This weekend was quite social for this old married lady. On Friday I arranged an impromptu party-like gathering at our apartment that included beer and pizza and more beer. And people coming over. And beer.

Saturday was my brother-in-law John's birthday so we went down to visit for the night. Here is a picture of Chris's dog that lives at home still. She did not move away and go to college, never to come back like Chris. She did however, eat an entire cheeseburger that my father-in-law accidently dropped on the floor.

We also saw one of these giant dogs at my nephew's hockey game. In this picture it looks like a furry black rock. But in real life it was huge and there were two of them and they were very patient as my niece repeatedly threw herself on top of them.

That night included a couple of cocktails, trips to two different casinos, and a grilled chese and tomato sandwich consumed at 3am. Ahh, it was like the good ole days. Oh and I won $70 on the nickel slot machines. I felt like a millionaire.

Yesterday I took the best nap I've ever had in my life and then we watched The Aristocrats. I would give that movie 3 laughs out of 5. I didn't love it, but it was amusing.

Posted by jen at 09:41 PM |Comments (1)

I went to knitting group last night. I don't think I post enough about knitting group. As far as I know I'm the only blogger in the group. (Though I think that a new member, Lesley, does blog I don't have her url.) The group is full of a lot of fun girls including Zoe, whose patterns you can buy on Knitpicks! She's our group celebrity.

At any rate, I finished knitting the anklettes I started a while back while I was at group last night. Everyone else is working on a Branching Out knit along. I just can't bring myself to start it right now. But here are the anklettes! I wore them to work today!

Yarn: Patons KroySocks in Fancy Free
Pattern: Free anklette pattern I found online

This yarn is okay. And the pattern is quick. It's not my favorite. I enjoyed the jaywalkers better. And the socks that rock yarn is much softer.

I also finished knnitting the secret project that many of you guessed the nature of. I worked a little on it in the car last weekend, but finished it at home. It's my first FO of 2006!

Posted by jen at 07:41 PM |Comments (4)

Tagged by Skylar:

What were you doing 9 years ago?

I was just starting my 2nd summester of college, so I was going to class, living in the dorms with my freshman year roommate Brianne and I was just about to break up with my high school boyfriend. I think I was working at Victoria's secret for extra cash. I was going to frat parties. And I was probably watching the X-Files. I was 19 years old.

What were you doing 6 years ago?

I was 22 years old and was finished school, even though I hadn't walked for graduation yet. I was living in Glassboro with my two roomates Jax and Lisa and my boyfriend at the time. I was about to get engaged to him, but didn't know it yet. I worked at Channel 10 in Philadelphia as a production assistant. Later that year I would get engaged, move, break off the engagement and start dating my now husband. Quite a year.

What were you doing one hour ago?

Watching a repeat of the Gilmore Girls, reading your blogs and eating a Klondike Slim-a-bear bar.

Name 3 movies/tv programs you can’t turn off if you stumble across them on television.

gilmore girls, project runway, Dr. 90210

Name 3 things you want to improve upon this year.

My yoga poses, My lack of owning a house, my inability to run for more than 2 minutes

Name 3 things you can’t live without.

Besides the givens of food water and husband:
Tivo, Coffee, Snacks

Name 3 things you could…

Mondays, Deadlines, Sinus headaches

Name 3 things you really like about yourself.

Making people laugh, I can cook, I get along with almost anyone

Tagggggggg....JT, Lisa (do it on myspace) and Chris now that your blog is back in effect.

Posted by jen at 09:29 PM |Comments (27)

This weekend we saw The New World, a film by Terrence Mallick. I really liked it. We went to see it at an "arty" theater that is usually filled with an older crowd that often seems out of place. (There's nothing quite like watching the lesbian scenes in Mulholland Drive with men older than your grandfather shifting uncomfortably in their seats behind you.) So maybe they haven't heard of Terrence Malick. Maybe they didn't see The Thin Red Line, and weren't aware that the pace of his movies is sleepily surreal. At the end of the movie there was a lot of grumbing from the people around us about how boring it was and how it was a waste of two hours. Anyway - my point is that I LOVED IT. Four of us went to see it and we all liked it. It had a leisurely pace to it, but the story was really great. It's basically an interpretation of the life of Pocahontas and her interactions with the colonists and John Smith. If you don't mind movies with a slow pace and lots of romance, then I'd say go see it. It was awesome. I don't even really like Collin Ferrel that much, but he was good and Christian Bale was in it. Collin Ferrel AND Christian Bale. And they actually had accents. How could those other people in the theater be bored?

