Uncle Leona's Day Camp

After much consternation, it is done.

The Southwest Fiesta I Needed To Find Skeins And Still Had To Shorten The Collar Cardigan is done!! Woo hoo!

Tonight was the topstitching and button show.

There was a bit more of that peach topstitching than I thought. I think I have about 10 yards of yarn left. Nothing like cutting it a tad close. But it's done.

Now what do I do? At this moment, I really don't know. I'm not too keen on blocking the Cables and Lace at the moment. One of the kitties has decided to mark a corner of the room where I usually do my blocking. I have no desire to have a sweater smelling of cat emissions.

Not a big issue. I have tickets to see "Wicked" downtown tomorrow night with my Mom, sister-in-law, and crazy niece. Din-din prior to the show. Should be a great time. I also get to entertain the Home Depot Fencing Dude after my morning at the office--my fence is a disaster area; it's time to replace it.

The windows are almost paid off, so it's time to go into debt again. All in the name of house value.

Veruca lays an egg

Well, it's the weekend, and I'm here at home. What does that tell you? Yep, he's still chicken (and freely admits it, I might add). So, as many of you have suggested, I'm laying low for a while--can't go up there anyhow for two months.

I have an extremely full social calendar. Everyone wants me.

What he can't stop me from doing, however, is go to the Michigan Fiber Festival in August, which is about an hour or so from Grand Rapids. Nothing like the ol' "I'll be in your neighborhood" plan. But that's a while off; I have too much to do to worry about it now.

At the moment, I have dusted off the Southwest Cardigan that was short a couple of skeins of yarn. Thanks to a well-placed request on Elann.com's message board, I scrounged up two skeins (of the same dye lot, no less!) of the yarn I needed, and the sweater is heading toward completion. Here's where it stands:

That partial skein you see is all I have left for the buttonhole band, topstitching (not much), and the sewing up of the sides and sleeves. I will be cutting it a tad close; I actually shortened the collar about an inch to play it extra safe, and I think that should do the trick.

It does look nice, though, and with the topstitching and buttons should be dynamite.

The other project (the blue cotton sweater) has been fragged a couple of times and rethought. The Shapely Tee pattern, sadly, doesn't work too good for this yarn. I took out all of the short rows that were supposed to help my boobage (they really goofed up the sleeves). The back and front are together and necklined, but I'm still not sold on the thing. Once I get the cardigan done, I think I'll do a little more thinking on the matter.

And yeah, the Cables and Lace Cardigan is still in need of blocking and completion. Cut me some slack...it's summertime!

Two more weeks, and I have another little golf outing, too. This time, I'm golfing with a gal from the golf board who I golfed with in Delaware a couple of years ago (it was the week Reagan died...I remember watching the funeral in the clubhouse while the rain poured down on us). This time, we decided to do Pittsburgh--it worked out as a nice midway point between her in Baltimore and me here in Cleveland. I even managed to Hotwire a three-night's stay at the local Holiday Inn for $46/night. More money for golf balls. And beer. I'm looking forward to it. I think my game is finally coming around (I shot my best of the year last week at league), and it will be nice to get out of Ohio for a vacation this summer.

I hate gas prices...it really cramps my vacation style.

I'm so damn confused

Here's my problem. I have a free weekend staring me in the face--the only free one I have until mid-August. One guess as to what I want to do.

Yeah, I'm that transparent.

So, the only issue here is convincing someone else that it's time to warm up those feet and see me again. This is where I get confused. I don't want to scare him off, yet, if you judge by his little suggestive emails of last week, he seems ready to go. We chatted for over an hour on the phone Sunday--nothing about "us," just about life in general and his golf game. The only silly comment made was by him, when he said he needed new clean balls to play golf on Monday.

Out of context, that doesn't sound too silly, but believe me, it was.

So, what do I do? I don't want to resort to begging, and I certainly don't want to whine.

Men. How can one penis require so much work?

72 holes of golf was about 70 too many

At this point in time, I think I'm either the most alive dead person or the most dead alive person out there. The weekend of golf was a lot of fun, but a lot of work. My game, sadly, didn't accompany me to the course (even though I kicked the league's ass on Wednesday night to score a sweet $5.00 Target gift card). I was awful.

Beyond awful. I played like a girl.

I did manage to get better with every round, though. I played with a guy on Sunday who experienced my ineptitude Saturday morning. He asked if I had consulted a sports psychologist in the meantime because my game had come around! I'll take any compliment about my golf game that I can get when I'm playing that poorly.

The positives: the weather was perfect, the guys were great (even though Guy #1 was stuck back in Michigan), and my putter was on fire. Problem now is that my recurrent tendonitis in my right arm is recurring at the moment. I'm pretty much writing off playing at league tomorrow night because I have an 18 hole outing this weekend, and I don't want to disappoint the gal I'm teaming up with for that thing.

Yep. Golf has officially taken over my life.

I did pull four bags worth of weeds this afternoon, too. My body is shot. But the yard looks nice.

I think I'll just go knit.

Forget the weeds....

I'm playing golf.

72 holes in the next three days starting tomorrow at 1. I may not survive, but I plan on having a hell of a lot of fun before my body collapses.

Tootsies of ice

That's what my man has--he actually used the word, "fear," when we finally had our long phone call tonight (about an hour and a half by my watch). Seems as though he has no clue what he wants out of any relationship at the moment, let alone the best one he's ever had (my opinion, of course). He is, however, not averse to me still being a flirty little thing, so I got that going for me.

Which is nice.

It really was a nice talk; I think we sorted a few things out. His mind is still a mess (big time), but I tried to put him at ease. I promised to give him space and back off on the requests for encounters....for now.

Remember, Veruca is never far from the surface.

Stay tuned: this soap opera is going to go on for a while, I believe.

Blindsided!

Well, gang, there's trouble in paradise. It seems as though my friend in Michigan has developed a very chilly pair of feet. I was hoping to go up to visit this weekend and play a little golf; he sent a nebulous "I don't think it's a good idea" email late last night. Apparently, he's dazed and confused about our little situation. He's supposed to call me today to try to explain his position. I'm hopeful that he's not quitting on this thing, and I told him that, but I'm being a realist about all of this. If he goes running, I have one thing to say:

His loss.

OK, enough anger. I still have a golf outing to go to this weekend, so it isn't a total loss. It's me and seven guys. Life is good. And so is free beer.

I have been a busy little knitter of late; just trying to make room in Ikealand. The Cables and Lace Cardigan knitting (and 90% of the crocheting) has been completed, and the pieces have been washed and dried. Here's the shrinkage report:

I apologize for the measuring device; it is golf season, after all. To me, I think the thing lost nearly four inches of length (maybe closer to three once I block that bottom edge out a bit). The yarn has also softened up markedly (it's Den-M-Knit from elann.com). Pretty cool project...too bad it took me two years to actually finish the thing!

I've also started work on a Shapely Tee using a DK weight ribbon deal that has been taking up 13 skeins of Ikeaspace. I finished up the front last night:

I doubled the dart size to allow for my boobage. I may need to lengthen the armholes a bit once I get the back to that point--the darts really deform the first four rows of armhole decreases. I've never attempted anything with short row darts before, so I feel as though I'm flying a bit blindly. More to come as the back meanders along.

I'm getting a little excited to play knitting teacher again. I have been asked by the lovely Jennifer to introduce her to the addictive world of the Magic Loop. Sockapalooza will ensue sometime this week. She won't know what hit her.