Starting to replant

During the "Great Dredge Freeze-Up of 2009" all of my plants died. Frozen solid in their glorious state. Plants that I have had for years. All dead. The real kicker is I couldn't replace them in a snap. It isnt like I can just go to the store and pick up new houseplants. The devil is in the details. Store temp is 68F. House temp is 70F. The temperature between the store and the house is NOT. The air "shocks" most plants when you walk from the store, to your car, to your house. I have bought gorgeous plants in the winter, only to have all the leaves fall off when I get them home. This is why I was so happy when Mark walked in the other day with a gorgeous flowering Orchid. I love the mossy bottom. After it finishes its flowering, I will repot into the old orchids nest. I love the gorgeousness of the pink, the deepness of the red in the center, the blending of the orange to the yellow of the petals. I just love this color. Love it so much that they were my wedding flowers. It just grabs me. I walk into my changing room and just stare at them, and how the sun filters through the delicate petals. I'm lucky to have such a wonderful husband that takes hints so well. Hints like, "hi honey. I am calling from Safeway. Guess what they have in the floral section? Orchids! Orchids like the one's in my wedding bouquet." And yes, out of the many colors of Cymbidium orchids they had in stock, he brought the right ones home. I guess I will have to keep him. And since I am in a pinky-red mood, I finally jumped into my next Unoriginal Hat, mocked-up by the Yarn Harlot herself; Stephanie Pearl-McPhee. Using the destashed, discontinued Blue Moon Fiber Arts Leticia in Brick, I knit this up in less than one day. (dont mind the bathrobe. I called in "under the weather" and refuse to get dressed today unless someone wants to meet me in town this afternoon for knitting.)

Unfortunately one skein was not enough, and with the discontinued yarn, I had the choice of frogging it to: 1) knit tighter, 2) skip two rows {row6 & row8 can be omitted in the second repeat without altering the design}, or be lazy and 3) continue on my path and pick it up with another yarn.

Welcome: My Unorginal Sunny Hat! I am just "beaming" with delight! And my Rockin' Sock Club January 2009 shipment of My Blue Heaven: Queen of Beads ...is complete. Bring on March's shipment!

Who knew?

I got a great deal wink, wink on a new bottle of SOAK (thanks Gin), so I was able to wash all my dirty handknits and wash/block my little sister's birthday present. And get this {enter: Earth Shaking Information} Noro softens after it is washed! Who Knew? I am f-kin floored absolutely amazed. I was so giggling with glee that I ran and grabbed my Entrelac Scarf that I havent worn and Soak'd that as well. Wow, even the kureyon softens greatly. top: Entrelac Scarf by Allison LoCicero Noro Kureyon #92 and #170 bottom:Noro Striped Scarf: Inpiring photos by Jared Flood Noro Silk Garden #267 and #275 The Day the wind blew. Wow, we do not get wind here in Fairbanks and it was alarming. Fortunately the new windows worked perfectly and we didnt feel any temperature difference in the temperatures of the rooms. With the offensive old windows, the kids couldn't sleep in the north-facing rooms. New windows? Didn't even feel a breeze.

The view from my bedroom window. Let the wind blow.

And the wind blew in another eight inches of snow. My back hurts, but my rump needed the exercise.

As the sun goes, so shall I...

I still have yet to spend my last remaining hours here on Waikiki. The plane leaves at 10pm, leaving me several more hours to soak in the sun's warmth, heartly enjoy a spicy chicken sandwich at the Cheesecake Factory, and longingly windowshop at Kate Spade's. There is so much to love about Waikiki. The next adventure cannot begin until this one is over.

Over to Oahu

The vacation part of our jaunt is over. We have to say "goodbye" to Maui. I can't think of a better couple days to spend time together. We got "maui'd" in 2006 in Makena, Maui on the south part of the island so we drove down and had dinner this trip at our reception site, the Seawatch. For appetizers and dinner the day before, we headed to the Hula Girl to listen to Ernest Pua'a, our wedding singer. It was a beautiful couple days. Born to Beach, Forced to Work Luxury ends when Mark has to go to work, so we check into our business class hotel, the Aqua Palms. Not a bad hotel (if you dont mind cockroaches). Giving credit where credit is due, the room is standard business class. There is a small lanai, free internet, huge LCD tv, and a great location. Situated across from the Hilton where DH is working (yes, we should be over there instead), a very short walk to the Ala Moana mall and only a couple blocks from Waikiki. I was on my own yesterday, so why not treat myself to a generous slice of Cheesecake Factory Chocolate Rasberry Truffle cheesecake? Sounds like a congratulatory reward for me for sitting here all by my lonesome in gorgeous Oahu. Like I need more reward? And on my walk to the Factory? What would Waikiki be without all of its high-end shopping? some bling from Tiffany? a trenchcoat from Burberry?

Just a few new bags for Spring? and some perfume from Chanel?

Maybe some shoes from Prada? Flats or heels?

We went out for dinner the first night with some of Mark's co-workers, that live here, and they had no idea where our hotel was, or how to get here. They were also laughing about all the high end stores that according to them, no one that lives here can afford them. At $12 a gallon for organic milk, I fully agreed with her. $600K for an 800 sq.ft. house and there would be no $$s left for a Gucci messanger bag or Bvlgari china. And why would I want to live here anyway, no one wears handknit socks. Freaks!

