More about Gatlinburg

Yummy souvenir yarn! I bought both of these at Smoky Mountain Spinnery in Gatlinburg, TN. The one on the left is Cascade Yarns Heritage Hand Painted sock yarn, and the on the right is Berocco Ultra Alpaca.

I've already picked out a lace sock pattern for the Heritage, but I haven't decided what to do with the alpaca. I've been petting it, and admiring its softness.

I'm resisting starting on the new socks until I finish the pair that I'm working on. I should be knitting right now, as opposed to goofing around on the internets. But I realized that I hadn't posted about the yarn that I brought home from my vacation.

The Smoky Mountain Spinnery is a charming little yarn shop, located right outside downtown Gatlinburg. It's in the back of a fishing supply store, and both are owned by a husband and wife team. They are both charming and hospitable, and very friendly and helpful. I recommend that if you ar going to Gatlinburg and you're looking for yarn or fishing lures, check them out! The Spinnery has a good selection of both yarn and spinning fiber, as well as supplies. To be honest, I didn't look through the fishing stuff, but Donnie liked it! At last, a store that we both want to shop at!

I got a friend request on Facebook today from a girl that I worked with YEARS ago. As a result, I joined a group on Facebook of people from Rock-A-Billy Cafe. It is awesome to look at pictures from back in the day, and share memories. I had forgotten how much fun it was to work there, and how many cool people I got to work with there.

I got a job!!!

Keeneland hired me for the spring meet! Yay! I'm going to be working for the next three weeks! I'm super excited about this. (As if you couldn't tell, what with the exclamation points and all) I'm going to be serving in the Lexington/Ketucky rooms, upstairs on the fourth floor of the clubhouse. Quite posh, I tell you. It's all fancy-pants and high roller and whatnot. But I'm still excited, because I've wanted to work at Keeneland for years, and have never been able to, so to have this opportunity is just awesome. Besides, I get to go to the racetrack every day for the next three weeks. That doesn't suck.
I think that it's time for me to buy a new car. And by new car, I mean newer than the one that I have. It died seven times on my way to babysit this morning. By the time I got here, I was a nervous wreck, almost in tears. It's enough to drive a girl to drink, I tell you. I just wish that it would hold out for another month, let me get some money in the bank, and then I could face spending a crapload of money on a car. Arggghhh!
I've been spending some time lately with the knitting. Almost done with the socks that I've been working on, got Donnie's IPod armband holder done, finally sewed on button eyes on the sock puppets that I made for Thomas, and got a new sock pattern for the yarn I bought on vacation. I got all this done because I couldn't get on the internets for the whole week. It sucked.
I'm going to eat some breakfast and knit some socks, because that's how I roll.

Best. Vacation. EVER!!!

Got home yesterday from the Great Smoky Mountains, and let me tell you, it was AWESOME!! We had such a wonderful time, and I can't wait to go back.

We were such tourists while we were down there. We rode most of the rides, and shopped, and ate, and hung out in the hot tub. I'm glad to be home though.

We drove down to London Thursday night, and stayed with Donnie's parents. We made our way to Tennessee on Friday morning. We drove through Cades Cove, and saw probably 60 deer and a wild turkey. Once we got to Gatlinburg, we checked into our cabin. It was located about 14 miles from downtown, and it was soo cute! Located right next to a stream, so we had the sound of running water all weekend.

We went downtown, and started right in with the fun stuff. We rode Ripley's Moving Theater, took the ski lift up the mountain, went to the top of the Space Needle, and had a wonderful dinner at Lineberger's Seafood Company.

Saturday, I cooked breakfast at the cabin, all the good stuff, biscuits and gravy, sausage, and eggs. Then we went to Ripley's Aquarium of the Smokies. WOW!! It's been a while since I've been to an aquarium. It was amazing! Stunning fish, lots of sharks, giant spider crabs, and stingrays.

After the aquarium, we went on the tramway to Ober Gatlinburg. That was pretty cool, too, although the ride up wasn't as good as the ride down. On the way up, we were two of the last people to get on the tramcar, and we couldn't see anything from the middle of the car. On the way down, we were among the first on, so we got to stand right at the front by the windows.

Once we were down, we had lunch, and then went back to the cabin for naps.

We went back downtown later that afternoon, and did some shopping, then it was back to the cabin. I forgot how tiring it was to sightsee! You do have to walk everywhere in Gatlinburg.

We spent Sunday making our way back home, stopping in Pigeon Forge and Seiverville for more shopping. We got home around 3:30, and I was worn out! Vacation can be exhausting!

I'm so glad that we went. We had perfect weather, and a perfect time, and I'm so grateful that Donnie took me for my first time to Gatlinburg. It was amazing!

Running to the mountains...

Isn't he the cutest thing you've ever seen?! We were enjoying a beautiful day outside, playing cars and trucks.

I'm getting ready for our trip to Gatlinburg today. We are leaving this afternoon, heading to London to spend the night with Donnie's parents, and then we will head to Gatlinburg tomorrow morning. I'm really excited about it! I'm just amazed at how much stuff we're bringing. I've been obsessively checking weather.com to make sure that the weather will be nice. I've packed three knitting projects, and we're going to a yarn store, so I should be able to get through the weekend without running out of knitting.

Speaking of the knitting, I'm almost done with the first sock, and I'm hoping that I will have the second sock started this weekend. The lace scarf is now languishing in the knitting bag, so it's coming along, too. I'll take pictures of everything this weekend, hopefully out in the nature.

