Insignificant Updates

I need to take some new pictures. The "Peapod" is coming along quite well, 3 pattern repeats already, close to armhole shaping - yay. Have I mentioned how much I love, love, love the Rowan CashCotton I'm doing Peapod in? I looove it! Still slogging along on the second "On your Toes" sock, if I could just sit down and devote like an hour or two I'd crank it out and it'd be done, but I always end up only doing 1 or 2 rows before getting interrupted and never get back to it. But I'm not allowing myself to start Peggy's socks until I'm finished. Not even allowing myself to decide on what pattern to use for Peggy's socks until the "Toes" are done. So hopefully by the end of the week, I'll have a finished pair of socks to model and a whole right front of Peapod to display.

In the meantime, I'm still working on the scrapbook for Big E, his birthday is next Saturday, so I really need to get moving. Luckily, Peggy is coming out to help and eat some Pizza Hut (because her meanie husband won't let her order it ever due to his personal dislike) on Saturday. I've realized just how close that is, which means that my vacation is super close too!! Booked my flights the other night, PIT to PHI, which means I get to visit Elizabeth - BFF who decided to move to Pittsburgh and still hasn't found a Steeler player to introduce to me. She's had a whole month already! Very excited about my Pitt/Philly/NJ/MD/Philly/Pitt two week vacation. Don't know exactly when or if I'll make it out to NJ, but am hopeful. Should probably work out some of the details pretty darn soon.

Week of Boredom

My days of boredom have commenced. I think I can count on two hands how many patients I've seen this week. Which means that I've spent lots of time behind the desk answering phone calls and watching traffic out the window. Oh well, what are you gonna do? Big birthday shout out to Mom - yesterday was her big day - no numbers of course. My mother always taught me that ladies don't reveal their age. Ellie managed to pull of her surprise visit on Wednesday. Mom didn't appreciate the fact that we both lied straight up to her, but it was a surprise, couldn't help it. Spent about 3 hours trying to get the web cam that Big brother got Mom, and then the next hour trying to get it to work properly with the web cam in Jersey. It did eventually work and C4 was able to sing Happy Birthday to Grandma - yay! Got a few scrapbook pages done the other night, need to do some more today, but it's like a billion degrees up in the craft room at the moment, so I think I'll just wait until the front moves through and it cools off some. Riverfest in Cuyahoga Falls tomorrow - yay first Irish fest of the season! Haven't been to see and music in a long time - the one night this spring doesn't count because we got seated in the "Tiki Bar" and they were playing different music - irritating to hear "Margaritaville" when you're trying to listen to "Molly Malone". Haven't gotten much knitting done these last few days, must get going, lots of projects to be completed by October. Bye from Boredomville!

It's a Girl!! And a....!

So Friday was the big ultrasound day. Both of my sisters-in-law has the ultrasound to determine boy or girl. Baby Jersey is officially a girl - yay I get a niece! Yay PINK! And Baby Perry is... we don't know yet. The stubborn child was sleeping on it's stomach, curled into a ball and would not for any reason move into a position that would work for the technician. So maybe in 3 weeks we'll know if it's pink or blue for Baby Perry.

Mostly finished at the school, will probably have to go back this Friday after the clinic because my AD wasn't around Thursday or Friday and I left him a bunch of stuff. Worked a Duathalon yesterday morning. For those of you wondering what exactly a duathalon is, it's a race that you run, bike, and run again. I guess it can't be a biathalon because that involves shooting. I don't know. It was boring. I handed out water. That's it. Like I said, boring. The one upside - it was right down the road from the big scrapbook supply store at Cord Camera - fun fun.

Homestretch

I apologize for it taking so long for me to blog after my return from Jersey. So here it is. Had the best time with the Jerseyans. Can't thank Charlie and Rachel enough for letting me invade their home and their weekend. Little man Charlie is so much fun, hard to keep pace with his energy at times, but great. Friday's travel was a bit imperfect and I didn't arrive in Metuchen until almost 10pm. When we got home I presented Master Charles with the famed penguin, which he quickly decided was not a penguin. He wasn't very interested, but it was past his bedtime. Saturday we went to Gymboree, my first experience, and here is where that energy I couldn't keep up with showed itself. That afternoon, Charlie decided that he liked the penguin and began to run around the house with it. Here's a picture of him holding the penguin while watching "Happy Feet" (hence the intense distraction).

He's too cute. So anyway, the penguin ended up being a hit, so now I can stop talking about it. Sunday, we drove out to Philly after church to pick up Aunt Ellen and go to the Franklin Institute. Charlie seemed to love it, lots of buttons to push to make things light up and bells ringing and things of that nature. We went through the Astronaut, Electricity, Giant Heart, Train museum, and Airplane museum exhibits. Charlie got to "drive" the train, which did move by the way, at a speedy 3/4 mph. Lightning fast! Here's me and him in front of the giant-walk-thru heart.

So on Monday we walked to downtown Metuchen, which is really cute by the way, and watched the parade. Charlie wore his "my uncle is a Marine" t-shirt and the Marines who were at the the parade loved it. We managed to get a pic with one of the nice Marines so that we could send a picture to Uncle Tom before he left for Australia. We also managed to teach Charlie how to say "Semper Fi" which was cute and made some of the Marines smile a bit. I think we decided that Charlie won't be going to the fireworks this year - the color guard shot off their guns right in front of us and it kinda freaked him out, but maybe from the safety Aunt Ellen's apartment. After the parade, we spent most of the day outside playing on the "playground." Rachel's family came over for dinner, which meant that Charlie had someone to run around with in the form of cousin Brandon. We managed to play one game of bocce, Ellie and I beat Charlie and Rachel. We started a second game, but it got called on account of dessert.

