I used to love mine. You know, back when I was getting lots of yarn-y packages, mail time was just about my favorite time of day. When we were looking at mailboxes to replace the one the neighborhood hooligans vandalized, I made sure to pick a BIG one, just to be sure it would hold my yarn orders, LOL! Of course, if I was expecting something really good, I made it a point to be home in case it didn’t fit and the mailman had to honk for me. I looked for him like a crack ho searches for her dealer. Just bein’ real, here.

Do you remember when the mailman actually put the mail in one of those wall mount mailboxes? I haven’t used one of those since I was in Colorado. You just don’t see them anymore. Of course, I wasn’t doing much mail order back then, either, so those smaller mail boxes were fine.

I’m thinking though, that it might be time for me to fall in love with the mailman again. You know that feeling when your significant other pulls up and your heart races a little bit, and your breath catches, cause you just know he’s bringing some good loving? Yeah, that one. It’s just that my loving now comes in the form of long strings that used to be attached to the skins of various domestic animals. Do you have a problem with that?

Ok, so the weirdest yarn ever has been worked up. Due to a spell check error on That One’s voice recognition software, it has been dubbed The Insatiable Hat. Which is indeed an interesting name for a hat made of little balls on a long string. Here it is:

The yarn is interesting to work up. Basically you knit 2 stitches, and then hold the next ball in place and then knit two more stitches and so on. It’s not difficult once you get the rhythm of the yarn. The ending is a little tricky on a hat, and heaven help you if you drop stitches, which I had when I was finishing, three of them, and didn’t realize it until I was smoothing it to decide which side was the inside and which the out.

Now you know what I did with my afternoon: knitting and a movie, specifically The Secret of Roan Inish. Did you think I was off writing lipozene reviews??

Okay, so I took myself on an artist date last Saturday. Book store, craft store, ice cream for dinner, yaddayadda. And I saw this:

I looked at that ball of “yarn” for a very long time. I picked it up. I put it down. I picked it up, dug my fingers into it and gasped at the soft fluffiness and put it down. I picked it up again. I put it down and told myself no one would wear anything made from such a yarn. And then I giggled and said to myself, “oh yeah, there is one such person.” And so I bought it. For $5.99. The label says it will make a scarf, so there better be enough to make a hat.

Just looking at it makes me laugh so hard that it must qualify as a natural belly fat burner, don’t you think? So now, I have three kinds of ridiculous yarn to make hats from. Tell me again why I’m not knitting!

You can all stop holding your collective breath now. I know you were. I finally decided that all work and no play was a very boring way to live and so, today I played a bit. I blew bubbles with my kids and I finally put the buttons on the BSJ. Just as I figured, it was a lot more fun that surgical treatment for hemorrhoids. Not that I’ve had that, but I’ve heard it kinda sucks. So. There ya go.

Here’s my sweater and hat:

And the wee hat:

And a close-up of the “falling leaves”. Hey, what else was I supposed to do with the leftover buttons?

So, when I bought the buttons the other day, I also picked up yarn for a couple of requested hats. No, the buttons aren’t on the sweater yet. Sorry. But here’s the yarn:

Yay. Big fat yarn. Fuzzy hairy yarn. Totally plastic yarn. All of which you now I hate to work with if you have been reading here for very long at all. If I am holding this kind of stuff in my hands, I am motivated purely by love. Thank God it’s fat, as well as plastic and fuzzy. At least it won’t take long. I shall do them while watching a movie to ease the pain. And once I start each one, I will work it until the bitter end and just deal with the dark circles under my eyes with concealer.

Ok, so I mentioned that I went to JoAnn yesterday for buttons. While I was there, I had to browse. Of course. That goes without saying, right? Well, I wandered onto the scrapbooking stuff, and I had a marvelous idea for a Christmas present. Well, actually I had a massive collision of several idea seeds. See, when I was with my family this weekend, I was snapping pictures of hands to go with a project on my life list and mentioned that I was going to put them all in an album. My cousin popped up with, “that would make a neat Christmas present!”, and I thought, “oh yeah, it really would.”

And then in JoAnn, I decided I’d probably make another friend of mine a scrapbook full of images of her son. And then I realized I would have a hard time parting with that, so I’d have to make 2.

And then, today, I saw an article on DVD Duplication, and I thought to myself, VIOLA! Because I could make one digital scrapbook of each of those projects and then have someone like Precision Disc duplicate however many copies I needed. Boom, Merry Christmas to you, you, you, you and also ME. DVDs are more durable than paper, not prone to fading, take up less room and can be paused when you want more coffee and also enjoyed over and over again. Yeah, speaking of coffee, I would never look at a paper scrapbook with coffee in my hand, but I would sure sit down on the couch with a pepsi and a sandwich and thumb through a digital version. That’s a win!

I do! Muhahahahahaha! While a couple of my friends were enjoying their Disney vacations, I was out shopping for buttons for the BSJ. I went to ACMoore first, but they have quit selling fancy button packs. I’m not sure why, because the place where they used to be is empty except for the pegs that used to hold them. Even the prices are still up. Weird, right?

Luckily for me, there is a JoAnn right across the street, and I was able to pick up these leaves. These are the same as the ones I thought I already had here.

With any luck, we should have an FO to report in the next few days!