end where the bed goes. The pier (two TALL cabinets with a bridge and mirror thing that goes over the headboard) wouldnt fit in my room because of the funky shape of that wall. :(

My room feels much bigger now because I had to do some serious re-arranging of my junk....err...valuable things.

When I moved a piece of furniture this morning to vaccuum in preparation to the bed getting delivered, I discovered the last evidence that I ever had a dog. Under the bed, I found a towel that had been half chewed, a huge pile of dog hair, and a lone ancient dingleberry. (Ummm...how to explain dingleberries?? Hmmm...probably too much information, but my dog had hair that would collect things in it, and when he'd go potty, the hair would catch things, and they'd stick around a bit until they dropped off...again, probably too much information)

Strangely enough, the sight of the dingleberry, the chewed up towel and all that black hair I found under the bed made me wish TinyMonsters was still around. *sigh*

It's going to shock my friend that got mad at me when he visited last week because there was no where to sit in my room but on a footstool that day. He'll freak when he sees how clean my room is and the fact that I'm bringing my late-uncle's chair downstairs to keep in my room. So there'll be someplace to sit now (as long as I'm not storing dirty laundry on the chair)

In my little world of crochet and all things yarn-ish, I've finished a couple of projects. I did a couple more of those pineapple shawls, a giant granny square afghan, and I've done some more practice on the knitting that I've been teaching myself. I went out and bought myself an Addi Turbo circular needle. (got my sibling one too while I was at it...my dad forgot to get the sibling a present for a holiday) I REALLY like the Addi Turbo! It feels really neat to my fingers, and almost makes it feel like it's easier to knit. I'm going to have to eventually get myself a whole set of those needles in all sorts of sizes. I havent made anything with the turbo yet, just playing around with scrap yarn for now.

Well, I'm off to try out the new bed, and see if it's any more comfortable than it used to be (I had the delivery guys haul off the box springs, so now I've got a firmer mattress) I sat around on it earlier, and it didnt feel too bad. Hopefully I'll be able to sleep more comfortably now.

So my dad had a bunch of pictures professionally scanned...

My dad just got back a CD full of pictures that he had professionally scanned. I'm not very impressed. The pictures look VERY low quality to me. (but then, I'm half blind, so maybe they're not?) But, at least I have some more of our old film pictures of TinyMonsters. Here's some pictures of TinyMonsters and his little brother Corky. (we puppysat Corky for a week. No wonder we never got a second Bouvier when Tiny was alive) In the first picture, Corky is the one standing next to my mom...and in the second picture, he's laying down in the grass. He's cute, but I still think Tiny was better looking than his baby brother.

I think the scans are of poor quality, and that my dad probably wasted his money on this. At least we got all our originals back.

Today, it looks like Friday The Thirteenth was not a good day for computer equipment in our house. My mom's eMachine (wanna-be Gateway) crashed the other day. My dad and I took the computer out to Best Buy where we bought it last June, and the Geek there checked it and claimed that there was nothing wrong with it. So, we brought it home, hooked it back up, and it worked for about...two or three hours, and then started wacking out again.

So, today my dad and loaded up the piece of crap computer, and went back to BB...talked to the same guy. He kept claiming that there was nothing wrong with it. Until he tried to reboot it. :) It crapped out for him too! I had been told by the Geek Squad's online chat AND their telephone reps that they thought it was a bad sector, or some corrupted code or something. (those problems would be something we'd have to pay to have fixed) So, my dad and I were shocked when the kid at the store said that he thought it was the motherboard. (something BB's warranty would pay for! yay!)

Bad news...the computer is going to be gone for a month...and my mom is so not happy about that. I'm loaning her my laptop till she gets her computer back tho.

I've learned something. Dont buy an eMachine. I do have a Gateway, which probably isnt much better, but I've so far only had a few problems with mine...and I've probably just jinxed it.

A strange thing happened last week. I was listening to the first Harry Potter book on CD in my car. (borrowed it from the library) My parents were in the car, and my dad apparently has become hooked on HP. (mom was able to resist...) So now, I guess we're on the waiting list at the library for the CD version of the second HP book. I may attempt to crochet (or maybe knit?) my dad a Gryffindor scarf or afghan (if I make an afghan, it'll be crocheted) It's amazing how easily my dad got hooked on the story. We actually sat in the driveway the other night, with the back door of my car open, and my car stereo playing the HP disk.

Too bad mom doesnt like HP.

Colds suck..

So, I was going to post a nice memorial today to my dog TinyMonsters... Apparently my brain had other plans. (it's 11:40pm now...so I'm just going to do a short blog post and not bore you all with my dead-now-for-a-year dog.)

I've been fighting a serious cold (gee, thanks a lot Dad...is this revenge for me not getting you a birthday present?) and have not slept for the past two days. And then today, I've been in a fog of cough syrup and Claritin.

I'm hoping to go yarn shopping tomorrow. I've been wanting to try Brown Sheep wool (a Nebraska-made yarn) and so I'm going to a REAL yarn store tomorrow (not WM or Hobby Lobby) and see if I can score a couple of skeins of Brown Sheep to do an attempt at felting. (I say "attempt" because I'm pretty sure I'm going to screw it up) I may also see if I can find some nice new knitting needles (circulars) to add to my growing collection...and after that, I'll probably stop off at Joann's Crafts (I have some 50% off coupons)

I've started a giant granny square afghan (square, not rectangular) and It's not quite half finished. It's mostly red, with some white and blue yarn thrown in to add dimension.

I did recently finish a green shawl for a former neighbor as a St. Patty's day present. I took pictures of it, but I used my dad's camera, so I have to have him pull them off since his computers have the program for removing them.

And just so I have a little something on here in reference to TinyMonsters, here's a picture.

March Blizzard...Part 2

Why am I hungry for cake?

I dont think we'll be grilling steaks tonight...do you?

The association snowplows finally showed up last night around 11pm. My dad got his car unstuck from the end of the driveway then (yay!) and he was silly this morning and went to work. (wrong move...it's snowing again now!)

I spent last night pug sitting my aunt's dog Pudge. It was like a slumber party. The dog slept in my bed and kept getting all grumpy because I kept making her move over. (she's a little furnace! and a bed hog!) My aunt spent the entire night at the hospital working because a bunch of nurses were not able to get to work to replace the ones that did. She finally got home this morning and Pudge was so excited to see her human. I was too. I didnt really mind watching Pudge, except for having to take her out to go potty in the cold snow. That's the ONLY thing that I DO NOT miss about my dog TinyMonsters...taking him out in the middle of a blizzard to do his business. At least Pudge was perfectly willing to go back into the house. TinyMonsters would go outside and see the snow, and think it was the neatest thing in the world and would refuse to come back inside. (always had to remember to take a cellphone out with me, to call for reinforcements)

Hopefully the snow melts this weekend. I want to go out to the movies sunday and my friend that's going with me has to drive from Lincoln to get here. Hopefully the slippery white stuff is gone by then (or at least plowed up decently)

This better melt soon!

Here's a few pictures of the white crap that fell today. It's nasty stuff.

This is a picture of my neighbor's front yard...If you look closely, you can see the snowdrift is leading up to the front door of the house.

and here's a picture of the storm from my basement back door. There are actually two magnolia bushes back there. One is much smaller than the other and it's almost covered by the snow. (the little one is to the left of the larger bush...you can barely see it in the snow)

The snow in the backyard has drifted a lot higher since that picture was taken. It's just unreal how much snow fell today. (there's a bad rumour that we got 15 inches! We were originally supposed to get 6 - 9 inches)

I have a few more pictures, but they're on my dad's camera, and I dont know where he put the cable to pull them off.

ohmygosh.

