My brother Aaron is home! It’s strange ‘cus he’s been gone a year. We’re four kids, and it’s remarkable how quiet the house is when I’d go visit and there would be only the three of us (I don’t live at home but I go by often).

We went to the airport after work to pick him up, he looks really good. His hair’s shorter, but in that cool faux-hawk (fake mohawk) thing that seems popular on celebrities. He spent more time with his friends and Yannick then with me, but I’m glad he’s home. It makes things seem back to normal. And Mike (my other brother) is back too, they’d spent the last week together in LA. And Laura (my sister), lest she feel left out, is home too, as she never left. 🙂

I took the plunge earlier and committed to a “yes” RSVP on the meetup.com website for the Montreal Knitting Meetup. I always wanted to go to the West Island one which is closer to my home, but it’s on Thursdays at 7pm, and I work until 8 half an hour away. But today I realized that the one in town is on Wednesdays at 7pm, and I work until 6 around the corner. So I could go over early to get a seat and not feel as nervous walking in once people are already there, and it’s really, really close to my work. So I RSVP’d that I’d go. I’m nervous, but excited too, since it’s my first meetup. I’ve been to Knitting Guild meetings, but this is more “hanging out”.

My dad let me go through his bead collection (yes, he has a bead collection. he was going to have my mom make necklaces and sell them, years ago) and he let me take a whole bunch of beads. So I’ll be heading to Wal-Mart tomorrow for rings and will be making stitch markers with them. Maybe even send some as RAOKs…

Now we’re going to watch The Terminal and go to bed. ‘Night!

My brother Aaron is home! It’s strange ‘cus he’s been gone a year. We’re four kids, and it’s remarkable how quiet the house is when I’d go visit and there would be only the three of us (I don’t live at home but I go by often).

We went to the airport after work to pick him up, he looks really good. His hair’s shorter, but in that cool faux-hawk (fake mohawk) thing that seems popular on celebrities. He spent more time with his friends and Yannick then with me, but I’m glad he’s home. It makes things seem back to normal. And Mike (my other brother) is back too, they’d spent the last week together in LA. And Laura (my sister), lest she feel left out, is home too, as she never left. 🙂

I took the plunge earlier and committed to a “yes” RSVP on the meetup.com website for the Montreal Knitting Meetup. I always wanted to go to the West Island one which is closer to my home, but it’s on Thursdays at 7pm, and I work until 8 half an hour away. But today I realized that the one in town is on Wednesdays at 7pm, and I work until 6 around the corner. So I could go over early to get a seat and not feel as nervous walking in once people are already there, and it’s really, really close to my work. So I RSVP’d that I’d go. I’m nervous, but excited too, since it’s my first meetup. I’ve been to Knitting Guild meetings, but this is more “hanging out”.

My dad let me go through his bead collection (yes, he has a bead collection. he was going to have my mom make necklaces and sell them, years ago) and he let me take a whole bunch of beads. So I’ll be heading to Wal-Mart tomorrow for rings and will be making stitch markers with them. Maybe even send some as RAOKs…

Now we’re going to watch The Terminal and go to bed. ‘Night!

Last night we invited my cousin Jon over for dinner, then we went bowling. Well, it was more like Jon and Yannick bowled, while I sat and knit. I also seemed to entertain a Yugoslavian bowling league that was in the lane right next to us, as they couldn’t resist asking me questions and oohing and ahhing. Everyone’s first thought was that I was knitting baby clothes, but no, just a simple dog sweater. 🙂

Now I’m off to work. It’s wierd having my dad come pick me up, but since we’re going straight to the airport after work, I don’t want to have my own car and have the parking hassle. Why are we off to the airport? AARON’S HOME! My younger brother (well, everyone’s younger since I’m the oldest of the 4) left exactly 1 year ago this weekend to do a semester of university in Australia. Next thing you know he winds up on a reality TV show, decides to stay there and ends up staying for a whole year. Last weekend my other brother flew down to LA to meet him on his way back, they spent the week together in LA going to show tapings and stuff, and will be arriving back in Montreal tonight. It will be very strange to see Aaron after not seeing him for so long. Everything, all the holidays, birthdays, etc… happened this year without him here.

