We hates it, precioussss.

(

It's New Year's Eve and I'm here at work, but I wouldn't be doing anything festive if I wasn't working, so this is just fine.

So you know that bat that Paula and I saw? It didn't leave. It must have flown upstairs and hid in Kim's room, because I've seen it in there, twice. I am the only one who has seen it, because it is is sneaky and it doesn't come out when Rich goes in there with his bat-catching net, wearing his gloves, and trying to nab it!

Like yesterday - I needed a ball of yarn that I thought was in a box in Kim's room, so I went up there, opened the door carefully and reached in to switch on the light, and the bat came swooping at the door! I slammed it shut in his face, and then when I turned around, I saw the ball of yarn I needed was in the box in the hall! So yay, I had the yarn, and didn't need to risk going into the Bat Room!

I went downstairs and told Rich the bat was flying around in there, but when he went upstairs it was nowhere to be seen. This is the second time I've seen Mr. Bat in that room and Rich hasn't been able to find it. I don't know what we'll do, except to keep trying to catch it, but until then, I can't let Maddy go in that room to jump on the beds, which is her favorite thing to do at Nan's house!

In other news, I went to the movies with Rich to see The Hobbit this evening. Good thing I had my knitting! The picture above shows how much knitting I got done. I cast on to start the sock when we sat down in the theater. The movie was really long and by the end of the second hour I was way over seeing dwarves fighting with ugly orcs. And ugly orcs riding ugly wargs. (There were ugly goblins, too, especially Scrotumchin, King of the Goblins.) It was all ugly and also? Boring. Fighting is dull. That white orc? That whole story was just added to make more fighting so the movie could be longer, and it's all just to make more money for the studio.

I'm sure Rich is wishing now that he had gone to the movie by himself, after I complained about it all the way home. He is planning to see the next two films without me.

Not all bats are as cute as Maddy!

I was talking to Diana on the phone last night, and although we are usually on a daily phone call schedule, we've been busy for a few days and have not talked as much, so I had to fill her in on everything.

Like, how the roof guys finally showed up and put a new roof on the house! Woot! It took two and a half days, and I had to sleep at Rachel's house for the first two days because roofers? They show up at the crack of dawn and begin pounding on your roof! So I went to Rachel's in the mornings after work and slept on the very hard futon in their guest room. The upside of that being that when I woke up, I got to play with Maddy!

Then there was the bat that came from I don't know where and was flying around in the house! While I was doing yoga! It's hard to focus on the sequence when there is a bat in the house! My friend Paula was here too, doing yoga with me, and she was a lot calmer than me, because she is a cardiac nurse, so she is totally grace under pressure.

Rich had been upstairs doing Tae Kwon Do in his office area, and had just come downstairs and was in the shower, completely unaware of the bat attack, and I may have been slightly panicky because, well, birds and bats are freaky, so Paula was being soothing, and I told her if she wasn't scared, she could open the front door to let it find it's way out. Which she bravely did, and we went back to doing yoga, with the front door open, and Sonny sitting by the door, wondering what the heck was going on.

When Rich got out of the shower, we told him about the bat attack and he closed the door and did a walk-through but didn't see the bat, so we think he maybe did find his way out. Ugh. I checked behind the curtains in the bedroom before I went to sleep, because bats are cunning that way, and they hide! We seem to be bat-free now, thank goodness.

Yesterday it snowed all day and Rich got his snow blower out to do the sidewalks. He said it's a wonderful sound when you start up the snow blower for the first time of the season.

Kim was supposed to come home last night, but she called yesterday to say that there was a dog-walking emergency, and she won't be able to come home until Monday. I am not happy about this at all, but at least she didn't have to drive home in the blizzard.

It's beginning to look a little like Christmas.

We bought a Christmas Tree on Saturday, which is really early for us. We usually wait until the last possible minute to put up a tree, because eek! A Fire Hazard full of (probably) spiders is something I want in my house for as short a time as possible.

This year we have Maddy coming around, who is very interested in Christmas trees, so we wanted to get a tree in the house for her to look at and maybe help decorate. We got the tree, and Maddy did admire it, but then she wanted to go upstairs and jump on the bed in Kim's room, so the tree wasn't the huge hit I thought it would be.

In other news, Scott finished his book and published it on Amazon for the Kindle yesterday. It's called The Black Eye by Scott Duede, and he's selling it for a dollar, so go get it! He says if he makes enough money to buy a pizza, he'll consider it a success.

Also, have I mentioned how much I love yoga? Because I do. Tonight I was sitting in the living room feeling crabby, and wishing we did not have to always watch the damn History Channel, and I told Rich I needed to do some yoga because I hadn't done any practice since Thursday, and just a few minutes later I got a text from Luanne asking if we were going to do yoga tonight!

