Socks socks socks!

I finally finished these socks
I had named these "Spring Time in Missouri". Kari told me that she would have named them the NFC North socks. So needless to say I have been refering to them as the NFC North socks. I needed to finish these before Sunday becauce it would be wrong to work on NFC North socks when you want the Colts to whip the Bears.

I did not try in the least to make these socks match up and I succeded. They are about the most mismatched socks that I have ever made. I love them and am wearing them right now.

I am also well on my way with my next pair of socks.

These are the baby cable rib from Sensational Knitted Socks. The yarn is Brown Sheep Wildfoot. I also added a picot edge to these. The picture doesn't really show it but it's there.

Hey check this out!!!! I asked Wendy a question and she answered me and there is even the hyperlink to my blog. I feel cool. I am suck a dork!!!!!!!

I am a naughty knitter...

I am in a surprisingly good mood today. I woke up bright and shiny early this morning with relative ease, today is meeting day, my new shoes are finally fitting well on my feet, Chris is on his way home and I am just in a good mood in general. So at lunch today I decided that I would skip the walk down to the coffee shop to knit and I would just sit in the lunchroom here at work and knit and listen to my book. I thought I would save myself two bucks and have a few extra minutes to knit instead of walking down there and back. Well I was listening to my Ipod and knitting away when I realized that there was no point in trying to listen to my book because everyone wanted to talk to me. So I gave that up. Well pretty soon one of my coworkers came in the lunch room and was very interested in my knitting. Well she wants me to teach her how to knit.
I don't want to teach her...
I am selfish, I enjoy my knitting time at work as just some time to knit with out dogs and other household distractions. Also this particular coworker drives me nuts. I can't see myself sitting in the lunchroom with her on my precious hour away from hell (that would be my desk) to instruct a girl who I don't really like and barely speaks English on how to knit. Like I said, I am a naughty knitter. I read books and blogs and everyone is always anxious to teach to anyone who is interested how to knit. Not me. Don't get me wrong, I will teach YOU how to knit if you ask nicely, but not at work.

Hello Again

I know I have been absent from the blogging world for awhile. I am going to work on getting back on the blogging bandwagon. As you may know I have gone back to work and am no longer traveling around the country. Be warned that I am going to use this blog mostly to ramble on about my knitting and whatever random thing goes through my head.

Socks you have not seen

Well I was counting up the number of socks that I have knit since last April (18 pairs! 9 for me, 3 for Kari, 3 for Chris, 2 for my Mom and 1 for Disa) and realized that there are 3 pairs that are not on the blog! So here they are in all there glory!


These are what I am calling my fire socks. They are knit in Cherry Tree Hill Supersock. This yarn is super stretchy. I also made the spring socks from this yarn. Well anywho, I ended up making these a whole size smaller than I was really getting gauge for because they really stretch once you've had them on your feet for a couple of hours. These fit great so I am pleased that I made a mental note and re sized the.

These are my bells and whistles socks. I knit these with Schaffer Yarns, Anne. The pattern is from the interweave knits Holiday issue. I love these socks but the pattern did have all the bells and whistles! There are even little cable crosses every couple of rows. You can barely see them but I was plenty aware of them when I had to grab the cable needle every couple of rows!

These are Kari's blue socks. She received one and one half finished sock for Christmas. I had to promptly take them back after she looked at them so I could finish them. I got this yarn at the 3 Kitten yarn sale when they were changing ownership. It is Happy Trails sock yarn. These socks are thick, I would consider them more of slipper socks than everyday socks.

These are some cute little booties that I knit up with some Angora. The pattern is from Last Minute Knitted Gifts. These were interesting to make since you knit them in one piece starting with some double knitting. A special little baby will be wearing these soon ;)

Other Things

I have also been working away on finishing things up that I have already started. I am working on getting my UFO's under control. I finished this bag...

I started this bag in 2003. I knew I was almost done with it and had gathered all the previously knitted pieces and the pattern together and had planned to finish it this summer while I was in truck. Well it never made it in the truck so I finished it the other weekend. It was kind of like getting a free bonus bag. I had about 1 hour of knitting left on it when I picked it back up. I popped it into the washing machine to felt it and then had a zillion hours of finishing on it. Well now it has turned into my work bag.

