Squoze

First things first- I have a new weiner: murfomurf. Come on down to give me your across the pond addy. That means that Rae will get your mug since she's on this side of the creek. :D The email is Scooby_dooby_doo_2002 aht yahoo daht com. [Usual disclaimer- replace the aht with @ and daht with . ]

*********************************************************************
We went on Vacay with D's mom a few weekends ago to Chattanooga, TN. We had a good time and did most of the touristy things to do in the town in 3 days. I know right?

We went up on Thursday night after work so that we could wake up in TN on Friday to make our 10:30 aquarium tickets.

We got there early and since our hotel had a crappy breakfast, we were hungry. We found a little spot called the Blue Plate. It was awesome and had the best servers evar. We got this little hottie named David. He was a great server, got us great food fast, and gave us the DL on Chatty. He gave us tons o' places to eat, and I think we lucked out with him. More on him later.


They have a sea horse exhibit down stairs, but to get to the real show, you ride what could possibly the the world's LONGEST escalator. This was taken from the top.

It took ages to go all the way up. But the cool thing is that you go from the top to the bottom of the aquarium like following the water to the ocean. They had some wicked large catfish in a tank. There was a diver in there feeding while we were there, and the fish was as big or BIGGER than the huge man diver. UM NO. I would NOT be in that water. No way, no how.



We have been to the Atlanta aquarium, so we have seen a lot of these fish before, but they had the coolest otters EVAR! They were HUGE and very playful. The TN aquarium wins over ATL because they have a better otter viewing area. I got great shots of them.
Of course, we were also in the middle of about 1000808 school kids- we went right when schools were about to let out, so they were all on friggin' field trips! ACK.
This was in their butterfly garden.

After the aquarium, we went across the Walnut St. pedestrian bridge to explore the North Shore because hottie David said there was a good lunch place over there.

I don't know if you know this about me, but I'm terrified of bridges. I hate driving over them, hate walking over them. H.A.T.E. them. Like I freak out and have panic attacks on bridges. Soo...yeah. We WALKED across the pedestrian BRIDGE to the North Shore to explore. They walked; I crept. I also cried. I really d.o. n.o.t. do bridges. I finally got across the damn thing.

It was worth it I guess because we crossed to find a great little ice cream place called Clumpies. They make all their own ice cream. FAB! I had lemon cream, D had butter pecan, and Moms had....something? The best part about clumpies besides the homemade everything was a shirt I tried to get D to buy: it said simply, "Creamy." I thought it was funny. He thought it was inappropriate. That's why I thought it was funny, but anywho.

We walked around a little more, but we had to hoof it back across because we had tickets to ride the aquarium's River Gorge Explorer boaty thing. D and his Moms got all cracked out on the time and rushed us down to the dock (yeah, another bridge to get to the dock...ugh). They thought the ride started at 3pm. I knew it was 3:30 and kept asking if we could slow down or sit down. NO! WE HAVE TICKETS! So we finally get there and they realize what I've known all along: we're WAAY early. Of course, you know, it was my fault that we were early then. We did get to sit down in the shade finally on the dock and waited for the boat.

It pulled up and was like a yacht big to me. It was crazy fun to ride that boat. It goes up to like 55 mph on the water and comes to a complete stop in seconds and on a dime at that! We stopped for every boat, float, and barge in the river that day- many many splashes!
This is where I want to live when I grow up.

We cruised through the river gorge and it was really pretty. It was just nice to be out on the water after being off of it for so long. I grew up on Lake Oliver here in Col, but when I got to be a teen, it wasn't cool anymore. I can't tell you the last time I was on ANY river on a boat. Riding up top was really cool too.

That night we ate at the Market Tavern per David's suggestion from that am. It was 'lish! I had a bison burger (locally raised!) with cheese and they had chicken and fish- my burger was so good that after they ate their foods, they ordered another bison burger to share. :P This place was big on fresh, local, and fabulous. The burger bun was a roll from a local baker. Yum. They also had cupcakes from a local bakery: amaretto, strawberry, mocha, and red velvet. We got all but the mocha- we're not coffee ppl. The red velvet was so good that D and I split it at the table and had to order another one to take with us.