It's the Winter Break for all of the fitness classes at the Y, so we didn't have our regular Monday night class, so I thought it was a great idea! I texted the rest of my yoga friends and then went over to the church to set things up.

It was great to have Laura there - she has been swamped with studying but the semester is over so she could come to practice with us, and the three of us did the Rodney Yee Power Yoga DVD. When we were done I felt so much better, and I'm sure Rich was relieved when I came home in a better mood.

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The winds of grace are always blowing, apparently.

Let me tell you about yoga! I love yoga! It's all I want to do, and I keep reading the blogs of other yogis to see what they are doing and how they are practicing, because it's so interesting! I started doing yoga about 18 months ago, when I was taking a chemistry class and I made friends with another woman in the class who said she was going to get back to doing yoga to help herself relax and be less stressed. She asked if I wanted to do it with her, and because she was fun and I wanted to do something with her, I said I would go, too.
I told my friend Shelley about it and she wanted to sign up, too, so we all started taking yoga class at the Y on Monday and Thursdays, and it was great! I thought it was all going to be stretching and listening to sitar music, but it turns out that yoga is a lot of hard, sweaty work! Who knew?
So Laura,Shelley and I kept going and gradually got to know other people in the classes and invited a couple more of our friends to go with us, and here we are, a year and a half later, still going, and we love it.
The Thursday class started out being the easy class, with a teacher whose style focused more on breathing and just easier postures, and then when that teacher moved on, there was another teacher, and still, Thursday was the easy class, but then on the next session, we got a new teacher who was very different!
Chris was teaching the class to fulfill the requirements to finish her 200 hour teaching certification, and she brought a whole new outlook and a different style to our yoga classes! Rachel called it Boot Camp Yoga, because it was hard work!
The Thursday class had always been the less attended class, with a smaller enrollment and like any class, as the session went on, people would drop out, but with Chris, it really started to weed out the class, and I mean really fast! We'd get 12 or 15 people the first week of the session, but they would drop like flies and after a couple of weeks, it was just down to the six or seven dedicated followers again. It was hard but we loved it!
Then, toward the end of the last session, Chris was suddenly gone. The last two classes of the session were cancelled, and we were told there would be no Thursday class for the new session! We were all shocked, and we don't know what happened there, except maybe a couple of health issues that she had mentioned, her own, and her mom's.
So, there we were, wishing that we could get three classes a week, and suddenly we are down to one! I tried a class at another gym, but that place was kind of ghetto and the teacher was, well, she was no Chris!
The Monday teacher had tried using a borrowed space downtown to start a class that met Tuesday and Thursday, which was great - for one week. Then the space was rented to a martial arts group, so that was no good.
I suggested to Shelley that we could meet on Tuesdays and Thursdays at the church and use a DVD to follow for classes, and she thought it was a good plan, so we invited our core group from the Thursday class, and that's what we've been doing for a month.
It's been really good for me because I ended up doing yoga daily as I previewed DVDs for us to see if they were appropriate for our interests and skill levels. There are a lot of different styles of yoga, and we aren't interested in some of them.
So that's what's been going on, but last night I found out that our Monday teacher will probably be teaching the Thursday class too, starting with the next session, and that's fine. We'll stop doing the Tuesday and Thursday class at the church, and just go to the Y for the two weekly classes and practice at home on our own if we want more.
I learned from this that it's doable to have a home practice, and I made space in the den for a 'yoga room' by giving away our old couch, so I have a space to practice in.
The best thing is that I found a website called Yogaglo.com that has classes in all different kinds of yoga styles,where you can pay a small monthly fee and then you can take as many classes as you want. I love it!

Let me tell you about a girl and her purse.

This is a picture of Maddy's purse. It was a gift from her other Grandma, and she has loved it from the day she got it. She carries it with her everywhere, of course, because she knows from observation that a woman always carries a purse with her Important Things in it!


When she goes up to bed, she puts her purse carefully on the table next to her bed, next to her Cars lamp. If she gets upstairs with all of her other Necessary Stuff (her stuffed dog Meena, her blanky, her binky and her Big Blue Blanket), and then notices that her purse was left behind, she yells for the purse until it is found and brought to her, then it is placed on the table. Where it belongs.


She gets mad if she finds anyone pawing through her purse, and yells, "No! Gettout! Mine!", as any woman would, so I have a picture of the purse, but not of the contents. She has been a little more lenient with me because I am her Nan, so I have been able to look through the contents a little bit, and also I have paid attention when she is looking in it for something, or adding something new, so I have a pretty good idea of what's in it.

