Yeah - a fridge!

I've only been talking about wanting a new refrigerator for like a year now. This will sound hard to believe, but I really think my main hangup was the fear of irritating the delivery guys. I want them to take my kitchen fridge to the basement, and take away the fridge that's in the basement now. I know that's their job, but it just felt like a lot to ask.

Anyway, I took a couple vacation days to make a 4 day weekend and I decided that I just might get crazy and go look at refrigerators today. I did - and I bought one! whee! Apparently I'm hopelessly out of it though because I really want a refrigerator without all that water/ice jazz in the door (i feel like I sound just like my mom now!) but you can't get them that way anymore. Also, I wasn't super keen on the bottom freezer because it reminded me of having to dig down to the bottom of my chest freezer and that's not fun. I realize it's much better designed than that, but they only kinda sorta started to grow on my after 3 stores. i also wasn't really into the idea of paying $1600 for a fridge.

I ended up going with an old school top freezer, but it's a stainless steel one which I didn't even consider because they're always more expensive and I was just aiming for a shiny black or something - this one was stainless and cost less at HHgregg than the same size, same brand, but different model white one at Lowe's that I also liked. Plus the folks at HHgregg were really nice and helpful. Yipee - it's being delivered tomorrow! so now i just have to do all the annoying cleaning out of 2 fridges! (and doing stupid things like taking the stack of books off the dining room table so the delivery guys don't see it! i have no idea why, at my age, i worry so much about not making delivery guys think ill of my housekeeping skills!)

Anyway, now my obsession lies with this stove that I saw there while I was waiting for the guys to figure out some kind of computer codes:

(it looks cooler in real life - it's stainless and the gas burner covers look cool - but the kicker is that griddle piece over the 5th burner in the middle - how cool is that?)

how many gingham buttons is too many gingham buttons?

It's a question that cannot be answered by me. Apparently my gauge of the number of buttons one person should own is somewhat skewed.

For some reason I decided to look at an etsy shop -Buttons and Such - that I'd gotten a bunch of adorable trims and buttons from about a year ago. I knew it'd be a problem. Once I saw the gingham buttons, things went a little nutty. There were so many colors! and they were so inexpensive! Can you see the gold threads in the brown and red ones on the right? (i feel the need to point out differences to justify the number of buttons there!)

Additionally, I got this super cute Japanese tape measure trim!

Unfortunately there's a message on her Etsy shop page that she's closing in a month (I have no idea when that was posted, so it could have been three weeks ago - you better get shoppin'!)

Paul why won't you come in?

Yesterday I went out to get the paper off the porch and this guy was there.

And he was all like "hello! I love you!" I went in and told Billy that there was a boy version of Margo on the porch so he went out and met him - we call him Paul. He's got to be someone's pet because he's super friendly and not at all skittish and he'll just let you pet him for as long as you want. We gave him some food and he wolfed it down. Every time we went out, he was there and we just fell in love with him. I sent an email to our neighborhood group to see if anyone recognized him. This morning I went out to see him and he wasn't there, but then a few minutes later my neighbor came over with Paul in his arms, thinking maybe he was ours - he'd been hanging out on their porch. After a little bit of a discussion, where neither one of us really said it was a good idea to take in another cat, we sort of decided maybe one more wouldn't hurt - because he's so friendly. I went to the store and bought a flea comb and also a flea collar, just in case. He didn't mind being brushed at all - even though he now smells like oil of olay dish soap! Then I brought him in. He was super curious, and not terribly crazy about the other cats - not that I thought he'd immediately get along with everyone. Then he kept going to the door and climbing up to look out the window to the porch. we knew that we couldn't force him to stay if he didn't want to, but I don't know how to tell ol' Paul that it'll just take some time to feel comfortable. I opened the door and he went right out, but stayed on the porch and meowed as I closed the door - but when I opened it again, he wouldn't come in. I stayed inside for 30 minutes or so, and went back out - he was sitting on the porch bench, as usual. I tried bringing him in again and carried him around to show him the place. Then when i put him down he went back to the door again and went right out as soon as I opened it. Then just turned around and looked at me like "ok, come out here!"

Oh Paul - this is all exhausting me! You're sweet as the day is long (he'll lick your lips and tuck his head into the crook of your arm to fall asleep) but you don't want to come in and live with me! why?

nekid

I hate to laugh, but this is a pretty silly look for poor ol' Stella! However, she had knots and wasn't very keen on letting me cut them out so I decided to take her to the pros.

nothing can be easy with her!

