The big oops

I spent about an hour picking out buttons for the front of 3 baby albert sweaters I was making. I put the yellow starts on the green sweater, but as I was sitting there this evening working on the blue one...I began to wonder, what exactly did I do with those buttons. Hmmm. I remember taking out the yellow ones. Yes. I remember putting the others back in the bag. Yes. But what happened to that bag???? Ummm... I've been packing...and I've been throwing away lots of things...ummm...I think it may have gotten thrown away in my "everything out" phase on Sunday morning. Oops...

Decoding the Dating Game

So, I had an e-mail from Yahoo saying that my profile on Yahoo Personals was about to expire (umm, you know that one I put out there while drinking one evening 6 years ago...yeah, that one). So, anyway, I decided to check out what the population of available men was like in Overland Park, KS.

Ummm...I'm scared. It's scary how many men think it's appropriate to take pictures of themselves in their wifebeater undershirts and publish them in a public manner. It's scary how many seperated men are already back in the saddle. It's scary how many men have no preference what-so-ever what the woman is like as long as she's thin. There is a readily available supply of Christian Conservatives and Yoga hippies available should I decide to give up my personality or go to the dark side.

I also remembered that there is a fair bit of code used in personal ads. For example:

"I'm looking for an open-minded girl" means "I want to have sex on the first date and if you're not that open minded, don't waste my time..."

"I work in academia/research" means "I make virtually no money and you will need to support me"

"I work in transportation" means "I'm a trucker and I have a woman in 10 different cities across the US, you'll be number 11."

"Salary range: Any" means "I want you to think I don't want you to judge me for how much I earn and...umm...I only earn $25,000 a year so I'll need you to support me."

"I'm a full-time party guy" means "I'm a full-time party guy and I'll show up drunk at your house at 4am just to get some."

Now that I've posted this post, I'm sure the men in KC will just be lining up for me...

Two momentous announcements...

First and foremost, I present Lindsay's Sweater!!!!
It took me a good part of the day to seam this together thanks to the lack of instructions in Debbie Bliss's book, but after several tries afixing the collar and pink edging, I finally got it right. Mental note, next time you need to attach a collar. Attach in the middle and seam downwards. I also added a little bit of i-cord on the one side to hold the second tie in place. Hurrah!!! I'm going too show it to everyone so they can marvel over how cool I am and then give it to my sister for my neice.

Second, I found a place to live in KC!!! Yippee. It's in Overland Park, KS, so when people ask me where I live, I'll have to admit to living in Kansas. I bit scary, I know. The place I finally decided on is the AMLI Creekside complex. I got a two bedroom two bathroom apartment with a sunroom. It's at the back of the property overlooking a local walking/bike trail and woods. Meaning, not a lot of street noise. Yippee. I'm very excited now, I have to start packing. Ughhh!!!.

Going to Kansas City...

Kansas City here I come...again... So, No more blogging until Sunday again. I'm leaving for Kansas City on Saturday am and I'm going to do the suicide mission drive up and drive back. I am not alone in my insanity. I have convinced my mother to drive along with me. On her part, as much as to ensure I don't fall asleep at the wheel and die before I can start my new job as opposed to any real desire to drive to Kansas City for the day.

I didn't end up going out to dinner with Julie. We're going to go sometime next week, so I do have a little time left to work on her sock before giving it to her. Last night with the knitting posse, I managed to finish 4 repeats of the yarn-over cable or #17 from Joy Slayton's Ribbing Plain and Fancy booklet. I like this booklet so many ideas.

I don't know if I can spare the time to work too much on Julie's sock though. I finished one Jaywalker, but need to finish the second prior to 2/14. Any bets on whether I get it done??

That's what I thought. Oh well, no possibility of winning Socks that Rock for me. I guess I'll have to wait until Stitches Midwest next year to get some more.

2 views, 1 sock

Hurrah!! One finished Jaywalker sock!!! Now, I only have to finish the second one. Socks on size 1 needles seem to take me an inordinate amount of time.

So, what did I do when I finished...cast on the second sock??? Not me, I cast on for another pair of socks. These are for my friend Julie's birthday. There is a slight time problem in this...her birthday is Sunday and I'm casting on the first sock today. Hopefully I'll get some of the pattern done so she can see what it's going to look like before I see her on Thursday otherwise, I'll wrap up one lonely toe so she can at least see what the yarn looks like.

Not content with the Jaywalkers and Julie's birthday socks, I joined Sockapalooza over at the Blue Blog. I had such a great experience with the last one, I decided to do it again.

Oh, yeah, still moving. Still need to finish 2 baby sweaters and seam Lindsay sweaters. I'll get to it...

God bless the wonderful people at Plymouth Yarn for making a baby yarn that comes in colors other than pastels. Case in point, the beautiful kelly green baby Albert (from Sally Melville's Knit Stitch book) finished this evening. So much more fun for babies whose parents want to be surprised. So much better than pale yellow or pale green, both of which look more girly. Yippee. Second finished object of the year and not a minute too soon, the baby shower is tomorrow at noon.

