Knitterly Goodness & Belated Thanks

DSC00157, originally uploaded by kyredbutterfly.

I'm going to take full advantage of all my work last night and finally thank my dear friend Chrissie for packing up and sending me all of this delicious yarn and magazines and books. (The books are a little hard to identify, as Phoenix the Cat felt the need to pose on top of them. It must have been the smell of Artie the Dog, because no matter what I did, Phoenix wouldn't move!)

I know it's been way too long, but thanks, Chrissie! I've got a few goodies planned for all this fun yarn.

It sure doesn't take much!

(Just a gratuitous picture of the tulips that were beautifully displayed in front of the Capitol earlier this month. Now, here's why they're posted here...)

To make me downright ecstatic, that is! As I said last time, it was about darn time I got on the ride and uploaded my photos to Flickr, got pics on this darn blog, and eventually figured out how to put a Flickr badge onto my blog.

The big problem was that we've been having massive internet problems at home. Between the frustration level and the fact that I was beginning to think that I was going to have pay someone to come fix the problem, I kept putting it off. It's gotten to the point that most days I don't even look at the router to see if it's working more than once a day. As I walked into the house after work today I just happened to glance over and Oh. My. Gosh! It's working! Drop everything. Turn computer on. Find Flickr account information from when Kat visited last July. Do not stop to go to the bathroom, do not get anything to drink, don't even take off jewelry. Get online - now!

Not only did I get a select few pics onto Flickr (and think I've figured an easier way to do it out), but I tagged and named and described the ones I did upload. I figured by then I was probably pushing my luck to attempt the badge thing all by myself, given the lengths Kat went through to try and unsuccessfully put a badge onto my old blog design, but I held my breath and gave it a shot. Anyone with two eyes (or heck, even just one) can look to the right of this post and see that I actually succeeded. Not that it was hard. Not that most anyone could do it. I realize this isn't rocket science. But the fact that I did do it...well, heck, I don't like trying to hook up the DVD player if I can find someone else to fool with it.

So, I'm ecstatic. But I must also admit, given the hour-long drive home and the hour that I've been enjoying internet usage again, my bladder's pretty darn full and I'm going to risk it. I mean, why not, I actually accomplished one of my "big" goals for this spring. Maybe I'll get really, really lucky and the internet connection will not break down when I turn my back for a few minutes. A girl can dream, can't she?

Long Time, No Words

Did you all (all 6 or 7 of you who actually read this, that is) think I'd dropped off the face of the earth? Well, sometimes working for the state legislature during the last days of their annual session feels that way. Really, it's been a combination of the job and the frustration over a decision I made about a month ago that I haven't been able to implement.

The legislature's now left town (for now), meaning I can leave the office on time again and have more time for outside pursuits, like this blog baby. However, I'd vowed that I was going to be better about adding pictures to my blogs, getting my pictures over onto Flickr, and trying to link my Flickr pics to the blog. Kat and I tried last year when she came to visit and had a frustrating time ending in (obvious) defeat. But blogs without any pictures can be boring, so that was a goal I'd set for myself. Then my home internet service decided to go bye-bye, just in time for me to not have the time to get it fixed.

That left me faced with the dilemma...do I blog without pictures (and when, because of work obligations, there wasn't much to share) or do I wait until I got the pictures downloaded to Flickr and figure out how to make the link work properly? You can tell which one I chose! At this point I'm thinking of bringing the camera into work so I can just load the pictures to Flickr and be done with it. (Sshhh...don't tell!)

Also, the new look for the blog...The blog hit the one year mark this month, and I was itching to make some changes. And, I love, love, love green, and spring's the time for a new look. I'm also secretly hoping it's easier to create the Flickr link in this template than the other one I was using. Kat seemed to think that was the problem. I guess we'll see.

Style Confirmation

On Saturday I walked into the living room where Lisa was watching a re-run of TLC's "What Not to Wear" that had aired the night before (there was a serious lack of good TV to choose from, since Lisa had already seen the episode from Friday night). I got there just before the in-studio "reveal" of three outfits purchased by the episode's "patient." I watch the show on occasion, so I sat down to enjoy the final 15 minutes or so of the episode while Lisa fills me in on some the the patients former ways. When she walks out with her second outfit, they specifically focus at one point on the woman's shoes, and suddenly I'm pointing and am getting excited. They are the same as a pair I bought a few weeks ago. The exact same shoe! What a bizarre moment...if I hadn't walked into the living room just in time to see this segment of the show, I would never know that at least in one small area of my closet exists a pair of shoes worthy of Stacey and Clinton's approval. Oh, and my mom likes them, too.

Contrarian

During session I frequently relish a very quiet weekend. Particularly now that I'm the lead staff person for my committee. My phone never stops ringing. Being an introvert, when a Friday during session comes I'm generally craving a couple days of doing my own thing, in my own time, without a lot of interaction with my friends and family. Love them dearly, but I need my space!

Last weekend was full of activity, and I'd come down with a cold that meant I really, really, really just wanted to sleep and knit and read and watch TV. I managed to make it to my events on Saturday, but I had to cancel church and a luncheon and a church meeting on Sunday. I felt cruddy and just wanted my time.

