Waiting..., Hands, Knits.

So I applied to go to school. And now I'm waiting. And waiting. Annnnnd waiting. For an answer as to whether or not the school has accepted my application, whether I will get financial aid. whether I will get the loan I need to pay for school. I really want to know what is going on. I've checked the loan website over and over again! But it's nothing new every time. Bummer.

I've only told my sister and Melissa so far. (Well, obviously my husband knows!) I don't think I'm even going to tell my mother. I'm sure she will only have negative things to say about it. I'll tell her after I graduate. Then see what she has to say.

Oh why oh why can't they just hurry up and tell me yes or no?!?!?! The waiting is driving me nuts.

My hands are in terrible shape. I'm going to see the Ortho doc in a couple weeks. Surgery is what we're looking at. For whatever reason, I showed zero improvement with therapy. Even not knitting and wearing those stupid braces at night didn't help. And can you imagine how hard it was/is to NOT KNIT??? So I'm supposed to be still wearing the stupid braces even thought they drive me crazy and rip my hair out and scratch me. I'm trying. I hate them, though. And they seem to do no good. I still wake up with pain and numbness. So frustrating.

Knitting has been difficult. I've got a one-year-old, ok? He keeps me busy, that's for sure. Not that the other three every let me have a break, either. Of course, I don't mind too much. They're cute enough that I still like them. ;-) But I have some of this and some of that done. A dishcloth here, a hat there. Or shall we say, parts of things here, parts of things there. I like to start new things so much, I have a zillion UFO's all over the place. I have finished Molly's hat. I'm sure it won't go over very well, considering none of her family knit and do not realize the amount of time and effort even something as small as a hat takes when you're making it by hand, but I really don't care. It is really cute, though.

And I have not been keeping up on Ravelry. I pop over to read a bit now and then (I even posted a few days ago!) but as for the amount of time I was spending there before? Not so much. After all the crap with Mom going into the nursing home... I just don't have the patience for it. And the worst part of that? I know that's somewhere I really could go and talk to someone about it. But I feel like I might be misunderstood. To tell the truth, I'm afraid that my Rav friends will think I'm a terrible daughter and a worse person. And I don't want that at all.

I did, however, make up a hat pattern for a friend of the husband as repayment for a favor she did for him. I made notes and wrote out the pattern. Was knitting another of the same to test out the pattern while playing D&D at the in-laws and MIL requested a copy of the pattern for her friend who wants to knit hats for her granddaughters for Giftmas. Hopefully I wrote it well enough that she gets a nice finished product out of it.

Oh Happy Day!

We got the van today! Yay yay yay yay! SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!

After a miserable two weeks of car problems, we got the minivan G's parents were replacing! It was like once we found out that they were going to sell it to us when they found a new one, we had one problem with the Buick after another. The car is old, and it has been a decent car, don't get me wrong, but did it have to freak out and start breaking right after we found out we'd be getting an unbelievable deal on their old one???

Anyhow, that's all over and done with! And I am jumping for joy!

My hands are hurting most of the time now. I'm not sure if the therapy is making things better or not. It feels like it's not but is this a case of "you gotta feel worse before you feel better"? I don't really know how this works, obviously.

I've been playing around with Kool-Aid and food/icing color dyeing. I've only done the microwave method so far but want to try Crock-Pot and stovetop dyeing. The microwave way is really easy so if I continue to do any of this or try to do like so many others and make the attempt to sell my work, I'll probably keep doing it that way. But I want experience with the alternative methods under my belt.

I tried to make a funky blue and yellow combination using McCormick food colors. The actual combo failed but turned into a great colorway that if I can duplicate it will be called Spring Grass. It's got light and medium greens in it and some yellow and chartreuse.

I tried some Wilton's Royal Blue icing dye and that gave me a lovely mottled turquoise which I'm knitting up right now to see how it looks.

Last night, I got the most fantastic chartreuse using the McCormick's. This will be repeated. If I start selling, it will be one of my permanent colors. It turned out gawh-jussss! I'm planning on making up a special batch of that for a certain sweetie WHO REALLY DESERVES IT.

But my hands are arguing that I need to stop typing. Boo. :(

KooAid!

I dyed yarn with KoolAid for the first time recently! It was simple and fun. Yippeeee!!!!!

