Wow! I have been so super busy, but knitting. The only way to recap is with a list. Sorry. I know it isn't so interesting.

1. Booties!
   
   More accurately, wonky booties. I don't know why or how my toes came out so weird, but whatever. The baby won't be walking in these any time soon. I see more of these in my future - no, not *my* future, but my friend's futures. I have some that are preggers, so I gotta knit something. Booties are easy and fast. I might even tackle an afghan.
2. Socks!
   I have two pair on the needles right now. The first pair I'm knitting in a boring stockinette pattern out of Socks that Rock Peaseblossom.
   
   But... while knitting the second sock, I accidentally dropped a stitch when turning the heel. Bad times.
   
   So I started another sock.
   
   I'm already down to the toe decreases on this one, and to be honest, I figured I should finish the socks that rock sock before I finished this one, so I fixed my mistake (sort of... it looks weird) and continued knitting. I'll be ready to start the toe decreases tonight.
3. Sheep and Wool!
   On Saturday, my friend Andi and I headed over to the Great Lakes Fiber Show. It started out as sort of a crap day, but the weather cleared and we were able to fondle some of the nicest fiber. We might have even made a few purchases. Our knitting group is planning a dye day this summer, so we got some undyed wool and roving. I got some sock yarn - are you surprised?! - and it is the softest stuff EVER. Seriously.
   
   The yarn is a merino/nylon mix and is dyed by Sharon at Ewe'n Me Country Crafts. She's got an etsy site. Check it out. 460 yards of this goodness for $16.00 + shipping.  Not a bad deal if you ask me.
   We also got to see the animals.  One of these guys was willing to give me a kiss.
   
   Hmmm... now if he were just human without the grass in his teeth, he'd be better than most of the guys I've dated.
4. Gifts!
   I participated in a superfluous sock yarn swap and received a cool skein of Opal from Norway!  This is my first skein of Opal sock yarn, and I'm excited to knit it up.  I'm not sure of a cool pattern for it,though, and the stockinette socks... well... they're getting a little boring.
   
5. House!
   I'm home for a few weeks, and am going to try to really get it done soon.  I just have my dining room left to decorate, but the other rooms are a mess because...well... I've been gone a lot.  I'll get it done, though, and there will be pictures to post soon

Tracey tagged me the other day for a meme. So here goes...

1. Each player starts with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
2. People who are tagged need to write their own blog about their eight things and post these rules.
3. At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.
4. Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.

1. I bite my nails. For those of you who know me in person, you'll know that it doesn't look like it because my nails are always (usually?) done. The ONLY reason I get acrylic nails is to avoid biting the real ones. If I could, I'd stop getting acrylics, but then I'd have little teeny nubs for nails. Not pretty.
2. I always sit with my left leg under my right one. I know that this is HORRIBLE for my posture, and yet, I cannot stop myself from doing it.
3. When I find a fantastic song (i.e. Damian Rice's The Blower's Daughter, Elliot Smith's Twilight, etc.) I will listen to it nonstop for hours. Even if they are sad songs or don't have any relevance in my life (see my i.e. list above) it makes me feel better.
4. I never watch reality television. I find it incredibly mind numbing to do so. However, I check the results for American Idol every Thursday, even though I have no idea what most of the singers even sound like.
5. I love my TiVo. I cannot give it up. I have an HDTV, but TiVo's HD DVR is close to $1000. I won't buy one, so I got an HD DVR from my cable company. My TiVo is still hooked up, taping shows through a seperate cable box. I'm still watching it, too. I like the HD, but I love the sounds my TiVo makes.
6. I'm an obsessive e-mail checker. There was an article a few months back about people who are "addicted" to e-mail. I think I'm one of them. So please, send me e-mail
7. I love Diet Coke.  I hate Diet Pepsi.
8. I won't tag anyone for this meme.  I'm bad like that.

Thanks, Tracey!  This was fun.

Oh, I have been knitting.  I'll share tomorrow.  Mostly, though, I've been Ravelry-ing. Thanks for the invite, Chelsea!

Is everyone sitting down? Have you swallowed whatever it is you're drinking? If you have done neither of these things, I highly recommend you do. I do not want to get sued for a bad fall of ruining a keyboard. Because today, I have a finished object to share. Amazing, no?

SOCKS!

Can you believe I finished a whole PAIR of them? I hardly can. And I can't believe how much I love them! They were knit from Regia Canadian Fashion Colors in the Montreal colorway. I bought this yarn last May, when I was in, you guessed it, CANADA. Sadly, I was in Toronto, and did not look for the Toronto colorway, which is equally beautiful. But I've been looking forward to knitting these socks for a year almost. And I'm done with them. It is quite rewarding. Generally, Regia isn't the softest yarn, but after washing these, the socks got this beautiful mist to them and they are so very gentle on my feet. I really do love these socks. They won't get much wear this week, though, because it is in the 70's here in Akron, and wool+70 degree weather doesn't go so well together.

