20 November 2008

hawaii. is. awesome.

i promise on quivit to blog more completely (and soberly) about it when i get home (not that anyone but ktb reads my blog) buuuut in the meantime i have timeshare presentation bribery money (because the free car wasn't enough) that i don't have time to spend at the hotel bar between now and when i check out on saturday....soooooo y'all get to listen to my rum induced ramblings. lucky you!

retail value on rum induced vacation ramblings? $9.95+tax. just so you know what a value you're getting. :) although really glad i'm not actually paying real money to access the internet right now....it's kicked me 5 times in the last hour.

as i've stated elsewhere 'round these parts ("these parts" = completely pointless and arbitrary group on ravelry....this started as a forum post and got out of hand) this is the longest i've gone without interwebs since i was 10.

hubster (who didn't get interwebs until moving out of his parents' house) finds my woe endlessly amusing. although, because of lack of wifi i finished three inches of cuff on a second-sock-that-makes-a-pair (plane) and all but 1 inch of cuff on a simple stockingette i-can-knit-this-whilst-drinking-and-talking tofutsies sock. tofutsies is awesome warm weather knitting by the way. don't know that i love the end product....but in sticky heat it can't be beat.

i experienced my first KIP (quasi-)discrimination at dinner tonight. it was from my closest, youngest, bluntest sister so it almost doesn't count. but on the other hand it's a Knitter rite of passage....so i'll blog it anyway :)

we went out to dinner as a family. and when i say we went out as a family....i'm talking 12 people. step-mom, daddy, husband, three sisters, brother, two babies, aunt, grandmother, sister's awesome roomie (one sister and roomie are local).

we ate at the plantation gardens and it was amazing. if you're ever in poipu, kauai it's definitely worth a look up. take the wiohai marriot turn off and follow the signs. we had awesome service, the food was amazing, and the drinks...well. someone was having fun when they came up with those. i had a cucumber mojito with local ginger....it came garnished with a mini cucumber salad.

so.

good.

they also have a green tea infused vodka "garden iced tea" that a few of my family members really enjoyed.

anyway. between ordering my amazing mojito(s) and waiting for the server to come back and take the dinner order, i pulled out my vacation sock. like i said earlier....simple stockingette. (tofuties color 727 (ravelry link) 72 stitches on size 2.5 susan bates aluminum needles.

because i tried to consolidate my knitterly packing, i only brought the wrong size needlesfor tofutsies. i mostly use 2.25mms with fingering weight. since i was already working on a pair of fingering weight socks i assumed i could just throw another fingering weight sock yarn into my carry one....because of course knitpicks fingering wool = tofutsies fingering wool blend. plus i'm new to knitting on dpns, which also changes my gauge. not to mention, i prefer magic loop. (another gauge changer)...but boomer dog ate the cables on my favorite 32' nickle plated knitpicks sock needles right before i left so i had to make do. (hopefully my replacement sock needles are there when get back)


erm. i bet you can see where this is going......

newbie sock knitter learning experience. sign up here!

it's turning out okay though. in a perfect world, with my gauge, i would knit tofutsies on 1.5mms or even 1 mms..... but i'm letting the aloha spirt lead me. both with my socks and with my story. :)

back to my sister:

sister: um. are you knitting?
me: yes.
hubster: it's kind of what she does.
sister: at the dinner table?
span style="font-weight:bold;">hubster: like i said, it's kind of what she does. you know what they say about idle hands.....
me: *smitten smile* besides, it's not dinner yet. we haven't even ordered.
sister: dood. you're weird.
me: you're saying that like it's new information.

meanwhile my certifiably crazy (srsly) grandmother was trying to interject. as soon as the conversation broke, she went off on a rant of the idle hands puritan morale leading to working your fingers to the bone for no pay off (tangible or intangible) which led to a one way discussion of the horrible treatment of slave laborers in the third world. oh. and republicans are evil incarnate and control the whole thing....including why i'm not pregnant yet and why my husband is a tool of the government. (this led to another smitten smile at hubster because when it comes to my gram and biting his tongue.....he bleeds like Jesus.)

