Thank heaven for little dogs...or not.

I know, two posts in as many days. Don't get excited, I promise I won't make a habit of it.

And in case any of you were waiting breathlessly about the yard fungus, well, let's just say that wild mushrooms don't freeze well. Alien invasion averted by a characteristic January cold snap. For now.

Most of you know my little dog Flip. He's so old he creaks when he walks. He has 4 teeth left in his head which causes his tongue to dangle out one side of his mouth. He has cataracts in both eyes. He is going deaf. He sleeps all the time, especially when I'm not around. When I'm around, he licks the couch or wanders around asking when the next ship to Tokyo leaves. He's never even been there.

That being said, feeding time is a literal mess. It looks something like this:
Flip eats so slowly that there's time to drive downtown, get a high colonic, and drive back all light and airy while he finishes. While he's smearing food all over the floor and getting at least some of it in his mouth, Zoe is rigid with excitement waiting for him to finish. In about 30 seconds flat, she swoops in
and cleans the entire floor. She's better than a Scooba.

I've always wanted a real dog. Like a greyhound or mastiff or something. But having spent a little time with 3 very loving dobermans, I've decided it's better to have little dogs. The dobies were sweet and wonderful, but they smoosh you when you try to sit on the couch. Literally.

Consider the way little dogs snuggle with you at night. Zoe is the best little hot water bottle around. Or consider the way she barks her fool head off at any perceived intrusion. Better than a burglar alarm. She also travels well and fits in a medium-sized handbag. And her tiny little poos. You won't get that from a big dog. That's why it's better to have little dogs. So says me.

Bye-bye, baby, baby bye-bye...

I sold my beloved first Miata today. She was so pretty driving off down the street. I hope the lady who has her now will love her as much as I did.

However, I have a new (well, kinda) Miata to make trouble in.
This is a '91 British racing green special edition. It's just out of the shop and is all shiny and pretty. On my next day off, I think I shall wash and wax it just for fun. It has a hard top and I just put in a new stereo and speakers. This should keep me from buying a Mini for a bit, don't you think?

Invasion of the alien life forms

Please do not pass out; I am indeed blogging.

We had rain over the past 2 days. No one knew how to act. People were absolutely giddy about having wet shoes and bad hair. Nobody remembered how to drive and accidents were abundant. People went to the store and bought bread, eggs, and milk. Total chaos.

That's all fine and good, but then the aliens landed in my front yard. In addition to the normal mushrooms that we all know and love:

This thing started growing. I call it the orange octopus.
The picture really doesn't do it justice. It's got this green, slimy goo on the inside and it seems to pulsate and shimmer. I've never seen anything like it. I'm hoping it doesn't come loose and crawl into the house. On the bright side, maybe it will cut loose and eat all the dog poo in the front yard. That would be handy. Scott says that if an eyeball opens up in the middle of this thing he's going to set it on fire. But I think he might just make it angry.

And the orange octopus brought buddies.

I am informed by my friend Katey that this is a tree brain fungus. I think it looks like radioactive mutant marshmallow. It too seems to pulsate and glow, but with an ominous hum. I'm told it changes and grows into crazy shapes. Can you say blog fodder? Stay tuned. If it gets interesting, you'll be the first to know.

There have been other strange happenings of the mammalian/avian kind as well. In the past 2 months and on different occasions, I have opened my front door to find 3 deer, an eight-point buck, and a gaggle of no fewer than 20 turkeys. I forgot those things can fly. They all looked at me, like, WTF? and took off over the fence across the street. And no, I didn't get a picture of the deer and buck. It was dark and those things move much faster than turkeys. And to top it all off, the frog is back on my back porch.

Sign of the coming apocalypse? You be the judge. "And the seventh angel spilled forth his bowl, and lo, it was full of turkeys."

Flying by the seat of my pants.

Whew. This week has flown by. My Dad and uncle went to Scotland for a visit with their oldest brother who lives over there. He said he had a smashing time and is very tired and so has gone home to go to the grocery store and get some sleep. He's been on a plane all day long, as one would expect when flying across the pond, no?

When he went over there, I asked him to please look around and see if he could find a small shawl pin for me. I was expecting something much less fabulous than what I got. I was floored. Can you see why?Holy sweaty Scotsman, batman. The picture isn't so good, but it's a solid silver antique plaid broach with Celtic knots, a dog, and a ship. It's resting on a scarf(for my mom) made of the Russell family plaid. Of course I'll bring it to knit night, did you think you'd have to ask? He also brought some fat pills in the form of Scottish Tablets. Sounds innocent enough, except that they are almost pure sugar with a little butter and evaporated milk mixed in. I'm gonna have to find a recipe 'cause these things are not lasting so long around here.

I've been off all week to take care of mom and my darling little brother came in from Arizona to help out. Here he is displaying his usual sunny disposition:Isn't he cute? He's always waving that finger about. What a little ambassador for the family. He hates having his picture taken, poor dear.

Anyhoo, some projects finished this week. Pictures? My pleasure.

To start, my double treadle kit came for my Ashford Traditional wheel. Ed and I stained it and installed it in no time flat. And there is a trick about taking the wheel off, it's so simple, you won't believe it. All you need is a nail and a hammer and ping, it's off. It's more of a visual aid thing, best shown in person. Will do on request.

Here's my "new" wheel. Ain't she pretty? We chose a cherry stain, and I have to say it's hardly distinguishable from the original finish.
Tah-dah!

