And one more thing!

Oh yea, I forgot to mention that I felted the massive Noni Medallion Bag when I was back home a few weeks ago. It's still pretty big, but it's manageable now. I haven't put handles on it yet, and I haven't decided what to do with it, but at least it's felted!

"If I ever made it again" advice:
I would choose a lighter color to contrast the pattern better against the black. You can still see the pattern against the teal, but it's darker than it was pre-felting. Pretty sad when the design is so cool and took so much effort to make.

Most Ridiculous Thing Ever

OK, so remember back when I said that I am balancing a school schedule as well as an Agency schedule? Here's a great example of that:

Today and tomorrow are Teacher Planning Days at school since it is the end of the grading period. Therefore, the schools are closed. But wait! Since it's not an Agency holiday, we are required to work. So we go into the Agency office in town... to do nothing. We can catch up on our paperwork, we can do some busy work in the client's charts, we can stare at the ceiling, but there really is nothing structured for us to do.

And it gets better: Since we employees are not usually at the office, there are not enough computers for everyone. So we are like sharks circling, because a computer means we can at least waste time on the Internet. But you have to be lucky enough to get one.

Me? I have managed to yoink a computer spot and am taking it for all it's worth. They may have to pry my dead body out of this chair, because I am not giving it up! I take that back, I may pause in the afternoon to continue adding phone numbers to my new phone (I feel like such a doof carrying around two phones).

Sad, Tired Dance

Stupid phone.

Apparently, you cannot ACTIVATE a new phone in an Extended Network area, only in actual Verizon areas. The nearest Verizon, non-Extended Network is Roanoke! That's an hour away!

After much back and forth with the guy at the Verizon store, we learned two things:
1 - I need to be in a Verizon area to activate a phone (see above)
2 - Because we tried to activate the new phone, my old phone was kicked offline! I had no phone at all!

My plan was to just drive towards Roanoke tomorrow after work and activate the phone whenever I got to the appropriate area. John, though, gets mega points because he suggested that we go tonight - he'd drive and I type my paperwork - and that way I wouldn't be roaming the countryside with no way to communicate. (I thought of that, but rejected the idea, as it would waste his time, too, not just mine. But he's a sweetie.)

So we drove, checking the phone every 5 minutes to see if the network changed. It was super annoying, but it's done now and we can all go to bed. Doesn't technology make our lives easier?

Happy Dance

I got my phone! I got my phone! I got my phone!

So, yea. New shoes last night (part of anniversary present) and a new phone today! Met up with the Cavers coming through Charlottesville, and got my phone from Mom. It's so cool! I love it. It's definitely smarter than I am though. It's going to be a while before I figure everything out on it.

MWAH!

Three year anniversary with my SugaPi, and guess what we did? Played video games and went to Bob Evans for dinner. :D Originally, we wanted to go to Olive Garden, but the line was backed up out the door, so we just went next door to Bob Evans.

Oh yeah, and what did I get? Frank Miller's and Jim Lee's "All-Star Batman & Robin, The Boy Wonder, Vol. 1" ...in hardcover! Frank Miller AND Jim Lee writing about the Robin creation story. I read it all in one sitting.

Don't worry, I may be a cheap date, but I'm expensive to maintain. :)

Felted Mittens Part 2 and others

1 - Just finished the second and final week of my Felted Mittens class... and I feel that it could have gone better (realizing mistakes after the fact, of course) but at the same time, it could have gone MUCH worse! So I feel that I was at least an above-average teacher. My "warm and fuzzy" moment as a teacher happened when one of the younger (and by younger, I mean, my age) participants, looked up at the end of an explanation, and said, "Ohhh! So you just do this and this and this, and it works out like that... I get it!" Inside, I was like, "YAY! I don't completely suck as a teacher if she can understand me!" Mom says all teachers have that fuzzy moment when they are validated.

The hardest part of this class, for me, was explaining the top-down hat with as little math as possible. People, especially knitters, get really scared when the M-word is mentioned, even though it's not calculus or anything. So, I typed up the hat directions as simply as possible; I even put in a little "plug and chug" section where they could enter their gauge and measurements. I think it went over OK; I saw some blank stares, but we made it through alright.

