And it’s not about flooding, either.

Two days ago, I broke my toe in two places. It’s the fourth toe on my right foot. I accomplished this feat the other day when I got up from my chair to refill my coffee and my toe connected with the leg of my kitchen table. I’ve been off of work since Wednesday, and I’ve been sort of doped up on pain pills. The doctor gave me one of those walking cast/shoe things to wear and a prescription for hydrocodone. Today is the first day I went without taking the pain pills, which is good, because yesterday, they knocked me out.

In my more lucid moments, I worked on the Shapely Tank. I’m often rethinking the sleeve idea, but I think it’s mainly because the top is going so well and I’m very impatient to get this thing finished and wear it. I may actually have a top that will turn out and will fit me. I’m going to have quite a bit left over yarn, even after using the yarn I frogged from the other top I used first before the balls of yarn I had yet to use. I may have enough to knit another top or a shrug or a lot of dish clothes.

Today is the first day I haven’t taken the prescription pain pills. I tried just taking an Aleve and it seems to be working just fine. The good thing about this is that I have time to sit and knit, since I can’t get up and do anything else.

My next project, after I finish this, is to do my first felting project. I’ve been in the hunt for a new purse and I’m not seeing anything I like, so I decided to knit one and felt it. I bought some skeins of Lamb’s Pride Bulky at Yarns By Design. I just ordered some of the larger tips for my options needles at Knit Picks (along with some sock yarn, some of the longer cable sock size circulars that I don’t have, and a book since they’re having a book sale). I think I’m going to be bold and try to wing it as far as the pattern goes.

Even though it seems that I’ve had some recent bad luck, in many ways, they are blessings in disguise. Having one vehicle is inconvenient, but we’re getting used to it and adapting. On the positive side, we are not just hopping into the car and driving anywhere. We’re planning our trips and consolidating them to be more efficient. Other positives are that we are only insuring one vehicle and we’re also spending a bit less on gas than what we were with both vehicles. On the negative side, I’m sort of dependent on my husband to get me to work and if something happens to me and I have to leave early, he does, too. And I can’t go and do all the other things I want to do, too. I still haven’t found a compromise with him on this yet.

Somehow, I think my broken toe is a blessing in disguise, too, but I haven’t found what the blessing was, yet. Maybe more knitting time.

I am a very lazy blogger.  Actually, I don’t want to push the previous post down the page. 

I have been knitting, but not much, though.  I started knitting Yosemite from the spring Knitty with Knit Picks Shine Worsted, but I ended up frogging it because the gauge got all wonky on me and it grew.  I achieved gauge when I swatched, but the sweater just grew.  I had finished the front and was working on the back when I got to a point where I could try it on and I was swimming in it.  So I frogged it and now I’m using the yarn to knit The Shapely Tank Top, but with sleeves.

I still want to knit Yosemite, but I will do it later and probably with different yarn, and maybe alter it enough to put longer sleeves on it.  The Knit Picks Shine seems so suited to the Shapely Tank Top.  The drape is excellent.

In other news, my son got his driver’s license the other day.  He’s actually very “eh” about it. 

Speaking of cars and teenage drivers, my son “totaled” my car, so now we only have one vehicle.  Actually the accident wasn’t his fault.  He had the right of way and another car turning left failed to yield to him at the green light.  Needless to say, physics came into play and the airbags deployed.  My car was 10 years old and it cost more to replace the air bags alone than what the car was worth.  And right now, we can’t afford a second car payment, so I got my hours changed at work and my hubby drops me off.  We took the money I got from the insurance company for my car and paid off a good chunk of the van.  Once the van is paid off, then I can save up to put a downpayment on another car.  I would like to finance as little as possible, so a down payment is necessary.  A larger one is preferred.

Now watch, because gas is so high, by the time I have money saved up, we can’t afford to have two cars. 

We’re used to having one vehicle now, but it has put a dent in my extracurricular activities.  And what having one vehicle hasn’t cramped, the price of gas has.  The vehicle we lost was the one with the better gas mileage.

Johnny Depp in Oshkosh, WI 4-16-2008

Originally uploaded by Ms. Ann O’Malley

Long time, no write.

Well, about two weeks ago, Johnny Depp was down in Oshkosh filming a movie and everyone was all excited about it. Including me. On April 16th, I saw him in person, and now I can die a happy woman.

