bits and pieces

I did a little more rock moving today. Got a second piece of ground cloth down, but don't have it completely covered with rock yet. The whole process would be quicker with a wheelbarrow, but I'm too cheap to go out and buy one. Plus now I'm working on the part of the rocks where a lot of weeds have been growing so I'm having to pick through the rocks by hand rather than just scoop them up with a shovel.

After I came inside, I sat down to watch Deadliest Catch and knit a little. Managed to turn the heel of the second monkey sock in Purple Rain STR. Now I think I'm going to go pick up the stitches and start the gusset before I get back to studying for my rehab nursing certification.

A night of things getting done

Since this is my one day off out of 6, I had a bunch of stuff that needed to be done. I dragged my sorry butt out of bed about 4, and headed outside. I got my front and backyards mowed and all the grass picked up there. Then I came inside and did laundry so I'll have something to wear tonight for work.

I had finished my Chanticleer RPMs at work Sunday night and I have a co-worker who's expecting a little boy, so I sat down tonight and started a pair of baby socks out of the leftovers of the Chanticleer. One sock is done and the second one is cast-on.

I also put my Johnny Cash/June Carter scarf in some Soak wash so I could block it. It's now pinned out and drying and this coming weekend I'll be able to get some pictures of it. Then NotScarlett can get off my back about posting pictures! (just kidding)

I'll get pics of the RPMs and the baby socks as well.

Before I go to bed this morning, I'm going to make some cheesy potato soup in the slow-cooker and that should be wonderful when I get up in the afternoon. Yum!

I wonder...

....if I'm coming down with something. I don't feel sick or anything, but it's just this feeling I'm getting. I worked Thursday night and didn't have to be in to work last night, so I didn't set my alarm. I went to be about 10:30 or so and woke up at 5:30. Six hours of sleep...not bad. Talked to my parents, went back in my room with every intention of showering and getting some errands run. Instead, I collapsed facedown on my bed and slept until 10:30 PM. Lovely. Errands didn't get run, but I feel great now!

On the plus side, I finished the Green Blanket of Dooooom!!!! It's completely done, ends woven in and everything. I'll put up pictures later when the sun's actually up. I ended up not using the last two colors I had bought for the blanket, but I figure that there's enough there to make myself a pair of felted slippers.

Now for todays' to-do list!
- Shower....I feel like a greaseball. DONE!!!
- Run errands to the Apple Store, the bank, Walmart (contacts) and the grocery store. Grocery store isn't exactly critical since I'll be gone for about the next two weeks, but I need a few staples to make it through until I leave. DONE!!!
- Mow the lawn. It's supposed to be almost 80 today so I'm hoping the grass will dry out enough for me to mow down the jungle. DONE!!!
- Haul out the suitcases and make a packing list. I'm going to have to pack 2 suitcases....one for the conference and one for my parents.

I think that's enough for one day. Off to shower and knit some more.

another one down the toilet

....or the storm sewer. Had planned on mowing my lawn today since it wasn't supposed to rain until tonight. But when I ran out to the mailbox it started sprinkling.....then it rained....then the power flickered....then it thundered loud enough to shake the house several times. All of which adds up to the fact that the jungle is going to be completely soaked and I won't be able to mow it today. I'm hoping this rain will let up some so I can at least mow the front yard so I won't feel so bad when I compare my yard to the neighbors' perfectly manicured lawns. I'm so ready to just hire someone to do the mowing for me.

And the green blanket is into the 6th stripe. I think there'll be a total of 9 if I end up using all the colors. I've got plenty of time to get this done. No problems. Especially with the weekend off and a stack of movies to watch.

To-do list for the weekend:
-do a general pick-up around the house
-finish the dishes
-mow (at least the front yard)
-go to the Apple store and get a new ipod
-go to Borders while I'm out
-try to get two more stripes knit on the green blanket
-swatch for the 5 secret projects that I've got to get going on


.....and I think that should be enough.

Up in the sky! It's a bird, it's a plane, it's.....

Super Monkey sock!!!


I hurried into the backyard to get a better view and what do I see? A pair of Super Monkeys!!!


This was Cookie A's Monkey pattern from knitty.com. These were done in Cider Moon Icicle in the Superman colorway. And the sky was too perfect not to take advantage of cheeseball pictures. Yep....got some weird looks from the neighbors too as I was lying on my back on the ground and trying to take pictures of my feet up in the air. Oh well. They already think I'm weird. May as well perpetuate the myth.

Finally!!!!

Several finally's actually.

First is the fact that I finally mowed my lawn after leaving it for the last week and a half. In my neighborhood that pretty much a sacrilege. But it's not my fault. This is what I woke up to every day for the last 10 days.


I was actually dodging rain drops as I took that picture. It seemed like every day I had off of work, it was raining. So the jungle grew. But now it's been tamed. I may go over it again on Wednesday just to chop up the clods of wet grass that will have dried by then.

Another finally is this.


That's my first Super Monkey sock which is actually completed. I've cast on for the second one, but my knitting time has been eaten up by other things. This is Cider Moon Icicle in Superman done in the Monkey pattern by Cookie A.

Had a great visit this afternoon with Eliza and Michele (biblioknitter). Met up with them at Personal Threads and I actually was able to walk away with nothing. That may have been because I was still half asleep after working the weekend and only sleeping four hours. A stop at Starbucks definetely revved me up and got my brain working in overtime. Now my head is ready to explode. Thanks E!

I just finished watching Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Time to grab some food and settle in for The Illusionist. Then I can get some sleep just to get up for work tonight.

HOT!!!!

That would be me.....and I don't mean visually, I mean temperature wise.

I woke up this afternoon and just knew that I had to get outside and mow. I haven't mowed my backyard in about 2 1/2 weeks and it was turning into a jungle. And all my neighbors (except that lady who lives next door) are hypervigilant about mowing their lawns every other day to a specific height. I think the guy on the corner was former military or something because I never see him out mowing (or hear him), but his lawn is always mowed to exacting precision. Then there's mine. I actually mowed just my front lawn last Thursday so they couldn't start to complain about the state of the weeds. My backyard is fenced so they can't see!

So outside I went. It's probably 99 outside with heat index of 115 or something. I'm just dripping. Forget about pulling out the weed wacker to get the edges. They can grow. So my front and back yards are mowed, and now I'm inside dripping sweat and contemplating what to drink to replace the gallon of fluids I just lost outside. I'm thinking lemonade. Yeah....that sounds good.

Weekend to-do list

Have to keep track of it somewhere!

1. Pull/spray weeds in the yard DONE!!

2. Mow DONE!!!

3. Knit on something (borg queen sock, Greensburg squares, start koigu chevron or MS3). DONE (borg sock is on the heel flap now, and two squares were finished)

4. Finish laundry

5. Spray/stain fence and deck. DONE (minus about half the deck that will be done by hand later this week when the weather cools down)

I think that's going to be it. I don't want to overdo it and then be disappointed when the weekend is over and I haven't got stuff done.

In other news.....I picked my first cucumber and green pepper out of my garden today!!! The tomatos are still green, but I've got about 12 of them growing. The rhubarb just keeps getting bigger and bigger, but isn't really turning red. And my 5 little strawberry plants that survived (out of 10) are starting to put out runners!!!

Mom and Dad just called and they should be here in 20 minutes or so. Guess I'll go put another load of laundry in before they get here.

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.