Eastburn Adventures

Remember the Oscars disaster hosted by David Letterman in 1995? Oprah, Uma - Uma, Oprah? Yeah. It was bad. Last night was the last Knit In at Simply fibers for this season, and I was working on the Pink Ribbon Socks (Ravelry Link). These are the last of my 2007 Christmas knitting, and the last project on The Plan before I'm caught up, so I really want to get them done. But they're pink. Pale pink. Do you know how much I despise pink? It's okay in small doses, and when mixed with good, strong colors - like brown. But these socks are pink. Solid pink. And as I said last night - offensively pink.

So the only way I am getting through knitting these particular socks is to pay an homage to David Letterman. I give you the Pink Ribbon Socks . . .

Ugly. . .

. . . and my reward yarn that I get to use when the pink is finally over. . .

Pretty. . .

Sigh. Oh, and if you're wondering why on earth I'm making pink socks when I dislike it so much - they're for one of my best friends who lost her mother to breast cancer a couple of years ago. It's a small thing, but I do all that I can in the battle of this terrible disease. Even if it means knitting pink.

It's March 2nd. It's currently 78 degrees. We've opened the windows to let fresh air in. Can someone please explain to me why on earth southwest Missouri is under a WINTER STORM WATCH?

Finally! We got snow!!!!

So, finally, the Pink Ribbon Socks are finished! That means I'm back on track with The Plan, and now I can focus on my sweater, and more socks for me! I think my friend Angie will be pleased with them. (And I can finally get my Christmas gift from her that she's holding hostage!)

And, in the theme of Pink (my least favorite color), welcome my new niece, Jocelyn Elizabeth, to planet earth. She was born tonight at 7:30 p.m., weighing in at 7 lbs., 7 ounces, and 21 inches long.

Obviously, it's been a challenge for me to post to the blog this past week. I can't blame not having enough time, but I think it was more of the denial and frustration I was suffering with the Garden Path Socks. I was so excited to have finished the Pink Ribbon socks and be making progress on The Plan, that I somehow fell off the knitting mojo wagon.

So after a week, here's the progress I've made on the Garden Path Socks - and why. First, because I was using my favorite Dream in Color Smooshy sock yarn, I excitedly cast on using my standard size 1 1/2 (2.5 mm) needles. I zoomed up the toe and started the pattern, making the larger size because the foot measurements were closest to mine. About 6 rows in, I realized it was going to be way too big. So I did what any knitter would do - I looked at the pattern for the first time. (I'm making them toe-up, Magic Loop, so it wasn't necessary - so I thought - to consult the pattern until I was ready for the chart.) Uh, yeah. Wendy used size 0 needles. I didn't want to use 0's, so I frogged back and began with the smaller size, still using my 1 1/2's. Still too big. Drat it. Frogged again.

So I dug out my 0's, cast on again, and this time returned to the larger size. Same result. These socks were going to be huge. (Do you understand now why I didn't take any in progress photos?) Frogged again, back to the smaller size, and away I go. This time I get to Row 10 in my first pattern repeat and realized that it's just not looking right. So I looked at the pattern again and realized that I'd been doing the chart on every row, but the chart is only for the odd rows. I failed to knit around on all the even rows. Rip it again. I started over, this time doing the chart right - and still - these socks are too big. So about 8 rows in, I decided to rip back to the toe yet again, and decided not to do the selvedge edge stitches, which means I'm only using 62 total stitches instead of 66. Finally, it's working. But my other problem? A big part of The Plan is for me to resume my sweater knitting this month, and since the sock is my only portable project, I only get to work on it in the car. It may be the end of the month before I finish this pair - which I have to do for Knit Together's Green Sock KAL.

My other challenge is that I upgraded my phone this weekend and finally got my long-awaited Blackberry Pearl! (In red - I bet Sheri will be jealous!) Since this is a completely new format for me, it's been a little difficult getting used to the technology, and trying to personalize the phone the way I want it. The biggest issue was trying to get my contacts loaded from my laptop. I have a Windows Vista OS on my laptop, and I don't have Outlook. I do have a Palm T|X that I use for my contacts, calendar, and tasks - along with Google Calendar - but when I bought it, it wasn't Vista compliant. I had to download a beta version of the Palm Desktop to use - but get this - I had to download it to an XP machine - Vista wouldn't take it! So last night I learned that even though my Blackberry software was Vista compliant - it was not compatible with my Vista version of Palm Desktop.

So what did I do? Kate should be proud of me for figuring this out. First, I exported my Vista Palm Desktop contacts to a CSV file. Then I e-mailed the file to myself and headed down to the basement where the old XP machine lives. That PC has the older version of Palm Desktop on it, so I then imported my CSV file into it. The problem is that it didn't map correctly because the newer version had more fields than the old version so I had some cleanup to do. After I cleaned up the file, I then loaded the Blackberry software onto the XP machine. Went to the Desktop Manager, set up the synchronization to pull from Palm Desktop, and presto! all the contacts are now in my Blackberry Pearl. And to think - it only took about 8 hours!

I'm going to spend the rest of the night knitting now.

There has been severe flooding all over southwest Missouri this week, and we came home from work last night to find 4 inches of water in our basement. Actually, our cat, Sammy, discovered it. We were fixing dinner and heard a spash! "Meow!" and the thunder of little kitty feet scrambling up the stairs and sliding along the hardwood floors as she scurried under the bed.

