Dealing with it

Secretly, I was hoping I’d be feeling good effects from the cleanse diet by this point. I kind of hoped that my whole CFS/ME problem was just about a food allergy – I have a lot of unrealistic hope like that. Maybe hope isn’t the word… maybe I mean wish. While I’m at it, I wish for a Pegasus. Oh, and I want to be a Princess, too!

<sigh>

At least the weird stomach aches stopped. That happened within about twenty-four hours. This time, I’m not quite as hungry as I was in the beginning when I did this before. I think this is because I generally eat a low glycemic index diet. There isn’t so much of a carbohydrate addiction to break this time.

What kills me is that I had a bad day on Thursday. I woke up feeling like my head was too heavy for my neck. I had no ambition. I was really cold, despite the thermostat reading 75°. Sure it was cold outside, and a huge snow storm was on the way (we got sixteen inches all told, but it never got terribly cold – maybe just below freezing), but it was warm inside. I had to take three naps, I think. And I couldn’t hold on to a thought. I couldn’t really knit more than a row at a time. I couldn’t read more than a sentence or two. Caffeine didn’t make it better.

Today, however, I had some early morning ambition. I moved some furniture, vacuumed and swept, wrote up and sent a recipe for butternut squash and apple soup to some friends who asked for it, did some laundry…

Maybe two hours into it, though, I felt the wall coming. I have this irrational reaction that leads me to try to outrun it. If I feel the wall coming, I try to work harder and faster. In reality, I think that trying to outrun the wall  just makes it come more quickly due to the stress. Still, I feel compelled to try. I think this is the most frustrating thing about the whole chronic illness thing: I’m a healthy, ambitious person stuck in a sick, lazy person’s body.

I’ve been able to knit some today and on Friday. It made me think about how I said I’d post my current works in progress. It’s been a long time since I’ve listed them. I think I’m just going to mention the ones I am actively working on. All of these projects are for other people. Most have a deadline. The others are just fuzzy memories at the moment.

These need to be done ASAP. Winter seems long, but it doesn’t last forever.

• K’s winter wear. For Christmas, I sent K’s husband (Dr B) a hat and scarf. It’s been so cold where she lives that she confiscated these items a few times so she could be warm when she left the house. I’m making K her own set (with mittens as a bonus!) so she and her husband can be warm outside the house at the same time.
• Dr R’s giant socks. I really need to make smaller friends. He wears a size eleven shoe. Fortunately, he wants warm, worsted weight socks. Totally doable.

This will be due soon enough. I have several friends who are expecting babies, and only one has announced it. I get to know early because I am the knitter and I need time to produce the baby items!

• Crayon Blanket. Jen announced that she’s expecting a little girl. After the blanket, there will be cardigans and booties and whatever else I can think of. That catch is that Jen lives in Florida and is sensitive to wool. This means I need to make cool, wool-free items.

I’ve been working on this for a long time. I’m not sure what about this is taking me so long.

• Gentleman Socks for Michael. I started these in April of last year. On the bright side, Michael already has a pair of socks I made him. I just wish he had more. I wish I had more. Alas, my knitting interest is fickle and I can’t force myself to work on something I’m just not feeling. I keep this one out, though, and put on a row here or there. I’m on the second sock, and I’ve even turned the heel. I can see the end, I just can’t seem to bring myself to get there. I really wonder why.

Oddly, I like the knitting deadlines. I feel like my knitting has purpose. I feel like people are expecting something of me. It’s all I can do to contribute to society these days, a few hand-knit items for people who appreciate them.

I expect to be casting on more things soon, despite my unlisted but definitely unfinished projects waiting in the closet. My acupuncturist is a knitter, but she stopped knitting over 30 years ago. She has admired my hand knit socks when she was busy sticking needles in me. She claims that she is not good enough at knitting to make socks. Everyone who knits by hand deserves a pair of hand knit socks, so at some point she will get some.

