This would be my dream house. Or, castle, as it were.

So, see? Nothing else will ever come close.

I can almost afford the little one. *sigh*

I have to find out if they do just towers, because that’s what I really want.

I crocheted a hat yesterday evening, using two skeins of Lion Brand chenille that was part of a lot I bought from ebay. The colors said they were denim blue and purple, but in truth, the denim blue looked like lavender. The purple was purple, though.

I think it turned out nicely, and it’s very soft. One down. About a million left to go, I think.

I wrote some at lunch last night, but not at home since I was crocheting. Kyren’s still not very happy, but at least he’s free.

I am seriously contemplating making some sort of crazy quilt, but knitting it. It can be done, I think. I just have to think about it a bit more to figure out the design. Maybe I can draw a picture of it or something, and then try to match the picture. We’ll see.

And I haven’t quite figured out the snake hat yet. I almost need a three-dimensional grid to make it work, because purling on a diagonal will be very interesting otherwise. But we’ll see. I’m planning to work on it a bit this weekend. I think the first snake hat will be green, though. I have a nice green acrylic yarn I want to play with.

The reserve for the 100 lbs. of yarn is unfortunately too high for my pocketbook. I will keep an eye on it anyway, and I might bid up to my limit, but we’ll see.

And I think there should be some knitting forum for people who want to knit but don’t have enough money to buy good yarn and needles. I have been browsing Blogger profiles, and that is the theme I keep seeing. And I know I would be agreeable to trading things or whatever in exchange for excess yarn and needles.

Especially since I’ve been using the Denise needles almost exclusively lately. (Except for the circular needles I got down in Florida, that is. I am even contemplating buying another set of Denise needles, just for the flexibility of having more than one size 10, etc. There are two sets from 1977 on ebay that I am keeping my eye on. So far, they’re within my price range.

Ethan’s second birthday is Sunday. We’re having a b-day party for him Saturday afternoon. This isn’t going to be as big as his first b-day party. Which leads me to another thing entirely…

When I was young, we didn’t have birthday parties. At least not that I remember. There might have been one or two, I think. But nowadays, it seems that kids expect to have lavish, wonderful birthday parties and plenty of gifts, too. Is this just another facet of the materialistic American culture? What’s wrong with having a quiet celebration with your nearest and dearest?

I guess I can’t really see the point. I know the kid feels more “important” on his or her birthday, but do we really need all the trappings?

In my case, I made a vow when I started to work that I would never work on my birthday. The only time that hasn’t been possible was the day that my birthday fell on Columbus Day (and the library’s mandatory inservice day.) Needless to say, I wasn’t happy at that meeting. But since then, I’ve stuck to my vow. In truth, I don’t ever really want much for my birthday, other than to be left alone to do what I want to do without interruption. That’s all.

And I think I’m rambling now, so I should quit while I’m ahead.

Update on to-do list:

1. Organize beads in box at bottom of bed

2. Clean bathroom

3. Organize clothes–go through clothes, take discards to Goodwill

4. Finish going through photographs

5. Start craft show stuff (1 hat made so far)

6. Decide whether or not I’m going to Boston (not)

7. Finish TER, format, and send to Sandy

8. Finish SCR

9. Edits for BotI and send them to Sandy

10. Edits for TDWDNS and send them to Sandy

11. Edits for CtS

12. Edit NS using comments from my nice reader

13. Darkbrook.com (dammit!)

14. Pay off last credit card (yippee!)

15. Paint bathroom

16. Update bibliography page, excerpt page, front page and appearances page on website

17. Edits for TSoR

18. Work on Darkbrook’s website

19. Knit Snake Hat (plot design first!)

20. Knit a snuggle-bear scarf (snuggle-bunny, snuggle-cat, snuggle-dog?)

21. Make 1 crocheted bear with new cool yarn.

22. Finish Ethan’s b-day story (it will be a bit late.)

So yesterday I went to Tuesday Morning for the express purpose of buying tea. I neglected to put any teabags in my bag the night before, and I needed some caffeine, so I decided to see what they had. (If you’ve never  been to Tuesday Morning, it’s kind of like a TJ Maxx without clothing. All housewares/etc. stuff, all brand name, all reasonable to someone, I’m sure.)

