One or two skeins or sock yarn.....

Ahem.

In the interests of nearly full disclosure here is……

Most of my downstairs sock yarn.

I say most, because it doesn’t include the 30ish packs I’ve made up, of paired pattern and yarn to make my very own sock club (sort of).

It doesn’t include downstairs WIPs, or some of the sock yarn which has been whisked away to become something other than socks (there’s a couple of scarves, a shawls and so on in this category).

It certainly doesn’t include the UPSTAIRS sock yarn, which is predominantly ‘commercial’ – that is – Patonyle, Miami, Regia, Arwetta, etc etc etc. There is some hand dyed/hand painted up there, but after collecting the downstairs stash together, I had to put my head between my knees and breathe deeply for a while.

So there it is.

Yet another guilty secret exposed.

More random stuff:

I should have mentioned that an Australian size 14 is around an American 10-12. Just in case our trans-Pacific friends didn’t appreciate the magnitude of my feat! (LOL)

Georgie’s system is still working – it’s just a pity I didn’t get organised this week to use it properly!

I went to the Princess’s last swimming lesson through the school today and was mightily impressed by all of them actually swimming the full length of the 17ish metre pool – 3 times!

I have finally (around 6 years after the rest of the world) finished watching the first series of 24. In case you’re wondering – it was great! I must try to catch the second series sometime before another 6 years goes past. Next on the list? The Sopranoes, Desparate Housewives, Dexter, and Lost. No, I haven’t seen any of those. I only saw my first episode ever of House about 2 weeks ago. I have missed all these because I loathe commercial television. I wish SBS still had the 5 minutes of commercials at the end of their programs. It was a decent length of time to make a cuppa, go to the loo or feed the cat.

I am itching to knit socks again. I have been stealth knitting on the Serendipity socks – the first kit from the Blue Moon Rockin’ Sock Club this year. I am nearly at the heel of the second sock. I think I may have enough sock yarn, just for a while.

Thanks you all for asking and for your good thoughts. The Accountant started treatment this week. He’s tired, but seems fine. He’s rather put out that he’s not allowed to lose any weight. I think he was rather hopeful of dropping a few kilos of cuddliness, but the dietitian has told him that’s a big nono!

I’ve been an insomniac for 37 years. I think it’s starting to catch up with me. Maybe I need more coffee.

That’s it for the moment – I hope to bring you some knitting next post.

Ciao!

Random Stuff

Random Stuff

We’re still waiting for news after another round of tests and so on – especially wondering when the radiation therapy will start. I can’t thank you enough for your wonderful comments and good thoughts. I want you to know how much we appreciate them – and you!

So I thought I’d follow Bells lead and blog some random stuff.

1. Suddenly, for the last couple of weeks, all the security letters when I leave comments are ALMOST words – today’s examples: ‘siting’, ‘yvolene’, ‘begest’. Very strange.

2. I’ve been loving knitting with Blue Moon’s Twisted. There’s 500m to a skein – I will finish Mr Green Jeans with less than 2 skeins. It doesn’t split at all, and the dark thread, so obvious when you look at the yarn, magically disappears when you knit. The knitted fabric shows no dark thread at all – weird.

3. My children are part of a conspiracy to drive me insane by ensuring a constant noise level of around a million decibels which never lets up unless they are asleep. I’m wise to them. When I can find the industrial ear-muffs I’m wearing them all day.

4. Watching little kids play cricket is hysterical. They had such fun and I laughed so much my stomach hurt.

5. I’m feeling smug because I am fitting into size 14 trousers. This is a good thing.

6. If you have enough caffeine, you don’t really need to sleep.

7. People are wonderful and kind. The Accountant’s step-brother and his girlfriend decided to ‘pay’ for the accounting work which the Accountant does for them by spending several hours mowing and whipper-snippering for us. There is a place reserved in heaven for them.

