Tangled Threads and Seaweed

Finished Socks!

 

Blackrose from Knitty winter 2008 issue (online knitting mag), knit in Knit Picks Essential Kettle Dyed yarn in "wine". Easy and fun! These fit me, womens' size 6.5 and I think they would comfortably fit up to a size 8 foot, as they are not stretched at all on me.  I knit 8 pattern repeats on the leg and 9 pattern repeats on the foot. These were knit on 64 stitches on size 2 DPNs, no modifications to the pattern.  :)

 

 

TGIF

Its been a long week. I am so glad its over. We had a slow, slow week at work, and I am not good at looking busy. I'm not a pencil-pusher or a paper-shuffler. I didn't realize how the slowdown of the economy could affect a chemical company, but we're involved in the auto-related industries among other things, so obviously its in a downturn. Hopefully next week will be better.  

Pushing On

I told myself this evening, "shut up and knit" and that's what I did. I'm closing in on the toe of the Blackrose sock #2, and will finish it tomorrow evening. I got a LOT of good knitting done while watching TV tonight, and I feel like I've had a weight lifted from my shoulders. Its a mental block that I have to get past as I knit socks; I love the cast-on and knitting the reps on the first sock, because I like seeing it grow and the pattern develop. I plod through whatever heel I've decided to work on sock #1, and then buzz right through the foot. Whee, one sock is finished! Hurry and cast on sock #2 before I lose my mojo, then the love wanes while I'm knitting the leg. I've already seen how it works out on sock #1, so there's no surprises there. The heel on sock #2 always goes smoother and faster than sock #1, then its a breeze once I get through the gusset decreases. I'm halfway through the foot of sock #2 so I'm stoked to get this one finished and kitchenered. 

I've set some "Ravelry sock knitting goals" this year. I'm in two knit-alongs (KALs) on Rav and I intend to knit a pair that will satisfy the monthly challenge for these groups each month of 2009. Most of the time, I can make one pair that qualify for both groups at the same time. One group is knitting with a solid color, with a color designated for each month. The other group has a choice between a designated designer's patterns, a mystery pattern, or a specific technique that must be used. The Solid Socks group specified burgundy, gray, or black for the month of January. The Sock Knitters Anonymous group designated knitting a mystery pattern by a selected designer or using a pattern from any online publication in January. The Blackrose socks were published in Knitty.com winter 2008, and by knitting them in wine/burgundy yarn, they qualify for both groups. I'd like to knit more than one pair of socks each month, but I'm not going to pressure myself. There are so many cool sock patterns available that it shouldn't be difficult to play along in these KALs.

With that in mind, be watching for pink socks in February!  :)

Dog Hair!

I am SO TIRED of dog hair. OMG. It is everywhere. I have to brush my chair every day, I sweep, I groom the dogs (and the cat) every day, and still.  It floats in the air, settling in places that I don't want it to be. 

I washed my hand-knit socks tonight and they all have some black dog hairs in them! Grrr. I try to never walk on the carpets in my socks so I don't pick up hair on the socks. I'm irked anyway because I don't think my washer spins the water out of my socks well enough. It takes a couple days for them to air dry. So tonight, I made sure they were rinsed well, and put the superwash socks in the dryer on low for 20 minutes, and the  100% merino socks are hanging on a rack in the bathroom to dry. By the way, that makes me just a bit testy too, because I NEVER use heat (in the washer) and I never dry my 100% merino socks in the dryer, yet two pairs of them have shrunk to the point of being marginally too small.

Can you tell I'm just a big ol' cranky pants tonight? 

I'm tired of cold weather, tired of big electric bills, tired of my husband being gone (he'll be home late, late tonight), tired of not eating real food (who cooks just for themself?), tired of trying to balance the checkbook, tired of not being able to go out with the dogs (cold and windy), tired of getting error messages when I boot up my computer (ever since the last Windows critical update was installed) (thankyouverymuch Bill Gates), tired of thinking about my job when I'm trying to go to sleep at night (after just 3 days back at work!), tired of not wanting to knit (and I pride myself on never being "bored"), and tired of there never being enough hours in the day to do everything. And I am tired of DOG HAIR.

