skittermagoo!

Giant Ketchup September 28, 2007

Okay, not the tomato kind, not “ketchup” . . . rather “catch-up”! Tons to tell y’all, TONS! And with pictures!

Last day of fake-cation (it’s kinda like “vacation”, except not). . .

I’m unemployed no more! Yeah, I know, I was only out of work for two weeks, but it just about killed me — I’m SO not used to not working. I knew a week ago that I was going to get a job offer, but it wasn’t official (via the human resources dept), so I didn’t want to jinx anything until I knew it was “real”. I start the new job on Monday, and I’ll be going back to the same place I was before (Major Medical Center), but in a different department. The unfortunate thing (from a blog standpoint) is that I’ll be working on some pretty high-security type stuff (seriously), so I potentially won’t be able to talk about it here at all. But yay! New job!!

The crazy part? Even though I worked at Major Medical Center for a lot of years, I have to go through orientation again on Monday! CRAZY!

Knitting!

Since I had two weeks without work, I did a bunch of knitting!

I finished the second sleeve of my Everyday Cardi and started on the back
(ack! no picture!)

I also finished a certain pirate‘s monkey socks

And I started some new socks for ME out of yarn that my Aunt Laura mailed to me
(again, no picture . . . yet)

Home improvement . . .

This one was unexpected, and expensive (the worst kind of home improvement, in my opinion!). At the beginning of last week, our dishwasher decided to give up the ghost and die an unrepairable death. It was original to the house (built in 1984), so it had definitely lived a good, long life; unfortunately the so-called home warranty that we buy didn’t cover the repairs, so we had to pony up the cash for a new one plus installation.

And yeah, I DID remember to take pictures of the process!

Before

oooo, that’s one really old appliance!

During

After

shiny!

The new dishwasher is a VAST improvement over the old one — as far as I can tell! It holds a lot more, so I haven’t actually had to run it yet. In any case, it has all kinds of bells and whistles that we didn’t necessarily need, but are nice to have (delay settings, sanitizing rinse, etc).

Cats!

The past two weeks have given me the opportunity to really observe the interfeline dynamics going on in my house (of course, what I saw may not represent what happens when I’m not here). Lots of growling and Mardi trying to force her affections and teeth on Abby, but the occasional peaceful snuggly moment. Very, very occasional.

And finally, one more reason my mom rocks!

On Sunday I went to the Trinity Valley Quilt Show in Ft. Worth with my mom — she had entered a quilt in the show this year, and I always like to see her work hung up in the show. Originally I was going to meet her on Thursday when she was there to drop it off before the show, but I ended up having a job interview (the job I was hired for!) instead, so we rescheduled for Sunday.

It’s a good thing, too, because she WON SOME RIBBONS! Sneaky one she is, she didn’t tell me beforehand that she had won a Judge’s Choice award.

And then? When I was on my way home afterwards, she called me to tell me that she also won the People’s Choice award . . . the one that show attendees vote on as their favorite in the whole show!!

Wanna see the winning quilt? Of course you do!

It’s king-sized, and was made as a gift for my stepsister and brother-in-law for their new “Texas Ranch” style house. The center motif is hand-appliqued, and all the borders are pieced blocks. I think it’s just amazing!

And now? I’m off to relax and enjoy my last weekday of non-employment. And find my Social Security card for my rehire paperwork on Monday morning.

Ciao!

You would think . . . September 21, 2007

So, I’ve been officially unemployed for a week . . . for the first time EVER! I mean, everever. And it’s very strange, really. My intention was to treat this week as “vacation” (I had almost 7 weeks of vaycay saved up when I left my job, so I obviously needed a break); unfortunately it hasn’t really turned out like that, in both good ways and not-so-good. Anyway.

You would think that with all the unencumbered time I’ve had this week, that I would be reading and commenting on all the blogs on my bloglines list, and posting on my own blog daily . . . not so much.

You would think that my house would be immaculate, that I would have gone to the gym every day, and that I would NOT have parked myself on the sofa watching bad daytime TV . . . . um, yeah, not so much.

You would also think that I would have gotten a TON of knitting done in front of the bad TV shows (yes, I am now addicted to Trading Spaces re-runs) . . . well, I did spend one day doing a lot of knitting (more on that later), but not all-day-every-day like I envisioned.

