I stayed up last night and finished the last two rows of the Charlotte’s Web. Looking at it this morning, I think that I should have made the last purl row the bind-off (cast-off?) row because I’m afraid their won’t be enough yarn left for the three rows of single crochet trim. So now I’m going to tink it tonight and make it the bind-off row. I’m going to take it to the Guild meeting to see if any of the knitting gurus there have suggestions on the best bind-off to use.

My mood seems to have lifted from where it was on Monday. Maybe it was the weather, or allergies (the mold count is really high), hormones or just stress. Whatever it was, I’m glad it has passed. Knitting last night helped, I’m sure. For me, knitting is like yoga for the mind.

Pictures of the Charlotte’s Web later on, if I can figure out where I hid the card reader thingie.

Just two more rows on my Charlotte’s Web Shawl. Two long rows. Then I have to bind off, but I have no idea what is a good bind off to use on lace like this. Then - the scary part. I have to crochet. 3 rows. Before I can add the fringe.

One problem. My right hand has hurt for weeks - bad enough that I’m *thisclose* to calling the doctor tomorrow. I slipped and fell while at the Frio a few weeks ago. I thought nothing of it at the time, but it has hurt since then. It hurts to lift a glass full of ice water. I can barely hold a pen. How on earth will I crochet 3 rows?

I think I’ll have to beg my Mom to hook me up. Get it? Hook me up? Oh, I’m too funny.

Two more rows. I hate to go to bed without finishing it - plus I want to show it off at the Guild meeting tomorrow night. I think I just might have to stay up a little while longer.

I am on a very emotional edge right now. I have no idea what is causing it, but just about anything can make me cry today. It was like this yesterday too. Ugh. My dentist was questioning me about why we were redoing the crown that didn’t feel right (causing me to grind my teeth and giving me headaches), and I couldn’t take it. It made me cry. Which of course made him feel really bad, apologizing over and over again and doing the work on the crown that I needed to have done.

At least I got what I wanted, but really? Do I have to be such an emotional mess right now?

On top of that, my cell phone won’t work. It shows the little boot-up screen, and that is it. It won’t go past that. Nada. Nothing. I’ve tried everything to fix it, so I guess the next step is to take it into the shop. I really, really, really don’t want to have to get a new cell phone.

Now I’m bitter and angry on top of being annoyed. Someone left a comment on my previous post with two key pieces of information about the Harry Potter book. You know, the one I haven’t read yet? The one I don’t want to have spoiled for me? Thanks, spineless anonymous person. I really needed that today.

I think I need to go back to my knitting. At least I only have 6 rows left on my Charlotte’s Web. Maybe that will help.

Random things because Flickr is being slow about letting me add my photos to all the Pools I’ve joined:

We got a dog. She is 3 year old Bichon Frise, and we named her Chloe. I posted her photo on Flickr some time ago, but didn’t mention her here. I’m not sure why. Anyways, the background story is that I have a friend that is involved with Bichon Rescue. She discovered that another local rescue group in Houston had a 3 year old female Bichon that needed a home. I went to pick her up for my friend to add to the Bichon system, and by the time we arrived at her house we had decided we wanted to keep her. However, we have two cats. And neither Mike nor I have ever owned a dog. (We babysat my friend Chelsey’s two Bichons last fall and fell in love with the breed, and had decided then that we wanted an adult female.) So it was suggested that we “foster” her for a week, decide how it was working out, and from there determine if we wanted to keep her or not.

She gets along pretty well with Murphy. Mona has stopped hissing at her, but they are not going to be friends any time soon. Considering Mona hasn’t taken to Murphy, and we’ve owned him for 5 years now, I wasn’t really expecting much there. She is potty trained (no accidents! Yeah!) and crate trained. We think she was “debarked” (where they remove part of the dog’s barking system - very sad) so she has a mini-bark.

She was owned by a breeder and was part of a breeding pair, but wasn’t putting out enough so she was dumped. She is now spayed, so her puppy days are over. She needs some socialization work, and some general training, but we’re working on that. I’m just happy that she is trained to potty outside and walks well on a leash.

