No title Friday...

You all are simply the best. I knew knitters were supportive, I knew that even if you absolutly think that vegetarianism is complete bull, you'd still be supportive. What I didn't know was how many of my blog friends were vegetarian as well. A special thanks to Erica for sending me some veggie recipes. Anyone else interested in sharing their favorite veggie recipes with me can e-mail me at erleca81AThotmailDOTcom. I can use all the help I can get! Thank you all so much for your support.

This week has be absolutely crazy. Busy beyond belief. I would have posted sooner, but I just haven't had the time, or the opportunity, or the internet connection as it turns out... I was driving down the driveway the other night intent upon getting online and doing some blogging and e-mail reading, when I was stopped. Right in the middle of the driveway a huge tree (and when I say huge, I mean it was probably 7 or 8 feet around) had fallen down from the wind. We've had some nasty wind these past couple of days and this tree couldn't take it I guess. After parking my car, walking around it, and walking the rest of the way down the driveway (my driveway's about a 1/4 mile) I get home to find the tree knocked out the phone line and I therefore couldn't get online. So it's not entirely my fault that I haven't posted!

In a completely unrelated topic...Yesterday in BIO lab I felt like Elliot from ET trying to save the frogs. I honestly had a very strange battle going on between my moral sensibility and my sense of responsibility to my classwork. Our assignment was to see what different sorts of creatures live in different soils. So we dug up samples from the field and samples from the forest, brought them back into the lab and sifted through them to find the critters. Problem was we weren't just supposed to sift and look through the dirt, we had to take the critters out and put them into a medicine bottle full of alcohol.

Part of me said "You're going to be killing these bugs and worms for no other purspose than to study and count them when they were perfectly happy living their life until we went in and dug them up." and the other part of me said "You have a responsibility to your school work and to your teacher, so just suck it up and deal." In the end, my moral side won out, plus my teacher told me I didn't have to do it if I didn't want to, I wouldn't get any penalties taken off my grade as long as I was an objective observer. People probably thought I was crazy because they're just bugs and worms, but I just finished reading those Jane Goodall books (which I think I've mentioned about a million times now!) and her voice was in the back of my mind. She even mentioned something about worms in her book! How could I go and kill them? (My lab partner was pretty understanding, and I think by the end I must have been wearing off on him, because he found a big worm in one of our samples and he took it and put it back outside!)

Anyway, in knitting related news, I've picked up for the lining of the mittens. I (hopefully) will be posting pictures of that progress soon. The baby blanket is coming along, though I am getting a little tired of the pattern which I specifically picked because it's simple... way to think ahead on that one. Had it been complicated, at least it would have been interesting! Ah well...

For those of you who are planning on Rhinebeck I hope to see you there! I've just recently decided to go, even though, being a broke college student, it's going to be torture to look at and feel all the wonderful fiber when I know I can't take any of it home with me! *sigh* ... such is life I guess. At least I'll be able to look and maybe meet some of you wonderful people!

Going Green

I've been trying to think of what my next post was going to be about, mainly because I haven't taken any knitting related pictures recently. (Though on a sidenote, I have finished the mittens and all that needs to be done are the linings and I'm making progress on the baby blanket. I promise I'll take pictures soon) It finally hit me today what to write about.

Ever since I read that Jane Goodall book, I've been feeling like I need to make more of a difference in the world. It's somewhat daunting because you think "how much of a difference can one person make?" Well, I've started reading another of her books The Ten Truths. The more I read it, the more certain I am that I can make a difference, starting with the way that I eat.

All the research I've done recently has shown me what a difference it makes to just bite the bullet and go vegetarian. It's less of an environmental impact, it wastes less energy, I'll save some animal suffering somewhere and maybe the most selfish reason is I won't have a guilty conscience. It's easy to turn a blind eye and say "I really don't want to think about it" and continue living my life the way I always have, but that does no one any good.

I know it's going to be tough for me. I do have willpower and I know I can do it, but it going to be difficult when I don't have much of a support group for it. My brother is vegetarian, so at least I have one person, but my parents aren't (though I think my brother paved the way for me there). I think my biggest challenge is going to be the people who don't understand why I'm doing it. The one's who look at me funny when I mention it, and the ones who try to tell me it's unhealthy (where all my research has suggested otherwise) and then I get the ones who think I'm a crazy PETA person. Part of me wants to give in and join the crowd, but then I realize I've never really been one to join the crowd so I try to ignore it.

This is a decision I had to come to on my own. I think I always knew I'd eventually do this anyway and have been avoiding it because of all the things I'd have to give up. Like tacos. I love tacos! Especially with the crunchy shells because I like to crush them up and make a taco salad out of all the fixings. Well, you know what? I found out today that they make mock-burger! And I know for a fact it tastes kind of like burgers. Maybe this won't be as hard as I imagined.

I'll step down off my soap box now. I just thought I'd let you all know because if knitters are one thing, they're supportive!

Mitten Tutorial

You've all been waiting so patiently, so here's the mitten tutorial. Or at least enough to get you started.

