I currently use the English style (That's a surprise, eh?! hehe) but really want to learn continental to alleviate carpal tunnel in my right wrist. I did both today while knitting a miniature Christmas stocking with colourwork, (main colour in right hand, english style, and contrast colour in left hand, continental style). I am so pleased with myself!! :hurray:

My husband grows a full beard in cooler months just to please me. I love it! He'll go down to just a 'tache or goatee during the summer and I do notice that change. Sometimes takes me a day or two to notice when he's growing his beard back though. When I was a child my dad would shave half his moustache and walk around like that the entire day until we noticed. Even funnier given his very white skintone and thick black facial hair. I've not seen him in a few years but apparently he now has a full beard (he never had any type of beard when I was a kid), and it's so white he looks like Santa. :D

Years ago I had a dream I was at a party, folk lined up down a hallway and at the end in a doorway was Jeff Gordon (nascar driver) dressed in a baked potato costume. He was waving at me. I don't follow nascar and have no clue what the deal was with the baked spud thing. Weird!

I'll give it a go if you like, or you can look for ideas on this site. Dream moods

These stories are so touching. Amazing how deeply we can love our pets, isn't it. My much loved cat died last year and the vet never did find out what was wrong. Her health went downhill fast and it was a sad time with me left feeling I didn't try hard enough to help her. This situation with my dog is less upsetting as this is not a life threatening injury but I want to do what is best for him and that may just be avoiding putting him through surgery given his age.

I haven't read the 70s food thread or the responses here so I hope I'm not the only one to admit I fix this! It's one of my dd's favourite foods. Not something I'd ever had growing up in the UK so I morphed a chicken pasta dish my Mum makes with a tuna noodle casserole recipe and it seemed to work. Pasta, basic white sauce with parmesan for flavour, peas, tuna, crushed cheese crackers on top.

My dog, a 10 year old irishwolfhound-mixbreed has hurt his ACL. We're unsure given his age and activity level if it's worth putting him through surgery or just allow the knee to heal as best it can on it's own through use of supplements and pain meds. Anyone here chosen to NOT have surgery on their pet for a specific reason? I'm having a difficult time making a choice right now.

I've used the cold hard cash idea (frozen bills in ice), and last Christmas I used the bills to create an origami tree which I then hung as an ornament on the Christmas tree. This year as I'm learning how to knit I'll probably make mini-stockings and tuck the bills inside them before hanging them on the tree.

That's my favourite way to learn as well... just jump right in at the deep end. Flute lessons, cooking, video games with the kids... I'd ace the harder parts and totally fumble the easy ones. :001_huh: I've been teaching myself to knit since around June and already want to knit more of the complex stuff like lace, fair isle, or intarsia. My mum used to knit a lot of sweaters for the family. She told me she rarely used patterns as all the stitches and designs are based on knit and purl so when you know those you do whatever you want and learn from experience. Sounds like that's just what you're doing and having a great time doing it. Are you on Ravelry? My ravelry name is Nanshe if anyone wants to add me as a friend.

Pot roast Soup (I prefer thick stewy-like soups) Risotto Roast dinners

We have Vonage for the free long distance including Europe and NZ.

Not sure of your reading tastes but my current reads are... Almost finished The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson. Really good, highly recommend it. Recently started Possession by AS Byatt. Not what I expected, mostly good, boring in parts. Halfway through audio version of Eclipse by Stephenie Meyer. I... uuhhh.... don't recommend it. I'm reading the series because a friend and my dd have asked me to. I think they regret it now after hearing all my complaints about the writing. :001_huh:

LionBrand catalog is a good idea. The patterns are also available on their website. I've been working on the LionBrand Cable Throw afghan. It's super easy and a good way to practice cables (not difficult at all!). It looks very impressive because it's so large and bulky. I plan on giving the afghan to my in-laws for Christmas. There are patterns available online for knitted squares which individually teach different techniques but can all then be joined together to create an afghan, lap blanket or cushion cover. I've only been knitting since June so it's all still a lot of fun trying different things to get the hang of various techniques: Bath Mitt (current project) - Practice knitting with double strand of cotton which has very little give or stretch in the yarn, creating a thumb gusset, seaming. Cable throw - Large knitted piece, cables, moss stitch Self-patterned headband - increase/decrease in a different way, buttonhole. Ribbed hat - rib stitch, adding another colour stripe, knitting in the round, decreasing and closing top of hat. Felted cat bed - Dyed the wool myself with food coloring, knitting in the round (larger piece), felting. Bookmarks - Knitting on such tiny needles with lace weight yarn, lace patterns with all their stitch requirements (ssk, YO, etc) Cat toys - small and very quick. Fun for learning new stitch techniques without much worry for a misplaced stitch. Cats don't care! :) Next up will be either a pair of socks or mittens, and helping dd (a non-knitter) knit a hat. That should be fun... I hope. *heh heh* Happy Knitting!

