And the livin' is easy...

Summertime...ah, such a blissful word. It conjures up thoughts of freedom (road trip!) and simple joys, like running after the ice cream truck or scampering through the sprinklers. Backyard BBQs with friends, beach excursions, camping under the stars, trips to the amusement park and the waterslides...yep, we've pretty much got all that covered.

The kids have been enjoying our season passes to the nearby water park, and have also made good use of the new paver patio by "camping out" on it (with an air mattress and sleeping bags, naturally) occasionally. We have an end-of-summer BBQ planned in about 3 weeks, and are hoping to have a good turnout.

But this summer has also been punctuated by doctor's visits: I'm still having dizzy spells, and the doctors are still not sure what the cause is, although it seems to be a rare form of migraines. I should have more information later this week, after my visit to the Neurologist to talk about last week's MRI (!!!). I'm not very concerned though; I don't have any other indicators of a brain tumor, and I do have a history of strange migraines (ocular migraines, without accompanying pain), so that is the likeliest explanation. God knows, I'm as Type-A as they come, so stress is a big part of my life.

In order to combat the stress, I've been doing quite a lot of knitting. An online friend recently lost her baby less than an hour after she was born (no warning at all, very tragic) and a group of us Ravelers are making her an afghan. I knitted up a couple of squares and mailed them off to the person who's coordinating the whole thing last week. Now I'm hard at work on Mr Wonderful's Bad-Ass Cabled Hoodie. I just realized that we've got only 10 weeks until we go on our very belated honeymoon, and if I want to get it done in time I really need to hustle, because it's a huge project. I'm nearly done with the body of it, and will begin the saddle shoulders & arms shortly, so I think I'm in pretty good shape.

The kids have also made some requests: both of them would like a hoodie sweater this fall, and I'm planning on knitting them up in cotton, so they'll be machine washable. Rugrat, of course, would like his in solid black with some white (ok, ivory) skulls along the hem and sleeves. Tomboy has requested a green hoodie, with stripes of brown and aqua. I'm hoping to finish them both up before Christmas; shouldn't be a big problem but I'm worried about those skulls. I'm not very good at colorwork.

Oh, and one more thing: we ordered a new couch! We're getting a small sectional from Crate & Barrel; it should be here in about 8-10 weeks. Our current couch is nearly 10 years old, has all the structure of a partially melted marshmallow, and has definitely seen better days. I bought it when Rugrat was a baby, so it's seen more than its fair share of bodily fluids over the years. Mr Wonderful can't sit on it for more than 5 minutes; it just makes his back ache too much. So, it was definitely time.

What have you been up to this summer? Anything fun?

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

OK, not really. But it is beginning to look a lot like Christmas knitting projects, as I have completed two scarves and a hat already, and started on scarf #3 last night. So far, I have:

1 Woodland shawl (except really, it's a scarf - see photo)
1 Woodland hat (my adaptation; there's no real pattern for this, I just wanted to use up the leftover wool on a matching hat)
1 River Rocks scarf (modified to make it less bead-heavy)
The beginnings of 1 Braided Cable Scarf

The Braided Cable Scarf was a little difficult to get started with, because I totally could not understand what the designer was trying to do with the cables and it's written kind of ambiguously. Once I figured out that "purl the middle stitch from the cable needle" really meant "purl that first stitch on the cable needle since you already knitted 2 of the 5 stitches in this cable group" it made a lot more sense. At first I was stupidly trying to purl the middle stitch on the cable needle, which would have meant: slip 3 to CN, k2, slip first stitch on CN to left needle, slip second stitch on CN to left needle, p1, k1 on left needle, k last stitch on CN. Which makes absolutely no sense whatsoever, and twists the poor yarn up like crazy.

Anyhoo, it's looking very nice now, although the yarn (KnitPicks Andean Treasure in "midnight" colorway) is superdark navy blue, so it's a little difficult to see the pattern emerging. I've completed two pattern repeats (16 rows) so far. I'm not sure if I like this yarn or not - it's alpaca, so it's hairy as all get-out, but it is also super, super soft.

Once I'm done with this scarf I need to get back to Mr Wonderful's Bad-Ass Cabled Hoodie. That poor thing has been languishing for months - since shortly after Christmas, actually. I need to finish it up so that he can have it in time for our belated honeymoon in October. :) We're going to North Lake Tahoe & staying at a lovely timeshare, courtesy of my mom & stepdad. It should be fairly chilly - at least at night - so I want to be sure he's got his cozy cabled sweater.

