Faina: 2, Me: 0

I found Faina tucked into a backpack (don't ask) and knitted away diligently. I knitted during class and during Angel season 3; I knitted while Bella did her homework and while I waited for her to finish her dinner - always a lengthy affair given that she had been allowed to skip the vegetables on her plate in favor of dessert until I arrived on the scene (again, don't ask). Anyway, I worked hard and I was proud of it.

The scarf has two tapering end charts and a body chart that gets worked 4 times. Here I am, three pattern rows from beginning the last end repeat:

Here's how much I have to go:

And here is how much yarn I have left:

Kitty paw added for, uh... scale.

Sigh. So after talking to my mom, I'm going to rip back the 4th repeat and just work the end chart. Hopefully that will give me enough yarn left over for the fringe, since "it just won't look right without fringe!" And I must say, I agree.

In other news, I actually DID finish some things!

Egyptian Jungle Cardigan (sans buttons)

Smooshy and Bare, 203 yards

Cargo Pants

Classy, 158 yards

The Egyptian Jungle Cardigan is waiting on the buttons I left in Nadia's car the other day. Ironically, I also bought a little Forget-me-not plant to put on my windowsill... and forgot them. Ahem.

This weekend - or rather, today - I'm headed up to Squaw Valley with my dad and Little Brother. They're going to ski and I'm going to sit at home drinking hot tea, fixing the damn Faina scarf, and doing my reading for school. Oh, and taking pretty pictures of the snow!

Until then, Señor Sancho Panza, Esquire, would like you to know that he's watching you.

Why, yes, I am slightly cross-eyed. ¿Por que me pregunta?

Book Review: The Orphan's Tale: In the Night Garden by Catherynne M. Valente

Since this is my first official review, blog-wise, I should probably disclose that I rarely hate books. I've been reading voraciously since I was 3 years old, and in the last 26 years I've developed a pretty good sense for whether I'll like a book or not by reading the cover/flap and maybe the first page or two. I don't read the last page first or skip ahead or even read other people's opinions of books if I can help it. It is my opinion that a book should stand up on its own covers without help from passersby or that guy from Maxim who got fired to shill the story. I also have a bit of OCD when it comes to reading things In Order. Terry Pratchett's Discworld series makes me itch not because the stories are bad (they are in fact wonderful and hilarious) but because they don't come In Order. It's something I'm trying to overcome. It may not work.
Lastly, I'm sort of a fiction kind of girl. I rarely read non-fiction unless it is the autobiography of someone like Charlie Chaplin or Katherine Hepburn. I read to escape reality, which may have colored my view of the real world just a little. And it will not surprise you, having read this far, that my book collection contains mainly Classics, Fantasy and Chick-Lit.

The Orphan's Tales: In the Night Garden by Catherynne M. Valente

Catherynne M. Valente's work is haunting and lovely. Also, her name is hard to spell. She does an excellent job of weaving her stories together; if In the Night Garden were a textile, it would be an intricately braided piece of silk - nearly impossible and utterly fascinating. The story begins with a girl who was born with raccoon-like stains around her eyes. Her people call her a demon and throw her out into the garden of the palace to die or survive as she may. A young boy - one of the sultan's sons - sneaks out to meet this strange girl and is told that the stains around her eyes are actually stories, written in impossibly tiny script. He begs her to tell him her tales, and from there it's a masterfully crafted web of fantastic stories one nested inside the other.

"Grown-up fairy tale" is a phrase that gets tossed around a lot lately; the media seems to be as enchanted by child-like fantasy with more adult themes as the public is. Studios attempt to lure in adults with no children using these words, trying to appeal to a sense of whimsy that has gone out of the world we know and been replaced by a slight sense of panic underlying everything we see on the news and read in the papers. This book is also a grown-up fairy tale, but not in the way that Pan's Labyrinth was with its adult themes, or Enchanted was with jokes that appeal to both children and adults. In the Night Garden is grown-up because of the multiple layers of complexity involved. It is whimsical without being ridiculous,which is a difficult line to maintain.

I like Valente's story-telling style. She has also written books of poetry, and her poet's background adds fluidity to her writing. I keep coming up with imagery that involves silk and water and other such smooth surfaces when trying to describe this work; suffice it to say that I found it utterly delightful and will be reading more of Valente's work, including her poetry.

