http://WWW.HAPPYGOODLUCK.COM/ Knitting and other diversions en-us 2008-05-18T18:37:03-08:00 http://WWW.HAPPYGOODLUCK.COM/archives/2008_05.html#000341 Well, it's been very busy around here lately. I'm in a knitting slump again. It's weird, but whenever I get really busy at work, I turn into SuperSloth at home. It's not like I'm busybusybusy, going places and doing things. It's more like I'm mentally busy, and I just have to do nothing when I get home in the evenings. But I did have a little fun last week. On Friday, I had a visit from none other than Wendy from Lanas de Lebilula. She was on her way back home, and only had a few hours to spend, so we hit Rumplestiltskin's, had some lunch and hung out a bit. Rena and Picabou LOVED her. I liked her quite a bit too. And also, without her, I would have a parking ticket right now. Auntie Wendy gave Rena a stuffed Kangaroo, and so far he has most of his stuffing. She must like him a lot to keep him around so long: Thanks for stopping by Wendy! Let our home be your official Sacramento pit stop!... LoriO 2008-05-18T18:37:03-08:00 http://WWW.HAPPYGOODLUCK.COM/archives/2008_04.html#000340 I have to say that the Dream in Color yarn used in the Babay sweater is some of the nicest yarn I've ever knit with. It's Beeyooootiful! I started knitting again last night. Woo Hoo!... LoriO 2008-04-23T15:48:09-08:00 http://WWW.HAPPYGOODLUCK.COM/archives/2008_04.html#000339 Let's start off with a pretty picture: (Click for big) This photo was taken on the American River levee, one day before all the trees, grasses, and flowers were turned into dirt. Levee upgrades are in process. Whoo boy, that was quite a break, eh? There is absolutely nothing to blog about, and I'm starting to question the wisdom of paying for this domain. March zoomed by, yet took forever. I have no idea what happened in March. April came in and whacked both me and Sean with the Flu. The hideous flu, that hangs on forever and makes you exhausted. Six days of fever, 12 days of not being hungry, 14 days and counting of the hacking cough. I'm at about 95% recovered, and had to come in to work for three very busy days of meetings at day 7, 8 and 9, which extended my illness and gave it to everyone else. Good times! Everybody loves me around here! I have not knit a stitch in forever. But, I did buy a sweater kit, the Sweet Baby Boy Sweater kit from Coldwater Collaborative. My niece is due with her second boy in May so I need to get hoppin' on this sweater! I also have nothing but good things to say about Coldwater. I ordered the sweater on Friday, and received it Monday. That's pretty darn good! So soon, I will start knitting again. Soon. As soon as I have the energy.... LoriO 2008-04-22T09:26:57-08:00 http://WWW.HAPPYGOODLUCK.COM/archives/2008_02.html#000338 Finally! I got my eBay account restored today. After chat yelling (in all caps) at like, the tenth customer service chat person, they gave me an email address, and told me what to put in the subject line to have it "elevated" (Attn: Management Team, in case you're wondering.) and my account was restored the next day. Now I can't remember what I wanted to buy. It was the principle of the thing.... LoriO 2008-02-23T15:42:49-08:00 http://WWW.HAPPYGOODLUCK.COM/archives/2008_02.html#000337 Ohmygosh! I've been locked out of my MT installation for a few days (not that you could really notice, since I rarely update, but still) and have finally had the time to a) correspond with my webhost via the support ticket system, and 2) poke around on the movable type site for clues, and c) remember how to use my ftp client. Whew! But now I appear to be up. Let me know if anything weird happens. I had a moment where I thought I might just pack it all in with MT and switch to WordPress. Anyone know how hard it would be to convert? Anyway... I had another needle mishap the other night. My fault entirely. I was using my Denise needles to knit on Arian now that I've finished and joined the sleeves, and was using one of their extenders to connect to cords together. The cords aren't really bendy enough when it comes to the sleeve part of the equation, and in forcing my stitches around I snapped off the end of my cord. Dropping 3 inches worth of stitches. You gotta love sticky wool though. Even though the stitches were hanging in space, they all stayed together enough for me to get them back on an emergency needle. Looking around for a non-Denise size 8 with a cord longer than 24 inches proved fruitless and so I decided to order me up one of those KnitPicks Harmony needles with a 32 inch cord. And a sock pattern. And yarn. Oh the... LoriO 2008-02-05T11:07:14-08:00 http://WWW.HAPPYGOODLUCK.COM/archives/2008_01.html#000336 Here you have a portrait of stuff from my knitting