Okay, there was a little "n" thing going on in the title.
Nessahas been under the weather since last Tuesday. She stopped eating. Thisis the little girl who hasn't met a food she doesn't like, so this wasa HUGE indicator that something was wrong with her. Noticed she wasrunning a fever, found some homeopathic sulfur in the med cabinet andtried that with her. Thought I would give her a day or so to see if shewould bounce back. Well Thursday she still wasn't eating and stillrunning a fever. Brandon wanted me to see Dr. Ulbrich at Holistic PetVet Clinic over going to the local allopathic doctor. Since he is themain breadwinner, I went with his option. They unfortunately weren'table to get us in until Friday afternoon. She was running a temp of104.7. No vomiting, was drinking water, and some diarrhea. Dr. U wantedto take blood and also took a fecal sample (tiny as it was). Noparasites showed up in the sample, but her blood was dark and thick,showing that she was a little dehydrated.
While waiting for Willto finish his written test for his permit (finally), Dr. U called backsaying that she had over 31,000 white blood cells running around (highaverage is 15) and that she is clearly fighting off some type ofinfection. Her thyroid and kidneys were also showing low so he wantedto get her an antibiotic and support for both of those. So after Willgets his permit we swing by HPVC to pick up the new supply of meds andhead home. Do you know how much fun it is trying to get 12 differentmeds down a dog that doesn't want you to? Thankfully they had alsogiven me a couple of syringes so that I could get the pedialyte andbeef broth into and so they helped ease the way of the capsules andpills and powdered stuff.
Saturday I did get out of the housewhile the D&D game was going on. I met Camille at the FairgroundsMAX stopped and we talked our way to Knit Purl for another night ofinventory work. Another $20 on my gift card and I'm back up to $24.Camille splurged and bought some gorgeous (not just because I helped)Shibuiknits Silk Cloud - silk and mohair. She plans to make them into ashawl. I'm saving mine. I think though I have found what I'd like toget with the addition of another $20 - some Habu Textiles Bamboo laceweight. Two skeins of it and I'd be set for the Cleopatra shawl in myqueue, plus some leftover for another project...
Just spent sometime doing an added benefit for me in my queue - making sure that mynotes all have the type of yarn and yardage needed. That way its aneasy scan, not a 'must look up first'. Okay, it was a distractionbecause of looking for yarns and projects that could be supplementedwith the Gemini birthday gift swap. But it's how I found the bamboolace weight. I will hopefully work another shift of inventory atKnit-Purl to help buy it too. I can also then pick up what I'veoutlined for my giftee in Denmark.
I need to get started on a sock. That way I can participate in Blue Moon's Inexplicable Knitting Behavior contest. They call it a Scavenger Hunt, but it's not like we'll actually find items at the locations, we have to take photos of our sock at those locations.
My recent photos are here. Yarn and finished projects are in the April 2008 albums.
Your result for The What Middle Earth race do you belong to Test ...
Wizard
You scored 0% Size & Strength, 82% Morality, 35% Aggression, and 88% Intelligence.
http://www.helloquizzy.com/tests/the-wha
One, I got to get out yesterday and knit in public. Two, bonus, I didn't do it alone. I got to meet Tammy at Insomnia and chat while knitting. She was also awesome in helping me to read a pattern for some fingerless gloves I was starting. I look forward to future chances to socialize with her and also knit with others.
Three.......ummm....oh yea! Norbert's ear seems to be doing well with the antibiotics. Of course I won't know for sure until the 16th when he's retested. Oh! I came up with a fourth. I had the designer of a shawl that I was trying to get started contact me with suggestions plus she added me as a friend. How cool is that? I still have to try out her suggestion of course!
So the bad, was that chart I mentioned. It was painful to get started and I ended up having to mark my purl and knit rows. Also marking which side of the chart to read from for each of those rows. Part of the problem is that I haven't done a lot of chart work and I realized that most of it has been working things in the round which is different than when you are doing it flat. I think this may have affected my work on the scalloped necklace, so I'll take this information with me when I do my next attempt. So there is some good in there too.
