Oh my poor Yarnbox....sniff

So, it's been quite a summer. A pinched nerve in my back (not once but twice) leaving me pretty much incapacitated until I could get fixed up by my wonderful chiropractor. 

Then, I ripped my leg open and needed 18 stitches. 

I raised my hands up and said to the universe: "What next?" 

There was my mistake. Universe answered and said "How about THIS?"

This morning I was coming home from Best Buy, with a back-up drive for my computer. I've never gotten into the habit of backing anything up. I've heard so many horror stories lately about people losing important files, especially photos. I've been pushing my luck for too long and decided I needed to start protecting my digital information.

I got the last one of these on the shelf at Best Buy. On sale, too. It even coordinates with my orange laptop cover! 

So, I was minding my own business, was less than 3 miles from home, and had myself a little bit of excitement. A guy pulled out from a side road (while I was traveling toward the intersection at 55 mph) and he attempted to turn. I think he thought I was going to stop (he had a stop sign, I did not).  I had enough time to lay on my horn and try to swerve around him, but he hit me right on the side and flipped me over. There is nothing that compares to the feeling you get when you are starting to roll over. I put my hands over my head and just prayed there would not be another car coming down the road to hit me again. I came to a stop, upright, within a few feet of an accounting building. I'm glad I didn't hit that too.

Anyway, I am ok (as far as I know). Sore, and will most likely be more sore tomorrow. I assume the insurance company will say my dear Yarnbox.... the car I have loved most in all my life, is totaled. Here is a photo of where the roof scraped the road (or vice versa!) More photos on flickr here 

Almost there

While I'm feeling much better than I was a week ago, I'm still not 100%. But I'm getting there...
I learned along the way that doing too much too soon is never a good idea. I also was surprised to find that sitting and knitting was not really on my mind much early on in the recouperation. I think my mind was a little too fuzzy from the drugs, and I was better just being a blob on the couch or in my bed...watching TV, reading, or browsing around online.

My birthday was good. I got some great gifts. Jake gave me a Detroit Tigers T-shirt (and bought a hat for himself at the same time) We're down 2-1 in the World Series right now, but still hoping we can pull it off. It's been a long time comin'......

Mike, Kaitlyn, Kim and Drew pitched in a bought me a new bread machine. My old one gave out a few years ago and I have really missed having freshly baked bread in the house. This is the one I got. It arrived on Friday, and I have already made 4 loaves of bread and Mike made pizza dough on Saturday. Since it makes a 2 lb. loaf, I could see we were going to go through a lot of bread flour, so we went to Costco last night and bought a 50 lb. bag! Gotta find a good way to store it now. Anyway, so far I've made a basic white bread, cinnamon/raisin, Italian Herb, and Apple Oat.

Mike also got me a pair of tickets to see STOMP on Thursday. It was our third time going, and it was just as enjoyable as the other times. I wish we could have taken the kids, but tix were a bit expensive. Maybe next time.

Diane sent me an awesome felted angora nuno scarf. It's truly a work of art. The base fabic is kind of a sparkly irridescent mesh. Hard to describe, and the photo doesn't really do it justice, but here it is! (the fabric shows through more on one side than the other, so I made sure to show both sides in the photo.)



My friend Jane sent me the Spin to Knit book, which is perfect...given I am just learning to spin. She also sent me some beautiful roving that I can't wait to spin, once I get a little bit better at it. It would be a shame to ruin it (which is what I would do if I tried to spin it now!)

My dear friend, Maria, sent me gift cards to Borders, which I can't wait to go browse the knitting books and see what I can find.

My mom and dad gave me a subscription to Spin Off...yeah!

So, it was a good birthday, holes in my belly and all...

The claims adjuster came to check out my car this morning. He said the check will be in the mail in a few days and then I can take her to the dealership to get fixed. I sure hope they do a good job. I want her back, good as new!!! Poor Yarnbox.....



