MARILYN MANSON :: This Is Halloween

Happy Halloween

Happy Boo Day

Garrison Keillor gave a brief history of Halloween on NPR during writer's almanac this morning. Did you know that Halloween started with the celts. They believed that the spirits, ghouls, ghosts, faeries and goblins walked the earth on this night, so they dressed up as ghouls, etc to try to scare them off, and they put liquor on their doorsteps for the spirits of their ancestors. Liquor. For the Spirits. Hmmmmm.

Here's the part I love. Pope Gregory III tried to turn it into a Christian holiday and encouraged people to dress up like saints and help the poor. But those fun-loving Irish decided to use the holiday for blowing off steam by partying and playing pranks on each other.

It wasn't until the 20's here in America that Ladie's Home Journal told kids to get out there and go door to door for candy, and now we're stuck with the cute little beggars.

Life Work Balance Not in Balance

While I've been hip deep in paint, ceramic tile, speaker wire and u-bends, it's been a bit tough to do any serious knitting. Yep, it's the dreaded home renovation. I can't wait for the end result, but getting there is really screwing with my play time. So, while the house progresses, the only knitting I've done is on my brother's sock:

This is my answer to his request for "red and green socks", without giving him something worthy of the grinch. What he really wanted was argyle...apparently he hasn't got a full grasp of what I mean when I tell him I've only been knitting for one year. But he did relent and downgraded his request to stripes. But really, how do you knit red and green stripes without doing the grinch thing? Hopefully what I've done above.

Here's what I'd really like to do: Knit the exact opposite for his "matching" sock. So, red leg, green heel, red foot, green toe. I know the general consensus is to have the socks match perfectly, but wouldn't that be more fun? For me, at least?

Stitches East

Well, no big surprise, I spent WAY too much money. It all started Thursday night. It took me two hours to get to the event and I realized I didn't want to sit in rush hour traffic for three hours just to get to my 8:30AM class the next day, so I got a room in the Sheraton. No big surprise that cost an arm and a leg. But then I went on over and listened to Kaffe Fasset talk about how he learned how to knit in 20min and how to do Fair Isle in 10. Not sure how I feel about him after that! Ha. After that, I went to the market, which was open early for registrants and spent another load of money. I ran into an old friend and we both decided that given the choice between reducing our spending or simply not keeping track of how much we were spending, it was far more fun to go with the latter. After spending way too much money at the market, I felt I needed a beer or two to numb my brain, so I headed back to the hotel and plopped down with my purchases in the bar. I was very shortly joined by Elizabeth, who saw me sitting alone and came over to join me. When I asked where she came from, she simply answered "Canada". So, as a complete joke (you know how whenever you tell someone you're from Texas, they expect you to know everyone from Texas), I said: "Well, if you're from Canada, you must know the yarn harlot, right?" Giggle, Snork. Turns out, they're in the same knitting group. You could have knocked me over with a skein of laceweight! Do you remember when the Harlot was talking about not wanting to see the mystery stole until she finished it? Well, Elizabeth was the culprit who wore it to knit night! Elizabeth was a hoot and we spent about an hour talking about knitting, men and Canada in general. It almost made the small fortune I spent on the room worthwhile.

Waking up to this

and this:didn't hurt either!

The class went OK. Not sure if I like doing mitred squares or not. I had some serious issues with the whole knitting on two circulars thing and am not sure I'll EVER try that again, but am trying very hard to keep an open mind to it.

I'm pretty sure the bar across the street wasn't quite expecting a herd of knitters to come crowd their space:I ended up skipping Saturday, which meant I didn't see Lee, but I just couldn't handle the traffic again after driving home Fri night for another two hours. Plus, with the marathon in town, I knew it would be pretty wretched to find parking. I forgot about the game Sunday, or I may have blown that off too, since parking was no picnic with those dirty Ravens playing the Saints, but I did show up which is a good thing since I learned several different cast-on techniques, one of which will make my brother's next sock MUCH easier to cast on. It was a good weekend, but next year I need to find someone to split a room with me and just stay there the whole time. And I won't be taking an afternoon class on Sunday, since it lets out the same time the game does! Urgh. And I'll save a LOT more money than I did this year in preparation.

BTW, anyone who reads this and wants to check it out in the future, Sunday is the day to shop. True, a lot of stuff has been cleaned out, but there's also a lot of stuff on sale and not very many people there at all.

Done Done

First sock v3.0 is now First sock v4.0 and has a mate, First Sock Part Deux. Both complete.

I'm also well on my way to completing the socks for the SiGo

and I've started on my brother's grinch socks. OK, they're not supposed to actually be grinch socks, but he wanted red and green stripes...you tell me what that means to you?

Meanwhile, I'm making good progress on my next top: A dolman tee from a pattern designed by a lady I met on one of my yarn sprees. So, I guess knitting from the stash can be a good thing...

CHAching!

Ever noticed how when you can get a no-interest loan for 18 months, suddenly $5K doesn't seem like that much money...I mean, really, you have 18 months to pay it off! Woo Hoo. Then you get that first bill. *Cough, choke sputter*

Well, I haven't got the first bill yet, but here's what all my money will be going towards paying off for the next 18 months (since if you don't get it paid off in said amount of time, all 18 months worth of interest comes raining down on your head at the tune of 22%!!)

Yep. It's a Sony 52" LCD TV. I went from planning on spending about $2K to buying the top of the line in Sony. What is the yarn equivalent of a 52" LCD TV, cuz that's how much I'll have to avoid buying until this puppy is paid off! Gonna be some serious use of the stash for a while! It's purty though, right?

Fun, Busy and Productive Weekend

The first thing I did this weekend (Friday evening) was put together the Carol Doak October Block of the Month paper pieced quilt block. I'm having the basement refurbished, so who knows when I'll have access to my sewing machine again, so it seemed prudent to do the block ASAP.

Saturday, the SigO and I took it easy and went "shopping" for a big screen LCD TV. By shopping, I mean to say we went to a few places and looked at the outrageous prices. We started out at Best Buy thinking to ourselves that at least there, they would come out and install the TV for us...and they would...for a whopping fee of $500! So, then we went over to Costco and looked at some of the exact same TV's for hundreds of dollars less. We just need to figure out how to get the dang thing installed.

After that shock to the system, we headed out to Tim's Rivershore Restaurant and Crabhouse for some beer, live music and crabcakes. The table next to us was getting down with the crabs, and I was tempted, but such work! Especially given the variable of a permanent crab smell to First Sock Part Deux, which also enjoyed the scenery very much.

Pretty hard to see it in the picture, but there is a sailboat tacking against the wind far out in the distance. I have a weak spot for sailboats. They're so elegant and romantic...so much classier than the motorboats crowded all around the area! I also thought the crab-traps a nice touch, given that we were eating at a crab house...it is a little disturbing though to think about eating anything out of the Potomac. Such a filthy river. I was really surprised to see some kids swimming around in it and their parents watching from the back of the boat. Perhaps they're unaware that the sewer backs up into this unfortunate river everytime it rains.

Sunday we did one of my favorite hikes at one of my favorite local national parks, which remains un-named here because, so far, it is still largely undiscovered, and while I recognize that not only do very few people read my blog, but many of those who, do don't even live in this state...still, I'd rather not take the chance of this park being discovered by the "unwashed masses" as the SigO jokingly likes to call them. After the 7 mile trek, we wolfed down some waffles and headed home, where I finally managed to finish his first sock.

Only one more to go, then I have my brother's, sister-in-law's, mother's and best friends to knit...all before Christmas...what are my chances, do you think?