Why I Never Have to Do Laundry Again.

Furgenius owns the laundry pile now. It is her not so secret base of operations for her plans for world domination. She's going to get to it... right after she finishes her nap.

Don't worry. It will be a long time coming.

Not a Single Stitch

I haven't knit one single blessed stitch since Sunday. Yep, not even one. I've been carrying around my over the forest socks and the lacy hug me tight in my tote bag everywhere, but I'm just not feeling it. I've momentarily lost my mojo, and I think I'm OK with it for now.

Since I haven't been knitting obsessively, I declared soap scum the enemy and scrubbed the ever loving out of the shower, dusted things I forgot even existed, and even managed to do a load of laundry or two. The place almost looks like its livable again.

Furgenius loves the lack of clutter-unless you count the 4 paper bags that we currently have on the floor in the living room because she runs from bag to bag like shes playing some sort of goofy version of kitty kickball, sliding onto them and eyeballing whoever is around to make sure shes still "safe" and just begging you to chase her.

Come to think of it, I guess we will never be truly clutter free. Its a little like having a toddler. Toys end up all over the floor, and for some strange reason, she doesn't ever seem to put them away. I blame it on the lack of opposeable thumbs. That can ruin even the best laid plans and home learnin'. She also sucks at math.


Happy Wednesday.

Shake the funk with a kick to the head.

Power was finally restored to the Campus where I work late last night. Its been a long time without power for our students and their families, but they have been patient and understanding, which is greatly appreciated and I have to say that I was impressed by the way they came togeather to help one another out.

Since the power was out, and most of my work requires that I be sitting in front of a computer screen by an electric powere phone system I was lucky enough to get a week's worth of paid time off due to the outtages. Early in the week I took it as an opportunity to work on a couple of recipes, one for a simple and amazing rosemary yeast bread and another for the worlds most perfect chocolate chip cookies. (here's a hint....if you sprinkle a little sea salt on the top of your chocolate chip cookies before you bake them, you get that perfect salty/sweetness that takes them over the edge of pure bliss. It's not even fair!)

All in all it was an odd week, one where I felt all lost and wandery. I'm not really certain of the reason behind it. For all intents and purposes, I should have been living it up with all that free time to spend as I wanted to, but instead I didn't have much motivation. I felt like I was moving far more strongly by obligation than by desire. Ah, the pointless funk.

I did get quite a bit of spinning and plying done before I lost my spunk though....oh, I would say I ended up with about 600 yards of barber-poled 2 ply BFL by the time I was done. Its still waiting for a good soak and set because I have another bobbin in the works and I want to soak the entire batch as a single unit so it may bloom more evenly. I'm pretty satisfied with the way it looks thus far. It should be enough for a lovely shawl once its all said and done.

Hopefully I'll get my mojo back soon. I hate being all blaheity. It just isn't me. Besides, I have some serious fun times to look forward to! This weekend, my best friend ( girl genius extraordinaire) is having a gathering in Cincinnati for her 27th birthday, so I will be moseying on up to take part in the celebration. The following day is boygenius's company picnic which is taking place at a vineyard in Indiana. Again, good times. So, hopefully the clouds will lift quickly with this much sun on the horizon. On to brigheter things :)

On Saturday Boygenius and I did a bit more of the nesting, and we went and purchased a rug for our living room. Yeah, nothing quite says "you are a grown up" like buying a rug....I mean, just how many youngin's get pumped about the purchase of floor coverings? (yep...I see those crazy teens in the mall drooling over shag rugs and Berber all the time *lol) It's one other those fancy looking Persian style rugs that just happened to posses nearly every random color that has been running loose in our decor up to this point.

We are really pretty happy with it, but the furgenius is in full blown "running off and getting married in Vegas" in love with the thing. Shes been rolling around on it almost non-stop since we brought it into the house and spread it out. I can't quite tell if shes digging the texture, or if she is just trying to imprint every single fiber with her scent...but its almost like shes doing somersaults on it. Its truly a sight to behold. She does laps though the house, just so she can come to a sudden, screeching halt on it and plop down on her ample kitty gut, rolls over on her back, grabs her back feet with her front feet and kicks herself in the head while wobbling around like a weeble.

Good Times.

Follow the Poo Trail.

This weekend boygenius and I were still in hyper-nesting mode, so we went gallivanting to find the proper equipment to make some foxy fine window treatments for the bedroom. This was more for the sake of blocking out the blinding, sleep killing mercury vapor light that glows like the sun directly outside our bedroom window than looks, but they turned out super cute, so I can't complain about looks either. They are a fun silky sage green plaid with some khaki and red accents, and they roll up and down and tie with ribbons to block maximum light while still allowing the furgenius the all important window access.