This one was Grape and Pink Lemonade. I will be doing more soon.:-) I went and bought more of the ivory sock yarn. Plans include a Berry Blue and Lemon-Lime combo, a Black Cherry run, and possibly an Orange skein.

I got a new camera the other day. It's a Sony Cyber-Shot. Comparatively cheap, but very nice for what I need a camera for. AND IT'S PINK! Soooooooooo cute. This is what it looks like:

Found out on Monday that I'm going to need surgery on my hands. Fuck you, carpal tunnel. I know it's an easy, common procedure but that doesn't make me any less unhappy about it. Doc says we might have to try physical therapy first but that the surgery is inevitable. Crummy.

Knitting has again been sporadic. I've been trying to make a Chain Chomp hat for Bam. I've actually got the hat itself done, I just need to get the teeth, chain and eyes on it. Laziness in action. I've also got a hat to make for Annie. I had that one about 25% done and had to frog it because I screwed up some stitches and couldn't figure out where. Duh. I dunno, that's all I can think of right now. I'm pretty sure that I've done more but have knitting emptiness of the brain at the moment.

My brain is filled with thoughts of the Magic Yarn Ball Swap! This is the coolest thing. I'm so glad I waited to join a swap until this one! First, it's in the Pants. That is the coolest part of it. But the concept of the Magic Yarn Ball is the next best part. You take whatever yarn you're giving your swapee and begin wrapping it around some sort of middle/core -thing-, some sort of goodie that you've chosen. Then you continue to add in little bits of awesomeness as you wrap the ball up. Linky to one example: http://whipup.net/2006/04/25/kids-yarn-project-the-magic-wool-ball/. I can't wait until April 1st! (That's our open date!)

Enough for now, off to make dinnah & think about swappy goodness and what flavor to dye my next skein of sock yarn!

Book Store?

So aside from the ridiculously deep desire I have to own a yarn shop, I also have the desire to open a second-hand book shop. I think the book store would be more successful at this point. I'm not even sure why I have that feeling, it's just there. Not that even a second-hand bookstore would be successful in this economy. But I still want to do it.

Have been spending more time knitting lately. Finished several things. Not loads, but still working my way through. Certainly less than I'd like to!

Got a couple more rows done on the black blanket.

This thing may never be done!

And made a Mu-Sock for Sadie. Cute and fast. I'm sure she'll like it. (It's for holding an mP3 player, if you didn't get that right away.)

A hat just cuz I felt getting a hat out there.

This is the hat mentioned in my last post. (Incidentally, I joined the group the day I finished the hat.)

And here's a cute little heart.

I want to make a hat with hearts on it so I searched for a heart pattern and found this one. It's awesome, but not quite the right shape. I was hoping to find a longer heart but alas, no. I may mod this one a bit and get it to work.

A couple of Kittehs. The right one is MINE. I made her out of Noro Kureyon. Um, yeah, that is the most horrid yarn I've ever touched. Hate on me if you like, Kureyon Lovers, but YUCK YUCK YUCK! I do agree that the colors are AMAZING BEAUTIFUL GORGEOUS FANTASTIC, but:

a.) Sticks in my yarn. I wasn't even outside, thanks.

b.) Thick-thin to the point of being unknittable, all in the same yard. No. Uncool.

c.) Hard hard hard on my hands. And I'm no baby.

d.) Breakage. Randomly. Without a tug or pull. Just knitting along and snap! WTF? The left Kitteh has been given to J-Bug. He love love loves her. It's adorable watching him play with his kitty. I "made it" meow at him and he just cracked up. Too funny.

And here is the Giant Fucking Q of Doom.

My first colorwork project. It was a Secret Santa type thing gift for Hux's work. The recipient loved it apparently. Which still makes me cheeeeeese. It's really not gold, the camera I have is just junk. The stripes and "Q" are plain old bright red and a nice green that's named "Grass Green" but not at all what I'd call grassy-looking. ??? Again, WTF? Oh, well.

Working on some more stuff that I don't have any pics of yet: Hux's Diamond's, a Chain Chomp Hat.

I haven't played D&D in so long either. Makes me sad. I want a new group of people to game with. People somewhere around our age. Decent people around our age. I've got kids, ya know?

And now the smallest rugrat has awakened. No more typing for Mommy!

3! Restart! Hats!

