Arrived

We are here. It was a blessedly uneventful trip (aside from yesterday's snow at the beginning of the journey). A long time in the car, though. I am very glad to be done driving for a while!

I'm tired...really tired tonight. Not capable of forming good sentences into good paragraphs, so I'll just take a random approach to this update...

Coming here to my mom's house in Florida is oddly like coming home, even though she has lived here only two years and I have never lived here. Home is where the parent is, I suppose. 

Having visited here six times before, I've developed some habits, little rituals of sorts. One of these is that I usually, shortly after arrival, find an excuse to get in a car and drive to the beach for the mere act of breathing in the ocean air, seeing the waves, and hearing them crash. It does not feel like a true beach vacation until I have done this. I'm not sure if it is because visiting here is becoming -- dare I say it? -- somewhat routine or what, but I did not get to the beach after arriving today! I thought of it, but it was 4:30...my mom was due home from work soon and I wanted to see her when she got here. Then we headed out to dinner. Then it was dark. And I was tired of driving, remember? So, I have to take my mom's word for it that the Atlantic Ocean has not left its shores. I'll verify it for myself tomorrow, as soon as possible.

I can only eat so much fast food on road trips. Aside from eating a few left over chicken nuggets from my daughter's lunch yesterday (I packed myself tuna salad for lunch yesterday) and a big cup of liquid crack (McD's Sweet Tea), I avoided fast food altogether. Dinner was at Chili's last night, and breakfast was of the continental variety at the hotel this morning. For lunch, I held out for a Cracker Barrel because we have none super close to us at home and thus it is always a treat to go. I love the store. Seriously kitchy stuff, mostly, but it's fun to look at. They're full-on ready for Christmas right now, which is irksome to me, but on the up side, all of their Halloween stuff was on sale half off. I'm not a big Halloween person, but I could not leave this at the store:

It's a (get ready for it) BATula! How freakin' cool is that? LOL Who wouldn't want to flip eggs or pancakes or grilled cheese sandwiches (er, sandWITCHES?) with a BATula? LOL Honestly, I bought it for the pun alone. It made me amazingly happy, and it provided much entertainment in the car as the kids made it dance to various road trip playlist tunes, and as I threatened them with, "Don't make me beat you with the BATula!" any time they got rowdy and annoying as kids can get in the back seat on a long road trip. It was great. (The check out girl said these were really big sellers this year, and they had also had pumpkin-shaped ones that were sold out, but really? A pumpkinula? Hardly has the same effect. Unless it was a carved pumpkin shape, then maybe it could be called a JACKula. Neh.)

(Just to clarify...BATula is entirely my name for it. The Cracker Barrel tag simply labels it as item number 610, made in China. Seriously? I think they need to boost morale in the creative advertising department or something.)

Lastly...heart burn. I used to get heart burn a lot. Really a lot. Then I changed my eating habits and I hardly ever get it now unless I eat something really spicy. Except. Except when I come to my mom's. I always get heart burn when I'm here. ALWAYS. I actually started getting pre-emptive heart burn a few days before leaving for the trip this time. What the heck? Maybe stress of getting ready for a trip short notice? Not that I really felt all that stressed over it. (Personally, I blame it on presidential campaign frustration...its their fault.) 

All I do know is the combination of 16 hours in the car + Chili's food last night (spicy), more caffeine than usual + Pizza Hut pizza for dinner tonight = a big ol' case of nasty, miserable heart burn. I've got Tums and Pepto on hand in hopes of making its stay a short one and hopefully keeping it from spending this whole trip with me. 

PS...the one thing I did do tonight, in lieu of a beach visit, was go to Wal-Mart and buy a wireless router so I can happily function from my MacBook instead of having to deal with the frustration of my mom's horribly slow computer. Because that would have been bad for my heart burn. 

Road Trippin'

LORELAI: Ah. No music. I can't believe we forgot to bring tunes.
RORY: Do you realize that neither of us has the vaguest idea where we are?
LORELAI: What is a road trip without tunes?
RORY: The sun is directly behind us.
LORELAI: Never been in this car for any extended period of time without playing AC/DC.
RORY: I have no idea which way it's going.
LORELAI: I need my "Highway to Hell."
RORY: It's right out the windshield there.

(Road Trip to Harvard, Gilmore Girls, Season 2)

Won't find me in Lorelai's predicament. Got my tunes! My official Florida '08 Road Trippin' play list (be warned -- like its creator, it is eclectic...be kind, don't mock) (click image to embiggen so you can read it without inflicting eye damage on yourself):

A couple notes:

These songs are listed in no particular order. They just jumped out at me as I perused my song library.

