They are plotting against me

Watching, waiting....

Here she is plotting her attack.


This is the Don.  He is giving me the evil eye. 

This is a ploy to make me feel relaxed and in control. 

Just Checking In

I had been pretty regular with my posts until last week.

I visited an old friend on Saturday in Michigan.  She took met to City Knits where I  bought a strange looking hook.  It is called a Handy Hook and promises to be a more comfortable experience.  It is endorsed by the crochet association international.  Whatever that is. We walked two blocks to get to this great yarn store. I was really bummed that it had the Adriafil yarn that I ordered from the UK.  Next time, I will call Michigan since it isn't too far away. 
I am too lazy to take a picture.  Just imagine an orange peeler with a hook on its end.

We spent a hour longer at the LYS because I insisted on checking my Ravelry stash  via my PDA phone.  I wanted to buy some yarn that I needed for my stash.

This is the yarn I wanted to add to my stash. My two year long search has not found any new skeins.
☜ The store had the color in bulky. I always find it in bulky.   I needed chunky.  I spent 45 minutes trying to check my stash online.
It would not load on my phone.  I tried and I tried and I tried.
I was going to just buy the yarn and hope for the best but I wanted to absolutely sure of the weight.  Besides, they were having a sale!!!!!

Finally, the salesperson (eager to close the register) confirms that that yarn is sold in the weight that I wanted. So, it was possible that I needed the heavier weight yarn.  I reluctantly left the store.
 Later at my gf's house, I checked my stash on her laptop.  I was wrong. 
☜This is the color that I actually have. No wonder I can't find anymore of it.  It looks like a BR flavor.  I held up the saleslady for almost an hour over the purchase of yarn that I didn't need at all.  And all I purchased was a crochet hook. 

BTW the colors really look different. Really different.  Like the difference between purple and pink.

My gf has a digital tv and a laptop but she is unable to make the two pieces of equipment talk to one another.  So we ventured into the cold and wet weather visiting store after electronics store to find the adapters necessary to make it work.  She needs a vga to hdmi adapter.  I determined that the adapters that she needs can only be found on the Internet for 80 bucks.

I unveiled for her my new invention. I am calling it the Hooker's  Ball . 

My father worked for GM for enough years to retire.

As a technician for the engineers, he invented tools that would help factory workers to make the cars.  On occasion he made tools designed to reduce joint stress.

I asked him to reinvent the crochet hook for me.  I explained the who "cripplemecrochet" AKA carpal tunnel problem and he said "all you need to do is make something that will change your hand movements." 

I went to Joanns and purchased these styrofoam balls. inserted a knitting needle down its center and jammed a larger crochet hook into the hole.

Voila!

Ize invented it.  

I am not sure that she was convinced.

After my wonderfully wet visit and on my way home, I began coughing.  Having allergies, mixed with warm March weather and carelessly making my body's defenses  work harder leads to Bronchitis.

I have two scripts for antibiotics, using the inhaler every 4 hours, the nasal spray twice a day and something for the cough.
I have been miserable.  Today, I feel as if I can lift my head above a cloud.
I am feeling normal.
And incidently, I have completed three books and one project.

This is the dagmar shawl in berroco zodia aries. 

The Zodiac has been discontinued. Thank goodness for Ebay!

This is a close-up of how I joined the strips.


It was fun to complete but my shoulder began hurting while holding the hairpin lace tool.  I need to ask Dad about that.... 

Frizzy thought
Is Oprah trying to replace morgan freeman in voice over work?

At least you can select your friends

My family has been especially cruel to me lately.

When I visited my sister for the New Year, she took a moment to comment on my genetic deficiencies. That moment occurred as she walked behind me into the Best Buy store. To her left walked Dude. So, to me but within earshot of of Dude she proclaims, “I am so sorry, Frizzy. When they were handing out asses you didn’t get any of it.”

I replied, “thank you for noticing, Blondie.”

I will refer to her as Blondie as long as she insists on dying her hair honey brown. I hate that color on her. So there.

She thinks my recent hand, mouth and foot infection is hysterical. I found it pretty darn inconvenient.

Between my allergies and my propensity to get sick around holidays my family refers to me as sickly.

Grandpa tried to attack me last year when I refused to stop cleaning his house. He had dementia and thought I was a stranger. I had to call an older cousin to calm him down. As we were waiting for her arrival he whispers to me, “I know all about you. I heard all about you.” I didn’t know what to make of that…….. I felt betrayed by my mother for a few days.

A few months ago, I took some friends to a bar that members of my family own to attend a cousin’s birthday party. It is the kind of bar that I would call quaint or hole in the ground. My cousin looked great in her form fitting dress, tiara and matching satin house shoes (slippers) on the dance floor. I still chuckle at how much the fuzzy part of the slippers matched the dress.

Recently, I mentioned to my aunt that I am hot all the time at work. She suggests that I may be experiencing menopause. That was just plain mean. She has been through menopause; she knows it is more than hot flashes. She could have just suggested a fan.