So that was my wonderful trip to Jersey. Can't wait for my vacation, which is actually in less that a month so I can see them all again at Krista's wedding. Which brings me to work. Last night was physical night - nightmare, but went smoothly enough. Need to figure out a way to not have a bumrush at the beginning and nothing at the end. So now I have today and tomorrow to clean and organize the training room, round up all my coolers and kits, finalize my order of supplies for next year, and sort through and organize the physicals from last night. Busy. Monday starts my boring summer life. I may complain throughout the school year about crazy hours and last minute changes to my schedule, but I really do love what I do. And when summer rolls around and I'm stuck inside a building for 8+/- hours a day, I get bored, especially when they tell me that half of my time will be devoted to clerical work. Last time I checked, I'm not a secretary. But what can I do? My only comfort is that I get my vacation time this year, and that I have less than two months before I'm back at school getting ready for double sessions.

P.S. To all the naysayers who saw my "On-your-toes" sock this weekend and thought it would not fit my foot - it does! Pictures to come.

Aaaaarrrgggghhhh!

Alright, I have to admit something. I've had it pretty easy. I mean I picked up knitting quickly enough, had a nice ribbed scarf in a couple days, maybe a week. Didn't really have a problem with any of the other patterns I've done. Until this point the hardest thing I've done is fit the sleeves into the body of the Samus sweater - but that's technically not knitting, it's sewing/piecing. For the most part, the only reason I rip something out is because I don't like it, not because it's wrong, or I can't do it properly... Until last night. Last night taught me that maybe I have become a little bit obsessive and a tad bit scary. I attempted to start the "On-your-Toes socks" from the new issue of Interweave Knits. Aaarrrgghhh! The cast on of 8 - that's right I said EIGHT - stitches took more than an hour. The description in the magazine was horrible and then I kept losing a stitch somehow or other. Very frustrating. And Could I just put it down and look for another, easier, understandable pattern? Oh no, not me, not psycho obsessed perfectionist me. I had to get it right. So, I ended up staying up way too late, knitting this stupid sock. Should have been packing, could have been tidying my room, could have been sleeping so that I had the energy for my weekend with my gorgeous nephew. But no, I was knitting this:

The photos are not so good, I can't get the focus right for some reason, just one more thing not going right at the moment. So, began working on said nemesis sock somewhere around 9ish, and went to bed at 1 and that's all I've freaking got to show for it. Grrr. It's easy until I get to the heel at least, maybe I won't get to that this weekend. The plane ride isn't that long.

So very excited about my trip. Not just to see nephew and brother and sister-in-law, I get to ride the train!!!! Sorry, most people will think this a bit absurd, that I'm so excited about taking the train for the 15 min ride from the airport to Metuchen, but due to the fact that I absolutely love "The Amazing Race" and someday aspire to be on it, this is great. Anyway, must go, must pack and take things over to Ellie's and get to the bank, and go to work (groan) to set out ice and water for the track team to take with them later. Have a good Memorial Day weekend blogland!

Finished at last

Ding dong the penguin's done! Pictures of the oh-so-cute penguin will be forthcoming next week. The pics will be so so so much cuter if they include my gorgeous nephew. Not to mention, Jerseyites read the blog and then the surprise would be spoiled. Anyway, I finished my interpretation of the "Pasha" pattern from Knitty yesterday while sitting out at the mock baseball game. Seriously, it wasn't a real game, it was the guys versus the coaches/alumni and they goofed off the whole time (I feel the need to clarify, due to the fact that a certain person, who shall remain nameless, reads this blog and will give me a hard time for knitting while at work). Today is a "real" game even if the season is over, has been over for almost a week, and half of the seniors haven't been showing up. Oh well, can't complain too much, it's the only thing going on today. LAX plays in Toledo and track is at someplace for districts or regionals (can't remember which one). Sadly, I'm going to start a new pair of socks. I swore when I finished the last pair that they would be the last pair for a while. But my order still has not arrived and I need something to do on the plane to and from Jersey this weekend. Yay Jersey trip! Can't even tell you how excited I am to go and see all my favorite Jerseyites. I'm hoping that the weather stays nice for the weekend so that we can play outside on the new and amazing jungle gym. Will have scads of photos to post next week I'm sure.

Busy Bee

I know it's been awhile, apologies. I'm turning out to be more like my sister. But she's part of the reason there haven't been any updates in the last few days. Ellie came home on Wednesday, so we had a big picnic here on Saturday - an indoor picnic due to rain, but what can you do. So there were lots of preparations to do and what not. Yesterday, as we all recovered, entailed going to her condo to return a few things. Going there also meant a stop at Lowe's where we looked for paint samples. My parents are redoing the upstairs bathroom, and I get to choose what color blue goes on the walls. And every time my sister comes home she threatens to take down wall paper or paint some other room, so other choices were picked up. Then we had to attach a piece of lattice to her gutter so that her clematis could climb, and then repot a rose bush that she ordered thinking that she was moving home in April. And then we went to Shrek 3. Which, by the way, was not as good as the previous two. Cute, but not great.

Last night I decided that I should attempt to destash. My stash has grown since my days of afghans. So I have a heck of a lot of yucky acrylic yarn that I'm not going to use any time soon. So, my plan is to donate the bulk of my stash to a nursing home if they'd like it, and if not, then goodwill it is. I received a request this weekend from my sister-in-law, Peggy, that I make her some socks for when she's in the hospital in October. Pinks and purples were requested since she's hoping she'll have a girl. So with socks, the Peapod sweater (if the yarn ever arrives), and two baby blankets to make, I should be pretty busy with the knitting this summer.

Speaking of my sister-in-law, Peggy was introduced to my manic ways on Saturday, when we started Elliott's scrapbook. Here's what we did while he napped.