Avec le coton

Fever..........

You give me fever, when you kiss me
Fever when you hold me tight.
Fever, in the morning,
Fever all though the night.

Actually we had this kind of fever in our house last night and today.

The little one has a fever, but no other symptoms of anything but a headache last night.  We went to the doctor and got a prescription for Tamiflu to be taken of she starts developing any symptoms.  She has been acting completely normal all day today (no, I didn't go to work), so I don't think there is much to worry about.

I gotta tell you though, it is weird being home all day....or most of the day.  Especially when John is downstairs shouting into the phone all day and I have to entertain the youngster.  If you don't know, the market had its biggest one day drop since Sept '01...and it wasn't the best day of trading at the House of Coton.

I did have my second visit with the acupuncturist.  Holy crap.  She really took it easy on me the first time.  OUCH!  I do know that due to where she has to place the needles...the pain is much more severe than if she was doing my back or shoulder.

I also received pretty much all the packages I was waiting on....except for the Blue Moon Fiber Arts package and the KMKS swap package which is either not coming or coming on a slooooooow boat....here are the spoils.

Yep, is it a LOT of stuff.  But hey, that is why I work....so I don't have to feel guilty when I buy things I want!  Notice the CASES of Girl Scout cookies in the background!

Here are some close ups of the yarn...I had some good light.   Left to right - Colinette Jitterbug sock yarn - Mardi Gras Colorway, MamaE's Sock yarn - Winter Tundra colorway - Brooklyn Handspun - Winter Tundra colorway, and Duet Sock yarn  - Army Girl colorway.

Then comes Punk Pink - from Scout's Swag 60% Merino, 30% Bamboo, 10% Nylon sock yarn (this was the February installment of swag) - the next one is sock yarn from Sceintilly Clad in the Nightline colorway, then the February installment from the Posh sock club - Kiss Me.  Also two skeins of Lisa Souza sock yarn - Violet's Pink Ribbon and Can't Elope.

In my order from Paradise Fibers, I got this... to make the Fiber Trends clogs.  The pink was a second...and I just told the owner to send me a dark brown that looked good next to the pink.  I love getting surprised with great color combos.

Some of the other items are the 4 Barbara Walker Treasury books, the Victorian Lace book, and yarn meter, a sweater stone (hopefully this will help tame the hairy bag)...and which I also found at the Container Store.  I also purchased some more Knit Picks circulars in tiny sizes with the Chart Keeper.

All in all, a good haul.

A few updates

On the carpal tunnel front, the accupuncture seems to be helping.  I have two other appointments this coming week...so we will see.  I have already decided that I will be knitting on Wednesday night.

On the knitting group front....we are changing our venue from Borders to the new Starbucks down the street.  I had to run by there for a second time today, as they forgot something in my order when I ran through the drivethru between hockey games.

It turns out the manager is a newbie knitter and is excited to have us at her store.  She is reserving a spot for us...and is willing to sponsor us if we want to do any other events on weekends or such.  She has been trying to put together a Sip n Stitch for awhile.

I received one of the many packages I was waiting for....I think I will wait to post them all together.  It should be a fun picture!  Still no kmks swap package though.

I picked up 12 cases of Girl Scout cookies this afternoon.....YIKES!  So, if you ordered cookies from my daughter.....then you will get them this week.

Banned!

I saw the acupuncturist today.  Since I can't type well one handed....I won't go into much detail.  It was about what I expected as far as pain...not too, too bad.  No tears.

I have been banned from knitting, housework, laundry, shovelling, exercise classes that involve lifting or bending my hand too much - including spinning, pretty much anything that will put stress on my wrist, thankfully, the eliptical is ok.  I am supposed to wear my brace pretty much 24/7.  She would have liked me to not use the computer, but has just said no computer other than work.  I see her again on Tuesday and Saturday.

She also told me I should be getting massages on a regular basis (I like this lady!) and gave me a bunch of exercises to do with my hands while I am at work.

Basically, she is working to loosen up my joints and muscles in my shoulder, elbow, and hand and doesn't want me to undo any of the her work.

I am bummed about the knitting, I was ready to turn the heel on the socks...and had planned on working on the bag on Sunday...but it will just have to wait.  Since I am hoping to avoid another surgery by doing this, I want to give it every chance.  Don't worry though, I will be at group!

News from home. Uh-oh!

Ok, so I don't really care that I turn 43 on Monday.  It is just a number after all, and most days I still think I am 33.

I have lived here for almost 20 years...and I really don't feel like I ever lived in Iowa....but sometimes.......

I was talking with my mom today, and she wasn't terribly happy with me since the kids and I cannot go visit them in March as I was trying to plan.  I'd argue with her about the number of times she took my brothers and I to see my grandparents...but what would be the point?

So out of the blue, she says "I have some news."  (This usually means someone has died...usually someone I don't know.)  She then tells me that a girl that I babysat when I was 11 yrs old...

IS GOING TO BE A GRANDMOTHER!  Yes, you read that correctly.  Holy shit!

That makes the girl I babysat 32 yrs old and her 16 yr old daughter is pregnant. Like mother, like daughter.

Holy Internet Shopping, Batman!

Uh, oh.

I was feeling a bit irritated that my birthday wish list has been obviously ignored...so I went and did a bit of internet shopping.

