The rest of the weekend was spent eating, eating some more, going to see Star Trek, eating, giving Sadie her summer haircut, eating, squirt gun fights, and oh yes, EATING!  Good god, I’ve been waking up in cold sweats at night with the terrifying echo of “do ya’ll want any more banana pudding?” in my ears.

Sadie had fun playing water ballons.

step 1. fill water balloon

step 2. throw water balloon

step 3. fetch water balloon

step 4. put balloon in bucket

Do not question the logic of Sadie.  She knows what she is doing.

She also has a spiffy new haircut.

In other news, I FINISHED SHIPWRECK!  I blocked it tonight

big shawl!  that’s our full sized guest bed

I didn’t block it harshly – I couldn’t figure out how to do that without weirdly warping the center circle, which is the only thing you’re supposed to block.  the “faggoting” lace on the outside (shut up, that’s what it’s called) with the beads is just supposed to dry naturally, for a more organic feel.  Speaking of beads…

That’s a lot of beads.  And it’s only around 3500 of them…not the 5000 beads the pattern called for.  WHAT KIND OF SADISTIC BITCH WRITES A PATTERN USING 5000 PRESTRUNG BEADS???  OK, OK, it’s an awesome pattern, so I forgive her.  And she gave me good advice – string 1000 at a time.  Then when you run out, break the yarn, string 1000 more, and join.

The only alteration to the pattern was to the 3rd chart.  I was told the pattern was wrong, and some friends of mine came up with a corrected chart.  I didn’t knit the 3rd chart, so I don’t know if it was true, or if it was and the pattern has since been fixed.  But it turned out looking just like the picture, so I’m satisfied with the fix!

I can’t wait for it to finish drying.  I am going to wear this sucker EVERYWHERE!  ESPECIALLY in september when we’re at the beach.  I am SO going to imitate the pic on the pattern page – wind sweeping through my hair and the shawl, waves in the distance…oh yeah, it’s goig to be a AWESOME!!!

Boggles my mind.  Oh don’t get me wrong – she did buy stuff.  LOTS of stuff.  HEAVY stuff, which required her to actually ship a big box to herself AND check her suitcase on the flight home.  But her ration of buying: shopping is SHOCKINGLY LOW.  AND she can spend a whole day at a mall and not get bored or tired.  IT’S HER SUPERPOWER.

Feeling extra charitable, I took her to Knitch and told her to pick a yarn, ANY YARN, and I would make a shawl for her.  The not having a pattern before hand kind of threw her, but she gravitated to the mohair almost immediately (groan…mohair…the velcro of yarns) and settled on kidsilk haze.

sort of a dark blue-gray

And because she’s my mom, allowed me to pick something for myself for my trouble:

mmmmm…raveny…

I had her look through lace patterns on ravelry, and nothing seemed to really peak her interest, so with great reluctance, I dragged out Victorian Lace Today, which, of course, SHE LOVED.  Picked out 6 stole patterns, and then finally settled on one that I GENTLY guided her towards – Myrtle Leaf Shawl (rav link – here’s a flickr search with pictures of other’s work).  Guided her there because a single leaf lace motif with a border will be relatively easy for me (HAHAHA FAMOUS LAST WORDS, LOSER!) and I should haven’t to do much crying over attempting to rip back mistakes in MOHAIR (yes yes, in the freezer, I’ve heard).

We spent allll day saturday at the dogwood festival, which was lovely and sunny (I got the burn to prove it).  Mom picked herself up some nice things, including a ring which apparently Dad will be giving her for mother’s day (it’s just easier that way).  I picked up some adorable earrings

And also discovered the art of a HILARIOUS watercolor artist named Greg Stones.  I dare you to look through his stuff and not giggle.  I bought two prints:

“Goodbye Sheep” and “Penguin vs. Reaper”

Interesting note: I uploaded those pics into flickr and tagged them with his name.  Shortly after, I got an email saying that he added me as a friend on flickr.  I held my breath…and…nothing.  No CEASE AND DESIST or TAKEDOWN IMMEDIATELY – Greg, you are awesome and now I shall promote you like crazy.

