Here's what's on my mind today...

Wow, I mailed my HSS Pal’s box on Monday and she got it yesterday and has already posted to her blog about it! The USPS outdid itself. I’ve been happily working away on mushroom cap #2 and it should be finished before knit night tonight. The Surf socks are still moving slowly, but I think I can still finish them in time to count as my October SAM4 socks. I’ll probably just be one of the late posters this month is all.

Right now, I’m looking at a ridiculously blue sky with pretty (if a little measly) puffy white clouds out my window. Why is this relevant? Well, last night on the news, the lead story was the weather forecaster who was all gloom and doom talking of large Hail and possible Tornado’s… okay those clouds just don’t look like they could produce hail, tornado’s or even actual rain for that matter. Maybe there’s something coming in from somewhere else, but really, weather people – did we need all the drama?? Couldn’t you have just let the anchor guy spend another 5 minutes talking about taxation of the unfortunates in Cook County? I went out earlier today and the most vicious aspect of any weather between here and Racine was the wind – typical for this time of year I might add.

Dang; just checked in with Vicki Howell and Knitty Gritty is yet another repeat I’ve seen several times… hurry up with that new season woman!

On a completely different topic, if you remember my rant from September about DFAS and their barely sufficient customer service, I just wanted to note that I finally got the rest of my pay today. Can you believe that? 46 days to resolve a pay issue! I suppose I should be grateful that it only took 46 days, count my blessings that it could have been worse, so on and so forth, so forgive me but, I’m still feeling slightly miffed and outraged at the thought that this agency thinks this is an acceptable level of customer service!!!

Okay enough yakking…. Here’s a pretty fall-like fruit arrangement for your viewing and my dining pleasure.

Monday Miscellany

Lots of things going on since my last post, so this might ramble a bit. On Thursday we drove to MI for my Step-Daughter's wedding which was on Friday. The town she lives in is sort of small and there's not much to do. They were already having dinner when we got there, so we settled into the hotel then headed out to find a place to eat; before dinner my Husband did let me visit the LYS which is actually a really nice shop. He even encouraged me to buy some yarn (woo hoo!) I got some alpaca at 50% off and some gorgeous hand dyed merino that is very silky and soft. Plus a random amount of linen yarn for $2.00 from the clearance bin. The linen is actually enough to use for the eye-pillow pattern by Cat Bordhi.

I did get my Lotus Blossom Tank finished in time to wear for the wedding.

DH took this picture, I wanted him to zoom in to get a good shot of the tank, but, well you know how husbands like instructions… but as you can see, IT FITS! (Gotta love my picture face)

Here are some of the pictures from the wedding.

It was a very simple affair at the court house attended by the bride and grooms 3 kids, us, and the groom’s dad. The dads signed as witnesses. We went to the historic courthouse downtown to take more pictures then took the new family out for dinner. Since all the kids needed naps by then, we hit the road for home. My DH was so good to me he let me stop at another yarn shop on the way home! This one was about what you would expect in a small town. The funny thing is, the owners have been hitting all the fiber related events promoting a murder mystery centered on the yarn shop-if you know what I’m talking about and have read the book …. Well let’s just say that it is fiction... They are nice people, so I’m trying to be nice here, but the shop didn’t really live up to the hype. I did find some Wildfoote in Ragtime color way though… Other than the traveling, the rest of the weekend was pretty much the usual running here and there and watching too much Baseball/Football on TV. (My poor crippled Cardinals). And yes, for some reason my husband thinks the Cubs might actually have a chance this year….

I only worked on a square for the afghan my Koffee Klutch knitting group is making for one of the member’s son who is in Kuwait right now. We might get it done by the time he gets home. I’m trying to do reversible cables, but I had to frog the whole thing when I got home because somewhere right in the middle I messed up on the cable repeats and it looked goofy. So I had to do math and start over. (I figured out I had 2 stitches too many for the cable design). Now the cables are coming out more smoothly, but I only have about 3 inches done.

Mostly I spent my knitting time compiling a list of patterns that I would like to try and sorting out the growing collection of magazines and books that are threatening to take over my coffee table. Next I need to match the list to my stash (ravelry are you ready for me yet?) (2611 people are ahead of you in line).

Still no money or response from DFAS, so I had to call them again (pout); got an even bigger runaround than last time. Grrr

I did get my Harvest Sock Swap pal assignment, so now I need to start planning some cool socks for her.
Oh and I got a job of sorts. I’m going to be working in the Church office on Friday mornings to help out with phones and stuff. Our secretary left to take a better paying job and since finances were a little tight anyway the church board decided not to hire a new one right away, but instead asked for volunteers to staff the office…. which sounded like something I could do. Kind of a win-win thing, I’ll be serving and I’ll have something interesting to do.

If it's Monday, it’s definitely Murphy!

Or the light at the end of the tunnel is probably a train.

Did you ever have one of THOSE days? Boy, I’m having one. I have been quite happy with progress on the Lotus Blossom Tank and was hoping I could finish later this week. That may or may not be possible. Even with downsizing the pattern and what not, it still looks like I may be short on the yarn needed to finish the project (less stitches should equal more yarn, right?). I still had the contact from the Las Vegas yarn shop where I bought the yarn a year ago and have sent a desperate email to them hoping there’s still a lonely ball or two sitting around the shop. I do have a plan B if I can’t track down more of the same yarn (but don’t want to go there if I don’t have to). So far none of the nearby shops carry that particular yarn. Whine.

Caution: Upcoming rant… This month is the first month that I’m learning to budget on one pay period a month. So naturally, there was a small glitch in my retirement pay (like the check was smaller than it should be). So, I had to call the dreaded Defense Finance and Accounting Service (DFAS) that’s the pay office that handles all military pay for active, reserve and retired members. If you haven’t ever served you might be thinking, so what’s the big deal? Well, I’ll tell you, they do not generally hire customer service folks for their customer service abilities or problem solving skills. So, after waiting on hold for about 9 years of listening to the most annoying voice telling me that my call was very important and it would be taken in the order in which it received and then alternating with possibly the most amazingly horrible muzak ever (my ears might not recover), I finally got a live person to deal with. Now, as DFAS employees go, her skills seemed to be above average…she was able to pleasantly and quickly determine that my problem was due to a simple clerical error. But then I made the mistake of asking how long it would take to fix that error, and then it was like, “can I put you on hold while I talk to my supervisor?” I wanted to know if the deficiency would be made right during the month of September (like it’s all in the computer – do it today); she assured me it would be done as quickly as possible. Which in DFAS speak translates to the earliest I can expect any resolution to my problem will be around the 20th or so of the month, hmmm; so much for fast and efficient. Fast and efficient are words, of course, that are not in DFAS’ dictionary.

Now I don’t want you to be concerned that I’ll have to choose between food or yarn the rest of the month, it’s just that I can’t (will never) understand why the employees that DFAS hires just can’t do their jobs right the first time and save all of us the agony of having to contact them, investigate the problem and then take the time to go back and fix the thing.

On top of that I was also trying to deal with another company about an investment issue that somehow got mucked up and waiting for call backs and confirmations and so forth; which ended up in us taking a moderate loss in the short run, but saving a bundle in the long run. (Actually about the same amount my check was short… double hmmm).

So in a nutshell, I spent most of the day on the phone trying to solve problems that shouldn’t have existed in the first place.

And actually, I was supposed to be making a valance for the kitchen….


Let’s just hope that shop in Vegas has my yarn!