Jade

This is not the time to tell me that

2009-12-12T01:58:28Z

Nothing like opening up your email and seeing "URGENT--PLEASE CALL EXPEDIA REGARDING YOUR FLIGHT".

Apparently Delta Air Lines has a 6-year-old running their flight schedule system--a 6-year-old who likes to rearrange things on a daily basis. Since I booked our trip to FL back in Sept., I've already received two notices that my flight details have been changed. Both were minor, however, just a slight shift in a departure time that really didn't make a huge difference.

This time, though, they really went haywire. Not only did they change flight numbers on two of my flights, they changed my return trip flight times into and out of Atlanta so that now I leave Atlanta 15 minutes BEFORE I actually get to Atlanta.

So I get on the phone with Expedia, and fortunately, they are very helpful in setting me up with a new schedule for my flights home. Unfortunately, I now have to leave FL at 7:00am, which means I have to get up at an ungodly hour to get to the airport. I am not thrilled with that, but at least I only had to change one flight to fix everything, and we'll still be getting home at a decent time.

Now I just have to get our seat assignments for the new flight settled and hopefully all will be good--and this had better be the last of these flight changes, or Delta Air Lines is going to be getting an earful.

More bunny cuteness

2009-10-19T18:05:27Z

Posted this at rabbitowners earlier, then decided I needed to share it here:

For the benefit of Mr. Hall

2009-10-05T01:26:02Z

If I lived in NY, I would play this game every day just because of this video. ;)

For the Uwe Boll fans on here

2009-09-04T07:24:25Z

http://www.collectedcurios.com/sequentialart.php

Look for strip #571 if you're reading this after the weekend.

A wee bit of bunny-mum bragging

2009-07-18T15:38:06Z

I entered Mickey's and Karnage's pics in the contest for a spot in the 2010 Bunspace calendar. Checked out the results this morning--and Mickey won a spot with this pic:

This pic will be in one of the photo pages for each month.

Needless to say, I'm quite excited and can't wait until the calendar comes out. I am a little surprised that one of the pics I submitted for Karnage wasn't chosen, though--not that I'm greedy enough to want both of them in the calendar (well, maybe a little ;) ), but because I thought this pic was really calendar-worthy:

How can you pass up that face? :)

Too funny not to post

2009-05-26T21:34:32Z

You've got to give the little fellow credit: he's at least persistent. ;)

The wascally wabbit at large

2009-05-10T20:14:12Z

My son gave me a new camera for Mother's Day--a 12.1 MP Sony Cybershot that takes really good video as well as still photos. We were playing with it the night he gave it to me, and I took some video of Mickey being his wascally self. I posted this at rabbitowners, then decided I should share it here as well. Enjoy!

jademyst @ 2009-05-04T14:55:00

2009-05-04T18:58:27Z

The candy store on Main St. carries some weird stuff, but this just took the cake:

Jury duty and line repair

2009-04-30T19:08:07Z

Today was supposed to be the day I had to go for jury duty. Called yesterday afternoon in the hopes that I would be told that I was not needed, but no such luck; the recording stated that all who were scheduled as potential jurors were required to attend.

As most of you know, I am a night person; it is not out of the ordinary for me to be awake until 3 or 4 am. This is not a good thing, though, when you are expected to be at a courthouse for jury duty at 8 am. I live a 45-minute drive from the courthouse, so this meant having to be up at 6 am in order to be out of the house by 7. Don't think I wasn't tempted to just not go to bed, but since I had no idea how long I'd be stuck at jury duty, I couldn't take the chance of crashing and burning at the wrong time and place.

Unfortunately, despite all my best efforts, I still wasn't able to get my ass in bed until about 2:30 am. Even sadder, I was really having a good sleep for once--until that alarm went off and just about killed me. Got dressed, threw together a quick breakfast/snack to bring in case I didn't get a chance to grab something on the way, grabbed my tote bag full of stuff to keep me from being bored silly and off I went. The drive-through line at McD's was surprisingly short, so I swooped in and got one of their chicken/biscuit things and some iced coffee (the one thing I do regret not being a morning person for is McD's chicken/biscuit sandwich--I know it's nothing but fat and carbs, but DAMN, it tastes so good) and continued on.

