When I said we'd be sleeping on the side of the road, I was joking

Last night I checked my bank account and was disappointed at the measly funds held therein.
"Oh", I said, "I guess pay week must be next week not this week".
The boy looked at me in surprise.
"What, so, we have no money and we're just about to go on holiday?"
"Um...yes. We'll just have to put everything on plastic and worry about it later" I replied.

But I wasn't able to worry about it later. I started to worry about it right away. The worry wasn't so bad that it pushed out the earworm in my head (the theme song from Barbie - a mermaid tale), but it was bad enough that my mood the next morning was pretty grim.

I still had to pay our overdue car registration too.  And the phone and Internet bill was due while we would be away. And I only had a hundred bucks to last us until next Wednesday so maybe it was going to be a really short holiday.

Then one of my workmates reminded me that we get paid on Wednesday night, not Tuesday night.
Well, that could have saved me a heck of a lot of anxiety.

A chance to rest, relax and get sick

Only four sleeps to go until our holiday - hooray!
But I'm already getting a scratchy throat that needs frequent clearing. This is just what the boy predicted - that I'll get so run down that by the time I have some time off my body will just give up soldiering on and succumb to the nearest virus.
But who knows, maybe a couple of soaks in a private geothermal pool is just what I need to sweat it off again...

The Slytherin scarf - photographic evidence

Well, here it is. The boy's Slytherin scarf. Weeks of dedicated knit and purl went into this, along with 4x100g skeins of forest green merino yarn and 2x50g skeins of silver grey wool yarn. It's knitted in the round, so that's a double thickness you're seeing, totalling about 4 1/2 feet worth of slythering, cosy goodness.

I toyed with the idea of doing tassels at each end instead of fringes, but that's possibly a bit overly feminine.

cardigan girl

It took several weeks to finish, but I did. I haven't gotten around to taking a photo of the boy's Slytherin scarf yet, but I will.

In the meantime, I have been working on a bright green Sonnet cardigan, a freebie from the Knitty website. What it's really got going for it is that, in theory at least, the knitting pattern works with any gauge.

And the main reason I chose this pattern was because the yarn I'd already bought didn't seem to work with the cardigan I really wanted to make, Trina, a freebie I found on Ravelry. I couldn't seem to get the right knitting gauge and will probably have to look for a thicker yarn for that one.

I hope I don't finish before we go on holiday, because we are bound to have quiet evenings while we're away - and it's too expensive to buy more than one garment's worth of yarn every coupla months.

My traitorous health needs

I wouldn't be a very good ambassador for New Zealand. I don't like rugby, don't drink beer, can't wear wool and am a bit iffy about dairy products.

In fact, if I had to shop locally-made only and eschew all foreign-made products, I would probably be in big shit.

Because New Zealand doesn't produce cotton, acrylic, linen, bamboo, rayon, tencel or any of those other itch-free fibres. Nor does it (as far as I know) produce soy milk. So I would live out my life scratching and hoiking. Not a pretty picture, eh?

And my GP pooh-poohed all those eco-friendly enzyme-based laundry powders, because they are not very safe for sensitive skin.

I know it's not very PC to say so, but thank goodness for man-made substitutes (even though I dearly wish I could take advantage of those cuddly merino yarns).

A holiday's a comin'

I dared to ask the boss for a week off early next month...and she let me have the time off!

I was so happy to get her emailed reply that I clapped my hands like a little kid and hopped about in my seat. Then I emailed the happy news to the boy and left work for the day.

So it looks like we are going to spend some time in Waitomo, home of the famous Waitomo Caves (glow worms and blackwater rafting - that's all I know about it). None of us have been there before, so it should be exciting for all of us. It's just a matter of finding some accommodation which is reasonably priced, warm and comfortable, and - preferably - has a separate bedroom so we can send TLM to bed without having to sit in the dark ourselves for the rest of the evening.

Hee hee hee...