Who's tired of seeing my bathroom in pictures? Me! So I had the pants take a picture of me in the laundry room. Energy saver? Why yes I am.

I knit the kittyville hat for my niece. The hat pattern can be found in Stitch and Bitch (don't sue me!) Nation. I made the hat with lionbrand wool ease and size 8 32-inch circular addi turbos. I didn't have to switch to dpns at all except to knit the icord. This is a super fast knit and comes out really cute. I may have to make myself one in black.

Of course, I've finished this knit for my niece just about when it's too warm to wear a hat. Hopefully.

Enough about the hat, onto another subject. I have found a love for a taboo food. One that adds to the granny persona that comes along with my habits of knitting and sitting infront of the TV covered with an afghan - the dried plum. Known for years as the prune, the snack has been revamped by marketing geniuses and named the dried plum. Come on people - it's a prune. Your grandma ate them to help her poop. I love them because they're sweet as candy but full of antioxidants and fiber (are you reading this Stacy?!). I'm not ashamed. I'm coming out. I'm out and I'm proud. I like prunes. I limit myself to 2-3 a day. Don't be ashamed prune lovers of America. Eat your prune in peace without the facade of calling it a dried plum. There's no shame in regularity.

Posted by jen at 11:17 PM |Comments (15)

Thar she blows. Tubey. Maybe I like her. I like her enough to wear her with jeans. I wore her to work and she passed the test. No one asked if I made my sweater. And at knitting group that night, everyone seemed to like her. So maybe she will grow on me.

Knitting was a lot of fun last night. A lot of the ladies are lurkers on this blog. And maybe lurkers on your blog too! Encourage them to de-lurk! Here are some shots of the girls from last night. All very talented knitters.

Stacy tagged me for a meme - click the extended entry to read it. Have you seen this meme? I'm feelin the love from Carrie on this one.

Continue reading "The Infamous Bathroom Shot"

Posted by jen at 10:03 PM |Comments (12)

Da da dum! Some confessions about the sweater I'm wearing today: 1.) I made it. 2.)There is one end not woven in because I missed it. 3.) It's not blocked. 4.) I'm not sure if I like it.

I took real pictures at home. That's just a little teaser pic. So this sweater took forever for me to knit and I don't know that I like the results. I think for my body type (thicker in the middle) this is not the best choice of sweater pattern. It kind of bulges in all the wrong places, despite being too big. I do like the stripe pattern, the neckline and the sleeves. The body leaves much to be desired in my opinion. But it's done! Yay! and I am wearing it to work today and to knitting tonight. I'm starting to think I should stick to projects that are under 800 yards of yarn. Maybe I'd do better with a sweater pattern with pieces that are stitched together. I have no luck with one piece sweaters so far. I will say that I love the knitpicks Andean silk. Very nice yarn to knit with.

Now I'm in that knitting limbo with no projects started! What to do next? I have my eye on making the Kittyville hat from sNb Nation. In the meantime I'm going to knit dishrags while I decide.

House update: So far so good. We got through the inspection and didn't find anything major. We drafted the letter to the seller on what to fix and we're waiting for a response. It's really starting to feel like we own a house now. We're supposed to settle on May 31st. It seems so far away! I am officially addicted to HGTV while waiting to move. I have about 30 million home improvement projects to start on when we move in.

On a totally unrelated note, we're going to Toronto in April. Anyone have any Toronto tips?

Posted by jen at 09:00 AM |Comments (7)

Knitting and I aren't friends this week. I have no time for my dear friend Tubey. Here's a list of reasons why in no particular order:

• I'm back to going to the gym during the week. I came down with a case of temporary insanity on Tuesday and tried a new class that involved a 4 pound medicine ball and about five million squats. I followed up this class with a 45 minute spinning class. Did I mention I had temporarily lost my mind? My quads are so sore now that walking down my stairs in the morning is nearly impossible. So what am I doing to fix that tonight? Going to the gym. Um, yeah. Who am I, J.T.?
• The house inspection took place yesterday. Thank god, nothing major was found. We're asking for a few repairs and that's about it. Although I'm pretty sure that as soon as we move into the house the heater will break, the AC won't start, the roof will start leaking, and the water heater will explode and flood our basement. But that's what a home warranty is for!
• I have had the worst craving ever for sushi. So much so that even though we're on a house budget now, I made Chris take me out for spicy tuna rolls last night.
• I'm going to Atlantic City tomorrow with some friends and my parents to celebrate my parent's 40th wedding anniversary. This activity is within my budget because my parents have this magical thing called "comps." "Comps" comes to our rescue and pays for our meals, our room, and our drinks. Thank you "comps."
• The allure of the couch and television at night is so seductive. You'd be surprised at how an old episode of Dirty Jobs will glue me to the couch immobilized for an entire hour.
• Oh and then there's that whole chores, work, other stuff getting in the way. I acutally like being this busy, but it's allowed no time for tubey. Tubey - which should've been a weekend-long project is turning into a month-long project. Also one woman I know just gave birth, I just found out my cousin is pregnant (and that there's a shower) so I have some baby knitting coming up.