The UGLY. I was sent home from school today. :-( I was substituting for the same person as I had last week in a middle school. Apparently I upset one of the teachers then but she didn't say anything to me. There had been a guest speaker who was her best friend giving a talk about becoming a doctor. The guest speaker said that nurses couldn't give out prescriptions and I said that wasn't correct that nurse practitioners could. That was my mistake, I corrected her in front of the class. Since it was in answer to a student's question, I thought it important that they have accurate information. My bad. Then today, I was encouraging two boys during the advisory portion of the class to read a book per what she had them do last week. One boy after a couple of prompts did read his book, the other one took another brief conversation so that he wasn't trying to get me to react to him. The teacher never said anything during this portion but did type an email to the principal saying that I was rude to adults and kids and that I exacerbated a situation.
Principal of course took the teacher's side that I was rude to the guest speaker in correcting them, that I should have waited until after the class to say something to her. He said that the two boys that I had guided to reading were known to have authority issues. Had anyone told me that there were boys in the class with authority issues? No. I just get handed a schedule of what class I'm supposed to be in during which period. It's up to the teacher's to let me know what they would like me to do while I'm in there.
The principal decided that I wasn't going to be a good 'fit' for the day and that he was going to pay me for the day and send me home. I offered to just be paid for the two hours and have that be fine, but he insisted on paying me for the day. Sigh.
I'm left with just 8-1/2 days left of the school year, but now I can't be a sub for this person who was apparently out yesterday too. Brandon suggested I send a letter to the principal and the school district praising the principal on how well he handled the situation as kind of a backhanded slap to the teacher. I don't know. It just annoys me that the teacher didn't say anything last week and would she have done it even if I hadn't talked to the two boys in class today? Probably, she seems to be just that kind of person.
So I guess the good in this, is that I still get paid the hours and I can get other stuff done earlier. Grr...
Well this Memorial weekend didn't go exactly as I had hoped for. I did stain my new desktop and have two coats of finish on it. I still need to steel wool, wipe it down and then apply another coat of finish according to Brandon.
I was able to get a coat of finish on the spindles though. I think another coat will be needed before they are ready for their hooks.
I've finished up Shaun the Sheep. I want to do another one of him changing the angle of his head, making his various bits either in the round or as i-cord. Seaming up small bits sucks.
I also finished up a cat for Bailey. It's the same pattern I used for the one for Jenna. Except I like this tail better and I decided to add a face. I think the face works for this one.
I tried doing a scalloped choker necklace that was in my queue. Poorly written instructions. I strongly disliked the I place my beads this way, but nothing written down about 'exact' placement. I also think that either I got off on my row count or there is an error in the pattern. The black cotton even done under a bright light may not have been the best bet either. I found a cool dragonfly drop charm that would look cool with the black, but I'm not sure I'll be happy with using a silver jump ring, or if it would just be easier to pre-string it like beads. It was a quick knit and didn't use a lot of yarn. I have the first one drying so I can see what other types of mods I may want to do.
Since I was blocking the choker, I got the other cotton headbands and bracelet that need to be refreshed with blocking and have them drying on the ironing board.
I've gotten some leisure reading done lately and that's really nice. Plus its whittling the stack by my bedside down to a manageable level too. I have not done any dog book reading and that's bad. Well that's not strictly true. I've gotten a few books from the library to try out to see if I want them on the list, thankfully, I'm not spending money on these books too! I do though have several Dogwise books that I really, really, really need to do reviews on. Must get those done this week!
Norbert, the 1K+ dog, had his ear unwrapped today. That was a painful experience for the both of us. The glue stuck really well on one point of his ear on the bandage so he has a little raw spot. I guess we didn't ask as many questions as we should have either. He has buttons on both sides of his ears. For some reason, Will and I both thought it was just on the inside of the ear flap, not also on the outside. Poor Boo Bear is now Button Boy wearer of the Cone of Doom, +4 Annoyance.