The next day, we had 3 attractions to hit: Ruby Falls, See Rock City, and the Incline Railway. It was a threefer pass, so we were set.

We hit Ruby early because it was Racin' at Ruby and we are NOT race fans. That started after lunch, so we wanted to be in and out before the race nuts got up the mountain. It was an interesting place. I would NEVER go again. It's a privately owned attraction, and I don't like how they keep the caves and falls. They take HUGE groups through the caverns with 1 tour guide for like 50 people. She can't keep an eye on them. You know if you touch the formations, they die. Folks kept leaning and touching stuff. I was going nutzo. And it's a half mile in to the falls....you get like 5 minutes at the falls before the lights go out. And then it's a half mile out at break neck speed. You could tell the whole time that it was a money machine and not a true attraction for the beauty of the formations. It felt like they were pimping the falls. I didn't like it at all.

There weren't even any bats in the caves. What's a cave without bats?

Since we had walked a billion miles before lunch, we went to the Incline Railway next. We got on at the top and rode down and back up. It was intense. That was one crazy train ride. The little speakers said that it had served to get expectant moms down the mountain to the hospital to give birth. I loved that.

We saved Rock City for last, and I'm really glad we did. After the obvious capitalism of Ruby Falls, Rock City was like an untended wild space for me. I loved it. That's where the title of this post comes from.

If you don't know about Rock City (how?), it's this crazy place full of paths and gardens in, around, and through huge rock formations. The thing I can remember the most about Rock City from my childhood is Fat Man's Squeeze. I'm officially a squoze fat person now. I got through the needle, but Fat Man's Squeeze was really squeezy. I got in there ok, but half way through, I couldn't go any farther....ruh roh. So I wiggled down to my knees and crawled the rest of the way out on my hands and knees. It was very ladylike I assure you. Ah hem.

I love the icon of the red barn with "See Rock City" painted on it. LOVE IT. I also love that Neil Gaimen made it a holy place. :D


I even walked on the swing along bridge. ACK. Had to keep telling myself, "it's not a bridge, only a weird path..not a bridge....not a freakin' bridge....not a bridge...just keep swimming swimming swimming..."



I don't know about seeing 7 states...but they say you can.

As it was the weekend of freakin' fears and bridges (also don't do heights):


Best place at Rock City:


And I should have taken a shot of the outlook I had to go out on to get this picture:


It was like a concrete slab poured on air with a rail sticking it to the side of the mountain. I couldn't do the standing up out there, so I kinda crawled out there and got on my belly to take that shot. Great picture- terrible experience taking it. I feel ill just talking about it. I should note that neither D nor his Moms would come out there with me. [Another note: D doesn't have multiple mothers. He just calls his mom "Moms" for whatever reason.]

When we went back down the mountain, we found a tunnel to go through on the way back to the hotel.


And we went barhopping. Best Long Island Ice Tea in TN.


Thanks for reading the longest post on planet earth! I took lots of cool photos. More of them can be found on my flickr. :D

Hidden

Hideandsheep has hidden away! I haven't heard not a peep (sheep) out of this person! I'm giving Hideandsheep until next Tuesday to stop hiding and sheep up for the prize. After that, I'm gonna pull a new grand prize wiener.

Won

Congrats to hideandsheep and RaenWa who both won! That's right. I pulled two names. I felt bad having only one winner (and even still felt bad after all of y'all put in, but I am not MADE of money!), so I'm diggin' in the stash to make up a second prize of Stitches goodies. I think I found something to go- a little ball of colorful Laines Du Nord Korall yarn (it says fancy on the back?)- it's soo cool. Each ply is a different color and it says that it's "100% Merino Fine Irrestringible" which sounds like a good thing. I got this at Stitches last year too. Notice that I'm not willing to part with the haul from this year yet- still too new. Like a new baby I guess- only mama can hold her! :D

So you two lucky ducks email me at Scooby_dooby_doo_2002 aht yahoo daht com. (Y'all are smart enough to know that aht should be subbed for @ and daht should be . Right? Right.

