Some FO's

I haven't disappeared, I just got sucked into the black hole that is Ravelry. Anyone else have that problem? I joined up with some area knitters on Ravelry and have started getting together with them on the Thursdays my usual group doesn't get together. MFB and I joined a gym and we're working out at least three nights a week and it's also hockey season.

I have finished two projects and am actively working on two others. My niece who is in her second year at the University of Toronto has asked me to make her a pair of Fetchings. I made these with Cascade 220 Superwash and it is 813. I'm also working on a Farrow Rib Scarf Pattern from the Little Box of Scarves out of the same wool.

The scarf was put on hold when I realized that the Penn State Mens Ice Hockey team had their annual fund raising auction and I needed to come up with something in about two weeks time. I tried two different patterns, and then found this Kureopatora's Snake Pattern. I used Cascade 220 Wool color 8505 white and Cascade 220 Heathers color 9449 Blue. I picked these up last November on a trip to URI for a hockey weekend. The colors are a perfect match for Penn State blue and white. Loved the pattern, most people have made this with Noro, not with two different colors. Let me tell you, weaving in all the ends was a bit time consuming.

I've started my Clapotis but no decent pictures at this time.

Now on to sports:
First off is the World Series. It's the Sox vs the Rocks - Colorado Rockies that is. What the heck is happening to them in the first game? Too much time off is what I think, but I'm no baseball expert.
NFL - My Denver Broncos are not having a great year, however they did beat the Steelers on Sunday - JUST. That Jason Elam is money.
NHL - My Colorado Avalanche are doing better than MFB's Toronto Maple Leafs.

ACHA Hockey - That would be Penn State Icers who won their first four games of the season. The teams they played were ranked much lower than the Icers. The next weekend they were away on a long bus trip to Illinois. I listened to the broadcast and it was not pretty. Penn State went into the weekend ranked #1 and played the #2 ranked team. They lost both games, and the rankings flip flopped. This past weekend we hosted Ohio University Bobcats who were ranked #4 and is a long standing rivalry. Friday night we lost in a shootout and then we won Saturday.

This coming weekend we host Indiana University of Pennsylvania on Friday night and then play Scranton on Saturday and Sunday. It's a short road trip for me so I'll be making the trip with a friend and her two little girls. MFB gets to ride the bus!

Some more travel plans for me the two weekends after that. More on that later as I can't take anymore of this Rockies game. MFB just reminded me, it is the first game of the series.

2nd Finished Pair for Summer of Socks 2007

... and just in time too. SOS2007 ends this Friday at midnight, I just made it. I started these on August 15 and finished tonight. This was my first time knitting two socks at a time on two circulars. I liked the method as there's no chance of suffering from the dreaded Second Sock Syndrome.

These socks are the Wild Kat pattern by Deby Lake knit in Tofutsies color 723 "Put Your Foot Down". I cast on with 3.0mm Addi's and finished with 2.5mm Knit Picks 24" circulars. I enjoyed the pattern and the yarn has grown on me.

Next up is Fetching and a scarf for my niece while we travel to Canada this weekend, and then the Second Wave Clapotis KAL starts on Sunday.

Two weekends from now the annual "We Interrupt This Marriage for Hockey" season begins.

Knitting motivation

Wheeee!! Here's my Pomatomus Sock progress. The marker shows where I started when I decided I better get back to this fun pattern. I think I finally have my knitting motivation back. It must have gone on vacation when I did back in March. Motivation had a longer vacation then I did, that's for sure. These almost look like they are going to be identical twins, if so, how in the world did I manage it? This is made from Opal in the Petticoat colorway.

MFB is steadily healing up. He ditched the crutches a couple weekends ago for a cane and even the cane has been abandoned. When he told me the surgeon said he should try going without the removable cast boot, I asked him if he told the surgeon the advice was a week and a half too late. Now, if I can just keep him off the baseball diamond and golf course for a couple months so the sprain can heal. Bad news, we drive past both every day to and from work. Patience is required in these situations. Do I have patience? Yeah - not so much.