We immediately went into salvage mode and got as much as we could off the ground, and discovered that our built-in sump pump had failed. My dad brought his pump down and also got ours working again, and with the two pumps had most of the water out by 1:00 a.m. We spent today moving everything out of the carpeted area of our basement (which included our library - lots of books were destroyed), using the shop-vac on the carpet, and borrowing fans from everyone we knew.

It's going to be a lot of work for the cleanup, and our insurance company is weaseling out of covering it (even though it was an equipment failure that ultimately caused the problem), but it could have been so much worse. Some people lost their homes, and others lost their lives. I can't find it in my heart to be that upset over losing stuff - especially since my stash came through the flood completely unharmed.

Our prayers go out to all the victims of the flood.

In the continuing saga of our flood salvage mission, I just have to say that we are so blessed to have such wonderful friends. Yesterday as the crisis continued, we were able to borrow fans from my sister; Steve & Ginger, and Ginger also got fans from her parents; Robert's sister, Robin; and my parents. After we got the fans, Ginger went and brought us back lunch from Chick-fil-A - always yummy, and our friend Michael came over and helped us, and my sister and brother-in-law move all the furniture. Steve and Ginger showed up later with pizza. Not to mention the offers of help from Lisa/Lola and Angie, and all the prayers from everyone. It's so much easier to go through something like this when you're not alone.

In the midst of all the craziness of moving stuff, I'd forgotten that I'd received my package from my awesome swap partner, Stacey, for The Loopy Ewe's Spring Fling! The package had come earlier in the day, and I didn't want to open it when I was filthy, and I knew I'd need something happy to look forward to. So late last night, I finally opened it and it was filled with wonderful goodies! Chocolate - yum - I definitely needed that; cute stitch markers; mango flavored hand lotion; some local trinkets from the "hog capital of the world," Kewanne, IL (I can't wait to make those piggy sugar cookies!); a gorgeous reversible project bag (and since orange is my new favorite color, I immediately turned it to the outside!); and yarn - Cherry Tree Hill and another skein that I'm not sure of the maker - but it's wonderful! I think Stacey peeked at my stash and picked out the perfect colors for me! Thanks again, Stacey! It was so much fun to swap with you - I can't wait to hang out together at the Fling!

Today the sun was shining and life was good. We ended up getting about 200 gallons of water out of our carpet with the shop-vac, and found a professional individual who was more than fair with us (rather than charging the thousands of dollars like the big companies), and he said we shouldn't have any problems after he used his equipment on the carpet. He came back tonight and was able to pull another 100 gallons of water out of the carpet, and also sprayed to prevent mold. Now we just have to wait for it to dry the rest of the way before we can move furniture back.

Happy first day of spring, and happy birthday to Zarah!

Happy Easter! Our church choir sang an awesome song this morning written by Jerry Salley that really speaks to the celebration of Jesus' resurrection:

Day one, the hill ran crimson red,
with blood to cleanse all sin.
Day Two reminds us keep the faith,
when the doubts set in.
What a difference one day makes, from death to victory.
The cross became an empty grave

ON DAY THREE!

Thank God for day three. Have a blessed Easter Sunday!

In spite of my lack of posting recently (I'm still cleaning up the flooded basement), life has returned to mostly normal: work, knitting, hanging out with Robert and our friends. Friday night was the first of two exhibition baseball games between the St. Louis Cardinals and our hometown Springfield Cardinals (the AA team). Tickets had been sold out for a long time, but season ticket holders were guaranteed seats to the game, and Steve and Ginger generously shared theirs with us! We have an awesome stadium in Springfield, Hammons Field, and it was so cool to see our redbird favorites, Albert Pujols and Yadier Molina, up close and personal! Despite the uncooperative weather - it was about 35-40 degrees and windy - the stadium was full, AND we got to see Albert go yard and crank one out of the park! What a great night! (I did miss the opening night of Simply fibers sale, but no worries - I was there on Saturday and got everything I wanted - more on that later.)

Oh yeah - the Cardinals won! :-)

I have admitted defeat. I have been beaten by The Plan, and only made it to March. Granted, The Plan dictated that I would knit a pair of socks each month, and granted, I actually knit 2 pair in February, so I should at least be even, and granted, March's green Garden Path Socks will probably be finished tonight or tomorrow - well, sort of. Which is why I conceded the fight.

Let's review. I started the GP socks in the lovely Dream in Color Smooshy in Spring Tickle, which is a lovely sentiment - if only Missouri weather were actually behaving like a nice spring (more severe storms, tornadoes, and flooding forecasted for today and tomorrow). I cast on and ripped back no less than 5 times in order to get a sock that would actually fit my foot and not behave like a Christmas stocking. Once I got going on the "right" size, I messed up the pattern and had to rip back again. If you take all that knitting into account, by all rights I knit a pair of socks in March. I just don't have a pair of socks to show for it. But wait - The Plan only said I would knit a pair of socks each month - maybe I haven't actually lost the battle! If only I'd actually done a gauge swatch. Yeah, I know. If only the basement hadn't flooded and taken hours and hours of my knitting time from me as I slogged through ruined books and sorted out and attempted to salvage scrapbooking supplies. (Which, by the way, I seldom do anymore since I learned to knit. I still have grand Plans, though.) There's a lot of "if only's."

So, what do I have to show for my March socks? One "finished" sock and the other on the last pattern repeat. After sock number two is finished, at some point, after a short break, I'll cast on for sock number three. Yeah, I know I don't have three feet. But after all the issues with getting the size "right" for sock number one . . . it's. too. small. Gauge. It really bites. After this second sock is finished, I'm switching to another project for a while.