I’ve run out of energy again, so I’m going to have to end this post sooner than I’d like. I’m going to try to get pictures of the works in progress for the next post (which I really hope will occur in a day or two). What I’m hoping for the most is to feel well enough to see if the shelter has something for me to foster. I’ll keep my fingers crossed.

Actually Doing Something for a Change

I am happy to report that I have actually gotten started on my goals. I haven’t even needed the motivation of finishing a small task to work on the big ones. The most obvious is that I am making good on my goal to post more often. This is something that has to be sustained, but still, I’m actually putting up another post – it’s step one of many. I also started on a chapter in the book I wanted to write. I’ve gotten an idea for the direction of the title as well – something to do with living in fog. Finally, I’ve started working in earnest on finishing my yarn craft WIPs.

I realized as I was working on the knitting that I haven’t posted a current list of what I’m working on in a while. It’s going to be painful, I fear, but here goes  (you can click to enlarge the pictures):

1. Everyday Tweed. I realized I was getting low on warm clothing, which is an inexcusable situation for a knitter. I wanted to find a pattern that would be relatively simple, so if I liked it I could use it for more sweaters in different yarns. This one is all knitting, and mostly simple, but I had so much trouble with the yarn. I bought what should have been enough for the whole thing, but it turns out that despite the matching labels, the dye lots on all of the skeins were not the same. I’m trying some fancy color work tricks to hide this subtle but noticeable difference.
2. Monkey Socks.  I tried several patterns for this particular yarn – I am completely intrigued by Flat Feet yarn. They take sock blanks (basically, small machine knitted rectangles of sock yarn) and dye them in creative patterns and such. I liked the colors in this one, but I hated the way it knit up. After trying and ripping back several attempts, I finally found that the monkey pattern removes some of the ugly from the yarn, and I am happy once again. I’ve already finished one of the socks.
3. Robert’s Boot Socks. Its been a long time since my brother Robert asked for these socks. I started working on them a bit when he came to visit for Christmas. I realized that part of the problem, besides the fact that Serra and Duck destroyed my first attempt, is that it’s hard for me to make socks without the person for whom I am making them present. I want to be sure they fit before I put all that effort into making two of them. Once I get one that fits, the second should come quickly. The yarn is worsted weight, and it’s not like he’s a big guy or anything.
4. Beaded Deep Space. I deliberately left this in a crumpled up state for the photograph. While I want to show it off somewhat, I want the finished product to be a genuine surprise for the recipient.  I’m using a modified version of the Cheshire Cat Stole with the Deep Space yarn I fell madly in love with a long time ago. I wanted to give it to a friend when I finished. She still doesn’t know I am making it for her, so she isn’t missing it. Maybe that’s the problem – I don’t have the push I need to work on it.
5. Crochet Noro Socks. Honestly, I’m not in love with these. I made one because a crocheter at the shop I used to teach at asked if I could teach a class on crochet socks. I made the first sock, but the no one, not even the person who requested the class, signed up. I’m considering just using the yarn for knit socks sometime in the future, an making the crocheted sock into a cat toy or stocking or something.
6. Cat Couch. I started this in August 2008. I want to make something nice for the cats, and I know they’ll love it. I just can’t seem to manage to keep my focus on it. I think it just doesn’t help that the yarn doesn’t really grab me. It’s an inexpensive acrylic I bought because it was on sale and I know anything that I give the cats will eventually be destroyed. It’s ok that it will be destroyed because it means the cats loved it, but I think the finite nature of its existence when I’ve finished it kind of discourages me.
7. Colorado Gloves. I had forgotten until I looked on my Ravelry queue why I put these down – I had developed a little carpal tunnel and I just couldn’t knit for awhile. I want to finish them, but the problem with things I’ve designed myself is that if I can’t remember where I was, I can’t just look at a pattern. What’s more, I have no idea where I left this one. I’ll have do some looking in my craft room in the upcoming week.
8. Hemp Shopping Bag. Eventually, I want to finish this, but there is no urgency because I have plenty of store bought ones. The bags from Safeway don’t hold up well, but the ones I got at Whole Foods do hold up well (plus, if they ever do break, Whole Foods will replace them for free). Again, something I designed myself.
9. Spiral Rug. This one should be easy to finish. It’s all garter stitch, I get to change yarns often (it holds my interest), and there isn’t that much left to do. It’s when I get to the part where I have to sew it up that I will be struggling. I so hate sewing.
10. Beach Skirt. This is the one I dreamed about not long before I got really sick. I need to finish it soon if I want it to fit my niece. I did, at least, make it larger than I thought she would need it to be since I anticipated her growing more before I finished it (see, thinking ahead).
11. Gwendolyn. No, the picture isn’t fuzzy – the yarn is. I had a lot of this pink angora yarn in my cabinet for awhile, but I had no idea what I was going to do with it. At some point I decided to make a shawl of some sort, but then I discovered the lace pattern took more focus than I had. Ah, well. It’ll come back.
12. Ryan’s Afghan. My friend Ryan asked me to make him a warm afghan out of acrylic yarn. He had no real idea of what it should look like, he just wanted to have something for the chilly San Francisco weather. I started it, but I never even got so far as to put it in my Ravelry queue. Mostly, this is an exercise in crochet intarsia. I wanted to try something new, and what better way to use up smaller balls of yarn?
13. An exercise in Mitered Squares. This isn’t exactly a project. I was fooling around with making mitered squares, and trying to see how I would join them up to make something. I have no idea what that something is, mind you, but I just wanted to try. I was using up some yarn that I only had in small quantities. I will probably give this to Duck when I’ve finished learning what I want to know.
14. Knitting Guild Master’s Project. I ordered the curriculum while I was still working at the yarn shop. Somewhere between my acquisition of Duck, working, laying the hardwood floors, and getting sick after all of that, I just never really worked on it. This one differs from the Crochet Guild Master’s Project in that they give you as long as you want to finish it. You just have to ask for the updated version of the test every year. Mine has been in this plastic bag for about a year and a half. <ugh>

