One more day, one more day, one more DAAAAAYYYY!

By this time tomorrow, I hope to be moved into my new apartment by my movers.  By this time tomorrow, I’ll be at work or on my way into the office. 

By this time tomorrow, my belongings will almost all have been transported to a new address.

I feel like I’ve run a marathon, but I still have another 26 miles to go!  I have a CRT monitor in my trunk that I need to donate somewhere, I need to take down my computer and pack it in my car, I need to take apart my bed and bag the mattress and box spring, I need to load my car with the stuff that the movers aren’t moving, I need to decide what I’m going to do with the stuff currently in my fridge – should I move it or just trash it?  I need to work out an action plan for moving Miss Kitty, because she won’t be moving until Thursday night or Friday, poor thing.  She’s not going to know what to do, having an empty apartment (empty except for her, her food, her box, and cleaning products  anyway.  Maybe I should go ahead and move her after work on Thursday night, or maybe move her after the big thrust of the moving is done (i.e. go back to the old place and get her after the movers leave, although that means she’ll be alone in a new, strange place for 5 hours while I go to work in the afternoon.) She’s going to be wrecked, bless her heart. Anyone with pets have any advice?  I’d sure appreciate it, if you do. 

Anyway, 98% of the packing is complete and I only have the ‘last minute nitty gritty’ stuff left tonight, which is cool, to me. :)

New adventure Hooooooo!

Packing Boxes and Moving. It’s a meat process.

My movers come next Thursday (10/29) and I’ll be moving into my new place (woo hoo!) and I am therefore warmly ensconced in the packing of boxes, packing of yarn* and packing of Miscellaneous boxes, and deciding what to keep and what to get rid of, and what kind of stuff will go to the new place and where I shall store it , and what I’m going to need for packing, cleaning cleaning cleaning and getting ready to move away from this stupid crappy apartment with nonfunctional dishwasher, Goodwilling old clothes, packing a suitcase for the move-in day** because I’ll be moving in on a work day (I’m taking the morning off so my movers can move me, and then working in the afternoon,) then coming home to my new place, setting up my bed and probably then collapsing into it, then Friday working another half day, coming home to my new place, changing into grubby-grub grubbies and going to my old place and cleaning as if I’ve never cleaned (I’m doing a lot of stuff as I go, though, so it won’t be like I have a million things to do all on one weekend) (including shampooing the carpet – Rug Doctor! Hooooooooooooe!!!) and then going to my new place, cleaning some and unpacking, and getting ready for the next phase of move-in, which is Mr. Man’s move on Saturday. (I’m largely ancillary to Mr. Man’s process, aside from staying out of his way so he and his former roommate can carry stuff upstairs.  Likely I’ll get up and clear out, and go back to the old place, continue to clean and take pictures so that the move-out inspection will be corroborated by my pictures of what it looked like once I cleaned it entirely (and probably a final cursory overview to make sure I’ve gotten everything out of every cabinet and won’t accidentally be leaving anything behind for the new sap tenant. (I loved this apartment until the ownership changed, then everything went down the crapper.  Truly.  Honestly.  It was a great place, until they did away with quiet hours, destroyed the courtyard and put in a stupid dog park, where dogs bark from 6:00 a.m. until MIDNIGHT, and the maintenance people don’t know that broken means “doesn’t perform its stated function”, and not just, “doesn’t turn on”.   What I’m thinking is actually going on is that I’m off my lease in a week, and they don’t want to replace it until they can replace it with stainless steel appliances and upcharge because of the ‘upgrades’ for this apartment.  I have to say that I hope they do rip out the linoleum and put in Pergo flooring, because it would be a major upgrade, and because the vinyl is badly laid-out, the corners don’t match up well, and it just needs it.

Sorry for the info-dump, but my knitting has been curtailed and for some reason I don’t feel as guilty sitting here typing when I’m supposed to be packing boxes as I do when I’m camped out on the couch knitting and watching my soon-to-be-gone cable television (no cable TV in the new place! I’m going to get SO much more knitting done!)

