toys are good food

Pink Power, People!

It doesn't seem like I've been knitting at all lately. Work is... well, work and it robs all the good hours of my day. But I have been knitting, a bit.

I've finished another ball of yarn on my niece's poncho (no pic, sorry), which is definitely progress. And I've knit up some scarves and things to sell at a local bazaar. (Again, no pix. My bad.) Mostly, though, I've sewn in the ends and did finishing work. I haven't heard yet if anything of mine sold, but I'm not too worried. If it sells, great - yarn money. If it doesn't, even better - completed holiday gifts. It's all good.

I did, however, get one little FO done. It's a pink wristband with a darker pink ribbon. A gaggle of us gals from SnB are planning to participate in the Race (er, walk) for the Cure. As something more to bind us together, we'll all wear hand-knitted wristbands.

You can thank Photoshop for that tough background!

As for the knitting details? The wristband pattern is from the Stitch 'n Bitch book, and we found an awareness ribbon chart online (here is one, I can't find the other now).

I didn't carry my two yarn (Lion Brand CottonEase) colors together like the pattern said, and I made the larger size. Since wristbands should be a *little* snug, it's too big and I plan to make another. Besides, I want to try out the other ribbon chart and add a third color. I'm also not v. happy about the seaming and may try it on circs next time.

Jackson & Jimmie

It's been a busy camp 'round these parts, but worth every bit. This past weekend, we decided that Jimmie (that's the Civic Hybrid's name... for now) needed to stretch his legs, or tires (or whatever would be relative to the car's anatomy). And since we've had a visit to another new boy on our To-Do list, it just seemed perfect to do them together.

A few hours later and we were visiting with this handsome, young man. (Okay, so this really isn't the best pic of baby Jackson, but it makes me laugh.) JT was one day away from 3 months and is already a big boy. He laughs and smiles and is an all over awesome tyke. We like Jackson. And his folks are purty kewl, too.

Now we're just waiting for Ramona and it'll be a grand ol' time!

Vrroooom! {part deux}

After a fun day out, here are some pix of the new car.

I'm gonna keep this brief, because I'm watching "When Star Wars ruled the world on VH1."

So, we got the Honda Civic last night. It's a hybrid (gasoline/electric) car. It doesn't plug in or anything. Instead the battery captures heat from braking and stores the energy. At lease that's what the book says. Yeah, our car has two engines...Got a problem with that??

The other thing that's taking some getting used to: When you come to a stop, the engine turns off. When you hit the accelerator, it starts back up without any lag. Science is truly amazing.

Of course the really cool thing is 48mpg. Right now, gas in Dallas costs about 1.60 a gallon. That means that it would cost us about 30 dollars in gas to see my sister who lives 1000 miles away.

Take a look below for a couple of pix.

-- Oh and for my sister: the official color is: "Opal Silver Blue Metallic."

Vrroooom! {part 1}

Can you guess? Huh, huh? Y'all are a smart bunch, I'm certain you can figure this out.

Yep - we got a new car!

The quick n' dirty: it's a 2004 Honda Civic Hybrid. Yep, you heard/read right - hybrid. Gas and electric working together in harmony for Mom Earth. Trying to make up for so many damn Hummers and SUVs. That, and it's sweet.

We'll post more details tomorrow and a pic, or two. Tonight? Well, I'm just too tired. It's been a long day, and I want to get some sleep so that I can wake up excited 'bout the new car again. (It doesn't have to make sense to make me happy.)

Super Spectacular Birthday PEZ recap

The passing of August also means that I am one year closer to the grave. Sure, people try to cover up this fact with cake and presents, but it doesn't fool me.

Unless -- some of the gifts are PEZ. And I'll be honest... Alot of the gifts were PEZ.

Before I get right into the meat of it, I do have a bit of housekeeping first. This summer, I aquired two different types of PEZ lipbalm. One came from my Uncle Terry (left) and the I bought the other (right) at Clark's Trading Post in New Hampshire. (Look for an article on Clark's very soon!)

A trip to ToysRUs netted a big ol' score.

Big super happy news. PEZ released a new flavor this summer in the US - Cola PEZ. The taste is similar to bottle caps candy. I am pretty psyched about this. I wish that there were more flavors of candy. Currently, the US flavors include Cola, Strawberry, Lemon, Grape and Sourz. Those wacky europeans have several more flavors including rasberry, apple-cinnamon and cherry.

vroom vroom

I also picked up a new race car dispenser. The dispenser is similar to other car dispensers, but there is an added twist. The car has 'pull back' action. You know, where you pull the car back, then it shoots forward like magic.

PEZ makes you smarter

The school tools were also purchased at TRU. There are three colors...Pink (for boys), blue (for girls) and camouflage. True camouflage is is not so much a color, more of a color schema. The tools have a wide variety of handy and useful implements crammed into the oversize dispenser. The implements include: pencil, ruler, paper, phone number list, and a handy backpack clip.

I also received two pizza boxes from Canada Candy Connection. (Ann, the lady who runs CCC always sends PEZ in pizza boxes. Don't ask why, just accept it.) One was from nanc, and the other was from my little sister. Another important tidbit --CCC sells European PEZ, not American. They are two different companies, and have pretty different licensing.

stoopid movie, pretty PEZ. Go figure.

