A Year of Clothes Comes to an End...sort of

Marisa Lynch's project New Dress A Day has reached it's finale! Read her last blog in this 365 day journey here. I am thrilled she isn't dropping off the face of the net after her last day! But I do hope she gets some good rest before she begins blogging again. I can't imagine working a full job plus recreating outfits plus photographing and blogging.

Today was one of those days...and I'm going to write about it. To begin with, I resented waking up and going to work. Not a good way to start the morning. Luckily I didn't have to scrape the ice off my car too much and the roads weren't too slippery. But when I got to work, my mood didn't really improve. I grew increasingly frustrated with my boss, who has terrible communication skills and absolutely refuses to ask me how I am doing. When people call in sick or are coming in late, everybody needs to know!! I know I should tell her my qualms about this, but I feel that if I do, I'll feel like a parent chastising her child. Which is not a feeling I want to feel yet. I'll probably regret saying this, but here it is: if it's this difficult to communicate with her employees, her marriage must really suck. There. It's said. And I'm not erasing it. She infuriates me. And I refuse to be the parent in this situation.

Also, I'm not graduating this semester as I'm failing a class. Haven't told my parents. On the bright side, I'll be able to end my undergraduate career (ha) with a professor that I actually like (Professor Bergman or Professor Kane...both teach the class I need to take). And I won't have to fill out my graduation application until spring.

Happy Monday!
 

Happy 91st Birthday, Gram!!

Oh, how I love This Is Why You're Fat. How else would I get awesome pictures of food that I've never dreamed of???

BBQ Pulled Pork Donut Sammich

I've never quite gotten the appeal of donuts instead of bread/ bun, but apparently there's a calling for them. There were a few sandwiches like this on Man vs Food... and he thought they were tasty... so... ??

Yesterday we got a Costco membership!! With much thanks to Scott's dad =) Unfortunately we got carried away with its novelty and walked out of the store with, probably, too many things. That said, I can't wait to go back, especially on sample day!

And today is also my wonderful grandma's 91st birthday! My mom is cooking dinner and we're going to have a small party for her =)

I'm da bwoss!

I'm totally obsessed with Cake Boss!!

Love this show!!

For the past few days I've been watching it on Netflix. I love the creativity that flows through the show, especially because the medium (cake!) is something I don't have much experience working with. I also love the family dynamic that is evident in each episode; clearly family is important. And these are New Jersey Italians... so they've got two different attitudes =) and it definitely reminds me of Sophia from the Golden Girls <3 Even though they argue a lot, they also tease each other, and it seems to actually bring them closer together. Which is so odd to me!! But I love the attitude and am going to try and give Scott a harder time about things ;)

I purchased some yarn today from my LYS for a few Christmas presents: fingerless gloves. The first hank is Cascade 220 in a lovely dark green for Scott. And I bought a skein of Ella Rae for SW in a pink and kiwi green variegation. I'm not exactly how it'll knit up or how the colors will look together, but I thought the same about the grass colored yarn, and every time I wear my fingerless gloves, I can't get over how refreshing the color is.

Have to get cracking on homework so I can enjoy Thanksgiving with my family and Scott's parents
tomorrow!!

Happy Thanksgiving! 

snow day!

Brr brr... I'm a bear!

It is so cold! Around three degrees Fahrenheit outside as of 4 pm or so, but it is much colder with the wind chill. Out here in East Missoula kind of reminds me of my old house out Mullan Road because of all the snowdrifts! The roads are almost perfectly clear of snow here but drive half a mile into town and it's ridiculous the amount of snow on the road. I joke that the wind is carrying snow from here into town =) well, all the snow except the ones that get stuck in huge drifts in the carports! And on our windows! Scott thinks this is good insulation, but I think it'll just melt and leak into the house (in the spring). I remember some of the snowdrifts at my old house, where our car got stuck trying to drive over one!

Last day of school before Thanksgiving, thank goodness! Unfortunately, I still have to work tomorrow morning =/ even though most of the kids go home for break. Today was fairly slow. But then, I left at 9 am, so perhaps it picked up.

(dinner time!!)

Baby it's cold outside!

What a blustery, snowy week! It was so windy yesterday that the snow was blowing sideways! So I stayed in most of the day and finished my knitting project: fingerless gloves!! 

Berny seems to like them too ^-^

I started the first one on Friday night, after great debate over purchasing double pointed needles. This was my first project ever knitting in the round, and my first time using dpns! And I am very happy with my end result!

