Friday, January 27, 2017

Speaking of Decorating


I suppose someone, somewhere, was. 

This is our latest project:


Doorway to dining room

Doorway to living room



  

Attractive, right?


You, too, could have this trendy decor with just a few pieces of lattice from your local big box home improvement store and a saw.

We have a cat who has decided that the carpet in the dining room is a good place for, uh, solid waste. We put a litter box in there to encourage him to use that, but for solids, there's no place like the rug apparently.The rug is currently off being cleaned and this barrier keeps him out of the dining room. Where I didn't want a litter box anyway. He is supposed to use the one in the laundry room or the one in the basement, and now he is. The question is: will he continue using those once the rug is back and the barriers are down.

Cross your fingers for us, please???  


Thursday, January 19, 2017

Apple, Decisions and News


I would say that I have spent too much time lately at the Apple Store, located conveniently only eight miles from my home, except that I love the Apple Store and the geniuses who work there. And I think that there is something in the air, as there must be in yarn shops, that makes me w.a.n.t to buy something. That's easier to do at a yarn shop; yarn is way less expensive than any iThing. Even if I buy a lot of yarn. 

However, I needed a new computer. While my old one isn't completely dead, it's been coughing up blood more and more frequently. It freezes; it shuts down, it takes forever to boot up. I went to Apple and looked at computers and then asked the saleswoman if I couldn't replace my laptop with the new iPad. We compared both products and I bought the largest screen iPad with a Logitech case/keypad.The combination is genius and I loved it. Really, really loved it. But over two days I realized that it is still an iPad, not a MacBook. I could not format it so that it was easy to use for what I needed. I had 14 days to return it so I thought and thought and thought.

Do I have trouble making decisions?  Well, yes and no. 

I did finally manage to make a decision and two days after I bought the iPad and genius Logitech case/keyboard, I returned it and bought a laptop. Not as exciting and shiny but it works the way I want it to and it is WAY faster than the old laptop. 

This is the charging cord for the old computer:



It has been repaired with electrical tape, repaired again, shrink wrapped with electrical tape and this is always the eventual result. I had priced a new one and it was in the vicinity of $80. I knew that if I bought a replacement the computer would die the next day. I'm glad I resisted.

Today I go to the store again to have them wipe the old laptop and then I'm done, I think. I hope. My husband seems to think that my new laptop is the last one I'll ever buy---'cause I'm so old, you know.

I hope it lasts years, and I hope I outlast it.

I have only one complaint: when I got the new laptop running, and I checked out the sites I usually read, THE NEWS WAS STILL THE SAME. I expected more from a new computer.

Tomorrow I get to go to the swearing in of my Russian friend when she becomes a US citizen. THAT is good news.

Congratulations, Marina!

Sunday, January 8, 2017

My Conscience is Finally Clear


A few years ago, maybe five, maybe more, a friend who is not a knitter gave me some beautiful yarn she bought in Colorado? New Mexico? I don't remember now. Occasionally she or the friend she was shopping with would ask me what I had made from it.

Uh, nothing.

The problem is that there were no tags on the yarn, so I didn't know how much was in the huge hank she brought me. And I don't know what the fiber is. Also, since I am an average knitter, not a genius knitter like friends Marina (from Russia) and Anna (from Ukraine) who don't need no stin, ahem, who don't need patterns (showoffs!), I do need patterns. And I have to slavishly follow them.  I've seen both A and M just decide, hmmmm....I think I'll add some lace/cables/shaping to this sweater/scarf/jacket I'm making. La la la....

And they just DO it. Amazing. But that is not me.

So I would have had to know the amount of yarn in the hank in order to match it to a pattern and I did undo the hank and wind it into smaller hanks and then into balls and then out of balls to try and measure the yarn.  I ended up with a horrible tangle, which knitter Sally untangled for me. And a thought came to me:  instead of knitting one LARGE thing which I may or may not have enough yarn for, I could knit a couple of smaller things. And that's what I've done. I wound the untangled yarn into one HUGE, basketball-sized ball, and have knitted---so far---two cowls. There is probably enough yarn left to make a scarf.



They look a bit lumpy, but that's the yarn and they don't look like that on a person. I'm going to give them to the friend who gave the yarn to me, for her and her friend to have. As a knitter, I have a million, zillion scarves and cowls, and except for the past couple of days, usually have little chance to wear them. We didn't get but a quarter inch of snow yesterday, but we did get ice and it's cold outside. To us Southerners. (It was 11 degrees outside this morning, so stop laughing. That counts as cold anywhere.)

So, the yarn that has been glaring at me reproachfully from my yarn closet, clearly shouting: knit me! you.......  no longer has reason to complain. 

And to save my conscience the nagging, the next time I am given a gift of yarn, I will figure out what to make from it, well, sooner than in five years time.