Things I want to do in Austin before I leave:

*This list is subject to change at any time with or without reason. :-)

• Go dancing at the Broken Spoke
  
• Go swimming in Barton Springs
  
• Eat Salt Lick BBQ- Planned for 6/27
  
• Eat at Jeffrey's again
  
• See the bats
  
• Visit the Stevie Ray Vaughan statue
  
• Soak up all the live music I can
  
• Taco X-Press
  
• A day on the lake. Must talk to boat-owning friends about this one.
  
• See Toni Price's Hippie Hour at least one more time
  
• Sambet's Cajun for Shrimp PoBoy
  

More to come, I'm sure.

Dang!

Didn't get much knitting time in last night. My sewing machine's bobbin winder is broken and I'm in the middle of hacking together a very poor rendition of a slipcover for my couch. I bought the couch for $5 at a garage sale, and got a bunch of really gorgeous velvet for the slipcover for $6 a yard at a fabric store closing sale. I am no seamstress. Anwyay, I went to a friend's house on the other side of town to wind some bobbins so I can finish the darn thing.

Then BF and I had a very romantic dinner of half price cheeseburgers at Sonic. That was pretty much my night.

I plan to park myself on the couch after my workout tonight and finish the back of the Onde tank.

AURGH.

HOW many days till I get laid off? Anyway we can bump that up?

Have I mentioned recently how much I hate my job?

KnitKnack

I did get some knitting in last night, but no particularly photo worthy progress. (Didn't I post recently ranting against this very thing in other blogs?? Sigh.)

I completed the stripes and started the handles on the felted tote, henceforth known as "The Alien". This bag reminds me of the alien scarf in Debbie Stoller's"Stitch N Bitch". hence the name.

I'm about halfway through the transition to color 3 on Charlotte, approx 64 rows in. Gawd, I love this yarn. I'm already fantasizing about colors for my next Charlotte... or just rolling around in Koigu like Wendy and her friend did in their Colinette stash.... :-)

I also worked on the Onde Tank, but only did about 6 rows when I realized I couldn't sleep.

The Koigu really is amazing. The colors are just unbelievable! Such great depth and character! And I do love the way the colors play against each other in this shawl. One thing I did notice is that the darkest color (at the outside edge of the Charlotte pic from yesterday) is thicker and fuzzier than the first and third colors I'm using... Not sure if that's because of the dyes used or what, but I'm glad to be heading back into the land of more delicate yarn....

A very knitty weekend...

I got a good bit of knititng done this weekend.

First off, the Muppet was a hit. I'm really glad it turned out well!

I also made some smoking progress on the felted tote for my friend....

I need to finish this one up soon, but it goes really fast. I did all the green last night while at a dinner party chatting with friends.

I also finished all the pink on my first ball of Phildar Onde:


AND, here's Charlotte!

I finished the first color and the color transition and am now at about row 50. I am so enamored by these colors! Simply amazing.

Anyway, that's it for knitting news.

Impulse Stash Enhancement Announcement!

Oh la la. Don't ever let me go to the yarn store after a hard week at work again. Look what jumped into my car:


Yes, that's all the fixins for a Charlotte's Web shawl. I even did my own colors.
The colors are: P621, P623, P111, P118A, P109. I have no idea which is which because a very helpful woman hanging out at the LYS took the labels off before I could write down which was which. Ah well.

Needless to say, I've started it already and I am in luuuuuuuuuuuuurv with Koigu. The colors are aboslutely insane! I don't have a good progress shot, thought. I'm only about 20 rows in, but I promise pictures on Monday.

In other news, I have a FO!!!! WOOHOO!!!! Here's the Muppet:

and folded up:

She's getting washed and dried as we speak. I'm pretty pleased. She's about 31 inches square. I would use smaller needles next time (I used 10.5s? this time?) to make a firmer fabric. But all in all, I think the mother will love it. And the shower is tomorrow, so I'm sooooo over it!

Check it out!

This is my way cool high school friend/co-Stitch N Bitcher's blog! Check it out! She's such an incredible woman.
New Kid on the Blog.

iiiiinteresting....

So, I came across this in this online diet group thingy I'm doing:

Finish the following statements however you'd like.

I am...
I will...
I won't...
I do...
I don't...
I love...
I hate...
I think...
I care...
I don't care...
I can...
I can't...
I feel...
I laugh...
I cry...
I want...
I need...
I'm passionate about...

