Longest. Post. Ever. Seriously.

The thing about slacking off on blogging is that when I get back to it, I have a lot to catch up on. So this post is gonna be a bit long-winded.

Let's start by getting the bad news out of the way. In point-form, because I am a dork.

• I had to frog the Celtic Cable scarf. I dropped a stitch somewhere in the second pattern repetition... in the middle of the Saxon braid... and I wasn't using a lifeline. (Hubris much?) I probably could've laddered it, but let's be frank, I'm not that good at laddering stitches even in plain stockinette, so I said #$@! this and ripped it. (Actually I said a lot more than just #$@!, I'm sure the neighbors were scandalized.) I'll recast it at some point.

• The bib was also frogged, since I'm not so sure about using a satiny acrylic for a baby bib... I'll hold off on that and see if I can find a nice cotton, though I doubt I'll get the same chocolate-brown color.

• Still more frogging: I frogged Kaitlan's Rangoli tam, having figured out that yes, it does bother me that I knit the rim inside out and thus the cables don't line up properly.
  

• Boys are stupid. Let's leave it at that.

• So when they were writing the third season of Buffy, do you think they just went, Oh, let's turn all Buffy's friends/family/acquaintances into raging arseholes? (Show's still good, it's just... I kinda wanna punch Willow, Buffy's mom, and especially Xander in the face.
  

• Oh my GOD there are dirty dishes in the sink again I swear I just did them and what is the DEAL with all these spoons and no forks?!

Right. Now that that's out of the way... The good.

My mum called me the other day to tell me that she'd bought me a new mattress, and they are apparently delivering it on Thursday. My current mattress is old, and uncomfortable, and causes me a lot of back pain, so this is Really Good News. The caveat being, my room has to be clean and clutter-free for the delivery on Thursday. (Let me put this into perspective for you: I have lived in this apartment for six months. I have not unpacked the boxes in my room. Stuff has been piling up in jumbled heaps. It is... The Disaster Area. This is quite normal for me, but perhaps not conductive to mattress delivery... especially if I can't even get the door all the way open.) I am taking this as good news, since a clean room would probably be a good thing.

My mum also said she would take me to London-Wul as an Easter treat, and - her words - get me 'some wool... as a gift'. MY MOM RULES.

Yesterday I went to Cricket Cove, and expanded my needle collection by a lot. I got some bamboo 8's, and double-pointed bamboo 10.5's and 8's, and circular Addi Turbo 8's with a 24-inch cable. (Yes, I realize I now have three different pairs of size 8's. Sshhh.) I also found this gem:



That is 12-ply 100% Cashmere, y'all. It is the most gorgeous, soft, cushy, squishy, yummy yarn I have ever seen. The colors are gorgeous. Trust me, that photo does not do it justice. The pattern it came with is also adorable, and really easy, and done on size 13's so it just flies off the needles.



I am maybe in love with this kit. (At 36$, it's probably a good thing I got the last one of this colorway... Otherwise, helloooo bankruptcy.)

Nathalie the GENIUS fixed my computer monitor, sort of. See it's this old CRT that has seen better days, and when you power it on it'll go black for a while, then really light, then power off, or get white lines through it... When it warms up it works fine, but there's a like, 20-minute span where you have to hit the side of it for it to get to a point where you can see what you're doing. And when I say hit I don't mean 'gently tap' like my friends think when I tell them to hit the monitor. I mean 'really unleash your frustrations on the thing'. But then Nathalie - my awesome roommate and UNCONTESTED GENIUS - said, What if you just leave the screen saver on and don't power off the monitor? Well hot damn, it worked. I just leave a blank screen saver on all night, and in the morning I wiggle the mouse and voila! The monitor works! (Someone remind me to get Nathalie a cake or something.)

Nat and I had a pretty darn good weekend, which included me getting seasons 4 and 5 of Buffy on sale, the world's best waiter, amazing sweet potato fries with curry dip (y'all, seriously, go eat at the Old Triangle. Get Mike to wait on you if you can. That guy is awesome.) and a lot of Guitar Hero 3. Crystal even came over to play, it was fun.

And then today was the Knit-In, which Nat and I attended and thoroughly enjoyed. What a day we had though, let me tell you. See when we signed up we didn't really think of where Saunders Country Inn was in relation to us and how we were gonna get there. "Oh, we'll just cab it!" said we, foolishly assuming it'd be a relatively short drive. Well. Let's just say Saunders Country Inn is not exactly next door, yes? It took us about a half hour to get there, but dang did we ever luck out on the cabbie we got. This guy was hilarious. He kept telling us stories of how he freaks out the drunk people he gets after clubs close. Like, one drunk passed out in the passenger seat without telling him where to go, so the guy drove a block, stopped the car, shook the drunk guy awake and said, "Ok buddy, we're here, now what part of Halifax did you say you wanted to go?" Then he did this hilarious imitation of the drunk guy freaking out, before he looked around and said, "Wait a minute, we're still in Moncton! Don't freak me out like that man!" to which the cabbie replied, "Well now that you're awake, tell me where you really want me to drive you."

Hilarious. I just couldn't stop laughing, and he kept telling us more stories. Eventually we got to the inn, and I looked at the meter... $38.50. Ouch. And we didn't have a ride home, either, so I mentioned how we were gonna need a ride back... So he says, "Ok, tell you what. Just give me 30 for the ride here, I'll give you my cell number and when you need to get back just call me." How nice is that?! (We ended up getting a ride from one of the other knitters, which I feel bad about because we didn't tip him... I was expecting to do it on the way home. I left a message on his voicemail, though. I hope he calls back. If anyone deserves a tip, that guy does.)

The Knit-In itself was really nice. I met the lovely K of Ladybugs and Yarn (and she showed me what I was doing wrong with the long-tail cast-on... As predicted, I am a dumbass and was making a dumbass mistake that was easily fixed!) I was the youngest person there, but I didn't feel weird about it at all. I recast the Rangoli tam, worked on that for a bit, then worked on my Handmaiden cashmere kit for a bit. I met some nice people, saw some gorgeous projects, and had a good time with my best friend. (Also, they served us chocolate cake. What more do I need.)

I picked up these beauties:



Manos del Uruguay 100% Wool. Just gorgeous, I had a hard time picking just one color. Nat got three skeins of a really nice red with subtle pink variegation, it's beautiful.

One of the very nice and generous Cricket Cove staffers drove me and Nat back home. We helped them bring back the stock they'd brought from the store, and some new stock, and I just had to take a picture of the trunk of the car:



That's all yarn, and there were two more garbage bags full of it in the backseat with us. (K and I both took pictures of this momentous event. You can identify bloggers by the crazy, I guess.)

Right, 1:12 am and the towels should be done in the dryer. If you made it through this whole post... pat yourself on the back.