elvis needs...boats?

It's been an interesting week. First, a picture of a pretty pair of glasses:



I'll explain their significance shortly. ;)

Starting last Saturday, I have been on a bizarre lucky streak the likes of which I've certainly never experienced before.

Saturday was my company picnic. The company is known (internally anyway) for being very generous with prizes at the picnics, so we knew a prize raffle was coming. When I arrived, I dropped my two raffle tickets into their respective bins (one of which intriguingly said "silent raffle" on it) and wandered off to enjoy the picnic (and wait for the prize drawing!).

The prizes that were announced at the picnic started at $100--gift cards for all kinds of places like Target, Best Buy, Barnes & Noble...--and went on from there. There was an iPod Nano, a 3-day Avis car rental, a stay at a downtown hotel, and the gift card amounts went up to $200, $250...finally, there was a 42-inch television given away. The other top prize was a $1000 voucher for Delta Airlines. They gave away three of them.

I won one!

So that was pretty neat! I got to work Monday morning and heard people twittering about the picnic and how I was one of the big winners, etc. Pretty soon, we got an email from corporate communications which turned out to be the results of the "silent raffle." The silent raffle was created so that the prize drawings/announcements wouldn't go on for hours at the picnic, and included all of the smaller prizes. They were all in the $25-50 range (plus I think I saw one that was $75).

I won a $25 Barnes & Noble gift card. [Side note: Remember that book I said I fell in love with at the yarn shop in Lincoln City? I turned right around and ordered it from B&N Monday afternoon. :D]

Wow, two raffle prizes! I was really lucky!

Then...today.

I have to backtrack just a bit to something I don't think I've mentioned on my blog. Just before my vacation, I was nominated for a "You ROCK!" prize at work. To get that, you are nominated by someone else at the company. Once they've gone through the procedure, you, quite literally, receive a rock. So the two women who nominated me showed up at my desk and gave me a rock and a nice certificate. I thought it was really nice of them to go to the trouble, so I've left the rock in a prominent spot on my desk and hung the certificate on my wall. Other than occasionally laughingly showing off my rock, I hadn't really thought much about it.

Fast forward a couple of weeks to this morning. I showed up (pretty much last) to my department meeting and was surprised to see the two women who'd nominated me and also someone from corporate communications. I had a suspicion that something was up, but had no idea what. Turns out I was chosen as the "You ROCK!" winner for the month of June--and I won a $100 Macy's gift card. They also took pictures of me, which will appear in posters throughout the company and in the corporate email that goes out every Thursday. I'd seen posters with other winners around, but somehow never really considered that I'd be on one of them! And I had NO idea there was actually a prize involved.

Are you counting? We're up to three prizes, totaling $1125. But I'm not quite done yet...

This one isn't so much a prize, but it kind of fits so I'll mention it anyway. I got back from the meeting just in time to run off to Lloyd Center to meet with a few knitters at lunchtime. Just as I was about to walk away from my desk, the phone rang. I picked it up and Jessica, one of the knitters I was meeting, said, "Hey, I have a 2-for-1 coupon for Jamba Juice! Want one?"

So--free Jamba Juice for lunch today. :D

Incidentally, every person I've related these events to so far has said something along the lines of, "You need to play the lottery this week!"

Nik and I had been amusing ourselves with this idea off and on today. (I'm a former math teacher and we're both very rational people, so the whole idea of "cashing in" on a string of luck is pretty funny to us.) Nik even went so far as to speculate that I'd actually USED UP my good luck and it was over now, so no need to buy a lottery ticket.

When Nik picked me up this evening, we were both hungry and I didn't feel like going home and cooking so we went out to dinner. We went to Micky Finn's, a pub a mile or so down the street from us. Wednesday is Pint Night and the rep from Blue Moon (tonight's featured brewery) was going around handing out raffle tickets to everyone and told us there'd be a drawing in around half an hour.

This, of course, caused further discussion of the whole luck thing. (Nik is wondering if there's a conservation of luck in force, and if so, who is having a really bad luck week to balance out my good luck?)

I'm sure you can guess by now what happened.

The Blue Moon rep gave out 6-8 prizes and kept calling out ticket numbers...nope, not mine. Not Nik's. Eventually, Nik made some crack about, "Well, this is proof." (We're still not sure what it was proof OF, but whatever ;)).