I also finished this butterfly shawl.

It is the same pattern as this one. I got this yarn at the 3 kitten sale also. That may be why I chose this funky colors (lack of choice). Well I ran out of some of that fuzzy yarn that trims that shawl and had to go buy more which is why this project was put on hold. Once I finished the shawl I tried in on and came to the realization that I would never really wear this. It is just a little too loud for my tastes. Oh well it is wonderful for sitting on couch when I need something to wrap around my shoulders.

Well that's all for now. I have 2 more pairs of socks on the needles and some other things in the works but I will save those for next time. Working has drastically cut into my knitting time so I can not crank things out as quick as I did this summer!

On the road again

In case you didn't know I am on the road again. We are currently in Mebane, NC.

The weather is nice here. Thank god. I am hoping to stay out of the nasty weather the whole time I am in the truck.

Earlier this week poor little Nannies was not feeling so well. I am happy to report that he is feeling like his normal little self again. Let me tell you that a sick dog in the truck is NOT a fun thing. Yesterday we spent a good deal of the day washing ALL of the bedding in the truck. I will spare you the details.

Oscar is doing well. He has taken life in the truck back to his normal self. He has been snoozing all day long and chowing on his food and making a mess with the kibble right before bed. It's like nothing has changed.

HEY! I wrote a song this morning. We have heard tons and tons of Christmas music and it get stuck in your head and I have to change the words to suit me better. Ok here gos...

(in the tune of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer)

You know Oscar
And Nannies
And Marlie
And Mugsy
But do you recall the most famous doggie of all?
Lassie the Border Collie...

That's all I've got for that one. I also wrote one for all you cat lovers too.


You know Vickie
And Princie
And Sebastian
And Spooky
But do you recall the most loving Kitty of all?
Willie the black nosed kitty...

Ya like?

In the good news category, Chris found my Garmin Forerunner under the mattress in the truck. I was thrilled. I have looked all over for it and was really mad at myself that I could not find it. I kept hoping it would turn up and it finally did.

Well not much else new with us.

SMILE!!!

Ketchup Blog

This is the Ketchup Blog. I hope you like pictures because that is what this will mostly be.

Tom Kat's Halloween Party

Our Lovely Hosts Tom and Kat aka Kari and Brad

Kari "Katie I mean Kate Holmes" And Laura the Flapper

Steve The Hawian Dude and Betsy ready for the Slumber Party

Laura The Flapper with Little Sister Disa the Sex Kitten!!!

Everybodys fav celebrity couple! Starring Tara as Brittney Spears and Josh as K Fed.

Laura Again with Drew as Captain Spaulding. Scary!

That concludes our people section of this blog entry. Now we will move onto the knitting section.

Purplie Wurplie Sock (Yup I finnally finished these. It's been months in the process!)

The Autum Socks (they are the tallest socks I have ever knit)

Dishclothes galore and more in the works.

Scarf. I don't really have a name for this. I love it though and have another one on the needles!

Close up of the almighty scarf

My latest pair of sock. Thanks for the pattern Betsy. I am using the Sundra pattern you gave me!

That concludes the knitting section of this blog entry. Now we will move onto my random thoughts...

• I wish Chris was home. He's been gone a month and still has not seen the house.
• I miss my big brown dog.
• I wish I could cook all the stuff on the food network and eat it and not gain an ounce.
• I wish I could knit in my sleep.
• I'm glad my cold is going away.
• Why is Nannies such a little pig?

Greetings from Woodbury

Well here I am. Sitting in the livingroon of our new home, blogging. Here it is...

You may be surprised to see that our house number is 2208. Well let me tell you I was pretty surprised myself when I came to walk through the house at 2375 and discovered that it had no breakfast nook.

The plan was to put the office in the breakfast nook. When I walked into the new house and there was no nook it through the plans big time. Well I went to the rental office and told them what was going on. I came back Saturday and talked to Dana (who we rented the TH from originally) and started looking at some of the other units. We ended up with this one. I am thrilled thrilled thrilled with this house. We did sacrifice our fireplace to get into this house but I think it is 100% worth it. We have a wonderful view of the woods directly behind our house. Here is a pic of the living room. Can you see the awesome woods right out the giant sliding glass door?

