WIP Wednesday - WTF

Today's post is a blatant rip off of the "WTF Wednesday" posts Heide often does.

WTF WIP:  Remember those worsted weight socks I started way back in November on my trip to Louisiana?  They still are not done.  WTF is wrong with a knitter who takes more than three months to knit worsted socks??  I called them "Le Petit Sockon Rouge" since I knit the first one on my trip to Louisiana.  I worked on the second one on my trip to San Diego.  So maybe they need to be "Le Petit Sockon Rouge/Red Hot Chili Sock".  *sigh*

WTF Pictures:  While were are at it, WTF is up with the pictures on my blog?  Every other knit-blogger posts quality photos of their knitting artfully arranged.  My blog has shadow-filled pictures of knitting sloppily thrown on a crumpled mass of wrinkles.  More often than not, the colors you see are not the true colors of the yarn.  Have you all taken a Photography for Bloggers course I don't know about?

WTF Blanket:  To end this WTF post on a high note, I must share the funniest video I've ever seen on You Tube.  The voice-over is not exactly family-friendly, so don't watch it with the kids!!

Sweet, Sweet San Diego . . .

So, that cryptic last post?  I was "out of sorts" because I was in a whole new time zone, and I was "here" on my blog "but not here" because I wasn't home.  Pea got sent to San Diego for work last week.  I decided to tag along, and we managed to fit some play time in too.

San Diego is the sweetest city I've ever seen.  The weather is sweet.  The beach is sweet.

It was about 80 degrees and I got a bit sunburned, and I loved it.  I can now say I've touched the Pacific Ocean as well as the Atlantic.  And wwwaaaayyy out there?  It wasn't Long Island, like when I look out at home.  It was Mexico.  Wow.

The Trolley Tour was sweet.  We saw Old Town, where we ate the best Mexican food ever.

Yup, Mexican two days in a row. It was so good, we had to go back for more.

We saw the sweet Gas Lamp district, where we had many an awesome breakfast at Richard Walkers and found the most incredible cupcakes.

Seriously, these things were amazing. After a bite, I accidentally dropped mine on the hotel room floor.  And for one brief moment, OCD me was tempted to eat it anyway.  (I didn't, but I did walk the seven blocks back to buy a new one.)

And we hopped around sweet Seaport Village to see the sights and browse the shops.

 

We found a sweet spot in Balboa Park to enjoy some southern California scenery.

And of course, there were some visits to some sweet yarn stores.  Black Sheep, The Shepherdess, and Knitting in La Jolla (I guess they don't have a web-site).

Oh yes, even in a place where the temps are in the 70's year round, I can manage to find sock yarn!

But by far, the sweetest thing about San Diego was the fact that I was going to be meeting up with a California blog pal.  Not a knitting blog pal, although Karyn (& Noey) and I would have if we could have worked it out.  Instead I met with the diabetes blog communities self-proclaimed Ninjabetic, George!  As a surprise, he had another diabetes blogger with him, all the way from Minnesota. So Pea and I also got to meet Scott!

Trust me when I tell you, these guys are quite big in the diabetes blogging community, and it was an honor to meet them . Just like with knit-bloggers, there was an instant connection and we had more fun than I can tell you!  We caused such a scene, our waitress even agreed to take a picture with us.  (Yes, my sunburn is also featured prominantly!)

But now we are back home. The sun is still out, but the temperatures are about 50 degrees colder. I guess it's the perfect excuse to cuddle up with K.C. and get working on my socks and sweater!

WIP Wednesday - Amused

So, Amused is turning out to be a very fun knit.  The cables are a blast!  And I'm really happy with my progress so far.  I've never knit with Swish before, but I'm loving it.  It knits up like a dream.  I see more Swish in my future.

It's kind of a weird week for me.  Things are a bit out of sorts.  I'm here, but I'm not.  I thought I'd have a ton of knitting time, but it turns out, not so much.  Maybe this afternoon, in the sunshine.

Cryptic post?  Yes.  More later . . .but for now, I'm very Amused by Amused.

Finish or Frog What???

So obviously, my plan to finish a project each Friday in February fell completely off track after the mugging.  I know knitting is supposed to bring you comfort and see you through the tough times.  But to be honest, for the past week, knitting has pretty much been the farthest thing from my mind.

Until yesterday.  Yesterday I started thinking about sweaters.  Actually, one sweater.  One sweater who's yarn was ready and waiting to be cast on.  I knew I had no business starting a new project until I finished up more WIPs, but the thought of casting on still nagged at me.  I knew I could stay strong.  I knew I could resist. I knew I had plenty of other projects to keep me busy.

And then I cast on anyway.

It seems to me, in times of stress I become a sweater knitter.  A year ago, while heart-broken over losing Charlie, the "Comfort Sweater" saw me through.

And so, the healing begins and the sweater progresses.  I think it's going to be a fairly quick knit . . . and anyway, K.C. is more than willing to knit a few rows too!