My goal was to have no more than one song per artist. I failed.

With regard to Linkin Park, I could have added a bunch more, but I exercised restraint.

With regard to Year 3000, hush, you! We are all entitled to a guilty pleasure now and again.

These 40 songs will use up 2.5 hours of drive time, which means I would need to listen to this playlist approximately 12.8 times to cover the entire drive time of the trip. This will not happen. I would be entirely sick of every song after about eight rounds. Maybe nine.

Thank God I downloaded those audiobooks. That's another 4.5 hours accounted for. Whew.

Making the list...

...because I am a list-maker, and because it makes me feel productive to be able to mark them as "done" when they are...done.

Drop off the grandson - Done

Grocery shop -Done

Ship packages/buy stamps - Done

Pack clothes - Done! (Three people, three suitcases...I cannot pack light to save my soul)

Pack knitting - Done (Ha! Told you it would be done before clothes packing! LOL)

Pay bills - Done

Send in retreat registrations - Done

Apples? - Sigh - Well, Done...as in pitched in the compost heap...they were too far gone :(

Tomatoes? - Done (sorted the too-far-gone from the still salvageable...hopefully the husband will eat his fill while we're gone)

Plan school work for trip - Done

Book on CD/MP3 - Done, in triplicate (A Christmas Carol, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, The Raven...heh...was going for a Halloween theme...and while the first isn't a Halloween story per se, there are ghosts in it, and it is a classic.)

Print out directions/reservations - Done

Clean kitchen despite fact that husband will not keep it that way - Done

Decipher what Mom means by "cold" in reference to Florida weather and how that should affect clothes packing - Hmm...done...kind of...packed for all temperature contingencies, which helps to account for needing three suitcases

Do ONE more load of laundry...really... - Done...actually, did two more, but the son needed socks, so I HAD to do the whites
Buy travel book for Savannah - Done! (Bonus! Picked up the Yarn Harlot's newest, as well! Yeay!)
Download new tunes/make road trip play list - Done! (This was a bonus, a reward for getting everything else done.)

ETA: I am done! With everything on my list! Even the added items! And it isn't yet midnight! Not even 11 p.m.! This has to be some kind of record for me the night before a trip. I may actually get a full night's sleep. Hot damn!

Planning a trip...

...as I mentioned a few posts ago, the kids and I are taking a road trip to my mom's in Florida. We leave Wednesday. I'm preparing for the trip now. Or at least I'm trying. The grandson has been here since Thursday night -- a three year old changes everything in a house! -- and he will be here through most of tomorrow, so my practical planning time is at a minimum. 

Since making the decision last week to take this trip, it has seemed like I had plenty of time to get ready. No rush! Now, here it is, Sunday night, and I'm inventorying all that should get done (with a three-year-old around) before I go, and I'm feeling a tiny bit of anxiety. Also a tiny bit of guilt because some of the things I should do -- like care for that bag of apples in the kitchen and the last of the tomatoes I picked last weekend -- should have been done before now. I've procrastinated, and now I am paying the price.

Some things I have done already. I have voted (my absentee ballot will go in the mail tomorrow). I have done most of the laundry. I've made a generous list of knitting projects to take with me and have wound balls of yarn accordingly. I've made our hotel reservation for the mid-way stop Wednesday night. That's all a good start.

So what do I still need to do? I need to grocery shop for food for the trip as well as for the husband to eat while we're gone. I need to pack clothes and I need to pack knitting (the latter will likely be done before the former). I need to pay bills and mail in the kids' fall retreat registrations. I need to do something with the apples and tomatoes. I need to plan school work for the kids to do while we're away, and I need to stop at the library to get some books on CD that we can all enjoy on the drive (or maybe I should see if I can find any free MP3 book downloads and just put them on my iPod?).

I know there is more to do, and it will likely come to me in bits and bobs over the next two days as I work to get ready to go. In order to make any of it possible, though, there are also things I should not do. I should not check Facebook and Ravelry a dozen times a day. I should not play Bubbleshooter. I should not try to catch up on unwatched episodes of DVRed shows. I should not stay up excessively late. 

We'll see how it goes. 

Knitting...

Since I showed you all that yarn in the last post, I thought maybe it was time to also share some of what I've been knitting, just to prove that I am actually using my stash.

Some things I've finished recently that I do not think I've shared on here...