We went on Wednesday, because on Tuesday morning, I saw on the news that he came out and shook hands with people after filming was done for the day. All day Tuesday, I was kicking myself hard because Hubby and I were talking about going down to watch on Monday night and then we didn’t. So Wednesday, we went and we figured that even if Johnny Depp didn’t come out and shake hands with people, seeing him from a distance would be good enough for me. I wasn’t close enough to actually shake his hand, but I got to see him and that was cool.

My Hubby and I went down to Oshkosh after work that day and we got to watch some of the filming, at a distance, of course. First, we were on the corner of Main and Merritt, and we couldn’t see anything. People were kept back because the movie cameras were pointed in that direction, and cars were not allowed to cross, nor were pedestrians allowed to cross the street until the cameras stopped rolling. At one point, we were down on the corner of Main and Otter, looking up the street at what was going on. Hubby had the binoculars and I had the camera. They were filming a bank robbery scene and you could see people moving around. Then you heard the tommy guns going off.

The Sunday before, we were among all the gawkers who went to downtown Oshkosh to walk around and see what the movie crew did with the downtown. I live in Neenah, but I go to Oshkosh enough that I know what the downtown normally looks like, so seeing what was done with those buildings was pretty cool. My husband is a movie geek, so he was all sorts of happy looking at the “set” and the props and watching the crews work. On that Sunday, they were out transforming the Masonic Temple into a bank and setting up some scaffolding for a green screen.

Seeing all of this really makes me want to go see this movie when it comes out. It’s going to be a trip to see Oshkosh on the big screen. It was also nice, for once, to have something exciting happen here that didn’t involve the Green Bay Packers. Don’t get me wrong, I love the Packers, but it’s nice to have something so exciting happen that didn’t involve them.

I do have to mention that I also have made my sister insanely jealous of me. I threw all my Wednesday pictures on a thumb drive, took it to get my pictures printed, and then I took the drive to work and the picture you see here is now my desktop at work. I also e-mailed it to some people, including my sister. She is now insanely jealous of me. But we’re even because she took her kids to watch Packer’s traning camp a couple of years ago and my nephew got Brett Favre’s autograph. They have this thing at the end of practice where they pick some players to sign autographs and by sheer dumb luck that day, Brett Favre was one of the players, and I am insanely jealous of those guys because I am a big Brett Favre fan.

I’ve heard nothing but now nice everyone associated with that movie was, and now, if other studios decide to come to the area to film, they’re going to be measured to the standard that this group has set, which is pretty darn high. It’s been two weeks, and I still can’t get over that even though he was probably tired from working all day, Johnny Depp still came out to shake hands with people on more than one occasion. My respect for him has just grown that much more. I’ve always had a ton of respect for him and what he’s done, but this just made it grow by leaps and bounds.

What else can I say about Brett Favre retiring that other people haven’t?

I was surprised to hear it today, but at the same time, I wasn’t all that surprised. I heard it on TV when the news first broke. See, I had the misfortune (or luck) in that I had car trouble (i.e. flat tire) and I was stuck at home waiting for DH to put some fix a flat in the offending tire so we could hobble that van down to get a new tire put on it. But I digress…

The Green Bay Packers of my growing up years were not very good. I am 38 years old (had my birthday in January), so I completely missed all the glory years. I remember when I was a kid, after a Packer’s loss, how all the dad’s in the neighborhood would get together in the Dad equivalent of the old “housewives gossiping over the fence” to play Monday Morning Quarterback and grouse about how Bart Starr was a much better quarterback than he was a head coach. I remember how, since Bart couldn’t coach the Packers back to glory, Forrest Gregg surely would save the team (he didn’t). I remember the 1987 strike season when the replacement players played better than the regular team. I remember when the Packers had four different placekickers in the same season. I remember the glimmer of hope in 1989 when the team went 10-6 and just missed the playoffs (which was good enough for us since they were something like 4-12 in the year before. When winning seasons are few and far between, you take what you can get.).

For my entire childhood, those of us who were not around yet or too young to remember the Lombardi era had to listen to our parents and our grandparents, our aunts and uncles talk about the Packers of the 1960’s. They talked about the first two Super Bowl’s, of Starr and Hornung, of Ray Nitschke, and of Vince Lombardi. They reminisced of those glory days, and I suppose it was to help them endure the losing seasons. Or maybe they thought it could help them channel some good luck the Packers’ way.

