Too many things to list them all- Happy Halloween

I realize it's been a while since I last blogged. Or mayhaps it just feels that way.

Sadly I don't have much new to report. (Well, a few things)

Just been trying to get through the days at work.

Down to 35 weeks.

I have the best friend in Canada ever. Halifax, Nova Scotia to be more exact.
Here's the story.
I was part of a Vampire Halloween Swap.
It was supposed to be secret. Meaning, we victims didn't know who was "spoiling" us.
Well, right off the bat the secret got spoiled by my spoiler as she messaged me to make sure I was her partner. That took out a lot of the fun on my part right away.
Then the package finally arrived.
Lets just say I was less than enthused by the contents.
The colors were not colors I would choose at all, it was yarn I stated I was allergic to... and there was not a vampire related item in sight.
She reasoned that I didn't want to have to ship things.... *head desk* Thats fine, but she could have included something that was vampire related.
So, to be honest. I was disappointed. I was well within my right, as other people noticed how lackluster the package was.

What does this have to do with my friend in Nova Scotia?
Well, a package arrived to me from my friend Crystal that knocked my socks off. It was to make up for the lackluster package I had previously gotten.



The yarn alone had me drooling. It is Seacell and Silk. Meaning it is HEAVEN to smoosh.

Honestly, I was so blown away and touched by the kindness of the package.

Moving along, here are some things I've made over the past couple of weeks.




Hoot is a little hair clip designed by Ysolde Teague. Whos work I absolutely adore. Hoot knitted up in like 10 minutes, I've actually made 2 of them as I couldn't find the first one.

The stitch markers were little metal bobbles I found at Michaels craft store. I loved them so much that I went back to get more so I could make myself a set. These, and Hoot were going to my Halloween Vampire Swap partner, so they are no longer in the house.


I just made some new stitch markers for the Flirt and Flounce custom order that I have.



Yesterday I made myself exceedingly proud.
I made homemade bagels from scratch. Sure, a bread machine was involved, but that was just to save my hands from all the mixing and kneading. I do after all have early arthritis (or darn near close) in my hands, so I have no qualms about using my bread machine.
I made Cinnamon Raisin bagels.
And let me tell you,
No, they were not hockey pucks like I feared.
Yes, they were absolutely delicious.
No, they weren't beautiful store bought perfectly round bagels.
Yes, they had the perfect crust, and the perfect texture inside.
No, they weren't a pain in the ass to make.
Yes, it was amusing twirling the dough on my fingers.

I was absolutely shocked at how easy they were to make. The actual making of them... took far less time than I imagined.
The boiling in the pot was not as scary as I imagined it to be.
The only thing I might try differently shall be to use actual bread flour instead of regular flour. But pretty much.. thats the only change I'll do for next time.

Eventually, my goal is to also know how to make Pumpernickel, as Cinnamon Raisin and Pumpernickel are my two favorites.




Other than that, we had a very quiet Samhain/Halloween.
Mum made a pumpkin sauce with black pasta for dinner which was very good. You can read all about it over here. (Once she posts the blog that is. So if it's not up, just be patient.)

I guess really thats all I've got to say right now.

I guess I'll end it on the note that yes... I've had the weird realization that this time next year, I'll be in the UK and finishing up my wedding.

OOOHh! Just remembered one thing. Had an awesome dream last night. The kind of dream where in the middle of it, I was awake enough to go "Oooh this would make a great novel". Can't recall it at all, I mistakenly fell into the cocky writer mentality of "Oh, it's so vivid and I'm awake enough right now... I'll remember it in the morning." - Yeah. How silly was I.
I know it involved fast cars... A theme park... a roadway quite like the autobahn, a sinkhole that swallowed a pickup truck, and promptly repaved it's self (alright, someone repaved it.. but in the time it took me to glance away) with the truck and a body inside. A dying car crash victim, a lot of questionable money, the disappearance of the car crash victim and her body, and over all the entire sense of intrigue and "who can I trust" sensations. - Mind you, none of this is in the order it happened in the dream. It also no where near covers the depth of the dream and the complexity it had. By typing all this out for several times, I'm hoping to recall other details.. But no... no such luck.
I know, I know. I should have woken up and grabbed the dust covered notebook I have on the floor. But sadly I did not.

