R.I.P. Nigel and Charlie

It is with great sadness that I announce the premature passing of our precious budgies Nigel and Charlie. Due to smoke inhalation from an accidental fire in our living room, our lovely birds are now flying in heaven. We loved you very much, and even though you were with us for such a short time, we will not forget you.

I'm a fish vet... again!!!

Well I'm nursing yet another sick fishy. This time it's Dory that's ill. He's got fin rot, and was *NOT* happy at all in his bowl. When I went to feed him on Monday afternoon, he jumped right out of his bowl and on to the kitchen counter. Well he was rescued, and his bowl and contents thoroughly scrubbed. He seems to be a pretty happy fishy now, and at least his water didn't get all cloudy right away like it did the last time I changed the water in it. I'm keeping a pretty close eye on him, hopefully his fin will grow back since I'm treating him with his betta medication.

My review blog is ready for viewing!

Well the blog I created for my reviews is now ready for human consumption! I have links back to the reviews I did on here, but any new reviews will be listed there only! I did two reviews this morning, one on the newest Creative Knitting, and the other on the latest Family Circle EKPC. I hope you like it...

Coffee and keyboards... ARGH!!!

Well this time it wasn't my crocheting, it was my keyboard that got the coffee. Strange thing is that I didn't have a cup of coffee on my desk yesterday morning when it happened! My keyboard was acting really funny. There were letters that weren't working, ones that were working strange, ones that would work only when they wanted to, and some that were perfectly fine! Well that keyboard is currently in my dish drainer rack after a well-deserved bath. I bought myself a back-up board at work this morning. I paid like $9 for it, and I sure got what I paid for. The keys feel funny and a few are in different places, and I swear that overall it's a bit smaller, so I can't seem to type correctly at all. I guess the biggest differences to my usual typing are how the keys don't "click" like my old ones, so I'm not sure when I've used enough pressure to actually connect; and the backspace key is a regular-sized one instead of a double-sized one, so I keep hitting the "\" key instead of the backspace! LOL

I've been busy working on my fishies while outside for my smokes the past two days, so I've added five more fish to the "school". I'm trying to decide how I'm going to lay out the finished ghan so that I can start sewing a few more of the fish together. I'm still working on the Kroy socks for my coffee breaks at work. I'm sitting at between six and seven inches total on the first one. I think it's somewhere around the eight inch mark where I turn the heel, so I'll do that during my "weekend". The round ripple is coming along. I'm on the fourth colour change now, and I figure that this colour, one more set of the blue, and then a final one of the vari should make the overall size a good one for Colton. I am going to have to wash it before I give it to Daryl... there's a bit of a musty odour on it from rinsing it out... nothing that a bit of soap and a washing machine can't get rid of.

I'm so proud of myself!

Well after the baby blanket fiasco, having to work on my Homespun sweater has turned out to be a blessing in disguise! I measured it this morning when I saw how far I had gone past the join of the second skein of yarn, which is about where it was, status-wise, when I picked it up yesterday morning. I got between 2½ and 3 inches done on it! WOOHOO!!! I will have to find the pattern again so that I know how far I actually am supposed to go. I seem to recall that it's somewhere around 30 inches where I start the armhole shaping. I haven't gone and checked on the baby blanket today, but I'm sure that it's dry... I'm just too lazy {and tired!} to switch projects right now! =o)

It's five o'clock somewhere...

That's Lyz's theme today and I'm adopting it! I've been knocking myself out all day it seems and I can't really see much progress at all. I did take out 2 black garbage bags of trash out of what was Johnny's room, and one small bag out of ours. I took about three or four of the huge tubs of laundry out of Alex & Lissa's room, but I still can't see the carpet in there. *cries*

Between all the cleaning, and being so frustrated with the kids, I have a killer headache. I feel like crawling into a bottle of Malibu and not even trying to get out! Better yet, I feel like going and playing pool and getting drunk! But I can't... gotta work tonight. *cries louder*

I'm still working on the last mitten. I would have finished it today, but I was working on my Homespun sweater quite a bit. I've gotten about 10 rows at least done on it, and that feels good. Lyz found me a great stocking cap pattern that I'm going to convert from a flat pattern into a round one, and I can get started on that as soon as I finish this mitten {thumbs can wait!}, and I locate the circs I need. *cheers*

My poor aching back!!!