Socks for the boy-child...he loves his hand knit socks!



My Plymouth Tweed cardigan that I have been wearing a lot and totally loving! I think it is my favorite thing I've ever knitted for myself (aside from socks).



A basic patterned knit hat (my September charity hat...I missed July and August and haven't done October yet...need to get caught up!)...



Additionally, I've finished several afghan squares for the afghan swap I'm in, but I won't post them because some of them are not to their recipients yet.

In progress, I have my February Lady Sweater, which I've still been ignoring due to the issues I was having with the sleeves...I do want to get back to it soon, though...



A random scarf that will likely become a Christmas gift...first time I've knit with Rowan Felted Tweed, and boy is it yummy soft!



A pair of Heart Throb socks (that is the name of the yarn colorway, not the pattern, though the pattern does have hearts in it, not that you can see it from this angle, but it is hard to take a picture of your own foot!)...one sock done, a second to go...



I've been doing the Socktoberfest Mystery Sock pattern (if you are too but don't want to see up to Clue 3, don't look at the picture below! Scroll past quickly!) Clue 4 came out last Wed., but I haven't gotten to it yet at all. This is the first three clues...I strategically make the heel flaps fall on the sides of the socks with my most obvious cabling errors...ahem...



And lastly, a Basic Black cardigan in a not-so-basic-black yarn...making this from the black/multi colorway of Hacho...I love the yarn, and I thought it would make a fun, versatile cardigan to wear with just about anything, but now I'm wondering if it doesn't look a little too 80's retro? Or am I just imagining it? What I am not imagining is that I should have been working from two balls at the same time because I can see where one leaves off and another takes over...one had more yellow and one had more turquoise...ah, well...it's such a busy sweater, if I don't slow down too long, people won't notice, right? LOL



And, um...that's it! Well, no...there is still another scarf and a Noro sock and some other random WIPs, but you've seen them all before...they haven't made any progress. :}

Before, After

Otherwise known as attempting to subdue the stash.

Hold on to your hats, folks...this post actually has pictures!

As I may have alluded to, whined about or otherwise discussed in recent months, my office/craft room/studio/whateveryouwanttocallit has been in dire need of some organization and out-right rearranging. But it was one of those jobs that was just SO big that it seemed TOO big to even know where to begin. Finally, though, begin I did, and over a few weeks, I managed to regain control of (most of) my creative space.

First, the pictures of "Before"...

Exhibit A in the case for Lisa being a yarn ho:



Count 'em...1, 2, 3, 4, 5...11 (!!!) 50 - 65 quart Sterlite/Rubbermaid containers FULL of yarn, plus 10 smaller containers, also full of yarn. (What you cannot see is a bookcase to the left of that shelving unit, two shelves of which are also packed full of yarn.) Part of this was what I already had before the shop I worked at held its going-out-of-business sale. Then I started buying ridiculously discounted yarn and -- correspondingly -- more containers to house it in. Soon, however, the yarn got ahead of me and I realized the room has only so much square footage, and I already could not get into the closet unless I moved those towers of containers, so, soon I was left with this...

Exhibit B of Lisa being an unrepentant yarn ho:



Most of this also came from the shop because, even after it closed, there was remaining inventory to clear out, and an even more insane employee discount and, well, little to no will power on my part. However, as if rescuing lingering yarn wasn't bad enough, I continued to indulge in my sock yarn fetish (which I must point out is in NO WAY related to a foot fetish...just sayin'...)

Exhibit C illustrating Lisa's sock yarn fetish:



Aw, now look at all that pretty-pretty sock yarn! How could anyone possibly fault me for buying the pretty-pretty-pretttttty sock yarn??? (Um, ignore the fact that one of those big plastic containers was already filled with sock yarn...you can never have too many socks!) Especially those three skeins of Wollmeise there on the left??? I mean, come ON people!

OK...so now you know my dirty little secret...my dirty little fiber hoarding, yarn obsessing secret. I have no excuse to offer you except that the yarn? It makes me very, very happy. I will knit my happy, happy yarn for the rest of my life and probably have some left to will to my children and their children, but hey...everyone has a weakness. It could be worse, right? (Rationalizations R Us.)

But I digress. Getting back to the topic...we've seen the "Before," now let's look at the "After"!

Look! I can get back into the closet now! And while I did not take a picture of the inside of the closet, I will tell you it now houses all of my cotton, bamboo, hemp, etc. yarns as well as my small stash of baby yarns. Seemed to make sense to put them in there because these are the ones I knit with least often.



