Somehow my life has turned into Pride and Prejudice...

I don't really know how this happened.  I've been joking lately that I have two boyfriends since I sort of date one guy and have a male friend that I have dinner with every week and talk to all the time. I definitely have a thing for the guy I'm sort of dating but I think my friend might be creeping up on me. Well now I have my own frigging Mr. Collins! I went on one date with this guy months ago and he was horrible!  He was incredibly insulting and mean and I never wanted to see him again and I didn't... until recently.  He got a job at a cart in my mall and came into my store to ask me out again, he was truly surprised when I told him hell no. He said I needed to get over it so that we could move on. I told him that I'd never been so insulted in my life and that not only did I not like him but that he did not like me either and he went away. One of my friends was talking to him afterwards and that crazy little man said that I was playing hard to get in order to punish him for not calling me. WTF?!
So there we go, I have managed to find one of literature's most annoying characters real life and in person. Joy.
PS xmas may result in deaths
Also PPS on a lighter note,


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Chaos, pure unadulterated chaos.

I ran out of yarn on the mystery KAL, yeah, so I chucked it across the room and ordered more yarn. I still don't want to work on the onesie so I decided to start on Christmas. Yes, that's how serious I am about not working on the onesie, turns out I was wrong, she isn't due til Thanksgiving so I've got lots of time. For mittens. Yup I've fallen down the rabbit hole, I've decided to make everyone in my family folk mittens for Christmas. I even have an ornament pattern that I can whip out quit if I don't finish but I don't see why I wouldn't HAHAHAHAHA! Of course I'll finish 32 pairs of folk mittens while working 2 jobs and still having time to go to parties and sleep not to mention that I still have to make my Halloween costume and a pirate costume and you know, do P90X so that I can fit into those costumes, and I'm trying to date a boy but anyway, I'm getting side tracked.

Mittens. I looked up and printed about 8 different patterns last week knit a pair out of lamb's pride for my step dad. I love them. Everyone kinda does. So that's a good start let's carry on and then came the second circle of hell, my Grandma's mittens. I found a cute pattern with a bird house on it and thought it was perfect so I started knitting... and it was ugly... so I ripped back the color work and tried the edging from a different pattern... and it was still ugly... so I ripped it back and reversed the colors, using burgundy for the background and cream for the design... I decided I wanted it to have a strong edge, also the thumb is weird on the pattern. Anyway, I frogged the whole thing. I know. I never do that. And started fresh this time with watching videos of latvian braids because, why not? I think I like them now but no I'm not ripping back to fix the braids, they're fine just the way they are and I'll do the second mitten the same wrong so nobody notices. 

Final Tally: 

Days til Xmas

114

Mittens Done

2.5

Out of... cough, cough 64

I got this... plenty of time... I need more yarn...

Have I mentioned that I'm mexican?

One of the reasons that I started making the cow onesie is because when I decide to knit something for a baby the baby is born before I finish whatever it is so I decided to make a baby thing for Lily's sister who was trying to get pregnant. Now I'm, I'm going to say 3/4 done with the onesie and her sister isn't due till October so I am stopping. Yes I am that superstitious. I'd rather be safe than sorry. Conveniently enough something else came up right about now that has fully taken my attention anyway and that is the West Knits Mystery KAL. Lily was all signed up and when she told me that she was going to make a shawl from a pattern that she would get in parts and that she didn't know what looked like I figured I'd better make it too. After last night when we both cast on I'm glad I did.  It actually started last Friday but I had ordered needles and yarn from Knit Picks and they just arrived yesterday so we started together. I am finally back on track after having a ball fall out of my purse while I was walking and not noticing for like 12 blocks. It took like 3 hours to untangle the chaos but it's done and now I can continue to knit. I am not looking at pictures and I am not even going to look at the second part of the clue until I'm done with the first one but now that I'm doing it it's kind of exciting and interesting, I think I've been converted.

Now back to our regularly scheduled Mooing...

