I’ve been quiet the last few days because I’ve been out of town. I was invited to spend several days at Lincoln City with a wonderful group of women (and one wonderful girl). We had a marvelous time walking on the beach, shopping, eating, playing games and laughing. And, yes, some knitting was accomplished – although not much.

The weather was amazing! Clear and very cold. On Saturday the wind was so strong it blew the waves up in spray. But the sunshine was so nice.

This picture is looking south toward Siletz Bay from just below The Inn At Spanish Head. You can see the rest of the pictures I took on the Galleries page under Lincoln City, 02/2006. We saw a spectacular sunset and sunrise from our rented house high over the beach.

In the good news department, Dr. Specialist called me as I was on my way out of town. The tests showed only IBD and no sign of lymphoma. Yea! #1 Son was great at giving Kidd his medication and keeping him in Gerber baby meats while I was gone. Since I’ve been back, I’ve been tempting Kidd with all of the yummy cat foods I can find, in the hope that we can get him back to eating his regular food soon.

Life is beginning to get back to what passes for “normal” around here.

[ed.] I just realized that I typed “IBM” instead of “IBD.” That must have raised a few eyebrows.

Happy Valentine’s day to everyone!

I didn’t hop on the Knitting Olympics bandwagon. Just too much to do. I am, however, working on a tiny little project that I think should qualify me for some sort of honorable mention. Pics hopefully tonight or tomorrow. At least tomorrow, because this project has to be finished before Thursday AM!

Because Thursday afternoon I’m leaving for a couple of days down on the coast with some friends. All girls, no guys. Yep, #1 Son gets to stay home while Mom goes out and has some fun. That’s a first! I am now praying that there will be no snow in the Coast Range, since I have neither snow tires nor chains. The weather reports are indecisive. It could get interesting.

No update on Captain Kidd. We should know more today either way.

I always fly coach. Always. Mostly because, as a single mom, I’m just not made of money and there are other things I’d prefer to spend the limited harvest from the money tree on. In other words, I’m cheap.

This year I procrastinated a bit before booking the yearly Vegas trip, so there were few options available. If I wanted the flights that #1 Son and I had already picked out as being ideal, I would have to go first class. But the good fortune that usually escapes me prevailed, and the last two round-trip first class seats were on extreme special and within my budget.

I’ve found out that there are a lot of advantages to flying first class. First and foremost, you get your own line going through security, and it’s never busy. I carried the TSA statement that knitting needles and scissors were OK, but I didn’t need them. Nothing that I had was even looked at twice. I’ve written about some of the fun times #1 Son and I have had with airport security here and here and here. It was refreshing to breeze right through.

At the gate, of course, you get to board first. The seats are huge, relatively speaking, and comfortable. There’s lots of leg room. And all of the drinks are free. And you get real food served on real plates with real silverware and cloth napkins! Even the coffee comes in a real mug. And the food is good. Since there is one attendant for the 8 or 10 people in first class, versus two attendants for everyone in coach, you get a lot more one-on-one personal service. And nobody complained that I knit during take off.

And knit I did, all the down to Vegas. By the time we landed, I was through most of the gusset increases and just about ready to turn the heels on the Gold Hill socks.

Mom’s take on flying first class: (1/2 because of the cost, even on special)

Next up: Knitting Through Death Valley

I will get around to the post on our Vegas vacation. But for now you can find all of the Vegas and Death Valley pics up in the Galleries. Just click on the link, or on the Galleries button in the nav bar. I decided to put the pics here instead of on mommymonster.com because more people come here than go there.

In knitty news… there is no news. I managed to work an inch or so on the sock ankles at Tangle Thursday knitting night. But other than that, there has been little progress. I will get there. Knitting time seems to be at a premium right now, overshadowed by work and other areas of life.

In techie news, I’m putting the upgrade to WordPress 2.0 on hold for awhile. From the WP support forums, there are quite a few people having problems. As I recall, that happened with 1.5, also — and with most new software releases, for that matter. I will wait for a month or two until the first bug release, I think. My take so far? I don’t see a lot that makes me think it’s a “gottahave” release. There’s a lot of eye candy in the admin area. But I don’t really care about that, or about the new role-based user setup. I don’t like the fact that the upload option is gone, leaving the only upload avenue via ftp. What if I’m not home? There’s an upload for pics in the write post area, but it won’t let me put the picture where I want. I also don’t like the new wysiwyg editor, but that at least can be turned off.

But the real show stopper is that a couple of plugins I feel are essential don’t work under 2.0. There may be other options, but installing them would take more work than I’m willing to do right now. I will wait, again, and see if the plugins are upgraded. 1.5 is serving me very well, and I’m not in a hurry.

And that’s why I’ve been mostly absent. But here’s a teaser pic from the vacation gallery that I don’t have up yet. This is a place in Death Valley called Badwater. It’s the lowest point in the western hemisphere, being 282 feet below sea level. The water isn’t potable, but very rare snails and little guppies live in it. The white band out in the distance is a dried lake bed. The white is salt and alkali. And, yes, the sky really was that blue. Click the pic for the bigger version.

In knitting news, I’ve progressed a small way up the ankles of the Lorna’s Laces socks. There hasn’t been a lot of knitting time, unfortunately, but I still hope to have these finished fairly soon. And then I’ll have something to put in the 2006 finished objects gallery!

In techie news, I’m working on an update of PI to the latest WordPress version (2.0). It’s not yet ready for prime time, as I’m having problems with a plug-in that I need to have working. Hopefully that will be resolved in the next week or so. Then, if all goes as planned… you won’t notice anything.

#1 Son and I are back from our annual trek to Las Vegas for the holidays, and a fun time was had by all. I’ll post later about the trip, which featured a tour of Death Valley on an unbelievably gorgeous day. But this is a picture I took just before we left. I had put my carry-on bag up on the bed to pack it, turned around to gather up a few things I wanted to take, and when I turned back this was what I found.

Do you think that Moo Cow wanted to go along with us? She wasn’t too happy when I removed her from the top of the bag so I could pack. And which bag is your’s ma’am? That would be the one with cat hair all over it.

That’s a standard-sized carry-on bag that she is taking up most of the side of. Moo is, shall we say… big boned and “fluffy.”

And lest anyone think I did nothing but gamble, drink, take tours, go to shows, and otherwise goof off (all of which I did), here’s some proof that knitting was also accomplished. This is the Lorna’s Laces sock I started awhile back in the color called “Gold Hill” – a fitting color for Las Vegas, I thought. As you can see, I have progressed a lot! I made it around both of the heels and started up the ankle.

If the heels look a little strange, it’s because I used the same ribbed faux cable pattern that is on the instep. I’m rather pleased with the way that it’s coming out. Once the socks are blocked, it will look a lot better. The colors pooled a little bit over the gusset increases, but on the whole they are behaving themselves admirably.

The soscks are a little big on me, but I plan to wear them anyway. A lot. They’re not so big as to be uncomfortable; just a little looser than I usually prefer.

Happy New Year to everyone!