Finished Object Friday, The Forced out of Bitchiness Edition

I haven't been in the best of moods this week. I don't know if its school stress, work blues, or a preview of SAD to come, but I've been a scowling, mopey bitch this week. It got to the point yesterday where I decided, in the course of about 15 minutes, to take Wellbutrin through the winter and to start reading Thich Naht Hahn again. If those things don't make me chipper, well, there will be no other recourse but to grab Little A and fly to Aruba to start our new life.

Luckily, before I had to put in any amount of effort (like opening a bottle or locating a book in the stacks), my secret pal came to the rescue! Let me tell you, I haven't had a lot of fabulous pal experiences (except for Fiberflix, Jen was a great one!). I often seem to attract the deadbeats. Once, on a non-blog related swap, the woman didn't send me anything. After MANY months of being harassed by the hostess she sent me a package of exactly the stuff I said I hated. A big damn box full of orange cotton yarn. Sweet.

But this time, I tell you. The pal gods have smiled on me and I can tell you with full confidence that I have landed the BEST SECRET PAL EVER. EVER! You ask for proof? You dare to ask for proof?

Well, fine. The proof:

You are viewing a totally hysterical kitty card, 2 skein of beautiful blue/indigo/purple sock yarn, the yummiest dark chocolate on this earth (or at least in my stomach on my couch) and beautiful, soft roving!! Do you understand what that roving means??? It means my pal has faith in my spinning wheel renovations skills! I really hope its not false faith, and I hope I can keep my paws and my spindle off of it until the spinning wheel's maiden (well...its a really old wheel, maybe that should be cronen) journey. Thank you SO much secret pal!!!

So, after I received that awesome gift, I got myself moving long enough to finish something for today:

Those are trekking socks (I know I REALLY should've remembered to write down the color number before I came to work, sorry!) for my friend L. Those are my feet in them. I would've shown you more, but I've already fallen into my winter shaving cycle (can "not at all" be considered a cycle?) and I didn't really think you all needed to see that! They are just the socks I "do" so up top is just a 3-1 rib. You're not missing much.

These socks took forever. I had the worst SSS of my life with them which is odd because I L.O.V.E. the yarn. Trekking rocks, but for some reason, does not motivate!

And to make you hungry, Little A's lunch:

That's a freshly picked apple with cinnamon and sugar, carrots, pistacios, cheddar cheese, tiny little breadsticks with a little container of tomato sauce for dipping. Another big hit with Little A. I made a batch of dough the other weekend and froze little tiny portions so that I can make stuff like this for her more often.

And I have an apple tip for mel (blogless at this time I believe). I found that my apples don't go brown (well, those above are covered in cinnamon, so not those) if I do this--Cut them how you like and put them into a little salad spinner with about 2 TBSP lemon juice and some water. Swish it around like crazy, then dump the water out and apple spin it until they are dry. It works really well!

And last, but not least, I leave you with this thought. As Little A was getting ready for bed the other night she was singing (she ALWAYS sings in the bathroom...loud...even in public places like the LIBRARY) Miss Mary Mack. You remember this one, right? Along with the hand clapping moves? Right, so after a couple repetitions she breaks in the P.Ditty version of Miss Mary Mack, complete with "Yo"'s (but happily, not ho's). Just imagine it if you're feeling pissy. It'll help. Yo.