Carol, Tankers, & Me

Tank made great friends with just about everyone.  It seems that another old golden retriever isn’t a fan of his silly puppy behavior.

We just hung out and had a great time with Jim & Carol. Of course Jim cooked too much and they both spoiled us rotten all weekend. I really wish we lived closer so we could return the favor.

I’ve also discovered a ‘new to me’ author.

I have also finished my Jelly Fish Mitts and am in need of some test knitters

These are light weight fingerless mitts that are extra warm but fitted enough to not hinder you while you type.   The fun jelly fish pattern allows even the beginner to experiment with colorwork.

If you are interested in testing this pattern please email me your email address with “Jelly Fish Tester” in the subject to pmsalyer AT yahoo DOT com

On the way to Oak Glen we passed by Magic Mountain and the fog was so amazing I had to take a picture

First, Jim made so much chilli that we could have exported it to end world hunger, but then again we would have initated the burning off of the rest of the ozone layer with that much methane…course, it could be the new “green” energy (why is it that everything “green” stinks?). Anywho, chilli was awesome.  After that we bribed, begged, pleaded, cried, and finally forced everyone to play Rock Band.

They played & they liked it

After the first few songs everyone was diggin it.  We even found someone who can actually sing Bob Dillian REALLY well! Even with a terrible sinus headache he rocked it out.  Tom really kicked major butt on the drums & the ladies all sang & played guitar. It was awesome.

We had our own little KAL for the incognito cowl which was fun!

I have been knitting a lot lately.

Zag Hat, pattern coming soon!

And Crocheting too.

Cloudy Day Cowl

We also have a new member of our family.

He doesn’t have a propper name so until then he’s Poopers Jr.

He’s a sweet fabulous 8 month old great dane mix that we already love more than anything. 

And on the subject of dogs…

Well, back to puppy proofing the house. Expect more pictures soon!

"What'd she say?!"

I’m employed. Starting Monday and I think it’s going to be an awesome fit.  This is exactly what I needed, what my family needed. What we needed so we don’t have to move or pack. OR MOVE. 

It was a terrible couple of days but no worse than THIS TIME 2 YEARS AGO! (What the hell is with my family that we need tests every 2 years?)  2 years ago the company 1/2 my family worked for was sold and we were given 5 days to pack our house and get across the country (Ohio to California) and start work again.  I cried.  I think we all cried.  I still miss my house and my huge back yard and snow.

2 years before that the partners at the company we all (my family) worked for fought and we almost went under as they ripped each other apart.

I swore I’d never work with family again (not because I can’t or they drive me nuts because I LOVE working with family) but it’s so scary when you fail.  When you fail everyone fails.  It hurts too damn much.

So here I am on the other side of my 2 year trial.  My husband will be starting his in November along with my FIL and I know it will be ok.  It’s always ok because that is the only option.

Thank you all for dealing with my week of depressing posts. I’m normally a very optimistic (somewhat sickeningly so) person but my heart hurt pretty bad because my family was suffering.  Leave it to me though to fix that kind of suffering in a week.  I should have been in charge of turning the economy around. I probably could have finagled it in 4 weeks. I’m THAT kind of problem solver.

Ok, enough of my babble. I wanted to thank you all for your kind comments though I didn’t reply.  I wanted to thank my MIL for being my second mom, my FIL for being made of magic, Mette & Tom, Jim & Carol who were ok with the prospect of us living in Yurts on their property, Shawna & Rebecca who let me cry on the phone and make no sense, my knittin’ kittens @ Anacapa Fine Yarns who surrounded me in a cushion of happy thoughts, my spinsters who all told me how they had gotten through it and for listening to me talk.  Thank you all.  I’ve never realized how blessed I am until the world starts to crumble.

Thank you all for stopping by!