Numbers were called, people picked their prizes...then he announced that the next would be the last one for this drawing. (I'm pretty sure they do multiple drawings through the night.)

Guess whose number was the last one called?

That's where those pilsner glasses, pictured above, came from. :D

Crazy, huh?

1. When Hagrid returns to Hogwarts after being sent to see the giants with Madame Maxime, Professor Umbridge questions him on his late return to school. She suspects that Hagrid had been to the mountains, but where does he tell her he has been?

d. South of France

2. Professor Umbridge comes to Hagrid's Hut and searches his cabin one evening (as she believes Harry, Ron and Hermione are there visiting him at night when they are not supposed to). When she walks past the place where Harry, Ron and Hermione are hiding under the Invisibility Cloak, Harry holds his breath. True or false?

b. False

3. A stately-looking witch in an emerald green shawl is one of the members of the Advance Guard who rescues Harry from Privet Drive. What is her name?

a. Emmeline Vance

4. What is the name of the witch who was killed two weeks after the photo of the original Order of the Phoenix was taken?

b. Marlene McKinnon

5. Which two fifth year Ravenclaw students does Dumbledore choose to be prefects?

d. Anthony Goldstein and Padma Patil

6. Which house was Rose Zeller sorted into?

d. Hufflepuff

7. What is the color of Murtlap's essence?

c. Yellow

8. Name the Ravenclaw girl who became prefect in Harry's fifth year.

b. Padma Patil

9. According to a healer's portrait at St. Mungo's hospital, which disease was Ron suffering from?

d. Spattergroit

10. Which book did Harry give Hermione for Christmas?

a. "New Theory of Numerology"

Picture Scavenger Hunt
Padma Patil (Padma is in the foreground)
Hannah Abott (center)
Percy
Dumbledore's Army
Cedric Diggory
(Extra 5 pts - What movie will Robert Patterson star in this December? Twilight)

Yay, my spoilee for HSKS5 got her package today!! I've also had a report from my spoiler that there's one in the mail for me now, too! Swaps are fun!

Since the veil of secrecy is now lifted, I can finally tell you about the so-called SECRET project! One of the requirements of this swap was to send a "handmade item" (a bag, a needleholder, or...something else, I don't remember). It was not required that this be a knitted item, but since I don't really have a place to put up my sewing machine and didn't have any other great ideas I decided to knit my spoilee a bag. I ran across the HP House Fair Isle Pouch Bag pattern and fell in love, so I ran with the idea.

As it happens this was my first completed Fair Isle project, and also my first lined bag. I was a bit worried during the knitting because no matter how careful I was with the floats, it contracted into a bumpy tube once it was a few rows away from the needles. I just kept hoping that blocking would fix it. So when it was done, I washed it and blocked it rather aggressively. Thankfully, blocking worked miracles and it came out GREAT!



(I didn't put any fringe on the bottom. I finished the bag late one night and frankly forgot. Then I decided I liked it just fine without.)

Here's one that shows the lining:



And, since knitters always seem to want to see the wrong side of Fair Isle, here's a shot of the inside before I lined it:



I followed the instructions for this bag pretty faithfully--with the exception of the fringe. I did make one major change, which was to use worsted weight yarn (Cascade 220--I'll have to look up the color numbers once I'm home again) rather than DK. I used a size 6 needle because I wanted the result to be pretty dense. Otherwise, I knit it as instructed and just let it turn out whatever size it wanted to be. I think it turned out around 11.5" x 14" post-blocking (Narcissa, can you verify that? I didn't write it down and only vaguely remember from measuring it for the lining). I used less than 1/4 yard of fabric for the lining. I sewed the lining completely by hand, which is something I haven't done for a long time (hand-sewing, I mean). I can't say that I love sewing by hand, but I am definitely proud of how the bag came out and I'm glad I went to the trouble.

