The story of the Fug Foto Shoot.

Fug post here.

A confluence of events occurred to plant the idea in my head of a Halloween photo shoot for the fug.

The original plan had been to take the fug to Princeton for a proper education and shopping. Shannon and I were going to find a statue and have it model the fug.

But you know, I had Turtlegirl’s freaking hilarious post and Trillian42’s post to follow up. Unless I could find a celebrity filming in Princeton (preferably Russell Crowe {A brilliant mind 2?}) there was no way I could follow up those posts.

Then, early this past summer I was at the end of Little League pool party, sitting with the hosts and a couple other parents. The subject of “places you been that are in the Weird NJ book” came up, as sometimes happens when adult beverages are involved. One of the guests brought up the story in the book that is on a road right in our town. Another of the guests said, “I live right there”. Yeah – she the DH and kiddos totally live on a Weird NJ spot, not 2 miles from my house.

Right about the same time, construction started on all the local bridges that go over one of NJ’s major highways. At the time I really didn’t realize the scope of the construction or what that would mean come autumn.

Then I get the fug from Pam and it sat for 6 weeks, waiting till the right moment and the right inspiration.

So on a sunny Saturday morning about 8:30 am, I’m sipping my XXXXXL Dunkin Donuts coffee and watching the first of 2 nephew football games. All the football moms and me (team aunt) are chatting and cheering. It’s always a good time because we all know each other from all the kids sports and events and such. Anyway, as I’m sitting there next to the woman who lives on the WNJ spot, it hits me.

The road in front of her house is closed because of the bridge work.

Halloween is in a little over 2 weeks.

I have to take pics of the fug.

My original idea was to get the fug to float, all ghost-like, on the road in front of their house. The exact spot where “The Moans of Talamini Road” have been heard. What I didn’t take into account was that the fug is FUGGIN’ HEAVY! I had helium balloons shoved up the Muppet raper and under the cape and they wouldn’t hold the darn thing up.

So I had to move to plan B. I think it's still very effective and really pretty tacky. Like the Fug. It works.

YPF - Rhinebeck!

Here is the first of many Rhinebeck purchases. Briar Rose Fibers Fourth of July. I love these colors and could only find 2 hanks of it. There was no way I was leaving this there. I don't know what it will become but whatever it will be I'll love it.

Blogstalking 2.0 - Week 6

A Day in the Life...

Fud?

Ummmmmmmmmm

Treats!

Nummmm - ummm

What's going on out there?

I sleep you now?

Purrrrrrrrr...zzzzzzzzzz

My shiny ball gone. Eat more Mommy treats. Make more toy!

ZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZ-Puuuurrrrrrrrr-Zzzzzzzzzz

No more camera. Tired! Bedtime treats please.

Hurry!

I loves my treats. And Momma.

Blogstalking Assignment 5

On my computer:It's the best I could do. Toys but really more like statues unless my nephews visit the office.

Rhinebeck Recap

I hope to bring a bit of a different perspective to you about Rhinebeck than all the others you've read. I think I may be able to tell you some things no one else has. I'll give you short sentences till we get to the important stuff...

Yeah - Friday we had horrible weather driving up.

Friday evening we checked into the hotel and hung with Shannon and Stephanie.

Jen and I wanted to get to The Fold as early as possible. We got to The Fold about 5 minutes before they started actually checking people out with their purchases. We had our first yarn bought before 9AM.

My second purchase of the day was at Briar Rose Fibers. I introduced myself to Chris and showed her my Cherry Leaf Shawl. Love her! Buy her yarn!

We headed back to the car to lighten our load and that's when it happened. I found the patch of uneven ground right there at the back left bumper and twisted my ankle. I twisted it so badly I even heard it pop. OOOWWWW!

Thank God we were at the car. Jen made me sit down and put up my leg and we sat there for a good 1/2 hour or more. Then I decided to test the ankle out and it felt OK to walk, so we headed over back into the fairgrounds. We had our dessert first. Jen sat me on a bench and went to get our apple pie and apple crisp a la mode. OH MY GOD! My ankle was feeling much better after that.

So we went back into Building A, because Jen wanted to look at a couple things again. It was also conveniently located close to the First Aid building, just in case. I made my third purchase at the booth where they sold lace & fingering weight yarn. I wanted to get yarn made with camel hair. They had some beautiful laceweight yarn, 50/50 silk and camel. So soft. So pretty. Some came home with me. Some Quiviet may have fell into my bag also.