The Shrek set came in, and consists of Shrek, Fiona, Donkey and Puss. The sculpting job is quite nice. The colors are bright and clean. Good job, Europe! I'm still often confused by the licensing. Here's what I imagine, "Shrek, that's and American movie. I bet Shrek PEZ would sell like gangbusters in the midwest. Wait, I got a better idea -- let's sell them in the Netherlands instead!" grrr...

that's a PEZ convoy, good buddy

Next is a personal dream come true. A mixture of matchbox cars and PEZ with the new line of PEZ trucks. These are nice. Even if you don't collect PEZ, I highly suggest that you go out an purchase a set of these. Yeah, they're that pretty. The wheels roll, just like a matchbox car. Choking hazards be damned!

Pokeman and Thomas the Tank engine minis are also here. The minis are fully operational PEZ dispensers that only hold about 4 pez candies. These are actually a licensed item that is only sold in vending machines in Japan. These are extremely cute. About ten different sets of minis have been released in the past year. I haven't been able to keep up with them, but I am grabbing the ones that I like.

another photo of our deck table

I was going for a cheesy photoshop effect. how did i do?

So that's it for now. Pardon me whilst I roll around in all of this PEZ goodness.

Stash Redistribution

Amazing stories of fiber glory!

Tales of actual labor!

And a cat that's well enough to hate you and your blog reading ways!

Unfortunately, it was not my yarn stash that felt the lightening of the load. Rather, I was one of the receptors of stash. Gal-pal Pamelalala was having a Going Out of Her Mind! sale and the prices were so low she "has to be crazy-crazy-crazy." [echo sound bite]

So, much of her larder came home with me. Chris and Petra also made out like bandits with the yarn and pattern goodness. Thank you, Pamelalala, for absorbing my first day of work's paycheck in a fabulous way. (No, Matty doesn't feel quite the same way.)

There's no way that I can, with any conscience, show a pic of all my bounty. It would just be sickening. So, little by little, I will disclose a bit of what I reaped as time goes by. (And hopefully relating to a current project, cause otherwise - why in the heck did I buy all this stuff?) So be patient with me.

What's that, a "job"? A real, paid-in-money kind of 9-to-5 thing? Yep, the Nanc is employed. (A temp job, so no joyous chorus of cherubs quite yet.) It was good to work again, despite traffic, florescent lighting and too much A/C. Mamma's bringing home the (turkey) bacon, baby!

All Mrs. Slokombe has to say about that is "About time you move your feet from my PC-warmed spot. Go on! Get! [grumble, grumble.. humans]"

And just in case you didn't know: yeah, she hates* you, too.

* Our sweet kitten, Mrs. Slokombe, is filled with hate for everyone. It's just her nature. Sure, she loves it when you pet her and she gets to lay on CW. But she hates you for controlling this pleasure. She always hates. There are levels of hate, disgust, and consumed rage that we've learned to detect by just a glance. Go ahead and call her cute, just let me step out of her glare first.

Launch time!

Well, I've gone and done it now! Yep, I've started a new blog.

Let me reassure you dear readers, this uppity little blog won't take the place of 'toys'. It's a just a side distraction; a fling, if you will. It doesn't mean anything. I love you.

I launched pOnchO-a-gOgO as a place for me and my knittin' friends to post about our current poncho projects. It's a group site and coincides with a nice poncho knit-a-long (KAL).

Bonez was amazing with the help and we knocked it out of the common Blogger slump and gave it some class; some pizzazz! Besides a hoot, this new blog will give me and my gal pals a better chance to play in the blog pond. (Not so much with the HTML, but sometimes you need floaties first.)

First Class

Haven't you always wanted to be "hand-cancelled"? Did you ever think why that hadn't gotten around to putting YOU on a stamp yet? (They shouldn't have to wait till you're dead to realize your brilliance, do they? I mean, you amaze yourself all the time.)

Well wait no more. You can realize your importance right now and share it with others! Put yourself on a stamp. PhotoStamps will take (nearly) any photo image and make them into real stamps. That the post office will really use. Amazing, no?

This is an awesome site and idea. What a great way to personalize your holiday cards, party announcements, and what not. This beats the pants off of those customized address labels any day! And they'd make great gifts for family and friends.

The ideas are limitless. (Well, okay. There is a limit. But not the point.) Hmmm - it could almost be like trading cards. Collect cancelled postage of your friends, or your friends' pets. Oh, the joy.

Rrrrip!

Do you see that? That. The pile of what looks to be brightly colored spaghetti. That is 11 unfriendly rows of my poncho.

There were some incidents with an unhappy stitch marker and one dropped stitch (unrelated to the stitch marker). Eleven rows back, spirally down the path. Usually I don't have major issues with frogging an item, but when it's knit the round (circular needles) it seems to be a bit more of a hassle.

So I ripped. And now it's time to begin knitting again. In fact, apparently I'm passed due. There are a couple of folks that have started ponchos after me and have completed them. I guess I'm a slow poke knitter.