The Pipes, the pipes, they are a' calling!

I've been saying for years that I wanted to go to Scotland for my 40th birthday. Except that my birthday is in March and the weather in Scotland really sucks in the spring. So Mr. Mess just booked us a family trip to Edinburgh and points north, via London for August 2007!

We are using a combination of our Hilton Grand Vacation Club points, Marriott points, Hilton Honors points, American Express points, and different airline miles to make our flights and accommodations almost nothing out of pocket. Makes all these weeks of Mr. Mess being on the road and the girls and I alone here in the cold and snow worth it. This wasn't an easy feat to accomplish. Mad props to the Man for spending his entire day Saturday online and on the phone making it all come together.

The Auld Town Band Pipes - Scotland The Brave [Album Version].wma


Other things have kept me very busy this weekend.

The girl-children had a four day weekend so fun was to be had by all *snort*. We used the time to tackle the nomad's land that our second floor has become. In 2002, we remodeled our house which included converting our former garage into a first floor master suite and adding on a new 3-car garage. So now Mr. Mess and I have very few reasons to venture to the second floor on a daily basis other than to throw virtual grenades at the sleeping children to get them moving in the morning and an occassional night time tuck in. I have what is affectionately refered to the "workroom" or "studio" in what was the former master bedroom but now that I'm knitting more than sewing or scrapbooking I don't spend much time there. Attached to this is the new laundry room, I do unfortunately spend time there on a daily basis, but it mainly consists of the fastest possible laundry load and switch I can manuever.

GothGirl's room had detiorated into a disgusting abyss over the past 4 months or so. We had finally resorted to taking away the *Precious* (aka her laptop) until it was clean. Well she gets a wild hair on Friday that she is going to move from her room to her Dad's former home office that was currently serving as a guest room. We said, "okay but you are doing it all yourself and we want BOTH rooms standing tall at the end of the weekend." By gosh and by golly, she did it! I'd take pictures (no befores thank god, we'd be arrested for child endangerment if the authorities saw the filth she lived in!) but being a teen and all that I have to respect her privacy to some extent.

On to The Changeling's room. Last summer she had decided that she didn't like the colors SHE had chosen and I had painted her room just a year before (GRRRRrrrrrr!) and caught me at Lowes in a vulnerable mood and had me buy new paint. Partly I was so gullible because I never liked the colors she'd previously chosen and was willing to do something different. Unfortunately life intervened and I never got around to repainting. Good thing too, she subsequently changed her mind AGAIN as to what she wanted. We had purchased one gallon each of a dark turquoise, a bright orange, and a bright white. We were going to do a mod swirl thing with the three colors. Orange being the dominant color because that was her favorite. Well this past week she decided that she didn't really like that idea and wanted me to paint a tiger mural instead. Ummmm, okay, I can do that, but I'm not sure I want to, kwim? Then after two days of looking for tiger images she wanted me to interpret on her walls, she decides instead of the orange background, she wants the dark turquoise.

End of the day Sunday, she has dark turquoise walls with white trim. Her bed is a feminine white iron daybed and her curtains are simple white sheers. Today or tomorrow I plan on stopping at Joann's for a tiger fleece panel I saw online to use as either a bedspread or wall hanging. Why no mural? Well, because she is the CHANGELING after all and I'm not repainting another room for those spawn of mine EVER AGAIN! (famous last words I know.)

But I do still have a gallon of orange and a gallon of white not being used....I noticed their bathroom was getting shabby, wouldn't orange with hot pink towels and curtains be cute? (Someone talk me down off the ledge please!)

Now you may be asking yourself, what about the bright apple green room that you painted last spring for GothGirl that she just moved out of, what's it going to be now? Well it could be the guest room, that would be the easiest and simplest answer. Just move the queen bed over there and call it a day. But NO, we can't be that pedestrian. No Mr. Mess (who conveniently was busy arranging my *trip of a lifetime* and cleaning the first floor all weekend) thinks I should move all my artsy-fartsy crap into a room half the size I currently use now and turn the former master bedroom into the guest room with a corner set up with his old home office stuff (i.e. fax machine, phone, monitor, etc.) He's right, but DAMN! that's going to be a lot of work.

Can you believe that in addition to all that I have a FO to show off too? I'm a freaking MONSTER I tell you!

1466

1469

There she is in all her glory, Swallowtail Shawl from the Fall IK. See the nupps? They do add a nice touch and bit of extra texture. So yeah, I'd have to agree with the rest of the knitting world, they suck until you find a way to make them happen that doesn't piss you off too much, and they're worth it in the end.

On the needles now:

1454

A Seaman's Scarf from Myrna Stahman's Shawls & Scarves book. This one is one of the Matthew scarves designed in memory of Matthew Shepherd. I'm using up the purple Cascade 220 superwash from my Cable Cascade sweater. It is really showing the detail of the stitches in this pattern nicely. I've had this book in my library for years but this is the first pattern I've knit out of it. There really are some nice designs in here and I like that Myrna includes information about trying different yarns to get very different results out of the same pattern.

More gratuitous scarf photos:

1463

1460