We sell stuff on eBay to supplement our income. Mostly boardgames and what-have-you that Tech Support picks up at garage sales, but this week we have something knitterly: a 300g (600m) skein of Fibreworks 100% mohair 8-ply yarn, in the most delectable fuschia pink/royal purple colourway. The only reason I didn’t claim this as my rightful prey is the mohair angle – I have issues about fuzzy things.

If you don’t have my personal hangups, you might want to take a look. There’s other stuff in our store if you’re interested.

There is a church just a couple of doors down from Tech Support’s work, and every other Thursday they have a craft stall which sells the usual sorts of things: knitted coathangers, those freaky Dolly Varden toilet-roll covers, and home-made jams and relishes. The other day T.S. brought home a jar of Pumpricot jam for me. It’s a very odd combination, but by damn if it doesn’t work – you can quite clearly taste both the pumpkin and the beautiful big blobs of apricot, but the thing that brings it all together is ginger. Deee-licious!

How about you? Do you know of any weird-but-wonderful food combinations?

He may not ring twice, but the dude delivers the goods!

Behold my birthday yarn:

From left to right: Socks That Rock in Strange Brew, Froggin’, Jabberwocky and Puck’s Mischief (Hmmm? The Melbourne Cup? I backed Harris Tweed and Spin Around. Why do you ask?)

I’d like to thank my husband for spoiling me rotten, and Tinkingbell for being an enabler par excellence.

Canary in the Mine Socks

The Vital Statistics:
Pattern: September 2009 Mystery Sock (Fox Faces Socks) by Nancy Bush (rav-link)
Yarn: Patons Patonyle 50g balls, hand-dyed canary yellow by me.
Needles: 2.25mm Knitpicks fixed circular, Magic Loop method
Modifications: I upped the stitch-count from 60 to 72, to fit the recipient, used Nancy’s Estonian Cast-on, which is desperately cool, and made my very first ever Vikkel braid.

Now, I’m not normally a fan of yellow, but I’ve really enjoyed the bright sunny colour as an antidote to all the dreary, rainy, overcast weather we’ve had in the last month (also, this last week, while my glasses were at the shop getting the lenses replaced, I’ve really appreciated the hi-viz colour!).

In other news, I finished up my two-week stint in the canteen yesterday. The money is nice and all, but it really didn’t take long to remember why I quit in the first place! Getting the kids out the door in the mornings has been sheer bloody purgatory, and I haven’t weighed in this week, but I’m pretty sure that I’ve gained back a little weight – I’ve been on my feet for five hours every day, but it’s mostly standing, not the sort of aerobic or weight-bearing activity that I’m used to doing. Then after work, I don’t have time to get to the gym before I pick the boys up, and by the time we get home, there’s homework, and afternoon tea, and the inevitable argument over who gets to watch what (if any) TV, and then getting dinner on, and, and, and…  Back on the horse next week, for sure. I miss my workout (and there’s four words I never thought I’d put together in a sentence!).

We don’t do Halloween here (in our house, at least. The last few years we’ve had groups of surly teenagers showing up at the door demanding sweets. I just send Tech Support to the door to glower at them – he’s bigger and scarier than any three of ‘em put together), but the school has a book-fair every year around this time, and the kids get to dress up as a character from a book. Yesterday, Sasquatch went as Angry Pirate, the title character from a story he wrote in class last week, and to which he has added on a daily basis, until it’s now an epic saga to rival the Nibelungenleid. Boyo had outgrown everything in the dress-up box (note to child design team: this so-called “growth” feature is a flawed concept!!!), so in a last-minute flash of inspiration, I sent him as Arthur Dent. There were two or three other pirates, but otherwise the school was a sea of vampires (and, not to snark, but since when was Hannah Montana a character in a book?).

Speaking of vampires, I finally rented Twilight last night, just to see what all the fuss was about. If you loved the books and movie, you should probably look away now, because I was unthrilled. Robert Pattison did the best he could with the material to hand, but in my opinion Edward Cullen and his family are the most bloodless vampires since Louis de Pointe du Lac. And Kristen Stewart… well, I hope she has learned how to deliver a line between the first and second movies, because I had to put the subtitles on to understand what she was mumble/blurting. I won’t be spending my hard-earned on a ticket to see the new one, that’s for sure.

It was on my desk, which is now tidy.

No, Leonie, I didn’t take a pic of the hideous mess, but I will take a pic of the tidy. Just to prove that it happened once.

I had it just the other day, when I used it for the heel flap/turn of the second yellow mystery sock (rav-link), and now I need it for the toe. It’s not in the KnitPicks binder with all the other not-currently-in-use needles, nor is it in my work-basket, it’s not even in the sock-pocket of my handbag.

Anyway, I was just wondering if you’ve seen it. Please say you have, because I’ve looked almost everywhere: under the couch cushions (where I found three stitch-markers and $1.65 in change, but no 2mm circ), even behind the fish-tank (don’t ask). Really, there’s only one place left to look:

I’ll have to tidy my desk.