The one thing that kills me about jury duty is that there is NO place to park at the courthouse. You have to find a parking place somewhere in the area and generally hope you won't get towed or ticketed. Yes, they tell you that if you get ticketed, you just have to send them your jury duty info and you don't have to pay the fine, but I don't trust that system to save my soul. On top of that, they're currently doing a bunch of road work at the godforsaken rotary that sits right in front of the courthouse, and it's the last place on earth I want to be. I ended up parking at the grocery store parking lot and walking up the hill to the courthouse; not a fun walk, but at least I knew I wouldn't get towed or ticketed.

As I'm approaching the courthouse, a woman sees my tote bag, smiles and says, "Jury duty? You'll be in and out."

Hmmmm....ok....

I get inside, go through the security system, then head downstairs to the jury room. At the bottom of the stairs, I meet up with another woman. She tells me everything's been cancelled; all I have to do is give my jury sheet to the officer on duty and I'm good for 3 years.

At this point, two thoughts are racing simultaneously through my head:

"WOOHOO! No jury duty!" and

"3 hours sleep and a 45-minute drive for this?!"

I give my sheet to the officer and she verifies that yes, everything is cancelled, and because I did show up, it counts as having served, therefore I cannot be called to serve again for 3 years. I head back upstairs, passing the word along as I go to all the other people headed the same way. You can tell all the people who have jury duty; they're usually carrying a book and/or a tote bag, and look absolutely resigned to their fate. Needless to say, there were a lot of happy people today. One of my fellow non-jurors even gave me a ride back to my car, so that made me even happier.

I got home, got on the comp for a bit until the coffee wore off, then hit the couch for a nap. I would like to say it was a good nap, except dear hubby showed up and woke me up freaking out about the drooping wires in our yard.

Last night, we found out that our neighbors had finally decided to take down the half-dead tree in their front yard, which was great except that apparently our electric and phone lines were resting in the branches of the tree--and when the branches came down, the lines sagged like a 70-year-old woman's bustline. Fortunately, we didn't lose power or phone service, but there was no guarantee that would continue with the lines drooping like that. I had been planning to call after my nap, but hubby came home on a quick break from work and promptly had heart failure when he saw that the lines were still sagging. God forbid I actually get some rest when there's drooping lines, and god forbid my husband take five minutes to make two phone calls himself if he's so worried about it. I wonder what he'd have done if I had actually been gone all day with jury duty.

I called Verizon and the electric company, and surprisingly, they both showed up way faster than expected and got everything taken care of very quickly. Of course, that doesn't mean my husband is off the hook for waking me up about all this. He'll be lucky if he doesn't end up with a phone embedded in him somewhere. You really don't want to mess with me when I'm low on sleep.

jademyst @ 2009-04-26T04:59:00

2009-04-26T09:12:04Z

The most bizarre thing happened tonight.

First off, you need to know that I live in a very small town in a very rural area; there is nothing here in the way of nightlife, and the one restaurant in town has closed for the night well before now.

It's 2:00am and I'm at the comp as always, playing a game. My front door is open because it's hot as hell in the house, but the screen door is locked because I'm paranoid like that. Good thing I am, because out of the blue, there's a knock at my door.

I jump about a mile and look over at the door. I can't see anyone there from where I am, so I call out, "Who is it?"

There is a muffled answer, and I couldn't recognize the voice or what he/she was saying, so I go over to the door and turn on the outside light. Two Hispanic guys are standing just off my doorstep. One says something to me that sounds like he's asking for a guy named Ryan.

Me: Who?

Him: No, no, we need a ride. *points to our cars in the driveway* Can you give us a ride to Millerton?

Millerton is over the border in New York, and at least a half-hour's drive away.

Me: No. Leave. Now.

Him: We just need to get to Millerton...

Me: *pointing towards the street* No, you need to leave--NOW!

Him: Ok, ok, no problem...

They turn and leave. I should have tried to see which way they went, but I am literally shaking like a leaf, I am so freaked out. I shut off the outside light, go to the phone and call the local police. I tell the officer on duty what happened, and he says he'll come out and see if he can find them. About twenty minutes later, I see the police car drive slowly by, then a short time later, it pulls in to my driveway. The officer tells me he didn't see them, and asks me a few more questions about what happened. I give him the details again, and said for all I know, these guys were honestly just looking for a ride, but for someone to show up at my house in the dead of night like that just freaked me right out. I have absolutely no idea where they could have come from--like I said, there's no bar or restaurant or anything that would be open anywhere nearby. He thought perhaps they worked at the one restaurant in town, but that place would have been closed well before now, and if they were trying to get to Millerton, they wouldn't have come in this direction from there--Millerton's in completely the opposite direction.

