skittermagoo!

First FO of the year?

When do socks make you hungry for ice cream?

When they look like ice cream sundaes for your feet!

If I'm not mistaken, these are my first FO for 2006 . . . and for 200SOX, too! The weird thing about these is that they are almost completely identical, by accident. I just happened to finish the first one at the beginning of the pattern for the second one. BUT . . . the toe of one has a smidge of the caramel color for a couple rows at the tip one one, but not the other. They have the same number of stitches, same number of rows, everything, but still didn't turn out exactly the same. Hmm. Nothing to make me lose sleep, but hmmm.

Why do my socks always look so deformed when I take pictures of them, anyway? Is it because I don't block them? They never lay quite right, and it usually looks like the heel is deformed. Oh well . . . I'm not going to start blocking them just for photo ops . . . y'all are knitters, you know that they are allright and that they are actually the correct shape. Right? RIGHT!!!??

In other knitting news, I'm almost done with the parts for Hub's flame sweater (a/k/a Interminable Flame Sweater) . . . I have a ton of duplicate stitch to do on the sleeves, but after that, it's time to take the bus Blocking Town and then hop the train to Seamville!

All of this means only one thing, really, to my knit-obsessed brain . . . I am almost out of projects on the needles! Nooooo! Panic! Mayhem!

I better cast on for another pair of socks, or something. I can't remember the last time I only had one thing going . . . and now that I think about it, I have nothing on actual knitting needles right now. Gulp.

Oh!! And I think I forgot to show y'all these:

Yep, finished Jaywalkers. I can't believe I didn't post these . . . they've been done for at least a month now (I've worn them like, 3 times or something). They don't qualify for 200SOX, since I finished them just before the beginning of January. But that's ok . . . I like 'em anyway!

Big Glass Noggin Gets A Name!

Woohoo! The moment three of us have been waiting for -- the naming of the Big Glass Head!

The name was chosen using a highly sophisticated scientific method . . . please observe:

The names were put inside the actual glass head and shaken up

An unbiased delegate (Hub) reached into the vessel and picked a single name

And the winner is . . . .

Impa T. Head, nominated by Jennifer the rocket scientist!

Jennifer, you are the lucky winner of a super-top-secret prize! Yay!

Baa! Moo! Oink!

This past weekend, the Hub and I got to check one more item off our list of places we never thought we'd go . . . some friends invited us to the Fort Worth Stock Show!

I'm torn between being amazed that we'd never gone and being amazed that we actually went -- we're both FROM here, and he even grew up in an area where other kids actually lived on farms and raised livestock, etc. I seem to even remember getting a day off school when I was in elementary for "Stock Show Day". But, alas, we are what many refer to as "city slickers" . . . hell, I never even touched a cow until graduate school, and that was on a dare.

So yeah, we went. I had no idea what to expect, except that I knew I didn't necessarily need to touch any cows again. Ever. Anyway, it was kind of fun, in a totally-out-of-my-element sort of way (Hello, city slicker here!).

We saw some pigs. They were stinky.

This pig was very talkative . . . I had no idea that in addition to snorting, pigs also bark! Like dogs, but piggier.

We also saw some cows . . . this one was my favorite. I didn't touch it, but just admired it from a small distance.

And some sheep! These are either Hampshire or Rambouillet . . . not sure which. I was hoping to snare some wool, but all the sheep we saw had recently gotten haircuts.

One of them was very friendly.

The funniest sheep were the Dorsets, which were mostly wearing little jackets and hats. (it was kind of chilly that morning).

We wouldn't want the sheepies getting cold, no!

And llamas! I didn't really get a good picture, but they were adorable. I resisted the urge to sing the "Llama Llama Duck" song.

The best thing we saw all day? Llama Obstacle Course! Yep, they lead llamas through a circuit of tasks, and apparently judge the llamas on their cooperativity. Llamas stepping through hula-hoops! Llamas going up and down stairs! Llamas crawling through tunnels! Hilarious. And also not as fast-paced as it sounds.

The people-watching was also fun . . . I've never seen so many dinner-plate-sized belt buckles in one place in my entire life! Or so many cow-pattie encrusted cowboy boots.

Oh! And I did see someone knitting while they waited to go wash their cow or whatever . . . but she totally looked like she might kick my ass if I took her picture. But yeah, knitting at the stock show, woo!

Noggin-naming

I was going to draw the name for Big Glass Head tonight, but got caught up in the whole pig barking/llama contest stock show story. Plus I had to go to the grocery store. So I'll be drawing a name tomorrow . . . bet you can't wait, right? (riiiight). Anyway, there's still time to put in your entry!

Triple tagged!

EEP! Angi and Julia and Jen all tagged me with that "four things" meme . . . so I guess I'd better go ahead and do it -- I wouldn't want them to come after me with their little poky needles!

Four jobs I've had in my life
1. Research scientist (for the past 13 years in one form or another!)
2. Special Collections coordinator for a library
3. Waitress
4. Market research phone monkey (yes, I probably did call you at dinnertime)

Four movies I'd watch over and over
1. Ferris Bueller's Day Off
2. Sixteen Candles
3. Rocky Horror Picture Show
4. Bend It Like Beckham

Four tv shows I love to watch
1. Lost
2. Mythbusters
3. Project Runway
4. Rollergirls (I know, shut up!)