I just went and got my aunt's pug Pudge. That was an experience. A scary experience.

The snow went up to my knees...and my aunt has a snowdrift that I couldnt see from my house. It's in her driveway and is about 4 feet tall. Her front door has an even bigger drift!

So, rescuing Pudge from her dog crate in Jan's laundry room was not fun. Pudge wanted to run around the house like a wild dog...so I had to let her do that for a bit, then try to wrangle her into her collar. Grabbed some food, and then tried to go back out thru the garage door. The garage door wouldnt go down from the keypad. So, we had to go back into the house. Close the garage door from there and go out the front door.

Then, I had to climb over the ginormous drift that's in her front door (carrying Pudge) and get the the relatively clear spot in her front yard so that Pudge could "take care of things", before heading over to my house. I think I twisted my ankle and my knee, walking back in the FOUR FOOT DRIFTS of WHITE CRAP! We made it back to my house fairly quickly. Got my garage door open, and came inside. I had to change sweatpants because mine had snow stuck all over them up to an area above my knees (eeeek! cold!)

Once we got inside, Pudge did exactly what Tiny did the first time he came into our house to stay. She poo-ed on the floor. ohyayforthat...at least it was solid.

She's run around my house several times over...I'm hoping she'll calm down long enough to lay down and leave me alone for a bit. I've developed an allergy to dogs and this is the first time in nearly a year I've had a dog in my house. I'm hoping I wont need to break out the Benadryl. I'm also wishing that Jan had taken Pudge to obedience school...none of the commands that worked on Tiny seem to work on Pudge.

This storm is seriously dangerous. I was scared walking across the street to Jan's house. It's THAT bad.

Holy Snowballs!!!

We're in the middle of a blizzard (and not a nice tasty one from Dairy Queen). This is a real blizzard.

My neighbor across the street has a FIVE FOOT DRIFT in her driveway that goes all the way up to her front door!

They've closed all the highways and interstate between Omaha and Lincoln, and Omaha is pretty much shut down. (Lincoln got 6 inches of snow and their storm is already over...the lucky bastards)

Omaha had thundersnow this morning. If you've never seen thundersnow, it's just amazing. The snow will come down quick, very heavy and intense. And then you get dangerous cloud to ground lightning. Cool to watch, but scary to experience!

I've taken a couple of pictures of the white crap, but havent pulled them off of my digital camera yet, but I might post some pictures later.

The local news said last night we might get 6 to 9 inches. Now they've revised that prediction. We'll probably end up with something closer to FIFTEEN INCHES by tonight.

I think I'm going to go make a cake, or cookies or something and then go crochet something later. Hopefully my dad will be able to make it home. (he's got a 4wheel drive car) but he works in a hospital, so he at least has access to food and a place to sleep if he gets stuck at work. My aunt lives across the street from me (next door to the neighbor with the five foot drift) and I'm really worried she wont make it home. If she doesnt, I'll be pug sitting tonight. (Jan's got a cute pug named Pudge)

There's no way I'm going to try to go out in this...even the snowplows are getting stuck in the snow.

Good thing we stocked up on chocolate last night...this qualifies as a Chocolate Emergency! I think I'll go rustle up some junk food for my mother. (she HATES snow with a serious passion, chocolate might calm the beast)

Half Granny square shawl

After finishing the red retro sweater, I decided to finish the scrap shawl that I started several weeks ago. It's nothing exciting. I just made half of a granny square. The first round is done just like a basic granny, but after that you only crochet halfway around the square and then turn, and do that to each row. (I know, I'm not explaining it well)

Here's a picture

I just used scrap yarn, and changed colors when I felt like it. I randomly used yarn out of my stash and sometimes didnt care if I was putting a clashing color against a clashing color. I also didnt repeat any colors. The shawl is huge, and probably doesnt represent very much of my scrap yarn stash.

For the edging, I did one row of half double crochet, and then for the next row, I single crocheted in the first 9 stitches, did 3dc, ch-1, 3 dc in the next st, and then skipped 2 sts... all the way to the center point, where I did 1 hdc in each of the next 9 sts, and then started over with the scallops until I got to the last 9 sts and then sc in each of the last 9 sts. (have I confused you yet?)

Both my parents seem to like it a lot. I think my dad wants me to give it to him, but I think this shawl is for me. (I dont keep what I make very often) My parents can use it if they're cold tho..

I'm not exactly sure what to crochet next. I want to do a green sweater vest like the red one I did one blog post back. I'm also thinking of doing a scrap afghan. (I have a LOT of scrap yarn)

So, is it groovy??

I just finished this sweater yesterday

I got the pattern from the old (now defunct) Groovy Crochet website. (which is archived on the Internet Archive thank goodness) It's the Easy Crochet Vest. It's a pattern from the mid-60's.

I've done this pattern before, but the last time I did it, I followed the directions exactly, and the sweater was a teensy bit too small for me. (gave it to a friend)

This time I modified the pattern a little...I made it a little wider, and a little longer, and then just "winged" it to do the shoulder and sleeve shaping. I was shocked to hell when I got the shoulders sewn up and it actually fit.

I wore it out into public for the first time today (went to the grocery store) I dont think it looks too bad. I'm just hoping that the yarn doesnt stretch too much from wearing it. (I used Red Heart SS Cherry Red and a K hook)

I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.

Just found these....

A friend of mine helped me remove an old hard drive from a computer that is no more and put it into a case so that I can use it as an external hard drive. (for some reason I can only use 50gb of the 160gb...go figure. My friend is going to diddle with it later this week to see if he can find the other 110gb)

I did manage to find some old pictures of stuff on this hard drive.

Along with a couple of pictures of TinyMonsters, I found some crochet pictures. Here's a few pictures of an afghan that I made in early summer of 2004.

I used scrap yarn for it, with a purple color in between each color change. This was the afghan that convinced me that scrap afghans look really cool when you throw in a couple rounds of a variegaited or ombre yarn to make the other colors pop.

I've still got this afghan, it's in my stash of finished afghans that I use for gifts occasionally. I think I might take this one out of the stash and use it on my bed.

I'm pretty sure that I used an "I" hook for this one, since that's my favorite hook size when I'm making the rectangle granny afghans.

And then I found this

It's a crappy picture of me that I took with a webcamera. Ignore me, and look over my shoulder. That's one of the several dozen American flag afghans that I've crocheted. You cant tell from the crappy picture, but I used half double crochet for the body of the afghan, and Red Heart yarn (RH SS Blue, {edit: it's actually RH SS Navy Blue} Cherry Red, and White...I edged it in Gold in half double crochet) That picture is probably from early 2002. I made a lot of American flag afghans during fall and winter of 2001 and spring of 2002. My aunt Jan has that afghan.

I really like American flag afghans. I never use a written out pattern for them. I usually just eyeball the dimensions. Sometimes I'll take a real American flag, and use it as a template to figure out how long to make the starting chain, and how many rows to do each stripe and where to place the Field of Blue. I've never managed to put stars in my flag afghans.

Sometimes I dont bother using a template, and just hope that I get the dimensions right. I usually dont get the dimensions right when I do that, but who cares...they're just fun to do...and it means that each American flag afghan is different.

Wow...that took forever!!