Norbert goes back in on Monday and they'll remove his buttons. That should be loads of fun. I'll need to remember to give him a pain pill a few hours before we go in to help out with the process. Then we'll be back in a week after that for a follow-up check on the progress of his bacterial infection to find out if its gone or not.
Nessa is definitely allergic to flax seed. I tried California Natural Herring and Sweet Potato as well as Dick Van Patten's Fish and Sweet Potato and she's got tons of her skin pocks on her chest and back legs. Poor baby.
I had hoped to start the Cleopatra Stole this weekend with the Habu Bamboo. But found that my scan of the chart sucks to the point of not being able to read it. So I'm re-checking it out from the library, but will have to wait for it since I'm #5 on the wait list.
The boys were able to have two D&D games this weekend so the whole group was happy. Brandon loved it because I suggested hamburgers on the BBQ and made my homemade potato salad for him. I enjoy listening to some of the tangents the group manages to go off on during the course of the game and throwing in my thoughts here and there.
Spindles & Stitchmarkers - let's see....I acquired the dowels of various sizes. Then stained them. Marked them to the size I thought they should be so Brandon could cut them. Sanded the ends. Brandon then used an epoxy to attach the stone donuts to the dowels. The next step is to apply a finish to the dowels and again with Brandon's help attach a wire hook. A little longer process than first thought but hopefully others will also think they look nice. I have some photos of some of the stone donuts, and the current state of the spindles here. At the same location are some pictures of stitchmarkers that I made recently. Some are being gifted and some are a reuse of former bead earrings I had made.
Yarn - I finally have photos and space on Flickr for my Knit Pick Summer Sampler packs I bought, so they are in my stash. I added in the Shibui sock yarn (wyvern socks), the Habu bamboo (cleopatra wrap), and Malabrigo Lace (falling water scarf) from my inventory $$ at Knit/Purl. Okay, a good portion of the Shibui I paid for but the other two were totally inventory money. Knit/Purl has been using volunteers to help them with their inventory of the store. I had fun doing it three different times and have the yarn/roving to show for it too.
Swaps - I have participated in my first swap. I sent a package of items to a lady in Denmark. Hopefully she'll like them. We had a $15 cap, that I went a little over. Which kind of made up for the postage that it took to send it - $24. Oh my! That after spending just a few dollars to send the Blanket Buddy to Belgium. It might have been the little jewelry box I used to put the stitch markers in. Live and Learn.
Dogs - Nessa is doing much better. I still need to have her blood re-checked but our vet $$ have gone to Norbert this month. He had been having an allergy reaction to a food I tried and that caused an 'aural hematoma' on his other ear. We tried treating it ourselves but it quickly became apparent it wasn't going away on its own. So a trip into the vet who said that she needed to do surgery and use buttons to get it to heal was the only way to go. Yes, buttons like on your clothes, go figure. Plus his teeth in the last year have gotten bad due to the kibble, or he could have been hiding those back teeth from me. So that meant a teeth cleaning, and a check of a tooth that had enamel missing from it being broken. Thankfully not broken to the point of needing to remove the tooth. He also has molars that didn't grow completely and are smaller than normal and soft so those had to be checked. End result, no teeth removed, but now clean. He's hiding out in the soft crate with his 'cone of doom' with 2pts for annoyance. Norbert I'm sure is thinking of it as the 'cone of shame'.
I need to finish eating my dinner that mom called in the middle of and then feed the dogs and go from there. Just happy to finally have all the photos taken care of and some updates at Ravelry with the projects and yarns.
- Location:hot hillsboro
- Mood:
contemplative
- Location:another day, another migraine
There are three posts for all of that, split into smaller ones for easier reading by subject. Plenty of linkages to various photos, web sites, and a YouTube. Check it out and let me know what you think.
- Location:migraineville
- Mood: contemplative
You are The Lovers
Motive, power, and action, arising from Inspiration and Impulse.