In other news, I took a crappy, old cabinet that had been Scott's grandmothers and refurbished it. It was originally red, then painted white. I took the (installed backwards) hinges off and painted the whole thing. It's beautiful now. I am so happy with the way it turned out. Here's the outside:
And I painted the inside something the paint chip said was Japanese Fern. It's really more like screaming parakeet green, don't you think? And yes, it's brighter in person. I love it. Seeing it finished makes me want to hop up and down.
And of course it is being used for what? Say it with me, folks. Yarn/fiber storage. Yeah, baby, life is good. I now have a place to keep my fiber from getting, shall we say, other additives. Namely cat hair. I think I'm going to devise some kind of system on the inside of the door to put my straight and circular needles so I won't constantly have to look in three different places for them. That should save me a lot of hassle. Nothing like getting organized is there?

Speaking of organization, I also went through the clothes and got rid of 7-8 bags of stuff. It's good to get rid of crap once in a while. Who needs stuff that doesn't fit anyway?

Lost in Fiber Space

We went to SAFF this weekend. I'm still having trouble remembering what happened. The yarn fumes overwhelmed the four of us as soon as we walked in the door. The first thing we saw when we walked in Friday morning was this:And this:

That, my friends, is an entire rodeo arena full of fiber-related wonderment. There was all manner of fiber porn everywhere you looked. It became impossible to avert your eyes. The four of us were in shock for the first 4 hours. And to top it all off, there was more outside. Can you believe it? It was like Christmas, but better.

Then we gathered our wits about us and the buying commenced.

Among other things too wonderful to contemplate, Amy and I bought 5 pounds(that's not a typo) of yarn. We plan to dye it and make something magical out of it, but that has yet to be determined. It will need a bit of work though.
I also bought cashmere from Miss Babs, alpaca yarn to make a sweater, fiber to spin and of course, sock yarn. Because there isn't enough in the stash already and what would happen if they just stopped manufacturing the stuff?

We also saw disapproving Llamas
And curious Alpacas:
And we spun , and Bob came to the party!
And we bought
And Katey inspired us all to bigger things by winning first place, second place, and Best in Show for her handspun fiber.In general, a good time and many things were learned by all. The most important thing I learned is not to let a stupid piece of wood get the best of you. And that it's important to have really good friends without which I would laugh a lot less and take myself way too seriously.

Got Fish?

For many years (yes, years, something like maybe 3ish) my fishtank sat neglected. It was the source of much ridicule for me. My poor husband tried when he was home, but finally gave up. And as the years went by, it kinda became something of a science experiment. It didn't stink, it was all natural, and it was obviously low maintenance. What's not to like? See for yourself:
Ok, so it's kindof an eyesore. Well, I finally thought so too. And so came the day that I got a wild hair and decided to clean it up a bit. I took the filter apart (which was surprisingly unclogged), changed the water and scrubbed the sides. Lo! There were 2 fish living. They looked lonely, so I added friends today. See how pretty?

Holy crapmuffins, Batman! If I do say so myself, it looks right pretty. There are now 7 fishies in there, and they seem to be happy and content. We'll see if I can keep this up. But it sure looks better, don't you agree? And I have an angelfish. I love those.

In other news, Zoe wants to say thank you to mommiesfriendamy who made her this sweater. She said to tell mommiesfriendamy that she feels like a pretty, pretty princess and that she likes it especially since it keeps her tummy warm now that it's cold out, yes she does.


'Cause it's important to be warm when you are such a small dog with no hair whatsoever on her tummy. True that.

Today's post: Car Stereo Repair

This morning on the way home, I noticed that my subwoofer in the back of the Exploder was buzzing like someone had stuffed it full of marshmallows or maybe violently ill pixies (I checked. Sadly there were no marshmallows. Or pixies.). The thing sounded terrible. It had to die.

A little online research convinced me that this could cost a little or a lot. So instead of going somewhere and paying out my dupa(Polish for "bottom." Stop looking at me that way) with money I don't have(because SAFF is coming up and there must be money for fiber), I decided that I can work a screwdriver(as well as read a knitting pattern, and make a mean beef stroganoff) and that it would be an adventure to fix it myself.

Off I went to my local stereo store where there were a bunch of tattooed guys discussing speakers and sound quality and whatnot with each other. One of the tattooed guys was very nice and gave me just the right speaker for the car. He very nicely explained that since my old subwoofer had two male (use your imagination) connectors and that the new one has 4 male connectors, I would have to wire it up differently to install it. I needed to go to Radio Shack to get my female (you can do it) connectors. No problem, right?

Well. I walked in and the guy at radio shack took one look at the old and new speakers in my hand and said "No". "No what?" I asked. "We don't do car stereo here" he said. Wow. Like it hadn't occurred to me that Radio Shack WASN'T a car stereo place. How stupid of me. I politely explained that I needed female connectors to connect the wires. He proceeded to tell me that he does a LOT of car stereo and what I wanted to do wasn't possible because he'd never seen a subwoofer with 4 male connectors before. It took a lot of explaining and visual aids before he was on board with the project. I bought a soldering iron instead of female connectors (his one good suggestion) and left. He told me to have fun on my way out. Thanks dude, rock on.

Anyhoo, here's what my old subwoofer looked like once I ripped it's guts out:


And the new subwoofer all soldered up and ready to install:
And the finished product:

Ok, so it's not perfect. In taking out the panel, I broke it a little bit, but hey, it's an 11-year-old car. It has a few dings. Given how most of my cracked-up, post-call plans I usually hatch explode in my face, this one went surprisingly well. And it sounds pretty good too.

I'm gonna go celebrate and eat some marshmallows. And if I find any pixies, I'll let you know.