I love my mom. My mom is cool!

My birthday is coming up in about a week and a half.  I'll be 33.  Since I saw my mom this weekend she went ahead and brought my birthday present.  It might be the most exciting present I've gotten in a while.  Allow me to share.....

First up, HUNGRY HUNGRY HIPPOS!!!!  I love this game.  LOVE it.  I never had it as a kid so any time I went to a friend's house that had the game, I'd just want to play.  And play and play and play.  Of course, they owned it.  They didn't care to play anymore.  But me, I just couldn't get enough.  So now I can force my own children to play and kick their little patooties!  Just kidding.  There isn't really any skill involved so I can't much control the game.  But I can force them to play with me!  Woohoo!  Hungry Hungry Hippo fun!

 Next out of the bag, a black wallet/clutch thing that I've been wanting for a while.  I find I like any and all girl/accessory/cute things even if I don't need it or will never use it.  Prime example:  Stationery and journals.  I love looking at them at the store.  I would love to receive those things as a gift.  But I don't write.  They'd be completely useless to me.  But I love such things so!

Can you tell what these are??  Didn't think so.  They're crochet hooks.  Wooden crochet hooks.  In a wide variety of sizes.  I've knit with bamboo needles, but I haven't used a wooden hook yet.  I'm interested to try it.  Plus, I just needed more sizes of hook for some projects I've been mulling over.

Ok, here it is.  The most Most MOST exciting part:

That is three balls of Rowan Kidsilk Haze.  Let me be more clear:

Can you read that label???  Yeah, it's mohair and silk yarn!!!  I've opened the baggie once to touch it.  It's so soft.  I'm a little scared to try to knit something out of it.  Don't worry.  I'm going to be brave.  I will use this yarn.  It just might take me a little time to work up the courage.

Thanks Mom!!  I love my presents!!

the bane of my existence.....

See this......

This pretty pile of soft, shimmery yarn???  I HATE IT!!!  It's driving me crazy!  You see, it all started many months ago when Caron very graciously offered to send a skein of free yarn.  Free yarn?!?!  Count me in!  So months went by and I forgot all about the yarn I had sent away for (remember when you really could send away for things?  I just clicked something online.).  I honestly thought they wouldn't even send it.  I mean, really?  You know how many people would love a free skein of yarn???

And then it arrived!  A full skein of lovely Naturally Caron Spa yarn.  A soft bamboo blend.  In the color "Coral Lipstick".  It's not a color I would have picked, but it's pretty.  I tucked it away in the closet and forgot all about it.  Then, I found it.  And I became obsessed with finding something, anything I could make with this yarn.  This ONE skein of yarn. I searched and searched and searched.  I finally decided on a pretty little lacy beret.

I got all my supplies together and cast-on while we were driving somewhere.  In the car.  With the whole family.  Over 100 stitches.  Bad idea.  But, that's what I did. And I started working on the hat, then the stitch count messed up.  So I ripped back and tried again.  Again, messed up.  So I kept going.  Sometimes it was right, sometimes it was off.  So I did what any sane person would do:  I decided the lace pattern was jacked up, ripped out the whole hat and cast on to make a lace scarf using the same lace repeat just to prove the pattern was wrong. Give you three guesses what I found...

Yeah, the lace repeat is fine.  So I knit for a while on my pretty lacy scarf, happy with how pretty it was.  I thought I should knit the whole skein into a scarf and be done with the whole business.  I got several feet into the scarf before I got sick of it.  Before I started messing up the pattern AGAIN.  So I put the thing away.  It hasn't been touched in months.  I've taken it places with me intending to knit as I waited or visited, but it never made it out of the bag.

So here's what I've decided:  I'm done with the darn thing!  I'm finishing the last four rows and binding off.  DONE!  I'll have to block the dickens out of it to make it long enough to resemble a scarf that a normal sized person could wear, but I'm up to the challenge.  Honestly, I'm looking forward to blocking the snot out of that stupid scarf.  And then, I'm selling it in my store!  Look for it soon........