Two kinds of sole.

You will see the bad joke as you read on.

I was taking some of our regular trash out to put into the big bin and saw some of Bill's old boots in there.  I pulled them out and found a huge bag to stash them in.  I went over to Mom's later in the day and put them in their Soles4Souls box.  My mom didn't know that there was one, so the next week she brought some to put in there too.

I don't remember what I was looking for, but I found this really cool little iron fish.  It is a super great idea too.  I like how when you buy one for yourself there is also one sent to a family in need.  I don't know if there is an option to send two out if you don't need one personally.
I first heard about it on Bored Panda and I am super amused by the iron fish in a pot of meat fish.  I don't know why, but I laugh every time I see it.

What a weekend.

  I got feedback from about three different people and got the same advice for Little Jo.  Take her back to where she was, she is old enough that her parents will find her and help her get to safety.
  When I took her home she was just a scared little meek thing.  When I was driving her back to the store she was all over the carrier.  She was determined to not touch any sides.  I kept telling her to not tire herself out, but since she doesn't speak 'people' she did not listen.

   As I was walking her through the parking lot, Little Jo and another bird(I assume Mom) were calling to each other.  That made me happy since someone knew she was back.  I walked her back to the alcove I got her from because it is the safest place in the strip mall and very close to where Mom was calling to her.  She was sticking her head out one of the holes in the front of the carrier and tried to go up when I opened the door.  I had to close it and push her head back in. Then she hung-out on the door for a minute while I kept saying "be free!".  She was a lot closer to reaching the rafters this time, but still did not make it.  I made a comment that if she had not been trying to fly in the carrier she would have made it.
  I headed to K&CC at Wegmans and had some super yummy food.  I love the Salt and Pepper Calamari when you can get a pretty fresh batch.  When I got back to the store she was not there anymore.  I'm so glad.  I got to spoil her some and she got to go back to her family.  While I think it would be cool to have kept her, I know she would have hated the idea.

  Today I got to partake in Rolling Thunder.  Bill got his first motorcycle about four years ago.  While I wondered why he never went, I was also secretly glad.  I was glad because for most of those years I didn't have a jacket or helmet.  So if he had gone I would not have been able to go with him.  This was the first year for both of us.  I thought we were just going by ourselves, but one of our mutual acquaintances from IWLA already had a group he went and he invited us.
  I got to meet a ton of new people and took a bunch of random photos and I want to post so many of them!

Super cool paint job.

This was super awesome.  I love when people make super strong statements that can both humble you and make you proud of people you have never met.

This made me laugh so much.

A few people showed up.

I decided to get artsy with this one.

Meg thinks that Bill's motorcycle is super comfy and all she needs in life.

  I loved her nails.  She was talking about how she could have gotten to the event earlier and done everyone's nails.  We think she would have made a killing doing this.  The little flags are my favorite part.

  I was a very "special person" this weekend.  I remembered to charge my camera but did not remember to clear off the memory card.  The video cuts out a few minutes before we finish the ride, so although you don't miss much, that is why it cuts off so abruptly.  The video is very windy sounding.
  I also thought the video would be better if I braced my hand on Bill's shoulder, but part of the way through I realized that I was very wrong.  Next year I will do much better.
  For those of you who don't know what Rolling Thunder is, it is a motorcycle ride through DC "to educate the public that many American Prisoners of War were left behind after all previous wars and to help correct the past and to protect future Veterans from being left behind should they become Prisoners of War-Missing In Action."  It is super impressive from both sides.  Tons of people come from all over the country to ride in the "parade" and tons of people come to watch and to show their support.  There was one lady who was almost crying on the side-lines at one point and she almost made me cry too.
  One thing I wish I had done was to bring some charity crafting along.  I knew there was a lot of downtime, but for some reason I didn't plan ahead.  I think it was because I didn't think I was bringing along a bag.  People can start gathering at 7am, but the ride doesn't start moving out until noon.  I grabbed a bag when Bill asked me to but didn't think to add any yarn and a hook.  I could have been working on a water bottle holder for TAPS while at Rolling Thunder.  I think that would be very appropriate.
  Next year I will be able to plan a lot better.  Snacks, sunscreen, and crafting things are all needed.  Cash would be needed if I didn't feel like bringing my own snacks.  I now know that reapplying the sunscreen is a must.   We were about 2/3 deep into the first parking area (yes, they need more than one for all the people who show-up) and it took over two hours before we starting moving.  I know I got most of my burns from that time.  There were also a few times that I was super bored and wished I had something to do.
  I am so tried and I can hear Bill snoring from here, so I am out of here.