We’re feeding her a raw diet. (Or as some call it, the BARF diet. But “BARF” is so … well, barf.) It is definitely helping the tear-staining and face staining that dogs can get from the color in some dog foods. She loooooves her raw food.

I haven’t knit anything for her yet, although she does own an adorable pink “jacket“. Matter of fact, I haven’t knit anything in weeks. I think the last time I picked up the needles was when we were in Kentucky. I was *zooming* along on my Charlotte’s Web shawl, and then - bam! - it was like I hit a wall and I stopped. I only have 8 rows left. They are on the long end of the shawl, so they are looooong rows, but still. No excuse when 4 are pattern rows and 4 are just purling rows. I hope to finish it this weekend.

Last weekend we went to the Frio River. I’ve lived in Texas for 20 years now (for the most part) and I had never been to the rivers out west to go tubing. It just wasn’t appealing to me. I hate to go in rivers and lakes. I can’t stand it when I can’t see what is in the water. (Galveston, I’m fine - but no rivers or lakes.) No one bothered to tell me that the Frio is CLEAR! A clear river. One that I could see the bottom of for the most part. It was amazing. I’ll post photos as soon as I find my card reader and get through the rest of the honeymoon photos.

Another amazing thing about the Frio? We had no TV out there. No internet access. No phones. Chelsey & Doug both commented that they thought Mike & I would be twitching without those things. Ironic, because I didn’t miss them at all. I knew I wouldn’t. I have been boycotting the computer a good portion of the summer. I get online, check the Helpdesk, read 3-4 blogs, and get offline. Sometimes I check my personal e-mail, but really only 2-3 times a week. (I owe some of you responses, and they are coming, I promise.) My days of being online 24/7 are long over. Because of work, I did go to the local Internet cafe and get online, but it was quick and then I was off again.

Being at the river reminded me just how much I really, really, really want a digital SLR. Really bad. So I can take really cool photos. My “wishlist” for my birthday and Christmas this year is cash to add to my digital SLR fund.

Instead of knitting, and when I haven’t been taking pictures or floating down the river, I’ve been reading. I just finished reading Ahab’s Wife. It was good, but not great. I really liked it to a point, but the ending - well, it just started to feel rushed and a bit too contrived. I don’t know. I will say that there is definitely some beautiful and strong imagery created by the words in the book, and I enjoyed that. It painted a good picture.

Oh, and one last random Chloe tidbit… when I couldn’t think of a name for days, I started a brainstorming list. I read sites with dog names. I thought of shows that we watch on TV. Then it came to me. Mike & I always talked about the cuteness factor of Chloe, Josie’s daugher, on Starting Over. So when I saw “Chloe” on one of the pet name lists, I knew. It was the perfect name. As soon as I can get her over being camera shy, I’ll share photos of her. Meantime, watch Starting Over. Good stuff.

Now I need to start reading Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince before someone in blogland spoils it for me. I already know one fact more than I would like to know. I hate it when that happens.

I just realized that I forgot to post the other night that I uploaded the next set of honeymoon photos - London, Day 3. It was a cloudy day, so I didn’t take a ton of pictures. We went to the Globe Theatre during the day, one of the places I have always wanted to see. We shopped in Covent Garden, standing in line to get into the Birkenstock store becuase I broke down in tears over how much my feet hurt. Then there was the trip to Lush. Piccadilly Circus. After getting ice cream, we had dinner at the Texas Embassy, and headed back over to see Big Ben at night. On our way there, we had a close celebrity encounter. When we arrived at Big Ben, we discovered that they were filming a movie with Rob Lowe in it (a made-for-TV movie), so everything was illuminated with giant spotlights. It was beautiful.

Below are some of my favorite shots from the day - I had a hard time picking just 5!