It took 2 trips to the fabric store, various trips to hardware stores to buy lumber and try to have it cut (I think that every home depot lumber saw in the city was broken, and Lowe's was not much better) and assorted hardware, but I was so tickled with the way they turned out! Even boygenius was impressed.

After all the sewing, sawing, and such I was ready to get in a little quality spinning time, so I started pre-drafting some of the BFL that I bought a wee bit ago to get ready for some full on spinning. While sitting there, knee deep in fluff with a nice cold brew in my hand I noticed one of the most horrid, soul crushing smells I have experienced in quite some time. I mean, this was BBBBBAAAAAADDDD!!! The kind of smell that starts you gagging before you have a chance to identify it.

I pinched off the nostrils and put my fiber to dig a little deeper into the source of the odor, knowing immediately that it had to be furgenius based... it was the cloying aroma of the foulest smelling poo that I have ever encountered (that is saying quite a bit, since I spent over a year cleaning kennels of sick animals at a vet's office back in the day).

I alerted boygenius to the possibly problem, and then I started tracking the smell. It didn't take long before I spotted the trail of fecal footprints heading down the hall. I tracked em back to the source. Poor little fugenius had "the spew of #2" and tracked it all over the bedroom, hall, and living room, and it was still in her back paws.

Dear reader, if you have never had to give a cat a bath I suggest you avoid the experience at all costs if you can. It is not going to end well for any of the parties involved.

I managed to wrangle furgenius into the bathroom, and boygenius then proceeded to go through every cabinet in the bathroom looking for some organic shampoo to remove the offending poo. (Since he wasn't the one handling the 14+ pound ball of poop smelling, pissed off cat he thought that he had all the time in the world to locate something that was sodium lauryl sulfate and paraben free, since ya know, it pays to be environmentally friendly with your feces removal. ) Fine thought, but the reality was far less than pleasing to me at that moment.

By the end of the bath, I was soaking wet, furgenius had managed to rip the earring out of my left earlobe, and she had climbed me like a tree, where she sat on my shoulders, dripping and smelling of chamomile. Yep, it was one heck of a night.

Boygenius was kind enough to doctor my wounds with some rubbing alcohol and neosporin, and after an hour and a half of haz-mat removal operations to get all the extraneous poo out of the carpeting it was time to sleep. Ah, the kind of sleep that you can only have after fighting the good fight in the darkest of dark rooms. And it was beautiful.

Boysweater Goodness.

When boygenius and I moved to the new casa, we packed our TV away in the basement storage unit-never to be seen again (at least, not until we rent a movie when it will come out of hiding for a minute and then go back to the basement). In this new found freedom from the ultimate time suck (second only to Ravelry, obviously) I have found myself with tons of extra time that I never knew I had...and what do I do with all this extra time? Well, I start planning projects! In honor of this, and the impending beginning of fall, I've been thinking about what makes the ultimate boy sweater.

Hmmmm....what makes the ultimate boysweater? To me, first I need it to be so full of the awesome that I feel the need to steal it from boygenius immediately. These qualities include:

1. Soft! soft! soft! I can't dig on the scratchy sweaters. I'm delicate, and boygenius is too :)

2. The sleeves must be long enough for boygenius' massive wingspan-and this means that they are long enough for them to eat my hands in a fuzzy, cozy, comfortable way when I steal the sweater from him, which I will do almost immediately.

3. It must be fun to knit. Hopefully no moss or seed stitch as it threatens to rob me of my sanity (see all previous posts regarding the minimalist cardigan). I'm thinking maybe a cool cable in the front and around the neckline?

4. Minimal seaming. nuff said.

5. It must flatter both a 6ft 8" blue-eyed redhead and his significantly smaller, significantly mousier wife in both color and composition.

So, basically I'm looking at a pretty achievable goal here. To throw an extra wrench in the works, I was thinking that I might just try to spin the yarn for it myself as well. For a sweater of this size, its going to have to be one heck of a lot of consistently spun yarny goodness for a newb. Its a good thing that I love a challenge! So I'm thinking that after the spinning is complete, then the knitting, we might just see this sweater ready for the fall....of 2010? Aim high!


In other news, I thought I might give my one dear, intrepid reader an update on the furgenius and her unfortunate gut. So far, things are looking pretty encouraging. The kid is eating her new chow, boygenius and I are now allowed to sleep almost normal hours with minimal pimp slappage, and the medicine seems to be doing its thang. Shes been zipping around the house so fast I swear I have seen the carpet smoking.