Booga Before...

Here is my first Booga Bag, all knit and ready to be fulled with the laundry today. I still have to dig out my zippered pillowcase, but it's down in the basement somewhere. I couldn't find the Noro Kureyon that I planned on using, so I used some old Tahki Ambrosia Slim instead. This yarn is about 20 years old, but looks great! It was way ahead of its time, with the gradual shading effect. The bag and cording only used 1.5 balls, so maybe I'll make more, once I see how this one turns out.

Last week was kind of frustrating. I bought a new treadmill, and let's just say, for the record (broken record, actually) that I despise Sears. But Sears was where I had to go to get my Nordic Track. Buying it wasn't so bad, except I had to wait over 30 minutes before a salesperson would talk to me. Several walked by, but it wasn't their department, so apparently they weren't allowed to even acknowledge my existence. Finally the lone sales guy was free, and the actual demo and purchase probably took less than 10 minutes. Two days later, my brother picked up the crate, which weighed 250 pounds, and it filled up his pickup! We strapped it to his appliance dolly and managed to squeeze it down the stairs to the basement, with me on the bottom going "yeah, I got it", and hoping he wouldn't let go.

I'd only cleared enough space for the machine, not the machine plus the box, so inching it out of the carton took a while. Finally the two main parts were free, and then we started looking for the directions. No directions. No hardware. No manual. It's 8:30 at night, and we're screwed. I call the store, talk to a different guy, who says "If you want to bring it back, we'll give you another one." I politely explain that there's no way on earth that I'm going to get the thing back in the crate, much less ask my brother to pull 250 pounds upstairs. And get to the store in the next 30 minutes. In my head, much colorful language was floating around. Luckily, none of it came out of my mouth.

Finally the guy told me to come to the store the next day, and they'd give me a parts kit and manual from another machine. Which is the probably the reason why mine didn't have any. So the next day I left work early, drove another 40 mile round trip to Sears, talked to three different guys, who all scratched their heads for about 30 minutes, and was finally given a parts kit and manual.

After all this frustration, is it any wonder why I headed to the nearest yarn store?? And here's what I bought, to calm myself...
Lovely, soft, Australian Merino that will someday become a pair of socks. I love the tweedy yarns, so this was right up my alley.

Hours later, and two free dinners in a row for my brother, the treadmill was finally put together and running. That night I was on it for 48 minutes, and almost couldn't walk when I got off! Since then, I've learned a little moderation. Still haven't figured out how to knit and treadmill at the same time, but that's coming...