cordeliaknits

Still Waiting...

It is just about six PM and I am still waiting for our couch that was supposed to be delivered this morning.  I've already given they guy at the store an earful...he didn't realize that I am sick and very very irritable today, or else I should think he would have made sure the couch could have been delivered on time.

Ugh.  I did a bunch of grocery shopping in between bouts of groaning and sipping tea in bed, and I hope to make a nice dinner tonight, sinceI haven't cooked in a while.  The couch waiting caused our Saturday plans to be adjusted quite a bit, but Les did get a nap, and some cleaning got done, and we had a yummy waffle for breakfast, so the day hasn't been a complete wash.

Hopefully soon soon soon I can post a picture of the couch!  Cross your fingers...

Friday...finally!

I don't know if you've heard...but I'M SICK!!

Ugh.  Miserable.  Stuffed up.  Headache.  Sneezy.  Exhausted.  Whiny.

Last night I got home from work around 6:50, and was in bed by 7:40.  I read a new library book, got up to take medicine and prepare the coffee-maker, and finally fell asleep around 10:00.  I could easily have gone to sleep right away, but it is totally against my nature to go to sleep that early, no matter how tired I am!

But, it's Friday, and Baby O is heading to Disney for the weekend today, so I will only have Baby M for most of the day, and thankfully she's the one who takes two long naps!  Also, it looks like I won't need to work late tonight, so I should be home by 5...just enough time to rest up before Les and I head to Berkeley for a knitting night reunion of the group we retreated with last weekend!  The weather is supposed to be beautiful today, so hopefully we can take the bike tonight and I can break in my new chaps!

Wednesday night our neighbor Ron came over and broke up our old couch so we could get it out of our narrow doorway.  Actually, Les was trying to do it herself, but he noticed and came right over to do it for us.  He thinks anything where tools are involved should be his responsibility, apparently, and we are usually quite happy to let him at it.

So, now, instead of an uncomfortable but roomy couch for seating, we have one of our old-school webbed rocking lawn chairs (bought in a pair at a thrift store in Fort Bragg for $5!).  It's very classy, let me tell you.  Les says we could have saved a lot of money on the new couch by just using lawn chairs instead.  Obviously I wasn't amused. 

Now that the old couch is gone, its really obvious how gross the carpet is, and I can't wait until we replace it withsome laminate flooring.  That will have to wait for a while, though, because even the Ikea stuff isn't super cheap, and it will be a big job (for Ron!) to put it in!

OK, time to get ready for work.  Have you noticed I'm trying to blog daily?  Maybe I shouldn't mention it, in case that jinxes me.  The only problem is that I won't have pictures for every post.  Hope that's not too much of a deterrent to reading for y'all.

Have a happy Friday!

Exhausted already

Ugh.  I am so sick.  All I want to do is moan about how sick I am, but the babies don't really care to hear about it.  They were very good about playing with each other and mostly entertaining themselves yesterday while I was in a decongestant haze, so hopefully today will be OK.  The thing is, even though they are both angels, it still takes a lot of energy to care for two lovelies under two years old!  Diapers, bottles, mealtimes, snack times, books, cleaning up messes, comforting them when they bump a head or stub a toe...even when I'm not crawling around in tunnels or giving them pony rides it's a lot of work.

I am exhausted already and I'm not even dressed yet!  But, it's Thursday, which means just two more days of work until the weekend when I can mostly relax.  Plans for this weekend include:

1. Get new couch delivered
2. Rejoice in how comfortable new couch is
3. Tear self away from new couch long enough to get a mani-pedi and possibly spend jewelry gift certificate at cool store in Berkeley
4. Settle in on new couch to knit and watch L Word DVDs
5. After going to church on Sunday morning, have a chicken caesar salad with friends
6. After salad, go to local synagogue to join bone marrow donor list--get swabbed for DNA
7. Head to Stitches West on Sunday afternoon with a set amount of cash and a promise not to spend any more than that
8. Fondle lots of yarn and get some for a new sweater
9. Meet up with my friend Cara from college and have dinner with her after Stitches marketplace closes
10. After dinner, come home and get back to enjoying new couch

I know that sounds like a lot of stuff, and it's not all about relaxing, but I think there will be enough down-time to make it a good weekend at home.  Also, if I still feel really bad, some of the errands can be postponed in favor of more cuddling and DVD watching on the couch.   