Professionally, things are looking up as well. I went to the Keeneland spring meet job fair this past Tuesday, and they want me to come in for Captains training next. Their captains are like dining room managers. The director of dining services, who I interviewed with, said that if they didn't have a captain's position that suited me, then I could go to the servers' training. So, more than likely, I will at least be serving at Keeneland this spring meet. I'm excited about it; it feels good knowing that I'm going back to work, especially after not working for so long.

Well, the dryer is done, so I've got laundry to fold. If I have Internet access in the Great Smoky Mountains, I will post updates this weekend. Otherwise, you'll just have to wait till next week!

Spring, where are you?

3 days ago, it was 70 degrees. Today, there is snow on the ground. Welcome to March in Kentucky! I guess knitting wool socks is all of sudden smart and well-planned.
Speaking of the socks, they are gorgeous! The colorway reminds me of the ocean, all blues and greens. I've been a busy little knitter lately. Last weekend I knocked out an armband IPod holder for Donnie, in a funky camoflage yarn. Now, I'm making another one in gray, to match his work uniform. Because he likes to match!
The lace scarf is still hanging out in the knitting bag. I think that I'll be ready to go back to it when I've finished the socks. Or at least one sock. Right now, I'm trying to figure out what projects I want to take with me on our Gatlinburg trip next weekend. I'm sooo excited! I've never been to Gatlinburg, and we've got a lovely cabin about 13 miles from downtown. There's a yarn shop that I want to go to, and a Coach outlet store in Seiverville! We're planning on going to the aquarium, Dixie Stampede, the Space Needle, and ride the ski lift up the mountain. I'm most looking forward to soaking in the hot tub, whilst looking out into the woods for bears.
Of course, my OCD is kicking in. I've made a list of what I need to pack for me, and another list for what Donnie needs to pack, plus another list for food and beverages that we need to bring. Plus a list of where we want to go and do, and ..... well, you get the idea. I hope that the weather is nice, and I get lots of pictures.
Off to fix lunch and see what I'm fixing for dinner.

Woman, thou art fickle...

The more I looked at the sock yarn, the more I wanted to knit it. Then, I get my invite from Ravelry, which encourages me to list all of my yarn and books and patterns and such. And there's a place for your projects, and my page looked so lonely, what with only one project on there, and I thought, well just cast it on and then you'll have two projects to list. Just cast it on... famous last words! The lace scarf? What lace scarf? Can't you see I'm knitting socks? The scarf and I are on a break, free to do whatever we want with other patterns and yarn. We both need this. Time apart will make us truly appreciate each other. Besides, it's warming up outside, who needs a new scarf? (The argument could be made about who needs wool socks, but we're not going there.)
I'm spending the day with the most charming, lovable,gorgeous man I know. He's my nephew and I guess that at 21 months, he's not technically a man, but he is the little man! I'm so lucky that I've been able to spend so much time with him, since he was born. He brightens my day, and watching him grow and learn blows my mind!
Pictures tomorrow, of lots of fun things!

And so it goes...

I'm still knitting the charming lace scarf. It's still charming, but I'm starting to feel a bit of boredom creep in. While I'm working on it, I can see some cute sock yarn, waiting for me in my knitting basket. I know that I should take it upstairs and put it with the rest of the stash, but it's pretty, and I like looking at it. There's also some soft gray alpaca that is begging to become a baby toy. Don't get me started on the green/yellow lace that I was working on before it bored me to tears. Even its simple 4 row repeat is looking attractive.
This is why I stopped knitting scarves for a while. Once you get past the charm and novelty of the pattern/yarn/colorway, there's still like 182 feet to knit. Okay, maybe not that much, but still. Scarves get kind of boring WAY before they get to any useful length. But still I plug away at it, because it is beautiful, and I do love the yarn and the pattern. Hopefully, it will get charming and exciting again.
Knitting does give me an excuse to watch TV. I figure that if I'm doing something productive, then it's okay to watch an all-day marathon of America's Next Top Model. Of course, some people think that it's not okay to watch ANTM all day. Some people, maybe a person who lives in this house, thinks that no one should watch ANTM, even for one hour. I won't mention names, but we all know who he is. Really, he would rather watch logging all day. How many trees do you have to watch fall to the ground to get that it's dangerous? And boring? It makes a garter stitch scarf in black look exciting.
Speaking of exciting, I saw my first Noro 2 row scarf live and in person the other day when I bought the lace weight for my WIP. The young lady who had knit it had used a chunky weight yarn, and it was even more lovely in person than in any picture that I had seen.

The Job Search Continues

I got rejected by Longhorn Steakhouse. It sucks more than I thought it would. I have sent resumes to several other restaurants, but so far I haven't heard anything. I know that there are a lot of people out there looking for a job, and employers have lots of resumes and applications to sift through. Being unemployed is getting old, though. I'm tired of not having anything to do. There's only so much knitting that I can do in a day!
I worry that I'm not going to find anything. I know that I can always go back to serving and/or bartending, but I would rather find a job that has a future. I'm getting too old to worry about making enough in tips to cover the bills.
My biggest fear is that I'm not qualified enough to get a good job. I worry that my lack of a degree is going to hinder the job search. I worry that I'm not going to find anything that would make me want to go to work every day. I worry, I worry, I worry.
Still, it could be worse. I could not be receiving unemployment. I could be homeless. I could be alone. But I'm not. My dear sweet boyfriend has been very supportive during all this. Thank God for him.