Right after I’m done whimpering and rocking in a corner…

I lost nuthin’ in the last 5 days. Which is odd. I can only assume that the self-torture to which I subjected myself on the AirWalker the other day caused some muscling-up. But you know what? I’m not upset – I mean, the numbers would have been nice and all, but the only number I’m really interested in at the moment is this one:

Size 12. As in size 12 JEANS! Size 12 birthday jeans that FIT ME!

Please excuse the blurry, but that's what you get when a 9yo is wielding the camera

I’d just like to thank you guys for acting as my cheer squad. Knowing that you were pulling for me helped me to “Just Say No” to many, many tempting treats. I don’t think I would have made it this far without your support and encouragement. You guys rock!

Okay! Enough with the mushy stuff and on to the birthday report: as of today, and continuing until Saturday night, I am Single Working Mother Woman (my new superhero secret identity – consider yourself sworn to silence). To elaborate, the Single part is because this morning Tech Support flew down to Hobart for a conference. Given that this is the third time in four years that he has been away working on this particular day, he has formally requested that I change my birthday to a different time of year. The Working part is because I am Lunch-Lady Doris again for two weeks, while the new LLD takes a long-anticipated holiday (I believe the Mother and Woman components are self-explanatory). My day itself wasn’t horrible – some of my friends dropped in to sing me Happy Birthday and give me a card (thoughtfully eschewing cake). My birthday also had star billing in Sasquatch’s classroom, as I was his News item today, so his teacher wrote me a card, and several of his classmates came in at lunchtime to wish me a happy day (they’re all just so damn cute!).

Tonight I am treating myself to take-away Chinese for dinner, and once T.S. comes home on Saturday, there will be cake. There is also some woolly birthday goodness on its way to me, but I’ll blog that when it gets here (I try to stretch out the blog-fodder as and when I can).

What with having the boys home for the school holidays, getting to the gym has been a bit of an issue the last couple of weeks, so I’ve been working out here at home with the equipment I have to hand. Mostly on the exercycle, but on Wednesday morning I got out on the AirWalker that lives on the back verandah, to change things up a bit, and take advantage of the (briefly) lovely spring weather.

Now, the AirWalker’s motion is based on the action of cross-country skiing, and apparently is working muscles that I haven’t been using. At all. EVER. Because beginning late on Wednesday afternoon, and continuing all day yesterday and today, I have been walking like Groucho Marx. My calf-muscles feel like they are trying to tear themselves free and run away.

Ouch. It had better pay off come Tuesday, is all I can say!

My birthday is next Tuesday, so this will be my last Thursday weigh-in post. Of course, I’ll be continuing to weigh myself every week, and keeping track of the results, but I’m sure you’re all bored to tears with my obsessive-compulsive focus on this, so I’ll be keeping it to myself after Tuesday. I’m going to try my very best to drop the last 1.3kg before then, because it would be incredibly cool to be able to say that I did it. That said, if it can’t be done I’m not going to beat myself up about it. I’ve lost a truckload of weight in the last six months, and I look and feel damn good if I do say so myself, so if I end up at 70.5kg or something, I certainly won’t cry.

Here’s a quick aerobic workout: sit quietly at your computer, reading back through your post, checking for typos. Have a six-year-old materialise beside you and put his grubby little paw on your shoulder. Let out a loud yelp and jump out of your skin while he laughs fit to bust. Really gets your heart-rate up!

I know it’s Friday, but yesterday I didn’t know it was Thursday. I blame the school holidays, the long weekend, the advent of Daylight Savings and my feral, ratty children for the fact that I am a day behind myself this week. I swear to God I spent all day yesterday firmly convinced it was Wednesday, right up until I turned on the telly last night to see if there was anything good on (Wednesday night is a bit ordinary: not a total wasteland like Tuesday, but far from being “Must See TV”) and Rush came on. Which caused a simultaneous “d’oh!” (for missing Thursday) and “woohoo!” (’cause Burn Notice comes on after Rush).

Anyway, here is the news o’ the day:

No loss, but it’s Fat Week again, so no loss is also no gain, which in my book is as good as a loss. Still, even allowing for the water-loss that will happen over the next couple of days, I’m going to be pushing it. And I’m not helped at this particular instant by my burning desire to eat a jar of peanut butter.

I’m taking the boys to Bathurst to the library today, so I think we’ll use the opportunity to take a nice big walk around town. If it were any other Friday, I’d take them for a walk around Mount Panorama (which would wear them out, and really give my thighs something to think about), but this weekend is The Race, and the Mountain is currently lousy with V8 cars and beer-swilling yobbos (I know the Powers That Be are cracking down on that sort of thing, but they are limiting race-goers to one carton per person per day, which is still 24 beers in 24 hours. If that’s not enough to get you drunk and keep you there, then you have way bigger problems than mere yobbo-hood).

Stepping down off the soap-box now. Enjoy your weekend.