Good Doggies

So, I’m getting dressed this morning and the mutts are downstairs eating their breakfast, and I hear them start barking.  Now, usually they whine until I come back downstairs, but this was full-on barking.  I finish tugging on my skivvies and trot downstairs to see what’s going on.

The back door is standing open.

*gulp*

Now, I’ve been living in this house for going on 3 days and I’ve never once opened, much less checked, the back door and here it is, ajar by a good foot. 

*gulp*

The pups and I went on house patrol, checking closets and cabinets and fortunately came up empty but I still have no idea how this came to be.  Needless to say, I’m a wee bit freaked. 

And, adding ick to ack, when I went to lock and chain the back door, I saw this guy tiptoeing around.  Thank goodness HE wasn’t in the kitchen when I came downstairs:

Crappy photo, but Mr. Opossum was creeping along the fence line.  That would’ve just about pushed me over the edge.

No one to blame but myself

My lovely shingles have progressed through the first two stages of ick and are now just in the itchy, healing-over stage.  Still icky but no longer totally disgusting.  Of course, when I went to the doctor for a follow-up, I was diagnosed with acute bronchitis (must’ve been all those ice packs).  Bronchitis is finally on its way out, but I’m still having minor respiratory problems but that’s because I’m surrounded by this:

Don’t bother asking why Allergy Girl is dog sitting.  I have no good answer, unless "because they’re so damn cute" is suddenly acceptable and I’m fairly sure it isn’t.

Watching these two is giving me a good excuse to be a homebody though, at least once I get them to the dog park to burn off some of their energy after being cooped up all day.  Last night we watched "The Italian Job" for the 499th time and worked on my new sock.  Mark Wahlberg, Jason Statham, Edward Norton and Seth Green all in one flick = happy girl.

Sorry for the crummy picture, but I lack the energy for proper staging.   I cast on Ann Budd’s Diagonal Cross-Rib sock on Saturday night, so I’d have something to work on while metroing to a Carnival party.  Of course, I accidentally left the pattern at home so I was stuck once I got past the 1" of ribbing.  It’s moving along slowly but surely; my temporarily revamped commute does give me additional time to work on it.

Just over two weeks until the 2008 NASCAR season kicks off in full force.  Jimmie drove in the Rolex 24 Hours at Daytona last weekend (I totally forgot it was on).  Despite my inattention, his team finished 2nd, even with a transmission change early Sunday morning.  The NASCAR board on Ravelry is doing a charity knitting/crocheting afghan project for the Victory Junction Gang Camp so I need to get my yarn and get ready to go.  I’ve decided to go with the Circle of Friends Garter-Stitch Blanket in bright happy colors.  I can’t cast on until the green flag on the 17th, so I have some time to at least finish one of the socks.

T.G.I.F.

(Yeah, like I’ve worked more than 6 hours this week…)
I’m actually in the office for a smidge this afternoon, helping kick off the weekend’s work for our tech consultants.  However, I’m also on pain meds so it’s not like I’m, well, coherent.  So blogging it shall be!

I finally found my card reader from the wedding last weekend, but unfortunately I don’t have any fantastic pictures to share.  That, of course, has every bit as much to do with the fact that I hate any pictures taken of me as it does not having good pictures.  I do like these two of myself and two of my table mates, as well as some of the boys in their finery at Old Ebbitt before the ceremony.

 

This weekend will be another whirlwind of social activity that will likely leave me sick again next week.  A birthday fete tonight, a belated holiday party tomorrow and brunch with friends who are in town from Pakistan on Sunday.  I’m going to try to take it easy, but after being cooped up at home for a week, it’s gonna be tough.

I’m not dead yet…

…but there’s still a week left in January.

I’ve been home sick for the last several days, so the only blog-worthy occurrence was my friends’ wedding last weekend.  I have oodles of pictures of me and my friends in all of our formal finery, but alas, the camera cord must be at the office, so I’ll have to share them at a later time.  I’ll just say that Jess & Doug had a beautiful ceremony and hopefully a wonderful evening with family and friends.

