Knit and Plenty

I'd give my two teeth for time to knit!

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            

It's been quite a week. Beautiful One went back to college after her long Christmas break. All my clients wanted me to go back to my real job after they seemed to have put everything on hold back around Thanksgiving. I had two teeth extracted which is REAL fun, and I've been writing the next article for Yarn Market News. (You can still help if you haven't taken the survey yet by clicking here. TAKE THE SURVEY. )I'll give you all the low down on the survey as soon as the Vicadin wears off.

Meanwhile, the first article I wrote for the magazine is in print and viewable online.

It's all about the fun names of yarn shop and you can CLICK HERE to read THE ARTICLE. If you know any of the shops listed in the story, please pass it along.

Hope you are all knitting more than me. I miss my sticks!

A LOST Weekend

On Saturday, Jenny Bag o Wool, Suz the Boot, Two Sticks and I gathered for a debriefing on our West Hartford caper and somehow we landed on the topic of Ipods. Jen turned into an infomercial - and before I knew it I was off to the Apple Store to get my very own. Well, that was the end of any weekend chores. Once I downloaded the first season of Lost, I sat and watched episode after episode as I uploaded every CD I own to this 3" x 4" piece of real estate. It's amazing.

And so, I never got started on any of my new projects, although I did GKT and put each project in Project Minder bag, with a Pattern Minder on which I wrote what I plan on making, a Yarn Minder for when I'm ready to swift, a tape measure and the needles I'll be using. Hey, it's a start.

Oops - gotta go insert the next CD.

Just stop me before I podcast!!

A Purl in the Ocean, sans Oyster

Last night it began to rain around 6:30, and by 10:00 p.m. the street and water mains were overflowing with water. Next. my backyard began to fill , and before long, three feet of water had collected outside the doors and windows and then, yes, it came pouring in everywhere - into my office/craft studio/basement. What a mess. We spent the night bailing water, and today, throwing away all the floating flotsum, moving my office and saving yarn. Then came the phone calls to the City, the insurance company, the guys who said they waterproofed the basement - and the clean up crews.  It looks like the carpet has to be ripped out, walls repaired, and who else knows what.

Not sure how much blogging I'll be doing this week. But I'll try to come up for air long enough to say hello.

A Blue tooth ache

My new car came with a really cool display screen. It displays radio station settings, air and heat controls, the navigation system - and if you have one, it will work with a Bluetooth phone. When I bought the car I thought, "I don't have a Bluetooth phone, but that's o.k. I can put my phone on speaker phone or use a headset - so why spend $300 on a new phone."  Like I said, I was o.k. with that.

Then, the trouble began. Every time I started the car, the screen would flash: You do not have a telephone connection to your vehicle. O.K., I know that. You don't have to remind me.

But NOoooooo, every time I started the car, there was the screen - mocking me -- YOU DO NOT HAVE A TELEPHONE CONNECTED TO YOUR VEHICLE. I was half expecting the punctuation to change: "You do not have a telephone connection to your vehicle???"

It was relentless. Is the car company in cahoots with Verizon? Everytime...  YOU DO NOT HAVE A TELEPHONE CONNECTION - YOU - LOSER - YOU. And there's no way to make it stop.

Except - when you finally break down and get the $300 phone and connect it to your vehicle...(which I finally broke down and did) then, at last, a silent screen!

After I installed it, I was waiting for the display to flash, "There you go. Don't you feel better now?"

And the truth is, I do feel better. In fact, there are more telephone features in this car than there are car features. My phone book automatically updates everytime I get in the car. I can view the directory, dial and end calls with the steering wheel; view the name of a second caller if I'm already on the phone, and hear my callers in stereo through Bose speakers.

At this point, it clearly gives a much more accurate meaning to the definition of MOBILE PHONE. Because that IS, exactly, what I am now driving: A very large, very fast, very expensive PHONE on wheels.  I guess I need a new bumper stick "I (HEART) MY PHONE" or "My cell phone is smarter than your honor student"