They even have a 5×7′ or maybe 8×10′ rag rug made of strips of leather there. It is very cool, but the price of $124.99 is not. No kidding. But I digress.

On the clearance shelf, I discovered a tin of Bentley’s  Raspberry Tea. Since it was black tea and I needed the caffeine, I decided to take a chance that it was decent tasting. (The tin was cute, too.) I also bought some Green Tea in a tin, but it was from another maker.

Well, this is the BEST tea I have ever tasted in my life! I mean, it even eclipses Harney and Sons Black Currant tea. And that’s saying a lot. It tastes wonderful. It is very smooth, and leaves a pleasant aftertaste.

Tuesday Morning, however, only had one tin. Yes, just one. Grrr. And there’s no ordering information on the website for the teamaker, either, but I have emailed them to see if they have a US distribution place that I can contact to order some more of this yummy tea.

I did go back to Tuesday Morning this morning and make sure there wasn’t another tin of Raspberry tea hiding somewhere. I did find some quart-sized iced tea bags, but no more small ones. (I bought two of the iced tea tins, btw. And an apricot one. And a book entitled Period Detail: How to Identify the Key Characteristics, Shapes, and Forms of Period Styles because that will help me identify antiques. And a Bob the Builder lunchbox for Ethan’s b-day. Gee. What a collection.)

There is a possibility that the teas might also be at TJ Maxx, so I’m going to have to stop there and see. I don’t want to have to hoard what I have, after all. I want to drink it!

In other news, my back’s actually feeling much better today. It only hurts when I stand up out of this darn chair I’m sitting in. And I didn’t write at all yesterday either. But that’s ok. I finished the book I was reading instead.

Am I nuts? I’m seriously contemplating bidding on this auction…

What would I do with 100 lbs. of yarn? Well… lots of things, actually.

(And Dad has already offered to drive to Tennessee with me to pick it up, since it would cost about $300 to ship. Yikes.)

In other news, I want to start knitting, but I don’t know what I want to knit first. I think I just need to buckle down and knit something to kick-start myself. Perhaps the snake hat I designed in my mind the other day… I do need to write down that pattern…

A nice review of Nine Lives and Three Wishes!

At work today. Took the muscle relaxer stuff last night. Didn’t really notice a difference, but we’ll see.

I took one of the pain pills just about an hour ago. I’m not asleep yet, just a little drowsy, so that works too. I am thinking, however, that it’s not doing much more than the ibuprofin I was taking earlier. Ah well.

I’m over 45k on SCR at the moment, and going strong. Kyren met Emle’s sister Jain, and she helped him escape with a very interesting trick a lot of people would kill to know. 

I did stay home, and took it easy until it was time for the doctor’s appointment.

This was my first time there, and I was duly impressed. A very nice doctor. I will go back. She didn’t even get on me for not going to the doctor’s for a few years. Well, not really.

She felt the pulled muscle in my back, and proclaimed that it was definitely tense and sore (no, really?) She said I should do exercises–the yoga I’ve been doing is a good thing–and gave me some back exercises to do as well.

She said an interesting thing: that scoliosis doesn’t go away. See, I had it when I was young, but it never progressed very far and no one ever said I should be concerned. Well, she said that it might take longer for my back to heal because of the scoliosis, and that it could get worse if I have children. (Hmm. I wish someone had told me this!!)

I’m serious, though; no one ever said a word to me. Not one word. The only thing I remember is going to the doctor’s a few times and at one point they were talking about me having to wear a brace. (I don’t think I ever had to; that part of my childhood’s a bit hazy and I wasn’t really interested anyway. I mean, after all, I was blind for a year or so before they realized I needed glasses. (I thought everyone saw blurs at a distance.)