Sorry for all of the broken hearted out there. It's like the Audi commercial says, in all friendly competition, there is a winner....

** I LOVE that commercial. We saw it during the Olympics, and I thought we were gonna hork Dr. Pepper through our noses! hahahaha

Now for Freeness

Since we can't all make it to the Stitches Show, I thought I would bring a little stitches home with me. I swiped things from all over the place. This is the racked up swag:

The prize includes:
The Eat.Sleep.Knit coffee cup from the Rav party with a pen, 4 mini skeins of yarn, and a coupon.
2 mission falls samples
a lion brand catalogue package (has a lion brand magnet- a $3.95 value!)
a plastic zippy change pouch from univeral yarns
a cha cha scarf pattern
a blue go knit pouch
a Hello my Rav name is buttonn
a Stitches South 2010 Bob and Peach button from Rav.
a sock pattern from Plymoth yarns (basketweave socks)
a cocoon scarf pattern in both knit and crochet *this was EVERYWHERE this year- weird
PLUS- 2 skeins of Stitches South 2009 yarns that have been hidden away in the stash- 1 purple and 1 green of Elsbeth Lavold silky wool (192 yrds each, 45% wool, 35% silk, 20% nylon


To win:
Leave a comment here. It's that simple. Since the coffee cup is kinda heavy and is um..fragile, I'd like to keep this in the states (and Canada). However, if you are just gonna die if you can enter and live across the pond, we can try to ship it to you over the big bad ocean.

If you plurk, tweet, facebook, blog, skywrite, etc. this giveaway, give me a linky and I'll give you an extra entry for every medium into the drawing. So that means if you comment, plurk, tweet, facebook, and blog it, you get your name entered 5 times. Simple, huh? I'll leave this open until April 30 at 6pm EST. At that time, I'll write you all on a slip of paper, clip you apart, and let D draw a winner. He's half blind in one eye and deaf in the other, so it will be fair to all entrants. Promise. Scout's honor.
* the coupon to eat.sleep.knit expires on the 26th though. If you're gonna die without that, email me and I'll tell you what it is*

Stitches South 2010

Whew. I'm kinda glad to be home in my pjs and listening to John Mayer and the rain fall. Today was one long, busy, crazy, fun, fantastic, wooly day.

Whew.

Before you read any further, I need every one of you out there in the Intarwebs to raise your right hand and repeat after me:

"I will not tell D what all L purchased today. I will not mention it in his presence, bring it up to him, or say, 'Golly, how much did you let her spend!'"

Realize that this is a solemn oath between all of us. You keep mum or I'll dig secrets up and tell your person of interest! That is not a threat. It's as solemn as the oath above- it's a freaking promise!

Now that we got the legal stuff out of the way, we can move on to the haul:


That's the fambly picture that I took once I wrangled them all together. You can see Cousin Swift lurking in the back of the pack- someone said that his cotton ties made him look too country. He'll live though ( a steal at $25 at Just Our Yarns- coulda spent a mint on her handwoven scarves!). I posted notes on the flickr page.

Highlights:

Hello- doorprize that I won at the Rav. party on Thursday night:


BUGGA! 'Nuff said.


Crazy Good sale at Booth 419- Emma was the discount code for a 10% off- her bulldog. NO IDEA WHO THIS IS!


MacKintosh Fibers - the yarn logo with the cute puppy in the logo

This person was so sweet and nice. We talked forever while I was buying this braid. Really cool person. I want to steal her dog a little.

Or a lot.

Meeting the RavDudes:

This is MaryHeather and Casey the CodeMonkey doing the meetngreet outside while we were hearding into the Rav Party. If you blow up the pic, you'll see that casey has MONSTAEYE OF DOOM! because I was trying to fix the redeye, but made him look more crazy when I tried to fix it. Eh.