• There is a spare binky, just in case she loses the one in her mouth.
• A comb, although heaven forbid anyone should take it out and use it on her hair, which generally looks like monkeys have been doing science experiments on her head.
• A cellphone, or sometimes two, because she knows that a cellphone is an Important Thing to carry with her, and we give her our old ones, so she has plenty to choose from. Her favorite cellphone is the pink one that used to be Kim's. Maddy calls it Phineas and Ferb, because on that show, their older sister Candace has a pink phone just like it.
• She has a chapstick, because you know, Makeup.
• The rest of the contents vary from day to day, depending on what she has been playing with. Today I saw a baby-sized My Little Pony, a Hot Wheels car, and a Scrabble tile that she stole from my house. A couple of days ago I saw her pull out a mirror mounted on cardboard and she smiled at herself in it, murmuring fondly, "I see you...".
• Oh, I almost forgot, she usually has at least one bead necklace and a green rubber bracelet, too. Women like jewelry!

Her purse is often topped off with a small, open bag of chips ("Reetos!"), or a couple of loose cookies, or even a banana that she is transporting from one place to another. She knows it's a good idea to have a snack with her in case of emergency. (I taught her that.)


Last week Rachel and I took Ash and Maddy with us to Rockford so that Maddy could play at Monkey Joe's, a kid's play place full of bouncy castles and bouncy slides (and you know Maddy likes to bounce!), and I needed to go to the Ulta store to see the eyebrow specialist. (Shut. Up.)


Maddy brought her purse and her blanky, and sat in her car seat with both of them balanced on her lap, but just as we got into Rockford, her purse slipped off her lap and landed upside down on the floor of the car! Oh, the screaming!


It had fallen on the far side of the car, and Ash was sitting next to her on the other side, where he couldn't reach it to pick up her Stuff, so he told her she would have to wait until we got to Monkey Joe's for him to get her purse.


Maddy was furiously upset and none of us could reason with her, so finally Ash took off his seat belt, told Rachel not to have an accident and kill him, and he slid back to the rear seat and cleaned up all of her Stuff. He got every bit of it, too, because she was watching him carefully, and when he first gave it back, she could see that there was still Stuff on the floor, and she yelled for it!


Ash gave that purse the evil eye when he finally had all of the Stuff back in it, but he just doesn't understand that a girl needs her purse!

It's a mystery! Also, an evening with Maddy, in which she jumps on Kim's bed.

So today there was a dead bird laying on the floor in the dining room when I woke up! A. Dead. Bird. OMG! I called Rich to come downstairs and dispose of it, but neither of us could figure out where it came from!

I went out to get a pop and a couple of groceries with RA, and when I got back I went upstairs to strip the bed and change the sheets (because it was about time), and in the bathroom I saw that my hairbrush was on the floor, which was weird, because no one uses that bathroom but me during the day, and if I had knocked my hairbrush on the floor I would have picked it up! Then I saw (duh duh duh) a feather in the sink!

Rich was passing by just then, so I showed him the evidence that a bird had been flying around the house, and then I flushed it’s germy, mite-filled feather down the toilet, but still…where did the bird come from? I think it probably came in when Rich had the door open to take Sonny out on one of his many walks today, but it’s a mystery.

So Ash brought Maddy over tonight while Rachel was at work, and the first thing she did was go to the kitchen to get a bag of chips, because I always buy packages of small bags of chips for her (and Rich). She ate a couple of Cheetos (She calls them Ritos, because to her all chips are Doritos) and then she saw the bananas, and wanted one of them, too. I gave her the banana, half peeled, and she took that and the Cheetos and ran upstairs to Kim’s room.

I had to stop and shut down my laptop so I didn’t get up there right away, but when I did, she was jumping on the bed, eating the banana and she had carefully set the Cheeto bag upright on Kim's dresser, where she saw me put the chip bag last time to keep it away from Sonny.

No wait, she wasn’t on the bed yet, because first we had to pick up all the necklaces that were in a pile on the bed, and she sang the clean up, clean up song while we did it! She is so funny. Then she jumped and jumped and jumped. She can deliberately land on her butt now, since her feet slipped and she did it once, and I applauded her butt jump and told her to do it again. She demonstrated it for Ash when he got back from the store, and then they went home.

Oh, also, the minute she came in the house, she stripped off her own clothes and gave them to me to hold. She can undress herself now! That clever girl. She likes to run around in the house dressed in just a diaper, and they have to fight her to put her clothes on if they want to take her anywhere.