On an up note, I did have a job interview (fingers crossed!) for a job I think i would really like, and I did manage to get myself to the grocery store and to Target (where I bought cleaning supplies that I haven’t yet used). I do admit I’ve fallen victim to a bit of job-loss depression, which may be why I haven’t done any of the things I had planned. But I guess that’s somewhat to be expected.

Okay, back to the knitting! I rocked the house on P’La’s Monkey socks, and I should be done with them TODAY! Which means that I may even post a second time today! Whee!!

Since I don’t have a picture of the sock (bad blogger!), I will offer up the customary “no knitting picture but here’s a cute cat picture” picture (bad sentence!):

Mardi lurrrrves her big sister, but Abby’s still not impressed . . . she growled the entire time Mardi was trying to snuggle with her. Little cat doesn’t get that “grrrr” means “go away” — she thinks it means “please sit on my head, please”.

OH! And here’s a sign we saw on our weekend hike . . . I SO wish we’d seen a snake (just a little one).

Sock pictures soon!

In which I find out that my hiking boots really ARE waterproof! September 9, 2007

So, Hub and I went hiking at Arbor Hills again this morning, and we got to explore a part of the park we hadn’t seen before — very nice upland forest ecotype, with established trees and not a lot of underbrush. Some steepish hills (don’t laugh — remember I live in flat Texas, so even a small incline is a “hill”). We were walking along, enjoying ourselves and watching for snakes when we came to a small creek with highish banks, and a couple of rocks in the middle.

(dang, I really wish I’d taken a picture of it!)

Hub jumps across, using the bigger rock as a step, and was waiting on the other side for me . . . I looked at the rocks for a minute, trying to decide which one to use . . . the bigger one was all muddy and had Hub’s footprint in it, and looked really slippery. So I decided to use the smaller, non-muddy rock.

Big mistake.

What I couldn’t see on that non-muddy rock was the invisible layer of slime that covered it. I took a step onto it with my left foot, and next thing I knew I was on my left side in the bottom of the creek, cursing loudly! I’m not sure, but Hub might have been trying not to laugh, while simultaneously fearing that I’d broken a leg or something.

Luckily, nothing was broken except my dignity, and I was able to get up (covered in mud and soaking wet) and scramble up onto the opposite bank. Also luckily, I’d thought to tuck a bandana into my pocket, so I was able to get most of the mud off. Even luckilier, the camera was in my right pocket, and didn’t even get wet! Whew!

Just afterwards, I saw our first bit of mammalian wildlife at Arbor Hills:

he’s all blurry because I think I was still a little shaken after my unintentional mud bath!

Mr. Bunny sat there for a minute and looked at us before he ran off into the brush.

After all that, we hiked on a bit more before heading back to the car, and I managed to cross another stream without incident (and the second one looked MUCH harder than the evil first one), so I felt vindicated.

When I got home and took a shower, I had pebbles in my hair.

Also, I have a very vivid rock-shaped bruise on my left thigh. I would have taken a picture, but I’m sure it will be much more impressive tomorrow!

And after we went home and cleaned up and ate lunch, NanC and I went down to the farmers market (I blew all my cash at the spice place) and then went to Stitch n Bitch for the first time in AGES! All in all, a very fun day.

More hiking, and a picture of a sock September 4, 2007

So, Hub and I went hiking again this weekend . . . just another short jaunt at Arbor Hills. I’m not even sure it counts as “real” hiking, since we are in the middle of a fenced-in park in the midst of Suburbia . . . to our credit, we were *mostly* on unpaved trails, so maybe it does count. In any case, we’re practicing for cooler weather, when we will hit the Texas State Parks with zeal.

This week was all about the semi-closeups of flowers for me . . .

Some white ones:

Some yellow ones:

Some weird purple ones:

And a Morning Glory that I suspect may not be native:

We also saw funky tree bark:

And a baby Winged Elm (this one I remember from that tree class I took in college):

Wait, what? You came here for knitting?

Well . . . there was also some of that . . . I turned the heel and am well into the foot on the first Monkey sock!

Yeah, yeah, I know. It’s blurry. Whatever.

p.s. How much do I love Flickr? It makes it soooo easy to put pictures into the blog!

p.p.s. I also love Firefox, for tabbed browsing.

p.p.p.s. Yeah, no linky today. I’m lazy, so what.