The Day That Jury Duty Ate My Brain
Well... all the hoping and wishing in the world didn't get me out of jury duty. For the second time in just under two years I've been called in to the jury pool on a big court case. Why, why why can't I get something that's a nice easy business dispute or a shoplifting case or something like that instead of the stressful, violent, criminal stuff? They must really like me over there at the courthouse. The murder case I got called in on two years ago was in the same courtroom with the same judge. I'm having deja vu something fierce.

It's so emotionally draining and I'm not even ON the jury, just sitting through the selection at this point which seems interminable. Enduring the questioning of the jurors has me so depressed and annoyed. I come home and snap at my family and it's just awful. And...to add insult to injury, those bastards at the courthouse won't let me bring my knitting in. Grrrrr! I could sit through just about anything if I could knit, but nooo, evidently my size 2 bamboo Crystal Palace needles are weapon quality!
(These needles are 2.25 mm, for those of you non-knitters playing along at home, a #2 pencil is approximately 7 mm. So yeah, these are WAY smaller!)

As if the knitting needle debacle wasn't enough, the underwire in my bra set off the metal detector today. Who knew that my boobs were lethal weapons too!
I'm such a threat to society, it's amazing I'm even allowed out of the house!
You can take my knitting, but damnit, you can have my underwire bra when you pry it off my cold dead body. (just mind the hooks, there's that one that got bent up in the dryer...)

*sigh*

Okay, that's enough of a rant, I suppose. I do get a break tomorrow before I head back to the courthouse on Monday. I get to hang out with my kids who have a rare Friday with no school.
I definitely think that we need to do something fun! It might just involve sitting around in our jammies, eating lots of junk food and a day on the couch watching dvd's, if I have my way!

I did manage some knitting today before court. The Socktober knit along has been just what I needed to get my butt into gear. I finished up the stargazer lily sock with the cutest little picot cast off on the cuff. I just love it. It's nice and stretchy, too! I'm notorious for being a tight knitter and I always have problems with casting off too tightly. I just adore this method and I'll definitely use it again.

The "Good-N-Plenty" sock has had a successful heel-ectomy of the old, ugly heel. With some transplant yarn (solid black) a new, happy heel has been created and I'm well on my way up the cuff of the sock. I'm contemplating making these socks fairly short. I don't wear long socks anyhow! I always always fold my socks down or scrunch them. The dilemma is what to do with all the leftover sock yarn!? Why do I feel like i'm "cheating" if I don't use up all the sock yarn? Any suggestions? The last thing I need is leftover yarn guilt. Sheesh, the things I worry about.

The Kiri shawl is on deck for tomorrow's knitting. November is drawing near and I hope I can finish her in time!

I'm off to bed with what's left of my court-addled brain! *mwah*







10.13.05 @ 11:17 PM PST [link]

Knitting Update - Cold Feet

Warning to the non-knitters, lots of knitting content today and not too much else!

Fall is definitely here to stay, and brrrrr! It's a chilly morning here under the redwoods!!
What better time to join the Socktoberfest knitalong over at Lolly's blog!

I'm one of those people with constantly cold feet, but I hate to wear shoes. I do, however LOVE handknit socks. I know there are a lot of non-knitters reading my blog these days (YOU know who you are!) Let me just say that if you've never had a pair of handknit socks, created just for your own cold toes, you don't know what you're missing.

My obsession with sock yarn pales only in comparison to my obsession with lace weight yarn. Seeing as I'm churning out shawls at the blazing average speed of two shawls per year, I have enough lace yarn to last me until approximately 2009. (This does NOT mean I won't have "yarn" on my Christmas wish list! Silly!)

I have a respectable (or disgraceful, depending on your perspective) amount of sock yarn sitting around here and I realllly need to start using it up! I have two (non-matching) socks on the needles right now and my goal for the Socktoberfest knitalong is to finish them up and get some good progress done on their mates. I honestly don't know if I will complete the two pairs, as I still have the Kiri shawl in heavy knitting rotation (with a deadline, no less!) but I'll do my damndest!
Cold feet are good knitting inspiration!

Here are the two socks I'm working on at the moment. The pink and black one is the "Good-n-Plenty sock I started for my Sockapalooza pal. (Lang Jawolle sock yarn)
I ended up having problems with the yarn and made my sockapalooza pal a pair of socks with a different yarn, and this one has been languishing in the closet ever since. I love the way the toe turned out on this sock, but I think that the heel looks like crap with the variegation in this yarn. The solution? Rip back the heel shown in this photo and put in a heel with plain black yarn. Ahhh, symmetry!

The second sock is in Knitpicks colorway "Star Gazer Lily" Love the yarn, I just hate to do ribbing! This one is almost done and I'm really pleased with it. I think I can get this one finished today.

In other news, I've managed to avoid being called in for jury duty so far this week, but I've been instructed to call in at 11:00 today for a possible appearance after lunch. And the worst part?... NO knitting allowed in the courthouse! As if I'd do some serious damage with my teensy size 2 bamboo needles? Grrrrr, Silly people.

I'm praying that I don't have to go in today! Pleasepleasepleasepleaseplease!

Back soon! *mwah*
10.12.05 @ 09:28 AM PST [link]

Self Portrait Tuesday and some Miscellaneous Rambling

I just love the concept of Self Portrait Tuesday! Take a few minutes and check out some of the awesome photos on this blog!

It's not quite Tuesday, but it's close enough. Less than half an hour to go! Here's my self portrait for this week.

Maybe this will get me back in the photo habit a bit more. I do love taking pictures and I love me some Photoshop!

Now, here are a few photos from the wedding I did this past weekend. The clients were very happy and so was I because it was the last wedding of the season for me (flower-wise, anyhow!) Wooohoo!

In other news...some of you may remember the Kiri shawl I've been knitting for a while. I completed one of these shawls earlier this spring and immediately cast on for a second one. I put it away for the summer when it was just too hot to deal with a lap full of wool.

Here is a picture I took of the shawl after just a few pattern repeats. I had over twice this much already knitted (10 repeats of the pattern) before this weekend.

I brought the shawl out on Saturday to work on some more, since I'd like to wear it for several events I have going on in November (wedding anniversary, birthday trip, Thanksgiving...)
Each pattern repeat takes me a few hours. It's not a quickie knit for me by any means, but I just love the wool and the pattern and so I keep knitting on it a bit at a time.

I sat down and began to knit and Oh My Gawd!...there are two HUGE holes in my knitting!
I didn't know whether to scream or cry.
My first thought was moths, as we do occasionally get moths in my house that sneak in with the bags of bird seed that I feed my cockatiels. The damage to the shawl didn't have the look of moth holes though.
I know we haven't got mice, and my cats could care less about my wool. (unlike my sister's cats. She has to secure her unattended knitting in a plastic bucket with a lid so her cats don't eat it!)

As I was having a hissy fit about the shawl and bitching loudly to anyone within earshot lamenting the fact that I would have to rip out so much of my carefully knit shawl,
My daughter confessed that she had the infamous Puf the Bunny loose in the house and maybe, just MAYBE he hopped into my knitting basket and MIGHT Have started nibbling on SOMETHING.

Hmmmm, it's all becoming clearer to me now!

Puf the Bunny is mad because I blogged about his naughty bits a few days ago, And so he ate my shawl. It makes perfect sense to me! Bunny Revenge!! Muahaha!
10.10.05 @ 11:41 PM PST [link]