Icicle Toes

I have finally figured out why I'm so cold all the time. Or at least since winter came and I moved my desk. The cat door that leads onto the porch is about 2 feet from my toes, and baby, it's been very not-warm here in sunny CA.

Now, I'm from Alaska. I know cold, and I'd like to make one thing quite clear. This weather? Not cold. But also, not warm. It's brisk and breezy and rainy, which makes my 1970's apartment complete with single-paned windows (and lots of 'em, thanks to being an end unit for which I am eternally grateful but also) not especially cozy. Ahh, I love a mystery solved. I knew it wasn't the over-indulgence in caffeine. Whew! And can I just point out that for an area that gets rain for a good 2-3 months out of the year (cry me a river), these South Bay-ers are NOT PREPARED for a little dew? The freeways are flooded and no one seems to know how to drive when they have to use the wipers, their lights and steer at the same time. Bah!

Several things have happened in the last week or so. I started another baby sweater and ripped the Seed Stitch Shoes, which will appear again in another incarnation, probably smaller. The baby sweater, affectionately dubbed the Egyptian Jungle Cardigan, has 4/5 of the pieces knitted and will be sewn, blocked and buttoned by the end of the weekend. Next up? Some sort of matching hat and booties. Perhaps the Cat Bordhi socks?

School started. Hooo, boy. This semester will be a test to see how well organized I am. Six classes, five of which are upper division? I'm a little nervous. Tomorrow I'm going out to buy what books I can from the SJSU bookstore, and ordering the rest from Powells. I'd order them all from Powells just on principle, but apparently textbooks ship from the "you pay shipping no matter what" warehouse. So there's that.

I also plied the Flor de Loto singles from a yarn cake, a la Miss Violet's suggestion. It worked like a charm!

Flor de Loto, 3.5 oz, 233 yards

I even remembered to set up the ball winder 6 feet away from the bobbin like Father Amos says to even out the twist in the singles. The plying did a great job hiding the inconsistencies in my yarn.

I got my grant money check from the school and promptly fell down in my 12-Mile Quest. A skein of honey-colored Trenna and some SeaSilk leapt into my cart before I could blink at Little Knits - that's 1686 yards of yarn on their way, so I need to get done with 3372 yards (2325 more than I have currently...) before I order anything else. That's gonna be a challenge, but isn't that the point? I DID have a metric crapton of fiber in my cart at Paradise Fibers, but walked away with only new bobbins and a tensioned Lazy Kate, which go under the heading of supplies - a heroic effort, I might add. I also got a 2-year Flickr membership, so now I'm "pro." Essentially that means the Disneyland photos are up and that I organized many of my photos into understandable groups.

Lastly, an interesting thing has happened on Fridays at Bella's ballet class. The first day I was there, no one said anything to me so I simply sat and knitted. The next week, one of the moms started talking to me about knitting and went to the car to grab hers. This week, there were two other women knitting with me and chatting, and one elderly Dutch lady who is utterly delightful offered me all her old patterns from "during the war" because she can't knit anymore due to arthritis. It's been fun and entertaining. Bella even got re-interested in her knitting this evening, and did two whole rows before her mother arrived to take her somewhere.

And now? I'm off to sit in a heated room and finish the cardigan. Ahhh, stockinette, where would we be without you?

Baby Boom

Last night I finished seaming the BabyBean's Boatneck Sweater! It's my first actual fitted garment project; socks and shawls and scarves (oh my!) don't really count as "fitted" in my estimation. I was thrilled and stunned that it worked out so well. I changed a couple of things in the pattern, but nothing major. I left both the front and back with looong tails on a Knit Picks Options cable so the last stitches would be live, then grafted the shoulders together and used a sewn bind-off across the neck. It worked quite well and helped cut down on the number of seams.

Happy Chinese Apple Sweater with Quarter and Kitty Foot

That's a quarter for scale - it's pretty tiny, so I'll have to get it to ButterBean quickly so that A) it still fits and B) it's still cool enough to wear in San Diego. The whole thing took about 170 yards total, which left me plenty of Classy for another couple of baby items. A cute matching hat, perhaps?