Meet Little Jo

We don't know if it is short for Joseph or Josephine though.

 

Model pose from Little Jo!  Super cute, huh?

 

 

I think Little Jo would make lots of money being a model if he/she understood these silly human things.  Don't mind the french fries, a bit of naughty food won't ruin this ones career.

  

 

  So here is the full story about the puffy Little Jo here.  Our store usually gets birds that fly in and can't get back out.  We try and get them out using a variety of techniques.  One is to try and prop all the doors open and hope they fly out.  This sometimes works.  Another way is to wait until they are tired and throw some fabric over them so we can scoop them out and let them go outside.

  Little Joe landed on someone's fabric while it was being cut today.  Then after that excitement flew over to an empty table nearby.  I got some fleece and threw it over before scooping and heading outside.  Like I was expecting, Little Jo flew off the second (s)he was free, though didn't make it very far.  I figured it was the whole being stuck in a store thing so I went back in for about an hour.  When I came back out (hoping to not see any birds) I saw Little Jo hoping around on the sidewalk still.

  I went to my car and got the collapsible crate out and walked over.  Little Jo didn't put up much of a fight when I tried to get 'em in.  I put some french fries (only food like thing I had) and a cap full of water in there too.  I called my mom to see if she could find a wild-life person who could take care of Little Jo, but no one returned her call. While we were waiting the french fries and some water disappeared.  These are good things.

  Little Jo did not like the car ride, but hopefully someone will call back tomorrow.  Then only one more ride before someone who knows what they are doing will take over.

  In more crafterly news, this is how that test I am working on is coming.  I left the one sleeve open because I wanted to Kitchener it when I went to go pick-up the stitches for the edging.  I'm not a huge fan of too many ends to weave in, especially when they are cotton and don't stick to the work as easily.

  There was another pattern I wanted to test, but I missed my chance.  The Ravelry group rules state that you can only test one large project at a time (or two small ones) and both the shrug and shawl are large tests.  Oh well, there are some shawls of my own design I want to work on too.  I'm having fun being a knit designer.

I also wanted to mention these super adorable little crochet lace pouches.  I don't speak the language (and I know google can fix that) but I think I speak enough Craft to make one or two of these.

 

Not my week.

I mentioned about the food poisoning.  On Friday I got attacked by a cold.  Bill thinks it is just allergies, but those usually don't came with a sore throat and really stuffy all of a sudden when the type of pollen has not changed.

I went to the Knitters and Crocheters meeting and my knitting needle did this to my water-resistant backpack on the way.

 

  Lucky for me it is a pretty small needle, so it left a pretty small hole.  I had also noticed a bunch of flies near the front of my car.  I thought maybe I had run over some trash or something and they were attracted to it.

  When I got out of the meeting I noticed that there were flies again and some smell.  As the day went on the smell got worse, so I asked Bill to look into it for me.

If you don't want to read about icky things, scroll down to the pretty flowers.

  Bill popped the hood this morning and we saw some fur.  It looked pretty big, but I thought it was a very large squirrel.  There was some poking and prodding, but nothing worked.

  I drove it over to NTB and was told (in very nice terms) that there was no way he was touching that thing.  He did tell me about a car wash down the street.

