directions for addressing christmas cards

fig. a, proper equipment configuration

1. eat dinner
2. prepare tea
3. clear off table for illusion of cleanliness so that messes are less distracting (i.e., put stuff from table in chairs and shove under table to hide from self)
4. acquire dessert and have it standing by
5. play christmas music at suitable volume for christmas card writing--keep remote for stereo handy in case of phone call or violent mood swing
6. open card boxes and set cards up slightly for maximum efficiency
7. lay headset nearby so that phone calls do not interrupt writing
8. pull extra chair over for cats so that they don't jump into the middle of the cards to get attention and spill tea all over everything in sight(learned from experience)
9. put hippie in back room with computer hardware to avoid hippie-related distractions
10. write until carpal tunnel declares a cease fire

repeat 10 steps each evening until all cards are ready to mail.

if further instruction is required, please click on figure a, which has notes to clarify questions about the proper setup.

i also noticed that all the cards we have received from friends have snowflake stamps, all the cards from family have flag stamps, and all the cards from people outside our normal card-sending group have religious stamps. i have no idea yet what this means, but i am working on it.

around the house...

slowly, but surely i have been decorating for christmas. the tree is up and decorated, the snowflake lights are hung on the porch, the stockings are hung, the christmas linens are on the table, and the mantle is slowly filling with christmas cards. you should see the living room, however--stuff EVERYWHERE! i have to clean up from decorating

(i love unwrapping my favorite ornaments, but man, does it ever make a mess)! that's on the list for tonight, the first night without any plans in literally weeks. my whole plan is to address christmas cards, wrap presents, and blast my christmas music. if i can swing it, i may even make some cookies. worse than ever before, christmas has crept up on me this year. we have a ton of fun stuff going on, but man, it's a little over-the-top busy, too! there are so many things i usually do that i have just had no time for. i have amarylis and paperwhite bulbs, which i bought a month ago and have not yet taken out of the bag, much less planted. i need flowers on my table and wreaths on my doors. i am looking forward to next week, when the majority of my commitments are over and i can sit still. knit. finish things up. bask in the light of my christmas tree.

meanwhile, i am a widow to this ----->

christmas has come early for the hippie--he's building a new computer. he's so excited, and it's GREAT to watch him messing with it--he's like a--well--a kid at christmas! this week, he's left me for all his new hardware. tonight as i write out cards and bake, he will be tinkering and swearing in the back room and having the time of his life. all this frivolity comes at a price, however: the back room looks like this.

christmastime at the cedars

this weekend was the last for our favorite B&B, the cedars in beaufort, nc. on sunday the last guests checked out and they locked the doors for the last time. since the hippie and i have been living togehter, we have gone to the cedars for weekend getaways a couple of times a year. they know us, and we feel like their house is an extension of our own, but without all the chores. the sad thing is that one of the owners have sold out for personal reasons, which we definitely understand. unfortunately the people who bought the inn opted to close it and turn it into condos, which just makes my skin crawl. we are talking about two VERY old and well-keps houses, one built in 1768, and the other in 1814. the new owners are planning to take all the antiques up to their mountain home, gut the insides, and sell them as 2 condos each. blah. luckily we were able to reschedule a few things and go down there for one last weekend. it was FABULOUS as always, if a little bittersweet. i'm actually glad we went for the next-to-last weekend instead of the last. i think i would have been too sad.

by total coincidence, we happened to be in beaufort when the town was holding all manner of christmas frivolity. the shops were open later than usual, some with refreshments and drinks. and the best part was that went to the annual christmas flotilla, which was a blast! all these boats decorated to the HILT for christmas, sailing in from morehead city. people were lined up all along the waterfront 5 and 6 deep. a brass band blasted christmas carols while people laughed and talked and hung out, and there was more than a little drunken frivolity from the boat owners as well as the crowd. we stood outside and watched the whole thing and then went out for an excellent dinner at sharpie's, one of beaufort's many fine restaurants. we also did some poking about, some massive breakfasting, some meeting of strangers, some napping, and some sitting still. it was fabulous and relaxing and utterly the Right Thing.

here's my favorite picture from the whole weekend. you can click on it to get to the rest of the pictures if you wanna.

nevermind that it's taken me a whole week to get around to posting about last weekend. i'll get around to posting about THIS weekend sometime this week. i've just been SLAMMED, both at work and at home. i actually took friday off just to run errands--it's that bad.

how many days till christmas??! somebody send me some valium!

a holiday meme

WOW! i got tagged for something--this is a first. apparently meredith tagged me on tuesday and just realized it today. that should tell you something about how this week has been. i took today off just to get errands done. but anyway--i HAVE to respond since this is the first time and all. so--here you go: jackie's first meme!