Then I picked up the leftover blue I dyed for my Egyptian Sock last spring and began a pair of the Seed Stitch shoes. See how well I'm keeping to the list? Enjoy it while it lasts, folks.

Amorphous Blob of Baby Shoe with Kitty Tocks

I know, they don't look like shoes, do they? But soon they will, or I'm hoping so; they at least look like the model in the book so far. I was totally enchanted with this pattern last night because apparently I like seed stitch. There are a few fun little tricks to this, like casting on 5 stitches cable-style at the end of a row to make a little flap. I've never knitted like this before, so it's kinda fun. Incidentally, the book for both of these patterns is Baby Knits for Beginners by the amazing Debbie Bliss. I would recommend it to anyone who wants to try some garment shaping without committing to a whole grown-up sized sweater. There are drop-shoulder and raglan sweaters, short row collars and even plackets in there, and all small enough that the project doesn't take 500 years. I may just work my way through it sweater-by-sweater.

And lastly, the What Socks To Cast On question has been answered! I know you all were on tenterhooks waiting to find out which sock I'd pick. I chose the Azure socks from Knitty, at which point I remembered that I'd never done toe-up socks before, and oh that cast on is new too. I think I ripped the toe of the sock about 4 times before it worked out. So after roughly 3 hours of knitting, I've got this much sock:

Mostly-correct Valencia Azure Sock

That's about 8 pattern rows in. It's slow going to say the least; the pattern isnt' very forgiving in terms of showing you where you messed up. But I'll get there, and in the mean time I'm enjoying knitting with a bright, happy yarn that still smells faintly of Orange Kool-Aid. And now I must take the new car to get an oil change and find out if there's a leak in the engine coolant tank or if it's just empty. Good thing there's a Starbucks nearby.

I finished Vallente's The Orphan's Tale: In the Night Garden last night. It's a stunning book, and there will be a review shortly. I'm working on it.

Twelve Mile Quest

On Friday night my Little Brother called and announced that he was coming to visit for the weekend, which turned out to be wicked good fun. We played World of Warcraft (Little Brother brought his new computer) pretty much the whole time, but I managed to finish his Charade socks and send them home with him. Of course I also forgot to take a picture because I am a Bad Blogger.

I also did this:

Singles with Wine (ahh hah hah...)
Wine brings things together
Closeup

That's the Copperpot Woolies Dye4U that I won in her Birthday Bash awhile ago. In the spirit of Finishalongapalooza '08, I completed the first sleeve of the Boatneck Sweater from Debbie Bliss as well. Only one sleeve and the blocking/seaming to go!

And last night I jumped in to the Frog Pond with both feet. I ripped Charade Sock #1 (The One That Didn't Fit Right), my Cookie A German Stocking and my dad's My So-Called Scarf. I also re-skeined the Blue Fir lace weight left over from the Victorian Shawl and the lovely sage Cherry Tree Hill I got from my awesome Hogwart's Swap 2 partner.

The skeins are all patiently awaiting a soak and their turn on the drying rack to return them to a useable state. When I'll get to use them is another matter entirely.

It's strange to have no socks on my needles. They've been my take-along project for awhile now, and suddenly I don't really have any. The shawls aren't so great for taking along with me to work since I tend to make it about 45 seconds before Bella needs a glass of water/help with a homework problem/me to shoo her dad out of the room so she can concentrate on homework. Perhaps I'll start my mother's Clessidra stockings. Or maybe the mini socks from Cat Bordhi's New Pathways book. Hmmm, decisions, decisions!

Lastly, I've decided to embark upon a quest to reduce the proportion of yarn/fiber I buy to how much I use. In the last few months, I've amassed an actual stash of fiber that, considering how long I've been spinning (2 weeks), rivals my yarn stash (1 year). In the last week I've picked up five pounds of roving. Yes, you read that right. Five POUNDS. OMG. There is a picture-heavy post in my future.

