Sunday, March 23, 2008

Well, I have been busy!

Which seems to have become a theme lately...
DD#1 turned 5. DS turned 8. Presents. Cake. Party. (More party yet to come - DS had his birthday coincide with Easter Friday, which means all school friends are out and about and unavailable till April). Had meeting about a job I am applying for. The promise of relief work until the position is awarded. Clothes shopping for two previous items (two blouses, two pairs pants. more to come). Easter. Blogfree Jen came by a little while ago to talk socks and kids. She came with chocolate - Jen? anytime, my dear, anytime!!! Met Penni yesterday for tea, chat and knitting. It was my turn to be distracted by conversation and to have to do a little tinking every so often. And then last night I decided to clean up my laptop - do a big file-sort, old-software-removal, spring-clean-even-though-it's-Autumn type clean-up, and about halfway through my beautiful, gorgeous Mac decided to do the peculiar dance on me, apps wouldn't open, the Trash renamed itself N17 and refused to empty (oh the teenagerhood to come!), it wouldn't recognise the external harddrive I use for backups, it wouldn't acknowledge the blank disk I put in to burn files to.... So I held down the power button until it turned off, and left it till this morning.

This morning I discovered that the Easter Bunny came!!! A great big Lindt 70% dark egg on my pillow - how did he know??? And then when I turned on my computer it worked!! It's still working!!! I backed up all my files and 4.38GB of photos onto my external HDD, the Trash agreed to empty itself, and things are much much better!!!
Of course now I have to reinstall Firefox and a few bits and bobs - but that's ok. If it goes all weird again I'll have something specific to check.

Oh, you're sick of my computer blahs? You want to know about the knitting?

Well, I've got 10cm to go on the back of the Daughter Tunic. It is going so well!! It is gorgeous!!! I may or may not share pics - I'm thinking of submitting it to Yarn or whathaveyou if it turns out well enough.
Jacobean sock #1 - did a few more rows yesterday, and plan to take it today for knitting-in-the-sun as we use this beautiful weather to go and build sandcastles or something.
Honeycomb Swatch #2 - another inch to go. I did swatch #1 (by glory this Lindt choc egg is fabulous....mmmmmmm) on 3.5mm dpns, because that is the size in the pattern and I had dpns handy. It was perfect. Blocked out beautifully. Happy dance in the backyard when I unpinned it from the towel. Then I search my needles. No 3.5mm straights. Spotties?? 6 balls red merino at $3.19~ish - cheap vest, hey?? But no 3.5mm straights. Out to the LYS at Moonah - no 3.5mm straights, and the hook for some 3.5mm circs was empty. The sales lady then kindly offered to sell me a set of Knit Options or Harmony needles, because they include 3.5mm tips (and she didn't have any in the packets of spares). Sadly, I had to decline her generous offer, since I have promised myself that I can have a set when (and not before) I get a permanent job. (wish me luck for the one I'm going for!). So, I am swatching again. And I love this honeycomb pattern - the cables happen on the first and 7th rows, and in between are plain knit and k2p2 rows, so it actually goes pretty fast, and is really stretchy!
Other knitting? not this week, although there may have been some hooking - the Babette blanket makes me sigh with desire, but I don't fancy the solid fabric of the original in my 8ply stash yarns, so I'm granny-squaring with bits from my bag of tunic-striping yarns. Fun!!

In other news - late last night there was a new version of Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy, with lots of well-known names in the credits (Helen Mirren! John Malkovich!! Alan Rickman!!!) The MOMD and I sat there and giggled through the first 15mins until we realised that midnight was fast approaching and we needed some solid stamina-supportive sleep before The Day Of Easter Egg Overload arrived (3 kids?? large quantities of chocolate??? toddler gives screams of chocolate-deprived agony at forcible removal of fourth egg 5 mins after breakfast???? parents need to be very well rested on these occasions, lest they behave in such a way as to require intervention by DOCS). So I plan to visit the local vid store and enquire about the new HGttG series, asap. 

Ok, enough choc-fuelled blabberation.

A Happy Easter to All, and to All, Good Day!!
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