I'll let you read about the rest of the swap kit over on Narcissa's blog, but I did want to mention one more thing. I had our wonderful local indie-dyer, Sharon of Stitchjones custom-dye a skein of her fantastic merino sock yarn in Slytherin colors. Here is the beautiful yarn she made for me to send on to my spoilee:

1. What is the literal translation of "Albus Dumbledore"?

white hat (or white bumblebee)

2. "Occlumency" is not, in reality, a word. However, it seems to be derived from a familiar real word that means "to block". What is that word?

occlude

3. Remus Lupin, the werewolf, has a name that is a double reminder of his traits. From what languages are his two names derived?

Remus comes from Roman mythology, and Lupin is Latin for wolf

4. Percy Weasley's owl takes its name, quite appropriately, from the Greek messenger god. Who is this god?

Hermes

5. Many of the creatures studied in the Care of Magical Creatures class or encountered by Hogwarts students are based on mythological animals while many others were made up. Name a mythological animal which is studied and/or encountered by Hogwarts students.

phoenix, unicorn, hippogriff...

6. Harry is tried for the "crime" of using magic outside Hogwarts by the Wizengamot. From what culture is the name "Wizengamot" derived?

Anglo-Saxon England

7. The hospital in OotP is called St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries. Who was the real St. Mungo?

the patron saint of Glasgow, Scotland

8. Dobby the house-elf gets his name from another kind of creature. In English folklore, what is a dobby?

a brownie (a benevolent goblin or elf)

9. Mundungus Fletcher is a disreputable little wizard with a penchant for trading in stolen goods. What exactly does mundungus mean?

it's the name of a particularly smelly variety of tobacco: "a stinking tobacco"

10. Harry's arch-nemesis throughout OotP is Professor Umbridge. Why is her name appropriate for her?

Umbridge is a homonym of the word "umbrage" which means "to take offense"; this seems appropriate since she takes offense at everything about Harry

I haven't found anyone with leftovers of the yarn I need (it was a longshot!), so I bought another skein from The Loopy Ewe. It should arrive by the time we get home from the coast. (I actually got an "it's been shipped" notification the same day I placed the order! It'll probably get to my house before I do.)

Yesterday, I drove up to Lincoln City to visit Nestucca Bay Yarns and run a couple of errands. Nestucca Bay is a cute little shop with some nice yarns (including lots of Cascade 220, Manos del Uruguay, many Rowan yarns, and their own handpainted yarns). I bought this:



Tara, who was working at the shop yesterday, and I had a nice chat. I think I've inspired her to pick up crochet. And she tempted me with this book that I now really, really want. It's all about crochet stitch motifs, which is way more fun than rows and rows of crochet. All different kinds of squares, circles, and other shapes! I already have ideas in mind for some of the things I saw in the book (I sat down and flipped through it for a good 15 minutes, at least). [As an aside, why doesn't Amazon have the book? Nestucca Bay had about 6 copies of it!]

I also rather liked this book.

After my nice yarn shop visit, I went off in search of a place to get a pedicure and found a great, tiny shop called Nail Extension. Two manicure stations, two pedicure chairs, and I'm not sure there was much else (other than a few shelves with products for sale). Bit pricier than I would normally pay for a pedicure but it was really nice, she did a beautiful job on my toes, and we had a very nice chat while she was working on me. Well worth the cost, imo. :)

I'm not sure if you can really tell the color, but here's a shot of my toes:



They're a deep purple that looks like midnight blue in certain light. Really pretty!

And finally, one photo that cracked me up:



This is my niece, Sydney, trying to beg me for the Nintendo DS her dad had just announced that she DOES NOT NEED for Christmas this year. Too cute!

I've been zooming right along on my Flower Scarf. It looks great!

Then, on the way to the coast this afternoon, I RAN OUT OF YARN. :( :( :(

sigh

Anyone have any leftover Claudia Handpainted fingering in the "Oops" colorway? I don't need much!

This is the only hint you're getting, Narcissa:



;)

The HSKS5 package for my spoilee went out yesterday and should arrive at her home next Thursday. I can't wait!

I'm now officially on VACATION!

I don't go back to work until July 14th. YAY!!

Tonight, I need to put the finishing touches on my "secret" project so I can get the HSKS5 swap kit in the mail tomorrow. Pretty much everything else is ready to go. I can't wait for Narcissa to get her kit! Giving presents is fun. :D

I'll make sure I take some pictures before I send it off--once she gets it, I'll post about the secret project (both here and on Ravelry) and the yummy yarn I got for her.

