Time Out.

I have frogged the Sampler Shawl several times. One of these days, I should really introduce myself to life lines. But, I am going to do what any friggin' anoyed intelligent person would do. I am putting it away for a bit. I know I wanted it done Wensday when Shea get's here, or by the time she leaves, but with the stupid mistakes I am making forgetting a yarn over, or knitting 1 and passing a slipped stitche over when I should have knit 2 together, I think some time apart will let us both cool down. So, off to my bag. Nannette had a good idea. Put in some small scraps of leather to stabalize the bottom of the bag before I put the lining in. I think I will try it. Not like my dad doesn't have enough leather scraps lying around.

Birthday thingy...

Now, I am really not a fan of my birthday (something always goes wrong, or I get dissapointed...Oh well...), but this looked fun, and some of the stuff is interesting.

Got this from The Knitting Libran


Do a Wikipedia search of your birthdate, minus the year; list three interesting events, three people who were born, and three people who died on that day.

Events
1. 461 - St. Hilarius becomes Pope. no idea who this was, don't really care. I just love the name
2. 1863 - American Civil War: Union President Abraham Lincoln delivers the Gettysburg Address at the military cemetery dedication ceremony in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. what is even more interesting about this is that the Gettysburg Address is one of the most famous speeches in history, yet when it was first done, the papers called it horrible and a discrace to America. SHows what they know!
3.1978 - Jim Jones leads members of his Peoples Temple cult in mass murder-suicide. The bodies of 914 people, including 276 children, were found in Jonestown,Guyana in South America.

Births
1. 1600 - King Charles I of England (d. 1649)
2. 1831 - James A. Garfield, 20th President of the United States (d. 1881)
3. 1917 - Indira Gandhi, Prime Minister of India (d. 1984)

Deaths
1. 1773 - James FitzGerald, 1st Duke of Leinster, Irish politician (b. 1722)
2. 1798 - Wolfe Tone, Irish republican (b. 1763)
3. 1918 - Joseph Fielding Smith, president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (b. 1838)

Adventures in Housesitting

I am housesitting for the next...not really sure how long. I have been here since Tuesday. My mother and step-dad went to Indiana to visit my aunt who just got back from Baghdad. Then they will stop on Louisianna to visit my cousin and aunt there on their way back to Tucson. The house is more in town, so that is good. But there are three dogs, so that is anoying. Luckily, it is only a 15 minute drive to get to SAAF, which I am working at Wensdays and THursdays now. I like it.

On to knitting news...I frogged the shawl. I made a mistake somewhere, and couldn't figure out where. So, I frogged it completley. It's ok though. I was almost finished with the first lace pattern. That was...um...I think about 20 rows in. With 401 stitches on the needle. We are not going to discuss how many stitches that was. It would make me sad. Though, I am re-knitting it, and it is going faster, and I think I am doing a better job on it this time around anyway, so it all works out fine in the end. As long as we don't do any math.

Oh, guess what? I was talking to the regional Peace Corps recruiter today. He checked out my blog, and guess what the first entry on the page was? You guessed it, the "Tree Porn" title. I don't think he was overly impressed. Though, after I explained the joke, he seemed ok with it. Good thing I haven't posted any stash porn lately. Especialy not this picture. And I thought I had a close relationship with my yarn... Sigh...I need more yarn. I don't think my stash would fill up a bathtub. Even a small one.
There you go. The next time your non-knitting friends tell you your stash it to big, explain that it is not big until it will fill up a bathtub. And for purposes of this explination, we can keep it to ourselves that we consider an olympic size swimming pool to fall under the heading of "bathtub".

Tree Porn

....
Ya...I just realised that the semi-naked tree is tree porn...then I was joing about it with a friend...and I have to share the conversation...wonder what kind of google hits this will bring...

CerridwenColleen: oh, I updated my blog with pics of my plum tree in bloom
CerridwenColleen: it is pretty in it's semi-nakedness
friend: naked? thats not proper
CerridwenColleen: hmmm...tree porn...hehe, wonder what google hits I would receive with that
friend: you shouldn't be putting out botanical pornography....when oh WHEN will people stop materializing foliage?!?
friend: its a living being, not an object!
CerridwenColleen: hey, my tree is a little bit of a hoochy...it has rosemary, 3 kinds of flowers, and random stuff growing with it!!
CerridwenColleen: random, anonymous plants
friend: anonymous pollenization huh? sounds like this tree porn thing could really take off
CerridwenColleen: I tried to explain safe growing habbits to it, but it didn't lsiten
friend: so its not a rubber tree

Hehe...so, who else has tree porn for us?

Spring has Sprung...

Actualy, Spring Sprang quite some time ago. The landlord was over this morning, getting our coolers ready. It hasn't gotten hotter than the mid-80's, and mostly in the low-to-mid-70's, but this is Tucson, and that can change in the blink of an eye. Anyway, the "poem" goes...
Spring has sprung
Fall has fell
Now that it's Summer
It's hotter than hell

Don't know if everyone knows that, but it is almost a mantra here. Soon...See, in Tucson, we do have 4 seasons. I know, people back East wouldn't recognise them, but we do. There is "Wow, I need a sweater in the morning, but will be in a tank top by lunch" aka "winter"; there is "it's nice out" aka "fall"; then there is "oh dear, I have a 2nd degree sunburn. Oh well" aka "spring" and finaly there is "holy shit, I think I just had a heat induced hallucination. Wow, look, the streets have melted and my shoes are stuck in the asphalt" or "summer".
But since everyone else is posting pics of spring, I figured I would distract you from the lack of finished projects jump on the bandwagon.
When the saquaros are in bloom, I will take some pics of thoes. Maybe in a couple of weeks, when Shea comes, we will go out to Sunset Point, and I will post pics of the sunset (when you see thoes, you will understand why we put up with the heat, the drouts, everything else). Oh, and Mt. Lemmon. We will be going up there too for a friends weding. Without further ramblings...