What Brett Favre helped to do (and he did not do this himself), was to, not only bring back the glory to Green Bay, but he also helped to bring back some respect for the Green Bay Packers as a team. And for an entire generation, for those of us who were not around for the Lombardi Era, we finally got our own “Glory Years”. And for that, he will always have this Packer Fan’s undying gratitude.

I have enjoyed watching Brett Favre play for the past 17 seasons. Whether he was playing good or bad, it was never boring watching him play. I’m glad that he left on top and on his own terms. All of us who watch football on TV and who played the game are lucky to have witnessed Brett Favre play and break records and win. But we Packer fans are blessed and fortunate to have been able to call him “ours”.

I will not be sad today. I will not mourn the end of this era. Instead, I will raise a tall, cold one in Brett Favre’s honor and say “thank you for the memories.”

And see you in Canton.

P.S. Brett, now that you are retired, please, please…PLEASE don’t let yourself go, because I really don’t want to see you pitching Nutri System on TV. That’s one Marino accomplishment that you don’t need to beat.

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Sorry for the lack of posting. January was kind of washout of a month and with sharing a single computer and a hubby who is on it all the time, it’s hard to get time online.

Between a transportation situation, getting sick, and the weather, I haven’t made either a Tuesday or a Sunday Knit ‘n’ Sip Together since before Christmas. There’s been a wrinkle in trying to go to the Tuesday ones involving transportation, or rather parking at my apartment complex. There is an issue with people who don’t live in my complex parking in tenant parking, and despite the big red sign that says parking is for tenants only, it’s not enforced. We have a car port and I’ve seen people who live in the building being “kicked” out of their own parking stall by someone who doesn’t live here. My hubby also has something he does on Tuesdays, and it’s actually happened where he came home and there was nowhere for him to park except on the street. And since it’s winter, you can’t park on the the street over night or they’ll ticket you. So, whoever gets home first, gets the carport and whoever gets home last, good luck. I was really happy about the fact that there would be a twice monthly Sunday get together despite what happened with Dunn Bros. , but now it looks like that might end up being a thing of the past because the new place is closing (or may be closing). So now I don’t know what I’m going to do until spring because I was hoping to go on Sundays for now and then go back to the Tuesday meetings when it didn’t matter so much if you had to park on the street overnight.

::sigh::

I’m hoping, secretly hoping that the snow we got today will be so bad, that I won’t be able to get out of the parking lot in the morning and then I can have a snow day from work.

And on to the knitting stuff…

Anyway, I am finished with the Dr. Who Scarf. Actually, it’s being blocked right now and probably tomorrow night, I will put the tassels on each end of it and then it will be done. I feel so happy about finishing something so big! It took almost three months to the day I started it and for the last few weeks, I worked on nothing like that.

I’ve got another scarf on the needles that I’m knitting out of stash yarn to match a hat I knit for myself out of stash yarn. But then I had to buy more yarn to finish the scarf because I used all the stash yarn up. I will probably knit the thing until I use the yarn up. It’s sort of my thing this year to knit more from the stash.

I am redoing the socks I am knitting for my son. I went to Yarns By Design on Saturday and picked up two balls of Tofutsies. I like that yarn a lot better than the stuff I was working with. Knit Picks also started selling 40 inch and 47 inch circulars in the smaller sock sizes, so I got some of those and I’m knitting these socks using Magic Loop. The socks will be the 4 stitch garter rib pattern from Sensational Knitted Socks, and the only “mod” I’m doing is the magic loop method. It’s been awhile since I’ve knitted socks cuff down.

Of the three ways to knit socks (DPN’s, 2 circs, ML), I think I like Magic Loop the best. I still want to try and learn how to knit two socks at the same time.

Tubey is hibernating. I put it down for awhile between the time I finished the short rows and the bust, and when I picked it up again, I discovered that it’s too big for me. I’ve joined a gym and started working on losing some weight and getting into shape. Between the last time I tried it on, and the most recent, I lost some weight, but I have about five inches or so to go on the body before I’m done. So the sweater is on hiatus until I decide if I want to frog it and start over, or if I would rather finish it and then give it away to Goodwill or St. Vinny’s or somewhere like that. If I can’t get some use out of it, maybe someone else, will.

