a bit of a ramble

It's been an odd week around here.  Snow derailed my Monday and Tuesday plans, resulting in some winners and some losers.  Two days off work with no house-cleaning guilt.  Big winner.  I didn't make it to Coldstone Creamery to cash in on my free birthday ice cream before the coupon expired (sign up for their birthday club, no unwanted emails and free ice cream once a year).  Loser.  I had time to finish a book, blog it and do a significant amount of work on a knitting project, decide it wasn't good enough, take it all out and start again.  The situation is a winner, even if I'm a loser.  The dryer repair dude couldn't come out and possibly fix my dryer because of the roads.  Loser.  But I didn't have to do any laundry during those two days off.  Winner-ish.  I saved loads of gas by not driving anywhere from Sunday night until Wednesday morning.  Frugal Ellen wins again. 

The dryer dude rescheduled for Wednesday, and our arrangement was that he would call thirty minutes before showing up.  So I decided to go to work.  Because the weather mandated a late opening, I didn't have to be at work until 11:30, so it was a bit inconvenient that I got the dryer call just before noon.  Dryer dude and I didn't hit it off immediately, as he was only about ten minutes away when he called.  I'll spare you the details of my not-so-pleasant phone demeanor because I was probably an over-reacting jerk.  So after being at work about 45 minutes, I left again.  In the first five minutes of my dryer's exam, I got great news that the problem was in the outlet, so I could have the apartment folks fix it, and I'd be back in business.  Then he took that back and decided that the real problem was in the timer switch, which is apparently as expensive to replace as a whole new dryer.  So my streak of things needing replacement in February continues.  At least it wasn't a car this time.
Since I was already home from work on a school day, I decided to go ahead and find that new dryer, in hopes of having it delivered sooner rather than later.  After doing very little research and choosing not to drive to North Little Rock or Bryant, so that I could focus on spending tons and tons of time reading labels and standing around waiting to ask questions of sales folk.  I will say that I encountered the nicest sales folk ever at both Best Buy and Home Depot.  I will also say that February is a great time to buy new appliances because everyone is running sales to cash in on all that tax refund action.  So I ended up buying the cheapest thing I could find because that's how I make decisions.  This uninspiring photo is my new Admiral (made by Maytag) dryer.  I can't show you what it looks like in my house yet because it won't be delivered until Saturday.

I'm sorry.  That was an awful lot of information about household appliances.  Sorry.

So here's something a bit more interesting (I hope).  Last winter weather incident I started knitting a scarf for someone, probably not me.  I put that on hold last week to start on a more time-sensitive baby knitting project.  I did my first project in the round and once again took no in-progress photos.  Blogging fail.  And after two false starts on circular needles (left), one too tightly cast on and another too loosely, I had to switch to double-point needles (right), which seemed like the scariest, most complicated thing ever.

As you can see from this delightful diagram lifted off the internet,  you have to put a third of your stitches on each needle and then use a fourth empty needle to knit onto.  Then once you knit all the stitches off a needle, you use that needle as the empty one.   I'm confusing myself with this.  But once you get started, it's not as bad as you might think.

And here are the results:

Here's an almost blurry flat view.  Also the colors are off in some of these.  It's a sweet little pastel variegated cotton yarn.

 

With a head inside it, it won't be so oddly shaped.  See what I mean about the colors.  I need to find some better lighting in my house.

Here's a a view of the top.  I'm fairly pleased with the decreases, especially for a first attempt.  

Most of the hat is done with a seed stitch, which is precious.

See what I mean about the colors and the lighting and whatnot?

All that knitting talk got me off track from the how I spent my week thing I was doing--maybe you didn't realize there was a purpose here.  Sorry.  Thursday I didn't go to work at all because I woke up feeling the cruddiest of cruds.  I am as certain I can be without owning a thermometer that I was running a fever, which is exhausting and ick.  But being sick is boring, so no more talk of that.

After listening to everyone in my life assure me that Lost got good again after I quit it at the end of season 4, I am considering giving it another shot.  I started watching season 1 on hulu yesterday afternoon.  I thought I might as well start with the part I definitely like before working my way back into the terrible, stupid season 4.  So I'm enjoying reliving the glory days.  We'll see how it progresses.

There was a rumor of more weather coming our way tonight/tomorrow, but something tells me I've used up my allotment of snow days for the year, so I won't be waiting around on that call tomorrow.  

The indecisive weather did have a role in canceling my planned weekend trip home to hang with my moma and the Popster, but the Saturday dryer delivery put the final nail in the that coffin.  Good news is that they're coming here next weekend.  My grams has been in Arkansas since Sunday, but dumb weather has kept me from seeing her.  Boo on that.

And surely that's enough random for one night.