Maui, baby!

Yep, decided it was time to leave Alaska again. Hubby Mark has meetings in Oahu this week, so we decided to leave a little early and spend a couple days in Maui beforehand. We stayed at the Royal Lahaina just north of the main Kaanapali Beach. Gorgeous area. It is quite a walk to the strip of shops on the main beach, but well worth the brake in price. Good view from the lanai. And really, who could complain with a view like this? Yes, this is a rainbow ending on the top of the hotel. Pot of Gold at the Royal Lahaina? No. Good room, great price, decent location? Yes. We flew from Fairbanks to Anchorage, and then Anchorage to Honolulu (only 5 hours and 20 minutes) and then from Honolulu to Kahalui, Maui. A fair to decent amount of time to start on my Marigolds. I love the pattern because it was so simple to memorize the 9 row repeats. The only down side to the easy pattern was I used the paper it was printed on as a book marker on my newest book purchase, Knitting with Handpainted Sockyarn and left the damn book on the airplane to HNL. Dag-nammit! Fortunately I special ordered it from one LYS and bought it when I saw it at the other LYS, so I can pick it up from LYS#1 when I get home. I was hoping to start the Spot Check on the plane ride home, but I guess it will have to wait. I love the Casbah in the Hummingbird colorway. It is almost like a Muted Rainbow on Ocean. And because I lost my book and have a generous 325m of gorgeous HandMaiden I will be knitting these until I run out of yarn. Nice long Ocean socks for going back to the frozen tiaga. And again with the view. The lanai was a gorgeous place to sit and knit.

FO February: It's all about socks!

Pattern: Bed Sock in Lemon Pattern Fancy Knit Stripe by Nancy Bush in Knitting Vintage Socks Yarn: Spunky Eclectic Super Sport in Walkabout lot# 508 and another one I can't find the ball band for right now Needle: US2 / 3.0mm 40" magic loop Started off beautifully: Gave me gorgeous detail: then ran out. I had enough to finish sock1, but sock2 was missing just the wee end of the toe. My LYS was helpful enough to order a custom dye job for one more skein so I waited. My MIL called and told DH how wonderful the sock that I was able to leave with her over Christmas was. Even that she wore it on the foot that was most cold. Oh, yeah. Pull at the heart-strings.

The new skein came in and I got right to work providing her with the other sock. We will use it as kind of a runny joke. Looks like the end of this sock got bleached! Just wasnt quite the right color. That is the joy of artistically hand-dyed yarn. Sometimes you just cant repeat perfection.

And speaking of repeating perfection, I cant remember which toe ending I used on sock one. I think I used a star toe, but I really cant remember. So not only is one toe color different from the other. There is a good possibility that the construction is different as well. Guess you really can't repeat perfection!

New upstairs windows

In the midst of all the plumbing repair last month, the window installer called and said, "hey, I'll be out next week to install the new windows". Great. Not only do I get to learn the ins and outs of plumbing, I get to finish windows! How can one girl get so lucky? But in my heart-of-hearts, I knew this was a good thing. You see, the windows that were here in the bunkhouse were old. Not 1980's old, not 1970's old. But O.L.D. The glass was rippling, the screens were custom made and black-black-black. The screens were so bad that the one winter I took them all down they warped over the season and I had to hammer them back in for the spring. Lesson learned, don't take these out, ever. When the wind blew outside, the north side bedrooms would be 40F inside and the south side windows would be 90F. It would be the normal 68F in the hallway where the thermostat is located, but everyone else was uncomfortable. I requested all new windows on property, but because of the economic situation tourism will be in this coming summer, only half of the windows were slated for replacement. And since heat rises and the downstairs windows are boarded over, this left the upstairs windows available for upgrades. I had to keep the historical aspects the same. They needed to look the same, act the same but preform much better. The new house has all casement windows for insulative purposes (and we want tax credits for energy efficiency) but I need something historical to preserve our historical integrity. And I found six-light, sliding windows from Jeld-Wen. Aluminum exterior in historic green with a wood interior. An antique gold paint interior for the windows, with an antique walnut stain for the trim. Here are the old windows in one of the upstairs bathrooms First the trim was removed Then the new sexy windows were installed What I will miss the most is the ultra cool holding mechanisms for the old windows. The old pull pin with holes drilled into the sills so they would stay up. Not that they did, I would have to release the top portion of the window and let that one down, cause most of the pins stopped holding the bottom windows up. And since heat rises, it made sense to drop the top window. Bye-bye pins, hello sexy levers. These babies suit a dual purpose: not only to they allow me to wash the outside of the windows from get this.... the inside, they allow me to pull the whole window pane out. Fan-fuk-ing tastic! My only problem is, it is freezing outside and I need to take the panes out to paint them properly. This will have to wait until spring. I stained the windowsills these past two weeks. You can see their gorgeousness in the following blog posts. I chose an antique walnut that matches the wood walls beautifully. It took me almost 2 weeks to putty, sand, stain, and stain a second time. Twice as long as I thought it would take me. And exhaustive none the less. Most of the toilets are repaired and/or replaced. I still have three to work on. Two are only used in the summer and can wait until spring, and the last one is in the lower bunkhouse men's bathroom. Instead of being secured to the floor, it was gasketed to the waste pipe because unapparent to me, the floor had rotted and they laid vinyl over it to hid it. Lovely, just lovely.