Sock Wars Update # 2

The pattern is up! The pattern is up! The pattern is up!

Yes, Yarnmonkey was affected by the hurricane, but thankfully she is fine. She is unable to send out individual emails (aka our secret mission dossiers) so she posted the pattern on her blog. (I included the link for those of you curious about the pattern) .

So I'm off to start my covert mission. Wish me luck! I'll inform you of my progress before I go to bed tonight (and then you'll really know how slowly I knit and how much of a night owl I truly am). I'm more of a leisurely knitter, after all; it's therapy for me, rather than a race. Why am I in the Sock Wars, then? Because I just couldn't resist.

See you all tonight (or tomorrow morning, depending on how many of you share my nocturnal tendencies)!

Sock Wars Update # 1

And the word on the Sock Wars is...No Word.

The pattern was supposed to be sent out today, Friday, September 22nd. Sent by email? Posted on the website? That is unknown.

There has been No communication from Yarnmonkey, the ringleader of the whole shebang.

There are participants waiting (im)patiently from all over the world. In Australia and New Zealand, it is Saturday, September 23rd already. And still no pattern to begin.

Word is that Hurricane Gordon has hit Ireland (where Yarnmonkey is located) and that there are massive power outages. Ironic, don't you think? If that is the case, I do hope she and her family are all right.

Jittery doubters on the Sock Wars forum, most of whom didn't go to sleep last night waiting for the pattern to suddenly arrive at a moment's notice (and who are running on pure adrenaline and too much caffeine) have suggested that this is all a cruel hoax. After all, how can you organize something like this with 800-odd participants?

Personally, I think there are major flaws in the system; big issues that would need to be worked out for this to work properly. But I'm still game. I would love to see how this all turns out after the dust settles.

If there is any dust to be settled.

Stay tuned...

Soccer and Sock Wars

**********I started this post on Monday. It literally took me three days to load all these pictures onto blogger. What is UP with that?? Is anyone else experiencing difficulties with loading pictures, or is it just me?*************

Anyhoo,

Look at this beautiful little soccer player:
That's my sweet Girlie, and I love her so.

We are now in the middle of outdoor soccer season, and I'm enjoying it while the weather stays above freezing. Sproutie and ZimDee are loving it too:SproutieZimDeeSproutie taking it easy on the sidelines.


Girlie is improving every year. She's got a great coach this year, and she's learning a lot.
But what she does best is Goalie:She is truly gifted in that position. I think she likes it best because it involves less running (she takes after me, you know). I am very proud of her, and she takes pride in doing it well. She says to me, "Mom, no ball gets past me!" And she's right. You go, baby girl.

In knitting news, I've finished the secret test knitting project for Chrissy and I will be showing it to her tonight at the Tigard Knitting Guild meeting. It was a fun little knit.

Congratulations go out to Tam for winning the movie line contest from The Color Purple. Way to wow me with your elaborate explanation of what you thought of this movie in your very long, drawn-out answer, there, Girlfriend. :)

I'm resting my fingers today and taking time out to play with my children before the craziness of the Sock Wars begins tomorrow. Instead of disappearing completely, I will be posting daily reports so you can stay informed of my progress and share in the thrill of victory or the agony of defeat.It's a top secret mission, I know, but instead of giving away my position if my blog is infiltrated, I think it may serve the purpose of scaring my enemies. Oh, who am I kidding? I'm going to get creamed, but you'll be with me every step of the way, won't you? Aren't you excited? I know I am. I am listed in the forum as "Force of Nature". Hey, if they're going to name a hurricane after me without my permission, I might as well go with it, hmm? You can follow my progress on the Sock Wars forum by clicking on the link on the button above.

And a big shout out now to my fellow Sock Warriors and friends, mamma and Chrissy. Good luck, ladies! I'll be rooting for you!

Absent

Where does the time go? It's been far too long since my last post, which is not like me. Everything is fine. I've just been settling into the schedules of the new school year and adjusting to the new rhythm that brings. I've been following everyone's blogs and it's so nice to hear you all are doing well.

At the beginning of the week, we had a nice visit from Uncle Dan, my sister A.'s husband. He was in town on business and stayed with us for a few days. We got to see a movie, go out to eat, and have a great dinner in. Here is Girlie hitting him up to order something from her school fundraiser.

What a great little salesperson. Thanks for your support, Uncle Dan!