I finally finished my very first KNITTED project. (I've been cheating on my crochet hooks with some knitting needles)

It's a scarf... (what a surprise!)

It's done in knit stitch, and has a single crochet edging around the entire scarf.

Here are some pictures.

I started the scarf way back at the end of August. I was having a minor (ok, major!) vision problem at the time. (ginormous blind spots obscuring 2/3rds of my vision in my left eye) and I guess I felt that I needed a challenge. So, I taught myself to knit. I dont know why it took till I was half blind to be able to figure out how to knit.

I've gotten pretty darned good at the knit stitch, but purling is still fairly difficult for me...mostly the logistics of maneuvering the yarn. I have to use my right hand to wrap the yarn around the needle for the purl stitch, and after 30something years of crocheting and never having to use my right hand to do anything other than move my crochet hook around, it's still kind of difficult for me to grasp that concept.

I have a couple of other knitted scarves going on some needles...It'll probably take me another 6 months to finish each of them at the rate that I knit.

I like the feel of knitted fabric, but I prefer crocheting, probably because I can crochet an entire afghan in a week if I have to...it took me 6 months to knit that scarf!!!!

It's been awhile...

Usually I post more often, but it's been a crummy month and I didnt feel like posting...and no, I'm not going to go into why it's been such a crappy month.

I'm starting to get better at the knitting...my crochet hooks are jealous. I've bought maybe 3 or 4 pairs of circular knitting needles (I hate the straight needles) in the past 2 or 3 weeks...and yes, all of them but one are occupied. I'm still not really knitting many actual projects. Mostly I'm practicing different techniques and trying to figure out an easier way to do the purl stitch. I do have one scarf that's 3/4 of the way done, and the start of a poncho. The poncho will probably take me a couple of years to do. (why is knitting so slow?!)

I finally got a new PDA...an HP iPAQ. I'm still waiting for Office Depot to honor their warranty. My dad and I got tired of waiting and my dad got me the new PDA for Xmas. I get the feeling that Office Depot is hoping I'll forget so they wont have to replace my old one. (meaning they'd give me a gift card for the broken one)

The new PDA is GREAT and is better than my old one. It's come in handy for a lot of stuff lately. Plus, it's fun to play with.

The weatherguy on the news just way too cheerfully announced that it's supposed to snow tomorrow. There has to be a law or something that weatherguys cant be chuckling, giggling or snickering while doing a weather forcast in the wintertime. Good thing this is the weatherguy who usually gets the forecasts WRONG. :)

Damn store warranties.

I am never buying another piece of computer equipment from Office Depot ever again. Never. Never Never.

Last year my dad got me a PDA from Office Depot for Christmas. It was a floor model, so a lot of people had been poking at it before we got it. So, we bought the extended warranty because we figured I would need it.

About two weeks ago, it died on me. (touchscreen quit working) So, I called OD and tried to tell them it was dead and I wanted their warranty dept to either fix it or replace it like they said they would.

OD tells me that it's still under manufacturers warranty and wouldnt deal with me. So, I called the manufacturer (HP...love HP products) and they told me "sorry, manufacturers warranty expired on the 8th". So, I called OD back and told them what HP said. Emailed OD my receipt as proof.

OD claims that it's still under manufacturers warranty because I didnt register the PDA till December 26th. (ummm...it was a Xmas present) HP said that because it was bought December 8th that the 1yr warranty has expired. Office Depot is giving me the royal runaround and I get the feeling they dont want to honor their warranty contract.

I just spent a half hour listening to the crappiest hold music to find out that the warranty dept hasnt even bothered looking at my claim yet.

The guy on the phone said that if I know the PDA is unrepairable that I should go ahead and purchase a new PDA while they get things sorted out. Ummm...just how am I supposed to do that? They havent sent me the giftcard they give you when your warrantied item cant be repaired. Plus the fact that they dont even offer HP pda's in their store anymore, so I'm going to have to buy my next pda straight from HP (and I'm pretty sure they wont take an OD giftcard)

I explained that to Emilio, the barely intelligible warranty guy. (I know the warranty dept is in Florida, and there are lots of Spanish speaking people there, but can they at least hire someone who can enunciate clearly? I dont care if English was their 5th language, I just want to be able to understand what the hell the guy is saying to me without making him repeat himself because he cant pronounce the simplest words!!) Emilio told me that sometimes instead of a giftcard they can send a check, but that a check takes FOUR WEEKS to be processed. (what the f...?) It's nearly 3 weeks since my pda died...something that I'm not very happy about. (I used my pda for more than just reading fanfiction and playing solitaire) Now I've got to wait another four weeks??!?

Next time we get anything electronic or computer related, I'm going to Best Buy. They have repair people in the store...and their warranties are much much better...and next time I'll tell my dad not to buy the floor model.

I think I'll go write Office Depot a strongly worded letter about the crappy hold music they had on their phones. I dont think I'm ever getting that stupid song out of my head. I'm probably going to have to go listen to the song that I hate most in this world to get their hold music out of my head. (not telling what song I hate most in this world...one clue tho...it's by Toni Basil)

10 years ago today...

Ten years ago tonight (probably right about now...2am) TinyMonsters was born. Seems like he was just a puppy...

Too bad I cant clone him. (I have some of his hair...maybe someday?)

Merry Christmas!

Ohmygosh! We (my mom and I) got all our presents wrapped tonight. I actually ran out of my fabric bags (that's never happened before!) and had to resort to wrapping paper for about 4 presents.

While my mom and I were wrapping those, we both commented that my fabric gift bags are so much easier. We were both having problems holding the paper down while trying to wrangle with the tape dispenser.

The tree looks weird without the dog fence around it. (I miss TinyMonsters...his birthday is tomorrow, the 26th. He'd be 10 if he hadnt died in March)

I took some pictures of the tree tonight, but I'm too tired to load the pictures onto my computer to post them here now.

This is the last year for our current tree. It's going to a new home (friend of my dad's is taking it) We bought a new skinnier (not pre-lit) tree on sale at Hobby Lobby a couple of weeks ago. ('bout $45 for a 7.5 footer) My pre-lit tree was slowly becoming un-lit. The woman taking our old tree doesnt mind that not all the branches will light up. It's a good decent tree. I'll miss it a little bit, but I wanted a skinnier tree...It'll fit better in the place we're going to be putting it up in every year, and plus the new tree wont take up as much room in our Xmas closet.

I didnt get as excited about christmas this year as I have in other years. Think it was a combination of the weather, my eye being weird and colors not looking normal and maybe my dog dying last March. Just wasnt fun without Tiny trying to steal glass balls off the tree or trying to steal the fabric bags from under the tree. (he'd stick his head over the fence and try to get a mouthful of fabric to steal)

Yesterday and today was about the first time I got excited at all about shopping. Took my mom to Target to get stuff for my dad, went to WM with both my parents to shop for something that dad wanted to get for all of us (WM was out of the item) and then went to Kmart with my dad so that he could get my mom a few more presents because she seemed to have bought more for him than he did for her. I guess he wanted to even things out under the tree and this is probably why we ran out of bags this year. (I even made 5 or 6 new ones too!)

For dinner my dad cooked out on our grill (in 40 degree weather!) We didnt realize it till we started cooking, but we need to add another light to our patio. Dad had to grill by flashlight light. The steaks turned out perfect (dad's was a bit well done) and we had asparagus, mashed potatoes and sweet potatoes with it. I was going to make biscuits but got sidetracked and forgot about them till we were bringing the steaks in.

