may the fourth be with you...always

G'day all!

May the fourth, eh? Gosh how time flies. I've been unemployed for 10 months now, with two months temping work along the way. Times are interesting. The weather is cooler now but still not cold, well what we call cold = temps only hitting 15 or 16 C during the day. It is still about 19 or 20C. The trees are starting to colour up, except for our useless loser of a liquidambar whose days are numbered. It goes a vaguely yellow colour and considering it dominates our small front yard and has its roots in all the pipes it is going to have an accident.



May is not my favourite month of the year. It is the first month with short days. It is a month full of memories. My father died on May Day (sorta appropriate) two years ago, and my mum died at the end of the month 16 years ago, and a good family fried died in the middle of the month what two years ago as well.

So you can probably see why I don't like May.

May does have one good point. I get to see both sunrise and sunset. See?



(Sunsets from the previous three nights and a blessedly rainy sunrise from yesterday morning decorate this post. 12mm of rain fell yesterday, plus probably an extra 2mm overnight! 30-odd cm of water in the tanks!)(Excuse the powerlines - if I go and stand out the front of next door where there are fewer lines, the daughter there thinks I am mad and possibly doing something illegal, certainly something she would not do. I'll pay the mad part but I don't think it is a crime taking pictures of sunset is it?)

This morning was not so pleasant as waking up to thunderstorms and rain. Nutmeg woke me up by running up the bed and staring intently at me from a very short distance away, and the only way to stop her annoying me was to let her out of the bedroom (we have to shut the door against the depredations of Cheshire, who enjoys galloping around at 3am). So I crawl out of bed at 6:55 and let Nutmeg out. As I open the door I have a horrid runny nose feeling and put my hand up to stop it dripping. Umm, yeah, snot isn't red is it?

So I got to see sunrise again today, or at least it got less dull behind the clouds. I am a bit squeamish about bleeding (blood itself is fine, it is just when it is actively leaking from living bodies as opposed to body bodies) and my own blood coming out my nose is extra-exciting making. (Of course if it was someone else's blood coming out my nose that would be even more interesting!) No sleep ins after that!



In knitting news, I have finished the body of the dress. It is a nice venous blood colour, except for the pinky bits. I am now working on both sleeves - may as well do them at the same time cos then I can stuff up both of them at once not separately. If I had been clever I would've taken a picture of it when I was doing more photos of yarn, but no I am not clever.

The pink handspun shawl is stalled - I am really gunning this baby dress at present. For me to be pretty much monogamous on a project is very very unusual. I think I am considering options with the shawl/wrap. Do I want it to be a shawl? Or a rectangular wrap? What can I work out to do from Victorian Lace Today? The book arrived the other day, May Day I believe, and it is lush and I am overwhelmed. So purty!



In socky news, I am still waiting for my STR Rockin Sock Club yarn to arrive. I emailed them and a new skein, etc, is on its way. I can only guess the original has gone via Austria. Plus just before I went to Colorado on the fact finding mission with Nathan, I had been knitting a sock in Tofutsies.

Well dang and blast it, it had a knot in the yarn just before I began the ribbing on my toe-up sock. Grr. So I unknotted the yarn and knitted in the ends and kept going.

Another knot. By this stage it is 11:30 on the night before I have to be in a taxi at 6:30am to get to the airport in time. I had a hissy fit and cut this knot out. I also thanked whatever gods that I do toe up socks not the other way - imagine knots/joins in the toe shaping!

On the cast off row, guess what?

Another #$@@%##^@ knot! It was midnight by now and I had to rip the sock back to before the last two knots and then just cast off with a very short lot of ribbing.

According to the socknitters list I am one of the very very lucky people to ever get a knot in my Tofutsies. Only five other knots have ever been reported. I was the Very First to Get More Than One Knot. I am SOOOO privileged! I contacted the company that I bought the yarn from and they agreed to exchange the ball - they wanted to see the knots/ends, so they got the sock as well.

I am now the recipient of a new ball of Tofutsies. Wish me luck for when I knit it up. 8-)



No news on the Big Move. It is getting tedious. Nathan keeps having to fill out more and more forms for the HR people to access his Official Records (eg is he a killer terrorist or repeat offender for DUI, or as we put it driving over point oh-five, or pissed, and has he lied about his employment history?). Most of the stuff they are checking now is Monash based stuff, where Nathan is currently employed. He has to fill the forms out, fax them to HR and they then fax them to personnel at Monash. If Nathan sends the forms direct to personnel at Monash, he is breaking the chain! Egads, we cannot have that! I love the way they are checking to see if Nathan works there - they ring up and ask if the person on the other end of the phone knows him. Um, what does that prove? They are not even asking for verbal references.



Thanks to those who have bought yarn. Some nice stuff has moved off already. I will probably make my way to the Sunday SnB meet in Albert Park, so if you want sock yarn or other yarn and will be there, let me know and then you don't pay postage! I have some more to put online - I've been tidying up the fibre room (though you wouldn't know it) and finding stuff I dyed ages ago that I never listed. Plus there is stuff that I was going to keep for myself and now? I think it needs to move on. I am also going to put up a section for sad and lonely skeins. Some never had a mate, some were triplets but only two sold, some were pairs that are fraternal not identical. They are all lovely yarns, just a little lonely. Most have enough yardage to make a hat from or a pair of fetchings or other fingerless mitts, some are lonely sock skeins - great for colourwork, all want a good home!



I have to go visit a whole lot of bloggy-Melburnians who I keep finding via comments. Alas, due to this stupid bug that causes my computer to freeze when I mouseover the file menu in open office document writer, I keep losing your blogs before I bookmark them. Be warned, I will find you soon enough my pretties!

anon!