Babysitting Blues

I'm posting this while at work. I probably shouldn't, but the baby is asleep and the girl has a friend over, so I've got a quiet moment to do this. I had to bring my computer along anyway to figure out my courses for next year. The kids are driving me up the wall. I am not going to babbysit next year. Luckily they'll be getting a regular nanny for September, so I don't have to worry about letting them down. I just need a change of pace, I've been looking after kids since I was 15, and it never really changes. Plus the isolation is really annoying. If these were actually my kids, I wouldn't feel bad about going out and doing my own errands, or meeting up with friends, or having people over. But because I'm working, I need to be totally focused on the family I work for's needs. Well that's a little ranty. I just can't belive that I still have three and a half weeks left to go for working. I may explode.
I finished my Waiting for Robin sock on the plane on the way back. I did it toe up, with a 10x2 knit purl rib in Fleece Artist Merino. The colourway is all blue and green, witha a bit of purple. It was my first time doing toe up, short row heels and toes. I think that it was pretty successfull. The only question now is whether or not I want to finish the next one now, or wait until next year when I'll have to wait for Robin again. Hmm decisions. I might just finish them here and then bring them along to show!
Next year I will be taking over the t-shirt organizing. It just got way to crazy for it's own good this year. Mostly because Robin is just far to busy doing everything else to worry about the t-shirts. It almost didn't get finished! Luckily Danny worked his butt off and we got everything that absolutely had to get finished done. But there were some paying jobs that would have been good to finish if we had had the time. It's the sort of job that I can organize from here, and have all ready to start once I get there. Very excellent.
I'm making a scrapbook of my pictures from this year, I'll post some of the interesting pictures/pages once I'm done. I ran out of photo corners last night, and I need some better glue. I wrote in a journal all while I was there, so I'm going to copy that into the book where it fits.

Well the socks I am knitting have gone from Travelling Socks, to the Waiting for Robin Socks. Every time I have nothing to do, which generally has something to do with Robin being on the phone, or being slow, or having dissapeared, I knit on my socks. I just turned the heel this afternoon, and I imagine that I will have a lot to time this evening yet. I may finishe the first one tonight.
I did learn how to clean a screen, which was excellent because it involved the pressure washer. It was even more stinking hot today than yesterday, so it was really the best job ever. Early in the morning I counted and sorted out 300 shirts. And we went swimming today. That was definentaly a highlight. And if Danny is silkscreening tonight, I may actually get to do something... yay!

Cricket and socks

Renee said that I should knit things for myself to represent people. My god, brilliance! I am doing that sort of. The sock yarn I dyed before I got here is my Truck yarn. The website is pink and blue, so the sock will be pink and blue. I was going to start them as soon as I got here, but I think I'm going to see if I can just do them in the weekend. I'm only going to be able to do little footie things I think, because I only dyed one skein of yarn.
Not much is going on here right now. Joe and Chris are playing cricket. I watched for a bit, but it's really hot and extremely dull, so I left halfway through. They won't be done for a few hours yet. Edmund and Deborah (the parents) have left to go for tea at a friend's house, and Robin is at a wedding. I might go back to the cricket match later, when it cools down and knit a bit. Only Joe is playing, so I can bug Chris to explain what's going on. One of the annoying things about being in England is that everyone assumes that I'm American, even though I'm not. But they assume because I sound like I'm American. Then when they find out that I'm Canadian, they inevitably ask if I say aboot. I don't know that I've actually ever met anyone that says aboot. It's a completely unfounded steriotype. Bloody Hell. Anyway, that's the end of my rant. I'm going to start my Fleece Artist socks. I might have to surf around to find a pattern to do them in. I don't know if I want to do the standard one that's printed on the back.

I'm in England!

Well I've been here since Wednesday, I wish I lived here. Everything is so old and saturated in history. I stayed in a hostel for two nights, and met some really cool people. Two girls, one from Australia, the other from NewZeland, and a guy from Malaysia. The girls are going to be travelling for about two years by the sound of it. They have working visas for England, so they'll work, then travel around for a few months, the work again. One of the girls might come to Toronto, which is super cool. Today I went to Picadilly Circus, Oxford Circus, and Covenant Gardens. All of which were cool. Oh, but holy crap were there a lot of people. I mean I thought that Toronto could get busy, but not half as busy as London. There were just thousands of people walking and talking and jaywalking and shopping. It was just endless. The people were everywhere.