I have divided for the arm holes! I did it Saturday and have not had a chance to do much else on it, or have been too lazy, you decide.  It's coming along though, now to do 4" of straight knitting on the front right, back, and front left before shaping the shoulders and the neck.  The back will be straight brown while the fronts will still be two color rows but I think since the hood will be brown I should slowly transition into brown towards the shoulder so I have less sudden color changes when I do the hood and making up.  4" is about 32 rows so I have some time to figure it out.  It's really cute.  Also MASSIVE.  I guess my panic about whether it would be big enough has caused me to knit a onesie meant for a small child instead of a baby but that's fine, I'd rather it be too big than too small any day.  The parents are a bit on the tall side so I just didn't want to end up with a super cute thing that took a lot of work that the kid was able to wear for approximately two hours before growing out of it.  I will try to update more regularly as progress will likely speed up now that I'm only using two strands going down to one strand at a time but I've been working nonstop.  I am having a knitting BBQ on the 4th so maybe I'll make some progress then although I also just bought a gel manicure kit that I am obsessed with and have offered manis to my party guests so maybe not anyway I'll keep you posted :)

WARNING! This post contains no knitting and is TMI

Ok so I went to the bathroom today, no I'm not going there this is just the start of the story, and there is a radiator in my bathroom right in front of the toilet so I put my feet up on it, it's what I do if there's something close enough, I read somewhere when I was a kid that that's better so I've just always done it anyway if you've read this far then keep going the point is coming up... So I was kind of in leg press position and I put my hand on the side of my leg and felt muscle definition.  This is a big fucking deal.
I have been fat since I was about 7, or at least that is when the weight gradually started to pile on, I wasn't fat fat until after high school but back then I didn't know that and I felt like a hideous blob and was constantly dieting and failing and just getting bigger.  About 2 or 3 years ago I bought P90 and tried doing that and it lasted about a month and not much happened and then I bought P90X because I'm crazy and started that but sort of fell of the wagon, I've started up again and am also on vitamins and suppliments from GNC and have just decided to add in a fat burner to help push me along and I've seen some changes from what I've been doing so far but today just punched me in the face.
So there I sat now feeling my legs because I could feel and see the line defining my hamstring and then when I looked I could see the line on my calf, for the first time in I don't know how long I could see my muscles.  They weren't hidden and buried in fat, naturally I started sobbing uncontrollably.  Despite everything I've done there has never been this much of a difference made before and I have not had in any way this kind of a light at the end of the tunnel and that is why I needed to share this with someone.  I suppose I could have made up some other circumstanses for how I discovered this but really, that's my life, sitting on the toilet with my pants around my ankles and my feet up on a radiator sobbing tears of joy because I have muscles in my legs.  It wouldn't happen any other way and that's fine with me, I take what I can get.

There seems to be a sea creature trying to escape my bag.

So I have made some more progress on Moo but since I am making a Jersey cow with an udder that I am knitting flat I have five strands of yarn coming off of my needles. Yes you read that right, five. two of which are attached to the same ball of yarn which yes, I know is stupid but I don't have a freakin' clue how much yarn I need for the pink part and I'll already have enough ends to work in thank you very much. It's super cute though. I also think it's pretty obvious to anyone watching me knit on the train what it is going to be so maybe less people will talk to me. Unless you're a knitter then feel free to talk to me I just hate discussing my projects with non-knitters, yes things take hours, no I don't know exactly how long, yes I've been knitting for years, no no one in my family knits... I hate all that crap. Anyway, here's a few pics... I think... or not. I can't seem to get anything uploaded.... I'm changing it on to circulars because it's gotten too heavy to keep going on straights, my hands are getting fatigued, but the only circular 3s I can find are 16" that I only used once because I hate 16" needles. I'm a magic loop girl all the way. As soon as it's transferred I'm off to bed. I got my salads ready to throw in a bag for work and tomorrow after I get out is knitting so I'm sure I'll get a bunch done there. My goal is to finish the pink so that I can go down to three strands of yarn for a bit until I get to the shoulders when I'll go straight brown for the head, the little edging will be white so it will look like the cow's face and the very top of the sleeves will be brown as well.  Ok that's all I got.  I desperately need sleep.  Go to my Ravelry if you want to see the pics, apparently I have no problem putting them up there.  Night.