So anyway, that’s the story of my life at the mo’.  I feel like I get boxes upon boxes packed, only to find that I still have more boxes to pack after that.  It’s frustrating, but I know it’ll be worth it once everything is said and done.  We signed our lease yesterday, and looked at our ACTUAL new place. It. is. Awesome.  It faces north-south! It’s on a corner so we only share a wall with ONE NEIGHBOR! And it’s not a wall that touches either bedroom!  (It backs up to my bathroom, the kitchen and the dining area.) YEAH!!!!! This week can’t be over quickly enough. ________________________________________

*Do you just want to completely cast on every yarn in your stash when you’re packing it into boxes, or once you’ve packed it into boxes, do you want to pull some out and cast on, or is that just me?

**I have a method for moving – you pack a suitcase with stuff you’ll need immediately at your new home:  your shower curtain, a towel, toiletries, sheets, something to sleep in, changes of clothes until you anticipate actually getting at your clothes, any important paperwork you’ll need before you unearth your desk paperwork (i.e. Confirmations for new service with electricity providers, high-speed providers, etc. so you’ll have them if your service doesn’t come on as planned, and any other critical necessities.  I almost always have some kind of non-perishable food in there, too, or even a sandwich and packed-lunch (and Chocolate) so I have something to eat without having to eat out. It sounds crazy, but having the small creature comforts available to you when the rest of your life is packed in boxes in the living room really makes it more bearable.

Salutations from Sleeve Island, and other Things That Rock.

I FINALLY finished the front of Apres Surf, and started on a sleeve.  I’m super excited about this prospect, owing in part to the fact that sleeves should go faster than the body, because of the shorter-row-ness of it.   I got the 6″ stockinette cuff done and did one row of patterning last night, whilst watching another show I’ve become hooked on, the Next Food Network Star, and Iron Chef America.  I’m going to miss The Food Network (and the Discovery Channel, and History, and SciFi Channel (I do not recognize the name change.), and Cartoon Network…) although I suspect that my TV viewing will be substantially curtailed at the fact that I no longer have all of these channels. 

In other news, Mr. Man and I went to Best Buy (on the recommendation of the guy at the AT&T Store) to see if I could get the new phone I liked for free.  I couldn’t, so I still have my old phone.  It’s okay, though.  My old phone is a good old phone, and I still love it. The new phone I was lusting after is a Smart Phone (I think), and I take exception to having to pay for a service I likely will not use.  I use my phone as a phone, and a texting device, and that’s really it.  I don’t do e-mail or surf the web or use it as a GPS or anything like that, so having to pay an extra $20 a month for that puts me off of getting a new phone, however spiffy the new phone might be.  Still, though, while we were there, we looked at TVs (Best Buy has some FANTASTIC TV deals), and happened to spot a new Wii game that looked super fun – Wii Sports Resort.   It has something called a WiiMotionPlus that you click onto the controller that lets you do more with the controller.  So naturally, we ‘tested’ the game with a game of Ping Pong and a sword fight.  ZOMG so much fun.  We’re probably going to pick that up closer to Christmas time and get ourselves a battery charger thingy for the WiiMotes, because those little buggers SUCK batteries!  But I digress. 

So we looked at all those things, picked out what we want for like the next 4 Christmas/Birthday/Anniversary-type gifts and spent like a gorzillion dollars in our heads, and then we left, having bought nothing.   No sense in buying stuff just to move it in 2 weeks, and I’ve already packed the Wii.  (I know!)  Only because it represented a fantastic option for shirking the box-packing process.   So I boxed it up and packed it.  Now my only shirking options are the Internet, knitting, and TV.  (“Only options”.  Feh.  As if I’m not COMPLETELY shirking with just those 3.)   Besides that, I baked Chocolate Chip and Heath Bar cookies, made a pot roast, sorted my filing and boxed up the bottom drawer of my Elfa desk.  

Moving is sometimes a waiting game.  I’m making myself wait to pack more stuff, because if I pack everything 2 weeks out, I’ll be living out of boxes and I kind of hate that.  But if I don’t get on the packing bandwagon soon, I’m going to be packing up to the minute the movers arrive, and I don’t want that either.  It’s a delicate balance. 

All that to say that my weekend was action packed, but… well, it wasn’t.  It was actually a pretty dull weekend.  But I got a lot done.  Except for what I didn’t get done.  Oh! and we ate Greek food – it was Mr. Man’s first Greek food aside from Gyros out at Faire, which may or may not count, depending on how loosely you define ‘Greek’.  He seemed to really enjoy it, so we’ll probably be going back to Zorba’s again.  Tasty Tasty!