I may have gotten carried away.  I have packages coming from:

Knit Picks, Paradise Fibers, Velona Needlearts, and some destash blogger.Edited to add...also a package from Lisa Souza, and one from A Swell Yarn Shop.  SHIT!

Not to mention this months package from Scout, STR and another from Brooklyn Handspun.

Ok, so I don't feel guilty.  Can you imagine if they all came on the same day?!?!?

Comcastic?!?!?

I think not.  We have been having problems with our phone service since we switched to Comcast's digital service.  Yesterday we woke to no phones or internet. 

Not a huge problem for me, but since John trades electronically....HUGE problem!

John calls Comcast and they finally tell him that in the past 8 days we lost service 1982 times.  Do the math, it was losing connection about every 5-6 seconds.

This morning, still no phone or internet.  Thankfully, we have a couple of neighbors whose wireless internet is not secure....so John is spending his time finding other ISP's and a possible T-1 connection.  Unfortunately, we can't switch to SBC as our service with them was even worse.  We used to lose phone service every time it rained....it turns out SBC's lines were on the outside of the phone cable and rain would short them out.  Nice, huh?

Happy Fat Tuesday!

We celebrated tonight with a wonderful dinner of Scallops, spicy rice, and Crab Legs.  YUM!

Now, I don't normally give up anything for lent.  I used to try, but I don't think I have ever made it all the way through lent and not done/eaten/drank whatever it was that I was giving up.  One of the things that I learned last year teaching Sunday School (I know!) was that doing something good for yourself or others is also a great way to celebrate lent.

So, I have decided that I will vow, for Lent, to hit the gym a minimum of 4 times a week.  I have been having a hard time with this -mostly due to the frigid weather, but since that seems to be over, there isn't any issue with getting up even earlier to warm up the car.  Seriously, 5am is bad enough, but 4:30am is NUTS!  In reality, I will be giving up a bit of sleep...but still.

Oh, and Alyssa, the fact that you blogged yesterday at work just proves my point!

Holidays and blogging

So, I had to work today....on a National Holiday.  I noticed something quite interesting....no one was blogging.  So what, you all blog at work and had the day off?  You leave me with nothing to do but work?  And since I was doing nothing more important than reconciling stock and municipal bond accounts....you could see how I would need some stimulation?

Today, I downloaded the preliminary class brochure for Stitches Midwest.  It is exciting to think that it is only 5.5 months away!  I have knit exactly three skeins of the yarn I purchased last year.  But I still get to pet the rest.  :-)

Today's fun!

After having the worst winter ever for having your own ice rink....I give you today's fun - FINALLY!

and a bit more

At one point, I think we had at least ten people on the ice.  The kids had fun, the parents had some beer, and a good time was had by all!

No knitting was done.  I still haven't figured out how to knit outside in 28 degree weather.  After a few weeks of sub-zero weather, 28 felt down right balmy!  They are forecasting upper 30s for tomorrow and in the 40s for Tuesday-Thursday.  As long as it gets below freezing overnights, we should still be ok.

Yesterday, Liz and I took a purse finishing class at Three Bags Full.  Take a look at Liz's bag.  It is FABULOUS!  Actually, all of the others had really great bags.  I'd post a picture of mine...but it isn't finished yet.  After the class I had to race home to get the family ready to go to a big Armenian Mardi Gras party.  There were 410 people at this dance.  It was a hoot, but by 10:30 the little one was DONE and she said to me "Mama, I need my bed."

Not only is my bag not finished, I plan on ripping out the entire lining.  I had decided that I wanted a lot of pockets in the lining, because lets face it, I NEED a lot of pockets.  The instructor of the class and I discussed the ways of adding pockets and I decided to add two strips as wide as the bag to attach to the lining, and I ended up with 6 pockets of varying sizes on each side.  The problem is that I don't like the pockets as they are at the bottom of the bag.  While I might be a tad picky, but I don't want to have to shove my hand all the way to the bottom to find something.  I am going to rip out the pockets and add a new pocket strip to both sides.  After that point, I still have to sew in the zipper and attach the handles.  Since I forgot the camera to chronicle the class, I plan on taking pictures of the entire process of lining the bag.  While I have sewed practicallty my entire life...I have never made anything of great worth without a pattern.  I gotta tell you, this was different.  Susie, the instructor, gave us just a few tips...which were so easy, and SO worthwhile.   The turning of a corner trick alone was worth the $25 class fee!

The store owner was teaching a glove making class at the same time and she asked me some questions about my bag.  When I told her what kind of bag, I also told her the problem I had....and she roller her eyes knowingly.  She made a comment that it wasn't the first time.  Interesting.

Birthday Dinner

John's birthday is February 22nd and mine is February 26th.  Rather than do two big dinners, we combine the two and do dinner sometimes alone, and sometimes with the kids and my in-laws, and occaisionally my best friend from college and his wife.

I need ideas from the local girls for a place for dinner on Monday the 26th.  I don't really want to do anything in the Glen as I am doing dinner there on the Friday the 23rd.  Kind of thinking PF Changs, or possibly the Davis Street Fish Market.  I would love to do Liz's sushi place, but my MIL and FIL don't eat sushi.

Hmmm, I am watching Izzy drill into someone's head right now....that and food don't really go together.