Kiss My Knits!

…or how I learned to stop worrying and love the snakes.

On the list of things I thought I’d never say, “I’m knitting a golf club cozy” ranks up there with “I’m voting Bush.” Nonetheless, I’m knitting a golf club cozy. Charlotte Yarn, my fabulous local yarn store, is knitting covers for the American Red Cross’s annual golf tournament, and they’re looking for volunteers to help them out. So, in the words of the WWI slogan, I’ll knit my bit.


Boo’s first day of second grade went reasonably well, although she refused to eat any lunch. This has been a recurring problem. I don’t know if it’s that her sandwich gets smushed in the baggie or that it’s so incredibly loud and overwhelming that she just can’t think about eating. Lord knows the times I’ve visited the cafeteria it’s been utter chaos. I’m going to get her a hard-sided case for her sandwich. Also, her teacher wrote me with a suggestion today, that since she has ‘resource center’ right after lunch, she can snack there if she doesn’t eat any lunch. Her resource teacher is fine with this.

I read somewhere recently that one of life’s little pleasures is to use a knife to carve your initials into the top of a fresh jar of peanut butter before you use it. I’d never heard of this before, but sure enough, it does bring a smile to my face. Is this a strange little quirk, or one of those things I’m the last to know? Do you play with your food too? Regardless, I share my little moment of day-brightening with you, in hopes that you’ll smile too.

Hey, , I found a shirt for you! Gotta order by August 31st, so act fast!

Only one day of summer left before school starts, so I’ve put Emily to work doing all the house cleaning. After the dishes, she’ll be re-shingling the roof.

The meeting with the teacher went well. I like her, she seems very competent. She’s got a background in special ed, so that’ll be helpful. Several of Emily’s friends from kindergarten and first grade will be in her classroom too, including her very best friend. Her teacher and I talked about strategies, and I think we’re both on the same page. I’m feeling pretty good about this.

Jayne hat orders continue to come in, and seem to have picked up slightly now that the weather’s cooling off. I seem to be getting ahead of my estimated delivery time, which is good. It’ll get better once I’ve got the mornings to knit instead of cramming it all in at night. That’ll give me a chance to make some of the things that I’ve promised other people. Including one item which I’ve decided not to follow a pattern on, but just to wing instead. We’ll see how that goes. Jayne hats on the needles for Illinois, California, and California again.


Likewise, for Fall, DR weddings are picking back up as people go back to school, and Team Wedding has some projects we’ve been able to work on. That’s always good.

Had good fun at the Stitch’n’Bitch at Books a Million last night. I had my first coffee in about a month (I get one raspberry mocha at the weekly Stitch’n’Bitch) and wound up staying up way too late. Well, at least I finished another Jayne hat and another set of repeats on Branching out.

Last night, prostiturtle brought up the post with all the alcohol stories in the comments, and it once again proved a popular topic of conversation. Another popular topic was pet loyalty. To which I will add my story!

Once, before we were married, I stayed the night with my future husband at his house (sorry, Mom and Dad!) when he was living not too far up the street. I got up in the middle of the night and fumbled for my shirt in the dark and started to put it on. I remembered that I didn’t put it on, but my husband reminds me otherwise, and he’s right: I had just gotten it over my head when I noticed it was wet. And smelled funny. What the… Holy crap! The cat had come into the room and peed on my shirt! May I just say: EWWWWWWWW!

Of course, I guess she was right to be jealous, I did wind up stealin’ her man! Ha! Take that, you stupid possessive cat!

Have you ever had a pet act possessive, jealous, or just plain weird toward someone in your life?

School starts on Friday, but I got a call from my daughter’s upcoming second grade teacher yesterday morning. She said that she had been talking to Emily’s teacher from last year about her, and heard how sometimes she does better if she’s more familiar with her surroundings. So she invited us up to the classroom this morning to look around and get acquainted before the craziness of the open house tonight. We’ll be going up shortly.

I thought that was so nice! It’s reassuring to know that Emily’s teacher is already thinking of things that can help her succeed. It feels good to know that her teacher is really in her corner. It makes me much more hopeful for this school year!

Reading a story in about a girl who thought she was sober but wasn’t made me think of my first alcoholic drink. So here we go!

