Argh...

So there is good news and there is bad. The good is that I have finished sock number one of my sockapalooza socks!

The bad news is.....

I'm more than a little mifed about this. These are (were) my brand new fancy-pants ebony sock needles from Lantern Moon (? I think ?). They are called Sox Stix and come in a fancy silk drawstring bag. I paid a hefty price for these sleek little needles. When I first starting using them I immediately didn't care for them. I think they aren't pointy enough...it's hard to get into the stitches on my ssk, and other stitches. But....they sure did show off my sock yarn beautifully. It made it super easy to see the light colored yarn compared to how it looks against my old standby bamboo needles. Plus, they just felt nicer against my hands. Sleeker, smoother, finer. Yet, I wasn't even done with the ribbing of sock #2 before one of them snapped in half. Now, admittedly I hold my needles pretty tightly and usually all of my bamboo needles warp eventually. But c'mon....they can't even make it through a whole pair of socks? Not worth the money! I am going to try to return them this weekend, but the store where I bought them is one of those stores. You know the ones....they probably will turn their noses up at me when I show them the broken DPN.

Sigh....

All is well though, I've got my trusty bamboo needles.

Just for fun....a high school meme.

1. Who was your best friend? Depended on the day.....

2. What sports did you play? Only the ones they made us play in gym

3. What kind of car did you drive? Acura Integra Hatchback

4. It’s Friday night, where were you? Either at a football game or a movie theater

5. Were you a party animal? not really

6. Were you considered a flirt? Lil' bit.

7. Were you in band, orchestra, or choir? Marching band all four years, choir for two years

8. Were you a nerd? welll....I was in band for four years...so what do you think?

9. Did you get suspended/expelled? nope

10. Can you sing the fight song? only hum the melody, but I still remember the flag routine

11. Who was your favorite teacher? Mr. Thomas (band) and Mr. Parks (science)

12. School mascot? a patriot

13. Did you go to Prom? yes

14. If you could go back and do it over, would you? why would I want to revisit that?

15. What do you remember most about graduation? people not being given their diplomas becasue they tossed beach balls

16. Where were you on senior skip day? I can't remember....probably working or chilling with my friends somewhere

17. Did you have a job your senior year? yep, in a coffee shop

18. Where did you go most often for lunch? subway

19. Have you gained weight since then? yep

20. What did you do after graduation? went to college

21. Who was your Senior prom date? Niall

22. Are you going / did you go to your 10 year reunion? it's next year so we will see

23. Who was your home room teacher? Mrs. Hunt

24. Who will repost this after you? anyone who wants to

Ha....that was kinda fun to do. I haven't thought about some of those people in ages.

This past weekend I traveled to Baltimore to visit my husband who was there on business. My sister went with me and we also met up with hubby's cousin who was coincidentally also there on business. I, of course, dragged the whole crew to a local yarn shop.

They had the cutest open/closed sign.

I didn't buy anything, but I did get a business card so I can go online and order a kit for a super cute top they are putting on the web in August. This shop is a teaching shop, so they have very little inventory but what they do have is delicious.

After the brief yarn quest we all went to the Baltimore Aquarium. I'd been once before in grade school, but they have remodeled quite a bit since then. Hubby and his cousin had never been so it was good times for all. We missed the dolphin show, but did actually get to see the dolphins through their viewing window in the tank.

They were so cute. They swam around in pairs, like little lovebirds. My favorite of all the critters? This one. I wouldn't want him for a pet, but the way he was just perched in the tree watching us was hard to resist.

He is a "Waxy Monkey Frog". I'm not making that up.

Beware of this one....

We had a blast. It's time to get my nose to the grindstone though. I have a whole second sock to cast on and finish to get in the mail by Aug 3rd!! Wish me luck!

July is for outdoors!

Happy Belated 4th of July everyone! We had a big time here in VA. My grandparents are in the state for the summer so they came out to celebrate the 4th with us. A whole bunch of us (Doug's parents, my Mom and brother, another couple we are friends with, and my grandparents to be exact) went to James River State Park to go kayaking and have a picnic.