Yes I'm aware I am delusional...

Ok so I managed to work and since the train was stuck at Lechmere for approx. 5 years I got some work done in the Moo cow duckie which is good, but now sadly I plan on abandoning it for the rest of the night in a futile attempt to clean up the tragedy that is my bedroom.  I know, I've lost it.  I had made some serious progress in the past and then I started working 7 days a week and it all fell to pieces and now it is time to start again.  A brief list of the reasons running through my head as I traveled home are as follows...
1. The guy I've been hanging out with in a dating type capacity who does not yet hold a formal title henceforth to be known simply as "the boy" laughed openly at my room yesterday when he saw it.  He actually opened my door with no real intention of going inside just to see if it was cleaner than the last time he saw it.  It wasn't.
2. I have fallen off the work out wagon yet again and I think that this time it's because I really hate sweating and jumping around in the kitchen where my roommates all wander through periodically.  If my room was clean I would have the space to do my P90Xing in the comfort of my own bedroom and not have to bother with putting on a shirt if I didn't feel the need to.
3. It seriously looks like a girly girl with lots of dresses and makeup got into a fight with a hippie chick who knits a lot.
4. I have no clean work clothes and when I say that I mean that everything work appropriate and even slightly not work appropriate has been worn at least three times already.
5. I can't find anything and I am constantly knocking things over.
6. I found a fantastic sewing table and chair in the trash last week and have yet to bring it into my room and set it up since I have no where to actually put it at the moment.
Now for why it needs to be done right now, I start another 7 day work week tomorrow and Tuesday start my new second job at GNC so not only will I not have time for laundry later in the week but I will also feel extra fat and lazy if I am selling fat burners while not doing a damn thing about my own spare tire. Also tonight is the night we put out the trash so once I gather up what is going it can actually go. This is key to my cleaning strategy.
So even though I only have four more rows before I finish the increases on the first leg, a thought that will taint my whole cleaning time with distraction, I must refrain and not knit again until it is at least reasonably tidy up in this bitch.
Wish me luck.
Maybe some whiskey will help...

So much for rushing

Yeah I got no knitting done today. As in nothing. The tiny bit of work I had left to do on my project this morning and the million customers took all day so I got none done there, then both going and coming from work it was rush hour which means standing on the train surrounded by people clinging to a pole for dear life, (I have no balancing capabilities,) Then when I was done with work a friend called and after some food shopping I made dinner while we watched a movie so here I am at 11:30pm having gotten no work done on the onesie. That's a good enough excuse to stay up too late watching White Collar and knitting right?

Yarn has been procured!

Well it took about 4 hours and I nearly blew my top but I have managed to buy the yarn I need for the baby cow suit! I ended up having to go with Bernat Satin for the white since someone bought all they had of white Simply Soft. I also got snaps and a thing to set them with for when I'm done but I forgot buttons! Shit. Oh well I might make it longer than the pattern says anyway since apparently it's super short. Maybe people are smaller in the UK cause Debbie Bliss patterns always have stubby little arms... anyway if this works below you will find a photo of my yarn and how far I got knitting on the train there and back... or maybe above... I'm sending it from my phone so I really have no idea...

Mooooo......