This weekend the Mr and I were back up at the ranch.  It’s almost feeling like a second home to us now and it’s harder and harder to leave after each visit.  The weekend was particularly fun because of the excess people and the craziness that entails.  Jim and Carol were up this weekend and I really wish they just didn’t live so damn far away that’s how much I love these people.   The Mr has a really great time being around other men like him (which is important and not as easy to find as you would think).  Being part of a happily married couple means that you have very few couple friends.   Amazingly Jim, Carol, Mette, and Tom fit us perfectly.  I think that they’ve been hiding them all up on the central coast.

So anyways, back to the events (do da-do! *sings musically*).  Saturday morning we woke up and went to a fab little nursery at someone’s house in the canyon.  He used to own a huge nursery but now is “retired” and sells them out of his house.  The Mr got two amazingly succulents & a beautiful ficus (I think?).  They were all rediculously cheap which is the best kind I think!

Then we all went to the La Prisima Mission.  California is full of Missions, we have one in Ventura, there is one in Santa Barbara but this is by far one of the nicest ones I’ve seen and it’s almost fully intact I would say.

From left to right, Carol, Mette, & Jim. The New bell ringers

It was a special event this weekend (though I’m not sure what exactly it was called) where the volunteers all dressed up in period style dress. It was pretty cool.

This guy was hilarious because he cornered us to tell the Mr and I all about how haunted this mission is.  I guess it ranks #4 in California as the most haunted? (Is there an actual data base for this kind of thing?)  I have to say he was very interesting and it’s neat that the Travel Channel was juts here doing a piece on the mission. I hope they caught some ghosts because I certainly DID NOT. :/

No orthopedic matresses here!

The buildings were in great shape and this church was especially impressive though I will admit that when the volunteer tried to avoid a little backstory about some of the artifacts by asking ”how many people here were raised catholic?” he did get a lot of blank faces.  Not  a lot of that going on in my group of friends lol.

There was a neato bell wheel. I guess these catholics liked bells?

The thing next to it was a clapper of sorts.  Basically its function was at the end of the service to make a WHOLE LOT OF NOISE to wake people up. :/ I think if you need a machine in church to wake people up you weren’t doing something right.  Just sayin’.  It was really pretty though.

New talents were explored.

Jim learns the basics of spinning.

It was a great day at the mission and afterwards the boys were a little loopy and ready for a cocktail.

Lots of meat was cooked, stories shared, laughs echoing and good times were had.

It’s a little funny that a year ago we didn’t even know any of these people.  A year ago I didn’t know I would be hanging out with sheep & goats & alpacas & llamas. I’m still amazed. (Yes I do need to dye my hair, please don’t focus too harshly on my blond roots!)

I have two finished knits to share with you so stay tuned!

How did I come to learn such a thing?  Well, my friends Tom & Mette from Ranch Of The Oaks  have ostriches (among the other various critters living on the ranch).  My first real encounter with an ostrich was with the big male, he ran to the gate, dropped to the ground and proceeded to “court” me which involved him splaying his wings and hitting his head against his back in a loud unsettling “THUMP”.   From that day forward I stood away from the fence, something about that “THUMP” really bugged me.

Well, yesterday Tom & Mette sold four of their six birds.  I went up to photograph the craziness that followed.  I do not recommend getting in the pen with an ostrich.  An animal that can kick your head clean off your shoulders is best left to the experts.

I like this series because it shows the 4 stages of “Ostrich OMG”

Hooked and startled.

Pull the head down so they can’t kick your fool head off!  (I’d like to applaud Tom for his crazy ninja move with the rake in the back of the picture.)

And walk the bird to the trailer.

There was running…

In the end four birds were loaded into a specialized trailer and shipped off.

After that was done I spent a few hours as a mill slave processing fiber with Tom & Mette.  I don’t know that I was actually that helpful because they could probably run all the machines alone at once but it was super fun to chat.

One thing I’m super curious about is this – When did this become my life?  I really like it and it’s super fun, but when did ostriches, sheep, fiber, and other such craziness become my life?

Last thing of note is that I let a copy of Mildred out of my hands to be read by my dear friend Becky.  Right now I’m sure she is frowning in confusion and grimacing in pain at my writing.  I’m almost embarrassed enough to avoid her lol.  So far no one but family has started reading Mildred in depth and it kind of scares me to put myself out there like this.  Hopefully it’s not to painful for her!