As my sister says, "I don't want solutions, I just want some sympathy...."  

Don't worry - tomorrow I'll be fine. Its not PMS, its just grumpy-ness! 

Don't Make Assumptions...

So, do you ever know what you want to say, but not quite how to say it?  That's my problem today. If I was to just spit it out, I'd say "my supervisor is a boob". Basically - that covers it.  Not very nice, not PC at all, but... truth hurts sometimes.

Including me, there are four women who work for him. Without getting technical (because our work really is very technical), I'll just say we encountered an issue today involving two computer systems not communicating and were brainstorming in one woman's office about how to: a) quickly resolve the situation so we could proceed with what we needed to do, and b) identify a long-term solution so we could present it to our supervisor. The four of us were being pretty vocal about our points of view, but it was going well and we were making progress, including making a couple of calls on the speakerphone to talk to some technical people about the process. Eventually, we got everything worked out and went back to our work areas.

Even though he brags to other team leaders about how "his team" is self-directed and he never has to tell us what to do, it must not have entered his mind that we could problem-solve on our own.  He just had to go talk to one of the other women and make a snarky comment about how "we ought to be more careful about having a hen-party during working hours". WTF? You thought we were playing??? Totally uncalled-for.  We never do that, not to mention the fact that we come in early, work through breaks, stay late, cover each other's jobs (all of our jobs are unique - its not like all 4 of us do the same thing), and between the four of us we have 28 years, 21 years, 19 years, and 16 years of experience in this very department... so we do have the skills and knowledge to figure out how to fix a problem.

And don't get me started about the sexist "hen party" remark.

He got straightened out pretty quick by the lady he made that remark to, but it was overheard by a couple other people, so he ended up embarrassed and avoided us for the remainder of the day.

Even though I was irked about his lack of confidence in us, I'm not mentioning it again. Actions speak louder than words. 

I baked a chocolate cake tonight, and I'm taking it to work tomorrow. Maybe that will soothe some feelings. The piece I ate for supper made me feel pretty good!  :)

I Made it Through Monday!

Thanks to everyone who sympathized with my illness yesterday! I made it through the night and had a good day at work today. Seems like the jello and yogurt did the trick yesterday.  :)

This is what we had to deal with today:

yeah, compared to a lot of places in the country, its nothing, right? Sorry 'bout that, but this is our first (maybe only?) snowfall of the year. We normally get a couple of good (3"-5") snowfalls each winter but its been kinda dry here this year. We really need some moisture, be it snow or rain. And its darn cold! 11 degrees this morning. Brrrrr!

I'm still working on the neverending Blackrose socks. I'm nearly to the heel. Once I turn the heel, it feels like I'm home free, but until then it seems to take For-Ever. Yesterday was supposed to be a knitting day instead of a sick day. But I'm determined to finish this pair this week, so I'll be knitting tonight while watching TV. (HGTV - I'm not interested in anything on network TV tonight, and I'm tired of watching House. Its been getting kinda weird between House and Dr. Cuddy, and I miss Wilson.)

OK, then, that's it. Go forth and make beautiful things!

Sicker Than A Dog

ohmyfreakingod.

I didn't tell y'all about the supper meal we ate yesterday, mostly because I was embarrassed I at so much. Well, that came back to bite me. 

We ate at a burger place (bar & grill) and I had a cheeseburger that was made with 1/2 pound of meat. Disgraceful. Its one of those places that still lets you choose how your meat is cooked, so I asked for medium-rare, because I hate a burnt piece of meat. In addition, it was a "california" burger so it had guacomole and sour cream on it, as well as grilled onions and lettuce and tomatoes. (its making me heave just thinking about it) Oh we also split an order of hand-cut cheese fries too. Ugh. And I had 2 beers. I could barely move when we were done eating. But it was so gooood! :)

About 10:00 last night, I started having stomach pangs and gas, and spent the whole night in the bathroom, both ends going. I was sick most of today as well, but I've managed to down a couple of diet cokes and some Activia yogurt. I haven't been this sick in a long, long, long time and I couldn't find any Immodium or any Pepto-Bismol in the house, so I just suffered and slept. Ugh.

