10 or Less Movie Review

Good God, that was irratating.

No Foolin.

It's April 1st, but no joke here. I'm going to try to quit smoking again. As I type I'm about 3 hours into day one, so far so good.
I've been bitching and moaning about quitting for a while now and i just decided i needed to pick a date and stick with it, otherwise i'd just keep talking about quitting and not do it.
It's just time. I've been hacking and coughing almost non-stop for a few months. i can't sleep on my back, it makes me choke.
I used to say i didn't want to quit because i loved to smoke, not so much any more. it's been more of a chore than anything. And i've been making my own cigs for a while, so that was an hour or two every other day wasted making them.

i'm actually feeling pretty good about this one, there was no real dread leading up to this morning, and i didn't take my first piece of nicotine gum until 4:30ish. I've been keeping up on doing some kind of exercise/physical activity every other day, so i'm hoping that will help with the weight gain. mostly because i can't afford to buy new clothes! the weather this weekend should be great, and i've got things i want to do outside. And knitting...there's always knitting.
i'm sure there will be some ugliness, so i apologize in advance to my family, friends and co-workers.

so that's that.

10 or Less Movie Review

*yawn*...even with Johnny and Christian.

What do you do with left over mashed potatoes?

Make Shepherd's Pie, duh....

Poor 'Biscus

i know, i know...it's been a while. I'm terrible at this. there are so many things i've thought of posting...what i did with all that yarn from my last post, where you can send money to help the people of Haiti, a great photo from one of my more recent visits to the APL, hundreds of photos of the cats, but this post is about my poor, poor Hibiscus plant.
I fell in love with this plant. My neighbor had gotten the plant from a customer of her's and i flipped out about it so much she told me if i could manage to divide it and repot her half i was welcome to the other half.
It thrived all summer, huge blooms appeared almost overnight.

see? so pretty.
the weather turned colder, as it tends to do here in ohio, so the 'biscus came inside. i did some plant re-arranging and gave it a spot smack dab in the middle of the window in the living room. the flowers kept coming, not like when it was outside, but enough.
Then one morning i noticed what i thought was dust, or string, or cat hair, or spider webs. Then i looked closer. bunches of little somethings were crawling around on the webby looking threads.
i quick search of the interswebs revealed the invaders. spider mites.


ugh
one of the reasons i wanted one of these plants in the first place was becase we could feed the flowers to Bosch. so i looked for a way to try to kill the pests without chemicals. back to the intersweb i went, and was happy to find (from several different sources) that the best way to kill the mites was to soak the plant in hot water. perfect. so 'biscus got a bath.
and the damn things came back.
bath number two.
things seemed to be going well. the plant even had a growth spurt. and the damn mites came back again.
bath number three, and here is where we stand.

poor, poor 'biscus.
i'm hoping most of the leaf loss is from too much water. the tops seem to be continuing to grow. i've resigned my self to trying chemicals on it, and that Bosch won't get to have any flower treats. Being winter its proving hard to find the right spray (Bayer 3 in 1).
poor, poor 'biscus. i'm not giving up on you get buddy.

Let the Holiday Knitting Begin!!!!

Sorry for the crappy cell phone picture, but the regular camera is being cranky.

I Like to Make Things: the Project Linus Blanket

Project Linus Blanket Pattern

I LOVED this project! Sam's sister wanted something to give a co-worker as a baby shower gift, and asked if i would knit something. This pattern came to mind immediately, having seen it in the book Knitting for Peace. Mom-to-be was described to me as "kind of a hippy...and a vegan." So i wanted to keep that in mind choosing a yarn, plus the fact that it is for a baby. Babies that poop, pee, puke, and spit on most everything. So a machine washable yarn it had to be!
Knit Picks to the rescue!!! I went with their Simply Cotton in the worsted weight. I thought this would be a good choice because, yes, it was machine washable, and organic with no dyes used. The yarn knit up soft and squishy, perfect for a baby blanket! I'd heard that some folks had problems with the yarn splitting, but i didn't. Not even with my extra pointy metal needles.
The only problem i had with the pattern was swatching. I couldn't seem to get the lace sequence to come out right. I was working with the pattern out of the Knitting for Peace book, but the link (above) from the Project Linus website explained that it is worked over multiples of eleven plus one. Mystery solved! It's an impressive looking result that is EASY!
One of my favorite knitting projects to date.