The Quest:
12 miles of yarn knitted or roving spun in the next 9 months. That's 21,120 yards of yarn or the equivalent of 48 pairs of socks (eep!).
My Start Date: Jan 6, 2008 (backdated from 1/14/08, see below)
My Finish Date: Sept 6, 2008

Rules:
1. Buying yarn/roving comes at a 2:1 ratio. Wanna buy 4oz of roving? Spin 8 first.
2. Mileage must be actual. If a pair of socks takes only 400 yards in a 460 yard skein, only the 400 yards count. Leftover yardage will be calculated by weight.
3. Items On The Needles/Bobbin count as of My Start Date
4. Only finished handspun counts (not singles)
5. Supplies such as extra bobbins/needles do not count, but pattern books do. Use the library.

I'm going to work backwards from Jan 6 so that I can count starting with the Grape Jelly roving and include the Charade socks - it's always nice to have a bit of a boost at the beginning. As Mario said, Here we go!

L&V's Finishalongapalooza '08

I've got the name wrong, I'm sure, but here is the thing I want to finish before I start anything else:

1. Gabe's Charade socks. Done 1/13/08, yay!

There's only one thing on the list because my dear friend LaurieBean's son Avery arrived on the 27th and it's time to start some baby things for him. I know that if I don't do it soon, he'll be big and the knitting will take longer, so I'm finishing up the Charades (about 55% done at this point) and then switching to the Debbie Bliss Baby Knits for Beginners book that I checked out from the Los Altos Library. Yesterday I went to Purlescence and picked up the Spinning Bible, a bunch of Dream in Color Classy and Smooshy:

Left to right: Classy Chinatown Apple, November Muse, Happy Forest. Smooshy Good Luck Jade

And somehow this jumped into my bag as well, oops!

Louet Arctic Wool/Silk, 8oz for eventual Mystic Waters Shawl

When I came home, I picked out a bunch of patterns in Ravelry for fingering or worsted weight yarns. They need to be finished before I do anything else, so add to the Finishalong '08 list:

2. Cargo pants Done 2/6/08
3. Boat Neck Sweater Done 1/16/08
4. Jacket with Seed Stitch Bands
5. Three pairs of mini-socks from Cat Bordhi's new book
6. Curly-Toed Elf Slippers from Weekend Knitting (also a library find)
7. Flower Power from Knitty Fall 07. (Isn't that baby in the picture ridiculously adorable? I want to snorggle his chubby little cheeks.)

I know those 6 things look like a lot, but they're small things on big needles. I think I can hack it. I'm pretty sure. Maybe I should start today.

After the BabyBean-a-thon, it's back to finishing already-started things:

8. Faina (still AWOL) Found 1/22
9. My So-Called Scarf for my dad

The scarf may end up a felted something-or-other. I really don't like the itch factor of the Manos Del Uruguay, and it's not going to make a good scarf. Maybe I'll get some Malabrigo instead and make a French Market Bag out of the Manos. So change it to:

9. Frog unwanted projects (German Stockings, MSC Scarf, etc.) Done 1/13/08
10. Swallowtail Shawl Frogged 2/7, will re-start at some later date

And that's 10.

I finished and sent off the Super Secret S---x Project. If you're not S---x, here's the finished product. I hope she likes it!

On the spinning front, I've managed to spin every day in January so far in honor of NaSpiMoMo. I know, it's only the 6th, but it's a start! I spun up and plied 4oz of Louet's Grape Jelly pencil roving:

Gratuitous pre-plying shot

and I'm 1/2-way through some Copperpot roving. This particular roving is a little slubby, so in my newbishness I'm having trouble drafting it well.

But I divided it in two and will put each half on a bobbin, then ply them together. Hopefully it'll be nice and barber-poley and not look like a jumbled mess!

It's Here!!

I came home last night to a big box from Paradise Fibers, and instead of taking a picture I opened it and immediately set about putting my new wheel together. The whole affair took about 20 minutes, but it would have gone faster if I'd done what the very first direction said and read through them all first. I was convinced that there would be a part missing or something would be cracked or damaged (the box with 500 "FRAGILE!" labels was not in pristine condition... UPS I'm looking at you!), but everything was present and accounted for. It is beautiful and needs a name, but that will come in time.