I think I'm going back to KC this weekend. I was stressing out about where to live, but considering, I live 24 miles from the office and it took me more than 45 minutes to get home this evening at 6pm, it can hardly that bad. So far, the apartments I liked were in the 15-20 mile range from the office.

I'm tired...

I'm back from the wilds of Kansas City, MO and I'm exhausted. I saw 15 different apartments over the course of 2 days. Not one of them was everything I wanted. I have narrowed it down to 5 possibilities each with it's faults and good points. So, I need to decide what to do. Unfortunately, the one with the floor plan that I liked the best is the farthest away from the office (still closer than I drive now) and the one closest to the office overlooks an industrial section of town with no close by stores and is also the most expensive. The other 3 fall somewhere in the middle. UGHHH!!! I just don't know what to do. I'm considering calling one of those apartment finders places and maybe going back. UGHHH!!!! This is incredible frustrating. So, I don't have an apartment just a big dilemna after my weekend spent in Kansas City.

Happy Birthday to me.

Happy Birthday to me. I've made it to 32 years old. Usually I get sort of down and kind of just detach for awhile each January. I think it's a combination of "Oh my god, I'm getting Older" and "Oh, my god my life is going no where." Obviously, if you've been reading my blog you'll know, my life is going lots of places and I've been so busy stressing out about said life going lots of places that I haven't had time to think about getting old either. So, all in all, this is the best year in many years.

By the way, I have such cool friends. I got a card in the mail from Beth today, just supporting me. That's so cool. She listened to me literally cry in my beer last week after I got the job offer as I came to the realization that I just couldn't pass it up. She has been a huge help in all of this since she's relocated sh understands what I'm going through. By the way Beth, I ordered your birthday present today.

So, tomorrow I leave for the wilds of Kansas City to find a place to live. Armed with my street map this evening, I've been plotting my route through the apartment complexes I want to look at...with a side trip to a yarn store or two... :-0 So, there will be no more blogging until Sunday, but I'm taking my camera, so we'll have a visual record of my trip.

I got my birthday present from Beth tonight. It's the Vogue Stitchionary. I still need to buy her birthday present, a copy of Vogue Stitchionary, but want to order another book to take advantage of free shipping and I wanted to see if I got any more knitting books for my birthday before I ordered away.

I took the first step towards becoming a resident of Kansas City, Mo when I bought a Kansas City Street Guide. Hopefully this will enable me to find my way around KC when I go this weekend. Although I'm very bad with directions, so it will be invaluable when I actually move there.

I also bought a Chagall calendar. I've been looking at it for several weeks and it was still there and 75% off, so I figured for $2.70 I could spring for it. I like Chagall because every time you look at his paintings you see something you missed before.

The Golden Globes are good for seaming...

Well, well, well... There are some that thought it would never happen. I've started seaming together my nieces sweater. I got the two shoulder seams together and they don't look too bad. Now, I'm ready to seam on the collar band and collar and I've hit a snag...I can't remember how to seam Stockinette to Garter Stitch. Ugghh. You might notice above is one of Sally Mellville's book and above that you can just see a corner of the ubiquitous Vogue Knitting handbook. Both consulted in vain. Am I making this too difficult?? Are there no instructions?? Has all the drama in my life totally erased all common sense?? So all you knitters out there, help me if you can.

Busy week this week. Work. Career counselor for a friend tomorrow night. Work. Knitting on Wednesday. Work. My birthday on Thursday and driving to KC to apartment hunt on Friday. So, probably not much knitting...or seaming...going on this week.

So...I'm moving

I've stopped freaking out about it...for the moment anyway. I have fully immersed myself in the myriad details necessary to transfer me and all of my stuff accross the state and safely ensconced inside of a new apartment. So, to start it off, I broke my lease. Much less traumatic then I had imagined. I didn't have to come up with a $750 cashiers check with my written notice. I don't have to repay any rental concessions Big huge sigh of relief here.

Next up, finding a place to live. I'm traveling to Kansas City next weekend to seek out a place to live. I've been looking on line for several places to visit. I'm going to take Friday off and go for the weekend. Look around a little bit. Maybe check out the yarn stores. :-0

So enough about the move, on to more interesting things. I had my birthday party this weekend with my family. My sister gave me one of those rolling tote bags. It's red. It's awesome. I've wanted one of these for awhile. I go on a lot of one night business trips with my laptop and this is perfect for traveling with the computer and a change of clothes. Yeah!! We had my favorite dinner. Lasagna and Cherry Pie for dessert. It was a good time. We laughed a lot.

Announcement

You may have noticed that there has been some splotty blogging and some very ho hum posts lately. Not a lot of finished objects or new ones started, etc. I've kind of been preoccupied by something that took a lot of my personal energy for the past two months, but I can now announce that Shoes and Yarn will soon be relocating.

