Planes, Trains and Automobiles

It has been a hectic and busy past two weeks, and I am still on the go! The trips to Dublin and London went well, but I did not get back to Brussels until 10:30 on the Friday night and then left at 7:30 on Saturday morning to fly to Chicago and then drive the 4 hours to Michigan! Long and tiring but I managed to arrive safely! I have had a great time here - camping with my nephew, going back to Chicago for my award ceremony, shopping at Walmart, JoAnns, Hobby Lobby and Michaels, going with some friends canoeing and camping over the weekend - a great time in all so far and I have one week to go!

The nicest thing about travelling is the time on the planes to crochet! I used some of the Sugar'n Cream that my Secret Pal sent to me to make up these dish cloths:

I have also been trying to be more free in my crocheting.....to those ends, I randomly started crocheting and ended up with half a mermaid, half an alien and several bookmarks!



I also received an excellent swap package from the Sea of Yarn swap at Crochetville from Stacey:


I've been busy while in the US putting together a few little packages to mail out to participants in the Christmas in July list at Crochetville - I brought back some Belgian chocolates to include with the packages - hopefully they don't melt too badly in the post!

More once I return to Belgium on Monday!

thumP....thUMP...THUMP...owwww

thumP....thUMP...THUMP...owwww That, my dear friends, was the lovely sound of my head making contact with my desk. I just got off the phone with one of my team mates. I am now flying to Dublin (yes, again) on Wednesday night for an 8am meeting on Thursday which will go until I have to leave for the airport to catch my flight to London Heathrow (yes, again) to stay overnight to attend my Friday 9 am meeting in Compton in the lovely countryside near Newbury. I will arrive back to Brussels friday night at 8pm where I will rush home to throw everything possible into my suitcase (heaven forbid I should pack ahead of time) to catch a flight the next morning to go to the US.....I just love last minute - "one thing before you go on vacation" meetings....ARGH!!!!!

So anyways, hows your life? LOL

I've been getting these urges to create something *gasp* free form! What it will be I don't know...I am an accountant after all....and....well....we are notoriously as exciting as watching paint dry! I am not supposed to be free thinking....I am not supposed to have urges to create something...I am supposed to be anal and follow directions exactly as written, to never color out of the lines, to obey every law and be the model citizen.......screw that! I've been getting great inspiration from fellow crocheters Regina (aka Lady Linoleum), Celeste, Ro and countless others! So be on the lookout....I'm starting project "I am NOT your Normal Accountant" tonight! Oh god...what to do....the pressure....wheres my slide ruler, abacus and pocket protector when I need them???????

Weekend Crochet Update

On a scary note - I was leaving the bar last night with my really good friend Tommy, when this guy came up and started messing with Tommy. I got in his face and told him to get away and leave us alone (in French) he bumped up against Tommy again and then walked away.....with Tommy's Cell phone! Tommy went chasing after him but was not able to catch him....bad as it may be, I can only be thankful that he did not catch him - I heard on the radio today that someone else was chasing a pickpocket, and the kid pulled a knife and tried to stab the guy who was chasing him!

Okay, on the crochet front, I realize that I've not shown anything that I've been doing lately! So to rectify that one, I am having a Saturday check in. Although I've been busy and going non-stop the past two weeks, I have fit in some crochet time! Places of crocheting have included most forms of transportation, standing in line at the post office and standing at the airport waiting for a friends plane.

My first finished scarf:
5 bookmarks for the Bookmark Swap:

I have almost finished frogging one of my sweaters that had gotten an unfixable hole (or at least I decided that I could not fix it and that the sweater should be frogged and re-created into something new). I've gotten two nice skiens and one ball out of it so far, with part of the back and one sleeve left to frog and wind.


The Yarn Addicts Unite web ring continues to grow. I've found a good number of new sites to read....check some of them out by clicking on the forward and back links under the button on the right. Everyone has been showing their stash, and I promise to get a good picture of mine to flash - its grown considerably since the last picture!