My dad got himself an early present a few weeks ago. A digital videocamera. I'm still trying to figure out how to get the video onto my computer...not that I'll upload much video to the internet...dont have my dog to do cute and interesting things...he's about the only thing I'd have been interested in uploading to my blog.

I'm sleepy and worn out tonight...been taking an antibiotic for an infection this weekend and I think that's done a number on me too.

I think I hear the reindeer...better go to bed.

Yikes! Xmas is getting closer!

Good thing I wasnt crocheting anything as a gift...I've been neglecting my crochet projects and cheating on them with the knitting needles. (not knitting anything for anyone...just trying to make something for myself)

I may be a little closer in figuring out why my right leg has had numbness in it since April. (it may have something to do with a couple of back injuries I had a few months apart in '99, and a hip injury I got tripping ONTO and OFF of the train at the local zoo the day my hip went numb.)

I went to the doctor on thursday because the numbness changed in intensity and MOVED to another spot on my leg. I was disturbed enough by that and another symptom or two to go to a doctor. So, I had an ever so delightful (not) experience in an MRI machine again today. (MRIs and claustrophobia do not mix very well) Got a nice MRI of my lower back and spine...with a nice little injection of contrast medium (gadolinium). I better not go to the airport for awhile. I might set off their radiation detectors. I look like a junkie because I apparently have small veins. The MRI tech had to poke me repeatedly to find a good vein to put the contrast into.

I hate MRI's, but at least they dont put you all the way in for a lower back MRI, (they do for a brain MRI and they strap you down with all sorts of kinky stuff so you dont move. Eeek! and when they say "open machine"...that's a lie...I dont consider it "open" if I have a giant magnet about 2 inches from the end of my nose) Having to lay completely still (you can move your arms a teeny bit for a spinal MRI) for about 40 minutes is not fun at all. (an hour and a half to two hours for a brain MRI...not fun when you're strapped down!) My back is pissed at me now.

I spent some of the time listening to country music on headphones and thinking up what I want to crochet/and or knit next. Part of the time was taken up with wishing I could scratch the itchy spot on my right knee.

I've been working on some stuff for Christmas. About 5 or 6yrs ago I got my first sewing machine. It was a WalMart special (pretty much a piece of junk) I had it for about 4 or 5 months when my dad bought me a Husquvarna Viking machine. I cheerfully gave up my WM Special (gave it to my cousin) and have totally embraced the Viking. I still cant do much more than straight lines down the fabric, but I do have fun making simple gift bags to use at Christmas.

My dad LOVES the gift bags. He's wrapping paper challenged. Growing up I could always tell which parent wrapped the presents. My mom's were obsessive-compulsively taped down on the ends, paper folded almost perfect and she was fairly thrifty with the amounts of paper she used. And she would put a tag on the present that said who it was for and if it was from the parents or Santa.

My dad on the other hand was just happy that the presents were wrapped so that we couldnt see what was inside. And he would write mine and my sister's first initials on the paper instead of using a tag. Sometimes you couldnt tell where he wrote our initials. He'd have to take a moment or two to search all over the present for the letters "E" and "S". Sometimes he wouldnt be able to find it so he'd guess (wrong).

So my dad was totally thrilled the first time I made a fabric gift bag. So now, every year I pull out the sewing machine and crank out a couple of bags for him to use. We're pretty much almost exclusively using fabric bags for gift wrap now.

I've also got several oversized pieces of fabric that I hemmed the cut edges. We either just drape that fabric over any oversized gifts, or I've even wrapped a present or two with the fabric like you would with paper, using cloth ribbon to tie it closed. It's kind of fun. I reuse the ribbons every year, and last year my mom and I decided to not toss out the gift tags. I'd been using the kind that have a hole punched in the corner and string looped thru the tag. You just slip the tag onto the ribbon before you tie the bag closed and everything's all set. My dad just totally loves this. I think he's going to let me get some fabric (when it goes on clearance after Xmas) to make more bags. He wants me to have more of the larger bags. The largest bags that I've made are about pillow case size. 1yd of fabric, I pin the selvages together, and one end of the bag. And I hem the opening. Very easy to make. Made a few the other day. Took me about 20 or 30 minutes to make 3 bags. (used half yard pieces of fabric.)

I'll take a few pictures of my tree tomorrow with some of the presents under the tree.

Yep...I was right....

The fickleness of my optic nerve is starting to get on my nerves. (yes...wasnt that punny?)

I had some improvement over the weekend, and then monday morning I get up and my left optic nerve is screaming (in pain) "Just kidding!!"

And then I went to get my new glasses Rx filled yesterday. That's just made the optic nerve even more angry at me. The new lenses are making dizzy, and my left eye is not liking the change at all...Altho, I am pleased with my vision out of my good eye. Wow...nice, crisp and clear. Very happy with that.

The left eye, with the new glasses, has a bit sharper vision, but the damned fogginess and decreased color perception still sucks. And just so every one knows, new glasses wont improve the fogginess and decreased color perception. That's a nerve problem and the best corrective lenses in the world do nothing for improving that. I have to wait for it to heal, if it does. Which can take up to a year. If it doesnt improve within 2yrs, it's probably going to be permanent.

It's not so much the fuzzy vision that bugs me. I can deal with that. It's the wonky color vision that bothers me. I never realized how much I love color until this happened. Yarn shopping isnt as exciting as it once was. I went clothes shopping and found a nice red skirt (and a black one too) that I liked. Bought them, brought them home, hoping that the red would match a red shirt I have. Put the shirt and skirt together and wasnt sure about the color until I showed them to my parents. (didnt match, but gives me an excuse to go shopping for a matching shirt now)

At least I know my eye is capable of improving...it's teasing me enough with the glimpses of good vision. Just wish it would hurry up and make up it's mind.

**********

We got the Xmas tree out of the store room the other day...and it sat on the floor in the family room for several more days. Tonight we took the tree upstairs, put it in the spot where it's going to sit for the next month or so. I went as far as plugging in the lights on the tree (it's pre-lit) to make sure they work. We're buying a new tree this year. Either after Xmas, or before if we find one we like at a good price. I dont think I'll be getting another pre-lit tree. They're nice, but once the lights start to go fubar.

Not that I dont add extra lights to the tree. Since 9-11, I've done a patriotic themed tree. My tree already has clear lights on it, so I just add a string of red and a string of blue...put my patriotic ornaments on it. This year, I'll have to either cover up the dead light spots with the red or blue lights, or pile on the garland.

At least I dont have to put the dog fence up. I miss Tiny, and would gladly corral my tree again to have Tiny back, but it is kind of nice to see the tree without a 3 foot tall metal fence surrounding it. As soon as I get the tree decorated, I'll post some pictures of it.

Whoohoo! real improvement!

I was crocheting tonight (gosh, what a surprise? Me? Crocheting...) and I noticed something. My left eye didnt feel like it was pulling towards my nose like it has been...and the lamps in my room werent making me feel like I wanted to rip them out of the wall and toss them into the backyard. And it feels like my eyeballs are finally starting to cooperate with each other again.

So now I think I had some improvement in my visual acuity tonight. Colors still look wonky and slightly washed out, but the fuzzies and blurries are nowhere near as bad as they were yesterday or even this morning. Reds still look weird (kind of an orange-ness quality to them) and greens are a little funky looking. Light doesnt look as dim either.

all I can say is IT'S ABOUT DAMNNED TIME!!!!!!!!!!!

and I'm fully expecting things to look crappy again tomorrow. I've had bits and pieces of improvement for several weeks now, but it hasnt always stuck around...it'll get better and then a little bit later my eye goes "just kidding" and gets wonky again. It's less wonky each time, but this is the best bit of improvement that I've noticed in a long time.