In knitting news.... I started an i-pod case for myself, but it's too big, so I'll just have to felt it a bit. And I knit a headband for Katy, one of the people I'm staying with. I just have 12 inches of i-cord to go, but she doesnt' arrive for a few days, so I'm alright. I love the pattern though. I might make myself one at some point. I also bought some Fleece Artist sock yarn to work on, and I have my hand dyed stuff too. It should all keep me knitting for a while.

Earl Rowe Camping

I went camping this weekend with the family. We did absolutely nothing at all. It's the first time in a while that my mom has come with us, normally she passes. It's not to say that she hasn't camped, because she has and under the worst conditions at that. She just likes being able to shower, and not have to sleep on the ground. We went to Earl Rowe, which is about an hour away, it was very nice. Small, but with decent enough tree coverage in most of it. My mom read a book, my brother read about two Harry Potters, I knit 1.5 repeats of my Pomotamus scarf, and read half of Love Detectives The Complete Quin and Satterthwaite, by Agatha Cristie.

It took awhile to figure out just how exactly to change the pattern so that it goes back and forth instead of around and around, but I finally got it. And I think that it looks pretty good.

On Thursday I took my first hand at dying yarn. I used a blue and a pink Kool-Aid and made it all stripey. In the end I only had enough for one skein. Maybe I'll get another two packs and dye it in England. I won't have time for it to dry and all while I'm here. I'm very excited about going! I picked pink and blue because those are the main colours of the website for the festival that I'll be going to and helping out with. truck festival.

And today will tell the out come for the world cup. Personally I'm rooting for France.

Well those photo's never happened. However, most of the fabrics are little prints in blues. Very cute. I really should make something out of those. I think I want to make a bag for when I got to England in a week and a bit. I'm so very very excited. In the words of Renee, Whoop-di-whoop!

So I turned 19 a few weeks ago, and so I finally had a party last night. I haven't had a party in a few years becuase my birthday is exactly during the exam period in high-school, however now everyone is solidly out of school. Not everyone could come, like Miranda, Andrea and Renee, who live in Kingston, Bowmanville and Welland respectively. Their prexence was sorely missed.

Some Uni people did come though, Peter, Sam, Felix and Kim. Claire couldn't come either since she was working. Which was annoying since she and Kim are almost exactly the same intrests wise, but they have yet to actually meet eachother. When they came to visit up at York, Kim was at Sheridan all day. It's actually very annoying.

The party was a complete sucess and was very much fun, just a bunch of us hanging out in my backyard for about 8 hours. We went to the park a few times, and became the teenagers my parents used to warn me about. Which makes me laugh, because I'm certain that those teenagers weren't the sketchy kids my mom always made them out to be, doing drugs and the like. Well some of them might have been, but not all of them.

I didn't get any fibery presents, but I got something just as good. Peter wrote me a song called My Best Friend's Girlfriend, all about what I would be like as a robot. It is halarious and brilliant. Definentally the best gift of the evening. I've already listened to it about 5 times. I must find a way to send it to Trevor, who has left for the whole summer. Man am I going to miss him. *le sigh* Oh well, fiber is my friend, I'll just knit the whole summer.

I started the Pomotomus sock, however I started it on 2.5mm's instead of 2.75mm's becuase I don't have any 2.75mm's. I didn't swatch either, I just went for it. It's to small of course. However my mom had a fantastic idea to turn them into really dainty gauntlets. It's been a bit complicated figuring out the math, but I'm getting there. I'm already at the gusset for the thumb, and it's only been about three days.

I ran out of white yarn for my Punk-Ass Skullie sweater, so that's at a dilema. I'm almost done the image now. I'm about 5 inches down from the armpit. I don't think I'll get it finished by the time I go to England though since I leave in about 10 days. No point in creating undue stress, There's no way I'm going to get it finished. so no point in trying.

Well my cousin is visiting from the States for the weekend. Or maybe for the week, I don't actually know. I just asked, he's leaving on Tuesday. Cool.

HAPPY CANADA DAY!!!!!! Now go out to your backyard, crack open a beer, and celebrate this wonderful country. Have a fantastic long weekend.