Tomorrow...I have no idea what I'm doing tomorrow (other than going to the post office), and I'm okay with that! The rest of my vacation will probably be pretty busy, so one empty day is actually kind of nice.

YAY VACATION!!!

Here are my answers, most of which I'm pretty sure of:

Across

3. Wizengamot
4. Wormtail? (this is the only one I can't figure out--is there a missing letter?)
5. Marietta Edgecombe
8. Sirius Black
10. Arabella Figg
12. Tonks
13. Dumbledore
14. Doxy
15. Order of the Phoenix
16. Shacklebolt
17. Scrivenshaft's
19. Kreacher
20. Madam Puddifoot's

Down

1. Severus Snape
2. Honeydukes
6. Grimmauld Place
7. Ministry of Magic
9. Voldemort
11. Umbridge
15. Occlumency
18. Hog's Head

I missed posting yesterday because, frankly, I was tired and forgot. Also it was ridiculously hot this weekend, which made me really not want to have my laptop on my lap. (These MacBook Pros are scorchers!)

Saturday, we had a contractor come over to work up a bid for the exterior work we need done on the house. We have two more bids coming in this week, so I'll wait until we have the info for all of them to post details. I can tell you this, though: it's going to be a lot of money!

Then I got a haircut, we went to Nik's Mom's for dinner, and then over to my aunt Patti's house for a movie and dessert. The movie was being shown in the backyard, so it was pretty late when we started. We didn't even stay for the whole thing (fortunately, it hasn't been that long since we've seen it--Seven Brides for Seven Brothers) and got home at 11:30. I know that probably sounds kind of silly--not even midnight!--but we're used to sleeping roughly 9:30 until 5, and I rarely sleep in much (even on the weekend). Also, I had to be at work early on Sunday.

So...Sunday was a little rough, but work went really, really well.

I suddenly realized a little while ago that tomorrow is July, so I should talk about the July goal I've set for myself (which I alluded to in a recent post).

Starting tomorrow, my goal is to take one picture every day. My short-term goal is to make it through July, but in the long term I'd actually like to continue indefinitely so I went ahead and joined the Project 365 group on Flickr.

With the knitting (etc.) and soon the house project, it probably won't be too difficult to manage for the most part, but I also want to use it as a way to challenge myself to find new and interesting things to photograph. I'm looking forward to checking out the past challenges that have been posted on the group, too.

So I guess tomorrow I'll be back with a picture to show. :)

I honestly don't want to complain about the heat after suffering so much rain and cold to get here. But wow, maybe just slightly less extreme would be nice, huh?

Here's a meme I've seen all over blogland lately, most recently on Sharon's:



1. Ella Michelle, 2. Artichokes, 3. Oak Grove Opal, 4. Night London Eye Green Colors, 5. Clark Gable and Carole Lombard, 6. Margarita violeta, 7. Harbor of Hvar Town in Croatia, 8. Ends: Ice Cream Trio, 9. retired, 10. Duck Family Portrait, 11. A cheerful, sunny window..., 12. don't feed the bunny

The instructions to create the mosaic are:
Type your answers to each of the questions below into Flickr Search
Using only the first page, pick an image
Copy and paste each of the URLs into the mosaic maker

1. What is your first name?
2. What is your favorite food?
3. What high school did you go to?
4. What is your favorite color?
5. Who is your celebrity crush?
6. Favorite drink?
7. Dream vacation?
8. Favorite dessert?
9. What do you want to be when you grow up?
10. What do you love most in life?
11. One word to describe you.
12. Your Flickr name.

And now I must get to bed, considering I need to be at work at 7 tomorrow morning.

After a "quiet week" that really wasn't (due to many meetings and many phone calls--it occurs to me that I spent a significant amount of time this week helping people from at least three different departments, not even counting payroll), I get Saturday off and then have to work on Sunday. Working on Sunday isn't all that unusual for me (it happens once every 8 weeks), but this time there will be a whole crew there helping out.

I think I've mentioned before that holidays aren't really a payroll specialist's friend...

