Yarnivorous

G'day all! Well what a fun time we are having at the moment.  Re-entry from the US has been super-stressful.  DH is having work issues that I am not at liberty to discuss.  They are impacting severely on him and therefore on me. We had a fab weekend - BiL and SiL2b came up and we hung out and did fun stuff, going for long walks in Lane Cove NP and then up in the Blue Mittens (no longer mountains, thanks SiL2b!), and I thought DH was a little sorted.  But no.  I am truly at my wit's end with him.  I don't know what to do. Hopefully I can relay more interesting and positive stuff soon, but for the nonce, anon!

G'day all! Thank you for the reminders about looking after me and there's only so much I can do. I am aware of that but well life keeps on dealing out blows and after a while you start getting a little punch drunk. Yesterday my eldest niece had an emergency caesar. I didn't know until this morning when I got a panicked email from my sister, her mother, which worried me greatly. My new great nephew came a month early, just like my first great niece did, and he is a bit of a tiddler at 4lb 4oz (we went metric in the early 70s. Babies are weighed in kilos but everyone says the weight in pounds, lol). My niece has had rhesus compatibility issues with both of them. BUt it is ok, he is doing well for a kid in a hurry. He'll be in hospital for a while whilst his lungs mature some more. Then there has been the possibility of a trip to the US with Nathan's job. We would've gone to two old stamping grounds and NYC. (Note the we.) It also would've happened at...

G'day all! I'm a total stress bunny currently. Can't really talk about it. I am good but one person in particular is not so good, like really not so good. They are up and down like a yo-yo and I am really struggling to help them. Now I could just walk away and say "Deal with it yourself" but that would create a whole lot more problems than it would solve. So I really don't know what to do. I am pretty isolated here in Sydney. Yes I can ring people back home but I sorta feel that it is pretty manky to ring people only when I need help. (I'm pretty bad at staying in touch, if you haven't already figured that out!) I've been writing stuff, making stuff, walking, working, doing things to look after me but the load is getting too much for me to deal with. I need some of my energy for ME. They are seeking help, btw, and are in active care. They seem to have gotten worse, not better so far, but AFAIK that often happens. But the appointment happ...

G'day all! I have heaps of yarn in small amounts - stuff I've hand-dyed, stuff I've spun, all sorts of bits and bobs. It would be great for scumbling or crocheting free-form granny squares or any purpose that does not require gauge (heh, my spinning isn't always perfect). It tends to be bright and happy yarn of random gauges (mostly about 8 ply/DK/light worsted but it can vary from 4 ply/fingering up to chunky). Very little of it would be machine washable. Pretty much all of it is wool, some has some silk blended into it, a little has nylon. If you are into magic balls, it would be great for that though some lengths might be a little long! Is there anyone out there who would like some for the cost of postage? Within Oz, I can send a satchel with up to 500g of yarn for $6, or express post for $8.40. (Note that I might not be able to get that much yarn into the satchel.) 3kg bags are $10.30 but I quite frankly doubt I can get that much yarn in. I might be able to...

G'day all! Hooray for me I finished something! I thought I would have a second something finished by now but not quite. It is close. DOOD! Turn that stereo down - it is vibrating my house as you drive by! Anyway, here's my new mittens. Are they not lurid? Mandie from EGMTK sent me the yarn - she said it needed to live with me. I started making socks with it but no, this yarn could not hide away demurely inside shoes! It screamed to be loud and proud and out! So I made mittens instead. Tip up, not cuff down. I love the way the thumbs striped. I knitted them during radiotherapy, so I'll remember them and the comments from staff and fellow radio-ers - people either love them or look away. I made them up as I went along so the first one (left hand) is a bit wonky. My sister-in-sin said they were made for someone with very long fingers. Yup, that would be me 8-) I admit that I am struggling a bit at the moment. DH is having such a hard time in Sydney, between the job a...

G'day all! Here I display Proof of Knitting! Yes this almost pair of socks demonstrate that I am still knitting madly, when I can. I knitted most of the heel whilst waiting for my tests yesterday and have zoomed up the leg of the second sock. Only a centimetre of "pattern" to go and then I do the ribbing, weave the ends in and bob's your uncle! Finito! Hmm, have I blogged the second chemo cap? The blue cotton one that is enormous and covers my head very well (a good thing cos I'm going to be bald as bald can be unless I try cold cap and even then it might not work. Yep they literally put a cold pack on your head to save the hair). I have to say, the thought of being totally bald, completely naked of hair everywhere is rather intriguing. It is likely to happen with the chemo I'll be on. I don't think I'll look forward to the regrowth though - I get really bad ingrown hairs (which is why I don't wax any bits of me!). We are going through mone...