My ankle was done for the day at that point. Jen and I hobbled over to the First Aid station (Jen walked. I hobbled) to get an ice pack. That's where I pretty much spent the rest of the day. I was even the first casualty of the day for the EMTs. Jen went with one of the EMTs to show her where I twisted my ankle and on the way she ran into Shannon and Stephanie and she told them of my misfortune.

When Jen got back I decided to move to the bench in the front of the First Aid building because the day was beautiful and there was good people watching from that vantage point. Shannon came by to keep me company and I shooed Jen off to finish seeing the rest of the yarn. Then I shooed Shannon off because I was happy where I was, and I had purchased all I really wanted to get (notice I didn't say NEEDED). Unfortunately I didn't have any knitting with me, but it didn't matter. The time went quickly.

Now I can say from first hand experience that NY Sheep & Wool organizers/Rhinebeck have great EMTs who provide top notch care to those injured on their property. While talking with the woman who checked my ankle and gave me the ice packs, I found out that this is one of the festivals they all love to work because of the low incidences of injuries.

So nice to know. More proof that knitters are the bestest of folks.

YPF/BlogStalking 2.0 Week 5

Well, there won't be a YPF from me because I didn't have time to pull something yummy out of the stash because I was too busy packing and unpacking and washing and selecting projects and whatnot for...

RHINEBECK!

Then I realized that I didn't post my BlogStalking Week 5 assignment, even tho I thought I uploaded the photos to Flickr. So my week 5 assignment will be late because I already packed the camera and extra batteries for...

RHINEBECK!

No, I'm not excited at all. Jen and I are heading up this afternoon so we can get a fresh start tomorrow morning. I can't wait. I have a hot weather outfit and a cool weather outfit, but either way I'm going to be sweltering in the Cherry Leaf Shawl.

I'll post my week 5 assignment when I get back along with a Rhinebeck recap. And next weeks YPF will be all NY Sheep and Wool purchases!

For those of you coming - See you tomorrow! For those of you that can't come - you'll be missed!

Spooky! Scary! Halloweenie!

Halloween Meme

1. Do you believe in ghosts?
Yes I do. I believe my maternal grandfather comes for visits every now and then.

2. Have you ever seen a ghost?
I think so. Every now and then I feel like someone is watching me, and when I look around, nothing. But it's not a usual creeped out "who's stalking me" feeling. It's like someone you know is right over there and you turn your head to say HI and... nothing. I always feel that it's my Grandfather (same as above). He died when my Mom was in High School so it's weird that I think he's around. But then I'd be his little girl's little girl so maybe that does make some sense.

3. Have you ever experienced something that is best described by the word "paranormal"?
Other than the above? I don't think so.

4. Do you watch any ghost or haunting themed shows?
I watch the American Ghost Hunters show that's on SciFi when I catch it. I love how they scientifically go about proving or disproving hauntings. Really interesting. The stuff I love is when they figure out what that weird ball of light actually is.

5. If so, do you sometimes sleep with the lights on or wake up your partner because the show scared you a whole lot and you can’t sleep and don’t want to be awake alone?
I live alone so the only person to wake up is the cat and she's useless in "I'm scared" situations. I do have to sleep with the closet door shut. I've never been able to sleep with it opened.

6. Have you ever been to a supposedly haunted place? If so, did you experience anything spooky?
I stayed in a B&B in Indianapolis once and that place had a very wierd vibe. I couldn't sleep and when I did get to sleep I had bad dreams. There were a few guests who had the same experience and oddly similar dreams. I dreamt that we were trapped in the house and "they" were coming to get us. We were all huddled somewhere in the house. My ex dreamt we were in hiding and had to be really quiet or "they" would find us. A friend of ours dreamt the same thing but she also felt someone sit on her bed and when she woke up no one was there.

7. How much do you love Halloween?
My birthday is the same week as Halloween so it's always been MY holiday. I love it so much. I only use an orange or black pen starting on October 1st and I even decorate my office/cubicle more for Halloween than Christmas.

TAKE THIS! PUT IT ON YOUR BLOG!
Post a comment that you did so I can come check it out!
ETA: Not my meme... OLPP came up with it and I nicked it from her.

KA-rack that WIP!

*ETA photos

Welcome to another edition of WIP Wednesday. But before we get to that, here is a little FO (which will be blocked tonight).

