Kiss My Knits!

As you can see, the couch to 5k continues. When I exercise vigorously, I turn red. Really, really red. Like so red that people are concerned for me. I haven’t had a heart attack yet, it’s just that my super-fair skin needs little provocation to make me look like a cooked lobster. If you see me jogging down the street, please do not call 911. It’s perfectly normal.

I need to work out a new route. I’m doing okay up until that last leg of the run. It takes me up Mt. Doom, and it’s brutal. Maybe if I walk a little farther before starting the program, it won’t hit in the same place.

illiane turned me on to this really cool feature on the internet. Maybe you already knew about it, but I didn’t. http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/ will let you plot out a route and tell you how far it is. It’s not entirely accurate, because I’ve driven my route and it’s just about exactly two miles, but it comes up as slightly less on that site. The site doesn’t take elevation into account, though, so maybe going up and down the slopes of Mt. Doom is adding some distance.

Jayne orders are picking up speed. Unfortunately, it’s because Halloween is upon us – and I’ve already got an eight week wait. I feel bad for these Browncoats, but it is what it is. Two kits went out yesterday, another two kits and two hats are going out today, and I’m devoting the rest of the morning to Jayne activities. I can also usually knit an entire hat at my weekly stitch session, so that’ll be another one down.

I do love my Browncoats. Check out the sweet art that came along with an order over the weekend. Too neat! The hat she drew is similar to a picture I made for something I’m planning on introducing fairly soon. “Fairly soon” being “whenever I can eke out the time for it” so actually, who knows when it’ll be?

Because all work and no play makes Tvini go crazy, I did pull out the Fleece Artist that I got as part of a sock kit swap from (thanks again!). I’ve been wanting to make Pomatomus since it was published in 2005. I just love the way these socks look.

Unfortunately, it turns out that I don’t love the way they knit. I tried to put in a lifeline before I started the pattern, but it was so tight that I gave it up. Twelve rows in and I’ve already lost a stitch. The twisted knits make tinking back a giant pain in the keister. I’m knitting it on size 1s instead of the recommended 2s because I’m a loose knitter, but even so, these stitches are pretty darned tight. I think I may abandon this and use the yarn for something else, maybe Embossed Leaves.

All right, back to the Jayne mines!

Couch to 5k update. Long!

Emily’s home sick from school today. She’s not contagious, but was right on the cusp of “too tired” so we let her stay home. This posed a little problem, since I needed to go downtown and pay for the expired tag I got a while back. I knew I needed to take care of it soon, but I had it in my head that it was around Oct 10th that it had to be done by. Nope. I checked over the weekend, and lucky that I did – the court date was Oct 1st. This meant I couldn’t just go down and pay for it, I had to actually go and sit around and wait for them to call my name.

I wasn’t aware of this but while you wait for them to call your name, YOU CAN’T KNIT. Or read. Or talk. As far as I’m concerned, after “no knitting and no reading” they might as well add “no breathing” to the list. I found this rule out when a bailiff approached me after I’d been waiting and knitting for 45 minutes, Boo beside me, all of us being very quiet and well-mannered. I asked if I could still talk to my daughter (as I’d occasionally been doing, quietly). The bailiff said no, and added that Emily really wasn’t allowed in the courtroom. D’oh!

This was a room with a bunch of people sitting quietly, not a courtroom where people were deciding custody or something. The worst that happened was that she found a wad of pre-chewed gum under the bench and I had to throw it away. Regardless, I’m not going to argue with the bailiff, since that’s a fight even I can’t win. I had to take her upstairs to a daycare with about four toddlers, all of whom were screaming their heads off. Greaaaaaat. Fortunately, it only took them about another 15 minutes to call my name, so I was able to get her out of there and back home pretty quickly. Up side: since I had my current auto registration, they dismissed the charges and I didn’t have to pay the $145. Still, it was definitely not the way I would have chosen to spend my morning – or my child’s morning.

Emily seems to be feeling somewhat better. She says her nose is still a little sniffly. She wants to go to Borders and get a new fairy book. I told her if she was too sick to go to school, she was too sick to go to Borders. Now she’s trying, “You know where I’m not too sick to go to? I’m not too sick to go to Starbucks. I feel much better!”

I’ll bet, kiddo, I’ll bet.

I couldn’t go running this morning since I was watching Emily, but I should have a post about how the couch to 5k is going this evening.

Emily’s under the weather, and has been for a few days. Mostly, she’s been staying quiet and playing on the computer, watching videos, reading and such. She doesn’t like being sick and wants to be better immediately. On Saturday, she told me, pointing at her face, “this hole in my nose is better.” So we learned the word for nostril. Hopefully she’ll be feeling better by tomorrow.

It’s interesting to see the ways in which the pink frilly princess desires butt up against the nerdy geeky desires. Last week, they read Beauty and the Beast. We talked about it some, and she asked, “How does the story end? They get married?” I said yes, and asked how she thought it ended. Her answer? “Beauty got abducted by aliens and was never seen again.”

Also, they saw a ballet based on Beauty and the Beast, which she didn’t like because Beauty’s sisters were mean to her and tore her dress. Instead, Emily says she wants to do a ballet based on the solar system. She will dance the part of the Earth. She has Elizabeth and Taylor act this out sometimes, with one playing the moon and one playing the sun.

I don’t know about you, but I’d pay money to see a ballet based on the solar system. Geeky and artistic, that’s my girl.