But before all that, two more 10-hour baby days.  Perhaps I'll just keep them in this box.  That will make it easier, right?

5 minutes

I only have 5 minutes to blog this morning before I need to get ready for work, so here are a few random thoughts for the morning.

• I just discovered a singer named Jill Barber, and I'm in love.  She's country in a jazzy kind of way, and one reviewer described her as a cross between Iris Dement and Kelly Willis, which are two of my favorites.  Check her out!

• I am sick again.  An icky cold with sore throat, chest congestion that's hard to cough up, and that awful exhaustion in my core.  Being a nanny is so hard on my beleaguered immune system!

• I still need to see Beverly Hills Chihuahua!  Perhaps when our new couch arrives we should rent it and have a movie night!

• Only 3 more days until our couch comes!!!

• I had to order a new foot pedal for my sewing machine, so the new curtain production is stalled.  Hopefully it will come soon!

• Wednesday is garbage day, which is exciting when your can is very full.

• Haven't decided what to do for Lent yet, but I'm leaning towards some sort of Bible study, perhaps reading and meditating on a Psalm a day.  (adding something instead of giving something up is a valid Lenten practice!)

• Can't wait to get some ashes tonight!

• Leslie loved this truck, and would be mad if I didn't show it to you.  She made a scary U-turn on a very wet road to get back to it for a photo shoot!

Such fun

  We managed to have a weekend knitting retreat that was romantic, fun, silly, productive, beautiful, restful, tasty and just wonderful.

The B&B we stayed at was the Sonoma Orchid Inn, and it was great.  Comfortable bed, beautiful common areas, fun and talented innkeepers, and a gorgeous property.  There were tons of hummingbirds, some beautiful chickens and a few turkeys!

It was really fun to meet new people and really be able to get to know them during the weekend.  Some were seriously talented knitters and spinners, and some barely knew how to knit, but we managed to laugh constantly and talk about yarn and projects once in a while, between jokes.We had some great meals too!  These pictures were taken Saturday night at the pub near the Inn, where my end of the table was nearly hysterical with laughter much of the evening.  Les and I managed to eat yummy steak both nights!  The breakfasts at the Inn were also amazing.  Yes, they did make us the oatmeal souffle, and I've never had anything like it!

I worked on a few things, a small triangular shawl and a hat, and I will have pictures of those for you soon.  Les spent much of her time sleeping and exploring the area alone, and I think she enjoyed herself thoroughly.  She came and socialized with us occasionally, but she wasn't stuck listening to fiber-related conversations the whole weekend.

On Sunday after we left, we took our time driving home in the rain, stopping to take pictures of lovely things whenever we wanted, and going into interesting shops in tiny towns.

I got some great vintage bead earrings and we bought the tastiest goat cheese bread you can imagine.  It was hard to come home, especially since when we arrived, our pet sitter was passed out drunk on the dog bed and the trailer reeked of cigarette smoke.  I was SO upset!  I guess we are going to have to find a new sitter.

This week I am working 10 hour days, and I am coming down with a cold, which is no fun.  But, I'm going to a knit night on Friday where I'll see many of these beautiful women again, and our couch comes on Saturday, AND...We are going to Stitches West this weekend, so I have a lot to look forward to if I can make it through the week.

Knitting Retreat Images

pre-blocking

So, it's 7 am, I couldn't get to sleep until quite late last night, and I still need to pack for this weekend (more on that soon).  I am desperately sipping coffee and trying to wake up a bit, but right now I feel a lot like an unblocked sweater: A little wonky, a little scratchy, not quite even, but with a lot of potential!

 

Speaking of unblocked sweaters, here are some photos I took at work yesterday just after sewing the last button on my Sprout!

