All's Quiet on the Western front...

Alright, so my beloved readers, you may (or may not) have noticed it's been a little quiet over here in my little journal of impossible things.

Well, there is a reason for it. A reason I went into vague detail about in a blog I have not posted. I do not know if I will post the blog or not.

Lets just say, it involved drama. Not just roll your eyes type drama, but the Erin coming home from work in complete tears drama, including a massive dose of cyberstalking just because some people thought it was amusing.

My profile from Ravelry has not yet been deleted, but it will be shortly. (oy, i've got over 700 items in my queue, so I don't want to loose all that, and transferring them over to the new profile takes time.)

I've pretty much been hiding on the down low for the last week because I was sick of the stalking.

I may or may not have to change the name of my shop. (there was slander against me and my shop)

For now I am leaving it as it is. I did have make arrangements to have my group on ravelry shut down, because that's where the bulk of the stalking occurred. I do not yet know how it has affected my etsy store (thank goodness you can't leave comments on someones shop unless you've purchased something, and for the record, all my product is Excellent, and I do not cut corners on anything. The materials I use for my yarns are tried and tested materials and the company I buy my dyes from has been in business doing what they are doing for over 100 years.)

I will have my shop minion open a new Group for me on ravelry when I feel it is safe to do so.

All in all, the whole situation has sucked.

But it did show me just how many friends I do actually have.
Okay, thats all I'm gonna say about that for the moment.

Moving along,
Knitting: I've been bad on the Fangtasm sock. I haven't been working on it. Mostly because I have been working on creating original patterns.
I have the start of the pattern down for a certain Repo Man sock.
I have 1.5 parts of a pattern for Blind Mag down. She's complicated, and is requiring to basically defy laws of nature here. So she's going to take a while, but I'm getting closer with each try. Once I get this one little part down, then I've just got 1 more element to figure out, and then it's just writing up the pattern to work with the over all construction of the project. (The over all shape is gonna be easy, but it's just the pattern elements in the design that are taking a while.)

Writing:
Well, due to all the emotional crap going on, I was slacking when it came to writing.
But this weekend, I did manage to get nearly 2000 words done. Not the full goal, but nearly.
I've also done the math. If I actually do 1000 words a "day" (which is not impossible for me), it will take me 11 days to complete the minimum required word count. So I really do need to make this next week count. I will have the house to myself for the next week (or is it 2 weeks? I can't recall exactly when Mother of Mine comes home) I doubt I'll be able to get 1000 words every night with how exhausted from work I generally am, but I quite possibly can get a couple of hundred. If I can get 500 done on a work night, then I'll be getting really close. I'm also going to see if in the slow times at work, if I can get even a sentence or two added.

I'm at quite the juicy part if I do say so myself. My minion Jo is enjoying what I've got written, and once I get it all done I'm going to put a call out for readers/editors.

Work: Right now is being odd. We are getting more inbound phone calls then we have been recently. But we are no longer getting Backlog tickets (my job), basically we get a handful a day, and I pretty much twiddle my thumbs to be able to work them. (Most of them are in Hawaii so I can't call until a certain amount of my day has passed)
I am taking advantage of this down time for me, as well... for the last year (and yes, I say year because it was a year ago that the desk started downsizing and our volume started dropping off) I have been the busiest person here. I have always had something to do, and generally a minimum of 4 times as much work as everyone else. The only exception to that was my work minion Pat who did the same amount of work as me. (Though, but for one month, I always beat him out in the amount of tickets I did, and really the month he beat me out was my "Hmm the desk is going away, I don't care anymore" month. He beat me by 5 tickets lol.)
So since the next 48 weeks are gonna be hell once this one ends, I'm taking advantage of the quiet now.

Oh, in other news:
The whole drama that happened... was so bad that Mother of Mine and Hunny of Mine had to divulge a BIG secret just to cheer me up.
Guy is coming out to visit in December. I cannot even express how happy this makes me.
They were going to surprise me, but unfortunately thanks to the major unpleasantness that occurred, they decided to tell me to cheer me up.

