Happy Halloween

I was so excited that I would be working from home tonight and would get to see the Trick-or-Treaters. I had so many plans to decorate the yard and wear zombie makeup to meet them at the door...

Of course, I don't need the makeup because I'm still sick. And sick all week, so I didn't get any decorations up. Didn't even get to carve those fake pumpkins I bought for the express purpose of carving them. I just ended up putting them in the front window, uncut.

Achilles did not want them there.

And then, because there was such bad weather (although, it never really got bad here) anticipated, all the communities post-poned Trick-or-Treating until tomorrow.

Sadly, I must go back to work tomorrow. I just can't be home one more day. And, I do feel somewhat better. I think it's pretty safe now for me to be around others.

100 Words

If you lurk on certain groups on Ravelry, like I do, you may see that some of the knitters who are also writers, like me, are challenging themselves with something called 100 Words A Day For 100 Days.

That's intriguing to me, because my competetive nature would rise to that challenge and I'd be more likely to write a couple thousand words a day. (It's not a contest. I would just feel obligated to exceed the expectation.) It seems like a very interesting exercise.

I think maybe after the first of the year, I'm going to try it. I've got a bunch of things crawling around in my mind, waiting to get out. This may be their only chance!

Wanna See Thumbthing Cool?

I know. I know. Give me a break. I'm still sick.

I just wanted to show you the thumb of the first Tardis Mitten. I used a method my college roommate taught me almost 30 years ago. (Mittens were my second knitting project.) It's very similar to the Gifted method, where you finish seam the thumb with a crochet hook and then put that stitch back on your needles and continue knitting the hand. I have always used that method, unless the pattern had some sort of design element for the thumb, of course, ever since I learned it.

Gifted, by the way, is an excellent mitten pattern. I've made a million of those. They're knit flat on larger needles with bulky yarn so you can knock a pair out in the time it takes you to watch a bad movie on Syfy.

Anyway, back to the Tardis Mitts. I'm kind of sorry now that I didn't just do both mitts at once. I've been making notes on the changes I'm making, but you know how that goes. Hopefully I will be able to decipher my illness-addled scribblings later on.

Patient Zero

This bug is kicking my ass. And it's giving me the weirdest dreams...

I'm descending steps from the back door of my beach house (which I don't have) into the ocean (which I would never do). There is snow on the steps, but the water is warm and clear. As clear as it can be, being the ocean at night. The moon is shining through the water and it is a very lovely shade of blue. My dead brother is behind me, with his hand on my shoulder, guiding me. We go underwater, down the steps, and to the corner of the house. I am having no trouble breathing underwater (which I cannot do) and am not panicked by the fact that there is about 9 feet of water overhead (I very definitely would be panicked in water that deep). I look up in time to see the dark outline of a very large shark passing overhead. (Nope. Just nope.)

Now I'm a little frightened. I stop and start moving backward, backing up to the steps. My brother's hand is still on my shoulder and he says "Don't worry. He's not after you." Still, as soon as I reach the steps I turn and begin climbing them. My brother is gone. The snow is gone. The water recedes back to normal tide, with no sign of the shark. But in the distance, I can see a storm on the horizon of the water.

I hope I don't have ebola or something.

Sick. Sick. Sick.

Okay. I feel a little better today. And there's no more puking. But that may only be because I've not eaten anything in two days. I find it both incredible and repulsive that I am actually very hungry.

But, I'm also very nauseous, so I'm steering clear of food for right now. There's nothing I want to taste so badly that I'd be wiling to taste it twice, if you know what I mean.

Instead, I'm working on my Tardis Mitten. And sleeping. I've slept more today than I've been up.

But I did get through the start of the charts and thumb gusset on this thing. Of course, they're probably all wrong because I'm not thinking very clearly. Ha! Ha!

Being sick is fun! (Not.)

A Little More Tardis, A Little Less Swearing

Who am I kidding? You know this thing is making me cuss like a... I don't know. Who cusses a lot? Anyway, I did the cuff. Back to 2 X 2 rib. And I made it longer than the pattern called for. Took me forever to do.

