WIP it, WIP it good.

This past week really sucked and I felt liked I dropped off the proverbially planet. Seriously. I had SO much going on at school that I just NOW got caught up on my knitting crack fix (otherwise known as the Lime 'N Violet podcast) and I'm almost done with my Widdershins socks. As predicted the notes on the sock heel that I got from the designers website did in fact solve my frustrating heel dilema and all proceeded beautifully after that. I am now convinced that the thousands of other folks who've knitted these have in fact been correct in saying this is the best toe-up sock EVER. (At least for your basic construction and the sweet cable version. No offense to the all-powerful, ever magical Cookie A.)I'm doing them in Plymouth Sockotta. Okay, now I have yet to run into a true "crap" sock yarn, and this is not crap yarn, but it's not my fav. I think it's the cotton. I just think it feels a little rougher than say, a plain wool/nylon blend. Right now my favorite remains to be decided. I have Wildfoote, Lorna's Laces, Cherry Tree Hill, Ditto, Jojoland, all waiting to be. And on top of that I want to order some Socks That Rock (just to see what all the fuss is about) and some Tofoosties (that crab stuff is pronounced kite-ton). And let's face it, with all the wonderfull sock yarns out there can there really be only one? Plus, I want to eventually spin and dye my own. And speaking of spinning. Annnie, I will be mailing out your Merino Pimp THIS VERY WEEK!!!!!!!!! I'm so sorry it's taken so long, but I wanted to have it as perfect as I could possible get it and I've been doing it in small segments to avoid sloppy spinning. Please forgive me! I'm also including some other goodies but you'll just have to wait anxiously for those! Well, back to work. Oh and I've lost six pounds! Yay!!!!! I'm back on track with my exercise program and we've crawled back on the wagon for six days now and haven't had ANY junk food what so ever! New bikini here I come!!!!

So Glad I Didn't Shoot Myself

Ok. The sinus infection is backing off. It's day five of the anitbiotic onslaught and I think the little boogers are calling for a retreat. I finally finished my husbands stupid sweater and if I never see it again I couldn't care less. I'm so sick of that stupid sweater and that crappy yarn. I will never knit another sweater out of crap yarn even if a nuclear disaster occurs and no sheep survive it. I would rather knit grass and cotton. I HATE crap yarn! I never jumped on the novelty yarn bandwagon, even when I first started knitting a year ago. I've only ever made a couple of scarves from novelty stuff and it was barely considered a novelty yarn. Anyway, I hate crap yarn. Nuff said. So today I worked on the Widdershins socks and was going along just fine until I hit the heel turn. I fiddled with that sucker FOREVER and finally gave up in disgust(with myself, not the pattern, as I know thousands of knitters have made these socks without difficulty so it MUST BE ME). Then I went online to the designers website and wouldn't ya know it...... she has notes on her site about the heel turn and I THINK I've got what I need to fix it. Also, I printed off the charts for Malachi's Sherwood and though I'll need to write them all out by hand b/c I'm really not a chart gal, I'm sure it's going to be a lovely project. And I've got good yarn so all's well. Back to jammin with LimeWire!

Put a Bullet in my Brain

Seriously. I am miserable. I am not a fun sick person. I have been battling an oncoming illness for two days now. I did the sinus rinses. I upped the Vit C. I took my Allegra-D. AND I took Advil(the smallest dose of course). And what do I get today.......????? A full blown SINUS INFECTION!!!!! ARRRRRRRGGGGGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I HATE BEING SICK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I really hate it. My sinuses were limping along this morning with the help of the Advil and Allegra-D. Then I was at lunch and tried to sniff and, Oh. The. Pain. Yup, I ran through the mental s/s. Rinsed out HUGE green chunk this morning, fever, focal pain, sinus pressure so bad it's making my teeth hurt, and ear pain............differential dx...... right maxillary sinus infection. I drug myself reluctantly before Dr. Boyles who gave me that, "You should have known better," look and took me to the room where we keep the abx samples. From under a cabinet he pulled out an entire sample bag of Levaquin 750. Wow. That's a massive dose. Usually we just write for 500mg. He tells me to only take it for six days and then re-evaluate my symptoms. If I'm symptom free I can stop, otherwise I should take it for two more days. IF I'm symptom free? Is there really any possibility that I will have symptoms after this massive onslaught of antibiotics? Is there really any bacteria that can survive this massacre? If there is it doesn't deserve to die. It deserves a place of honor at the CDC. The worst thing about this illness is it's impecable timing. I'm scheduled for a test in Stastistics tonight and we didn't meet on Tuesday d/t the snow. So we really didn't get to review and I feel horrible on top of feeling unprepared. Just.Shoot.Me.Now.