Despite my six-day weekend, I don’t have a lot of knitting to show for it.  I’ve spent the vast majority of my time belly-flopped with an icepack on my back, which doesn’t make for optimal knitting posture.   I’m still plugging away at the baby blanket for my coworker’s soon-to-be urchin.   Fortunately it’s a LionBrand special so it will be thoroughly washed and de-germed  prior to gifting.  I’m a little past the halfway point; I’m trying to maintain project monogamy til it’s done.  We’ll see.

I apparently caught a bit of the crud the morning before the wedding because by the time I left the festivities late Saturday night, I was snuffly and icky.  I have another doctor’s appointment tomorrow, so we’ll see how that goes.  Right now, I’m thinking something in the general sinus and/or ear infection or bronchitis range. 

I also just wanted to jot a quick note of thanks for all of the well wishes and notes of sympathy over the last few days.  I’m a horrible patient and have been whining lots; hopefully all will be back on an even keel by next week.

Round One Goes to 2008

I give up.  Do you hear me, 2008?!?!?  I give up!  You won January! 

I realize I’ve been terribly negative these last couple of entries and was going to make a conscious effort to be more positive starting next week (ever the procrastinator), but I’m just throwing in the towel for the whole damn month.  Know why?  You’ll never guess.  Give up?

I have shingles, and I ain’t talking about the ones you use to tile your roof.  So on top of everything else, now I have a month of this to deal with.  I am SO taking tomorrow off work.

Stay away if you’ve never had the chicken pox.

A is for Accountability

As in, "I hope the wanker who stole my debit card number and ran up $1099 in charges is held accountable for his/her actions."  It doesn’t quite fulfill my obligations for the ABC-along, but as this major headache is taking up the bulk of my time and energy, I get to write what I want.  Also see: asshat or annoyance.

I also have some knitting accountability to contend with:

• Bubby has been languishing for over a year now (I’m so ashamed…or I would be if it weren’t so entertaining to watch Stick’s and Yvonne’s heads spin around…).  I really don’t have much to do; I just need to buckle down and do it.

• My Somewhat Cowl & Hourglass both need to be completely frogged and rethought.

• Finish Sis’s "Traditional" hat (which I believe was cast on Christmas 2006)

• Belvedere needs arms.  Hol has offered repeatedly to help me undo the tragedy; I just need to take her up her kind offer.  What do you think the chances are that I can finish it before the one-year anniversary of me shoving it into a corner?  Yeah, me too.

• Various and sundry other WIPs: the Buckeye DNA scarf that I accidentally left in Dayton and had to have my grandmother send to me; Wicked (which I last saw wadded up in the corner of my bed); baby blanket for coworker; Endpaper Mitts (they’re just not as engaging as I thought they might be)

Plan of attack: Bubby, blankie & Belvedere, brought to you by the letter B.

p.s. – Thanks to you all for the well wishes (not to mention the wishes for wine) after my little mini financial disaster last week.  So far, the bank has refunded most of the money that got swiped and now I just have to get my new card and pray everything stays in order.

The Worst Week Ever

(and this time I mean it)

Monday:  Office computer and server hard drive fail simultaneously.
Thursday: While my office computer is finally fixed, have knock down, drag out fight with my boss.  We’re still not speaking.
Friday: Discover $1000 of fraudulent charges on my debit card

Wake me when it’s spring.

O-H!

N O! 

As much as I love my Buckeyes, I wasn’t the least bit surprised that they fell to LSU in the National Championship game tonight.  At least it wasn’t as dismal a defeat as last year, although I don’t think it was as close as the score would have you believe.  C’est la vie.  I’ve spent the rest of the evening consoling myself with Jeremy Northam and Paul Bettany.

