It's enough to make anyone crazy.

I get myself into messes. I know this. But the past two weeks have really gone above and beyond in terms of testing my patience. A brief look into what's going on at our house:

We're nearly done with the bedroom remodel. "Remodel" seems like such a strong word, but this isn't just slapping up some new paint. Five years after we first moved in, we're back to spackling, fixing cracks, and finally painting the ceiling. Yes, we did do this room when we moved in, and yes, it was a ton of work, but it wasn't perfect. Justin, apparently, is going for perfect. We've been sleeping in the guest room for the past two weeks, and I've been told I'll be back in my bed tomorrow night. I MUST be back in my bed tomorrow night because:

Portrait of the Dog as tired of this shit.

Penny is here. My parents dropped her off last week, and they're returning from their vacation tomorrow night at midnight, and they, of course, will sleep in the guest room.

Some of my week has looked like this:

It's like an idiot convention in here.But most of it has looked like this:

No, seriously, when is she going home?Gracie has all of a sudden become a jealous bird, and she can't stand it when I pay attention to Penny. She used to not care, but now she's all I'M THE ONLY DOG IN THIS HOUSE and it's become quite tiresome. After my parents left on Saturday morning, Gracie spent the day preventing Penny from coming upstairs. Also, she's been in my face all week, obviously trying to tell me something. We asked her if Timmy fell in the well again, but just got a blank look.

On the upside of things, I've been spinning:

I'm very nearly done spinning the singles and hoping against hope that plying it won't turn into a muddy mess. I'd like to start plying tomorrow, but we'll see. I think this will become socks for Justin. It's nice to spin again, especially while watching Downton Abbey on Netflix. I have all of a sudden stopped watching all of the Real Housewives and now record The This Old House Hour and all of the Masterpiece Classics.

Welcome to my 30s.

Back at the wheel

My little sewing machine is in the shop after two horrifying evenings of tangled thread and loud clunking sounds. I was in a snit about it for a few days - I have a project that really, really needs to be finished - but last night I revisited an old friend who has been much neglected over the past two years.

My poor spinning wheel. When I broke my foot (or whatever was wrong with it) two years ago, I pretty much got out of the habit of spinning. I picked it up for a few months after my first set of casts came off, but then I was back in traction six months later. I grabbed some handdyed merino last night and spun for about 45 minutes. I'm still getting reacquainted with it, but it was so nice to watch the colors blend on the bobbin. I'm going to try to spin at least 10 minutes a day; I have a lot of stash to get through.

A question of color

My craft enthusiasm plummeted after I finished my mom's fairy quilt. Finishing projects, especially big ones, is pretty anticlimactic for me - I really am a process crafter and get most of my enjoyment out of that, not the finished product. I enjoyed making the fairy quilt so much that I have plans to make one for myself. (It was actually the plan all along - I bought some medium-brown fabric for my fairies' hair, as my fairies will of course be brunettes.) I'm not quite ready to start that - the hot days of August are not a good time to be ironing in the craft room.

I also have no idea what to do about this next project. I finished spinning enough yarn for a sweater a few months ago. I rarely knit with my handspun, so this is pretty exciting. Here's what I have:

It's a really lovely bulky 2-ply merino. I was completely surprised how it spun up - the roving didn't look like this at all. The reds and light blues were completely hidden until I actually plied the yarn. I have 630 yards. I'm planning a pullover, maybe EZ's Seamless Hybrid. But I'm worried about the yardage. Very worried. True, it's a bulky yarn, but 630 yards doesn't seem like enough. So I figured out the rough dimensions of the sweater, thereby figuring out the number of inches of fabric I need. According to my estimates, if my gauge is 3 st./inch or fewer, I'm in the clear. Extremely close, no wiggle room, but in the clear.

So I'm thinking maybe we need a little contrast, maybe a sleeve stripe, or different colored cuffs. Here are my options:

A)

B)

My gut reaction is actually the blue, because I think the red is a bit much and, well, a bit predictable. Jimmi and Kyra both vote for the red, and Jimmi pointed out that before I make a concrete decision, I should spin up some of each and see how that turns out. Which is smart, but it's too hot to spin, so it won't be done immediately.

What says you?

Just a little dead inside.

Spinning status: Some FatCat in Cayenne Pepper and Aunt Esther, plied together. Love it.

Cubbie status: Still drunk. (Cubbie is Gracie's bear. He's a drunk bear, always face down on the carpet. Sometimes he teeters precariously at the top of the stairs, ready to end it all. And do you see how she's practically beheading him? He's her favorite, but they have a tenuous relationship at best. Also, I cannot tell you how many times a day I say, "Cubbie Bear is such a good bear." At least a million. It does nothing to ease his internal anguish.)

Our favorite pre-historic reptile, Unkie Turtle

I'm not feeling so hot lately. The no-breathing that plagued me during the last quarter of 2007 is back with a vengence, accompanied by it's friend Dry Cough. So I'm switching medicines again. In the past year, I have been on Prozac, Effexor, Lexapro and Celexa (the last two are the ones that impede my breathing). I'm tired, crabby and my feet are still the size of melons. It's a gray, icky day (my favorite kind of day, actually) and there are supposed to be storms tonight. G and I will cuddle up with Unkie Turtle and read.

Gracie loves Unkie Turtle. He is an upstairs turtle.

I have been so, so good at not buying yarn or roving. (I know I'll come home with a boatload from Yarn School - next week! - and I CAN'T WAIT.) Thanks to finishing up Jennifer's yarn, I have spun 12.5% of my stash! Here are some pics of it:

It's on the bulky side, 2,380 yards and 4.5 lbs. It's the most I've ever spun of one particular fiber (Crown Mountain Farms pencil roving) and I don't know if I'll ever do that much again. Luckly, I've figured about two pounds for a sweater for myself, so that should only take half as long.

I thought I'd be really sick of spinning it, but I was just enormously pleased with it when I was done. I think I hit the blahs midway through and took some time off, but I really powered through it in the last few weeks and found a good sense of spinning zen (and many, many podcasts). I need that zen to transfer over to my knitting. Still in the hole on that one.