I love the show Boston Legal, especially William Shatner as Denny Crain. This has absolutely nothing to do with knitting but has everything to do with hockey. Tonight Denny is threatening to engrave his name on Lord Stanley's Cup! The nerve.

Batteries Recharging

Writers Block? Nah ... OK well, maybe. Twig sent me an email yesterday checking in on me and as I told her I was looking for inspiration for a post. I haven't acknowledged any comments or read any of my friends blogs. Baaad Blogger. Sorry friends.

So last night I sat down to download photos from the camera and the rechargeable batteries died in the middle of the process. Ahhhhh...inspiration. Cell phone is two years old and the battery won't hold a charge. Last time I wanted to use the bluetooth the battery was dead. Sunday I needed my Palm Pilot to take with us to make notes at MFB's favorite store, and it was - you guessed it- so dead the thing wouldn't even turn on. My internal battery has been in the same condition, seriously in need of a recharge. It seems to happen to me this time of the year, I feel unsettled if you will.

Here is what helps to get me through this.
And this.
These scenes are from about 100 yards from our home. Perfect place to go for a walk don't you think?

MFB has been really busy the past couple of weeks. About a week after I returned from Arizona he was asked to broadcast Notre Dame hockey's post season. First stop was the Joe Louis Arena in Detroit where Notre Dame won the CCHA National Championship. Next stop was Grand Rapids Michigan for the Midwest Regional NCAA Championship where Notre Dame lost the championship game. Had they won, they would have gone to the NCAA Frozen Four National Tournament. He's been doing a lot of traveling.

While MFB was in Grand Rapids I was in DC and Baltimore with family. But that's a special post for another time.

Oh Knitting? Knitting has been done, I'll post a picture soon. One of my current projects is a gift so no pictures on that for a little bit.

Off topic memo here with thanks to MFB for a great line:

Note to Mouse:

Yes I know that we evicted your family member in a violent way this winter and you probably learned by example not to show your existence inside our home. But as MFB mused this afternoon, does our front yard appear to be the Hamptons to you? Are you planning on summering here?

to be continued ....

I'm still here

I just haven't had the energy to do much blogging as my work schedule has been pretty draining the last couple of weeks. Thanks for your very nice emails checking in on me my friends, I sure appreciate it.

On the knitting front I finished the knitting of Branching Out about two weeks ago. I decided to try to block this myself, it's currently soaking in cold water in the washing machine. One of my friends from my Knit Night, waving at Billie, told me how to go about this. I'm very nervous about this so wish me luck.

I hope to finish my second Herringbone Rib Scarf from Li tonight and wear it this week and block it over next weekend.

Moving on to how I've been harassing MFB over the last month or so and how it lead to a .....well you'll see.

I've been none to subtle around home about wanting an MP3 player for a trip I'm taking to Arizona in less than two weeks. When I saw Carrie's post where she briefly mentioned a GPS that also has a MP3 player and I believe it also works with a blue tooth I thought hmmmm, portable GPS w/MP3 player - SAWEET. On our recent adventure in Delaware my harassment started to include the GPS. I've even enlisted friends to amp up the harassment. Conversations such as "If you were to buy a GPS any idea what brand you might get" or an email from friends in Canada "We just bought a Gold Wing but we decided to get one without a stereo because we thought we'd get a GPS and a MP3 player, any idea how much they are down in states?" these two instances in particular were priceless. Then during the Super Bowl there was a commercial where a guy is opening a road map which explodes in the car and I say "that wouldn't happen with a GPS" unbeknownst to me that it was a commercial for the exact GPS unit. He's been a good sport for the most part about all this - his usual retort is to send me an email linking to a Volvo he wants which has a GPS built in. I think a portable one makes more sense - for when MFB abandons me on the side of the road rental cars or traveling with friends who don't have a GPS.