Huh.

I swear, when I unpacked everything into the yarn cabinet in August, all the yarn from the underbed boxes fit into the cabinet.  Now, apparently, I’ve either forgotten how to pack yarn, or the population has grown somewhat – The cabinet is only half-emptied and the boxes, they are full!  I’m going to either have to unload into one of those clear plastic drawer thingies, or unload the remainder of my cabinet into U-Haul boxes.  Good for moving, bad for yarn storage purposes. (Of course, it’ll all be going back into the cabinet ‘on the other side’ (buahahaha) but I really want to protect my yarn from creepy crawlies, so I may just go get some more plastic bin things.  The Jury is out.  I could line the box with a plastic bag to protect the yarn…. I’ll have to cogitate on this, because I’m pretty loath to spend more money on clear plastic bins that I probably won’t use after I’m moved, but that will protect my yarn while it’s being moved.  Actually the bag thing is sounding more and more like a good idea, on a short term basis.

This bonus blog has been brought to you by the letter ‘y’, for yarn.  Help control the yarn population; knit/crochet/weave/craft the stuff up as soon as you acquire it, or else your stash will become epic.  Mine is not epic yet, but it’s certainly giving it that old college try!

20 days.

Okay, this is minor to most people, probably, but I think it’s pretty darned cool.  I knit a pair of socks in 20 days.  A Pair. of. Socks.  20 days.  I can pretty much thank Dancing With The Stars for part of that, because I knit the socks through 2 weeks of DWTS broadcasts and missed week 3, but knit some on them that week, when I would have been watching DWTS but was out and about and missed the show.  But it’s okay.  I wasn’t entirely project-monogamous to the socks, and I still managed to start and finish them in 20 days.  I think it probably has something to do with the fact that the pattern is easy, works up fast and looks good in a million different yarns.  It looks FANTASTIC as a solid, too, so I’m really pleased.  Anyway, here’s the sweet and lowdown:

Pattern: Monkey, by Cookie A.
Mods: Knit on a US2 (2.75 mm) instead of a US 1(2.25mm)
Yarn: Knit Picks Gloss Sock, in Cosmos (2nd pic is a better approximation of color)
Fits woman’s 8-8.5 foot.
For: my Mom.  (Hi mom!)

I’m kinda floored about the 20 days thing.  It blows my mind, to tell the truth.  It’s nerdy, I know, but I’m irrationally proud of myself.  Hopefully I’ll finish Sunday Swing as quickly and I’ll be onto another project.  I surmise that Sunday Swing will not be finished as quickly, only because I’m moving at the end of the month, and moving (actually, really, the preparation to move, the move, and the subsequent unpacking) does not lend itself to a lot of knitty time.  I’ll do my best to carve out some time (probably during DWTS), but I’m reasonably confident to say that I probably won’t get as much time in on these until after I’m ensconced in a new address.  But I’m okay with that.  And frankly, my hands are kind of okay with that too, because they’re a wee bit sore, and carpal tunnel doesn’t look good on me at all.  Just sayin’.

Wherein the Knitter has…. Well, not really much new to share, actually.

I’m moving at the end of this month, which is very exciting for me, as I’ve come to really hate the apartment where I live now, owing entirely to the new management company that bought the complex, and the fact that they’re such a downgrade from the management company who was here.  I loved those folks, and the new maintenance people apparently don’t know that when a dishwasher is broken, it means that it DOESN’T GET DISHES CLEAN, not that it doesn’t turn on.  They come in, turn it on, and deem it NOT BROKEN.  My friends have heard this tale before, so I’ll leave it be here, but ZOMG. Kill.  I’m so freaking sick and tired of explaining how the water doesn’t get to the top rack and everything that goes in comes out just as dirty.  It just makes me livid.  The apartment managers would not put up with this in their own homes, why in the WORLD is it a different standard when it’s a rental?  Gar.  Kill.