The only good thing that this is telling me, is that possibly the creative spark inside me that I feared was being killed by work possibly isn't fully dead. This gives me hope that next year when I can actually sit down and write, I won't just end up staring at my keyboard in vain.

Well, thats all I've got for now.
Ta everyone. Have a safe and happy start to the new year if you celebrate it.

Dream, Snow, and Sookie

Alright, while it's fresh in my thoughts..

I just finished reading The Absolute Sandman Vol 2.

And I say just finished, as I also just started it. I quite literally read it all in one go. (Okay, not just one go as I did get up and use the ladies at least twice)
But I gotta say wow!

Vol 1, took me at least a week to read. And that was with skipping an entire section because the art and the story was absolutely of no interest to me.

But Vol 2 I just zoomed through. And I didn't skip over any of the stories.

I can't wait to own it. Because yes, I will own it some day.

And actually, it has made me ponder some colorways that would be awesome. Nope. Not allowed to start dyeing yet. Nope. Won't do it. But I know I'll look through the book again later when I do start dyeing and such like that.

Also I really shouldn't ponder a project after reading that book, as it's making my brain go into many different paths of ideas.

A friend of mine posted a 5 People Gift giving Pay it forward type thing. The gist of it is, you post the note, and the first 5 people to respond will get something made by you. Rules are though that they must also post the note, do the same for the first 5 people, and also make something for you. So, she is making something for me, and I am making something for her.
As this was done on my facebook, if I don't get enough people responding, I will post it here for all my non facebook people.

Now onto Sookie...
I made a project that I have dubbed "Sookie Stackhouse Laceup Sexahhness"

Jen at Fresh from the Cauldron sent me a ball of her Sookie Stackhouse colorway, which is a silk base. It wasn't much, it was roughly... about the size of a Leprechaun's ball. (Oh yes, that just gave you a mental image you won't be able to escape from)
The yardage wasn't important, it was simply so that I could knit it up, see how my hands react during the knitting, and then also how the swatch would be against my skin.
Well, me being me.. I couldn't just do a boring swatch.
So instead I did a laceup wristwarmer.

Seed Stitch because I think it's so pretty.
And, I also taught myself how to do something I didn't know how to do before.
a 3 row buttonhole. I can honestly say, that this is my most favorite buttonhole that I have yet done. It was so simple.

Now, of course I will post photos, but unfortunately my camera sucks, and there is no way to turn off the auto focus, so there is never any way I can take a good photo of seed stitch at all.
So the photos do NOT do this little wrist warmer any justice.








Now on to my discussion about snow.
Unless you've been living under a rock, you know that this portion of the country has had some extreme weather.
We had a Blizzard.

No big deal right?

Well, this is the first time in more years that I know, where they called it a Blizzard before it hit. Previously, they would just call it a "severe storm" and then when it was over they would call it a Blizzard.

All day long while at work yesterday I was watching the weather reports...
At 9:00am I went outside, and it was sunny. You couldn't see the mountain (Pikes) but that wasn't uncommon.
By 12:00pm, apparently it was snowing.
I went out at 12:30pm and it was really snowing.

I flicked on the traffic cams, and saw that things were getting worse.
So at 1:00 I made the decision to leave early. you all know how I feel about driving in bad weather ...

Well Janice and I did the buddy system driving home. Which was comdedic.
Oh well, first I had to clear off my car, which was a miserable experience. Because I didn't wear a hat. So my hair was drenched and my ear was frozen. My hair wasn't just drenched, it was frozen.
Janice and I forgot to exchange phone numbers. Mistake. Whoops.
The plan was, that we were taking the safest route home, and she was going to break off from following me at Academy and Woodman. (where I turn right, and she would go forward)
Well, we get to Academy, and she's turning along with me.

