Weekend Photo Albums

I've put a few pictures up for your enjoyment. Feel free to examine them at your leisure.

Circus Pictures : Make sure that you look at the full photos because some of them are lengthwise and are cut off at the tops if you're just looking at the thumbnails.

Traci's Party : Pinata parties are always a good time.

Under the Big Top

I had so much fun this weekend. The kids were mostly well behaved which always makes things better, my dad only screamed at anyone once that I can remember, I learned some crochet while Bree learned to knit a sock, we had good food with good company, and we got to go to the circus. It was quite different from my average weekend.

It is my humble opinion that my dad went overboard with the whole circus thing. We were in the second row of the ring on one end (across from where everyone comes in to perform). The ticket price on the stub was $45, but according to inside sources he actually paid $50 each when he bought them through ticketmaster online. Since there were 11 of us (Dad, Iza, Bree, Traci, Brandon, Danika, Lucas, Jeff, Me, Corey, and Ken) that's quite a bill, and that was just to get into the circus. My dad also rented a limo, and while I'm not certain what it cost him, I overheard him "discussing" with the driver that he had been told it would be $230. He may have ended up paying more than that... so that brings the bill up to $780 for the 11 of us to go to the circus. (The one and a half hour circus.)

The spending didn't stop there though. See, I'd talked up cotton candy to the little ones, so we had to get some. They had 3 sizes: $6, $9, & $12. These are the same size bags that I remember being a dollar or two when I was a younglet. I believe that around $40 was spent on cotton candy by the time we got out of there. We also had two tubs of popcorn, 2 large sodas, 1 medium soda, a few bottles of water, and an order of nachos... Let's see, we'll say $12 for the popcorn, $15 for the sodas, $9 for water, and I'll guess $6 for the nachos. So we had $82 dollars worth of snacks, give or take a bit.

Then on the way out the door the kids all needed toy souvenirs. They were all $16, and there were 3 kids so there's another $48. I mean, he spent around $1000 for us to go to the circus. And of course he's created three little monsters now, and they all want to ride in the limo again. Brandon wants to go to school in the limo, and Danika just wants to go back to the circus. Who knows what Lucas wants, he's only two and the happiest I saw him all weekend was when he was traipsing through the house wearing a pair of red high heels.

Still it was awesome, and we were so close to the action. Jeff and I managed to get some good pictures. It's hard when you aren't using a flash and a 4 year old is bouncing up and down in your lap, but not all of them are unidentifiable blurs. We also have some pictures from the house, like when Traci blew out the candles on her cake. Once I get the pictures onto the web I'll let you know so that you can check them out. Oddly enough, out of all the feats of acrobatics, strength, and courage that we witnessed, I think that my favorite were the performing house cats. I mean, I can't even get my cats to stop breaking glassware and they had these cats running on top of balls, and climbing around on ropes, it was really cool. That was definitely Danika's favorite part, and that's why those photos are the least in focus. Brandon's favorite part was when they brought out the cage ball that the motorcycles ride around in. I can't believe that they got 3 motorcycles rolling around in there at the same time, it was impressive.

Okay, back to work before I get busted goofing off.

I Want to Ride My Bicycle

Well yesterday was movie night, and the last hurrah at Tim & Julie's current pad. The movie was Monster Club and the food theme was horrific. I can't even remember all the good grub that was there to nosh. We brought Children of the Corn on the Cob, and The Stuff. The Stuff was actually raspberry frozen yogurt, and it was delish. It was the first time that Jeff had ever made frozen yogurt (I think) and he did an awesome job. The corn on the cob was roasted in the oven and all sorts of nummy. I ate two ears! There was also some Texas Chainsaw Massacre Chili, and a Pasta Puttanesca (Ian went with whore-rific, but we weren't splitting hairs) and of course there was LOTS of wine. I think I did a good job of emptying bottles into my belly. I should also mention that the movie was fun. It's old and campy and wonderful, so you should check it out.

All in all I had a good weekend. I vacuumed half the house with my new vacuum cleaner. I heart my new suck machine. I finally have a bagless vac so I don't have to replace the bag every time I clean. With 4 cats and a dog + 2 people there's a lot of hair in our carpets, and it fills up bags super fast. I think the old vac was starting to die too. We've had it for years, and done repairs on it a couple of times, but it was time for it to go. The new Hoover is a little heavier, and I'm not sure I like the feel of the hose attachment, but I'll have to cope. I'm also a little iffy on the retractable cord bit. It's great that it winds it up, but it's kind of a pain to pull out. It was only $99 so at least my dad won't disown me. When I told him that I wanted the Dyson he told me that if I spent that much on a vacuum that I would be out of the will.

I also finally got Jeff to air up the bike tires and we took a little tiny bike ride. It was really really short, like we walk that far in about 15 minutes short. omgimoutofshape! It was completely fun, but it hurt my butt, and my legs felt all wobbly when we got back. I'm just happy that I eventually remembered how to work the gear system, and the tires have air in them so we don't have to do that next time we want to ride. If I get us into riding more often then maybe we can eventually go further than 1/2 a block from the house. For now we'll have to stick close to home. At the very least we want to make sure that we don't end up going down any big hills that we can't get back up later.

