Back with more cheer.

As promised, I'm back with more cheer. I've felt so awful all week and finally feel like I'm on the mend.

But first, a quick breakdown of the 4 days of awfulness to purge it from my system:
Day 1:
Had an awful sore throat and tongue/fever/headache/body aches.
Went on antibiotics.
Had a crappy family crisis.
Day 2:
Antibiotics caused major body rash/face hives/dizziness/stomach cramps.
Stayed in bed. Cried a lot.
Day 3:
Stopped taking antibiotics and took benadryl.
Felt worse.
Fever/hives/disorientation (got lost going the 15 feet from my bed to the bathroom)/hallucination (for the record there is not a cricket or anything else in my womb).
Stayed in bed. Cried a lot.
Day 4:
Took no more benadryl or antibiotics.
Dizziness and disorientation lessened/hives began to subside.
My period arrived with a bang!
Excruciating cramps/back pain/nausea.
Family crisis is being handled better.

Officially, 4 days of hell. There's got to be a whole lot of happy on the other side of this for me.

I am now off the crazy-making meds and trying not to o.d. on ibuprofen for the cramps. Hubs cleaned the house, grocery shopping is done, laundry is going. And I finally started decorating my Christmas tree.

Without much further ado - here's some happy:

Since it's our first Christmas, we don't really have any ornaments or Christmas decor. Since I really like the idea of crafts but never have the time or the talent to pull most of them off, I nearly went out and bought a bunch of ornaments. The problem is, I don't like most ornaments. Glass balls hold no meaning for me. I think tinsel is the worst substance on the planet. I live in the desert and grew up in Florida so snow and snow related things don't hold any special place in my heart. When discussing the traditions we want to create, Grit and I agreed that we want to try to make everything we do around Christmas time mean something - tree ornaments included. The tree we had growing up was always a wild amalgamation of old and new, handmade and purchased. We all had special feelings about the things we'd made and hung on the tree. Stars made from popsicle sticks and yarn, snowflakes fashioned from glue and glitter, the carefully packaged fragile keepsakes that my mother hung up high. Since decorating the tree was a wonderfully chaotic group effort, the decorations were probably mostly clustered in clumps near the bottom and my wise parents always secured our tree to the wall using fishing line. When I saw the perfectly coordinated trees that others had, I thought they were pretty but felt no connection to them. I was always in awe of our tree each year. It was always perfect to me. We'd turn off all of the lights except those on the tree and sit together singing carols or just contemplating. My husband told me he never much cared for decorating the tree because he knew his mother was just going to change everything they'd done anyway. Her tree was coordinated and had to look "just so." He doesn't want to carry on that tradition. Me either.

We really wanted to do something with our tree that represented our year. I thought about knitting some wedding themed ornament but couldn't find anything that didn't look like super cheesy crap. (Side note: Why do people act like crap is a swear word? Honestly? That's weird.)

Any-who, After looking around our little place, I decided that I really wanted to use some of the seashells left over from our wedding decorations to hang on the tree. I was sure they'd have a lot of natural holes since the ones I collected at the beach always did. No such luck. I decided to try Grit's drill with the smallest bit he had. We found that by going slowly, we could get through most of the shells. After some trial and error, a couple of broken shells and one broken drill bit (sorry babe), we have a nice collection of seashells hanging on our tree. So far it's just lights and shells until we come up with something more. We're also going to wrap the base of our tree with some of the turquoise burlap we used as table runners at the wedding since most tree skirts make me gag. So we actually do have a themed tree, but WE are the theme. It's not perfect and it doesn't need to be. It's perfect for us!

Photos to come.

Quick update

I have a ton of things I want to blog about but no time! 

Boodji is turning 6 today and I've got to take the cake over to the party and help get things set up. 

Things are good... but still no job. I'm praying that my bank account holds out until I can get over to the unemployment office and figure out why they aren't giving me any money. 

I've taken some gorgeous photos of my nephews and niece that I'll post soon. 

I'm knitting/sewing sundresses for my niece. It'll be summer here in a minute.

I'm helping my mom dig all the decorative rocks out of her flower beds and pulling up the ornamentals so our yard will produce food. It's good exercise - I have the sore muscles to prove it. I love this post! It's all about her victory garden. Plant one. Do it. Do it.

Okay, gotta run!

Some pursuits of late...

Considering finishing this poor pathetic knitted dragon.

Knitting Valentines.

Finally photographing this baby blanket I finished months ago.

Hooking my nephew up with a sweet hair cut.

Chillin' with my nephews and my brother.

Being a cat warden for this little piece of work.

Ritz and I gave this cat to my mom last fall. My mom LOVES Halloween like no one I have ever met and was so happy that this cat is "Halloween colors" that she promptly named her Bella...  after the Twilight books. I cringed and proceeded to tease her relentlessly. So she changed her name to Bela. As in Bela Lugosi. As in Dracula circa 1931. I can totally get behind that. She was spayed this week. She's naturally insanely hyper and seemed clueless that she was in a delicate condition - the cat morphine didn't help - it made her oblivious to the pain. Basically I had to make sure she didn't harm her incision while she behaved like a flying squirrel all over the house. She's feeling much better now. 

Finally, some knitting photos!

One of my sisters purchased this yarn for me around Christmastime and looking at the skein, it looked like all of the colors were very muted and dusty (look at the lower pictures, you can see how dusty they look). Once I started knitting with it, I was pleasantly surprised at how vibrant the colors are! The yarn is Patons' Soy Wool Stripes in the Natural Plum colorway. It's squishy and bright, but a little bit itchy. Wool usually doesn't make me itch, so I wonder if it's the soy content. It has been fantastic to knit with though. I've begun making it into a bag that was requested by the aforementioned sister, but I'm beginning to think it would be better served as a baby sweater. Probably not though, since it does have some itch-factor. I was going to try to match up the stripes, but I may give up and just let it be. The pattern is Flutter, from "25 More Bags to Knit," by Emma King.

