Uninteded Consequences

As of yesterday we had not turned the heat on Chez G. I'm cheap, and it costs alot to heat this big old house. Sure, it's a little chilly inside, but we're saving $100 a week by keeping the furnace off. This has prompted Older Son to make hyperbolic metaphors about how cold the house is ("Mom, the house is so cold that when I took your dinner out of the oven it froze." Whatever. I don't know what he's griping about anyways, the reason I won't turn the heat on is because I need the money to pay his college tuition. He could get a job and pay for the heat himself. But I digress.) Well, if you follow the weather here in Pittsburgh, we had snow last night and today. Unbeknownst to me, OS and Dave had concocted a plan to turn the heat on in the middle of the night while I was asleep. But they were foiled in the attempt by my ally The Furnace which refused to come on. I discovered the plot this morning when OS let it slip while he was complaining about the cold. I told Dave he could call a furnace repair shop on the weekend (I had vowed not to turn the furnace on until Nov 1st.) Then I went on to say that there was no way a repair person (or anyone) could come into our house until it was clean. Yes! I practically rubbed my hands with glee. Not only would I keep the furnace off until Nov. 1 or possibly later, but I would finally motivate the Slacker Boys to clean up their mess! A lovely dream. Unfortunately, all I did was motivate Dave to go downstairs and fix the furnace. It's on now. Curses! Foiled again!!
(This is my attempt to get a picture of it snowing. You can't see it, but I wanted a pic for the post.)

Weekend in the Country

Doesn't that sound posh and sophisticated? In reality Dave and I were the "poor cousins" at a family wedding. But we did have a very good time. I didn't really get any good pictures on my camera of the bride and groom (Dave got some with his big camera, but he doesn't share them with me in a timely manner. I tell him the blog waits for no man, but he doesn't seem to understand.) Speaking of Dave and his camera, he made a new friend of the photographer at the wedding. Here they are discussing camera stuff.
His name is R. Alan Adams and he was very gracious to Dave.
Here's another picture from the wedding - my mother in law and her two sisters.

Yesterday morning I was up before everyone else and went outside to a heavy frost. And another peculiar thing, I guess because of the freeze, the leaves were just falling off the trees in a shower.

I'd never seen anything like it. I took some video of it, but haven't figured out how to upload it. If I can, I'll add it on. There were some beautiful trees, though. We stayed at the Coal Miners Cafe (we stayed in the Apple Patch room), and the wedding was right down the road at Green Gables Restaurant (which looks much less impressive on the outside than it really is).

WEE!

I got a Halloween Wee Skeins kit from Julia last week. So nice! I can't wait to make myself some cool super stripey Halloween socks! The skeleton is going on my keychain.
And also, because I can't resist the call of the beautiful superwash merino I got this roving in the colorway "Runaway".

And because it's so beautiful and hard to photograph I flipped it over and got this picture of the other side (I think it looks different) and the neighbors already had the impression of me as "That weird lady who takes pictures of stuff on her front porch."
Sorry for the break in blogging, I was really trying to get a post in every day this month, but the cold I got (from Older Son, thank you very much!) really threw me for a loop. I was able to go to work, but I pretty much came home and went straight to bed after work every day. (It also didn't help that Tuesday was grueling 12 hour day). Last night I made it through the first question of the Presidential debate before I conked out.

Stuffy But With New Shoes

I'm feeling very stuffy and congested. I either have a cold or a seasonal allergy. Either way I'm feeling pretty miserable. I took a decongestant and it didn't seem to help much. Bleah. I spent the weekend touring Pittsburgh and looking at Pittsburgh real estate with my sister. Lots of driving around. (We even saw Heather when we drove by her house looking at a house that was for sale on her street.) We also went to the casino last night where I found that $5 is more than enough money for me to gamble away on the slots. (None of us came out ahead on the night.) I actually lost $8, my original intention being to gamble on $10 and either quit when I'd won $20 (had doubled my money) or lost the $10. I was really ready to go before the $8 were gone, but didn't want to cash out 27 cents, so hung on to the end. I originally though my congestion was because of the smoke in the casino, but it's hung on all day and gotten worse, so I don't think that's the culprit. Anyways, I've been very busy and no knitting has happened this weekend. I did however, manage to get some new shoes (at the new Tanger Outlets) and a nice dressy suit to wear to the wedding I have to go to next weekend. So that's good.

E-Mailing Tomorrow

I was working away from home last night and apparently there's a time disconnect between my home computer and the network because my emails were received "Tomorrow". Call me a geek, but it amused me to get emails from the future.

I also sucked it up and put together my sweater. It's still not completely done, but much closer. The seams are all sewn and the edging is knitted. I just have to sew on the buttons (I meant to knit them on, but forgot to string them on the yarn when I started knitting the border. I didn't remember until it was too late to knit them in even if they had been strung. Dang!) I should have no problems finishing this up by Friday. And it's so cute I could just die.

Languishing

So many of my projects are languishing. My Mod Pods haven't seen the light of day since June.

But apparently this was an Idea Whose Time Had Come -- I've seen several blankets in the works like this, (most of them more attractive). A couple with Noro that are gorgeous (but I can't justify a Noro blanket!) and one with sock leftovers (I faved it on Ravelry) that is To.Die.For. I'm wondering if I can get Heather to go out on the town again with the Mister. I can't be responsible for what might happen to all her sock oddballs while I'm babysitting. Do you think she'd be suspicious if they all disappeared? I should try to come up with an explanation. Yarn burglars? Yarn Pirates? Hmmm, that might need some work. Then I'll coerce the Celtings to give up their mother's oddballs. (I think I can bribe them with candy. Or do their homework for them.)

