Roll over, Beethoven

Nathan had his piano recital last week. He did an excellent job and I'm very proud of him. He looked like a little professional up there at the baby grand (I'm not biased). He played something called Airy Fairies and Can You Feel the Love Tonight. He did very good on both numbers. Truth is the child can play Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata, Pachabel Cannon in D, Fur Elise and other classical stuff, but this is what he and his teacher agreed on. I'm currently trying to convince him that he should learn Imagine by John Lennon. He's slowly warming up to the idea. He's a classical music snob.
On another note.... I finished the odessa hat and donated to a chemo patient at the hospital I work at. It wasn't a hard pattern once you get the knack of it.
I also started the Brigid sock from Ravelry in some berroco alpaca. I'm doing this pair for my primary care provider. She's taken good care of me and was the only person who seemed to want to consider my blood pressure when I had the onset of horrible headaches. She's also taken good care of the hubby and my kids. She always asks about the projects I'm working on when I go in there. She knows I'm feeling really crappy if I don't bring any knitting in. So, this pair is for her.

movies

I just finished watching Lars and the Real Girl. Its one of the slightly weird films like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind or Everything is Illuminated, but I have a thing for weird films like that. I thought it was excellent so if anybody is out there who likes movies that are kinda "off" I highly recommend it.
On a more mainstream kind of note. I will be seeing Narnia this weekend. That goes without saying. My children and I have this kind of a sacred oath that we see all Harry Potter and all Narnia movies on opening day. So, I'm looking forward to that. I'm also looking forward to the Sex In the City movie. I was a die-hard fan. I cried at the last episode. I watch reruns whenever I can. There's just one thing, though....... Is there anybody else out there that thinks that Carrie was a complete and total bonehead to let Aidan go? I still haven't gotten over them breaking up and that's been how many years now? Every time I see John Corbett in a movie, I think, "What the hell was she thinking to ever let him go?" I personally think they should have ended the series with her being a strong single independent woman. Big strung her along far too long. I also don't think they should have ended the series with Samantha riding Smith and having an operatic orgasm. That's just me, though. Hopefully the movie will warm the cockles of my heart and give me fond memories and not leave me bitter and disgruntled.
Enough said for now.

What do you call a bear with no arms or legs?

Well, at my house you would still call him John the Baptist bear....even if he has a body now. His neck is a bit skinnier that I would like but I did follow the body instructions to the T. I am revising his arms. When I started knitting by the pattern it looked like the poor bear was going to have massive edema in his arms. So I revised it and his arms are looking better.
I'm trying to finish up my odessa hat. The manager of the medical floor has found a recipient for the cap to go to.
I've started on the Brigid socks with some bernat alpaca and am swatching for the dragon skin baby wrap. I'm planning on making the big person version (Wyvern wrap) but figured I should conquer it in miniature first. The little people version will be done in Rowan calmer and the big person version will be done in Patons Katrian (which is now discontinued).
Had to work mother's day. It really wasn't bad for having to work on mother's day.
Steven is out of town.... again. He was diagnosed with diabetes on Friday and he left out of town on Sunday so we've been trying to modify his diet with him on the road which isn't easy, especially with Steven being of the mindset that he'd pretty much eat anything that didn't try to eat him first.