So I don’t know if I’ll get a change to blog later, but if not have a great weekend!

My entire Outlook contents. The last 6 years of my life, in contacts and emails. Gone. *poof*

I feel like I’m in mourning. Now I have to call all my friends and ask them to email me so I have their addys again, I have to email all the companies I bought Palm programs from and ask them to re-email my access codes, and I have to forget all the irreplaceable and unretrievable things that are now gone from my life.

*sigh*

My entire Outlook contents. The last 6 years of my life, in contacts and emails. Gone. *poof*

I feel like I’m in mourning. Now I have to call all my friends and ask them to email me so I have their addys again, I have to email all the companies I bought Palm programs from and ask them to re-email my access codes, and I have to forget all the irreplaceable and unretrievable things that are now gone from my life.

*sigh*

My entire Outlook contents. The last 6 years of my life, in contacts and emails. Gone. *poof*

I feel like I’m in mourning. Now I have to call all my friends and ask them to email me so I have their addys again, I have to email all the companies I bought Palm programs from and ask them to re-email my access codes, and I have to forget all the irreplaceable and unretrievable things that are now gone from my life.

*sigh*

My entire Outlook contents. The last 6 years of my life, in contacts and emails. Gone. *poof*

I feel like I’m in mourning. Now I have to call all my friends and ask them to email me so I have their addys again, I have to email all the companies I bought Palm programs from and ask them to re-email my access codes, and I have to forget all the irreplaceable and unretrievable things that are now gone from my life.

*sigh*

I did get a bit of work done while vegging tonight. I couldn’t work on the dog sweaters because I still need to modify the pattern and I left it at work by mistake. I would have worked on the Sweetheart Mittens for Yannick’s Valentine’s Day present, but I’ve already done so much and still have 11 days, so I thought I’d take a break on that. The other project that needed work was the lace socks for my knitting class. Even though we’re working on fair isle in our class this coming Monday, we need to be ready to turn the heel by the following week, so I used the time tonight on the sock.

Voila!

This is the sock, loose. You can’t really see much.

This is the sock slipped over my cordless phone to expand it a bit and show some of the stitch detail. I know you can’t see much, but I also only have…um…I didn’t measure it, but the ribbing alone was only 2 cm, and that was 11 rows, and I’ve only done 10 rows of the lace pattern after that, so this is only roughly 4 cm of sock. I tried slipping it over my water bottle to stretch it further, but it looked really stupid and I was worried it was stretching it too far, because it looked really tight.

Now I’m off to bed, even though it’s only 11:30pm and this is really early for me. I’m sure I won’t fall asleep until at least 1am ‘cus I bring my Palm to bed and I’m usually reading or playing around…but at least if I’m up I’ll be able to see Yannick when he gets home later and it will be the first time I’ve seen him all day, so there’s always a bonus, even though I’ll be tired tomorrow. 🙂

First of all, if you’ve sent me an email since Tuesday, I’m sorry if I didn’t respond. I had opened my Outlook (the old .pst file) and pulled in my “new” mail on Tuesday, 59 emails, but then during the process of trying to reinstall the real .pst file, I overwrote the temporary one and lost those 59 emails. I know most of them were bulk emails from some yahoo groups, but if I missed anything important I’m sorry. I’m deliberatly not opening Outlook now while online so I don’t pull in anything new, until my Outlook problems are settled *fingers crossed*.