Of course, I'm sick, too. So that makes thinking a little more difficult. I have some weird virus thing, I guess. I didn't sleep well all night. Then, when I got up, the puking began.

Sucks, too. (Not just the puking.) Today was the annual Zombie Walk we do for charity at our store. Despite the fact that I look like a zombie without any makeup already, I decided to stay home and take an 8-hour nap. While clothing stained with my bodily fluids may have made an authentic-looking zombie costume, I don't think the other zombies would have appreciated it very much.

Too bad, too. I was looking forward to eating brains cupcakes. Too bad it makes me nauseous to look at them.

Tomorrow, maybe, I will feel like eating one. We had some left over, which he dropped off at the fire department for the firemen/women who are working. (That's not weird. They know us. I bring them stuff all the time.)

Still, I really wanted a cupcake.

If I Only Had A Brain

Take a look at these brain cupcakes for the Zombie Walk tomorrow! Chocolate and vanilla cakes with a Raspberry Buttercream frosting.

MMM. Brains.

I'm hoping for a good turnout. Every year we've increased our donation to Gleaner's Food Bank. Our barrel at the store is overflowing with canned and non-perishable goods, even now. It warms my heart that our friends are so generous.

Still Not Right

Argh. So I didn't like the way the 2 X 2 rib didn't pull in enough on these Tardis Mitts. I ripped it all out and decided to reknit the cuff portion in 1 X 1 rib.

But, as you can see, that's even worse. I need to lose a lot of stitches here or else I will have a mitt that will fly off the hand every time the wearer gives a Top Gun High Five.

So, back to the drawing board. I've ripped it out and cast on again with fewer stitches. Maybe too few, who knows. But this is looking about right, really. And I've gone back to 2 X 2 rib on fewer stitches. So far, so good. But, now the issue will be that the stitch count is so far off the charts will have to be re-done.

Ha! So, so far I am changing the needle size, the number of stitches, the thumb, the charts, construction (in the round), and the fact that these will be mittens instead of fingerless gloves. That's all. So, actually, I'm not even knitting this pattern at all any more.

This is more of an "inspired by" thing.

Another UFO

Ha. That's my joke. Because it's a Tardis. A UFO. Get it?

Okay, so you can't really tell this is a Tardis. That's okay. It's not even really a Tardis. It's one cuff of one Tardis mitt. And I'm probably going to frog it anyway.

I used this pattern for Tardis Wristwarmers as a base pattern. My plan is to make a couple of modifications.

First, I'd definitely adding a thumb gusset to these. I really dislike the fingerless gloves that have no thumb. (I know that, technically, the thumb is a finger, but still...) And, I'm also thinking these need to be full-on mittens. Either that, or convertible mittens.

Also, the mitts in this pattern are both the same. I think I will flip the intarsia on one of them so that there is a left and a right.

The pattern is pretty quick to knit, I think. It's very straight-forward. And I went down in needle size and was able to get gauge just fine. The only issue I have with these is that the 2 X 2 ribbing just doesn't seem to pull in enough. It seems pretty loose around my wrist. So I think I will have to rip all of this out and go to a 1 X 1 rib on the cuff. That ought to do it, I think.

Stay tuned.

FO: Stocking!

Yeah, baby! Take a look at this--the finished Beaded Beauty Stocking! I'm very pleased with it. Especially after making so many modifications to the pattern.

I used big beads in red and green instead of small beads in red and gold.
I left off the beaded loops around the cuff.
I left off the beaded areas on the foot.
I made a simple I-cord hanger instead of the beaded loop.

Still, this looks pretty fantastic. And, it looks like it can hold a goodly amount of stocking stuffers. I think Bre will be happy with it.

Stocking Progress!

The leg is completed and the heel is turned. I am now on the final stretch of this knitting adventure.

As I mentioned before, I've adapted this pattern somewhat. The beads, of course. I just couldn't make the small ones go on the worsted weight yarn. It was hard enough to push these along the strand.