And knitting? Boy, have I been knitting. I still marvel at the thought that my approach to knitting is so unlike any other aspect of my life. In my everyday life, I am loyal and focused. In knitting, I seem to flit from one project to another without warning. Is there such a thing as knitter's ADD? If so, I have it. The good thing is, the projects do get done eventually.

Ho that I am, I've joined several more swaps and knitalongs:
What is not to love about chocolate? Especially when you add knitting to the mix. What's really cool is that my swap partner, Angela lives not too far from me. How did that happen? However it did, I'm looking forward to spoiling and being spoiled by her.

I had such a great experience with SP8, I was happy to hear that sign-ups for SP9 are now open.

Jennifer started this blog for crafters who are interested in keeping up with their beading. I love to do beadwork, but it has definitely taken a back seat to my knitting obsession. If you're interested in beadwork at all, take a peek at this new blog.

I'm very excited about Sockret Pal since my compadre Amanda got me hooked on knitting socks. Thanks, girl! I've never had so much fun!

And sign-ups are now open for Socktoberfest. Count me in!

I missed the Knitters Tea Swap the first time around, so I'm glad they decided to do another round. I do have to admit, I'm a bit of a tea snob. Just ask Chrissy. I have to bring my own tea bags to restaurants, since they rarely serve my favorite. (For the record, it's PG Tips).

Cables, anyone? What I love about cables is how deceptively easy they are to do, yet they look very complicated on a finished object. I learned how to do cables while practicing on a dishcloth, which I highly recommend. But watch out: knitting dishcloths is another highly addictive aspect of knitting!

I've also joined Jennifer's brand new Fiberflix KAL, which will be run in the same manner as Knit the Classics, which sadly I missed out on. Instead of books, the group will be knitting along to movies. I do that already!

And a warning beforehand: I stand little chance of making it beyond the first round of the Sock Wars, but I'm not going down without a fight. The pattern is to be released this coming Friday, and I will probably be a bit scarce for a few days after that, carrying out my top secret mission. Spy stuff, you know. I have several blogger friends who are in the Sock Wars as well, so I may not be the only blogger out of commission for a little bit. Here is my arsenal, all primed and ready for battle.

I've been working on Chrissy's Sugar Free Diabetes Walk Socks, with all their cable-y goodness, and I am loving the pattern. I'm using Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran, which the pattern calls for, and is among my favorite yarns.And a closer look at the cables:

I'm also making sure and steady progress on my Mystery Socks.Gotta love the magic loop!

And in between those two projects, I've been working on a test pattern for Chrissy. I'd love to show you pictures of that, but that is strictly verboten. Suffice it to say that the pattern is a lot of fun, and I'm enjoying myself immensely. No surprise there, since I'm a big fan of Chrissy's work. When I'm finally able to share, you will be the first to know.

And how long has it been since we had a good movie line contest going? Let's go back to the mid 80's with this one:

"You sho is ugly!"

As always, the winner will get a nice chocolatey treat. This time it's M&M's. Good luck to all.

A Good Cause From a Great Designer

You all know what a fan I am of Chrissy's designs. She created the Ziggy scarf for Mag Knits as well as the Winter Branches sweater that I'm knitting for my lovely sister A. I was a fan of Chrissy's designs before I ever met her. And in fact, when I did meet her, at the Tigard Shop Hop in April, I was actually working on one of her patterns, the said Winter Branches sweater. I was happy to find that she was as delightful in person as she sounds on her blog. We've become friends, and our girls adore each other.

Chrissy has a fledgling knitting design business which I just know is going to be huge someday. I'm a part of her team of test knitters, though I have yet to contribute much. She is soon going to release one of her first self-published patterns, a fantastic pair of socks that I have seen in person and which made my heart flutter. She is raising money for her friend Karen, who suffers from diabetes, for the Walk for Diabetes, to be held on October 15th. All proceeds from the sale of the pattern before the walk will go to Karen's pledge drive. This is a great cause, and one close to my heart, as I lost my dear grandma, my uncle, and a great friend to this disease.

Won't you please go visit Chrissy's blog for the details.

Not Nice Today

Ok, so, you all know me as a pretty nice person. And I try to be. I'm not big on drama--I don't thrive on it, choose to create it, or live with it in my daily life. Those who know me well would say that I'm very easygoing, even-keeled.

But...

The fact that I'm small (4'10") leads certain people to mis-judge and think that I can be pushed around because I look pretty defenseless.

This is not the case.

