My glass is half full...

Yes, I am in Disney World.

Yes, I'm also stuck in the room with my little one because she's vomiting.  :(    While I hate to see her sick, and God knows she's thin enough, I've had worse days.  In between bouts of holding her hair back, rubbing her back and generally soothing her, I've been able to sit on the balcony and either read or knit the scarf I'm making for my mom.

Z came out on the balcony and said that at least she's got a good view in between bouts of throwing up.  That's my girl!

Love

I love these people

Taking Bets...

TMNC (The Many Named Cat). I figured I'd take a photo before we went out of town since he'll either be half dead or missing when we get back if going by past evidence.

If you give a a cat a cookie...

My life is sort of like one of those If you Give a Moose a Muffin books.  Seriously.

My husband and I didn't go anywhere for our 15th wedding anniversary and I was turning 40 two months later so we took our first trip to San Francisco and Napa.  While in San Francisco I, of course, went to Artfibers for some yarn shopping.  I found a lovely yarn called Tsuki which is 40% silk and 60% kid mohair.  There is a swatch of almost every yarn knitted up in the store.  I loved this look and wanted to replicate it in a shawl or scarf.  

Beautiful right?   Photo is of two colors held together and I bought both.  I was told the pattern was some sort of K1B (knit one below) and after much searching I couldn't find anything remotely similar.  

A friend sent me a link to the Horai Scarf and I love the look of it...but well, we all know my past record with lace.  Not so good.  After studying the pattern for a few weeks I decided I'd do a practice Horai with some Filisilk.  (Lace + Me + Mohair = Disaster)

So far so good.  Finished this project in 10 days!   Now to block:  

Spent 10 days knitting this thing and then soaked it and another 1.5 hours getting the blocking wires in. Ahhhhh....now for it to dry and be a perfect ending to my first finished lace project.  

As I'm walking by the hallway where my masterpiece is drying this is what I see:

Thinking this rotten cat might need to find a new home.  

Life Happens and my brain is broke

We got a little bit of bad news today.

We have three clients on the programming side of the business and one of them canceled recently.

This is a total bummer since we are basically loosing 1/3 of our income.

I have taken to cutting back on some of our bills.  I started with health insurance.  For a family of four who rarely go to the doctor, we were paying 1138 a month in health insurance.  I've been bitching about this forever!   Let me start by saying that my husband was in a networking group and we have our health insurance though one of those people.

I called the guy I used to use and low and behold, our new payment is ... DRUM ROLL PLEASE ... $429 a month!   A lower deductible, a slightly higher co pay and the rest is pretty much the same.

WTF took me so long to do this????   I'm so irritate with myself.

I moved on to DirectTV.  Let me just say that to work at Direct TV, you obviously don't need to be a brain surgeon.  I can't even remotely explain my 2 hour (YES you read that right TWO FREAKING HOURS) conversation with them but let's just say that my bill went from $150 to $80.

Next was home insurance.  Yet another person set us up thought the networking group.  You see where this is going?   My old homeowners was going up $1100 to $5300 a year and I've gotten it down to $2500 with a lower deductible.

Now if I could just get my market totes moving again I'd be in good shape!

Too pretty to be dripped on?

In my ever-going quest to enjoy knitting while not making a scarf that I won't wear....I saw this pattern in a book which I borrowed from a friend.  Too cute.

Of course I'd like to take a minute to complain about that Signit.  I purchased a box of Signits for $23.  On the back of the box it explains how to put them on.  You pull the yarn through the available holes HORIZONTALLY.  However, when I get home I realize that the Fleur de Lis's have the holes VERTICALLY!   WHY??????   Now I have to figure out how to put the darn thing on my yarn without it being upside down.   

Turns out that it doesn't really matter so much as it always ends up crooked anyway.  UGH!

My complaints about Signits aside, I like this quick project.  Definitely makes giving a bottle of wine a little more pizazz (sp?).

First Socks

Here is my problem with knitting.  I love to knit.  I love to shop for yarn.  I love to peruse Ravelry and look for patterns to go with my yarn.  I love to cast on (sort of).  The problem?   I don't generally wear scarves or shawls and that's what I've been knitting.

So I decided that I'd take a class and learn how to knit socks.  Whenever I've got jeans or pants on, I've normally got some sort of store bought (*GASP*) funky socks on.

My first attempt was started on April 6th but I ended up missing a class or two when Zoey was sick and when I went to Stitches South.  Hmmm...which basically left me with no knowledge of the important things like turning the heel!  

Here is the finished product:

 
I'm happy with the finished product and think they are very cute!   After purchasing some Lisa Souza sock yarn I really want to get started on another pair BUT I really don't know how to turn the heel!  

What's a girl to do?