Kiss My Knits!

Yesterday and today I took a little extra care with my appearance, wearing non-sneaker shoes and button-down shirts. And yesterday and today I ran into people from my old workplace I haven’t seen in seven years. Quite the coincidence.

I actually bought new clothes last weekend, because I was down (again) to one pair of non-holey pants. The new pants are from Eddie Bauer, and they’re the “Vashon fit.” This cracks me up no end, because when I wear them I think that Vaschon is hugging my hips. They fit great, and I think I’ll go back for another pair at the earliest opportunity.

I’m also pleased to discover that I can still find flattering clothing in non-plus-size shops. Huzzah!

Well, my daughter is playing a Disney Channel internet version of Pitfall and having trouble with the vines/ropes. Time for an old Atari pro like me to step in!

Feeling better! Tyrathia‘s scarf is done (pictured here not bound off) and will go on the blocking board tonight to help it drape even better. And hey, it only took… what? Two years? There’ll be better pics and notes when it’s actually completely done!

Worth the wait?
Time will tell!

Annual meeting with school officials tomorrow morning to discuss my daughter’s IEP (individual educational plan). You may recall that I hate these like the Fox network hates quality TV shows. Here’s hoping I don’t throttle anyone! Wish me luck!

Felled by Stomach Crud.

It’s amazing how quickly I’ve turned from “cockeyed optimist” to “everything in the world sucks.”

Got a buddy on my friends list who’s trying to lose some weight, so I’m posting up occasional low-fat or low-calorie recipes in a gesture of solidarity. This one’s fairly white bread, but I’m in a white bread kind of mood.

This is meat loaf with spinach inside, accented with tomato sauce and mozzarella cheese. If you’re a vegetarian, you definitely shouldn’t look at this recipe. This recipe honestly sounded revolting to me when I first heard of it. Actually, it’s very tasty! Takes a little bit of advance notice, since you have to thaw out frozen spinach ahead of time.

Meat Loaf Florentine

Finally moving into March orders on hats, and also potentially getting ahead of schedule on the line again, which is good.

Next up: Florida (pending info), Ohio, Illinois, Ontario.

Off to take a brisk walk!

I wrote back on March 24th about a good experience with educational charity Donors Choose and mentioned that I was looking at possibly doing a contest for another proposal that had touched me.

It was this one, for a teacher who is in a wheelchair and wanted a wheelchair-accessible overhead projector cart so that he or she could write on the ‘blackboard’ and the students would be able to see it. Well, I gave a small amount, and figured I’d dole out the rest periodically and maybe run the contest. However, my loving mother graciously funded the balance on it. So the teacher will get the cart, and will be able to function better in the classroom. A special-needs teacher in a special-needs classroom getting what they need to succeed? I’m feeling good about that.

Thanks, Mom, you’re a wonderful person.

“Hey Heather,

I bought a hat from you in the Winter and I love it. I actually found the love of my life with it on myspace. …”

The power of the Jayne hat knows no bounds! It can inspire true love, it can bring a smile to everyone’s lips, it can even keep you warm in Antarctica. If only our world leaders would wear Jayne hats, our problems would be solved in no time!

In other knitting news, my daughter actually asked me to knit something for her. She saw a shop model at Charlotte Yarn and liked it, so I picked up a skein of Southwest Trading Company “Phoenix” which is a 100% soy ribbon yarn. The colorway, appropriately, is “Candy.” The shop model was knit on 13s, but I did it on 11s with a 13 for the bindoff. Smaller needles = smaller stitches = smaller garment for my smaller girl.

It’s straight garter stitch with a few yarn overs at the beginning of each row to add a few stitches. The yarn overs make the larger holes, and they also make it grow gently so that it’s got a more curved shape instead of being a rectangle. There was one knot in the skein, when I wouldn’t expect any in a skein of yarn that retails for $12.50. Because it’s for a seven-year-old who won’t care about details, I just knotted the ends and didn’t bother with anything fancy. I also just did a regular bind-off, when a suspended bind-off would probably have been better for a looser edge. Eh, whatever, she’s very happy with it and doesn’t want to take it off.

I saw The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou a couple of days ago. Very enjoyable. Odd, but enjoyable. It seemed detached from itself sometimes, but at a key moment in the film, I was literally leaning forward in my seat to try to catch a better look. Not for everyone, I think, but still I recommend it. And the movie proves once again that Willem DaFoe is a fantastic actor.

Back to the Jayne mines! Hat on the needles for Ohio, next up are Maryland, Florida, and Ohio again.

In conjunction with the Can’t Stop the Serenity campaign, a big-screen theater in Raleigh, NC will be showing Serenity, with proceeds going to Equality Now, Joss Whedon’s charity of choice. I thought I wouldn’t be able to make it up there because the hubby was going to be out of town – ironically, out of town in Raleigh – but it looks like Thursday June 22nd will work after all. Yay!

I wish this were going on Charlotte, but I don’t have the time to organize it. I’m happy it’s going on within a 4-hour drive, though! I need to be sure the timing will work out, because this could turn into an overnight trip if I don’t want to be on the road at 2 in the morning.

This is going on in cities all over America, so if you’re a Serenity fan, check out the site and see if there’s somewhere near you that you can see it on the big screen.

Jayne hats up next are Utah, Ohio, Maryland, and Florida.

On an unrelated note, we discovered last night we discovered that while my daughter likes salt and pepper on her ice cream, she HATES parmesan cheese on her spaghetti. Live and learn.

mentioning that he’s going to get a tattoo made me think of moustache tattoos.

No doubt this is one more thing that the young people today already knew all about, but I didn’t, and I sure thought it was funny. Stupid and permanent, but funny.

Hell, no, I’m not buying a $650 rug that my cat would claw to ribbons anyway. But I gotta say, those zombies are very tempting. I only got 100 with my copy of Zombies!!! and you never know when you might need eight thousand and seventy six spares.

Zombies!!! is a fun board game put out by a small company, and I enjoy it. If you prefer your zombie action online, though, there’s always The Urban Dead.