The Lovers represents intuition and inspiration. Very often a choice needs to be made.
Originally, this card was called just LOVE. And that's actually more apt than "Lovers." Love follows in this sequence of growth and maturity. And, coming after the Emperor, who is about control, it is a radical change in perspective. LOVE is a force that makes you choose and decide for reasons you often can't understand; it makes you surrender control to a higher power. And that is what this card is all about. Finding something or someone who is so much a part of yourself, so perfectly attuned to you and you to them, that you cannot, dare not resist. This card indicates that the you have or will come across a person, career, challenge or thing that you will fall in love with. You will know instinctively that you must have this, even if it means diverging from your chosen path. No matter the difficulties, without it you will never be complete.
What Tarot Card are You?
Take the Test to Find Out.
Luckily I color my hair. I'm sure that little white hairs are sprouting with each turn at the wheel that he has. :-) After a full week of getting practice after track on the way home, he is improving. I'm not having to remind him to stay away from the side of the road as much. He's doing better with his acceleration and braking, I think the whiplash is recovering. ;-)
Tomorrow is "The Yarn Harlot", Stephanie Pearl-McPhee's book signing at The Forestry Center. Woot! Still a few more photo opps to add to what I have before the signing.
Anyone else notice the rain, hail, snow, sunshine we had today? Still wearing the warm woolies?
- Location:weird weather ville
- Mood:
dorky
Nessa, knitting, nothing much else
- Location:land of confusion
I just realized I need to get away from the computer because I need to be at Hilhi before 12:24 to sell Grad Nite tickets. Rachelle called asking if I could to it in her place because it's Kyle's birthday and he wants her to take him out for lunch. Kyle's her youngest.
- Location:out of here
- Mood:frazzeled
Why? Livejournal has communities and that's cool. Also has authors I like to track too. Having a LJ account means that I'm not 'annonymous' when I post to their blogs.
The other change I'm working on tonight is an alternative to JAlbums for my photos. Think I may have it, just have to do some more tweaking and see if it flies. The real test will be if it works with Ravelry.
Monday I missed job calls because my phone was on vibrate. Tuesday no calls. Wednesday, Will needs me as chauffer for his last day of internship hours before school. So I'll also put in time during lunches selling Grad Nite tickets and senior t-shirts. From there it will be watching Will at the track meet against St. Helens and blasting out of there by 6pm so that I can pick up Brandon at the MAX station and get us over to Powell's for the Jim Butcher book signing. So I'll also have to make sure that I have multiple bags packed for tomorrow's outings. One for the track meet and the other with books to be signed.
I had a story line pop into my head as I was taking a shower today. She was talking to me and giving me background ideas and then arguing with herself on some of them. Very weird. So I wisely got out and immediately started writing things down. Grabbed a journal (real paper and ink) and wrote them down so that as more comes in and I can start really building I have those memories available.
Oh! Good news! I was out checking on the peach blooms and spotted a bee doing his 'thing' with the flowers, so good possiblities of future fruit. Unless we get more of those ridiculously cold 26 degree nights that is.
- Location:sunny burbs
- Mood: contemplative
Jim Butcher
Noone's tried to kill Harry Dresden for almost an entire year, and hislife finally seems to be calming down. But then, an old bargain placesHarry in debt to Mab, monarch of the Winter Court of the Sidhe. In Small Favor (Roc), the newest novel in his New York Times-bestselling Dresden Files series, Jim Butcher "sustains just the right balance of hair's-breadth tension and comic relief" (Publishers Weekly).
April 2nd @ Powell's. Brandon definitely wants to go to this one also! Science Fiction Book Club says that it isn't even shipping Small Favor until May 8th. WTF is up with that? But we'll be able to drag the compendium books that I got Brandon hooked through along for signing. I had read them all from the library and wanted them.
Drawback to the signing. Same night as Will's next track meet. Hopefully they'll be kind of on time. Will's two events are early enough that I should be able to watch/film those and then head over to the signing.
