Olly Oxen Free

Dear J's baby,

I finished your sweater last night. It is now blocking (photo soon). It's ok to come out now - your Mom, Far, and big brother B can't wait to meet you. So if the sweater is what has been holding you back, now you have no excuse.

Love,

Auntie K

still here, still trendy

Quick knitting check in: two projects underway.

1. Green Classic Elite Star sweater for R (pattern came with yarn, basic pullover in fairly boring stockinette).

2. Following the Ravelry herd and making a February Lady with some red (Vermillion) kettle-dyed Malabrigo I got on sale. I vacillated between the red and some white/natural. Trying to convince myself I made the right choice. I started this on vacation on Cape Cod and am now about halfway done with the body. The lace goes pretty quickly.

Incorrect Marital Profiling

I'm a big fan of Laurie Perry, aka Crazy Aunt Purl. So much so that I purchased her book Drunk, Divorced, and Covered in Cat Hair from Amazon for my recently divorced sister. And what does Amazon send me today?

Dear Amazon.com Customer, We've noticed that customers who have purchased or rated Crazy Aunt Purl's Drunk, Divorced, and Covered in Cat Hair: The True-Life Misadventures of a 30-Something Who Learned to Knit After He Split by Laurie Perry or other books in the Family Relationships > Divorce category have also purchased Contemplating Divorce: A Step-by-step Guide to Deciding Whether to Stay or Go by Susan Pease Gadoua. For this reason, you might like to know that Contemplating Divorce: A Step-by-step Guide to Deciding Whether to Stay or Go will be released on August 1, 2008. You can pre-order yours at a savings of $5.42 by following the link below.

And of course the first thing I saw open opening the email was a big graphic of the Contemplating Divorce cover. I quickly checked with my better half to make sure everything was hunky dory and that this wasn't his way of telling me something (neither of us have Facebook accounts, so, y'know, I might not be up on our relationship status). He assured me all was well and I went back to read the text and realized it was all due to my Crazy Aunt Purl fandom. I guess it's a good thing I don't use Facebook and the Beacon service or my friends might have been wondering about us. Awkward!

Stashbustapalooza

Check out this sweater and hat combo made for Baby AW, far away in London:


Pattern: Daisy by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee. I used up stash leftovers of Brown Sheep Cotton Fleece and Cotton Classic. I like bright colors on babies, and it seems Miss AW would agree!

Also stash busted two pairs of socks (no photos yet), one in army green mock cable rib, one self-striping blues in a chevron pattern.

Currently on the needles:
Fast Florida Footies for my mom (began during vacation in FLA last week, will be Mother's Day gift)
Green Classic Elite Star pullover for R
Baby hat for one of my colleagues due next month
Sitcom Chic - time to pull it out of storage and finish it already

And...for my birthday my better half bought me a copy of 2 at Time Socks. I'm about 3 inches into the cuff - it was slow starting, but I'm getting the hang of it. The book has nice patterns too, regardless of whether you end up liking the two at a time approach (consensus at yesterday's knitting group was split 50-50).

If that doesn't work, try a carrier pigeon

While I love my new job, there have been a few hitches in the area of telecommunications.

-my email address used to belong to a student with the same last name as mine, who seems to have graduated recently. He gets mailings for things like College Republicans and the Scandinavian student society. Also, he either thinks his old address is forwarding things to him or he likes giving out fake info, as he apparently took a ReMax real estate training class last week and gave my email as his.

-my desk phone was until recently a fax number for another department. I have learned to answer the phone with the headset well away from my ear. It took a while to convince the would-be faxer from Croatia that she had the wrong number.

-my work-issued Blackberry (fine after its flour bath) number used to belong to an apparent deadbeat lothario named Richard who routinely gets calls from debt collection agencies, credit card companies, and random women. The women are surprised to hear a female voice answer; the debt collectors assume I am fronting for Rich. He/I also gets many calls that ring twice and hang up. Maybe it's the Postman?

Also, fun fact: At my last job I had inherited the former email address of one of the real life students whose story is depicted in the new movie "21." A few years ago she wrote to warn me that casino detectives had a record of her email address and had incorrectly deduced that my maiden name was one of her aliases. She alerted me that I may encounter problems should I ever try to play blackjack in Vegas (unlikely, as I'm too frugal to play more than the nickel slots!).

Facts and figures...

...from the past six weeks:

Number of tourists whose photos I have taken in front of a famous statue on campus: 3
Number of tourists in whose photos I am likely in the background: at least two dozen
Number of knitted objects completed: 5 - a Bainbridge scarf for my sister, the second baby cable rib sock I had begun last summer, a moss stitch pillow for our new living room, a modified Ice Queen from Knitty (no beads, and lace only at the edges), a washcloth for women's shelter "moving out" kits.
Number of steps from my assigned parking spot to my office: ~2500 (I started wearing a pedometer to trick myself into moving more)
Amount of hair trimmed from my head (about 3 inches, and I'm still coming to terms with it.)
Number of spit-takes induced in new coworkers by making references to MatchGame: 1

A Working Mother's Lament

Last night I got home late after a work-related dinner, and realized I had promised to bake something for the PTO bake sale today. I hurriedly put my things down on the counter and got out a mixing bowl. While I was measuring flour my hand slipped and I proceeded to dredge my new Blackberry which was charging next to the bowl.