I’m trying to see the theme with the projects I’ve left for a long time. For the most part, it appears I reached a stumbling block and gave up. A lot of my problem is that I haven’t really had the focus to get serious about knitting for the last seven months. I honestly believe that my desire to get to this has something to do with my body finally but slowly healing. It seems my illness totally warped my personality. Normally, I view a road block as an opportunity to learn something, and I rise to the challenge readily. Since I got sick, I just got frustrated with everything and I started giving up.  I’ve had a few good hours in most days since I last posted. I’ve been working closely with my doctors, tweaking the supplements as things change. I think I’ll get there, both with the health and this list. Right now, I think I need to go lie down.

Closing Time and Blogiversary

If you would have asked me when I started writing this blog what I thought I would be doing a year from then, I would never have guessed that I would be closing on a house in Colorado.  I might have told you that I hoped to have purchased a house, but I would have thought that house would be in San Francisco. I didn’t know that I was going to learn to spin yarn, much less that I was going to acquire a spinning wheel. I wouldn’t have been able to tell you that I would passionately love 2 little girl kittens whom I would have to give away (I’ve always loved my kittens, but in a more impermanent way). It just goes to show that no matter what plans you might make for yourself, surprising things just come up.

The closing on the house today went smoothly. Michael spent the morning making sure that everyone had all the documents they needed (it turns out the companies involved in the transfer process procrastinate to the point of endangering an on-time transaction), and by the time we had to close, everything was in line. We signed a billion documents. We chatted with the sellers and our respective agents. And in the end, we got the key to our new house! The sellers are still moving out tomorrow, but we will be coming in Saturday morning to do a few things to the place before we go. Holy cow, we’re homeowners!