And here were my answers:
I am... going to law school!
I will... get back on the wagon starting NOW!
I won't... get any time to myself this weekend.
I do... really like the way I feel when I work out regularly.
I don't... like my job or my boss.
I love... feeling strong and capable- physically, professionally, emotionally.
I hate... being a bum and wasting time.
I think... too much.
I care... about respect- giving it and getting it.
I don't care...
I can... do whatever I set my mind to!
I can't... seem to stay focused on one thing for a long time.
I feel... energized when I take good care of myself, which spills over in to all areas of my life
I laugh... frequently at myself.
I cry... frequently these days- change and stress bring that out.
I want... to know when I will loose my job so I can start planning my move.
I need... to have a better picture of what the next 4 months will look like.
I'm passionate about... a lot of things. Taking care of myself, knitting, and being a good person.


I feel like I just learned a lot about myself. I'm really bogged down in details right now on a lot of fronts, unable to see the forest for the trees. I don't like feeling that way!

At work, I'm stuck in really boring detailed editing work. It's all nitpicks stuff that my boss has changed her mind on 5 times. Which is frustrating, when it involves changing 400 pages of documentation for stupid little changes.

In my personal world, I have no details about timing for the major events in the next 4 months, so I'm feeling really uneasy. I don't know when I'm going to lose my job, so I can't give notice on my apartment, sell all my stuff, plan on starting work for my Mom in NM, plan going away parties with my friends... I want to have a "game plan" so I can kind of picture how the coming months will look, but I have none of that right now. I could leave here in May, it could be August. Hard to start saying goodbye when it could be 3 months, yet it's hard to ignore when it could be 3 weeks.

I'm also feeling very selfish with my time. I can look at the next 10 days and see that I will have very little time to myself. Which makes me cranky. It's all stuff I want to do... But... tomorrow I have to work. Probably all day. Then I have to take care of the BF's dogs. Sunday I have church, a baby shower, and a dinner party at a dear friend's house. Monday night I will walk with a girlfriend. Wednesday night I'm taking BF's sister to see the bats. Thursday night is dinner with a girlfriend followed by Stitch N Bitch. Friday night is likely dinner and a movie, Saturday will probably go to the BF's parents' house for Mother's Day. And so on and so forth.... When can I spend some time reading? Or knitting? Or cooking? Or cleaning, working out, relaxing, reflecting??? I get frustrated when I feel like my time is being spent for me, which is precisely how I feel right now, especially since my job is sucking my soul out. :-) Yes, I'm a little on the dramatic side!

Slowly but surely...

I've started the armhole shaping on the Onde Lilith tank:


No picture of the Muppet- she's about 6 inches from being done. Tonight, I swear!!! But I DO have a kitty photo:


That's my Scooter. What a weirdo.

SNB last night was really fun. Two new gals came by- one wants to learn to knit/crochet and the other is already a stitcher. She was there having coffee wiht her folks, but may come back next week.

I am sorely tempted by the Charlotte's web colorways at Threadbear. Maybe I'll stop by the LYS this weekend to fondle some Koigu....

In other news, I called my landlord to give notice this morning. Too bad I have no idea when I'll be leaving!

On no! No pictures!

I did knit last night- 2 rows on Onde Lilith and a whole lot on the Muppet. Must. Finish. Muppet. I think I can wrap it up tonight- fingers crossed.

In other news, I am feeling very blah. I have a lot of work to do. My house is a mess. My life is going to change quite dramatically at some point in the next 4 to 8 weeks. And I can barely drag my keister out of bed in the morning.

PICTURES! It's a miracle!

Allllrighty then... click to get a larger version of the picture in a new window:

Here's the alpaca hat for my boss, right before I ripped it:


Note to self: Do NOT knit 2 strands of hairy yarn together if there is even the SLIGHTEST chance that you will someday want to rip the item. I ended up with a hairy tangled mess.

And here's the muppet, in all its Paton's Pixie glory:


This is turning out decently. I don't particularly like it, but I think the mother will. It's going to be about 31x31, and will use about 4 balls of yarn. In the future, I'd knit it on smaller needles to get a firmer, more plush fabric.

My Onde tank, about 10 or 11 inches up the back...


I think this will be SUPER cute when it's done....

And the washcloth!

socks?

I must be nuts. For some reason, I am obsessed with the idea of knitting a pair of socks in really loud yarn. Where did this come from? I have never knit socks! I did get past the heel on a pair of toe up socks using Wendy's Generic Toe Up Sock pattern and some of this yarn in highland heather. But I ripped it for some reason. And now, muted purple and brown just ain't doing it for me. Why knit boring socks when you can buy boring socks?!?!?