And here you can see the book case I spoke of earlier...



And that table that was previously filled with yarn can now be used for scrapbooking again! Yeay! (And I can even stash some of the boxes of yarn under there...I just noticed, though, what is printed on the side of the one cardboard box! LOL "In-Process Waste"!? I hardly think so! That's some nice yarn in there! ;))



And just so you know (because I know there are people out there snarky enough to comment about it)...yes, I realize this could be construed as gluttony. Maybe it is, but I don't think it is. It is my hobby and I choose to invest in it. I don't golf. I don't ski. I don't take exotic vacations. I'm not into elective plastic surgery. I don't get my nails done. My family is fed. My bills are paid. So, don't judge me, 'k? Each to her own, love. Each to her own. ;)

Bugs...

It is bug season, it seems. With the cooler weather, we have our annual visitation of tiny, annoying gnats in the kitchen, seemingly attracted to the last of the tomatoes sitting on the window sill, as well of the bag of apples languishing in the corner (I really need to cook those soon). 

The cold weather also invites in spiders...the crunchy-looking kind. Blech. While I know spiders are not technically insects, they still "bug" me...or, more accurately, they creep me out (which, I realize, is oddly fitting for late October, eh?). Nothing is creepier than sitting here in my chair, minding my own business knitting, when, out of the corner of my eye I spy something small and black skittering across the cream-colored carpet. Ack. (Ok, there are creepier things than that, like watching a DVRed episode of Fringe late at night, alone, and seeing some guy's arm being mangled and people plummeting to their deaths in an elevator and things like that...but the spider is pretty creepy too. I haven't watched last night's episode yet, but from the commercials, it appeared to feature blood oozing from people's facial orifices...yeay...creepy. LOL) 

I used to have no mercy on these eight-legged invaders, wasting no time in getting out the vacuum and sucking them up. I've become more humane in my old(er) age. Now, I usually either try to capture them between a container of some sort and a piece of paper and release them back into the wild, or if they appear to be no real threat to me, I simply remind them of our deal -- you go under the couch and don't bother me, and I'll let you live. All bets are off, however, if they happen to be creeping anywhere on the ceiling or the wall above the head of my bed. :::shudder::: The mere thought of a spider falling on me in my sleep...well...ACK!!!

This time of year also seems to encourage bugs of the germ-y type. So far (knock on wood!), no one here has come down with the first cold of the season, but I know it is just a matter of time. My daughter did get a flu shot at her annual check up this year. My son did not, and now I'm thinking maybe I should sign him up for one, as his asthma has been flaring up occasionally lately. My husband and I have never gotten flu shots, but as the pediatrician told me, they are really being recommended more for everyone. I don't know. Still pondering it.

My most recent bug encounter, however, has been with the travel bug. Having traveled more in the past two years than ever before, I thought I might finally be immune from it, at least until next spring when I was planning a trip with the kids to see my mom in Florida. I was wrong. I woke up two days ago with the sudden realization that I needed to make that trip now. While I visited them for a long weekend in May, my kids haven't seen their grandparents since our oldest son's Marine graduation back in February, and unlike the past two years, my mom and step-dad will not be coming up here for either Thanksgiving or Christmas this year. My mom just had one eye surgery (cataract) a couple weeks ago, and she is due to have the second early next week. And I just want to be there.

So! A traveling we will go! I'm good at last-minute travel plans. Actually, spur-of-the-moment trips are my favorite kind. (After all, I planned an entire trip to Ireland in about three weeks, including getting passports!) After a few phone calls to rearrange some appointments, we are scheduled to head south a week from today. Other than that? It's pretty up in the air. We'll get there on Thursday (as I cannot make that drive in one day by myself), probably stay about a week and then visit the oldest son a day or two on our way back north. 

And hey, isn't it great that I just put all of our summer clothes away? Yeay! I get to pull them out again. LOL But at least there will be beach time (it's still in the 70s down there!), and there will be knitting time (what would a vacation be without it?) and for the kids, there will be school time (one of the beauties of homeschooling...portability!). And unlike previous September and October trips to Florida, where part of me has felt like it was missing out on the beauty of the western PA autumn, foliage season is definitely on the decline now, so I've already gotten to enjoy it!

Now I just need to make my lists and execute them -- to do before I go, to pack so we can go (which is so much easier when we drive since the only baggage limit I must observe is that dictated by the size of my trunk), knitting projects to take for while I'm away, etc. 

Let's here it for spontaneous travel! :)