Back Home

and this mess proves it:

I am very good at packing.  

I am not very good at unpacking. I get distracted by everything that has to be done after a week and a half absence and go from task to task, doing all.the.things, but spending only seconds on each, and thereby accomplishing no one thing in its entirety for days.  

I should probably work on this, but actually, I think I don't care. It will get done, eventually.

Next post up, watch for turkeys, dead and alive.....

Credit Fraud

Not MY credit cards, because if they were mine, SOMEONE ELSE would be using them.

I have been a victim of credit card and social security number fraud for the past couple of years.

First offense:  Someone was charging things on a Visa card that had never even left my house. I keep it sort of hidden in a drawer next to the sofa where I knit (and shop online a little). I had used it for my gym membership, but over the phone. So how was someone in California charging stuff on it? Beats me. The Visa people were very nice and took off the fraudulent charges and sent me a new card.

Problem solved.

Until.  Second offense against me:  Someone in California charging hotel bills and restaurant meals on my Gap Visa card. I was not in California, I had never been to that area of California, AND I had my card with me. In Georgia. So how the $%^&* does this happen? Again, Visa was nice and took care of everything.

Problem solved. 

Until, third offense:  I received an invoice in the mail for furniture bought at a store about 80 miles away from where I live. The first name on the invoice was not mine; the second name and the address were mine. I called the store and told them I had never been to their store. Who bought this furniture? Were they delivering it to my address? Did they expect that I would pay the invoice? Because I WOULD NOT!

Imagine the store owner's surprise. He said that a father and daughter had ordered the furniture, that they were paying for it with cash, and picking it up themselves with a truck. 

That was the last I ever heard about any of that, but why on earth use my address when they were using cash?

Problem not solved. It's a mystery.

Fourth offense:  We filed taxes with the IRS for the year 2013. Rejected because someone else was filing using my social security number. Months and months went by before we got that straightened out. The IRS sent us a PIN to use for filing for the year 2014 so that they would know that I am really me and there would be no problem.  

So, problem solved?

Nope.

Fifth offense against little old me:  We filed our taxes for the year 2014, used the PIN. Rejected. Someone else had filed before we did, using, tah dah! my social security number.  Again.  We sent in all sorts of documents, statements, etc. to prove that I am me. Nothing.  I went in October to the local IRS office, which does NOT (of course) accept appointments. I waited three plus hours, talked with a very nice man who told me that the IRS had just rejected the other person's application the week before---in OCTOBER--- and everything was on its way to being resolved. A month later, everything was resolved and we are supposed to receive another PIN to use next year.  Like that will work.

Now, last night I went to see Brooklyn at a Regal Cinema. I have a Regal Card, a new one. A new one because I misplaced my old one, somewhere in my house. I also downloaded the Regal Club app. for my phone, transferred all of my points, and according to it, I was due a free popcorn.  

When I bought the tickets and showed my app, the ticket seller scanned the little blurry hashtag-looking thingy, and told me that I was using a lost or stolen account.

No, I am not!  I told her. More than once. 

She completely ignored me and charged me for the tickets but did NOT give me the coupon for the free popcorn.

Enough is enough, y'all. I want my $%^&* free popcorn.  

No free popcorn=last straw.

I Played Yarn Chicken

and I won.  

Phew.

I made this hat but with a heavier yarn than called for, so I cast on fewer stitches than the pattern directs. I had to keep weighing the yarn left in the skein to make sure I would be able to cast off once I finished the cable patterning. And even knowing the weight, I was still mostly just guessing.

Irish Hiking Hat

This is what I had remaining, just a couple of yards.  

Cascade Pastaza

On a weird note, this yarn (Cascade Pastaza) is 50% wool, 50% llama hair. The color is a bit different from what it looks like in this photo, but it is very similar to my sister's beautiful red hair when she was young. And the llama hair is sort of longish, so I was very aware that I was knitting with hair, much like my sister's hair. Kind of creepy. Maybe she would like this hat. 

She lives in Florida. So maybe not.

More yarn chicken.

I also just finished this Pure/Aran:

better photo than mine

I had bought an extra skein of Woolfolk Får (the softest yarn EVER!!!) in order to make the scarf larger. I knit extra repeats of the second texture section, and then I just kept going on the garter stitch section until I thought I had just enough yarn left for the cast off.  

Again, bring out the gram scale!  I just made it, with only a yard or so left over.

Woolfolk Får

Double PHEW!

It's Too Cold Out

(for me) to go for a walk so I'll wait until later. In the meantime, some of the rest of the photos from Ireland. Not the entire rest, since there are 500 plus photos, but just a few. 


This is, and I am not joking, a two-lane road. We drove clockwise around the Ring of Kerry in order not to follow the busses that go around in a counter-clockwise direction. What we hadn't figured on was having those busses come at us on a road like this:

Let me tell you, it was EXCITING! Fortunately, unlike other roads in Ireland, this road was edged by wall of greenery, not rocks, and we could squeeeeeeze over and make enough room. No damage to the rental car. Whew.


This photo is of a random ruin along the Ring of Kerry. There were no signs for it, so maybe no one even knows its history, but it's still there, a photo op for us tourists.  

More from the Ring of Kerry. 

The cattle in Ireland have prettier views than most people do from their homes!!!

These are photos of the library at Trinity College in Dublin. What a gorgeous room. We took a tour with a student guide, and she said that to obtain a book from this library, a student has to know the size of the book; they are arranged according to size, with the largest on the bottom shelves, and the smallest on the top.  

The Book of Kells was in another room in this library and we did get to see that as well.

Sheep, of course. In the Republic of Ireland we saw many more dairy cattle than we did sheep and that was surprising. There appeared to be a lot more sheep in Northern Ireland.  

And, just because I like this photo. A building AND a tractor in my "signature" color. I saw that in a design magazine; designers have signature colors. If they can, why can't we? I thought, and I picked turquoise. 

Who has ever seen a turquoise tractor? I have!

That's all for now folks!