The afghan I’m working on is more of a long term project, where I will work on it as I feel like.

I would like to try to knit another sweater, preferably a cardigan, but I think I’m going to wait until I lose the last 16 pounds I want to lose. Three years ago, I was a very trim 145 and I was in very good shape and I had a pretty good six pack going for a 35 year old. Then I got promoted to a desk job where I sat in front of a computer all day and I could eat at my desk and I gained 30 pounds. Last summer, I decided that enough was enough and I started walking every night and I lost 14 pounds. I’ve been sitting around the 14 pound mark and going nowhere, although I gained a few over the holidays. I hit a plateau because I could not go out for my walks after work due to it being dark and winter.

My husband decided to join Weight Watchers through work because he is overweight and I think that he finally realized that his being 80 pounds overweight had everything to do with his sciatica and his being out of shape. He’s lost ten pounds so far. I’m happy that he joined WW because through this, he is learning how to eat properly. Now he has to get active. He came from a family where there is a definite “victim” mentality, meaning that you believed that when something was wrong with you(in this case, being overweight), you were a victim of it and you can’t help that you’re overweight (in this case). His being overweight was his own doing because he ate so horribly, even when I’d try and get him to eat better.

His WW is through is work and they have something where you can spread the enrollment fee over a three month period, so instead of having to pay $180, it’s $60 a month for three months, which is easier to swallow. But it’s also a small price to pay if it means my hubby is healthy and learns to eat better.

A Snap Fitness opened on American Drive out by CB and we joined. I like the place a lot. What really sold me on it were two things. One, there is no contract. The other was that when we went in and took the tour and looked at the place, not once did we feel pressured to join.

Well, that’s the scoop from Casa de O’Malley. 

Did you see the end of the Giants/Cowboys game???  Pretty awesome, except if you’re a Cowboy’s fan.

I literally did the happy dance in front of my astonished hubby, who is probably one of the few people I know that hates football.  In my joy, I kept going, “They’re playing at Lambeau next Sunday and they’re one game away from the Super Bowl!!”, to which he gave me the “Yeah, so?” look.

That is, until it dawned on him that this was something that was very, very important to me.  It hit him because I am a pretty stoic person that doesn’t show a lot of outward excitement, and when he saw me on the verge of weeping actual tears of joy and jumping around like a fool, he realized exactly how important this was to me.

But ’nuff about me.   GO PACKERS!!!!

I have seen the movie Sweeney Todd:  The Demon Barber of Fleet Street three times now.  I haven’t seen it yet a fourth time because I bought the soundtrack this past week and that seems to give me my fix.  I don’t think I’ve ever quite had a reaction to a movie like I’ve had to this one, meaning that I have had this insatiable need to see it again and again and again and go to the library and put every Johnny Depp movie they have listed on hold.

For the record, I am not a big musical person.  But I love this one!  Mainly  I think because it’s kind of messed up.

In other news, I got my Knit Picks order the other day.  I ordered more cords for my Options set, the nickel plated DPN sock set, and the book on Magic Loop.  I took the 60 inch cord and I am finishing up Tubey a la Magic Loop.  I am in the home stretch now, but I think I lost some weight in the chest since I last tried it on because it seems bigger than it did last time I tried it on.

I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE the Options needles!  I absolutely love them.  I have a couple pairs of the Addi Turbo’s, but I’m liking the Options the more I use them.  I was very leery about using interchangeable needles.  I used the Boye Interchangeables, and I hated them.  The needles angled in a way that made my wrist ache when I used them, the join was not smooth, and the cord was too stiff.  But a lot of people on the Knitting Help Forums just raved about them, so I thought I’d give them a try.  I did try the fixed circs first, because I hadn’t knit with the slick metal needles before.  When I found I liked knitting with those, I decided to get the Options.  I am so sold on these needles!

I have made a  New Year’s Knitting Resolution to knit more from the stash.  I knit myself a new hat from stash yarn, and I’m making a scarf to match, but I will end up buying more yarn to finish it off.  I will only buy two more balls, but I am doing this two strands held together.   I’ve got most of a ball of some Brown Sheep Nature Spun that will end up being a winter hat for my nephew.  He went along with his dad hunting this year, (he’s too young to hunt, but old enough to go along),  so he’s getting a blaze orange, hand knit winter hat from his auntie. 