basket. Almost two finished sleeves for Arian, Some earphones, my Creativ Zen player that I use for listening to audiobooks. But let's take a detailed look, shall we? There used to be a needle here... Um...this used to be one continuous cable... Two ends...chewed. Decorative teef marks... I never liked these headphones anyway... But Mom, I was booooooored... Oh Rena McBeana.. I can only blame myself for leaving my knitting basket out and on the floor. And thank you for sparing the yarn and only decorating the mp3 player.... LoriO 2008-01-24T19:50:19-08:00 http://WWW.HAPPYGOODLUCK.COM/archives/2008_01.html#000335 Hee!... LoriO 2008-01-09T19:15:03-08:00 http://WWW.HAPPYGOODLUCK.COM/archives/2008_01.html#000334 I actually knitted last night! I know! I'm working on the sleeve for Arian. It took a little while to get back in the groove, and then I got stuck in a rut. Knit, tinK, Knit, tinK, Knit, Knit Knit, tinK, Knit, tinK. I stopped when I realized I would need to tinK again. The table incident is fading into memory. We shall never speak of it again. It went back in it's box and back to the store where it can fool someone else into thinking it's smaller than it actually is. Today I'm using a new keyboard/mouse combo that I bought for work. Of course, I hate it. Can I ever get something new that I like? Why am I so averse to change? I'm sure it will grow on me... That's it for now... I need to get back to work.... LoriO 2008-01-07T14:33:33-08:00 http://WWW.HAPPYGOODLUCK.COM/archives/2008_01.html#000333 There is absolutely no new knitting to discuss. If you only like the knitting content (such that it was) feel free to move along. I got nothing for you. In other news, the new year is starting out with a mixture of good and bad, but mostly good. Good: We had a rockin' New Year's Eve party this year, people seemed to have a good time. You can see pictures at my mySpace page (LINK). There is also a nearly idential blog post to this one, except it has links to other mySpace people and the pictures they took. But mostly, I think this picture from the party sums it up pretty nicely: (Photo by Erika Thomas) Good: We survived the BIG! STORM! just fine and had a nice day at home because both of our offices closed for the day. So, that means I was off work from Christmas Eve through January 2, went to the office for one day, then had a three-day weekend. Sweet! Good: I won an iPod shuffle in an online contest! At least, I think I did. Whenever I click the link to check my prize status it takes me to a page that says "Thank you for entering the Post It® Tote Bag Sweepstakes!" So, I might have won a tote bag. But I really think I won the iPod and they just forgot to update the prize status page. I guess I'll have to wait and see which one shows up. Bad: I also entered an online contest... LoriO 2008-01-05T20:39:37-08:00 http://WWW.HAPPYGOODLUCK.COM/archives/2007_12.html#000332 Time is getting away from me again. The days just swoosh by! Work. Walk the dogs. Dinner. Clean up. Guitar Hero. TV. Bed. Repeat daily. That's been my life this week. I'm exhausted.... LoriO 2007-12-06T09:28:40-08:00 http://WWW.HAPPYGOODLUCK.COM/archives/2007_11.html#000331 I never shop on Black Friday. Never. But this year, I found myself suddenly facing a four day weekend without a power adapter for my computer (BAD DOG!) and so I had to drive up to El Dorado Hills and bring home the one I use at work. Since I was near Folsom, I decided to just pop in quickly to Sports Authority and see if they had any hiking shoes for me. I need a new pair, since mine have holes in them and I've been walking in them everyday for two years. They didn't, but I decided just to browse the other stores in the center. It wasn't bad, or overly crowded or anything. I bought some necessities, and one I-just-want-it item from Linens 'n Things. Useful things, like a rolling pin, a new cutting board, a pie server. I also bought this wierd thing that holds your knives, but doesn't have slots. It's called Kapoosh. It's pretty cool. Anyway, that's not why I ROCK!!!1! I also stopped by Best Buy on my way home and picked up a little something called an XBox 360 for Sean. And THAT's not even why I ROCK!!!1! The game came with Guitar Hero II, which I totally ROCK!!!1! I currently have the high score for Surrender as made famous by Cheap Trick.. On medium level no less. (I'm sure it won't last long). The thing really hurts my wrist, and it totally bugs out my vision. But it's TOTALLY fun. We're going to go get another... LoriO 2007-11-24T12:35:48-08:00 http://WWW.HAPPYGOODLUCK.COM/archives/2007_11.html#000330 Yesterday we tried a new thing with Rena. Instead of locking her in the crate for the day, we put up a baby gate and locked both dogs in the kitchen. That way, they had