I’m completely taken in by Dancing With the Stars.  It’s become a Monday-Tuesday Ritual.  I wish I had TiVo so I could tape it, fast-forward through all the filler crap in the show (of which there is MUCH), and just watch the dancing. That’s what I’m there for, not the commercials, not the color commentary, and not the ridiculous judges.  I could skip the results show all the way to the last 5 minutes and not miss a thing.  I’m thrilled to pieces that all of my favorites (except Tom DeLay) are still in, and I hope Mr. DeLay’s feet feel better.  2 fractured feet.  Frak that.  I’m not at all surprised at the people who have been eliminated, as, well, they just can’t dance (or they have bad attitudes.  D e b 1  M 4 z 4 r*, I’m looking straight at you.  My money is on M3l155a Jo4n H4r7** to be eliminated next, because she seems to really struggle with nervousness and lack of rhythm, plus?  I never liked Sabrina, the Teenage Witch – it was a stupid show.  There. I said it.  I’m hoping K311ie 05b0urn3*** will really practice and forget about the self-doubt.  I really relate to her for some reason (not the my-dad’s-an-aging-rock-star-and-I’m-(sorta)-famous too, or the I’m-so-rich-I’ll-never-actually-have-to-work bits), I like her.  I thought she was going to be a train wreck, and she’s my favorite of the show.  Weird, huh?  But enough about that. Any DWTS fans?

I’m just almost finished with the front of my Apres-Surf Hoodie, then I’m on to Sleeve Island, and I’ll be ready to start partial-blocking, seaming and knitting the hood – Woot!  This sweater WILL be finished in time to wear during cold weather this year.  It WILL!  Or my name’s not… Oh nevermind.  It will be.

The Monkeys continue apace – I’m into the last motif on the 2nd sock, then I have to decrease for the toe, Kitchener and weave in ends, and finis!  For my next trick pair, I’ll be making the Sunday Swing socks, from Knitty, with some KnitPicks Gloss Sock yarn, in Carbon– er, it used to be called Carbon, now I guess it’s just ‘Black’.  I liked the name ‘Carbon’ better.  Yeah, it’s not as succinct, but it has a poetic ring to it.  Maybe it’s just me.  They are also for the maternal unit, who seems to really love hand knit socks.  So much that she wears them to holes, has me darn them, and continues wearing them. But it’s good, you know?  I love that she wears her socks down to nubbins, and appreciates my knit work, too (and, according to her, has been ‘ruined for store-bought socks’).   I gave a pair of socks to Mema (Jaywalkers), that I knit and I couldn’t get over my feet****, and they fit her PERFECTLY.  Awesome. And bonus?  She completely loved them.  Like, LOVED them.  Which rocks even harder – yahoo for folks who like my handknit socks.

I started Aeolian with my black diamond copper lined 8/0 square hole seed beads and my Lana D’Oro Chocolate brown laceweight yarn, and got a few repeats into the yucca pattern when I realized that a) my work is already getting heavy and I’m not even 20% into the project yet, and b) my beads are not going to be adequate to the task – well, the number of beads anyway.  So I went a-huntin’ and found ALMOST matching beads.  The difference?  The originals were square-hole, and the new are round-hole.  A beading aficionado-friend of mine told me that this DOES make a difference, because the square hole act more like a cut, faceted bead and the round hole ones give more of an all-over shimmer.  This has me a wee-bit paranoid and I’m thinking of going hunting again for the exact matching bead. (Actually, maybe ix-nay on that.  I went hunting for an hour just now and found nary a site that offered specifically what I was looking for.  Even finding an 8/0 copper lined black diamond bead was a struggle, much less one with a square hole.)  I may eventually just throw up my hands and knit with what I have already, but seriously?  I’m thinking very seriously of swatching with round- and square- hole beads and deciding once and for all whether it’s important enough for me to go find the exact-match beads before I start hunting again.  After all, now I have something like 2800 8/0 black diamond copper lined seed beads.  I’m so weird, to be obsessing over something like this. Or am I?   Well, I’ll swatch. We’ll see.  Maybe I’ll be a good little Bloggerina and post pictures so you can all see too.

*Sorry ’bout the leetspeak there, I just don’t want to be botted by fandroids of that actor.

