For those of you that want to keep score...

...here you go, my tale of woe. Start counting the ways in which the fates are mistreating me while on vacation.

1) The cab company sent a car instead of a van to pick us up, resulting in much scrambling and a last minute dash to the airport, where we got on the plane to find that NWA had reassigned our seats even though they knew we were traveling with 3 small children leaving us split up all over. Wonderfully nice people accommodated us and then watched the stews watch us install a carseat then inform us that it couldn't be in a row behind an exit row, necessitating removal and repositioning of said carseat and all 5 of us yet again while several hundred people glared holes in our heads. Y'all know about my compulsive tendencies...you can guess how wound I was by the time we got down here.

2) Less than 24 hours in Florida and the better part of a day is spent on the phone with our house/dog sitter, my parents, our vet, an emergency vet and various neighbors after our oldest dog collapsed. We had to have him euthanized while we were thousands of miles away. Seriously. This goes into my "proof that there is no benevolent god" file. No goodbye. No holding his big slobbery head in my lap as he faded out of our life. We weren't there when he was hurting and confused. He's just gone. He won't be there when we get home.

Somehow I have to find a time to tell my 2, 5 and 7 year olds that he won't be waiting for them when we open the door. This blows. I can't even process it or I cry and cry and cry. THIS IS INHUMAN.

3) ...and to top it off a contractor set up a wet saw outside out condo this morning to work on a remodel next door. Do you have any concept of how loud those are? So we re packed 7 people and 2 now full kitchens and spent day 2 of vacation moving to a new, hopefully quieter, condo.

(which has WIFI, so I can keep you, constant reader, informed of all our mishaps)

4) ...and we just tried to wander across the street to get an icecream after all that and guess what? Of course they are closed. Seriously, cut a girl a break please!

I fully expect to arrive at Bush Gardens tomorrow and have it be closed at which point my husband will start channeling Chevy Chase and I may become an alcoholic.

Seriously. I'm on vacation and I just want to go home because now I'm so worried about our little girl dog. But I don't ever want to go home because Willy isn't there. Looking out at this beautiful expanse of Gulf of Mexico and all I can do is cry because part of my life has been ripped out of my heart.

ESCAPE!

I'm off on vacation! Tomorrow! Really, really early! Like so early I don't think the grown-ups in our house will sleep at all because we have so much to do! There is so much bickering! I am crabby! I may have an aneurysm before tomorrow comes!

Oh so much to say (one of those weeks with more than my fair share going on) but oh so little time, so here are some pretty pictures:

This is the stash I am contemplating bringing for the start of Sock Madness round 2. I really shouldn't. It's not starting until Tuesday and by then I'm sure everyone will be in full meltdown, but I don't know if I can help myself. We've got DIC Smooshy in Gothic Rose sitting under Cherry Tree Hill Supersock that I can't remember the name of and the band is in the middle of, which is sitting next to 2 balls of Trekking that used to be part of a hat I was crocheting but when I saw the pattern teaser I frogged it cause I think it might be perfect. The big fellow on the end is Lisa Souza Sock! in Marsquake. The DPNs are my first, bought because I fear what airport security just might do to my Addi Turbo lace circs that I magic loop on.

...and the plane project. My first Seven Deadly Spins Club shipment. Mmmmmm gluttony.

OK kiddies, that be it. Off 'til the 5th. Play nice. Have fun. Try something new.

Zombies Vanquished!

The Big Boy walked in the door as I was tossing dinner on the table and I literally grafted the last toe and weaved ends as the fam ate. Was among the first 20ish finishers in my division, which is quite respectable I believe. Here they are, my vanquished zombies:

The yarn is by Dye Trying, done just for me by the dyer Tikabelle herself as a part of a L&V swap. Lovely zombie skin colorway, eh? The pattern is wicked stretchy with all of those dropped stitches, perfect for ridiculously wide feet like mine.

Lesson learned: Perseverance pays. Patience is a virtue. (and helps you not split the yarn when grafting which is a MAJOR problem when you go to snug those handily kitchnered stitches and you find yourself having to take many, many deep breaths and tear it all out and redo it when you hear a clock ticking like a fog horn in your head and all you want to do is dash out the door to meet fabulous friends like Bubbo and Joy for a bit of crochet and dinner and dessert and a beer thrown in for sanity's sake.)

Off to rescue the house and catch up on STUFF. So much STUFF in my head that needs letting out it's amazing my brain hasn't exploded. I'm sure the madness has killed off some brain cells. Let's hope the new neuronal connections were worth it.

Madness....

One Zombie down, one to go. Waaaaay too much going on around here for me to be very efficient, but it seems I'm still in the mix.

Today's lesson: Tim Tams rock. International law should read: "Every man, woman and child residing in either Australia or New Zealand shall forthwith send regular shipments of Tim Tams to peoples deprived of the aforementioned sugary goodness by their lack of geographic proximity to establishments that sell said biscuit wonderfulness."

ZOMBIES!!!

The Zombies have taken me hostage. There shall be little chitter chatter until they are complete. Want to know what I be blabbering about...go here.

Lessons learned thus far:
1) Sprint type activities are perhaps not advisable when you are responsible for small people and animals. They simply do not understand and try to play with the yarn.

2) Knitting instructions are at times mind-blowingly obtuse. Take this whole slipping stitches thing. For some reason you are supposed to possess powers that allow you to know which way to slip said stitches under about 5 million possible scenarios without the specifics being stated. I now know that in an eye of partridge hell flap the slip stitches should be done knitwise if they are alternating with knit stitches or else it looks like a big square o' nothin'....or in my case half a square o' nothin' and half a square of pleasingly patterned knitin'.