Mom left Tuesday morning, and I was left with sore feet, aching calves, and physical exhaustion.  But I didn’t have time to recover, because come thursday, our home was invaded YET AGAIN…only this time…by knitters

God help me…

The following weekend, April 22nd-26th, is Stitches South, for the very first time in ATLANTA, which means I can go without having to drive very far or fly.  Sweet – I’m totally lazy and poor.  So I make plans with Grace and Julie, who are both coming to stay with me that weekend so we can PARTY HARDY with southeastern knitters (don’t kid yourself, we are a hard drinkin’ hard partying crowd – I imagine we won’t be going to sleep until, like, 11:30pm every night, AT LEAST! WOOHOO!). I’m psyched, my friends are psyched, there is a general feeling of psyched-outtedness going around.

Then I decide to check my mom’s email to figure out what days I need to request off and add them to my work calendar.  Except my mom’s ticket confirmation says that my mom’s flights are the 21st and the 27th of April.  Which is NOT the dogwood festival weekend.  It is Stitches weekend.

what

the

fuck?

Mom picked the wrong weekend, and since I wasn’t paying attention, I didn’t catch it right away.  And normally this wouldn’t be a problem, except that I have out of  town guests and plenty of things planned with them that weekend!!!  uuuuunnnnnnnggggh!!!

Call mom, explain the problem, she checks with air tran.  That sale?  Ended the previous day.  Now it’s going to cost $75 to change her flight to a $249 round trip, PLUS pay $15 for checked luggage.  And since my parents are in the middle of an extensive and expensive kitchen/dining room renovation, so that cost increase was unacceptable.

Dramaz.

Fortunately, air tran started another sale, so it looks like my mom will be able to get a similar price for that weekend…plus the $75 fine.  Which sucks, but hey…ALL AIRLINES SUCK RIGHT NOW.

So april is going to be pretty busy for me.  But fun!

Let’s see…what else?  Kevin is still looking for a job.  I’m still working at the same place, contract, which expires at the end of this month.  And no one at work seems concerned about this but me.  They all seem to think I’m just going to be around helping them out…but NO ONE WILL TELL ME WHAT IS GOING ON.  This is very frustrating, as I’m sure you can imagine.  We did get a brand new veep last week, and he’s meeting with everyone one-on-one to get “down with the peons,” and my turn is this friday, if it doesn’t get rescheduled…again.

In the meantime, in total defiance of our financial situation, Kev and I continue to look at homes for sale.  YOU HEAR THAT ECONOMY???  YOU ARE NOT CRUSHING OUR SPIRIT OF HOPEFUL OPTIMISM!!!  YOU BASTARD!  YOU WON’T GET US!!!

*soft weeping*

So it’s all good.

In the spirit of “fuck you, economy!!!”, I’m going to have the FIRST EVER SUPER REAL CONTEST here at evilsciencechick.com, with an ACTUAL SPONSER and an ACTUAL PRIZE!

I know, right?  Pretty exciting!  So stay tuned! Details to be revealed by the end of the week.

I already posted about the car debacle.  Other than that our christmas was very low key.  Ironically, Kev spent most of the time working on his car, doing a 90,000 mile tune-up – changing oil, transmissiong fluid, timing belt, etc.  Nothing that had to do with what eventually went wrong.  Left to my own devices, I spent a lot of time napping on my SiL’s couch and also knitting.

two socks at once magic loop, toe-up, embossed stitch pattern, using STR medium-weight “Gingerbread Dudette”

This is the fastest I have ever knit a pair of socks.  I blame the two-at-once method and the CRAZY amount of time I spent knitting while in Alabama.

Sadie spent her time outside, trying desperately to avoid one of the two canine additions to my in-law’s family.

he didn’t take a hint

I actually had to rescue her a few times just so she could get a drink of water and sit down for a bit.  That Milo is RELENTLESS.  And Sadie just isn’t cougar material.

One night my MiL treated the whole family to a yummy steak house in Tennesee.  Kev ordered the 24oz monster sirloin:

HOLY CRAP THAT’S HUGE!  I’m glad I ordered the small…

HOLY CRAP THAT’S THE SMALL???

