Archives for the month of: May, 2009

Man, it has been awhile.  That was three and half weeks ago when I went to Maryland!  Where has the time go?

Well, I know where it went – I’ve been busy doing other things than blogging!  Bad jennsquared.  Well, without futher ado, let me give you the round down…

I took a train down to Washington DC Union station after work.  This is the second time I took Amtrak and I have to say I really like it – better than flying!  The first time was my FIRST Maryland Sheep & Wool Festival, and I rode it to Baltimore that time.  I rode in the food cart that time with a table to put my pattern on and spead out.  This time, I got into a quiet cart, which was pretty cool!  I liked it so much I made sure I got a seat in the quiet cart again on the way home.  I put on my headphones with some audiobooks on my ipod and went to town with knitting.

The ride was about four and a half hours, or maybe five, I can’t recall now.  But I just remember it being really pleasant.  Sneaksleep, whom I haven’t seen since the wedding, came to pick me up, and we went to a Sushi place for some really really late dinner.  It was the first time I had sushi since the sticks laughed at me.  It was SOOO GOOD!  Don’t worry, I only had cooked eel and veggie sushi.  After dinner, we went back to her place, stayed up till 1am to chit chat and catch up.  Olny when we saw the digital clock on her TV did we realize that we gotta go to bed so we can get up early to the festival!

We got up early enough to have breakfast at home and went to pick up Sneaksleep’s friend S from the train station.  We got to the festival itself around noon.  We saw some people already leaving!!!!  AND!  People who had made multiple trips to their cars!  But no fear, this festival is so big, there is something for everyone!  Here is my loot from two days of shopping:

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What you see is one skein of Brooks Farm Solana in sage, the world’s softest superwash wool, ever!  One half cone of Llamajama Alpaca Merino Wool, which is equivalent of 5 skeins of yarn, all that for $30!!!! (usually $75!!!)  Yup, couldn’t have let that pass, plus it’s super soft!  Then, 10 skeins of Fiddlesticks Ecoknits Organic Cotton, 5 in cream and 5 in olive.  These yarn were grow with the color!!!  Not dyed!  Isn’t that cool?  AND!  At $3.25 a skein, it was a baaah-gain!  Perfect yarn for my little perfect devil that will be joining our family.  I liked it so much I convinced Sneaksleep to get some!  And I told her I would buy them off her if she changes her mind! :)   What’s not pictured is a Fiber Trends Estonian Lullaby Baby Blanket for half price, and 1.5 oz of CORMO roving from The Clearing at Curry Farm for some thrummed mittens.

Not too bad for two days of yarn fumes, right?  Oh, see that pair of mittens?  Yes, I know I can make them, but on Sunday, it RAINED AND RAINED AND RAINED.  I was COOOOOOOOLD!  So I bought these for 13 bucks!  And they are 100% Alpaca!  Oh, and a tube of lotion.  I tried it out while I was at the festival on Saturday, and when I rubbed on my hand, my first thought was – yeww…  this is kind of sticky.  I’m not sure I like that.  After all is rubbed in, and half an hour later, while I was picking up my cone of yarn, I noticed how soft my hand was.  And by the end of the day, I was super impressed.  Because after going to the bathroom 3 times, and washing my hands all day after bathroom breaks and animals, my hands were still super moisturized and soft!  I HAD to go back and get a tube.  Of course, it is no where near my camera today, so you’ll just have to take my word for it.

Oh, you want to see some animals?  I suppose…

 

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Sneaksleep’s mom had joined us on Saturday, so we went to PF Chang’s for dinner at Columbia after the festival.  It was finger licking good! :)

We got back late and shortly, S went to bed while Sneaksleep and I went up to the guest room and play with more yarn and look at yarn books.  She pulled out some yarn she got at a small festival in Virginia and her cat Ivy immediately decided to make a bed out of one.  So much so that she ended up sleeping in the same bed as me!  Which is UNHEARD of!

Sunday we made the trip back up for more shopping.  Due to the rain, there were much less people there.  We had a good time anyways and got some goodies in bargain prices because of the low turn out.

We sadly said goodbye to the festival at 1pm.  Until next year, I leave you with this I saw at the festival…

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Well, I was going to talk about Maryland Sheep and Wool, or even about the Green Monster tickets we got back in April and the awesome game we witnessed, but I have lost my battery charger from my camera and my phone is completely dead.  Not just dead like needs a charge, but it’s dead.  I’m waiting for Verizon to FedEx-ing me a new one.  So in the mean time, I will humor you with my one of the two episodes of hormonal break down, or attack, or just insanity, however you want to look at it.

If you know me well, you know that I’m pretty easy going, for the most part. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a saint.  I can be fussy about things, and bitchy about people (just ask David – he knows).  But when it comes to dealing with things in life and people in general, I can honestly say I try my best to be easy going and pleasant to deal with.