WIPs - I am still working on my shawl - I think that I am about half way there as I want to make it a little bit longer than the pattern calls for. I started the May Doily of the Month over again - I think that I did something wrong with the first one, so I decided to try it again with the proper thread and see if it turns out better. I am doing it in the blue variegated, perhaps a present for my Grandmother.

Secret Pals - I sent out a package to my secret pal - can not wait to see what she thinks of it! I enlisted the help of a friend to send it for me....I'm sneaky! I received a nice package from my SP yesterday - she is being really sweet! Included was a post card from South Dakota, Juicy Fruit gum, vanilla lotion, a cute flower soap, two pattern sheets, a super soft crocheted cloth and the book - Book Lust. All are in the picture but the lotion (I left that at work to use there) and some of the gum - could not wait to start chewing! :-)



I mailed out a RAOK package today and also some yarn to Heather who is being awesome and sending some yarn to do the cute pocket animals.

That about wraps it up! Hope that everyone is having a great weekend!!

Great time away!

I had a wonderful time away this weekend going back to Ireland and visiting my pen pal Adele (we've been writing for almost 15 years to each other now - started back in 9th grade via Air Mail letters and now via e-mails and visits). Flew into Dublin where I managed to do some shopping and buy some yarn (were you really expecting me not to find a yarn shop???) and a top or tow, visited one of my favorite pubs from when I lived in Dublin (two of my other favorites are no more - one is now a posh restaurant and the other has been bought by another person and changed into a different type of bar...just not right in my mind, but who am I to say anything!) The barman still remembers me - how could he not remember the cute American who sat in his bar almost every Sunday afternoon for almost a year???

Then I took the train up to Dungannon in the North, visited with Adeles family, went out to Cookstown for the night (ended up wandering around for 2 hours from 2-4 in the morning looking for a taxi - a memorable experience).

Saturday we went shopping up in Belfast and stayed for dinner and some drinks out in a local bar which was packed! I got drafted to Arm Wrestle a groom-to-be who was out on his stag night (bachelor party) I won - woo hoo - go American!! (probably should not say that I only won because his friends were tickling him - but a wins a win in any book right??)

Here are two pictures:




Have a great week!

Still no sign of my package....

Here is the most recent detail from DHL:

Tracking history
Date and Time Status Location
5/17/2005 9:20 pm Departing origin. Lake Forest, IL
6:22 pm Picked Up by DHL. Shipper's Door

Thats it....no idea where it went after it left the DHL site in Lake Forest! It was supposed to go to the DHL hub in Ohio and then be mailed to the office here in Belgium, but it appears lost!

I am not sure of everything that is in the mailing, but what I do know is in there are my two spools of lurex - one crystal clear and the other black shimmer, two patterns that I ordered from Annie's Attic - Simple dollies to Crochet and Hooked on Fish, a card from my parents, the Complete Guide to Thread Crochet and 3 additional booklets from Auntie Annies (the 13 Animals and Blanket book was in that group I think)! What a package to lose! I very rarely get mail through that PO Box, and the one time that I am really looking forward to my mailing, it gets lost! What are the odds I ask!

*Sigh* I guess I should leave early tonight and do some sympathy yarn shopping on my way home....sounds like a plan! I've not been very focused at work lately - kinda in a funk as I seem to have lost my motivation and drive - I was asking someone about how long it would take to run a pretty big report and analysis and they said normally 2 weeks but in Kimberly time about a week...little do they know that current Kimberly time would probably take about 3 weeks!!

Update: I stopped on the way home as expected! My stash has now increased with the addition of 4 more balls of fun fur (why do I keep buying this stuff??), 4 balls of windowpane yarn (I think thats what its called) 2 balls of blue and white variegated cotton, 2 balls of turquoise and white variegated thread and 2 balls of bright cherry red Lang Opal! Its 100% official - I'm addicted to yarn!