Lamb and Frog

The tough knit dishcloths. Lots and lots of dishcloths. Ten finished (you can’t see the dark ones in the picture and the one in the lower right has been in use for a while). One OTN and more in the planning stages. Click here for my new ‘go-to’ pattern.

I also finished three pink market bags for Mom’s annual fundraiser Walk the Rock (for which I still have not built a web site). Unfortunately only two were finished in time for the Walk. The other one will have to wait for next year. Also waiting for next year will be the pink anklets I started. I finished one…not one pair, but one anklet. I haven’t even cast on for the other and I have yarn for another pair as well.

The market bags were crocheted. I find that bags and afghans are faster and easier to crochet. That doesn’t mean I won’t knit them, it just means that, being bicraftual, crochet is usually my first option. Speaking of afghans…A while back I mentioned that 1) all future afghans would be crocheted and 2) I was working on a knitted log cabin afghan. Well, the knitted log cabin afghan is indefinitely on the back burner, but I decided that I could get pretty much the same effect (much faster) in crochet. I was right. I really like the result and the blanket is moving right along even though this afghan is one of many projects currently OTN.

This afghan is also being donated to the fundraiser. I’m bustin’ stash like a bad dog too. That’s good because Mom has decided she needs to de-stash and she’s doing it in my direction. I’ve gotten two boxes of yarn from her in the last two weeks. Come to think of it, the yarn for this afghan (with enough for one more almost just like it) was stuff I received during her last de-stash. Pretty sweet, eh? Send me yarn and I send you back finished stuff. Don’t count on that though. I mean sometimes I send stuff back to the person who sent me the yarn, sometimes I give the finished product to someone else…and sometimes I just keep it. De-stash to me at your own risk (Mom or anyone else).

Lest you think I’ve forgotten the socks…oh no, the sock vortex is alive and swirling. I finished the anklets in Kroy stripes:

And I liked the way the yarn striped so much I promptly started and finished a proper pair in turquoise/blue. I also promptly (without taking a picture) gave them away to Mother Mary (wife of Pablo the Harley Guy). I like the stripes and the yarn feels, if not really soft, pretty durable. It’s not expensive and worth a try if you haven’t used it before. I also finished the first of both socks mentioned in the vortex post and the second socks are OTN (one at the cuff, one almost to the toe decreases).

All of these projects fall into the “I can work on these with my brain tied behind my back” category, so I don’t have any valuable insights to offer today. They got me through six weeks of chaos and then some, but once the tide of chaos started to recede I started thinking “I really would like to work on something a little more challenging…”

Stay tuned.

I know, I know…where the hell have I been? Well let me tell you…it’s been a rough six weeks or so and I’m not so sure it’s getting any better. When the crazy ball first started rolling even people like Stephanie noticed. The fact that “Mercury is in retrograde” was duly noted as the cause of many malfunctions in the electronic and mechanical world. Well, Mercury should be out of retrograde by now, but things here in Burque are still completely f**ed up. (Call me rebel without a clue but man do I love ending a sentence with a preposition!)

Mechanical Resonance

Basically, damn near every mechanical or electronic device in our house that should have been working over the past six weeks has chosen to either get twitchy and stay twitchy or get twitchy and die:

Our hot tub died (that was expected) and could not be repaired or replaced within our budget (it was purchased when we were DINKS). We replaced it with a small above ground pool. The pump/filter died. We replaced it with the pump/filter from another (much cheaper) pool kit in lieu of paying to ship the (really large and heavy) bad part back to the manufacturer and having them tell us it wasn’t covered under warranty…the new one is working well (and we have an extra inflatable pool). Bill (my own personal answer to Tim “The Tool Man” Taylor) also fixed the bad one as well (I’d rather not elaborate on exactly how).

We went camping and took the RV…the RV had a huge water leak so turning on the pump to wash dishes or hands caused a small flood. Bill also fixed this when we got home and we did a major cleaning job on the trailer…it hasn’t been this clean since we used to live in it. I’m looking forward to more camping this summer (although it may mean less blogging, but I can live with that).

Bill’s brand new “golf thingo” (a golf GPS system he got for his birthday) died. We paid to ship that back and they replaced it.

The lamp in our giant TV o’doom died. Like the hot tub’s demise, this was expected. What was not expected was that the replacement lamp would cause the TV to reboot at will until the new lamp died one month later. Props to Laptops for Less (who sold the bulb) for sending a replacement immediately (as in while the dead one was in transit back to them) instead of waiting until the dead one had been received.