  I drove down there and had to talk to a few people before I got one that knew enough English to fully get what I was saying.  Then word got out and everyone had to come look.  They had to loosen the engine protector to get in there because it was behind the engine.

  The guy used the "doggy poop" style where he had gloves on and a large bag.  When he pulled it out I saw that it was a ground hog.  How/why one crawled up behind my engine is a mystery to me.  It has been really warm out for the past few weeks, so it's not like there was a lack of warmth.  They also power washed the inside of my car to get any remaining things out.

  I'm glad it is gone, but I'm sad it went in there.

 

Aren't these pretty?  They are in my front lawn.  They came with the house.  The color combination makes them feel antique to me.

At K&CC I finished the left sleeve and have stared the body.   I have given a few suggestions on the left-front increase area.  Three of the rows have a single decrease when you get to the lace pattern the first time, but a double decrease on all of the other repeats.  It sounds like she might be reworking the chart, but I mentioned that she could just leave a note in the right section so people will notice it.

  Though it sounds like she is liking the challenge of changing the chart.

Rough past few days.

  These past few days have not been nice to the humans in my house.  On Tuesday Bill got into a fight with a shipping crate, and the crate won.  Actually he got mad at someone and punched the shipping crate instead of them.
  Well, when I got home from work his knuckle was swollen and hurt to move.  So I drove him to the ER.  We got nurse Cheryl again, so that was fun.  One not so fun thing was that the iPad was missing from his room.  I could see one in the other room!
  Turns out it was just some bad bruising.  They gave him a wrap to help keep him from over using it and sent him home with a referral for a hand specialist if it is still giving him problems in a week.
  Then I woke-up yesterday and went to Safeway to get some kitty litter and lunch.  The guy who was checking me out raved about how good the microwave Little Potatoes I got.  I got the garlic parsley flavor.  I ate those and loved every bite.
  After lunch I wasn't feeling so awesome.  I first thought that it was because I ate too many potatoes.  I did eat the whole container by myself after-all.  Though as the day went on I got worse.  I thought if I picked off the moldy bits off the dessert I had the night before it would be fine.  It tasted fine.  It was not so fine.  So don't worry about the potatoes, I still highly recommend them.

  I got more knitting done on my test knit though.  I finished the right sleeve completely and I am at the increases on the left side.  The designer and I have misunderstood each other a few times, but I think we are now on the same page.  If not, I can check on things at the next release and re-suggest it.
  I'm also itching to get it done because I really want to start a Slippy Cowl.  It looks like something super fun to do.

  I also finally got my cascading leaves and vines shawl blocked.  I had a lot of fun with the other test of a pattern, so I am excited to get another going.  It helps people to have a picture to know if they want to test it or not.
  I'm also having some designer issues in my head.  I thought of a fun shawl idea, but it was so easy I figured someone else had already done it.  Then I thought about it more and thought of a variation on it.  I have been checking to see about the original on Ravelry, but so far I have not seen it.  I tried "block shawl" and found nothing.  I have been browsing through "stripe shawl" but there are over 100 pages of patterns to look at.  I'm on page 51 and so far I have not found the original idea I had.
  So now I'm wondering if I should make two patterns, one pattern, or a two-in-one pattern.  I also need to get my hands on some yarn in the weight I want before I can do any of this.  It will give me some more time to think it over.  Though I hear rumor that about 30 boxes of yarn have been donated to Knitters and Crocheters Care, so I have a feeling the perfect yarn for one or both ideas will be in there.

Tasting things.