My mom is the best knitting recipient because she always loves what I make her. I'm pretty sure I've said that before. This year I decided that I'd ask her if she had any request for Christmas - usually I just make what I want to make for her, and I think she's only asked for something specific once. I started wondering if maybe she was thinking "I'd sure like a green cardigan with 3/4 sleeves, but she just keeps making me mittens!" So I asked - and also sent along some pictures of sweaters and other things I'd seen and thought would look good on her because I figured it might be hard to just come up with something out of the blue like that. I'd seen this pattern for Cobble a couple weeks ago and I really liked the fact that it was a non-lace shawl - and it looked like something my mom would like. Turns out I was right.

However, in a fashion typical for my mother, it'd be great as long as it was something different. It's similar to how she can't buy anything off the rack without saying "this would be great but it needs different buttons" or "i wish they didn't put this stupid tag thing here on the sleeve" and worse, when she thought that the dining room chairs would be better with oak seats instead of the upholstered ones they came with. some things are easy to change, like buttons, and some things, like carved oak seats, are not so much, but she kind of acts like they're all the same! So she told me that she loves the stitch pattern and the weight and length of this shawl, but would like it better as a short poncho. So i said "for you, I'll find a way to do it!" I bought the pattern and my plan is to just use the main stitch pattern to make two rectangles and connect them - that's the way I made her last poncho (the one thing she requested!) then I'll pick up stitches all around the edge and do some math to figure out what needs to be fudged so that it works out. I'll knit the edging from the top of the chart down and I'll use the corner/peak part of the edging in two places - on each point of the poncho. God willing it'll all work! Ooh - and the other cool thing is that I sent her a bunch of pictures of MadelineTosh yarn (Tosh Merino Light) for her to pick from (because the way she dyes will be fantastic on this, I think) and she chose Ginger. So at least I get to knit with lovely yarn. I bought 3 skeins because I just don't know what this is going to take and I don't want to run out - so maybe I'll have some left over and I can eek out a little beret or something for me!

all's well that ends well!

Thanks to all the solutions to my unfortunate mitten situation, i pulled it together finally and everything turned out great! I found a Raveler who still had a skein of each color left over from her Christmas stocking kit and was willing to send them to me. She asked if I had any dark colored sock yarn to trade because she's working on a mitered square blanket! i had some in my stash that i didn't feel very likely to use, so I mailed it off to her - you were right Emily, it was only like $1.30 so it was a great deal! perfect! it came on Friday though - and thankfully I had taken a vacation day so i was at home as soon as the mail came. The birthday dinner was on Saturday so I knit until my finger had a divot in it, but I finished just before 1am. I tossed it in some water to soak then blocked it - of course stranded mitten take forever and a day to dry, so they were still wet in the morning (despite the power of the ShamWow!) and I had to stick the blow dryer in the open end and stand there for 30 minutes - even that didn't do it! my mom love them (but my niece said "why are they wet?") and i guess that's what matters! now i just have to get myself to do mitten #4 so we can have our mother daughter mitten set!

oh geez!

I made a hell of a mistake on my mother's birthday mittens and now I'm in a whole new pickle.

I don't know if I haven't had enough coffee today, or what, but I'm just not able to make a decision on what to do! Ok, here are the finished mittens:

I love them! But here's the problem:

Yep. Two right mittens. yes, I'm serious. I can't believe I did that. what a numbskull. So I decided last nigh, when I realized what I'd done, that I'd just knit two left gloves and then I'd have a pair too. I made these out of Knitpicks Telemark and they're always fast with shipping, soI figured I'd just get another ball of each color and all would be well. Unfortunately, I find out this morning, Knitpicks doesn't sell that shade of blue anymore. There are two people on Ravelry with the shade in their "for sale/trade" stashes, so I could try to buy one off of them but for some reason it seems like a lot of work for a $2 ball of yarn (it retails for $1.99) - I feel like I should buy something else from their stash to make the shipping worth it. Ugh - I don't know why, but it's just more than I can make a decision on this morning! I'm pretty confident that I have enough yarn to make a 3rd mitten, which I just need to start doing now I suppose. but I've got the Knitpicks website up and I just don't know whether I should put in an order with an extra ball of white (and enough other stuff to get to $50, because I always do spend extra money unnecessarily to avoid shipping, as silly as it is) or not. wait - I'm going to see if that person with the blue on Ravelry also has the white - hers came from their stocking kit, just like mine did, so chances are good! whew - maybe that's the solution! Bah - please, someone just tell me what to do!