A bullet dodged ...

See the gray Altima on the left? That's my baby, all 116,000+ miles of her, and since I still owe an unconscionable amount on her, she's not going anywhere any time soon.

See the tree limb on the right? When I looked out my office window yesterday, my heart gave a little uh-oh jump. But when I got out there to check on the damage, all I found was a few acorns on the windshield and some broken branches and leaves on the hood. No damage at all!

However, since there was a large chunk of tree hanging off the power line right over the car, I moved it quickly. Today the whole tree is gone--that'll teach those trees to mess with me!

Now, given that whole chunks of the United States are fighting off hurricanes and tornadoes, this probably looks trivial to you, and probably it is. But in my world, it's all about me, and I'm grateful not to have to spend another dime on car repair. This hasn't been a good year for that, what with three separate repairs to Mr. Pug's car on my time.

Right now money is very tight, and I'm having to take the ultimate step--no more yarn purchases for awhile. (Note that "awhile" is relative. Hopefully, it will be easier to stay on a yarn diet than my recent food diets.)

In fact, one of the things I need to be putting money away for is $1000 to take a dead tree out of the back yard. Do you think this is a sign?

My daughters don't read this ...

But if they did, one of them would get a big birthday wish today. Kelly, on the right, celebrated yesterday. Jennifer, on the left, had her birthday a week and a half ago. Look at them--don't they look innocent, like they're not plotting? Don't be fooled!

Happy birthday, Kel! You changed my life forever, and I'll always be grateful.

We Hate These Socks

And when I say "we," I mean, of course, my sister Debbie and me. We, the collective, universal, royal We, hate these socks. These hellish, tiny, microgaugish things are the Ravelry Mystery Sock for July, and, in a burst of sisterly love and affection, I talked Debbie into knitting them together, 600 miles apart.

Sorry, Debbie! I'm an idiot. Even if you don't hate them, and you might not, because you're a lot farther along on them than I am, I'm still sorry.

Yeah, she's farther along because she didn't tear hers out three times because (1) there was a glitch in one of the increase stitches on one side that, let's face it, no one would ever see unless I have the misfortune to get mixed up with a foot fetishist; (2) the middle size was going to be WAYYYY too big for my size 10s at 84 stitches; and (3) I can't even remember why I took it out once but I know I did. Just got a wild thread up my sock, probably.

I hereby promise you that I'll never again suggest that it might be oh, so much fun to knit a pair of socks on size 00 needles using thread and insisting on 10 stitches to the inch. Of course, poor eyesight runs in the family, but it really wasn't necessary for me to encourage the two of us to go blind together on this wicked sock. I'm picturing us, dark glasses and white canes akimbo, sitting in matching rockers in The Home, knitting garter scarves with bulky yarn on Size 17s because that's the only size we can manage.

On the other hand, Debbie, check out the Arrow Tip Lace Knee Highs in the new Cast On. It's toe-up, lace, and you certainly wouldn't have to knit the whole thing--I can tell you right now that I'm not wearing any knee length socks but it's really pretty ....

And, by the way, let me say it's not that easy to knit a teeny tiny sock when you have cactus spines stuck in your thumb, so whine, whine, whine.

But, speaking of funny socks and being totally out of the loop--well, I think it's obvious that I'm out of the loop, that's not exactly news--Thong Socks, AKA Flip Flop Socks. Here's a fun pattern by Sivia Harding in case you're as OOTL as I am. Once again the Lovely and Talented Debbie knew about this before I did--she reminded me that only Old Ladies (which seems to include me) wear hose these days.

Finally, Ms Packrat was kind enough to comment about my rather frightening car trunk. But how scary is it that Ms Packrat, who is evidently a woman of Great Knowledge of Weird Things (and we really like people like that!), knows what month Amelia Earhart and Jimmy Hoffa disappeared? Ms P, do you feel a conspiracy theory coming on? I think there's a short story in there somewhere.

And to think I wanted to live in Arizona ...

Haiku:

Dumb southern gringa
Thought cactus was her friend. No.
Tweezers please now. Ow.

Is It Any Wonder I Never Finish Anything?

One of my goals for this weekend is to clean out my car--well, I'm not going to get it all done because the trunk is horrific! But I got a good start and it's been an amazing view into My Life And What's Wrong With It.

