Kristel's Blog

So I had this small scrap of hockey print flannel lying around, and decided a rice heating pack would be a lovely project for it if only because I wouldn’t have to cut it.  So following this pattern, I made one.  I thought, “Hey, this looks easy and cute and I’ll be done in no time.”  I was wrong.  I should’ve taken into account Pepper’s helpfulness.  She decided she would help in EVERY step.  How?  Well…

1. Iron the fabric so that it lies flat; Pepper ran away terrified of the ironing board & iron thereby letting me that the iron is hot.
2. Sew around the two sides leaving one of the longest open; Pepper tried to catch the tail while I was sewing just so I know there’s more to go.
3. Sectioning off the pack; Pepper decided to help by chewing the measuring tape I was using to see how to divide it up thereby helping me to be more spontaneous and just eyeballing the sections.
4. Filling the rice in the pack; Pepper personally inspected each hole for the rice, cleaned up any rouge rice, and chewed on the pack just to make sure it was durable enough.
5. Pinning the pack; Pepper stole my pins & ran upstairs with them – apparently they were too sharp for me to handle.
6. Finally sewing the top of the pack… Pepper barked at people outside with a big dog thereby keeping them away from me so that I can work distraction free.
7. Microwave the pack; Pepper ran upstairs again just in case the microwave causes cancer.
8. Use the pack; after all she helped, she’s decided it’s hers.  Tough shit for Kristel with her sore shoulder.  (Did I mention that?  On Monday I threw my pack over my shoulder and it hurts.  A lot.  It’s not dislocated, probably sprained.  I thought it was just twisted first, but it wouldn’t hurt still, right?  I’d go to the doctor, but what’s he going to do?  There’s no bruising, the bones are all in the right place, I can still move everything it just hurts when I do.  So I’d think he’d just prescribe me some Tylenol 3′s, and its not worth it.)

Just a note on the pattern, and why my top seam looks really screwed up; it helps if you pin right at the very top of your rice line and then pin for your seam; it helps keep the rice away from the foot of the sewing machine which really helps when doing your seam.  It of course it took me way too long to figure that out, and by then I was really frustrated with having to run upstairs to tell Pepper to be quiet so we don’t get another notice telling me to either shut my dog up or she’s banned from the property, so mine’s all screwed up.  Oh well, it’ll just have to be an at-home-Kristel-only heat pack.

Don’t answer that.

This morning I go out, all on time for work & ready for the day.  I put my computer & purse in the backseat, and the dog in her seat in the front.  I start the car, turn on the heat & rear defroster.  I decide to scrape the frost on the front window, so I get out, close the door and…….  doors are locked.  So in case you missed it, I locked my keys to both the house and the car, my cell phone, and the dog in the car while it’s running.  Crap.  Ok, so I scan the parking lot to see what neighbours have cars in the lot, that hopefully I know.  Sandy’s home, I ring on her door bell.  She swears she wasn’t sleeping, but she came down in her pj’s, no glasses, her face all red & blotchy…  and thankfully with a phone.  I call the house.  No one’s home.  I debate calling CAA, but decide to call dad’s cell first.  He answers.  Just driving up Rhonda.  Thank god.  He went back to the house, grabbed the spare key, and two minutes later arrived at my car.  The auto unlocker doesn’t work because the car’s already running.  That’s ok, I grab the keys, manually unlock it, have momentary issues with the locks being frozen, but I do get in.  I run the keys back to him, he proceeds to leave town.  I get in my car, pet my dog and drive to work.

I get to work, park my car, get out and close the door.  My doors are locked.  Again.  Usually it unlocks all the doors when you put my car in park, so I didn’t bother unlocking my doors.  Thankfully, this time I was smart enough to grab my keys on my way out the car so a quick unlock, I get in the back, grab my stuff & the dog, we get inside and then I thank God for giving me at least temporary foresight regarding my keys & my car.

