The Random Number Generator ...

... has spoken and the number it chose was 9! Also known as Alwen! Alwen, if you would be so kind as to email me your mailing address to Sakkasie@hotmail.com I will get your yarn into the mail post haste! Wasn't that an exciting contest? Well ... sort of.

Not nearly as exciting though as the Rattie Ratz Rescue adoption fair which was this past Saturday. And of course I came home with more ratties. But, these were ones that I had already reserved so it's not like it was a spontaneous rat purchase. Although I did change ratties once I had a look at them.

This is Celeste who was born Aug. 29th. I had originally planned to get a ratlet that looks a lot like Bella but the little rattie was very timid and I didn't know how well she'd fare with my crew. Celeste on the other is an in your face, cleaning your teeth, gobbling up anything in sight kind of girl. I'm quite smitten. The other new rattie is Dottie, who was formerly known on this blog as "Peep." She's another black hooded dumbo but she is very, very, very tiny. Being the runt of the litter and all. How small is she? She's able to bury under the cage bedding and become quite invisible. Pictures of the wee one once she's a bit braver.

Tomorrow - actual knitting content!

The Formerly Saturday Now Friday Contest

I forgot to have a contest last Saturday. I suck. But it seems to me that not many people read blogs on the weekend. So this week we'll have a Friday contest. As in "today is the contest." There's no point in making you guess how many squares I've crocheted since the last contest because the answer is NONE. I think I may be temporarily "squared out." So if you'd like to win this lovely prize ...

... just leave a comment. Any comment will do. Except for "April, you have too many rats so stop adopting already." What? You can't figure out what the prize is from this obviously stolen picture? The prize is three balls of Jo Sharp Silk Road Tweed DK. Which is 85% wool, 10% silk and 5% cashmere. In the "Cocoa" colorway. A total of 441 yards (I used my calculator to figure that out). That should be enough to make a scarf or a little shawl or something. If you like brown tweed scarves.

Were we just talking about rats? I think we were. Now I know we've already seen a sort of picture of Sophie but we haven't seen any REAL pictures. And we haven't seen Bella yet. Therefore, for your viewing pleasure, I present to you "The Squirmlings"!

Here is a picture of Sophie eating some baby food. Organic chicken and pasta stars even. She likes to dig through it and pick out the carrots. I adore Sophie. No really, I ADORE HER. When she runs her little tail curls into a circle and she looks like a race car. She's very diligent about cleaning my ears every night and likes to play in my hair.

It's Bella Boo! My Olympic athlete rat. If Bella could enter the long jump, she would win gold every time. She's not a big squish like Sophie but still very lovable. They make a good pair, Bella is extremely smart, Sophie runs into walls.

And just a reminder, you have just 15 more days until the "April Has Lost Her Mind" contest comes to an end. All the details can be found here ... CONTEST!

Excuses, Excuses

OK, so we'll just forget about me participating in Blogtober '09. I may still redeem myself by participating in National Novel Writing Month next month but don't hold your breath. Or you might be dead.

Rats. I have an apartment full of rats. Four today, with two more being added on Saturday. That makes six. I think. You wouldn't think that tiny little rodents could take up so much time. BUT THEY DO.

I'm still trying to convince Phil that people are OK and that if he comes out of his cage he won't be killed. He has a tendency to squeal like a pig when I pick him up. Most disconcerting. Sophie and Bella, The Rats On Crack, need constant supervision when they're in the bathroom (also known as The Rat Playroom). I generally sit on the floor under the towel rack. Which Bella quite likes because then she can run up my arm, jump on my head, climb up a towel and run along the towel rack. Except last night I found her swinging from the picture ABOVE the towel rack. Sophie likes to jump off the back of the toilet and into the garbage can. The other night she came out with a sanitary napkin stuck to her head. See what I mean? Constant supervision. Luckily Spike has graduated to having play time by himself so now he gets to hang out in the bathroom by himself from 11pm to 7am.

A very nice person at work gave me a crock pot that kinda looks like one above (I'm a little short on pictures today, sorry). I managed to make watery chili that was overcooked yesterday. My, my, don't I love dried out ground beef. How you can have dried out ground beef in watery tomato sauce is quite beyond me but that's how I roll with everything I've made in the crock pot. So I have come to this conclusion. Either a) there really is some magical incantation one must perform when using the crock pot or b) people who use crock pots have no sense of taste. I just don't know.

Blogtober Day 7

The ratties are livin' large at Chez Insanity.

This Rat Thing?

Totally out of control. Beyond out of control. I have become, in a little less than two months, the crazy rat lady. I see the words, "Free With Cage" and I lose all control.

Maybe I'm becoming a rat hoarder. This particular cage, which I got today, happened to come with two female dumbo babies. Well four months old or so. Still pretty tiny.

This is half of Sophie. Sophie is on crack. The only time she stops moving is to sleep. In the car on the way home tonight she went back and forth, back and forth across the top of her cage. UPSIDE DOWN. Her counterpart, Bella, is much more sedate. Or perhaps sharing a cage with Sophie wears her out.

So for those of you keeping count, that makes four. We'll talk about the babies coming next week when they arrive.

Six. That's not too many. Is it? Is it??