What all this lead up to is this:

On the last home game of the Penn State Icers that I am able to attend this year - last Saturday- I decided to pick up a program for a souvenir of the season. In three programs that are given out there are "stuffers", if you will, saying the program holder gets to go down to center ice during the 2nd intermission to take part in a shooting competition to win a gift certificate. (You can see this coming can't you?) I open my program and I'm one of the lucky recipients. I immediately start looking for a kid who would get a charge out of the opportunity. As I'm looking around the biggest kid I see is MFB and I think of the charge he's going to get out of not letting me forget that I embarrassed myself in front of 1600 people - at least 40 of whom we know. I figure I owe him.

About 5 minutes before his broadcast of the game starts I show him the stuffer and I thought he'd fall over from laughing. He asks, "So, do you shoot right or left?". My retort, "like I would know". I ask him how do I shoot a puck and he says "right hand lower on the stick than the left and as you go through the puck turn your wrist over kind of like a golf shot". OK I think, I play golf, badly, but I play it. He says "try to at least get the puck to the goal line". Yes I know, I asked for that.

I didn't tell anyone else about it before hand. Why ruin the surprise - not him he sent an IM over to the arena announcer (a friend) giving him the heads up. Wanted to give him time to pick out the perfect music for me I guess, how thoughtful. Here's how it went:

They give each person two tries to shoot the puck from center ice down to the net where they have restricted the net to a small slot probably 8"x3" and the puck has to go through there. So I, in my tennis shoes step off the carpet at center ice, I know what you're thinking, and take a nice big back swing like in golf and hit a plastic bin that was sitting on the ice and that made me "whiff" the puck. It went about 3 yards at the most - kind of like some of my golf shots. All I could think of was "try to at least get to the goal line". On my second shot the puck made it down to about the goal line but it was "wide right". I know you were thinking I'd slip and fall but I didn't. Believe me the thought crossed my mind. Later he tells me it works better to wrist the shot rather than take a slap shot. Come to think of it, he hasn't really teased me much about it. As I say he's a pretty good sport.

Almost forgot. At my LYS Super Bowl Sunday sale I picked up a skein of Mountain Colors Twizzle in the Thunderhead colorway. I've been looking at this for several months but couldn't convince myself to get it until now. Why? 40% off!

Home Again

Thanks so much to everyone for leaving advice on my lace problem from my last post. This is a terrific community of knitters who are so helpful. When I first started here, I had no idea. You all are very much appreciated. I decided to rip the lace out and start over and over, and over, and over again. It looks better, finally. My center stitch does go a little wonky (that's my technical term for it), but it makes sense to me that it has to. With ripping it out a dozen times a couple times, I now understand how I need to count to ensure I have the right number of stitches.

Fluffbuff had this post where she described how she is working on her first lace project and put the instruction of each row on a card. What a fantastic idea. I probably did mine a little differently as I did the old fashioned cut and paste - scissors and tape. This helped me track the stitches and all of a sudden the knitting went, dare I say, smoothly. I was even able to participate in conversations, when knitting, on our trip to Scranton PA and Newark DE .

The trip was to watch our Penn State Icers play some hockey. I didn't make it to the game in Westchester PA as that was the middle of the week. They lost that game in a shootout, but it was a team they should not have lost to. They won both their games that I attended and the second game in Newark was the best I've seen them play this year. For those of you who only hear "WAH WAH WAH" when I go on about hockey here is a picture of some little tykes who played during the intermission in Newark. Even though they're from Delaware the Penn State fans in attendance gave them a standing ovation. Too cute.

I had a small stash enhancement on this trip. It was also the most unique shopping experience for yarn I've had. But that's a story for another day.

I work in payroll. Those of you who are not self employed know what you're waiting on from your payroll department at this time of year, eh? W-2's for us Americans and if I remember correctly T-4's in Canada. Some longer work days than normal and probably a Saturday or two are staring me and my coworkers in the face. If you think of me and anyone else who does payroll, think kindly.