Happy Boitday to Me
Thanks to Rob, my Mom and sister (Debbie... HI, DEB!)
our staff at ThreadBear and several wonderful and dear friends,
I had an awesome birthday a few weeks ago. As always, life is
nuts here at the shop, and if you haven't noticed, I've been working
on updates on the
shop website. But for my birthday, Rob and
the gang put together a birthday bash for me at my favorite local
Mexican restaurant.
If you're in an area where good Mexican food is easy to
find, count yourself among the lucky ones. Michigan has a monstrous
dearth of good Mexican, but the best I've had in the state is at
Hacienda Los Amigos within minutes of the shop. The salsa's good,
the Poblanos Rellenos are to die for, and they even have excellent
cheese dip, guacamole, and pico de gallo. That may seem simple, but
if you've done without for a while, it's manna.
Anyway, Rob contacted my mom with this terrific idea
for getting me an iPod for my birthday since I constantly listen to
audiobooks and have complained repeatedly that CDs skip, and cassettes
are clunky, and blah blah and kvetch-kvetch. So, they along with the
rest of the gang actually managed to collect enough money to purchase
the iPod and have quite a bit left over. So what do I do just
in time to screw everybody up? I went out and bought a new
Palm that has an MP3 player built right into it. I was in hog heaven.
And yes, I've since been severely throttled.
In my defense, Rob's one of those darling human beings who
goes around saying things like "it's just another day" and "don't you
dare spend money on gifts for me" and "if you get me presents I'll just
cover them with dog feces and set them afire." Well, in all honestly,
that last bit is more extreme—and quite more southern—than
anything I've ever heard him actually say, but you get the gist. He's
always been kind of a humbug about such things. So I'm supposed to expect something so
incredible? Uh... NO. How am I supposed to know that my diamond in the
rough is going to start sparkling out of the clear blue? I ask you.
So, to rectify my idiot behavior, he freaked, scrambled, and
came up with an even more marvelous idea. They had a ton of extra
money, and I've lamented that I could get much more done from home if
only we could break down and get a computer for the house. Granted, in
times past, we either worked in our home or never actually got
home, but I've started taking one day off a week, and I saw no reason
why I shouldn't be working on it.
So they gave me a new laptop.
Well, they sort of gave me a new laptop.
Ok. The evil bitches wrapped up a dummy HP laptop that one
of our friends had from her son's stint at Staples or OfficeMax and let
me open the damn thing, swoon, and suddenly realize that the case had
no innards. And the horses you rode in on, dearies... vee have vays of
payink you back for zees...
So for now, I'm shopping around and saving up the extra
bits to be able to get exactly the model I want, and I still have my
Palm that I'm dearly in love with. Seriously, I really do sleep with
it. I listen to a book until I start to get sleepy, then I reach over,
click it off, and drop my headphones on the night stand. I haven't
had stories read to me at bedtime since Debbie read me Mary Higgins
Clark and Peter Straub novels when I was six. She's a dear, no?
Oh, the beauty of having a much older sister. Love you,
Deb. ;-)
Much love all,
Matt.
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Thoughtful Knitting
I've finally started taking a day off once a week,
but I gladly relinquished it this past week for a day with our
guest instructor, Lucy Neatby of
Tradewind
Knitwear Designs. Lucy taught classes in finishing and
sock knitting, and frankly, I'm surprised my head didn't explode with
all of the information she passed along. I was only in attendance
for part of each of the classes, but between what was offered in the
classes and my several conversations with Lucy, I'm
so
Jones to get back to my techical knitting roots.
Granted, if you've not been in the shop you wouldn't have
seen a lot of the mindless knitting I've been doing since we moved to
Michigan, but I've been doing much more with color than with technique
lately.
Case in point, the oh-so-fabulous and monstrously simple
Pyramid
Sweater from Gooseberry Designs.
Pyramid Sweater detail.
I was inspired to rewrite the pattern as a toddler coat, but
still, it's really quite simple.
So, now I'm off on double knitting. I've tried it before, but
hadn't really gotten into it. Now, I'm intrigued. I'm still working on my
technique... particularly in evening out my gauge, but mostly, I'm interested
in seeing the patterns that we've ordered from Tradewinds. I understand
there's also an article in the most recent INKnitters, so I'll be checking that
out as soon as I have a chance.
In the meantime, I'm working on our class schedule for
spring and summer. Hmm... how many technique classes dare I add?
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