The final countdown

We're in the home stretch...and we now have about a hundred people coming! Oh. My. God. And weather.com is predicting rain on my wedding day. One hundred people standing around in the rain. Great.

Guess what I did last week? I caved. I bought a veil. I was absolutely positive that I did not want a veil but then I changed my mind and bought a veil from a very nice seller on Etsy. So I'll look like a very traditional bride with my flowy white veil, my hair in an updo, my big white dress, and my white bouquet of tulips. I'm even wearing pearls. Can't get much more traditional than pearls on your wedding day.

Final to-do's include:

• finish up the shawl
• practice dancing! (He's great, but I suck.)
• make, frost & decorate the cupcakes on Thursday & Friday
• finalize wedding ceremony details with officiant (tonight)
• clean the house! (We've got family coming into town on Thursday, including my future MIL, so the house has to look good.)
• get nails done on Friday afternoon
• pick Sister & baby nephew up at the airport on Friday night
• pick up last minute items: more bottled water, plates & silverware (plenty of napkins & cups, I think), special cupcake ingredients, burger & hot dog condiments (tomatoes, onions, lettuce, cheese - already have mustard, ketchup & relish)
  

In fact, what the heck am I doing blogging? I need to finish up that shawl post-haste!

Two weeks

We're two weeks out now. Most of the stuff on my to-do list is done, but I'm a bit worried about my wedding shawl. The border is taking a LOT longer than I thought it was going to. I've jut got to keep plugging along with it and hope I get it finished in time. I'm planning to spend most of the day tomorrow knitting; I hope I'll be able to get the first end finished (I'm about halfway done with the first end now, and truly, it takes forever to knit this part).

I got another RSVP today, and this brings our total guest count to EIGHTY-FREAKIN'-FIVE. Oh my god you guys, I cannot believe it. I can't believe that my tiny 30-people-max wedding has morphed into this enormous party. I am so excited, though! A whole bunch of people are coming that I truly never expected to come; people I haven't seen in years are showing up! And about a third of our guest list is kids, which I think is awesome. What could be more fun than a bunch of families playing in a park for the day?

We are totally planning a bunch of fun activities, too. We've got hula hoops, frisbees, bubbles for the little ones (including a battery-operated bubble machine), coloring books & crayons, and a "guest book" that is a big blank sketch book where people can write advice, draw little pictures, whatever. We're bringing some other games for the adults & older kids, too - cribbage, liars' dice, etc.

I just can't wait for the day to get here!

Wedding & job update

Oooh boy, things are in full swing now!

Still no job, but I've been doing some contract work for individual clients and for my old supervisor, who quit working for The Boss and is now opening up her own consulting business. So there's some money coming in. In fact I'm hopeful that I'll be able to just do consulting, as that would solve my issues with telecommuting quite nicely.

The wedding is set for May 2, at a large regional park. We've reserved a lovely picnic spot with a bunch of picnic tables, BBQs, a small deck for dancing, and a beautiful flagstone patio area that will serve quite well for the ceremony. I built a wedsite & found a free web host, and then sent out email invitations. We're doing a potluck BBQ reception, telling guests not to bring presents, but to bring food instead. I'm actually really excited; this is just the kind of wedding I would have wanted originally - something fun and laid back that we could invite all of our friends & family to. We're getting a great response - most of people we've invited are coming, I think.

My dress is in, and it's gorgeous and needs almost no alterations - just a bustle and maybe to tack down the sleeves to the elastic underneath. I made a beautiful silk flower hair clip for about $10. Mr Wonderful is renting a jacket for his tux, and we're getting some of the more esoteric accessories (sporran, hose, etc) at the Scottish Games in Woodland on the weekend before the wedding. And the kids? Well, Kohl's had an enormous sale and we ended up getting Tomboy a dress and Rugrat a pinstriped suit for less than $100. Awesome.

We got our rings too. Mine is a just simple white gold band, so it doesn't compete with my engagement ring. I already had a tungsten ring purchased for Mr Wonderful, but then he lost about 20 pounds and it ended up being too big. Unfortunately you cannot resize tungsten, so we bought another tungsten ring for him (one full size smaller!) on Overstock.com, for about $50. So now if he gains weight, he can wear the bigger one, but if he stays all skinny like he is now, he can wear the new smaller one. They're very similar; just the celtic knot pattern in the center is different.