I'm making hand signals out the window because I was like "dude did you miss it? that was woodman!"
then, I notice she's got a sign in her front window she's holding up (yes, this is all while we are driving on very bad roads with cars) that says "Call me" and her number.
Which I could not for the life of me see the number. Even when we were stopped at one point I opened my car door leaning out to look at the number. I was of course blinded by the snow so I couldn't see the numbers.
We pulled off into a parking lot (the first chance we had) and she informed me that a friend of her's had just been on Powers (the road that runs parallel to Academy for the most part and was going to be her route home to avoid the bad hills) and that there was a huge accident. So she was going to go down Academy with me and cut over after the bad hills.
Back in the car I go, and once again we start making the trek. The weather is getting worse and worse, and it's just about to become 2pm. Then I run into traffic before Dublin. There is this little bit of a hill there. Which I had forgotten about, but there is no good way to avoid it. It's the least of all the hills going that direction.
Well, in my previous car, I remember having problems on that little hill before. So I was nervous for good reason. Though, so far my car Byron had done fabulously on all the little inclines we had. Mind you, I had been coaxing and praising and encouraging my car the entire time. Yes, it would have been amusing if anyone had heard me.
But so Byron makes it up the hill without giving me any fits at all. Though, there were newer and fancier cars that were abandoned in the middle of the road at the median, and one that was being pushed up the hill by a nice guy with a big truck.
So I was honestly shocked that my car did so well.

I didn't want to risk the hill on the street before my neighborhood, as that is the one where I had my first experience of not making it up a hill and having to maneuver back down. So I just went around to the only other option on getting into my neighborhood. It worked though because it let me out at the top of the hill instead of at the bottom.
Yup, I got home safely. It only took me an hour and 15 minutes instead of the normal 7-10 minutes it normally takes me. But man am I glad I did leave early.

I slept restlessly, as I could hear the storm and my neighbor's wind chime all night (seriously.. I hope that stupid chime might 'disappear' someday. )
So at 4 am, I got out of bed. Looked outside. Saw the 3-4 foot drifts around my car. (Thats what happens when you have a end of the row parking space)
i fire up the laptop, and check the traffic cams.
Not many cars on the road, and the roads don't look bad. At first glance. But I noticed that there was a suspicious gleam.. that meant ice.
I make the decision that I'm not going to risk it. Not at 4am with no other cars on the road.
I go back to bed.
Janice texts me around 645 asking me if I was going into work.
I tell her my reasons why I wasn't but that I hadn't checked the roads in a while. She was going to see if her fiance made it to work then make her decision.
Daniel then texts me 730 (or something like that) asking the same things. Only he doesn't have inet right now so he can't check the cams himself.
So I get out of my nice warm bed and fire up the laptop. I really did need the update so I didn't mind.
I see more cars on the roads, but they are all 4wheel drive type vehicles. And things still looked icy.
Janice then texts me again after I've gone back to bed, and informs me that she attempted to go out on the roads (in her big 4wheel drive suv) and didn't make it far before she gave up. Apparently it was really slick. At this point, I'm not feeling guilty about not attempting.. I don't have 4wheel drive. And I have to replace one of my wiper blades. Specifically the driver side one. The rubber has decided disconnect from the metal. So really, it is useless. Which means if the roads turn into Splashback, I'd be screwed before I could even get to the store.

And guess what happened after the sun came up? The ice started melting, and splashback is the huge issue right now.
Yeah.. I'm not going anywhere until tomorrow at the earliest.

Yes, the sun is out and things are melting. And I possibly could have gone to work after 12.. but I still wouldn't get all the hours I've lost due to the weather, and it would also mean staying till after the sun set. Which no... not doing. So the amount of hours I could actually make up.. wouldn't be worth it.

So yesterday and today I've been watching Andromeda season 1.
Oh and finished Witchblade. lesigh I miss that show. Though yes, season 2 got WEIRD.
I still love it. And I will still own my buell. And I think I've mentioned this already.. .

I've got a stack of dvd's to get through... and I'm sure I think of a new knitting project.. and I can also finish reading the Sookie Stackhouse short story "Unusual Suspects"

Methinks I'll finish it this afternoon. I would have finished it when I first started it, but I decided to put it down and then yesterday I was simply knitting.

I'm rambling.