This weekend there's nothing on the agenda, but now that I have the freedom to have my space, I'm really feeling a bit at loose ends and craving some activity and connection with people. Go figure. When I have to be social I don't want to be, when I don't have any need to be, I'm seeking it out. Mind you, I still turned down an invitation to go to an Irish restaurant (that doesn't take reservations) with my friend Nancy, her husband Jason, and their almost 3 year old son Grant, tonight. You see, it's Lent, and Louisville is a very Catholic city. People will be packed into this restaurant waiting for seats in order to eat the compulsory fish and chips (Catholics eat fish on Fridays during Lent, for those who don't get my meaning). I may want contact with people, but not that much contact. It'll be a madhouse.

I've got lots of little errands to run and to-do's around the house to accomplish, and I do have church and lunch afterwards to look forward to on Sunday. But I may have to take my knitting and make my way to my LYS for some social knitting before the weekend is over.

I'm such a wild child, I know.

p.s. One of my to-do's is to take pictures of my knitting and download my pictures...so hopefully I'll have a few entertaining posts over the next week or so. Cross your fingers!

Just Like a Girl

I don't really consider myself a girlie-girl. I don't like pink, I love watching sports, and I don't scream when I see a spider or freak out when there's a dead bat in the living room (yes, it's happened). But when it comes to shoes, well, you've got me there - I'm definitely a girl. I like shoes so much that I don't let myself go shoe shopping very often. I usually end up buying a couple pairs in November with the annual Pigeon Forge Shop-Til-You-Drop trip, and maybe a sandal or two in the spring, but that's it. I have a hard time controlling myself, so I simply forbid it.

But over the past few weeks there have been a few incidents that clearly called for the need for new shoes. My black boots that are in such bad shape that they should have been thrown away at the end of last year, but I loved the fit so I was holding out for another season. Then the button on the side of one of them fell off, so that there's this flap of "(not) leather" hanging off the boot. No more black boots. My brown boots are great to look at, but they kill my feet, so I end up not wearing them very often. I also have a severe affinity for sling-back shoes, but my one pair of black heels includes a left shoe that has stretched to the point that the sling falls off my heel after a couple steps. This is not good when you're running, literally, to a committee meeting. Finally, I realized I only had one pair of dress brown heels, too, and they are very, very narrow. So I hate to wear them to work when I know I may be on my feet for 12 or more hours. They're fine for church or dinner out, but not for a full day.

Based on all of that, I decided that the situation had risen to the level that my strict moratorium on shoe buying had to take a day or two off. Last Friday I stopped at one discount shoe store and ended up with 2 pair of boots (black and brown) and a pair of brown high heels. All had been on sale, so I felt pretty good about the splurge. Then on Saturday I went to a different discount shoe store, relatively new to the Louisville area, and that's when things got way out of control. Four pairs of shoes and one pair of boots later, I walked out thinking I would have to eat saltine crackers for the next few weeks until I could pay off the credit card. The boots I bought on Saturday will replace one pair that I bought on Friday, because I liked them better, but when all is said and done, I ended the weekend with 7 pairs of shoes & boots more than I'd started out owning. This is why I'm not allowed to go shoe shopping!

And even though I heard all the dire weather predictions for snow and ice (all of which came true), of course I had to wear one of my new pairs of shoes on Monday. And no, I wasn't even sensible enough to wear the boots. So there I was on Monday night, having fought my way back to Louisville in the snow and wind, at the grocery store, delicately stepping through the sludge in my brand new black kitten heel shoes to get milk and something for dinner.

A girl's got to do what a girl's got to do.

Hey Phil? Where Did the Winter Go?

So I heard the news bright and early on Groundhog Day that Punxatawney Phil had predicted six more weeks of winter, and I sighed. I've rarely seen daylight recently because it's dark when I get to work and usually dark when I leave work, so the idea of six more weeks of this sort of bummed me out. Especially since Saturday was a lovely, warm, sunny day in Louisville and I kept thinking "I want more of this!" But alas, I think I made a mistake with that thought.

We enjoyed the unseasonably warm weather through Tuesday night, when the jet stream moved and here came the thunderstorms and tornadoes. This is the second Tuesday in a row where most everyone in the state spent the night watching the local weather news or listening to the radio from the "comfort" of their basement or hall closet. Not a fun way to pass the time.

Last week we lost electricity for 10 hours, but since a house one block from me had a huge tree cave in on it, I felt fortunate that all I had to do was rescue my garbage can lid and clean up some trees limbs strewn across the front yard. This week we never lost power, and the tornadoes weren't in my part of the county, so my night wasn't as bad as others. Strangely enough, the internet connection that got messed up by last week's storm has resolved itself after this week's storm. But even though we got off easier this week, more peopl died across Kentucky and in several other states from the storms.

The storm did bring the temperature down from highs in the 70s to a more seasonal low 40s and high 30s. Of course, tomorrow it's supposed to be in the 50s, followed by a high of 28 degrees, and then bouncing back to the 40s. So I'm admitting my folly and asking for forgiveness from Phil and Old Man Winter, and begging that winter comes back for the next six weeks. I'll take that over deadly tornadoes in early February!