Went up to the post office this morning to mail Jayne hats – of course – and there was a woman there who spoke no English. This was a problem, because she had a question and none of the clerks spoke Spanish. There was another guy in line who spoke Spanish, but no English. D’oh! So I opened my big yap when they asked if anyone could help. My Spanish used to be pretty good, but it’s been about 12 years since I used it on a daily basis, freelancing for Canal de Noticias NBC. Well, any port in a storm, I suppose.

It took a while before I finally figured it out. She had a money order and wanted to know if it was important to have the address of the sender filled out. She had me look through about ten pieces of paper and I still wasn’t quite getting it. Finally she had a conversation with the other Spanish speaker in line, and from hearing what they said to each other, I finally understood. So I asked the clerk, the clerk told me, and I told her. Problem solved!

Even though I’m 99 percent sure I communicated accurately, I’m still paranoid that I may have somehow screwed it up. The money order was coming from or going to someone in a detainee facility in Atlanta, sooo… I really, really don’t want to make this woman’s day worse than it already probably is.

On the up side, now I will never ever ever forget the Spanish word for “address.”

For those playing – or attempting to play, given the system’s major technical flaws – the Dunder Mifflin Infinity game that is the online component to the Office, Dunder Mifflin Infinity has opened up new branches. After having such a frustrating experience so far, this seems like a good opportunity to start anew. The list of new branches is here.

I signed up for NC-Wilmington, down by the beach. If I’m going to have a booze cruise at my branch, I want it to be out at sea!

If you’re playing and you’d like to join my branch, my code for Wilmington is z0tm9uu7go .

Today, my calves, thighs, back, and feet are sore. The back is an intermittent thing, the legs I can’t do anything about, but I’m wondering if I need better shoes for the feet. Hmm.

My yellow yarn finally came. I ordered it in April, so yes, I am incredibly happy to see it. Now if we can just get the orange and the red to arrive.

The good news/bad news is that Brown Sheep is raising their rates again, meaning my costs for yarn are going up. I know I said this last year, but this year I really may have to raise prices. I hate to do it, so I’ll crunch some numbers and see how everything shakes out. On the up side, because this batch of yarn was ordered before the price went up, they’re honoring the old price. Yay!

Do you see anything in that picture that might give a hint as to a new Firefly-type product? Maybe something related to the keychain I made for myself so I won’t lose my freakin’ keys all the time? I need to finish up the item in question so I can show y’all properly.

In other news, my calves ache and it hasn’t even been 12 hours yet. I’m glad the “couch to 5k” program is only every other day. I’m gonna feel this in the morning.

Long, long post about fat, false starts, and fitness.

Cribbed from , who made it five whole seasons.

Your Score: 3 Episodes
( 53 Costs, 36 Reception, and 46 Cult Appeal )

Everything seemed to go wrong with you. You had high hopes and high expectations, and you poured the money into making sure it happened. But something along the way went wrong. People just didn’t tune in. And because you tried to go for the bigger mainstream audience, you didn’t inject enough innovative material to make the experts take notice. An failure in every sense of the word, FOX lets you go after a meager three episodes.

Wow. I didn’t think I’d do as well as short-lived FOX show The Tick but I didn’t even make it as far as short-lived FOX show Drive. Yikes.

Haven’t updated in a few days, so I reckon I oughtta. Unfortunately, while I do have a new knitted object, I can’t display pics of it yet because it hasn’t reached its recipient. And no, it’s not the Charlie Brown sweater. I don’t knit that fast.

Hat orders have plateaued. I’m unsurprised. The wait is currently up to eight weeks. That seems to be the point at which people decide to either wait to order or look elsewhere. Can’t say as I blame anyone; that’s a long time to wait without receiving something you’ve paid for. I predict the wait will probably stay eight weeks until after Christmas. I’m being very faithful in my Jayne hat knitting to try to get that wait down.

This morning, I’m finishing up the second of two charity hats for some Aussie Browncoats, who are using proceeds from their booth at Armageddon Expo to benefit the Motor Neurone Disease Foundation of Australia. It’s an organization focused on support and care. I’m glad that I’m in a position to help.

Brownies haven’t started up yet this year. We have a bit of a dilemma. There’s a new space we can use that’s much closer to our homes, but we have to be out by 5:45. This is actually more convenient for all of us moms, but our co-leader, who doesn’t have a girl in our troop, works uptown in a fairly demanding job. This would be a longer drive for her and she’d probably have to take off early. So, do we move to a place and time that’s more convenient for the parents and probably lose our co-leader? Or do we stay where we were last year and keep her? I’ve got an e-mail in to the co-leader to see how she feels about this, and then I’ll check with the other moms. I don’t want to throw anyone to the wolves. I’m on the fence about what’s best for the troop.

I got an e-mail from my mother last night mentioning that a little girl I used to babysit when I was a teen is now a knitter (among other things). She gave me a link to the young woman’s site. I left a comment on her blog, and she found me on ravelry. Looking at her FOs, she’s quite good! I wish I could take some credit for that, but I wasn’t knitting when I was babysitting her. It reminds me of how The Fabulous Jane Prater was my eighth grade English teacher, and now we both go to knitting guild together. Small, small world.

Finally, good news! A dear, dear friend will be moving from Maryland to Charlotte later this year. That’s her on the left in the white shirt. I am beyond excited about this. She was a college roommate and the maid of honor in my wedding. As an added bonus, her husband is a good friend of my husband, so they’re also pleased. I’m totally psyched to have another friend down here.

Wait, does this mean I have to clean the house? Yikes, I better start now.

Anyway. It’s a good morning, hopefully leading to a good day. I hope you all have the same!