Heading to Hawaii

I am STOKED!!! Right now I am at Tampa International Airport preparing to fly to Hawaii of all places. It really hit on the drive over. I thought "WOW! This is for real. I'm going to Hawaii." At some point in nearly every American's life, there is a desire to go to Hawaii. It is considered paradise. I mean seriously, the temp is constantly in the 80s. SWEET! Let's see what the humidity is like. And I am SO looking forward to taking a dip in the Pacific Ocean. I brought a swim suit and a beach towel. We had better spend some time at the beach. And I brought along my laptop. Facebook addict. I hope there is some access to wireless at the time share. We shall see. I also need the capability to upload the hundreds of pictures I will be taking over the next five, six days.

SWEEEEEETTTT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Still knitting

Even with the economy as it is, it has put little dent in my knitting escapades. One of my latest purchases at me LYS was over $100. And my stash grew. If there were a class that I wanted to take available at a time I was available, I would have signed up. (mo' money!) So right now until I complete my current projects (place mats, top and socks), there is a temporary increase in my yarn stash. Future projects include a top made out of bamboo (That's be a new experience for me), a felted piggy purse, felted coasters (If I ever manage to master DOUBLE POINTS! GAG!!), fingerless gloves for the sis, maybe a Fair Isle vest for Mom, and believe it or not, more socks!

Reality check

Here's the reality of lace patterns:
1. One error has the potential to screw up the entire pattern
2. One error will screw up part of the pattern
3. One error won't make a difference because no one will notice
It all depends on the pattern. And it depends on the error you make.
Here is a sampling of errors:
1. dropping a stitch
2. adding a stitch
3. forgetting to knit a row
4. repeating a row you weren't supposed to
5. repeating stitches before you're supposed to
Etcetera...
A lace pattern like the one I am doing for my second place mat falls in the category of #2. I've already ripped it out, um I think twice. The second time was because I had done something really screwy in one of the pattern repeats that made it look pretty bad. Now the 3rd time around I got to a pattern repeat and left out a row, but the pattern still looked good...so I left it alone. I know Mom will accept the gift not caring one whit or another that I left out a row.

I have also found that it is important to check stitch count FREQUENTLY. This is how my pattern got screwed up the 1st couple of times. An additional stitch here and there. I though just knit 2 together to fix it. HA! The pattern was already messed up. Doing that wasn't going to fix it. Neither did adding stitches when I found several missing. When these mishaps occurred I was too far from the initial error to back up and fix it thus forcing me to rip out the pattern to the border. (Have you ever tried to put a piece back on the sticks that has a lot of yarn overs? NIGHTMARE!) So every 3-4 rows I count my stitches. When I notice that the end of a row isn't ending as it should, I go back and check. I back out until I: a. find the error or b. get to the point where I have the correct number of stitches and take it form there. Now the pattern is finally looking like the picture in the book.

Weird

I have done very little knitting this week. I'm trying to think of the last time I knit. I think it was Sunday. I've been so bloody tired and trying to complete my National Board retake...AGAIN. (3rd time's the charm!) I ended last week very depressed and dejected because my VE class betrayed me as I tried to tape them for my musicianship entry. So I was sullen for a number of days. Taped a 2nd grade class and it would have worked... if I had the darn camera at the right angle so it could capture the kids as they played the instruments. So I tried again on Wednesday with my most prized class. They were off...chatty, which is abnormal for them. Then my little 1st graders showed up and saved the day. I looked at the tape at the end of the day and said "This is IT!" Skipped church Wednesday night to work on the 2 entries.

Entry 2 is right at 11 pages and there is stuff I still need to add which will probably put it over the maximum of 12 pages...double spaced...in New Times Roman in 12 point...with 1 inch margins. That means I'm going to have to reword or delete stuff. I like this dilemma. I ran into the same problem the 1st time around with entry 1, which passed. 12 pages does not guarantee a passing score. It's all about providing the evidence in the writing and the video to prove I meet the standards.

Spring Break started for me today at 2:40. Here's the plan:
-Go to the library with the laptop and work on my entries for 2-3 hours, pretty much everyday until I'm done.
-Get the apartment together so I can start inviting my knitting buds over. I'll spend an hour or 2 a day until it's done.
-Do my taxes. I can do this in a day or 2 dedicating a couple of hours each day to the task.
-Knit...maybe a couple of hours of day and even spend some time at my LYS
-Go to Busch Gardens. I'm looking at Sunday after church since a cold front is coming through on Monday.
-Go to the Florida Aquarium. I'll do that on one of the cool days
-And I just might go to Lowry Park Zoo. I haven't been there in years.
-Hang with Janice and Morgan. We'll watch the Lifetime Movie Network as Pups (Marty the Maltese dog) jumps up on the couch and tries to act like a cat.

Technology MELTDOWN

I have this love hate relationship with technology. When it works I love it and wonder how I got along without it in the past. And when the crap malfunctions, betrays me, I hate it and wish it would go away to end my frustration and aggravation.

I had taken quite a few pictures over the weeks. The 1st error was not deleting from the camera the pictures I had already downloaded to my computer. The 2nd error was not me regularly downloading the pics onto my computer. The 3rd error was dealing with stuff that simply didn't want to work properly when I tried to use it. You see I have a laptop and to facilitate its use, I connect a mouse to it instead of using the touch pad. Well today, both were giving me equal amounts of grief. Let's not forget the fact the after I connected the camera to the computer and downloaded the 1st set of pictures to a particular folder I had a hard time finding the program I initially used. To make a long story short, in my frustration I re-downloaded pictures I had already downloaded and pics that were supposed to be WEREN'T. And of course instead of checking to make sure that ALL pics were downloaded I didn't and deleted them from the camera and discovered minutes later that THEY WEREN'T ALL DOWNLOADED onto the computer. ARRRRGGGGGHHHHHHHH!

These are the pics I lost: Second grade PTA pics, and the kids were SSSOOOOO cute with their little paper flower costumes on. Those pics are lost...FOREVER! linen yarn and place mats I had knitted. No big deal there. I can retake those. Pics from church as we build out our building. Lost FOREVER! Pics of the 1st Elementary Music Multicultural Festival. LOST FOREVER! MELTDOWN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm kicking myself and want to throw the computer and the camera out the window and curse them both straight to HELL! There! I'm done. Rant OVER!

New Creations!

I decided this year for Christmas (yes I'm already thinking 9 months ahead) that the relations are getting household stuff this year. I just completed number 1 in a set of 4 place mats for Mom. Done in Euroflax linen sport weight yarn, it turned out pretty nice. Now all I have to do is weave in the ends and knit the other 3. I decided to go with a lace pattern with a leaf motif since Mom's curtains have a leaf motif. The colors I selected should go well with the dining room set which is a very dark brown. (I think they call it coffee or someting releated to coffee) I'm using Willow (a pretty green color) and Ginger. It'll add some color to the dining room.

Next home project will be felted coasters!