Monday Morning Quarterback

Well, the Super Bore Bowl Game is over and one good thing about it is that the New Orleans Saints won.  There were way too many ads, most of which were not worth seeing.  The half time show was dreadful. The Who were really not good.  I am saying that in lieu of the other words I am thinking.  Like, terrible, awful, horrible, should have retired!  They were off key singing their own songs!  I cringed.  Duh?! 

There are other good things to the Super Bowl being over as well. No more football for 6 months. For someone who loves sports, I am really not a football fan at all. Just don’t get it!

On the other hand, the final game of the Scotties Tournament of Hearts yesterday afternoon was absolutely wonderful. It went down to the last rock in the 10th end with Team Canada beating PEI by one.  The PEI team was really wonderful and fun to watch and did their province proud!  They will be back again I will bet!

But on the upside, with all the curling and the football, I got a lot of knitting done on my socks.And I had a beautiful dinner.  My DH decided he was going to roast a chicken for dinner last night and this is what he did:


And it tasted as good as it looks. Plus we have lots left over for another meal!

Speaking of meals, my Indian dinner on Saturday was very successful.  Everyone enjoyed it, but I would say that the Aloo Gobi was too hot. Very tasty but too hot for me.  The Tandoori Chicken thighs were delicious and the Creamy Mango sorbet was perfect as a dessert.  It was also very easy to make. ( I don’t have an ice cream maker so this was amazing!)  I would definitely make that again.

One final note.  I did something this year I have wanted to do since I got hooked on started Ravelry.  I joined a sock club.  Not a Knit Along, but a real sock club.  I joined the Rocking Sock Club put on by Blue Moon Fiber Arts and I got my first parcel last week.  There are all sorts of rules about not posting spoilers on Ravelry in case people haven’t got their packages yet, but it didn’t say anything about blogs.  So I am just going to post a picture of my first yarn, called Happy Go Lucky. 

There are two specially designed patterns as well. One is toe up by Sivia Harding and the other is top down by Christine Bain.  At first I was unsure of the colour but I now I really like it.  There were a few other odds and ends in the package as well, so it was great fun to get it and find all the treasures!  Knitting gift tags, a STR pin, Sock Club diary,

chart for keeping sizes of family and friends, etc.  Yes I am a happy camper!

Bits & Bites

First of all, I will give my review of the movie Precious, which I was going to do yesterday but got sidetracked by the whole Twitter issue!

Bearing in mind this is just my opinion and I am not a movie reviewer of any kind, here we go.  I was very disappointed.  I went to this movie expecting to be emotionally involved and go through this gut wrenching experience.  Instead, I was actually bored.  I found there was no story line, no attachment to the characters, no connection for me at all.  I am not saying she didn’t have a horrible life, but there are lots of people out there with as bad or worse things they have lived through.  There just wasn’t anything to make this story special or particularly interesting.  It was just not that good, in my opinion.  There was one very good scene at the end of the movie, but other than that I found it just so so. I would give it a 6 tops.  I would not recommend it.

Moving on:
Tomorrow night we are having people in for dinner and I am trying my hand at Indian food.  I have never made Indian food before and why I think I should make a whole meal the first time and serve it to friends is mindboggling. But I am.  First course will be Indian appetizers from the grocery store.  The main course is going to be Grilled Chicken Thighs Tandoori,  Aloo Gobi and basmati rice.  For dessert I am making a mango sorbet (which is always on the menu at our one Indian restaurant so I assume it is acceptable).  All the recipes sound quite doable and hopefully will taste as good as they look and sound.  Fingers crossed!

And finally, progress on my latest sock which is the Glynis pattern in the Cookie A Sock Innovation book. I am down to the heel flap on the first sock and about to start the leg of the second sock.  I keep having to look at the chart and it is only an 8 pattern repeat so I pretty much know it by now.  I am really pleased with how well it is coming along now, but I do need to hurry as I only have till next Friday evening at 10 to finish them and begin my Olympic project!!!!!

 
Go Team Canada!!

A Rant and that’s all!

It appears this is going to be a non knitting rant, so feel free to move on before I get started.

The other day my TweetDeck application said something about a password change which I totally ignored because I have never used a password to open TweetDeck.  Anyway I figure that they are having issues and it will resolve.  Not! It seems to be my Twitter account. I keep being locked out of Twitter! Apparently I am some sort of computer programming genius (NOT) or my computer has been hacked.  (Again: NOT).  So yesterday I read all the FAQs and other crap pertinent information they fill their help/support pages with so you won’t try to contact them.  I did everything they suggested.  I changed my password.  They then locked that one.  I waited the required 60 minutes before trying to login again, but still locked out.  So I changed the freaking password again.  I am in and all is well until I sign out and try to sign back in.  Locked again!  Another 60 minute wait!  Still locked out!!  Another password change, and so on all day long till I went to bed last night.

I did, about late afternoon, break down and sent them a Ticket with a very polite explanation of my problem.  I immediately received the obligatory “ We have received your ticket and will deal with it shortly”.  Then, a couple of hours later I received another email telling me to check this page and that page and if that didn’t work, to reopen my ticket. ( That whole ticket thing is their version of an issue email.)  I again read the same pages and did the same things to no avail.  By now I am furious!  What a freaking waste of time! My time, by the way because trust me, it didn’t take them very long to send me that useless form letter!