There's not much left to do -- find a solution for music (speakers or boombox, battery-operated, that will accommodate an ipod), get a bouquet (Grandma has graciously offered to pay for my flowers!), decide on shoes (whether to buy some new ones, if I can find something good and cheap), find someone to do my hair, and figure out the cupcake situation. My wedding shawl is well on its way, and if I continue knitting a full repeat each day, I'll have it done in plenty of time. I'm working my butt off at the gym, so I should be in better shape than I have been in years when I walk down that aisle. Oh, and we have to get our marriage license.

Things are falling into place, and I am so excited! I'm not nervous at all about marrying Mr Wonderful - there hasn't been any doubt in my mind about him. I just can't wait to make things official, and to celebrate with all of our friends and family. :)

All you need is love

If you haven't seen Across the Universe yet, you really should. Beautifully made, with AMAZING covers of Beatles songs that are integrated seamlessly into the story. I just bought this movie on Blu-Ray; I had already rented it twice from Blockbuster and just had to have it.

In other news, we opened up savings accounts for the kids this weekend. They will be able to deposit & withdraw money using their very own ATM cards and we can automatically deposit their allowance into the account. How easy is that? :) Plus they love the idea of having their own ATM cards (even if they won't have the Visa logo and therefore cannot be used for point-of-sale purchases).

Mr Wonderful and I also opened up a joint checking account. This will be used for wedding purchases at first, and then will be our joint household account afterwards. I deposited the unexpected escrow rebate check I got from my mortgage company last week. The good news is that my mortgage is going down. The bad news is that my house value has dropped so far that I'm now upside down in my mortgage by about $100K (including home equity line). Stupid economy.

Dad & Stepmom visited yesterday. I made them watch the movie. :) I also made a healthier version of the Yum Yum Chicken Enchilada Casserole which was quite tasty, although it needed more kick. And cilantro. I was out of cilantro.

Aaaaand lastly, I started on my wedding shawl (stole? scarf? I never know what the proper terminology is) on Valentine's Day. I thought that was fitting. :) Mr Wonderful's Bad-Ass Cabled Hoodie is not yet finished but I'm getting worried about time now, with only 7 1/2 months left before the wedding. I don't want to be rushing to finish my scarf in the last week before the wedding. The pattern I'm using is Canterbury Bells, and I'm knitting it with Malabrigo Lace in Vaa (a dark green/blue color).

Crazybusy

God, things have been so busy lately, I've barely had time to think. Quick recap here:

• Attended & helped organize a protest against Prop 8 in WC on the 15th
• Waged war on the pantry moths that had completely infested our dry goods cupboard; I think I've won but it may just be a lull in the battle
  
• Semi-regular dinner out with supervisor
• Fought off a cold
• Attended big Adobe conference in SF, 17th-19th (which entailed unfortunate late nights coupled with even more unfortunate early mornings in which I had to ride stupid BART into the city. Hello, two-hour commute!)
• Parent-teacher conference
• Thanksgiving dinner planning, including ordering the organic free-range turkey breast (even though it's just the four of us, and possibly Babydaddy, we will still have the requisite big turkey feast)
• Finished two sweaters (Sister's Christmas Present and my big green squishy Mmmmmalabrigo v-neck)
• Started a baby sweater
• Started and FINISHED a super-secret surprise Christmas present for someone (at least those long BART rides were good for something)
• Successfully kept myself from killing the kids so far (they're home a lot this month thanks to Thanksgiving, Veteran's Day, staff in-service days and parent-teacher conferences)
• Finished most of my Christmas shopping
• Crazy busy with work stuff (being gone for three days at a conference does not help)

And this is just the last two weeks, mind you. AND, today is Mr Wonderful's birthday. Thankfully, he decided that what he really really wants for dinner is pizza and beer. I can totally deal with that. But what he wants for his present is to get his computer fixed. Ugh. The thing needs a new motherboard, if I remember correctly (it's been at least six months since it got fried), and probably a new processor and a couple of fans too. *sigh*

Things I still need to get done:

• Family picture for Christmas cards
• Order Christmas cards, and when they get here, address & send them out
• Thanksgiving
• Get paver stones to edge the patio (between cement patio & new sod)
• Finish baby sweater
• Sleep for fifteen years

On the plus side, I found out that you can order NyQuil-D through your neighborhood pharmacy. NyQuil-D is the original formulation of NyQuil, and contains the magical ingredients that knock you on your ass. I have ordered some and it should be ready to pick up along with my turkey tomorrow.