We're getting some awesome authors coming through lately!
May 8th Richelle Mead has already said she will be there for a signing, though not yet visible on the calendar.....
- Location:shivering in the burbs
- Mood:
excited
http://www.cracked.com/article_16039_hi
- Location:currently sunny burb, between weird weather bursts - like snow
- Mood: amused
I've used Xara Web Styles to do the look and feel and menuing of the site. Well I'm not happy with the software so thought I'd re-do the web site with CS3. The one thing the Xara software had was photo albuming software. With their upgrade it didn't suck up the previous albums and treat them nicely. Hence the move to JAlbums.
Honestly not in love with JAlbums either. I want a menu bar so that someone looking at an album gets back to the main web site, or some area of it, with a button click. Yea, there's the whole 'back' button on your browser and that's what I've tried to include on each of the albums.
Then Brandon is saying that my albums should only have one page of photos. WTF?! Okay, I could possibly see grouping by month and that might keep things down to one, possibly very large, page. If I did this, then I could possibly get the CS3 web album function working for me.
Yea, not happy with the web album that comes with CS3 either. Damn picky of me, I know. It, I think, will give me some menu/button type options to getting back to the main site. The problem I have with it is the photo ordering. It puts them all in by alphabetical name and doesn't allow for easy rearranging. There was also nothing about having comments.
Okay, this also goes back to the Ravelry addiction. They use Flickr to slurp photos into your projects and your stash areas. That's all fine and dandy if you want to fork out the $25 a year for unlimited photo sharing options. Otherwise you are limited to 200 photos in the 'free' area. I already am paying twice that for my website that has 5Gs of disk space for me to fill that I haven't even come close to touching with photos and movies, surprisingly enough. Code Monkey Casey has an option for beta testing using your own web site or other photo sites for your project photos. This would be cool because then I wouldn't have photos in two places. Granted I can have more photos of a project in one (the web site, not Flickr), but I don't want to have to do two. Okay, I've also run into the 200 limit wall again and I REALLY DO NOT WANT TO DELETE AGAIN.
So back to the CS3 thing and pages, and, and......
I want it just to work the way I want it to and not have it be so bloody difficult. Is that really so much to ask for?
I don't even really want to think about the sheer number of hours it takes to port things over into a new web design. Sure some of it can be easy with some simple copy|paste of text. There's also making sure that links don't get broken. I do have the GoDaddy stats that lets me know where people are looking. FHRM is still a big part of the site but also my knitting has been getting some attention. Wonder if it has anything to with talking a lot about it? ;^)
Speaking of FHRM, I still have three books to read and review for Dogwise and Amazon. Not that they are bad books, but one of them is huge and has a DVD. One of them I have skim read, I just haven't gotten myself to write the review for it yet.
- Location:shivering in the burbs
- Mood:
bitchy
This morning we scraped a nice thick layer of ice off the windshield of the car before going back to the physical therapist's office. Obviously this woman is a morning person because he had to be there at 6:45 in the blessed am.
Any way, Brandon texted me on his trip into work on MAX that it was snowing in Beaverton. Since I had to wander into the living room and back to get the phone, I happened to notice that 'it was snowing also in Hillsboro'.
My peach tree is in bloom currently. I really haven't been out to check if the Mason Bees are out. It's probably also too late to see if Backyard Bird, or some place like them has any. I want more peaches this year! The three I had from the tree last year were great. Want more. I probably should check out what the process is for pollination with the fruit trees. Can I take a cotton swab and dab at various flowers? Pretend I'm a bee? I think I have the irritated buzz down. The cherries I know cross pollinate each other, as do the apples and the asian pears. The peach and the apricot I think may not need cross pollination or can get it from one of the other fruit trees.
- Location:shivering in the burbs
- Mood: annoyed
- Music:annoying commercials on tv in other room
Same photo in Richelle's blog: http://blue-succubus.livejournal.com/12
Yes, I was knitting through the reading. The head wrap that I finished today in fact. Photos will be available for perusal in the am when I have more time to get them from the camera and do all that photoy stuff to them.
