No Treats This Week

The great molar repair started early this week. Due to a cancellation, it got started on Wednesday instead of Friday as planned. Who turns down a cancellation?? Not I. I prefer to get it over with. Dentistry is tough with breathing problems, if I'm not wheezing & coughing then I'm choking on all that water they use when drilling. Gah, I feel sorry for my Dentist but I guess he gets even when it's time to pay!!  I'll be knitting another pair of socks for his new Assistant who saved me 1500 or so bucks on this last visit too!! While he was prepping my new tooth for the gold 'onlay' she noticed my old one on the next tooth was funny. Turned out that it was loose & had food under it!! Horrors! It cost me $700 about 8 years ago when I was on my company dental plan & we had to fight tooth & nail for it at the time. I don't even want to think about what it would cost me THIS time around if I'd lost or swallowed it. I only know I'd be using a Pottie & a strainer until I found it!!!

Luckily for my blood pressure & pocket book, she spotted it, he was able to reattach it & prep for the new one all at the same time. Damn good thing I took the cancellation mid-afternoon - there was no one after me - because my one hour appointment turned into 3.5 hours with my mouth open!!! The freezing wouldn't take thanks to my medication. They choked me nicely a couple of times with the water they needed to cool the drill & the new assistant shot a perfect cold stream straight under my bib, through my cleavage & into my belly button when I coughed. We all needed a drink when it was over, lemmie tell ya. I went straight home, took two Extra Strength Tylenols & went to bed. My jaws, neck & shoulders are still tender on Saturday so I haven't even been out for a coffee. And I used to be a white knuckle patient until I got this Dentist. Hahaha

Knitting - The second pair of Goth Kitty short summer socks are finished & on my feet.  I love them. The pink scrappy socks with the holes are on the needles now. I tore them back to the heel shaping - no purple yarn there, only in the foot, thank gawd! I decided to tear them both out so that I get rid of the purple totally - just a precaution in the second sock but I don't want to have to repair it again. The next pair will be Felici again - probably one of the nice blue colorways, I think there's one called Lakeview or something like that that I really liked.
Now I'm sure I ordered about a dozen balls of Felici during the last clearance sale at Knit Picks when it first went on sale but I'm damned if I can find them. I remember filling my basket full of all the tropical colors especially in blues. But I can't find it. It's not like I NEED more sock yarn because I have tons of it but I may be having a Senior moment. Either it came & I put it away somewhere or I changed my mind & didn't order it at all & have forgotten. Or maybe I did order it & it went to Gail's house or Molly got it. Do the yarn trolls come when you go to bed??? or the Mice?? Is this how Dementia starts??? How can you lose sock yarn???

Wasn't That a Party???

Yesterday was such a lovely day that I had the door wide open while I noshed on TWO Egg Mcmuffins & an extra large coffee on my patio around 2:30 in the afternoon. I had plans to go knitting with the Girls for a change - I wanted to show off the Goth Kitty socks, my Vest-in-progress & and yakk my face off for a change. I've been cranky & unfriendly lately so that I haven't even wanted to drive anywhere to see anyone. Not sure what this is all about because once I get there I have a good time .   .   .   but I'd rather spend my days in my sweats, in a comfy chair, with a good book or listening to a good British Murder Mystery while I knit. Oh Gawd, has IT bit me??? Have I become an old Fart??? Maybe. I'm so exciting these days that adventure is the race between the tea pot & the toilet. It's a vicious circle.
But, as I was saying, yesterday I was out on the patio soaking up the rays when an old buddy dropped by with a six pack of cider. Sparkling Cherry cider. One of my favorites, in fact. So much for my daily coffee .   .   .   we popped open a cider instead! It had been ages since I'd had a cider that tasted so good so I had to have another .   .   .   .   yup, there I was, drunk in the mid afternoon. On two ciders. Not quite as bad as my friend who gets drunk on half a cider but close. I had to go to bed. And that was the end of my evening plans. Thanks Neil.  

On the Needles - a couple of pictures of my sock problem. It seems to be a failure of the purple merino. Some of the many plies in the yarn have broken, thinning & weakening the yarn. In some places the yarn just shredded.

I really loved these socks too - I made two pairs of short, summer socks using Deb's Spiral Sock (Cabin Fever) method to make stripey socks out of leftovers. I'm fairly sure I can fix the sock on the right with a crochet hook & darning needle. There's only one hole in the pair. But the purple socks on the left have been frogged back to the heel because there's several holes in both feet so I'll be re-knitting both of them to make sure I've caught all the weak spots. I guess sometimes you just don't have any other choice but to re-knit or toss.