That's $3000.00 worth of damage! They are going to replace the hatch, bumper and quarter panel. I'm glad, because I was worried about how it would look if they tried to bump it out. I hope the paint matches perfectly. I'll be glad when the boo-boos are fixed.

Happenings

Some good, some not so good.

I'll start with Thursday night. My beloved Yarnbox (my special edition Scion xB for those of you who are not aware of my obsession with my car) suffered a rear end boo-boo. I won't go into details. Hopefully she'll be good as new soon. I couldn't even bear to look at her yesterday let alone drive her. Poor Yarnie. I did drive her today though....LOTS.... because....

I drove to Lansing and back. Lots of fun in between. My day started VERY early since I needed to be at Threadbear by 9:30 am. It's just about a 2 hour drive. I had to get up around 5:30. Sorry, but 5:30 and I do not get along well at all. But it was worth it. They were having their "Fall Fling", with several vendors set up around the shop. I was asked to be one of them. Thanks Rob and Matt! I had a great time!

Lynn H. set up right next to me. What fun we had chatting all day long. I just love Lynn. I just love looking at Lynn's handdyed yarns. Today I finally bought a skein. The last of this colorway, ever. I said if it was still on her display at the end of the day, then it was meant to be mine. It was, and it is! Yeah! Well I just tried to get a good picture of it, but flash is not doing it justice. If it's sunny tomorrow I'll get one and show you. It's soooo purdy.

I had a great time, and got home just a few minutes ago. Just in time to see the home run that clinched the Detroit Tigers' place in the World Series. YEAH TIGERS!

Next week should be interesting. I am having surgery on Monday to remove my gallbladder. I have been having symptoms for just about 10 months now. After MANY tests (and MANY dollars that the less-than-wonderful insurance didn't cover) finally they are going to do something about it (costing many MORE dollars that the aforementioned insurance won't cover...ugh) Anyway, even though it's not about the money, it's just a lot of expense at a time when we are still trying to catch up after Mike's layoff this summer.

Be that as it may, please think good thoughts for me Monday around 10 am to noon (EST). Hopefully all will go well and this procedure will indeed cure what ails me. I'm pretty tired of dealing with it by this time.

Wednesday is my birthday. Here's hoping that I am feeling better by then. If not, I'm not going to push it. I'll recover as long as I have to. God knows I have enough yarn to keep me busy for as long as I'm on the couch, ya know? And yes, I will remember the fact that pain meds and fancy-schmancy knitting do NOT mix, unless you love the frog pond.

Wasabi Meets Yarnbox

This weekend we had a surprise party for my dad's 80th birthday. Part of the surprise was that my brother Dave drove from Boca Raton to my brother Brian's house in Savannah. The 2 of them drove from there and arrived here on Friday. My sister Diane also flew in with her friend Becky on Saturday. Dad was thrilled, and yesterday we surprised him more by inviting almost 3 dozen of his closest friends and family to celebrate with us. All 5 of us siblings were together for the first time in 12 years. It was great!

Brian has one of the other 2200 limited edition green xB cars too, and that's what he and Dave drove up in. Here are a few shots of us with our twin cars.

His license plate says WASABI. Hot, Green and Japanese....just like our cars!

Knit BIG!

Ok, how fun was my day yesterday????

TOO MUCH FUN!

That's me in the middle of Jillian Moreno and Amy Singer. Co-Authors of the book "Big Girl Knits". We are at Threadbear in Lansing for their book launch party/book signing.

I had to be there...I HAD to meet Amy especially, since she was the one who picked my Bloom Shawl pattern for the Fall '05 issue of Knitty. I had to thank her for one of the biggest thrills in my knitting life. Jillian is just a bundle of energy and SO much fun too. I was so glad to meet them both.

So I left the house about 12:45 and arrived at Threadbear just about 2:30. The party was supposed to start at 3:00. I first stopped at the front counter to grab a copy of the book, chatted with Matt for a couple seconds, and then headed to the table in the middle of the store where Amy and Jillian were set up. There were already a few others around the table.