That's post-picnic when we were in a hot-dog and hamburger-induced haze. There was bocce ball, football tossing, and of course the kayaking.


Afterwards, people started to trail off and head home for their own fireworks displays (fireworks are not allowed at the park and Doug and I were making it an overnight camping trip). Grandpa and Galen settled down to get to the real deal-fishing.


They hadn't been set up for more than a few minutes than we heard excited yelping and hollering. We hurried over to the river bank to see what all the fuss was about and lo and behold....

That's one proud fisherman. It was a great day.

In knitting news I am plugging away at my sockapalooza socks. I am a little worried. They are supposed to be mailed out by Aug 2nd and I'm still finishing up the first one. I never have been that good at deadline knitting....

Unrelated: A pit bull can do a lot of damage to your home in a few hours, even if you pick everything up you think he can possibly get into. This is what my ceiling looked like when I cam home from yard sales on Saturday morning. I'd only been gone about 2 hours.


That substance covering my very hard-to-clean textured ceiling is soda. Dark sticky non-diet soda. Apparently I failed to pick up the 2L of Dr. Pepper and it became a soccer ball for him. I can only imagine that he rolled it all around the floor and attacked it and had a blast until it started attacking him back. It must have scared the crap out of him because he had no soda on him at all, indicating he must have hid from the spitting soccer ball that doused my entire living room with soda. No lie....it was covering 2 entire walls, the back of the door, the tv, and as you can see, the ceiling. Whew! That was one looong clean-up job. Yuck.

Goodness

There's this reggae song I like called "Badness" by One Blood, a no-has-heard-of-them band that Doug and I found when we were in Jamaica. I love the rhythm and melody of the song, and they lyrics are "badness is madness" for the chorus, which always leaves me wondering, what does that make goodness? It probably is surprises like packages in the mail and big things showing up on your back deck.....allow me to explain.....



Last week there was a lot of hush, hush phone calls and secret errands going on around my house. I was in the know enough to realize that I wasn't allowed to know. Monday I found my deck in the process of being stained.



Hmmm...I though. Yes it badly needed it, but why wasn't I hearing about it?



Tuesday night I came home to find a monstrosity of an object in the corner. What's that?



I lifted the cover to find.....



My very own hot tub! Turns out Doug's boss was getting rid of it and the timing was right. It was apparently quite an ordeal to get to our house though. It involved the use of a crane to remove it from it's prior resting spot, borrowing a flatbed trailer from a friendly mechanic and a late night ride out to the country to get a truck big enough to pull the trailer. All that and about nine guys to lift it onto my back deck, and they could have used more. I am so surprised and will spend a lot of time soaking in it, I'm sure. I just have to figure out how I can sit it in and knit without the knitting getting wet.



I had to go out of town last week as well, so I wasn't home when my last SP package arrived. I loooooved it! Thanks so much SP! My spoiler this round was Pennie. This time she sent me a little bit of wool for needle felting (are you reading my mind? I have been wanting to try that.) some super pretty cotton and a cute keychain that she made. I loved this round of SP, and my pal was so awesome. In each package she sent there was always something handmade! Thanks Pennie!

Thanks again Pennie! I love love love all the stuff you sent and I'll be sure to post pics of stuff as I make it. I'll have to postpone the birthday meme until next time, it's getting late here and I need to go take care of some things.

Sockapalooza

So, I'm late to the party, as usual. But I finally made the signups for Sockapalooza this go-round. I have had the hardest time picking out a pattern that I deemed good enough for these socks. They will only be my fourth finished pair ever and the recipient is a somewhat more experienced sock knitter than me. This is how far I've gotten:

It doesn't look like much yet, but they will be Fabulous when I'm done. I'm also finally getting to use my ebony needles. I picked them up a few months back as a little luxury for myself and hadn't used them until now. They are soooooo nice. They also happen to show off the yarn I am using fantastically.

One other thing...apparently motorcycle fever is contagious.

This is my sister's new ride. I'm a little jealous because mine is in the shop. No worries, I didn't wreck it, just maitenance junk.

Coming next time, the Birthday Meme!