• they mess up payroll schedules: next Friday would be our regular payday, but it happens to be a holiday--so payday will be Thursday instead, necessitating that we move our Monday/Tuesday processing to Sunday/Monday


• quite often we end up either working on the holiday or working on the weekend so we can have the holiday off


• even though holidays cause us to have to work lots of extra hours, the existence of the holiday makes it unlikely that we actually get paid overtime for those extra hours (since we have to actually WORK more than forty hours--not counting the holiday time off--in order to get paid overtime)


• holidays also add whole new layers of complexity to actually processing payroll accurately: we have to do extra audits to look for and fix problems; and also people often want to take time off to coincide with a holiday week, which causes a huge spike in data entry (for some specific reasons I could explain, but I don't want to bore you completely to death)

My plan for this coming week is this:

Sunday: Work however long I'm needed, which will hopefully be from 7am until maybe 1pm
Monday: This will be my crazy long day this week, 6:45am until who knows (7pm if I'm lucky)
Tuesday: 6:45 to 3:15 (hey, I should be able to join the Downtown Knitters next week!)
Wednesday: 6:45 until...I'll try to escape early, since I won't get overtime for those extra hours I put in earlier in the week anyway; then I'll probably run over to Twisted to check out their Anniversary Sale
Thursday: I'm OFF! Yay!!

AND THEN...

The following week I'm on vacation. I cannot wait. Nik and I haven't had an actual vacation since last October, when we went on our honeymoon. Depoe Bay, here we come!

Yeah, I'm getting a little excited and it's still over a week away! :)

On the knitting front: the SECRET project is nearly complete! Just some finishing touches left (which have to wait until it's dry). The flower hexagons for the scarf are blocked and waiting to be sewn together, if I could only figure out the best way to do it.

Anyone have any suggestions? I've tried a few things, but been a bit unhappy with each for various reasons. The problem, I think, is that they were blocked pretty aggressively to get that open flower look which caused the stitches along the outer edge to stretch. So when I sew through them, the stitches tend to pull the whole side tighter and at the same time the whole thing is kind of loose...

I tried to just slip stitch them together, thinking that would give them a little firmness but it looked kind of odd--and pulled in too much. It just occurred to me to maybe try the slip stitch again, but doing two slip stitches in each stitch. That might make it pull in less and also give them a better foundation. Hmm.

Guess that's the first thing I'll try in the morning. I think I'm just not accustomed to sewing crocheted pieces together, so I'm fumbling around a bit here. I'll figure out a way to handle it soon, I'm sure.

Awww, they're even cute all bunched up and floating in water. Look:



I was going to take a picture of them all pinned out, but was interrupted by dinner. And then it got dark. I'll try to remember to get a shot before I unpin them.

I think they'll be dry by morning, which means I can start sewing them together tomorrow! And then do the edging! I think this project will be done very soon. :D

This is what led me to believe I might be able to get 25--or close to 25--flowers from my skein of Claudia Handpainted Fingering yarn. Today I finished the 15th flower, though, and there's only a teeny tiny bit of yarn left. Hmph. Oh well, 15 will make a nice scarf length, leaving my second skein for the edging that goes all around the flowers.

Here they all are, unblocked and in a pile:



I'm going to try to get them blocked tomorrow so I can start sewing them together. Don't want to lose steam while I'm still excited about the project!

And now I should really go do a couple of seams on the baby sweater...

We're gearing up to have the windows and siding replaced on our house--all at once! There's a contractor coming on Saturday to get an idea of what we want and start to work up a quote. In anticipation of this, we've been cleaning/reorganizing/just plain moving things around. Tonight we shifted a bunch of stuff in the dining room/living room area. It looks much nicer in here already, but to a certain extent it's a losing battle. When you're only living in half a house, it's insanely hard to keep clutter at bay. Especially when so many of our things (notably: yarn and all the rest of my knitting/sewing/crafting supplies, plus books and other assorted items) have no home.

I should probably go around and take lots of detail shots of the house before the work gets started, but for now here's one from last summer just after the roof was finished:



I'm excited--the house is going to look so different after this project is done!

PS I now have ten little hexagon flowers. I weighed one and it looks like there might be enough yarn for 25 of them in this one skein! I'd anticipated making maybe 15 (they're approximately 4" across blocked, so that'd make the scarf--without the edging--about 5' long), but maybe I'll make it 20 or so...we'll see.