Dyeing:
Is going well. Well,I mean for the fact that I haven't dyed in a while. Squibstitcher from Fresh from the Cauldron (whos yarn I love) gave me a few secrets, which was really awesome of her.
I am going to venture into wool dyeing, as 1) I have beautiful handspun that needs to be dyed, and 2)people still prefer wool. Personally, I think they are crazy, but thats just me. I have very good reasons for not liking to knit in wool. And I am very annoyed that I can't get the same weights of yarn in the non wool stuff.
But just because I don't like to knit in wool, doesn't mean I won't dye it. I only started with the non wool stuff because I happened to have it. And with the way I plan on running my shop, I strive to make sure I can recreate any colorway I make on both wool and and non wool. So people get a choice.

I am actually going to participate on a swap on Ravelry, which I'm hoping works out. Basically, it's for new "yarnies" (people like me who dye yarn), we will get paired with a Knitter (or Crocheter), and we will trade 1 skein of dyed yarn for a skein of Undyed yarn. So we won't be out anything other than our time/the cost of dye/the cost of shipping, but in return we will get the publicity of our yarns being out there and used in a project.

Random note #2:
Finally got to see Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince.
I must admit I highly enjoyed it. I enjoyed it much more than the last 3 films.
Yes, they changed things.
Yes, they left things out.
But in the end, everything they changed made it work without feeling forced. At no point did I sit there feeling disgusted at how they had changed the over all story. (*cough* POA *cough*)
There was really only 1 scene that they left something out of it that I was annoyed about.

Yes, there were other scenes they omitted that will make the next 2 films a bit harder to make work. (Okay, gonna spoil here. There was no Bill and Fluer. So, if there is no Bill and Fluer in this one, the whole "wedding" from the 7th story is going to feel completely out of left field. Which, I know the wedding is going to be in the movie. Oh well, I'm sure they will make it work somehow.)

I think that the kids they got to play Tom Riddle were absolutely BRILLIANT. Little Hero is actually Ralph Fiennes nephew, and then the older one... just... perfect. Seriously.

I'm gonna stop talking about HP because I really don't want to spoil it for those who have not yet seen it.

Alright, I guess I've killed enough time. Time to do a little work.

bugs and hisses.

A most disgusting sight.

Another quick post because right now I'm quite frosted and so I must keep it short and simple. I can't even write right now, so I'm just going to work on my knitting.

Posting this before I forget about it.

Wanna know something that absolutely disgusted me yesterday?
I was driving home from the festival. Stopped and Whole Foods.

What do I see? I see a huge ass Hummer parked up on the curb outside the Whole Foods. And this woman loading groceries into the back of it.

Was it Military? Nope. Just a housewife. In a huge ass hummer, parked half way on the curb. Loading groceries from a grocer that is all about being "earth friendly" I wanted to smack that woman upside her head for having the hummer.

There is absolutely no reason what so ever that any civilian should ever have a Hummer.

And there is no amount of Local Grown or Free Trade groceries that will make up for what that person I saw yesterday was doing to the environment.

I'm going to go work on my knitting now.

Joss ripped off SeaQuest...

DUDE. Joss Whedon ripped off SeaQuest DSV!

I kid you not.

And bear in mind, I write this as still a card carrying member of the Mile High Browncoats (alright, I admit.. we didn't HAVE cards... but if you ever meet a Mile High Browncoat and mention Wicked.. well, the stories you'll hear. Yuppers folks.. thats me. Now mind you, you'll be opening a can of worms, and by the time all the stories are told about Wicked and Bree... you'll prolly end up with UV (Ugly Virgin, whos name.. i don't recall if I ever knew or not... Oh Jeremy.. thats it.. right?) dropping his pants and Moon laughing her tocks off- at you.) sorry.. lost track there. Yes, I am a Browncoat. I did my part to resurrect our beloved show, and get the movie. So please.. don't flame me for posting this. I'm just giving ya'll my observations.