But, I've also left out some of the design elements of the stocking. The loops of beads around the cuffs just seemed too much for this stocking--at least, with the larger beads. And the beaded portion of the stocking foot. I think it looks just fine with just the cuff and leg beaded. In fact, I think I like it this way better.

Of course, now I've got a crap-ton of beads left over...

Braided Coils

Remember when I showed you the Princess Leia hat and said it would be finished really quickly because I only had to make the braided coils and sew them on. ONLY. Ha!

I suppose I underestimated how much time it would take to cut 84 50" strands of yarn. Let me tell you. It takes a long time.

Here are my 84 strands, in two bundles of 42 strands each.

And here is one, braided and coiled.

The coiling was a little more difficult than you might imagine, but only because I really need glasses! Brown yarn on brown yarn. I was basically sewing these coils together on faith.

I suppose I should just go ahead and sew these braided buns on the hat, but frankly I'm a little sick of it right now. LOL. Tomorrow.

Whip That Hair Into Shape, Ladies!

Have you seen this thing?

I saw it on late night tv one night and thought it must be a joke. But no. It's for real. And I saw it on the shelf at WalMart. Basically, this cup-thing attaches to your blow dryer and you put your hair into the cup. Then the air from the blow dryer blows your hair, which is forced to move in a circular motion because of the cylindrical shape of the cup, and the heat from the dryer sets it into curls.

Riiiiiiight. In real life, what you would be doing would be tangling your hair up into something that looks like a seaweed bed after a typhoon. Seriously. How is this different from hanging your head out the car window on the way to work to dry your hair? (Except for the obvious auto safety issues.) It just seems like you would be spinning your hair against itself until it was a rat's nest. If you were lucky, you'd be able to cut the worst of it out without losing too much hair.

Okay, I'll admit. I haven't actually tried this product myself, so my comments may be a bit unsubstantiated. But let's face it. I'm never going to try this product on my own hair.

It reminds me a little too much of this:

Happy Birthday To Me

Today is my actual birthday, but we won't celebrate until we can all be together on Sunday. Then we'll celebrate both my birthday and T's. (His is on the 22nd.)

But I am kind of celebrating today. Had lunch with T and R. Then dinner with M. I worked a little bit online, but the rest of the day I've spent dicking around on the internet and knitting. With a cat on my lap. And a Coke at my side.

Not too bad of a day.

I Bought Myself A Present

And it wasn't yarn. Are you impressed? Or scared?

Anyway, I saw this t-shirt and I could not resist. (Even if I wanted to. Which I didn't.) It's the Sam shirt to match my Dean shirt. I was so thrilled to find this.

Now, if this same artist would only make a Castiel shirt...

Aha! More Beads!

Yes! More red and green beads, so I can finish the stocking I'm working on. Finally went to Michael's to get some today. They didn't have any green beads, by the way (Which seems weird. Seems like they would make sure to have red and green beads especially, since people will have Christmas crafts to work on. But, oh well. It's been years since I've owned Michael's.)

Luckily, Hobby Lobby is right next door to Michael's. So I popped over there and got both colors, no problem.

So now, I just need to string these and get back to work and I'll have a Christmas stocking knitted in a relatively short amount of time.

Startitis

Okay. I did start another project. But in my defense, I couldn't really not start a new one. I can't knit for T or R while they are here, and they were both here. And I have finishing work to do on M's hat, and that requires light. (T, R, and I were watching Rome on DVD while I knitted.) And I don't have the required beads to finish knitting Bre's stocking. So you see, I had to start a new project.

Plus, I bought this new yarn a few weeks ago and I've been wanting to use it. What? I told you. I couldn't knit any of the other projects I'd started. I had to use this yarn.

Anyway, it's Red Heart Boutique Changes in Onyx. Its claim to glory is that it's "Six yarns in one." And that's what attracted me to it in the first place. It's got all this texture from the changing yarns. It's fuzzy, smooth, thick, thin, shiny, and sparkly, all in one.