I’ve started 2 projects, both in commemoration of the house purchase, and because these are things Michael and I will need for living in a slightly colder climate.  Michael needed a scarf (he tells me he has never actually worn a scarf before. Really? He was born in Pennsylvania…) and I needed gloves. I’ve made more progress on Michael’s scarf than my gloves, largely because his project is a little simpler and quicker to complete. I also tried to stop myself from starting the gloves because I had other projects that were really long past due. I’ve completed many of those projects, so I now feel I can work on the gloves. I’ve picked out a stitch pattern and cast on the ribbing. I think I’ll post the pattern for both of these projects when I’ve completed them.

(The lighting for these pictures was kind of poor – the only white background I had here in the hotel was in the bathroom.)

I am happy to say that, of the works in progess I had a year ago, only one of them remains uncompleted – Carisa’s afghan. The afghan is an active project as of a few days ago, and I expect it will be finished before I leave San Francisco. Shall we see what is on my hooks and needles now? I’ll include links for those of you who are on Ravelry.

1. Carisa’s Afghan. We knew this. The only holdover from last year, and first on the priority list for this one.
2. Colorado Scarf. The second priority, a project of my own design. Michael is going to need this. Apparently, we’ve chosen to move during the months in which Colorado gets the most of its snow. Fabulous.
3. Colorado Gloves. Pressing, but not too big of a priority. Also a project of my own design. I’ll need a good pair of gloves for snow-land, but I do have serviceable store-bought ones to tide me over.
4. Blaine’s Baby Blanket. Fortunately, this is 1 of only 2 afghans on my list. I meant to have fewer in progress so I could enjoy the satisfaction of completing a project more often. I’d like to get this one done by Blaine’s birthday in June, and hopefully I can deliver it to him myself given that we will only live 7 hours away from my brother’s family by then.
5. Earl Grey. I started this when I joined the San Francisco one-sock-a-month group on Ravelry. Sadly, I have only completed maybe ½ of one of these in the 5 months since I joined. Oh, well.
6. Clapotis. I like the pattern, it’s just that the poor thing had to go to the bottom of the queue in order to make way for things I was giving to other people or things that I needed more urgently. This in only decorative, I’m afraid.
7. Cat Couch. I’ve been meaning to make something for my cats to call their very own. My kitties are so very appreciative of all my yarn projects. The like to lie on the blankets, they’ll snuggle with a sweater, and they give a fair shake to all the toys I’ve created for them. They deserve something nice. Maybe it should be higher on the priority list.

I notice that I have 2 fewer WIPs than last year. I wanted to reduce the number of things I had going at one time. While I wanted to remain below 6, I think it’s ok to be where I am, given that I actually have utility projects on the list. I have plans for future projects, but none are afghans (whew)! I am going to design a sweater for myself, given that I have yet to find a pattern that works for me. Strangely, I have no desire to cast on something new right now. What have I become?!

One opponent down

I’ve beaten my first opponent in the WIP Wrestling event. It was a long, imperfect battle, but I did it.

The Cat and Mouse Afghan (I call it Cat and Yarn on my Ravelry page) is now lounging on my sofa. I’ve had it in my hands for days now every time I sat down. Bit by bit the yarn disappeared, and in the end, I had an afghan. Groovy. Now, just 4 opponents remain.

I did less spinning than normal in class this week. Instead, I got to play with another tool that I thought I might want – a drum carder! Drum carders are particularly good for mixing different fibers and getting variegated roving or fiber blends. They make these things called batts. Mine looked like this (well it was one solid sheet, but I didn’t get to photograph it before the teacher showed me how to tear it into a usable form).

When the fiber was formed into a bump, it looked like this (since it’s variegated, I took pictures from different angles so you could get a better idea of what it looked like).

I’ve actually spun this fiber plus two bobbins worth of a complementary color and plied them. I will set it and take a picture. I am tempted to knit some of this one up before next class (although it does interfere with the Ravelympics projects – ugh).