In which I walked a long way.

I know I haven't written in a long time. It's been a hot, busy summer, but now I'm ready to try writing regularly again.

What I'm knitting today:

I have the second sock of a pair at work with me. The yarn is Opal in one of the Van Gogh colorways. This one is called Starry Night, but I don't think the colors look as much like Starry Night as they should.

I am working on a baby blanket, but I left it at home because it needs a longer circular needle to work it comfortably. I just haven't felt like finding a longer needle.

Hmm, I also have a sweater for Kim that I started a while ago, but I need more yarn to finish it. I asked them to order more of it and I don't know if it's in at the shop yet. I found another ball of the yarn under the bed in the yarn room when I was in there the other day, so I have enough to start a sleeve now. The sweater is called Eiffel, and the pattern in from Knitty.

Of course I have some other unfinished projects, but I'm not worried about them right now.

What I watched today:

When I got up, Rich was watching Dr. Who, and I sat in my chair and played on the laptop for a while, talked to my sister Sarah on the phone, and made dinner, and Dr Who went on and on. It was a marathon leading up to a season opener or closer, I don't know which, because here's the thing - I don't like Dr. Who. I know, you are gasping in disbelief at my uncoolness, but I don't care. Dr. Who is so boring that I was getting excited when a commercial came on.

What I did instead of watching Dr. Who:

I finally got up and put on my walking shoes and went for a walk, which turned into a two and a half mile hike to Rachel's house. I didn't plan to go that far but it was so nice and breezy outside (thank you, Hurricane Isaac!) that I decided to take a long walk, so I called Rachel to see if she wanted to meet in the middle, and she loaded Maddy up in the stroller and brought a bottle of ice water and met me about 2/3 of the way to her house I was glad to see that bottle of water! It took an hour to get to her house, because the uphills were slowing me down!

Maddy and I sat in the backyard - well, I sat, and Maddy filled her little wading pool with cold water from the hose, and she sprayed my feet, too. Then she wandered off to pick weeds, and was getting too far away from the driveway, so we went in the house. Rachel and Ash were inside eating dinner, and when they were done, Rachel drove me home.

So that was my day. You're welcome.

It's hot like Hell or Arizona.

What I am knitting today:

• Viking hat for Kate's baby. Actually that hat is resting while I work on other things because it's kind of a pain. I got help with reading the pattern from Kathy, and also, Russell and Mike at knitting group, so I can finish the body of it, only I need to use a bigger hook for the last few rows, because it was getting smaller and smaller and I had to rip those last rows out. The good news is, it's easier to rip back crocheting that it is to rip knitting.
• Finishing the second sock of a pair, and it's going slowing because they're for a man, and men have bigger feet! The foot is going on and on...
• A sweater for Kim that she picked out. I am using the actual yarn called for in the pattern, and having a bit of trouble getting the gauge with it. Also, it's hemp yarn, so it's not really pleasant to work with. I hear that it washes up well and gets soft and drapes nicely, but I have to see that to believe it.
• Just finished another little sweater for Kim. It's a shrug, from a Chicknits pattern called Cinnie. It's very cute, knitted with Cotton Fleece in lavender. I hope she likes it. Still need to weave in the ends and take a picture. Hah! You know I won't remember to take a picture.

What Kim is doing today:

Kim came home for the weekend, but she's not really home. She spent the night here on Thursday, then got up and tuned her harp, loaded it into my van, and drove to Iowa to play at her roommate's sister's wedding.

Kim took my van and left her car here for me to drive. She took the car key off of her keyring and gave it to me so I could use the car. Last night when I was leaving to go to work, I went out to her car, and fumbled the key when I tried to unlock it, dropping the key on the ground. It was dark, and I couldn't see where it fell, so I cursed loudly and felt around on the ground for it, but of course I couldn't find it.

I pulled out my phone and used the lit screen as a flashlight to look for the key, and there it was! It had bounced under the car, and was laying on the driveway under the middle of the car!

So I had to kneel on the pavement and re-e-e-each underneath the car to get the key. Good thing I've been doing all that yoga! I was able to stretch and reach the key without having to lay facedown on the filthy driveway!

How Rich is entertaining himself today:

He bought himself a new water-filled standing punching bag for his birthday, and today he is filling it. He ran a hose from the bathroom up to his office to fill it, but he just came back down and said he overfilled it and has to drain some out now. Sounds like fun, doesn't it?

In other news:

Maddy got her cast off last week, and her life is much better now that she can go swimming again. I asked her where her cast was when I saw her without it, and she said, "Cast gone!"

Scott and Carolyn are coming to visit in August and they will be here in two weeks! I'm so excited!