Well for the last two days I've been making MAJOR progress in the basement. If nothing else, getting rid of all the mould and mildew will help my headaches and such that I've been having. Since my back hurts so much after my 15-30 minute stretches down there, I've been "rewarding" myself with knitting and crocheting time.

The round ripple afghan is still drying. I was hoping it would have been dry by this morning, but no such luck. I have done a bit on the last mitten for the girls, but I decided to dig out my Homespun sweater and get a few rows done on that. I have found out that it takes me about 15 minutes to do two rows on that one, so I might bring it to work as a coffee break project occasionally.

I'm also trying to get bits and peices of my room and Alex & Lissa's room done. I got 99% of the laundry out of my room, and am starting on the laundry in their room. What's frustrating as hell is that at least 75% of the clothes in their room are clean... or rather *were* clean. I figger if I can get all this laundry actually put away, and find a few UFOs in their room to work on, I will have made huge progress in getting this place in order. That and getting a few of my UFOs out of the way before I start too many more projects! LOL

Coffee and crochet... ARGH!!!

I coulda killed the girls last night. While they were "watching" Lissa, she grabbed a cup of coffee off of my desk. Problem is that she spilled most of it all over the babyghan I'm working on as well as the HUGE stack of freebie patterns I had on there too. The worst part is that they didn't tell me, and I didn't discover it until a couple hours later. At least the ones I had set aside for Lyz were all okay, since they were elsewhere. I now have the baby blanket drying over the dish drainer, and patterns soaking in cold water until I have room on the dishtowel to let them dry... *sigh*

Polly wanna cracker?

Well I went and did it... I went and got the budgie I saw at Petcetera on Saturday. Derek and I got there just before closing today and he was still there. I've named him Charlie... well I think he's a him. His nose thingy is a pinkish lavender, so it's too coloured to be white, and too light to be considered blue. I'll have to look it up in the budgie book to be sure, but we just might have to wait a couple weeks until he's a bit older to find out positively.

Nigel and Charlie are currently cage-mates and are getting along fine so far. Charlie didn't really flip out at all when we put him in the cage like Nigel did at first. He went a little loopy but Nigel gets a little crazy like that every once in a while too. They seem to be happy together, so that's a good thing... it can be hard when your birds are young, but I guess Nigel still remembers being in a large group of birds.

Derek has taken a picture of Nigel, and I'll get a picture of the two of them tomorrow and upload it. All we will have left to do is to get them a bigger cage as soon as money permits... unless we can get them finger trained, then we can let them out to fly around a bit.

I'm all thumbs...

Hmm... I guess I got that backwards sorta! Pretty much all I have left to do is thumbs! I finished mitten #3 a little while ago and cast on #4. I'm gonna have a thumby time once that ones done! The round ripple is coming along nicely and so is my housework! I'm hoping that if I have been productive enough that Derek will be so thrilled with me that he will take me directly to Petcetera {do not pass Go, do not collect $200}. LOL!

Hooks and needles...

Well I have picked up my crochet hook for the first time in months finally! I found a place that had the round ripple online, so that's the pattern I've decided to use for my friend's babyghan. I'm using some blue and some baby veri that I had in my stash for it. Funny thing is, I could have sworn that I had nearly a full cone of blue fingering yarn, but when I dug it out, there was next to nothing left on it... maybe enough for a pair of baby socks or the like, but definitely not enough to add to the multi-stranded blanket I had in mind. I got a ton of it done when I started it yesterday {Sunday} morning when I got home from work. I didn't pick it up at all today {Monday} since I slept until after 1 pm, went to the football game, came home made dinner, and then went out to play pool!