  I don't know how my brain wondered over to it, but I randomly remembered an encounter many years ago.  My friend brought some cherry tomatoes to work and raved about how sweet they were.  Being a tomato lover I tried one.  I said that they were only okay.  She said I couldn't taste them correctly because I had a stuffy nose.
  Well, I always have a stuffy nose.  So I don't know if that was it or if it was because they were store bought and I have had them off the vine from the backyard.  It made me wonder if my sense of taste has become more independent from my nose than other people.
  Durian smells horrible (less horrible if you get frozen and defrost it), but that didn't bug me when eating it.  I shared some with a friend and he said he could not get past the smell and just be able to taste it.
  One thing I do know is that I will probably never really find out if I am missing out or not because my nose is so used to the extra moister that it freaks out some if it is gone.  I have had colds before and when I take the cold medicine that dries you out it works too well and I get a head ache.  Then I'm not in the mood to try any foods.  This is why when I get a hint of a cold I down enough vitamin C to supplement a large army.  It worked for me when my old boss gave me his bad cold right before I went to Hawaii.  I know, I had to eat lots of fruit while in Hawaii, my life was hard.

  Also, before anyone worries, I'm 99.9% sure I don't have mold growing in my nose.  Somehow at Knit-night it was brought up.  Someone had a continually stuffed up nose and kept getting worse and worse feeling.  Turns out this person, a she I believe, had black mold growing in her nasal area.  True or not, I don't know, but I do know that I have had a stuffy nose since kindergarten and I still feel fine.

  I have been pretty productive today (in my eyes).  I also noticed something.  I seem to either keep my Ravelry page up to date, or the blog.  The projects that I didn't show near the beginning on the blog had the date on the Ravelry page.  Projects that have been on the blog were not even mentioned on my Ravelry page.  This is crazy!  I need to get into the habit of updating everything at once.

Happy Star Wars Day!!

Happy Star Wars day to everyone!  I wish I had been working on something more nerdy than my Fragole Lace Shrug test knit.  I did put my Skywalker shawl in the sink to soak, so I guess that counts for something.

One of the events at work we had was to make Star Wars craft items.  One of the items was a drawstring bag.  I think I will make a few bags (not all nerdy, but who knows) to donate.  I think that would be fun.

I also ran across this interesting decrease.  Some knitters don't like how their left leaning decreased don't really look just like mirror images of their right leaning.  They both lean opposite ways, but one tends to look more stretched out and not as smooth.  The Slip-Twist-Turn Decrease has the answer to that problem.
I haven't tried it yet, but it looks really cool.

I was also thinking it might be fun to sign-up for the St. Jude PLAY LIVE event.  I love playing video games, I love doing stuff for charity.  Sounds perfect to me.  My only problem right now is that since I am doing a test knit and trying it get more made for my Etsy shop, I don't feel like I would have time to really dedicate to it.  Also, the game I really want to play right now has a higher age rating than I would be allowed to play.

You got on a what?!

I will start out by saying that I do not like roller coasters.  I only get the scared-scared feeling from them and not the trilling-scared that people who like them get.
Now here is a bunch of pictures and some stories from the trip to the amusement park we took yesterday.

 

Not only were we celebrating Emily's and Mary's birthdays, it was also Kings Dominion's birthday!

 

 

It was also the last day of their Spring Bloom Festival.  I love flowers, both real and fake.

   

I really wanted some of these for my house.  They are just so big and bright and happy.

 

This was a working clock, and it was made with so many flowers.  I couldn't get over how cool this was.

 

 

Mary really wanted a lemur.  The nerdy ones were my favorite.  She won one of those.  I was super excited for her!

 

Here the birthday girls are playing DDR.  I felt all nostalgic and wanted to pull my pads out and practice more.

 

 

They had these outside of most of the rides so you could make sure you fit into the seats.  Bill didn't fit in some of them.  This was the only one that had wheels, so we joked that this was my kind of roller-coaster.

 

 

I did get on an actual roller-coaster that I had some fun on.  It didn't have the huge drop at the beginning.  It wasn't what I was expecting though.  I was expecting it to be more like the ride I went on in Disney World where they had stuff falling at you.  This only had some fire and gun sounds near the end.

I had fun and I know the birthday girls had a ton of fun.  I had brought some stuff with me so I could work on water-bottle holders while I waited for everyone, but we did too many things and the lines weren't as long as I thought they would be.