I'm not the best model haha

 I found this pattern in 60 Quick Knits which I mentioned in my previous post. The needles I used were size 8 and the yarn is Loops & Threads: Impeccable (found it at Micheal's) It's worsted weight, 100% acrylic, and in the color grass =) 

60 Quick Knits calls these Wrist Warmers, or something, but they cover more than just your wrist:

Chilling out on my laptop while I rest ;)

Eek!! Knitting on double pointed needles!!!! This is exactly the thing that scared me away from using dpns in the first place. But really it wasn't that tricky. Or scary.

I finished the left glove on Friday night and finished the right glove on Saturday! The first one took me four hours to complete! I didn't time the second one, but I have a feeling it took substantially less time to knit. The ribbed pattern adds a nice texture and it also helps break up the monotony while knitting.

The lone needle in the middle is the marker for the thumb!

While I had my camera out, I figured I should take a few shots of my other finished projects:


The oh so multi-colored Granny afghan! (it wasn't finished at this point)

Berny loves it!! haha

Ta-daaa!! Finished and on the bed. That's a queen sized bed, so the afghan is very very large =) I haven't actually measured it. But I'm very pleased with how it turned out, and I'm positive I'll be crocheting more just like it (maybe less colorfully sporadic)

And this is a knit rib scarf for my brother's girlfriend for Christmas:

close up! trying to show off the ribbing

I love love love ribbing! It looks fantastic and it's so easy and quick. And after these knitting projects, I have knitting on the brain so much that I can't help myself examining all the knitting around me! Basically all my clothes and fabrics are knitted, so I can see why I'm so hooked on it. It's an art that surrounds me; I'm submerged in it (although, I willfully subject myself too).

Alright, I must start some homework! 

Happy knitting and I hope everyone is staying warm!!

I caved

I caved and bought 60 Quick Knits from the UM bookstore. It's originally $17.95 but I got a student discount which knocked almost two dollars off. Funny, though, I've never gotten a student discount at the bookstore before... it sure would be handy at the beginning of every semester when I have to buy school books!

This was the first, practically full-price knit or crochet book that I've purchased ever, I think. Let's see...

Found 7-Day Afghans at Powell's for only $3.99
Scored Stitch 'n Bitch at Goodwill (of all places!!) for $2.99
Bought an afghan book (blue ribbon or something like that) at Salvation Army for like $1!

So yes, I do enjoy a good deal! And I especially love hunting for them. Today has shown me that I'm not completely frugal, which is kind of relieving, really. Although, all the money I save by buying used craft books I spend on lots of yarn... so am I really saving??

Man! I need to take some pictures already! I think for Christmas I want a nice digital camera that has a good macro on it (is that possible?) My idea is, that if I have a camera that takes a good photo, I'll be more motivated to take pictures and upload them. Unlike my current one, which is a clunky old thing that only has 3 megapixels, or something. hey. it was $50 at Target, I think.

Well, in my dreams I'd love a nice, digital SLR Canon, but I definitely don't have the dough for that.

Still working on Christmas presents. About to start one now actually, if it goes well. Something like this:

via http://www.reachperspective.com/?p=ggniwtts&paged=8

But really, I'm altering a pattern for a cable headband like this:

via http://terrificfibers.blogspot.com/

to fit a cup! I haven't tried my hand at cables before and they look so beautiful. Plus, a girl in one of my lit classes has a cabled cup snuggy and it looks awesome!

There are so many patterns and pictures of pretty knits on the web!! I just google imaged "knit cable cup warmer" and found so many! Plus, quite a few good blogs to start following ^-^

Happy knitting! And it's almost Friday!!

Knit ribbed scarf

Picture!!! 

This is the very first knitted scarf that I have finished ^-^ All other scarf attempts I ended up frogging. But this one, not this one, I finished it! I don't think I will add fringe; the yarn seems like it would split. Like I said in my previous post, this one is going to my brother's gf, JH for Christmas! I hope she will like it. I gave it a test run and it is very warm. It was very simple and a good starting foundation for more scarves like it in the future. It's just k2 p2 to make the ribbing.

I'm playing around with the template and design of the blog, because I wasn't very happy with the original. But I'm not very happy with this one either haha I'll just keep playing with it and hopefully find one I'm content with. What I really want is a separate page to show my projects individually, in a nice table of contents way.

Today has been an odd day. Full of ups (our Powell's order arrived *early*!!! a wonderful surprise!) and downs (being accosted by the legless diabetic while grocery shopping). Maybe accosted is the wrong word, but I pretty much feel violated in some way when she panhandles to me, or when I see her doing it to someone else. I don't know why it makes me so angry. 