**her either.

***…or her. Plus?  It entertains me to write in l337sp34k. Nerdery, I has a bad case.

**** There’s a story here:  I knit them with Sz 1 needles, the yarn (Lion Magic Stripes) was already dense when I knit them and it grew in the wash, making them very sturdy-like.  I couldn’t get them past my heel without REALLY straining stitches (and myself), and I had to just cop to the fact that they don’t fit my feet – I knit them too tightly (for me).  Knowing what I know now, I could knit them with a larger needle and probably not have any problems (and it’s not like I don’t have any more sock yarn.). But I’m not one to knit the same pattern over and over.  Not when I have a whole 3″ 3-ring binder just dedicated to sock patterns.  Heck no. So there you are.

Wherein doing laundry can hurt you.

I laundered my mp3 player.  Let’s never speak of this again.

Gimme some mo….hair.

So I went to the Delightful Hands sale last week.  I’ll spare you the gory details of how much I spent, but I’ll share with you how much I bought, and share some pictures of the pretty. :)

So…. Yeah.  I was great on Friday.  I was all… “I’m on vacation, what will I do?”  I was going to sit home and watch TV-on-DVD – I was all set – 2 discs of Burn Notice Season 1, Disc 1 of Californication, 3 Cinematic Titanic discs, and I got up on Friday, chilled out for a while, and, since Mr. Man wasn’t over at my place yet, I decided, what the hey!  I’ll drive on up there, it’ll probably be pretty picked over, so my budget will be safe, because I won’t spend a bunch of money I don’t have on yarn I don’t really want, no problem.  My willpower is strong enough!  Yeah!

….. Riiiiiiiight..   If you psych your willpower up before you go to a yarn shop, you are powerless against $1 a ball mohair, and Berroco Pure Merino DK in your favorite colors at 40% off. I’m just sayin’.

Needless to say, I fell down at the yarn shop.  I fell down, my credit card flew as if by magic out of my wallet, and slid through the credit card machine, which laughed its wicked laugh and took my money with glee and merriment, and I took home over 60 balls of yarn.  Over. 60. Balls. I mentioned it was deep discounted, right?

I am a bad, bad Mormon. Or I would be, if I was a Mormon.

But look how pretty it is in my cabinet!

The Haul:

Top row, L to R: Feza Lama Mohair in Purple & Cream, Feza Kid Mohair in variegated purples

Middle row, L to R: Twinkle Kid Mohair in chocolate, Feza Kid Mohair in variegated aqua, Berroco Pure Merino DK in Dk Grey

Bottom row, L to R: Berroco Pure Merino DK in Black, Cream and Eggplant.

So Yeah.  I have a lot of mohair to go on top of my other LOTS of mohair:

(I might love mohair… maybe. A bit. Perhaps. I admit nothing.)

But I digress.  I’m thinking of making an Estonian lace shawl with some of this – I have over 4200 yards of that beautiful purple Lama Mohair, so I’m thinking a pretty square shawl is in order, or maybe the Vortex Shawl.  We shall see.

In other news, I have been knitting, but not any of my new stuff.  I ordered some yarn for my Mom awhile back from Knit Picks, namely, the Gloss Sock Yarn in Coal (or is it Carbon?) and Cosmos; black and purple, respectively.  After some hemming and hawing, and a couple of false starts, I settled on Monkey for the Cosmos.  No, it doesn’t have monkey motifs, but it’s very pretty and it’s coming up great in this solid yarn – beautiful stitch definition and a lot of fun to knit up.  I’m working it up on my Harmony Size US1 (2.25mm) needles, (thank you again for the beautiful needles, Mr. Man! I love you!), and I’m knitting both at once, so my gauge doesn’t get all wacky and so that the socks will be finished at relatively the same time, which is cool, actually, and less likely that I’ll get the dreaded Second Sock Syndrome.

I still haven’t figured out what I’m going to do with the black yet – I want to do something really cool, because knitting plain black socks sounds like a recipe for personal madness, not to mention?  You can BUY black knit socks.  I don’t want to make something you can just go buy.  I want to make something you can’t buy.  So I’m still looking for patterns that will 1) show up in black yarn (this yarn is pretty dark black, with a subtle sheen (from the silk content) that will show off a texture) and 2) won’t be absolutely insane to knit.