Not the blog, silly... Me.

I accepted a promotion and will be moving to Kansas City, Mo. The position is a very good move for me professionally and they made me an offer that I couldn't turn down. This was quite possibly the hardest decision I've ever made in my entire life. For two months while going through the process, I alternated between, "what a great opportunity!" and "Oh, my god, I can't leave my family."

It took me all day practicing yesterday to be able to say that I was going to accept the position without actual tears. It's a good thing I have an office with a door. I did managed to accept the position today without choiking up, but I still tear up when ever I talk to a family member about moving. I did manage to tell co-workers as long as I avoided saying anything about leaving my family and friends.

This is the right move for me at this point in my life. I'm single, no boyfriend, no children, etc. so I can do this. It's only a 4.5 hour drive or a short Southwest flight away.

I feel like the "I will survive" should be playing in the background..."

The Birthday Gift

Beth, my most wonderful and totally cool friend, came up with the perfect idea this evening. I would buy her the Vogue Stitchionary for her birthday (January 7) and she would buy me the Vogue Stichionary for my birthday (January 19th). Isn't she the smartest and coolest person on earth.

That 6am flight is a bitch... I couldn't sleep because I thought I would oversleep. Nevermind the fact that I set two, count them two alarms. Needless to say I'm not a morning person and have a tendency to turn off the alarm in my sleep. So, I went to bed early, read a little bit. Turned off the light at 10 and settled down to sleep. No sleep. 11pm. No sleep 12am... No sleep 12:30am. Finally, 1am sleep. Uh Oh 3:15 am wide awake and debating if I go back to sleep will I go into that really deep sleep and sleep through the alarm. UGHHHHH!!!!! It's really sad when you leave St. Louis in the dark and arrive in Kansas City still before light. Interviewed all day long. I'll keep everyone updated.

I had to look twice at the calendar today to verify the date. I can't believe I drove around with the convertible top down on January 8th. This has got to be a record. I have all of my doors and windows open and am enjoying the great weather. Tomorrow it will get colder again.

Jaywalking baby...Jaywalking

So, in the absence of any opinions, I went ahead the with the Jaywalker pattern and I'm so glad I did. These socks look so cool!!! I love the way the Jaywalker
skews the regular "barber shop pole" type strips I was getting.

By the way, the way, this is the Knitpicks yarn that I dyed back in October in the ball. Half in grape koolaid and half in watermelon koolaid. So, for future reference, this would be a good way to get a striping pattern for socks. But, my biggest caution is you've got to get the color all the way into the middle of the yarn.

In other good news, the knitting is finally done on my neice's sweater. Blocking will soon commence followed by the dreaded...seaming. UGHH!!! Good thing she's so cute...

To pattern or not to pattern...

that is the question. Below, you have my new sock. Made from the yarn that I dyed half and half while in the ball. I was going to use Grumperina's Jaywalker pattern, but it's coming out with this cool barber pole stripe look in the 2x2 rib.

For anyone who saw it last night, I restarted because I tried a pattern and it didn't work out so I decided to try Jaywalker since I joined the KAL over at January One. So, the big question is do I continue in the 2x2 rib and have barber pole stripes or do I actually take the plunge into Jaywalker??? I can always try out the Jaywalker, rip and come back to this. What do you think???

A beginning and an end...

So, the new year has started. I've decided not to make any resolutions this year since I never keep them anyway. I will be trying to knit more things for me this year, as opposed for everyone else.

Today was the last day of my 10 day holiday. Let's all offer thanks to my employers who closed down from 12/23 through 1/3. Hurrah! I was beginning to despair that I wouldn't accomplish anything over the break. My apartment was a mess. My laundry wasn't finished. I didn't finish any knits in progress and I didn't start any more over the break (although the temptation was mighty).

My last day started off with a bang this morning or rather...the wail of the tornado sirens at 5:30am. Yes, and it was windy enough outside to send me scurrying to my walk in closet with my battery radio. I almost fell asleep on the floor when I head that the warning expired so I went back to bed for 4 more hours. I got up and cleaned the kitchen, threw away my x-mas tree, finished the laundry and even hung up all my clothes and miracle of all miracle, have a finished object to present. TaDa!!
The Crusoe Sock from Knitty.com
Yarn: Tess's Super Sock yarn purchased at Stitches Midwest 2004.
Knit on #1 bamboo needles.



One thing I will note about this pattern is that the stranded stitch gives you a pretty non-stretchy fabric so if you usually need some extra room in your socks, take that into account.
I chose the pattern after several mis-starts. This yarn has a habit of pooling, as in it was all solid pink on one side and the other side light pink and dark purple striped. I kind of like the stripey effect it made.

So Hurrah for me! My first FO of 2006 was for me. Up next in socks, the koolaid dyed yarn I made back in October.