(Baby O was busy playing in her fort and didn't even notice me posing for the camera)

I am IN LOVE with this sweater!!!  I love the color, the subtle variegation, the way it fits, the bright buttons, the length...everything!

I am so tempted to run out for more Shibui Knits yarn to cast on for another one, as this was such a quick and satisfying knit.  It took a month from start to finish, but I think almost two weeks of that was waiting for buttons, and I spent another few days waiting to get one more skein of yarn to finish, so this could definitely be a two week sweater if I had enough yarn and buttons at the start.

 

I think blocking will soften the merino/mohair yarn a bit, and take care of the weirdness at the bottom of the button band, but otherwise it is perfectly wearable as it is.  In fact, I even wore it out last night to run some errands with Les!

Yay.  The only bad part of being done with this is that now I don't have a major project that I'm excited about working on, and even after spending hours on Ravelry last night, I haven't found one yet!

This is bad, because later today Les and I are leaving for a weekend in the wine country at a Lesbian Knitting Retreat!!!  Woo hoo!  I'm very excited, and Les is too, though she plans to nap and read a lot while the knitters are knitting. 

We are going to a B&B in Guernville, and it will be fairly unstructured time.  The event was planned by some of my knitting friends from my Tuesday night SnB, mostly as a way to get their lesbian knitting pals together for a relaxing and fun weekend.  No classes, no stress, just knitting in a cozy place, chatting, playing games, and eating good food.

I am so excited!  We are leaving this afternoon (I'm taking a half-day off work today) and it's not an awfully long drive, so I am just a few hours of silly songs and dirty diapers away from total relaxation!

Thanks for all your curtain comments!  I love my winking owls too!  Unfortunately, the sewing has been stalled by sewing machine issues, but hopefully I can get my new pedal early next week and crank the rest of the curtains out before our new couch comes next Saturday.

Yes, Celeste, Ron is very close, but I'd say we have about 8 feet between our trailers, enough for our lawn chairs and some storage and a parking spot for the Harley.  And Ron is the sweetest trailer park neighbor we could ever ask for.  He has everything, and is always willing to share.  Just the other day he gave me several kinds of nails to choose from to hang a calendar, and he occasionally stops me as I'm getting out of my car to offer a full steak dinner!  Soon, he's going to help Les put in laminate flooring and get rid of our carpet, and last week he brought Peanut a sweet tweed sweater.  (He is a master dumpster-diver, and we profit often from what he finds behind the pet store.)

OK, coffee and blogging has helped to wake me up, so it's time to get packing, get dressed, and take my little monkeys to music class.  Have a great weekend, and I will post retreat pictures on Sunday night!  I will leave you with what is hopefully a more accurate picture of the detail and color of my new buttons, although the yarn color in the full sweater picture is more accurate.  It's called Peony, and I would call the buttons Lemon-Lime if I had to pick a name! 

Curtains

I hope you are happy, my friends, because I'm skipping a shower this morning in order to bring you a new post! First, here's a peek at my latest sweater, which will be done with a few more buttons and a good blocking!  I may try to get a pre-blocking photo of it later today, just 'cause I can't wait!  I love the buttons, which are a slightly deeper lime green color than shows up in this picture.

But now, for the real reason for this post...my new curtains!  I still have some more windows to do, and now that I convinced Les to let me get my real, wonderful sewing machine out of storage, it will go much faster.  Unfortunately, the foot pedal was mysteriously missing from the box, so I need to go to Sears tonight to buy a replacement.  Oh well.  It's totally worth it!

Here is a before picture of the ugliest window dressing in the world, that I have lived with in the trailer for an astonishing nine months!  (how did I stand it for so long?!)

Beige, Taupe, Tan... Whatever you call this color, it's icky and depressing, especially for someone like me, who thrives on lots of color!

My main desire for my home is for it to feel cozy and warm, and nothing says cozy and warm to me like red decor!  So, I used my gift certificate that my employers gave me for Christmas to go to the best fabric store in Berkeley and pick out the cutest red fabric I could!

Here's one of the finished windows, with a lovely view of our friendly neighbor Ron's trailer! 

Would you like a close-up of the "Winking Owls" fabric?  Here you go!