The first incident happened about a month ago (I think…  memory is fuzzy – you know, pregnancy brain!).  To give you the background – We rent a 80 gallon hot water heater from our electric company.  It is well insulated and it only heats in the middle of the night when the electricity is cheaper.  It works really well, even though we haven’t quite see the dramatic change on electricity bill, we were happy that we don’t have to worry about calling a plumer when the thing gives out or needs servicing, because it’s all covered in the 12 dollars per month cost.  Plus we never runs out of hot water!  How great is that?!

Well, slowly, I noticed a drop off on temp of hot water.  I’m a night time shower-er, I do it to save me time in the morning, and to free up the bathroom in the morning for David to get ready.  Plus I just like to go to bed freshly cleaned.  So, I noticed the cold water and I’ve experienced it once in awhile.  My brother is notorious for taking extra long and extra hot showers and I had numerous talks with him about being considerate for others, blah blah blah.  You know the drill.  

During that particular week, on Monday, I took a really quick and cold shower (less than 10 mins with washing my hair, rinsing it, conditioning it, brush my teeth, wash my face and body the whole bit) and I was not happy.  I like to enjoy my shower.  I don’t like to rush it  hence me taking it at night.  I let it slide.  On Tuesday, I didn’t wash my hair, but the water still only lasted about 10 mins.  I was pissed, of course.  TWO NIGHTS!!! What the Hell!  But I still didn’t talk to my brother.  

By the way, if you are wondering, besides the three people shower in the house, we only maybe run one load of dishwasher and one load of laundry, which in this case, only dishwasher was run one night and no laundry was done either on Monday or Tuesday.

On Wednesday, I went and took a shower.  The water was hot and I was pleased.  I started shampooing my hair and rinsed it.  Conditioning it…  ahhh it’s so nice to have a hot shower…  Wait, what’s going on?  No No No NO NO NO NO!!!!!!!!  This can’t be happening!!!!  Yup, you guessed it – the water turned cold.  I think I said some really unpleasant words, screaming at the water and promising myself loudly that I will give my brother a piece of my mind!  David heard me cursing and came to the bathroom to get the cocoa butter to be microwaved so I can put it on warm.  He came back in and put the cocoa butter down and went to get the dogs (they were outside barking their heads off!).  I shut the water off after the lovely cold rinse and just broke down and…

CRIED!

Not just the little tears when you get upset about something that you just can’t control the tears.  I was flat out SOBBING!  I was wrapped in my towel, standing in the middle of the tub, and crying my eyes out like a 3 year old who just fell and hit her head, HARD!  I think at one point I was crying so much I was having a hard time to get air in my lungs!  David heard me all the way in the living room and ran right in.  He kept on telling me that I was just gonna be colder if I don’t dry off but I just kept on crying and saying that “I just want a hot shower…”  Except he couldn’t understand a word I said!  So he grabbed a different towel to get me dry, picked me up to get out of the tub and just held tell me it was gonna be okay and that we can just called the electric company the next day to have it turn on all the time so I can have a hot shower.  

The whole crying thing probably lasted about 10 minutes, which is quite long and exhausting I have to say.  By the time my brother got home, I was too exhausted to give him a piece of my mind.

On Thursday, David reminded me to call the electric company.  By then, I was back to my normal self and waiting on the call waiting.  It was taking so long that they offered to call me back and that I won’t lose my place (which I think all utility/bills company should do!).  When I finally get to speak to a real life person, the lady asked why I wanted to turn it on all the time as it will be costly.  I told her about the cold water at night and she asked, “May I ask what you run your water on?  Like what do you do with the water?”  I said, “Well, three showers, one of them is like half an hour long with extra hot water, dishes and laundry, the usual”.  She paused, then said, “I’m going to send out a technician to check out your heater.  I think something is wrong with it.”  Hmmm… okay.  Not what I was expecting to accomplish with this call, but I’ll bite and play along.

The technician came Friday afternoon while my brother had off from work.  I got home and asked him what happened.  He said, “oh the guy said something wrong with the thermostat and the valve of some sort.  He changed them…  I wasn’t really listening so I’m not sure what valve he was talking about though.”

Interesting.  I guess I’ll take a shower and find out if he’s telling the truth!

Well…  That was a month ago, and I haven’t yet need to call the electric company back, nor did I talk to my brother sternly once more about being considerate, especially to his pregnant sister.  There was no need – THAT WATER IS DAMN HOT IT ALMOST BURNED ME!  But I was so happy.  I took an extra long shower that night. :)

Oh, I should probably say that I’m not a crying type of girl.  Well, I cry when I watch movies and when I saw something great happening – like a dog being rescued and saved, but I never cry on not able to take a hot shower, or anything like that.  I would get mad and storm around the house, but that will be it!  Never crying, let along sobbing!  Clearly, it was not the usual me in that tub!  At least that’s what I’m going to tell myself anyways :) .

Next time, I’ll tell you about the post office break down.  Now I’m gonna go enjoy myself a hot shower!

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