Move to Dallas - Day One

This is probably one of the longest days of my trip, and it's only day one.

The day started at 5am. Bright and early. The drive to Fargo was relatively uneventful.



My mother and I stop at the mall while my father goes to his VA appointment. 2 hours spent at the mall, and my fathers appointment is done we head to gas up. Guess what? My check engine light comes on. What a perfect start to the day. After a thorough yelling of how I ruined my car and I have to start saving for a new car, and how I'm irresponsible and the like, he decides to have the the garage at the gas station look at my car. They hook it up to a scanner, and guess what the problem is? A loose spark plug. $31 later and my car is running beautifully, not ruined or anything. Purring like a kitten.



So we head off, finally leaving Fargo around 2pm. We stop in Watertown, SD to gas up. and the gas station is equipped with what every gas station needs, a drive up liquor store.



We continue driving on. Somewhere around the Salem area my father decides he needs to stop to use the bathroom, but no rest areas around, he finds a outdoor type bathroom, the kind where it's no so much a toilet but a hole in the ground with a toilet on top of it. I peek in the female bathroom to decide if I actually want to brave it. (Yes, I'm THAT much of a city girl) Lo and Behold, what do I find in the bathroom? 8 12packs of Old Mill,




Yup some high schoolers are primed for a party. And how ingenious to have your buyer drop them off in the female bathroom, odds are it won't be used that much. If it was anything but Old Mill, I might of 'borrowed' them, you know, cuz it's not nice to leave beer just sit there. So we continue on. We pass a couple nice hotels, and where does my dad end up stopping at? A friggin motel that could be right out of a b horror/porn movie. Let me describe the room I am currently sitting in at the moment.






From the door you enter right into the room, two full (not queen, but full) beds await you right away. If you turn your head to your left you will see a beautiful black and neon noir picture of a couple that are clearly naked, and clearly about to have sex.



If you stare straight ahead you see an open doorway. Beyond that doorway is the bathroom. Yup, no door, just a door way, but don't worry the toilet is behind the wall, and you can't see it, well maybe from the corner of the room.




If you look at the beds you will see a headboard painted on the wall. Not even neatly but it's suppose to look like a black version of a brass bed. I can't even describe how much of a pit this room is.



Oh, not to mention the 4 people I've seen enter the rooms with cases of beer. Clearly this motel rents by the hour. I know my disgust in the place is apparent and defiantly pissing off my parents, but this place is gross. I mean, what semi decent motel/hotel has a picture of a couple about to go at it. It's not even a classy art picture, it's just horrible, but that's ok, the tv coves half of the print anyway. I am so not talking off any of my cloths, and even putting on my sweater, the less exposed skin that touches these beds the better. Call me what you want, this place is gross. oh well. I'll survive. I hope.

It's Alive!!

Yup, I'm still alive. Barely though. My new job has been going great. Unfortunatly I'm actually good at it so I'm getting more responibility, but the set hours are amazing.

I finished the Clapotis! YIPPY, and working on my first sock. I promice to have pictures, as soon as I visit my parents and borrow my moms camera.

THe personal life has been crazy, all I can say is: BOYS, you don't make sence. but women have been saying that for years, and it will always be true.

This is just a quick update saying I'm alive, and Hello to all, when life gets less crazy, and I get a camera, I'll update for real! Promice.

Hired!

I got a job! Yes!! Ok, so it's not a job I really wanted, but it will pay the rent, and maybe I'll have some money left over to buy yarn! Of course, I really need to use leftover money to save for moving, if/when I move. The cool thing about the job is it is a set schedule, from 7am to 4pm 5 days a week. I don't know what days but it will be a set schedule, and when I go to my orientation on Wednesday I'll know. It is a bigbox type of retail chain, and my job is just stocking.

I finished the baby blanket. I finished back on April 23rd. I turned out good. For a first larger project it was really good. And when I gave it to her? Talk about a perfect reaction. I was expecting a thank you that's pretty type of reaction. What did I get? She raved, gushed, and cried. Yes, she cried. She told me that no one ever put that much thought, love or time into a gift for her, let alone her baby. She commented about three times how long it much have took, and how much she appreciated it. Then she took it over to her boyfriend (The baby's father) and he even was surprised. He told me it was beautiful and a great gift, and asked if it was really for them. It totally made every stitch worth while. Hell, as soon as I have some cash I'm buying yarn for baby booties for them.





As usual, pictures taken using my camera phone, I know they are bad pictures, but hey, I'm at least attempting to place photos.

I used my BlueMoon Fiber Arts gift certificate I got for Christmas. They got the medium weight back in stalk, so I ordered 2 skeins, and only had to pay about $5 out of pocket, yippy! So I have 4 balls of sock yarn in my stash and I have yet to knit a sock. Oiy.

My plan is to work on my Clapotis for a while, then teach myself to knit socks. My friend bought the same boye interchangeable circular needle set, so I plan on borrowing her size 2 needles and teach myself to knit two socks on two circulars, plus I want to knit from the toe up, this will be interesting. My reason for wanting to do toe up is I only have one skein of each color, so If I do two at a time I can just knit till I'm out of yarn, and not have to worry about how long to make the cuff part, plus I have size 11 feet. Yea.