Once my grade school cousin yells, “What happened to your face?” at me after seeing me for the first time in months. During my 20s, changes in my medical plans meant not taking elective medications. Because of this, I had horrible acne; acne that I did not have as a teenager or a college student. I was a college grad, looking for a job with pimples all over me. It was horrible. I didn’t mind the random Mary Kay people that tried to sell their facial regime to me. Or the vitamin distributors who offered cures. Not even the ethnic vendors with their black soap. But my little cousin, she got under my skin.

On that note, I will never forget being promised that my frizzy hair would NOT be a problem in my cousin’s wedding during a phone conversation. About a week later, I received an email reading, “I want everyone to look the same to either wear curls, a flip or an up-do.”

FYI, those are completely different hair styles

The email went on to read, “You can schedule an appointment with my hair stylist. These are the costs for her services $$ hair relaxer and for a $$ trim.” A hair relaxer????? I was hot. What happened to my frizzy hair not being a problem?

The Internet makes cowards out of all of us.

Crafty Update

The hairpin lace shawl is coming along fine. I have completed the six strips. I have to link them together.

Barbie Fighting in Ten Minutes or Less

This blog will be the first edition of Other People’s Kids
Gotta love them

I agreed to help a girlfriend with the cooking for her Superbowl party. I had a terrible headache and just wanted to lie down for the night. But I could not ignore her pleas.
She gave me two motrin and an hour later I was fine. Yeah for motrin. She has a four year old, who I will call Boatman, and most of the children at the party were older girls. I offered to pick up Trey and Lil’ T to play with her son.
In case you are wondering, I do not know much of anything about football or the Superbowl. I spent the night reading – headache free. I had a highly coveted spot on the couch in front of the TV with my latest fey novel. Belly full of talipia and spaghetti. Content with the world until Lil’T appears in front of me.
She was guiding an injured Trey by the hand. In her other hand, she held several cubes of ice inside of a paper towel. Trey’s tear tracked face made whimpering noises. I asked “ What happened?”
First I checked the clock. Ten minutes. Ten minutes had elapsed since I fed Lil’T and Trey and told them they could play with the other kids. Ten minutes. Or maybe eight.
Guradian Lil’T felt that her responsibility to Trey had been completed and left without telling me what had happened. Whimpering Trey informs me that Boatman hit him with a toy while he applied the cold pack to his forehead. I called Lil’T back and asked her to send Boatman to me for an interview.
Boatman arrives - literally dragging his feet on the carpet. He offered this explanation.
“ I wanted to fight someone. No one would fight me. So I throw a toy at Trey.”

I was stunned.
My voice could only reply, “Well are you sorry for hurting Trey?”
Mumbling
“What was that? Are you going to apologize to Trey?”
Mumbling.. “I wanted to fight someone.. No one would fight with me..” mumble
By now, the entire room is observing this. Including Boatman’s father. He removes Boatman to have a chat with him. I do not discourage father to son chats.
I use the break to check on Trey’s bruise.

WOW

see more Lolcats and funny pictures
It was doozy. Boatman really wanted to start a fight…… Is that some new form of play?
I warned Trey to duck next time someone starts throwing things. Then I resumed reading my book until Boatman returned to properly apologize to Trey.
Another five minutes and Trey was ready to resume playing with the other children as long as he could hold his ice pack to his forehead. By the end of the night, he told me that he was not ready to go home and that he wanted to play “Sum Moor.”
Apparently, the huge knot on his head could not stop him from having a good time.
I asked his father if Boatman had an appointment with a bully in the near future.

This weekend, Lil’ T and Trey visited me.
Lil’T brings a DVD and cannot comprehend why I have not repaired or replaced my broken DVD player. She reasons with me that if I had a working DVD player then she could watch her Barbie movie. I responded that she has probably seen that Barbie movie many times and she would not be injured to watch Coraline with me. She informed me that Coraline is a scary movie. I asked her if she had seen it before. She state that she had already watched Coraline and now she wanted to watch Barbie.
I suggested that she would not be scared to watch Coraline again with me. She insisted on watching Barbie. I gave up.
I set up my bedroom dvd player for her to watch Barbie while simultaneously playing on her hand held game.
I hear a loud crash coming from my bedroom. I check the clock. Yup, ten minutes had elapsed.
“What made that sound?” I ask
“That fell on the floor.” She responds as she casually makes a waving motion with her arm. She does not deign to look at me from her game.
“What fell on the floor?”
“That fell on the floor.” Again she casually flips her hand to indicate that the 3.5 pound dumbbell fell off the bed.
“You mean you dropped the dumbbell onto the floor “
“No, it fell.”
“No, you were playing with it and you dropped it. Since you cannot be left unsupervised you can watch Teenage Mutant Ninjas with me and your brother.”
“No, I want to watch Barbie.”
“Well maybe Barbie will make a guest appearance on TMNT, now come on.”
When I herded them to bed at ten pm. She informed me that on non-school nights they are allowed to stay up late at her home. A casually mention to her that she was not at home and turned off the light.
Someone really should remake Adventures in Babysitting because flying toys and falling dumbbells are serious business.

Crafty Update
Done. Complete. Finished. I mailed the hats and scarves to my father to distribute to the grandkids. The is the final hat design.


And the new shawl
I am following this pattern : Dagmar. Hairpin lace is loads of fun. I almost wish that I was making this for myself.