Alright, we all by now know the basic plot of Serenity, which was Joss' Firefly resurrection. If you'll remember, the plot was basically this: (avoid if you haven't watched the movie, as I'd hate to spoil for those who haven't seen it)


Miranda - a planet where they attempted to manipulate the "Aggression factor" in the population via atmospheric chemical enhancement. - This was bad. It resulted in all but 10% of the population falling dead where they stood. The 10% Became the dirty little secret of the Alliance. This dirty little secret was known as the Reavers. Ravers would eat you alive, then kill you if your lucky. They terrorized space and were really bad.
This movie came out in 2005.

Now, go back to October 1994, Season 2, episode 3 of SeaQuest DSV (before it became SeaQuest 2032) an episode called "Sympathy for the Deep"

Underwater colony called "Miranda Colony" where after 10 years of peace suddenly started going homicidal on each other, including hallucinations and majorly violent psychotic episodes.
To top it off? Telepaths, were involved as well. Telepaths that decided to go homicidal and start killing each other. (River anyone?)

Alright, I'm going back to writing, though I'm exhausted from the Festival (blog to come) I'm apparently awake enough to be able to write. And going back to watching my beloved SeaQuest. Nothing like watching not one, but two Deluise boys when they were at the prime of their adorableness. Not to mention a slew of other cuties. Suddenly, I'm back in the Westlake house.. I'm in elementary school, and it's Sunday night and the family is sprawled around the family room enjoying some good SciFi.

I really need to stop watching tv shows from my childhood.. they are making me all nostalgic. (Hey look at that, spelled it correctly on the first go. Woot.)

Writing, Knitting and Dyeing- an update

Alright, so on top of the whole "someone trying to steal all my money" situation of 2 weeks ago. Last week my employer decided to over pay me.
Now I can hear you already saying "Woot. more money right?"
No, this is a bad thing. Why? Because the last time a company over paid me, it took over 6 weeks for them to correct the error, and Murphy is not my friend. It would not matter how long I would sit there and not spend the money, something would happen, and the day/hour/minute before the employer would get their act together and retrieve the money they over paid, something would happen ans *poof* it'd be gone from my account, thus making me extra broke and generally negative in my account.

Thankfully, I was pretty on top of the situation this time, and I notified my HR person, she sent the appropriate email, and instead of the company retrieving the funds from my account, simply took it from the next paycheck.

Sucks because this paycheck that I got today now has a whole lot less than it normally would, which of course puts me mentally into a not so happy place. Luckily, I had not had any bills clear, nor really buy anything I shouldn't have, so the funds were still in my account, and I'll still be golden for the week.

What does this mean? Well, once I finish paying bills for this month, I will more than likely be able to afford to buy some more yarn goodness.

I plan on finishing up my Moonlight colorways, (2 more planned for the series, Josef and Coraline) and starting on a little custom project that I have in the works. Here's a hint... when I finish it.. it will be part of my Wicked set.. and it shall be called: "Little Ways to Flirt and Flounce"

So thats the update on the Dyeing front.

Knitting front:
I'm almost done with Sock #1 of the Fangtasm pattern (which I've dubbed my sock project to be "Playful Bites")
I'll most likely finish tonight and then cast on Sock #2. I'm terrified that they won't match for whatever reason, which is very much making me want to start 2 at a time on the next pair I do. I didn't do it this time because 1)I was still new to socks, 2)I had never done Magic Loop socks, 3)I had never done Toe Up.
Now that I've accomplished all those little things, I think I'm safe to move on to 2 at a time.

Next up: Writing.