The photo is a bit dark, but it's the best i could do under the rushed "I wanna play!" circumstances. To start, I grabbed what was left of the Daphne roving I bought from Zero back in July and just... started. No books, no real instructions, just started. And shockingly, it went just fine, but there was a nagging fear in the back of my head. Spinning is great, the wheel is gorgeous, but what if I get bored? What if I hate it and it's just one of those things that the moment you get one, you don't want it anymore? I went to bed terrified that all of my longing was for nothing, and (worse) that ManCandy's and my family's good wishes and money were for nothing. It's a sinking feeling, that.

When I woke up this morning, I realized something. I'm not a spinner yet. I haven't read a book or taken a class, I haven't played with the Wheel for more than an hour, and I'm not good at it yet. I hate not being good at things. If I'm not good at something immediately, rushing to the head of the class without studying or working at all let alone hard, I give up and find something I am good at. Knitting was the exception; I plowed away at it until I felt like I could call myself a knitter because if it could be considered child labor in the 17th century, I could certainly do it. Spinning is a natural offshoot of knitting - or perhaps the other way 'round - and it's something I will have to get good at. I hopped out of bed and threw on a sweatshirt, then came face to face with the Wheel. It looked intimidating.

So I put on a pot of coffee and read my internets. Then I listened to CastOn and played some WoW (don't get me started...). But after about a half an hour, the thing sitting next to me started to whisper quietly of the roving in my closet, the fleeces my mother gave me, and the possibility of plying what was on my drop spindle with whatever ended up on the bobbin, which ended up being this:

Not super pretty, but not a complete disaster either. I put that bobbin on the built-in Lazy Kate, put on a fresh one and snugged up the Scotch tension (brilliant system!), and wound the singles from my drop spindle onto a second bobbin. Then I plied them together all by myself, and when the wheel singles ran out and I still had half of a bobbin of drop spindle singles left, I Navajo plied the rest. And here it is, my first bobbin of yarn from my first roving ever. Unfortunately it's superwash, otherwise it would make a great felted project. As it is, I'm not sure what to do with it; it won't be very soft or easy to work with or even very nice to wear, but I'm proud of my little bobbin anyway.


Oh, yes. That feeling of worry is gone, all right. Although as I sit here, my feet have the stranges feeling of treadling up and down despite being flat on the floor.

Like a Kid at Christmas

This is my mother's cat, Waffles.

He is built like a boxer and has more personality than most people I know. If he were a human, I think he'd be a Hell's Angel with a Heart of Gold - the kind of guy who scares away the baddies and passes out presents at Christmas to poor orphans. Speaking of Christmas, you may have noticed that he's sitting on an open present. It's a box. Here's a picture for scale:

That's a big, honkin' box, as my mom would (did) say. And what's inside? Spinning batts from the sheep who live next door! My mom asked our neighbor for their fleeces (they're usually just thrown away [Gah!]) and sent them off to be processed. There's still a bit of VM in the batts, but nothing a pair of hand carders can't fix. It's two fleeces-worth of creamy, beautiful wool, and it's aaaaallllll mine! Hurrah!

The batts have made me even more anxious for my wheel to arrive. I ordered it on Christmas Day and have been slightly twitchy ever since. I hoped for Friday, but settled for today when the UPS man didn't knock on my door. I know, I know, the delivery date is set for the second, but wouldn't it be nice of UPS to deliver early? Just this once? No dice. So I've been watching my "track this" link in agony, waiting for an update. In vain.
Stupid UPS! Argh! Please don't lose my wheel or I will cry. Do you want me to cry? I didn't think so.

As far as knitting, I'm down to the foot of my brother's (second) first Charade sock. Yes, I'm re-knitting these as well since apparently I have a talent for losing my pattern notes in addition to losing my half-finished knitting (mom's Faina Shawl has gone AWOL). So I tried something different: a crochet cast-on, 2" of k2p2 ribbing, then I took off the crochet chain and used a sewn bind-off for the cuff. Very tidy and even though it's more work initially, I like it a whole big much-a-lot. There will be more cuffs like this in my future. And more notes.

