I’m sure that y’all were waiting on the ends of your seats for the promised pictures of the yarn that was spun over the weekend, so here they are (and not much else I might add….).
Yarn on Lemongrass
The Yarn takes it's Close-up
The Yarn in the Neighbor's Ferns
What can I say? The crazy yarn neighbor lady has struck again!
Sorry, couldn’t resist my favorite Bevis and Butthead moment of all time. (Yes, I am that kind of a dork!) Anyway, the reason for the “testing” is that this will be the first posting coming from my new Mac (I am just too cool [neener neener!]). I am still figuring out how this thing works, so if you see some really random crap (ok, so more random than usual) appearing on this blog, forgive me for I am a Mac Virgin and I am sinning! (Woo Hoo! Sinning is FUN!).
Today was a totally, you know, normal Monday. Mondays are for Margaritas, and that we did after I picked Chris up from work. I was outside again most of the day, but it was overcast most of the day, so no lobster mama. However, I did work-up one hell of an appetite and absolutely scarfed down my chicken qesadilla with no peppers and pina colada in record time. Normally the hubby beats me to a clean plate with many minutes to spare where he is just sitting there watching me masticate (that sounds so very kinky but it is just so very not) and getting twitchy. Tonight, I was the twitchy one and it was a very odd feeling to watch him EAT. I know, I’m married for how long????? And only now just watching him eat?
Stephanie Pearl-McPhee released her latest and greatest tour schedule for the next couple of months. Of course I am going to be gone when she finally comes to Florida. I’m not going to wax to poetical about my wanting to see her as she is also going to be at Rhinebeck and SO WILL I DAMNIT! Woo hoo! Still, I have yet to get to attend one of her talks and signings and would really like to, even if I have a signed copy of almost every book that she has had published because of Book Expo. What can I say? I really like her stuff! I mean, I have pre-ordered her newest book on Amazon and I never do stuff like that.
I promise that I will have pictures of the newest spun yarn tomorrow as it is now almost dry. I gave the Meara mutt a bath today (she had a serious case of skunk butt that came from who knows where!) and she made the entire bathroom fairly damp. How such a small dog can fling water so high up is pretty amazing, but she managed to pretty thoroughly re-dampen the yarn again. So (sigh) it will be pictured tomorrow. Plus, it was raining here most of the day and the neighbors already thing that I am crazy enough without me going out in the rain to take pictures of the yarn that I spun for my weird blog thing. At least Meara now smells like Dove conditioner (she is very shiny) rather than skunk butt (which is more than I can say for the bathroom:-))
I can kill you with my brain....
(I couldn’t resist [YES!! I am THAT kind of geek!!!])
This is going to be a scattered post, and I am ok with that. It has been a scattered weekend. Lots of stuff going on that is random and all sort of ended-up fitting together quite well.
Saturday morning I worked in the greenhouse like I “normally” do. I put normally in quotes, as lately there hasn’t really been a true normal for me. I have missed entire months of working here during the past summer due to travel schedules and stuff like that. It was actually good to be back among the ivy plants (and the Ivy cat [who got her stitches out on Saturday too!]) for a couple of days. I miss being there and I know that I will miss this greenhouse (and those in it) when I leave. The ironic bit? I have never really liked ivy at all, and that is what I have grown for nearly 10 years. Funny thing, life is….
Saturday night I went to a birthday party of a friend of ours, Laura. It was held down in the Latin Quarter restaurant/club/bar at Universal Citywalk. In the middle of the dinner I thought that I was going to be ill and went to the bathroom. I hadn’t felt great, but suddenly I was afraid of losing my cookies all over the lovely table with all of Laura’s lovely friends at it. To show you how ill I flet, I didn’t get a travel crochet picture even though I had brought it along! Needless to day, Chris and I left early before A.) I made a splash (literally) and B.) before any dancing began. I mention the 2nd because Laura and Tony, her husband, are Dominican and LOVE to dance. Case in point….Chris and I went to Thanksgiving at their house this last year. From the time that we got there to the time that we left, there was someone always dancing in their family room. In fact, most of the time you couldn’t walk through the house for all of the family and friends shaking it! Coming from some pretty reserved Presbyterian/Methodist midwestern stock, this was a completely different way to celebrate Thanksgiving to me, and it was great!