Hi, my name is Elizabeth and I'm addicted to PodCasts. As I've said before I have a lot of unlistened to podcasts. I will find a podcast that is interesting, download all the episodes then starting from episode 1 listen to all. The problem comes from when I go on Podsprees and download 5 different podcasts all with 5-20 episodes each. I was so excited today when I synced up my iPod and my number of unlistened to podcasts when from 165 to 143. Then I made the mistake of looking at the podcasts in the iTunes store. I went from 142 to 261. Notice a problem? Even though I'm subscribed to 42 podcasts there are only about 10-15 I'm ever excited about, there are even about 15 that I don't like, but just listen to because of the topic. I hope to update my list of podcasts on the side to all the ones I love. Even the non-knitting ones.

*NOTE: I know that unlistened isn't really a word. Deal with it*

That's about all for this update, if anybody reads this, I'd appreciate a hi in the comments section. Just so I have an idea that this is actually being read, in turn, I will make it a point to comment on the blogs that I read, even if it's just a hi.



On the needles: Back to the Clap (Clapoties that is)
New to the stash: Socks that Rock Medium Weight Lunasea and Pink Granite
In the Player: Podcasts, lots of Podcasts.

Knit Knit Knit, Interview, Interview, Interview.

Yea for me, I had another interview today. It went mostly well. I know I'd hate working there though, just on the way they talked and how the interview went. It probably is the one that I'd get. They had a major problem with my tounge and nose ring. Now, I completely understand that they might have a problem with them. What makes me mad is that when they asked me how my current job (Lane Bryant, clothing store for ladies) feels about my tounge ring, I told them that Lane has no problem with it, that I do my job and I'm good at it. They didn't beleive me, the lady said "Are you sure, I find that really hard to believe" Ummm, yes i'm sure, i'm so sure, that my district manager loves me and will transfer me to Minneapolis area if I choose to move there. I have under a month to get a job and a paycheck to pay for my rent due on May 1. I only make about $80 a paycheck at my current job. That don't pay for rent.

I'm still knitting away at the baby blanket, it's going good, I haven't been able to knit more then 2 rows so far today. But I recieved good news that the baby was taken off the respirator and is breathing on his own. yea! They still have to run the normal tests on his brain functions, but I'm hopefull. Haven't talked to my friend yet, but she was relieased from the hospital so I think I'm going to try and actually call her tomarrow, make sure she is ok.

I spend about 4 hours drooling over sock yarn on the internet last night, realized that this truly was yarn porn, drooling over what I can't have. hehehe.


On the needles: baby blanket
New to the stash: Should I just take this out?
In the Player: Dark Angel: Season 1

Delay

Heya everyone, sorry for the length of the time between updates, but hey it's nomral for me right?

It's been an interesting week, I had an interview I thought went great, but I didn't get the job, I have one more possibility, and I hope it works out because I still can't pay for May's rent. Sigh, oh the stress.

My friend that I'm knitting the baby blanket for... She was due June 9. Her water broke Wednesday night. She gave birth today (Saturday April 14th) A baby boy, 3 lbs 6 oz 16 inches. I haven't seen her or the baby yet, I'm going to call her tomarrow and try to see her. So as you can all guess I haven't finished the blanket yet, Hey I thought I had till June! I still have 130 rows left, oh the joy of stressfull deadline knitting. And I thought this only happend around Christmas, lol. At least near the end the rows will go quickly because I'm decreasing 1 stitch every row until I get to 4 stitches, so i'm at about 135 stitches now. If only I could knit faster.

On the needles: never ending baby blanket
New to the stash: *tears* nothing
In the player: Fall Out Boy's "Infinity on High"

Happyness

I'm almost at the half way point of the baby blanket, Well, ok I have 20 more rows left, but hey that is an improvement. I was wrong earlier when I thought that I only had to go to 180 rows, I need to get to 190, that is a little disappointing a sudden 10 extra rows. Oh well. Cest la vie. I was toying with the idea of making it an even 200. It's a baby blanket started at a corner and increasing one stitch every row, adding 10 extra rows just makes it a tiny bit bigger, I guess when I get to 190 I'll see if I want it larger. Hey it couldn't hurt, the original pattern calls for 2 balls and I have 3, plus its a no dye lot acrylic, I'm not worried about being short, just haveing way to much left over.