I get inside the house, block off the stairs, close the bathroom door, check the gate’s locked & chuck the puppy in the backyard.  Then I go upstairs and find two things: 1. left over pizza for breakfast (I had to skip at my house to be here on time) and 2. yarn.    I’m not sure which is better.  At the time, the pizza seemed the better suprise because it was more of an immediate solution to my hunger (and let’s face it, you can’t knit if you’re hungry.)  Now that breakfast’s done, I’m wondering if the yarn’s the better suprise.  Sure, I can’t knit during work.  And yeah, I have way too many things to finish for the end of the month already so it’s not like I can start something new.  But yeah, been waiting on this for a couple weeks now and it’s so soft and pretty and half the fun is deciding what to make.

Tina requested a pair of what she calls “Newfie Mitts”, I call “Fingered mitts”, and even more people call “Gun/shooter mitts”.  If you don’t know what I’m talking about, picture a pair of mittens – thumb separate, fingers all together – now separate your index finger from the other three and you have a fingered mitt.  As one of its names suggests, its very useful if you’re a hunter, in the army, or a serial killer.  However, for the rest of us who don’t fall in the above categories, it’s useful for manhandling your keys into the lock, all sorts of zippers, and pointing at random things.  So anyways, Tina wants  these mitts, and she wants them lined.  Normally, I love getting requests for people for my knitting (because I don’t knit them things otherwise) but this time?  Well, the problem is finding a pattern.  There’s all sorts out there for regular fingered mitts, and let’s face it, they’re not any harder than regular mitts.  I could only find one pattern for lined fingered mitts, and it’s been out of print since 1979 and the closest library with a copy of it is in St. John’s.  So I’m improvising.  If you care enough to know the details, using a free pattern I found for regular fingered mitts, basically I knit the outer mitt with worsted at a looser guage and the inner mitt with fingering at a tighter gauge, and I’m currently crossing my fingers (ooh!  something more you can do with fingered mitts) that when the lining’s done, it will fit inside and they won’t be too tight.  I’m done the outer mitt, and it fits but a little long & big, but that’s what I want, right?  I’ve only done 10 rows on the inner, so there’s still a couple more before I start the gusset… and then one more full mitt to go.  (This project seems to be 10 times worse than regular mittens… only because the second mitten (or sock) syndrome that seems to happen comes way too soon because it’s like you have 4 mittens to knit.)

In addition to Tina’s mitts, I also have a couple previously mentioned projects to finish: a shawl for astronomy (it’s about 30% done), a pair of mittens (one’s done, second’s about 1/4 done), a pair of socks (I haven’t started), and a cowl I want to finish & line in time for camp on the 25th.  (Of the above, Tina’s need to be done by Monday, and the other three by the 28th because that how it works in my weird hp knitting group.)  I also need to finish painting my kitchen cabinets so I won’t have dishes & whatnot lying around in my living room.  We’ll see tomorrow whether I be more productive in terms of raising my quality of life to where it once was or give in to my  hobby.  (If you’re taking bets, I’d think it’s probably a 2:1 on the knitting and 10:1 on the cabinets.)

Anyways, I really should get back to work.  Maybe one of my problems is procrastination.  I’ll work on that tomorrow.  (Odds 50:1)

