Again, More Tidbits About My Life...

...than you probably want to know. But hey - it keeps the old blog interesting, eh?

Bag update:

They are now "lightly blocked" and by tomorrow they'll be dry enough to crochet together. Karen, no need to stay away from the pattern - 28 triangles equals 56 ends to weave in. It only took half an hour! ;) I will say that it's kind of finicky to sew together - making sure you have the top of the stitch showing around all sides.

Wanda mentioned SWS shedding and she's right! I definitely wouldn't wear my contacts while working with this stuff. Leisel talked about breaks in the yarn and I thought I'd chime in. I had one ball with 4 knots in it which is about one knot for every 27 yds. That's pretty bad. On the other hand, the other two balls I've used have had no breaks at all. So I'm thinking it's probably the luck of the draw as to whether you get a "bad ball." So to speak. ::wink::

I fulfilled a knitting resolution yesterday - I wore a vest to work! I actually did have Doug take a picture of me to prove it, but the picture was too wonky to post. (We used the night vision on the camera since it was pretty early in the morning and it didn't turn out well.) I wore Cul-De-Sac and actually liked it. I found a really neat paisley stretch shirt to wear underneath (and hanging out from the bottom of the vest!) and it looked fine. :) I also washed the vest & blocked it out a bit to make it hang better.

Which brings me to a small rant: Once again, I have to complain about how badly Lavold's Cotton Patine fades. After just one washing the vest looks 10 years old. The brown faded to gray in some places and truly looks BAD. Sigh. I had to throw out an entire cardi when something like this happened before. I'm just saying that for the amount of $$ charged, the yarn should hold up better...MUCH better! I'm not throwing this vest because as bad as the yarn looks, the knitting is good enough to save it.

Here are some brief life bullets:

• After last week's easy peasy substituting, this week is turning out to be HARD. No preps, no free rides. Yesterday a substitute (a little old lady, nonetheless) had extreme problems with a class. She had to call a neighboring teacher over to pull a kid out & write him a referral. So when I get home yesterday, I see that (lo and behold!) my half day job was canceled and I'm put in that class for today. I've decided that the attitude of "let's get Bron to do it, she can handle it" really gets old after awhile. My ego's had enough stroking - let me have the normal stuff again!
• I really get pissed at kids who would treat elderly people so badly. Some of the subs who work are well into their seventies and certainly don't deserve the disrespect and attitude that the kids think is so cool.
• I really get tired of parents saying, "Well, MY kids wouldn't to anything like that!" Frankly, you know your kid at home. You don't know your kid when he or she is at school and awash in the pack mentality. Some kids do a total 180 when confronted with peer pressure. Just sayin'. I've seen it happen, these parents haven't.
• Then again, I was braced for the classes from hell yesterday and they all turned out to be fine. We watched "Stand and Deliver" each period and the movie managed to hold their attention pretty well. Aside from making a few kids put iPods away & telling them to be quiet quite a bit, everything went well. Just no knitting time!
• Our renters still haven't paid this month's rent; they still haven't cleared out several truckloads of trash than needs to be hauled to the dump; we found out yesterday that the water is going to be shut off in 3 days because they canceled it and never told us; the renters think that offering us a Chihuahua from their next litter is enough to make everything alright.
• Doug got called up for jury duty starting Feb. 14th. At least it's Metro Court & not Federal! What a pain!
• We have a Comcast guy coming out between 4 & 6 today. Ever since they put in high speed Internet, it's gone funky once in awhile. We have to reset the modem, unplug, etc. and even then it won't connect at times. It will be fine for a couple of months, then the signal goes wonky again. I finally had enough & called 'em in. Hopefully they can find something other than ghosts in the Ethernet!

There - that's enough kvetching for one post, eh? I may or may not be skipping tomorrow - I have a feeling I won't have much progress on anything to show you since I have a pretty full day today. :)

Ah - life's little stresses.....