First, I recommend that you go and get the Magnificent Mitten book by Anna Zilboorg, because a lot of what I'm going off of is in that book. Also, just a disclaimer, I'm not going to go into too much detail because that's what the book's for. I'm just showing a couple of things that are a little confusing and hard to see with drawn illustrations.

The mittens I'm making are the striped band variety and start off by casting on 5 stitches. Next, knit five rows with the stripe in the middle.After that, the goal is to pick up stitches all around the edge of your little knitted piece. But what you want to do is make sure that the three middle stitches aren't affected.
Eventually, you end up with a sequence that looks a little something like this:


This is the point where you'll be picking up stitches and following the pattern in the book. It can be a little bit difficult to see where you need to pick up the stitches so I have a couple of pictures that should help with it.
Right side pick up:



Another way of describing the right-side pick up is it's the pick up that is done at the beginning of the row.




The Left side pick up is the one that is done at the end of the row:




Continue picking up stitches each row and following the pattern at the same time. My advice here is to take it slow. You don't want to go back because you missed one stitch in the pattern.


Eventually you will get something that looks like this:I know some of you are interested in how to do fairisle, not just fairisle mittens. Well, the best advice I can give there is to learn both ways of knitting, English and Continental. Practice doing whichever one you're less familiar with until you feel comfortable with it. Once you feel comfortable with both methods, then you can hold one strand of color with each hand.

This way, you can throw whichever color yarn you need, when you need it.

I hope this has at least been a little bit helpful and that's it's maybe inspired some of you to take up fairisle, or mittens for that matter!

More changes...

I know it hasn't been an extremely long time since I last posted. I'm still doing what I can to make myself feel better. I want to thank everyone for all your wonderful support. I particularly liked the one that suggested to knit all the pain into a pair of socks so I can walk all over it. I so happen to be working on a pair of socks at the moment, but I don't feel up to knitting the pain in. There's no reason for me to hold on to the pain at this point. And it was nobody's fault so I'm not bitter. I just want to knit and let the rythmn of it soothe me.

I am in particular need of soothing today. I haven't gotten much sleep lately, but last night was on the bad side and today, as I knew I would be while lying awake in the middle of the night wishing I were asleep, I feel groggy and my outlook on the world is pretty bleak. I'm sure with a good night's sleep, I'll start feeling brighter.

I've decided to quit the chorus. Not because it's bad and not because of anything that's been going on, but because I feel like I've just spread myself too thin. I thought I'd be able to handle school, work, and singing, on top of the commute to and from school (which is now going on 1.5 hours each way). As much fun as I'm sure I'd have, I'm also sure it might be what makes or breaks my sanity in the long run. I hate quiting anything, but right now my life is moving in a totally new direction and trying to squeeze singing into it is just going to be too much at this point.

Things aren't all dark and gloomy here though. I just finished an extremely inspirational book by Jane Goodall called Reason for Hope. For anyone who's looking for a bit of inspiration and is also interested in social change, I highly recommend this book. It made me ball my eyes out, first in frustration at how horribly we treat our planet and our fellow inhabitants, and then in hope that changes are being made and that we each can make a difference in the world, no matter how small. I've never felt more like I'm on the right path in life than I do right now. I'm positive everything that has happened to me thus far has led me to this moment and this decision to take my life in a new direction. It's such a great time and I should be focusing on that.

I promise there will be knitting content soon. I'm still planning on doing the fair-isle mitten tutorial, and I started a baby blanket for my cousin's wife, who's expecting twins, so I do have a couple of knitting things to post about!

Bad days

I think Bridget Jones said it best. "Whenever one part of your life starts going right, other parts fall spectacularly to pieces."

Just when I finally find what I want to do with my life and I'm finally feeling like I'm on the right path, my relationship, once again, falls apart. D and I have split up and this time it's permanent. I'd rather not go into details except to say it wasn't anything either of us could control, and as much as we tried it wasn't something that could be fixed.

I may not post for a little bit, but I'll be around.

Awesome is one way to describe it

This weekend was fantastic. I had no idea I'd love volunteering as much as I did. Of course, it probably had a lot to do with the fact that I was volunteering for something I'm excited about and the people I was volunteering with were awesome. It's excellent finding a group of people you feel at home with because they have the same passion you do (incidentally, finding knitters is this way for me too). One of the kids is not only into animals and has had a lot of experience with them, but we got to talking and it turns out he spins and knits!!! How crazy is that?

So my volunteering duties came down to manning the mountain lion exhibit. Everyone, I'd like you to meet Boo. She's one of two mountain lions they have there. At the time of this picture Boo was watching the elk in their enclosure that's directly opposite hers. Apparently she also likes to stalk children as they're walking by. I didn't see her do it, but that's what I was told.

My job was to talk to the visitors about her and mountain lions in general. Oh, and I had to keep the red wagons that people like to pull their kids along in away from her enclosure. It turns out she really doesn't like red wagons at all. Again, I didn't experience it, it's just what I was told.

It was sometimes more interesting watching the people react to seeing the cougars, especially seeing the kids get all excited. Though the kids that liked to scream and yell at them were a bit obnoxious. Sorry kids, but you were.