I’ve also beaten an opponent in the kitten world today. Sunshine turned from being a scaredy-cat today into the most affectionate thing I’ve seen in awhile!

You can actually see the partial leg a little better in this picture. But look how happy she is! Linnea and I played with her for a good, long time last night. I think that she had such a good time playing with us that she decided we were friends after all. Sunshine got pretty helpful yesterday, too. She pottied Ling Ling for me (that is a job that I am really happy to hand over). It’s cute to see a small kitten with a mothering instinct.

Moonlight was incredibly cute last night, too. I use a thermal mug full of warm water to warm the bottles for Ling Ling and Tiki. Moonlight apparently likes warm water (very reminiscent of the way my cats drink water from the shower floor when I get out), and repeatedly went to the mug for a drink!

Wisteria has gone back to eating on her own. Last night she found eating to be too exhausting and fell asleep in her food!  It happened about 3 times before I finally got the camera. She had been wrestling the little kittens before her dinner, which is probably what wore her out. Today she got vaccinated and fawned over at the shelter. Two big days in a row – whew!

The tiniest kittens are finally getting teeth. When the first nubby little teeth come out, I add a spoonful of baby food (or in this case, regular wet food) to the bottle. Tonight both of the little ones ate wet food from my fingers. I need to tell Toni – she has their other 3 litter mates. I also saw Tiki using the litter box on her own today. It seems like they go from one stage to the next in a matter of hours. It’s kind of cool.

Crisis in Crochet

I was working on my cat afghan, inspired by the idea of getting down to just 6 WIPs. Except for substituting the color of the cats in this afghan (the original pattern calls for blue cats), I left the pattern unmodified. For the first time in my life I checked gauge for an afghan (usually I don’t worry because, well, it’s a blanket -it’ll fit). What could possibly go wrong?

When I got here , I noticed that I was running low on the burgundy yarn. No, big deal, I’d get some more from my stash. I went to the box where I was storing this WIP and reached in.

“That’s odd,” I thought. There was no more of this yarn. I dumped the box out. Still no more. Oh, crap. Luckily, I had the original invoice from when I bought the yarn, so I knew where to look if I needed to buy more. I had a ball band with the dye lot. I looked on Ravelry to see if someone had it in their stash. Only one person did, but I didn’t notice if the dye lot was the same. Still, I had 2 possible sources.

Later that night as I worked, worry crept up on me. I could swear I had enough yarn. I thought I was going to have at least one skein too many early on in the process. As I watched the skein I was crocheting from disappear, the worry began to eat at me. I put the afghan down to search some more.

Nope, not in my notions basket.

Not in the dining room.

Not in the office.

I sat in front of the computer and thought, “I’d better place the order for this yarn so I don’t run out of ambition. What if this yarn is discontinued? What if the dye lot is hideously different?” In the end I decided I should wait till morning. I mean really, is there that much demand for a mass-produced acrylic yarn?

It grew later – 1:00, 2:00, 3:00 in the morning. I couldn’t fall asleep. I panicked more and more.

Then I had an idea. I grabbed the flashlight and tiptoed into the bedroom. I grabbed the handle on the yarn trunk by the door. It’s kind of sticky, and I didn’t want to wake Michael, so I yanked it quickly and hard. Michael sat up. “I thought someone was breaking into the bedroom,” he said. “Go back to sleep,” said I. “OK.”

As quietly as one can with plastic bags, I began removing other WIPs and pre-assembled project kits from the trunk. One by one (holy cow, do I really think I can make all of these?) they came to rest outside the trunk. When I got to the back, my hand felt something soft and familiar. All right! A skein of this brand of yarn – not necessarily the right color (I am making Blaine’s baby blanket out of the same type of yarn). I grabbed several skeins and tossed them into the hall. I quietly put away the rest of the projects. Then I went into the hall to see if I was in luck…

Whew! I had plenty of the burgundy yarn left. Crisis averted. I brought it into the living room and put it where I could find it again. Finally, I could sleep. Soon, I’ll be sleeping with the new afghan.