I also finally cast on the front of my Apres Surf Hoodie.  The cast on is a bit of a pain (It’s an invisible provisional cast on, but different from the crocheted provisional cast on), so I was reluctant to do it, but I really do want to have this hoodie to wear come cold weather in Dallas (Come on cold weather!) , and like they say with the lottery, you can’t win if you don’t play (which I don’t, but it’s a good point) – You can’t finish if you don’t knit!  So I grit(ted?) my teeth and cast it on, and I got a good 1.5″ knit on it last night – amazing how fast sport weight in stockinette, knit comfortably on a US3 (3.25mm) goes when you’ve been used to knitting a light fingering weight tightly on a US1 (2.25mm).

I also finished my weaving project du jour, but I’m not going to talk about that here, because it’s going to be a gift for someone and I don’t want to risk letting the secret out before I actually gift it, but I will take pictures and post them once they’re gifted.

So anyway, that’s the knitty news that is.  I’m on vacation this week, and on the docket today is a lovely matinee and general take-it-easy-ness.  We were going to go to the Aquarium and the 6th Floor museum today but that’s been postponed to Thursday due to a little bit of irritating static this morning, and we’re going to catch a matinee of Julie & Julia this afternoon.

More Cabinet Goodness

So, I had a pretty mellow and groovy weekend, and I’ll fill in more detail later tonight.  Several people have mentioned how they would like to see the yarn cabinet all full up, and don’t want to go over to my flickr (or don’t know how), so here are the full-up pics, for your viewing enjoyment:

With Doors Closed:

With Doors Open: (Cue angel chorus)

The door/drawer hardware:

Still love it, love opening it, love looking at it.  It’s in my bedroom, as there was not a suitable wall to place it against in my living room. (Darn that chair rail!)  But there are upsides to this – I had to clean my room and rearrange furniture to get it in here, which included moving the bed and desk, and naturally, I vacuumed once I had moved them, so my room is much cleaner than it was, even though the bed is back in its original position (long story). Plus, my yarn is right there, so I can look at my stash and Ravelry, and then my stash again, and make sure the yarn is catalogued, and match up patterns and yarns easy peasy.  Well, that’s the idea anyway. 

The drawers are deceptive.  They don’t look big, but there’s room in there to spare for my doodads.  Love. Just love.

One more thing:  This is most of my yarn.  I didn’t put in the acrylic stuff – it’s in a bin under my bed.  Not because I don’t like acrylic - it’s good for some purposes - but I wanted to leave a little room on the shelves, and stuffing it absolutely full would make it hard to see it all, so it’s not totally and entirely full up.

Also?  The 2nd shelf from the top is my sock yarn.  There’s nothing on that shelf but sock yarn.  Isn’t that cool?!

Oh, and one last thing:

Happy Birthday Mr. Older Brother!  Hope it’s a great one!

My Favorite Things: Summer Edition

I know, there wasn’t really a winter edition or a fall or spring edition, for that matter, but I have some favorite things, and I think you should know about them.  Because I’m self-important, you see.

Anyway, yeah.  I have some favorite things:

My new yarn cabinet.  Mr. Man built it for me with his own hands, out of wood materials that were unusable for pieces at his work, thus decreasing the waste produced by the shop. It’s a green(ish) cabinet. I love it. Also, it has glass doors and will seal airtight once the doors are on, which will be tomorrow (hopefully) – Mr. Man belatedly realized that it’s going to sit on carpet and will require some levering on the front so that it doesn’t fall forward once it’s full of yarn and the doors are on – the doors are weighty, I must add. (Sorry to be boastful, but he just brought it over today and I’m in a fever to load it, but he cautioned me not to do it, and if all I can do is talk about it, then I’m going to use the most flowery and complimentary language at my disposal.). I lurve it.

The glass on the floor in front of the cabinet (in the picture above) are the shelves – it has four tempered glass shelves, which, Mr. Man tells me, are heavier than the whole wood part of the cabinet. Wow. Sturdiness! We likes it.  The shelves are also waiting for him to do the leveling thing so that they don’t fall out and kill me dead once they’re installed. (Heaven forfend!– hey, flowery language.  I warned you.)  The little drawers (aren’t they cute?!) are for all my knitty doodads – needles, notions, chibis, crochet hooks, measuring tapes, whatever – this cabinet is a one-stop shop of knitting creativity! Have I mentioned I love it yet?  Because I love it.  Completely. Love. It. It’s stained with a dark finish and finished with polyurethane, but it’s not shiny, which I find to be awesome.  I also really like the subtle drawer pulls and door handles.