What was great about being at the mountain lion exhibit was that it was right next to where they had the stage set up for presentations. Here's where one of the zoo staff was giving a presentation on the otter. The zoo has two otters but at this point it's in the process of raising funds to build a new otter exhibit for them. It definitely helps to have some cute and cuddly (or so they seem) otters to make people feel generous!

There was also a group that brought exotic animals to the zoo to raise awareness. The kid I was talking about earlier (you know, the one who knits) worked for them for a couple of summers so he introduced to me to a couple of really cool animals.

For instance, the binturong . It's also known as the asian bear cat, even though it's neither a bear or a cat. My friend is the one holding the leash. A really cool thing about binturongs is that their natural smell smells just like popcorn. Bet you didn't think I was going to say popcorn did ya? So cool. At that point I already thought I was lucky for even getting to see something like that. But that wasn't even the beginning of it.

Here's the African serval that they brought along. Later in the day I actually got to pet him. Talk about an experience only two months ago I never thought I'd ever do! These cats are described as minature cheetahs. The thing is they don't hunt like cheetahs. Their prefered method of hunting is to jump and pluck their prey right out of the air. Can you imagine being able to jump up and catch a bird in mid-flight? Amazing stuff.

Later on in the day, after my mountain lion watching duties were over, I went around to some of the booths that were set up, one belonging to the group that brought all the exotic animals.

My friend was there and he showed me all the different animals that they had like a juvenile alligator, a coatimundi, a chinchilla (which, by the way, is the softest thing ever), lots of different reptiles and rodents, the binturong and serval from the show and probably some other things I didn't get a chance to see. But I did get to play with the bearded dragon and the macaw they named Sunkist.

To say the very least I had an excellent time and I'm really looking forward to all the other awesome things I'm going to do!

A bit of this and a bit of that

It seems I've survived my second week of school. Already I'm starting to feel like I've accomplished more in the past two weeks, than the whole of the past two years. I've been out of school for those two years, working meaningless jobs that don't have the capacity to make me feel like I'm making a difference, and now that I've started down a whole new road I feel rejuvinated again. I feel like I'm working towards something that not only could make a difference in the world, but will also allow me to feel fulfilled in my own life.

This weekend I'm volunteering at the zoo for a big exposition called Fragile Wilderness. It's actually quite a big event with all sorts of wildlife experts, educators and rehabilitators. I'm thinking it's going to be something like a wildlife fair with booths set up throughout the zoo and stages for presenting exotic animals to the public and I hear there's going to be a bird show. I'm not even sure what it is I'm going to be doing at this point, but the possibilities include face painting, working the concession stand, helping the keepers with the education animals, and a million other things including wearing the outfit for the zoo's mascot, which I think is an otter. It should be a ton of fun and the fact that I don't even care that I'm getting nothing but the experience out of it makes it that much better. You know it's something you love to do when you don't care about monitary compensation right? Hopefully I'll get a break to take some pictures for the blog.

Speaking of the blog, I just realized that I started this blog a year ago, so happy bloggiversary to me! I can't believe it's been a year and I've loved everything about blogging. I'm so fortunate to have found such an awesome community to be a part of! Thank you everyone for making my blogging experience excellent.

I also wanted to thank everyone for the links to all the hippo things. I never knew there was so much out there on hippos, or that so many people are obsessed with them! It makes me wonder how into them some people would still be if they knew about some of the things I've been finding out about them. They're interesting, but they are in no way cute and cuddily.

Some people were asking about the mittens I started. They're from Anna Zilboorg's book Magnificent Mittens. The technique is pretty interesting and once you get it down these mittens are really fun to make. Plus they make great Christmas presents. And don't let the fairisle scare you. Blocking is an amazing thing and almost any imperfection with fairisle can be blocked out. So if you're interested I say go for it. Maybe I'll do a little picture tutorial on the mittens. Would anybody be interested in something like that?

Is that a tranquilizer dart in your ass, or are you just happy to see me?

School was eventful today. And by eventful I mean, I got to see a raccoon have a tranquilizer dart shot into it's hind end. This wasn't exactly what was suppose to happen today. It was supposed to be an uneventful day spent out around the zoo, familiarizing ourselves with where all the animals are and how to get to them quickly, then spend a little time observing whichever one we wanted to.

Well, a couple of us noticed the bobcat acting a little funny, as if it was really interested in climbing up one of the poles that holds the mess fencing up. Later, when we passed the bobcats again, we noticed why. There was a raccoon up at the top of the pole. This caused a huge stir when we told the staff about it.

I got to be the lucky one who watched the raccoon and made sure it didn't run away (how, exactly I was going to do that, I have no idea, so it's a good thing it didn't go anywhere) while the vet went to get the tranquilizer darts. They even gave me the walkie talkie. You know you've reached a new level when being the one to hold the walkie talkie makes you feel special.

Unfortunately, class ended before I could find out how the whole raccoon situation played out. All I really got to see was it being tagged by the dart. But still, that's not something you see everyday. And this is only day three!

So I hope you haven't forgotten about me. I know it's been awhile, but you just wouldn't believe how busy I've been.