Okay, time to get back to work over here.

What a Cute Pair

I have such cute cats. I finished my pair of Life Styles socks and they are better now. The later color changes brought in more grey and purple, and brought everything together in a less scary pink way. They are still very pink, but they don't remind me of a stomach ache anymore.

My pattern was supposed to fit my foot, and although I've checked and re-checked my gauge either my foot is shrinking (or migrating to my ass) or something is really strange with this yarn. I haven't washed them yet, so it's possible they'll fit like a glove after a bit of shrinkage... Here's the project details (or look for Life Pair on Ravelry:

Yarn: Zitron Life Style
Color: 1862
Needles: 2 Circs US Size 3 - length 29"

gauge = 7sts / inch

Finished size 9 3/8" from toe to heel
9 1/2" from bottom of foot to top of cuff
Slightly loose on my size 7 1/2 (women's) foot

Work both socks at the same time, starting with toe-up. These were worked side by side, not nestled one inside the other.

Toe
CO 6 sts - Figure 8 Cast On
Inc each sock @ beg & end of each needle to 56 sts. (4 inc per increase round)
Foot
Knit in Stst until foot length is 7" - then start heel
Heel
[I first separated the socks onto separate needles before starting the heels. I've done it before still all on the same needles, but it's a bit fussy and I didn't want to deal with fussy this time. Besides I had extra needles laying around.]
- Hourglass heel with 8 middle stitches: That's 10 pairs per side.
Leg
Seed Stitch Rib - from Thuja pattern by Bobby Ziegler.
Work leg until it measures 8" from the bottom of the heel.
Cuff
Twisted Rib
K2tbl, P2 rib for 1.5"
Bind Off
Use sewn bind off

Christmas in July

I forgot to tell you. I got new shoes yesterday, and they are super cute! My pictures may not be the best, but I'm really happy with them. Some of the people that I used to work with had given me a gift certificate for Macy's. There were 4 of them, and they got me a $50 card. I had been planning on just using the card to get face care stuff, but when my old shoes gave out I came up with a new plan.

As soon as I saw this pair of shoes I fell in love with them. These shoes only cost me $4.11 from my checking account, which is freaking awesome! They are Sketchers, just like the last several pairs of sneakers I've shelled out money for. (These are by far the cheapest.) I continue to be happy with how comfortable and cute Sketchers shoes have been for me.

I Knit Socks

I like knitting socks. I have no where near what could be called too many socks, so knitting socks is both fun and practical. There's also the fact that I'm decent at knitting socks. Although it seems that lately I've had issues with them coming out a hair large, of course those haven't been washed yet and may have a bit of shrinkage when they do get laundered.

I also like to knit bags, but I do have entirely too many bags. So I mostly work to knit bags for other people now. Hats are fun, but there's only so many days in a year in which to wear a hat in Texas. I suppose I could knit enough that I could wear them once and then donate them to someone less fortunate, but I don't know that I like knitting hats that much.

I've tried to knit other types of clothing and I'm not having the best of luck. I knit a tank top that looking back on was not a good material, possibly had a bad pattern, and definitely lacked in the execution department. I've torn it apart, and rescued what I could of the yarn. If I'd come to terms with its suckage before I did a border on it and wove in all my ends (in the ghetto way I do) then I may have been able to save more of the yarn, but I don't care. I'm just glad that it isn't in my closet mocking me anymore.

I'm currently supposed to be knitting a cardigan type thing. It's going to be beautiful (maybe) and soft (oh yeah) if I ever get it done. Thing is I cheesed out on a yarn join when I ran out of the first ball. I told myself that it would work out okay, and then I told myself that I could fix it so it looked less like shit. I was wrong on both counts. The blue bastard is currently sitting on my washer waiting for me to get up the nerve to unravel almost a ball's worth of knitting to get back to that join and start afresh. *cry* I don't want to do it. It's one of those things. You tell yourself that you like knitting, and that redoing it is just more knitting, but I don't like screwed up knitting and I hate admitting defeat.

Still, I have knat socks. I completed my green pair of socks that were made with TOFUtsies yarn. It's 50% Superwash wool, 25% Soysilk, 22.5% Cotton, and 2.5% Chitin (from shrimp and crap shells). I decided that I don't like knitting socks out of a single color, because I get bored, but at least I picked a simple pattern so they were finished in a reasonable amount of time. This yarn feels a bit like linen during knitting, and the strandedness of it reminded me of the linen also. I haven't washed or worn the socks yet, but when I slipped them on for taking pictures they felt pretty good. I did a stockinette foot, and a 3X2 rib leg with a 1X1 twisted rib cuff. They were knit toe up on two US 1 circulars.

I'm currently in the process of knitting another pair (knitting both socks at the same time, instead of one after another). I'm up to the heels on these, and I'm not sure I like the color. I'd try gifting them to my sister, but they're pretty damn pink and she's told me repeatedly this year that she hates pink. Maybe when they're all done and I see them on I'll change my mind, but keep up your eyes open. If I still don't think they're for me then they may be up for free grabs. Here's a peek at what the foot(s) of this new pair look like. PINK!!!

Zombie Kitteh

Oh I do love the lolcats. I am helpless against them.