Socktoberfest Progress, or Lack Thereof

Well, I finished two socks for Socktoberfest. Unfortunately, that doesn't make a pair. I finished one in Cherry Tree Hill, and one in Lorna's Laces. However, optimist that I am, I have started the second sock of Cherry Tree Hill, and will attempt to produce at least one finished pair by Halloween. Speaking of Halloween, the squirrels have produced a great deal of pumpkin carnage on my front porch. Usually, the little ^%$*#@ wait until after Halloween to do this damage, but this year, they couldn't wait. Chris suggested I put crime scene tape around the pumpkins, make a chalk outline of a squirrel on the porch, and put a shoe in the middle of the outline. This is only a suggestion. While they try my patience by eating my pumpkins, and raiding my bird feeders, when I have a totally ignored squirrel feeder two feet away, I do find their antics funny, most of the time at least.

While I was sleeping last night, we had a storm. Quite a storm, too from the looks of it, and from the reports of my children. When I woke up today, the sun was shining, but that didn't last long. All afternoon, it went from sunny to cloudy, and then back again. The only constant was the wind. This autumn has been a disappointment. We really didn't have any good color. It has been rainy more often than not, and windy quite often. All in all, that doesn't add up to great color.

And, here is my Saturday Sky photo. The picture on the right was taken about 1/2 hour after

the first one was taken. Those storm clouds rolled in really fast.









Tomorrow, I'll try to post about my latest yarn acquistions. What yarn diet? And, I just got called in to work tonight, but I am not going. I haven't had three days off in a row in so long, I've forgotten what it's like. I'm going to vegetate tonight - movies, knitting and pizza.

October 21 So Soon?

Huh. This month is really flying by. I guess that makes sense, considering I've missed more than half the month by either working or sleeping through it. Case in point. I wake up at 3:30 this afternoon, look out the window, and discover that it's a beautiful fall day. I missed most of it. I threw on some clothes, ran outside with my camera, and took a few pictures. I work tonight, Sunday, and Monday nights, so I'm going to be missing most of the week again. I do have next week off, but I'll bet dollars to donuts that it'll rain.

I've made progress on my second Socktoberfest sock. No, not the other sock of the Cherry Tree Hill, but the first sock of Lorna's laces. I might bring it to work with me tonight so maybe if I get an actual break, I can do a little knitting. I want to finish both these pairs of socks this month. Ten days left? Hey, I can dream, can't I?

It was really cold last night - dropped into the 30's. There was a considerable amount of frost on open ground when I came home from work this morning. We seem to escape most of the early frost - something with having trees all over our property. My morning glories on the mailbox really suffered this year. Only a few survived the rabbit attack of early summer, and they get hit by the frost. They haven't given up yet, though, as evidenced by this photo.


My Saturday Sky picture is at the top of this post.. The sky and trees were so gorgeous, I didn't know which direction to take the picture in. Every view was better than the last. Our fall colors don't seem to be as brilliant as they usually are. I'm hoping that maybe things will improve a little as the week goes on. Last year, it rained through much of the fall, sort of cancelling out the colors.

And, more pictures of my yard today. And, a little mole that Chris disturbed while turning over the garden today. If you look closely at the picture of the front porch, you can see chunks missing from our pumpkins. The squirrels have started munching on them early this year.

Pumpkins, Yea, Computers, Nay

Have I ever mentioned how much I love autumn? Pumpkins, cooler weather ,sweaters, jeans, flannel sheets and shirts, beautiful colors, mums, blue sky? All that stuff? I really love fall. Did I ever mention that?

So, why am I mentioning this now? Because the only thing that saved me from going over the edge this weekend was the beautiful weather. Which, I might add, I didn't get to enjoy yesterday, because I thought I would just do a quick post, and add a few pictures. Hah. How long did that take me? Most of the afternoon, I would guess. I had smoke coming out of my ears by the time I finished. Literally, I think it took five hours. I know, that's my fault. I could have let it go. But I didn't. God, I can be so frickin' stubborn some times. I did manage to get everything posted. I don't know if the problem was my computer, Comcast, Blogger, or maybe just the way the planets lined up. Who the hell knows?

