Now Norma Knits

Barf Scarf

Listen. I've been working like a dog. I'm hot and I'm cranky and I'm sore and I'm blistered. I've been fighting with that frickin' rock-hard clay soil and fighting with my gardening arch-enemy, the mighty horsetail, and did I mention carpenter ants in my office again?  I'm ..... well, I'm just about done in. David yelled at me from the house, "Get in here this instant. It doesn't have to be all done today, and you're gonna make yourself SICK."  I told him to shut up and bring me a glass of ice water. Then I was stupid enough to go for a nine-mile bike ride with Abigail. This was all yesterday. Rinse and repeat for today, sans the bike ride. I do know where to draw the line.

So I can hardly type and I don't even have the energy to write, but I'm doing it for you, my dear reader. For you, because I love you. But you might want to cover your eyes now, because I have succeeded in creating a scarf that reminds me of nothing more than it reminds me of haggis. Sorry, dear Scottish lovers of haggis. Truth be told, I ate haggis while in London on Robert Burns Day, and liked it. I gained myself great currency with my British friends then, I tell you. Really, the thought of it is worse than the eating of it. But still. The thought of it is pretty bad.

I have done my motherly duty and got my daughter hooked on Lost. And while we were watching Disc 1 last night, I had not the energy to do anything but garter stitch on big needles. I also was hoping to start cleaning up some of that charity stash that is all over the floor of the family room. Well, the only positive thing I can say about it is it's warm. Maybe Mongolians have a different color sense, so they won't think it's so hideous? Wishful thinking, that right there.

Here is an in-progress shot. I warn you ahead of time that I may have to show it one more time, after it's completed. Or not.

Now I must go have my second shower of the day, cook burgers on the grill, to serve with fresh asparagus, lettuce, spinach and dandelion greens. (And that makes all the pain worth it.)  And then I will be watching Disc 2 and knitting more haggis.

Blue

Disco Socks

These socks are not for Vincent

He's a manly guy, and doesn't go so much for the glitter or the disco dancing. Although I must admit, this photo somehow reminds me of John Travolta.

I could not pin down the daughter for a photo shoot, so Vincent very kindly agreed to model them for you. See that mess on his chin hairs?  Peanut butter I put out for the chicadees. Yeah, he got in trouble for that. That's why he was so obliging about modeling the socks, and he even looked at the camera. He's no dummy: 

Cuteness works every time.

I tried very hard to get a photo that showed the glittery goodness of the socks -- sadly, to no avail. Maybe you can see a little bit of the glitter here:

No-Pattern Socks for Abigail(knit without a pattern, as a sock-knitting memory test pour moi)Yarn:  Fortissima Colori DiscoColor:  I lost the ballband, but it's grey with a bit of tealish blue and silver glittery stuff; very fun to work withNeedles: Size US2 Bryspun Double-Points - My new favorite sock needles~~~~Have a lovely weekend, everyone.

Preview of Coming Attractions

Yesterday morning I was up much earlier than usual.  A stroll through the garden revealed these and several more like them:

Mmmm, strawberries. I can't wait. Last year I had big, beautiful berries that got eaten by some critter or another before we could eat them. I'm going to invest in some netting this year. Not going to let that happen again.

Lost

My new wallpaper. What took me so long???

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Dear Jack:

Tonight is the season finale. If you don't take your shirt off, Dave and I are going to be very disappointed. Please consider it. Maybe just one shower-in-the-waterfall shot? It would mean a lot to us and help make the long summer without "Lost" a bit more bearable.

Your devoted fans,
Norma and Dave

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The glittery socks are done and were well received by the daughter. We are awaiting a photo shoot. I hope we can catch the glitter in the photos, because that makes the socks so very ..... well, so very disco.

The Trekking yarn is sitting so patiently, waiting to be knit.  See?

I know. I can hear Claudia laughing. She predicted it, long, long ago. She did.

The Following Person is DEFINITELY NOT On My Shitlist

Kay.

Is not now, never has been, and probably won't ever be. (But watch your step, Chica!)

Stay tuned to "Who's On My Shitlist Now," to see if your name appears here.

Mwahahahahahahaha! Oh, we do have fun; do we not? 

P.S.  The answer is:  Black Swan Shiraz.  What is the question?

P.P.S.  David bought it.  I didn't realize he got it at, like, the dollar store or something.  Apparently, I am a very cheap date.

I've been working on the 2nd no-pattern sock.

I guess I've been rather tense. Can you see how much narrower it is than the first one?  Great. Same needles, same number of stitches -- but obviously a tighter gauge. Ugh. Guess what: It's staying the way it is. It'll stretch on the leg. I'm so not a perfectionist. I wonder what ever happened to the perfectionist Norma. We lost her somewhere. Hm... Another glass of shiraz, please.

Can't Talk Now -- Watching The Hummingbirds Fight

Why are hummingbirds so ornery? And a better question -- since they are, how in the heck do they mate? They can't seem to stand the sight of one another. Maybe their sex is all S & M or something. The She Dominatrix slams the little meek Him to a tree trunk at about 35 miles an hour, pegs him there with her beak? proboscis? and ...... oh, never mind.

So.....they sure do provide me with hours of entertainment, especially since I seem to have found a reallyreallyreallyreallyreally el primo piece of real estate for the feeder that they love and therefore they are all fighting over, since they can't just relax and get along.  Maybe I should put something mellowing in their solution so they can just chill out, get along, and eat together.  I've come to realize that those ads for selling feeders that have, like, eight hummers feeding at the same time?  Yeah, those suckers are soooooo Photoshopped.