This pic is from the Red Heart website. It's a different color than I'm using, but this gives you an idea of all the different textures this yarn has. It's very pretty.

I had every intention of doing the scarf on the label, Changing Textures Scarf, and I even started to do it twice. But the pattern calls for a "purl 5 together" and I just couldn't make that happen with this yarn. It was just such a mess.

So I frogged it out and decided a simpler stitch might show off the yarn just as well. So I cast on for a basic bias lace scarf. It's basically two rows. It's a nice, easy knit with a classic look. And it goes pretty fast. This is one episode of Rome.

Solitude

Mondays are always very productive days for me, work-wise. Not so much knitting, I guess, but I get a lot of other things done.

Mondays I usually spend at the computer, head down, working. I don't have any appointments or anything on Mondays and I don't work the sales floor. I inhabit the office in my head and wherever my laptop happens to be.

That may seem boring to some, but to me, it's very energizing. I feel like--and I mean this in the very best way possible--without all the distractions of everyday life I can move a much faster pace. I only come up for air when I need to.

I know. That just screams Introvert. It's okay. You can say it. It's not a dirty word.

I always tell T that the difference between us is that I learned the lessons they taught us in Kindergarten--Don't talk to strangers... Don't interrupt... It's polite to wait for an invitation... Use your "indoor voice"...

Of course, that makes us pretty evenly matched. For example, in those times when you're driving around looking for some address, he will stop and ask someone for directions. Me? Hey, that's why they invented Google Maps. So you don't have to talk to strangers.

Why Can't Things Be Accurate?

I hate it when things are completely inaccurate.

Take, for example, my gas tank. I get in, and the dashboard tells me 21 miles to go before Empty. Well, that's okay. I'm running late, but it's only 2 miles to work. So I have enough gas to drive to work and then get gas on the way home, right? Sure. I get to work and look at the reading before I shut off the engine, just to be sure. 42 miles to go before Empty.

Really? I gained 21 miles' worth of gas driving over? (Or would that be 23 miles' worth, since I drove two miles? I don't know. You do the math.) Whatever. At any rate, I've got plenty of gas to drive a quarter mile to the closest gas station after work or two miles to the gas station close to my house (which I prefer). I'm good.

After work, get back in the car and it says 36 miles to go. So, somehow I lost 6 miles, parked in the lot. Hm. Remind me never to park there again.

I drive to the gas station, put $10 of gas in (because that was all the cash I had and I had forgotten my bank card). I get in, start the car and it says 19 miles to go before Empty. WTF?

Oh yeah, I know a lot of this has to do with the slant of my driveway, the heat of the day, the sloshing of the tank, etc. I'm guessing I was probably running on fumes by the time I got to the gas station. And normally I don't let the car get that low. T ended up going back out later and filling the car all the way. That seemed to solve the gas tank accuracy problem.

Another inaccuracy that drives me crazy is the wait time on customer service phone calls--no matter what company you're calling. "You are currently caller number 6. Your approximate wait time is ten minutes." Ten minutes my ass. I've never been on hold with any company for less than 20 minutes.

And how about those jeans sizes? I know for fact I'm a size 6, but somehow that won't even fit one of my butt cheeks. Same with a size 8. WTF, jeans companies? Are you trying to make me feel like I'm not a size 6?

And scales. They're just as bad. Scales are so inaccurate, you can't trust them--even at the doctor's office. I mean really... If I actually weighed what those scales say I weigh, I'd be really depressed.

And calendars. Those are the biggest inaccuracies of all. I certainly don't feel old.
'

I Totally Missed I Love Yarn Day

Well, not totally. I remembered. I was just at work all day.

Plus, I'm really not sure how you're supposed to celebrate I Love Yarn Day. Buy more yarn? I really can't justify that. Seriously. The yarn in this house takes up more space than the people.

Start a project? As if I needed an excuse to start another project. I have so many going right now.

Finish a project? Well, that would be nice...