Meme Monday - Letter Meme

Before I get going on my meme, I want to thank everyone for your comments and thoughts and concerns on my last post.  I'd like to try to answer each comment personally, but I haven't been able to work up the energy for it yet.  Please know your kind words mean the world to me and Pea.  We are still shaken, scared and upset, but we are starting to sleep a bit better each night.

On to the meme.  Today I'm sharing the Letter Meme that I got from Walden.  She gave me the letter D - so here are ten things I like that start with D, in no particular order.

1. Diabetes bloggers - they are one cool group
   
2. Donuts - yummy
   
3. DPNs (double-pointed knitting needles) - I really prefer these to circulars
   
4. Daytime television - my guilty pleasure is watching a couple of soap operas
   
5. Dancing ballroom - Pea and I have been taking ballroom lessons for about 5 years, which makes me feel like we should dance a lot better then we do
   
6. Diamonds (specifically 812 & 912) - what woman doesn't like diamonds (okay, besides my mom)
   
7. Dove chocolates - by far my favorite "grocery store chocolate"
8. Decaf coffee in the afternoon - I love coffee just for the taste, so a nice soothing cup of decaf is a great warm treat that won't keep me up all night
9. Derek and the Dominos - Layla is one of the all-time greatest love songs, but then again Clapton is God
   
10. Daisies, of the Gerbera variety - they are so colorful and pretty

Would you like to do the Letter Meme too?  Just e-mail me, and I'll send you a letter.  I promise I won't use a difficult one like Q or X.

Four hours . . .

That's my estimation of how much sleep I got last night, so my apologies if I am not quite coherent.

Yesterday actually started as a good day for me and Pea. He had a big meeting at work and needed to wear a suit. He got a lot of compliments on how nice he looked and he felt great. I just was feeling really good all day too.

A little after 5:30, he called me as usual to let me know he was catching the train home. We live a mile from the train station, so it works out good. A shuttle runs from work to the train, and then he walks the mile down Main Street and is home about an hour after he leaves work.

But last night, things went really wrong. As I was making dinner, he called from his cell and asked if I could drive around the corner and pick him up. Everything after that is a bit of a blur. As he was walking home, on Main Street in the early evening, three teenagers knocked him down from behind. They punched him several times in the face and reached into his pocket to steal his wallet. He tried to yell for help, but there were no other pedestrians around and no cars stopped or even called 911. I have a really hard time believing there were no cars on Main Street at that time of day, so I'm sure someone must have seen this happening and chose to ignore it.

We are both a bit numb today. We are trying to understand how something like this could happen in our quiet little town. We did give a statement to the police and cancelled all of our credit cards and our bank card. We took him to the ER for a cat scan, and it came back clean.  (No, I didn't bring my knitting for the ER wait - he needed my full attention.) They gave him a prescription for the pain. His nose is swollen (it had bled at the time) and he's got a bunch of red bumps and a cut on his face. I'm sure he will be very sore from being pushed down too. He was told not to go to work today, and luckily he's still sleeping.  We didn't get home from the hospital until 1:00 am, so it was a really long night.

Just thinking about this still brings tears to my eyes this morning. But we are trying to look on the bright side and count our blessings. I shudder to think about how much worse this could have been. They could have had weapons. They could have beat him even more than they did. I can't let myself think about anything beyond that - but yes, it could have been so much worse. So today, we will start the process of putting this behind us. I'll get new bank cards. I'll take him for a new license and buy him a new wallet. I'll be dropping him off and picking him up at the train station from now on. We'll fight the urge to hide away from everything (as demonstrated by K.C. and her Kitty Kondo).

And I'll hug him a little closer from now on.

Meme Monday

I seem to have gotten tagged or volunteered for quite a few memes lately, so I thought maybe I'll do one each Monday until I've completed them all.  The first one is from Katt, and requires me to tell you six quirky things about me.

Here are the rules:
Link to the person who tagged you.
Mention the rules.
Tell six quirky yet boring, unspectacular details about yourself.
Tag six other bloggers by linking to them.
Go to each person’s blog and leave a comment that let’s them know they’ve been tagged.

Some of these you may already know, but here what I've got.

1. I hate mashed potatoes.  However, I love potatoes - just any way but mashed.
2. When I buy things in stores, I never take the front thing on the shelf.  I always reach behind for the second one.  I think it's "fresher".
3. I sometimes wash some dishes by hand because I'm afraid I'll fill up the dishwasher too fast.  I'm not really sure why I think it would be worse to run the dishwasher more than it is to wash dishes by hand.
4. I can go days on end without leaving my house (and I have).  It doesn't really bother me.
5. I'm completely paranoid about K.C.  Since we only had Charlie for four months before the Feline Renal Failure did him in, I think it's kind of scarred me.  I over analyze every little thing K.C. does, and worry about her all the time.
6. I can't stand when the food on my plate touches.  I've been known to use two, or even three, different plates to keep this from happening.

Gosh, it's hard to come up with 6 quirks!!  I'm not going to tag anyone - but if you want to do it, I'd love to read your answers!