School is awesome, it's everything I expected and I'm sure it will be even more than I expect. After all, its only been a week so far. I'm still getting adjusted which is tougher than I thought. I think its the early mornings, then the working afterwards. Or vice verse as the case may be. Singing starts up this week too, so that's one more thing to add to the list.

Already I have a presentation to give in one of my classes. Of course the prof. made us draw from a hat to decide who goes when and, as is my luck, I drew the 1. Ha! I have two weeks to prepare a 15 minute presentation on the hippopotamus. I'm psyched because he wants us to make it interesting by adding some humor and I was thinking about playing that hippopotamus song. You know..."I want a hippopotamus for Christmas" song. It's gonna be great!

Believe it or not I have been doing some knitting. My sock is progressing nicely. I turned the heel and am working on the foot. But I'm not gonna show you any pictures of that, instead, I'm gonna show you a picture of this...

Did I not promise some Mitten Cakes? I figure I should get started on these because I can start to feel the chill in the air. And we all know fall flashes by and before you know it, it's Christmas. It likes to sneak up on you, but I'm ready for it. No sneakin' this year.

In totally unrelated news, a couple somethings arrived for me in the mail this past week. One being the new laptop I ordered. I love this thing, it's better than any computer I've ever owned. Not to mention they had a great financing deal going on, so I could get it. Otherwise, it was just not going to happen.

The second package came from Japan. Looks like my sister remembered my birthday. And you'll never guess what she sent me...
Is this not the cutest thing you've ever seen? The minute I opened it I remembered that she and I had a conversation about purses a little while before she left and she said she could probably get a designer purse while she was over there. Looks like she came through huh?

Funny thing is, I'm not much of a purse person. I usually will get one and use it until either it falls apart, or it gets extremely stained and dirty. I pride myself on being a low-maintenance, no nonsense kind of girl. Looks like my sisters trying to turn on my girly side.

And now for the not-so-happy news. My cat, Pookie, hasn't been seen for about two and a half weeks now. I've had her for about eight years and she was a gift from my first boyfriend. It really breaks my heart because I fear the worst. And yet, we don't know what happened. Sometimes not knowing is worse than the unknown. I like to think that she found another family and is doing fine, but the other side of me fears she's dead. If she is, I hope it was quick.

We do have a new feline addition to our family, though, that has nothing to do with the loss of my cat. My brother moved back home and with him and all his stuff came his cat. She's such a sweetheart.

Her name's Isosceles. Can you tell my brother is really into math? Only a math major would name his cat Isosceles.

She's a real cutie and she almost reminds me of Pookie. Or at least, their personalities are similar.

I'd love to keep writing and tell you all the little details of this past week, but unfortunately it's getting late, and by late I mean 9:30 and that's late for someone who gets up at 5:45am!

Holy Exhausted Batman!

Well, first day of class is over. Little bit exhausted. I woke up at 5:15am; I didn't have to be up that early, but it's when my internal clock woke me up. Much to my dislike, my internal clock is really good at going off early. I regularly wake up at least a half hour before my alarm goes off. Maybe my body knows it needs a good half hour to lay there and wake up. So this morning, I laid there, waking up... wishing I wasn't awake because another half hour of sleep may have made today a little less, well, exhausting.

I got to work this morning at 7am. I have to say there is something so nice about going to work when no one else is there. You can get what you want done, when you want it done without people bugging you or the phone ringing off the hook. I could definitely get used to the going to work early thing.

I left work and drove up to class, which was about an hour drive. I left myself plenty of time, but I didn't take into account that there was construction, basically because I didn't know that there was construction. There's something very uncomfortable about walking into a class on the first day a few minutes late. Fortunately, another kid was walking in the same time so that took a little bit of the pressure off. Then when you have people walking in 15 to 30 minutes late, it makes your 2 or 3 minutes late look like nothin'.

Class today was nothing more than going over the syllabus and getting to know each other. After going over the syllabus, I know it's going to be challenging, but I think I'm ready for a good challenge. I feel like I haven't been challenge for a couple years now and I'm due for it.

Funny how we bring to ourselves exactly what we need. Though this will be physically exhausting and mentally challenging, and I'm sure at times I'll wonder what ever made me do this, but despite all that I feel like it's bringing me closer to what I want and who I want to be. And if I'm not working towards that, then what the heck am I working towards?

A little bit of everything

I feel like I've been gone for so long! There is definitely something you miss when you stop blogging for even a week.

Well, this is it kids, this is my last week of freedom. And when I say freedom I mean freedom from school work, papers, tests and everything else that goes along with going back to school. Then again, who am I kidding? I loved school. I'm postitive I'm going to love it again. Even all the work, papers and test I'm going to love. And there's an added bonus of working with animals. At this point, I can't see a single bad thing about going back to school... except for all the driving. It's almost an hour commute, but my faithful little Honda can handle it.

My classes start on Monday and I'm very excited about the whole thing. I know it's going to be great. Of course, underneath my over-positive, calm exterior there's an emotional hurricane going on. I'm excited and nervous at the same time. I have a million and one things going through my head every minute. And even though I don't feel stressed, my body has been doing everything it can to let me know I'm stressed despite what I may think I feel.