Work on a project? Okay. That I can do. And did. I worked on Christmas knitting. Hopefully that satisfies the criteria of I Love Yarn Day and that Yarn realizes I do love it and always will. I don't ever want Yarn to doubt that.

Another UFO

This one won't be a UFO for long, though. I started this last night and I will be very surprised if it isn't finished the next time I sit down to it.

It's a gift for M. It's a Princess Leia hat. This is just the hat portion. All that's left is the hair coils on the side.

I like this a lot. It's cute and nerdy and practical and funny, all rolled into one. I think she will like this, too. She is a Star Wars fan.

Where Do You Want To Be?

Maybe I'm just feeling a bit nostalgic because October is my birthday month. That always makes me think of things. Or maybe it's just that I'm old now and have learned some things along the way. But I wanted to share a conversation with you.

I interviewed a person for a job a while back. I didn't ask, but I would guess this person to be in their early to mid- 20's. I asked them about their current job--a job I felt was a pretty good one for the market and this person's education and experience level. He seemed very embarrassed and told me, "I had planned to be farther along my career path by now."

I felt a little weird about that. I mean, it's good to be ambitious and to have plans, but what's the old saying? Man makes plans and God laughs.

Look at me, for example. In my youth, I'd planned to be an award-winning journalist. It was not beyond the realm of possibilities, either. I was quite good, especially for someone so young. I planned to be fully committed to doing serious, important work that made a viable difference in the world around me. But then, things happened in my life that altered my perception subtly.

Back then, it was important to always be moving forward, always achieving, always winning. Back then, it was important never to compromise, never to let anything be taken from me or forced upon me.

I'm different now than I was then.

Back then, I was steel. Now, I'm more like bamboo. I'm still hard. I'm just flexible. LOL.

Anyway, if my twenty-year-old self could see me now, I'm sure she would first of all be surprised I lived so long and that I'm not an alcoholic. But, beyond that, I think she would be able to see the logical progression of our personality--even if it was something she had never previously considered.

That's why I smile a little when someone says "I planned to do this with my life." or "I am destined to be that." or "This is where I'm going to be." Because, you never know, do you?

Not My Craft

...but still pretty cool.

We do several different war games at our store, several times a week. So we have a large demand for terrain, and a large stockpile of different types of terrain. Still, sometimes, you need just the right thing.

So this is terrain T made for our monthly Warhammer 40K Apocalypse game. It's a frozen world and the terrain was supposed to be treacherous--slick and full of fissures--not particularly safe for heavy landing equipment.

You can see all of that, here, in the terrain leading to the fortress. Pretty nice, eh?

Bead Stringing

Really, the most fun about knitting with beads is all the bead stringing. I mean, who doesn't love forcing beads onto yarn in a certain pattern--having to stop and say "Wait. Where am I? How many red beads am I supposed to be doing?" and then count the whole thing over from the beginning? What's not to love about that?

Here are my beads so far, all strung (hopefully) in the proper order to make the ribbon pattern on the stocking. We'll see.

The sad thing is, I'm almost done stringing these things, but I ran out of red beads! I know! You're thinking, What? Patwoman! Why didn't you count and make sure you had enough beads in the first place before starting this project? And you'd be right. But I had some bags of red beads that, although they were opened, seemed to be full. And I had this big bag of beads that looked to have a healthy number of red beads in it.

(This is the photo I took after I took out all the red beads. As you can see, there are still many, many beads left. That blue bag, btw, has pearlized white and clear pink pony beads and the clear bag is filled with clear beads.) So I felt pretty confident I had the proper amount of beads. I was so wrong. I'm going to need another 100 red beads, at least. Before I can continue. Because the last beads you string are the first ones you knit, right?

I mean, I guess I could just pull some off, restring them in the order of the way I'll be knitting them and then just cut the yarn and string the rest of them when I get them. But that seems like an awful lot of work, doesn't it? And really, this is a Christmas stocking. So, technically, it doesn't have to be done until December 24.