I can’t say I’m surprised.  With a day that started with me being almost on time to work (only to have my boss out sick and therefore missing out on my punctuality) and ended with not only my work computer crashing, but also one of the server hard drives failing…there was just no way today was going to go well.

The only positive-ish thing that happened today is that I hauled my tuchus back to the gym for the first time in…well, the last recorded blog entry was last May.  Oy.  Chalk up 2.4 miles for mosey-a-gogo (because we ALL know I’m not running).

Off to an (in)auspicious start

So, my friend M got me a beautiful bracelet for my birthday.  Although I don’t wear much gold, the bracelet was made up of delicate gold links with seven jade beads dangling.  I hugged her in thanks and, knowing myself as I do, immediately went to tuck the bracelet into my bag, but M wanted to see me enjoying her gift that night and clasped it onto my wrist.  Several hours (& and tasty beverages) later, it was time to toddle off to the little cowgirl’s room.  As I finished doing what all good little cowgirls do, I felt something bounce off my hand.  As I turned in horror, there it was: bead #4 resting at the bottom of the commode.  While I stood there trying to decide if it was really worth going fishing for, destiny answered the question for me.

The automatic flusher kicked in.

Oops.  Bye-bye bead!

In less icky news, over the weekend I cast on for Eunny’s Endpaper Mitts using the Koigu I picked up at School Products last month.  Only yesterday did I realize that the lighter shade of yarn I’m using is a pale lilac/lavender versus the pale blue/grey that I originally thought it was.  Why finish one of the 14 projects on needles when you can cast on a new one, I always say?  The only problem I have with this pattern is the needles.  I can’t find my size 2 circs (shocking) and stranding the yarn with DPNs is KILLING me!  When I do two-color knitting, I tend to work one color from each hand.  With only 14 stitches per needle, just start to get into the rhythm of knitting when I have to stop and reset everything and it’s taking forever.  Hopefully I’ll unearth it this weekend and be able to go about my merry, magic-looping way.

p.s. – Looks like it’s time for another (monthly?) International Pajama Day.  One of these days I’ll actually remember in time to participate.

The Best Week Ever*

*Well, not really but I needed a title

Last Friday I turned 36.  A part of me feels like that should be a scarier number than it is, but it just
doesn’t bother me.  This is most likely because in no way do I feel like I’m in my mid-thirties.  Call it immaturity of you must, but I just don’t feel 36.  I have absolutely no biological clock to speak of and just sort of mosey through life doing my thing.  There was never a time in my life that I sat down and had any sort of life plan, and now that I think about it, I’m not sure whether that’s a good thing or not.  I’m leaning towards not.

Due to a great deal of self-restraint on Friday night, I was able to get up Saturday morning and get my things together to head to Lake Anna for the long weekend.  This is the third year a dozen or so of us have rented a house and headed south to spend the weekend out of town for New Year’s Eve.  My steady diet of Claritin made this weekend possible.  With 4 people
bringing their dogs down this year, my allergies were in overdrive, but
except for the first night, I was in pretty good shape.

   

As usual, the food was incredible.  My friend Pete and I apparently had the same idea for breakfast so we had waffles one day and pancakes the next, both courtesy of Alton Brown.  Our dinners ranged from summer rolls, yummy soup and Thai curry one night to chicken enchiladas and yellow rice the next.  I can’t possibly leave out the yummy ham, scalloped potatoes and roasted root vegetables we had the night in between (my first taste of rutabaga!).  Chili and Brunswick stew simmering in crock pots were awesome choices for serve-yourself lunches for the long weekend (and no, I have nary a picture of the food because I was too busy eating to snap pictures).

Of course, crawling back into the greater metropolitan DC area yesterday afternoon was painful.  The only thing I wanted to do was sleep for about 12 hours, so my luggage from Christmas (and now New Year’s) remains unpacked.  I haven’t taken the time to really think  about wrap-ups and resolutions, but  I have a couple of notions that I’m working on.