The officer said he'd go up and down the street once more, and that if I saw or heard anything more, to call the station again. He said I did the right thing by calling, even though it's very possible that they didn't mean any harm, because there have been break-ins in our town and the surrounding towns. The only thing that worried me for a second was the possibility that they might have swiped stuff out of my husband's van, but considering that 1. I would have heard for sure if they had tried to open the van doors and 2. they were on foot, it wasn't like they could get very far or take very much if they were planning on stealing anything. I still made sure all the house and car doors were locked after he left.

Needless to say, it's now 5:00am and I'm not sleeping. (This would have been posted earlier, but LJ was down for some reason.) If I were living in the city, or if this was our old apartment, which was right next door to a local restaurant/nightclub, two strangers showing up at my door at 2:00am would have been unexpected, even annoying, but I wouldn't nearly be as freaked out as I was, and still am somewhat. But I live on a dead-quiet street in a dead-quiet town in the fucking back of beyond. Let's put it this way--BEARS in my yard at 2:00am would not freak me out, but people showing up from out of nowhere? Fuck no, that's not supposed to happen.

The queen of procrastination strikes again

2009-04-05T18:38:55Z

I need to finally sit down and get my taxes done today because I have to send copies of everything out for Allan's financial aid stuff for college. Needless to say, I am stalling as long as reasonably possible by doing a bunch of online stuff that isn't actually necessary, but might as well get done now. For example, I took a bunch of pictures of Mickey last night that were too cute not to share, so I uploaded them to Facebook and to his Bunspace page.
Here's a few of the cutest ones:

Getting my hand licked off--I has a flavor. ;)

Lounging after an attempt to gnaw through a big box.

After a snack, it's time for a nap...

...but first, a good paw-washing is necessary...

...can't forget the face...

...hmmm, missed a spot...

Excuse me, do I take YOUR picture while you're washing up?!

Just a couple more things, and then it's time to crack down and do some work. Feh.

EDIT: Income taxes are now done--and we actually get a refund! YAY! :D

An evening out

2009-03-29T05:50:22Z

Hubby and I went out to dinner tonight with some of his friends and their wives; four couples (including us) in all. It was a good evening for the most part, except for one thing. When we got there, two of the three couples we were eating with were already seated. At a nearby table was another large party, this one consisting of at least four adults and about eight kids ranging in age from (I'm guessing)7-10 years old. They were grouped with the adults together at one set of bunched-together tables and the kids at another set nearby. Kids being kids, and being in a group of kids, they were being a little loud. Not the greatest thing in the world to listen to, but you could see that they were nearly finished with their meal and would be leaving soon enough.

That wasn't good enough for one of my husband's friends and his wife, though. They were absolutely spazzing about the situation. The way they were acting, you'd think the kids were dancing on tables or something. My husband's friend called over the hostess and they complained to her about the kids being too loud. The hostess spoke to the kids and told them they needed to quiet down because they were disturbing other people. The adults also spoke to the kids, and they did quiet down for a time, but then the noise level started to go up again. Hubby's friend and his wife freaked out and complained to the hostess again, and she apparently told the group that they needed to leave, because they immediately all got up and left. The hostess told us later that the adults in the group were not happy at being treated like that, and told her they wouldn't be back.

I wasn't at all happy about the whole situation, either. For one thing, my husband's friend is a plenty loud guy himself, and the eight of us (once the last couple got there) were probably just as loud and boisterous tonight as that group of kids had been. Would this guy and his wife have tolerated being told we were being too loud? Probably not. For another, it was obvious that they were going to be leaving shortly, so what was to be gsined by bitching and moaning and making the hostess ask them to leave? We could have just as easily asked to sit somewhere else, we hadn't placed an order yet.

I know why they were so bent--they're an older couple, both in their late 60s. Grown kids, no grandchildren--they probably haven't been around children that age in decades. They've forgotten what it's like when you have a bunch of kids in a group--you're not going to achieve perfect peace and quiet no matter what you do. Yes, the adults in the group should have been more diligent in monitoring the kids, but there's only so much you can expect from a group of young children. Besides, if our friends wanted peace and quiet while dining, they shouldn't have picked a family-friendly restaurant. Family-friendly = children. Children = LOUD.

The rest of the evening went well enough, but I told my husband afterwards that I'd rather not go to a restaurant with that couple again if possible. I'll go to their home or they can come to our home, but I'm not going through something like that again.