And of course, when life gets a little crazy and uncertain I turn to my feel-good stress reliever. Don't think that this past week where I haven't blogged at all means I haven't knit. In fact, I finished the off-white Branching Out scarf and started this one. This is the last of the branching out scarves. These are Christmas presents and I have to say, I'm pretty proud of myself for finishing any Christmas presents before Halloween. I'm usually not this prepared. I suppose it has something to do with the fact that once school starts I know I won't have as much time to knit as I used to and I'll have just as many Christmas presents to make.

It's almost time again for me to start making Mitten Cakes. My mom commissioned me to make some for my aunts and uncles for this Christmas. So, don't be suprised if you see me start some mittens in the near future.

I also have finished, well, sort of finished, I just need to do the edging along the armholes and sew in the ends, the shell that I started at the beginning of the summer. And of course, which is just my luck, or maybe just the way knitting works for me, I finished my summer shell just in time for... well, fall. Perfect. I'm sure I'll get a lot of use out of that this Thanksgiving.... I really hope you're picking up the sarcasm here.

No worries though, I'm sure it'll still fit next summer when I'll actually wear it. And maybe by that time I'll actually have the ends sewn in. Ok, don't count on it. You never really know with me.

I also started a little side project. Just a pair of socks, but it's a pair of socks out of some truly luscious yarn. It's called Mountain Colors Sock yarn and it's yummy. Most of the socks I make are out of this stuff because I love it and it wears well.

Did I not say I've been pretty busy on the knitting front? And you almost didn't believe me huh?

I now have my own computer again at work so I'm back up and running on that front, though I won't get into the complete incompetence regarding that. I can't say I'm all that suprised, judging by how well they've handled other things in the past.

I know this post has already go on and on, but just a couple more things. I'll be away this weekend at a BBQ, which should be fun. Hey, it's supposed to be nice weather, there's going to be a pool and a bonfire, oh and it's on the same day as my birthday. I suppose I didn't mention my birthday is this Saturday. It's not really going to be an eventful year. I'll be 24.

I remember in middle school and high school thinking that 24 was really old. That really makes me laugh now, mainly because I don't feel old at all. In fact, I still feel like I'm much too young to even get married or have kids though I know that my sister was already married and pregnant by my age. I guess all that means is I'm at a different spot in my life than she was at my age. Nothing wrong with that.

I hope you all have enjoyed my babbling on. I'll leave you with a picture I took last weekend that I really love.

Not my idea of a good time...

This is just a warning in advance. I have not had even a small amount of time to blog or to read anyone else's blogs. I've been leaving comments here and there, but I haven't had any time to really delve into my blogging time like I used to.... Reason? Well, as we all know, my job is slightly boring and on off times when I have to save myself work just so I'll have something to do the next day, I'll go online, catching up on blogs. Unfortunately, this week I've been training my replacement.... not only have I been training my replacement, but it has also fallen upon me to train another person.

Do you happen to remember me mentioning the person I worked with originally and that she left? This was only about two months ago or so. Since then, a new person came. She was trained in just fine, she did the job relatively decently. The only problem I found was we didn't get along so well, but that really didn't matter because I knew I'd be going to a part time position during school.

The week before my vacation this new person, who's only been working in that position for a month, lets keep in mind, announced to everyone that she was putting in her two weeks notice. She apparently decided to only do one week because when I came back from vacation, she wasn't there.

So here I am, training two people in a department. So needless to say I have very little time to catch up on my blogging. I'll try my best to get around to reading everyone's blogs, but if I don't, you know why. I hope everyone has a good week.

Why the heck does time have to fly???

I'm back and it was fabulous. Somehow I can't seem to wrap my mind around the fact that it's over and I have to go to work tomorrow. I've been looking forward to it for so long that it just seems crazy that it went by so fast. Well, that's time for you...

It really was a great vacation, visiting with family, relaxing, knitting, reading and lots of other things. One of which I'm sure you won't believe. My family is all about making each other happy and my aunt knew that I am into spinning, and fiber and knitting, so she suggest we go see a couple of these:

Oh yeah, baby, I got to see me some alpacas! And not only that, but we got to go into the barn and feed them. What cuties... what expensive cuties. One breeding female can cost you $14,000. Umm, yeah, my car didn't even cost that much... But they sure are cute...

My aunt thought that the babies were the cutest (and who wouldn't with a face like that?) because they had these mops of fur on the top of their heads. And they were the softest things ever. Very, very timid though.

This one was my favorite. Ok, who am I kidding, I loved them all, but this one was definitely in the running for the cutest one among them!


He definitely had the mop-head thing going on. Although I thought this little alpaca trip was just for me, I was completely dooped because my aunts/grandmother/mother enjoyed themselves just as much as I did. (The guys went golfing and were in no way interested in seeing cute, furry animals... leave that to the womenfolk)

And don't think that this little excursion was without any sort of purchase. THERE WAS FIBER FOR SALE!!! Excuse me while I drool for a little while just thinking about it. The woman who ran the farm was nice enough to let me use her spinning wheel to test some of this luscious stuff out.

