End of Vacation

Seriously, how fast does vacation fly by? I have more vacation days than my entire immediate family and nearly every other human except those working for the federal government (they get Columbus Day and Mickey Mouse's birthday as holidays you know). So I take my va-kay and hang out at home. Me and my dogs and my knitting.

Here is what I can tell you about my at-home vacations:

1. I never get as much done as I plan to do before the vacation begins
2. I knit more than I probably should
3. I spend more time looking at yarn than your average 23 year old guy spends looking at porn

On the plus side on the particular at-home vacation:

1. I re-connected (I was going to say, "hooked up" but that sounds dirty) with a bunch of people I haven't seen in years
2. I now have two projects on the needles and two projects in que
3. I have a very clean house
4. I'm addicted to namaste yoga

So there you have it, my vacation in a nutshell.. Very long lunches (I set a new personal best of 7 hours) with old friends. Knitting. Planning knitting. None of the extremely productive things I had planned for my vacation. Thankfully, I have a week off in June. I'm sure I will accomplish many important things. Reach long-standing personal goals. And find new stuff to knit.

Summer Time (and the livin' is cheesy)

Form a little conga line and chant, "I am on vay-kay-shun, I am on vay-kay-shun". Yes, I have the next nine days without work. No TSA lines. No quart bags of nail polish. No hotels. No insurance emergencies. WHOO HOO!!!! Yeah baby.

So tonight, being a supportive wife and all, I decided to mix myself a little vodka drink, pick up a stack of magazines, and go sit under a nice shady tree while my husband fought with dead branches and weeds. It's a nice bonding time. Me and the dogs all laid out under the tree cheering him on.

I have no plans for my time off except to have lunch with old friends. Get my nails done. Do a little gardening. (not in that order of course). Maybe build a handicap ramp for Maggie. My very old and arthritic dog.

And knitting of course. I have knitters elbow right now from knitting a sweater with Tessin. I adore this yarn. I saw it at String of Purls in Omaha and fell in love. But every pattern I saw was for baby blankets. So I decided the hell with it, I've got 10 skeins, I'm making me a sweater. Ouch. It's a great yarn but not very springy so it's a bit like knitting with cotton which never works very well for me. But it's going to be a darn cute sweater. A nice pattern from Wendy Bernard that I found in Knitscene. It's just got me with the knitting elbow.

So a couple months ago I was having lunch with my friend Kate (yeah, it is easier to have friends with the exact same name as me) and she says, "You need to be on facebook". U-huh. Just like I need the newest Fergie CD or a tramp stamp. Not. "No really, all our old friends from jr. high and high school are there and you can re-connect with them." Kate has never really steered my wrong. She introduced me to peanut butter and bacon sandwiches after all. So I logged on to Facebook.

First let me tell you, it's no Ravelry. No one is talking about yarn. Or projects. Clearly Facebook is a strange and alien universe where no one is obsessed with fiber. And that is wrong, very wrong. But I have connected with the people that "knew me when" and I've got to admit it's been pretty darn fun. Of course no one who "knew me when" knows that I write an extremely sporadic but well-stalked knitting blog.

No offense, but how sad is it that this is my secret edgy life? Seriously.

&^*%^&^*())_

Damn it. I just wrote a really nice little entry about reality t.v. and how an intervention might be in my future and then it got lost in cyberfog. Damn it.

So muttering bad words I will try to recreate my previous writing although I don't know if I'm going to be able to remember all my pithy comments verbatim.

Last week I was in Denver on business. Tuesday night after work I stopped at the liquor for a bottle of chardonnay and at Mad Greens for a salad (Ty Cobb with lo-fat ranch), returned to my hotel room, put up my feet and turned on the t.v. Four hours later, feeling like I needed a shower, I turned off the t.v. and went to bed. I set a new personal best for wasteful t.v. watching. I watched three hours of "The Biggest Loser" season finale (ten minutes of content stretched into three hours of show); "Dancing With The Stars" to see who got whacked this week; "The Real Housewives of NY" season finale; and finally "The Real Housewives of NJ". That's a lot of channel flipping my friends. Not for amateurs. I actually went to bed that night feeling a little grossed out that I had actually watched all night. Thank goodness for knitting so that I can kid myself that I was being a little productive by knitting myself a sweater while watching.

You would think I would have learned my lesson, but Wednesday night I ended up right back in that chair watching the season finale of "America's Next Top Model" followed by "Who Wants to Be a Supermodel". Seriously I might need an intervention.

If you are thinking about becoming a reality t.v. addict but don't have 6 hours of quality sitting on your ass time, I highly recommend "Paranormal States" on A&E. This is seriously the campiest (not intentionally) show on t.v. In a recent episode Chip Coffey (the all time best gay t.v. psychic in the world) takes out a little spritzer bottle of holy water and starts pumping away while the rest of the team chants prayers to St. Michael. Seriously. Reality t.v. 'cause you just can't make this shit up.

Next time: knitters elbow and facebook.