G'day all! Our stuff has gone! Now we just have the detritus of a life lurking around us. It is quite quite amazing how much Stuff we packed into a 750sq ft flat. I am rather good at spatial stuff, if I do say so myself. When it comes to packing a car boot (trunk) I can get a lot more stuff in than Nathan can. I didn't have a good night's sleep. We were up until after one am last night and I worried worried worried that we had Too Much Stuff (I forgot to take a pic of the mound of boxes...) until nearly 4am. Then I woke up at 7:30 (am!) and the removalists rang at 7:40... I don't think I'll be much good today! It is sorta sad looking around at all our stuff or what remains of it, the sad bits, the big bits, the stuff that we just plain can't take with us. Thank you to all those who have helped us dispose of stuff. I hope it brings you joy, happiness and/or peace. Or at least is useful. So in two days, I have to have the place emptied out. It has to be ...

G'day all! Things are coming together! Tomorrow our cargo leaves. We have sorted out the money problem. We have decreased the amount of Stuff in our place but OMG I have a LOT of Stuff to get rid of yet, and clean up before we have to pack the rest of our cargo. I hope I have not packed too much - I don't think so at this stage. I may have packed too little, just looking around the place! Nathan has to get off his butt and pack his stuff but that means losing his computer. We know how much he wants to pack that away! Oh dear. It is 20 past one in the morning and we think we have only one box to pack, the box of randomness that takes the last lot of anything that we realise OH CRAP! Forgot that! Forgot to pack that! Oh my, the fridge magnets! Crap. have to sacrifice my bright rainbow umbrella. Ah well. I can get another one back home... anon!

G'day all! Well we have tickets back to Oz. Dangit, if we had chosen the 9th, we'd be on another A380. Yes, they are better than jumbos. More space, less noise, higher cabin pressure. That adds up to less jetlag. But we are still leaving on a jet plane (don't know when we'll be back again). The cargo is booked in to be taken away on the 8th, I hope. I sent the form and the credit card off yesterday. I've just sent off an email to make sure it was received - I hate not getting any form of acknowledgement on these sorts of things. OK, it's acknowledged. I have soooo many things to fix up. And today I am going for a drive before I sell the car tomorrow. I need to get out of the house before the last round of packing frenzy hits and the freecyclers start coming through the revolving door. I need to go say goodbye to some places, have one last drive on that crazy end of Skyline Boulevard, the little narrow windy unsealed bit that clings to the side of the h...

G'day all! My heart is a little heavy this morning. Our stuff is flying out the door. I'm freecycling stuff. So far this week, I've given away about $300 of stuff. I hate giving away good stuff but I hate throwing it out more. I have no idea why I am attached to my stuff. Some of it, actually pretty much all of the stuff that has gone so far, came home either on the back of my bike or in the bike trailer. Maybe that is why I am attached to it. The cherry red round Black and Decker electric kettle was very popular. Lots of people wanted it even though one of the windows leaks sometimes and not others. I'm pretty sure I bought that kettle in Target up in the "market" area of San Jose (it isn't a market any longer). It came home on the bike - the box just fits in a shopping pannier. (Grand Teton NP) The silicone gloves - no attachment to them! I hooked them out of the dumpster, along with a plastic fishtank set. Both of those were extremely popular. ...

G'day all! You know what I said about those socks? That I couldn't finish them? Ta-dum! That's a shot taken in front of the laptop last night. It is one of the worst FO shots ever. But I don't care! Those pics will do, might have to do forever until I have time to get better ones. Currently I don't have time. By the time I got the camera to cooperate (ie I remembered to change the colour settings and managed to get the reflections of the lamp out of the clock corner of the screen), it was 23:58PST. But I finished them at 11:56PM, even wove in the ends! Honest! Yarn: old Vesper self striping, "Fire in the Sky" Pattern: my own, a chevron pattern, ever popular for self striping yarns, over 78 stitches ont he foot and some ungodly number like 86 on top. Though I didn't count. These socks kicked my butt last week. Man. They really had me stymied. Last night, having done one of them, the second one? One round I counted out where everything had to...

G'day all! I can tell I am a stress head at present. I can't focus on anything for more than about 10 minutes. I have not finished my pair of socks for the month, for the first time in over a year, maybe 18 months. OK, I only have to do another 5 rounds or so of ribbing on one and the leg of the other but I don't think I have time to finish them. We are into serious packing now. I have not yet booked sea freight for our stuff. I have a pretty good idea of how many boxes we are looking at so I reckon by the end of tomorrow I can get a couple more quotes from places that seemed reasonable. (If that is a repeat, please excuse me. It is from 9 days ago when we drove up to SF to get a drum carder and then drove around a lot not quite in circles) I can also tell I am stressed because I am shopping madly. Sometimes it is real shopping, sometimes it is online virtual window shopping. I want so many new fabric lines that I am seeing online that it isn't funny. I want th...