On the needles is mostly socks and mittens. I've got a dishcloth on the go of course, that's just a given! My main focus lately has been on getting mittens made for the girls, and trying to find patterns for hats and scarves for them. I want to make stocking caps for them and short row scarves. I seem to recall seeing a pattern for those once, so I've got a major web surf for that coming up soon!

Fins and Feathers...

Wow... nearly a week since my last post. I guess I *have* been getting more sleep lately! I sure haven't been at the pooter much, that's for sure! I was thisclose to getting myself a bird of my own on Saturday. Derek and I went to Petcetera to get some more bird treats for Nigel since they were on sale. While we were there, I spotted a gorgeous nearly all white budgie. He had a bit of greyish black on his wings, but the surprise was when he spread his wings... his back feathers were the brightest shade of electric blue! I'm still working on Derek to let me get him... wish me luck!

On the fins side of the house, our fish count is still static at five. Didn't get any snails for Dory's or Nemo's tanks since the only ones we could find that were small enough would have reproduced to the point of polluting the tank. Derek has decided on the names Cheech and Chong for our Otto's, so now I can take pictures of them and post them soon.

Houses built, new cloth on the needles!

Well I finished another dishcloth, which was another one of my goals from yesterday. I've started a mitered-styled dishcloth from the Strings and Sealing Wax blog. I'm going to get this going to the point where I know what I'm doing... erm... do I *ever* know what I'm doing??? ANYWAY!!! I'm going to get a few rows done on this and then get going on the re-work of Derek's soap saver... I don't think he needs a Paul Bunyan sized one!

Another brick in the wall...

Well the next sock is cast on and a couple rounds of ribbing done to keep it all together... time to pick up my dishcloth!

Another one bites the dust...

Well I've got the ribbing done on my Kroy sock... time for a smoke break and cast on the stitches for my next sock.

One project down... several to go!

Well I just finished my first sock for me! I decided to try a three needle cast off instead of waiting until I can get someone to teach me how to graft the toe. It doesn't look all that bad. I just need to sew in the yarn tails and then I can model it!

Off to go finish the ribbing on my Kroy sock before I cast on the second sock for the first pair.

Hi ho, hi ho, it's time to clean up the nearly FO!!!

Well I'm on a mission today! I want to see how many of my nearly FOs I can get done. My first sock for me will be finished sometime this afternoon. I've only got about 10 more rounds until I need to change colours for the toe. I'll get the ribbing cast on for the next one later on. I also want to get the ribbing done for my Kroy sock. I think I'm somewhere around round 12 of 16 for the ribbing on that. I also have a half-done little houses cloth that I started yesterday. I'm tempted to get adventurous and weave in a few ends and take some pictures too! That will help clear off my desk a bit for sure!

I started a soap saver for Derek today out of some light blue Phentex. I don't like how it's turning out, so I'm going ot have to frog that and restart it. I'd like to try and get that done today too... if I can find a stitch pattern I like for the body of it, that's a doable goal IMO.

Well my laundry is waiting to be rebooted... let's see how far I can get in my goals for today!

Nemo is a bully!

On Saturday, Derek and I went out and bought two "Otto"s for our fish tanks. I'll have to look them up later to see the exact species that they are. In any case they are algae eaters, and now that both fish in aquariums are used to the air pumps, we could add them to the tanks to help keep them clean.

Nus was the first one to get a tank mate. After first warily checking out the tiny fish, Nus decided it was all cool and left the little guy to his dirty duty! It was funny watching Nus under his bridge, hiding, and keeping an eye on the otto.