So I’m standing in line at Zeller’s today, felt like forever I might add – I got in line & there’s 3 people in front of me.  Old lady’s buying 1/2 a dozen things and, according to her, they’re all on sale and not coming up correctly.  Turns out she had last week’s flyer but they had to go through all 6 items, calling a manager & the department for every one before someone figured that out.  Next guy is buying things on a budget and didn’t do any math before he got in line so continuously had the sales guy swipe things in and then take them off the order when it went over whatever his line was and then swipe it back in when something else he took off took him far enough below the line that he could afford it.  Next comes the lady &  well, I’m not sure who the other lady was in relation to her.  I thought it was a mother/daughter thing because the one lady looked old enough to be my mother and the other looked a few years (no more than 5) younger than I am.  Plus they were buying a lot (seriously, their cart was FULL) of basic stuff – t.p., assorted cleaners, dish racks, dish cloths, microwave-only foods, random cosmetics & toiletries, etc.  The kind of stuff you’d get if you were moving out on your own for the first time.  I know my mom bought that stuff for me when I went off to Trent and in that large of quantities… so I thought they were mother/daughter.  But then they hugged.  And while hugging, the other most definitely groped the other.  (My enjoyment of making words comes into play with… wait for it….) Serious goose-age.  Think the kind of thing you would do in random public places with your lover but not necessarily in front of small children or prudes.  Have you ever hugged your mother like that?  Because I haven’t… so my thought jumped to the next possible solution.  Please, do not take this as my having anything against anyone’s sexual preferances – love who you want, when you want, all you want.  But with someone at least 2 decades older than you?  Definitely brings my weirded out meter to “just plain creepy”.  I’d be weirded out if they happened to be two men or one of each with the age difference.  *shudders*

Anyways, so after waiting like 1/2 an hour in line, I got out of Zellers and came home and knit.  I just started the citron shawl for Astronomy class for my HP knitting group this month.  We’re supposed to knit (or crochet or spin or dye) something that celebrates some day in February.  Most people are jumping to Valentine’s day.  I decided on Rosa Parks’ birthday (Feb. 4, 1913 in case you missed it.)  The connection?  My wool is in tones of a sandy cream to oatmeal to chestnut to a dark chocolate.  I’m thinking if people can knit a pair of fuzzy red socks for Elmo’s birthday (Feb. 3), I can get away with the tones in my wool = skin tones and how they all are equal in creating a beautiful shawl… well, assuming it comes out beautiful.  It’s my first shawl, and has no lace, so really, how much can I screw it up?  I’m just hoping that my mods to make it shorter means I won’t run out of wool too early because my yardage is definitely shorter.

Was hoping for a snow day today.  But alas, roads were plowed, I shoveled my car out, and went to church.  Jeff didn’t come – John was sick & Annika had a friend sleep over – so it was just me on my own for Sunday School.  I figured that with all the snow, it might just be Jacob & I, and if that was the case we’d stay upstairs.  If there was more, I figured the only one would be Julieanna.  (The other 2 regulars were away.)  and if that was the case, we’d maybe just put a God-related movie on and that’d be it for class today.  I figured wrong.  In addition to those 2 we also had 4 more randomly show up + 1 whom we didn’t know…  (For the record, if all the kids we do know, regulars or not, we’d have a class around 15).  So I had to do the lesson, and we watched part of Jesus Christ Superstar and then had to stop it a couple times to explain things to the kids on things like why Judas is upset, how you spell Caiaphas, why so many of Jesus’ followers had ‘fros, who is Mary Magdalene and where the heck is “the other Mary”, why Jesus has funny eyes, why Jesus would go and touch the Lepers & Blind people when everyone else are shunning them – which led to DID-YOU-NOT-LISTEN-TO-MY-LESSON-TODAY?!, and last, but not least, “Can’t we watch the other movie with Jesus dying?  When they nail through his hands it’s so disgusting it’s awesome.”  Um, no.

Anyways, want to finish my shawl fast, or at least put it down and then get back to work on my mittens.  (I’m getting bored with them.  That always seems to happen with the second mitt (or sock) no matter how engaging the pattern is.)