And if you've made it this far, you get a great reward. I'm going to post a giveaway in a seperate post in just a few minutes. Now you know about it. I've giving away swag from the event plus some yarn I stashed from there last year...that I have YET to knit. Sos life I guess.

Here's the 1 pic I took today- H taking a pic of the ultimate stash wall of doom.


And 1 really cool pic I took while I waited for D outside on Thursday.


Come back in a few for the giveaway. :D

Hotlanta

It was my birthday over the weekend (Friday to be exact), and we packed up and headed into the big city for a weekend adventure. I must say that I have always been TERRIFIED!!! of big city driving. Petrified even. But armed with a new car that I trust to get me going and NOT break down and a Nuvi, I was at home driving the crazy. I managed to get everywhere we needed to be, and we never even got lost! We went the wrong way a few times because of traffic, but Nuvilou got us back on track with little effort. She was "recalculating" a lot this weekend!




We got the Atlanta CityPass that got us into all sorts of places like the Aquarium, the World of Coke, the Zoo, the Botanical Gardens, the High Museum of Art, and the CNN Center. We skipped the last two because we just wanted to piddle around the neighborhood on Sunday.

The Aquarium was a lot of fun because our friend J had never been before. She wants to go back this summer when her son gets home (he's seven). What was cool was that the CityPass got us a ticket to the 3-d show and something called the Quick Dip Backstage pass. We gave a little family our tickets to the 3-d show, but the quick dip thing was AWESOME!!!! You get to go behind the exhibits and see things from a crazy different view. We got to see the top of the tank where the whale sharks are kept and they were so beautiful swimming so close to the top.

We went to the World O' Coke next and stood in line. Then we stood in another line. And after that, we got to stand in another line. Yeah. I wasn't feeling the world of Coke. I would NEVER pay $$ to go back in there. I would suggest just going over and shopping the gift shop from the back entrance and skipping the whole museum dealyo.

That afternoon we parked at the hotel (The Highland Inn - crappiest hotel I've ever paid over $120 a night for!), and we got the nuvi back out to see what food was near. We walked to the Vortex Bar and Grill because I had seen it on Man VS Food on the Travel Channel. I was stoked because I had wanted to go to this burger joint when I saw it on TV. If you are ever in the ATL, go by there and have a burger and fries. I got the black and blue burger (cajun blackened burger and blue cheeze spread).


And that's where the fun nearly stopped. While we were in the hotel recovering from the cows we had eaten, I got up off of the side of the bed closest to the wall. I was barefoot since I was relaxing, and I slammed my bare toes into an exposed pipe jutting up from the floor. This tripped me up and I went down face first over the bed, hit the radiator (old hotel, built in 1927), and slid down to the floor. D and J said it all happened in slow motion and that if we'd have had the camera out, we might be $200,000 richer...

After I started crying, they knew that the fall was not a pratfall and that I was indeed hurt. I finally pulled myself up into a sitting position to find my middle toe split open and bleeding. And it hurt like all get out! I was terribly upset because I was afraid the next day would be ruined because we had planned to walk the zoo and botanical gardens. I hobbled down to the front desk and the night guy shrugged it off after handing me a few tiny bandaides.

I tried to still have a good time that night, but the bar downstairs was 1)lame and 2) LAME and 3) OH SO LAME that I was bored to tears and packed into bed early.

The next day was much nicer than the previous night. We walked the zoo early and avoided many of the screaming kids by moving quickly (or as quickly as you can with a busted toe and flipflops because you hurt too bad to wear shoes). D and J kept losing me in the crowd, but I finally found them again. It was really funny to watch the animals since it was spring time- lots of babymaking on lots of animal minds.


The Botanical Gardens were SOOO cool. They had a display of orchids that was OUT OF THIS WORLD! It was called Towers of Flowers. I took sooooo many pictures of them that I think I could walk you through the whole exhibit.


We ended the day at Ikea. That store is crazy. We're going back to buy some new bookshelves. They are larger than the ones we were going to buy from Staples and about $40 cheaper. Hello new guestroom.

