I'm off to Rochester and Toronto for a few days so I'll be absent from here and your blogs!

Do you think the men will let me visit here while I'm in town? Isn't Yarn Harlot from Toronto? Canda? Am I off base? Wow it's like knit blog sin to not read yarn harlot, I know...I know!

Posted by jen at 09:20 AM |Comments (5)

Inspired by Carrie and a 25% off Borders coupon, I bought Debbie Stoller's The Happy Hooker this Friday. The women in my family all crochet. Afghans, cozies, doilies. They're all crocheters. My mom crochets afghans and my aunt usually crocets lace doilies or lace pillow cases. My grandmother used to crochet cozies. Toilet paper cozies shaped like poodles. I kind of think that cozies are awesome. In a really kitchy kind of way. I'm not sure if I'd make one, but who knows - maybe there IS a poodle toilet paper cozy in my future.

Here is my first granny square chillin out with my copy of the book...

This weekend was nutso filled with parties. This weekend we leave for Toronto with our friends Shawn and Amy. Then next week?

Maryland Sheep and Wool.

w00t.

Posted by jen at 10:26 PM |Comments (3)

Meme instructions: Look at the list of books below. Bold the ones you've read, italicize the ones you might read, cross out the ones you won't, underline the ones on your book shelf, and place parentheses around the ones you've never even heard of.

The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown (couldn't finish it)
The Catcher in the Rye - J.D. Salinger
The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy - Douglas Adams
The Great Gatsby - F.Scott Fitzgerald
To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
The Time Traveler's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
(His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman)
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince - J. K. Rowling
Life of Pi - Yann Martel
Animal Farm: A Fairy Story - George Orwell
Catch-22 - Joseph Heller
The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
Lord of the Flies - William Golding
Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
1984 - George Orwell
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban - J. K. Rowling
(One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
Slaughterhouse 5 - Kurt Vonnegut
(The Secret History - Donna Tartt)
Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe - C. S. Lewis
Middlesex - Jeffrey Eugenides
(Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell)
Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
Atonement - Ian McEwan
(The Shadow Of The Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon)
The Old Man and the Sea - Ernest Hemingway
The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
Dune - Frank Herbert

That was a Meme from Chelsea's site that I've seen on others' blogs. Feel free to partake. I'm not quite sure what this says about me except it reflects a few books on my bookshelf that are actually my husband's that I have not read. The other thing that this brings to mind is the fact that I love to read, but I have trouble retaining the story. I have read a lot of the books listed but I couldn't quote them for you or even write a synopsis on some!

Posted by jen at 03:23 PM |Comments (3)

Two days of prednisone and my rash seems to be clearing up. I am almost back to normal color. Yay for rash free Friday.

Another good thing happened the other day when I got home from work. I got the mail and there was a suprise prize that I won from CraftySnargle Sarah a few months ago! Since the contest was a little while ago, I forgot I won, so it was like a really good suprise gift in the mail!

It's yummy yarn from Artfibers in SF! Thank you Sarah! I'll thank you in person at MDS&W if you're there!

And while I wait for my Knitpicks yarn to arrive I cast on for an ambitious project. It's the Lelah Top. I think its ambitious because it has a simple lace pattern. I have not mastered lace. I don't really like lace becuase when I mess it up I have a really really hard time fixing and finding my mistake. In fact, I already screwed up a row, but I don't think it'll affect the overall pattern. The yarn is leftover Knitpicks from my Tubey sweater. I think I have enough to make this top. I tried to do it right and make a gauge swatch, measure above my bust and do the math. So I know how many stitches I need at the bust part of my sweater, then I am doing the lace bottom on bigger needles like the pattern says. All in all it's an experiment and I will be slightly stunned if it turns out right!

This weekend there are a couple par-tays going down and my rash is going away just in time for me to put on my party shoes. Have a good weekend!

Posted by jen at 08:38 AM |Comments (4)

The bad news is that I am covered with a blotchy red itchy rash from the medicine that got rid of the snot. My doctor prescribed me a different class of antibiotics that apparently I am allergic to. It started with tiny pinprick red dots all over me and has morphed into blotchy red patches. I went back and the doc gave me some steroids to clear up the rash. It's going away little by little and people at work aren't running away in horror so much, so I think it's not too bad. But don't expect any cute pictures of me on here over the next week as this clears up. Gah! I've been answering all my phone calls "Hi how are you, I have a rash all over my body."

The rash woke me up at 6am today so I got out of bed and read some blogs and tried to decide on my next knitting project. So at 7am this morning I ordered some yarn to make this cardigan from Stitch and Bitch Nation:

I'm going to attempt to substitute the Shine Sport in Cherry from Knitpicks. I'm addicted to Knit Picks yarn. It just kills me to spend more money than that on a project. I'm saving the big spending for Maryland Sheep and Wool. I'm not even sure how to begin planning to shop for that.*

*Don't tell my husband I'm planning to spend money. He thinks I'm going to be window shopping.

Posted by jen at 08:41 AM |Comments (5)

There was Easter, complete with Easter Egg hunt, big dinner, and lots of candy.

So where have I been? From Wednesday to Saturday I was laid up with a sinus infection. I started to feel better Saturday and now I just have a nice grumbly marlboro man cough and I think that the medicine I went on gave me a rash. Well I know I have a rash, but I don't know for sure if it's from the medicine. On the upside of things, the hot pink color of the tiny dots all over my skin are very spring-like!

