But Mom...: 2006-01-01

Thursday

Well, it's Thursday morning and another fulfilling day has been planned. Earlier this week we discovered that all of last year's pumpkins that we had stored in the garage (detatched from house) had turned to a monstrous pile of gooey mush. I'll need hip boots and a shovel to clean that up. The good news is that once it's done they'll make wonderful compost and I'll have an empty spo

t in the garage. The ebay listings have been slow in coming. So far I've only put 5 items out for auction, but maybe once the pumpkin sludge is gone I'll find more treasures to sell. Not much new to show on the knitting front, so I'm posting a picture of my favorite old sweater. I made it last year out of Noro Silk Garden and it is a staple in my wardrobe. This is one of the few knitted items that wasn't given away. The moment of kitty peacefulness was short-lived. This morning they were back to hissing and yowling. Large quantities of catnip may be in order.

Happy Kitties, Green Philosophers & Frogging on a Wednesday

Happy Wednesday! I discovered something rare... my cats laying close to one another without fighting or hissing. Normally Bonny (small black & brown tabby) likes to pounce on Tasha. Poor geriatric Tasha is very old, at least 16. Obviously she doesn't take kindly to pouncing and bouncing by some young (8 month old) whipper snapper.

I spent the past two days attempting to knit a simple pull-over with the mohair that Zoe and I kool aid dyed on New Year's eve. I finished the back and started the front and before admitting that only a really skinny person could ever fit into a sweater so narrow. In addition, the colors are so bright that the person would also have to work in a circus. And since I don't know any skinny clowns, frogging seemed like the best option. Mohair is horrible stuff to tear out. I'm officially insane.

Green is my favorite color. Most of my projects, be they painting the living room or felting cat toys, end up green. So this year I vowed to branch out and knit with oranges, reds, etc. But I fell off the color wagon and ended up choosing green for my Philosopher's Wool Fair Isle project only 4 days into 2006. So much for will-power. I'm still waiting for the book from Amazon though. That will give me a few days to finish the green Stella cardigan first.

No News is good news... for those with patience.

Well, I misunderstood my DH. He will be told sometime this quarter if his job has been cut, not today. Many people would say that no news is good news. This is true when you don't hear from distant relatives, the IRS and the doctor's office lab. But in this instance I'd rather know now or would rather have never been told about the cut backs. In the meantime, I'm going to fire up the ebay selling again. The garage really needs to be cleaned anyway. Happy knitting to all!

Tomorrow

Well, tomorrow will be an interesting day. Ashley goes back to preschool and Brian goes back to work. When he gets there his work group has a meeting to discuss the RIF (Reduction in Force). This is a nice way for Verizon to say that some or many people will be fired. No other information was given to them in the courtesy email they received last week. Should Brian lose his job I am not sure what we will do. He's still in the National Guard so he may be able to request some active duty time. That would help supplement, but no completely cover our financial needs. In addition to concerns about a possible loss of income is the loss of medical benefits that would accompany a lay off. My M.S. drugs total over $1,700 a month and I don't know if Tricare would pay for them if Brian were on active duty. It would really not be feasible for me to get a job right now because of day care expenses as well as the fact that Brian isn't home regular hours. But enough of that, we may not be effected at all and I tend to

worry too much.

I've had a little bit of knitting time and managed to finish the back of the Stella cardigan and start a little pull over with the kool aid dyed mohair. The latter of which is very bright. It's time to start building up the birthday and 2006 Christmas gift stash.

HAPPY NEW YEARS!

Happy New Years everyone! Here's hoping that 2006 is an improvement over 2005. Some friends came up from Portland to celebrate with us. We all went and saw "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire". Zoe and I Kool Aid dyed some yarn and then we played Yahtzee. The dyeing was particularly fun and the mess was far less than expected. The yarn color is intense and I wonder what Kool Aid does to peoples' intestines. Yikes! The colors/flavors used were Orange, Grape and Strawberry.