Of Things 2 & 6 Legged

Well, I might have been a wee bit presumptious when I said that September was going to be My Month. I had figured that after all the bad karma of August I was more than due my share of coasting & good news, but alas' last week showed me that it 'twas not to yet be.

Last Thursday, after what had been a fairly good week so far, I got the news that a relative's two children had been found to have a particularly raging case of head lice - and of course our luck being what it had been, this was the same relative who had taken in the Munc
hkin for two weekends in a row while Peggers and I were busy painting our New Green House.

See where 6-legged things come into play?

So of course I ran to the phone and called daycare to alert her to the possible invasion, and then sat and waited for her return call with bated breath......................

................."Okay," she said. "Come and get him - he's got at least one little critter in his hair!"

So there went the end of the week in a blur of nasty, chemical-laden shampoos, screaming fits while I combed out his hair with the tiniest comb you've ever seen, and more than 20 loads of laundry to wash (hot water) and dry (hot dry) every single thing in our house that could be logically crammed into a washing machine or tossed in the dryer. Plus all the vaccuuming, the spraying (think mattresses, carseats, couches, etc.) and the general rounding up of stuffed animals and suchlike that couldn't be washed or dried - all of which needed to be stuffed in black plastic garbage bags, tied tightly shut, and then stuck in the attic for a good 2 months to bake in the early September heat and kill anything that crawled, jumped, or sucked blood from a scalp.

So that, combined with the news that the other driver involved in my car accident has the worst possible insurance on the face of the earth, and as such we still don't know if a rental car can be covered by her insurance or not for the two weeks (!) that they say it will take to repair my car (to the tune of $4,500!) made last week Not Very Great. If the other insurance won't pay for the car rental, we're pretty sure that what we'll do instead of paying the $800 or so rental car bill out of our own pocket is give my bike a nice once-over fix up and attach our little pull-behind child wagon to my bicycle, and that I'll get to & from work and to & from daycare by the power of my own two feet.

See where 2-legged things come into play as well?

Happily enough, though, this week is looking much better.

I haven't been doing much knitting at ALL lately - a sort of existence that is very very bizzare to me. I've been doing lots of reading lately at night instead, and have also been going to bed early in a state of near-constant-exhaustion - - but I'm hoping now that things have slowed down I'll get a chance to resume my knitting and keep on churning out a nice parade of FO's. The one big thing that I did over the last two weeks was receive & then immediately mail-out my Dish Rag Tag box - something that was absolutely loads of fun, irregardless of the fact that we did not place for a medal in the race itself.

My new Dish Rag Tag washrag in it's proper new home. See how the sponge has been relegated to a second place now, way in the back????

I knitted a two-tone Ball Band Washrag for my recipient - and because of my general inability to decide on the colour format I simply switched strands halfway through to give her a sort of Half Moon Cookie sort of washrag, if you will.....

This makes me think of gingerbread slices with whipped cream on top, for some reason.

She was just lovely and accepted my low-colour washrag with very kind words. Everyone else's washcloth has been made out of nicely bright, cheerful colours, so I felt more than a little bad that I was giving her one that was so.....................natural looking. I'm going to make it up to her, however, by knitting her an absolutely eye-popping bright one and sending it along later, Just Because. Along with the washcloth I included in the Team Box a bag of the always-popular Bertie Botts Every Flavour Beans, a cute little set of Brittany cable needles (I got the idea from Emily, who gave me a set of them way back when, and thought it was just a perfect knitting/gifting idea!) and two skeins of kitchen cotton.

When I opened the box in the first place, though, needles poised to cast-on for my washcloth, oh my look at what was waiting for me.....

Yeah - this was eaten in, like, 5 seconds.

Along with the super-huge ball of blue I also got a super-huge ball of the flecked cream that you see I used to actually knit the above washrag, and then when I greedily searched the box look at what my wondering eyes (and fingertips!) encountered.......

This has got to be THE coolest pair of scissors in the entire universe. Bar none. Forget the ones with the animal or bird-shaped handles. THESE are the perfect zen knitter's scissors. I'm totally in love - as is the Munchkin. He clamours for them almost daily, and I once had to forcibly wrench them out of his little chubby toddler hands when he made a death-defying leap and snagged them off the dining room table. Obviously I need to find and immediately own about a million more.


Despite the fact that our team didn't place for a medal, we all still (I hope!) had a really good time in the playing - and if Emily ever decides that she's brave and crazy enough to try this again, I'm certain I'll join right up.

I just loved our battered box that was sent from team-member to team-member all around the States.......

YEAH TEAM!!!!!!

All good things must come to an end...

...and others must begin.


Work continues on the painting front. Many thanks for your kind words - both as to our efforts so far and as to our colour choices. Green is apparently not a traditional or popular house painting shade - and we've gotten many a raised-eyebrow because of it. We, however, like it very very much.

Tomorrow is August 1st. Tomorrow is also for a group of some knitters Get Your Sockpalooza Pal Package Prepped & Ready To Go Day, as the official send-out day is August 2nd.

I have ready to go in my package:

• One finished pair of bright pink knee-high sockpal socks. (check!)
• One mini skein of bright pink sock pal pink sock yarn for darns (check!)
• One package of Bertie Botts Every Flavour Beans (check!)
• One lavender-scented candle (check!)
• One package tarantula gummy candy (check!)
• A large handful of locally-made saltwater taffy (check!)
• One tongue-in-cheek greeting card (check!)

Hopefully the gummy candies and candle will suitably distract her in case the socks don't fit or are too short or too slouchy or just..................not to her Sockpal taste. So that package will get prettily wrapped up and packaged up tomorrow and then first thing on Thursday I'll walk it to the post office and send it off 2-day priority mail. As the package only has to go about 2 states over I'm guessing she'll get it by Saturday. I should say, I'm hoping she'll get it by Saturday.

So that is ending. But what fun it's been!

And tomorrow (yes tomorrow!) the official Dish Rag Tag begins! I'm one of the 200 or so folks that joined up to play in Emily's fun race - and I'm on the Cotton Commandos Team. We've been discussing and plotting and chatting for the past several weeks, and we've got a loose strategy in place and know where we're mailing things and how - so all I now get to do is keep one eye on the team's forum page and keep the other on my mailbox!

Also today at work I got a lovely message in my inbox:

Dear Susan ______

A loan that you had requested:
Loan Title: The opinionated knitter : Elizabeth Zimmermann newsletters 1958-1968 /
is now available for checkout.

So what fun, too! That means that a BSJ is soon to be working it's way on my needles. The first of (probably) many. This particular BSJ will be worked up in an eye-blazing yellow/orange/green/purple yarn that I have absolutely tons of - and the jacket will be (of course) for The Munchkin.

I can hardly wait - even though the first few lines of the pattern look like gibberish at the moment. However I've always found that with the yarn and needles in hand most patterns tend to make sense after a bit of head-scratching and squinting.

Progress on all fronts will certainly show up here - including the Belle Shrug! I picked a cuff pattern and cast on yesterday and am up to the crook of my elbow as of this afternoon.......