Reading Miko Kings; An Indian Baseball Story for Native American literature. It's written by LeAnne Howe. At first it seemed like it would be a really interesting non-fictional book about one of the early Indian baseball teams. Nope. Seems to be historical fiction narrated in the most absurd and horrible way, including the narrator being visited by the Miko King's manager's niece and hearing the story through this ghost. At this point in the book, I can't help feel that the author is trying waaay too hard and I don't have much interest in finishing it. Really, it's a case of false advertising, right? You can't mislead people, through the title and book cover to make them think that what they are holding in their hands is a book representing a real life story about real life Indians playing a real life MF baseball game, and then make them sit through pages and pages of a narrator who has her own identity issues deal with an uneducated ghost talking about math and theorems and physics that exist in literature. You just can't.

/rant ... 

On the flip side... it's Sunday, and we just got a bunch of groceries. I bought breakfasty type food that should make waking up at 5am a little easier, I hope. This includes wheat English muffins, peanut butter, apple juice, frosted-covered mini wheats (I'm also planning on taking a baggie of these to work as well, eat them throughout the day). I'm trying to go the fiber route. Plus we got REAL coffee, none of that Dunkin Donuts crap. They do a really good job advertising, tv and on the product, but when you taste it, the coffee is very bland and very weak. The added Pumpkin Spice flavor seems to be there only so you don't notice the weak coffee. This is probably ideal coffee for people who don't like coffee flavor (they're nuts) and who probably add a bunch of cream and sweetener.

Last thoughts:

Considering work at Subway again, once my coffee job is up

Slightly depressed about school

It snowed today

jaa ne

Ohmygosh!!

I have no idea how I've gone this long without knowing about Ravelry!! but I just signed up and shortly after I created my account (seriously, within seconds) a message popped up on Ravelry saying they have 1,000,000 Ravelers!!! I might have pushed them to the top!! probably not, but I was super close in there =)

Good news about my dad, well, good and bad, he does have prostate cancer but it's not a very bad form of it and the doctor said that it's easily treatable. In fact, there are several options my dad has to choose from, in terms of procedures. Plus, it's not so severe that it needs to be operated on right now, like mom's was...that was a pretty scary time.

In other news, Scott and I have decided to stay up all night. I'm not too sure where this idea came from but I'm rolling with it =) as this will be my first all-nighter, I'm pretty excited! o wait, I did pull one when we camped out for Griz-Cat tickets... but that had a goal, which was football tickets. Tonight is for our sheer ability to do it. (not going to lie, it would be more fun if roommate wasn't here... we'll have to keep it down). I wish we didn't need to sleep so much! Even if we only slept for four hours, we could still get so much more done in a day! I've definitely been wishing this since I've started this coffee job. Early mornings means early bedtimes, and I'm so unmotivated to do anything after school (which is over at 2pm everyday). I end up feeling like I've wasted my whole day to work and school.


oh! Aren't these so cute??!!

via not martha

Little gingerbread houses to sit on your mugs of cocoa!! not martha is brilliant!! plus, she's convincing me that *i* can knit my own sweater...!! I might have to wait to start until after Christmas season, though.


Also, I finished my very first *knitted* scarf today!!! I binded off and everything! (bound off?) I'll take pictures tomorrow and post them. I'm thinking it will be a Christmas present to JH, my brother's girlfriend. Currently in my life, I know at least three or four JH's...so this is kind of confusing.

Still need to finish BL's afghan, but now I'm pretty focused on finishing it, so hopefully it won't take long at all. And maybe it will end up being a lapghan. Coincidentally I'm making the brown and white striped afghan I started like a year ago, into a lapghan because frankly, I'm tired of it sitting unfinished in my closet =P

Haha, we might actually NOT stay up all night after all... negotiating around roommate is proving more unwarranted than necessary. We'll see what happens.

Konbonwa!
<3

Sestina time

The first sestina I wrote was in high school, probably sophomore or junior year. The next one I wrote was in a poetry workshop last semester. The time has come (again) the walrus said, to talk of many things. Of ships and shoes and sealing wax, of cabbages and kings! And while the sea is boiling hot, and whether pigs have wings.

Sidetrack, apologies. I actually had two weeks to write this, but of course, I procrastinated until it's due. But, I'm not too worried because I may have finally accepted the form (haha). Anyway, I thought I'd link a very clever sestina on McSweeney's. This one has a very meditative quality to it, which is what I like most. And also, it's a really neat take on the form.