You might wonder why I don’t just get rid of the whole thing and be done with it. Believe me, I would have if I didn’t really like it and often use it when we are traveling to keep in touch with our family and up to date on the latest news.  So now I decide I will simply open another Twitter account.  Guess what, apparently you can only have one account per email address.  However, being a very resourceful lady, I used one of my other email accounts that I hardly ever check and did manage to open a new account last night. Would you believe that now, the next morning, I cannot sign in to either freaking account!!!

OK. I am just about ready to admit defeat and when suddenly it dawns on me (as I am typing this rant) that maybe the problem is with my computer and not with Twitter. Maybe my security is blocking something. Please wait one moment whilst I check this out. 

So I go to my Internet options/ tools/ security.  I empty my history.  I dumped any cookies that came with Twitter.  I checked the saved passwords link and removed the Twitter passwords from that. (Which was not the latest one I used to sign in).  And now I am about to go and sign out of Twitter and then try to sign back in.

I AM IN!!!  I can also use TweetDeck again on both my computer and iPhone!  So now I have to apologize to Twitter for this rant. I’m guessing they probably aren’t the slightest bit interested in my little blog and will never see this, but, I apologize for all the things I said and more importantly, the ones I thought!  Mea culpa!  My bad!

My How Time Flies

When you’re having fun!  No post for a week!  What can I say but that I love tennis and the Australian Open was on for the past two weeks.  And so, living in Nova Scotia and 15 hours behind the host country of Australia, I was forced to record the games! ( I actually only did this for week 2. )  I would then get up every morning and before checking the computer or turning on the radio, I would sit down and watch the tennis, zipping through the ads and other crap boring commentaries.  Yesterday was a great day for me and my Roger!  He played very well and he beat that whiny little Andy Murray in three sets. ( So sorry to all the Brits out there! Lost again! Just remember though, the Boston Red Sox did win the World Series after an 86 year drought.)  The third set went to an exciting tie break, but Roger pulled it off!!!  The man is amazing on the tennis court.  He glides around with seemingly no effort and pulls off incredible shots.  Congratulations Roger!  Looking forward to seeing you at the French Open in May!

The weather has been bitterly cold here the past few days. Minus 14 C yesterday!!  I took the dogs out for their after dinner walk last evening and had to come home early as they were dancing around on 3 feet!  Too cold to have all four in the snow at once! But it is sunny and not windy and really quite tolerable.  I am one of those truly weird people who actually like the cold weather and the whole winter season!!  So why you might ask, are you heading out to Florida in a few weeks?  Because my husband hates winter and loves golf!  Nuff said.

Today being the first day of February, I am starting a new pair of socks for my KALs.  Shannon wanted some pink socks and they are the colour of the month for the Solid Colour Socks KAL.  I am going to do them in this Cookie A pattern, which then qualifies them for another KAL.

 

 

 

This is the project I am working in as a filler. 
I started this when I finished the Ivory & Ebony socks for Shan.  (They fit BTW, and she loved them!  She also loved the Faroese Flower shawl. I mean, duh, who wouldn’t?)

It is another Clapotis and while it isn’t as gorgeous as the first one, it will be perfect as a summer shawl.  Knit in a cotton bamboo blend rather than the drop dead gorgeous Blue Heron Rayon Metallic.

Once the socks are finished, I will get back to this and work on it until it is time to start my Olympic event!

The ever popular and well known Sweaterboard Cross event which starts at the moment the opening ceremonies begin!  I spent about 1/2 hour yesterday balling up all six skeins so that I would be totally prepared and in maximum condition to start my event.  I am hoping to peak during this event and finish before we head out to Florida on the 24th.  Otherwise I will be taking it in the car with me and John might be doing all the driving!

I must go now and get ready to take the dogs for a walk!

Happy Robbie Burns Day

Can you believe it is the 25th of January already?  Seems like just last week we were celebrating the New Year!! The time is seriously flying by and before we know it, we will be off to Florida!  I can see my husband smiling with glee at the thought.

We are not attending any Robbie Burns festivities today, as they all happened on the weekend here and we were busy with other engagements.  I think maybe we will have some Scottish salmon tonight for dinner!

The Australian Open is on this week and I have been avoiding sporting results on the Internet and radio so I don’t find out who wins. That way when they show the replays on TV it is all a big surprise to me.  In fact, last night I taped the Federer/ Hewitt match and so I can watch it this morning!!!  Go Federer!

In knitting news, I finished my Ebony & Ivory socks and will have them in the mail to Shannon today. Also being mailed with the socks is this shawl. ( I had lent it to the yarn shop as a display and then forgot about it until I was there a couple of days ago. )   

 

 

 

 

I decided to give it to Shan because it is smallish and with the shoulder shaping, doesn’t fit me the way I would like.  Plus she wanted a shawl to wear in the summer when they go to air conditioned places for weddings or whatever.  So it will go to a good home.

With the socks finished, I started another Clapotis shawl using this yarn:

I have lots of yarn so I will make it wider than the first one I did. I think it should turn out beautifully and looks like it will drape nicely.

I bought some pink yarn at Have A Yarn the other day to knit pink socks for the February KALs.  So between the socks and the shawl, I should have enough to keep me busy till the Olympics begin and I can start the sweater event!

Today will be a definite mailing day as I am sending the slippers for Lauren and her MIL to Saint John and in another parcel will send the slippers I made for my sister and her DH.  I had kept them here as they thought their house had sold and they would be home this month, but alas, the sale fell through.  So I figure if I go to all the trouble to mail them, then surely someone will buy their house!! Never fails!

So I am off to do up my parcels and get the laundry going and then sit and knit and watch my Roger!