Can You Hear Me Now?

Good.

I forgot to mention that our cell phone numbers were finally transferred on Sunday. I’m still not sure that it’s all working right, but at least my new phone does ring sometimes. Of course, I have no idea how many calls aren’t getting through, but I guess if it’s important, they’ll call back. Or leave a message, which I’m also not 100% sure always goes to my new service. (I have had one incident so far where someone did try to call, the phone never rang, and my old phone showed a new voice mail message, which, of course, I couldn’t pick up.)

I still sound like I have the plague, but I feel quite a bit better. I actually left the house today, went to work, did a tiny bit of yarn and food shopping. Now it’s 11:00 and I’m wiped out. And that is why details about my newest knitting project, which is not a gift and therefore fair game for posting, will have to wait. (What’s that, you say? There are still 9 gifts to be done? Yes, well, about those…I figure I have at most about 30 hours of knitting left for gifts, which is really just a good chunk of knitting time this weekend and a couple of evenings next week.) And now, I’m going to go find my pillow and sleep, before I just decide to use my laptop as a pillow and sleep in this chair.

Human Again…Sort Of

Well, I’m better, but I’m still skipping Sit & Knit tonight. :( I look forward to my weekly coffee & chat fix, and between traveling and being sick, I’ve missed it for three weeks now. Waaaaah. I hope no one’s too mad at me, I lost track of time and forgot to call anyone to say I wouldn’t be there.

Anyway, another Christmas present is just a couple of rows away from being done. For that matter, I have one that’s mere yards away from done-ness…however, I don’t have those yards. Really, I can do math: 2/3 of 750 yards is 500, right? So of course a 430 yard skein should be enough. Really. Grrr. I have to get better so I can go buy another skein of yarn before they run out of the dye lot. I’m not sure what I’m going to do with the extra 360 yards, though.

Speaking of yards, I was thinking yesterday. (Yeah, yeah, I know, it’s a rare occurrence.) I realized that when I knit an adult sweater, anywhere from 1-2 miles of yarn travels through my fingers. That’s pretty cool to think about!

Uh-oh. I just ran out of Kleenex…I think there’s another box in the linen closet…I have to go look, and then get back to knitting!

Marginally Better

Thank heavens for understanding husbands who give early birthday gifts when they are most needed: The Two Towers, extended edition – almost 4 hours of distraction! (And hopefully said husband will realize that it would still be nice to have something to open up on said birthday! Although, it was charming that he made an effort to wrap it. In a Home Depot flyer. But it was wrapped!)

I’m really bummed, though. It’s already December 3rd and, due to my cold, I don’t have my Christmas tree yet. See, the rule is that the tree cannot be purchased before December 1st, which is the day I got sick. And I’m really much too sick to go traipsing around the chilly garden center for hours trying to find the right tree. Oh, well, at least I’ve managed to write out most of the Christmas cards. I can’t guarantee that they say anything that makes sense, but at least they’re written…um, yeah, if you get a Christmas card from me, and it has the wrong names or says something like “Happy Birthday, and a Very Merry Easter”, please don’t take it personally. Maybe I should have waited to seal the envelopes until someone could proof-read them?

Oh, and band…that didn’t happen tonight. The mere thought of playing horn with chapped lips and a runny nose made my head hurt. Plus, it would really suck to get the rest of the section sick just in time for the concert next week. I’ll just have to wing it. Solo? What solo? Who said anything about a solo? We’ll just ignore that for now…ok, this cold had better go away soon, because I really, really, really need to PRACTICE!

Send Movies and Kleenex, Please!

Ugh. I’m tired of TV. I’m at home with an icky cold, and I don’t even feel like knitting. This is not good. :(

Band tomorrow night should be fun. It’s dress rehearsal, so I’ve got to be there, but if my head feels like it does now, it might explode.

Of course, my dogs are taking full advantage of my being home (meaning they’re uncrated), and are stretched out across the full length of the couch. I couldn’t even take a nap if I wanted to! Good thing they’re cute.