In other news, I am a bad dieter. Lord help me if I ever need to lose serious weight! I completely lost my head this weekend with my mom at the yarn store because I found A Yarn I Love. It's another one of those "if I couldn't use anything else ever" yarns, and I forsee it holding a secondary place in my heart next to Interlacements Tokyo. It's Elsabeth Lavold's Silky Wool in a colorway that apparently doesn't exist on any shade card. It's a lovely rusty cranberry red, and I got enough to make a sweater:



And a bunch of Mission Falls 1824 in a true cranberry for a pair of Fetching mitts, a hat and a scarf. Woot!


I also picked up some roving from Pigeonroof Studios and Crazy Monkey. Because with the wheel on the way, how could I resist? And speaking of which, since it's not here I think I'll go play with my drop spindle to assuage my agony.

Tonight ManCandy and I are headed to Kate's house for her infamous Salmon Risotto, some BSG:Razor and champagne, followed by bed and brunch in the morning. What a great way to spend New Year's Eve!

Oh, P.S. - my uncle Roger is a wonderful man for many reasons, but one of them is that he got bored at work one day and decided that instead of slogging away, he would go to the St. George Distillery in Alameda and stand in a 3-hour line for some of this:


The first domestic and legal absinthe in the US since 1912. We drank it at Late Christmas Dinner, and even ManCandy liked it. I'm not a fan of strong anise flavors, but poured over a spoon with a sugar cube into a bit of icy water was a treat and a half. Thanks, Uncle Roger! Next time I'll be right there with you in line.

Merry Christmas!

I hope you all get the things you like and have the guts to re-gift the things you don't! Erick's mom sent each of us a "stocking," which goes in quotes because they came in huge gift bags, as a real stocking would have ripped at the seams. I got some lovely things, but I must admit that my heart is jumping up and down a little mostly because this morning I ordered this little beauty with many thanks and hugs to my mom, papa, ManCandy's parents, and ManCandy himself:

Kromski Sonata Traveling Wheel

Who says combination birthday/Christmas presents are a problem?? Not I! My Sonata will have the walnut finish; the one the the picture is clear. I'm bouncing up and down and praying it arrives before we go to my mother's house on Friday night. I think I'm going to go practice on my drop spindle now - it's not the same, but it's still spinning!

Merry Christmas!

The Nature of Forgiveness

A long time ago, there was a Girl who met a Matchstick Man. Their love was as turbulent as the class 5 rapids in the nearby river and pulled them down to the depths of despair only slightly more often than it sent them to the heights of delight. The Matchstick Man had a Matchstick Heart that had been splintered before, and although the Girl could not see the real reason for his pain, for the Matchstick Man hid his truths behind glassy blue eyes, she bore the brunt of his anger and hurt. The Girl was trusting and allowed her naive heart to blind her sense of Self. In the process, her own heart shattered, and soon she was just as fragile as the Matchstick Man. She thought things would work - after all, were they not now the same? But Matchstick People cannot be together; all the slivers work their way under the skin and cause festering pain that leads only to more pain and no love. The Matchstick Pair went up in the flames of passion and anger, and the Matchstick Girl ran away to try to salve her heart.

The Matchstick Man tried to apologize, but the Matchstick Girl did not believe him. Although she was no good at holding grudges, this one time she had bound her heart together with iron bands of anger and pride. Time after time, way after way, the Matchstick Man tried to make his apology felt, but it was no good. Eventually he gave up, but the Matchstick Girl did not care. Years slipped by and the Matchstick People (for they were a pair no longer) saw each other occasionally, but were very careful not to speak beyond the pleasantries required by Regular Folk. Seven years passed, and the Matchstick Girl looked at her heart one day, only to realize that the bands of iron she had so carefully wrapped her heart in had dissipated into the ether. She couldn't put her finger on the moment they had evaporated, but in their place was a simple silk ribbon the color of the sky before the morning has truly arrived.

Forgiveness is a slate grey blue. A color that is undefinable, uplifting and sad. I don't know when I stopped being furious, and I know even less when I stopped being hurt. It happened as slowly as scars begin an angry red and fade to a nearly-indiscernible tone; that is, one day you look and realize you can't see it anymore. By then, it becomes trite to say "I forgive you," just as it was redundant to say "I hate you" before the fading. So instead, I'll say this: our Matchstick Year helped me become the person I am. The water under our bridge may have once been tinted the blue of tears, but it's just water now, and I forgave you without even knowing it, long ago.