I didn't get too much knitting done today. Went to Cracker Barrel for lunch. Ever been there? Oy. Rocking chairs on the porch, kitschy merchandise inside. Yikes. And, now I know where everyone gets those seasonal sweaters and sweatshirts I see all over the place. Good food, though. French toast to die for. Then, a quick stop at a farm market for mums, and a trip to the u-pick pumpkin farm that we've gone to for the last 20 years or so. Terrible pumpkins this year. The farmer said no quality or quantity due to lousy weather. We did manage to find a few that were ok, and I'll post a picture of my fall-ish front porch in a day or two.

In the meantime, a few pictures from today's adventures. No pictures of Cracker Barrel, though. I was too flabbergasted to remember I had a camera with me.

We Interrupt This Job for a Regularly Scheduled Life....

Wow. When I posted last Saturday, I had no idea that would be my last bit of free time for nearly a week. I wound up working six nights in a row and not really doing anything else.

However, I did finish up my Cherry Tree Hill Sock. Now, all I have to do is knit the second sock. Unfortunately, my project ADD kicked in, and I started this last night - another sock in Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock color "Cool". This picture doesn't do this yarn justice. It shows as a mostly blue sock, whereas in real life, it has a beautiful ocean green in it, and a greyish blue, too. I tried taking pictures outside and inside, and couldn't get the real colors. Aargh.

And, speaking of outside, here are my Saturday Sky pictures. It was beautiful this morning when these were taken, and now it's cooler and cloudier. I'm supposed to go pick my pumpkins tomorrow, so I hope it's not going to rain.

I had so much more I wanted to post today, but I couldn't get onto Blogger, or anyplace else for that matter. It's frustrating to be paying premium prices for premium service, and then wind up with two days of service at dial-up speeds.

In trying to clean up my bedroom, I unearthed a few projects from the past, including this log cabin quilt I made quite a while ago. It's still only a quilt top, I really need to get around to backing and quilting it one of these days. It's one of my favorite projects ever. Many of the fabrics are from the 70's and 80's. They belonged to maternity clothes I wore, and shirts and tops I had from back then. Of course, many of them are just from my fabric stash, which is, I'm embarrased to say, larger than my yarn stash. But, I like looking at this quilt top. It reminds me of when I was young and pregnant, and my life seemed like it would go in a different direction than it did.

Saturday Sky, Socks and Pink Pussycat Jammies

I did manage to knit a fair amount on my Cherry Tree Hill Supersock socks yesterday. I'm up to the point where I started decreasing for the toe. I am used to making my socks much longer, almost knee-sock length, and I must admit, I'm liking this better. I nearly finished with a sock in a week. I know there are people who will knit a pair in a week, but I'm not expecting to do that.

Yesterday morning, I got home around 9 am, ran some errands, then went to bed around 10:30 am. Woke up at 5:30 pm when my son opened the door and asked if I worked that night. No, I didn't but I did manage to stagger out of bed. Waking up at 5 or 6 pm is a little weird, and I still haven't gotten used to it. I didn't want to be awake all night, and I knew I would be if I slept any more, so I hung around in my pink pussycat jammies and a sweatshirt, and knitted and vegged all night until I went back to bed around 2 am. I feel kind of decadent spending the whole day in my jammies, but I knew I wasn't going out, and was too tired to put the effort into actually putting on clothes I would be getting out of a few hours later, so just deleted that step.



I took my Saturday Sky picture around 10 am this morning. It ain't getting any better than this today. It started raining yesterday morning, and has continued through today. It's not actually raining right now, but it's grey, murky, and chilly.




Strange things happen around here when I'm sleeping. I got up this morning, and our scaredy-cat Thomas was hanging around on the back of the couch.
I noticed Shadow was near him,which doesn't surprise me. She spends most of her life throwing herself at Thomas or Alex. She has no shame. Anyway, I guess she thought it was cold because she starts kneading on Thomas's back and using him as a mattress, which he didn't care for at all. He is such a sweet kitty. We've had him for about five years, and while he is still very shy, he will come to two of my sons. Shadow is also very shy, and we've had her four years, but she is getting better. I can pet her now, and even pick her up a little. She is a sister to Spooky, who died in May of bone cancer, and whom I still miss very much.




And lastly, Eric's cat, Tiki, sitting up and head butting my foot with his head. He was sound asleep while he was doing this. I don't have the house heat on yet, and had my feet wrapped up in a fleece blanket.

