Directionally challenged? You betcha!

First off, I do want to say that I had inspired my brother to start a blog, which is great because this way I can keep up with him and what he's doing, but you know what? He's updating his blog waaay more than I am! I'm feeling like a slacker! Not only do I feel like a slacker, I'm feeling about as deep as a puddle because the last few entries he had were pretty lengthy and deep. My blog is just a little puff of fluff. I can't get too deep because then I just confuse myself. Not that it matters, I'm in a constant state of confusion!

Now on to this entry's topic. Yes, I am directionally challenged. I get lost at a drop of a dime. You can put me on a oval running track and I'll get lost on it. So to help me with this problem, DH bought me a GPS for my car. Actually, it's a GPS for my car or anywhere since it's portable. It's a Garmin nuvi 660 and I'm still trying to figure it out. I have a deep love and obsession with all things electronic that I do believe comes from my father since he seems to lean toward electronics also. I really like the GPS and I've been messing around with it and doing mindless things with it like putting in the street address for my mom and dad's place and seeing how many miles away it is. Too many to drive, but I'm sharpening my fear of flying so I might just have to use it for that one day. I finally installed my dashboard mount for it and I'll be using it to get to work tomorrow, not that I need to, but just for fun. Let's see if I get lost while using it!

Chocolate, anyone?

Okay. Call me crazy. Everyone loves chocolate...well, almost everyone. I have been on a baking splurge lately and one of the things I've been getting into is baking with chocolate. I was looking over my expenditures for my baking chocolate and they've been out of the roof. I decided that buying in bulk was probably my best bet. So I went on line to a reputable chocolate site and I figured that since it was also winter I'd also pay less for shipping since I wouldn't have to have it shipped in a special "non-melt" shipping box. I bought almost five pounds of 70% Sharffen Berger chocolate (if you haven't tried Sharffen Berger yet, you're really missing out) and some small bars of different percentages of El Rey chocolate. I've never tried them so I didn't want to get a whole bunch and not like it, it's a sin to waste chocolate (or coffee and booze). Then I got something that I didn't think existed outside of my dreams. A ten pound block of 62% Guittard chocolate...ten pounds!!!! It's like waking up one day and finding out you just lost that extra ten pounds you put on during the holidays in your sleep!! Yay!! When I got the package in the mail, I opened it up and the smell of almost twenty pounds of chocolate was like chug-a-lugging a six pack of Red Bull. So if you've ever wanted to know what a ten pound block of chocolate looks like, it's your lucky day!!

Monkey sweater...those two words should never be used together...

Today is my last day off before I start my new job. What did I do? Relax, go to the spa, go shopping? No, I spent most of yesterday and half of today making a sweater for a....monkey. Yes, a monkey. Not a real one, mind you, it would have taken me a lot longer than a day and a half for that, but a webkinz monkey who happens to be my son's class pet. Apparently each weekend one lucky boy or girl gets to take "Tyler" home and take care of him. Well, Tyler came to us this weekend wearing only a pair of camouflage shorts and my son thought that since it was winter, Tyler was cold and he needed a hand knitted sweater. Being a good mom, I agreed. I really never thought that I'd actually knit a monkey a sweater...but of course I also never thought I'd get married, have a kid, end up in Rhode Island and then decide to move to Delaware because, hey, it's that much bigger than RI. So here's the fruit of my needles. Please don't laugh.

Football, anyone?

I hope you enjoy the holiday football frenzy!!!
GO GATORS!!!

Happy Holidays!!

Yes, I've been very bad. I have still to take pictures of my new wheel. Sorry. Been too busy spinning up a storm, not to mention getting ready for the holidays AND on the hunt for a new job. Speaking of new jobs, I have one!! WHEEE!!! I just got my congrats letter and the date of my new employee orientation. On Friday I went to my pre-employment appointment. I got a PPD, a mini-physical, a urine drug test, pictured for a new badge and then got majorly bled for titers to make sure I'm immune to certain diseases. Anyway, I do have a picture of my wheel with Tom and Diane Golding so I'm going to post it for your viewing pleasure! Happy @#@!! Holidays!!!

Spongebob spin-a-thon!

This is a bit late posting this. On November 12th, Nickelodeon was having an all day Spongebob affair leading to their new episode of Spongebob, Atlantis Squarepantis. I missed out(ahem, ducked out more like) on the Knit-Olympics so I decided to make up for it by doing a Spongebob spin-a-thon. I had some brown baby alpaca that I had washed. So I decided that I would pick, card and then spin it into a two ply laceweight yarn. So here's the pics!:

The first picture is the baby alpaca in blanket form and the bottom is my Spongebob yarn!! It's not yellow, but it is the color of his pants!! Next up: VERMONT!!!! Saturday is Completion Day!! I'll be heading up to meet Tom Golding and finally see my custom wheel!!! I wanted it to be a surprise so I haven't seen hide nor hair of the wheel, but I'm sure it will be beautiful!! Pictures will be posted!! Oh, and an added bonus, the King Arthur Bakery Store is just an hour away from the Goldings, so added bonus!! I LOVE Vermont!!!!

I'm a special kind of stupid!!

Sometime last week, my last acquisition from the NY Sheep and Wool festival showed up via UPS. Here it is! A Patrick Green triple picker!! (And in the background you can see my other stepchild, a Strauch carder) It has about 640 sharp points and boy, are they sharp! It actually comes with a padlock so you can lock it up so people who don't know what it is or how to use it won't hurt themselves. Sounds great, right? Well, I really must be what most people would say, a special kind of stupid. I really hate to admit it, but the truth hurts sometimes.
Here's a picture of what I managed to do to myself within, oh, an hour of getting this bad boy all set up and ready to go:
It's kind of hard to see in this picture, but just below my first knuckle you'll see a red scar line going up from right to left. Now, I know, you're thinking, I was just careless and what do you expect with 640 sharped points? Well, you don't know how I managed to get this boo-boo. I got it, drum roll please, while putting the padlock back on the picker to lock it so no one would get hurt. I don't know how I managed to hurt myself trying to put the lock back on the picker and I'd really rather not try to recreate that just to see. I'll just take it as my stupidity and call it even!