A Day in the Life

I bet you all thought I'd forgotten about you.

After all, this is awfully late in the day for me to post something.

No, I've been knitting, searching, swearing, dozing... the stuff I'll talk about later.

First, the porn.

Now bear in mind that this is two days' worth of stuff from the Yarn Fairy and his minion, the YFIT (Yarn Fairy in Training, for those of you who have forgotten). I have to admit, though, that even I am sort of embarrassed by the sheer volume of yarny goodness which I'm about to present to you. It took three pictures to get it all photographed without crowding anything, but I hope you'll enjoy everything. Gabby has gotten over her snit and posed with everything.

Because there is so much yarn and I can't keep everything straight, I'm simply going to list the yarns in each picture. Many of you will recognize which yarns are which.

The first offering.



The pattern in the back (I apologize for you not being able to see the details) is called "Tumbling Blocks" and is by Leah Oakley Originals. This was part of a yarn swap where she sent me a club offering by Sleeping Dragon and I sent her... well, I sent her a skein of yarn outside of her color box. That big square of beautiful blue-hued yarn is handspun by Moody Landscape. If you look closely, you can see a rectangle knit out of it. It's spectacular. Then there is Dream in Color Smooshy in "Visual Purple" and "Happy Forest", and Woolly Boully in "Fishing With My Father".

The second offering.



This one contains Sereknity in "Autumn Blaze" and "Tree Frog"; Dream in Color Smooshy in "Dusky Aurora"; and a new dyer for me, Sheepaints in "Pumpkin" and "Kitty Paw" (I'm REALLY stoked about knitting this one).

The final picture.



The first three were skeins I bought from a lovely lady named Zonda who was destashing. The first two are from a dyer I've never tried before - Sunshine Yarns in "Dark Forest" and "Tiger"; Yarn Pirate in "Brown Sugar"; and then two from Etsy - RazzyTazzy Knits in "Neapolitan"; and Wooly Treasures in "Candy Kisses".

I also got a bagful of stitch markers and a counting bracelet from Hide and Sheep (you MUST go buy some of Susan and Todd's wares - they will even customize the bracelets for you at no charge, and their workmanship is incredible), the first club offering from the TV Yarn Club (chick flicks) courtesy of White Oak Studio (I almost fell off the Monster when I saw what they sent - if you get a chance to join this club in three months, do so - you'll go nuts), and my first club offering from Sharing on Etsy (a gorgeous yarn as only Karen can do in a really cool container). I don't like to show the club offerings in case people haven't received theirs yet, and I don't want to be a spoiler.

I had room in my newest bin, so I explained to Hubster that they're like freezers - they're not as efficient if they're not full. I don't think he bought it.

On to my night of horror.

It started as it usually does. I knew I was sleepy, but I was bound and determined to reach a certain point on the Monkey socks. I figured that if I was careful, I could easily reach my intended goal, put the knitting away, and actually lay down in my bed (I don't even remember what it feels like, but I seem to remember something very soft and squishy and wonderful). Hubster was up late with me too (I think he was hoping I'd come to bed with him), and earlier in the day, he had bought me a sandwich from our favorite Italian deli. I was hoping to eat the sandwich when we got home (which was about 8:00 p.m.), but I had left it out on the counter because I don't like cold bread. What I should have done was to take the roast beef out of the sandwich, refrigerated that, wrapped the roll in foil, and then reassembled it when I wanted to eat it. Instead, I was late as usual for my appointment, so we took off out the door and the sandwich languished. I was starving when we got home, so I got the sandwich, opened it to slap some mayo on it, and decided I'd better taste the meat before I ate it

GACK.

It was beginning to turn bad. So in the garbage went my beloved sandwich and I ate... you guessed it. A ham sandwich on an English muffin. I'm starting to resemble an English muffin.

After dinner, I settled down in the Monster to begin my knitting. I figured that I would be done in an hour, I'd take my pills, goof around online while they kicked in, and then hit the hay. Simple, right?

Wrong.

As usual, I fell asleep in the Monster and woke up at intervals with my knitting in my hand. I would knit a few stitches, fall asleep, wake up, knit a few stitches, fall asleep... this went on through most of the night. I finally woke up at 4:00 a.m and realized that I hadn't even knit 10 stitches. That was my hour-long project. Sigh.

I got Hubster off to bed (he looked so sad that I wasn't coming; not that he wanted to play slap and tickle, but he wanted to cuddle), and I got myself something to drink and prepared to finish my knitting. I wasn't tired anymore, so I figured I could finally get it all done. Everything was going swimmingly for awhile - I had a lot of stuff TIVO'ed, I had my drink, I had everything else I needed on my table - and then it happened. I had to go pee.

Not a big deal, right? The bathroom is right across the hall from where the Monster resides. The big deal is that I have to take everything off the foot rest, put it on the chair, put the foot rest down (no easy task for some reason), and then hustle off to the bathroom before I pee on my feet. I managed to do that just fine, exited the bathroom, sat my big ass on the Monster, and pulled on the lever to raise the foot rest. Then I put everything back on it (it makes such a terrific shelf), reached for the fifth needle to begin knitting again, and...

It wasn't there.

I tore that chair apart. I found dust bunnies the size of my head behind and under the Monster; I found a dead moth the size of Manhattan; I found all kinds of things I would rather not have seen. But did I find the needle? No. So I began to swear. Loudly. I hope the neighbors didn't hear me, although at the time, I didn't much care.

After I had exhausted all my options, I finally had to resort to my secret weapon: Hubster. It was 6:00 a.m., and I hated to wake him up, but he's really good at finding things. So I went in the bedroom, got him up, and explained what had happened. He began a thorough search of the chair. At one point, I thought maybe the needle had been on the foot rest when I closed it down, thereby flinging it across the room, but it was nowhere to be found. Hubster even lifted the chair up (that man is STRONG), and all we found were the arm covers and back cover for the Monster that the idiots who delivered it hadn't bothered to give us - they were tucked way up under the Monster. Then, as Hubster began to lower the chair, we heard a plink. We looked, and lo and behold, there was the needle. It must have been wedged in the Monster somewhere we couldn't reach it, and I was very lucky that the needle didn't break when I sat in the chair and raised and lowered the rest. If it had been a steel needle, it may well have broken in half. Given that it is bamboo, it might have flexed enough to save it. Thank goodness. That meant I could finish my knitting and not have to wait until today to buy another set of needles at $15 a pop. (Yeah, I know it sounds stupid for me to complain about how much something costs, given the sheer volume of yarn I buy, but there's something obscene about paying that much for DPN's.) Hubster made some coffee, sat down at the computer, and has been awake since. I think we're both pretty punchy, so a nap together before we go out tonight is in order.

I finally finished my knitting, put it away (with the fifth needle safely secured in the ball of yarn), watched some TV, dorked around, and finally got around to photographing all the porn. Now I need to put it all away, go water my plants, and then collapse. Today is our daughter's 30th birthday, but she has plans with a friend of hers, so we'll see her tomorrow. I won't be posting tomorrow because we'll be gone all day with her, so I'm taking the day off. I'll be back on Monday.

No doubt with more porn to share with you, and hopefully some funny stories about our adventures in Berkeley tomorrow.

Have a lovely Sunday, my dear readers.