The day before we had found a shop next to the hotel that sold independent artist's stuff and J bought us an original painted that was very neat. The funny thing is that I had picked up a lot of postcards that were prints of paintings, and the original and the postcards were all by the same artist. We found out that the artist was having an opening on Saturday night. We went there (a bit too early) and bought up some new prints of her new work. We heart her stuff. Now we have new art to put in our hallway since we've been living with naked walls for months because we were tired of the old stuff.

Sunday was a lazy day. We got up and loaded up the car. We wanted to go back to a store we saw the day before, but it didn't open until 12. We went to a Whole Foods (this is why I'm going to move to ATL) and shopped while J went to a bookstore next door. We all wound up next door shopping for books, and then we could go back to the Junkman's Daughter (a crazy alt shop). I got a darwin fish for my car and D got a set of salt and pepper shakers (humping bunnies). We went back to the Vortex for lunch, and then walked around Little Five Points. There were some funky shops. We spent hours in Bang-On making custom tshirts. J made 2 for her kid and 2 for her. I did 1 for me with zoo animals.

We finally got home about 6 and crashed into the bed. I was dog tired, but I had a good time.

This Moment : Shared Day Off

Taken from Soulemama:
{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. If you're inspired to do the same, leave a link to your 'moment' in the comments for all to find and see. Happy Friday, friends!
><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><

I iz Olympic strong

I don't know if you know this or not, but the winter Olympics have been going on recently. I know...how didja miss it?

Well, the thing you probably really don't know is that during the Olympics (winter and summer), a website called Ravelry hosts something they've dubbed the Ravelympics. This all started with none other than the Yarn Harlot who started her Knitting Olympics during the last winter Olympics. The idea is that you pick something wicked hard to accomplish during the games. You cast on during the opening ceremony and you have to be finished by the time the closing ceremonies close. The Ravelympics started when the community on Ravelry wanted to do the Knitting Olypmics during the last summer games, but the Harlot said that wooly sports she participated in would be in the winter only and that 4 years is the proper time for her to try something crazy hard. So now you have some back story to explain what I've been spending my time obsessively doing the last week and a half.

I didn't really buy in to this whole thing pre-games, but as everyone started getting hyped like German lugers before the games, I was caught up. I had to get in on the crazy. So I set myself a goal. I would knit an entire shawl in 17 days from my own handspun. Now this isn't really a hard thing for many of the knitter in the games, but I'm a slacker/procrastinator who has had a single shawl on the needles for like a year now and is in no hurry to finish. I also set myself a goal of spinning up all of my scrappies from the vairous dyers I had in my wool stash. I thought this one was do-able and nearly in the bag as I like to spin a lot at one time.

However, I surprised myself. I did finish that shawl in the time given, and I finished it early. It took my around 7 days to do it. That is UNHEARD of in these parts. The yarn was so much fun to watch stripe that I think I got a little addicted to see what would happen next. I also managed to score a place to watch the games as our cave is without cable or one of those converter boxes for the dinotv to go digital. We've been camped out at pal J's house for most of the games. As she lives on the complete opposite end of town, we've been staying up a weeeeee bit late. The coverage ends usually around midnight or midnight thirty, so we've been crossing town and getting home around 1ish. It's like smack...totally addicting. We took a few days off this week because we were all SOO tired, but we were back at it some last night.

Now that I've finished the shawl, I've cast another on to keep me busy during my TV watching.

But I also finished my spinning goal ahead of the pace too. I finished that the last night of Ice Dancing (stupid russians). So I've accomplished all of my challenges for myself. That's the whole point of this game deal is to pick something hard and do it. That I finished it at all was the hardest part for me. So score! I have already won gold for the shawl, and I'll be winning another gold for the spinning later at the medals award ceremony.

I know- what a freakin' dork!

But I have fun!

I have also sewn up a quilt top (well, into strips...gotta sew the strips to each other tonight). This thing is SOO cute. I linked to SouleMama's little stairstep quilt a while ago, and I used my own stash of cotton flower prints to make me one inspired by hers. I'll have to finish it and get pics up soon.
PS- I have pics, but blogger and flickr aren't on speaking terms just now.

