SuperEggplant

NOT because of all the sugar from the Halloween candy (oh, speaking of Halloween candy, today the Hedster brought me some Halloween marshmallow Peeps [I’m a member of the fan club, you know], and she gave Peter an entire carton of Rolos for his birthday!!!!) but because I’ve spent the ENTIRE DAY playing technician on my desktop. I tried to install a new hard drive, which means I called my insane brother about a million times. We finally got it to recognize the new hard drive and everything, and I turned off the computer to reboot to install Windows XP, and, uh, no power. Nada. Zip. I called insane brother, and he said, “Computers are like MAGIC, you know? Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t, it’s all a MYSTERY.” I guess that millionth call pushed him over the edge. Heh. I took the computer to a repair shop that is owned by my Italian teacher (I took conversational Italian last year. Buon giorno), and he said my power supply failed! I dragged the thing back home and called Dell, who made me unplug everything and take out all the expansion cards (impressed by my techy terminology?), then he decided my power supply was dead, so now somebody is going to come to my house and fix it! Good thing, too, because I don’t remember where all the cards and cables go anymore.
SO, now I am working on my laptop, and I’m not used to it, so it’s freaking me out. I guess I shouldn’t have tried Eudora for the first time in this state of freakdom, but I did. Oy vey.
To frog or not to frog? That was the question last night when I was 20 rows into the neckline on the Becky Wannabe sweater. I messed up the beginning of it, and I didn’t think it would make a difference, but it did. There was a slight bit of unsightly puckering. So I frogged. And now, I am going to get AWAY from these darn compyooturz and knit!

I love Halloween. LOVE it. I do, however, find it rather disturbing that stores already have Halloween stuff. I mean, it’s only September! But you can bet I was not complaining when hubby brought this home for me today:

It contains eyeball gumballs and hard cherry candies!!
More egg-sighting news: I CAN GET FABRIC LABELS FOR MY DYMO LABEL MAKER. They are iron-on ones and only come in white, but still, how cool!
Now get on out there and be a good bad influence this weekend! Must go knit now–I’m almost at the start of the neckline on the Becky Wannabe!

Would you care to join the Mutual Bad Influence Society? Membership is open to all persuasions, as long as you are a bad influence. The other day I was telling a friend she was a bad influence because she reignited my interest in a new digital camera. She replied, hey, who’s the bad influence here, because I had suggested very subtly to her that she should look into Blundstones if she needed new winter boots and oh, aren’t the new Isaac Mizrahi shoes at Target cute?
We are celebrating Peter’s birthday again tomorrow with his family. In his honor I made his favorite dessert–cream cheese pie:

Yes, it’s pretty yummy with a graham cracker crust and a sour cream topping.
Hail to Kerstin, the knitting blogger fairy! Just when you think nobody is going to comment, Kerstin comes to the rescue with a funny & witty comment.

Did you all see Motel Hell? Where the motel proprietors bury their guests in the ground with their heads sticking out, cultivate them, and then make them into sausage? Well, anyway …
Every morning I take little Deedlehead out for her run. This morning I ran into a friend and was telling her about the new fancy market in town that has grassfed, hormone-free beef. I told her I was planning to get some for hubby’s birthday (Wednesday, and it’s a Big One). She said she had grassfed, hormone-free steaks from her mother’s cow, so I went to her house, and she pulled out a frozen packet of rib-eye steak for me. I then ran home, Deedle on leash on one arm and the other arm clutching a packet of steaks. Don’t you love weird scenes like that?
Okay, so I am ready to get my photo gallery of finished projects going, but my insane brother keeps ignoring my pleas for assistance. I was going to ask y’all to e-mail and bug him, but, well, he is volatile and INSANE, so I am fearful of his retaliatory remarks. If you do contact him, please be very, very careful; otherwise, please send strong vibes, or maybe if we all concentrate hard enough, we can force a really bad song into his head that will repeat over and over? Like Girls Just Want to Have Fun or, um, that Hey Mickey, you’re so fine song!

Watch out, cuz look what I got!

Yup, a DYMO label maker! The technology has really advanced since the days of the old DYMO label makers that clicked along on the vinyl tape. I have a slight urge to label everything in the house, but in case you didn’t know, I am NOT insane, so I will refrain.

Is it just me, or do you all feel like you have a lot in common with other knitting bloggers? I find this fascinating, because in “real” life it is really tough to meet people on the same wavelength and with similar interests and tastes. It makes me wonder, if I met some of these bloggers in person, would I feel the same connection? Would it be weird? I have only met a couple of my online friends in person. One buddy I met virtually on a running listserv and in person at the starting line of the Chicago Marathon, which is a strange place to meet a person in the first place! It wasn’t too odd, but it kind of was, if you know what I mean. So how many bloggers have you met? Was it fun? Weird? Would you do it again?
By the way, if you want the Penzey’s banana cake recipe, e-mail me, and I’ll send it to you. I don’t think it appears on their web site.

I love shopping online, but sometimes it doesn’t give you quite enough detail about the items. Case in point: today I received my rolling cargo duffel from LL Bean. I looked at various rolling duffels online and decided that this particular LL Bean model had the best design. Well, it’s kind of weird, actually, with lots of buckles and straps, and it doesn’t have a telescoping handle as I had hoped. The box it came in is so huge, though, that it would probably cost a million dollars to return it, so I am going to keep it. I think I’ll be able to bring home a lot of fabric and yarn from Portland next month, and I can probably even stow away my mother, since we are the same size:

I am constantly amazed by the boundless energy and productivity of the knitting bloggers whose sites I frequent. Some have jobs, some have children, all are busy, and yet they crank out knitted items like there’s no tomorrow! I mean, Bonne Marie has a highly demanding, seemingly high stress job, she commutes (on a bus!), she works on her computer stuff and all her other projects, AND she knits speedily and perfectly while designing new patterns! Kerstin has three children! Claudia is an attorney! How do they do it? I mean, I don’t have children, and I work from home, yet I just plod along stitch by stitch on my knitting projects and can’t seem to get to any of my sewing projects or read any books or clean my house!
Oh, but I finished the back of the Becky Wannabe sweater, finally:

I started the front and must now go finish the tubular cast-on and get my 2 rows for the evening completed.