Cakers is three now! Yikes. I can hardly believe it right now. The time has passed so quickly. It makes me realize that time passes faster than you really think it does. Hubz & I have been married for almost five(!) years, I have a teenager (EEK!), we've lived in this apartment for 2 years now. So many more things that have just flown on by, too many to list.

I've failed miserably at the 101 in 1001 challenge/goal. I'm going to start over again. AGAIN. There are so many things on that list that I want to accomplish. Now that I've got a printer I can have a hard copy of my goals sitting in front of me and do some other things I wanted to do to help keep myself on track. I plan to print individual goals and the steps I will take to get there, print out little reminders to myself of things I can do to work towards completing goals. All things I'm too lazy or busy to write out by hand.

I've joined a(nother) new group on Ravelry. This one is the 52 Hat Challenge. The idea is to make 52 hats in 52 weeks. The end of the goal is technically the last day of 2009. Since I joined later that Jan 1, I've got a little bit of catch-up to do. But I've already got one hat done. One thing I really like about this particular challenge group is that it doesn't specify where the hats have to go. I haven't got the money to ship a hat somewhere, much less 52 of them. It's just "challenge yourself to get it done and don't worry where they've got to go". You can donate them, gift them, or keep them! Very cool. Especially since I've got several hats I want to make for certain people in my life. However, I don't think I've got 52 people that I want to give a hat to, so I'll certainly keep one or two myself but I think I'll have a few to donate. I'm not sure where to donate them just yet. I mean, Dr. Green's office/the Oncology Department would appreciate them, I'm sure, but so would the children's hospital. Since they've both helped us, for different members of our family, I'd think I'll give some to each. But then again, there's ECHO and House of Mercy (one of the area's homeless shelters) and the YWCA battered women's shelter and all the elementary schools around here like to have extra hats for kids who lose their own. So many worthy causes to choose from. And they all need them. How does one decide?

My mother has started dialysis. Her kidneys finally gave out. No, let me rephrase that, she finally killed them. They got sick of her abuse. I love my mother, don't get me wrong, but she doesn't care for herself. She says she wants to live to see all her grandkids graduate and go to college but her actions contradict that. And she blames everyone for it except herself. She's completely in denial about her diabetes (she was diagnosed in like 1990 and still acts like she's not sick!), she refuses to follow doctor's orders, no matter how many times they tell her that if she doesn't do this or that she's going to die. She completely refuses to accept responsibility for her actions and behaviors. Plus she lies her ass off on a regular basis. To her family, to her doctors, to her friends. Most everyone knows her games now, though, but not everyone. The woman my mom calls her best friend didn't even know she had full blown diabetes until just a couple of weeks ago. They've known each other since 1998 and my mother always hid it from her and downplayed the full scope of it. It's totally ridiculous. And I know I sound totally callous and compassionless but if you've lived her game, that's how you end up when it comes to her.

Happy New Year!

Dear Blogger,

Do you feel neglected? Oops. I guess we can call me FAIL for my 101 in 1001. But I'll end up trying again. But I did actually complete some of the goals.

4. Complete at least one knitting project a month. (4?/33)
This I've done. Yay for me! Not that I've posted any of them.

7. Call Christi once a week.
Sometimes it's once a day! Shit, sometimes it's even more than that!

27. Motivate someone to do their own 101 things in 1001 days.
This is half-done. My sister says she wants to do it and (?) started a list but I don't know how far she went with it. I'll have to ask her about it again. We were supposed to be "101 Buddies" and support each other's quest for life change.

39. Get new glasses.
Just waiting for them to arrive at the eye doc's. Very anxiously, I might add. I think they're really cute and my current ones are about to break!

46. Go 48 hours without the internet.
It wasn't really intentional, I just kinda realized one afternoon that I hadn't checked into my Ravelry in a loooong time. So does that count?

55. Make first pair of socks.
Done. I made them for Lula and she loves them. The first one went pretty slowly as I was learning the ins and outs. Every time she saw it she asked if it was done. Then when I finished it and started its buddy, she said, "Oh, I get two?!" It was freakin' adorable. I actually like making socks, too! It was fun and way less difficult than it can be made out to be.

And now that I'm trying to blog again, Cakers and Bam woke up J-Bug. Go fucking figure.

Love, me.