Tiny little things

So I know I'm not a movement, but I kind of feel like one right now.

The lady I babysit for has a friend of a friend (or something like that) who had a baby very premature. like... the baby was born at 23 weeks. When normal gestation is 40 weeks, I'd say that modern medicine is a marvel in this case, because the baby is still alive.

So Barb (aforementioned lady) was asked to make a hat for the baby. And she did. And it's adorable. But I feel like... I dunno. I should do something.

So I am.

I'm making a little baby blanket for the tiny little boy.

And I'm praying for him and his family.

And so I encourage you, whoever reads this, to do the same. Prayer is stronger than you think.

So here I am... a little push of a large wave.

5 inch mile

So here's an update:

It's like five whole inches long!! I've almost used all of the first ball of yarn. Yay!! So guess what? My chocolate melted! (Surprise!!) I've given up on that, but I did buy some jelly beans which I force myself not to eat unless I'm knitting. Good intentions, of course.

While I was babysitting this morning I read a chapter in a knitting book (Knitting Rules! by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee..... <- What a beautiful first name, right? It would be better with an 'f' though...) and it was all about gauge and knitting a swatch and all the while I'm thinking... Man, if I'd actually done that I would have totally saved six hours of my life. I'm running out of movies to knit to! I guess I could go to my dad's house (where he and my stepmom are HUGE movie buffs and have a collection of 500+ dvds), but my stepbrother occupies that couch. Is there no couch for me in this world?!

I'm going to go fight for a couch now.

Beelike

So as much as I hate bees, I find that I kind of want to be one.

Not to chase people around and sting them for no apparent reason except that they happened to be within a 50 foot radius of you.

But because of that one expression, 'Busy as a bee'. Summer is awesome, yeah, but I find that in the afternoon after I'm done babysitting or whatever, I'm reduced to this bored being who wants to do something (something free, please!) but finds that all there is to do is sit in front of the tv and watch reruns of something old and dull. I love having something to do in the morning (Which by the way, I finally surrendered and played Polly Pockets today with one of my babysitting charges...) and then after I leave I crave something to do.

So that's me. Unbusy as a not-bee.

the 'WHY' key

Okay, so this isn't that interesting, but I find it kind of funny.

My 'y' key on my laptop is disfunctional. Seriously. It pops out after every... oh... seventh use. It'll just dislodge itself from the keyboard and kind of dance around until I realize that I'm tping all the words without the in it and I don't seem to realize wh it does that when it does that (<- note the artfully missing 'y's!0 (It just popped out.) So I've decided to christen this key, not the 'y' key, but the 'WHY' key (<- note the artful play on words!) The fact that every day is full of the randomly disfunction of the stuff that's supposed to work anyway. Like when your blinker light decides to go on the fritz and blink really really fast, but then you hit it and it works fine. Or when your ipod decides that NO IT WILL NOT WORK and then you try and fix it, but finally give up and call tech support, and then they tell you to do the exact same thing and then it works... or... well you get the point. Stuff in life is just supposed to work, but it doesn't. Therefore, the 'WHY' key. (note the artful caps lock)

Frogging

Okay, so I WAS knitting this great blanket that's got this soooooft yarn in it that's to DIE FOR. It's so soft, that you might consider kicking out your boyfriend and just sleeping with it. YES. It is that soft. My friend just referred to it as "orgasmic soft".

Now that you get the point...

Well I cast on so many stitches (136, to be precise) and ended up measuring the length about 5 hours later, and... to my shock it ended up being about 9 feet long. (Honestly, I'm still in shock...) I frogged (ripped... or "rip it", which sounds like "ribbit"... thus, frogged.) what I'd done and started over.

Now I cast on 90 stitches and it will hopefully be about 6 ft or something. Here's the beginning... Hopefully I'll keep up with updating you... all none of you who read this.

Isn't it gorgeous?? (Okay not so much. But remember how soft it is!)

And here's how I plan to finish it:

Chocolate. Chocolate is GOOD incentive!! M&Ms, junior mints, and whoppers. 270 of them, to be precise. Every time I knit a row, I get to eat a piece of chocolate. Talk about motivation! (Now... to see that they don't melt...)

"Can I take that out of your way?"

So, for once I'm kind of glad that nobody reads this because for this blog I might get punched in the nose. (Or severly verbally beaten, in any case.) But last night I had the time of my life volunteering at the Dennis Quaid fund raiser gala/dinner/thingy... I opened wine bottles, I helped do some setup, I bussed tables and smiled at people, mostly because they have oodles of money and are giving it to the cause... but I bussed a LOT of tables... and I discovered that just because I wasn't wearing a cocktail dress and I had a crew shirt meant that I was lower than everyone. I would approach someone and ask politely, "May I take that out of your way, maam/sir?" and they would point at something and wait until I was walking away from the table to continue their conversation.

I dunno, I think if I ever get famous, I'll help the volunteers bus tables. I believe out of several hundred guests, I received around 4 thank yous.

And several spilled martinis on my pants.

Well blogger, I guess I had a point to make and maybe lost it.

Wrist binding

I am officially a geek. Glasses and all. Hahaha.

This afternoon I indulged myself in a trip to Hobby Lobby to burn off a bit of money I've earned this week. -Huzzah!! Moneyyyy!!!- And I bought this sinfully soft and fluffy (and cheap!) yarn from my new favorite yarn brand, the "yarn bee". It's called "Frosting' yarn, and just like its yummy food cousin, it looks good enough to eat. So I did some research on several websites and found some general dimensions for an afghan/blanket type thing. Also, I had to figure out the complex workings of circular needles, which seem quite intricate to a straight-needle gal such as myself. But I figured them out (so I do have a few smarts) and I cast on 136 stitches and started going. Two movies later, I've done what.... 12 or 13 rows? This thing'll take a LONG time. But I was knitting for so long that my right wrist actually started to hurt! So, what would the dedicated knitter do? Of course I bind it and keep going.

So that's why I'm a geek. Because I actually knit myself into injury.

(And because I know you're all on the edge of your seats, biting your nails with worry, I just took off the wrap and my wrist feels fine now.)