South Beach update

So I'm nearly three weeks into the South Beach diet and man, week two was a killer. I got progressively more pissed off as the second week went on (PMS doesn't help, y'all) and finally I just made an executive decision to end Phase 1 early. My weight loss had stalled and I was getting extremely frustrated with the lack of starchy foods. So I started small, with whole wheat english muffins, and it really saved things for me. I was ready to dump the diet altogether, I was just getting so angry. But now things have lightened up - we're eating whole grain breads (and whole wheat pasta once...more on that in a sec) and fruit now, and I've lost a total of nine pounds in nineteen days. Yay, me! Only nine more to go...well, fourteen if I really want to push it, but I'd be happy with just nine.

Anyway, the whole wheat pasta: eww. It was okay, I guess, but it was grainy and just not fabulous. I can't remember what brand it was but it was something I hadn't tried before. I'll stick with the Barilla "Plus" brand - that one's whole grain and they still managed to get the pasta smooth and tasty. So do yourself a favor, if you're looking at the whole wheat pasta option, stick with the Barilla brand. And no, they didn't pay me to say that.

I'm happy that the weather's turned cooler (although looking at the forecast, it seems like it may have been a fluke). I love cooking soup, and you just don't feel like eating soup when it's 90 degrees outside, yanno? So far I've made Black Bean Soup, Tom Yum (Thai shrimp soup), Roasted Tomato Soup and Smoky-Sweet Butternut Squash Soup. I'll get a recipe up for that last one in a few days; I just made it tonight and let me give you a little hint: Bacon. Apples. Sage. Yum! So far I'd have to say my favorite was the Roasted Tomato soup though; we got a bunch of tomatoes in our CSA box yesterday morning, and still had some vine-ripened ones too, so it was the perfect dinner last night. With a couple of pork chops topped with a little Dijon mustard pan sauce, it was just a little bit of heaven.

As you can see, I'm definitely not eating the carbs at every meal. I'm trying to eat my starchy foods early in the day and then have a dinner without any bread or pasta. It keeps me full in the evening and I'm not snacking as much in front of the TV. Knitting helps with that too...you should see the progress I'm making on projects these days! I designed a baby sweater for a friend's baby shower and knitted it up in less than a week, and I've got all but one sleeve done now on my cushy green Mmmmmmalabrigo v-neck sweater. I've got lots of projects to get moving on though, starting with Dad's socks (about 2/3 of a sock to go!) and Sister's sweater (a gift that I'm hoping will be nursing-friendly, since she's due in early December).

And finally, in apparently unrelated (but not really) news, I've found quite a few old friends on Facebook. I was even contacted by an old high school boyfriend (one that I certainly never thought I'd speak to again...he went a little wackadoo there for a while). And this old HS boyfriend? Just had a quadruple bypass 2 weeks ago! OMFG!! How does a guy in his mid-thirties gets QUADRUPLE fucking BYPASS surgery??? That is some scary shit right there. Makes me even more thankful that I'm doing something good for my body now - losing weight, eating healthier, exercising a bit.

Olympics

Am I the only person in the world who really doesn't give a rat's ripe ass about the Olympics? Seriously, I could care less, but it seems like every blogger I follow must make some mention of the swimming or the diving or the gymnastics, and how it goes on and on until 2 AM, and yet they can't tear themselves away.

Why?

Anyhoo, I made it through the first week back at work post-vacation, and I'm barely hanging in there. It's been a crazy busy week, with Boss & Boss's Wife gone (Boss's Wife is our receptionist/designer/HR guru/fill-in-the-cracks person). Of COURSE the servers had to go down. Multiple times. Multiple servers, including our mail server, which went down twice. Le *sigh*. Not to mention the backlog of emails and work that piled up while I was gone. Why is it that you go away for only a week, and yet you have something like three weeks' worth of work backlogged when you return? It's like some weird axiom of vacation.

The vacation itself was lovely, quite relaxing except for the nine-hour drives that bookended it and the hellacious heat. I got a bit of a sunburn when we went to the waterpark one day (for FIVE AND A HALF HOURS OMG I thought I was gonna die it was about 1000 degrees y'all!), despite spraying on the SPF multiple times. My side-boobs are peeling now. (Lovely. And probably TMI, huh?) That'll teach me to wear a bikini to a waterpark in Palm Springs.