Growing up always smaller than everyone in my classes at school and in my age group taught me to be pretty scrappy. Because little people get pushed around a lot. It's either grow thicker skin or go home crying every night.

And I won't even get into the being ignored by store clerks when I'm needing assistance while they all trip over themselves to help my tall, blonde, beautiful sister. I'll save that for another time.

What I'm talking about right now are the unfortunate souls who walk around angry at the world and constantly looking for a target. They're mad because their wife burned their toast that morning or their dog peed on their tire and they're out for revenge. They'll take it out on anyone. Their mistake is zeroing in on me as easy prey.

I happened upon one such idiot just today.

The situation was that I came to pick up Girlie after school. There is a parking lot fashioned into a loop so parents can drive up, stop, load their children, and keep driving. Good system if your child is there waiting for you. If you're early, which I was, you can loop around, and if you don't immediately see your child and there's a parking spot available, you can park. But you'll need to back in or else you'll be stuck there until every last car has left the loop. Some greedy parents hover too long in the loop, or even stop even though they're not in the process of actively loading a child. This is against the rules and highly frowned upon by all who encounter these people who think they're the only people in the world that matter. Again, a story for another time. The loop is meant to be in perpetual motion.

So, driving up, I came to the loop but did not see my child. I encountered a hoverer, but being of good nature and not stuck, I decided I would go around this rule-breaker and properly park myself. There was an open spot that looked maneuverable. Believe me, in the van, I'm not going to even attempt to back into a parking spot if I didn't think I could do it. Especially when all the other drivers of the parked cars are sitting behind the wheels of their cars watching me.

So I positioned myself well and started the process of backing up. Plenty of room on both sides. Checking, good, backing, good, checking, still good, backing, good...then HONK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
which, of course, freaked the crap out of me and caused me to slam on the brakes to see what the emergency was. The honk came from the car on my left, manned by an older man in a Ford Taurus. There was at least two feet between my van and his car. He glared at me, and I motioned to him with my hands (no I didn't give him the bird, I held my hands apart showing him how much space there was between our vehicles). Then I proceeded to finish parking.

When I turned off the engine, I turned to the man and said to him through our open windows, "Did you just honk at me?" and he of course tried to pretend that he didn't hear me. That's when you know you've got them. When they try to pretend that they don't see you or hear you when you confront them over something stupid they've done. So I asked him again, "Excuse me, was it you that honked at me?" and he finally looked up and said "Yeah, you were gonna back right into me!" and I said "There was plenty of room between our cars! There was no reason for you to honk!" and he said "well, from the way you drive, I figured you were gonna hit me!" and I said "What makes you think you're an expert on how I drive?" and he said "from the way you whipped around this parking lot!" (which was not true). I said "My driving was fine. You just freaked out over nothing." At which point big-man-behind-the-wheel-but-chicken-when-you-confront-him-about-it got out of the car to walk away from me toward the school. I couldn't resist yelling after him "HAVE A NICE DAY!" Mr. Think-you-own-the-whole-entire-parking-lot-because-you-got-there-three-minutes-before-I-did. I've got better things to do than to try to scare little mommies just coming to pick up their kids from school. Gay your life must be (to quote that old kookabura song--does anyone remember that one?)

Anyway, go pick on someone your own size as my kindergarten teacher used to say. You chose the wrong mark today. I'm not going to sit there and take it.

Which brings me to my last point: if you're going to act like a jackass, be prepared to take your lumps when someone calls you on it.

Something Harlot This Way Comes...

Last night Amanda and I rode together across town to see the Yarn Harlot (Stephanie Pearl-McPhee) speak at Powell's bookstore. Chrissy got there before us and saved us some seats (thanks, Girl!) I got to meet Tiffany, another blogger who used to live near my hometown on the Oregon coast. She brought her 2-year-old son Ben, who was a complete angel throughout the entire 3+ hour process. Chrissy also pointed out to me several people in the crowd who she "knat" with in the past. We got such a chuckle over that word that I'm going to use it from now on whenever the opportunity presents itself.

Let me just say, if you've never heard the Harlot speak and you get the chance to, GO! She was so witty and funny, our faces hurt from laughing all night. Here is a picture of us together after she signed my book:

I had a great time.

Amanda also got me back on track on my mystery eyelet socks. I worked on them until the Harlot started speaking, at which time I had to put them away or risk completely losing my place in the pattern from laughing so hard.

What a fun night.