Lick My Sticks

In the last 5 years I have moved five times. As I type this, I am surrounded by boxes, laundry, and hundreds of ’somethings’ that don’t fit in a particular box, but that I simply cannot throw out…preparing for move number six.

We’re starting to move tomorrow afternoon to our new apartment in Fall River. I’m REALLY looking forward to the moving part being over. I friggen hate doing this.

I packed for about 15 hours straight yesterday, my husband’s normal work day lately has been never less than 11 hours so the entire house is pretty much up to me. It’s so overwhelming. I have done nothing today at all because I needed some me time.

What did I do in that me time? Joined some webrings, AND started my own! Why? Because I’m tired of seeing “no profanity” and “you must post every week or we’ll drop you like a bad habit” on the requirements for webrings. I mean, shit, some people GO ON VACATION. And some people like to pepper their language with beautiful profanity. Don’t like it? TOO BAD. So I present you with….

The Bad Ass Knitters webring. Join us, join us, join us….There’s a link in the navigation menu to the right with info on the ring as well as buttons up the wazoo. It is open to any badass, be they knitters, spinners, hookers, weavers, or any combination of the above. I think the buttons are pretty bad ass myself. So drop a few f-bombs, take a week off, you’re still welcome here!

I’ve also signed on to help the Purling Puppies webring get back on it’s feet. Poor Carrie is completely drowning in that ring, so I offered to help her out.

There’s a guy from the cable company outside with this thing that looks like an alien taser scanning for what I assume is stolen cable. They just shouted my house number…sorry pal, we’ve only got channel 6…and it’s kinda like watching scrambled porn.

…however I do steal wireless from some kind neighbor…hmm

The Knitting World Cup deadline is approaching!! 10 days!! eek. I have made some good progress, I’m starting to panic that I don’t have enough yarn. Oh the river I will cry.

As you can see the beasts I share a domicile with can never let any picture be taken unmolested.

I am on row 131.

Well I should probably start packing again…this would be far more enjoyable if I were trashed. DRUNK PACKING! wooo.

Expect images from one hell of a housewarming party pretty soon!

I just found out about this and I think it’s an incredible idea. I’m really into the idea of knitting for good causes. I try to always have one charity project going alongside my more selfish endeavors. Since I’ll be shipping off my red sweaters shortly, I think this is a great next in line project.

It’s called Project Snuggle. Flutter Crafts is behind the idea, a newborn idea right now. Her blog seems to be brand new. She wants knitters to knit teddy bears for police to take to children who are victims of domestic violence. She said she discovered that often officers will bring a child a bear or stuffed animal to soothe them during these horrible ordeals. I think it’s an amazing idea and offered any help I can give. So spread the word! She would (and I would) love to see this take off like many of the other knitting charities have. I think it’s a great cause. These kids need something, even if it’s something so small as a stuffed, knitted friend.

If anyone knows any simple bear patterns, please share! You can email FlutterCrafts for the mailing address or questions or suggestions or whatever at” fluttercrafts at gmail dot com” (don’t want the spambots getting that)

Today is a celebratory day in the world of knitting bloggers.

Marnie MacLean’s blog, Marnie Talks, probably my most favorite blog…celebrates it’s two-year-old birthday today. This prompted me to figure out when I began blogging. I looked back to my last blog, and then remembered the one before that. So according to my first ever knitting blog entry, My 1 year was January 25th. Which makes my blog a Carpricorn…which explains why it irritates me so frequently.
Grumperina celebrates her anniversary of learning to knit. That’s right, she has only been knitting two years. Two years and she can design her own patterns, knit just about anything and re-write japanese patterns in her friggen head. I think I speak for all of us when I say, Congratulations, you bitch.

I now have 2 days left to pack my whole house and what I am I doing? Yeah. Not packing.

I want these. Anyone have them? Got a review for me? Do tell.