Retreat!

[A railing at the park- really great texture to photo]
I have been retreated all weekend with my Writing Project People. We went back to FDR state park and crammed ourselves into 2 cabins. Let's do a headcount- me, friend L, friend K, friend P, friend B, friend G, friend C, friend I, friend I's 3 children. That's almost an even dozen. We had 2 cabins. Our cabins slept 6 with 1 bathroom, and thiers slept 5 with 1 bathroom. During the day, the 5 from cabin 8 trooped up to our "bigger" cabin for the work we had to do. SO- 11 people with 1 bathroom. NOT COOL. I could kill FDR state park for their 1 bathroom policy. Stupid. Nice place otherwise (oh and the mice last year), but 1 bathroom was out of the question for a repeat. We had a good time and we did a LOT of work. By "we" I mean friend L because she is our scribe. The rest of us talk out our issues and plans, but she is the one who actually puts it all down so that we can remember it in the future.

We took a walk yesterday afternoon, and I took a few really nice pictures. I thought I'd share them here.
I found this in the leaves beside the main road through the park- thought it was interesting.



Stuffs growing on trees



The sunset up the mountain on Friday night.

New Year, New Post

Hello 2010!
You have kept me busy thus far. Please to stop soon. I need a break!

Since my last post, school has started back, and I'm beat. Who knew working 4 days a week could wear you out so fast?!

Last weekend we finally finished all of our Christmases with the many extended families we have. Divorce makes for interesting holidays. His parents are divorced, and so are his grandparents. Hello mulitpile events! But we have them all out of the way now, and we really did have a good time even if we ran all over creation to do it!

D's moms got a new baby after Christmas because she missed her old one so much, and he is a trip. His name is Jasper and he's a ball of energy ALL the time. Taking this pic took about 4 tries to see his face.


I've finished a knitting project already this year after being in SUCH a slump last year. It's the boneyard shawl from Westknits. I like it, but I want some frilly border on it to class it up a bit. It was made with yarn from a swap on Rav. in the Spin or Dye Swapping group. It was in a "bag of crap" thread where you just claimed stuff unknown. I got LUCKY and was given some beautiful pima cotton/tencel yarn in goldenrod. I'm all about some goldenrod right now. The only problem is that now I have about 10000000 ends to weave in and the yarn is slicky. The skeins were SOOO small and some places were spun weird, so I pulled those out. Maybe I'll try and bribe someone at SnB to do it who is better at it than I am.


I went to Macon again yesterday for a writing project meeting, and this is what I did on the way home:

If you notice, the spedo. shows no little needle. I was sitting still. Since I saw an ambulance scream up the highway northbound while we were sitting still, I can only imagine that a wreck stopped us for about 30 mins. When I finally got out of the standstill, I saw a broken guardrail on the side where it looked like the wreck may have happened. It was nasty and rainy yesterday, and people were driving like crazyfast. My happy self drove like a little old lady so as not to wind up the next person through a guardrail.

And speaking of rain, it's still here. This is the view out of my window today (the blue car is MINE! so sexsay):

So this is how/where I'll be spending my day:

That blanket is made of all sorts of handspun yarns. I've been working on it on and off, mostly off, for quite some time now. It's getting big, and BOY is it ever warm. I'm crocheting, so it's eating yarn like crazy, but it's also FAST.

***********************************************************
A few links because I'm cool like that:
*A really great sponsor giveaway at SouleMama- you could win a sewing pattern + kit to make it or just the sewing pattern. Either way-cool!
*Another great giveaway of things from India at Lavendar and Limes (a new blog to me, but BEAUTIFUL photos).
*A quilt I wanna make for ME. I wouldn't be using that same fabric, but I'd use giant florals from my stash.
*Another option- I've loved this since I saw it made on her blog. LOVE IT. But this one also takes me in dearly. I want to do this one too. maybe this one before the other because I want the BOLD, giant strips like this.