I also got a Baby Surprise Jacket (tm Elizabeth Zimmermann) done while on vacation, from cast-on to buttons. An old friend of mine is having a baby shower this weekend. I've known her since Jr High, so I wanted to give her something a little more special than just a store-bought package of onesies. This is the fastest I think I've ever done a project (except maybe for the Easy Flame Lace Hankie, which is normally a shawl, but I just made a little square out of the lace Malabrigo sample I got at Stitches West). I'm very proud of it and can't wait to give it to her tomorrow. :) This is also the first non-family gift I've knitted.

Hmmm...let's see, what else. Oh yeah, Rugrat has anosmia, which is the clinical name for not being able to smell a damn thing. FMIL did a little research when I told her about it, and sent me an email with her findings. Turns out that it can be caused by all kinds of scary things, like a tumor (eek!) and some weird disease that would mean he wouldn't go through puberty (double eek!). So I took him to the doctor post-haste, in an effort to get a referral to an ENT. His regular doc was on vacation, and the substitute doc did not want to do the referral (WTF? It's all Kaiser, I don't see what difference it really makes) but she did send him for an x-ray and gave him allergy medication because she thinks it might be due to "inflammation." Which, no. Because it doesn't come & go with the seasons, y'all. And lest you think I'm overreacting and that he really can smell, I tested him (with his eyes closed) on: coffee beans, ground cinnamon, and white vinegar. Not a damn thing. He said they all smelled like "air."

Mr Wonderful and I are planning on doing the South Beach Diet once the kids get back in school. It's time to lose the thirty pounds I've packed on in the past year or so. Not a moment too soon. Mr Wonderful got food poisoning yesterday, and was up half the night, throwing up. And they wouldn't let him leave work early - they told him to "sip water every fifteen minutes and if you need to, get an anti-nausea shot. Then you can work through your shift." WTF?? He works in a hospital. Does it not occur to these folks that perhaps it would be good to keep the vomiting person away from patients? He might actually be contagious; they don't know. Of course, I think he was being a dumbass for not just calling in sick to begin with. When you hurl half a dozen times before your shift even starts, it might be time to call in sick. And to top it off, he's going to the Aikido class tonight. He says he has to, because it's so-n-so's last day, and so-n-so's parents are coming and everything. Whatever, dude. You can take a night off and let the other black belt guy take over, when you're busy vomiting your guts out all damn day and getting no fucking sleep the night before. I do NOT understand that man sometimes.

A summer cold

Last week Mr Wonderful came down with a nasty summer cold. I thought I'd escaped it, but apparently I wasn't so lucky...I started feeling it while I was driving home on Sunday, after dropping Rugrat off at summer camp. I just hope that he doesn't come down with it - what a disappointment it would be (not to mention a waste of money) if he had to come home early from camp!

As much as I hate being sick, at least I'm getting this cold thing out of the way while the kids are both gone (Tomboy's at her mom's this week) and before we head down for our vacation in Palm Springs next week. And I'm feeling much better today; yesterday was miserable but I got 10 hours of sleep the last two nights (thank you, NyQuil!) and have been drinking lots of liquids, so I'm feeling a bit better today. We'll see...it does tend to get worse as the day goes on, so I may be prematurely optimistic here, but I'm not as "out of it" today.

I know I've been lagging on posting here. That happens when I feel like I need to do a recap of something, and then I keep putting it off, and thinking that I can't blog about anything else until that is done. I'm talking about the camping trip we went on at the end of June, of course.

It was really very nice, and would have been ideal if it weren't for the damn mosquitoes. Rugrat got bitten so many times on his face that he looked like a boxer who'd just done ten rounds; his eye was swollen almost shut on the ride home. But other than the bugs, it was great. We spent a lot of time at the river nearby; I'd brought a huge inner tube (meant for pulling along behind a boat, so it was very sturdy) and we spent some lovely hours just floating in the water. Niece, of course, was absolutely ecstatic to be in the water - she's always been drawn to water, and would live her entire life in the water if she could. Mr Wonderful took Rugrat fishing for a little while, and I sat on the beach chatting with Sister and Brother-In-Law, knitting my cushy green v-neck sweater. You may think that wool and knitting needles are not appropriate for the beach, but hey, it's my vacation. I get to relax however I want. :)

And the food was glorious. I'd pre-made some Ribollita and some Mexican Chicken Chili before we left, and we also had hot dogs, eggs and bacon, biscuits, tacos, sandwich fixin's and snacks, plus lots of beer and soft drinks and water. Sister brought deviled eggs...mmmm....and they made us chicken-pineapple kabobs one night that were fantastic! Sister & BIL had gotten a really cool new camp stove; one side is a grill, the other is a regular burner, and it was very handy.