After Thanksgiving

One more family holiday over & gone. Thanksgiving used to be such a big celebration in my family when I was growing up!! My mother always cooked a huge dinner - we had 6 kids by the way - & often invited people to share. We usually had a big ham or pork roast - one year we had pork & moose. Turkey was usually saved for Christmas.
With nothing else to do, I went to the Starbucks at Safeway on Thanksgiving Monday to see what was On Sale. And found the Mother Lode of dismembered turkey. I do love turkey. And turkey gravy too. But it's the dark meat I love the best & it's hard to get unless you cook a whole turkey. This week I lucked out & found turkey thighs on sale at Safeway. Turkey Thighs!! I haven't seen one in a very long time so I bought 4 of them. YESSSSS

Monday night, I roasted one of my thighs with some baby carrots & little potatoes. I made turkey gravy from the drippings. And thought I'd died & gone to heaven.

On the Needles - I washed some socks last week & found two pairs with big holes that had partially unraveled in several spots!! It looks like broken threads & seems like the same purple yarn in all the socks. The yarn is 100% merino sock yarn while most of the other yarn is the usual 85% wool & 15% nylon yarn. I've never had this problem before although I've heard of it. One pair is a real favorite & while I think I can fix one sock with a crochet hook, the other one has such big holes that I'm just going to tear it back to mid foot & reknit a third of the sock. I wonder why that purple yarn has failed??? If I had moths, other yarns should be affected but it only seems to be that purple. And I bought it with a batch of other solid colors for heels & toes from a local shop. Yarn failure??
My Sweater - my hands have been really sore this past week - thumbs & forefingers especially. Have no idea what this is all about except that it's painful to knit with larger needles & chunkier yarn right now. So, no progress other than I'm past the armholes & moving down the body. This is just a top-down raglan cardigan from Cabin Fever to keep me warm in the office while I work. I'm using Briggs & Little Heritage yarn which softens up with handling. I love the feel & weight of it & I think it will be very cozy as I work.
Discovered a whole lot of acrylic in one of the tubs - it's light grey with red in it & about a sport weight. I think I'll make it the next project for myself & do the same top-down cardi. Nothing fancy, just a round neck raglan with three quarter sleeves & a couple of buttons. I just want it for a little warmth in my cold, cold basement.

Crowned in Gold

It's Spooky the way money disappears when you go to the Dentist!!  The broken tooth morphed  .   .   .   .   . My Dentist moaned, groaned, Oh No'd & made clicking noises with his tongue while peering around in my mouth. I could hear the cash register ringing! He muttered to himself!! And answered. I couldn't say a thing until he pulled out his hands & all the hardware, of course. My response was "Crown??" Didn't even ask about a filling after all the moaning. I already had a partial gold crown in there snuggled right next to the broken tooth. And I guess I should've known what was coming. Another of his 'experimental' crowns. I'm a clencher & a tooth grinder. And THIS is the third tooth I've broken off. Since I clench, gold is better for me. It flexes a bit. And it doesn't cost as much as porcelain!! My dentist doesn't grind the whole tooth down to a nub either. He keeps as much of the original tooth as possible & caps only what is necessary. So I guess my new crown will cover the original old filling & the inside corner I knocked off while leaving the whole white front of the tooth. But, I had to promise I wouldn't eat any more Wasa Sourdough or Rye breads.

So the Dentist wiped out my savings. No more yarn for me till after this bill is paid off, that's for sure!!  I was thinking about new glasses for computer work but they will have to wait cause I need winter boots. Someone in the weather department suggested a record snow-fall year ahead. I hope not but snow has been falling already about 4 hours east of here. Good thing I already have my snow tires on.

Remember This??

 Soup weather is definitely here! Good thing my freezer is full to the brim. I ran into a big sale at the beginning of the summer & bought 40 pounds of chicken bones for soup. These are breast bones mainly & there's tons of meat left on them after the breast meat has been removed. I fill medium zip locks with them - just enough for my big dutch oven to simmer into soup with garlic & pepper!! Usually, I get about 4 cups of meat off the bones which goes back into the pot with everything from noodles, carrots & celery to sweet potatoes, curry & chopped greens. I love soup & it sure does keep a body warm in a cold basement!!

On the Needles - Blue socks for a new dental assistant! She loves blues & greens & I just happened to find a bag of sock yarn hanging up under a couple of fleece jackets behind my door. I don't even remember when I bought it or hung it there but there's a good dozen or more balls of sock yarn in the bag & several balls are blues. Hmmmm  TWO of them will be a pair of medium socks for her. You know when you have too much yarn, don't you??? CAN you have too much sock yarn????