Alright, the past two days have been a little crazy for me. But on Monday I did manage to write some. Which makes me happy. I'm hoping to spend this weekend busting out even more on the word count.
Mother of Mine is going to be out at the Elizabeth Celtic Festival (formally known as Kiowa Celtic Festival), and that means I'll have Friday from Noon till I fall asleep, Saturday morning. Saturday Afternoon I'm going to go to the festival for my "very last time". I'll spend a few hours there then come home (thankfully, it's not like I'll be driving to Denver at all) and write till I fall asleep, and then I'll have the bulk of Sunday till Mom comes home to write.
Hopefully I'll be able to bust out my goal for the week and a whole bunch more past that.


Work: My backup who really was the only other person at work who
did anything broke his leg last week. I can't recall if I wrote about this or not.
Well, Tuesday he went to see his doctor to find out if the surgery is a "go."
And I don't know what he did to piss off his doctor, but he is now banned from coming to work until the end of the month.

This leaves me screwed. Now, I'm the only one doing work until this desk closes. Yes, I have the other backloggers, but they do not get nearly as much accomplished as my backup.

This means I'm brain dead when I come home from work, and cannot write at all. Sigh. We'll see how it goes.


Other news: I'm totally geeking out. I bought a new printer. It is a spiffy one, that is an all-in-one. Most importantly, it has a flatbed scanner (last year my scanner that I stole from the ex broke.). This means I can now scan all the photos from my childhood and not be without them when I make the big move. I am happy.
It's spiffy. It's new. It's wireless. It will so pay for it's self in like a month. (now I can do business stuff easier. Color printing.. woot! etc etc)

Alright, I guess that's all I've got for now.
Talk to you later people.

Bugs and Hisses.

The Weekend, a recap of errors.

Alright. Please forgive the glaring mistakes in the previous post. I should know better than to post many hours after my bedtime. (And they were the mistakes that Firefox didn't catch because they weren't spelling.. just word and sentence mistakes)

This past weekend was.. interesting to say the least.

Friday I get off of work. I've got the house to myself.
I change into more hot weather friendly clothes (alright, alright. I admit it, it was my jammies).
I make myself some lunch.
I put McLeod's Daughters in the dvd player.(love that show)
I sit down and open up my novella, every intention of working on it.
I get a phone call from Mother of Mine.
The car she was travelling in to go up to Denver decided to stop working. Joy.
I put real clothes back on.
I get in the car.
I drive 25 miles up to Monument and pick up Mother of Mine and friend plus teenager.
I drive to Denver, okay it was Littleton, but it was the far north end of littleton, which is also known as BFE and is practically driving to Denver.
I drop Mother of Mine and crew off at the festival. Say hello to a few people whom I do not honestly recall.
I get back in car.
I drive back home, sweating and dripping the entire time as it was bloody hot. And dude.. I even had the AC running.
By the time I reach Academy, the AC is off and I'm screaming along with Amanda F^cking Palmer. Yes, I got a few weird looks from the cars around me, but frankly my dear, I don't give a damn- I had just driven over 150 miles round trip and I needed something to distract me from my screaming back.

I change back into my jammies.
I start McLeod's Daughters back up.
I start writing.
The storm finally hits, which was nice. Nothing like a torrential downpour to make the afternoon more enjoyable.
I had homemade Lasagna for dinner.
I stay up late.
I write a lot.
I go to bed.
Saturday:
Wake up.
Putter around the kitchen doing breakfasty type stuff.
Hear a noise from my mothers bedroom.
Pause in confusion as the cat is next to me, and Mother of Mine is supposed to be still in Denver.
Walk into her room, see her home. - odd.
She's slightly awake. I ask her why she's home.
Apparently the individuals she had been riding with (and I rescued) was unwilling to drive her to the place she was going to spend the night, so she just came home with them.

Great. My plans now are drastically altered.
Pan, aka the Little S^ht decided to be a little bastard. I won't go into details. But lets just say... there was a screaming Big Cat (me) and Pan was avoiding me the rest of the day.
I let Mother of Mine borrow my car so that 1)She could go back to the festival, and 2)I'd have the house to myself and could continue as originally planned. Considering my mood, that had been the best for both of us.

