ACK!

It's October already and the Strikke-along started today. What's my problem you ask? Well, I still haven't decided on a pattern. I'm thinking some sort of stranded colour/fair isleish, black and red or black and white, felted, water bottle tote. Bah.
I'm off to tote the kiddies around, maybe I'll have a solid plan when I get home.

Rambling

First day of school today and I'm already writing a referral. *sigh* Only time will tell whether early crackdowns will set a course for decent behaviour for the rest of the year.

Mathboy was inspired over the weekend and tonight he made dinner. We had a selection of cranberry juice or sweet tea marinated fried chicken. The sweet tea was ok and the cranberry was reminiscent of Thanksgiving dinner. Good but odd.

No knitting was done today as it was just far too hot on my big yellow cheese wagon. On the other hand, I have been delving more and more into thinking about spinning. There's a whole line of wheels out there made of PVC piping and I'm starting to wonder if I can convince Mathboy that it would be fun to construct an ancient tool out of thoroughly modern plumbing supplies. After all, they're cheap and if I don't take to spinning, he can take it apart and use it for spare parts *grin*

Goin' to the yarn store!

I've been extremely hard on my dpn's lately. There was an incident which I won't go into detail about but it may have involved a certain ... glove-like item leaping out of the open window of a school bus travelling at 55 mph. Turns out that even powder coated steel has a hard time dealing with speeding asphalt. Two actually came out unscathed, two had burrs and the fifth, well, I think of it every time I pass that stretch of road and sincerely hope that its final resting place wasn't in some poor saps tire. The other incident involved my size two bamboo dpn's and my knitting/book bag. All I'm going to say here is that you should be gentle when putting your sock in progress into a book bag that has a large and heavy binder in it.

When the metal dpn's bit the dust, Mathboy suggested that I make do and refused to even consider a trip to my nearest yarn store (which, as it's nearly an hour away, is not a good week day destination so we go as a couple while doing other things in Tampa on the weekends). However, on Monday when I sheepishly admitted to my latest accident and told him that I was going to need to replace two sets of dpn's, he said "oh, ok. When we're done at the immigration office on Friday, we'll go to Knit and Knibble and get you some new ones".
I was flabbergasted. Even argued with him saying crazy things like "I can live without full sets for a while" and "I can make do". I have since recovered from my temporary insanity and am now plotting routes through the store to get to the needles while caressing the maximum amount of yarn. There *would* be yarn buying also, but as the school year ended yesterday and there are no jobs in my immediate future, I'm pretty much reduced to knitting from my stash. The good news here? Well, my stash is very very small and once I start knitting hair and fur out of desperation, I'm sure that the budget will be rearranged to allow for a skein or two of sock wool.

Incidentally, the immigration office visit should be (please God) uneventful. Essentially the temporary stamp in my passport that declares me to be a Lawful Permanent Resident Alien will expire in July and I have not yet received my Green card. I've been pushing the USCIS to find out why they haven't issued that rather important document and recently found out that they were investigating and that I could expect an answer in October. Three months too late. When I asked what I should do about my rapidly expiring stamp, they told me to make an appointment to have it extended. As this type of joy is par for the course with Immigration, I made the appointment and now Mathboy and I will be spending the kickoff to our Memorial Day weekend running around in Tampa having a grand old time.

There's not much excitement in my little corner of the world lately. I've been plugging away at Nick's Knucks and while the right one is hideous and destined for the frog pond (stupid intarsia and lack of creator patience) the left one is, thus far, looking like something I'd actually give to someone.

In the midst of all of the blandness I've been struck by a glittering ray of temptation; Mim's Boudica socks. I have been plotting thinking about getting the kit for these with the River colourway from Wooly Wonka for my mother in law, and a skein of either Sea Wool or Merino from Fleece Artist in Amber for me. I have a pair of celtic inspired amber earrings that would look gorgeous with 'em. Is it sad that I'm accessorizing my accessories?