That was a great day. And it was only the first day I was there! The next couple of days were filled with things like, renting a jet ski and cruising around the lake, whitewater rafting, ATV riding (which, by the way, was awesome!), mini golfing (it's known as putt-putt in my family, I've heard it both ways), marshmellow roasting, and lots of card playing. It was definitely a classic family vacation.

A bunch of knitting was done as well, but that's going to have to wait because I am in for some much needed rest. Funny how you're always a lot more tired coming back from vacation than you were going to it! Maybe that's just another one of those crazy things like the time flying when you're having fun, only in this case, the more you relax, the more tired you are!

Enough Branching Out already!

I must say, lazy weekends are the best and sometimes you get lucky and they're the most productive as well. I can't say I necessarily did a lot this weekend, but I did get a lot done. Mainly, I didn't do much besides knitting.

Last weekend I finished these.


And I'm sure you all know, that when I say finished I mean the knitting part is done. I never, ever count sewing in ends. And please, ignore if you can, my pastey, white, slightly blinding legs. Me and the sun have never gotten along.


On top of these being finished, I've also finished and blocked yet another Branching Out scarf. Something clicked with me this weekend (perhaps it's the fact that I've spent an ungodly amount of time knitting these stinking scarves) and I was able to finally understand the lace pattern to the point where I could knit it without concentrating so much on the pattern. And I was able to fix the mistakes without ripping back. And I was able to knit while watching TV, talking to people and otherwise be distracted from the pattern. It was good people, it was really good.

I love blocking these lacy scarves because the pattern really shows when the stitches aren't all bunched up. Of course, the real challenge was trying to keep the animals off it while it dried. I suppose, to them, anything on the floor is free game.

In fact, it seems, even things that aren't on the floor are free game as well. For instance, a hank of the alpaca/wool to make another scarf is perfectly acceptable to them as fodder for their games. I'd like to know how an animal such as my cat has the ability to get into a sealed ziploc bag and do this to a most precious skein of wool...


This is a serious offense. One that I wouldn't take lightly if I were the cat in question. And what's more is, it wasn't even a skein. A skein would have been slightly better because it would at least resemble itself and may even been easier to untangle. But a hank? A hank that has never even been unwrapped???? Now that is serious.

But does the offender care?





I think not...




And the victims? Well, they just have to move on with their lives. I, myself have moved on. Though many hours of my life were spent untangling the mess this cat has made (ok, so I exaggerate, it probably didn't take me more than a few minutes, but dramatic effect had to be made)

In fact, I've moved on and started yet another Branching Out scarf.


This one is just flying off the needles. And I owe that all the the unfathomable amounts of time that I was allowed to spend on it this weekend.



On Tuesday I'm going down to Deep Creek, MD for our annual family vacation. Unfortunately I have to wait until Tuesday because there are things at work that I need to finish up, vacation time that I didn't have and needed to plea for, etc. and I am supremely jealous of my parents who left on Saturday morning. Here I'm left caring for the animals in a big empty house thinking about all the fun my entire family (aunts, uncles, cousins, grandmother) is having without me. It's alright though, such is the price I pay for using up my two weeks worth of vacation to go to England. I'd say it was worth it.

I hope everyone has a great week and an even better weekend. See you next Monday!

And the hunt begins...

Yesterday D and I met with his realtor for a couple of showings. She is the sweetest woman who's ever had a face lift that I know. I've only ever known two people with face-lifts and she's the sweetest one, not to mention fairly sweet on the non-face lift side of things as well. She's probably no more than five feet tall, impecably dressed and has a vanity license plate on her Mercedes (Mercedes? umm, yeah, I guess that explains where she got the money for the face lift) proclaiming to the world that she's pretty much the best realtor there is. Despite her sweet demeanor and wonderful personality, I couldn't help but stare blankly at the stretches of skin coming from her eyebrows to the bridge of her nose. And I'm usually one of the most discreet people you're ever going to meet. Let's think back to when I saw Vin Diesel in Paris and instead of rushing up to him for an autograph I hung back and pretended he wasn't famous. 'Sorry Vin, it's not you, it's me...'

She first took us to a very cute house, on a very cute street in a very cute neighborhood. The house was wonderful. The guy who lived there put a lot of work into it and it showed. However, things that are generally 'cute' are generally small. And I haven't got a clue where D would have put all his stuff.

On to the next house, which was interesting, but I would have needed a handheld GPS to get myself in and out of that neighborhood. What a freakin' disaster. It's like a toddler decided where all the houses would go because the streets were all swirly and pretty and would have made a good finger painting but were a total mind bend when you're actually in them. In fact, our realtor-with-the-freaky-eyebrow-skin got lost and needed D to get her unlost. However, the house was interesting, but there were things like painted over countertops in the kitchen that weren't exactly pretty, and major fix-er-upper issues.

