Testing out my new pen! Click on the pictures one at a time to see my journal entries. I ordered two journals to accompany the pen. They are small leather-bound journals (8 X 5) similar to some moleskin models. They're awesome! Very nice.

Someone requested a close-up of some of my yarn. My camera doesn't have any batteries right now so I had to use the ipod camera which is nice, but not exactly top-of-the-line. I still got a halfway decent close-up, so here you go!

I love my new iphone, just so you all know. This is the best phone I have ever had. It is completely intuitive and easy to use. I can check my email and the web from anywhere and the web browser is simple. I can zoom in and out with a touch. The battery life is pretty good...I've yet to run it under 1/4 in a single day, and that's with a decent amount of web use.

It hooks up to my wifi at home, and does mobile web use elsewhere. It's not lightening fast away from the wifi, but it's quick enough to still be enjoyable and not frustrating.

It hooks up to google maps and will plot a route from whereever I am. It shows the weather for the cities of my choice at the touch of a button.

I love it!

I think that for the first time in my life I am angry enough that I could actually punch someone in anger (it's a specific someone, and nobody who lives or works with me, so all of you reading this are safe).

Here is a picture of my first yarn, plied and all.

Happy Mother's Day, mom! I miss you!

( Videos of the Baby. )

I bought an iphone.

It's awesome!

After finishing Hannah's cloak I attended my first knit night at the Needle Nook where I knit something other than that blue thing! :)

I cast on for a sock using some of the yarn that my husband bought me for our anniversary (Toasty for Needle Nook, colorway Apple Butter). It is coming out really pretty. Best of all, it's multicolored which means that I get some variety in my knitting, instead of looking at a seas of the same color for hours on end.

I'm using the Magic Loop method and I got about an inch and a half completed in the time I was there. I think I'm really going to like sock knitting.

vernice04 came over today and we had a lovely visit. But she is evil. She brought donut holes to my house and left them there! And now I have eaten five of them.

The horror!

:)

I was completely unprepared for how much I love my spinning wheel. I was picturing days of frustration while I tried to figure out how to use it and fought with things like tension and drafting and yarn that breaks.

No, it's just great! I'm sitting on my couch, leaning back and comfortable, watching TLC, with my computer open next to me. I can pause and check my email when I like. I feel so relaxed. I really love it. It has this nice sort of meditative feel to treadle away and watching the wheel spin.

(Obviously the baby is asleep, or I would not be doing all this.)

Okay, so I spent the last hour learning to use my spinning wheel. It spins like a dream! There was pretty much no learning curve, though I'm sure that I'm overspinning a little. Granted, I think the fact that I learned how to draft on a spindle and was so familiar with handling the fiber eliminated some of the difficulty in using the wheel.

It's awesome. I love it. I can see myself sitting and spinning a lot.

Here is a picture of my first yarn:

Alex is a Ranger!

This is her, modeling Hannah's cloak.

jon_rariden and vernice don't read this entry until you read your email please!

( Read more... )

Dear Criminals of DeKalb County,

Please Stop.

Sincerely,
Detective M.

------------------------

I've been running all morning. Homicide followup from last night, then two Aggravated Batteries with a total of three broken arms between them, an Aggravated Assault (not quite person shot, because the shooter missed), and I'm pretty much tired now!

Funeral yesterday, for the Investigative Aide's son, who died of cancer at 31 (he was her only child). It was very sad and I declare no more funerals this year.

Okay, have to go get warrants now.

One bright spot, I finished knitting Hannah's cloak last night. I just have to felt it. I think it's going to turn out well. Happy!

Everything is going pretty well these days. Apparently I'm going to be getting an extra $277/month for the next 18 months a part of this whole "MPO incentive" thing at work. It's going straight to bills, so that we can get everything paid off and start saving for a down payment on a house, but it's nice. It will help the bills get paid off all that much faster. I have five hours worth of overtime coming on the next check as well, which will also go to bills. That should be about 150, after taxes.

I have not yet tried out my spinning wheel. I promised myself that I would get Hannah's cloak done first, and so I shall. started working the hood of the cloak, and I have about six of the 12 inches done that I need. Then I will have to felt it, of course. I was thinking of hand-felting, but I may just throw it in the washing machine and monitor it carefully instead. I'm really excited to be done with this project.

Then I'm taking a small break from doing projects for other people and I am knitting myself some socks. I have a couple different patterns that I want to try (universal toe-up pattern and river rock). I'll probably cast one pair on one circular needle to try the magic loop method and another pair on double points. This way I'll be doing toe-up, cuff-down, magic loop, and double point all at once so I'll have some comparison to see which methods I like best for socks. Or maybe I won't like socks at all...who knows. I'm comtemplating running with reinforcement threads in the heels and toes, just so they can stand up to wear a little better.

BUT, I will also be praticing on my new spinning wheel, so that may take up some of my time. I always have knit night at the Needle Nook, so there will be plenty to do. I'm really thrilled.

Oh, and I just bought a really pretty skein of yarn that I've had my eye on for some time, from Blue Moon Fiber Arts, in a colorway called Thraven. It's here: http://www.bluemoonfiberarts.com/newmoon/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=19_158_169 -- I bought the medium weight sock yarn, so I'm thinking socks there too. I will have spoiled feet.

