Friday Funny

A neutron walks into the bar and asks how much for a drink….. barman says “for you, no charge”

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What does the H in Jesus H. Christ stand for?

Haploid

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What do you do with a dead chemist?

Barium.

Promiscuous Wednesday

Yes, promiscuous. See last week's post for clarification.

i. Don't forget--any purchases of yarn, patterns, or knitted items throughout the month of February will help support the Australian Red Cross in their efforts to deal with the devastation of the ongoing bushfires.

1. I think of things I could write all week, and then forget them. It's terrible. I can't wait to see how awful my memory will be when I'm 70!

2. I joined Twitter. Seemed like all my Ravelry friends were on it, and it also seemed like a great way to keep inane babble out of this blog. So, really, I did it for you. Check out my tweets (not twits) in the sidebar over there to your right.

3. You may have forgotten, but I have yarns on consignment over at Material Whirled. The wonderful Reenie Hanlin has a lovely website, so check it out!

4. On the note of yarns--I'm going to have to spin my head off the next few weeks, as my stock is incredibly low, and (thankfully!!) people want skeins. However, I have to finish a custom knitting project first, and I feel like it's the slowest thing I've ever knitted. Sigh.

5. I long for a proper crafting space. Right now, my wool storage/workspace shares a room with the guest bed and the computer. I would want a computer in my future studio (the internet is sort of integral to my happiness and crafting abilities), but I would LOVE to get the dang futon out of the room right now. That, however, would leave nowhere for guests, and we do like having visitors on occasion. Of course, there's also the comfy chair in the living room, and the yarn in our bedroom--those should all be in one place with the wool and other supplies. One of these days...probably the same day we cease to have noisy neighbors!

Australian Bushfires

I have several e-friends on Ravelry who are in the "danger zone" for the Australian bushfires. You may have heard news reports about the fires. One friend said "this must be what the apocalypse feels like".

I'll be donating all profits from the sale of yarns and knitted items and all proceeds from the sale of patterns to the Australian Red Cross during the month of February. Please consider making a purchase and supporting our Australian friends in their time of need.

I'll be donating weekly, and posting a running total of donations here on the blog. I've donated US$40 myself already to start us off. Help me make that number grow.

Additionally, if you're interested in supporting the care of wildlife injured in the bushfires, please click through to Wildlife Victoria to donate for the animals.

Are you sure we had a whole weekend?

I'm just asking, cause it sure seemed to fly by for me. Let's see...

SATURDAY

• Started out the day by visiting a local yarn shop interested in carrying my yarns. Not only did they agree to place a wholesale order, but two of the employees nearly cleaned out my stock for their own stash! I'm quite pleased, to say the least. I was also delighted to do the math and figure out I'd only need approximately 8 wholesale orders a month in order to match my current salary at my day job--time to step up my marketing!
  
• After doing a few things at home, Big Man and I went out for dinner to celebrate the sale. We ate at Monsoon downtown, and you should do the same if you're ever nearby--it's quite delicious, and the atmosphere is wonderful. I had coconut-ginger soup and dizzy noo shak (curried bananas), and of course delicious naan. We also ate at Extraordinary Desserts for (you guessed it) dessert. I was painfully full on the way home, but all the food had been so good I couldn't turn it down!
• Sadly, upon arriving home, I discovered my ankle was exceedingly unhappy with me for some reason, and I spent the rest of the evening grimacing and watching Iron Man.

SUNDAY

• Due to the stupidity of my ankle, we had to skip our beach walk. This made me very sad, and I alleviated my sadness in that time-honored way: baking. I made Blueberry-Lemon-Ginger bread from scratch, bastardizing a cranberry-nut bread recipe. I used dried wild blueberries from Trader Joe's, and diced up some candied ginger from the bulk food aisle at my local natural food store, and lemon oil instead of fresh juice/zest. It turned out quite well, though I always have to bake quick breads for FAR longer than the recipe says to get the middle done. Sometimes I don't care and eat it doughy, but I wanted to do this one right so I wouldn't be embarrassed to show y'all a picture!

• After making the bread, I decided I couldn't stand the clutter in the house anymore, and recruited Ian to join me in a cleaning whirlwind. It felt great, and we threw out plenty of useless junk, collected coins to cash in, and even rearranged a few things. I'm not done, of course, but a good portion of the apartment is much prettier now!
  
