Whoopsie

I seem to have fallen asleep at prime blogging time every day this weekend. It was not my intention to leave you alone this long! Saturday I had work in the morning, Sunday was a day for gardening and Monday was a day for washing the dog and ripping out weeds from my own garden. Whee.

I managed a little knitting:

And am getting to "the good part" of _The Moonstone_. Who, how and why have been revealed... I am looking forward to where!

The baby cockatiels are feathered and the bigger one is starting to take some flying lessons. Soon he will be ready to move on!

Friday Night Post

Just a quickie today - I have an early bedtime & an early wakeup call. Read some more of my book, knit some more of the sock, snuggled some more wee birdies.

There was a terrible earthquake & tsunami in Japan today (yesterday, their time) which had a watery effect all the way out here. I am watching news videos of the event and Beaker is laughing hysterically. It is very odd. The owner of the company I work for had a 3am wake up call in Hawaii (where he is on vacation) this morning - to evacuate. That's a memory.

I Love My Rut!

I knit a few rows on the Ostara socks at lunch today while reading _The Moonstone_, and tonight came home and snuggled the birdies. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

Three weeks!

The new baby cockatiels are three weeks old this week, and want to crow about it. The bigger one looks like he is yodelling while his sister watches. I don't actually know if the grey is a male or female, but the cinnamon is a female, as it is a sex-linked gene. Her name is all picked out - Primrose. Teasing and tail pulling - siblings are the same in all species, I guess. I can hardly believe how big his wings have gotten in the past week. Once the feathers start to come in, watch out! In this picture, you can just barely see the very dark spot under the wings - that is the "breast meat" or flying muscles (pectorals, I assume). The stripe of white feathers on his side (not on the wing) is down. My favorite thing about the babies is their stubby little tail.

They are both perching, flapping, stretching, standing on their feet (instead of balancing on their bellies), preening and tottering around. The grey will be up for adoption / sale in a month or so (when they are weaned). I handle them every day and they are sweet, calm and outgoing. The gray (if a male) is split for pied, cinnamon, pearl and whiteface. If it is a female, she is split for pied and whiteface. He is really, really dark gray and very well feathered (unlike his sister who has quite the bald spot!).

No sock knitting today, but I did knit a little on a pair of wristwarmers and tackled a few more pages of _The Moonstone_ at lunch. Long days at work for the remainder of the week, but that is means more overtime so I will roll with it. Tonight's entertainments included cleaning the rabbit cage & clipping nails. And parrot snuggling, of course!

On Being a Knitter

You know you are finally a Knitter when you see that the sock is far too wide when it is only 4 inches long and rip it all the way back to the toe, instead of trying to convince yourself it is fine, and that you are just out of practice gauging how big they should be compared to store bought socks.

The spring sock was far too wide and now it is a little less wide... I hope. I ripped it back before work and started it back up again at lunch. I even managed to get in a few pages of _The Moonstone_ today. I had actually forgotten I was reading it and had moved on to _Anna Karenina_.

There is just time for a few more rows before bed if I sign off now!

Ding!

Well I had a nice happy post planned and then was reminded that I forgot to go to knitting night tonight. Darn it! I will make myself a reminder for next week.

Otherwise I had a quiet day. There was some computer time, some birdy snuggling and the cat wars over the prime sleeping spot. I woke up at 5:30 am with a massive headache, made some coffee to try to stem it, then gave up and walked the dog to the pharmacy at 7 in the morning to get some Excedrin. After an hour or so I felt much better, and the early morning air was brisk and refreshing. It rained during the night and all was clean and shiny.

Hit level 85 on my main in WoW today and was reminded who my real (on line) friends are. I think I have finally landed in a nice guild. I haven't had a lot of time in game lately and it felt nice to chat and joke around and make some progress.

Progress in real life included cooking and pet care and doing dishes. Yippee. Back to work tomorrow, rested and cheerful.

Socks for Ostara

I started some new socks last night with the remainder of the purple bamboo / nylon yarn from the purple fingerless mitts and a ball (or "cake") of a pink / purple / green sugar cane yarn that has been marinating in the stash. The colors are not a perfect match, but I think that purple for the toes and heels and springy stripey for the main part of the sock will be very nice. I was blog surfing the other day and this post from Franklin gave me the idea to use a solid color to make the special yarn go further. I can hardly believe I have never tried it before. After the ribbed & cabled mitts and the broken rib scarf I have as my emergency knitting, it feels good to be knitting stockinette again!