Creaking Leather is the Sound of the Season

I don't carry a wallet, but if I did it would be groaning right now. There was a sale at Webs, and one on Schaefer at Little Knits. Schaefer is the bane of my Yarn Diet existence. I don't know what it is about their color sense, but I want desperately to bathe in the colors of every skein I see. It's completely inspiring and more than a little disturbing, especially because Schaefer is not cheap.

Oh well. One of my 101 in 1001 goals is to knit from my stash for an entire year. With the 5000 yards of sweater-weight yarn I bought at Webs (neutral colored sweater yarn for $7.50/lb helped), the Anne and Trenna from Little Knits, and the 4200 yards of light gray Brown Sheep fingering weight yarn my mom bought at a garage sale for $5, I think maybe this year is my year. But I'm only cautiously optimistic; Stitches West is in February, after all.

Speaking of my 101 in 1001, I went through it and updated the things I finished. Not really surprisingly, most of the things I completed are knitting-related. Some of them don't even really factor in anymore and I'll have to re-work them in the next week or two. But overall, it's a nice reminder that even after not looking for an entire year (there's goal #1 to re-start!) I'm still accomplishing some things on the list.

Christmas Eve is tomorrow. Jer, Elizabeth and I are going to two parties tonight: one at Meredith's and one at the Van Over's. ManCandy's flight got cancelled this morning - conveniently before he had to haul himself to the airport - so he's coming home tomorrow morning instead. He'll miss the parties, but since he's not so much down with the planned events I don't think he's too broken up about it. There's a tension between us on this point, because he feels that planned events are tiring and boring and he tends to be very quiet and sit alone during them, while I enjoy being social and meeting the occasional new person. When I invited him to the Van Over's party tonight, his first reaction was "Hell no. I don't know any of those people. There's no way I'd go to that party." It hurt that he refused to even entertain the idea of meeting people I've known for nearly 10 years now, who are only around once or twice per year, and who - in the case of a couple of them - have had major impact on my life. Today, it feels like he doesn't care to meet people who are important to me. Tomorrow, I will have mellowed and probably won't be as upset. Or at least I hope so, but I'd like to think that if our situation was reversed, I'd be willing to at least stop in and meet people for a few minutes before going home to crash.

I'm really ready for this entire holiday season to be over. Next week we've got a gathering on Thursday and we're heading to my mom's on Friday; and I expect I'll have to smooth things over for at least Thursday night as well. *sigh* Relationships are hard; I suppose if they were easy, they wouldn't be worth much. Aaaaand I'm going to stop venting now.

Look! Pretty yarn! (Pictures from Little Knits)

Schaefer Anne - Cranberry Liquor

Schaefer Trenna - Blue Cruise at Sunset

Schaefer Trenna - Plum Golden Harvest

Honestly, how could I have been expected to resist those?! The Anne will become a Bee Fields Shawl and the other two I'll have to think about for a bit. Please excuse me - I'm off to finish my bloody Christmas knitting while watching Angel. Something about ordering eight thousand yards of yarn (that's 4.5 MILES! Oh my god.) makes me feel like finishing things; I can't put my finger on why.

What Was New is New Again

Let's make one thing quite clear: I am a shambles at Christmas knitting. Worse, I may be the knitting equivalent of the random detritus found on the floor after cleaning up a shambles. It's that bad, people.

I began my new job as a nanny on Monday afternoon. My little girl picked out a nickname for herself among several choices; she is now and forever more Little Bella. Her father has a touch of the harmlessly crazy due to consistent alcohol consumption and her mother works out of town for a month or two on end; I feel like I'm in The Nanny Diaries a little bit. Bella is a precocious child (I can spell 'phenomenal!') and has a Schedule. It's not completely packed like some of my kids at The Tutor Place used to be - third grade children who have "activities" from 6am until they fall into bed at midnight, only to rinse and repeat 5 days/week - and it's manageable. Or it will be once I get my new car and am not freaked about highway driving in the poor Saturn. I feel like a coach at a hospital's Terminal Ward: "Three more weeks, baby. Just stay with me for three more weeks, you know you can do it!" So far, the last two days have been fun. Her dad gave us permission to blow off Tae Kwon Do last evening, so we went to downtown Los Altos where we met up with Nadia and Cat and drank hot chocolate and coffee. Then we skipped - literally - over to Uncommon Threads and plopped down at their table, where Bella asked me to teach her to knit. Whether I had an ulterior motive for taking her to the yarn shop, I shall never divulge. Cashmere/alpaca couldn't drag it out of me.