In which Rachel loses things.

I was just going to do one of those entries about What I'm Doing Today, but then I read some earlier entries from this  year (there weren't very many of them) and one of them was about the little dress I knitted for Maddy that Rachel put on top of the car and then drove away and lost it (you can read it here.)

It was funny to read because I had forgotten all about that, but recently when I loaned her my old Kindle, she did exactly the same thing!  She put it on top of the car, along with her scriptures, after church, and then drove home to get something, and when she got back to church, Rich saw her, and gave her the scriptures, which had been picked up in the parking lot by someone, but the Kindle wasn't with them!

So Rachel was panicking, and she told me later that Ash drove home and she was practically hanging out the window so she could find that Kindle if it was lying by the side of the road.  And she did find it, lying by the side of the road, and it only has a little dent in one corner. 

When she told me about that close call, she said it had happened recently with her cell phone, too, but she had only driven a few yards, and then turned around to go back home for something she had forgotten, and when she got out of the car, she saw the phone had slid over and stopped at the corner of the sunroof.  What a doofus.

Another stinkin' hot day. This time with crocheting.

This afternoon I wrote a blog post all about how I am learning to crochet in order to make a little viking helmet for my niece Kate's baby, who is due in the Fall.  I wrote about how hard it was to crochet and when I went to the yarn store for help, Jeffrey didn't know how to crochet either, so he looked up stitches in a big crochet book, and we figured them out together.  Then I hit the wrong button and my post disappeared, so all you get is the quick recap.

I crocheted that little hat last night at work, but it didn't look right, and when Barb came to work this morning, I asked her for help, because she used to crochet, but it turns out she can't really read a pattern, so she wasn't much help.

Tonight I came to work an hour early (!) because Kathy was working, and I know she can crochet because I've seen her do it!  She turned out to be very helpful and I'm actually making the hat now, and it looks like it's supoosed to!  Yay!

It's still so hot and humid that it's killing me.  Rachel has been trying to get a walk every day, as well as biking and swimming laps, because she's training for the triathlon, so today she said she was going to walk to my house, pushing Maddy in her stroller, and she wanted me to walk down to the corner - about a half mile - and meet them. 

I went out to walk it, and it was only going to be a half mile, so no big deal.  The wind was blowing and when I was walking in the shady parts of the sidewalk, it was actually almost pleasant.  They weren't at the corner yet, so I turned to keep walking along the road to meet them, but then I was out of the shade and into the sunlight and it was so hot!  It was like walking on the surface of the sun!

By the time I met up with them I had walked almost a mile, and I could feel how red and overheated my face looked.  I was wearing black clothes, like I always do, so I was like a goth in sunlight, soaking it all in and overheating!

We walked back to my house, which was mostly uphill, and I was wailing about my misery and listening to my breath wheezing.  Maddy said, "Nan crying!"  Rachel says next time we need to bring cold water, sunblock for Maddy, and my inhaler!

In other news, it's hot outside!

It's been so long since I updated, that I don't even know where to start!

Hmm, since April (the last time I wrote anything), Kim has moved to Chicago, Rachel and I walked a 5K in the pouring rain, and Maddy broke her arm. In other news, my smart phone is still annoying.

Kim was home this weekend, not because she misses us, but because she wanted to get a bike to ride around Chicago to get to her dogsitting jobs. She is spending a lot of money on gas and she thought a bike would be the best solution.

I thought that sounded like a terrible idea, because Kim has hardly ridden a bike at all, and I didn't like the idea of her riding in city traffic, but when I told her I was worried about it, she reminded me that she rode a bike everywhere when she was in Taiwan. Oh yeah, I forgot. So I feel slightly better about it now.

Rachel needed to buy a new bike helmet to wear in the triathlon she is training for, so she picked me up and we went to W@lmart to look at bikes. I am not ready to spend a lot on a bike for Kim to get killed on get stolen.

We looked at bikes and found one that we thought was just right for Kim, and then we called her to come and look at it. She came over to the store and tried standing up on it for size, and it was good, and then she rode it down the aisle to see how it felt. Oops, no one told her how to brake on it!

She had a quick lesson in how to back-peddle to brake, because did I mention this bike is old school? It's a cruiser, with no speeds, and no handlebar brakes. It's bright fuschia with bright teal trim, very retro.

We bought a lock and a little medical kit that includes bandages and a tube of antibiotic cream, and she got a helmet from a friend, so she is all set to ride. She went for a bike ride with Sando yesterday to try it out, and then she took it back to Chicago with her last night.

So that's all I have time for right now, but here is a picture of Maddy in her cast for your entertainment:

In which I do not like to touch!