Check out THESE babies over at The Keyboard Biologist... I LOVE the color. I'm even tempted to pick up a copy of the book for inspiration.

Oh yeah, I've decided the boss hat must be ripped. Double stranded alpaca in Texas is a baaaad idea. Might as well just hand him a blow torch, right? Here, dude, warm your head with this! Maybe I'll just buy him a book or something and keep the alpaca for MEEEEEE! Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Camera! YAY!

My camera just arrived. Hurrah! Joy! Exuberance!

Alas, you'll have to wait till tomorrow for pictures.

Had a great night last night. Dinner with the BF, a little CD shopping, and some knitting. I feel like the muppet has a very good chance of being finished and washed before the baby shower on Saturday. Pictures tomorrow!

Oh yeah!

I ordered two knitting books- Rowan 27 and Debbie Bliss #5 from The Knitting Garden in Boston. HIGHLY RECOMMEND them- fast, great communications, and my books came nicely wrapped in tissue paper! I was really impressed and will definitely be back for more.

Have you seen the incredible colorways for the Charlotte's Web Shawl that Rob has been posting? You can check out his blog, Black Dog, for fibery goodness. I've never ordered from ThreadBear, but they have a rather cult-like following. I do wish they'd post color #s with the pictures of the Koigu, though... I think I will definitely have to make one of these shawls.

Another day, another dollar.

Well, I went home after work on saturday and just felt like junk- borderline sinus infection. So much for Hot Date with the BF! Our hot date consisted of him driving me to the grocery store to buy drugs and Kleenex. Woo hoo!

Got a lot of knitting done on Sunday, though, while doing laundry. I'm about 2/3 done with the Muppet, which is due for the baby shower this coming Sunday. I'll really need to focus on that for most of this week.

I'm about 9" up the back of the Onde tank. I sure hope it fits!

Also worked on the alpaca hat for my boss, and the black felted bag for a friend. So exciting!

I'm also culling my magazine collection. Manged to reduce 50 foodie magazines down to about 2 magazines worth of clippings. Now to tackle my Real Simple, In Style, and Martha Stewart collections.

Camera is due to arrive tomorrow- YAY!

Saturdays spent at work are kind of stinky.

So, I'm at work today. Why? I don't know! I'm about to get laid off AND I'm leaving to go back to school. So why am I wasting a perfectly good Saturday of perfect knittnig weather in the office? Because the cow dumped a ton of work on my plate at the last minute and the Big Boss wants it done ASAP. Sigh.

I did get some good knitting in last night. I'm about 8 inches into the back of the Onde tank- I'm really liking it! Almost to the halfway point on my muppet blanket, too. Which is good, since the shower is in a week. I guess I need to put down my "me" knitting and finish the muppet this week.

Will you still like me??

I'm suddenly worried that you will be very disappointed with the progress I have made on knitting projects since my camera was stolen. Ah well. I don't know why I feel like I should have been more prolific...

By the way, I LOVE seeing incremental pictures on other people's blogs. So many seem to say, "well, it doesn't look much different so I won't bore you with progress pics." BORE ME! I want to see your progress, even if it is just a few rows!

Scratch that... I luuuuuurv amazon!

I just bought a digital camera! Got a smokin deal on amazon (almost $100) less than the current price at Target). Should be here Tuesday, and then we return to our regularly scheduled Woman Obsessed with Pictures. Woohoo! And I can start selling stuff on eBay again.

NO knitting last night. Very sad. But we did have Girls' Night, and it was a clothing swap. I cleaned out my closet of too-big clothes and picked up some really cute stuff for free! WHEEEEEEEE!

luuuuuuuuurv eBay

Wait! I may be able to get a BETTER camera for LESS than the sale/floor model combo on ebay. I MUST have a camera.

Didn't get much knititng in last night, and I can't make it to SNB tonight because it's GIRLS' NIGHT with some different friends. Probably no knitting tonight, either.

Curiouser and Curiouser...

So. The digital camera I want is apparently going on clearance next week. And because it's the last camera they have, I'll get an additional discount for buying the floor model. I wonder if I can buy it now and take the receipt back for sale reimbursement next week? I REALLY want this camera!

Started on the black bag for my friend last night and made good progress. I was knitting while watching BF referee a soccer game. I tried to work on the Muppet, but it was too windy and the Muppet was catching the wind like a parachute- not conducive to knitting progress.

Anyway, I hope to spend some time at home tonight... KNITTING!