My other project has been languishing in a bag, too. I've got to finish this one up by next Friday. I just have to sew a seam and do a bit of finishing on it. I just need to make time to sit down and do it. It's too fiddley for me to work on it on the go. So what have I been working on?

My Sidelines sweater. I'm almost ready to start the arm hole shaping on the front (the back is done). I love how the cables swoop in and then back out at the waist. I still really like this sweater and think it will be a great year-round staple. Especially in this yarn (Comfort DK).

One Last Kiss

I am contemplating my last Pumpkin Spice Kiss. I got these with my Pumpkin Spice club yarn from Knitterly Things. Very yummy. I've been savoring them, eating them one at a time. I think I will have this last one tonight after dinner. Otherwise, nothing of note. Dave and I still haven't made up, but that's more from not having time to speak to each other than anything else. I'm still trying to get ready for my sister's visit this weekend. Worrying about the economy, about how we'll handle it if Dave or I lose our jobs. Fortunately, I have enough yarn and fiber saved to see me through for awhile.

Exhausted

I was exhausted today. I did not sleep well last night, then didn't get to drink all my coffee on the drive in this morning (which because I'm cutting back on my caffeine is only 2-1 decaf/caf anyways.) I felt sleepy and logy all day long. I got home at about 4 and went to bed! After sleeping for 3 1/2 hours Younger Son woke me up for dinner and I ate and then watched Heroes. I think I'm ready for bed again! The guys kept asking me if I was ok. Maybe they really do care. Either that or I was snoring too loud.:)

I've begun contemplating my Christmas knitting. I was e-mailing Celtic Queen yesterday and she got me going by talking about her holiday knitting. (Which she's already started, btw.) So I'm like "I'd like to make a sweater for YS for his birthday (Nov.) and then one for each of the Sons for Christmas and I really should make one for my sister who is moving back to Pittsburgh because you know she'll need some warm sweaters, and one for my friend, and another one for a friend..." And she was like "Laur. No offense, but that's like six sweaters and none of these people are really tiny." So I scaled it back to one, possibly two sweaters and socks for the Sons. I only need to buy yarn for one of the sweaters, and I've chosen the yarn from KnitPicks, I just need to pick a color. And I'm definately getting some books at 40% off. In other news, they resurfaced the road up to my driveway (I had to leave early today so as not to be blocked in.) Dave and I are barely speaking to each other because we had a fight over the causes of the financial crisis. (Are we geeks, or what?) Of course, I was asleep all afternoon/evening so it is possible that may have played into the barely speaking. (You think?)

Weekend Activities

We finally got around to celebrating Celtic Queen's birthday on Saturday. We had a witch cake (it made my lips black) and pumpkin ice cream. (As I told CQ -- the candles here mean absolutely nothing, they're only meant to be aesthetically pleasing.) So what do you get a fellow fiber fiend? Fiber! This is Spunky Eclectic's "Mars" from the Galaxy series, some soy silk from the Happy Hippie in the "Haight Ashbury" colorway, more Spunky Ecletic merino/tencel in "Goblin Eyes" (she loved the name!) and some Spunky Eclectic SW Corriedale in the "Toronto" colorway (so her colors.) I wanted give her a mix of colors and fibers to practice spinning on. And she could even tell the Celtic Consort that she didn't get "more yarn" (yet).

Laundry Day

I did laundry today, as I do most Sundays. I got to hang a few loads outside on the line to dry. It's kind of neat seeing all the hand knit socks on the line drying (if it's not outside, it's in the basement - I have a line down there I use for all my 'delicates'.) Otherwise, not much of anything new here. I watched a couple of movies, knit some, logged in and did some work. The usual. My sister is coming to visit from North Carolina at the end of the week, so I have to get ready for that. She's decided to move back to Pittsburgh after almost 30 years of living elsewhere so we're going to take her SO around and show him the town (he's never been to Pittsburgh) and do some house hunting. This is going to be a long week.

Palettes

I've spent quite a bit of time this afternoon playing with the tool at this site. Way cool. It was interesting to me which pictures came out nice looking palettes and which were disappointing. I will say though that the color choice seems to shift heavily to the pink. Maybe it's just the month.
Here's the September Spunky Club fiber. This is my favorite so far (but I tend to think that every month.:) It's called Acadia. Can't wait to spin some up.
I was paying bills this morning (I try to make this my Saturday morning routine, not always successfully) and I found in this week's mail not one, not two, but a total of six (6!) applications for credit cards. The credit market is frozen?? No one can get credit for running businesses?? Dave says they were in the mail before the market tanked, but I want my 700 billion dollars back. :/

Squeak

Squeaking in under the wire with another post at virtually the eleventh hour. But I have a picture this time! We had a knitter's shower at my knitting group tonight for Darka who is expecting a new boy next month.
Yay! Baby knitting, and I don't have to have the baby! Double YAY! Well, one of my gifts was this little outfit. (I can't resist the primary colors for little boys.) Forgive my bad picture, but it was late last night and I was pretty dang tired. Long hours of work today, more tomorrow and Sunday. More tomorrow - we've got lots going on here Chez G. Spunky Fiber, CQ's birthday party, and babysitting Chez Mayhem. Stay tuned!

Slogging

I'm slogging along here. Julia at Knitterly Things posted a challenge to make a blog post every day for a month. I've been slacking on the blog so I'm going to try. I realized I had just a few minutes to post before midnight so I'm making this quick (no photos, sorry!) I'm up burning the midnight oil working. Don't ask. It's that bad. Hopefully more tomorrow.