I also want to reveal some recent stash acquisitions. First, quite possibly the softest yarn ever. Silkie Socks that Rock in the sock club Walking on the Wild Tide colorway.

When I opened the STR Sock Club Kit for April, I was rather... well... not enamored with the yarn. It was different than I was expecting, but after touching it... wow! I fell in love. It really is super soft. I think that whatever socks I choose to knit, I'll never ever wear. I just can't see this softness wearing well. If I do wear them, it will just be around the house (not while remodeling, though). I'm so looking forward to knitting with this yarn. I may even cast on tonight...

Second acquisition was purchased on my trip to Maryland a few weeks ago. It was totally last minute, so I didn't let the Knitty Meetup girls know I was coming, though I did have dinner with Lara and breakfast with Falafel. I stayed over until Saturday because I wanted to go out with some nonknitting friends, and then, on Saturday, I shopped. I went to my favorite fabric store.

There, I picked up some Denyse Schmidt fabric and something to coordinate with it. I think it'll make a cute bag (as if I need another bag).

Then I made it up to Cloverhill Yarn Shop. In all the time I lived in Maryland, I never drove up there, so this was my first visit. It really was a very nice store. I purchased some Claudia's Handpainted in Ingrid's Blues. I love the colors in this yarn!

I also purchased some Louet Gems to make the Endpaper Mitts.

Now, I have all this wool in my collection stash... but its almost summer. What to make, what to make...

I've been promising pictures of my new house for a while now, and I really wanted to share the work I've done on it with you.  However, I was waiting until I received the furniture I ordered.  I got my bedroom set on Monday and WHOA!  What a different room this is.  The bedroom started off looking like this:

This was the picture I took (sadly, with my camera phone) of the bedroom as the previous owners had it.  Notice the stripey wallpaper, the (filthy) lacy curtains, and the (dirty) carpet.  You can see it better in this picture, without the furniture.

There are several spots on that carpet that I wouldn't want a dog to sit on, but sit on it I did.  Several times.  My sister and I spent two long days getting the wallpaper down.  Now *that* was a chore.  I've never, even been so sore in my life.  After we removed the wallpaper, the walls were a disgusting shade of "wallpaper glue" yellow, and in terrible, terrible shape.  My house was built in 1945 and apparently, no paint had ever touched the walls of this room.  Wallpaper was the wallcovering of choice for all of the previous owners.  So I spackled, and sanded, and spackled, and Rhonda helped me sand, and then I spackled a bit more, and I might have sanded a bit too much, so I had to spackle there, too.  And then I primed the walls.  Almost three coats later, the walls were ready to paint.

During all this time, my brother-in-law and nieces were kind enough to come over and help me put up a ceiling fan.  OK, so maybe my nieces didn't help so much as distract, and maybe my brother-in-law was the one putting the fan up.  But whatever, I got a new fan!  The old one looked quite a bit like this:

The new one?  It looks like this:

Now, the sharp-eyed folks out there will notice there are no pull strings for operating the fan and the light.  That's because the fan is remote control operated.  Yes, the little things in life make me happy!

Anyway, back to the painting.  I went to the home improvement warehouse and purchased some paint, matching it to a Ralph Lauren color in the hopes of using one of his painting techniques.  I painted the room late one Thursday night (or early one Friday morning depending on how you look at it) and let the paint dry.  My sister, as a housewarming present, bought me the Ralph Lauren paint in order to the Candlelight technique.   I followed all of the instructions to the tee, and the finish came out HORRIBLE.  It looks like someone had foiled on gold lame to my bedroom walls.  It should have been a disco it was so shiny.  It looked like WALLPAPER from the 80's that one would find in a downstairs hallway.  Such a bad idea.  So I had to paint the room.  Again.  But with all the travelling and the working on other things, I just finished painting it two weekends ago.

This weekend, knowing that I was going to get my furniture on Monday, I decided that it was time to rip up the carpet.  Again... this took forever!  And the carpet was FILTHY.  But it came up, and WOW!!!  Beautiful hardwoods lurked underneath.

As of Sunday night, my bedroom was looking pretty good.

FYI, that little reflection you see next to the window... that's the Ralph Lauren finish showing through my second coat.  Trust me when I tell you cannot see it in normal light.  Its the flash that's causing the reflection, but typically, you can't see it.  Doesn't show a bit.  But this also goes to show you how great my painting my skills were after three different times painting this room.

Another picture:

See the pretty hardwoods?

And then, I got my furniture.  Total transformation!