My Random Thoughts

OMG - Clean house Messiest House 3 - This woman had enough excess stuff to fill a 7000 square foot storefront for a yard sale. Yes - a department storefront worth of excess junk. I know I have a bit of stuff in my house, but damn, that makes me feel good!

I know that I need to make exercise part of my life. It won’t be my friend. It won’t be my favorite activity, but I’m doing it. I went to the gym at the hotel for the 2nd day. I ran, I walked, I biked. I didn’t hate it, but I didn’t think WOW that was the best hour of my life.

But I did it and THAT I do celebrate - YAY ME

I watch Lost. I like Lost. I enjoy listening to podcasts about Lost and hearing the theories. I enjoy trying to figure out what’s going to happen next and where the mythology is going to go, BUT (you knew there was going to be a but) BUT it’s ONLY A TV SHOW!

I was listening to one of the podcasts I usually listen to while I work. They have some phone calls from listeners and one woman was so upset about the season finale that she sounded like she was almost in tears. She was ranting about how the season ended, how the characters interacted, how she was so disappointed about where they left things. She was in distress. Uh, yeah, its only a TV. While it was an exciting finale and I’m looking forward to the next season, I wasn’t going to jump up and down about how unfair things were in the finale.

It’s the same thing in some forums and BBs…..what we’re talking about is not a matter of life and death, none of this is going to really impact your career or your life. Some people get so ‘passionate’ about many different topics that have me scratching my head. It just seems to be wasting passion on things that are rather insignificant.

And this post has been a great example of wasting passion on something rather insignificant.

………………Ok, they do mix, but not with drunk golfers!  It’s Thursday and the weekly gathering of the latest Greenville knitting group. Jill is mixing it up by moving it around with tonight’s gathering being at the Embassy Suites. It was a fine place to gather, but being part of the golf and conference center, maybe Thursday wasn’t the best day to be there.

We settled into a corner of the 19th hole, by the elevators. We were pretty much out of the way, and by sitting with my back to the atrium, I had a great view of the bar. It was certainly full of characters which gave us no end of entertainment.

The first act was when this older gentleman who had no business wearing a speedo took a wrong turn off of the elevator. I don’t know if I felt worse for him or my eyes which will forever have that image burned into them. I know I am no greek goddess, but at least I have the sense to cover up!

The second act was this younger dude who had more than a few too many comes over, asking what we’re doing and starts talking about how he’s not too good to knit, yeah he could knit. I’m thinking, ok, if you’re trying to hit on someone, first pick a single target and second, seriously, hitting on a bunch of women knitting? I love knitting and truly enjoy the company of the women in this group, but by any stretch of the imagination I can’t see that being a ‘hit-able’ activity. It conjurs up visions of home, hearth and wholesomeness, not doing the nasty on the dancefloor.

And the men continued to drink.

Another middle-aged man with a well developed beer gut and at this point a permanent tan from the hours spent on the golf course walks past our table on the way to the men’s room. He stops and asks Nancy what we’re doing. She says we meet to knit. He repeats - you neet to mit? Yup, thats what we do and you should probably go to bed. We nicknamed him Nancy’s Boyfriend.

One rather nice man took a picture - his wife wanted to find a group like this at home. We told him about Ravelry. I hope she got a kick out of the picture.

Another couple of guys thought we should have a speed knitting contest with judges. They couldn’t believe we weren’t competing and were just sitting around enjoying each other’s company. Everything is a competition, right? Uh, yeah, and we were counting the number of idiots who would drop by the table.

The crown of the evening was the encore by Nancy’s Boyfriend. He comes back to the bar, by himself, presumably to get food, since he was holding a take out box when he walked back past the table. He says to his friend, “these ladies are knitting me a sweater. All of these nice ladies are knitting me a sweater, and after I deliver this food, I’ll come back to see how things are going. ”

I’m not looking at him, and trying to concentrate on my scarf because I do not have a poker face and really I’m a nice person who wouldn’t want to insult anyone (at least to their face). He had to call me out though, and waved his arm to get my attention - “ma’am, you’ll need to make that bigger” he says about my 6″ wide scarf “I’m a little bigger across here” he said motioning to his ample midsection.  I look him square in the eye and say ” good thing it’s not for you then, huh?”

After a chorus of Ohs he says to his friend “all of these ladies are nice except one and are knitting me a sweater.”

I guess I’m a bitch

Current Mood: Confused

I’ve owned a number of Dell computers. For the most part I’ve been a big fan, their customer service is first rate. My current computer I’ve had less than a year and I’ve already had 3 issues with it. The first thing is the screen cracked. I’m not sure if something fell on it, if a cat jumped on it, or what, but that cost me a new screen.

Then I started having issues with a few programs. I thought it was something I had done and rebuilt the system from the OS up, turns out the memory was bad. They sent new memory under warrenty, but I had to do the repair on it. A few days ago I started getting an error saying that the computer couldn’t tell what power cord I had. Hmmm, it worked and charged after it was booted up, but it couldn’t tell what it hadwhen booting up.