I would much rather have this beautiful view than the fireplace. Our rent will also be $20 less a month without the fireplace. Here is the kitchen...

We don't have a trashcan yet. Hence the wonderful trashbag by the dishwasher!

I got the keys to the house Saturday afternoon and moved the stuff that has been living in my car into the house then. Sunday my Mom and I moved 4 car loads of stuff in and gave the kitchen and bathrooms a little spruce. Yesterday, Kari came over to be there with me when the movers were moving the stuff in. Thank god for movers. It was worth every penny to have all of the stuff brought in the house. I don't think I would have survived yesterday without Kari though. Today I have continued to unpack. I have the down stairs in pretty good shape. I am ignoring upstairs so far. I will start working on that later this week. Here is another pic of the living room. This is taken from the kitchen into the living room.

Well that's all for now. I think it's time to veg in front of the TV for awhile.

Nannie Lion

Disas Paper Bag Collection

Apparently she has even more in the basement

Our Next Load!

This is our next load. It is another lorax machine. It is a john deer clearing machine. We are bringing it to ashland WI. I am blogging this from my phone! How freaking cool is that?

Another Test

Nannies

You have new Picture Mail!

Another test of my mobile blogging

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! PICTURES !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Pictures, pictures lots and lots of pictures! Lots of patients brings you lots of pictures. Lets start where I left off being pictureless. This is the Grove Crane that we brought from Shady Grove, PA to Baton Rouge, LA. It is 62,000 pounds and besides the wait for it it was a pretty painless load.
This is the scraper that we brought from Tulsa to Redding, CA. This beast almost killed us. It was 107 outside when we loaded it and it had no brakes. It weighed in at 67,000 pounds was 41' long, and was 11'6" wide. This is my wine tank. It was full of delish wine when we picked it up and I drank it all. Well I shared a little bit with Nannies ;) This load was pretty cool actually. This tank was 13'6" wide and 13' tall. We had to have escorts for part of the trip.Arrr arr arr. Nannies is singing to you. Arr arr arr. Good morning to you! Good morning to you! You look like a monkey and you smell like one too! Arohhhhhhh!!!!After the tank we hauled a Oshkosh truck back up to Oshkosh WI. I think I was so happy to be going home that I forgot to take a picture of that load. Opps.

This is the "lorax" machine that we hauled out of WI to CA. That attachment at the end grabs the tree and cuts it down. That's why I call it the Lorax machine. This thing was 69,000 pounds.Here's Chris yapping on the phone in Reno. I'm sure he's talking to Skip. Hi Skip! It was cold up in NV. Hence the long sleeved shirt. We even had to wear jackets.And that brings us to now. We picked up this Komatsu PC300 in Chino, CA and we are going to be dumping it in Grand Prairie, TX in the morning. This biggie was supposed to weigh 70,000 pounds but with that big ole' bucket on it it weighed in closer to 74,000 pounds. This is the heaviest thing we have hauled so far and we are probably pushing our luck.

We are in Weatherford, TX right now. We pulled in yesterday and selected a premo parking spot with Idle Aire. Yesterday we watched the Busch race then the truck race and today we are watching the Cup race, yipee, and tonight we will take off to camp out at the consignees doorstep so we can start the hunt for another load.I also have some knitting pictures. YEAH!!!!!! It feels like forever since I posted knitting pictures but I feel like I should have a lot more to show you. Oh well this is what I've got.

This is Chriss red white and blue socks. The yarn is self patterning so I just knit these around and around to showcase just the fun yarn. I'm sure the only time you will ever see these crazy socks on Chriss feet is if you are over at the house.
These are my autumn socks. I bought this yarn at depth of field in Minneapolis when I was still working at Admiral. I was with Betsy when I bought it. Remember Betsy???? I just didn't feel like knitting it this summer. Once we got up to Reno and it was cool and fall like I knew it was time to start these socks! I am working them from the toe up with Brown Sheep Wildfoote. I have two skeins of this yarn so I am going to just keep knitting until I run out of yarn.