Did you know that Lily's family had a dairy? I'll bet you didn't but they did or... do... that's the part I forget, anyway they have a thing about cows.  Particularly Holstein cows. Did you also know that Lily's sister is pregnant? She is and now we are all about the baby stuff.  I have decided to make another onesie since everyone loved the lamb so much only this time it's going to be a cow.  A Jersey cow. Lily's sis lives in Jersey and a Jersey cow is like a Holstein just brown instead of black so that's where that came from.  I am going to take some liberties for cuteness sake and it's going to have tiny stubby baby horns as well as an udder.  Yes I'm going to knit a baby udder with tiny baby teats that will either be so cute that your head explodes or so filthy that your head explodes but I'm thinking it will go the cute way... I'm using Debbie Bliss Teddy All-in-one as the pattern base and then I'll add the color changes and the teats as I go along. I am super thankful for Ravelry though as I went on and looked at comments about this pattern and everyone said that it came out really small and short legged and that they made it snap-able on the legs for ease of diaper change of which all I will do as well. I would like the kid to be able to wear it fairly soon after birth but I don't want it to only fit him for a week! And no I don't know it's a boy, no one does but I tend to refer to unknown things as "he"
So anyway, back to my current dilemma, it is now 11:15, I have to be at work at 3pm, should I or can I go to Michael's in Braintree to buy yarn and get to work on time? Should I try? Because really? I have a ton to do at work tonight so I really won't have time to knit and if I get the yarn I'm going to want to cast on immediately and I shouldn't but.... all the work I have to do will be done tonight and I have to open tomorrow so I would have time to knit then... and if I don't get the yarn today then I can't work on it tomorrow morning... also I have tentative plans with my old roommate tomorrow after work so I wouldn't be able to go get the yarn then... So maybe I should put some clothes on.
PS I'm making it out of Simply Soft. I only make baby things out of acrylic, the new mom has enough shit to deal with without having to think about hand washing my baby gift. As long as it's washable and soft it flies.  I love some acrylics and I'm no where near a yarn snob but even if you are, be nice to your friends, don't give them more work when they just pushed out a baby. :)

My best friend

If you actually know me then you know that I have two best friends, Lily who I've known since 2007 and me in a knitting group and Morrigan who I met sophomore year of high school. I refer to them both as my best friend and shockingly I have never received a 3AM phone call from Morrigan asking who I love more because YES, that is what happened when I was with my ex; 3AM phone call and when I picked up all she said was, "You love me more than him right?!" So the fact that they seem to accept each other as equals is good, they both know that I am there for them if they need me and yes there have been times where I'm on the phone talking to one and texting the other at the same time but I don't mind that, it's what I'm here for and I know that if I need them they'll be there.  Also it's convenient in the hypothetical, if they were both drowning which one would you save? Neither! Neither of them would let me help them and they'd both be so busy trying to save the other one that they'd both die horribly and nothing I do save using a forklift would make any difference whatsoever.
Anyway, bit side tracked, I was reading old Yarn Harlot today and I was back in the beginning days where she talks about getting her friend to knit over years of exposure to knitting and yarn and I was recalling when my girls first started knitting.  The knitting group that I met Lily in was not strictly knitting, it was a needle craft group that, as they tend to do, contained mostly knitters but Lily was a cross stitcher. She had no desire to knit and was quite happy to never learn but she also has the craft bug and so after, not very long at all, there she was making a hat and queuing more patterns than she could make in a lifetime!  Conversion complete! Although I don't think I had much to do with it...
Now Morrigan on the other hand I've known as long as I've been knitting and despite my efforts of look at this sexy yarn... or look at this sexy pattern... have never made a dent.  Once she decided she would try and then picked out a pattern knit on 2s to start with. Yeah, that never happened.  So try as I might she wouldn't go until I stopped trying all together. (Side note; it may seem mean that I would try to make my friends knit but I learned how to knit from a book and didn't know a single other knitter until I had already been knitting for almost 10 years so I really wanted someone to talk to who could appreciate this stuff.) Then Sock Wars came into our lives. Lily and I and a few of our other friends all entered it and got all excited and started talking about it and Morrigan goes, "You kill people with socks! I want to kill people with socks!" So I responded that you need to know how to knit to kill people with socks and within a week we had Mel's first scarf. She went yarn shopping without me and got sucked in by homespun, never a good idea for a beginner. Now the problem is, well it's not really a problem, she won't purl. She flat out refuses to learn anything beyond knit. She knits like the wind but has absolutely no desire to make anything other than garter stitch scarves and has started experimenting with ways to sew a rectangle into a hat or whatever else she wants it to be so... conversion complete? Sure, we'll call it that.