• While the sun poked its head out for a few minutes (it's been rainy here lately), I snapped some shop photos. Yes, you heard correctly--I have new yarns to list! You've seen the two black ones (remember them?), but this one I spun AGES ago, and hadn't shot yet. Heaven knows why, because I love the yarn so much I'm tempted to keep it.
  

It's spun from FatCatKnit's handdyed merino in colorway Crocodile Tears. I got it some time ago, so you may not remember seeing the roving in her shop. It's 116yds and just over 8oz of thick/thin bulkyish weight two-ply, and has delicious raspberry sorbet colored sparkle spun in at the raspberry parts (you can see it in the big version of the photo, so clickity!). If I could think of something specific I'd make with it, I would keep it!

• I'm now off to do a custom knitting order that I should've finished by now. I'm also packing up some packages (none of them orders, btw, so don't think I'm slacking there!) that I should've already mailed. How is time so speedy, and so much speedier than us?!?

Friday Funny

Because I have no problem whatsoever remembering to make regular posts, I decided to start another recurring post! I'll post something funny (and clean!) every Friday.

Why did the chicken cross the Moebius strip?











To get to the other...oh, wait.

Arbitrary Wednesday

1. The online thesaurus I sometimes use gives "promiscuous" as a synonym for random. That's a fail right there, thesaurus.com!

2. Any suggestions on a comfortable low stool, preferably with a back and no arms and perhaps 16" high? My regular spinning stool works just fine with my Sonata, but my Country Spinner requires me to be much lower, and the sofa heaped with pillows won't cut it for more than a skein or two of plying. I love being tall, but sometimes being regular-sized would be most helpful--I wouldn't scrunch over just to be closer to my spinning, and the regular stool would probably be fine!

3. Do you prefer cold water or room temperature water? I like mine to be icy, though I will usually finish my glass if it's warmed to room temperature from icy (but not usually if it's been out overnight, as on my nightstand). I know some folks like warmer water all the time, but I just can't fathom it!

4. I adore pudding, but only instant (or Snack Packs if I must). Cooked pudding (aka the real stuff) has never appealed to me, especially not when it forms a skin, ugh. Instant pudding only turns into pudding because of some sort of reaction between the pudding mix and the calcium in the milk. That's why soy or rice milks don't really work at all and just make pudding-flavored soup, and a reason I occasionally buy cow's milk. But only once in a great while, as it kind of squicks me out (for various reasons I won't go into, cause they're gross). Oh, and NEVER tapioca. I don't like eating fish eyes, thankyouverymuch.

5. I saw this on Cute Overload today, and it made my whole day. Except, it did make me sad I don't live in Australia, because nothing like this would ever happen in the States. At least, if it does, it's never an animal as cute as a koala.

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Hot damn.

It is HOT.

Hot enough to sneak into this cinderblock haven and look for relief! [Koala makes 'ehn!' sounds]

WAIT A MIN! [sploosh sploosh] WHAT'S THEES!?

[Test Slurpitty test slurpitty]

Yes.

Yes, this will do.

[Sizzling Koala sounds]

According to Sender-Inner Kathy M., "A guy at work's wife sent him these photos of a little Koala who just walked into the back porch looking for a bit of heat relief. She filled up a bucket and this is what happened!"

Enjoy.

While it may seem like I'm being a fab blogger and sharing loads of photos, really, I'm just tired. So, I'm not going to type a whole lot. Just going to load a bunch of pictures and pass that off as a post. Hope you don't mind...

I noticed these little root dealios on one of the few plants I haven't managed to kill yet. The whole plant (a succulent of some sort) is smaller than my palm, so the root-ish things are quite tiny.

A marsh drains directly onto the beach here, and make a neat little creek. There've been loads of stones washed onshore lately, so it's rockier than normal.

just pretty

boids.

The groundwater seeps out of the cliffs along the shore, but I just liked the feet hanging over the edge.

The groundwater seeps out on some mosses in some places. The dripping is quite loud, actually.

We weren't the only ones enjoying the beach today.

Big Man took this. Quite lovely, I think.

So wee I had to give you scale (that's my palm).

more pretty

ane-nem-o-nees

So you can relax too.