So a couple of weeks ago, I wanted an android phone so I could be cooler, and also because I just like to change things once in a while to make my life more interesting.

Kim had just gotten a new cell phone when she opened an account on her return from Taiwan, so she gave me her old android phone from before she left the country, and I had my account switched over to the 'new' (to me) phone and started using it.

That phone had a touch keyboard, and it didn't take long for me to start hating that touch keyboard! I missed the buttons on my old Blackberry so much! I had the hardest time hitting the correct keys! I improved with practice, but it has never made me truly happy.

So today, with less than a week to go on my current phone contract agreementbeliever plan thingy, I went in and got a different phone. With a keyboard. I hope this phone will bring me the happiness I deserve!

What I'm knitting today:

I finished the sweater coat for Maddy, and I'm just working on a pair of socks for Scott in Lorna's Laces Shepherd yarn. The color is very Autumn-ey blend of oranges and browns, that I would not make for myself, but I bought it because the name of the color is Robot Overlord. You know I had to get that for Scott!

Oh, and I'm making a baby cardigan for a friend's baby with some sage green acrylic that I had in the yarn stash. It's an easy top-down cardi pattern that I have made so many of that I know the pattern by heart.

That's all the news for now.

In which a terrible thing happens!

So remember a few days ago when I proudly reported finishing some knitting projects? One of them was a little peach-colored dress for Maddy that I started knitting ages ago, and finally got it sewn together and bought the ribbon to tie around the waist, and tonight I gave the dress to Rachel to take home. I also gave her the package of ribbon, because you know I didn't actually sew that on yet.

I saw Rachel carry the dress out to the car when she took Maddy home tonight, but half an hour later she called me on the phone to ask if she had left the dress here, because she couldn't find it!

I glanced around the living room, but I didn't see it and anyway, I know she took it with her, and I told her so. She said she had checked to see if she left it in the car, but it wasn't there, either, and I said, "I know you didn't put it on top of the car and drive away with it," and she kind of gulped and said that's what she was afraid might have happened!

So I put on my shoes and went out to check the driveway and the road in front of my house, but I didn't see a little pink dress. Rachel came over after she put the baby to bed, and she hadn't seen it in the street on the way here, but we both needed to go to the store, so I got in the car with her and we drove back toward her place, which is the way to the store, and then, in the middle of the road, there it was!

It was a soggy peach blob in the middle of the street that had been so mashed down into the sloppy snow that you could barely see it! We pulled over and Rachel jumped out and grabbed the dress! She gently laid it on the carseat and said she would wash it when she got home. She was sure she could save it.

She just called me and said she washed it carefully with shampoo, and again with dish soap, and got the tire track washed out (!) and she had rolled it up in a towel to soak up the excess water, and it was spread out to dry. Wouldn't you know a tragedy like this would happen to something that has to be handwashed? (The dress is made of Debbie Bliss Baby Cashmerino.)

She also said that she found a spot where I had dropped a stitch, so I'll need to go over to fix it when it's all dry. That poor dress. It took forever to finish, and it's still not quite done.

I need to knit something for Jenna's new baby, but I think I'll use Encore yarn - it's machine washable!

In which I am just catching up.

This weekend I finished four of my UFOs (Unfinished Objects)! That's right, four! Two of them needed buttons, and you know my hatred of button-sewing, but on Monday I went to the fabric store and actually bought buttons! Amazing!

Then I was going to start the Owl Cardigan that I want to knit for Maddy, but Rich showed me his dog-walking mittens and they are so shredded that I can't repair them anymore, so I spent two days knitting him a pair of plain grey wool mittens, when all I really want to do is start that Owl Cardi!

Now that the mittens are done, yay! I can start the cardi tonight at work!

In other news, Kim has been going to the accupuncturist and is being treated for her tendonitis (from texting!), acid reflux, and anxiety. She has six little tacks taped to her right arm, and one in front of her ear. They are so tiny you barely notice them. She says she thinks it is helping.

Kim is sitting on the couch right now, playing a video game with Sando over the Xbox. He is at school and she is here, but they are playing this game and talking to each other through the Xbox. Amazing. They were doing this on Monday, and Sando heard me laughing at a joke that a friend had emailed to me, so I forwarded it to Kim's email (from across the room) and she read it out loud to him. Ah, the wonder of technology!

I have read several books since the last time I posted, and right now I can only remember two that I liked enough to recall the titles. The Cart Before the Corpse was one, Diary of a Chav by Grace Dent, which I have read before and it is so funny that I needed to read it again, and I just remembered one more, Dead is the New Black. I can recommend all of them.