Somewhere in the southeast quadrant of my trunk, I saw what appeared to be a project bag--not one of my favorites or I'm sure I'd have missed it long ago. Inside: one almost complete sock, instructions for said sock, yarn for the second sock, two sets of DPNs, and a book.

Anyway, back to the sock. It's gorgeous--how could I have forgotten it? It's obviously Mountain Colors and only needs the toe kitchenered. Then the other sock needs to be knit. All the size 1 and 2 bamboo DPNs are there, unscathed, which is a miracle in itself. More to the point, the pattern, almost pristine except for a few wrinkles in its plastic sleeve, includes all my careful little notes about how I changed the pattern:

The sock is Jeanie Townsend's Cascading Leaves pattern. The yarn is gorgeous, the pattern is there, the needles are with the project. Anyone want to take odds on whether I ever finish this pair of socks?

Ever done an archeological dig? I took a couple of archeological history classes in college and one of the things you learn is that you can date the age of an unknown object by the things around it in the same strata. For instance, a penny with a date on it of 1924 means that the piece of pottery buried next to it probably probably wasn't buried before 1924. Anyway, the book contains a receipt (for sushi at Ru-San's if it matters) dated 1/14/06.

This sock has been sitting in my trunk since January '06. I'm so easily distracted that, in all that time, I've never once thought to myself, "wonder whatever happened to that Mountain Colors sock?" Until today, I'd completely forgotten it.

Oh, my. Wonder what else I'll unearth? Hope Jimmy Hoffa and the Lindbergh baby aren't in there somewhere....

Birthdays ... we got birthdays ...

My baby's birthday is today and she's ... oh, never mind, I'm not going to tell you how old my youngest daughter is. If I did, you'd have to do the math, and then it would be ugly. So let's just say, Happy Birthday, Jen! You're still my baby.

And here's Cooper. He's my older daughter's youngest child--confusing? Sorry. His third birthday was last week and he still thinks it's fun to tell people how old you are. I had a great time in Charlotte with both daughters and all their kids and significant others and you get the picture. I hate being so far away from them.

Lace-cation continues ...

But we have socks, and that's a good thing. Here are the Opal Rendez-Vous socks (yarn from The Yarn Grove girls).

And here's the Ravelry July Mystery Sock (Panda Silk from The Knitting Emporium). This is a microguage sock, 10 st to the inch. The needle is a 00 Hiya Hiya. I'm behind, of course, still on Clue 2 of 4. Then there's that pesky second sock problem, but there's time to worry about that later. In the meantime, the microguage means that my poor eyes are hating life and I've got even more squint lines where I don't need them. My lovely and talented sister Debbie and I are working on this knitalong together, although I haven't seen progress yet. Knowing her, she's already finished!

Finally, my do-anywhere-with-your-eyes-closed socks, Austermann Step. This is the stuff that's supposed to contain Aloe, and maybe it does. If so, I can't tell, and the striping is pretty if a little repetitive. But it's a nice yarn to knit with, and the socks will feel good. And since I seem to be in a blue period (when I'm not in a red or a green period), the yarn fits into my current color philosophy. And, believe it or not, it's from stash. What's that about?

Speaking of stash, I need to be organizing it and using it. With prices going up and my income going down, we're spending a lot more carefully here in the Pug household. When our grandson moves out later this month, we'll feel another pinch. So, we're using coupons and loyalty cards and scrutinizing price vs service a lot more carefully. I saw a meter on someone's blog today that showed yards knit from stash this year--my meter would be chugging along like The Little Engine That Could, because I tend to get all ADHD and buy new stuff because it's calling my name. (Do you think I feel guilty because two new yarns from Only Ewe and Cotton Too jumped in my bag recently? Nope--I never feel guilty about buying from yarny friends.)

And for the fish lovers.... I think I mentioned that about three weeks ago we added a bunch of feeder goldfish to the pond. They've been a very successful addition, and we've only lost one or two in that time. They're growing and thriving. And the two missing Koi returned...Mr. Big and Biggy Small. So, here's feeding time at the zoo, as it were. The goldfish are distinguishable from the others because they're... well, they're goldfish, even the three black ones. The Koi are the bigger ones, white with orange and black markings. Mr. Big is at the bottom left, and Biggy Small is near the bottom in the center.