And The Winner Is ...

... my wonderful friend, Knitcoach, with her guess of 25 squares. Which is very nice for me because it gives me an excuse to see her! Yes, blog fans, a RL friend has won the contest and no, it wasn't rigged. Come back again this Saturday for Contest #2 Within A Contest!

Great Googly Moogly, it's not a dishcloth and it's not a square. It's a ... sock! Oddly enough, I have grown a little bored with knitting things that become squares. I started on this sock about a month ago, maybe more? It is a frightfully boring pattern of ol' K2 P2 for the leg and stockinette for the foot but it's very squishy and soft since it's worsted weight wool. Lorna's Laces Shepherd's Worsted to be precise. I think the colorway is "Apple Hill" although pink, blue and purple aren't colors one usually associates with apples. Anyway for some reason I had it in my head that I had not only finished the first sock but was onto the foot on the second one. No such luck. When I pulled it out of the bag today it turned out I'd only done 12 rows of the leg. Poop.

To Crock Or Not?

Day four of Blogtober and already I am reduced to posting pictures of food. This was tonight's dinner and probably Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday's as well. Good ol' beef stew, one of my very favorite things in the entire world. And dead easy. Stew beef, an onion, baby carrots, a few peas and some potatoes. Oh, and a little of that Bouquet sauce for color. Plus water. That's it.

I'm sure it sounds like the blandest thing in the world but for some reason it comes out quite flavorful. Especially when you cook it for four hours. Which brings me to the question of the day.

Is it truly possible to cook a nice meal in a crock pot? My answer, based on past experience, is NO. I have thrown away at least three crock pots after being faced with the most disgusting meals ever created. And yet, on Ravelry, there is a group devoted to crock pots who post these marvelous sounding meals. From their crock pot. I have been reading the forum for the last week trying to discover what the secret is. Some super secret ingredient or magical incantation to be murmured repeatedly as the meal is cooking. Please don't tell me to brown the meat first, I've tried that. Or not to have too much liquid. I did that. And still, ick. What is the TRICK?

Finally, don't forget to enter your guess as to how many squares I managed to produce in the last week. Contest closes tomorrow night at 6pm PST!

Saturday Squares

Well I said we were gonna have a contest and yes indeedy we are. This contest will happen each Saturday for the month of October which nicely takes care of 5 posts for Blogtober. I am a sly one.

Here's the deal. I have set a remarkably unrealistic goal for myself regarding square production for this month. I am trying to do a *cough*entire afghan*cough*. As in ... 120 squares. Not including seaming. I'm not THAT insane. But you know what they say, fail to plan, plan to fail. Each week I will post a picture of the total number of squares I've crocheted TO DATE and it will be up to you to guess how many there are. This is a week's worth of squares. How many are there?

This is this week's prize. 600 meters (so about 660 yards) of Fleece Artist "Suri Blue." Which is 50% Suri Alpaca and 50% Blue Face Leicester. My camera fails to capture the gorgeousness of this lace weight yarn. Think more of a hunter green, the actual colorway is called "Hemlock." So details, details, details. The contest closes at 6pm PST on Monday, October 5th. Post your guess in the comments. Contest is open to the entire world. If more than one person guesses the correct number, the random number generator will pick the winner.

And the cats .. they just keep on coming. Why feed four cats when you can feed five? There is a certain irony here in that I'm taking a picture of cats in my apartment and neither belongs to me.

Apri And Phil

Ratoncito has now been renamed "Phil."

Tonight he and Spike had mashed potatoes and pork chops for dinner

It's Friday and my brain is fried.

Tomorrow, a proper post with pictures, more than 5 seconds of thought, and a mini contest. A contest within a contest so to speak.

If anyone needs me, I'll be on the couch with a cup of tea, some spice cookies and the latest issue of People.

It's only day 2 of Blogtober and I'm tired already.

Happy October!

And Happy Blogtober! Look! I'm right on schedule! Although I must confess, I was a bit unsure how this whole Blogtober thing was going to pan out since I entered my stupid name incorrectly when signing up yesterday. For the month of October, please be sure to refer to me as Apri. No L. Thank you.

In rattie news, I was supposed to pick up Ratoncito this evening but alas, I have not heard from his current owner so I don't really know what's happening. Sometimes craigslist people can be a bit flakey. Like the fellow who yesterday advertised "Rat Cages $10 - $20" and then told me he had one cage left for $80.00. Apparently the numerical system has been reorganized and no one told me. If I'm going to shell out $80.00 for a cage it'll be a new one, not a used one thank you very much.

UPDATE: Ratoncito is IN THE HOUSE. Poor Ratoncito, the lady who had him obviously wasn't very familiar with the care and keeping of rats. I mean, she provided for his basic needs but little Ratoncito was in his cage with just some bedding, his food dishes and his water bottle. No toys, no chewy things, and most importantly, no hidey hole. In all honesty, it just about broke my heart. And he's old. Probably close to two years. I tried to give him a little piece of bread tonight and he had no idea what it was. But eventually he took it very gently and nibbled away at it. He's a heartbreaker, he is. He also has an eye infection that I'm a bit worried about so it's off to the vet tomorrow. When will I learn? WHEN?