It's summer in Atlanta, fall in Denver

Going to Denver this weekend to see Best Friend. This year will mark the 19th anniversary of our friendship and we met when we were 19 years old. So we've known each other half our lives. Certainly something worth celebrating.

Just checked the weather. It's going to be cool over there, getting down to the 40s F at night and only the 60s F

I'll be packing the wool Emerald sweater from Knitty I just finished for Sister. Might as well enjoy it a bit before giving it away. Pictures to come when the light is better. Maybe one from Denver.

I really enjoyed making Emerald, a raglan sweater knit from the bottom up. I'm thinking of doing another, from the top down, so I pulled out Fitted Knits by Stephanie Japel and went onto Ravelry to see what would work.

It was kind of disheartening to see so many people mentioning how many mistakes there were in the directions. Some people said that the errata wasn't complete enough. Others said it was important to read your knitting, not the instructions so much.

And the yarn I got for my next project isn't the blue I expected. It's a bit more muted that I wanted, so I'll just save it for another baby blanket. Someone's always having babies.

I shouldn't start anything new now, though. I have plenty of UFOs to work on, plus the yarn for my mom's Wool Peddler shawl is on it's way.

I should probably go pack before it gets much later. Early flight tomorrow.

What I'm going vs. what I should be doing

What I'm doing:

• Writing my blog.
• surfing Ravelry for a cardigan pattern. Never mind that I have the yarn and pattern picked out and swatched for the Mirabella cardigan.
• Surfing Facebook.
• Drinking wine.

What I should be doing:
Working on a grant proposal due Friday. But since I'm going out of town Friday, in reality, the proposal's due tomorrow.

Sigh. It's 10:56pm. I should hunker down, knock this proposal out and go to bed. Then tomorrow morning look at what I've written, make edits, have someone else read it, finalize, and e-mail it off.

It may be another late night tomorrow. Because I have other reports and such due tomorrow too.

aches and pains

This has not been a good week for me. I had to take Friday off because I had food poisoning.

Then this morning, I went to fill the bird feeders and got stung by a bee. On the bottom of one of my middle toes. It may be between the toes. I'm not sure. All I know is that my foot hurts and there's an ache going up the back of the leg.

I've soaked my toes in a baking powder paste per Husband's instructions. He says it will draw out the poison. I've taken some pain meds too. Because other aches include a headache. That could be a hangover from last night or a continuation of headaches that I've been having since Wednesday.

My lower teeth and gums hurt too. 10 days ago I had some deep cleaning done and they weren't kidding when they said my teeth would be sensitive to everything for weeks.

Okay, that's it for the recital of aches and pains. I'm going to go mow the lawn while it's still less than unbearably hot.

Too many blogs

Like many people, I have personal e-mail and work e-mail. I also have personal blog and work blog. And work Googlegroup. I was already logged in for my work Googlegroup but forgot to log out before posting the post below.

Fortunately, I always check to see how the post looks on the blog right afterwards and that's when I realized that posted a personal blog post to the work blog. Thank goodness for cut and paste and DELETE POST.

Whew.

I also recently joined Facebook, for networking for work. I used my real name, my real workplace, etc. The people who are my friends are people I met on my European fellowship and that was kind of a work thing.

So now I have one more online presence to manage.

Hmm, not what I expected.

Just received the yarn from Elann for my Ravelympic sweater, the Mirabella Sweater from Interweave Knits Summer 2008. The pattern calls for bulky yarn (16 sts = 4 inches which is 4 sts to the inch) for size 10 needles.

I got On Line Linie 119 from Elann.com. It looks more like a worsted weight, but the gauge says 21 sts = 10 cm. It's been a while since I've done the metric conversion, but after a bit of math, it looks like Linie 119 knits up 5.25 sts to the inch. So it's the wrong yarn for the project. Hmm.

Looks like I'll have to go with my back up project, which is this scarf in Great Adirondacks Soxie in Blueberry. Gorgeous emerald blue, cobalt blue, and royal purple. Just my colors. This picture does no justice to the yarn.

That's about 8 inches done and I don't think I'll have enough yarn. Of course, the yarn shop where I bought the yarn 2 years ago doesn't have anymore of that colorway. I looked it up on line and found places that carry Soxie but not in Blueberry. I may have to get a similar colorway in Soxie for the ends. I'll call it a design feature.

Unexpected haul and the Ravelympics

Yesterday, I was taping an interview for work with a local AM radio station. It happened to be a few miles down the road from a yarn shop. I generally don't go to that shop because they have a bit too much novelty yarn for my taste and the shop owner's not always very pleasant. So it will remain unnamed.


However, I was in the area, so I stopped in. For the Ravelympics, I want to make something I will be able to wear right away, so no wool cardigans. Besides, I'm almost done with Sister's wool sweater, Emerald from Knitty, and am ready for something lighter.

Just a half a row around the collar then bind off. I'll put toggles on it instead of buttons. It's a bit tight on me, but Sister's at least one size smaller than me, so I hope it fits. I'm using Lamb's Pride Bulky, in the Ocean colorway, which is turquoise blues, not teal like you see here.

So, the Ravelympics is an activity where any knitter or crocheter on Ravelry takes on the challenge of completing a project (or projects) within 17 days during the 2008 Summer Olympics.

I have 2 projects in mind, depending on yarn availability. Ideally, I will be making the Mirabella cardigan from Interweave Knits Summer 2008. It's knit in a bulky cotton yarn which I've ordered from Elann.com. It may arrive today, it may not.

If not, my back up is to crochet a scarf from a skein of Soxie in Blueberry from Great Adirondacks yarn. I got it years ago at the yarn shop which will not be named.

The pattern will be a simple shell trellis mesh, very airy and open, to be used more for decoration than warmth. I have to admit, I've started it already. The rules are, You must cast on a project during the Opening Ceremonies. Given that the opening ceremonies were underway in Beijing when I cast on this morning, I think I'm still technically within the rules.

So what's the unexpected haul? Lots of sale yarn including:

5 skeins of Cotton Classic, at $17 for the lot.
A one-pound cone of unknown thin yellow. I'm guessing fingering weight and cotton. $5.25 for that.
And the best buy was 14 skeins of Rowan Felted Tweed in 151 Bilberry for $91 instead of the usual $140. Not sure what I'll do with it but I just got the Interweave Knits Fall 2008 and there's always the Sunrise Circle cardigan.

Votes do count

Today was a run-off election day in Georgia. I had 2 races to vote for: Jim Martin vs. Vernon Jones to be Democratic candidate to face Saxby Chambliss (R) for a Senate seat in Congress and Woody Thompson vs. Annette Kesting for Cobb County Commission. My neighbor 2 houses down has a Woody Thompson sign up.

I had to go to 3 polling places before I could finally vote. My first name is Chinese, which is still considered unusual in Georgia and so it was misspelled in the voter rolls. I'm actually entered twice and turns out I got sent to the polling place for my old address, not my new address.

I got to the electronic voting booth and voted in the Martin vs. Jones race then hit enter to go to the next race. Well, there was no next race because my old district didn't have a race and I had actually hit "cast ballot" not "next" like I thought.

The polling supervisor was there and I filled out a change of address form and all that. I said, I just want to make sure that this is cleared up before November! I got her number so I will follow up later. November's election will be very important and I want to make sure my vote gets counted!

Anyway, I did get to vote for the race I was most interested in and my candidate in the other race won even without my vote. And I got to drive around southern Cobb County, going thru neighborhoods I didn't know about. I could have used the major roads to get to the third polling place, but decided to pull out the map, use the backroads, and listen to my iPod.

Despite it all, it wasn't a bad way to spend a morning.