I didn’t eat much of my steak, as during the salad course the restaruant tried to poison me with sliced blanched almonds cleverly hidding amongst the shredded white cheese.  I escaped unscathed but lost of most of my apetite in the scare.  Fortunately, I gained it back later that night and devoured it all.  YUM!

Later we paid our respects to the familes of the cows we gorged on.

hello…my name is Inicow Montoya.  You killed my father…

HA!  No, not really.  Those are some cows my BiL is raising to earn a little extra income, as the economy is teh suXOrs right now, and he’s not getting as many hours at work.  HI COWS!  YOUR RELATIVES WERE DELICIOUS!

BiL’s father was totally amused that I was taking pictures of cows.  Disdainful, even.  Whatever, dude.  Because you butted in on our christmas dinner, I couldn’t drink wine with my ham and mashed taters.  THAT WAS A CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY!!! It was only my stone soberness during dinner that allowed me to keep my mouth shut when you spouted off against “tree huggers.”  I’ll bet it was you who taught my nephew that delighfully racist joke about Obama, too.  Awesome.  Way to positively influence a 13 year old.

MOVING ON

Because our return home was a little TOO eventful, Kev and I decided to skip out on any social gatherings for new year’s eve and instead just have a nice dinner out and celebrate the new year half asleep on the couch, as GOD INSTENDED.  We used a gift card for Outback that we got from S and BiL, and toasted the new year with cheap champagne in our pjs on the couch. Perfect.

The new year has been blissfully uneventful the first 4 days.  But I’m hoping that 2009 brings changes and good things for us.  Our plans have changed slightly over the last couple months, and we may be in the market for new digs soon.  More on that as it develops, and SURELY it will be good for many laughs.  OUR PAIN IS YOUR GAIN!

Happy new year, devoted readers and dear friends!

Thanksgiving was great – much food consumed, much stimulating of the economy accomplished, and I am MOSTLY done with christmas shopping!  A round of drinks on me, folks!

Thanksgiving dinner was a low key affair – just me and Kev, my parents, brother, and grandma.  We ate later than usual because Kev and I didn’t get in until 3am that morning (thanks stupid GA drivers, who managed to create traffic backups due to THREE accidents on 85, which meant it took us 2 and a half hours to get out of the state) and grandma was a little behind on her baking and we HAD to wait for the pies!

I talked Kev out of 4am shopping on black friday (I can be VERY pursuasive when I have to be), but that doesn’t mean we didn’t shop.  We just went later.

Kev: *looking over ads* I want to check out some sporting goods stores to look at coats.

Mom: There’s a Dick’s at the mall here…and there’s a big Dick’s at south hills village.

Me: *snerk* “big dicks”  hehehehheeehehehee

Kev: you are so bad

Mom: you’ll have to excuse her, she grew up with brothers

Me: heeeeeeheeheheheeeeheheee!

Later Kev and my dad went over to my brother’s new house to work on some plumbing, mom and I hit the mall and did some damage.  The next day there was more plumbing to be done and mom and I were left to our own devices yet again, so off to the new outlets where I did much christmas shopping.  Recession schmession, I got some DAMN good deals!  Which is good because, you know…medical bills, we’re poor…oh-yeah-there-really-is-a-recession-now-crap, etc.  Bleah.

Sunday we celebrated my birthday a week early with a dinner at Bravos, and then my gifts: new luggage!  Desperately needed, as even though my old luggage is perfectly fine, it weights about 1293 lbs EMPTY.  And as the weight limit for airlines is MUCH less than that, packing for longer trips has been difficult.  It’s FANCY new stuff, too.  Swiss!  And bright emerald green!  *love*

I got not a stitch of knitting done the whole trip.  I KNOW!  We were so crazy busy that I just never got the chance, and in the evenings we were all so exhausted that we passed out quickly.  So I am behind…but as I’m not knitting any christmas gifts…it doesn’t matter! Oh glory be!

But now we’re home and back to our regular schedule.  I hope everyone had a very nice holiday full of friends and family and good food!

Coming soon: an unneccessarily long video of my brother making sangria.  As soon as I can get it to convert the file without crashing my laptop.