No words...

The Colbert ReportMon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c

Nailed 'Em - Radical Knitting

Colbert at Christmas
Colbert Christmas DVD

Green Screen
Bill O'Reilly Interview

and...

Wool Brain

Brilliant.

Coming Attractions

Between now and Sunday, I will:

Move several boxes of books, my clothes, and various other junk from my current abode to the guest room that I will soon occupy at my mother's house.

Photograph my completed and in-progress knitting projects and post those photos here.

Celebrate my Mother's 62nd birthday with a hand-knit gift, and hopefully a quick trip up to the mountains to enjoy some cold weather.

Sheep Love

I love knitting so so much.
Really.
Three of my four sisters and I are brainstorming on a way to start a sheep farm even though we're spread across three states. We're going to start by individually learning how to spin and dye wool and then someone's got to learn something about animal husbandry. They all vote that I do it. I'm all for it. I would love to be a farmer, but it's going to take us a few years to set up a business plan and get things rolling. Right now it's still a dream... but we all really want to do it.
When I saw THIS today, I was gleeful.
Sheep at the White House?
Yes, please.

Thank you!

Thank you to all of my wonderful friends for your support and your kind words and your anger on my behalf! It's greatly appreciated!

Here's the update:

I really haven't freaked out or felt too worried or anxious about the situation. Inexplicably, I feel relieved. I decided from practically the first moment to not look back. I have a tendency in my life to hash things over for far too long, so I decided not to do it this time. I wasn't given an explanation, so I chose not to look for one. Moving on.

As it turns out, none of the yarn stores can afford me. Go figure. I'm looking for jobs and taking it easy and setting new goals for myself. It feels good to have a break. I'm not exactly sure what I want to do yet... but it'll come. I do know that I have 2 months worth of money in my bank account and the thought is reassuring, for now. If I can get out of my rental contract, I can stretch my money for 4 months. Hopefully I won't need to!

I feel confident that something will come along soon.

Ooohhh.... pretty.

So... today after work I was in the vicinity of my favorite knitting store and decided to go browse the goodness. I picked up skein after skein of beautiful yarn in rich fall colors and put them in my little basket. I walked around the store taking everything in and wondering if they were hiring and could pay me lots of money. I'm pretty sure it wouldn't work out. I controlled myself and put the beautiful yarn back on the shelf... but I did buy another knitting book. I couldn't resist it.

Knitted Toys: 25 Fresh and Fabulous Designs by: Zoe Mellor.

Here are some photos of the patterns in this book. I can hardly wait to make some of them!!

Where's Fall?

Fall is my most favorite season. It's all my mom's fault. She loves fall and especially loves Halloween. She probably has as many fall decorations as Christmas decorations. She isn't one of those people who does a lot of outward Halloween decor, no haunted houses. But the interior of her house is full of beautiful rust colored floral arrangements, hand painted ceramic pumpkins, etc. She has plenty of kitschy stuff around for the grandkids too.

Fall in the desert feels like late summer everywhere else. It's nice, but it's not fall. It was in the 80's today and it seems so cool compared to the triple digits we've had for months. I spent the weekend at my mom's watching conference and hanging out with my nephews and niece. I was craving fall food very badly so Saturday night I cooked for everyone. I needed soup so I went and picked up some tomato basil soup (it wasn't nearly as good as my recipe from scratch but I was in a hurry) and then I put together an apple and brie bruschetta. It was delicious!

I really enjoy cooking and wish I had time to cook all the time. I seriously would. But I wouldn't want to do it for a living. Just for myself, friends, and family. Anyone wanna sponsor me and pay all my bills? I'll cook for you. But I'll only make food that I like! Ha ha!

Anyhow, I really miss having a real fall. I think I'm going to drive up north one of these weekends. Not as far north as many of my friends are, but just a few hours north to see some real leaves. Let me tell you, a lack of cold weather is brutal on a knitter. I want to make scarves and hats and gloves and sweaters!

I know this post is kind of random, but it's been awhile and I felt I needed to post to get me back in the habit.

I'll post again soon, I've got a lot to say!

New Vanities

So... I got a camera. And as we all know, I like taking pictures of myself. Because I'm vain. I'm aware. No need to shout. So... I thought I'd share the love with you. The self-love. The love of all that is me. My other love is doing cool edits to pictures of myself. Because I am my favorite subject. Yup. It's true. The first few here I took in my car when I arrived a little bit too early to a training yesterday. Oh yes, before I forget, one of my brothers-in-law is a professional photographer and he recommended that I get my camera from B&H Photo. They are based in New York and they have great service and good fair prices. I got a ridiculously good deal on my camera, the shipping was fast and I got an extended warranty for a good price. I recommend them! I'm going to start taking pictures of my knitting, my nephews and new baby niece, and my sewing when I start sewing this weekend! I bought patterns and fabric this week... but I've never actually made myself an entire garment before! I'm the queen of small edits and alterations, but I have very very basic sewing skills. I'll track my progress and let you know how it goes!

Because I said I would....

Here are some photos from a recently finished project. I knitted a pacifier clip for my sister as she's about to have baby #3! This was one of the easiest projects I've ever done. I got the pattern from Susan B. Anderson, it's free on her website, which I've linked to on my sidebar under knitting links. The photos were taken with my camera phone and some of the backdrop is my leg and some is a random pillow case, 'cuz that's how I roll.