- Location:it seems like I'm always headed there.....
- Mood: chipper
I pre-ordered through Amazon so I would have it, before I read that they will have copies available for purchase there at the event. Then I get an email from Amazon that the estimated arrival date is between the 22nd & the 24th. What the?! So I go check out my order online and they wouldn't even have it shipping until the 17th. Again, What the?! They show that its on backorder and arriving on March 31st. Well since she's having a launch in Toronto on the 1st that would be inline. NOT shipping until the 17th means they just lost as sale. Unless they have so many of the books already pre-ordered that they aren't sure they can cover all their sales with their first shipment of books? Why does it take 17 days from when they get it in stock to even think about shipping to me?
So now, instead of having a chance to read before the author gets here, I'll be reading it afterwards. Then again I am also the person that has 35 books stacked near my bed waiting to be read.
I've had the same problem with getting books from The Science Fiction Book Club, second year in a row that I've been late getting my Kim Harrison book, so I've been a book behind at her book signings. Next year, I've promised myself that I will have ordered it and received it in time for her book signing. Hopefully the whole royalties thing doesn't affect where I get my book purchased for authors.
- Location:up way too early this morning
- Mood: annoyed
Brandon wandered off to go look at books once the reading was due to start. Mark started out with a lively reading that was made all the more interesting by having people with small children going through. His book really isn't for the G crowd or the PG-13. At one point a little girl in pink stepped out from the otherside of the bookstand that's behind the speakers to listen in, unbeknownst to her mother. Mario helped get the Q & A portion going for Mark. I actually think there were more questions for Mark than there were for Mario, but who's counting? ;^)
Mario's book really didn't speak to me, I'm sure he has an audience out there, but just didn't sound like something I'd read. Nice though that he came in for the signing after being up at Norwescon before flying home to Denver. Ok, he didn't look thrilled that I had been knitting through the entire thing. Really though, if you want to keep my attention, you have to let me do something with my hands.
The fun part came afterwards during the signing. I got pictures of Kat Richardson, I'm finally reading her second book Poltergeist and showed that to her. Candid shots of Richelle Mead talking to Meljean Brooks (I didn't know who she was until later) and sitting alongside Caitlin Kittredge. A shot of Cherie Priest getting her book signed by Mario (and jumping ahead of others in line). ;^)
Brandon came in and caught some of the conversation I had with Kat about her book and when Underground will be available (August but a con conflict so not sure when her signing will be). Then while I was showing Brandon Richelle's books, we drew her into conversation. He had been commenting that the photos used in the books weren't flattering for her. Much prettier in person. Of course he totally has a thing for red heads so why should I be surprised that he'd notice her photo wasn't the best? He'd also noticed the 'other' red head in the group Meljean Brooks.
We ended up finding Meljean in the stacks with an arm load of books. We got to chatting and Brandon nicely let me get a book (sorry Mark! yours was still more than hers), her first one Demon Angel and she also nicely signed. She got a laugh out of it because she read what she wrote and realized it also could be misread as something smutty. Don't tell Richelle but she's the red head that Brandon was first talking to me about. He's seen her somewhere else and its going to be gnawing at him until he remembers. Since she's local it's hardly a surprise. Heck they could have gone to the same high school, since he found out that the Geek in the City Scott Daly was ahead of him at Glencoe.
As the three of us were leaving that stack, since I had overheard Meljean tell Richelle that she needed to be home for the sitter around 8:30 (and it was that time already), we ran into the Seattle group headed out. Richelle nicely tried to give me back a pen that she thought she had borrowed from me (very polite!), and I joked with Kat that I'd have to blog that Richelle 'stole' someone's pen at Powell's. Well there it is. ;^) I don't think the soccer mom van has returned to the Seatlle area yet for the above mentioned authors to read/write about their adventures down south.
- Location:off to bed!
- Mood: chipper
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