I think I'll just set it aside until I can get back to Michael's.

More Hat Progress!

See? I told you this goes fast when you do it right.

Here are the horns I knit for R's Christmas hat. (Well, there's only one in this pic, I guess. And it's not stuffed. So you're going to have to use your imagination a little.) Only one strand of yarn for these, but I did change the pattern up a little. (Surprise!)

I did these on dpns, rather than knitting flat and seaming. That's a little fiddly at the beginning, because you're starting with the point and working down, so you basically start with one stitch. But it worked out really well. I like the way this looks. And it has the added bonus of no seaming.

I also added another short row area in each horn. After I knitted the horn to pattern, I decided that 1) it really wasn't big enough for my tastes and 2)there needed to be a little more of an upward curve in it. So I just repeated the short row portion of the pattern again.

Basically, it's increase, increase, increase, short rows, knit, short rows, knit, bind off--instead of increase, increase, increase, short rows, knit, bind off.

These look good. I'm starting to get happy with this project.

My Eyes Are Killing Me

It's October. That means allergies for me. Fall allergies are the worst, I think. My eyes are so red and watery. And I've had so much Zyrtec, Flonase, and Visine, I might have developed an immunity to those things.

On the plus side, I don't need any additional make up for Halloween.

Seriously, my allergies get worse and worse each year. A lot of people I talk to tell me the same. "This is the worst year yet for my allergies." I have to wonder whether it's the worst year for allergies (and, if so, what's going on?) or if we're just getting older?

Progress!

A little progress on R’s hat. Like all my projects, I’m not happy until I’ve screwed it up two or three times. This one is no exception.

The first time I did it, I tried to knit it, intarsia-style, in the round. That can be done, you know. It's not a big deal. You just have to remember to keep your floats loose. I had no problem with that part of it. The thing that caused me heartburn was that I was basically making a stripe across the top of the hat, so I would have to cross the yarn back across 10 stitches each time. Or else, carry the stripe yarn around the entire hat. MADNESS!

So, I ripped that out and decided to just make a plain hat and knit the stripe separately to be sewn on later. A better plan, really, all things considered. That makes the hat go quicker; makes the stripe go quicker. Only thing is... This Simply Soft yarn is too floppy really for a hat like this.

Don't get me wrong. I love Simply Soft. Makes a really soft hat. And colors are perfect. The silver has just the right amount of shine, even. But it's never going to support two horns on the side of the head. I need something firmer.

So, third time's a charm, right? I tore it all out and doubled the yarn. And now we're cooking with gas, baby! This gives me a nice, firm material that's still soft enough you want to put it on your head. And, strangely, the gauge is just fine.

The hat part is done. Now I need the decorative elements.

How Not To Knit A Stocking

...Or at least how to fix mistakes, once you've made them.

I’ve been working on a Christmas stocking for Bre, along with some other things for Christmas gifts for other people. It’s the Beaded Beauty Stocking from Terry Morris. Terry had offered this stocking as part of the Holiday Mystery Gifts group on Yahoo, but I had never had a reason to knit it before.

R, M, & T all have these 3-foot monsters stockings:

And, remember, I knit one for my little bro a few years ago. The Aran Christmas Stocking from one of the Pattern-A-Day Calendars.

However, this year, I’m knitting for Bre, who is R’s gf of almost 2 years. I know what you’re thinking… Patwoman, you hate to knit socks. And a stocking is just a big sock. And you’d be right. But, somehow, it’s different with a Christmas stocking. It just is.

This is a really nice pattern. Very elegant. Of course, I’ve changed things a bit, to suit my own needs. For one thing, I can’t get those small beads to go over the worsted weight yarn I’m using. So I’m using larger beads. In green and red, instead of the gold and red the pattern calls for. I think this gives it a more playful look, rather than elegant.

Also, I’ve deleted the loops of beads around the top. They just don’t look right with the larger beads. But, I also feel like loops of beads are just crying out to be snagged on something. And, of course, I’m knitting this magic-loop style, because I think there are just enough stitches on this thing to make me sorry for knitting it with dpns.