Today turned it on and it while it works on AC, it won’t charge the battery. I chat with Dell and within 5 minutes the rep says they are going to replace the motherboard, and have a tech install it. Great! i’m thrilled with their service, but I wonder how many more things will go wrong with this computer. I mean seriously, replacing the motherboard? They may as well just sending me another computer. My warrenty doesn’t expire until 2011, I’m sure I’ll find a few more things before then.

I am seriously way to excited about this, but…. I have a toe! I took a magic loop class Saturday at Yes Yarn. Homework is to finish the increases and get to the point where we’ll start turning the heel. WOOHOO!

I’m more proud because this is my second attempt, and I was able to do it on my own. I think the biggest difference was the new nickle circular needles I got from Knit Picks. They are so smooth, the stitches just fly off my needles. I have a few more increases and then I’ll just start the foot.

The other part to my success is the yarn. This yarn is prettier, more colorful, softer than what i originally started with. I’m sure I’ll find a use for the other yarn, but right now I’m going to continue my toe with this.  By next Sunday I should have a sock. Yes, 1 sock. Then I’ll do the second one, or will I start a new pair in a different yarn?

Socks! Who’d have thought they’d provide so much satisfaction?

Current Mood: Happy

I’ve been thinking about trust, being open and not making judgements or assumptions.  I think someone is trying to tell me something about that. In the last 2 days while reading my morning devotional, I’ve gotten the message about being more open. I think the quote was something like looking around to see who else is on the journey. Hmmm, so that means I’m not alone? Hmmmm.

The other message I received was that I’ll get the greatest reward from those things that scare me the most. Again Hmmmm. Both of those messages, while somewhat vauge, have very specific meaning to me right now.  Now I need to figure out what to do about them!

I got an email yesterday from someone in my high school class. We weren’t particularly close, but I don’t remember any specific negative encounters with her. We ran in different circles, but occassionaly brushed. I’m really happy she emailed me. Once again, it made me wish I had been more open, but in most cases, it’s never too late to connect.

I haven’t heard back from her yet, but I’m going to be open and pay attention to who is with me on the journey.

Current Mood: Happy

I was driving down Reidville Rd yesterday, on my way to meet a friend for coffee. Spring time is in full swing, the leaves are that early green and the multi-color buds pepper the landscape. It’s such a change from Florida. I know I missed the changing of the leaves in the fall, but I didn’t realize how much I missed the spring time rebirth as well.

It gives me a new fresh feeling, just like New Years, that anything is possible. Right now everyone seems happy and there are smiles all around. It was warm enough the other day that I was able to put my top down (WOO). I enjoyed the ride through the country with that fresh air. The lighting was perfect, it felt like a picture.

This weekend Jeff and I are going to take out the bikes and enjoy the weather.  I think this was a good move.

I couldn’t let it go. I have a ton of things to do today, conference calls from 10am-5pm back to back, but the camera lens was mocking me. I could hear its taunting laughter calling me from the rafters, daring me to find it.

I was bound and determined to find this sucker! With a few minutes between conference calls, I pulled the chair way from in front of the closet….yes, while this house is great, it is a little small for us, but I digress…..I had cleaned some boxes out Sunday while I was putting my massive stash into ziplock bags to make space in the middle closet. I expected to take the boxes in the decoration closet (as I am calling it now) and repack into these other boxes and label appropriately.

I wasn’t looking forward to this, but I dove in, flipping the lid of each box as I pulled it out of the closet. Some I didn’t need to repack, as it was pretty apparent the gray Nikon box wasn’t in there. I was able to consolidate some boxes and put things back in the right box in other cases.  I was beginning to get a little depressed, I was down to the bottom of the closet, but still no box holding my gray Nikon box.

Two final boxes in the far corner. I looked in to see if i could read the label. The top box said photo albums and loose pictures - oh could I dare to hope? I open the box and it was photo albums and loose pictures, but nothing else.  I pulled the last box out and looked at the label…..Camera Stuff. I open the lid and what do i find, my gray Nikon box with my lens.  Camera Stuff - appropriately labeled, so clearly I’m smarter than the average bear, but why did I stick it in the corner of my decoration closet? The world may never know.

While looking for my camera lens like a mad woman (see Adventures in Moving….) I started pulling boxes out of the closet. Since I’m doing this on a multi-tasking basis, the door is open, the boxes are strewn and the cats are nosing their way around previously uninvestigated items.

As before, Wootle was making her cute little mewing sounds, and I’m thinking she was lost in the room and looking for me. HAH, I am just not that popular, as it turns out.

Nut was sitting on the other side of the chair, so I’m roughly translating the conversation to go something like this…..

Wootle: What is all this stuff? It looks like boxes, but they have smell

Nut: (using her telepathy): She likes candles, all of this was in that big closet in the other house, don’t you remember

Wootle: Are you sure? Can we get into the boxes to check it out?

Nut: I don’t think she’d like that

Wootle: Please?  (At this point, I think Wootle is looking for me….I call her over)

Wootle: Geez, get over yourself, we only like you for your opposable thumb. 

At this point, Yummy came into the room.

Yum: Let’s play tag instead! Nut you’re it

Nut: I’ll get you!  - she starts chasing Yum out of the room

Wootle: WAIT FOR ME!

They quickly tired of the game, as Nut is on the filing cabinet taking a bath.