Four places I have lived (only four?)
1. Texas
2. Pennsylvania
3. New Mexico
4. New Jersey

Four places I've been on vacation
1. New Orleans
2. Florida (not voluntarily)
3. SoCal (Disneyland and Laguna Beach)
4. Indonesia

Four websites I visit daily
1. Gmail
2. Mysterious Glow
3. Bloglines
4. Google

Four favorite foods
1. Dark chocolate
2. Mushroom Pizza
3. VietNam (the restaurant, not the country)
4. Virtually any fried potato product.

Four places I'd rather be right now
1. At home in my knitting chair
2. On the beach in St. Thomas, USVI
3. France
4. IKEA

Four bloggers I'm tagging
Totally cheating on this one . . . I'm not tagging anyone!

And in Big Glass Noggin news: On Monday I will compile all the name entries and draw randomly out of . . . you guessed it, the Big Glass Noggin itself! Whee!

Big Glass Noggin

Big Glass Head!

Here's how it went down:

I was at my respiratory therapist's office, and noticed that they had shelves of glass heads displaying different pieces of equpment . . . so I asked my RT about it . . .

ME: Hey, those glass heads are cool! Where do you get them?

RT: The glass heads? Cool?

ME: Yeah, I like them. Where do you get them?

RT: Oh, from one of our suppliers. I think you can also get them at Garden Ridge.

ME: Really? Wow . . . I may have to go and look for some.

RT: (incredulous)A glass head? Why do you want a glass head?

ME: Well, see, I knit. And sometimes I knit hats. It would be great to have a glass head to display a hat on. (I was really thinking of blocking a hat, but didn't want to get into that whole discussion about what blocking is, etc).

RT: Ohhhh. Well. (gets a crafty, sly look on her face) Hey, if you knit me a hat, I'll give you one of those glass heads.

ME: Really?? Wow, yeah, that sounds great! What kind of hat do you want?

RT: Oh, anything, I'm not picky.

ME: Well, do you have a favorite color?

RT: Nah, I like anything.

Okay, so we go on with our other business . . . when that's all done:

ME: Hey, next time I come by, I will bring your hat, and we can swap out for one of those glass heads, ok?

RT: Oh, you can take one now! Pick out which one you want!

Wheeee!

So now for the fun part . . . as a person who tends to name inanimate objects, I think that the glass head needs a name. I also need to come up with an idea for the hat! So, I implore y'all to help me here! Leave me a comment with a suggestion for a name and/or a hat suggestion . . . I promise there will be some sort of prize at the end, I'm just not sure what . . .

200SOX!

How cool is this?! The gals over at Purling Ps have declared this year to be 200SOX, and they have a neat-o keen-o knitalong and contest to go along with it.

I don't know about y'all, but with all the sock yarn I currently have in my stash, I'm going to celebrate 200SOX with the Ps!

C'mon, all the cool kids are doing it!

Oh, Ballz*

EEP! Minx tagged me for a meme-thingy!

***Ground Rules: The first player of this "game" starts with the topic "5 weird habits of yours" and people who get tagged need to write a blog entry about their 5 quirky habits as well as state this rule clearly. In the end, you need to choose the next 5 people to be tagged and list their names.***

Wow, I only get to pick five weird habits? Hmmmm, this could take some thought (to decide which of the many to include) . . .

1. I eat M&M candies one at a time, very slowly, and there is a specific procedure to it: I put one M&M in my mouth and wait for it to warm up to the point that the candy shell cracks (on its own, no crunching by me!). Then I moosh it until the melted inside leaks out, followed by the melting of the candy shell. Repeat.

2. Somewhat related to the M&M phenomenon, if I'm faced with a food that comes in different colors or types (M&Ms, smarties, Gardettos snack mix), I will usually sort the components by color/type and eat each group individually. Smarties in particular are eaten in a specific order: yellow, green, purple, pink, orange, and lastly white).

3. I always wear rubber gloves when I wash dishes. Always! Even if I'm only washing one measly dish or utensil, even if it's just to rinse before putting it in the dishwasher, I put on the gloves. I didn't even notice this or think it was strange until NanC pointed and laughed one day at my house. Lord knows it's not to protect my manicure (ratty-ass nails!) . . . it's not even a conscious decision.

4. When I'm knitting socks, I am obsessive to the point of being freaky about them matching. Not the pattern of stripes, if it's self-striping yarn, but the construction -- once I'm done with the first sock in a pair, I reverse-engineer and count the rows and the gusset pickups, etc, so that I can make sock#2 identical. My knit girls tease me incessantly about it, but there it is!

5. The zoning out. This may not be a habit, but I think it might count anyway since it is something I do on a fairly regular basis. See, if I'm in a big group of people (like, say, at Stitch-n-Bitch) and there are too many conversations going on at once, especially if there is other ambient noise, I will just shut down and drop of the conversation and completely zone out for a little while.

Hmmmm, now who do I tag?
How about some of my local girls this time . . .
NanC
Pamela
Petra
Bot-gurl
Angi

*My Bomba (mom's mother) used to say this all the time when she was exasperated -- it didn't occur to me when I was a child what exactly she was referring to . . . now the thought of it totally cracks me up!