1. Knitting Without Tears- I feel like a knitting poser for not having this.

2. Mason-Dixon Knitting- I have heard good things. I feel out of the loop without having this.

3. Knitting Rules! The yarn harlot’s bag of knitting tricks- C’mon, it’s the Yarn Harlot!

4. The Vogue Knitting Stitchionary I and II- Seems handy.

5. The Craftster Guide to Nifty, Thrifty, and Kitschy crafts- Craftster’s Leah has a book. Obviously I want it.

6. Subversive Cross Stitch- This shit is awesome.

Jacey has a new podcast up! Go listen! I also found the Knitting News Cast, which is a really cool podcast and website with knitting zine reviews and all the latest knitting contests, webzine action, and other stuff. If you’re not into podcasts, the news feed on the website is great and updated every day or every other day. Pretty neat.

Ok that’s all. On row 115 of the Flower Petal Shawl.

THURSDAY
Zoe’s last day of the first grade. She came home with all B’s again, not too shabby! To celebrate her temporary freedom and a few months of being lodged in my butt, we went to Horseneck Beach for the afternoon. Zoe was beside herself with joy.

She’s got that “oh I hope you enjoyed that couple months of being home alone all afternoon, mom, cause that shit is OVER now!” smile on her face. The second picture she is surrounded by my nephews, the adorable faces of evil. Clockwise, Timmy, Stephen, Zoe, and David…who apparently thinks I’m a fucking riot…taken moments after all four of them found a way to cover their lunch in sand.

FRIDAY

We were frantically packing (last minute as always) for our weekend trip. The Accursed (husband’s band if you’re new around here…I like to pretend droves of people actually read my blog) had a show Friday night in Queens, NY at a little bar called ‘131′. The show went OK, not many people there. The drive up wasn’t bad…I knit Orangina until I exhausted yet another ball of yarn, and since I didn’t bring the last ball I moved on to the Damn Sock just as we entered Conneticut…

Jon was thrilled at my progress…

Clearly.

And as we crossed the border of NY…

I’ll tell ya, I am probably a lot happier than I should be about knitting a sock. BUT, to justify my exaggerated glee I remember when I first started knitting, I couldn’t even FATHOM knitting a sock. It seemed like astrophysics to me, surely I could never do that. Now…I think I’m addicted. After the Knitting World Cup I will pounce on it’s pair. THEN onto jaywalkers perhaps. However I am concerned…the amount of yarn I have left seems suspiciously small to knit another sock despite the pattern on the ball band saying otherwise…we’ll see.

My first sock celebration was cut short due to some car nausea I imagine spawned from bumpy roads and counting stitches, and I put the knitting away until New Jersey the next day.

SATURDAY

My band and The Accursed played an Elk’s Club in Manehawkin, New Jersey the next day. A very popular local band, Divinity Destroyed, was supposed to play and supply a large and somewhat “metal” crowd, but their singer got himself food poisoning and ended up in the hospital. SO we got to play to a somewhat “we like emo, the mall, and kickbox-moshing” crowd that REALLY didn’t like us much. It was excrutiating to get through. Here I am wishing we were on our last song so I could go home…

The Accursed got a much better response later on, and played one hell of a show. The whole weekend was pretty bittersweet for us as our favorite underground band, Beyond The Flesh, just called it quits a few weeks before. These guys just fucking destroyed. They were so tight, and wrote the catchiest songs, and they are some of the coolest guys I’ve ever met. We’re all really sad about it, and so are the guys. It was weird visiting and not seeing them play. We all wore Beyond The Flesh shirts onstage as a tribute to them. If you’re into metal and haven’t heard these guys, do yourself the favor: http://www.myspace.com/beyondtheflesh.

While we were in Jersey and had time to kill before showtime, we got to making a trip I’ve been dying to make for YEARS. Behold…Jay and Silent Bob’s Secret Stash:

Of course I had no money to spend in there, but it was still pretty damn cool to be in the store I’ve seen in the Kevin Smith movies, and check out all the signed stuff and rockin’ decor.