It's also been exactly 15 weeks since my left optic nerve decided to go on it's little vacation. Yep. 15 weeks ago at this very moment, I was curled up on my bed, crying because my head hurt so bad. Worst migraine of my life. Ever. (The second worst migraine was about 3 weeks ago, after walking around in WalMart...those fluorescent lights are just evil)

And may I re-iterate that if you ever have a headache that you would call THE WORST HEADACHE YOU'VE EVER HAD...Go. To. The. Doctor. Immediately!

From what I gathered from the 3 doctors I saw for this problem this was caused by either a virus or a bacterial infection (actually I saw 5 doctors, but one was an ER doc and the other was my regular doctor and they referred me to 3 that helped figure out what was wrong) I had strep throat for about a week before my eye went fubar, and apparently it decided to set up shop in my optic nerve.

Hopefully my vision will stay normal from now on...especially tomorrow. We're taking my mom to see A Christmas Carol for her birthday. Movies havent been a problem for my vision, but I'm not sure about a live play.

**********
As for what I was crocheting tonight...I pulled a couple of projects that I havent worked on for the past 3 months out and did some work on them. Finished a chenille scarf for my aunt Jan. Worked on a star shaped afghan that's half finished, worked on yet another pineapple shawl, I knitted a little bit (learned how to increase AND decrease in knitting! yay!), worked on a shawl I'm making with Joann's Rainbow Boucle', and in a non-yarn moment, I arranged the fabric that I'm going to make gift bags out of later this weekend with my sewing machine (as long as my vision doesnt go out of order again.)

I was quite productive tonight. :)

I even cleaned my closet out last night.

and I picked up my Rx sunglasses from Sam's Club this afternoon. (where were these whenever my eyeball exploded when out in the sun, or near any source of light?!? Now I get them...argh) Now I just need to go to Lenscrafters and get new lenses for my regular glasses. (got a new Rx) At least my Lenscrafters lenses can be made in an hour.

At least now I can see...for the moment.

*screaming in frustration!!!*

I switched to Blogger Beta a few weeks back (basically because this stupid thing made me) and I just spent 10 minutes trying to log in to do a blog post. It just kept giving me the royal run-around, not allowing me to log in. So, now I dont even remember what I was going to post!!!

ARGH!!!!!! *grumble*

I think I even made the comment in a post back when I did the switch that I hoped I wasnt making a big mistake. How prophetic.

**********

I saw an afghan pattern in a knitting magazine a few days ago that I've just fallen in love with (need to go back and buy the magazine), but I dont know enough about knitting to either follow the pattern, or even do the stitches. I think the afghan uses yarn overs and some sort of knitted lace stitches. Same deal with a shawl pattern that I found for free on the internet somewhere. Knitted lace just looks neat. Hopefully I'll figure that out soon.

**********

I've noticed on several forums that a lot of people are using my rectangle granny square pattern. Seen the comment that people are worried about the long sides of the afghan narrowing while the corners on the short ends stick out. This is perfectly normal. Once your afghan starts getting bigger the weight of the afghan will make things even out. You dont need to do anything special to fix it. (I'll post this information on the blog post that has the pattern too)

Finished another pineapple shawl

I think I'm a bit obsessed with this pattern...I really like making these...

I'm probably going to give this one to my great-aunt Vi. (my paternal grandma's sister) My dad is thinking of visiting her within the next week or two, so I might take this shawl and another one that I'm almost finished with to give to her.

I've also got another shawl in the works. It's being made with Rainbow Boucle' yarn...it's just a basic half granny square shawl. Nothing too difficult and no fancy stitches, since they would get lost in the fuzzy goodness of the boucle' yarn. I have 3 skeins of that particular color (and it takes about a half skein to make the shawl) so I'm trying to figure out what else to make with it. If I ever get any good with knitting, maybe I'll knit an afghan from it.

I hate phish!

A few minutes ago, I was sitting at my desk...reading a fan fic story and crocheting a new shawl. I happened to look up and saw that a high school friend who now lives in FL had just logged onto Yahoo Messenger...within a second or two, I got an instant message from him. It said he had a new website and gave a link (the words "sexual content" in the link should have been my first clue this wasnt a good thing) and me...being stupid, clicked on it.

It looked like a Yahoo page and even tho I was currently logged into Yahoo it wanted me to enter my name and password...Just as I was hitting the "sign in" button, I happened to look at the address bar on my browser.

I dont think I've typed that fast in a long time. I already had a browser window open to my email account, so I quickly leaped into my account information page and changed my password....and then changed it again after a few minutes. (to something totally different from my old password. with gibberish words and numbers)

Hopefully I did that fast enough. Then I emailed my friend who had "instant messaged" me...telling him what happened. (if he's been hacked, he probably wont read it...if he calls me tomorrow I'll tell him about it then)

I really hate spammers and phishers...they are the cockroaches of the internet!

I hope I didnt just totally screw things up...

I just switched my blog over to the new blogger beta whatever-ya call it thru Google.

Immediately I've had a problem...but, here I am posting. Hopefully I'm not just talking to myself.

Ever break a garage door? We broke ours tonight. Actually, I think there's been a problem with it for a long time, actually since we bought the house. (the house was brand new 4yrs ago when my parents bought it, so it's not like the door was beat up by the previous owners)

My parents had to go grocery shopping, so I took them. We got back. I pressed the button to make the door go up. It went up about 5 inches and then went back down. Tried again. Several more times. No go. So my dad went in the front door (locking it behind himself...why?) and he tried to open it from the inside...by pressing the button repeatedly.

I got out of the car and asked my dad to disconnect the door so we could lift it up. He did, and we still couldnt lift it. We gave up, took the milk, Southern Comfort, hamburger buns and Krispy Kremes in. (we only bought the essentials) I called Norm at the garage door place to come fix it. Of course they cant get here till 9am tomorrow (it was 430pm when I called. all his techs were at the bars...errr...went home to their wives for dinner)

So my poor car is exiled to the driveway for the night (thank goodness I have a car alarm!) and my dad's car, which he needs to drive to work tomorrow at the butt-crack of dawn is trapped inside. (guess who's car he's taking to work...where the parking garage has a requirement that you get hit at least once a week by another car)

While I was on the phone with Norm, I looked at the spring that helps the opener lift the door. I asked Norm, the expert in these matters, if it's a bad thing if one of the springs is in two pieces.

He told me that's a bad bad thing. Very serious. (apparently it's like when you have a ball-point pen with the clicky thing...if the spring inside the pen breaks, you cant get the pen to do the clicky thing anymore) The door weighs about 150pounds or more, and is impossible to move without the spring.

Hopefully it's not too expensive of a repair.

This isnt the first garage door we've broken. At our last house, the ancient garage door there had these springs that went the length of the garage door (they had the wheel and pully system, the one we have now is the screw system) One day we had just gotten home from somewhere, got out of the car, closed the garage door and went into the house. Right after we all got into the house there was a big BANG! and the sound of a spring going *sproing!*. The spring on that one snapped, and the tension in the wheel and pully let loose and shot the spring into the wall next to the door. (left a big hole in the wall. We were surprised to see the garage had good insulation in the walls) My dad's pretty sure that if we'd been in that garage when the spring when it broke, someone would have been hurting, or they'd have a nice write-up in the morning obits, with a story about the importance of maintaining your garage door in working order.

