No lace knitting for me for a while.

At 2:30am, nearly an hour ago now, my older daughter woke me up to let me know her younger sister wasn't feeling well. I carried my younger daughter out to the living room. She's prone to a croupy cough, and was crying through it, which made it worse. On the way, I stepped on something pokey and picked it up... it was one of my Harmony dpn's. My first thought was Oh No. See, earlier in the week my puppy managed to chew my 2.5mm Knit Picks cable needle to shreds. While it was attached to the toe of my Hibiscus for Hope sock. The toe survived... but that doesn't matter because I now have no needle to knit with. And we're pretty well flat broke. Rick quit his job in October for medical reasons (29 year old men shouldn't have high blood pressure, and I'd rather be poor than a widow). So while we're surviving, that's about as far as it goes just now. I'm working at Wal-Mart as a cashier - which I adore - and going to start school next month to finish my Bachelor's degree in Information Systems Security. My ex is unemployed, and his unemployment ran out so I don't have child support coming in. My husband's unemployment is still being reviewed, we don't know if or when it will be approved. After all the hoops we've jumped through we're hoping it's soon.

So anyways... puppy mangled one needle already, but it wasn't a horribly big deal. I can come up with money to replace that one, and it gives me an excuse to buy a longer needle so I can magic loop two socks at a time. Tonight however he really did himself proud. I came out to the living room and found my PROJECT BAG (you know, where I had all my current projects stowed neatly so I could get to them when I wanted to work on them) pulled out from where it had been neatly tucked away, and everything dragged about. Yarn all over, everything tangled. He slobbered on Icarus (which is getting a small hole mended) and nearly felted part of it. The needle I stepped on (and didn't break) came from my Campanula for the Cure sock, which is hanging out until I find the completed sock to see how many repeats I need to do on the foot. Everything else was all balled up and mixed up.

I realized he'd demolished my 40" US 3 Addi Lace needle when I found the row counter for it separate from the project. This is what Guinevere (a lace stole) was being knit on. The alpaca cloud yarn seems mostly unharmed, and thankfully it's sticky enough that I don't think stitches were dropped. Found one end of the needle in the project, the other end off to the side.

The kicker is that he also devoured my 60" US 4 needle. This is the needle that I'm using for my Peacock Feathers shawl, which is my relaxing time knitting. This truly upsets me b/c it is always such a relaxing knit for me. Artsygal lace (uses Zephyr wool/silk as a base) yarn hand-dyed in Moody Blues. Hand-made stitch markers from Entrelac. And my lovely Addi Lace needle, with the perfect ends for picking up and manipulating the stitches. I've commented that I'm intentionally taking forever to knit it because it's such a luxurious knit.

I paid about $16 PER needle at City Knitting, a local yarn store.

No freaking way I can afford to do that any time soon.

The knitting itself is more or less intact, nothing that can't be fixed I'm sure. I'm on the 6th chart for the Peacock Feathers shawl.

The only thing I have left to work on is my Pomotomous sock. *sigh* I like it, but I was going to work on the lace more.

Before anyone asks, the dog is fine. He got a smack on the snout, that's it. He's spending the remainder of the night in his crate. I know he's a puppy and it's a puppy thing, so don't even bother telling me about it. Doesn't make it any better (and no, they weren't all out in plain sight - he dug the bag out from behind a chair and pulled all the stuff out of it).

Right now I'm just upset because I won't be able to do what I find most relaxing - work on my lace shawl and stole. And who knows when I'll be able to justify replacing them. I think I'm going back to bed to cry myself to sleep.

p.s. Amber's fine. Once she settled down her cough went away and she went back to bed.

One week down...

I finished my first actual work week at Wal-Mart, and am pleased to say it went well. I'm having a blast working there, ad the kids are surviving (in spite of them missing me). So things are going pretty well. Today is my first day off where I don't have to actually do anything, and I am enjoying it tremendously. I do have to take Caleb to the doctor, but not for anything horrible. He's had some icky bloody noses lately and I just want to make sure he's okay. Other than that, things are going well. So I shall post this before I get long-winded and don't get it done.

Have a (insert desired whatever here).

-Zanne