I thought I knew debt. I lied. I’m now in over a hundred grand…. but on the bright side, I’ve PURCHASED A CONDO!!!

Just thought I’d share.

So I went to Billings last week for 5 fun-filled nightmarish days. It was a disaster from one end to the other, the only bright side being that yes, come the end of the month, barring some wild and unsavory turn of events with the inspector, mortgage, and/or natural disaster, officially own my very own house, one nobody can just make me leave one day on a whim. Not that anyone ever *has* just kicked me out on a whim before; I’m just sayin’.

That’s the good news. I have a place to live when I move at the end of the month. Bad news? College is a bust. MSU College of Technology is a fucking bitch. They’ve lost my transcripts (more than once), they’ve failed to give me vital information, and now my classes are 100% full with a mile-long waiting list. Their fault, mostly, but I take some responsibility in not having been a little more on top of things and just trusting that everything would work itself out even if they were being incompetent asshats over there.

So, it’s on to a job hunt now. And a lot of therapy knitting. And steroids.

Seriously. I’m on steroids. For hives, of course, because this nightmare involving mortgages and house hunting and college fuckwads kicked my stress (and therefore, my on-again-off-again hives) into overdrive. I just couldn’t take it anymore, and after I told my mother I’d MURDER to get rid of the hives, she and her friend Ella strongarmed me to the doctor for what I thought would be another ass-shot of steroids, but instead is a nice course of prednisone pills. That’ll look real great on any upcoming pre-employment drug tests, no doubt.

I have no idea why my camera decided that all 20+ pictures of this rainbow on July 4 needed to be set against a hellish sky, but I swear, it was a normal gray sky when I took them! Enjoy.

So actually, Summer of Socks 2008 began, um, June 21st. But I didn’t get a sock started for it until July 7th. I was too busy finishing up other things I needed to get done to start!

So here’s my first sock-in-progress for Summer of Socks 2008:

Cute, eh? I’m adoring the yarn so much I want like, 2-3 more balls of it, just to have on hand. This sock is being made with 56 stitches, but I’m not sure I like that. We’ll see after I get the heel done.

[Edit: The rainbow socks are made with the Baby Cable Rib patterned socks in Sensational Knitted Socks.]

Then, there’s this sock, which I was working on BEFORE SOS ‘08, which is Mom’s Eleanor socks. Got the first done and am two inches into the next, hoping to finish it off in a week.

Both socks (the two in progress) are moving fast, so hopefully… I’ll actually get to start another pair for SOS soon! :)

So, a couple years ago, I begged my parents to buy me a handheld GPS unit so I could start geocaching. They provided. And I stuffed it into a drawer, intimidated, and left it there.

Until this morning.

Geocaching, for the uninitiated, is sort of a global treasure hunt. People hide caches all over the world, and upload their exact coordinates to a site like Geocaching.com for others to find. You plug those coordinates into your GPS, and go hunting, using the device to find the cache. You might think this is rather strange - like, what’s the fun in finding something if you know where it is? But you don’t, really - it’s one thing to have some exact coordinates to go by - it’s another thing entirely to FIND that spot, even with a GPS. Then to find the cache - which is often hidden, in part for fun, in part to prevent ‘muggles’ from tampering with it, or even walking off with it. And of course, part of the fun is the view - a lot of caches are hidden in the wilderness, in national parks and along historical or just interesting places in cities. It’s a great way to explore the unknown, and to see things you might not have had a chance to see otherwise.

So today, I checked out the website, and found that there’s two caches in town here - not bad for a tiny place like this! One was at the Lion’s Park, only a block north of me. So I dug out that yellow GPS and at length, figured out how to plug in the coordinates (I must have the most unintuitive bastard out there!) and went hunting at just about six this morning. I took with me my camera (just in case), and a small bag with a few trinkets in it, a fresh little Moleskine notebook, softcover, to use as my personal log, and a pen. And a screwdriver. Sometimes, I hear, caches can be hard to open.

Eventually, I found the cache - hidden well and camouflaged, too, so it took me a bit to find it. It was a small container, a little bigger than my hand, and contained a few trinkets and a logbook to sign. I signed it and dated it, and added the cache to my own logbook, and exchanged a rubber bouncy ball for a tiny flashlight keychain, and replaced the cache where I found it.

Cache #1 complete.

And then it was on to cache #2. This was, I suspected, in the main city park. I was right - my coordinates and the clues on the website led me directly to it, to a little corner of garden in it. And then everything went wrong.

Like, my GPS unit went psychotic. It decided North was anything but North, and directed me 20 feet south, but when I began to move in that direction, it changed its mind and said I needed to go 40 feet north, or perhaps 28 feet west, or maybe 30 feet east, or maybe any or all of these.

I spent a long time searching, but without better coordinates than “in the garden area, somewhere”, I didn’t have much luck. So I left. Soon as I left the park, the GPS acted normal again. What, does this thing have PMS? Sheesh.

Anyway, I’m gonna go back when daylight hits again, if I have time, and see if I can’t find this sucker again.

Okay, so my big swaps for the summer are OVER. I have sent and received the Iced Tea Summer Solstice Swap (off Ravelry), and the Loopy Ewe Swap, also! I procrastinated waited for a bright, sunny day, and then went outside and took pictures of all my awesome swag.

Look:

The above swag is, if it isn’t obvious, from the Iced Tea Swap. Awesome goods! And that yarn? Handspun merino/silk. Handspun. *drool*

The below swag is from The Loopy Ewe Swap, from the wonderful Marissa (HPMomma on Ravelry). She was an incredible swap partner.

All that? Wow. Two skeins of Smooshy (my first ever! Feels so… smooshy!) and a knit bag (perfect size for tarot cards! - which she also sent!) and a TON of other good things, which you can see for yourself! Wow. Incredible package!

Anyway. I didn’t take pictures of the good things I sent (late) to my partner. The only part of it I have pictures of is the knitting. And what delicious knitting it was! Here’s a couple shots of the Forest Canopy Shawl that I made my partner, meesh. More pictures on my Flickr. Here’s hoping she really liked it! I haven’t heard yet!