In high school, I wasn’t really a party girl. I’ve always been introverted, so even when I went out with friends, that just wasn’t my thing. I didn’t have a drink until I was 21, not really seeing the point. I still don’t drink, as a rule – maybe once a year, tops. Maybe not even that. I’ve got nothing against it, it’s just not my thing.

One evening, when I was 21, I was sitting in my dorm room and suddenly, out of the blue, I thought, “eh, what the hell.” So I called some friends and said, “you know, I think I want to go have a drink.” Seeing the possibilities, they all, to a person, said, “Wait, really? Are you serious? OH MY GOD I’LL BE RIGHT THERE!”

So they took me out to a bar, and because I had no experience with liquor, they were able to ply me with pretty strong drinks and tell me they were really very low-alcohol. I really don’t like the taste of booze, so I didn’t get as blitzed as I could have. Man, that Long Island Iced Tea tasted like battery acid! To this day, I go for the girly drinks on those rare occasions when I do have a bit.

Turns out I’m a happy, huggy, peppy drunk! I love everyone! And when the end of the night was rolling around, I said, “now, am I really okay?” “Suuuure,” they said. “Great! I’ll just walk on home.” And I stood up and swayed.

And that’s when they started laughing hysterically, and I knew my friends had been using me for their own twisted amusement. Eh, I can’t blame them. It was college, and it was cheap entertainment.

And that’s the story of my first drink.

Do you have any alcohol-related stories to share?

The thing about having a business license is that your company info gets harvested by all kinds of people. I get lots of company credit card offers (no thanks!) and info about employee insurance, but every now and then I get free pens. People who sell promotional stuff send samples of their wares in hopes of enticing you to buy their brand with your name and address on it.

The quality’s going up! First I got plain hard pens with “wearwithstylecom” screened on the side, then I got one with a gel grip, and yesterday I got one with a gel grip, metal accents, AND someone took the time to separate my name into its individual components instead of pasting it directly from their mailing list. And I can have some made for only 99 cents a pen!

Again, no thanks. If they can afford to send them out randomly for free, I don’t want to think about how little it costs them to make these. And things with my logo would be useless. My Jayne hat packaging is fairly authentic, I can’t be cramming pens with my company name in the box, it just looks bad.

Still, I hearken back to the days of working in TV and getting all kinds of free stuff. It’s been 7 years and I’m still wearing T-shirts from cancelled shows the networks were promoting. Good times, good times.

I don’t need the swag I’m getting now, but I still get a little kick out of it. It’s one less thing I have to purchase, too. Why buy the pen when you can get the ink for free?

Hats up next: NC, CA, IL. Go Windy City!

Daughter Stories and Crafty Goodness.

So I just this minute got e-mail from my eBay buyer. I had no idea that the whole “African internet scam” thing had come to eBay, but that’s what it looks like to me!

Text of letter below cut.

So I put up ten skeins of Noro Kochoran on eBay a couple of days ago, and somebody didn’t bother with the lowest bid, but instead met my “Buy It Now” price of $200. Which surprised me, but it’s a fair price, so I figure they just really wanted the yarn. I invoiced the buyer and didn’t hear back.

So I look today, and he or she has zero feedback. I look closer, and realize that they joined on the 14th, and are no longer a member.

What the heck? Did this person really join, buy something, then leave again? I don’t get it. I mean, they can just write and say “Lordy, I made a huge mistake, can we call it a wash?” and I’ll be okay with that. Or did they do it to a bunch of people and then scupper off?

What a mystery. I have no idea what to make of all this. Weird.

You may recall what happened last time I posted about my husband giving our daughter a bath. He’s given her several since then – I didn’t want to submerge my icky poison ivy hand (it’s fine now, thanks) so he took over duties for a week. Aside from some incredibly flooded bathrooms – we’re talking multiple towels on the floor, dripping wet – there haven’t been any further major incidents.

So I went out the other evening, and when I came home, the hubby had graciously given the daughter a bath. He casually remarked, “Oh, she found your orange soap.”

My… orange soap?

“Yeah, you know, it’s kind of orangey?”

My grapefruit soap?

“Yeah. It had some cracks in it, and she started peeling it, and… uh… it doesn’t have cracks anymore.”

The soap he’s referring to is Sudz “In The Pink” complexion bar, which I treated myself to at our local whole foods store some months ago. I’ve been hoarding it and using it very slowly, since it costs about $6 a freaking bar.

Before:

After:

That’s it, he’s off bath duty.