Can You Feel the Love?

Because I sure can’t. The evil company still hasn’t released our cell phone numbers for porting, despite the fact that we’ve badgered them every day (except Thanksgiving – I’m sure they have families too, even though they work for the evil company.)

I’m not terribly thrilled with the new provider, either. I mean, they’ve at least been consistent in what they’ve told us (the e.c. hasn’t been) so I believe what they’re saying, but I don’t get the warm fuzzy feeling I should be getting about how far they’re going to resolve this. As in, why on earth are we sitting on hold with the e.c. instead of them?!?

Yes, I know, I basically signed up to be a guinea pig for this process, but it’s my blog and I’ll whine if I want to!

Maybe Now’s Not The Best Time…

…to mention that I have all of my Christmas shopping done?

I really can’t understand why people would torture themselves by getting up at 4AM and getting in fights over parking spaces and such, just to save a couple of dollars. My shopping is done, and I saved money by doing it early, carefully planning what to buy and where to buy it, and using coupons if I had them.

Of course, this is the first year I’ve gotten my shopping done before Thanksgiving, but I had great motivation – the nearest mall has recently expanded into something so huge it’s ridiculous, and I just have better things to do then spend hours finding parking and standing in line.

Now if I could just finish knitting everything…one more done. See? Over there in the sidebar? All right, back to knitting.

Happy Thanksgiving!

This day and your life … are God’s gift to you, so give thanks and be joyful always!
Anonymous

Eat lots of turkey and pumpkin pie, and be thankful for everything wonderful in this world.

Knitting in the Dark

I knitted an entire Christmas gift (minus the bind-off edge) in the car last night…and since we started our trip well past sunset, I did it all in the dark! It’s amazing that I didn’t drop or twist any stitches. It didn’t hurt that there were lots of headlights all around us, so I could hold up my knitting and check it occasionally. It was strange, though – I was working with a rather bright striping yarn, but it just looked gray in the headlights, so I didn’t get to see the color pattern it made until we got here.

Six gifts done. I brought an obscene amount of yarn with me (half of a very large duffel, plus a basket and a couple of tote bags) so that I can get to at least the half-way point of finished gifts before we get home…we’ll see! :)

(At least my shopping is completely done. All the time I’d spend waiting in long lines at the mall can instead be spent knitting!)

What the…?

OK, now I’m ticked. I just discovered that the top six rows of the hood and all of the edgings of this mystery knit, knit out of the same dye lot as the rest of the sweater, are a noticeably different shade. And we’re not talking “daylight noticeable”, we’re talking “tungsten noticeable”. Same. Dye. Lot. Do I frog? All of the ends are hidden already. I was actually pretty pleased with all the stitches I picked up. I think I might cry.

I suppose I should get to work, and try not dwell on this all day. If anyone has any suggestions (besides ripping) I’m more than open to them. (Of course, the only two other options I can think of are to overdye the sweater (not going to happen – intarsia, remember?) or just live with it (which is probably the most reasonable thing to do, right?))

Switch Day!

If all goes well, by the end of today I will no longer be held captive by my current evil cell phone company. And I’ll get to keep the number I’ve had for the past 6 years!

I’ve got my plan and my phone picked out. I was briefly tempted by the camera phone, but…I just can’t see myself being happy with such low-res pictures, especially since it (obviously) doesn’t have a flash. Besides, Denis and I getting the same model phone means we can share car chargers, batteries and desk chargers…which is a big deal, not to need two car chargers in each car (believe me, this has been a problem, switching cars, forgetting to switch the chargers, needing to make a call on a dying cell phone…and not being able to plug it in.)

The only catch might be if they can’t promise the switch will be completed by tomorrow afternoon – we’re headed out-of-town, and it’s not a good idea to drive 300+ miles without a cell phone. But taking the new service along for the trip would be a good way to test-drive the coverage along our normal route, so hopefully this will all work out.