I feel like such a knob.  Last Tuesday, I missed Knit Night because I paid too much attention to the weather and not to what it was actually doing outside.  They kept predicting that the rain we were having would freeze.  I don’t do well with ice.  I can handle driving in the snow okay, but I do not like driving on ice.  I ended up staying home not wanting to chance anything freezing before I got home and I figured that I would probably go up to the Sunday Knit ‘n’ Sip.  Not only did it not freeze on Tuesday, but now there is no Sunday Knit ‘n Sip because Dunn Brothers is no longer a meeting place period.  They decided to change their hours on Tuesday’s and didn’t bother to let Ann know, and she found this out last Tuesday.  That’s real nice of them…not.  I can’t blame her in the least for not having the Sunday get-togethers there, either.

Our main ‘puter is on the fritz again. I’m working this from the laptop right now, but thankfully, I found a keyboard I can plug in so I have something decent to use instead of the laptop keyboard.

My Christmas was pretty quiet this year. Christmas Day, DH and I went to the movies. We saw Sweeney Todd. Then Saturday night, we went to see it again. Go see this movie. Seriously. I’m not a big fan of musicals, but I absolutely loved this movie. I think because it’s rather dark. And it doesn’t hurt that Johnny Depp is in it, either. I am probably going to go and see it again this weekend. From what I’ve heard, it’s only in limited release, but the Regal 16 out in Darboy is showing it on two screens. I will warn you, though, it’s Rated R because of the blood. There is a lot of blood in this movie. If there was not all the blood that there was in this movie, it probably would have been a PG-13.

I had to frog my Cable Hat. I learned a valuable knitting lesson in that the proper yarn for the project is as important as gauge. I did not realize that alpaca needs to be knitted tightly because this hat grew and stretched and would not bounce back. I will use the yarn for something else. In the meantime, I had about three balls of black wool I had in the stash, and I will use that to make myself a new winter hat. I’m thinking of using that and using some other yarn I have in the stash to make a hat and a scarf as a stash busting exercise. I will get more black if I don’t have enough in the stash to make both.

My DH got me the Knit Picks Options set for Christmas and then I took some money I had and I ordered the three longer cables for it. I will get the other needle tips for it later. I also went to Knit Picks to get a book on Magic Loop and their nickel plated DPN set size 0 to 3. I’ve tried the new needles out, and I absolutely love them! I am a fan of their fixed nickel plated needles, and with all the raves I heard about the Options set, I had to get them. I am becoming more and more a fan of the nickel plated needles. I think I love the Knit Picks and the Addi Turbo’s equally. I’ve noticed that since I started using the Knit Picks and Addi’s, my wrist has been hurting less and less. I think it’s because the yarn doesn’t grab onto the metal like it does bamboo. I have tendinitis in my wrist that acts up from time to time, and I have to be careful how I hold my needles, how long I knit, and, now, it seems, what needles I use.

I haven’t worked on Tubey in the past couple of weeks.   I’m in the home stretch, or the boring part, 3×1 ribbing.   I think I will save this as a Knit Night project, because I can work on it and not have to count.  And if I do make a mistake, it should be easy to find.    We haven’t had Tuesday Knit Night for the past two weeks because of the holidays, and I miss it.  So I will be glad when it starts up again next week. 

So, hope everyone has a very cool New Year. 

Since I’m not very regular as a blogger, I’d like to wish everyone a Merry Christmas, since I probably won’t be online in the next two days to say so.

I finally got around to posting updated pictures of my progress on some of my projects.

Here’s a pic of my toe up socks. Finally! After putting them away, I took them back out and I put them on, and I’m happier with them now than I was when I just finished them.

I took a picture this way so it would show the weird/cool dye anomaly. I’m wearing these right now and they are very, very comfy and warm.

Here’s my other FO, the modified cable hat:

I’m in the home stretch on Tubey now. I had to put short rows in the bust because when I tried it on, the front rode up pretty high. The short rows fixed that. I wrapped and turned six stitches on each side. Now all I have to do is straight 3×1 knitting in the round until the sweater is as long as I want it to be.  I haven’t had to do much modding of the pattern, apart from the short rows.  I did do the body as large and the top as a medium.  It fits pretty well when I try it on.