I leave you with this photo of sushi candles - in case you ever want sushi but can't eat it.

Posted by jen at 01:13 PM |Comments (5)

Does your husband have one? A rock and roll girlfriend? Let me introduce you to my husband's other love interest:

That's Neko Case. I'm not a huge fan. I don't dislike her, but I don't love her music. I'm going to try to immerse myself in it because we're going to see her live in April. I feel really behind in the music scene this year. Is it a sign of old age that I'm really into the Gorillaz album that other bloggers were talking about months ago?

Here's a quick tubey update:

So close to done. Just a few more inches on the body and I'll be done. I can tell its too big. But I'm too far along to care. Hopefully I will finish it this weekend, then I am on a serious yarn diet. The one thing that may break that yarn diet? The idea of this. Who's going?

House update: We have inspection tomorrow. Lets hope we don't find anything dramatically wrong with the house!

Posted by jen at 08:05 AM |Comments (8)

Oh the Project Runway Finale. If you didn't see it, I'm about to ruin it for you...

Did you see it?

Did you?

Well I know everyone is a fan of Daniel V, but I have to say that I always loved Chloe! Is it an Asian bias? Maybe. Which is funny, because technically I am not asian, but I'm always pulling for the Asian girl on tv shows. Maybe because growing up I would desperately cling to any image in mass media that was remotely Asian and not offensive. Oh how few and far between they were. I can't even think of the first Asian person I saw on TV. Margaret Cho in All American Girl? That girl from Waynes World? At least the Asian/Pacific Islander girls growing up today have Chloe Dao - and maybe Lucy Liu? I'll stick with Margaret Cho. Who is actually Korean. Anyway, I digress.

That is me trying on Tubey a few rows ago. The sleeves are awesome. The body is a little too big. I can't tell at this point, but I'm just knitting away. I do like the way the stripes are coming out.

Posted by jen at 11:25 PM |Comments (11)

Okay that title is a reference to one of my favorite poems.

So you know what work is, but this is what work looks like for me.

Or, more appropriately, what I look like at work.

We had quite a whirlwind weekend. I came down with a bad case of the snots. We looked at houses on Saturday and - hold your breath here - put an offer down on one. A little impulsive? Maybe, but we looked at a bunch of houses that day and it was so obvious that this house was such a good idea that we had to move before another anxious couple did. So the seller accepted our offer! We are now going through all the paperwork and inspections and excitedness. But I am a very superstitious person and don't want to jinx it because I've watched other people go through house buying to this point and seen it fall through for one reason or another and I don't want to count my chickens quite yet. But I'll just say that you all can START to feel excited for us.

All the snots and house stuff has put my knitting on hold for now. I have a tubey update to post soon, though.

Keep your fingers crossed for us!

Posted by jen at 12:08 PM |Comments (14)

This is how I feel when I'm driving home from a meeting in delaware when its bad weather:

I don't know why my phone keeps reversing these image, but I am driving in that picture!

Happy Friday to all my blog peeps out there. Tomorrow we're going out with a realtor to look at houses. I am so excited to look at actual houses and not just crappy pictures on the internet. I'm lucky that Chris is a patient, stubborn buyer because I'm an eager beaver that would probably put a bid on the first shack I saw. Qualities I'm looking for in a house:

• Good storage space (crafts, yarn, books, shoes, hello!)
• Will look good in pictures when I blog about it
• Condusive to parties (open areas for people to drink in)
• Natural light for good yarn/FO pics
• Broadband for blogging
• Extra rooms for visiting bloggers
• Oh yeah, and all that structurally sound business

Sunday I am having a purse party. I am also looking forward to that. Who doesn't love purses! If I can ignore the impending doom of the snots I feel coming on, then it should be a good weekend...

Posted by jen at 09:42 AM |Comments (7)