Stupid Printer and Stuff from Michigan.

This first part of this post is a pissed off rant. If you are not interested in reading about it, please skip down to the astericks.

Okay, so I have this 6 month old Epson all in one, that I bought when my old printer’s ink valves jammed up. It’s a good machine. Convenient, if you will. Then about 3 weeks ago, it started to have issues. The paper was feeding at an angle, and stuff started jamming constantly, and the copy function wouldn’t print at all. Now I need my printer, I have yarn labels to print, and invoices, not to mention shipping labels. Oh, how I love to print my shipping labels! So I call my friendly epson tech people, they really do a good job, and after some chatter, the dude said it’s still under warrenty, (yay!) and they’ll ship out a replacement, and then I send them the defective printer. This probably would have gone perfectly smoothly, had I not gone to Michigan, and had James not been at work all day everyday. Long story short, I got my new printer today, and the USB port doesn’t work (*&$%^%^$@#$!^&!&&). *Sigh* No working USB port=No working printer.

So now I’m waiting for the replacement for the replacement. Great. So today I’m handwriting address labels, and tomorrow, I’ll be spending some time at the post office, shipping lots of fibery packages off to everyone who purchased yarn yesterday. (Thank You!)
I just got back from the copy place down the street (support your local businesses) , where I ran off some labels. It’s just SOOOOOO inconvenient. I would run out and by a cheapy number, but why? I’m trying to save money. The one good thing about all this? When it’s all done I’ll have two sets of free ink cartridges. That’s like, a savings of $100. Double Yay.
End of rant.

* * * * *

On to Michigan!! I had a great time. Sometimes when I go visit the fam, I can’t wait to get out of there and come home. This was not one of those times. I didn’t want to leave. In the summer, my parents house is better than any resort, or vacation place I have ever stayed. Lush, and green, beautiful house, big pool, decent, if humid weather. I love it. I’ll be back in three weeks for the Michigan Fiber Festival (yay!) In Allegan County, Michigan. This will be my 3rd year. It’s small, but fabulous. I ended up coming back to p’burgh late on Friday. I didn’t want to miss my weaving class, which is slowly getting very tedious. I’m tired of the sampler thing, and would rather work on an actual project.
But anyways, Michigan. My Mum’s birthday was on Thursday, she turned an undisclosed number of years young. We celebrated on Monday and Tuesday. She and my dad, and another couple flew down to St. Thomas thursday morning (Lucky Dogs), for a long weekend. They have a time share at The Ritz, and since The Ritz just finished a new section of condos, they offered my parents a 4 day 5 night stay, no charge, if they went before a certain date, and knew anyone who might also be interested in buying. They did. So they went, and had a great time, and are flying back today.
So I hung around Michigan with my brother and sister, and the dogs. I love the dogs. I believe you all know my wonder nephew, Louie V.

He’s a sweetheart, all 20 lbs of him. Then there’s my parents pooch, Vinny. I don’t think I’ve introduced him yet. He’s my dog-brother, which makes him Louie’s Uncle. Vinny is 11, and crotchety, but still has all his puppy spunkiness. He was pissed off for a long time when my sister brought Louie home, I swear it took him a good 8 months before he even started to accept Louie.
In his older age, he no longer wants his photos taken. He used to let me take all kinds of Photos, but lately, as soon as he realizes what you’re up to, he runs the other way, I’m not even kidding, and goes under my parents bed. So I have to be quick about it. He’s weird like that, but still cool. He’s about half Louie’s size, maybe smaller.

On Thursday night, even though she wasn’t there, we all went out and celebrated my moms birthday. At Mortons. Of Chicago. My dad needs to buy stock in Mortons they’re there so often, especially my sister, who walks around like she owns the place. My Dad is hugely into fine wine, so Mortons is his home away from home. In fact, my mom was telling me, some owner of some resturant everyone in St. Thomas recommends almost started a fight with him, cause my Dad was trying to explain that even though his wines were very good vintages they were all now crap because of improper storage. Seriously. His place is only open 3 days a week, and all his wines are stored out in the open, and he turns the air conditioning OFF 4 days a week. So all his wines, which should be stored at 55 Degrees F, are all baking at 90 degrees and up. Hello? This dude is dumb. Even I, who can’t begin to afford fine wines like these, know how ridicules that is, not to mention wrong.
I digress. Mortons was fun. My brother’s new girlfriend came with us, and the dogs had some good leftovers. Eveytime we come home with a silver Mortons bag Vinny does flips and cartwheels, I swear. He loves the steak. This is one of the best things ever-

The Mortons Steak Bible. They put all of there recipes in here. Steaks, sauces, desserts, if it’s on the menu, it’s recipe is here. I’m thrilled, their Blue Cheese dressing is to die for. Really, I can’t believe they give their secrets all away in this book.

And finally, some fiberness. This is a knitblog after all. Another reason I look forward to Michigan, is the no less than 8 yarn shops within a 40 minute drive of my parents house. Dude. I frequent 6 of them. I don’t always get to all of them, but I do try. I hit 3 this time, and bought this from one-

Lana Grossa Meilenweit Colortweed. MMMM. I saw this the last time I was up there, in May, and kept thinging about it. So while I was waiting for my car to get it’s oil changed, I walked over and bought some. I was going to buy one (that whole saving money thing) then couldn’t decide, so I was going to get two, then I ended up getting three. I was on vacation, after all! So these get added to the already over flowing bin of sock yarn I own. Yes, I have a problem. Yes, I’m okay with that.

SSS has been running rampant over here. I started a new jaywalker while in Michigan, completely ignoring that I am halfway through the 2nd of another pair of Jaywalkers, and the one more Sweetwater sock I have to knit, AND the two socks on the one magic loop I started out of my rock bottom colorway, that are almost to the heel. Hee. I decided to just go with it. I mean, I’m having fun knitting socks I won’t wear for a few more months yet, so what the hell. Okay, I think I’m all blogged out. This post was brought to you by the caffeine in my Diet Dr. Pepper. Did I mention I’m mostly off caffeine? Yup. It was hard, but I did it. That whole printer ordeal drove me to it. I’m not much for the soda, either, but once in awhile, a Dr. Pepper tastes damn good. Okay, now I’m done……