As soon as I walked up, Amy said to me "That's a really nice Bloom Shawl". I pointed to myself and said "Creator of the Bloom Shawl!" and she jumped up, saying "OH! It's you! Let me come give you a hug!" She told me how much she liked the pattern, and how she enjoyed all the photos I had sent in along with the pattern. I told her I really enjoyed taking all those pictures of Kaitlyn with the shawl. She said the one they picked for the pattern, with Kaitlyn running with it flowing behind her was the kind of photo they like to see along with the patterns. She asked me several times when I was going to send her more designs. Blush....

I had printed out a fresh copy of the Bloom Shawl pattern, so I asked Amy if she would sign it. A lady sitting at the table thought it was kind of strange that I would ask Amy to sign a pattern I had designed, but we both agreed there was nothing strange about it. We both had a hand in bringing it to life.

Then I had her sign the copy of KnitWit that I had brought with me from home. (She's so glad to meet me?? Wow.... It's the other way around, methinks..... but still, thanks, Amy!)

Meanwhile Jillian was signing my copy of Big Girl Knits, which Amy signed when she was done.

Everyone who came in got a "KNIT BIG" pin, and put their name in a basket for a drawing for a T-Shirt. They were giving away T-shirts left and right and pretty soon everyone there seemed to be wearing one! They are so darned cute...pale pink with brown lettering...KNIT BIG on the front and on the back it has the name of the book, the authors' names, the website URL and the name of the publisher. I'm so glad I got one!


I hung around the store for 3 hours ... sometimes with Amy and Jillian, sometimes up front knitting and chatting with Matt and some other ladies. A couple of times I was asked about my B-4 Bag. I would point the ladies to where they could find the pattern, and one lady asked me to autograph it for her. Cool!

I tried to restrain myself from buying too much this time. I picked up some Baby Alpaca that was on sale, and I also had a few things to get for some friends back home that were requested. I didn't buy much else for myself...just a couple balls of Cascade Fixation in a green that is almost the exact color of my car. I'll use Lynn's Fast Florida Footies pattern again. (Lynn, I missed you! Wish you could have been there, but I know you were having a great day yourself...we need to catch up soon!)

Speaking of my car....I got my license plate about a week ago. I wanted "KNITIOT", which would have been soooo perfect, but it was already taken. I thought about ordering "GOT YARN" but decided I wanted the plate to have something to do with yarn or knitting, plus have reference to my car. So here's what I ended up with. Yarn....lots of yarn....always....in my boxy car.

Kaitlyn got me the pink ribbon license plate frame for Mother's Day. How perfect! And Jake got me the clear plate protector.

So I left Lansing and drove another 2 hours before arriving at my sister-in-law Lisa's 50th Birthday party. Grabbed a bite to eat, sang, and before I knew it, it was time for Kim and I to leave. We were signed up to walk 11pm-midnight at the Relay For Life. We ended up staying until about 1 am, and unfortunately there was rain off and on while we were walking. But it gave us a little preparation for how it's going to feel if it rains while we're doing the 3-Day walk.

I was so tired and sore when I got home, and I couldn't wait to peel out of my soggy clothes and get some sleep. I took some Tylenol PM and was able to sleep til 10am which felt SO good.

It was sure a busy day....fun and rewarding.

84 LONG Days Later.....

My yarn magnet has a new home.

It's now living on.....

THIS!!!!!

I know, it's one of those vehicles, you love it or you hate it. I don't mind if you hate it....I completely understand. But I am soooooooooooo excited, after waiting so very long for it to arrive, and not knowing for so long if I could even get one.

This cute little green machine is #1771 of only 2200 made. A special edition Scion xB. You won't see too many of these on the road in this color. Until today when I saw mine, I had only seen one other one (at the dealer), and have never seen one on the road. Heck, I have only seen about 15 of them in ANY color since January.

Vote now...

Love it?

Hate it?

I wonder if I can sleep tonight....OMG...I am so in love with my new wheels!