Are you registered on Ravelry.com? They have a lot of free fingerless gloves patterns as well as full fingered gloves, mittens, fingerless mitts but with a thumb gusset, etc. The forums are great if you have a question about a technique or pattern choice. I'm a new knitter myself working on completing my first hat, a ribbed beanie for my older son. I plan on making some fingerless gloves for my Dad this Christmas so I'll be checking out the available patterns myself soon.

My cats are now almost 18 months old and that full first year no matter what food I tried, one of them (mentioning no names, farty-Aoife!) seemed to always be a little gassy. It's not been a problem at all since they matured. I keep them on a variety of foods so they don't get picky about one kind but 75% are chicken/turkey flavours. Had a quick look in the kitty pantry and the brands are: Blue Spa Select, Wellness, Pet Promise, Natural Balance, and a brand (new to me) called Soulistic (after their first can of the tuna flavour last night, it's been voted a winner :001_smile: ). I also get Halo but the cats don't like it very much so I limit that and it's a bit more expensive than the other brands anyway. Other occasional brands are Fancy Feast and AvoDerm. I also feed them dry Natural Balance but I'd like to find a better dry. They didn't like Wellness dry at all.

I looooooooooove the Outlander series but have yet to work up any excitement at the imminent new book release. What's wrong with me?? :eek: I think I'll look for it at Costco and if I don't see it there, hopefully it will appear in my hands for my birthday in October. Then I can forget the real world and lose myself... here's hoping J & C go back to Scotland!

Ah, yes, the disasterous attempts to learn... how fondly I recall! :D I was so bad at knitting as a child that when I gave it a try a couple of months ago I fully expected to hate it/make a square unrecognizeable/ get so tangled in yarn I'd need to be rescued. As it turned out, I wasn't so bad at all so now I force dh to look at each stage of my projects and ooh and aah to encourage me :lol: I used http://www.knittinghelp.com to get me started on the basics, http://www.youtube.com videos for a visual on a few other techniques, and http://www.ravelry.com for patterns and a recent strange mistake I made which turned out to be not a mistake at all.

OOO-thur is how I've always pronounced and heard it in movies, audio books, etc). HTH

That's really nice, Jane. I've been thinking of knitting a few of those as gifts this Christmas. I particularly like the colours of the yarn you've chosen. I'm a total beginning knitter having just started teaching myself this June. I started by making a doubled yarn scarf for my son from cheapy bright coloured yarn on huge needles. It was good, easy beginning project and ds was happy with it. I'm thinking of trying some fingerless gloves to make it a set. I've made a basketweave square... and now I don't know what to do with it. *lol* It's part of the 2009 Afghan monthly patterns. I'd like to try the rest but need to find some nicer yarn first. Currently I'm knitting this Lion Brand cable patterned throw as a Christmas gift for my MIL. Yesterday as a break from all that heavy knitting I made a couple of cat toys and was very pleased with myself at how they turned out. This little whale, and this felted mouse. They were great for learning increasing/decreasing, i-cord, ssk, felting, and my first efforts at sewing up a finished piece. I'm waiting for an order of yarn and needles to get started on some lace-ish bookmarks, a hat for my older son, and my daughter's going to try knitting herself a hat as well. I need to work on getting pictures of some of my efforts to share here and on ravelry.

Just got an email-flyer from Staples. It's advertising a TI-84, (non-silver.. I don't know if the difference between silver and non is more than colour), for $89.99 after $15 instant-rebate and $10 'easy' rebate. Offer valid August 16th-22nd. Not sure if it's that's a valid price for all areas. HTH

I bought a TI-84 (silver) which was the requested calculator for my younger ds's math class. I'm not sure whether this model/brand is considered better than any others. I had not looked online anywhere other than Amazon and Target for prices before we hit the local shops and I wanted to get one during the NC tax-free weekend (last weekend). Target was advertising $99.99 on their website as the instore -not available online- price but in store the actual cost was $126 :glare: and all sold out. Walmart was also sold out selling them for $143. We found one at Office Max for $120 which was the same price Amazon was selling them for at that time. HTH

I second the Cooking Light books/magazines as my overall favourite. I've never had one of their recipes not work out as it should. Their choices are very flavourful and there's a variety in the types of food and spices used.

That's really cute! My MIL would love it. I just started teaching myself to knit a couple of weeks ago so this may be a bit above my level right now. I look forward to giving it a go and learning to read a pattern at the same time. Thanks for sharing.

I have considered getting my dd or dh to help me with a perm. I know I'd never get the rollers in properly if I did it by myself but I think with a little help it would be okay. My hair is always a mess anyway so it couldn't get much worse... right? :tongue_smilie: Here's a link to an article that mentions roller size and what you need to look for. HTH http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/51658/giving_a_home_perm.html?cat=69

Interesting that so many of us read Stephen King back then. A whole continent away I also was reading books by King and another horror author, James Herbert. He wrote some icky nasty stuff. I have a report card with a teacher's noted concern about my reading choices though I don't recall my parents sharing that concern.