Another Favorite Thing?

Rum!

I really like light rum in drinks – my fave adult beverage this summer has been the Mojito (usually as made by someone else – I don’t seem to have ‘the touch’ ).  I don’t know that this is my favorite light rum, but it works for my various nefarious purposes.

Kool-Aid!

I know, I know. Kool-Aid is a kid drink. Kool-Aid is loaded with sugar. Kool-Aid Kool-Aid blah blah blah.  Whatever. I love it. It’s much better than soda pop, in my opinion.  My favorite flavor is Black Cherry, and It. Is. Delish.

The key to good Kool-Aid is to follow the package instructions. You have to put in the mix and the sugar first, then fill the water up to 2 quarts, not the other way around.  You don’t want 2 full quarts of water, or it’s all watery.  I make it in my pyrex bowl then dump it in this container, because it’s too hard to mix in this container.  Sugar doesn’t like to dissolve in cold water. But you probably all knew that, you clever beasts.

Blockbuster Online!

I don’t have a picture of Blockbuster Online, but in this season of tight budgetry, this little service has been my boon companion these many weeks.  I’m having a minor freakout tonight because I thought I received 2 discs today and it appears that I’ve only received 1.  I’ll have to check my mail tomorrow to see if anything turns up.   Maybe my brain is playing games with me.  The site says the other disc is set to arrive tomorrow anyway so hopefully it will. It irks me though; I would SWEAR I got 2 discs today, but I’ve gone through all my mail several times, walked back over to the mailbox, gone through my car, and maybe said a swear word or 2 trying to find the stupid thing, but I’m beginning to think that it’s just. not. here. So if you see a DVD with my name and address on it, please drop it in a mailbox so it’ll get to me.  It’s really kinda worrying me. Maybe it was a Valpak and not the other disc I thought I saw. I hope so.

My snowcone maker:

I LOVE my snowcone maker/ice shaver.  This little workhorse has been my BFF for years. I just love it.  I got it at Target some years ago and it set me back the painful total of about $20. Yeah, 20 bucks. For wonderful summer satisfaction. For years.  I love you Rival Ice Shaver.  Please never die. Please?

Finally, for a more grown-up finish:

Cold Brewed Coffee

I first heard about cold brewed coffee on the Stitch It!! Podcast, episode 72, and waffled around about actually doing this for a while, but when she mentioned it again in episode 73, I really started thinking about it and how great it would be to have a reduced-acid coffee and a good coffee concentrate for making iced coffee (which is super awesome in iced coffee beverages which include adult …. additives… and shaved ice.  It’s like a Frappucino you’d get carded to buy), which cold-brew TOTALLY is.  It’s also super tasty served hot, and also also super tasty mixed in with liqueur (I might have alluded to this already… heh.).  My faves for coffee are Amaretto (I like Amaretto di Amore) and Frangelico, a hazelnut liqueur.  Mmmmm Adult Coffee.

It has less caffeine than hot-brewed coffee, but it still contains some, so I can actually become caffeinated when I drink it, which is a necessary.  Another favorite thing?  This little container I found at Hobby Lobby, which I use to store my coffee concentrate in the fridge. Love this container. It’s kinda  mad-scientist-y and kinda steampunk-y; the big ole cork, the vacuum it creates when I put the cork in, how well it stores my coffee concentrate… I could go on, but I won’t.

So anyway, that’s my Favorite things, Summer Edition.  What are your favorite things this Summer?  Leave me a comment and let me know!

For those of you who come for the knitting, sorry about the lack of knitty content.  My knitting time has been taken completely up with Farm Town on Facebook.  Stupid addictive games. Gar. I have knit a precious little on my Apres Surf hoodie, but I’m almost done with the back. I haven’t decided whether I’m going to do a sleeve or the front next, and on my second black-and-pink sock – second sock syndrome – I’m showing symptoms. Le Sigh. There are some progress pics on Flickr from a while back, so you’re welcome to look over there.