By the way, the husband has started upudating his blog again. You can go check it out and pressure him not to let another year lapse between entries.

Posted by jen at 07:38 PM |Comments (3)

If you're in the yahoo group that I moderate with my fellow knitting group-er, Kristina, then you've heard about this whole thing. Basically a store in NY called Sew Fast Sew Easy is having websites like Yahoo and Cafe Press send cease and desist type emails to people who use the phrase "Stitch and Bitch" in their group/store/website names. Yeah. So I got this email the other day telling me I had to change the name of my yahoo group b/c it was infringing on the trademark for the phrase stitch and bitch. So I did, because I didn't want them to shut down our little website. Our website that doesn't make any money, or sell anythiing, or advertise anything, and involved about 30 people - yeah that website. Anyway - it turns out I've been under a rock for a while because this kind of thing is all over the internet! Gosh I'm behind the times!

That website linked at the top of this entry is selling items on Cafepress to raise money for a lawyer to work on the whole thing, or as I'm reading now, to help Deb Stoller.

Deb Stoller (editor of my favorite magazine, Bust) wrote a letter on the SnB.org website addressing the situation.

There's also this informative bit of info. And more information.

Bottom line - I think it's a little ridiculous that they're sending out these letters and disabling websites of little knitting groups like the one I go to. Of all the people, believe me our knitting group is not making money off of this. I am not a trademark expert, I do not know much about what's going on with this, but it just feels wrong, you know?

Posted by jen at 11:14 PM |Comments (3)

Ok, for lack of interesting things going on to blog about right now, I offer up the sort-of-regular feature on my blog - "Fun With Scans." The first episode covered my first holy communion. Last episode I covered an old trip to Disney World and my proms.

Today I will cover, for no apparent reason, 1989.

Here I am in the summer of 1989:

Notice my hot outfit. That's right - a shirt with the suspenders attatched to it. Did anyone else rock this look? I would normally wear this with two pairs of scrunchy socks on - one green and one white. Oh yeah - and my keds or my LA Gear sneaks. Good times.

And for the winter of 1989:

What is going on there? Is that a giant sweater? I remember those boots. They're really ugly. Some sort of greyish blue material. And those are stirrup pants I'm wearing. Hot. I'm still trying to figure out why I dressed like a geriatric immigrant when I was younger.

So in 1989 I was 12 years old, which puts me in 6th grade. The first Bush was in office. Ted Bundy was executed. Seinfeld premiered. The Menendez Brothers shot their parents. The Berlin Wall was torn down. The US invaded Panama. I was probably watching shows like Murphy Brown, The Cosby Show, and Designing Women. I guess 1989 was a pretty tumultuous year in some ways for the United States (information thanks to Wikipedia). But I was too busy trying to match my stirrup pants to my scrunchy!

Posted by jen at 09:04 AM |Comments (8)

We had quite an adventurous weekend. On Saturday we went to Ikea and bought a TV stand and some other randomness like this lamp, sitting next to my sheep print.

I really do like Ikea. After some cursing, Chris got the TV stand together and I think it makes the whole livingroom look much nicer. Plus it's actually strong enough to support our tv without bowing in the middle - for now.

See what's on the TV? We've been watching the Frontline documentary by David Sutherland, Country Boys. We tivoed it and we're on part three now. This is a really interesting story of two boys growing up in Kentucky. It's really engrossing to watch these two kids growing up in a place that is so different from where I have lived. The pace of their town and the way people talk makes it feel like a historical documentary, but it's very recent. I highly recommend it. I'm sure someday the DVDs will be available for renting, but right now you can watch the whole show online.

Saturday night a storm blew through and on Sunday when we woke up we had no power. The power was out from 9am to about 5 or 6 pm. It finally came back on right when we were about to leave to sleep over our friend's house. The power being out sucks, but we cleaned the whole apartment and ran some errands.

I've been working on a few knitting things, but nothing I'm ready to really show yet. This is a secret project and I cannot yet reveal what it is.

I'm full of secret knitting projects lately!

Posted by jen at 07:25 PM |Comments (6)

I am having trouble choosing my next knitting project. A poncho? A cardigan? My only rule for my next project is that it has to be able to be made from my stash. You'd think this would be easy, but it's not considering that during the beginning of my knitting career, I only bought two skeins of everything I liked. So basically I can make scarves, or a technicolor coat of dreams.