Sharon reports that it received positive feedback and that people want another session. She told them after the New Year, so maybe I can repeat this and work out some of the kinks. :)

2 - Last week we had a communication blow-up, but Victoria and I finally got together this week. It's funny, we go through four years of living together in college, then as she moves into the area, I move out. You'd think we'd have planned that better. But, we try to meet up whenever one is in the other's neck of the woods. So, I stopped in at her place and tried on the bridesmaid's dress (the number one reason we needed to meet!) and then we went out to Panera (mmmm... bread bowl soup) and solved the problems of the world. I think everyone needs that person with whom you always reconnect, no matter how long it's been. It's good for the soul.

3 - NEW PHONE HAS BEEN DECIDED UPON! Yes, after ages and ages of thinking about it, online shopping, online "customer reviews" searching, and hours in the stores, I have finally decided which phone I want. Whew! I promise, I didn't try to make it harder than it had to be. The issues start when you realize that I am now in a full-time job that is not always in the same place. I've got a school schedule that I need to balance with the Agency schedule, as well as all my trainings. I am terrified that I am going to forget something dreadfully important and then be in a world of trouble. Couple that with the amount of texting done between my coworkers and the lovely school filters on the Internet, I was playing with the idea of a Smart Phone. Not necessarily a full-on Blackberry, but something that was easier to text with, something that had a good calendar/appointment book, and maybe something that could access my email (since the school computers can't).

So. Here it is. Drum roll please. The Verizon SMT 5800! It's what I call a "baby smart phone" because it has the basic package of features, but nothing over-the-top. I've got texting, a slide-out QWERTY keyboard, a calendar that talks to my computer, online web surfing, and a MASSIVE screen. And as a total bonus, it runs on Windows, so I can access and edit Word, Excel, Powerpoint and PDF files! How cool is that? I like it. Sadly, I won't be getting it until next week. Mom was going to order it (free stuff when you do it online) and it was supposed to be mailed to me tomorrow, but it's out of stock online. So she's gone back to a store and I will pick it up from her next Sunday. She's going caving with the Girl Scouts, and they always stop in Charlottesville for lunch on the way home; so I am just going to meet them for lunch and pick up my phone. Yay! New phone!

4 - Oh yea, did I mention that I have a sinus infection ravaging my face this weekend? It's been loads of fun. At the Mitten class, I was feeling icky... then I felt my sinuses go all weird... then the ick started to turn colors. Yay, infection. I didn't go to work today and have been one with the couch trying to sleep it off. Though I do feel loads better than I did on Saturday. Hopefully this will clear up soon.

U is for...

U is for updates! Okay, so this may be the worst letter ever, but I am running out of ideas and my Garmin GPS just flashed that it's time to buy the map updates. :( Stupid thing needing $70 map updates...

I think my main problem is that I wanted to do "unfinished projects" for U, and then "works in progress" for W... and really those are the same thing. So I have been debating which I would keep, and as I am super behind on my alphabet this month, U gets the short straw. Hopefully, I will be better when W rolls around and I can get some pictures posted as well.

Felted Mitten Class

OK - so I have now taught the first session of my first class. :) Yes, after I moved out of the city. But just as I was about to leave Knit Wits, I made up some felted mittens to try out a new yarn colorway that we had just received (Galway Worsted came out with a "Marl" collection, I chose #603, the teal). We all wanted to see how it felted, so I was the one to knit up some quick and easy mittens to try it out.

I chose a fun-fur yarn to make a fluffy cuff, and then just made a top-down hat to use up the extra of each yarn. So I made a matching fluffy-trimmed hat and mittens set, and we put it on display in the shop to show off the yarn. (pictures to follow later, I promise)

Well, apparently, it was the greatest thing since sliced bread, because everyone who saw it wanted a pair, wanted to buy our demo, or wanted a class on it. All this during my last week employed there! Before I left, we decided that I would come back for a few weekends in October/ early November to teach the class for the mittens.

The best part about this class, is that I completely forgot about it until the night before! I mean, I knew I was driving back to the Beach for the weekend, but it didn't click that I needed to bring a pattern or knit up a demo until Thursday night! So, I drove home after work on Friday, stopped in the store on my way, got some needles and the pattern I used, typed up patterns for all the ladies, THEN knit until about 1am. I realized that if I had given the participants homework, then I probably should do the homework too! Oopsie. Silly me.