I spun 2 bobbins full of some oatmeal colored, blue Faced Leicester singles in bits andspurts over the weekend. Whenever I was sitting, I would spin a little bit. The first bobbin was pretty consistent, the second bobbin quite so comparatively. This is some lovely wool, a mixture of gray, black and white with a little brown thrown in for good measure. But it is quite well blended, so no one color really stands out at any given time. Tonight I plyed them together and made some very nice, fairly consistent yarn. I can see that I am getting better and, even, faster. I will have pictures of this when I am done processing this yarn. It’s sitting in it’s soak right now.
This afternoon, we had to go to the mall. I abhor going to the mall with a passion that rivals my dislike of rap. But, this morning, Chris laid down on my glasses on the bed where one of the cuddle pups managed to knock them. They were pretty busted, and the only place that we could think of that could fix them was the jewelery/watch/glasses repair place in the mall. We get there and the supposedly fix-it dude said that he couldn’t fix them and that we should go down to Lens Crafters. We went down and this absolutely wonderful lady fixed my glasses for free with little more than a pair of needle nose pliers, tweezers and a push pin! I will probably get my next pair of glasses there just for this reason.
So, while we were in the mall, we decided to go to the new(ish) Apple store. Chris and I have been discussing getting a Mac laptop for me for the coming travel and school and stuff. My current desktop has been giving me more and more trouble and a laptop just made sense for me with the stuff that I do. I had been eyeing the Macbook Pro, but Chris and the salespeople that helped us pointed out that it was more than a little overkill for what I plan on doing with it. That and $1000 difference in price convinced me that the regular Macbook would work just fine for me. It was amusing that when I had to get out my license for something and took half my travel crochet out of my (large) dachshund purse our salesperson, Lauren, noticed it right off andasked if I knitted or crocheted. Come to find out, she is a knitter and a fan of Stephanie Pearl-McPhee as well, so I got to take this “where Sarah is crocheting now” photo there.
Lauren is the girl standing next to me checking us out. The white box behind me? My new Macbook laptop computer. I have already been playing with the photobooth feature a bit, but since I am typing this up for what will be one of the last times on my old desktop, you will not get to see the results of the photobooth play time. Chris is currently importing data and all sorts of stuff onto the new computer for me, so it is a it busy.
Something had been bothering me about the mystery project for a little while, but I couldn’t figure out what it was. I figured that it was just the fact that it has been rough going for me to decipher the pattern and that I was frustrated. Or, that I had started it prior to leaving for Morocco over a month ago and had come back to it after such a long absence.
But no, it was neither of these issues. It came to me today as I was looking at the picture of it on the cover of the booklet of patterns. It is covering a chair in length. Mine could cover a small childs chair. Houston, we have a problem. So I got out the ol’ measuring tape and did what I should have done quite a few rows back and measured the length. It was about 53″. I sighed in relief, the measurements were 50″ X 67″. Then I glanced at the pattern in horror, 50″ is the WIDTH. My mystery project is over a FOOT shorter than it is supposed to be! Oh fuck, shit, cock, damn, dick, asshole, and buttlicker!!!! I have to start over for the thrid time!!!!!
She had better LOVE it………….
The baby girl blanket has finally been mailed off to it’s intended recipients along with a Photostamps giftcard for 20 stamps. I find that it’s a really popular gift for new parents as they seem to like to put the baby’s picture on pretty much everything! Of course I forgot to mail the card with the presents, but at least they are finally on their way. I am pretty sure that they will be able to figure out who it is from from the return address. Here’s the finished blanket.