Okay, gotta go take a nap before I go to work.

Some books aren't that great.

Just wanted to comment on one of the books on my previous list. Nearly Departed in Deadwood? I couldn't finish it because I was so tired of the main characters digestive problems. Every damn thing that happened in that book made her stomach act up, and I got so tired of it, I had to stop reading it. It seemed to have potential, but no.

These are my lists. Lists!

I told Diana that she needs to start listing the books she reads in her journal, so I can read them, too. She said she would do it, and I hope she does. I like to know what people are reading so I don't miss anything!

I decided to start a list of the books I'm reading, too, just so I can look back at them later and remember what I read. So starting with today, I'm reading:

Two for the Dough by Janet Evanovich. I'm re-reading it because I read One for the Money again after I saw the movie, and then I just wanted to read the next one, too.

The Afterlife Club by Jude Ryan. It was a freebie for the Kindle and I'm really liking it! I especially love how British it is.

Nearly Departed in Deadwood by Ann Charles. I think it's the first in a series, and I'm enoying it. I'm reading it while I knit tonight.

Speaking of knitting, I have to make a list of my projects, because I'm starting to feel a little overwhelmed. If I list them it makes me feel more in control, even though I still have the same amount of projects!

1. The peach knit dress for Maddy. I started sewing it up on Tuesday, but it's back in the bag again. I would love to finish sewing the seams tomorrow so Maddy can wear it on Sunday. Is that going to happen? I don't know.

2. The Knit-a-long socks the the February Knitpurlhunter.com knitalong. They are very pretty, but because it's two-color knitting, it takes just a tiny bit more attention than I want to give to my knitting tonight.

3. The sage-colored Wallaby I'm making for a friends' grandbaby. Almost done but I ran out of yarn! I need to go to the yarn shop tomorrow for one more skein. I'll end up with most of the skein left, but I can make a hat for Kim with the leftovers.

4. Kim asked me to knit a hat that has a pocket inside for her earphones so she can listen to music with her hat on. I've got a plan for that, and I'll get to it soon.

5. Baby sweater for my cousin Wendy's baby - what I'm making tonight! It's an easy top-down kimono I'm knitting in Hempwol. I made one for Maddy and it's so cute when it's done.

6. Another kimono for Jeanette's new baby! Haven't started it yet, but I've got the yarn!

7. Owl cardigan for Maddy. I've got the pattern and the yarn, but I'm not going to start it until her dress is finished!

Okay, I feel better. I'm going to go knit now.

And now it is February.

Remember last time I said I was working on the Little Arrowhead Socks? Well, I finished one sock and started the second one, but in the middle of it I made a mistake in the lace pattern, and I couldn't fix it so I was going to have to pick it back about 3 rows and knit that section again, and suddenly I was just so tired of knitting lace while trying to read a book that I ripped out the whole sock and started over. They are going to be plain socks in my usual 3X1 rib, and they will be easy to work on while I read or watch movies, and that is really what I want from my sock knitting.

Paula had come down to my office on her lunch break and was happily knitting a mitten, and she almost had a heart attack when I ripped that sock out. The first sock was still in my purse, so I picked out the toe stitching and ripped that whole sock back, too, and she was gasping in horror. She hasn't been knitting long enough to know that if your knitting is not making you happy, you just need to cut your losses and tear it out.*

Scott called me tonight and said that Soren wanted to talk to Nan on the computer, so we got on Google+ to have a webcam chat, but there were a few snags in the process. First, they didn't have the chat program installed on the computer they were using, so they had to install it. No problem, I just talked to Scott while I waited.

While Scott was installing the program, Carl was watching him, and I heard Carl ask Scott to tell him a story about when Carl touched the computer. Carl is not allowed to touch the computer, so the story went like this, "One day Carl touched the computer and he got a spanking and had to go to his room without supper." Then Scott started laughing, and I asked what happened, and he said Carl was smiling when the story started, but when it got to the part about the spanking, his smile faded, and he was looking horrified at the end, the part where he had to go to his room. Poor Carl. Now he is traumatized.

So then the program was installed and we were trying to connect to each other, but in Google+ you connect by going to a Hangout, and you invite the person or people you want to talk with to come to the Hangout. Okay, so I tried to invite Carolyn's computer to my hangout, but I couldn't figure out how to invite a single person, and I clicked on the circle of my Google+ friends, which apparently sent an invitation to everyone in my circle of friends, including my friend Wendy, who was home relaxing after a long, rough week at work.