Nemo got his tank mate shortly after. While the bag was in the tank acclimating to the temperature and all that, the two were checking each other out quite a bit. Once the otta was added to the tank, the "checking" out got kinda violent! Every time the otto would get himself stuck somewhere and be minding his own business, Nemo would come by and threaten him. It started with Nemo simply puffing up at him... showing his dominance. I was killing myself laughing at big Nemo trying to show this tiny little otto who's boss! The otto would swim kinda jerky while looking for something to eat, and Nemo would come swimming by, like a warden. As soon as it would see Nemo. the otto would keep perfectly still. It was pretty obvious that the otto was pretty scared! I figgered it would all be okay once Nemo realized he was the big fish, but I was wrong. As I was getting ready for work on Sunday night, Derek tells me that we had to get the otto out of there before Nemo kills it. He had watched Nemo "hunt" the otto. Nemo spotted it hanging on the glass, swam around his bell, and hid below some plants. Then he made a run for it, knocking the poor little otto off the glass and at least 6 inches across the tank. The poor little guy wasn't even moving or nothing when Nemo attacked it! Derek was able to get him out of there and popped him into Nus' tank. Nus checked him out briefly, "oh, another housekeeper... cool!" and swam off. Both of them are happily keeping Nus' tank all squeaky clean.

A Fast FO!!! And tales from Tuesday...

On Friday last week I bought myself two balls of yarn for a quick scarf. I found a freebie pattern at work for one made with one strand of LB Boucle and one strand LB Fun Fur. I got Tropical Fun Fur and Wild Berries Boucle. I bought some needles too as I couldn't remember which size the pattern called for, and of course bought the wrong ones!!! On Tuesday I got the right ones and cast on the stitches on Wednesday... that was as long as I could wait! Well I finished off the scarf on Friday morning. It went together so fast that I would say I spent less than 5 hours working on it. I'm kinda disappointed that it isn't as long as I was hoping for, but it's still cute, and I hope to wear it soon {for fashion, NOT necessity!!!}. I'll get a picture of that one up soon.

While out on Tuesday afternoon, I also popped into my LYS, Camille's Elegant Yarns, to price out the sweater/ shrug I want to make from Vogue Knitting, and to check out the Patons Kroy. I was pleased to find out that if I want to, I can make that sweater for under $50!!! She doesn't carry the yarns called for in the pattern, but reasonably priced alternatives are available there.

The sock yarn selection there was to die for! I found some camoflage Bernat Sox that's going to have to come home with me soon. I was just going to make a pair for Alex, until the girls started drooling when I told them about it! There was a selection of the Kroy on sale so I picked up 2 balls of a discontinued colour {Fancy Free} to make me a pair of socks. There's all kinds of solids, stripes, and jaquards there, and I was nearly hyperventilating! Most of them are between $5 and $8 a ball, so I can see a lot of trips there for 2 balls at a time!

The main purpose of our trip out shopping on Tuesday was to get the fabric for the bird cage cover for Nigel. I was kinda shocked at how much we paid for the fabric... but it will look nice once it's done. I guess that means I have to get out my sewing machine and start designing! The way I want to set it up is that it will be reversible with a bird print on one side and a fish print on the other. I'm going to use a bias binding edging, and may crochet an attached edging for the bottom. It will close using velcro, and the leftover fabric will be put into what I call a birdcage bumper pad! A strip that wraps around the bottom of the cage to help prevent seeds and such from falling out of the cage. Wish me luck!!

Dishcloths Revisited!

Well I've finally uploaded the picture of some of my dishcloths that have gotten their ends woven in. I'm *not* going to admit how long some of these sat on my desk waiting for that, and I'm also not going to admit how many more are sitting there waiting! ROFL

Clockwise from the top: Fishy Dishy done in Shaded Denims; Fishy Dishy done in a limey varigated {can't remember the name of it ATM}; Lacy Round Cloth {the recent KAL}; Granny's Favourite done in the Limeys; Granny's Favourite done in Denim.

I have a few others I've recently finished, but haven't gotten around to weaving in the ends yet, or taking the pictures! I'm trying to finish off the ball of limes cotton, so we'll see how many more I can add to here!