The Cherry Leaf shawl is finished! I am so happy with it and can't wait to get it blocked. Those of you who are playing Blogger Bingo at Rhinebeck - you can identify me by this shawl. I'll be wearing it on Saturday!

Onto the WIPs!

The Argosy Baby Blanket is still in the works. I've completed a couple rounds on it, but there hasn't been spectacular progress since I was knitting away on the CLS to finish for this weekend.

I finally got back to knitting socks. Not surprisingly it took Cat Bordhi to do it. Here are the Coriolis socks - or rather - sock. I sort of followed the way she knit them on Knitty Gritty, but have been using the book to make sense of it all.

This is my first toe up sock. I've tried them before but the increases after the toe always came out wonky, so I stuck to top down. Then I saw Cat knit a garter stitch square and make it a toe! BRILLIANT! I'd been dying to try that since the summer. Sunday evening I pulled out two skeins of sock yarn and knit a gauge swatch. Then I started in on the toe.


The other thing that always frustrated me with other than top down with a heel flap construction was the short row heel. I'd tried it and even tho I wrapped and turned, and knit the wraps with the stitches to conceal them, I always had holes. But look at this heel! Beautiful and no holes and it makes perfect sense to me now.

The sock is flying along and I love it. It is kind of thick, so these will be house socks, or bed socks or whatever you want to call them. I think if I knit these socks with one strand of sock yarn, they're the answer to my knee high socks problem.


I can't WAIT to get to Rhinebeck! I will be at the Briar Rose booth at some point, replacing all the yarn I bought last year (as well as the yarn I won at the KAL site). My goal was to only buy more Briar Rose yarn if I used it all up. Granted, there are some left overs and I have plans for them, but the bulk of it is knit.

I'll be handing my Hats for Alex over to Pam, or taking it to the drop off spots she mentions in this post.

2 more days and I'm Rhinebeck bound!!!

FRIDAY!!!!

You know what that means! YARN! It was a rainy crappy day yesterday so I didn't get the best photos. But - I'm here and prepared on a YPF!


This is Hemp for Knitting. That's right - FOR KNITTING! I'm going to make an Everlasting Bagstopper with it. Amy pointed me in the right direction at Loop when we knitted together during Philly Knitty Fest. She helped me find the yarn. I *heart* her.

If you like pina coladas & getting caught in the rain...

Blogstalking Week 4

3 things I love and 3 things I hate

I wasn’t sure how to approach these. Are they supposed to be obvious or random? Are they insights into who I am or just – stuff? So I went with a little of both. That seemed to make the most sense.

I love my nephews. They are smart, funny, well behaved kids. They also have the uncanny ability to know when I need an “I love you” and a hug. I could never live too far from them.



I hate peas.


I love my Katie. But you knew that. I had been spending a lot of time on the computer a couple of weeks ago and she was annoyed that she couldn’t be near me so she figured a way around it. She plopped herself down behind the laptop. She cracks me up!


I hate ass hats who cut into traffic like this (click to read annotation):

What you don’t see is the line of traffic behind me these people are attempting to avoid, thereby making the wait worse for those of us who obey traffic laws. What makes them think their life is so much more important than everyone else’s? Pecker Heads!

I love reading. This is my "read next" and "currently reading" pile. And there are more books spread throughout the house. My nightstand is under there somewhere.


I hate being single. Sorry. There's no pic for that.

Wah - PAH!

WIP Wednesday!

Although I forgot to take pictures last night, I did take the time to snap some photos this morning. I wasn’t even late thanks to light traffic, which worries me because traffic should be horrible this time of year. But I won’t complain.

First up is my Argosy Baby Blanket. It’s my lunchtime knitting. Interesting enough to keep at it, easy enough so I can sort of pay attention when I’m knitting it.

Look what I finally picked back up again: The Cherry Leaf Shawl from Victorian Lace Today! I’ve been knitting it in the evenings when I’ve returned home from family dinner so I haven’t got too far in the process of knitting on the lace border.

My parents are on their way home today so I’ll be back to my regular knitting schedule. I hope to have this completed and blocked before Rhinebeck. I did want to re-knit and wear the Retro Cardi to Rhinebeck, but I just never got around to it. Instead I want to have this finished for Rhinebeck. I’ll be knitting lace like a fiend the rest of the week and the weekend.

Where you at???