The best of the pictures of the camping trip are up on Flickr, if you're interested.

Oh, and let me leave you with this little snippet of conversation, overheard about 10 minutes after Sister & her family showed up:

Cousin: You suck!
Rugrat: No, you suck!
Cousin: We both suck!
Rugrat: Yeah, we both suck!

Overenthusiastic

Apparently my skin is a leeetle bit overenthusiastic when it comes to healing. I went to the dermatologist this morning for what I hoped would be my final checkup, and she wasn't happy with my scar, because it's all puffy (Dad's comment yesterday: "I just thought it was a zit!" Nice.). So I'm going back next month for dermabrasion, to grind that puppy down. Ouch.

On the plus side, we had a lovely Father's Day yesterday. Babydaddy came over for dinner last night, as did my Dad. (Dad & Stepmom are up here visiting, because Stepmom's father just passed away. Very sad, but on the other hand, it was a nice surprise to be able to spend Father's Day with my dad.) Dad got to check out my scar firsthand and take pictures of Rugrat tearing around the court on his bicycle. I got to check on Dad's Thank-You Socks, to make sure they're turning out to be an appropriate size (so far, so good!). Then Mr Wonderful BBQed some steaks, and I sauteed some yummy local white corn (freshly cut off the cob!) and put together some tasty fruit & yogurt parfaits for dessert.

Oh yeah, and Dad & I tossed back a few glasses of scotch. Mmmm...Glenmorangie. There's just nothing quite as cool as (legally) drinking with your dad.

Finito!

The two-tone ribbed shrug for Tomboy is finished! I can't believe how fast that knitted up -- I had it done in less than two weeks! I love the colors, and the cotton is gorgeous - soft and warm, with the yarn held double.

New Project!

Two-Tone Shrug
Originally uploaded by snarkmeister.

I've started on Tomboy's shrug. I bought the yarn for this several months ago, but couldn't bring myself to start the project until I'd finally finished the Spider-Man Sweater. Now that the SMS is off my needles (yay!) I'm able to start some new projects.

I cast on for the Two-Tone Ribbed Shrug (from Fitted Knits) on Monday night, and quickly realized that I'd need to finish off my Dashings (the fingerless gloves) before I could get very far, because I needed my row counter and it was currently in use for the gloves-in-progress. So on Tuesday evening I finished off the Dashings, and last night I worked for a while on the shrug again. I must say, I've made excellent progress. :) I'm really loving the yarn too - it's a solar-dyed fingering weight organic cotton by Ceallach Dyes. I'm knitting with two strands held together to make it a heavier weight & so I can get gauge. This yarn is so soft and yummy - the colors range from bright apple green to a lovely faded denim color, so it's got some visual interest (the ribbing will be all blue; I have a different skein of yarn for that). And it's going to match very well with the track suit I got Tomboy for Christmas. It will be SO cute with the pants & a white t-shirt or tank top underneath, or with jeans. And it'll be a great summer-weight layer, to keep her warm in the evenings when it gets a little chilly.

Sweater is DONE!

Finally. Finally, finally, finally, the damn sweater is off my needles.

Saturday I frantically knitted up the ribbing on the neckline, after completely screwing it up Friday night (beer + knitting apparently equals forgetting how to do knit-one-purl-one ribbing. *sigh*). We took the kids to a free church-sponsored Easter event in the next town over, and I have to say, that was the most AMAZING thing I'd ever seen. There were more than 20 bounce houses (I think they must have rented every single one in the area), a laser tag game, a rock climbing wall, easter egg hunt, hotdogs and drinks and people driving around in golf carts throwing out candy...and the whole thing was free. Every single bit of it. They must have spent thousands and thousands of dollars on this shindig. Anyway, while Rugrat was waiting in line for the laser tag, I knitted the neckline. Afterwards, we went to Tomboy's piano recital, where I finished the sweater by weaving in all the ends. And Saturday night I washed and blocked the sweater. Sunday morning it was dry and ready to go, and I achieved my goal (well, my latest goal) of finishing the sweater in time for Easter.