Live and learn.

Fun and Games, Part the First

If you don't want to know, go no further. This week is apparently dubbing itself "Week O' Fun", starting off with a huge bang. My first package from The Seven Deadly S(p)ins arrived with yesterday's mail!








Again, I warn you to venture no further unless you really want to know. Here there be gluttony:





















(how fun is that??? 4 , count them one two three FOUR colors specially made by the Unique Sheep in FOUR sickeningly sweet colorways to be merged together into one sockishly sweet, overindulgent creation.)
...and it's associated goodies (cause come one now, it IS gluttony...there must be goodies):
























That teeny hank? It's called "sinful" yeah for chocolate! And the jelly bellies...inspiration of the unique sheepy dying goddess be my guess.

The specs are up for the first sock maddness pattern, to be released Thursday. I am a ball of anxiety trying to figure out how I will find time to make a genuine try at getting through the first round...must start swatching!

It's a week of long overdue fun. Hang on, hopefully it only gets better.

It's NatCroMo...come play!

It be National Crochet Month, and Kaet is doing a NatCroMo Freeform CAL. She posts a prompt each and every day, gently leading you through the scary-to-some (AHEM) process of freeform crochet. They're short and sweet and oh so doable in only a few minutes with only a few scraps of yarn. That's mine, after Day 4. It has a little stumpy squiggly tail. I loves it.

No pink elephants!

Good news, good news!

There is no pink elephant in the middle of the living room. At least the one that has spent the last few weeks pounding on the front door and trying to sneak in the back has for the time being vacated the premises and we hope he won't be back.

Yes boys and girls, this means that as far as we know there is nothing absolutely nothing wrong with #2's heart, brain or eyes!

IT IS NOT A TUMOR! (best said Schwarzenegger-style)

We've ventured into the deepest, darkest realms of scary land and emerged relatively intact. Last week literally brought me to my knees. There were moments I couldn't breathe, couldn't stand, couldn't think. #3 picked up on it all and regressed to his monkey child ways, constantly attached to one or the other of us and waking up I swear a million times a night. #1 was snarky as only a snarky 7 year old girl could be. #2 was of course his ever mellow, oblivious self, charming the socks off every nurse and doctor he came within 20 feet of.

Can one have an emotional hangover? I believe I have one. After an initial few days of giddy relief, I have crashed HARD. All I want to do is sleep, eat, sleep some more, play with yarn and sleep yet again. Hopefully we'll all get back on track soon. If not we'll drown in dirty laundry. Here's to hoping!

Now we wait to see if there are any more "episodes". Hopefully it was all a fluke and they won't be back. If not, we start checking out stuff like blood sugar, brain waves and the like. All things meds handily deal with. These I can handle. (not that I want to, but hey, it's no brain tumor!)

After putting it down for fear of doing permanent hard to wither it or myself, I have again picked up my Secret of the Stole ii:

I'm into clue 3, somewhere's around row 158. As clue 7 came out last week, I'm a tad behind. Can't be helped. Lace apparently should not under any circumstances be attempted with a brain the consistency of marshmallow fluff. Believe me, I tried...and wanted to poke my eyes out for all the tinking. I do think I have some idea of where she's going with the clues. Seems my musical geekdom is serving me well....or at least it seems that way. We'll see how things play out. Only 2 clues left to come, so I'll know shortly.

In a moment of crazed desperation, I joined Sock Madness, which should kick off next week I hope. I cannot be held responsible. It's sock knitting. It's a contesty game with PRIZES. And it's technically considered research for some crochet fun and games I've been mulling over with Bubbo. Sock Wars turned out to be totally not my style, but I have hopes for this model. They're very organized, orderly and have a set of clearly laid out rules and regs...and there is no postal complication, no performance tied to that of others...it's all you and your needles in clearly defined rounds with beginning and end points. I love the orderly life!

They posted some general material guidelines for the seven projects they have planned...and that sent me stash-diving:

This is all of the un-committed sock yarn I have. Most of it from swaps last year. A couple I bought for myself without plans for it's future. Enough for 14 pairs of socks. Uff. Hopefully this will see 6 of them meet their sock-ish destiny. Materials for the 7th pair they listed I got to shop for. At the Loopy Ewe. Can you feel me smiling? They had used some superwash laceweight (yep lace...don't ask, I don't know how it all works up yet, but they hint at some dual colored sock with a slip stitch pattern...) from Tess' Yarns, but Tess was closed for 2 weeks to attend Stitches...so I went looking...or really I didn't quite have the fortitude for that, so I just emailed Sheri and she popped right back to me with Dream in Color Baby...superwash merino heaven. In my weakened condition I was really powerless to resist the suggestion:


These are Cocoa Kiss and Lipstick Lava (with the fun little Loopy extras they toss in their packages). I've got about twice as much as I'll need, so I'll even have enough for something extra fun afterward. I figure it's justified since it's the only yarn I'll need to buy for the games. Right?

That about catches us up, though I'm sure I've missed something. I don't think all my neurons are firing in quite an orderly fashion yet. Things pop in and out and I rarely keep hold of them for long. Eternal thanks for all of the support. All of your messages, prayers and magic mojo are deeply appreciated. It apparently takes a virtual village to maintain my sanity in times of crisis!