I have had 3-4 comments in the past month or so that look like this:

Explorer Generation Generation , Window . Using Common New color Explorer Window Help port . Information system List. your Wrong , . . and None . Keys dialog . Window Window logged order , to , . Window Needed , - SSH1 ANSI authentication column . , Enrollment displayed Settings Keys Toolbar Block control icon Public-Key , line blocking window the CA , Windows layer Transfer to modification SFTP reply . Root Failed Downloading files Icons saved files Profiles SSH #11 them multiple installed, Wizard ,

That is just a snippet of what they included. What were they trying to do?

Damn stupid evil spammers.

Today is decluttering day! Come on, you know you have too much stuff. Probably way too much stuff. If you’re like me, it is time to clear some of it out. So I’m declaring today decluttering Friday! Because I need a swift kick in the ass to force myself to go through my closet and move out all the clothes that I just don’t need anymore. Yesterday I worked on clearing out Jason’s clothes and passed on the ones that he grew out in the past year and passed them on to a friend. I’ll donate mine to the local assistance group. I’ll let Mike work on going through his half of the closet; I know there is stuff over there that can move on too.

Pick a room and move. Get rid of the stuff that you just don’t need. And don’t buy anything else to replace it. (A good rule is that you can’t bring in something new without moving out something old.) Need tips on FlyLady.net: how to declutter? It’s not hard.

Things to ask yourself as you get rid of your clutter:

* Do I love this item?
* Have I used it in the past year?
* Is it really garbage?
* Do I have another one that is better?
* Should I really keep two?
* Does it have sentimental value that causes me to love it?
* Or does it give me guilt and make me sad when I see the item?

Cleanse this room of everything that does not make you SMILE.

Release things. Let them go. If you don’t love them, they deserve a good home.

Google Moon - Lunar Landing Sites

In honor of the first manned Moon landing, which took place on July 20, 1969, we’ve added some NASA imagery to the Google Maps interface to help you pay your own visit to our celestial neighbor. Happy lunar surfing.

Be sure to use the “+” on the left to zoom in all the way - it is amazing the detail they get in the map!

Once again, I’m looking at Vonage and the other VoIP phone options. (Time Warner, etc.) Do you use Vonage? Do you like it? Have you been happy with it? Would you recommend switching to it? Feel free to share your thoughts! I would really appreciate it!

Smart needles for distracted knitters:

“Rebecca Spender´s KnitWit are smart needles that keep track of the number of stitches you’ve already done. Movement sensors in the ends record the movement of the needles. This data is streamed via RF to a remote base station which decodes the signal, looking for a specific series of movements which correlate to the formation of a stitch. When a “stitch” is recognised, the LCD counter increments.

In a similar way the interaction between the two needles is used to determine when one row has been finished and another started and thus the rows counter increments too.”

Via Katie, who e-mails me all the cool knitting stuff she finds which make her think of me.

More posts with life updates and things like that later. For now, I need to go and knit. With regular needles, not smart ones.

I don’t normally watch a lot of movies, but this summer I seem to be catching up on all the ones I’ve missed, and even seen a number of the ones in the theater. Today, thanks to Starz, I finally watched The Notebook. Oh my goodness. I think I cried through half the movie. It was so good. And so sad. And so sappy. And so sweet. And just so … I don’t know. Man. My eyes are still puffy, hours after I watched it. I feel so drained. It is on the TiVo right now and if I thought I could handle it twice in one day, I would watch it again.

Yes, that good. Watch it, but be sure to have a box of Kleenex handy.

I had no clue about the bombings in London that happened yesterday until today. I hate it when I do that - I feel like I live in a cave because I don’t keep up with the news. It is good to know that everyone I know in London is ok and well. It is such a sad, sad thing when people do things like this. What do they think? That it will convert people to their cause? That it makes a point? The only point it makes is that they are crazy freaks. *sigh*

My condolences to everyone in London. My heart goes out to you.

Thanks to Dell, I found the London 7/7 Community with photos from the people’s perspective. It all just makes me want to cry.

I’ve finally finished posting the rest of the London, Day 2 photos on Flickr! Hopefully, Day 3 won’t take me quite so long to get online. Below are some of my favorites from what I just uploaded.