I worked all day today, the long 9-8 Thursday shift. Normally I look forwards to Thursdays ‘cus it’s “Sushi Thursday”. Not tonight. Because I drove to work I didn’t take my first dose of uber-drugged cough syrop (Hycodan) until 10am. So I took my next dose at 2pm, since the bottle says “every 4 hrs, as needed” and I was coughing quite a bit. I guess 1 tsp is too high a dose or every 4 hrs is too much for me, ‘cus I ended up extremely dizzy and naseous, right up until now when I got home. That’s over 4 hours! And I don’t just mean I felt woozy, I couldn’t work! I spent every minute since around 3pm rocking back and forth on my chair trying not to puke. I couldn’t read, I couldn’t do anything. I ordered supper thinking some food would help, and only managed to eat 2 maki pieces, not even whole rolls. And I had to FORCE myself just to eat those two. Luckily my dad understood and didn’t complain about me just sitting there all afternoon and evening.

So I got no knitting done, and I don’t think I’ll do much tonight. I’m going to crawl into bed and watch CSI and Without A Trace while I tape The Apprentice.

Since I have nothing from today to show, here are two finished pictures of the entrelac in the round tam I made. While I was home on Tuesday I washed it in some Eucalan (my first time using it!) and blocked it on a dinner plate for a few days.

This is the hat, looking very beret-like, on my creepy mannequin.

This pic lets you see the very cool “flower” that’s created when you decrease the rectangles on both sides to close the top of the tam. Even though I really look stupid in the hat, it was really fun to make and I would love to make them as gifts if I knew people would wear them. And the scratchy Alafoss Lopi really softens up when you rince it in the Eucalan, now it’s soft enough to touch against the face, I wouldn’t have done that pre-rinsing!

See you tomorrow. Send lots of prayers that my .pst problems will be fixed by then!

I feel like I’ve been stuck in a vortex where nothing changes, yet time goes on anyways. I’m still fighting this stupid virus, only now my coughing has gotten really bad.

After I posted on Monday I got to work on the first of the two commissioned dog sweaters, even though I was feeling pretty lousy. I did hear back from my doctor’s office eventually, they recommended I try an over the counter cough syrop with codeine…exactly like the one I was already taking. They told me to stay home 1 more day, and if there was no change, to make an appointment.

So I started knitting. I first modified my Palm patterns. Oh, let me explain. I keep all my knitting patterns in my Palm. I create a database with a checkbox for each instruction. For example, a pattern file might open and have the following items:

-CO 45 sts w/ 6US (4mm)

-work 2×2 rib for 3″

-change to st st and work for 9″ more

but each thing will have a checkbox so I can tick it off when done, plus a column for the total number of rows so far at that point, the number of sts I should have at that row, any special instructions, etc… I do this for each pattern I knit, I type up the pattern into MobileDB and import the database into my Palm so I never have to shlep around a big pattern book. I just have my Palm and it’s always with me anyways, and it keeps my place so I know exactly where I am when I pick it up again.

Because the 2 orders were custom orders, I modified the patterns to fit the exact sizes of the doggie recipients. I uploaded the files, then parked myself on the couch in front of the TV and VCR and started knitting while catching up on all the shows I’ve taped in the past week or so. I did the ribbing and 1 full repeat of the heart pattern when I decided that it just wasn’t working. The woman who commissioned the sweaters wanted something cute and had seen a little cable sweater she liked. The woman who owns?/runs? the pet accessories store looked at my pattern for the cables and one with hearts and thought the client would like the hearts. Unfortunately, the hearts just weren’t standing out. You really couldn’t tell unless you REALLY looked that there was anything on the reverse stockinette background. So I stopped it with the plans to bring it to the pet place and suggest I do the cable pattern instead.

This gave me newly available time to start on the sweetheart mittens, and I managed to complete the 21 rows of ribbing before bed. I know there are patterns for sweetheart mittens available on the net, but I’m using Ann Budd’s book “A Knitter’s Handy Book of Patterns” or whatever it’s called. It lets you choose your yarn, your needles, your gauge, and knit a hat, tam, gloves, mittens, sweaters, scarves and socks. Since I was sneaky and had traced Yannick’s hand in his sleep, I knew I could make a custom-fitting mitten for him, one for myself, and just make a large one with 2 cuffs for the “sweetheart” mitten. As I mentioned a few posts ago, my mitten will have pink stripes in the cuff, his will have blue stripes, and the sweetheart mitten will have our matching cuffs.

