Yay! Gauge Knits should be opening again on October 27th at 11 am, according to one of the owners.

I've been tagged!

Whoops, Chelsea got me! Well, the least I can do is keep the game going... :D

Rules:
Once tagged, you must link to the person who tagged you. Then post the rules before your list, and list 8 random things about yourself. At the end of the post, you must tag and link to 8 other people, visit their sites, and leave a comment letting them know they’ve been tagged.

1. One of the greatest thrills of my 20s was to go backstage at a Monkees concert here in Austin.


2. I founded a (now defunct) branch of the Barefoot Hikers Society here when I was in college.


3. For some reason, I have a serious aversion to greasy dirt - the icky kind of dirt you find when touching car parts, for example.


4. My life is a musical, and quite often you'll catch me singing along.


5. Speaking of singing, currently I sing with two local choruses as well as in my church choir. I do eventually hope to make a go of it in a solo career, but perhaps I'll try out for the opera first.


6. The digits in my age add up to 6.


7. Everyone in my immediate family has a holiday for a birthday, save one (and technically we can find some sort of holiday on hers as well).


8. I am a biblio-, video- and audiophile: my collection in each of these areas numbers in the hundreds and would be larger if I had more money.

Now I've got to figure out who to tag...especially since at least 3 of the people I planned on tagging have already been tagged! So here it goes for Caro, Stacy, Robin, Judy, Laurie, Zeeppo, Kimberly, and OzKnitter. Sorry about that! :D

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery

Noro is a Good Thing (tm) - which may be why we've seen scads of mimics lately. This weekend we ran into Boku by Plymouth - a match for Silk Garden, but without the mohair. Today I found another one, at JoAnn of all places. This is by Debbie Mumm for JoAnn -- can't remember the yardage but it is 75% acrylic, 25% wool. The colors are mainly dark and tonal, but there is a nice shaded red variation that is pretty.

My day has mostly been a fruitless search for frog buttons. Apparently no-one has frog buttons this year. I will not give up -- gonna hit HCW tomorrow and Silk Road on Tuesday if I still haven't found any...

Owww...

Hot, tired, filthy, and sore...but we had a lot of fun.

Part of the reason I love my employer is the emphasis on "winning culture" -- which means a lot of things, not the least of which is giving morale boosters to the employees. It doesn't always work out as intended, but I think today went well: we had a kickball tournament. I didn't actually play, but I was there for the whole time snapping photos and acting as a line judge. I can't imaging how sore I'd be if I actually played as well.

Now time to hop in a warm bath and soak for a bit, I think. Cheers!

Seriously frustrated

Come ON, people. I am very tired of dealing with receptionists in doctor's offices. This is not a slam on receptionists as a whole - just on the obstructionist ones I seem to deal with lately. If someone is referred to your employer (to a specific doctor, no less), don't just tell me that your office normally deals with a different specialty. I figured that out from the name of the stinking office in your automated greeting. I was referred to THAT specific doctor for a specialty they apparently handle, so just offering to transfer me to a different department isn't going to help. This is why that doctor has a nurse (and OMG, their own voicemail), so you can ASK. Don't make me do your job for you, especially not when I've already been transferred all over the known universe. Kthx.

................aaaaaaaaaaaargh.

Fun, with bells on

Handbells are not my instrument of choice. I will grump and groan with the best teenager at the thought of going to practice, and yet I do it because we don't have enough people in the handbell choir for me to think about bowing out. Even so, there are days like today that are fun when performing our piece -- the melody interwoven with all the different bells, notes that surprise you at their inclusion but in the whole make a spiritually uplifting piece.

From church, I hurried on to the LYS, which is hosting Annie Modesitt this week (she is teaching classes at Hill Country Weavers as well as Bluebonnet Yarn Shoppe, I believe). Aside from being one heck of a designer, she's really a delightful person to talk to. I'd say FABULOUS, but I don't know if she reads my blog and...well...a story about a certain aunt comes to mind. :D

Sometime this next week I think I am going to head down to a bead shop off South Lamar which I just found out about -- they have loaaaaaaaaaaaaads of stuff. A little pricey, and perhaps I'll end up sticking with ordering online, but it was fun to look. :D

Thank you!!

Thanks to all who sent birthday wishes! After the pumpkin picking, I ended up going to Dave and Busters for an evening of fun - and we didn't even get on the arcade DDR. Heh. When I got home, I settled in with a blanket and the movie Earth Girls are Easy. Yeah - that one is straaaaaaange, but funny. Imagine Geena Davis trying to pull off a musical number (obvious overdub). I'd also like to say that a decade or two ago Jeff Goldblum was HOT. I'd always seen him as kind of cute in a geeky way, but they were definitely moving the HOT factor in this one.

...mmmmmmmmm, now this morning I am off to teach a class, then have lunch with another friend, meet a couple others for coffee, and finally come home to do some serious catching up on my video game playing. Hee.

P.S. to add: HAPPY BIRTHDAY, SAMMI!!!! :)

yay - cupcake place not open yet but the candy shop opened early for me...

You say it's your birthday...

My Tiara
Originally uploaded by Cyndiva.

...it's my birthday, too, yeah!

Well, sounds like I don't get to party tonight like I'd planned (the host had to cancel), but I am running down to Marble Falls with a couple friends to go pumpkin picking this afternoon. Mmmm, pumpkin ice cream.

Hm, now I just have to make new birthday evening plans... :D :D

Churn sucks. That is all.

2 stores down...now off to Boerne for lunch and a couple more.

Oh, and I do love my phone. Mobile blogging rocks.

Well, the yarn crawl bus is about to take off... 40 women knitting and grinning and having a good time. Pics to come soon!

Big sigh

Well, my boy Colt wasn't able to pull it out for a win at the Shootout this year. I'm so disappointed -- but the team played well. If they'd had this kind of dedication at earlier games we might not be 0 and 2.

As my current favorite shirt says, however, we might lose a game, but we never lose a party. I was invited out to a party tonight, and since I hardly ever accept those invites (especially not on Saturday nights) AND my birthday is in a few days, I'm going out - we're dancing and singing and generally carrying on like fools tonight, so get your dancing shoes on and get out there!

(...and don't forget the YARN CRAWL tomorrow - hope to see you on the bus!)

1000 and one little reasons why

I have had a plethora of odd and old songs running through my head today -- partly because I have to help pick the music for a contest we're holding at work. (Everyone keeps asking if I am going to compete, saying that I definitely should since I sing -- and I have to keep telling them that it wouldn't be fair if I competed since I am the one picking the songs. Maybe if I close my eyes and don't look? :)

At any rate -- the one song stuck in my head for the majority of the day was not the one which provided title inspiration for this post (even though this is technically post 1002). Nope, it was "The Internet is for Porn" -- lyrics here if you are interested. This, of course, is not appropriate tune-age for vocalization if one wants to stay gainfully employed.

In knitting/crocheting news, the BSS continues, the wedding afghan is on time out until it gets cooler, the baby afghan is waiting for me to actually have students in my crochet class again, and I am really wanting to start something with the fabulous evergreen merino I got from Janet this past weekend.

So, here's a gratuitous picture of yarn:

ahhh- there's a lot to be said for a good chiropractic adjustment
-- C