Here is another pair I have been working on. I don't really have a name for these. I just call them my purple socks. I am working these from the toe up also. I feel like I have been working on them forever. They just aren't holding my attention. I wonder why some projects are like that? I have one done and slowly but surely I will get the other one done.

This is another pair of yummy mittens. They are going to be nice. The blue is the inner mitten and is baby alpaca and is super soft. The green is the outer mitten and is cascade quatro Peruvian wool. I like these because the inside will be super soft and the outside will be warm and durable.

Well that's all folks. I hope you enjoyed all the pictures. Sharing them with you ate up hours of my life. hehe.

PS. I think I'm going to look into this mobile blogging thing that blogger offers. I can take pictures with my phone and then send them right to the blog. So check back and don't be surprised if there are some blog entries that are just pictures with out any comments.

Another pictureless blog???

Ok I will try to get some pictures to take in this blog. Let's close our eyes and pray to the blogging picture god. ******************* Did it work????

So we are in Sunny Southern CA. We loaded a big Komatsu excavator yesterday and Chris is currently trying to get the weights right on the trailer so that we don't need to sneak it through AZ. Fun times.

I have two small dogs on my lap right now that are both shivering like mad. We have the Idle Aire going and it is a brisk 65 in the truck. It feels good to me. Last week we were up in NV and it was COLD. It was in the 40's and perfect sleeping weather. We even had to take out the extra comforter.

I thought we were praying to the blogging picture gods people?????? It's not working!!! LEt's try again shall we? *********************************

Well in case you are out of the loop, Chris and I rented a town house in Woodbury! I am super excited!!! We will move in October 15th. So that means that we will be home around then for sure! It is really nice and I can't wait to cook in my own kitchen again.

I have been knitting away. I finished another pair of socks for Chris. The red, white and blue ones. I a currently working on two pairs of socks and various mittens. I have also been reading alot since we left the house. I actually finished Cold Mountain in about a week. I am sad that I don't have another book to read right now. I will be looking through the craptaculor selection at the truck stops until I find something. I really enjoyed Cold Mountain. It was very descriptive and there were a few things different for the movie. I guess that is a good thing when the book and movie are a little different that way it keeps you guessing.

Ok I guess our praying to the blog gods did not work.

Playing Catch up!

Ok ok I know I have been a very naughty girl on the blogging scene. It has been weeks. I'm here now though. Since I blogged last we have done loads. This is the crane that we waited for out of Greencastle that went to Baton Rouge, LA.

After we left Baton Rouge we bounced up to Tulsa OK to pick up this beast.

This is a road scraper and it was a PIA. When we loaded in Tulsa it was 107 outside and absolutely horrible. This thing also had no brakes which made it that much more of a pleasure to load. After we finally had the beast on we took off for Redding, CA. Once it was on the truck it wasn't too bad and the trip was pretty. One night we spent the night in a National Forest in Northern California. It was quiet and there were about a million stars in the sky.

After ditching that load we headed down to Southern CA and loaded this.

This is an empty wine storage tank. It was the biggest load we've hauled since I have been on the truck. It was 13'6"wide and 15' tall. It's saving grace was that it was nice and light. This load was an adventure also. Right after we loaded we picked up a pilot car to take us to the AZ line. Then in AZ we were on our own. It turned out that AZ wanted us to have a pilot car for about 20 miles of the trip in the middle of nowhere. Well we made the executive decision to not get the pilot car. We were happily rolling down the road, hadn't seen an AZ cop all day when we come up on a convoy of AZ police escorting a super load down the road. One of the cops rolled down his window and wanted to know where our pilot car was. OOOOOOOppppppps!!!! He sent another cop after us to give us a ticket. We were expecting the worse. It ended up not being a bad deal though. The ticket was $95 and the pilot car would have cost $200. It probably made us grey though. After that the trip was relativly uneventful. We picked up a new pilot car in LA and had him until GA. He was a real piece of work. Then we picked up a another pilot in AL. Having a pilot car was interesting. We hit a nasty nasty thunderstorm in Birmingham and I was glad to have the pilot cars.

Well now we kicked that off and have set up camp at John and Kathis' here in Lithia Springs. We are on the hunt for load going to or thru the house. I promise we are trying to make it home again.