Speaking of accomplishing things, I spun the white roving for our plying lesson in spinning class. I’ll show you the finished products when I spin it all. That’s a story for next time, though.

I acquired 2 more kittens today. They are just about the same size, maybe a little bigger than Wisteria was when I got her. They are both on the bottle, about every 8 hours. I think they are 2 1/2 to 3 weeks old.

The black and white one is named Ling Ling. The lady who named Wisteria named this fellow as well. The calico girl is unnamed, however. Does anyone have a suggestion? Please leave it in the comments. There are just a few criteria:

1. The name should be uncommon, but not too weird. Patches is out (although I love that name for a calico, all the calicos in the shelter are named Patches).
2. The name has to be family friendly.
3. The name should be suitable for a girl kitten (or at least gender neutral).

I’ll let you know whose suggestion we went with in a few days. It’s not a contest, and there is no prize except bragging rights. But naming kittens is fun, I swear.

Thank God Almighty, I am free at last

Holy cow – jury duty is over. It ended yesterday with the jurors coming to a decision on most of the questions asked of us. We could not come to an agreement on the final question, though, and we had to declare ourselves hung. I was the presiding juror – the foreperson. I feel a little bad that under my leadership we could not make a decision, but I am getting that maybe the lawyers could have done a better job making their cases. Oh well, water under the bridge.

On my first day of jury duty, before the jury selection, I began crochetting the baby blanket I am making for my nephew for Christmas. His mother reads this blog, but he can’t read yet (I’m not sure that he can walk yet…), so I’m cool posting the pictures. I learned rather quickly that I could get away with bringing my knitting to jury duty, so I dropped this project like a hot potato and worked on a few things that needed to be finished. On the jury duty form it says you can’t bring knitting needles, but I think they only care if the needles look scary. Sock needles and sizes 6 and 8 circulars aren’t quite in the scary category.

Tomorrow I am taking Merry and Cupcake to the shelter to get adopted. I plan to stay there with the kittens for a few hours, playing with them and trying to interest people in taking them home. If I am not successful, I will leave them at the shelter to try another day. As soon as Nebby’s daddy is ready, I am going to meet him at the shelter and hand over the object of my recent affections. Sigh. I know I’ll fall in love again, it’s just sad to say good-bye.

Now that I am in control of my life again, I plan to update at my previous rate. Thanks for waiting this long.

Making Progress

I’ve been working on my yarncraft this weekend. I’m making some progress, and I’ve even reached a new low in my number of WIPs – I’m now down to 8!

I completed this potholder on Saturday. I worked on it some on the car ride to and from the canoe trip and that night before I went to bed. It’s made with Lily Sugar and Cream cotton in ecru (the supersized ball) and in wine.

I also made a bit of progress on Blaze. I’ve discovered a problem that I will be able to illustrate better when I take out the reserved stitches for the armhole. I have to look up pattern corrections and see if I just didn’t do enough research, or if I discovered something new. I am positive I didn’t mess up – part of it works the way it should, and I counted and recounted the stitches. I’ve done it all correctly. It’s just that you make the sleeves separately, then knit them into the body right where the armpit should join. The pattern matches nicely on top, but underneath, there is a complete mismatch. Like I said, better illustrated later. I’m going to feel really stupid if I realize later that I did make a mistake after what I’ve said here.

On Sunday we washed the kittens’ room and the kittens themselves. It’s a bit of an assembly line thing with the kittens – I wash, Michael dries, then we put them in their freshly cleaned room. They’ll need to be bathed frequently until this ringworm thing is over. Even then, I’m not sure that I will be able to get that stuff out of my house!

Biscotti is a little down right now. He has lost about 30g over the last 3 days, and all he wanted to do today was to look at me with sad eyes. I gave him some sub-q fluids, and that at least seemed to stimulate his appetite. It’s worrisome, but there is a very good chance that he’ll start feeling better soon.