My hiatus was unintentional. My parents have come for a visit and that means family dinners every night at my brother & SIL’s house. I don’t get home till 8:30 or 9 PM when that happens. Then there are all the activities of the weekend with Mom and Dad (football games, shopping, birthday celebrations, etc.) and the fact that I’ve been fighting some sort of sickness off and the last thing I’ve had time for is blogging (and laundry).

So what is it with this weird sickness where you get a headache and it won’t go away? A co-worker’s husband has had the same thing all weekend. It was a relief to know I wasn’t the only one because I thought maybe I had some weird disease. Or a tumor… (“It’s not a Toooommmah”)

Answer to Georgiann’s question in the comments on Barbie: I’m not planning on getting another Bug. Love Barbie tho I did, I never feel quite comfortable when parked between two SUVs or trying to turn when I have an SUV on the other side of me blocking my view of oncoming traffic. I’m always afraid that I’m going to pull out and slam into someone. So I’m planning on getting something a little higher off the ground. It has nothing to do with the Bug at all. If it was practical to keep her and have a new car, I’d do it.

So I missed WIP Wednesday and I had/have some really great stuff I’m working on. Stuff pulled out of the UFO pile, so I’m really excited to show it to you. Not to mention I blocked Charlotte’s Web and I wanted to model it for you (and Boteh) but that all went by the wayside. I’ll try to get some good pics of me modeling them tonight and post them tomorrow.

I also missed Yarn P0rn Friday, and I have some really cool yarn to post too. Oh well – I’ll post it this week.

One last thing… I’m a square in Rhinebeck Blogger Bingo! I ordered a button from Café Press so y’all can identify me. I hope I get it in time. If not I’ll come up with something.

Blogstalking Assignment 3.

How I get from Here to There...

I'd like to introduce you to Barbie. Barbie the Blue Bug. She was named before I got her. I had to wait months for her to roll off the assembly line so I had plenty of time to think what I wanted to call her.

She has been my constant companion for the past 9 years. Our relationship is coming to an end though. Her mechanic told me it was time to start thinking about a new vehicle. I'll miss her when it's time. She is great in bad weather, especially snow. But she's been really expensive to keep on the road.

Here is my view from the driver's seat. Yes, that's a Bezzie Disco Yarn Ball (scroll down to entry on 9/2/07), but what you don't know is that it is one of the originals. Turtlegirl and I were gifted these very popular creations. Those of you who read Bezzie's blog will have figured out that *I* am the Stubborn Pole (as in person of Polish decent).

You can tell I have the original floor mats. It took 9 years but my heel wore a hole in the mat by the gas pedal. Cool huh? Please ignore the dirt. It's been a little while since she saw a car wash with a vacuum.

The back seat contains a few items of note. Smishy squishy pillow for my back when making long drives which may not happen again before I get a new car (purple). Re-useable bags for grocery shopping, shoes, umbrella, and a lawn chair. The lawn chair is a staple in the car from April through October. The nephews play a lot of sports and I go to as many of their games as I can.

Yes, my car came with a flower vase. No, the flowers didn't come with it. So Barbie has a wardrobe (below). She is currently sporting her autumn mums, but this summer she had roses. During the holidays she has poinsettias. You get the idea. These are only some of her options.

The trunk doesn't house the engine like the old models. The engine is in the front now. So I have all the usual crap back there that any chick would have. Sun hat, butt cushion (in flowered tote) for those long trips or hard bleachers, new boots I just got yesterday for 50% off. Gym bag with emergency road stuff in it (under bag containing new boots) and windshield wiper fluid with the de-icing stuff.

Well, that's my little Barbie. It'll be a sad day when she gets retired.

Stuff on my mind

Foo Fighters. Echoes, Silence, Patience and Grace is all I’ve been listening to since last week. How did I not know they were going to be at the Borgata THIS SATURDAY NIGHT?????

I don’t understand men at all. And they think we’re complicated!

Where am I going to find buttons for my Mom’s sweater?

When am I going to get to yoga?

Will my car be able to make it to NC for Christmas?

Am I tired and cranky because I had to stay up till the Giant’s game was over since I can’t trust them to actually win a game till there is no time on the clock? (Sorry Wendy)

Mike Rowe. Even covered in dirt or worse, poo, the man is H O T. Thanks OLPP for starting that addiction!

If I take a Xanax tomorrow before I come to work to calm my ass down (about every little thing) will I be nodding off at my desk?