little bit of crazy leaking out

Read this, it’s important.  If it makes you angry pass it on.

For St Patrick’s Day I made Irish Stew and GFCF Soda Bread.  It was yummy and I got to thinking about how I needed to start baking more, GFCF baked goods are quite pricey and not always tasty.  A quick shopping trip at Amazon and a GF baking book was winging it’s way to our home.  The next night the oven died in a arc of electric badness.  Oven . . . dead . . . shit!

A few of months ago, when we were replacing the dishwasher, we gave the replacement of the drop-in range a bit of thought and the plan, at that time, was to pull out the oven, trim the counter, cut out the filler piece under the front of the oven and slide in a freestanding range.  This morning we pulled out the drop-in and ran into a couple of problems.

(range pulled out and in the middle
of the kitchen, back taken off)

(Oh, look at the burned insulation!)

1) The drop in is hard-wired, a freestanding range needs an outlet. 

2) The cabinets were custom built and the bottom (shelf) of the cabinets on either side of the range runs all the way under the oven, not just the filler piece on the front of the cabinets. 

3) The cutout for the 30+ year old range is 2+ inches deeper than needed for the new drop-in ranges.

Our options:

1) A new drop in:  Replace the counter-top and install a new drop-in range.  Counter would not match the counter on the other side of the kitchen.

2) Free-standing range:  Trim laminate counter, remove cabinet trim piece from front of cabinet, hopefully be able to cut out the shelf that ran under the old range, wire an outlet for the range and slide in a freestanding range.  A lot of manual labor but least expensive, but if it didn’t work would lead to . . .

3) Free-standing range: Pull out all the bottom cabinets (and counters) on that side of the kitchen and replace them (probably with cabinets from Ikea), wire an outlet for the range and slide in a freestanding range.

4) A gas can and a match . . .

Well, last you saw me MIL was hospitalized, Dad was going in for brain surgery and I was knitting my fingers to the bone.  MIL is doing better, she’s in a recovery center . . . ummm . . . recovering.  Dad had his surgery and came out of this one better than the last, yay. 

Bubba brought home a cold/flu two weeks before dad’s surgery and I got it the week before.  I went into panic mode and after mega doses of vitamin C, Musinex, and Tylenol I was well enough to be at the hospital for the surgery, but no the blanket didn’t get finished in time.  The next plan is to give it to him for his birthday in a week and a half . . . hmmm . . . maybe Father’s Day.  It’s only about 50% done.

Hmmm, what else?

All my knitting friends went away for a retreat, but I had to back out since it was the week of Dad’s surgery, maybe next year. 

Oh, I started a chicken blog, because the world needs more chicken blogs.  hehe.

Update:  Looks like is just an infection, a big infection, but an infection none the less.  They are admitting her to hospital and pumping her full of antibiotics, this is better than what was first thought.

================================

Hubby just got a call from his sister, MIL has collapsed and is being taken to the hospital.  It looks like it was a stroke, we don’t know how bad it is yet.  Hubby is on his way to the hospital now, work was not happy when he called to say he wouldn’t be in tonight.

This arrived yesterday (mouseover to see what’s inside):

I know, you’re shocked! Me, buy yarn? Never happens! Umm, yeah. Of course the whole box of yarn wasn’t for me, half was for Emma. In fact I just got back from dropping off her yarn. This yarn is for me, for Dad’s blanket:

I started Dad’s blanket last night (using layout C) and so far so good.  I am quite happy with the yarn, it is soft, has a nice twist, the colors are even but not at all flat and knits up into a nice squishy fabric.  It reminds me of Cascade 220 Superwash, but a bit softer.  I have split a couple of stitches using my ultra pointy Addi Lace needles, I think if I were using a blunter needle this wouldn’t be a problem. 

I did a bit of number crunching and I am beginning to doubt my ability to finish this blanket in a timely manner.  The stitch count came out over 136,000, not including the i-cord binding.  eeep!

I found out yesterday that my dad will be going in for brain surgery, again, in the next month or so. The last time was almost nine years ago and he swore he wouldn’t do it again even if the growth came back. Apparently he changed his mind when faced with the reality of it.

I have decided to knit him a blanket for after surgery at the hospital and while he’s recovering at home. At first I was thinking a Pi blanket, but that’s just not my dad’s style. I settled on the Moderne Log Cabin (pdf) from Mason-Dixon Knitting, nice size for snuggling under on the couch. I ordered the yarn from Elann, superwash wool, and sat down to work out the color placement. While doing that Emma pointed out how nice the layout for the Moderne Baby Blanket (pdf) was.  More math.  I readjusted the numbers for the yarn I had purchased and so it would end up about the same dimensions as the Modern Log Cabin, so different multipliers for length of the blanket and width . . . oh well, it’s for a good cause.

After playing with the color placement this is what I came up with:

I’m taking opinions until the yarn arrives and I cast on, and I may or may not actully take the poll results into account when I do cast on. I can be fickle that way. Having said that, what do you think?

Did you feel the world stop rotating today about 10:30am (pacific time)?  You did?  I’m not surprised.  Want to know what happened?

Here it is.

My dad said he might vote for Obama!

I know, I’m shocked too.  You’re not, oh, I guess I should explain.  My dad is very conservative, but not religious.  He’s a hunter, gun rights advocate, and NRA member.  He is a pull yourself up by the bootstraps kind of guy, he comes from a very poor background but I enjoyed a middle-class upbringing because he did pull himself up.  For the most part he feels if he did it there is no reason anyone else can’t do it, and his political views mirror that.  The last time he voted for a democrat was JFK, so it’s been a while. 

Today Dad came over for a visit and while we were talking about the caucus yesterday he piped up with, “I’m seriously thinking of looking into voting for Obama if McCain gets the nomination.”  Now, coming from my dad, he might as well have said he was going to dance naked under the next full moon (and really, we don’t want that).  After I picked my chin up off the ground we started talking about what was holding him back from voting for Obama, and it turns out Dad wanted to know about his stand on gun control.  I hopped onto the internet and printed out a page on Supporting the Rights and Traditions of Sportsmen (pdf), Dad was pleased with statement “He will protect the rights of hunters and other law-abiding Americans to purchase, own, transport, and use guns for the purposes of hunting and target shooting.” 

By the time he left I think he was pretty much convinced.  He did make it clear that there was no way he would vote for Hillary Clinton, he may dislike McCain enough to look at voting for Obama, but I think hell would have to freeze over for him to vote for Hillary.