Finished Baby Girl Blanket
Corriedale on the left, Blue Faced Leicester on the right
Da Bears!
One of the things that I will miss greatly from Florida is the wildlife. There are so many different birds, and LOTS of big birds, in this state. I wish that I was more into bird watching. But the variety of animals is amazing. In the past 2 weeks, I’ve seen a bear, turkeys, deer, gopher tortoises, foxes, Sandhill Cranes, lots of hawks, kites, a migration of toads. It’s pretty spectacular and if it wasn’t so fucking hot outside all the time I probably would see more wildlife!
I’ve put in a couple of pictures of the fabled alpaca yarn since it was finally dry enough to move out of the bathroom. All the washing seems to have paid off as it doesn’t smell like a barnyard anymore!
The Finished Alpaca Yarn
Close-up of the Alpaca
Yesterday I spun Alpaca. It was disconcertingly similar to my husbands hair in both color and length (although quite a bit finer). It was a very different experience from spinning wool, which up to this point is all that I have spun. I didn’t take pictures of myself spinning it as I have yet to grow that ever helpful 3rd hand (my husband is wishing for bionic, photographic eyes, I want another hand. I guess that it is all about where your priorities are!).
Now, I need to make a point. I did not buy any of the alpaca that I worked with anywhere in North America. I bought several baggies that were labeled “Alpaca” and were in a larger bag of alpaca tops that were lovely. Not all of these smaller bags were the same color as the tops in the larger bag, but I figured that they were just leftovers from other colors that this business carried.
I was wrong.
They were ends and bits and only partially processed.
There was one small bag of the really nice alpaca tops in the dark brown that are like working with my husbands hair and that was absolutely wonderful to work with.
The rest was utter shit.
In fact I think that it may have even contained some shit.
But, not wanting to waste it (I mean, I had bought it and hauled it across an ocean already) I carded it and tried to spin it, mostly successfully.
It made my fingers black. It was a pain in the ass and next time I will just throw that shit away even if I have hauled it back from Antarctica with a dogsleding team losing several toes and at least one member of my group I DON’T CARE! I will not spin it next time.
It is currently soaking in a bucket in the bathroom with some Woolite in the water. That water is a very light brown. Ewwwww.
No wonder Milo the cat was so interested in it:-)
Today was going to be a play with a new fiber day, and that it certainly was.
(I will post pictures when I’m not so traumatized)
We have 2 cat litter boxes again.
We were down to one very large Booda Clean Step domed monster for about a year. We used to have a bunch of omega pawroll over type litter boxes, but Jiji got to the point where she would pee out the back of it with the front of her body completely in it. We haven’t had that issue with the Booda since a cat has to walk completely into it in order to get to any litter. Now she just randomly sometimes poops on the stairway into it. Anyway, when Willma decided to move back into the house, I had to break out the omega paw box once again. She would only sit and hiss at the litter box where the rest of them go. She also hisses at their food as well. I can only imagine that this is where the term “hissy fit” came from. Well, unless it came from something like “pissy fit” which is another thing altogether.
So, now we have a separate food and cat litter box set up for Willma in the front room and the regular box in the office. It is a lot of litter. It is a lot of poop. And the smell is more widespread. It is not ideal and hopefully I will be able to get Willma to gradually move into the office where the other cat litter box is.
We are also having issues with the remaining puppies going to the bathroom in the house. I don’t know if it is because Micheal is gone, and he was REALLY good about not ever going in the house (ok, there were a few exceptions to that statement. A few times he totally protest pooped while we were on vacation and he had a few accidents when he was sick. But for 10 years, that’s not a lot of interior pooping.). It could also be that we were gone so much over the summer that they, I don’t know, forgot their training or something. Anyway, they are both on “lockdown” for a while. Which means that they cannot be anywhere in the house not in sight of either the husband or I at all times unless they are enclosed in their crates. They are not happy about this. Hell, I am not happy about this, but it is the only way that I can think of to get them to stop doing this. Basically, start over and act like they are puppies again.