Our next showing was in the same neighborhood (dear God, save me from the neighborhood where you have to use star charts if you ever want to go anywhere!) and let me just say, yikes. This was by far the worst house we saw. Oh it was big enough, but we would have had a hell of a time trying to get the old lady smell out of the house, not to mention the redecorating so that you didn't feel like you just stepped into the 70's. But the smell, holy lord, it was eye-watering. Needless to say that was our quickest showing of the night.

Lastly, there was the house that was our number one pick if everything panned out. It was gorgeous, the siding was redone, the inside were extensively remodeled, new carpets, new doors, new windows, new, new, new. Except the house was built in the 70's... You got the distinct feeling like they were trying to hide something. And when we got to the basement, we figured it out. There was water damage in the basement, so bad that the insulation was falling from the ceiling. Our eyebrow-skin-stretched-realtor wouldn't allow us to even think about that one, because that sort of work is major and she wants D to have the best house he can get for his money.

So back to the drawing board to look at what other houses he thinks would do... It's hard not to get discouraged, but that's what house-hunting is about right? A mix of discouragement and excitement with a dash of stretched-eyebrows?

What was that sound?

It was the sound of the weekend speeding past you.

Why is it that weekends fly by without you even realizing it's over? I do feel like I got a lot accomplished, but damn! I could have used another day!

I did some knitting on Saturday. Fabulous weather yet again. Then I got my hair cut. Let me tell you a little something about me and haircuts... I only ever get my hair cut when I absolutely can't stand the way it's looking and how it's not doing what I want it to do. This means I get my hair cut, roughly, every 7 or 8 months. This time, however, I think the last time I got my hair cut was last September, so I was going on almost a year! I suppose that's the beauty of long hair. What I found particularly funny was no one even notice I got it cut! It just doesn't look that different!

Saturday night I did a little relaxing, a little knitting and a little going to bed early. Yes, I am just that sad. But I definitely needed the sleep.

Sunday was a bit of a crazy day. D and I went to the real estate office to meet with his realtor. She showed us some more properties to consider and we spent the afternoon just doing drive-bys (It sounds gangsta'...yeah, um....it's not) Tuesday, we have an appointment for actual showings. D's really excited and I'm so excited for him. It's just fantastic.

I did some knitting too, but that's just going to have to be for another post.

Feelin' Lucky?

Yesterday was the company picnic and I must say we had just about the worst weather you can have for a summer picnic. I'm quite sure the sun decided to take the day off and go to the beach because all we had was rain and clouds. So unfortunately, much as I wanted to participate, the three-legged race and the egg toss were out. I can only imagine what those would have been like with half the company getting sloshed on free and, might I add cheap, beer. And let me just say, free and cheap are two totally different things when it comes to beer, and when mixed, bad results usually occur. Think back to just about any keg party you've ever been to and that about sums it up.

But it wasn't all bad. There was the raffle, where the prizes included such things as a mountain bike, knock-off Prada purses, and gift certificates to just about every over-priced resaurant in the area. We were all given ten tickets to place into any bag we wanted. Being the youngest person in the company, the only prizes I was really interested in were the mountain bike (though this was only slight interest because I haven't got a clue where I'd ride the thing), the $75 gift certificate to Best Buy, and the $50 gas card.

After the first 15 items were raffled off, it became quite apparent that our particular table was quite lucky. One woman won two items right off the bat and then everyone around me won at least once. I watched as the mountain bike and the Best Buy gift certificate were raffled off (again to people around me). Up next, the gas card. My friends were chanting my name cause they were sure I'd get it. I was not so sure having never won a raffle in my life.

The name was drawn and the woman called my name. I thought she was joking because of the chanting, but she wasn't. I couldn't believe it. That's two full tanks of gas for free. That is going to help with the commuting to class!

The excitement of the raffle was just about all I can stand so shortly after that I took off. I suppose if I'm forced to be at a company picnic it helps to win $50 dollars in free gas.

Knitterly Weekend

Talk about a knit filled weekend. I spent a bit of time with some knit buds on Saturday. The weather was phenomenal. It was the first day that it's been in the upper 70's, low 80's where the humidity was more than tolerable. Simply gorgeous, therefore, we decided to take advantage and knit outside.

After a few hours of that, Jill, my mom and I decided to take a little trip to the LYS where they (and every other store in that town) were having a sidewalk sale. Bags full of yarn at majorly discounted prices... Umm, yeah, I spent more than I should have, but I walked away with this...

The green one is a full bag of Debbie Bliss merino dk... That's 10 skeins. You're never going to believe what I paid for that. Are you ready? Are you sitting down? I don't want anyone to get hurt. I paid $30. Yep. That would have cost me at least $90! I love it when they have the sidewalk sale. Oh, and then there was the 6 skeins of discountinued Rowan Linen Drape for about $4 a ball. Seeing how that puke green one wasn't going so well with my skin tone I thought I'd get some more. (Granted, I realize that just a week or two ago I bought some subsititute yarn for that project. Apparently in my knitterly brain I haven't moved on from thinking I still need a replacement, but who can resist that color?!?)

And lest you thinkI haven't been knitting, let me just show you a couple of projects I've been working on. You'll see I have a pretty bad case of startitis...


Here's the "replacement" for the puke green shell. It's coming along nicely, though I haven't worked on it in a few days because I was distracted...