Edit to add: Comments have been restricted due to spamming issues. I’ll be back to normal soon!

Preita, the Mr, & Jim posing with the first Alpaca of the day.

Notice that smile? Yeah, that was the very first animal of the day, our very first alpaca and neither Matt or I knew at that point that there were 55 more animals to go.  Seriously though, it was awesome.  It was hard work for sure because even though alpacas aren’t big they are quite strong.  I had head duty the whole time which means I had to make sure that they stayed put, where their head went so did the rest of their body.  Thankfully there weren’t any serious incidents where anyone actually got hurt.  They are, after all, an animal that doesn’t understand why or what you are doing.

I will admit that I thought I would be taking a whole lot more pictures during the day, but I didn’t. I instead worked my butt off with the rest and it was awesome.  The first animal went on the table at about 9 am and we were done with the alpacas at about 5:30 pm.  I, along with most of the women took a short break to make and eat sandwiches and, like most of the women brought down food to shove in the men’s mouths as they worked and refused to quit.   I may be a hard core feminist, but that doesn’t mean I won’t make him a sandwich and take care of him. 

the Mr feels quite at home here.

(I’m sure a lot of people think that I pose or make the Mr look a certain way when I take his picture, but often he is rarely aware of what I’m doing or that I’m focusing on him)  It was nice for the Mr to be around like minded men too.  He’s quite happy when he’s dirty, sweaty and working his tail off and there aren’t as many men who’d like doing that as you can imagine. I think this weekend he was around kindred spirits.  The men didn’t talk much all day, they were dirty, sweaty, tired and extremely appreciative of that glass of jack at the end of the day.

Patrick gets his equipment ready for the final animals of the day

Patrick and Jim were amazing shearers.  I have to admit that I was afraid of getting in Patrick’s way at the beginning of the day.  He was definitely there to work and I’m glad that Jim asked for our help because I doubt Patrick really need TWO people who didn’t know what they were doing and would get in the way of his flow.  It was neat to see the same kind of zen expression on his face that the Mr gets when he chops wood. 

After all the alpacas and llamas were done Patrick showed us a quick shearing of the Icelandic Ram.  It was amazing, he caught the ram and just flipped him on his butt where the ram went into a sheep trance and just sat there like a baby until Patrick had finished shearing him.

Patrick shearing the Icelandic Ram

He looked much better albeit naked afterwards.  The ram, not Patrick

Besides shearing there were the regular antics and fun things that you just don’t get to do at home in the suburbs like bottle feeding a lamb.

Matt feeds Little Dude his bottle

Feeding the rest of the animals isn’t as personal.

You get to do things up here that are just neat. Like eat an ostrich egg for breakfast.

I am going to steal Baxter and his freaky multi-colored eyeballs and take him home. I love this dog.

Baxter

So that was our weekend.  I’m kind of thinking about maybe bugging Mette during the week at the mill and maybe getting some mill training since I’m not working and that woman could totally use help in any way as she’s probably the busiest person I’ve ever met!  Till next time!

We went up to June Lake with my inlaws and fished.

FIL & the Mr with the day's catch

FIL Fishing

The duck was totally NOT helping

This is the dock where I totally ate it face first

We also went to the Bodie Ghost town.

Hey look! It's my FIL!

There is so much stuff left inside!

See! They just left it all!

We went to Mono Lake were we learned about how terrible LA has been to the enviroment. If you are interested google Mono Lake/ Debate & you will see how they drain lakes so people can feed their pools decimating environments in the process.

The Mr @ Mono Lake & the Tufas

Mono Lake Tufas, I have never seen a more reflective lake!

The Mr and I drove back home through Yosemite National Park and got into a fight when he tried to cram the whole park in the space of an hour. but! we saw amazing things.

See the crazy ass rock climber? He's by the shadow on the lower right hand side of the first picture

The Mr in Yosemite: Hey look! Snow in California! Crazy Pants!