My parents bought my brother a new dining table for his condo.  They bought me one when I moved out, so it’s only fair that he gets one.  The one they bought him is really nice – there’s 6 chairs, two of which are armchairs, it pulls out with a leaf, and everything is very generously proportioned.  However, like it would be too big for my dining area of my main floor, it’s too big for Jeff’s dining room.  So they made a deal – He takes their smaller table and chairs and they take the bigger, nicer one.  So where does the second tier come in?  Well, just like Jeff hasn’t returned my totes from when he moved before Christmas, my Deathly Hallows, English ed., from when the new movie came out last fall, and a handful of other things I no longer remember, he hasn’t picked up his table and chairs.  (I’m thinking he’s been eating on his sofa, or possibly off of one of my totes.)  So my Dad’s solution?  Put the smaller table AND chairs on top of the big table in the living room.  (Just so you get the picture, imagine a large table and put a smaller table on top of it.  Then tuck the smaller chairs underneath the smaller table as if you were going to actually use them and then do the same with the larger chairs & table.)

Speaking of Dad’s solutions as of late, his second most-recent regards their ice maker in their fridge.  It’s been leaking water for MONTHS.  Certainly as of last summer.  My dad always claimed he couldn’t fix it because of all the stuff in the freezer.  So, one day my mom goes and empties it.  My dad goes to fix it… his solution?  Put a platic container underneath it to catch the drips and when it’s full, break off the icicle formed, dump the ice in the sink, rinse & repeat.  Apparently this is just a “temporary” solution until he calls the guy who actually can fix the ice maker.

In other news…. it’s the new year.  It’s 27 days after the new year.  Um… what else is new?  Not much.  I started painting my kitchen cabinets.  Just the top right is done so far.  The doors need another coat.  I was going to do the rest while I was at it, but ran out of space to put things that was out of the line of fire for painting.  So figured I’d just do it in sections.  After I pay off a few more bills, the plan is to replace the linoleum in there.  I know I was going to do tile, and replace the floor once, but it’s not in the budget and the floor I have now never looks clean, it’s ripped, and peeling up – something Pepper’s now fond of helping with.

We’re really busy in Cubs right now.  We have an outing this Saturday for some lovely tobagganing fun (and other activities) and we have camp coming up, and there’s meetings and leader’s meetings, and group committee meetings…

Oh!  I also joined a Harry Potter knitting group.  (Ok, some of you won’t think this is good news, but I enjoy it, so there.)  It’s sometimes a push to get my work done but I’ve succeeded this month and earned my house some points, so it’s all good.

…was planning on typing more, but turns out that after work I just don’t have much to say.

Oh my goodness.  You know that shawl/shrug combo thing I started for Grandma in August?  (This pattern)  Yeah, not done.  Roughly 230 yards left to go.  Plus the cowl.   And they both need to be blocked.  And we’re getting together on boxing day.  Oh man.  This is totally my fault.  I really should be either knitting now, cleaning my house because we all know that people who haven’t been here yet will want to see it, or taking a shower & getting ready to go over to Mom’s because surely she’s having the same sort of delema, but more in a prepare food than knitting way.

Instead, I’m blogging.

Been in our new office (ie, half of my parents’ basement remodelled) for the past couple weeks.  It’s nice having a real work-only space that isn’t surrounded by distrating knitting.  However, I now have to get dressed & out the door by 9 instead of just wandering downstairs in my pj’s and grabbing breakfast when I feel like it.  But maybe that’s a good thing…  Certainly it’s nice to be able to throw Pepper out the back instead of having to walk her like we do at home.  I still walk her, but it’s more of a first-thing in the morning & when we get home after work thing instead of an all the time thing.

I was going to post about our trip to the states as well, but think I should leave it at — we bought a lot of stuff, but not so much that we were over our limit, so it wasn’t quite as productive as well all thought it should be. 

I sent out a couple Christmas cards this past week.  Though the one for Germany hasn’t gone out yet — I’ve had it all ready on Tuesday, but there’s been such a line up at the Post Office, I figured it’d be late anyways, I might as well go in after Christmas.  Besides, I probably could write another page or so!

Ok, it’s quarter to 11, and mom wants me there before noon, and I still have to shower, and I’d like to get my kitchen counter scrubbed so I better hop to it!