survival of the fittest

That's what this last weekend at work was. But I made it through.

I'm spending tonight getting my house to look like less of a wreck than it currently is. That'll include clearing off the dining room table, finishing the dishes, and possibly vacuuming. I may ply the CMF roving that's been sitting in singles since last week. Or I could finish the square I'm knitting or finish off the first Borg Queen sock. And, of course, I need to go get groceries.

Or I may just sleep.

Gearing up

Getting ready for another long work weekend. This will be the last one before I'll have to start wearing the navy blue scrubs to work. Five more nights of fun scrubs, then the depression will set in. I've already decided that next Thursday I'm going to wear my hot pink scrubs with my "Rupert" jacket (named for one of my favorite Survivor contestants who always wore tie-dye). It's gonna be bright and loud and I'm gonna go out with a bang.

Went out the the Roots 2007 vendors in Blair and walked around with Eliza. Ended up buying way more than I was planning to, and there was a lot of squeeing and whooping going on between the two of us. Especially when we found the booth with the Fleece Artist. We both ended up doing a lot of damage and I'm sure if I wasn't working this weekend I'd go back and do more.

The latest RSC kit came Thursday and I'm very happy with it. The pattern is lovely and this is the first kit of this year where I'm not disappointed in the yarn. These are gonna be some bright socks.

I suppose I'd better go and finish up laundry for the week. Phoebe's knocked out on the floor right now and I'm tempted to join her. My sleep schedule has been completely screwed up this week. Then next weekend, I'm headed to Des Moines for my aunt's 60th birthday and a yarn crawl for Mom and I.

Here they are

The pictures I promised.



First is one that I'd even forgotten was on the camera. Deawn had found these Hello Kitty keychains and made dpn holders out of them. Here she is doing her best Barker's Beauties impression.





Next up are some of the squares I've knit for Project Greensburg that I linked a few posts ago.





And now for the backyard. There are a lot of pictures folks. You've been warned.



We'll start off with pre-sod removal. All that green you see that's not within 3 feet of the fence? Yeah....that would be mutant dandelions and thistles and some yet unidentified weed. Oh yeah....and my garden. All the green stuff in the rocks by the house? More weeds.













Now for the post-sod removal pics. This took three guys the better part of a day to do by hand. My yard was a barren wasteland, but it was a great improvement from the weeds.













And the note from the head landscaper guy....too late since they'd already pulled up the grass that was under the deck, so now I've got a mudpit underthere. I'm foreseeing some tilework in my near future. It says "No Sod Under Deck" in case you can't make it out.





Finally, the almost completely backyard. This is the sight that greeted me when I got home from work Friday morning. Evidently, they underestimated how much sod it would take to cover my whole backyard and they left me with this blank patch until Monday.





The yard is now complete and I'm watering the heck out of it. I've got one of those sprinkler tractors that moves itself, so that's nice. The landscape people said that for the first two weeks at least, I need to keep the backyard "squishy". Their word, not mine. Well, it's squishy.....I'm almost scared to see what my water bill is going to be.



And I forgot to tell my funny story. I tried to kill a fellow nurse with wool. Barb, my co-worker that taught to knit socks, had finished her first pair in Opal Rainforest Caterpillar. She was so excited that she put the socks on, then started winding her next skein into a ball. Harley (her overweight cat) got so excited by the sight of so much string that he pounced on it and made a royal mess. Barb gave up and went to bed, still wearing her new wool socks. The next day, her legs were covered with welts and bruises. Turns out that she's got a wool allergy. So she greeted me at work with "You tried to kill me. Thanks." Oops! But I've got her hooked on knitting, so I'm trying to find yarns she can work with. She can't use anything with elastic in it either (latex allergy), so she may have to switch off of socks. I'm going to buy her a copy of No Sheep for You. She gave me the tangled skein of CTH and another whole skein and just told me to call it a teaching fee. I'll probaby spend all night tonight finishing untangling.

It's done!!!...and a loss

I have a yard!!!!! The landscaper people came back today while I was sleeping and finished off the last 10 feet or so along my fence, so I now have a full backyard of grass (minus the underdeck area that they weren't supposed to take up but did).

The parents were here this weekend and we did a bunch of putzy stuff around the house. Namely, redid the inner workings of the other toilet (without a recurrence of the exploding toilet we had last time), fixed the plunger in the bathroom sink, put up a tomato cage in my garden, broke out the watering tractor and watered the heck out of my new sod, and Dad used the new powersprayer to stain my backyard fence. The deck will get stained the next time they come down to visit if I can find the stain.

Saturday afternoon/evening, a couple of losses almost happened. I spotted my dad's dog, Cozy, coming up the stairs with something red and fibery hanging out of her mouth. It was a piece of roving....my CMF roving that was still attached to the spinning wheel. She had DECIMATED close to 3 oz of the roving that I still had left to spin. I screamed, the dog ran, and that dog was very lucky my dad was there, or she would have been very dead. I was able to salvage most of the fiber and finished spinning it up last night. It was a pain in the butt, but it did get done. Now I just need to ply it.

I think that's it. I promise promise promise that I'll have pictures of the progression in the backyard tomorrow. I'm just too lazy to walk all the way out to the dining room and get my camera right now.

dirt

That's what I've got in my backyard at the moment.

The landscaper guys I hired to re-sod the backyard finally came today. I think they've spent most of the day 1)cutting what was left of the backyard into strips with and insanely loud machine right outside my bedroom window while I was trying to sleep, and 2)using SHOVELS to pull up the strips, put them in wheelbarrows and take them to a truck that's blocking my driveway.

So I can't leave the house, or let the puppy out since the backyard is her domain and she refuses to pee in the front yard. I may just force her to, but she hates change.

That reminds me....I need to email E and tell her I may be late tonight because of the giant truck of dead grass that's blocking me in.

But at least all of this will lead into a backyard with real grass (not giant dandelions and thistles and other unidentifiable weeds) and maybe a knitting group party later this summer.

Off to bake and try to make myself presentable or at least less smelly.

a night off...

...and then it's back to the saltmines. It rained again right before I got up this afternoon, so I wasn't able to mow down the weeds in the backyard like I wanted to.

I've spent the night knitting on squares for the Rebuilding Greensburg project. I mentioned this on the latest Lime &Violet podcast and just wanted to get the link up somewhere since I didn't have it with me at the time. I posted a comment on Laura's blog to give her a heads-up and got an email back. She said she hadn't had time to contact any podcasters about a plug for the project yet, so she was grateful we had mentioned it. But she's not an LnV listener! She told me she knew that would catch up to her someday, so hopefully this is the kick in the pants she needs to get her going.

I'm off to knit some more squares, watch my netflix movies that have been collecting dust for 2 weeks, and maybe start spinning the other half of my CMF roving. Is it crazy talk that I'm actually debating whether or not to contact the CMF people and let them know I'm interested in spinning their Sock Hop yarn?! I quizzed Minnie all about it last Thursday, but I don't know if I'm good enough yet or not. Hmmm....something more to ponder.

ewww....

I just had the night of poo at work....


.....and I'm not talking Winnie the.