Ice Fishing. Sorta

More to come because
1. I caught a “ghostly image” on film and it cracks me up
2. I realize now there are pictures I haven’t uploaded
3. It’s my blog and I can do what I want to!
Happy thursday from Mrs. Jobless Preita (BTW Why am I getting calls about interviews for sales positions I NEVER applied to, No I don’t want to sell insurances K thankx by!

In other news I have been knitting. I think I might have found my knitting mojo again. 

First off. I knit my niece a February Baby Sweater and it is most likely the cutest thing I’ve ever knit.

Pattern: February Baby Sweater
Yarn: Cotton Fleece a little less than 2 skeins
Needle: US 8
Mods: I knit one more increase round which was perfect.

Amazingly it came out perfect, the length of the body, the 3/4 sleeves, all perfect. it still needs a toggle which I will have to do today because they are leaving tomorrow morning.

The Baba is a big fan of the sweater, she twirls and runs around telling everyone she’s “Pretty!”

The only improvement I could see on this sweater was one actually suggested by the niece herself.  She was convinced that this sweater needed a hood and kept asking for one. I think it would be seriously cute with a hood and am pretty sure I will be knitting one of these sweaters every year of her life until she’s old enough to tell me to stop being a dork.

I also started a new sock (I’m now almost done with the first sock, but you know how we knitters are

Froot Loop Sock

I really love the stitch pattern, but I’m not sure about the twisted stitch heel, it doesn’t seem as nice & secure as the slipped stitch heel.

I also finally finished some spinning!

800+ yds of sock weight Merino

I only meant to spin 400+ yds but I guess I got carried away.

As some of you noticed yesterday I released a new pattern which is becoming way more popular than I thought it would.  I have to make it into a PDF to directly download from Ravelry but for now my computer at home doesn’t have that updated word format that would allow me to do it.

In job news I have stepped lightly through the listings so far.  Picking and choosing what is worth actually applying to, writing a personal cover letter for and putting down on my list for a follow up call.  I know I could go strait back into the same industry but…I’m not sure that I want to.  It’s hard because my first job in this industry was so awesome. I would have bled myself dry for that job, my bosses and the work. This one that I was just laid off from was disappointing, it’s hard to have management that doesn’t inspire you to do your best so I’m a little gun shy about going strait back into that line of work. 

One job that actually interested me when I applied was the position of a court collector.  So we will see. One step in front of the other gets you further than an all out sprint.

This weekend has been a roller coaster of awesomeness.  Seriously, nothing could have been better to help keep my mind off things.  Friday after I left the office for the last time I met up with my MIL, Mr, SIL, BIL & niece for lunch & then later we met again for dinner.   Saturday we met the Mr’s cousin, aunt & mr Jaden for some serious beach time.  If one 2 & 1/2 year old is fun, two are ridiculous!

Jaden & Amelia

 The energy was astounding, these two ran around all day, in the water, out of it, in the sand it was so much fun to watch. It was like two little puppies playing all day.  The Mr was as always, quite a stunning example of “the perfect man”.

the Mr, Amelia, & Jaden

Running to and from the ocean. It was a little chilly which stopped Amelia, but NOT Jaden. He couldn’t have cared less if he had to avoid icebergs, he was going to be IN that water!

Amelia & Jaden running like mad.

There was a little bit of swinging to be had.

 Surprisingly few baby tempers flared.

This face was because she DID NOT WANT a sandwich & mom didn't put them away fast enough.

The day was mostly filled with smiles.

The big hit of the day was sand crabs which Grandpa & the Mr dug up in abundance.

There was a small time when Jaden was convinced that the small bug things were “sharp” which resulted in this scene.

Sunday was, of course, Mother’s Day. We all went over to my MIL’s house for tri tip & family, it was so nice to see everyone and just hang out. The food was excellent and the company was joyous.

The Mothers together.

 Some good tickles were to be had from Great Grandma.

Some new friends were made.

Jerry & Amelia

I also have some knitting projects to blog about in more detail, probably tomorrow though.

Amelia in her February Baby Sweater