Here is our honey-suckle that we planted outside our frount door. My dad is trying to train it to climb the poles. If you look at the new shoots, you will see that it doesn't like that idea, and would rather come in the house. The plant on the right as you come out the door is sending shoots to the door. The one on the left is sending them to a window next to the door. When they bloom, it is pretty. We save the flowers, so we can make honeysuckel wine.




My plum tree. Isn't it all pretty in it's nakedness?








A.close-up of the pretty flowers that will turn into plums. This will be the tree's second year with us. Last year, it produced about half a dozen little plums, which we didn't think it would do. But the birds got to them first. SO this year, we are going to get one of thoes bird nets to cover the tree with.


The rest of the stuff around the plum tree. Now, we only planted the rosemary in the back, and the flowers(we put them in thoes green things last weekend to try and train them, and make it easier to weed around them). But if you look along the left side of the pic, you will see at least 4 different plants that we have no idea what they are or how they got there. One is some kind of succulent. I think there might be some mint. And maybe some other kind of herb. No idea though. THey just showed up one day. We were out there, and there was this little patch of something. Then a few days later, something else. We're letting them grow. Partly because we are curious, and partly because we are to lazy to pull them out.

So, sping, and blooms, and plants. Are you reasonably distracted?
Not yet? Ok, here is OScar. This is his "you came into the bedroom. Are you going to pet me?" face.


This is his "why are you taking pictures and not petting me?" face


And this is him being cute and asleep. How I like him the best...anoying little SOB. Thinks he's so cute...


Ya, ya, he is, I know...He is also a Hand Slut...you pet him, he will love you forever. He goes to teh vet, and they stick a needle in his stomache, and he doesn't even notice, because someone was petting him at the time. The vet loved him. Mostly because he has no idea that his claws and teeth can be used as weapons. Stupid cat. really. he is brain damaged. Has little short term memory. Get's his butt kicked by the bunny all the time

Opps....

Ever have a bad idea, and you know it is a bad idea, but that doesn't change the fact that you did it anyway? THat was me last week. I finished all the parts of the bag, except the pockets (thoes I will add later, until I get board with them). SO I put the bag together, I made the closures. I am happy. I am going though cloth scraps we have to see if we have any peices big enough to make a liner for it. Then I realise...the strap is to short. What to do? I get this brilliant idea...I will cut the strap alond a row where I messed up on it (the strap is seed stitch. THis row, I messed up and it is ribbed), pick up stitches, and knit more on it until it is long enough. Ya. I can see you cringing. Really, I knew this was a stupid idea. Didn't stop me. So I cut. I pulled out the cut yarn, a frigged back a couple rows so I had some wool to work with, I piked up the stitches. I am ready to knit. On that side. Now I have the other end...the stitches are wierd, and wont frogg, won't pick up correctly...it is just bad. I put them on a holder as best I can. ANd will continue on this plan. Not exactly sure what I will do when the strap is long enough...how to join it together without it looking all strange...though I suppose I could hide that with a pocket...Ya, genious, I know.

And since apparently, this is my 100th post, a confession to make is special...I cast on a new project last nite...well, actualy it was Friday nite, but I frogged it and started over again last nite...I know, I am weak. So, whoever had 20-some days...you win the pool.

Meme instructions: Look at the list of books below. Bold the ones you've read, italicize the ones you might read, cross out the ones you won't, underline the ones on your book shelf, and place parentheses around the ones you've never even heard of.

The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
The Catcher in the Rye - J.D. Salinger got detention in HS for reading this. "innapropriate material"
The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy - Douglas Adams
The Great Gatsby - F.Scott Fitzgerald not that I have anything against it, just not something I am interested in
To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
(The Time Traveler's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger)
(His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman)
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince - J. K. Rowling
(Life of Pi - Yann Martel)
Animal Farm: A Fairy Story - George Orwell another detention in HS book
Catch-22 - Joseph Heller detention in HS..totaly not worth it
The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
(The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon)
Lord of the Flies - William Goldingdetention in HS. ACtualy, I was suspended, but that got changed to detention when my dad threatened to send the media down to the school with his laywer
Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen not a big Jane Austen fan.
1984 - George Orwell suspension turned to detention. My favorite book of all time.
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban - J. K. Rowling
One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
(The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold)
Slaughterhouse 5 - Kurt Vonnegut detention in HS...do you see a pattern here?
The Secret History - Donna Tartt
Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe - C. S. Lewis
Middlesex - Jeffrey Eugenides
Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
Atonement - Ian McEwan
The Shadow Of The Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
The Old Man and the Sea - Ernest Hemingway
The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath my favorite poet as well
Dune - Frank Herbert huge Dune fan..