I was not very far along into the pattern, however, when I noticed my first mistake. Can you see it?

Yep. I purled when I should have knitted. The crazy thing is, I had to slip a marker at the point that I changed from purl to knit stitches. I had to slip a marker. That was my clue to stop purling and start knitting. So why did I keep purling for 8 or so stitches? And then, suddenly start knitting, but not notice that I had done the last several stitches wrong?

Argh.

And, naturally, that’s not something you would notice right away. No. You’ve got to knit several rows after the mistake before you actually see it. Now what? Well, I could rip out 7 or 8 rows to get back to the mistake and then knit it correctly.

Yeah right.

Or I could just drop these stitches one at a time and ladder them back to the mistake. Then, use a crochet hook to “knit” them properly.

And viola! Good as new!

This is a good method, if you’ve purled instead of knitted or knitted instead of purled. It gets a little trickier when you get into decreases, increases, yo’s, and the like. Although, it can be done. I’ve done it.

And I made up some pretty nifty swear words in the process!

I Might Be Turning Into An Old Lady

I'm a little worried about it. I mean, of course, people get older. I get older. (I just don't look it. Ha!) So, yeah, I kind of am turning into an old lady.

But I always felt I would be a cool old lady. Like, very young at heart. I don't know why I thought that, since I was born 40 years old and have aged steadily from there. But still, I thought I would be the person people would be shocked to learn how old I am. "What? She seems so young!"

These days I find myself doing old lady things... Like, when choosing a restaurant, I opt for the one without the salad bar because I just want to sit and have someone else bring me my food. And I've started carrying tissue in my purse. Not because I might need to blow my nose or because someone else might need to, but because I might end up in a bathroom that has no toilet paper!

My mom carried tissues in her purse, for crap's sake!

Simple Life

Sometimes I have this fantasy about The Simple Life.

Not that. I'm talking about growing your own vegetables, making your own clothes, building your own house, etc.

Yeah, ok. It is kind of a lame fantasy. And I would never be able to do it, frankly. I like my car. I like the grocery store. I like the internet, for crap's sake! And listen, I might be able to do all of that (Yeah, even the building of a house. I got mad skillz you ain't even seen yet!) I'm not sure that I would want to have to.

But, you know, I would like some things simpler. Like, gift giving. I think it would be awesome if people gave gifts that they, themselves, made. You know, something they had to think about and put effort into. Even if it were only partly made--a bought frame and a photo you took yourself; a made frame and a picture you painted; a decorated box with homemade candy; a hand-woven rug; a serving dish you glazed and fired at the ceramic shop; a scarf you knitted.

Maybe it's me, but I think these things are so meaningful. Even when I knit a basic, big needle, garter stitch scarf, there is a great deal of thought that goes into it. Color, texture, pattern. I think about the recipient. And then, my thoughts turn to that recipient as I knit, too. (Even if I'm watching TV.)

It's like you are imbuing the scarf (or whatever you make) with your positive energy. So you're not only giving a scarf, you're giving love. (If that's not too weird to say.) I like that about crafting.

I wish other people felt that way. I wish they would see a hand-crafted gift for the blessing that it is. I think, though, people tend to think you've just cheaped out on a gift. A shame, really. It kind of says it's not, really, the thought that counts.

It's October

Yes, October. The month of Halloween, T's birthday, my birthday, and the worst allergy attacks. Good times.

Halloween is always fun. This year I may be at home, working, instead of at the store. So I will see the Trick-or-Treaters myself. I may even costume up for that. Who knows? I did buy some little plastic graveyard fencing that I will be putting up in front to put my tombstones in.

I also bought three small fake pumpkins. They're made for carving, so I thought I'd try them out.

On the allergy front: so far, so good. However, the mold season will be peaking soon and that's always the worst for me. Plus, my pet allergies seem to always get worse in the fall. So whether I lose my voice this year remains to be seen.

Stay tuned.