As you can see, the sweater is a *bit* big. The neckline in particular is huge, but the sleeves are also a little too long and the shoulders are definitely too wide. That's OK. Turns out I'm fine with that, because now he'll be able to wear it for a couple of years, probably. And he is incredibly proud and excited - he kept telling everybody we saw that his mom made the sweater just for him, and he's the only person in the world who has a sweater like that. He wore it all day on Easter and put it on over a t-shirt to wear to school today, as well. And you know what? That's just fine with me. :)

Sweater progress

Whither the Spider-man Sweater, you ask?

Well. After ripping out sleeve #2 about seven times and re-starting over and over and over, I am pleased to tell you that the second sleeve is finally, finally done. In fact I just finished it a few minutes ago (knitting on my very belated lunch break). I have started weaving in the ends, and am about 1/3 through that process. Tonight I plan to pick up & knit the ribbing on the collar, and then once those pesky ends are woven in and I block it, it will be DONE.

Done, I tell you.

So I'm hoping to get Rugrat wearing the sweater for Easter. I'll post pics when it's not only merely done, it's really quite sincerely done.

25 things

I could write a wrap-up of the Stitches West conference I went to on Saturday, but I can sum it up in one word: Malabrigo. Malabrigo Silky (half silk, half merino, in lustrous Burgundy), Malabrigo Merino Worsted (a sweater's worth in Olive!), Malabrigo Lace (lovely cobwebby baby-soft dark blue/green Vaa), and best of all, a FREE skein of Malabrigo Sock yarn, not yet released for public purchase (or even mentioned on their official website!), in the most amazing blue/green/purple colorway. I am so drooling over this stuff, y'all. I went to the Malabrigo booth and asked the vendor when the sock yarn was going to be released, and when I mentioned that I was a member of the Malabrigo Junkies group on Ravelry, he pulled out a FREE skein, all for me! Big enough for a pair of socks! Superwash merino! The colorway doesn't even have a name yet, it's just called "Test Sample" but ooooooh, all the glorious jade, turquoise, sapphire, and amethyst colors....

Anyhoo, that's not what I wanted to write about. What I really wanted to write about is a meme I saw on Keckler's blog, The Grub Report, which is really just a list: 25 things I never get tired of.

So, without further ado, here's my 25, in no particular order:

1. Spring bulbs, pushing up through the cold gray days
2. The smell of the earth when it rains for the first time after a long dry spell
3. Fresh salty sea breeze on my face
4. Cowgirl Creamery cheese
5. Mr Wonderful's whistling. He is a master whistler. He whistles along with songs, or just when he's walking or driving or whatever, and can do these amazing Disney-animated-bird trilling noises.
6. Throwing a bunch of stuff together randomly and coming up with a great new meal that everyone in the family enjoys
7. The smell of lilacs
8. Rugrat, falling asleep while leaning up against me, going all boneless and limp, and drooling just a little bit
   
9. The "aha!" moment, when a puzzling programming issue at work suddenly becomes clear
10. A buttery, melt-in-your-mouth filet mignon from Ruth's Chris Steak House
11. That moment when you just finish a wonderful book
12. The smell of a wood fire, especially when you're camping
13. Right after the cleaning ladies leave, when the house is perfectly clean (before the kids get here and mess it all up again...)
14. Hot buttered popcorn at the movie theater; I can't seem to watch a movie in the theater without it
15. Climbing into bed every night with Mr Wonderful
16. Exploring a new city, especially if it's somewhere that requires the use of a passport
    
17. Walking through the redwoods
18. Finishing a knitting project
19. Heirloom tomatoes, still warm from the sun, with fresh mozzarella, basil, olive oil, sea salt and cracked black pepper
20. Road trip!
21. Dancing with friends at a club until we're exhausted and dripping sweat
22. Hearing a great new song on the radio
    
23. Sleeping until I wake up naturally, without an alarm clock
24. Getting a pedicure: it's a fairly cheap indulgence, and it lasts for a month!
    
25. Kisses
    

Knitting fun!