We had to rush right out after the show to come home. We battled rain, fog, wind and sleep deprevation and pulled in a dawn on Sunday.

SUNDAY

Today was Zoe’s 3rd dance recital. She’s been doing tap and ballet for 3 years, this fall she’ll add jazz to the list. She did great this year…here’s a clip to prove it! (soundless thanks to a busted camera!)
Now I don’t know if any of you have ever been to a dance recital, but in between some very talented older girls, you get preschoolers in HUGE tu-tu’s picking their nose and making hams of themselves onstage. This years highlights included a girl who sobbed silently at the end of the line the whole routine, another who came out blowing kisses, bowing, and waving to her parents, and then stood with her arms folded throughout her routine like she was waiting for a bus, and the little girl in front of us (someone’s little sister no doubt) wailing out in desperation “oooooh noooooo! I have to go poopie!!” in a well-placed moment of silence between routines.

2am MONDAY: Present day
This week I am packing my entire house for the move, and knitting away on the Flower Petal Shawl to get it done for the deadline. I’ve got a system worked out that will get me there if I stick to it! I’m on row 107 now I think. I will get there, dammit!! IF NOT FOR ME, THAN FOR BONNIE! This one’s for you, baby! Oooh yeah!

Also: I finished Girl Bomb…fucking awesome book. Highly reccommend it. The degenerate ex-youths like myself will relate and really like this one. I read it in 3 sittings.

OK…I’m really tired. Time to sleep…after I catch up on bloglines…someone stop me.

I spent the last two hours (which should have been spent knitting) going through my blogroll and making sure there aren’t any broken links and that I’m subscribed to everyone’s RSS on Bloglines (I wasn’t!). So now if you’re linked on my blogroll, I am subscribed and will haunt your blog from here on out.

I need some help. Do you read awesome knitting blogs that I don’t have listed? Please share them! I love avoiding life’s responsibilities reading new blogs and linking them so maybe someone else will click the link and find a new blog.

Please! If you link to me, let me know! (And if you don’t, feel free to!) I am happy to return the favor. I get all giddy like a schoolgirl when someone links to me, because if internet popularity isn’t something to squeel over…what is?

No pictures because I’m lazy and I know you’ve had enough of my animals in various stages of sleep but I HAVE TURNED MY FIRST HEEL ladies and gentleman. I was basking in my own glory until I read the Gusset instructions, which were written in some strange form of English. I think I did alright though, I’m working on the decreases now and looking forward to being done with them because I keep forgetting if I’m on an increase row and I’m too stubborn to use a counter for something so incredibly simple. I am truely the bane of my own existence.

Orangina is just over 3 inches into the ribbing, and I fucking hate it. Endless ribbing…3 by 3 by 3 by 3. I want to set it ablaze and be done with it. BUT I WILL PERSIST!! I may dye it though, I’m not liking the flaming orange-red anymore.

The Flower Petal Shawl- I am on the final and looooong pattern repeat. Technically I am about halfway done, but with the rows getting longer and longer, it will still be a while. I am on row 99 and pretty much enjoying the knit. It’s a good little pattern. But can I finish it in 18 days??? I will sure as hell try.

I also completed another little red sweater.

I think my next cast on will be Jaywalkers…

BOOKS. I love books. I just finished The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold last night, it was GREAT. I put that back on the shelf and cracked Girlbomb by Janice Erlbaum (The infamous Girlbomb of BUST magazine fame). It’s a memoir, a “halfway homeless memoir” to be exact, and it sucked me right in. I killed 1/3 of the book last night. I am loving summer break, I don’t mind school reading, but your own choices are always so much better! Next I’m probably jumping on Angelina Jolie’s Notes from my Travels, or TRUTH by Al Franken.