Scott and I just got home after a Heavy Horse adventure. We did not locate any bottled, so I think it really is gone until next year =( o well. We ended up buying boxed wine (yes, a BOX) to try it. Considering price and quantity, it's a good deal, but it's not the most flavorful. However, it's very drinkable and it is wine...so... it ended up being the equivalence of four bottles for $16? I think. I've never had a $4 bottle of wine, but I have had pretty cheap wine and it's horrible. And this box wine isn't nearly as bad. So I think it's a win! except for the not finding Heavy Horse part.

On the bad news part, my dad might have prostate cancer.. his doctor called and I answered, and the doctor wouldn't tell me the results. I have been praying and hoping that everything will be alright. I think we should know tomorrow.

But let's end on a happy note, ok? I'm looking at my precious Bernbern who is sleeping on her cat tree facing me, and she looks completely peaceful ^-^ Her eyes have the contented look to them. Let us all sleep so beautifully.

Knitting!

I think I mentioned in my last post that lately I've been feeling a desire to knit a hat. I found an awesome website called KnitPicks that has an abundance of resources and should be very helpful in any knitter's project. The magazine I have been reading calls for dpns, but on this website they use a circular needle, which I think would be much easier for a beginner (read: me). So I think I'll start with their Easy Peasy Hat and work my way to dpns. Although, if I simply started with dpns then everything else would be easy to use, right? Because I'm starting out with the trickier of the three?

While watching KnitPicks videos, I stumbled on this one: (haha)



I haha'd because I doubt I'll ever be that fast!! Partially because I knit the other way (there's continental and English??) and I'm just not a proficient knitter. But I love to watch her fingers!

Well, I better start my day. At the University today there is an event happening that's all about energy efficiency and tips on winterizing your home. I would like to go to that. I also have a bunch of laundry to wash... and I really want to try my hand at knitting a hat! Although, I feel bad because I have so many crochet projects that I haven't yet finished either... I wonder if the world's fastest knitter ever gets tired of knitting? Does she actually enjoy herself while she's knitting, or has it become so routine?

Anyway, happy weekend!

Fell asleep, now I have warm beer =/

It's true, I fell asleep while watching a show about advertising after pouring a mug of Scape Goat Pale Ale (from Big Sky Brewing, oh yeah). Actually, we went to the brewery to refill our growler with Heavy Horse, the most delicious beer in the world BUT, it's a seasonal beer and they have run out until next year =( Scape Goat is an alright second choice, but just doesn't have the same round flavor.

Today started out very hectic and very chaotic. And very stressful. I think everything will turn out ok. And! I'm finally finished with midterms! Geesh, they spanned at least three weeks. My last one today was a spoken word poem with A.M.B. in Storytelling!! Our poem was about how much we hate being asked what we will do after we graduate, especially as English literature and creative writing majors (which was our audience too). It seems people often think there aren't any jobs out there that require a literature or writing degree, and insinuate that when they ask their question. Mostly I hate the question because I'm not sure what I'm going to do... except keep crocheting and reading and writing, and I'm going to be happy doing that. I was so nervous that it would fall flat once we performed, but I think the class loved it! We had a lot of passion behind it, and you can't ignore passion like that =) Even though I loved the feeling of performing, I am sooo relieved to be finished with it!

At this point, I don't have any pressing deadlines and feel pretty much on top of the world ^-^ I've been reading an old Knit Simple lately and I think I'm going to attempt to knit a hat...! It should be a great learning experience for me.

Happy knitting!

What a wonderful, wonderful day!!

This phrase keeps running through my head, cue Gwen Stefani's "Wonderful Life" ^-^

This morning started with a wake up phone call around 8 am, which resulted in us returning $200 found money to its owner. And then our internet was installed shortly after, so we have internet in our apartment again! woot! Meanwhile, I've been cleaning a little, so I feel slightly accomplished in the housecleaning area, since I'm not very good at it =)

OH!! and the cherry on the top of this delightful morning? (as it is not even noon yet!!) Not only do I not have school or work (it's Election Day!) and have the day off with my goose, but we just ordered BOOKS from POWELL'S online!! I won't lie, I did it mostly to get the free tote...

here's the site so check it out for yourself and get a tote!

Today is definitely a catch up day for homework!! bah !!! But I really do need to finish some things. I wonder if the second half of this day will stand up to the first half? ;)

Sigh. Why can't we have all Tuesdays off??