It was just too too too hot to knit any of my projects this weekend. My original plan was to do the second half of Backyard Leaves (thus having begun and completed a green project in May) but then the mercury rose into the 90s and the thought of even touching wool left me woozy, so I started on a pair of socks instead. Yes, those are wool too, but it's itty bitty wool so it's not so bad. Of course, being me, I couldn't use the 3 sock yarns in the stash. Oh, no. I had to go out into the heat to Knitorious to buy the ball of Trekking that I've been coveting for weeks. That was Friday.

This was Saturday. I've been thinking about trying different sock methods to truly decide which I like best. These will be cuff-down using the Magic Loop method. (The Lornas Laces yarn will be toe-up, 2 at a time, on 2 circs. The new yarn from Etsy will be on dpns, toe-up, trying a different toe. I'm an equal opportunity knitter.) So I got out the book and the yarn and the needles and figured it out. And you know what? If you just do what they tell you, it's not too bad. The big mystery that was "magic loop" is no more. There's only one thing I'm not crazy about with this method. See the pink crochet hook in the picture? That's holding a stitch that I dropped. With dpns you can just shift them around to pick up a dropped stitch, but with the magic loop you have to wait until you get back to that point to put it back on the needle. Other than that, though, I like it. I went back to Knitorious and got another 40" needle so that I could start the other sock from the outside end of the ball. That worked well all weekend, and the cuffs are almost done. Pics soon. (I took this one with my phone and I hate the quality. Why suck up bandwidth with bad pics?)

I'm in Oklahoma City on business and I never got the promised pictures ready, so I'm giving you another little taste of Peru. This woman was sitting alone on the church steps in Pisac. It was raining at this point, and her face is blurry because of water on the camera lens. Last time I went to the dentist I thought of her toothless smile and decided that a novacaine shot is really not that bad.

I broke down and ordered a new photo software cd off of ebay, which hopefully will be there when I get home. Then you'll be absolutely inundated with pictures. My first etsy purchases arrived, and I've got Project Spectrum pictures, a couple FOs to show off, and I need your help deciding which buttons to put on the little pink sweater I've almost finished, but it's a little hard for you to choose when you can't see them, isn't it? The long weekend should help me catch up. So, check back soon.

Oh, what am I doing in Oklahoma? Checking out our pharmacy. The place is amazing. At one time it was FedEx's largest daily pickup in the whole state of Oklahoma. Yeah, that's a lot of drugs. No, silly, I didn't get any samples. I like my career too much. I feel a lot better about taking over this project now that I know what they've been talking about. I hate feeling like I'm faking it all the time, but others tell me that everyone feels like that. I'm not sure that I believe it, but if you feel this way at your job, share! We'll commiserate.

The absolutely only reason that I haven't been blogging is my camera/computer situation. My old laptop has the camera software, the new laptop has the internet connection. So the routine is to download the pictures and "fix" them on the old one (which is so old it cannot be moved - literally - or it freaks out, and the usb port is wrecked so it has to sit in a big docking station on my dining room table) then move them to a flash drive and put them on the new laptop that I can take somewhere and connect to the internet. (Gave up my land line long ago.) This is all because I'm a disorganized mess and can't find the damn cd that came with my camera. I tried downloading the software from Nikon, but it doesn't want to unzip because I don't have the folders it wants. Gah! I should also mention that both of these laptops belong to my office and I shouldn't be putting pictures on them anyway. I'm going to get my own someday... I swear!

So, anyway, I'm knitting lots of green stuff for Project Spectrum, all of which were WIPs except for Backyard Leaves from Scarf Style. And Knitorious has Lornas Laces so I had to get some of that and I'm going to try to do 2 toe-up socks at the same time on circs. I'm a little intimidated, so if someone wants to meet up at a Starbucks or something and get me started, that would be worth lots more than the price of a latte to me. I'm fine with dpns, but the idea of getting both socks finished at the same time is pretty enticing.

