Stay On Task

Lately I've inherited my Mother's ADD. It's been extremely difficult for me to stay on task. I intend to start or finish projects yet at the end of the day it seems I have accomplished absolutely nothing. This problem extends into house work, school work, shopping tasks, and knitting projects. This Tempting II project is absolutely mindless knitting. The K1,P1 rib is a big black hole that never seems to get anywhere.



Last week I realized I'd really like a shawl. Never mind the other 3 projects I currently have in progress. I'm 3 skeins into the shawl and try to knit on Tempting II at least 15 minutes a day. I have until August 31st to finish it along with all the oter Sexy Knitters. I love knitting socks and am so easily distracted by sock yarns and patterns. Oh if only I had another 12 hours in my day without any distractions. I can just imagine the projects I could whip up. Have a great weekend. I must get back to the task at hand, packing lunches to go enjoy some friendly competition at a local frisbee golf course.

Here comes the bride...

After over a year of planning your perfect wedding CONGRATULATIONS Mrs. Kathy Keyes-Alberts.

Have an AWESOME Honeymoon!!

All I wanted for my birthday...

This year I decided to go with the husband and kids to visit his relatives. The previous two years I stayed behind taking care of the dogs and serving as the airport shuttle. This was fine with me because adding another person to the trip adds about $600(dog care, airport parking, round trip ticket, food, etc). It had been over 5 years since I had seen everyone. I booked our tickets knowing we left on my birthday. This was fine as long as I got what I wanted out of it, watching the sun set into the ocean. I'm a simple girl. It was magnificent.



The rest of the days that followed were awesome too. Hubby and I took advantage of the MIL sitting service and attended two theatre movies. First we went to see Pirates II. The next night we drove to UC Irvine to see another flick, The Puffy Chair, where the director was present for a Q & A session. We hated it but it was cool to find a theatre screening independent films. We even tried out sea kyaking which we absoulutely loved. We took in an art fair in Laguna Beach. This has always been my favorite city with the cliffs and small cove beaches to hang out in.



The kids even had a Kodak moment enjoying the waves together.



16 years ago my husband traveled across country to be with me. You can take the man out of California but you can't take the love of the beach out of the man..



Even I became a beach bum by the end of our week..





We were not ready to come back to the place we call home but vacation has ended and there's already talk of next year's vacation. Did someone say Surf School?

Finished projects..what's that?

I keep many projects going at the same time to confuse the housemates. I had a couple hours on the train into Chicago on Wednesday so it was a great time to start the Tempting II for the Sexy Knitters Club KAL.

This K1,P1 rib is no fun. Oh man, the entire sweater/shirt is K1,P1 rib. Where's my WIP sock?
Here it is:

I decided my fourth sock will be the Jaywalker. I originally wanted this pattern to be my first sock but after a few rip outs I pushed it behind more appropriate first sock knitter patterns. At this point I think it will be too big for me but I like how the Trekking XXL is patterning. I can only do a few rows at a time before switching from the tiny size 0 needles to something bigger.
Enter the bathmat in progress:

I leave on a weeklong beach-filled California adventure this week and thought a crocheted sarong would be nice to take. I've been trying to come up with my own thing and add beading. Maybe it will be ready for the next beach getaway as it hasn't progressed very far in the past couple of weeks.

Los Angeles

This post is in response to the following comment I received:


hi
I will be moving to DeKalb from Los Angeles for a job at NIU. How is life in that small college town, could you please tell? Thanks.
Hao

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Posted by Anonymous to Stuck in Illinois at 7/02/2006 06:29:23 AM



This is really weird considering I leave for a weeklong visit to LA in less than a week.

1. In DeKalb think less concrete and more corn. Miles upon miles of corn with soybean fields thrown in. I'm not sure how one can get used to tiny little patches of green space amid the concrete jungle out there. It's pretty neat to be stuck in the middle of miles upon miles of fertile farmland.

2. Traffic Jams? What's that? In DeKalb the only traffic backups you encounter is when the train moves through the downtown. This happens quite regularly, about every 20 minutes, but it's nothing compared to hours of sitting in the parking lot known as the 405.

3. Smog? There aren't any smog alert days here-YET!!

4. The influence of Hollywood Diets and skinny movie stars hasn't hit this town. People carry extra weight on them. I think it's to get them through the cold months kind of like an insulating layer.

5. We have signs for single family homes that state "from the 150s" compared to Los Angeles advertisements "starting at 3.5 million". Ouch!!


6. No ocean breezes to speak of here but on the coldest winter day I can guarantee we'll have below zero wind chills that will make you wish you were soaking up the sun on the California beaches.




Overall, I think you'll have a slower paced life out here along with refreshing clean air to breathe. Remember a big city is only an hour away from here. Chicago is awesome in the summer. Fall is great with colorful leaves, apple orchards and corn mazes.

From the Sunday Paper...