Why I didn't think of this spot 20 years ago is beyond me, but I'm glad I stumbled upon it now...except for the fact that I can't stop watching them. I'm almost late for work every day and don't get much else done, either. Then again, since it's officially The Floods, there isn't that much else that can be done. The clouds have parted for a few minutes (well, no, they haven't parted exactly -- they've just run out of water for the moment, I guess), so I went outside and stood between the two feeders I have strategically placed about 20 feet away from each other and not within sight of each other, hoping to get a photo. Well, wouldn't you just know it, it almost seemed as if I could maybe get a photo of three hummers chasing each other (and I almost won the Powerball once, too), and I opened the camera shutter. It immediately closed and said in big red letters, "Warning: Battery exhausted."

Well, damn.  So am I, come to think of it.

What a weekend. We made a trip to and from the college yesterday, (that's 4.5 hours each way on a good day, but since we were driving through The Great Rains and portaging over the Adirondacks in our ark borrowed soccer mom van, it took 5.5 hours each way.) In between the two exhausting drives were a lunch with The Others,* and of course the packing and carrying down four flights of stairs all of Ab's stuff (well, not all of it, since David went for a load last week, as well). We got home about 12:40 a.m. and I crashed about 1:30. 

I was awakened at 7 a.m. by something yellow and bright streaming through the windows. I have no idea what it was. But it had the strange power to get me out of my bed and dressed and outside (granted, it took a fair bit of time for this to happen, but still....).  By the time I got outside at 9:00, it was gray and cold and sprinkling big raindrops again. Since I was out there already, I decided to pull a few weeds. I cleaned out the part of the flower garden that I thought was "clean," resulting in four hours' work and an entire large wheelbarrow of weeds, and I didn't even GET to the part of the garden that REALLY NEEDS IT before we had another deluge at 1:30 p.m. 

So now I'm even more ornery than the hummingbirds. Tired, achey, and cranky:  The perfect way to start my week. And {WHINE} my back hurrrrrts.

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* (Ab's boyfriend's parents, whom we had not met before) I didn't even say "fuck" once. I also didn't say, as Abigail worried I might, "Bush has ruined this country."  It was very pleasant, and I think it went well. No tooth and claw at all. All of which made the two kids very relieved and happy.

Hey Lady! Those Are Nice Tulips!

Yes, that was a tulip in the photo yesterday. Want to see more?  Of course you do. Hey, you know what? It stopped raining for 0.25 seconds, so you're gonna get more frickin' tulips whether you want them or not. Here they are.

 

And here's a bonus preview shot of the poppies on steroids. I have never seen my poppies so big before. Apparently they're happy about the soil improvement and compost addition from last year. Oh, yes, and probably all the rain, too. The flowers from these babies should be pretty amazing. I'll keep you posted, of course. (click on thumbnails to embiggen)

So the story on the red-and-white tulips. Hm. Well, the thing is, I have absolutely no memory of ordering them or planting them, but I have quite a few drifts of them. I have not planted tulips in many years because I find them so, so beautiful, but so, so costly, in both time and money, because they are not truly perennial, as daffodils are. They peter out in only a couple of years.  They are stunning the first year, then they fffffizzzzzle out over the next few years. I'm sort of a frugal gardener, so I've tended not to spend hundreds of dollars and all kinds of my time on something that is not going to last. But last year I was going all crazy in the garden restoration and decided to put in a few tulips. Wow! Pow! The impact is stunning. One neighbor has commented repeatedly on the large red ones I have at the opening to my veg. garden, and these neighbors never comment on ANYTHING.  The reason they're at the opening to the veg. garden?  Because I ran out of time and space to plant them and said, "Ah, hell. I'll just plunk them in here." 

So the red-and-whites?  They're called Carnaval de Nice Tulips. I found this out by logging in here, which is where I bought most of my bulbs last year.  If you notice also, they have pretty cool foliage.  White-tipped and curly. 

Now that I'm wracking my brain trying to remember, I think I might have bought these at Costco. They really are beautiful, and worth the money, I must admit.

My computer's little Weatherbug is having a hissy-fit, beeping its little heart out down there in the corner of the screen. That can only mean one thing: Locusts?

Homely

homely

adj 1: lacking in physical beauty [syn: plain] 2: having a feeling of home; cozy and comfortable; 3: plain and unpretentious; 4: without artificial refinement or elegance

Source:  Dictionarydotcom

Here's a homely little sock. Unpretentious, plain (well, apart from the glitter).  Nothing remarkable about it except that it is the first sock I ever knit without a pattern, completely from memory, including the Kitchenered toe. It's the very first time I did not need to sit before one of my research books or the video from knittinghelp.com, reading the instructions or replaying the video for each and every single Kitchener stitch (and still have it come out like crap). I just bought the yarn, bought the needles, sat down and cast it on, knit the cuff, knit the heel flap, turned the heel, knit the gusset, knit the foot, decreased the toe, and Kitchenered the sucker. 'sall there is to it.

100% homely, according to definitions 2, 3, and 4 above. Definition 1?  Not true.  It is a thing of beauty.  Oh, and it fits.

Not Completely Wasted Monday

Monday was almost completely wasted. And so was I. I slept almost the entire day. It was supposed to be a day for catching up on my work, but I just couldn't do it. Two festivals in two weeks with their attendant traveling, augmented by the stresses of work and a case of mild hypothermia, all took its toll. 

After I got up from all that napping, I knitted this, which I think came out pretty cute. So not a complete waste of a day. 

Yarn:  Rowan Biggie Print, a gift from Cate. Big, fat needles (US 13)

Pattern:  Fiber Trends Everyone's Favorite Hat & Scarf

For Dulaan.

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I'm writing this at 9:50 p.m., and I'm still tired. Going back to bed.