Domestic Geek

Yeah, yeah...so that took a little longer than I expected.

Honestly, I'll admit that I was more than a little burned out with blogging (both doing and reading - I blame paid blogging). I've also been in a really bad place mentally and didn't want my new home to once again be the Continuous Blog of Woe® that Marcus had once dubbed my little cyber home. I've had the header and main layout done for months (it was actually almost finished when I closed down the old blog), but I just couldn't bring myself to fix the sidebars and get the rest of it running. Even now a lot of it is still jacked, plus I realized I never did fix the contact or archive pages of my old site. Whoops! The motivation to get the site fixed well before Blogathon came around again was shot to heck when I heard that they were taking this year off.

Well, I decided this weekend that it was finally time to come out of exile. Recently, I've decided it's time to stop wallowing in "someday" and "if only" and turn my life into what I want instead of allowing it to just happen. I need an outlet to post my thoughts and journal my existence. It's where my dad, Marcus' mom and my friends go to keep up with us. Big changes are going to be happening in the next couple of years (thanks to Saturn in my chart) and I need a place to share.

As for what have I been up to in the last four months? You guys get a little bulleted list:

• Work went to Hell in a Handbasket - post about what happened coming soon
• I met The Yarn Harlot twice
• I'm obsessed with knitting and spend most of my free time on Ravelry
• Marcus and I went to Tennessee on vacation via St. Louis and Indiana (was too short - should've taken more time off)
• Our water heater died
• Our lot rent went up $45/mo and our park is turning into a Mexican Ghetto
• We only have one rabbit left (Neo) - all the others have passed away
• I got two free parakeets on Freecycle
• We got a Wii and a WiiFit
• I got a free Nintendo DS - post to come
• I got back into reading - didn't realize how badly I missed it
• I got my first camera speeding ticket - City and County of Denver can bite me
• I decided I'm never doing Graphic Design for anybody (except for Marcus) ever again - clients suck much ass
• I met author Maggie Sefton at The Tattered Cover (she writes knitting mysteries set in Colorado)
• Marcus bought me a new camera
• I've become obsessed with Alpacas — I want to own some

I know there is more, but I can't think of anything at the moment.

So, I'm back and if you've read this far, thanks for visiting. I can't promise a blog free of Woe, but I'll do my best to eliminate it.

On the Ravelry boards today I was pointed to this awesome t-shirt:


It is called Mixed Martial Arts and Crafts. MUST. HAVE. THIS. SHIRT! Isn't it awesome?

I didn't mention earlier that this Noni market bag is intarsia. Now, I watched a video online at KnittingHelp.com on Intarsia multiple times and figured I could easily do this. In practice, not so much. I somehow keep managing to twist my stitches really weird when I change colors.

I also noticed that I picked up a corner stitch in the wrong hole when I picked up the stitches around the bottom. How in the heck did I manage that?

Man, it's a good thing this this is going to be felted.

I think I'm going to step away for a few hours, run to the store, do some housework and work on my GAA* square. Maybe a little later it will feel like cooperating.

*Great American Afghan

I totally forgot to mention that the ball winder I ordered on Joann.com came this last week. They had a 40% off one item special if you order through their site, donchaknow? I also threw in the Paton's Street Smart book so I could have the "Must Have Cardigan" pattern that everyone (including The Harlot) is raving about. I'm not near skilled enough to make it yet, but I will be and when I am, I have the pattern.

Of course, Marcus wasn't home when it arrived and I wanted to wind so badly. I'm really bad at remembering to ask to have hanks wound when I purchase them and they're absolutely everywhere. I mounted it to the bench in the craft room, put a skein around the back of a chair and away I went. It didn't go so well - darned chair is too heavy to turn.

I explained the dilemma when Marcus got home that evening and he offered to hold some while I wound. He makes a better swift than the chair, but still couldn't keep up with the winder. I've been putting it off, but if I'm going to make use of this winder, I'm going to have to make a swift (no way I'm paying $80+ for the umbrella kind). I found a site with instructions to create your own, so tomorrow I'm off to buy wood. I've got a couple of modifications in mind, so we'll see if the hardware stores carry what I think I need, or else I'll have to take a trek to the woodworker store.

So, I've been working on my Noni Green Earth Market Bag that I started about a month ago. It's not going well (I blame the crappy work schedule).

I've redone the bottom three different times. First, I was doing something really funky when I turned the rows and they were impossible to pick up stitches from. Second time things were going well until I had decided I was going to knit a few rows one morning when I got home from a 12-hour shift with only 4 hours sleep the day before and ended up doing the rows backwards and no longer had solid stockinette. Being tired and cranky, instead of just putting it down and taking out the 4 messed up rows when I was fresh, I had a tantrum and frogged it all. *sigh* This third time, I see a blatant error — a stitch that I somehow managed to twist or something in about row 8. I'm doing my best to ignore it (since it's going to be felted for goodness sakes) and I just picked up the stitches for the sides.

I decided to be clever and use a crochet hook to help me pick the stitches up faster since I've already wasted a month getting to this point. Well, I managed to twist every single one and have to untwist on the needle as I knit. Yeah, that is saving me oodles of time. Oh, well...knitting is fun and relaxing...right?

In other sad news, I'm already behind on the Afghan KAL. We're three weeks in and I'm still on my first square. C'est la vie. At this rate, I ought to finish in about two years. LOL

I got my Ravelry t-shirt I ordered in the mail today. It's so pretty, but the neck is cut a little tight. We'll see if it feels better after washing.