G'day all! My back 'ome friends are having an interesting discussion on shyness. Turns out a number of us are shy. I'm shy sometimes. I get even shyer when I get a case of the guilts for not replying to your lovely comments! Then I get stressed cos I am guilty cos I have not pulled my finger out of my butt and so it goes around.* Speaking of going around, I've been spinning madly for the Tour de Fleece. So far we have: sport weight superwash BFL with sparkly nylon from Spunky Eclectic, enough to make a pair of socks. A hank of fingering weight superwash merino in Peggy Sue from Crown Mountain Farms, enough to make a very long sock or two very short ones (for me) with plenty more spinning to do from the pencil roving. A hank of Dragon Breath from the Lavender Sheep. I had two plies of this but when I plied them against each other, they were yucky. Awful. Worsted yarn barf. So I unplied the WHOLE LOT and navajo/chain plied them. Much better! Oh and the odd thing...

and not just in Tallarook. Looks like the bushfire situation is pretty bad around Melbourne. At least 35 dead and a number of small settlements razed, along with a couple of larger ones. Many of the places were ones we liked to visit, like Kinglake and Marysville . We hope the family we know in Kinglake got out in time. Their house and business would have not stood a chance in these fires - they had a forested block and the trees were all eucalypts, which are adapted for burning. They need fire to reproduce, though this is a true wild fire and horribly destructive to tree, man and beast. It is a terrible thing. Thousands are homeless, with not much more than the clothes on their backs. It sounds like quite a number of people got caught short, with the fires hitting quicker and harder than expected. Plus a cool change blew through, which means long narrow NW to SE fires turned and became wide fires pushing SW to NE. There is very little I can do from here and there'd be ve...

G'day all! I'm all in a flap, again. DH has started with a project group who want him to work *only* in an operating system and programs he despises with the heat of a brazillion suns. Now he wants to go home. Some people would say well he should just use the stuff and get it done but it is like asking a fervent Catholic to become a Buddhist or a Muslim. In southern Australian terms, like asking a footy supporter to barrack for Collingwood when they despise that team. People get evangelical about their favourite operating system/hardware - just look at the Mac advocates or linux geeks (DH is the latter and I use linux all the time). Making a linux advocate use The Proprietary Software of Doom is just not going to happen. Forcing someone to do something that is against their values and ethics is foolish - noone wins. So what would happen if we went home? Well we would be in debt up to our ears - we would have to pay 11/12ths of the costs of relocating us and getting us vi...

G'day again all! Our house sitter was around again today helping out with stuff. Tonight he asked "So is it all going to be ready by the 8th?" Umm, no. No it isn't. The 8th is Friday. THIS Friday. The 8th is the day after we do the visa interview. We won't even know fer shure that we are going until then at the earliest. List of things to do this week: a) finish the bathroom (entails a sub list: ring the company to find out why the silicon is still sticky after EIGHT days measure up the next tiling sheet twice, cut it to size, check it, check it again, drill out holes for the plumbing fixtures, check again and glue onto wall. Sounds easy but it ain't. paint the waterproofing membrane around the bath and wait at least one day for it to cure. measure up the next tiling sheet, check it again, cut it, drill out holes for the plumbing, check again and glue onto wall fix up plasterwork behind vanity and along wall (possible job for house sitter's dad who c...

G'day all! Well stress has hit the big time around the Modest Manor. Oh boy.... People keep asking me, "How do you feel? Are you stressed or worried about the move?" Well what do you think? Do you think I am cool as a cucumber or am I screeching, "I'm a teapot! I'm a teapot!" I'd show you a pic of my spout but that would be a little much for this sort of blog, eh? So much to do, so little time. We don't have an exact date, we have not been told anything about the move, what we should be bringing with us.... We know that there is no point bringing electrical goods with us since we run on 240V and the US is on 110V, plus our plugs are different *and* we have switches to turn the power on and off at the wall! A miracle of forethought! I finished the baby stuff. haven't got pics of the finished stuff - the weather has been so up and down (mostly down) recently (though no rain for a couple of days now) that every time I get armed with the ...

G'day all! Just got a phone call from DH. Happy happy joy! He is in his hotel (a Hilton hotel, blah) and is jetlagged to all b*ggery. Apparently he didn't sleep much on the plane. His fight from LA to San Jose was cancelled after they had all boarded it - some engineers came along with a roll of duct tape (!!!) and poked and prodded at some stuff then said "Nope, can't fix it. This one is staying here." So it took an extra hour to get on another plane, one that was airworthy. Eek. Then he caught the light rail to Mountain View station, only it was about 5km from where he was meant to be staying and he ended up getting instructions on how to get there from the local Scientology temple. Apart from the accents and the sheer number of Starbucks everywhere, he almost feels at home - the street plants are Australian (blue gums, tea-trees and some others). He said there were a lot of car repair places, presumably for all those people who have to drive the 200m f...