This Sunday I'm meeting up with some other spinners/knitters/bloggers and I'm really excited about it. My Saturday group has lost its lustre for me - the people I really liked don't seem to go anymore and the people that I don't like always seem to be there (except November!!! kiss kiss) so it will be nice to go knitting without having my being shredded for someone else's pleasure and self-rightous ego-trip. (Long story that I'll spare you. She doesn't like me. She doesn't have the self control not to display it. I'm tired of it.) But Christina, Joselyn, Davina, Elizabeth, Amanda - if you ever show up let me know!! There are lots of people who are probably perfectly nice, but since I so rarely go now I don't know them very well. I'm seriously thinking of starting a thing at my place where we can relax and drink martinis and watch movies and just hang out and knit rather than subject ourselves to the kinder-care-from-hell that Hartford is on a Saturday. Or we could just sit on the couches at The Famous Bar and let John take great care of us. Hmmm. There's no vacuuming involved in that scenario....

Anyway, just wanted to check in. I broke my toe on Sunday and I'm feeling a little down, what with the pain and the limping and all, and reading other people's blogs is always fun and interesting to me, and I feel a little guilty that I hadn't updated for a while. Pictures next time, I promise.

I took this short video in Pisac, which is one of the little towns I visited in Peru last November. This woman was sitting near the entrance to the market with 3 or 4 generations of the women of her family, she being the matriarch. They make a living by posing for pictures in their traditional costumes and accepting tips from photographers.

It's sideways because this was the first time that I'd used the video capabilities of my digital camera, and I didn't know that I wouldn't be able to change the orientation.

Enjoy! If you like this, I may have a few more.

That's all I've got. I was searching for a knitting book last night and couldn't find it in the stacks of precarious disorder in my "craft corner" so I pulled it all out and redid it. It is, no exaggeration, the only clean and organized spot in my entire apartment.

On the top are all my chess games (modern, chinese, japanese and the pieces for Korean) and my Go stones and board, the middle is knitting and beading (I do that when my arm hurts too much to knit) and the bottom is ... more knitting. There is an entire separate small chest of drawers for my counted cross-stitch stuff in another room, but I hardly do that anymore. (I still buy the patterns, though.) Where's the stash? In a big wicker hamper in my bedroom. Yarn sorted by type in zippable sweater bags. Of course, my room is such a mess I can't get to the hamper without climbing over 6 other things....

Hmm. That top shelf looks crooked, doesn't it? It didn't look that way to me when I took the picture. Let's all hope I don't come home to two kitties batting go stones and chess pieces all over the floor.

Unlike a book, where you can pick it up and open it to wherever you left off and just go on reading, picking up a knitting project that you haven't touched in so long that you don't recognize the poor thing is a little difficult. Fletching is made from 10 repeats of a 32 row pattern, and if you didn't mark what row you were on, say, last August, it's a little tricky to get back into.

I really love it, though. I mean, LOVE. Like, I may wear it to bed the day that I finish it. I have plans for another in a brick red color (and a different pattern.)

When I picked it up again it reminded me of the Japanese Festival and sumo wrestlers. Why? You know why. Because that's what was around me the last time I had it out. And it reminds me of the moment when I realized that the cup holder in the arm of my folding chair is the perfect size to hold a ball of Cotolino. This is only exciting to knitters, yes, but if you've ever chased a ball across grass in a crowd of a few hundred people, then you realize my joy in not having done just that. Now it also reminds me of meeting Anna and seeing the Yarn Harlot in person. I wonder what else it will remind me of before it's finished.

No, not the doll. The girl. Woman. Whatever. (I did have one of those dolls, though. Did you? My copy-me-always little sister had one too, so the "suspension of disbelief" that is necessary to think that your doll is unique just wasn't there for me.) Anyway, I think she's really funny. She posts to her Livejournal a couple times a day and she cracks me up all the time. She writes with this wacky, stream of consciousness kinda style that makes me laugh so much. Since I have no knitting or mouse news to report today, I thought I'd share a little of her special view of life. These are some of my favorite snippets from the last few months:

I was cleaning out the cabinets yesterday for my corelle dishes. I'm going to use them as our main dishes & put the fiesta dishes away for special occasions. I collect seamist green fiesta ware & my color has been discontinued. I may start mixing it up, but for now they'll live in the cabinet that no one can reach w/out standing on a chair. And who wants to do that? Anyway, I was pulling food out of the cabinet that I'm going to put the corelle dishes in & I grabbed a bag of popcorn kernels. No wait, make that an open bag of popcorn kernels. The bag tilted & I spilled popcorn kernels everywhere. EVERYWHERE!! They're inside the rice cooker. In the motor. I cant use that anymore. Turn it on & popcorn will start popping & then start a fire. My kitchen will burn & I'll burn right along with it. The husband will manage to get out w/the babies, but he'll be too depressed to take care of them. Plus, he'll be homeless. The babies will end up in a shelter & get adopted by someone w/creepy kids that will be mean to them. Its all so awful! All because someone couldn't be bothered to use a motherfucking twistix!! Or maybe I'll just slip on a stray kernel & break a bone. Then I'll miss work & we'll all starve. Sigh. There's just no happy ending here.

I need a shelf in the kitchen for my cook books. I was keeping them on the bar but the bookends aren't strong enough & the books keep falling over & almost breaking dishes. Side note: my bookends are these awesome little green marble ti ki guys. I got them at an estate sale for like $8. They're the only bookends I've found that I like but they are not doing the job. Anyway, back to my complaining. I've got all my cookbooks stacked into piles on the bar stools & I know they are going to fall all over the floor & get ruined. I collect old cookbooks & I just dont know how well they'll stand up to a 3 foot drop. Or how ever tall the bar stools are. I can never tell how big anything is. God help me if I get robbed. I'll be trying to identify the bad guy & give the cops all terrible information. Then the guy will start stalking me & break into my house & kill me. Except that he wont really have to break in, he'll just use the keys that he got when he grabbed my purse. All of a sudden I'm just another south side statistic. But I digress. My cookbooks need a nice shelf to live on. I want a shelf that I can hang on the wall because a bookshelf just wont work. A. I have no room for a book shelf in the kitchen & B. cookbooks come in all crazy sizes. Some are enormous coffee table book sized & others would fit in the back pocket of your jeans. I have a number of binders too. Better Homes & Gardens loves to put out binders that wont fit anywhere on any book shelf ever made. Sucks.

OMG! I cant believe I forgot to tell you guys! I saw a satanist at the grocery store!! It was on Friday. He came in while I was in line. He was probably 50 or 60 or so. He was wearing a long black robe, a black button up, a black jacket, black pants, black shoes, & a really creepy cross around his neck. Not a normal cross or crucifix, it was different. It almost looked like an iron cross, but it wasn't. He also had a ponytail & a goatee. Totally a satanist. I wonder what he bought? What would creepy satanist dudes eat? Plums, steaks, crusty loaves of bread, wine, grapes, veal, lamb, duck, wild rice, & mushrooms. I like to think that he's all creepy on the outside but when he's at home he likes to eat fruity pebbles & watch Benny Hill in his pajamas.

Now I'm watching Jaws. Jaws is the scariest movie I've ever seen. *shivers* Sharks terrify me. Fish in general scare me to death, but especially sharks. Oh my god! There is no reason to ever get into a lake or an ocean. I have a deal with the sharks though, they dont start swimming down Gravois & I wont go swimming in their neighborhood. Deal? Deal! Fuckin Jaws man! "Shark in the pond! Shark in the pond!" OhmygodIcantlook! Ohgoditjustatethatdudethosethingsarefuckingreal!!! Ugh.. Ok Mandy, walk it off. Rub some dirt on it. Its just a movie. But its not just a movie! There are monsters in the water! For real prehistoric giant fucking monsters in the water! I am NOT cool with that. I think we should wipe sharks off the planet. Fuck the ecosystem. I want peace of mind.

Hanging from Maggie's mouth. Its head lolling from the other side. Mitsy right behind her announcing the victory. Both tails up high and straight like parade flags. The prey had been captured, the enemy vanquished, the toy-that-moves-by-itself was theirs.

Me? Oh, I was just standing naked in the shower, toweling off, screaming, "No no no no no no no no no no no no don't you dare drop that in this tub!" Then I realized that this was behavior that I actually need to reinforce, what with the stash and all, so I said, "Good kitty. Now, go...elsewhere with it." Big green eyes just looking at me, like, "Huh?" The tail moved. "Aaaaaaaahhhhhh!" A flick of the towel was a little clearer to her walnut-sized brain. So off they went, a skip in their steps, to play with their toy. By the time I was dressed they were looking for it again. Oh, joy.