I borrowed The Pursuit of Happyness from a friend, she told me that she was on the verge of tears through the hole movie, this a girl whos favorite movies are ones where everybody dies. I can count on one finger the times she has cried at movies, and I've made her watch some tearjerkers, the movie? Coyote Ugly. So I sit down to watch the movie a whole role of toilet paper beside me (The soft kind, I'm out of Kleenex's) I cry at commercials, so I'm wholly prepared to bawl through the whole movie. My surprise? I didn't cry. That is extremely rare. It's weird though, I can bawl at a hallmark commercial, but a close family member dies, you'll get maybe 3 tears and that's only if I'm extremely close to you. The only funeral I've cried at is my grandma's and that was about 3 tears. I was as close to her as my mother. I cried for my cat Doobie though, she got tears, lots, sometimes 10 years later she might still get one or two. When I'm in those deep depressed moods and it seems like nothing can go right, that's when I cry for Doobie. Thank god those are rare now-a-days, in a few years I can tell Akasha is going to be just like Doobie, she just needs to be spayed and grow up a little, but she's got that sweetness in her.

After Pursuit of Happyness (who else feels weird writing that with a Y?) I needed something more mundane, a movie that I could watch and zone out, with good eye candy. I picked a movie I had bought then promptly forgot I owned. The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, now I know it's never as good as the graphic novels, but hey I'm good at differentiating and enjoying one as a completely different medium, and let me tell you a movie that stars Sean Connery, i'm so there. I'll even admit here, that Shane West is quite good-looking in the movie as well, though it could be the Sean Connery protege rub off. Also one of the 2 movies I think Stuart Townsend looks good in, the other being Queen of the Damned, he beats Tom Cruises Lestat all to hell. Jason Flemmin isn't to bad to look at as well, quite nice actually. So now the movie is drawing to a close, it's 3:30 in the morning as I'm writing this (in notepad because my internet is down, and will be posted tomorrow.) I'm heading off to bed, probably to wake up in 3 hours, listen to a few episodes of quirky nomads, knit a couple rows and get ready to go clothes shopping with my friend. I hate clothes shopping, she hates clothes shopping. This is going to be fun.


On the Needles: Do I really need to say? Baby Blanket
New to the Stash: Still waiting for STR to get in medium weights
In The Player: see above.

I Lied

Ok, So I lied. I'm a horrible liar and can't stay true to a project.

Whew, got that out of the way. So after I finished my post yesterday I pick up the baby blanket and knit a row, from the side of my bed I see this container, with my Lopi Reynolds yarn. I do need to know how it knits and felts before I use it to make a bag right? Then from my desk I see my new rune stones, and they are telling me they need a homemade bag, since my sewing machine and special silk I use to make my bags for my rune stones and Tarot cards is all packed away, I figure, Hey I'll knit then felt a small bag.... after I get to 180 on this baby blanket.

20 minutes later finds me with my size 15 needles and pink Lopi yarn casting on 30 stitches. I work 3 rows, and think, hey this is going fast. About 10 rows in I figure I'll just do 2 more rows then cast off and sew together and save for felting. 4 rows later I'm thinking one more row then cast off. I finally cast off and start sewing it together.

20 minutes later finds me in my bathroom in front of the sink felting for the first time. Yea, I'm sticking to washing machines. It didn't quite lose all stitch definition but it ended up a bit bigger then I wanted, and at this stage it fits my Ipod quite snuggly. I have the iPod sticking out in the picture, isn't it cute? I'm debating about embroidering something on the front. It's not exactly the best iPod cover out there, but hey I only have $5 in my checking account, it's not like I can buy one, or yarn to make a better one.



My other baby Akasha finally agreed to pose for a picture, with my small penguin. Oops, I mean, HER penguin.



I received an E-mail today from a friend(T for short). He was stationed in Afghanistan, he e-mailed to say that he was arriving home tomorrow at 12:20. That is great, he'll finally be home. The weird part, for me at least, His last e-mail said that he was leaving Afghan and coming back to the US, he also said that he "wants to see ALL! of YOU!" that's a direct quote. He e-mailed to over 20 people. Now we're not really friends, I've known his barely since high school *late 90's* I knew of him then, he was a friend of two guys I knew, then in about '03 I introduced one of my best friends into a guy I knew *and liked* They ended up dating and getting engaged, and T was this guys best friend. So we hung out once in a while with the overly PDA couple, Then the couple got married, and he received leave from Afghan for the wedding. (last August) We hung around awhile during a couple of the events with another girl in the wedding party. After he went back to Afghan the grooms sister e-mailed us all with T's e-mail addy, and we e-mailed a couple times, usually only the mass e-mails with an "I'm alive doing good hope to come home soon" e-mails. Now my problem is did he mean me when he said get together, cuz that might just be uncomfortable, and due to the fact that most of my friends aren't in town anymore I don't go out, so there goes the "a group of us are getting together" thing. I realize I'm probably to old for this worry, but I do have a huge social anxiety problem and fret over these little things. Ahh well, I suppose the fact that I don't know if I'm attracted to him is part of the problem. I suppose since I'm "on the fence" about it, I'm really not attracted to him. Anybody know of any good ways to help with social anxiety? (Drugs don't work on me, so I tend to use natural remedies. When it takes 2-3 800 MG ibuprofen every 2 hours to dull a minor headache, you find that peppermint oil works just as well. Let's not even start on "that time of the month")

On the Needles: Baby Blanket.
New to the Stash: *Sigh*
In The Player: More Podcasts. *I'm down to 380, yea!!*