Probably distracted by this branching out scarf. I'm making a couple of them for Christmas presents and recently I've realized just how little time I have until then.





But even the threat of Christmas couldn't keep me from starting a pair of socks out of my very own handspun yarn. Yeah baby! I was a little concerned because the foot looked huge, but actually it fits pretty well.


Sunday was spent cleaning and knitting, then D & I got together and made dinner (taco night...mmmmm, I love me some tacos) After we ate went driving around looking at houses. He's thinking about buying one! Is that not exciting? And don't jump to conclusions here, I didn't say WE'RE thinking about buying one, I said HE'S thinking about buying one. But I'm so excited for him, I think it's great.

I love relaxing weekends like this. I actually feel like I've gotten things accomplished and that's awesome. I guess finishing one sock can do that! Yay for little projects!

Tag... I'm It...

Ok, so I was tagged.... twice.... with the same meme so I'd better get to doing it huh?

10 years ago: Well, I was 13 going on 14 ten years ago so that was about the time that I moved up to CNY and was dealing with being a shy, introverted teenager at a new school where all the kids had known each other since kindergarten. It was a bit of a rough time, but I got through it.

5 years ago: I was a Sophomore in college. I was loving school, meeting new friends, coming into my own as a person. It was a great time and right now I can’t believe that it was five years ago. It seems like yesterday…

1 year ago: I had moved back home after things didn’t work out with an ex-boyfriend. Though in hindsight, I don’t regret any of it. Just another one of those learning experiences.

Yesterday: I was registering for classes!!! I can’t believe I’m going back to school! It’s probably the best thing I’ve done for myself in a very long time!

Today: I informed my current employer that I am returning to school in the fall. They can either keep me on as a part-time employee or let me go. (I honestly don’t care one way or another. It’d be nice to not have to find a new job, then again, this environment sucks, but I’ll be here less so I suppose it balances out)

Tomorrow: Knitting with a few friends in the morning then heading down to my LYS because they’re having a great sale! Can’t resist those stinkin’ sales!

5 snacks I enjoy: Because I’m in my I-should-be-eating-healthy-foods phase: Hummus and pita bread, port wine cheese and crackers, Clementine tangerines, tostitos and hellavua good french onion dip (mmmmm, though not so healthy), and Haagen daz Chocolate ice cream (very not so healthy).

5 bands/singers that I know the lyrics of MOST of their songs: Better than Ezra, Dave Matthews, Postal Service, Coldplay, and Sara McLaglen (probably spelled wrong)

Things I would do with $100,000,000: Jeez, what wouldn’t I do? I’d go to school, anywhere I want without being restricted by money, I’d buy a house, I’d give some of the money to my brother so he could finally do something he wanted without being restricted by lack of funds. I’d pay off my parent’s mortgage. Not very exciting, but hey, it’s my million dollars!

5 locations I'd like to run away to: New Zealand (wool, duh!), Ireland (more wool and some potatoes), Australia, Hawaii and the Caribbean.

5 bad habits I have: I’m a slob in my own bedroom, clothes everywhere, nothing put away, yet if it were my own place I know I’d be anal… weird huh? I leave dishes in the sink. I’m really lazy sometimes. I can be selfish, but I try not to be (hey, I’m just being honest here!)

5 things I like doing: Knitting (yeah, you guys knew that), Spinning, reading, singing and just lounging around doing nothing.

5 things I would never wear: Ponchos, caplets, thongs (much to the disappointment of my boyfriend), velour running suits, and Velcro shoes.

5 TV shows I like: Survivor, LOST, Jeff Corwin (those are the only shows I will actually make time in my schedule for, plus I hate commercials so much that I think all I can handle are three shows!).

5 movies I like: Just 5! Are you kidding me? If I had to choose I’d say Waiting for Guffman, The Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter movies, View from the Top, the first Matrix movie, the rest of them sucked. Under the Tuscan Sun. I’d say that’s enough, I really love all movies so I can’t just pick 5!

5 famous people I'd like to meet: Oh man, I hate this question because I just don’t have any good answers for it. I’ve never been all that interested in meeting anyone famous. Ok, there is one person. Jane Goodall. That would just rock. Other than that, I’m good knowing the non-famous people I know.

5 biggest joys at the moment: My family and friends (who would I be without them?), my spinning, knitting, my cats, and the fact that I’m going back to school.

5 favorite toys: My new car, my spinning wheel. Basically those are the only toys I care about at this point.

How to love your car more...

How is it that I can love my car even more than I already do? Well, it takes a couple of very special things.

1. You have to have an old friend who was looking for a new home for a nice little car stereo with a CD player that your current car doesn't possess.

Check.

2. Then you have to have a really great boyfriend who's willing to install this lovely little piece of machinery.







Looks like I have that one covered too...






3. Then your dashboard has to throwup all over your kitchen table in an amazing mess of wires, screws and plugs...










4. After all these criteria are met, you're left with more love for a car than anyone in their right mind should possibly have....

Oh and a brand new stereo that you can play all your favorite CD's on while you commute to class. Yeah baby, yeah.