Celestial Seasonings is my new bestest friend

2009-03-25T15:47:15Z

It started with a bit of a cough on Monday night that was still there (along with some stuffiness) on Tuesday morning. It wasn't so bad that I felt the need to skip swim class, though. Surprisingly, swim class actually made me feel better--at least until I left the athletic center, then everything came back again.

Even so, I didn't feel all that bad...at least, not right away. I managed to make it through food shopping, but as I was walking the aisles, I could feel a general achiness creeping over me. I managed to get home and get the groceries unloaded and put away before the general achiness turned into "dear-god-even-my-hair-hurts".

Oh, yeah, it's a goddamn cold.

First cold I've had in god-knows how long. Fortunately, it's nowhere near as bad as some I've had in the past. Aleve took care of the major achiness, and so far sugar-free cough drops and herbal tea have been keeping the cough to a minimum. As long as I don't have to start popping decongestants and stuff, I'm happy. When you haven't been sick in a while, though, even a minor cold makes you feel like a bomb hit you, so I've been spending as much time sleeping on the couch as possible. I'm just glad that I have today and tomorrow free, and at worst, I might have to skip going to swim class and cancel my workout on Friday.

Mickey, however, is not at all happy that I've been too sick to give him the massive amounts of attention that he needs. I didn't bring him out for snuggling last night because I didn't want to risk getting him sick (there are some things rabbits can catch from people, and I'm not sure if a cold is one of them or not), and so this morning, he's been tossing his food dishes around like crazy. I'd better go feed him so he doesn't end up breaking them, foo' wabbit that he is.

Another baby blanket completed

2009-03-22T20:56:38Z

Finished the second blanket for my cousin's baby girl due in July; this one's got a hood to it:

This is a close-up of the pattern I used; it's really simple, but looks complicated.

This is a close-up of the hood; for some reason, it turned out bigger than I expected, and I'm not as happy with it, but I'm also really lazy about taking something apart unless it's really necessary, so there it is. I figure at worst, the kid will be able to wear it for a long time. :)

And for those of you who aren't into baby blankets, here's a couple new Mickey pics:

Watching TruTV to get inspiration for more wascally deeds...

Giving you his best "Won't you please open the door and pet me?" face. Awwwwwww. :)

Aloha!

2009-03-21T04:01:56Z

Just got home from my friend lauraeadon's Lu'au party. It was a lot of fun, especially getting to meet both her and my friend lilliah in person, as well as a few other people I knew through here and Facebook. I hope they enjoyed meeting me as much as I did them, and if so, I hope we can all get together again sometime. It was definitely worth the long drive--and btw, ladies, those roundabouts are WAY easier to deal with on the trip back as compared to the trip up. :D

Apparently I didn't get home quick enough to suit the wascally wabbit, though--I went in to feed Mickey and he'd somehow managed to toss his ceramic pellet dish into his plastic food bowl, so I had to straighten out his food dishes before I could feed him, then try to get his food together while he's poking at me with his nose looking to get petted. It's not that I was late in feeding him, but he's used to getting snuggled on the couch or let out to run by this point in the evening, and how dare I not do either. Foo' wabbit.

Watchmen

2009-03-12T22:17:59Z

Really needed to see Watchmen in the movie theater, since I am a huge fan of the graphic novel, but the idiots that run the local movie theater have decided that they need to run artsy-fartsy crap this month instead, so I had to go to the mall to see it (which shows you just how much I wanted to see it, because I hate going to the mall).

Movie was excellent--probably the closest you could get to translating the graphic novel into a movie without fucking it up. Only one part made me cringe, but I won't go into detail because I don't want to spoil it for anyone.

If any of you have seen it, though, hit me up on here or on IM or something (IM: JadeKarnage) because I'm dying to talk about it.

Another baby blanket completed

2009-03-08T22:34:52Z

Just finished a baby blanket for my cousin Jen, who is expecting a baby girl in July(as always, click on the pics for a larger view):

I ended up using a lot less yarn than I thought I would, so I'll start a different one tonight and make it a two-blanket set. I really liked this yarn that I chose; it's a soft cotton yarn called Bernat Cottontots. I think I'm going to be using it for all my baby blankets from now on, unless I need a color they don't have.

This is a closeup of the pattern I used. It's a bitch of a pattern for me for some reason; not because of the stitching itself, because it only uses one stitch, but because the pattern has a lot of skipping stitches and double stitches mixed in with the regular stitches, and somehow I always end up screwing it up somewhere and having to re-do rows repeatedly. The results are always worth the aggravation, though. I really want to expand the pattern and make an adult-size afghan with it, but I can just imagine the amount of cussing I'm going to be doing when I do.