no one on that end of the table got a word in edgewise for 10 minutes. thankfully i had a sock and my amazing cucumber infused mojito had arrived.

ooh. and yarn and tape measures? best. baby. distractions. ever.

i heart my family. times eleventy. :)

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apparently this is my real smile. hubster is teasing me about my fake photo smile. waimiea shrimp shack 2pm 11/18

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waimiea canyon national park. 3pm. 11/18 curvy-est road ever.

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wiamiea canyon. 3pm. 11/18

these are the only pictures i've managed to load on the ridiculous cable internet that has now kicked me 22 times. yeah. i get a little OCD when i'm drunk. :)

like i said. i swear on quivit, more when i get home.

ALOHA!

11 November 2008

i half half a squillion things to do on this cold, damp blustery day including but not limited to:

laundry
fighting the furball army from over taking my house (aka vacuuming)
laundry
packing for hawaii
laundry
dishes
paint my nails corally pink
laundry
finishing the heel of my sock
cleaning the computer desk
laundry

but what am i actually doing?

eating nutella from the jar
drinking hot coco cinnamon coffee
reading yarn harlot archives

mmmm. guilt tastes yummy.

05 November 2008

i just fished an entire 8 quart tupperware container's worth of cat food out of the toilet. miss pheobe is getting spayed tomorrow, which means i put all the food out of reach of both kitties. seems brutus was not happy with this no food arrangement and took matters into his own hands.

it is never dull around here. so why can't i find anything to blog about? :)

(actually i'm pretty sure my lack of blogging is directly related to ravelry. i started this as a place to put pictures of my projects, keep track of ideas, notes, etc. except ravelry takes care of all that...and i'm too lazy to type it all twice.)

my foot is about 80% better. with the help of my industrial strength strappy brace thing (aka ninja foot) i'm relatively mobile and even back to waitressing 3x a week. yay!

it was slow today at work so i pulled out the garter stitch washcloth i always keep in my purse to work on. which of course led to a discussion about knitting. one of my co-workers asked if i knit every day...i had to stifle a laugh. and then i realized...amidst all my downtime this summer i somehow transformed from someone who knits into a capital K Knitter.

it's been coming on for a while now. i tried watching the 2nd season of heroes last week but couldn't...because subtitles mean no knitting and i kept getting anxious about wasting time. in realized i didn't have to buy any books for my upcoming hawaii trip because i have a stack waiting for me to put down the knitting and read them. the last few books i have read were pattern/technique books or audio. i knit everywhere...and people don't even comment on it anymore because it's just expected that i do so. if i meet someone new and they ask about my knitting, whomever i'm with answers with "it's just what she does" before i can even start to reply.

and i'm getting pretty darn good at it too. i can do tricksy patterns and read charts, cable and work in laceweight. it's pretty amazing that in about six months i've gone from this (which took about 15 hours):
CIMG3470

to this:
CIMG4536
(same sock pattern...modified slightly because i can. and about 8 hours for the whole set)

from needing a pattern to make a stockingette baby blanket with seed stitch trim to tackling an aran afghan for the next baby born in our family. (which i just finished another panel for...4 down, 5 to go!) from my family tolorating my knits because they're from me and made with love...to requesting things because they actually admire my work. from homemade to handmade.

it's nice to have a hobby. but it's so much more than that too. it's helped me feel creative for the first time ever...which means a lot when you come from a family of artists but can't draw to save your life. i can produce something in my free time. i can learn new techniques, excersize my brain, and actually excel at something despite a lack of natural talent (unlike the sports and music i tried as a youth). i am connected to a long line of women who kept home and hearth...even though i burn dinner and forget to dust.

hi. my name is meghan. i am a Knitter.