I must mention that I have seen many animal in peoples trucks, Cats, dogs, ferrets. Well we stopped one night and parked next to guy with a MONKEY in his truck with him. A monkey!!!!!!!!!!!! Could you imagine????

Yesterday Kathi and I went and got our toes painted then headed over to the mall for some light shopping.

I could update you on the knitting front but I'm not going to bother since apparently I can not upload any pictures right now. Sorry. This seems to be my new problem.

JACKPOT!!!

Well we are still in Greencastle, believe it or not. We finally loaded our crane yesterday. This morning we ordered our permits and knew that we had the day to kill once again. Hopefully we will get out WV permit and get the heck out of here tomorrow.

Today I hit the jackpot. Chris took me down into MD to do a little shopping. First we went to Y2Knit in Funkstown, MD. Y2Knit was a nice little shop in a cute littlepart of Historic Funkstown. I picked up a couple of magazines and some sock yarn and went along my merry way. I really wanted some 40" addi turbos to knit socks in with the magic loop method so I was hoping that we could stop at another yarn store up in Hagerstown, The Knitting Cottage(sadly they are without a website). Well this was the jackpot. It was owned and run by a nice Mennonite woman. They have a large selection of yarn, tons of addi turbos and the prices were AWESOME. I got 3 skeins of Lambs Pride Bulky for 3.75 a skien. What a deal!!! The addi turbos were only 11.50 and 12.55 each. I also picked up a few more skeins of sock yarn and some books.

( I also had a pic of the rest of my stash but the computer will not upload it. GRRRRRRRRRRR)

So when the day was done I walked home with
Knitters', Crocheters', Weavers', and Spinners' Travel Guide
This book is a guide to shops all around the country. Chris wanted me to have this book which I find funny since I will now be able to look up yarn stores wherever we are without having to turn on the computer.
220- 220 projects for Cascade 220
I have looked at this book for months and months when ever I go into a yarn store. I really like 220 and I figured I could study this book a long time.
Knitscene fall 2006 magazine
knit simple fall 2006 magazine
Interweave Knits fall 2006 magazine
#1 40" Addi Turbo
#2 40" Addi Turbo
3 Skiens of Pink Lambs Pride Bulky
I plan on making a cabled felted bag with this
1 Skien of Fortisima Colori Socka Color
I am going to make my honey yet one more pair of socks with this. It is really cool red, white and blue self striping yarn. It knits up red and white striped alternated with blue and white flecks. It is really really cool!
and
2 Skeins of trekking XXL sock yarn
one in stripy (that's a Laura word!) black, pink, green and white and one is shades of purple. I love this yarn, I made Chris peacock socks with it also.

I am so all set for awhile. Ahh, happy knitting dreams for me now.

You'll find us in Greencastle PA

We have been here too long... The people who work at the little booth in the truckstop who sell phones recognize me and chitty chat with me now. One guy says to me this morning "You guys are still here?"

We have resorted to doing things like this to entertain ourselves...

That was one of Skips contraptions. If you can't tell it's two forks balanced on two toothpicks on top of a salt shaker. The waitress was impressed, she said it was art even!

Since I blogged last we've sat around a whole bunch. Over the weekend we loaded a crane and brought it up to the Philly area. That was a really nice drive up and back. We went right through Lancaster county and I seen more Amish people than I have ever seen in a day.

Sunday morning was exciting. We were eating breakfast in the restaurant when we head some lady yelling at someone in the store. We turned around to see what was going on and a lady ran through the truckstop in just her underwear. Yup, just her panties. You never know what's going to happen next. After streaking through the store she broke a glass case before being hauled off by the cops.

Chris polished the truck one day. I've been knitting and knitting and knitting. I started another of these cabled bags. Here's a pic of it mid-way through. I am working on the lining now and then I just have the finishing and the strap.

I am almost done with one cabled sock for Chris. I think I am at the toe decreases but I really want Chris to try them on before I start the toe decreases. For someone who wants me to knit them socks getting him to try them on is like pulling teeth. Here it is so far. These really are some very nice socks.

Well I think we're going to head over to Grove and see if our crane is ready yet. Wish us luck. Maybe some day we will leave PA.