I don't know if it was:
a) a 24-hour stomach bug
b) food poisoning
c) my body rejecting all that greasy food because I don't have a gall-bladder to help digest. 

I'm personally betting on "c" because I've had a couple of minor disturbances after eating certain things, but it could have been "b". Either way, I've been eating light long enough to know better than to pig out like that. Its like when you get old enough to decide having a hangover isn't worth the partying. (that decision was made a LONG time ago) The discomfort and resulting activities are a sure deterrent to eating like that!

Blech.

Saturday Stuff

We spent the day running errands and shopping. Its been a long time since we've gone to the city to actually "shop". Joe had some business to take care of at the dive shop. He's going to Dallas next week for some training and there was paperwork to fill out.

We went to World Market and bought wine, pasta, and some Indian cooking sauces. I love World Market - they have such a variety of cool stuff. We wandered around Petco, just looking at everything. I cannot believe the variety of dog and cat foods out there. We watched a dog training class while we were there - I would say they were all puppies but they may have all just been small dogs. Their owners were all young women and girls. I thought about buying a new grooming brush for our cat but decided not to. She's needing more frequent brushings as she gets older; I guess she doesn't groom herself as well as she used to because she seems to be more matted lately. I've been working on her coat every day though. I just don't want to spend the money on a Furminator for a 15+ year old cat. I hope that doesn't make me evil!  

We also went grocery shopping at the super Wal-Mart. I dislike shopping at Wal-Mart but they have things I can't get at home, and other things that cost less than the stores at home. I don't like shopping in big crowds, and I hate trying to shop when the stockers leave those big pallet jacks in the aisles. But I got the things I was looking for and was out of there within an hour. 

I got a good bit of knitting on the Blackrose sock done while we were in the car. I've got almost all of the leg finished now - I should have this one completed sometime next week.

Back to Work

Today I returned to work. It was ok - I didn't get tired or have a bad day. I actually spent the day catching up on my overdue computer-based safety training. (I was off work for 3 months) I had plenty of time so I did all the computer-based training modules for 2009 as well! My worst problem was getting my passwords reset for my network access. They all expire after 60 days and I didn't remember my old passwords... so I had to get the IT Helpdesk involved. That took some time to get processed.  Monday I'll begin doing my own work again. 

My little ol' doggies sure did miss me today! They've been all over me this evening. They must have been really lonely.

Who Likes Chocolate?

Tonite is my bunko club night, and I'm bringing the dessert. I've been craving that yummo rich chocolate layered dessert, so that's what I'm bringing!

It is SOOO good! 

Here's the recipe:

Four-Layer Chocolate Dessert

1 cup flour
8 TBSP butter (1 stick)
1.5 cups chopped pecans
8-oz. pkg. cream cheese, softened
1.5 cups powdered sugar
12-oz. carton whipped topping, thawed
3 cups cold milk
2 large pkgs. instant chocolate pudding

1. Mix flour and butter. Add 1-1/4 c. chopped pecans (reserve 1/4 c. for topping). Press mixture into the bottom of 9"x13" baking dish.
2. Bake crust at 350 degrees F for 15 minutes. Let cool completely.
3. Cream together cream cheese, sugar, and 1 cup of whipped topping (reserving remainder for topping). Spread over cooled crust.
4. Beat together cold milk with pudding mix. Spread over cream cheese mixture. Let set until firm.
5. Spread remaining whipped topping over pudding layer. Sprinkle 1/4 c. chopped pecans over whipped topping. Refrigerate until ready to serve.

Makes 10-15 servings

This is delish!!! For those who are dieting, I make this with the fat-free cream cheese, margarine, fat-free whipped topping, and low-fat (2%) milk. Enjoy!