I get a lot of writing done.
I post stuff for sale in my shop.
I stay up late.
I write a blog that has many mistakes in it. lol
I go to bed.

I finished with over 4000 words written. And I'm to the spot where exciting things are starting to happen. (I finished with "defining the world", now I get to play.)

I am happy with the writing thus far, and I am getting good reviews of it. (Thanks Jo!)

If I can continue with at least a minimum of 2,000 words a week, I'll get done in 10 weeks, which is mid September. Which will then give me about a month and a half to do any editing and reworking and getting the query letter/synopsis done. Meep. Those last two items scare me. Hopefully I'll finish with more than 2000 each week. That'd be nice. I believe Mother of Mine will be out of town again this weekend.. I do wish to go to the festival 1 day, as it will be my last chance to go.

Sunday was spent with no writing done. Mother of Mine was home, and it just doesn't work very well. Every time I opened up my file to start working on it, something else would require my attention.

On the Needles:
Fangtasm is still my main project right now. I'm almost done with sock#1. I'm about half an inch away from doing the cuff. Woohoo. Look at me go.

On the TV:
McLeod's Daughters season 1- mom introduced me to the show, and I've seen most of season 4 (due to it being on while I was at home) and so its amusing watching the earlier seasons when I know whats coming in season 4.

The International - Watched this as I was waking up on Sunday. That was a mistake. I for the life of me.. cannot tell you what happened.

Lovejoy season 1- an enjoyable show.

Monk season 1- wow. I had no idea that some of the episodes I caught on the telly randomly were from season 1.

Army Wives season 2, disc 2- badness is afoot.

Chuck season 1- Oh my gods, I absolutely fell for this show. And once again.. it's one that's been cancelled. Sigh. All the good ones get the axe. And I'm starting to think that poor Adam Baldwin is cursed when it comes to funny witty shows.

Burn Notice season 2, disc 2- I very much feel that Burn Notice is the new MacGyver. Yup Pass it along. It's great. And it's amusing, I caught part of an episode on tv the other day, and it happened to be an episode from season 2 disc 2. It amused me.

Lets see.. what else have I been watching?.. I think thats it for now.

Current Book:
Hunter's Moon by Lori Handeland - werewolf hunter fluff. But it's alright. I need fluff right now. I was going to reread Dead Witch Walking, but I decided that I need to focus more on my writing than using some of my precious time for reading.

Other news:
I plan on putting in an order for more yarn very shortly. Just waiting on finding out if the extra money in this weeks paycheck was a mistake or what it was...


Go buy my yarn! That means I can buy more yarn and then make lots of pretty new colors!

Beth and Mick wanna go home with you...

Oh yes... I went there.

Just a quick note to say that yes, my yarns for Beth Turner and Mick St. John are up for sale in my shop:

Asylum for Wayward Yarn

For reference images:

Mick in the Sunlight

and
Beth Turner, the morning after

The wanna go home with you. They want to party. They want to be petted and loved, and they want to do wrap themselves allll over you.

How can you resist this pair? They know how to play. Watch out for Mick though, he's a biter.

And for those who get to take these lovers home... I'm gonna be pervy here and say.. I want photos.

(Also, there will be a 10% off coupon waiting for you when a FO is completed and shown to me.)

Mick in the Sunlight...

Alright, sorry I'm delayed in posting pictures of Mick St. John in the sunlight.
What can I say? He doesnt' like to go out in the sun. It's bad for him. Makes him sick. He likes to stay inside where it's safe... preferably being petted.







My scale has arrived, and I will be posting both Mick and Beth up for sale in my Etsy store shortly...
Sorry for the delay.. Work has been interesting due to my minion whom is the only other person in this place that does as much work as I do.. well.. he broke his leg. He's gonna have to have surgery, which means I'm doing pretty much everything. That doesn't leave much functioning brain power when I get home.

Bugs and Hisses people.

Dear person who tried to steal all my monies.

