May 2007 Archives

I hate that feeling you get when you do something really stupid. I had one of those sheepish moments today - I locked myself out of the house. It was alarmingly easy. I went to put washing on the line and closed the sliding door so that I wasn't letting the warm air out of the house with the heater being on. The sliding door has one of those lockable bolts, and it fell into the locked position thanks to gravity. I didn't even think about it. Heck, I didn't even know I was locked out until I tried to get back inside!

I've never locked myself out of my home before in the nearly eight years I've lived alone. And on any other day, it actually wouldn't have been a problem, as I could have walked up the road to my sister's place. I've given her a spare key in case of such situations. But she left yesterday to stay at our parent's place in Port Stephens, and I'm on Oscar the puddy tat feeding and spoiling duty for the next week and a bit. So much for the backup plan. So there I was on the back porch, and I didn't have proper shoes on. I was in socks and thongs so I could discard the thongs as I went inside to prevent carrying in the ripe berries that are falling from the tree outside. I called out to my immediate neighbour to see if she was home. No joy there. So I had to take a chair from my outdoor setting and use it to climb over the back fence - I've conveniently padlocked the back gate. Then I found a kind neighbour and used their phone to call a locksmith. My embarrassment ultimately cost me $135.

The time it took to get back inside also meant that I ended up driving to SSK rather than catching the bus (actually two buses). It took some time for me to get a parking spot, so I was late again. The parking around there causes me too much stress to actually enjoy going all that much. I took the Roza's sock, which has progressed less than 5 cm since my last SSK outing four weeks ago. I'm just not getting in much knitting time. And I'm not enjoying the brioche stitch in that pattern much either. I may end up ripping it and starting over with a different sock pattern. Especially as my Amazon order, placed five weeks ago, finally has some prospect of arriving. When I place the order (having made a careful comparison of cost with the Book Depository), I believed all three books were in stock. Then Favorite Socks went out of stock. And later, No Sheep for You also went out of stock. Sensational Knitted Socks was sent out on the 11th after such a delay that they waived the extra shipment charges for splitting the order. The other two books were sent off yesterday (as two different parcels, six hours apart!) after I endured emails every other day asking me to approve the delay and confirm that I still wanted No Sheep (did they have fewer books arriving than they had back orders for?). The original order would have originally cost a few dollars more from the Book Depository, but they were also out of the same books at the same time as Amazon. And then later they came back in stock at much higher prices (which I thought I was imagining until Sarah mentioned it) so I had to wait out the delay with Amazon. I'm hoping the first of my ordered books arrives in the next week.

Things I wanted to do this weekend:
1. Go to Rubi + Lana for knitting group and actually knit
2. Attend the auction of a place up the road
3. Go to a Harvey Norman warehouse sale
4. Look at more sofa beds so I can make decision about which one to buy
5. Install the Photo Album plugin for the blog
6. Wash the curtains I took down and replaced with my own, so that they can be put away

What I actually did this weekend:
1. Suffered from viral gastroenteritis
2. Marked work for school (but didn't manage to finish it all)
3. Moved some recordings from the PVR to DVD recorder
4. Barely left the (still lonely) sofa

The last two items on the first list had the potential to be done, but one was affected by my web host making a sudden decision to up and shift the servers to a new location, and the other by the plumbers turning off the water without notice on Sunday morning. I've been enduring plumbing works here for the last three weeks (the work was expected to take just one week), with the water frequently having to be shut off, and only minimal use of the sewer allowed during the day. Regular washing has priority, so the curtains will have to wait on the laundry floor for another week.

Thankfully the gastro seems to have run its course.

For the last week or so I haven't posted because I wanted to post on the new blog rather than the old one, but the new one wasn't ready yet. The new blog has now reached the point where it is nearly done. Near enough, anyway. I just have to fix the photo albums.



The last box is now unpacked, and thanks to Lara (see the comments to the previous post), I was able to source the storage cubes I wanted. So I have officially finished moving in. This was good timing as my parents came to visit last weekend (so I didn't make it to SSK), and we had a family BBQ on Mother's Day.

Alas, I am drowning in writing reports and marking for school once more, but I should make it to Rubi + Lana this weekend.

I now have just one moving box that hasn't been unpacked.  It's full of weaving stuff and I have nowhere to put the contents.  My last home had heaps of storage space inside cupboards.  This home does not - it's got plenty of floor space, but not so good on storage space.  So I have this one large box, and lots of little piles of things without homes around the place.  The yarn and spinning stash is mainly in plastic crates and is stacked in one corner.  Other stuff would be accommodated in another bookcase (I always
need more bookcases) and the linen cupboard is too small for some of the bulky stuff, like blankets.

The bookcase issue has a more medium term solution - I know what I'm buying to replace the ancient (as in came from NZ with my parents in 1971) small bookcases I have now, but some painting will be required so it's best left until the mid-year break.  The linen cupboard will be sorted just as soon as I get some of those bags you vacuum the air out of to reduce the bulk.  The knitting/spinning/weaving stuff has a problem. I want a storage solution that will be easily stored itself if I don't need it any more (say, at my next home).  I know of just what I want but I just can't find it in the shops.  It's a cube storage system of PVC-coated wire squares with plastic corner connectors called "start-a-cube" and "add-a-cube".  I have an add-a-cube I bought 15 or so years ago and made two plant presses from, discarding the plastic corners.  If you don't know what I mean, look here where it has been used to make a bunny cage, or here where it is used how I will use it.  I've tried Howards Storage World, Bunnings and numerous other places without success.  If anyone sees them, please let me know!

Nothing much else happening here.  Not spending much time in front of the telly, so very little knitting.  I'm working on moving the blog over to Movable Type, which has been something of a black hole, timewise.  Just a tad more difficult than anticipated and while I know plenty of CSS, I'm now having to learn a bit of PHP to make it work the way I want.  No more playing with blogs this weekend thought as I have school work that needs attention!

On Monday afternoon as the light faded, a flock of Sulfur-Crested Cockatoos descended on the tree in my rear courtyard outside my study/second bedroom window.  Most of them hung upside down while they ate berries from the tree, but this one was curiously watching me.  Don't ask what kind of tree it is, I haven't had time to nut that out yet (what a bad botanist I am!).  I have confirmed that the Gecko in my last post is indeed a local - my neighbour says she has one nesting under her back porch (I am surprised, given she has two wandering cats!).



I had opportunity to photograph the cable and rib socks in daylight today.  I finished them shortly after my last post, but had only succeeded in taking grainy photos of them until now.  The photo still doesn't really do them  justice, especially the subtle variation in the colour.  I have started a pair of Roza's Socks from the Spring issue of Interweave Knits  in a very conservative black Patons Patonyle from the stash.  I want some hand knitted socks I can wear inconspicuously to work.  Some days I'm happy to have my socks brightly demanding attention.  Other days I'm not.  I may well curse working with black yarn the whole way through though.  I took them with me to SSK on Saturday, but screwed up the taking out of the provisional cast on (I'm working toe-up with a short row toe this time) and had to frog back and start over.  I did mean to do that before SSK so I wouldn't be distracted, but my Saturday morning disappeared somewhere.  I think there's a black hole somewhere around here that's keeping me drowning in school work, living with several boxes that still need unpacking, and not being able to find time to chill out a bit and knit more...