Blech

That pretty much sums up how I've felt for the last three days. Eric was home sick for last week with some kind of virus, and it made its way through my house. I felt slightly sick on Monday night, and of course I was on call for eight hours; fortunately, I wasn't called in. Tuesday night, more of the same, and last night, Wednesday, I called out, because I still felt awful, my stomach hurt, and I felt I was in no shape to do patient care. I feel better today. I did manage to make some progress on my sock on Monday, and this morning. I've turned the heel and am heading toward home. With a little luck I might finish this sock this weekend. Oh, maybe not, I forgot, I'm working this whole weekend.

I filled up our birdfeeders over the weekend, and had some visitors yesterday. It takes a few days to really get going. However, I noticed that this morning, the squirrels had managed to knock the suet feeder down from the tree. They never seem to notice I have other food out for them, and go for the suet instead. I haven't seen any cardinals yet. I usually see them at dusk every day. We have wrens that hang out at the feeder. I thought I remembered reading that they prefer insects to feeders, but ours seem to enjoy the feeders more. Maybe they didn't read the book. They have a very annoying, harsh call, so different from the songbirds. I tried getting pictures of the chipmunks in our yard, and their cute antics, but I can't get close enough to them. I need a telephoto lens for my camera before that will happen, I think.

Am knitting still on the Green Gables sweater, but had to rip back because I messed up the lace pattern - never try to knit lace when you're sick - and I'm too irritated to correct it now.

Underwhelmed

Gre
I finished Something Red last night, as you can see from the headless picture. This project has had its share of problems. I left it on the coffee table on Saturday night, and when I came home from work yesterday morning, it was fine. When I woke up, Chris informed me he found the ball of yarn wrapped around a chair or two, and unraveled all the way to the dining room. It had also been in someone's mouth; most likely the dog's. Ugh. I had to cut off the ball of yarn and start a new one, which meant even more ends. I don't think I'll use this yarn again. I don't like the way it hangs. It doesn't seem to hold it's shape. However, as I said in a previous post, for an around-the-house sweater, it's fine. I think the next time I make it, I'll make fewer short rows to make a shorter neck collar. I might go down a size. I'm not a small woman, but I made the next-to-largest size, thinking it might be too small, and I'm thinking it might be too big.

In celebration of finishing,I started this: Green Gables, in blue. I don't usually wear green, but I did see a deep jewel tone green that I like, and I'm thinking about it. In the meantime, I'm using Brown Sheep Cotton Fleece in Mariner Blue. Maybe it's just me, but I thought mariner Blue would be more of a brighter blue. At least, that's what it looked like on my monitor. In reality, it is more of a denimy blue, with a distinct lavender-purple undertone. Not what I was expecting, but I like it, and since I wear jeans 90% of the time anyway, it'll go with them. Right now, I'm working on the lacy front part. this is another top down sweater, which means (yay!) no seams, no sleeves to sew on. I could get used to this.

And, slightly off topic here: I wear very short, unpolished nails because I have to. I'm a nurse in a hospital nursery, and nail polish and artificial nails carry a lot of bacteria and fungi. It's easier to keep short unpolished nails clean. And, it's a requirement for my job. Just lettin' ya know, cuz I get tired of why-are-your-nails-so-short-and-plain?

And, in celebration of Socktober, I started these: a generic sock pattern, with a picot cuff. I am so tired of ribbing. I love the picot thing on socks, and although it takes a bit of time-consuming fiddling, it comes out nice. I'm using Cherry Tree Hill Supersock in Tropical Storm. I love these colors. Dark teal, purple, dark grey, deep turquoise blue - very jewel colors, which I love. The colors are actually much deeper and richer than they are in the picture. This is the closest I could get to the color, but the light washes the colors out a bit. Can't believe I'm paying $17.50 for yarn for a pair of socks. I usually buy most of my socks at Target. $17.50 would buy a hell of a lot of socks at Target!

I had a lot of time to knit today. I was so tired when I came home Sunday morning, I slept til 5:30 pm, which kind of shot the day, and made it impossible to sleep last night. So I have been buzzing around today on a caffiene high, so as to not spend yet another day sleeping. I love working nights, and the shift differential certainly comes in handy, but it creates sleeping havoc. I was on call for eight hours tonight, and was on the fence about being called in. I love the on-call pay, but I also love having a night home to see my family and just knit and relax.