soft beds, and access to the outside through the pet door. The last time we tried this, Rena knocked down the gate and, it seemed, tore around the house moving shoes and couch cushions and jumping on the bed. Being optimists, we tried again, but just to be safe, before I left I stashed the computer, the remotes, library books, and other important stuff in the bathroom where it would be safe if she did break through the gate again. Then as I was driving to work, I got about 2 miles away and realized I hadn't closed the bathroom door! Doh! So I drove back, and closed it, calmed the dogs down (they were So! Happy! to See! Me!) and went to work. When Sean came home, everything was good. The gate was still in place, and Rena hadn't destroyed anything. Yay! But, when he opened the bathroom door, he found a very annoyed Moon Pie. I had accidentally locked her in. Sean said she followed him around the house for about an hour, constantly meowing at him. How could he have done that to her! hahahhahh.... LoriO 2007-11-06T07:59:50-08:00 http://WWW.HAPPYGOODLUCK.COM/archives/2007_11.html#000329 I hate the Change. The change from DST back to PST. I don't like it at all. Most people love getting that hour back, but I think we should just stay on DST year round. I'd rather have my evening sun. Thinking of trying to walk Rena in the dark makes me anxious. Last winter was no problem, I was unemployed. This year I'm super busy, and so is Sean. Oh well, usually I worry about stuff like this too much and it ends up not being the problem I think it will be. Had an uneventful weekend. Sean cleaned the garage, and I cleaned the house, with the extra bonus of clearing out one closet, tidying up my craft room, and winding up a few hanks of yarn. Have you seen these new Harmony Wood tips Knitpicks needles? It's not often I see something I really want but do not need in the least. But still ... WANT!... LoriO 2007-11-04T18:38:16-08:00 http://WWW.HAPPYGOODLUCK.COM/archives/2007_11.html#000328 One post a month and it's not even anything interesting. That's my life! Knitting on Ariann has slowed to nothing, due to the fact that I am now ready to knit the sleeves. I started one, but when I realized I should probably knit them both at the same time, and that lead to the realization that I would have to wind up another skein of yarn, and that would require, getting off the couch, and going into my incredibly messy craft room…well, it was all too much. I get to that point and all I want to do is lie down under the binkie and nod off in front of the tv. I swear, I think I have a lot to talk about, then I start typing and nothing. I have nothing to say. This is my most major news: I finally found some jeans that fit. Dang, I’d been searching and searching, and wearing my stupid too tight highwater jeans and hating them every minute. I wanted jeans made of a little bit heavier denim, with not a lot of Lycra (I’m sick of tight jeans), not too low-waisted and not high waters. I finally found them at Target, and they were on sale for the bargain price of $16.99. I bought four pairs. Well, actually, I bought six pairs, but that’s only because I tried on my regular size, thought they fit ok, and bought two pairs. I took them home and washed them in hot water and dried them on hot, hoping... LoriO 2007-11-02T16:25:52-08:00 http://WWW.HAPPYGOODLUCK.COM/archives/2007_10.html#000327 I got my Ravelry invite today. I played around with it a bit this evening and it looks really promising. It is just the type of thing I envisioned doing with my blog someday, but I don't have the necessary organizational skills. I'll play around with it some more this weekend, hopefully. Right now I feel totally unworthy to use it though. I think I've knitted about three rows on my sweater this week. But, maybe this will be just what I need to get back on track with knitting. Things have been pretty busy around here. I don't know why, exactly. True, I'm back to working full-time, but that's really no excuse. I also spend over an hour a day walking the dogs. Still... I haven't kept up with the housework at all and the place is a mess. I feel like I have no time. Ah well...maybe I can get caught up this weekend. I have Monday off, so that should help. (That's what happens when you help write your company's enterprise handbook. I made sure to slip in an October holiday.) I feel like if I could just get orgainized I'd feel so much better. Anyway. I took Petey to the Vet last Wednesday for a dental procedure. I knew his teeth were in pretty bad shape, and that can cause all sorts of problems when cats age. I didn't know how bad. He had to have 5 teeth pulled and has the beginnings of kidney disease (so he'll be on prescription food... LoriO 2007-10-06T21:28:12-08:00