I'm just hoping my car will be safe outside (and in the parking garage at my dad's job). There are neighbor kids down the street who are NOT closely watched by their parents. The other night these kids were running around in the field behind my house with BB guns (I hope they were BB guns!) shooting at critters/and or themselves. Havent been able to catch them doing anything truly horrible yet, but I'm sure eventually they'll do something that will give the neighbors something to gossip about.

Wow, I can do it now...finally!

It took me about 3 months, but I finally figured out how to do the purl stitch AND how to knit in the round on double pointed needles.

So, now I've finally been able to do the stockinette stitch. I love the look of that stitch, I just dont like how slowly I go to do that stitch. I knit continental, but I apparently purl English style. So, I just whip thru the knit stitch, and trudge slowly thru the purl stitches.

I really am enjoying knitting on double pointed needles. It took me about a day to get used to doing it, but I think I like that type of knitting the best. (cause I get stockinette without having to actually purl!)

So, I really only have two knitting projects going right now (to go along with the 5 crochet projects I'm doing and the work-in-mind project I have for my sewing machine)

I'm doing a scarf in knit stitch. (I started this the week my left eye went wonky. Amazing that I knitted this "one-eyed" and havent dropped a stitch...that I know of)

And then I have this. I dont know what it is...I'm just knitting in the round on double pointeds just to see what I can do. I might work on this for another 5 or 6 inches and then try to learn how to decrease and somehow turn this into a purse. (it's too narrow for a hat, and too wide for a sock I think)

I might try changing colors on it too...not sure yet on what I want to do with this.

**********

Went to my opthamologist on friday, and I went to a neuro-opthamologist yesterday afternoon. (I wanted the neuro-op to check and make sure I didnt have anything else going on) and both doctors told me that they believe my vision problem this fall (optic neuritis) was probably viral/bacterial in origin (I had strep throat the week my eye went loopy) and that it will probably continue to improve. There's a chance I might be stuck with wonky color vision in that eye, and some residual fuzzy vision, but my eye should be ok. It might take a year for things to get back to what they were in that eye, but I should probably have normal vision eventually.

Maybe I'll be able to get my sewing machine out in a few weeks to attempt a vest (which will be my first attempt at sewing clothing) My aunt and one of my cousins found a sewing machine store that has sewing classes. So, I might go up there and see if they can teach me how to do more with my sewing machine than sew in straight lines.

Fun with photoshop

Edit: I twiddled with the picture some more and took out a lot of the extraneous bits of picture...hopefully made it a bit smaller so people on dial-up arent cursing my name while they wait for the picture to load.

My absolute favorite picture of TinyMonsters!!

This is one of the few baby (puppy) pictures I have of TinyMonsters.

He'd just had his ears cropped and they had the headgear on his head to hold the ears in place and to keep them clean. I would almost swear he's looking at the camera and saying "What the hell did those damn humans just do to me?" and his next thought was probably "first chance I get, I'm gonna go pee all over their new carpet!".

Tiny was probably about 3 or 4 months old when this picture was taken. I'm guessing it's late March or early April of 1997. (he was born 12.26.1996). I wish I had more pictures of him when he was a little guy...he was so cute.

well, I'm (mostly) healed...

Went to the opthamologist today. He said my eye looks normal. I still have a lot of fuzziness in my vision. He said that's normal. It may or may not go away. I've apparently got a lot of healing to do, but I guess the optic nerve is no longer swollen...just a bunch of residual nerve damage that may or may not go away.

Let this be a lesson to everyone. Do NOT IGNORE a headache that you would consider the **WORST** you've ever had. Especially if your eye hurts when you move it, or you have big blind spots obscuring your vision!!!!! (ok, I ignored the headache and eye pain, but when those blind spots popped up, I started listening)

He told me that he didnt see any evidence of any of that scary stuff that could sometimes cause the Optic Neuritis, so that's made me feel a lot better. (there's like a dozen illnesses and conditions that can cause Optic Neuritis, he thinks mine might have been viral)

The eye doctor did suggest that I go and see an neuro-opthamologist just to make sure there wasnt anything he missed. He thought it would be a good idea just in case the neuro-eye doc thinks that there could be something to be done for the fuzzy vision and the dyschromatopsia (wonky color vision) Said it wouldnt hurt to do that now, especially since I've already met my deductible for the year. The year runs out soon and he thought I should try to get to the neuro-optho before the end of the year just so I dont have to shell out a gazillion dollars for the deductible again.

He wrote me out a new glasses Rx, but didnt give it to me yet just in case the neuro-eye doctor thinks I need a different one.

Hopefully my insurance wont hit me with too much of a bill. (they only pay 80%!) It'll be a bit bothersome around christmas, but it's probably more important that I have good eyesight rather than an iPod.

**********

Ohmygosh! I found my most favorite picture of TinyMonsters the other night in a picture frame that my dad had stolen from me to put a picture of one of my nieces in several years back. As soon as I install a driver for my dad's scanner onto my computer, I'll post the picture. It's sooooo cute! It's from when he was a puppy...probably only 2 or 3 months old. He'd just had his ears cropped and was wearing this "headgear" to hold his ears up (please, no kvetching about it being cruel to crop a dog's ears...) In the picture, Tiny's looking up at the camera with this look that says "what the hell did you just do to me?!?...and why is everyone laughing??". He's just so adorable in this picture. I'll scan it tomorrow morning and post it.

Would you believe....?

Would you believe that in my thirty something years of crocheting (learned when I was 6) that I've never done a ripple afghan?

I finally made one. Found the pattern on the internet several years ago and printed it out. This was before I started to save the links to patterns in the footer of my printouts, so I'm not sure where I got this one. As soon as I find the original website that I got it from I'll properly credit the designer for it.

Here are some pictures

It only took me about a week or so to make this afghan. I started a week ago thursday, finished the crocheting on friday morning, and did the tail weaving last night/this morning. (darn insomnia! was up till 3am)

I thought the pattern was pretty nice, I followed the pattern exactly how the designer wrote it out (I probably did more rows than she suggested). My only problem is that I think it's too narrow. Once I figure out how many extra chains to do to make it bigger, I'll probably do another one with this pattern. It was pretty fun to do.

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I've probably mentioned once or twice how impressed I was with the Rainbow Bridge when TinyMonsters died in March. The box that they put his cremains in is really very pretty. Morbid as it may seem, I thought I'd show you why I'm so impressed with the Rainbow Bridge that's here in Omaha. (sorry if anyone thinks it's morbid)

I resized the picture so it's not as huge as it was, so you might not be able to read Tiny's name on the nameplate, but you can at least see the detail in the wood. It looks so much better than I thought it was going to. I had an image in my head that it was going to be pine wood and shaped like a cigar box or something. Never expected it to look this good.

Edited to add: For some reason, Photobucket doesnt always show the resized pictures after I've resized them...not sure if my browser's cache is wonky or if the resize didnt take or something. Sorry if any of the pictures are massive, I swear I resized them!

I cant believe I figured it out...sorta...

I was just playing around with my desktop computer that I've had a couple of years. It has some features on it that I've never used before. Well, tonight, I got curious to see how they worked. Specifically the video capture program.

I have an ancient video camera. I've had it about 10 or 11yrs. It uses those little mini video tapes.