Alright, enough of my babble. Moving to the NEW APARTMENT in less than 2 weeks, and waving goodbye to this shitheap house in this dying, rotting, slumhole city.

Let me tell ya…I get a little itchy being out of school and having endless hours at home, but I love all the knitting and reading I’m getting done. (You slaves to the grind are hating me, I know. If it’s any consolation when I move in two weeks I’ll be in search of a part-timer.)

I posted a little bit back about the Red Sweater project. A few of you lovely ladies left me comments saying you’d be picking up the sticks for this great project, and one of you did! Melissa posted her first little red sweater on her blog! So I figured I would post up mine, you can see Melissa’s behind them on the computer screen! Hopefully I will get a lot more done! Right now I’m frantic with the Knitting World Cup, so I may not get my one-sweater-per-week goal so easily!

The problem with the Flower Petal Shawl is that while it’s not really a complicated project, it is just complicated enough that I can’t really knit it on the go, so I’ve been working on Orangina’s ribbing for that. Which, by the way, is taking for-fucking-ever. Here she is, fighting me ever so fiercly to the finish line!

Look at her…mocking me

Flower Petal is going well, I made a couple small boo-boo’s but they’re not really noticable. I only screw up on the purl increase row. I’ll get in the zone purling and miss an increase like a dummy…but it’s looking pretty good so far!

Thanks to you who left me birthday wishes, here and on MySpace. I realize I am only popular on the internet, as no one aside from my mother called me, but I got like 40-odd birthday comments on MySpace! I am OK with this due to my irrational hatred of the telephone and having to use/answer it.

Since things have been…shitty…at the house, I ended up going to a thrash show in Boston with a friend for my birthday. Of course my husband and his nosey family think I’m a shithead for going out alone on my birthday (they seem to think I owe them something on MY birthday) but I needed to get out and forget about the BS for an evening and have a good time, and I did.

The next day my birthday cake sat untouched with unlit candles in it, so when Zoe got home today, I had her sit down and sing happy birthday to me, and of course assist in extinguishing the candles. It may not have been a perfect birthday for me, but that little girl is always there for me and due to my smoking habits, blows candles out way better than I do.

We (Zoe, Myself, and my brother in law and sister in law and their pack of kids) went to Chuck E Cheese this afternoon. I know Zoe knew something was wrong at home and I’m glad I could get her out of the house. I was working on Orangina when I heard David, my youngest nephew, wailing somewhere. He was all the way at the buisness end of the skee ball ramp sitting amongst the holes and didn’t know what to do. It was hilarious. Zoe, Stephen, and Timmy all posed for me on the merry-go-round and managed to display their personalities perfectly. I present..the movie star, the bad-ass, and the cartoon character…

I’ll leave you with three things that made me smile this week. My animals going out of their way to be adorable…(yes, the cat is not only sleeping on the dog’s butt, he is cuddling it.)

What I did before I posted here:

And what’s that? WHAT’S THAT? Oh yeah. It’s a heel flap!

I am having one shitbag of a birthday. Long story that I will spare you, but the moral of the story is: next time you consider getting married, lick a light socket to punish yourself.

However I present you with something great, the Immortal cake. If anyone ever made this for me for my birthday, I would cry black metal tears of uber-grim joy.

Yessss

It has been a hectic week for me! Saturday, I actually pulled off my parents surprise 25th anniversary dinner. I didn’t post about it for unfounded and probably overly paranoid fear that they’d somehow find my blog and spoil everything. I am one of my Dad’s 4 children, and the other 3…well…let’s say it was up to me. I wanted to put something special together so I found a waterside italian place called Siro’s at Marina Bay. (My parents are boaters) I managed to pull together my Aunt Linda, her husband Cliff, cousins Lisa and Doug, Mary, Mike and their son Cameron (all Dad’s side) AND to make my Mom really, REALLY happy, I got my Aunt Nancy and her daughter Kimberly to fly up from Florida and surprise her. I told Mom and Dad to meet Jon and I for dinner, which almost came to blows because they were pulling the “NO NO NO save your money, we don’t need anything special” crap on me. They finally caved (with plans to steal the check from us I found out later) and man, if you could have seen their faces, especially my Mom’s when she saw her sister. It was worth all the stress and planning ten fold. My little cousin got her “Nancy face” on camera, can’t wait to see that. They fly home today, hopefully safely around that hurricane! The dinner was amazing (and expensive!) and it was a great feeling knowing I pulled it off, and that they were really happy.