Some of the ladies had done the homework, some halfway, and some not - I guess that's about par for the course. But I fear that I may run out of time next week. Next time, hopefully everyone has done the body of their first mitten, and we'll be able to do the thumb in class. Then, I can show them how to start the hat. We were debating if this needed to be a two- or three-session class, and I think you can do it in two if everyone is up to speed. Three sessions might be better for slower and/or less experienced knitters. But we shall see how that goes next week.

Mittens ahoy!

Koolhaas Addendum

Ok, so we just had a County Council (not Town Council or City Council) meeting, and I took the hat to work on. And I've now pretty much finished it. That's how long the council meeting went. :( I started right there, like I've got in the picture below, and I'm now only 9 row from being totally done. I doubled the size of the hat tonight. (Picture below shows it at two pattern repeats, and I did two more tonight.)

I don't know if I am proud of my industriousness... or just tired from this incredibly long meeting.


Oh, by the way, the meeting continues tomorrow, since not everyone got a chance to speak tonight

Koolhaas Hat

Or, as John pronounces it, "Cool-ass Hat." I'm going decadent and knitting it out of Sublime Cashmere Silk Aran, one of my final purchases before leaving Knit Wits. And as my second cabling project... ever... I feel that it is going quite well. It's pretty smooth sailing now that I've done the pattern repeat a couple times, but isn't that always how it works? The first few rows are all snarked up, but then you get the hang of things and it's all better.

Here's the link to some finished pictures from the designer's blog: Brooklyn Tweed

I also picked up a skein of purple/white blended Toefutsies that I'm going to turn into matching gloves for this hat. And if I have leftover cashmere, I'm making soft cuffs out of it for the gloves. mmmm... cashmere.

"We" got a New Puppy

So I say "we" because we (John and I) did not choose to get a new puppy, but rather his parents did... His parents, who are not at home, but on a motor home trip extravaganza... A trip that will last several more weeks... They were in Michigan a few weeks ago, and somehow ran across a breeder. John's mother loves Malteses (malteezes? maltooses?) and could not resist picking up another one. Yes, I say, another one. We already have two at home. And, yes, that "we" is referring to John and I, since we are the ones taking care of the little monsters while his parents are out of town. I present to you, the original puppehs:

So, his parents came through town last week for a mid-trip pit stop, and dropped off said new puppy... And I learned why we now have three of the critters: Malteese puppies are possibly the cutest things in the world. I think it's a survival mechanism. She tends to do one of three things: pee on it, poop on it, or chew on it. But since she's so darn cute, it's difficult to punt her across the room when she is bad. See? Survival of the cutest.

Her name is Maile (may-lee), which is Samoan for "dog." Yes, we named the dog "dog." But really for this family, it's a trend that has been years in the making. Back a decade or so ago when they got their first dog, John wanted to name it, and he, being a non-sarcastic teenager, chose "Dogee" (as in Dee-Oh-Gee). Then, a few years later with dog #2, his sister was getting into learning Japanese and so they chose "Inu" for her. So, really, once you name two dogs "dog" you don't have a choice but to find another pretty sounding language and keep going.

I went a little camera happy the other day, so most of these pictures are of her wet (she got a bath because she rolled in something stanky, a habit she has already learned from Inu).


She is super brainless, with only two modes of operation: ON (pee on it, poop on it, or chew on it) or OFF (sleep). It makes for exciting times in our tiny apartment. When she's ON, there are only us, the two dogs, and one cat for her to play with... and at any given moment at least two are hiding up on furniture Maile can't reach. Yes, she has short legs and we take advantage of that. But she is so cute when she finally crashes and goes to sleep.

Is this why people keep having babies? They can only remember the cute times? I mean, Maile has already peed or pooped about 30 times on the carpet (thankfully, her bladder is only a tablespoon, so it doesn't do too much damage), but she has gone after my shoes, destroyed the beanbag, and tried to tear up knitting patterns. Yet, I remain a fan because she is cute. I am a sucker for the cute. I know.