We're off to see the Lizard

(with apologies to Betty, from whom I stole it, and to Liz, who really is called Lizard sometimes, but on your wedding day, you're not Lizard)

Joan's Special Day is almost here. The family is gathering, all of us making our way to Chester, some of us there already, some of us ready to leave in about 40 minutes. One of us doesn't have a whole heck of a lot of things to copy today, so she's wasting lots of time. Facebook can be accessed by Crack.

I've been knitting 7+ hours each evening trying to finish The Wedding Stole. I haven't done much of anything else for the last couple of weeks. (Like that's such a stretch.) I make stupid mistakes and keep making them when I try to pay attention to whatever's on tv (my current favorite is "My Name Is Earl". Even after this marathon knitting (thousands of beads, I tell you, thousands), I still have a good 15" to knit. It just isn't going to happen.

You see, I started the thing by following the pattern directions and knitting the first 15" without beads. They're only supposed to be on the very ends of the stole, and it just was ugly. So I started the full beading, it looked much better, and I decided to cut off the part that wasn't beaded (the middle of the thing was on a provisional caston so I could pick up and knit in the other direction when I finished the first half). That wasn't a particularly enjoyable job, but I managed to pick up the stitches at the beginning of the beaded part and start off in the other direction.

So. Yeah. It's going to be shorter than I'd like, I'm afraid. I have a couple of hours to knit on the way to Mom and Dad's house, but that only equals a couple of inches. I've gotten faster at "uploading" the beads, but each pattern repeat takes over an hour to complete. That's 8 rows.

I ran out of beads. I'd bought a ton of them in Key West in April and again in June but used them for a scarf or two and for A's socks. I'd bought them for Shipwrecked, the knitty.com shawl I plan to make at some point in my lifetime. I bought clear beads, silver-lined, black ones, and red ones to go with the yarn I had custom-dyed for the shawl. I ordered what I thought were the same beads on ebay, and they came really quickly, but they're the wrong color and size. I'll use them for something else. I was starting to panic last week when I had enough beads to get through a few more repeats, so I called Beads of Distinction in Key West and ordered another 50 grams of beads. They're just gorgeous. The owner only charged me $5 for shipping, but he shipped them out that day by Priority Mail, insured. $10. I'll buy more beads from that dear man!


This isn't a good shot, but it's about all I could get. It's hard to photograph that color yarn with clear beads. I'll get more at the wedding.

We've been looking at used cars. I insist on having a Toyota; I've had three Camrys over the last 20 years and love them. We debated getting an older one with many miles on it but a cheaper price, a newer one with fewer miles and a much higher pricetag, then decided that we might as well buy a new one while I still have a semi-decent income. Once we move to Florida, the car won't get nearly as much mileage put on it as it does now, and there won't be any mountains to cross, either, so we're looking for a new Prius. We might even buy one this weekend. Tom plans to start trips to Florida hauling stuff down and I'll have to have a car then.

Jennifer and the kids should already be in Chester; she was leaving right after school yesterday. They'll start back home tomorrow after the wedding so the kids won't miss more than one day of school. It's going to be such a wonderful weekend!

Someone is coming to look at the house on Sunday. We'll close on The Cat House toward the middle of next week. We'll be house- and car-poor until our WV place sells, with only a few thousand available to tent the place, tear off the deck, and fix the pool and a/c. Tom might rob his 401k next year to start more work on the house. Once the place over here sells, we can (more or less) finish The Cat House. Let's just hope that's soon; one more winter here is enough!

I'll leave you with some photos of The Cat House. If you have a weak stomach, be forewarned. It's not pretty.