So… she gave me two prescriptions, one for a muscle relaxant to take when I go to bed (and I will have to make sure I take it early enough so I don’t zonk out the next morning) and one for Naproxyn, which is evidently a pain medication. Which I’m supposed to take twice a day with a meal. (Now that doesn’t make sense to me. Do I take it at breakfast and lunch? Breakfast and dinner? What about the muscle relaxant at bedtime? What if I eat dinner at eight o’clock? How long does it last?)

I probably won’t take it unless I really need to anyway.

At the moment, I haven’t taken anything yet today for pain. And I tend to be more careful if things hurt anyway. If they stop hurting, I might not remember to be careful.

And then, after that, I came home, chopped up an onion to put with the roast, and threw in some carrots. And then I went to our local CVS to fill my prescriptions. (My very second time ever!) They told me it would be 15 minutes, so I decided I could wait and do some shopping while I was there.

15 minutes passed. 30 minutes passed. I asked them if they were done with mine yet (they said they would announce it, but it was hard to hear the announcment over the music that didn’t stop playing) and they said no, not yet.

A bit peeved, because I live five minutes away and would have gone home and come back, I went back to read the book I’d picked up off the rack.

Another 30 minutes passed. I went back up to the counter. This time I complained that I had been waiting for an hour and that they had told me fifteen minutes.

They were still not done. ARGH! So I sat down and steamed for a little while (and told my sister when she showed up what had happened, she sympathized.) And then one of the pharmacists came out and apologized and offered me a $20 CVS gift card for having to wait so long.

I did say thank you. Gee, I’m getting free stuff all over the place!

But still, if they had told me it would take an hour, I would have gone home, finished going through my new yarn (Smiley’s did it again!! The yarn came today!) and ventured back up to CVS later.

Although I did read part of a Mira book by… Laurie Benton? I think? And part of Bare Bones by Kathy Reichs.

Luckily, I don’t have many prescriptions. Thank goodness!

Update on to-do list:

1. Organize beads in box at bottom of bed

2. Clean bathroom

3. Organize clothes–go through clothes, take discards to Goodwill

4. Finish going through photographs

5. Start thinking about craft show stuff

6. Decide whether or not I’m going to Boston (not)

7. Finish TER, format, and send to Sandy

8. Finish SCR

9. Edits for BotI and send them to Sandy

10. Edits for TDWDNS and send them to Sandy

11. Edits for CtS

12. Edit NS using comments from my nice reader

13. Darkbrook.com (dammit!)

14. Pay off last credit card (yippee!)

15. Paint bathroom

16. Update bibliography page, excerpt page, front page and appearances page on website

17. Edits for TSoR

One of the cool things I found in Florida at the Salvation Army was a bag full of circular knitting needles–16 in all. (For $1.00!) They are mostly aluminum and plastic, but one of the larger sized needles is made out of glass.

I have never heard of circular knitting needles made out of glass! They’re rather heavy, but very smooth to work with and I’ve already used them once. (Not nearly as nice, still as my Denise needles, but a close second.)

Unfortunately, I’ve not been able to find a maker anywhere on the needles, and I’ve looked here and there on the web (coming across quite a few handblown glass straight knitting needles, but no circulars) without much luck.

So if anyone reads this who might be able to drop me a clue as to their maker, I’d appreciate it.

From out of nowhere, Kyren demanded another POV chapter. Also, from out of nowhere, I’m finding out a bit about Emle’s origins (always a mystery; I’m still not quite sure what she is.)

Emle has a sister. Nameless at the moment, but her name will come when I need it, I’m sure.

And I had intended to leave Kyren hanging all by his lonesome and only get one (I think) measley POV chapter. Sheesh!

Well, I am able to walk today, but I’m still thinking I will stay home tomorrow and just go to the doctor’s and take it easy. I don’t relish the thought of sitting at my desk suffering, and then having to go to the doctor’s office anyway. But we’ll see.

It’s a real shame I can’t work from home. Argh.