I had some video of TinyMonsters, my dog that passed away in March, so I decided to see if I could transfer it from the videotape onto my computer.

Would you believe that I did it without even using any written directions? I not only got it copied to my computer, I also burned it to DVD!

My mom was thrilled. She misses Tiny and thought it was cool to be able to see him again. Hopefully I have more tape of him!

I just sat for an hour watching a videotape that my late Uncle Donny had recorded when he took my aunt and my cousins on a vacation to Pennsylvania. I was watching it because I was transferring it to the computer.

For some reason the picture I transferred is all black. (huh?!?) I've got audio, but no video. Weird thing is, the Preview screen I had up while transferring the tape had picture. I dont get it. I guess I have to fiddle with it for a bit.

If I manage to get it successfully transferred, I'm going to put it on a dvd and give it to my aunt. Not sure she'll want to watch it, it's got both of her parents on it (they've both passed away) and it has my uncle's voice on it. If she doesnt watch it right away, at least I've preserved the video. My uncle would have thought this was so cool. He passed away just before DVD technology became popular. He would have loved this stuff...I think he was more into gadgets and technology than me or my dad are.

If this doesnt work with my computer, I might attempt to record the video onto my Tivo and transfer it to DVD with the Tivo's built in dvd burner. (again, my uncle would have loved this stuff)

Yoric needs modeling lessons...

I made another hat...the picture kind of sucks, but you can at least get an idea of what it looks like. It's the same pattern that I used for the other hat. I didnt put any embellishments on it. I started to, but it looked stupid, so I just decided to leave the hat plain.

This hat is also going to my cousin's daughter.

Alas...poor Yoric doesnt make a good model, does he?

After about two and a half months of just sitting around, crocheting and then frogging everything I make, I've actually managed to finish something. I've been in such a crochet slump, and my eye being all wonky hasnt helped me much. At last I've finished something.

You'll have to forgive my model, Yoric, he wasnt really thrilled at having to do a photoshoot tonight.

I got the pattern for the hat at this site http://webpages.charter.net/basheera/rosehat.html

I didnt like the flower on the original pattern, so I came up with my own. I also changed the size of the hook. (I used an H) because my wonky eye didnt like the smaller hook.

Maybe now that I've actually finished something, I'll be able to decide on an afghan pattern now. It's been a while since I made an afghan.

I'll be giving the red hat to my cousin's daughter. My aunt Jan asked me to make some hats for her grandaughter (she likes to play dress up and LOVES hats) I'll probably make up a couple more for her.

edited to add: I tried to resize the pictures in Photobucket...they're showing up resized there, but in my blog, they're ginormous. Either my browser's cache is not refreshing, or the Blogger Gremlins are screwing around with things...

Now I've done it...

I guess I can consider myself a crocheter AND a knitter now.

Since I hurt my eye in late august (right after I learned to knit) I hadnt really wanted to pick up any crochet hooks or knitting needles. About a week or two ago, my eye had finally improved (or I got used to it) to the point where I could crochet comfortably. I bought some red yarn to make a new afghan, and then couldnt decide what to crochet. I guess even after having a near two month vacation from crocheting, I was still in a crochet slump. So over the weekend, bored as heck, I picked up the knitting needles and one of my larger skeins of scrap yarn. I dont like doing a regular cast on, so I chained 40 stitches on my afghan hook, did the Tunisian crochet cast-on, and then transferred that to my knitting needles and started to knit from there.

So far I've been knitting for 5 days straight. I even knitted in public yesterday when I took my dad to the eye doctor! (first time I've ever knitted in public)

It's kind of weird. I've been carrying around my first real knitting project everywhere I go. It's a scarf, being done in a green yarn (Red Heart, Medium Thyme...I think). I'm a little less then half finished with it. (started saturday evening)

I apparently knit just a teeny bit slower than I crochet (which is fairly quickly!)

So far I really am only doing one stitch (as far as I know) and I'm not doing anything terribly exciting. It is kind of neat to be able to do another yarn craft.

I have been crocheting some too. I started a rectangle granny afghan...with the red yarn I bought last week. It's probably going to end up being a xmas afghan. I have some nice green yarn that looks good with it.

Some moron with a can of spray paint has tagged a trailer that is in the field behind my house. The field is owned by the construction company that built our house. They're not planning on builing on it anytime soon, but they've been keeping that trailer back there. I cant see the trailer from my house, but when you leave our neighborhood, it's very obvious. This is the second time time the trailer has been tagged. It's ugly, and I cant quite tell what it says. Hopefully it wont sit there for 5 months before they paint over it like the last time.

This is just a test...

Having some serious problems with posting tonight...just testing to see if I can get blogger to post something.

edited to add:
What the hell?? This message posted, but the one that wouldnt post earlier has now posted itself 3 times...

ARGH!!!

Anyone have any suggestions for good bloghosting sites?

Just to prove I can do it...

Ok, so I might have mentioned a couple of times that I'd finally figured out how to knit...so here's the proof.

I'm still having problems casting on...Red Heart yarn has a nasty habit of untwisting itself as I'm casting on, and I really hate that. My solution to the casting on problem is to take an afghan hook and to do a Tunisian crochet cast on. Then transfer the yarn from the afghan hook to the knitting needles. I like the edge that cast on gives. Maybe some day I'll actually be able to knit something more than swatches.

I'm not really making anything with this. It's basically just a swatch. I know I have a few issues with gauge, my fingers hurt when I knit and the yarn gets really tight around the needles. So I'm just using up some of my scrap yarn practicing.

My dad (the resident knitter here) looked at my swatch and he said it looks pretty good, except for it's pulling in a bit the further I knit. We're both pretty sure that's being caused by my gauge. I know I'm pulling a little too tightly on the yarn. I dont have this problem when I crochet. I guess I'll just have to keep practicing.

I remember when I was learning to crochet (a long time ago in a galaxy far far away) I crocheted very tightly. I dont know what I did to fix that other than getting more confidence in the way I held my hook, and practice.

It is kind of fun to learn something new...and it gives me more excuses to go to the yarn store.

we have improvement!!!! (yay!!!)

I am so excited right now!

My wonky left eye has been steadily getting better since friday night. Friday morning and afternoon, my good eye (the right eye) was hurting and the eyelid kept twitching.

So, naturally I panicked. I was worried that whatever fubar-ed my left eye was making it's move on the right eye. Called the eye doctor. He was out (naturally), but luckily one of the other opthamologists was in the office and could take me that afternoon. So, I went in and he checked both eyes. Said that nothing was wrong with the right eye other than maybe a little eyestrain and said the pain was probably from that or may have had some leftover pain from a migraine I had the day before. He didnt even put drops in my eyes. I guess he was checking my pupil responses. My bad eye had an "afferent pupillary defect", which means that it wasnt responding normally to light.

So, he said to just rest my eyes and sent me home. That night and saturday morning and afternoon, my eye started flip flopping back and forth between crappy vision and really really really crappy vision.

Sunday I went to the Lincoln airshow with some friends to see the Blue Angels. Got to the airshow and started thinking it was a big mistake to go to an airshow on a sunny day with optic neuritis. My glasses have tint in them, but it was not up to the job. So I bought some of the overpriced clip-on sunglasses they had there. That helped so much. I was able to enjoy (and see) the Blue Angels.

Woke up monday, vision was less fuzzy.

