HAPPY HALLOWEEN

YUP Halloween evening and all the little ghosts and goblins have come and gone. I didn't get as many as I did last year by about 40 less. Only about 90 this evening. I wonder if the scare of the H1N1 FLU frightened many of the parents into not letting their children go out this year. I have some left over treats; small packages of Lay's Chips and assorted mini chocolate bars.

This is how I decorated my dining room window courtesy of Dollarama one of my favorite stores.

This is the top of my window.


AND here it is with the bottom of the window and my mini pumpkin lanterns.


On my fall wreath on the door I added some scary sticks to make it more Halloweeny. Is Halloweeny a word?

Now before I continue on my life and knitting check out this wedding gown. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1205007/Shepherdess-bride-marries-stunning-dress-wool-flock.html#comments%23ixzz0OogT2uOx. So what do you think? Could you carry it off at your wedding and would you ever consider wearing something like this?

These past two weeks have been busy busy busy. Monday October 18 I started a Hilltop study. It was for seven days Monday - Saturday 3X/day and once on Sunday. The money came in handy and let me put more on my VISA and also get some groceries and Halloween treats. It also allowed me to knit away and finish my second Sockknitter's Antonymous challenge of knitting with yellow. I have now knit two socks in yellow and don't think I will knit with yellow for a long time or knit yellow sock in a very long time. I enjoyed both patterns I knit but certainly was NOT in my comfort zone knitting with yellow.

Here is the challenge for September which was knit in yellow and the Sockknitter's Anonymous Sock which is called Froggie Faces. I purchased this yarn from The CraftsMeow on etsy and the color is called banana. It is 100% merino. It is a very thin yarn but bloomed beautifully after washing.

I felt better when the sock was completed and I noticed it was quite tonal. Why you ask? B/c the other yellow sock I knit, I dyed myself and it was tonal and I thought it was something I did wrong. Seeing someone else who sells sock yarn she dyed tonal made me feel a lot better.


Can you see the froggie faces in the pattern?


The second yellow sock managed to fall into two challenges. It was the fourth sock in the 2009 Sock Pentathlon called SUMMER and by doing it in yellow I could enter it in another September Sockknitter's challenge of knitting "any" sock pattern in yellow. I also entered it in the yahoo Whoduknit Sept project which was anything related to any book we have previously read. It was to represent yellow toddler socks for the book Bone harvest by Mary Logue despite it NOT being toddler socks. I figured since I used the lemonade Kool-Aid it would fit. You have to read the book to understand

The yarn I started with was Knit Picks Bare which I dyed with some lemonade Kool-Aid. Unable to find a second packet of which I knew I had as I received it in the whoduknit yahoo group I had to add some yellow food coloring. Here it is drying on a tree out my front door. Oh and on this tree I tied up a mummy for Halloween. Just look how nice it looks outside with green grass and leaves on the trees. It will be nice out like that again in several months. I am already counting the time and wishing my life away as I tend to do when the weather starts getting cold.


Here it is skeined ready to be caked and knitted.


Completed SUMMER Socks.


In this photo you can see how tonal these socks I dyed came out.


Close up of the PICOT cuff and pattern of the sock leg. I knit extra length on these socks as the pattern makes a short sock.


Back to my week's study at Hilltop.
Hilltop itself is always a challenge as I am NOT a morning person and I needed to be there for 8:25AM Monday thru Saturday for my first of three appt each day and on Sunday I needed to be there at 7:45AM. To get there for 7:45AM I had to take the first bus arriving at 7:24AM. Actually, I was #1 on the study and the time of that last visit on Sunday was supposed to be 16 - 18 hours after the second Saturday visit making the appt between 5:20AM and 7:20AM, only the staff doesn't even arrive until 7:30AM. The head of the study had to arrive by 7:15AM to set up the instrument machines and get them acclimated. It wouldn't have been so bad since I was there for such a brief period and could head back home to bed. Only there was a glitch in the plan when the I got to the bus figuring I missed one bus by 4 minutes realising I had to wait for the next bus., I was told by another waiting the bus I missed, it never arrived. The next bus 9:04AM didn't come either. The third bus was 11 minutes late. Thus, I didn't get home until 10AM and I had expected to be home much earlier and back to bed before 10AM. I did go back to bed anyway.

Monday I was just so tired I didn't do very much. I did go and get my Halloween treats and some groceries. I also had to prepare myself for my capsule camera endoscopy which was Tuesday October 30 starting early in the morning. My preparation was only clear fluids after lunch and nothing after MN. Thank-goodness I didn't have to take any laxatives but I usually don't anyway since I have no large bowel and am missing a bit of my small bowel also.

Here is the camera I had to swallow. Over the course of eight hours it would take 60,000 photos of the inside of my small bowel. I had a lot of electrodes stuck on my abd which were connected to a computer that was recording the photos the camera was taking. The computer was in a case I carried like a pocketbook with a shoulder strap. After two hours of swallowing the pill I could have some clear fluids and jello. In another two hours (four hours after swallowing the pill) I could eat. Once I swallowed the pill I could go about my business to return at 4PM to have the electrodes removed. Then the computer I was carrying was sinked to a regular computer to download the photos which would take several hours. I did get to see the beginning before I left. Now I wait to hear from my gastroentrologist. Only one of these procedures is done each day as they only have one of the portable computers you carry about. I never did see the doctor in charge of this procedure, just a couple of nurses.

Well since this is so old and sitting in my folder waiting to be published I will do that now and won't tell you what the date is I am doing this and go on with another blog post especially since I can't remember now what else I was going to write here.