Part of the Pee/Poop Factory
It is a pee and poop fest ’round these parts!
Milo and Weezy being extra cute
I was originallygoing to call today’s post Monday’s are Mexican day as my husband suggested calling this day, but decided on the margaritas instead. First off, my husband has become a tequila snob. Yes, you read that right, a tequila snob. Like some people become wine snobs sniffing glasses and taking tiny sips of alcohol and talking about how much oak or pepper they can taste in it so my husband became a tequila snob. Most of it was because of the Green and Red, a restaurant near where my husband has been living in London. If you are in the area, I would highly recommend it. Anyway, this place has the largest bar selection of tequila in London, and since my husband has been around it, he has absorbed some information about it (as well as more than a few glass fulls!). However, one of the things that he rally misses is the vegtable molcajete that he gets at our “local” Mexican restaurant, Fiesta Grande, in Mt. Dora (one town over). a molcajete is a lava stone mortar and pestle that is used commonly to grind up corn in Mexico. The dish of vegetables (special ordered for him, they also have shrimp, steak and chicken I think) is served in a REALLY hot molcajete, this is a meal that actually get hotter as you eat it! The place is great and if you ever are in Mt. Dora, I highly recommend it.
The Vegetable Molcajete
Every spring, I go a little nuts. I blame it on growing-up on a farm. Spring is when the action is, when things are born and planted. However, here in Florida, spring is a little different from other places. You know, places with real seasons? Planting around here is sort of a schizo affair, with a lot of it occurring in the fall, very little in the spring and some in the middle of the summer. Believe it or not, spring isn’t a good time to plant things in Florida as it is still part of the dry season!
So, the way that I go a little nuts is that I start to propagate things. Usually African Violets, though really no plant in my jungle is safe from the pruners. The African Violets usually need a good yearly clean-up and rejuvenation, and I just stick new cuttings while I am at it. Now would be a good time to mention that I have a lot of violets. A lotof violets. Like around 200 different varieties. Yes, that is a lot. So, here I am sticking a coupleof cuttings from each of these 200 varieties. Each cutting can yield easily up to 6 new plants after dividing (and in some cases up to 15 or more!). You can do the math, that equals a LOT of violets!
All that I can say in my defense is that at least I don’t plant zucchini.
Ok, so maybe I am little paranoid, but I just got a webcam for a distance ed class that I am taking, and it is freaking me the fuck out. It’s a little voyeur into the life of my cats and I. I feel like it is watching me, even though the little lens case thingy is closed. Ugh. I hate it. I have fought (successfully) for several years against having one of these in my house. Now, against my will and required for a class that I need to graduate I have one perched on the top of my screen. Sigh. Next they will implant a chip into my neck. They’ve already done it to the cats and dogs! Y’all think I’m paranoid….just you watch.
The view from the Logitech WebcamJiji on webcam!Milo in Motion!Jiji is being watched too!Milo in motion!
Today I got some new books. Through Paperback Swap I got Died in the Wool, Knit Fast, Die Young, A Deadly Yarn, and Needled to Death. Are you seeing a pattern with the book selections? Thought so. Now I am going to blow that pattern out of the water (sort of, if you really know me, the following selections won’t seem too odd). This afternoon I received signed copies of these books: Cutting Propagation and Nutrient Deficiencies in Bedding Plants. I am a geek on so many levels. And I have a seriously eccentric library!
The lovely and sweet Ivy cat is recovering well at the vets office after her surgery today. She will be coming home to the greenhouse in the morning and I am sure will receive much attention from all there. I always feel so bad for the cats and dogs right after I get them from surgery. With one big exception. When the vet brought Micheal out from his neutering, he was literally bouncing on his back two legs. When the lady at the desk said that I needed to keep him calm and as immobile as possible. I just looked at him, doing circus dancing tricks all over the lobby, then at her and asked how she proposed that I do that? She didn’t last too long at my vet’s office.
Sarah Jane Humke 