I also have a little blogblock right now since there's not too much interesting going on. My brain is on winter haitus while I wake up, go to the gym, work, sleep, rinse, repeat. Some interesting tidbits for you:

1.) I bought three pieces of clothing at Target that cost less than $10 each and I've worn them to work. Is it a fashion no no to wear clothes from the clearance rack at target?

Heidi says yes, but I say NO!

2.) I moved desks at work and now I can see out the window and stare all day.

3.) I baked delicious cheesecake squares

4.) I love this oatmeal.

5.) I officially need something more interesting to blog about!

Posted by jen at 11:05 PM |Comments (11)

Not to play favorites, but two of my NON-KNITTING bloggy friends got a gift from me. A post-Christmas knitted gift! I made them flower pins from the Hand Knit Holidays book Chris got me for my birthday!

Here is Jen wearing my flower pin! Check out her blog.

I also knit Stacy a flower and she wrote me an awesome thank-you poem! And she also promised to put up a pic soon.

Knitting for these non-knitting bloggy friends is the most satisfying knit-gifting experience ever! It's good to give something to someone who really appreciates your work. Not like those unappreciative babies who just drool all over that hand knit sweater! Just kidding. I like baby knitting, too.

So now, a part of my knitting lives in MN. My yarn gets more vacation time than I do!

Posted by jen at 10:42 PM |Comments (5)

My yoga teacher talks about finding your edge and snuggling up to it rather than jumping off of it. Well is this an example of snuggling to my blogging edge? I worked a full day yesterday and then came home, ate dinner and worked some more until 11:30pm. I got up at 6am to make it to a client meeting at 8:30am today. So when I got home from work tonight I was too tired to make dinner and made a grilled *soy* cheese sandwich and tomato soup. I realized 20 minutes later I never turned the pot of soup off. The pot, was bubbling over and the bottom was really burnt out. Well, ruined really. For a second I thought, hey, I could throw this out and Chris would never know i ruined a pot. We have at least two similar pots anyway.

But wait.

If I did that, then I couldn't blog about it.

So I told him when he came home.

See - blogging keeps me honest.

And in knitting news - here is a mystery project I am working on. It's what my aunt would call "an experiment in terror." We'll see how it turns out.

Posted by jen at 10:50 PM |Comments (5)

So I didn't buy that much music, or watch that many movies, or read that many books for that matter this year. I think that's actually a testament to how busy this year has been. I got married, worked a lot, travelled, and had a lot of good times! I also think that I have a terrible memory for things I saw, read, or heard. But I like these end-of-the-year lists. And what are blogs for if not for talking about things you like?

Starting with:

Best Knit of 2005
My "Fiery" Bolero:

Favorite Albums that I'm positive came out in 2005
Decemberists - Picaresque
Sleater Kinney - The Woods
Kings of Leon - Aha Shake Heartbreak
Fiona Apple - Extraordinary Machine
Bloc Party - Silent Alarm

Favorite Movies I watched on DVD in 2005 (In other words, these are old)
My Life Without Me
Before Sunrise
Shaun of the Dead

Favorite TV of 2005
The Office (US version)
Lost Season One
Project Runway
Arrested Development
Scrubs
Gilmore Girls

The Books I read in 2005 that I remember liking
Little Earthquakes
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime
Harry Potter 6 (Yeah that's right! What of it?)
All I Did Was Ask (Terry Gross - local NPR "celebrity")

And for Stacy - My favorite food of 2006
Nutragrain Low Fat Eggo Waffles with Peanut Butter for Breakfast

As for resolutions - I didn't make a weight loss resolution, but I did make one to try to make it to yoga about 4 times a week. And to stop getting sinus infections. And to try to buy a house this year. Oh, and to buy a dog to go in that house. (By the way to those who asked, I am feeling better, thanks!)

This past year has been nuts - I got married people! And I moved! And I met fun folks at Rhinebeck and I really, really, really, had fun reading your blogs and emailing all of you and getting to know you.

Look for a site redesign in 2006 and more obsessive list making and more narcissitic blog entries. I may even try to brush up on my spelling and grammar so my entries are easier to read. Happy (belated) New Year!

Posted by jen at 08:32 PM |Comments (8)

Details:
Knit with Socks that Rock in unknown colorway (still think it might be Xmas Rock). Knit on Turbo Circulars Size One in Magic Loop method.

These socks are pretty cool. I still am not convinced that I am a sock knitter, but I liked knitting these, and the magic loop method is really easy to master and so much better than four dpns.

Yay me.

Posted by jen at 08:34 AM |Comments (18)