Look at those faces…excellent. (my mom and dad, that’s Jon in the backround)
My birthday is Thursday (15th), I had a little dinner with the Floridians and my parents the next day, my Mom and Dad (well I suspect my Dad had no idea on this one) got me a $50 card to Victoria’s Secret (I am a bra snob) and my Aunt got me a card for WalMart. Now, I have massive moral issues with WalMart…but I figure, they already have NANCY’s money, so technically it’d be ok for me to use the card. So I bought a big, awesome new knitting bag (will post pic tomorrow) and a fuckload of embroidery floss. I will now resume my boycott of that corporate pigpen Walmart. (The bag is so great…damn WalMart for its cheap, cute things I am too stubborn and ethical to buy!!)

KNITTING! I am offically RIBBING Orangina! Thank the friggen gods because I was *so* sick of that lace pattern. Now I get to be sick of endless 3×3 ribbing! I’m glad I’m nearly done because…

I’ve signed up for the Knitting World Cup! Albeit a little late. The whistle blew on the 9th, so I’m about 4 days behind, BUT I am doing my Flower Petal Shawl for this…so I had to penalize myself anyway. I would have only needed to shave off about 6 hours according to the WIP rules, but uh…I like the punishment? I almost didn’t sign up because first, I don’t think I can do it, and second because I want to finish Orangina and the Damn Socks (which I knit the heel flap on today). However I missed the Knitting Olympics thanks to a foolish “knitting break” (post xmas gift knitting trauma) so I really wanted to participate in some masochistic timed knitting event. I added a countdown to my sidebar to further my anxiety.

I also completed 2 sweaters thus far for the Red Sweater project. (see blog before last) Please check it out if you haven’t already!!

I got my Roller Derby embroidery patterns from Sublime Stitching today. They’re so great. If you’ve never checked that site before, do it, you’ll be drooling in moments.

That’s about it. I am boring tonight! Hopefully I’ll have some real progress and pictures in the next few days!

National Emo Beatdown Day (Don’t get mad at me I didn’t make it up)
I will only be participating in the first one. I don’t pick fights…

WHAT? I don’t!!!

Alright sometimes I do, but I got a kid now…can’t be getting arrested anymore.

My suggestions for a very wicked 06.06.06

-Have a heavy metal BBQ. Red meat (or uh…do they make red tofu for you veggie guys and gals?) beer, and SLAYER. Blasted as loud as possible…just like it says on nationaldayofslayer.org...

“DO NOT use headphones! The objective of this day is for everyone within earshot to understand that it is the National Day of Slayer. National holidays in America aren’t just about celebrating; they’re about forcing it upon non-participants.”

-Grab a lawnchair and set yourself up outside of the “crazy” church (you know the one, you’ve all got at least one), and watch the dum-dums go bananas over the end of the world.

-Walk up to random people on the street, make grim faces (study photos of Immortal to achieve perfection in this) and then scream SLAYYYERRRR in their face. You must spread the holiday cheer.

-You could go see the Omen. I usually boycott all horror movie remakes because I see it as deficating on the original classic…however this one looks pretty good and supposedly sticks to the original.

-OR you could do what I will most likely do: Blast Slayer and other bands of equal stature, pissing off the thug-life homies across the street, knit (not evil at all, but what the hell else am I supposed to do), and probably get shitfaced while packing for our uncertain living future. Enjoy your day.