Making choices

My insomnia has absolutely wrecked me this week. I can feel it getting better now, but I just haven’t had ambition to get much done with my messed up schedule. So, I’m sorry that I haven’t updated my blog, but I had to make choices about what to do with my time.

I photographed most of my stash for Ravelry. It took hours. I have a lot of yarn. I still haven’t gotten the pictures uploaded yet, but the hardest part is over.

Alexis’ blanket is complete. I can send it out with her brother’s present on Monday and that will all be settled. I learned from this experience that I hate weaving. I just loathed every minute of it. I tried to like it. I mean, it’s fiber art, that makes it fun by definition, right? Let’s just say it has taken discipline to finish. I like the blanket, just not the work it took.

I think that leaves me with just 9 WIPs. I suppose I should add that I started a potholder sometime in the last month or so. I’ve left it in the desk drawer for awhile, then I started carrying it around in my purse.  Let’s count the WIPs, shall we?

1. Crochet potholder. I have no pictures yet, but I will post the FO.
2. Blaze. (The sweater I showed the people in Vancouver)
3. Kilt hose.
4. Tunisian crochet cat bed. I think I am going to abbreviate this one and make it into a kitten blanket given that I saw a mistake the other day.
5. Romantic Cardigan. I just haven’t touched it this year.
6. Dishcloth. I haven’t really needed to replace any of the ones I have, so it isn’t that big of a deal yet.
7. Carisa’s afghan.
8. The cat afghan.
9. Jen’s socks swatch.

The worst part is, I have every intention of starting a new project despite this list. I have jury duty starting the week of the 9th, and they don’t allow knitting needles in the building. The do, however, allow crochet hooks, so I am bringing the beginnings of my nephew Blaine’s blanket (hopefully to be completed by Christmas).

The kittens have been passing around a pretty nasty cold. I start them on meds the first day they lose a little weight and that seems to clear it up. It’s just that they’ve been stuffed up so they can’t breathe while they eat – so they quit trying. I think with the ringworm, the eye infections and the URI Nebby is on like 5 different drugs. That poor fellow.

On the bright side, the diarrhea is going away. I gave the kittens Albon for coccidia, and the distinctive smell went away. The poop only got marginally better - from pure liquid to pancake batter. I added canned pure pumpkin to their food, and suddenly we have poop with form. Yes, this is my life - the study of poo.  You should see the pictures I took for the kitten manual. Who photographs poop (other than someone with a fetish)? For the record, that isn’t me. <shivers>

Well, I need to try to sleep. We are going canoeing with some friends tomorrow morning, so I have to be up early (6:45) to care for the kittens before we leave.

Good thing cats are cute

I am cleaning house today. My office still needs work (which is actually possible to do now that I have the massive storage desk) and my kitchen… well… yuck. I started with a project in the office because I can take breaks to knit pretty easily. I just left the knitting on the desk and occasionally knit a row or 2 when I felt I had made enough progress with my organizing project.  

At some point I noticed Serra lying on the sweater I’ve been making. I didn’t worry about her – she was sleeping, not looking naughty in the least. 

 See that? While I was actually doing housework, Serra was being sly and evil. She severed the yarn without my noticing her. How does she do this? The worst part is, I know Serra is an evil genius capable of destroying knitting. That’s why most of my needles are metal now despite my preference for wood.

This doesn’t seem like such a big deal in the grand scheme of things, but I have my reasons for being particularly upset about this. When I bought the yarn, it was a massive hank that would allow me to at least knit the body of a sweater without breaking the yarn, thus avoiding the problem of the woven-in ends showing through. I spent hours untangling the yarn (the rest of it is a huge mess) so I would have a huge ball with no ends to weave in. I had been able to protect it until today. Just a few minutes unsupervised with Serra, and all that is gone.

Good thing Serra’s cute, or I might have to sell her to the circus.