This weekend I get to go to Stitches West, which is like a super-conference for knitters. I may attend one of the little one-hour classes (depending on what's still open when I go), but my main reason for wanting to go is the yarn...all the fabulous, wonderful yarn that will be on sale in the Market. It's like the vendor's hall at a regular conference. Only, instead of selling software or whatever, they're selling YARN. Glorious, fabulous, luxurious yarn. There will be Malabrigo Silky there, I just know it! I've been looking around for this yarn for a while. It's on a limited release, so you can't just pick it up anywhere. It's a blend of merino and silk, and let me tell you, that Malabrigo merino is the softest damn wool I've ever laid my hands on.

Mmmm...Malabrigo...

And laceweight yarn! There will be lots of laceweight yarn. (I have a special lace project in mind but I'm keeping it under wraps for now.)

And sock yarn. (I don't need more sock yarn, I have enough to make four pairs of socks and I haven't even started a single pair yet!)

Ooooh, and SeaSilk! Yes, I want some of that too.

Um...yeah. So, I will be leaving my credit card at home just in case I am overly tempted. I have a bad habit of showing very little self-restraint in the face of beautiful yarn.

Dashing!

I finished my first Mmmmalabrigo Dashing fingerless glove yesterday. W00t! I am really loving it. The color is so rich, the yarn is SO soft, and it's super-fantastically cozy.

Superbowl

Yesterday, Mr Wonderful and I got home from our Monterey trip just in time to watch the halftime show of the Superbowl. I've never seen a Superbowl before. Ever. I was never involved with anyone who was a football fan, because as I think I've mentioned about a hundred and fifty million times, Mr Wonderful is "not my type."

So I was pleasantly surprised to find that as I sat there knitting my Dashings in yummy yummy Malabrigo, I was actually interested in what was happening on the TV. In fact, towards the end there, I was hollering at the players like any good red-blooded American football fan. Not that I actually cared who won or lost, but that was a darn good game, and it really all came down to the last five minutes or so on the clock (which you already know if you watched the game). Very tense, y'all.

I'll have to post more about the Monterey trip later in the week, but until then, here's a shot of the jellyfish at the aquarium to tide you over. Get it? Tide? Oh, I crack myself up sometimes....

Miscellaneous tidbits

This weekend, the company I work for is having its long-overdue "holiday party". We're all heading down to Monterey for the weekend, with a Saturday night stay at a B&B in Pacific Grove, and a kayaking trip if the weather cooperates, which...it doesn't look like it's going to do. Mr Wonderful and I are extending the trip a little bit; his day off this week falls on Friday (unusual, but very welcome!) so I took the day off as well and we'll be going down there a day early, staying Friday night at the same B&B. Nice, huh? I'm looking forward to spending a lovely long weekend eating great seafood, going to the aquarium, and snuggling with my man. It certainly sounds like more fun than sitting at home watching the Superbowl. Heh.

The other day Tomboy asked me how much I liked her daddy, on a scale from one to ten. I told her "Eleven." Her eyes bugged out a little, and she asked me if Mr Wonderful and I were going to get married. What could I say? Mr Wonderful hasn't really talked to her about it yet, but she's a smart girl; she sees where things are going. I told her that we would probably get married "someday." Her reaction was predictable: "Ewww, then HE [Rugrat] will be my brother?" And of course there was the inevitable question about babies, which I told her wasn't in the cards. She actually seemed disappointed about that, but...no. Not happening.

Mr Wonderful is planning a trip in April...on a weekend that we have the kids. He has this "once in a lifetime opportunity" to go to a free, very intensive GUN TRAINING class in Nevada. Yes. Gun training. How did I end up with a guy who thinks that spending a weekend in Pahrump running around shooting paper targets with SWAT team members is fun? Totally opposite of my "type," and yet...apparently this is my type. Anyhoo, this means that I will have the kids, all by myself, all weekend. Can I just say that I am really, really not looking forward to this? Tomboy is warming up to me, finally, but I have a feeling that this is going to be a watershed moment for us. I remember very clearly how awful I was to my stepmother when my dad took his first business trip away after she moved in. I was a raging bitch, honestly. And I am not looking forward to this karmic payback, nope, not at all.

I finished my So Called Scarf! First FO of the new year. Now I'm back on track with the Spider-man Sweater; I've picked up the stitches again at the (newly expanded) second armhole and am really motivated to get the damn thing done, finally. Once it's done, I can move on to new, fun projects, like my shrug, and my first pair of socks, and Tomboy's shrug that I'm planning to make with some gorgeous hand-dyed cotton, and my stripey top-down raglan v-neck sweater, and so on...