Spent some time today gardening at Martha's and then gardening at home. I declared it "death to dandelions" day and had quite a tidy stack by the end. There are still quite a few left in my yard, but I was out of steam. Long hours at work, darkness when I leave and come home and a staggering amount of rain this season has really given them a head start on me. The coreopsis has started blooming and that is always a cheery sight to return home to. I need to get some white yarn spun so that I can use last year's flower heads as a yellow dye. I can't think of any yellow garments I need, but that really isn't the point.

Afterthought

I promise to return to your regularly scheduled knitting blog tomorrow. Really!!

Stocked Up

Well... I had a bad night after I looked at my direct deposit, then at my budget spreadsheet, then back, then back again... you get the idea. It is going to be another skimpy month.

However, I have:

• paid the rent
• put gas in the car
• bought pet food
• bought groceries

in that order, and am feeling a little better. I moved over every last penny from savings, and I will still need gas money for next week, but I don't feel like bursting into tears every moment now. I am thinking about putting all the groceries on dart board and playing mix & match meals for the next two weeks :)

Things should start to get sunnier if it stays busy at work and we get some overtime. And if gas goes back down under $3.90 / gal. For a woman who drives 250 miles / week or more, that adds up fast, no matter how conservatively I drive.

I have all day Sunday and Monday to relax and do some weeding in the garden. I am thinking of taking my $4 in cash and buying a tomato and a 6 pack of strawberries for the garden tomorrow at the nursery. Let's hear it for home grown food!

Stressed

I am really tired of running out of money 10 days before the end of the month! I am sick of oatmeal, of spaghetti, p b & j sandwiches and more oatmeal. Economizing is one thing, but this is ridiculous!

On the other hand, the lights are on, the car runs, the house is snug and dry, the pets are fed and the bathwater runs hot. And I have all the stash yarn a woman could want.

The baby birdies came out for some playtime tonight - the little one looks far smaller than she should, for only being 2 days younger. They are getting feathers, the eyes are open and they are starting to be sassy. They can walk and squawk and stand up and flap their little naked wings. They are both very sweet and handleable.

Work has been alternately dead and busy... there are more changes coming down the pike but as long as I have a cubicle of my own i will be happy.

Harlequin

Little Harlequin was baby 4 of the clutch hatched last July. Here he is just about one month old, with no name and barely able to perch on my hand. I thought he was a female until he was 6 months old. I also thought he was quiet, shy and retiring! Here he is in early February of this year. His baby feathers (light gray brown and striped) are being replaced rather haphazardly with adult feathers (charcoal gray and solid). His stripey baby tailfeathers are also growing in a solid light gray and his face is molting into the male cockatiel mask of yellow feathers. It is harder to see in this photo (about 2 weeks later), but he is about 80% done molting into his adult plumage and is starting to lose the "harlequin" look that finally ended up being the perfect name! I will have to figure out how to make a video of him talking; it is amazing and hilarious. Right now he is swinging on his swing, fighting with a toy and thinking about clambering back over to play with the towel on his cage. A week's worth of handling and out of cage time has improved his friendlines and now we even have quality shoulder time and practice step ups and head scratches. A good little bird!

Marching On...

Today I finished the purple wristwarmers and gave them to my coworker. Tomorrow I will get a picture of them "in action" for the blog. I started a new pair and am totally in love with the yarn... it will be hard to give this set away. I love the new yarn from the Loopy Ewe that came last week, but have not started knitting it up yet. Partly I need to get these wristwarmers done and partly I want to really savor it. And mabye I haven't sat down with the instructions for the new toe-up method yet.

Read a few pages in _Anna Karenina_ at lunch today, but am not really feeling it. I have a half dozen books open to about page 20, but none are really keeping my attention.

The baby cockatiels are huge; well, one is huge and one is normal sized. I still have my fingers crossed she will be a cinnamon. I finally got the legband on her tonght - for good I hope! A squirmy baby cockatiel is a delicate thing. They are preening their pinfeathers, standing, stretching, blinking and screaming like banshees when it is dinner time. The yearling cockatiels (hoggetts if they were sheep) disavow any knowledge that they were once small pink & yellow balls of fluff with attitude. They think of themselves as big birds!

The parakeets are acting silly and lovey dovey, alternating with squabbling and bickering. By and large they enjoy each other's company.

The kitties are still vying for my attention.. one was sleeping under my chair earlier and another was trying to fit on my lap.

I walked the dog yesterday but couldn't summon the energy tonight. I miss my ankles and really need to start walking more.