8. I’ve been to two sports carnivals in the last fortnights. The commentator said ‘ we take kindergarteners who are just developing coordination skills and tie them to other kids who are only just developing coordination and call it a 3 legged race, and then we watch them fall over and they laugh’. He was right. All the kids fell over and they all laughed. And so did we. And at least 2 pairs never made it to the finish line because they were laughing so hard they couldn’t get off the ground.

9. I have a lot of sock yarn. So I just bought 2 skeins of Malabrigo sock because I thought they needed some company.

10. I love the colours of Malabrigo. I love them so much I even like colours I don’t like.

11. Georgie is a genius. I’ve been using her meal planning and shopping method. I get out a cookbook, try to pick 5 recipes which I believe will use up some of the enormous pantry store I keep in case zombies attack and we have no food for a month or so, use only that cookbook for the week, make the shopping list and record the reactions. This stops me just buying vegetables I might as well throw straight into the compost and skip the intervening step where they go urgh in my crisper drawers.

12. I have startitis. Bells tempted me and I cast on the Shetland Triangle with the Indisch Rot Wollmeise. I have done the 20 necks rows. I will finish this cardigan before I do more.

13. I have managed 18 rows on the socks I started at Easter. I now have one and nearly a half socks. This is the first sock club kit from the Rockin’ Sock Club. It is also the only one I have cast on and the only sock knitting I have done since we returned from Fiji. In June.

Enough randomness. I’m off to feed lunch to Destructoboy, before heading out to the kindie information session. My the Lord have Mercy on their souls. He is looking forward to ‘big school’. So am I.

The Reasons

Well, just to get you all in a good mood, here is some pretty knitting.

Meet Sprout - Growing Roots. She's made of the Gedifra merino/cotton I bought in the big WEBS sale way back at $2USD a ball. and took 2 weeks and 9 balls. She is currently blocking and just needs buttons added.

In other news, it's not all sunshine and roses. The Accountant has been diagnosed with cancer and will be starting radiation therapy in 2 weeks, He will have to travel 100km each way each weekday for 6 weeks - he will however get Christmas day off. All this has been a huge shock to us, but we feel very lucky that he was diagnosed early, the lump in his neck was removed, and as yet (fingers crossed, toes crossed, Om Mani Padme - positive thoughts) there don't seem to be any other lumps or bumps.

He has to have an MRI and PET scan (in Melbourne) and will be tired, sore, knackered and grumpy - but hopefully well and with us for a long time to come after the treatment.

The cancer is aggressive and he is very young for this type, but we are being very optimistic. Prayers, positive thoughts, good vibrations and all other good things gratefully accepted.

So life will be very topsy turvy for some time. We have cancelled the Christmas holiday, but are hoping for a family trip later in January.

Usually I don't discuss personal stuff in the blog, but I figure lots of positive thoughts can do no harm - and I will take all the help I can get at this point!

Take care - and look after the ones you love.

A Day in the Country

We had a great day yesterday. We visited Tasmazia, a maze complex and pancake parlour.

There are 4 big persons mazes and 2 kids mazes and a scale model village reflecting the owners sense of humour. Think Cockington Green but much larger houses (1/5th scale) . The great maze is huge, there's a replica of Hampton Court maze, a hexagonal maze and the confusion maze. It's all good, clean, outdoorsy fun.

The children ran and ran and got lost and found things in the mazes (the cubby villagem, the 3 little pigs houses, the 3 bears house and so on), ate pancakes for lunch and again for afternoon tea, crawled over the village, followed the yellow brick road and generally had a wonderful outdoor time. We last went there when the Princess was a baby, and the maze hedges are around 5 feet taller than they were then - and they were about 6 feet tall then!

I can't think why we've left it so long. It's only a bit over half an hour's drive away, it's no more expensive than going to the movies (not that we do that either), you can take a picnic if you don't want to buy pancakes, and it's such great fun for the kids.

Sprout is growing and I am all ready for the Selfish summer Kal and for the summer of lace and the summer of socks. I have tidied and catalogued the several forests worth of downloaded patterns and increased the favourite knitpicks harmony tips.

I am ready. Bring on summer!