A must-see for Watchmen fans

2009-03-04T19:08:41Z

I know the Watchmen hype is huge right now, but Scott Kurtz is doing a great homage over at PvP. It starts here with Monday's comic, and most likely will continue all week. I really like where he's going with it and I can't wait to see who else he brings in.

In other news, I have given in to my craving for freshly homemade cupcakes, and am in the midst of baking as I post, so it's time to sign off and check on them.

Furnace update

2009-03-02T15:39:51Z

Repairman is here and working on it now--but not before hubby nearly set the house on fire with the temp fix. The repairman had it rigged up so that if the house got too cold, we could turn the burner on manually, but we were not to let it run for more than 15 minutes or else the setup would overheat and fry. Hubby turned it on this morning, and then went outside to shovel snow--and left the thing running for over half an hour. It wasn't until he saw steam coming from out of the attic vents that he remembered what he'd done and ran inside to shut the burner off.

When he came back in, the house was hot as hell and the temp fix was approaching meltdown. The repairman gave him holy hell for it when he showed up a short time later. I was sleeping through all this, of course--hubby came in the bedroom to let me know the repairman was here and filled me in.

I should have known that would happen--hubby has a bad habit of leaving things unattended that should not be unattended. Apparently, it's an inherited trait--his mother was notorious for overcooking or burning food because she would go off and tend to other things and forget to check on it, and his father accidentally burned down a barn they used to have in their backyard when he left a leaf fire alone, went in the house to have a coffee and didn't go back out until it was too late. Thank goodness the repairman showed up, that's all I can say--if he hadn't been able to make it, I don't know how long the temp fix would have held up.

Repairman just left, all is fixed. One thing he recommended was that we have the filter cleaned every year; ours hadn't been done for three. I'll schedule it for every November, right before the weather starts getting too cold. Last thing we need is another temp fix for hubby to ignore.

It never rains but it pours

2009-03-02T01:10:08Z

Yet another household device has decided to shit the bed--this time, it's the furnace.

Just what you like to see when there's yet another snowstorm a-comin'.

Furnace guy showed up very quickly, said it was some kind of electrical problem. He rigged us up a temp fix until he could come back tomorrow and fix it proper. Considering the amount of snow we're supposed to be getting overnight and tomorrow, I just hope he can make it here to fix it proper.

They say trouble comes in threes; so far, we've had the washer, the vacuum and the furnace shit the bed in the past month. Okay, we've made our quota, thank you very much. I just wish all this would have happened back when we had the money to deal with it better.

What the heck did I do?

2009-02-26T23:12:13Z

Had appointments at both the lawyer's and the dentist's today--both went well, but while I was at the dentist's, I either stepped wrong or turned weird and I felt something move in my knee. Just a subtle shift, no pain, just a minor shift in alignment. Didn't think anything of it, until my son showed up for his appointment and then realized he'd forgotten to lock his car with his laptop inside. I took his keys to do it for him, but as soon as I started walking out of the dentist's and over to where his car was parked, my knee and ankle started hurting, and the pain got worse with every step there and back. I locked the car, went back to the dentist's and sat down, which relieved some of the pain, but things started hurting again as soon as I got up. As soon as I got home, I put both my knee brace and my ankle brace on for some support, which helped somewhat, but things are still sore. I'm going to pop some Aleve in a bit and just stay off my feet as much as possible for the rest of the night.

This has happened to me before, but usually it's a little more obvious that I've tweaked it, like I turn an ankle or I slip or something. This was literally the tiniest shift in my knee, I barely felt it, but it's as sore as if I wrenched the damn thing. I wish I knew what I did to set things off, but nothing I did was out of the ordinary. Very weird.

I've got swim class tomorrow and that will give me a chance to stretch things out and hopefully re-align whatever I put out of alignment.

I give up on this one

2009-02-22T19:45:03Z

I try not to ask my husband to buy rabbit food because when it comes to rabbits, he's pretty much clueless--and when it comes to shopping, he doesn't always get what you ask him to unless you practically spell it out for him. The weather here being what it's been, though, there's been a couple of times recently when I had to ask him to get Mickey some greens to make sure he had food until the roads were clear enough for me to go out.

Last weekend, I wasn't sure if I had enough food to get Mickey through to food-shopping day, and since hubby was going to the store, I asked him if he would get me a head of green leaf lettuce. He came home with romaine lettuce.