Hello internet, (specifically the individual who tried to do what they tried to do)

Ahem, I write this letter after a few days reflection on the matter. I chose not to post right away, as I wished to calm myself and actually think of what I fully intended to say.

So it is with a calm mind that I say this to you:

SCREW YOU.

Of all the people in the US of A right now to attempt to steal money from, I am not the person you should have tried your lack of skillz on.
Did you not think I would see the purchase?
Did you not think I would go to my bank?
Did you not think I would notice due to the holiday coming up?
Do you think I will not bring charges against you once we find out who you are?

Let me educate you as to your little error.
I have been living paycheck to paycheck in survival mode for nearly 10 years now.
I obessivly check my bank account daily. Multiple times a day even.
My bank is good at immediately posting up all information about every little cent of my accounts.
So, your little 1$ pre-authroization for "Yahoo Wallet", was immediately visible to me.

And, as I do not use any online Wallets, I immediately knew something was amiss.
I do not trust online Wallets, for exactly the reason I am writing this letter. I won't even allow Amazon to turn on the 1-click shopping feature.

Call me paranoid... because I am.

So, the charge you attempted to do, has been disputed. Oh yes, I was at my bank within 4 hours of seeing that little charge. I would have been sooner, but I was stuck at work.

I do not know what you had intended to purchase via Yahoo Wallet, but, you certainly will not be able to do it with my card.

All you have succeded in doing, is making me even more paranoid.
My purse is now locked up whilst at work.
Never shall I order anything via the internet at work anymore.
And my personal firewalls have been upgraded.
Instead of only checking my account a minimum of 6 times a day, you've now made me compulsively check it another random handful of times.

This, is not a challenge that I am presenting for you. I am simply stating fact. Go find someone else to try to rip off. Or better yet... Get a job. Earn your own damn money, and leave mine, and all the other innocent hard working people's fundage alone. I realize the state of the economy is bad. I realize that the unemployment rate is the highest it's ever been. But dude. Seriously, don't steal from those who are just scraping by. If your going to go after anyone.. go after those fat cats who get thousands of dollars in bonuses when their companies go belly up. Leave my patheticly small accounts alone.

Sincerly,
Your recent "near" victim.

_____________________________________________________________________________

And on another note, my banker was very impressed with how quickly I jumped on everything. Yup.. I'm a dragon when it comes to my little "cave of treasure". (Oh, and a correction from the previous blog. This happened on Thursday, not Friday.)

Mick in the shower.. and Happy 4th of July

Alright.. that title sounds a bit.. well.. heh. But it's true.

Today, 4th of July.. I dyed some more yarn.
Friday, I went to my Local Yarn Shop.. spoke with Shop Mom, and she is willing to work with me when it comes to ordering some of the Panda Cotton from Crystal Palace Yarns.
While I was there, I picked up about 6 balls of yarn.
I dislike working in balls, because they are so small. Generally about 100 yards each. This is frustrating when I prefer my yarn to be.. SKEINS and about 450 yards.

But now I've gotten to play with some Panda Cotton, Classic Elite Bam Boo, Classic Elite Silk, and Plymouth Earth Oceanside Organic (cotton)

They all took the dye slightly differently, but all took the dye really well. The silk is the most muted of all of them. But that is the nature of silk.



He will also be for sale once I pick up my scale.. (should arrive at Evilmart any day now)

Knit Picks was having a sale, and I picked up some books. (At 40% off can ya blame me?!) Specifically I picked up:

which means I can in fact start working on my Avalanche Hockey Sweater once I get all the yarn.

lots of good patterns, and I am so far liking Toe Up socks.

which already has given me several great tips. Woot.

Right now X-Files season 1 is on the telly, some NY Strip Steaks are being cooked, and the rain just stopped. So Happy 4th of July everyone. Hope your having a good one.

Oh, I haven't forgotten the blog about JC in Denver.. and also I have another blog about not so fun drama that happened yesterday.. But don't want to blur that ickiness with todays awesomeness.