My new Sony eBook reader (model PRS-700) is “twitchy”. Some of this may be operator error on my part, but I’m thinking more of it has to do with iffy firmware and stupid library software.

My desktop computer is “twitchy”. Mostly Outlook. I don’t know why, but I’m starting to think that Microsoft builds this twitchiness into their products so that they start misbehaving about the time a new version is due to be released. Just sayin’…

Ghost in the Machine

And the big one…the VW. This car has been such a thorn in my side I actually contributed a recipe for “Broken Volkswagen Stew” in the comments section of The Mouthy Housewives (one of my new favorite blogs…read it…you’ll laugh). A little over a year after I bought it (used, but with only 6,000 miles on it) the check engine light came on. It has been on intermittently ever since. It was a gas cap. It was a sensor. Both replaced under warranty. Good for another year or so until last fall when the light started coming on and going off intermittently. When it finally came on and stayed on I had it checked out by my mechanic (the car is now out of warranty). This time it was the oxygen sensors (replaced at my expense because in New Mexico, unlike in California, they are not covered under the federal emissions warranty requirement). After I replaced them (there goes a thousand bucks) the light came on again. One hadn’t been seated properly. Fixed for free in 10 minutes (but I had to drive across town to the mechanic’s with the boys in tow and sweat it out over the entire Memorial Day weekend). Light came on again two weeks and less than two hundred miles later (recipe submitted). Mechanic checked and it was one he had just replaced or the catalytic converter (which is covered under the warranty but must be repaired by the dealer). Mechanic (who is a good guy) cleared the codes and said bring it back if it comes on again because he has had brand new sensors go bad and if that’s the problem, he’ll fix it for free. Fuel cap light came on. Then went off of its own accord. It’s still off. The engine light is still off (for now). I don’t think it’s a sensor problem, a fuel cap problem, or a catalytic converter problem…I think it’s a problem with the diagnostic computer itself (and I have a smidgen of internet research to back up my suspicion), but try convincing the local VW dealer of this when 1) you are a woman and 2) the diagnostic computer is covered under the federal warranty so VW (not me) will have to pay for the repair. I’m not sure I’m done banging my head against the wall (literally and figuratively). Let’s just say that this is the last VW I will ever own.

I have been so cranky I even skipped this year’s Fiber Arts Fiesta.

Count Your Blessings

Still, while the past six weeks have been extremely frustrating, all of the problems have been relatively minor. Even the car thing (while expensive) is minor in the grand scheme of things. All in all, my life is blessed:

Last year in May I had to remove Stinky from school and find a new school. Same time this year I was being invited to a “parent appreciation” lunch. Go figure.

Stinky turned 9 and had a great birthday party.

I turned 41.

Bill turned 45.

Big Scary Dad turned 72 and is still big and scary!

As previously noted our marriage turned 13. (Unfortunately, Bill was sick as a dog that day so the fancy dinner part of the celebration has been indefinitely postponed.)

The blog turned 2 on June 6th.

Pretty much everything that was broken has now been either fixed or replaced (although I’m not trusting that the car is fixed, I do have a long-term solution).

My hobbies are low tech (I haven’t even had to frog much).

“Grandma” is taking me and the kids to San Diego next week. Yay, Grandma!

In the meantime…

Writing this post has got me thinking about several others, so I may work my (ample) booty off today in the hopes of bringing you more fun-filled fiber blabber in the not too distant future. (But don’t hold your breath.)

I don’t think so. I’ve sifted through and reflected on the details of the thirteen years of our marriage–better and worse, richer and poorer, sickness and heath…

Reduce it to its essence and you’re left with this–two working-class metal heads with hardcore technology issues and an inexplicable passion for hair bands.

In other words…a match made in heaven (click here for the classic ‘big hair’ version).

Happy Anniversary honey! I love you.

What else can you call a Scotch-Irish Taurus? Stubborn. Warrior. Poet. Stubborn warrior poet. People who are always fighting other peoples’ battles when we can’t find (or make) one of our own. We two are connected by time and heritage across a generation and a day.

We may have been born to fight, but it will be a happy birthday indeed when the battles we wage are all fought with a pen rather than a sword.

I’ve got nothin’…nothin’. But I wanted to post today, so here’s whatcha get…

A picture of (Irish) Kentucky Julia in her birthday scarf (which was only a week late…some sort of record for me I’m sure). Ah…summer in San Francisco!

And (Irish) geek bling from Len:

Have a groovy weekend. See you on the flip side.