Tuesday I didn’t go to work, much as my dad would have liked me to. I was so exhausted from coughing all night and waking myself up coughing that I slept until 12 again. I still woke up with a headache, and I was annoyed because if I was going to be home, I would have preferred to have been up early to accomplish stuff.

I did manage to accomplish something horrible. Either from opening an email with no subject or “to” info, or from clicking “yes” to one of those “do you accept Whatever Company as a trusted blah blah” (I know, stupid of me), I somehow let something in that started slowing my computer down. Attuned as I am to how my computer’s running, I right away ran AdAware, CWShredder and SpyBot to weed out any viruses, and quarantined/deleted whatever I found. Then disaster struck. I went to open Outlook to access my email…and it told me it couldn’t find the file “outlook.pst” to open. I, naively, did a search on my computer and found a file with that name in my Windows folder, so I told the program to point there. Outlook opened…with info from 2001! It was an old file! And all my current stuff, every address in my contact list, every file, every folder, EVERYTHING IS GONE! I’m so furious at myself for not making a backup! I’m so stupid! Right away I called my ex ‘cus he’s the only computer guy I know, and he gave me the number of his “go-to” guy. So he had me shut my computer down to avoid any more problems and told me he’d come over tomorrow afternoon (being today afternoon, now).

I don’t know how I managed to knit while being so distraught, but somehow I managed to finish Yannick’s mitten up to the last 8 sts at the top where I had to weave the end through and pull tight. I decided to wait for daylight before breaking out the tapestry needles, so when I went to bed I had only that bit and the thumb left to do.

This morning I went to see my doctor and he gave me a prescription for a cough syrop with such a high codeine content that it’s considered a narcotic and you’re not allowed to drive, or get refills ‘cus it’s too easy to get addicted to it. Cool! 🙂 I’ve been on it in the past, makes me dopey. I’m waiting until I go to bed to take it, which is why I’m still coherent.

I got home, knitted for a bit, then the tech guy showed up. He was here for almost 3 hours, and we managed to find the deleted .pst file. Unfortunately, at this point we still haven’t been able to get it running properly so it will import into Outlook. The file is 182 megs yet it’s importing with a total of 6 random emails. I’m really, really worried that I’ve lost everything. This is every email, all my contacts, my correspondance with Paulette Lane for the knitting calendar (shoot I don’t even have her email addy now!), all the reciepts for everything I’ve ever bought online, all my Palm software’s passwords…Everything Gone. I can’t handle that.

Got only a bit of knitting done once he left, ‘cus he called later and I had to go on the computer for a bit. So today stands with my mitten complete until a few rows after the thumb gusset. I’m at the part now where I just knit until it’s the right length to start the decreases. Here’s a pic:

Again, it’s grainy and out of focus ‘cus of the Palm, yada yada yada.

Shoot, I hadn’t thought about all the Palm passwords before. Now if I ever have to reset it I don’t even have the contact info to email them to get them back! I think I’m about to cry!

To Jenifer at 5337, from the comments:

Thanks! I brought the sweaters to a local pet accessories store, and she put them in her stock. So far the sweaters were left on consignment, so I haven’t made anything yet. Whatever I earn won’t be as much as I could make if I sold the sweaters myself and avoided the “middleman”, but I don’t have the time to go out and market them. That’s for the 3 I left her. The 3 I’m working on now are orders she took from her clients to give me, based on the models the saw in the store, but worked up to their dog’s particular measurements. And about your contest – I still don’t “get” Borges, but I thought I was pretty clever with my guess based on the picture alone! 🙂 Thanks for writing.