Posted by jen at 09:38 PM |Comments (6)

And thanks to this little girl's mommy I have a picture of my finished hat on the recipient!

Go ahead - you know you want to go "awwwwww."

Thanks Mary-Frances for sending this to me. You have the cutest baby.

Posted by jen at 03:38 PM |Comments (7)

If you read this blog you probably think I'm sick a lot. It certainly seems that way. I have a sinus infection that knocked me out for the past few days. But the doctor gave me some miracle drug that will hopefully have me bright eyed and bushy tailed again soon enough.

Before the snot, I managed to knit a hat for my friend Mary-Frances's baby. She's a cutie and will look cute in this someday.

The pattern is a mix of the little devil pattern and the bunny hat pattern from Stitch and Bitch Nation. It's too big for the baby's head. I can tell you that right now. But it's cute none-the-less. That sweater I knitted a while back and never gifted. It matched the hat so well I thought I'd send them as a set!

Speaking of Easter, I've always had a slight obsession with Cadbury Creme Eggs. I can't eat them. They're too sweet. But I want to eat one every Easter. So I usually buy one for someone I know and make them eat it infront of me. Is that weird? I also like the commercials they used to have where the bunny would be bak-bak-baking. Remember those?

Posted by jen at 08:35 PM |Comments (8)

What is up with me not getting to the weekend recap until Tuesday? I dunno about you folks, but the tree pollen is killing me this week. I'm operating in a decongestant haze. But on Saturday I was getting ready for the Neko Case show!

Here I am waiting while Chris runs to the ATM.**

Here is Chris after getting money out of the ATM. He is excited.

We went out for dinner with friends before the show at Vietnam Restaurant. I recommend it. Noodle bowls are delicious! Plus you can be like Mark and Heather and drink a "flaming volcano." The drink was ON FIRE people.

The show was really good with Martha Wainwright opening up for Neko Case. They both put on a good show. Especially if you're a fan. I'm not a huge fan - not like superfan or anything - so I was entertained, but probably would've been twice as entertained if I was a superfan. Neko Case does have huge voice that comes out of her tiny body.

Speaking of tiny, here is the tinyest picture of the stage. We were much closer than this appears to be.

**Excuse the crappy cameraphone pics.

Posted by jen at 08:24 AM |Comments (4)

I havent' been posting 'cause I got nothing people.

Nothing.

I suppose I could do a short update for you...

On the knitting front, I'm working on a very boring-to-knit but very pretty garter stitch wrap made with yarn from Rhinebeck. And I've taught two girls at work how to knit. We have short lessons at lunch. They are both really good and picked it up fast. I feel lunch knitting circles coming on.

On the gym front. I've been trying without success to go to a pilates class at my gym. See in order to go to the pilates classes at my gym you have to first attend a beginners class. Well there is exactly ONE beginners class that I can barely make it to if I leave work early. So tonight I left work early, got to the gym 15 minutes before the class started, and found out it was full. Gah! So I went to spinning instead. I like spinning class. It makes me feel hard core in that I'm-willing-to-feel-like-I'm-going-to-puke-in-order-to-be-in-shape kind of way.

On the work front, the pants started working with me this week. We worked together before at a previous job and it was fine. I know for a lot of people working with their husbands would be a nightmare, but for us it goes pretty smoothly. We barely speak to each other all day and then when we come home we try not to talk about work - so it's almost like working separately.

And lastly on the entertainment front: I saw Walk the Line on DVD last night. Could I be more behind? Johnny Cash was a troubled man. I loved the movie. Don't take pills people. There's not a June Carter out there to save everyone. That's how Elvis ended up dying on the toilet. (I know they say he didn't actually die on the toilet, but I'm not sure I buy the story that he was reading in a barber's chair when he died.) And I have tickets to see Neko Case Saturday. Some shows coming up I hope to see: Built to Spill, Pretty Girls Make Graves,, Citizen Cope, and the Captain Morgans' Festival where Ween will be playing (even though the jam bands last year made me want to scratch my eyeballs out). Who's with me?

Posted by jen at 08:51 PM |Comments (7)

There was a lot of moving preparation and moving of things around the house this weekend. Spidey's cage got a cleaning and she got moved to a smaller tank. She was not happy with me through the process of taking her out of her big cage and putting her in a small tank. The process went like this - put tiny box in her big cage, nudge her into the tiny box with the end of a chopstick, close tiny box, put tiny box in new cage, open tiny box, nudge her out with a chopstick. Yeah, I'm not touching her with my bare hands. The whole time I was wearing gardening gloves. Chris and JT both found the process amusing.

I also moved some plants to a new home:

These guys all got replanted. See, lots of moving around! I spent some time sorting through clothes and toiletries and getting rid of unwanted stuff. I made donation piles, threw out expired crap, I even got rid of old condiments in the fridge. Isn't it weird how condiments keep appearing in a refrigerator?

This weekend was also the start of outdoor party season! Yay for barbeques. Saturday we got to sit out on our friend's lawn in front of their outdoor fireplace thingy and I ended the evening watching JT drink Irish Car Bombs, with absolute certainty that he would be vomiting on my lawn. But no, the stubborn bastard instead woke up Sunday morning and ran 10 miles. Who does that? JT does that. Silly runner.

I made a cheesecake on Sunday in honor of my mom and sister's birthday (today). I haven't ever made a cheesecake before, so I'm not sure how it came out. I'll find out when we eat it at my mom's house tonight. Happy Birthday to my mom and sister!

Posted by jen at 11:52 PM |Comments (8)