So we sat down after oooing and aaaahing over all the lovely colors. And in less time than it takes me to write this, the little imp had mastered and was repeating "in through the front, around the tip, under the front, and off!" Within another 3 minutes, the only part I still had in the process is wrapping the yarn around the needle (Tomorrow will you teach me to do it myself? I like to be self-sufficient.) Then we bought her some Plymouth Worsted and some size 8 needles (The numbers must be how big they are. See, the 5's are smaller than the 8's!) and headed home, where her dad made us omelettes and told her there are "more useful things in the world than knitting!" I countered that knitting would be good for her math skills and her dexterity, so we'll see how that little battle turns out. Friday she's promised to help me pick out a Christmas tree since ManCandy is leaving for an early home Christmas tomorrow morning.

And back to the Christmas knitting shambles detritus that is my knitting basket. I have about 95% of one Dashing done, one Charade sock that according to the recipient needs more ribbing at the cuff of a cuff-down sock - dammit! - so will soon be zero Charade socks, and almost half of a Faina shawl. That's two boys and Mother Ship down; I think the rest will have to wait. I'm working with a lack of knitting mojo right now because school ended yesterday and I'm pretty spent in terms of Things I'd Like To Do. Maybe I'll drive up and meet Nadia in Tahoe tomorrow instead of work. A couple of days with nothing to do but knit by a fire sounds just about like heaven.

A Dream Is a Wish Your Heart Makes

Picture heavy today. I'm finally catching up from the Thanksgiving trip to Mexico and the birthday trip to Disneyland. First, Mexico! It was warm and beautiful and relaxing and I'm stoked to go again next year. Here's the view, mostly from my balcony:


The fam at a *fabulous* dinner of shrimp, ceviche and more shrimp, with some aguacates and gambas:

Gabe and I found some Tasty Diabetics at Wal-Mart:

And here is the Grand Mayan at night. Totally worth the trip.


Aaaaand Disneyland. Well, it's Disneyland. I get tired and irritated and I hurt my knees walking so I had to get one of those electric stroller things, but it was a blast.
We had fun on the way there:


Called some 'Toons:

Found my sister's dressing room (she's officially cooler than I am now and I hate her a lot):
And generally had a great time. It was really bright in the morning:

But quite pretty at night:
Alexander met Merlin from The Sword in the Stone:

And got a very fine hat (geekflag):


He posed with some losers:


and saw Santa:

Gabe and I had a fanTAStic time at Disney on Sunday night. We rode Indy twice in a row, hit Space Mountain a bunch of times and did the Matterhorn and Mr. Toad. Oh, and took this:


All in all? I'd do it again to see this face:


Totally worth it.

Oh, dear...

It's the last week of classes for Fall '07. This semester hasn't been the be-all-end-all of crappy semesters, but it hasn't been a picnic either. However, up until about 2 minutes ago, I still Cared. Those of you still in college, or who have ever attended college, probably know the feeling. There I was, trucking along on everything that needed to get done by finals, and then, BAM! No Caring. That doesn't mean I won't get things done. On the contrary, I'm more likely to work quicker and churn out papers like meat in my mom's nifty new grinder when I Don't Care. The meat quality, to overuse the analogy, will simply be less filet mignon and more sirloin steak. But if sirloin will help me pass, bring it on - I gave up on Pristine Grades back in middle school.

I am nearly done casting off the Victorian Lace Shawl, but I have yet to write the accompanying 1200-word paper (due Thursday).

In other news, I have pictures of Mexico that I'll put up when I have a Break From Finals. And this weekend I'll be jetting off to Disneyland to take Brother Number 6 for the first time - should be fun! More pictures there, of course.

Oh, and I turn 29 this week. TWENTY-NINE. Next year, I'll be thirty. Or maybe I'll just be 29 again - I haven't decided yet.