Yarn Zombie

So, as has been the case recently, I’ve been a bit MIA.  The blame for this lies in a week’s worth of misadvantures in computing.  First, when the remnants of Ike swept through, we lost power for an evening (no big deal), and lost our cable (we have cable internet) for 2-3 days.  That was the only damage done, besides some branches down in the yard, so we had it a lot easier than others.

When the cable finally kicked back on, I had about 2 hours worth of computer time before I started to see this:

This is what it looks like when your graphics card dies in your computer. Travis and I had been planning on upgrading our card anyway, once Fallout 3 came out, but the plaid-ness kind of made it a more pressing concern. So, we were able to get a new one on Friday evening, and Travis got it installed. Hey, at least this way, I can write it off as a business expense! Hello, tax breaks!

We had two houseguests this weekend. Dianne came by on Thursday before going to Yellow Springs on Firday to set up for the Wool Gathering. So we got to hang out and spin and gossip, and it was awesome. She brought Travis some beautiful black alpaca fiber that he already started spinning up into beautiful black yarn. Of course, since I’m a doofus, I didn’t take any pictures.

I did, however, take a few pics of our second, fuzzier houseguest. Sophie came by on Friday morning, dropped off by Carly, and immediately morphed into Emo-Dog.

I’m sure it didn’t help when Bela kept growling at her (Bela has anger management issues) and Toby snapped at her when Sophie stepped on Toby’s tail (Toby has tail issues). Poor dog. Anyway, after the first day, everyone got into a routine, Bela only growled at dinnertimes, Ellie came out and made friends with Sophie, and Sophie even played and wagged her tail.

Several events kind of collided together this weekend, and Travis and I wound up not going to the Wool Gathering, which is sad, since it’s our favorite fiber show. Fortunately, Dianne hooked me up with some fibery goodness. Travis went to work instead, and I stayed home with the herd and worked on Etsy stuff. We’re going on vacation in two weeks, and I’m going to try and get a boatload of yarn and fiber up in the shop before then.

Since getting the drum carder, I haven’t really been in the mood to play with yarn until a few days ago. I’ve spent the past few days dyeing yarn and getting stuff ready to go online. There are some familiar colors and a lot of new/one-of-a-kind colors that I’m going to have, too. Here’s a preview of coming attractions:

While my yarn is drying, I’ll be working on some more batts and balls, too. Hopefully, I’ll be able to update the shop with at least a handful of items a day.

Besides all that, not too much going on. I think Ellie was sick this weekend, but she looks like she’s getting better. She’s finally come out from the back room and getting her drinks at the fountain again, and she just now jumped up on the dek to keep me company for the first time in about 4 days.

I’ve been making some more felted stones.

Buying some more cheap cameras.

2 of those have film inside, so I may get some more found images from them. One camera takes 616 film, which is bigger than 120 by a few millimeters, so I’m not sure if I have a developing spool that will expand that wide. If not, I’m not sure what I’ll do. I’ll have to McGuyver something. I also got an eBay camera last week that is absolutely hilarious. I need to take pictures of that and post them on here. It is the biggest, heaviest, whitest, most plastic camera I have ever seen. It weighs over 2 pounds and looks like Skylab. It is full of awesome.

Also, today, I made peanut butter banana bread. I had leftover batter, so I made a few muffins, too.

I used this recipe. It turned out pretty good. I didn’t use the peanuts on the top of it, and I had to substitute some turbinado sugar for regular sugar (because, of course, we’re out of plain sugar in this house but are chock full of expensive, exotic sugars). I went heavy on both the peanut butter and the bananas, and added some cinnamon to the mix, too. Anyway, good recipe. Not excessively sweet, but full of good flavor. Nom nom.

I’m trying to get my act together before vacation, which is always an adventure. I need to make a list of food we have to buy, and a list of food I want to make before we go (Chex mix, granola, tortillas, pizza dough, pico de gallo). We have to see if the camper has held up another year. Fortunately, there’s no rain in the forecast, so we should be able to get it opened up and checked out the next time Travis is home. I hope that since it’s been tarped and tucked in from last year, that it’s dry on the inside.

And then, of course, there’s the annual dilemma of where to go. I had originally thought that we’d head north to the UP again, but stay in a different area than we had camped before (the Garden Peninsula, which is the part of the UP that hangs down into Lake Michigan). I’m concerned about the temps, though, and wanted to pick a back up location. So then I started looking at Wisconsin, specifically here. It’s not as far north as the UP (only about 45 minutes north out of Milwaukee), is an easy drive to Lake Michigan, and the park seems really pet-friendly, which is always nice. Unfortunately, Wisconsin has some goofy-ass park fees. They have separate daily admission fees for residents and non-residents (which is fine, most states do that), but then they also have separate camping fees if you’re a resident versus a non-resident, which I think is kind of bogus. Then, they also tack on a $3 a day fee if you have a campsite with a water view. I know that most state parks are sucking right now in terms of funding, but it’s getting to the point where a campsite is just about as expensive as a cheap hotel room.

Anyway, I’ll probably pick a third destination, somewhere south of here, that will be an alternate in case the forecast for when we go is excessive cold, excessive rain, or a blizzard. I’ll be fine as long as it isn’t 90 degrees like it was last year in Missouri. Camping with two dogs in 90 degree heat is not awesome. Suggestions are welcome. I just don’t want to camp anywhere that’s really close to an urban area, because we’ll wind up going shopping and I’ll spend a bunch of money.