Wendy saw the invite to my hangout, but she was tired and watching a DVD of Mad Men so she sensibly ignored me until the *second* invite came through, because I was still unable to figure out how to invite just one person. She must have thought I was pathetically lonely all by myself in my Google hangout, so she connected to me with her iPhone, but by then I had made a precarious connection with Scott and the kids, so when Wendy came on, too, I said hello, but since I was messing around trying to get a better connection to Scott, I heartlessly blew her off!

I finally was able to chat a little with Scott and the kids, and Carolyn, who brought their cat, Nom Chomsky, to be included in the chatting, too, but then my stupid laptop decided we had had enough fun for one night and it shut me down. Geez.

So I went upstairs to get a nap before work, and I called Wendy to apologize, and now I'm writing this post just for her! So there, Wendy, get a good night's sleep and when you wake up there will be something for you to read.

*Except for that Nagano sweater I started 10 years ago. It is the beast that haunts my dreams. Every time I start to rip it out, I stop because of all the work and emotional anguish that have gone into it. It's half ripped out, resting in a box in the closet.

I'm at work now.

What I am reading tonight:

A Discovery of Witches: A Novel

This is a recommendation from Diana, and it's pretty good. It's the same old thing, i.e. witches, vampires, demons, but it's well written and I'm enjoying it. I'm also reading yet another diet book, and re-reading the second Stephanie Plum book.

What I'm knitting today:

I was going to bring the sweater I'm knitting for Maddy, but oops, I forgot, so all I have is my purse knitting, which is a sock in the Little Arrowhead pattern by Nancy Bush. I don't think I have enough yarn left on this skein to get me through the whole night at work, so I might have to use something from the Emergency Knitting Stash I keep in a drawer at work.

Tonight we all went to yoga class, and by 'all' I mean Rachel, Kim, and I, aas well as Laura and Shelley. The Monday night class is always big, and the whole Y must have been busy because the parking lot was full! Ash reported that he had a hard time getting a machine to work on because so many people were working out downstairs. It will be nice when all those people who made New Years resolutions give up on exersizing!

Who wants to be haunted?

So Rachel called me just now as she was walking over to the grocery store across the field from her backyard in the middle of the night. (Probably about 100 yards away.)

I told her it was dangerous, but if anything happened to her I would be comforted knowing that I was the last person who talked to her. Then I suggested that she should come back from beyond to contact me.

Rachel said if she was going to contact anyone from beyond it would be Kim, because it would be fun to freak her out. I had to agree that it would be funny if she contacted Kim, because Kim is the one who watches those stupid ghost hunting shows on TV, and she is so interested in the paranormal.

Fortunately Rachel got home safely, so it doesn't matter now.

In which I don't even try to catch up.

How much I walked today:

The hospital has a walking program for all of the employees this year, and our goal is to walk 10 miles a week, or two miles a day, five times a week. Yesterday Kim and I walked our two miles, but today we went to visit with Maddy for an hour instead. Tomorrow we'll get that walk again!

What I cooked today:

Kim wanted some rice with meat and vegetables like she ate in Taiwan almost every day, so I made chicken with sauteed vegetables for her, and cooked some white rice in the rice cooker. (I like brown rice better, but I was out of it, and anyway, white rice is more Asian!) It turned out very well, and Kim said it was like what the cooks at the school made for lunch.

And I made bread!

I downloaded a free book for my Kindle with recipes for breads that you mix up and refridgerate until you are ready to bake them - at least 8 hours and up to five days! I liked the idea of making bread that I could set aside until I was ready to make it, so I mixed up a batch two days ago and baked it yesterday. These breads don't have to be kneaded, and they only need to rise once, so they are less labor-intensive. The bread from that first batch was okay, but it was white bread, and I like whole wheat better, so today I looked online to find an article I read a couple of years ago on making artisan bread in 5 minutes a day.

The article mentioned the bread cookbook written by the author of the article, and I remembered that I bought that cookbook after I read the article, but I never made any of the bread in the book. My cookbook cupboard is full, so it will requre a search to find it!

So tonight I made the basic dough recipe from the article in Mother Earth News and tomorrow I'll try baking a loaf. I'm excited about this, and if it's good, we'll have bread for a week, because the recipe makes enough dough to bake eight loaves!

What Maddy was doing tonight:

When Kim and I went to see Maddy, she was watching her favorite TV show, Phineas and Ferb, and drinking some juice. While we were there, she brought Big Bear out of her room, and Kim recognized him as Mr. Bearington, who had been her bear until she went to Taiwan. Maddy also showed us her new dog that she can pull around on a string, and she offered the dog a sip of her juice. Later she offered the dog her binky, too. I don't know why she thinks a dog would want her binky.