Today is The Booger’s 14th birthday.

I’m really having a hard time wrapping my head around that one. Where has all the time gone?

She’s still such a tiny little thing, but her feet are bigger than mine are now (woot! no more freshly-knit socks theft or borrowed shoes!), and she’s almost as tall as I am (really not saying much…). She’s brilliant and funny and beautiful (and crafty! - she totally asked for yarn and needles for her birthday, and is gearing up to make her first sweater), and definitely has a +2 in Perfectly Timed Platitudes and Sage Advice, which always makes me smile. I’m awfully proud of the chicklet.

And, unlike her parents, she’s photogenic. This is one of her school pictures from this past fall:

Fourteen. Amazing.

8 Comments | In: Booger | | #

Ooh! Ooh! Ooh!

Let the rejoicing and dancing commence! Daiso has come to Seattle! It’s wee in comparison to the one in Richmond, BC, but still! It’s here!

That’s all. Back to work, you.

1 Comment | In: General | | #

Aww, you guys are the best!

Thank you all for your comments about the Highland Chunky and the suggestions. I’m torn between doing it as written, using the Beaverslide yarn, or doing it in something lighter and doing a buttload of math (in which case I’d probably also end up adding another narrow cable on either side of the main cable, and changing the neckline a wee bit, and well… then we get into ‘entirely different sweater’ territory, which wouldn’t be a bad thing, I don’t think). Maybe I’ll just have to do both. Yes, an arctic weight sweater may not be the most practical thing, but the Booger? She lives in a cold, wet place, and she loves her some arctic weight stuff (and she’s a wee bitty little thing with absolutely no body fat). I’ve been jonesing to order some Beaverslide yarns anyway, so I’m definitely going to do that. And I’ve got some lighter stuff on hand that I might just have enough of, so I’ll swatch for that too, and see where that takes me.

I will, of course, keep all y’all posted.

In other, completely unrelated news, I just got home from the doctor. It was one of those lovely bad news/good news things. My back? It’s horked. I knew that. I just didn’t know exactly *how* horked it was. Now I know. My L5S1 disk is blown. I will be going to see a surgeon in the next couple of weeks to find out if I have to have surgery (I’m voting no on that front). I get to go to physical therapy (and maybe accupuncture if my insurance will cover it). I think the worst bit about this whole thing is that the initial injury to my back happened, what, a year ago? Year and a half? It’s been a long damn while. I’ve seen three doctors about it. The first two decided that even xrays were unwarranted and that I was fine. The first one treated me like I was just another middle-class painkiller junkie seeking more drugs (and completely ignored both my statements to the contrary and the endless list of drugs I’m violently allergic to in my charts), and basically blew me off with nothing more than a cursory battery of “can you feel your feet” type things. The second did the same battery of poking at my feet and making me push up and down with my toes and concluded that it couldn’t be a disk issue because I didn’t have any nerve damage. Alas. I have no nerve damage (yet), but I do have one fewer intact disk than I should. So yeah, I’m a bit pissy about it all. But The Doctor’s Clinic folks? They get the bonus points for a)listening, b)thinking outside the box, and c)always being really freakin’ decent to deal with. I hate doctors (hoo-ee! the understatement of the year, right there, just for you!), and will avoid them at great lengths, but I have willingly gone back to this place a few times now, and always had a good experience. Surprising, really, for a walk-in clinic in Bummertown.

Oh yeah, and while laying flat on my back all last weekend I knit a pair of socks. Pictures forthcoming.

3 Comments | In: Socks, knit-o-rama | | #

It’s that time of year again (apparently time for me to actually post something…), time for the Booger’s annual birthday sweater. This year she picked the Bed & Breakfast pullover from the winter 2003 issue of IK. Great. I can do that, no problem. Right?

HA! Seems that yarn in that gauge is a might tricky to find (well, yarn that doesn’t SUCK at any rate), unless you’re willing to pay hundreds and hundreds of dollars for enough to make a sweater out of. GRRR.

After much searching, I ended up ordering some Peruvian Highland Chunky from Elann. Great color selection, crazy good price, and fast fast fast shipping. All well and good. The yarn showed up yesterday, and I busted out a skein to swatch.

Soft! Nice! Hmmm… Maybe not so wonderful.

For starters, it untwists as I knit, so I have to keep remembering to check and adjust the twist, which is a pain in the arse. Fine. Swatch done. Soft, nice. Into the basin to soak, onto the blocking foamy thing to block. I got up this morning and checked on it, and it was all dry, so I unpinned it and walked from the living room to the computer room, which is all of… 30 feet? And that includes a detour into the kitchen to pick up my coffee cup. While I walked that short short distance, I had folded the swatch in half and was rubbing it against itself to see how the abrasion resistance was.

30 feet, 90 seconds, GIANT SWATCH EATING PILLS. Almost as bad as the DB Cashmerino (and by this point, y’all *know* how I feel about Debbie Bliss yarns). See?

I have said many bad words, which I will not include here.

Thoughts? Ideas? Suggestions?
GRRRRRRR. I really really really was hoping to not have to spend $120 on yarn for this project. Really I was.

9 Comments | In: Booger, knit-o-rama | | #