the evil person I've become

I've always been a fairly nice person. Or at least that's my opinion of myself. I let people go before me in line that have fewer items than me, I do random acts of fast food, I pay it forward, I do knitting for charity, I drive the speed limit and yield when I'm supposed to. I will also park and repark trying to get my car in between the white parking lines appropriately rather than park all the way over on one side.
For some reason, I have been witness to myself exhibiting a couple of real asshole behaviors this week. The first one was the other day when I went to Books A Million. There were some folks around me who had exhibited interesting parking techniques and rather than park in a different spot or pull forward and back up a hundred times to get it right.... I parked using up one and a half parking spots. Yep, I did. I'm sure somebody was calling me everything but a child of God, but I parked that way and I thought to myself, "I never do any asshole parking. Today I am going to be an asshole parker. Today, I invoke the right and privilege of being one of the assholes out there who gives no thought to others and their right to park."
My second evil doing occurred today. Now, I didn't actually intend to do this one, but it just kind of happened. And I did nothing to stop it. I went to Kroger to pick up some toilet paper. For some reason, my stepdaughter makes a habit of taking all the toilet paper rolls into her room.... one by one. Now, I don't know if girlfriend has a super snotty nose or he just gets some deviant thrill on absconding all the toilet paper in the house to leave the rest of us stranded and in a mess. I had gone into her room and retrieved what rolls I could find left and we were still in need. So to the store I went. I was also in need of coke zero. I am down to one 20 ounce bottle and this constitutes an emergency in my line of thinking. I bought the TP, a few other items, and some coke zero. Now for some reason they did not have a six pack of 20 ounce bottles. All they had was a 3-pack of 1 liter bottles. I was desperate, though, so I put them in the cart. I went up to the checkout. I felt the need to have somebody else scan my items and fight with the barcodes for a change as opposed to me doing it which is what I normally do. Perhaps it was attention seeking behavior and the need to have somebody wait on me. Whatever the reason was, I went to the checkout. Of course, my coke zero wouldn't scan. By this time, a little line behind me had formed since the lane I was in was the only register open with a cashier manning it. I could very well have told her to forget about it and I could have searched elsewhere for the six pack, but I didn't want to. I didn't want to get in my car and go to yet another store in search of the coke zero. I had a three pack right there and I just didn't want to be the nice guy and tell her to forget that particular purchase so I could expedite my checking out and thus expedite the checking out of others. So. She had to go back and find the price. I patiently waited. No, really. I was quite patient. People got frustrated at the length of time it was taking her to get the price and left the line in search of a quicker mode of getting out. I stood there. Several other people came up and asked where the cashier was. I told them she was getting a price. I didn't care. I was an asshole. I was being a selfish, self-centered person concerned only with my only personal gain through coke zero.
so, there you have it. The synopsis of my week thus far in being an asshole.

what do you want to be when you grow up?

I've had a small reprieve from knitting today (ok, not actually. I did work on a doll that my son is knitting but I've done nothing of my own projects). A friend of mine gave me some pictures and asked me to combine the pictures together to come up with a drawing that she's going to use for a tattoo. She keeps telling me that I need to be a tattoo artist. I told her that is quite a deviation from my desire to be a knit store owner, designer, or alpaca farmer.
Anyway, this is is the artwork I came up with. I told her I guess I could put tattoos on the alpacas but I'm thinking they would definately spit if you tried to tattoo them.
I've got some of my other artwork that I've done on my myspace page (www.karmaandkismet/myspace.com) and of course some of my artwork is on t-shirts and stuff at my cafepress site if anybody cares to see what things come out of my warped little brain.

Melissa in real life

I've got Dan in Real Life on the tv in the background. Ok, so is anybody else a Steve Carrell fan? He is especially adorable in this film. I'd date him...... if I weren't married and all that jazz. I'd get into more explicit details but I believe my children do occasionally read my blog.
ANYWAY. My stepdaughter is off with the neighbors and my oldest son is at Disney with chorus and my youngest son left at 1630 with his father. So, its me, the dog, the cats, and parts of a disemboweled chipmunk on my back porch.
I finished the log cabin socks. I'm in the process of blocking sock number 2.
I'm also having a lovely, leisurely time knitting odessa from ravelry. The beads seem to want to sink and hide on the wrong side of my work, but the pattern is easy and I'm knitting it in Rowan Calmer which is lovely to work with and feels yummy on the hands as you're working it.
I'm attaching pictures (only of the knitting, NOT the disemboweled chipmunk on the back porch).

gone, baby, gone

The hubby man is gone....again. He's in a plane right now on his way to Detroit. *sigh*. I think he purposefully keeps his boss' email from me to prevent me from sending him nasty emails.
On another note, I did another chemo cap to send to the organizer of headhuggers.org along with the pattern I wrote. It isn't the original yarn I used, but its pretty soft so overall I'm happy with it. I've been designing a sock for my husband since he is my number one sock recipient. I managed to pin him down to give it an initial try on today and its too small and its not good on the stretchiness to get it over the foot thing. So, back to the drawing board and back to frogging. He picked out the colors for the sock so it makes it hard to see the little cable fabric in the sock. Its basically the same pattern as I used for the chemo cap. I guess I'll add some plain ribbing to the back of the sock to make it more stretchy.
I think my first pair of cable socks from Holiday knits may end up being an adversarial sock. For those who know me well, there's been some issues with my father these last few weeks and he was placed in a nursing home yesterday. At this point, I don't know if he even knows who I am and if he does, he might would throw something at my head. He's in the mental frame of mind that the other day he announced to the staff that he had grown another reproductive organ overnight. (I'm giving you the less crude version). Anyway, since I've been known to knit socks for those whom I hold far and away from my heart, these socks may go to him .