Got up this morning to take my dad to his eye surgery (we've been the House Of The Half-Blind this past month) and my vision was a lot clearer. It's not normal yet, and some colors (green and red) still look weird, but I can see pretty good now with that eye. I even crocheted and knitted some tonight. I think I forgot how to knit...mostly I couldnt remember how to cast on in a way that my yarn doesnt split apart, but at least I can see what I'm doing now.

Now I can finish the pineapple shawl I crocheted with one eye closed when this all started. I finished crocheting it, but I couldnt see well enough to weave the yarn ends in. Gonna go finish that now. whoohoo! I was having serious yarn/crochet withdrawal.

Hmmm...I wonder if we're out of the drought now?

It's been an interesting evening meteorlogically. We had a tornado warning around 830 or 9pm. (that was fun) With all the required lightning, thunder and hailstones. (the tornado stayed a little south of my house. It was actually right over the area of my OLD house. I havent seen any news reports of damage, but there was apparently a LOT of rain. The weatherguy said that some manhole covers were blown off by the rainwater in some areas.

After that storm, my dad and I went out to pick up some photographs he had printed at Walgreens...on the way home, the next storm decided to hit.

Ever seen Titanic? The scene where Jack and Rose are running thru the corridor towards the little kid and his grandfather and the water is chasing them down the corridor...that's about what the streets looked like tonight, but with a lot more water.

I thought we were going to need pontoons on the side of my dad's Rav4. Halfway home, the hail started. It wasnt bad...wasnt big, and stopped about 10 seconds after it started...and then the rain got worse.

We were getting close to our house, came around the curve where the nimrod neighbors have to always park their cars and some asshat was coming towards us, VERY FAST, and didnt even wait for us to get past the cars that were on the side of the street. I'm sure that in the morning, if I go and look there will be tire tracks from that guy's car on the neighbors front lawns. Who drives 60mph IN A MONSOON on a street that curves like the letter "S"?????

After that we just had to float to the front of our house, drive out of the river that our street had become (gotta love fulltime 4wheel drive!) and made it into the garage. Just before the next batch of hail hit.

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I may have mentioned before that I've had a problem with my vision. Well. I went to the eye doctor the other day for him to check the progress of the problem. He confirmed that it's optic neuritis. (inflammation of the optic nerve) and he agreed with the ancient neurologist I saw earlier this month that it was migraine induced optic neuritis. This time he told me the optic nerve was swollen (it wasnt when he looked the first time last month) but said that was normal.

Told me that he could give me steroids to make it heal quicker, but that the steroids come with all sorts of icky side effects and that it's probably best to just wait for it to heal. As much as I'd love to have this heal quicker, I agreed with him that I didnt want the steroids. So, now I may have wonky vision for the next 2 to 3 months. (why do the estimates for recovery keep getting longer???)

Yay...I might get my vision back for Christmas.

It's not the fuzzy, dim vision in my left eye that's bugging me so much as the mild loss of some of my color vision. As you can tell from the title of my blog, I love yarn, and from most of the content of my blog, I love to crochet. It's pretty freaking boring to crochet when one of your eyes cant see some colors very well. Sure I could close that eye and just use the one good one, but things look weird. I never understood what it meant to lose your depth perception or color vision until this happened. Believe me, I'd rather lose my hearing than my vision. I am so hoping that when my eye heals (in 2 or 3 months...argh!) that my color vision in my left eye comes back with it.

I have a cabinet full of all sorts of different colored yarns, and none of them look appealing to me right now. It's really messing up my love of crochet. I really want to make something, but I lose interest after the first few rows.

I cant wait for my eye to heal.

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At least I can still read, and when I need to rest my eyes but I still want to read, I discovered a way to still read. My dad bought me a computer program called Text Aloud. It comes with realistic sounding computer-generated voices. I got it yesterday, and I just love it. It reads text on the computer to me. I can copy fan fiction stories to the program for it to read, or I can go to Project Guttenberg and download a book to the program. It'll read whatever text I put into it. It's probably one of the coolest programs I've ever had loaded into a computer.

The thing I like about the program is that I can turn the text into an audio Mp3 and then transfer that into an iPod or some other mp3 device. I can even burn it into a CD if I want to, altho the size of the file kind of limits you to what you can put onto a cd. I could end up using lots of disks if I do that.

I dont have an Mp3 player (yet) and saving the stories to a CD to play on a car stereo is ok, but all I've done so far is save some stories to Mp3 format so that I can just play them off of my computer. If I get an iPod for Christmas (hint, hint) this program will come in handy.

Five Years.

Tomorrow is the fifth anniversary of September 11th. Hard to believe it's been 5yrs already.

Not too long after 9-11 I bought a bracelet...a cheap little silver metal bracelet that had the name of a firefighter who died on 9-11 engraved on it.

That firefighter's name was George DiPasquale (Manhattan Ladder Co 2)

I cant find my bracelet, so I cant wear it tomorrow like I wanted to, but I can tell people who read my blog to think about FF DiPasquale and his co-workers and everyone else who died that day.

I didnt know him, only know who he was because his name was the one that was engraved on the bracelet I bought. What I know about him is what I've Googled. He was 33, married, had a daughter named Rose and was called "Holy Man" because of his committment to religion, and he died in the Word Trade Center collapse along with seven other members from his ladder company.

So, everyone, think of Firefighter DiPasquale at least once tomorrow.

I wish I could find that bracelet.

Picture below is the patch firefighters in Manhattan Ladder Co 2 wear.

Happy Labor Day

It's been a looooong two weeks. My eye has pretty much been fubar for about two weeks, and I've had a headache for nearly 3 weeks. My dad got me some Excedrine Migraine last night that I took this afternoon that seemed to actually help. It's a mixture of Tyelenol, Excedrin (aspirin) and caffeine. Two Excedrine Migraine pills have about as much caffeine in them as a cup of coffee.

I ended up only taking one of them, since I havent really had any caffeine for the past two weeks. (been trying to rule out caffeine as a migraine trigger) It seemed to work...I think.

I think my eye might be starting to heal. I dont have the massive blind spot that was obscuring the lower half of my vision when this first started out. My vision is now kind of fuzzy looking...like trying to look thru a fogged over muddy window. I actually drove my car today. First time in two weeks. I only drove me and my parents to a restaurant that's just down the street, so it wasnt very far, and I didnt really have to go out into busy traffic to get there. I think tomorrow afternoon I'm going to Windex my car windows just so I have a nice clean window to look thru...anything to help me see better to drive if I have to.

I have an eye appointment on wednesday to go to that I'll probably end up having my dad drive me to...eye doctor is a bit further away than I really want to go to drive...plus they'll be putting all manner of drops into my eyes and I dont think I'll want to drive home after that...so it's best that I have a ride there. Hope he tells me my eye is getting better.

I've actually gotten a wee bit of crocheting done. I've been working on another of the pineapple chair back shawls. This one in white. Since I've done about a dozen of these shawls, I've pretty much got the pattern memorized...which helps, since I dont have to keep stopping to read the pattern that much.

I finished a shawl awhile back with some Joann's Rainbow Boucle'. It's basically just a giant half granny square. My parents and my aunt Janice seem to really like it. My dad said he'd take a picture of it for me tomorrow. It's actually been cool enough to wear it the past two nights. (finally!) I have enough boucle to make another shawl, so once my eye returns to normal I'll probably start on another one. (my finished shawl is blue, the new one will be green) I'll probably give the new one to my aunt Jan.

I think it's time to go rest my eye...it's driving me nuts right now.