Not a problem, since Mickey likes romaine--and I had a feeling this might happen because hubby knows Mickey eats romaine and he himself eats romaine all the time.

So today, it's snowing again and I'm thinking I need to make sure Mickey has food because I don't know when it's going to stop. Hubby's going to the store again before things get too snowy to travel, so I ask him to get a couple of heads of romaine. I figure, he's going to get romaine no matter what I ask for, so I'll make it easy for him.

He comes home with two heads of red leaf lettuce.

*rolls eyes, shakes head and chuckles*

The sad thing is, all the leafy produce at our supermarket comes wrapped with a green band--which clearly has the name of the lettuce stamped on it. Even without his glasses, the lettering is big enough so that my husband can read it.

I can't yell at him for it, of course, because he's doing me a favor and at least he's picking stuff that Mickey does eat, but honestly, ya gotta wonder...

Migraine misery

2009-02-21T20:13:32Z

You know, it'd be great to be able to enjoy a sunny day if it didn't mean getting a headache. High-pressure shifts in the weather trigger my migraines, and we've had two lately; one that started late Monday night and kept me miserable until late Tuesday night, and one going on right now. There's yet another winter storm watch in effect as well, from Sunday afternoon to Monday morning. Just what I need, more stupid snow.

Just popped a couple of Aleve, which is the only thing besides ice that keeps the pain at bay enough to keep me functional. I'm hoping I took it soon enough to keep things from getting really bad, but that'll all depend on how strong this pressure shift gets. I don't want to spend the day on the couch with an ice pack.

More helpful than he realized

2009-02-17T21:40:40Z

Just got home from food shopping a short time ago--and found my house absolutely reeking of burnt rubber and dead machinery.

Seems that hubby decided to vacuum the house while we were gone, and while he was vacumming, he accidentally ran over a strand from one of my skeins of yarn--which was still attached to the skein. The resulting overdose of yarn-inhaling was apparently too much for our 6-year-old vacuum cleaner, which promptly spewed smoke all over the place and died.

Hubby is furious because he should have been paying better attention to where he was going with the vacuum cleaner. I'm glad the damn thing is dead, it's been nearly useless for well over a year, but unfortunately, we don't have the money to replace it right now, so we'll have to make do with hubby Shop-Vac until we can get a new one. The only part I'm hating is the smell that's taken over the entire house. I've got a nasty headache as is because of the high-pressure system that started coming through here last night, and the smell is not helping matters any.

Once there's some money in the bank account, I'm getting one of those Dyson vacuums with the ball mechanism which makes it easier to maneuver. They're a little pricey, but every review I've read about them has been better than I expected. If I'm lucky, maybe they'll go on sale soon.

One more blanket done

2009-02-16T20:00:54Z

Finished another baby blanket last night. This one's for my ex-trainer's new son:

I'm not as happy with this one as I have been with previous ones I've made. For one, I couldn't get the right shade of blue that I wanted. My ex-trainer's a fellow Yankees fan, so I wanted to make a "pinstriped" blanket. Unfortunately, this shade of blue is lighter than the navy blue used in Yankees colors; it's more of a Royals blue. Why the manufacturer chose to even call it "navy" when it's clearly not is beyond me, but it was the darkest shade of blue I could find in a cotton yarn, so I had to make do.

I wasn't terribly happy with the quality of the yarn, either. Every skein I used was loaded with splice knots, which are areas where the yarn is knotted together to join strands. Usually, you might find one on occasion, and it happens when they're joining yarn from one roll to another. In this case, though, there were at least three or more in every single skein, and considering these weren't very large skeins, that shouldn't happen. I've already contacted the retailer (I couldn't get any contact info for the manufacturer) and complained to them, but didn't get a response, so I guess I won't be doing business with that retailer again soon. The whole point is to avoid making knots when you're making a garment or blanket, so if you've got a bunch of yarn full of knots, it makes things that much more difficult.

I also had a freak-out moment when I went to fold up the blanket; it wouldn't line up right for folding. I thought I had fucked up royally and somehow added stitches, but everything counted out right. Apparently one side is a little stretchier than the other, which happens sometimes because of a difference in tension when you're making it. In this case, my starter row was a bit tighter than it should be, so it's not stretching like the end rows are. Once it's washed, things should even out.

Next up is a blanket for my cousin, who's expecting a baby girl in July. I'm starting now so that in case they throw a baby shower for her, I can have the blanket finished by then. Let's hope this one goes better.