Back on track

I got home from work last night and realized that The Husband was probably not going to be home till at least 8 pm. So, I plunked myself down on the couch with an icepack on my knee and proceeded to tink back to the mistake I made in Birch Sunday night. It turned out to be a rather easy mistake to fix. I hadn’t lost or gained any stitches. It looked like I had gotten distracted half way through a pattern repeat, and when I started knitting again, began the pattern repeat from the beginning. Apparently, I even got distracted once more, but the second time I actually looked at my knitting before continuing because the end of the row was fine. It only took me about an hour to get back to where I had been when I realized there was a problem. I even managed to get started on my tenth repeat after dinner, which is spectacular since I had had 2 glasses of wine (this is spectacular due to the fact that my diet has made me a cheap date… 2 glasses of wine is all it takes to get me a wee bit tipsy these days).

This morning I got the weekly email reminding me that the massage therapist is going to be on campus today. On the spur of the moment I decided to sign up for a 30 minute massage after I get off work (I got here way earlier that usual today, which has the benefit of getting off way earlier than usual). It’s a nice thing to have to look forward to, and I’m hoping it’ll help with the general crappy feeling I’ve had all week so far.

Friday

The Husband is going out to play Vampire tonight, leaving me home alone with a movie, wine, and my knitting.

But, what I really want to do is spin… and I can’t. My knee is still too sore to use it that way. All the talk about spinning that’s going around is making me miss it. I haven’t spun since the last weekend of May. I had just started spinning up the fiber I had dyed.

Of course, I also want my knee to get better, so it might be time to pull out a drop spindle.

I’ve got 2 increases left on the first sleeve for my Ribby Cardi. I’m not sure if I’ll continue working on the sleeve or if I’ll try to work on Birch tonight.

Fun car news
Last week I discovered the chrome on the inside passenger side door handle was peeling off on my car. How did I discover this? Why I managed to slice 2 fingertips open on it while trying to get out of the car. While chrome may look insubstantial, it’s rather quite sharp. Thankfully, neither injured finger is terribly important for knitting.

So, yesterday I took my car in for it’s 35,000 mile oil change and asked them to take a look at it. Wouldn’t have been any problem except the warranty that covers such things expires at 36,000 miles, and I was a bit late bringing my car in at 37,000. I managed to use my blonde powers (don’t worry I only use them for good) and the nice car guy ran off to speak with his supervisor about. He was back within a minute to inform me that they’d cover it. Woot! So, they replaced the door handle assembly; no more sharp chrome.

The Husband took a co-worker out to lunch today and discovered that the new, shiny door handle doesn’t work. You can’t open the door from the inside. Unfortunately, he was unable to get it in today, so we have an appointment Monday morning to have them look at it again. *sigh*

Heller Estate Ladybug release

On June 6th, the Husband and I drove down to my parents’ place in Monterey so that we all could go to the Heller Estate Ladybug Release Party, which they were holding for members of their wine club. The vineyard is up in Carmel Valley… it took us about an hour to get there from Hwy. 1.

Vines

There was wine, cheese, fruit, that sort of thing. I was very upset about not being able to drink anything (vicodin and wine don’t mix), but was glad that that didn’t mean I go stuck driving those hideous winding mountain roads to get there. There were kitties who were very friendly — the orange and white tabby was named Chardonnay, and the grey tabby was named Merlot. Since I spent a lot of time sitting in one place, they seemed to have no problem with wandering over to let me pet them.

We were given a short tour of the winery… the tour was short only because the winery is small. The vintner and the owners talking about making organic wines and what is involved. The vintner even showed us his prize compost heap. Barn swallows nest in the eaves of the building and eat lots of insects. The have owl houses to bring in nesting owls, which along with the cats, help with rodents. They also release ladybugs to control aphids. We split up into groups of two, and each group got a container of ladybugs and a spray bottle with a sugar solution. The instructions were simple… open the container, spray the lady bugs, spray the vines, shake out the ladybugs.


Unfortunately, I found aphids on my chives a couple days later… I should have smuggled some ladybugs home with me.

The end at last

This afternoon I turned in my last major project of the semester. *sigh* Quite a load off my back. And since I’ve decided to take a break and not have a summer class (even though it’ll set me back a little). You all saw the paper I turned in last Monday… well, unless you ignored it, which I wouldn’t blame you for doing. 🙂 I had a final a couple days ago. Then, today’s assignment, which was a website for my Internet Technology Tools class. I’d share the URL, but I want to make sure my professor grades it before I go sending any traffic its way. Unlike the paper, the website is all about fiber, so it should be more interesting than the history of the Mountain View Public Library.

Shawl
Meanwhile, I started a new shawl for myself… the Beginner’s Triangle Shawl from A Gathering of Lace. The Brooks Farm Duet is so nice and soft, and I haven’t had too much trouble with it spliting, which was a worry I had before I started due to the way the yarn is plied. It’s going to interesting to see how the colors play out since the shawl is knit side to side rather than top to bottom or bottom to top.




Unfortunately, I dropped a stitch while I was knitting and studying on Saturday. I haven’t had the chance to try to pick the stitch back up… I didn’t have good lighting or a crochet hook when I made the mistake. I’ve been too busy or tired to take care of it since then. Picking up stitches requires so much more concentration than knitting does… at least for me.

Fun stuff
Tonight was a tasty steak with mushroom sauce and asparagus in celebration of finishing the semester. Very nice Pinot Noir… I even splurged and had an extra glass (since I have the points for it).

Tomorrow is going to be a half day at work because the Husband and I have tickets to the 2 pm showing of Episode III in Mountain View. *Woo hoo*

The Weight Watchers diet is going really well… I’ve lost 12.6 lbs so far, which is amazing… it’s really hard to believe that a simple change in my diet has done this. Of course, now the pants that I bought a couple months ago are really baggy… I was able to pull them down without undoing them this afternoon… it took a small amount of work, they didn’t just fall off, but they fit nicely when I bought them. I’m about half way to my 10% goal. I guess this is really incredible because when I tried Weight Watchers 2 years ago I only lost like 6 lbs in 13 weeks…. I lost that same amount in 2 weeks this time around. Okay… I’m going to stop sharing now and go drink my wine. 🙂