I'm going to be working on potty training the child this week (I have weekend duty, so I will then be home with her for three complete days in a row). I'm buying her some underwear and we're just going to run around the house in those with the knowledge that she will likely make a lot of messes. I think that she is ready to try it, because of the interest that she takes in the whole process. Also, she gleefully informs me when she is pooping, so obviously she recognizes the process. (She's been really quite fascinated by poop lately -- whenever I change her diaper she says, "See poop, see poop!" indicating that she wants to examine the excrement. Lovely child, no?)

Yesterday I had to do two death notifications. It was tough. I thought that the victim's mother might possibly assault me, but thankfully she did not. I didn't really blame her. I wouldn't want to hear that news either.

I went to knitting night last night at the Needle Nook. It was a good time. They are having a customer spotlight sale this weekend, in which people bring crafty things in to sell and a portion of the profits go to benefit ovarian cancer research. So if anyone is in the neighborhood of Briarcliff and Lavista on Saturday around 1:30 or later, please stop by. They've had all kinds of contributions, and there will be some wonderful handmade gifts there should anyone be looking for something special.

As I mentioned in a previous post, my spinning wheel came last night. I'm really excited about this, and I practicing treadling a little without setting it up to actually spin. As much as I really want to jump in and try it, I'm going to make myself wait until I've finished Hannah's cloak. I've got the entire body of the cloak done and I only need to finish the neck and hood, which won't take me very long. Then I have to felt it and block it, of course. I wonder if my husband can get me a refridgerator box...

My new toy:





My totally awesome husband put it together for me, and I've been practicing treadling a bit this evening. No spinning yet.

"Here are the top 106 books most often marked as "unread" by LibraryThing’s users. As in, they sit on the shelf to make you looksmart or well-rounded. Bold the ones you've read, underline the ones you read for school, italicize the ones you started but didn't finish." (I put them in bold and underlined them if I read them in school but liked them enough to keep them or read them again.)

( The Book List )

I really had a good weekend, other than missing the husband.

The husband went up to Tennessee for a couple days. He left on Friday before I got home from work and came back on Sunday afternoon. He had an excellent time, from what I understand, and came back with an overall energetic shift toward happy feeling about him. The welcome back hug was nice. He is as solid as the rocks he was working with all evening, sort of my big strong anchor when things are going rough (which they're not, but it's still the feeling).

Alex was a little monkey all weekend, of course. She got her first scraped knee on Friday and oh does she love to show off her boo-boo. She actually didn't cry or make any noise at all, though she got a little bit frightened when she saw that she was bleeding. Mostly, she loves the "anbaids" and must have one over the wound at all possible times.

On Saturday my MIL came over with her nieces son (I guess that would make him my cousin-in-law's son, but I'm not sure what the short descriptor is for that relationship). He's nine, and a good kid. I was surprised to find out that he is apparently a pretty good reader, and I lent him a couple of books to go through (The Hobbit and Matilda) and recommended a number of other books for him to read. He said that he loves mysteries the best (apparently he has read all the Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys books in his library). Does anyone have any other recommendations for little boys of this age group?

On Saturday and Sunday I set myself to the momentous task of fixing our laundry situation. We had let the laundry pile up to epic proportions and I probably did around ten loads from beginning to end, including the folding, hanging, and sock matching. By the end, you could finally see our bedroom floor again, so I went ahead and vacuumed and made the bed and it looked really lovely. Our bedroom looks great when it's clean.

We also decided to move the dog's crate into the bedroom. They hate being separated from us at night, and we've discovered they actually sleep later when they are in the room. I think it's because they don't know if we're awake or not when they're in the kitchen, so they just bark. Here, they know when we've decided to get up. So on Monday we got to sleep in until 7 AM!! Crazy.

Monday afternoon we took the baby over to vernice04 who very gracious watched her while the husband and I went to a movie (The Forbidden Kingdom) and browsed through a bookstore. It was really nice. I enjoyed the movie, which was good because I was afraid that Jackie Chan would spoil it for me, but he had toned down the goofy aspect to make it very enjoyable.

We topped it off with a visit to the evil empire (Walmart) where I purchased a skirt which I am wearing to work today. It's making a lot of the male detectives do a double take, which I enjoy. :)

So, is it sad that I am justifying the purchase of a spinning wheel with the reasoning that after the zombie apocalypse people will need these types of skills...

Danny and I are strongly contemplating buying a small farm when we get a house. We think that we need a little more stress in our lives and haven't been living up to our full stress potential lately. *grins* Okay, so in reality we just both really want to have property with a small chunk of land attached so we can have a big garden, a couple of goats, and chickens.

We talked about wanting to be better stewards of the environment. I was telling my husband about the indoor composting machines and he was quite fascinated, but we'd really both rather just have a space outdoors where we can do our own.

So in another year or so we'll start looking around outside the Atlanta area. A small bit of land, five acres or so, should be enough to fit our desires. I'd love to have a barn too, but we might have just to build such a structure on our own after a time, so we can keep down on the total expense at the time of purchase.

Oh, and I want alpaca!