Look What Annie Sent Me!

These were in my latest package from Annie. That cream colored yarn is the yarn I made! Isn't it awesome?!?

Look! Don't they look fabulous on me?

Here's the total package. I haven't tried the cherries yet but only b/c I wanted to get this post up first (after I emailed Annie to let her know it arrived safely, more on that in a minute).
Mmmmmm cherries and chocolate.

Aside from the totally GORGEOUS yarn she spun me (the color on the monitor does it little justice. It's the most beautiful shade of deep green), do you see the Pink Hot Chocolate?! How cool is Pink Hot Chocolate!?! And hot chocolate couldn't be a more appropriate gift given that we woke up to ass-deep snow this morning. I honestly didn't really expect the weather guys to be correct about this storm but alas, they were. Yesterday everyone at work, patients and employees, were belly-aching about the snow and how it was going to shut us down. I can't stand whining, so I commented that it would be great if we made all this fuss about nothing. Well, serves me right. To top it off I was ON MY WAY to work when I got the call from work that we were closed. I just grumbled all the way back home about how they could have at least let me know before I got out of bed. *sigh* Oh well, at least I'm getting a good bit of work done on my husband's stupid sweater. Then I'm going to work on the Merino Pimp for a while too. I can't wait to ship it to Annie and see what she makes with it! Okay, I've taken a sufficient break from my knitting now so I'm ready to get back to work on this stupid sweater and get it done. I'm on the sixth raglan decrease row so things are starting to progess more quickly now. Hopefully it will be done in time for my trip to Chicago to visit my parents this weekend. Noah's birthday is Monday and ever since my parents moved to Chicago two years ago, it's become our tradition to go visit them on the kids' birthdays and at one of the holidays. Since Noah's birthday is in February and Malachi's is in September that means we head up there about every six months or so. They visit us on the flip side so we get to see each other about every two to three months and so far that's working for me. I've never been close with my extended family because being raised in the military we moved around a lot and didn't make it "home" much for get-togethers. My parents and my brother were all I had and it was really hard when they moved away. I have my kids and my husband, but I miss my mom and dad. We have high hopes that when I'm done with nursing school we can all be closer again. Although dad says that means I'll have to go to an East Coast medical school since he plans on transferring to Florida. He'll never give up on trying to get me to go to Duke or Harvard or the like. I told him I never will. Those are research schools and I don't want to do research. I want to do surgery. I'll keep my options open though.Of course my dream is pretty silly to most wannabe surgeons. My dream is be a surgeon at a nice hospital out in Wyoming or Montana where my husband can have his cattle farm and I can have my horses and sheep. That would also be a nice central location to hop back and forth to wool festivals! Ah, well, a girl can dream can't she?

I'm a fiber WHORE and Merino is my Pimp

This is my Pimp. Do you see why I'm powerless?No?

How about now? Show me more you say?

These are the first singles I spun from it.

Yes, that's right, give in to it. Feel the power of the Merino Pimp.
It is strong, no? What? What did you say? I've gotta go....the Pimp is calling me to work.

I'm DONE knitting for my husband.

Seriously. After I finish his sweater I am NEVER knitting another thing for him. I don't care if he begs. I am so tired of all his backhanded comments about my knitting and spinning. And then I go and practically give myself a case of carpal tunnel knitting him a custom balaclava this past weekend b/c he was working in sub-zero temperatures and I knit it using Fisherman wool from LionBrand b/c it has that nice water resitant lanolin in it, and it was on size 3 needles! After I stayed up to one in the morning three nights in a row working on this thing instead of studying or writing a paper that was due yesterday, he wore it for about two or three hours and then took it off b/c the mouth covering was wet and it "was uncomfortable." WELL I NEVER! He ASKED for no mouth opening b/c (and I quote), "I want as much skin covered as possible." Now my beautiful handiwork lies in his Jeep unloved, unworn, and above all UNAPPRECIATED. I'm finishing this sweater and that's it! I had comtemplated not finishing the sweater and just casting on for Malachi's Sherwood sweater but I decided that if he doesn't appreciate this sweater.....I'LL WEAR IT DAMN IT! It'll be really baggy but what the hell...I've put a LOT of time into this thing and SOMEONE IS GOING TO APPRECIATE IT!!!