The color is brighter in the picture than in real life.  It's more of a dark or brick red.  The green bits bring out the green in the wallpaper border (which can't be changed at this point), and I just adore the cute print!

OK, off to work to dream about sewing tonight and finishing the other windows!  Yippee!

Sweet things

Just a quick post this morning...I thought I would make a little list of sweet things, in no particular order.

• The sound of pouring rain on the trailer roof as I'm falling asleep.
• The soft thump that Deacon makes as he drops down on the bed as close to me as he can get to cuddle at night.
• Kissing...babies, kitties, Leslie...it's all good!
• The winking owls on the fabric I got yesterday for our new curtains!
• A big stack of new library books and the potential they have for hours of reading fun.
• A cleaning To Do list with almost every entry checked off.
• The sound of babies laughing.

• The cool new green buttons I got yesterday so I can finish my latest pink cardigan!

Tonight I have my Berkeley knitting night, so I won't be able to get much work done on my new curtains, but hopefully Wednesday I can make more progress.  I finished two big windows last night, and they look wonderful!  Such an improvement on the awful beige factory-direct curtains we had.  Just two windows with red curtains make such a difference already in the warmth and coziness of the trailer.

It's been pouring rain all weekend, which is a very good thing for our water supply in this area, but not such a good thing for the cleanliness of our floors, as the dogs leave little muddy prints every time they come in from a walk.  Oh well.  I'm making new curtains and we'll have our new couch in less than two weeks, so I am happy and willing to live with dirty floors!

V-Day

Les and I celebrated a lovely and productive Valentines Day yesterday, culminating in a surprise sushi dinner and then drinks at a Tiki bar!

Les claims to hate sushi, so we've never had it together before.  This was her big Valentine's surprise for me--taking me out for something I love and she doesn't.  How sweet is that?  I think she enjoyed her tempura shrimp and our fried tofu appetizer, and I know she enjoyed her pina colada after dinner!  I got a spider roll, which had two kinds of crab and avocado, among other things.  It was a lovely, quiet little restaurant, and I would definitely go back, if I can convince Les to try it again!

Here's a slightly deranged picture of us with our fruity drinks, but it's the best I got!

We started the day with a trip to the vet for Harley, to get some eye drops for him.  After we dropped him off at home, we headed down to San Jose to pick up my new, custom-made chaps!

When the rain stops, I'll take some pictures, but until then, just close your eyes and picture beautiful black leather chaps with braid detail down the sides and shiny silver snaps at the ankles.  The braid matches the braid on my leather jacket, and they fit like a glove.

While we were in San Jose, we visited our layaway couch, and scheduled a delivery date!  It's almost paid off, so we will officially have a new couch, totally paid for, delivered on March first!!  My Valentine's day present for Les was inspired by the impending arrival of the couch, and my plan to sew new red curtains for the trailer.

 It's a conversation heart throw pillow, made with Lion Brand Wool-Ease Thick & Quick, and embroidered with Noro Silk Garden.  I used a heart pattern from Lion Brand, that was meant for fun fur (which would have been a bit too crazy for us), and then I improvised a gusset to make the pillow deeper.

I'm not totally happy with how it turned out.  The shape isn't as rounded a heart as I wanted, and the gusset was much harder to make work than I thought it would be.  I finished sewing and stuffing after dinner, so it was definitely done at the absolute last minute, but Les says she loves it, and I think it will be a comfy pillow for our new couch.

  On the back of the pillow, I did some chain stitch embroidery of our initials, just to make it sweet enough for you to gag on!

Les gave me a sweet little necklace with two hearts on it, and a gift certificate for a wonderful store in Berkeley that I've been window shopping at for ages.  She said she thought I would enjoy picking out my own jewelry, and even though she always picks really lovely gifts for me, I am quite excited to pick my own gift this time!

Today is going to be all about cleaning, dishes, laundry, organizing, sorting, and hopefully getting rid of some stuff so that tomorrow on our day off, we can just relax!  So, I guess I should get scrubbing.  Hope you all had a great Valentine's Day too!