Alpaca to cuddle

Today I took a quick trip up to the LYS in search of a pattern that I needed for a shawl - I've broken down and purchased one specifically made for the yarn I bought several months ago for the shawl to make Jamie. I also picked up a couple skeins of baby alpaca so soft that Courtney keeps picking up the skein and putting it to her cheek and saying "ahhh" because it's so cozy. I'm making a basic ribbed scarf for myself out of the cranberry & orange softly twisted yarn. I'm not so sure about the size needles I'm using - size 15's. I may need to rip it all out and start again with size 10's or 11's. Pam had some awesome handcrafted needles with awesome knobs on them, but they were expensive and impractical - I use straight needles seldomly and they were between $15-$20 a pair. Of course this scarf is the perfect short, large needle size project for those needles, but I'm resisting. I cast on and knit about 4" of the scarf so far, then I cast on the Gossamer Karabella yarn for the shawl. I can't find the case for my Denise needles, so I had to break down and use the Needlemaster set for now. I'm debating which project to bring to work with me, the shawl, the scarf, or the sock I've picked up again. The sock is actually at an easy enough point that I could probably get a lot done at work. Decreases for the heel gusset are every other row and easy enough to track.

The reason I haven't posted in so long has to do with the fact that I reformatted my computer and haven't had a chance to really work on anything - I'm still trying to rebuild things like my banking files and software. We can't find the disk for Frontpage, so my regular website that hasn't been updated since Halloween is still sitting in limbo because I'm not about to manually type out that html - I'm not that desperate. I did get my ipod reinstalled and cleaned out a lot of the files I didn't really need on it, primarily 3/4 of the Harry Potter #4 audiobook, which was a whole gig of my 4gig player. I haven't had much of a chance to listen to anything lately, since I've been going out for lunch and then playing my games on my phone while I sit in my car. I hope I start getting used to this shift soon. It's been 3 weeks and I still am not in a groove. I still wait and wait for Tuesdays to come so that I can at least go to bed without setting the alarm. Not that my kids let me sleep in, but at least I get more than 5 hours of sleep. Dh is working overtime this weekend, so I won't be able to see him much again this weekend - last weekend he worked OT as well. The only time we see eachother is really on Sat/Sun nights when I get home from work, because I work days and he works nights and my days off he's got to go to work and he sleeps until the last minute (today I did wake him up so I could go to the yarn store.) Only have to deal with this thru the end of the year, and then hopefully we'll both be on day shift and can skip this bullshit. We're hoping to be able to promote before the end of this year and get another raise so that we can afford to skip the sunday and/or third shift differential without taking such a hit in pay. Even if we had different days off, if we were both on days we'd have every evening together. We're close enough in seniority that we ought to be able to get the same or similar days off (like 1 together and 1 different like we had last time).

There is one good thing about this time of year - back to school supply time! I am a paper/pen/crayon/marker/etc junkie! I got myself crayons, markers, colored pencils, spirals, a huge pencil box for work, a sharpener, flexible pencils, a huge pen and tiny pens, the most impractical Jumbo & Mini stuff from Target. I need some coloring books!