1.Egg Nog or Hot Chocolate? Hot chocolate.
yes, please. maybe not one right after the other, but i love both! i like making both, and i like drinking both. yum. (i have some fabulous recipes if y'all want 'em.)

2. Does Santa wrap presents or just set them under the tree?
who is this santa person of whom you speak? i busted my parents doing the santa thing when i was 4, and that was it for me and santa. however. all gifts should be wapped. also, ribbons are for tying.

3. Colored lights on tree/house or white?
i like colored lights AND white lights. and i think you can take either one TOO FAR. i used to have some colored tree lights, but last year SOMEONE vacuumed the plug right off them, so now--the tree is white. i have twinkly lights inside the tree and white paperwhite lights from smith & hawken on the outside. outside, i just have lights for the porch--those are snowflake shaed and therefore must be white. but i like colored ones too.

4. Do you hang mistletoe?
yes, if i make it to the farmer's market or my parents' house. i am a fan of kisses.

5. When do you put your decorations up?
anytime after turkey day.

6. What is your favorite holiday dish?
roast beast. mmmmmm...

7. Favorite Holiday memory as a child:
getting lifted up by my daddy to put the star on top of the spindly cedar tree we always had. i remember the smell and the feel of his hands and the prickliness of the needles like it was yesterday.

8. When and how did you learn the truth about Santa?
the aforementioned 4-year-old busting of the parents. i was determined to stay up till santa came so i could see him. and i did.

9. Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve?
absolutely. i open a gift every chance i get, and i am Very Bad at waiting!

10. How do you decorate your Christmas Tree?
the hippie does the internal lights (because he loves me), and then i put everything i own on there. i want more decorations. no themes or anything--i just put ornaments on it. and any time i come across an ornament i like, i grab it, too. it's a total hodgepodge of stuff.

11. Snow! Love it or Dread it?
love. love. love. snow always meant a day off from school for me to read and sled and make snow cream (and watch bewitched without having to preend to be sick). now it means making a big pot of stew and a fire and snuggling in with the hippie. as long as the power doesn't go out, i'm good. i really AM dreaming of a white christmas.

12. Can you ice skate?
um. no. i tried it once, and well--my knees did not have a good time.

13. Favorite Holiday movie:
love actually. also on the list of DVD contenders are the following: the family stone, how the grinch stole christmas (the REAL one, not that jim carrey nightmare), rudolph the red-nosed reindeer, the peanuts christmas special, holiday inn, christmas in connecticut. guilty pleasure: i really liked the first home alone.

14. What is your favorite Holiday Dessert?
i am a HUGE fan of christmas cookies. and pie. a thing has only to be homemade for me to want to eat it.

15. What is a favorite holiday tradition?
cristmas eve dinner with friends. i get to cook and have a house full of people and treat everyone! and then when everyone's gone, the hippie and i open our presents to each other.

16. What tops your tree?
a brand new russian glass thingy. but until this year, it's always been a light up porcelain angel i've had since i was 15. poor angel is looking a tiny bit rough, so i gave her a break this year.

17. Which do you prefer: giving or receiving?
giving!!! LOVE shopping for gifts, LOVE making gifts, LOVE wraping them up all pretty! what i don't love is MAILING, and i have to do a lot of it. i am always late--ask anyone.

18. What is your favorite Christmas Song?
santa baby by eartha kitt and anything ella fitzgerald sang. guilty pleasure: i adore elvis, especially singing blue christmas.

19. Candy Canes?
yes! the peppermint kind, please--i don't like all the weird flavors.

ok, and now, i get to tag people, too. I think i am supposed to tag 4 people. so, flaurella, allegra, laura, and kristen, y'all are IT.

sorry for the lack of posts. life is a bit insane at the moment. don't worry though--i'll be back! WITH pictures. :)

i have to admit...

i haven't posted in a couple of days, and it feels WEIRD after a whole month of writing every single day. all weekend, i kept feeling like i should be taking a second to drop at LEAST a little note to the blogging world. however, i was AWAY. the hippie and i spent the beach out of contact with the outside world at the beach. i even turned my phone off. bizarre.

i'll write more about he fabulous weekend tomorrow, but for now you get a little update:

1) my knee is WAY better.
2) my new dance shoes aren't going to make it in time for the last dance class of this session. DAMMIT.
3) i think i may need to move to the beach.
4) i didn't get enough knitting done this weekend!
5) i am going to go get my christmas tree tonight--whoo hoo!
6) lamb stew is FABULOUS when it's cold out. i'm just sayin'...
7) it's only 21 days till christmas, which means only about 15 days to mail stuff. holy crap!
7b) thank JESUS for priority mail!
8) this weekend is our friend mary's christmas party, which ROCKS!
9) my friend sonya bought me a pink poinsettia sprayed with silvery glitter for my office--it goes VERY well with my tree!
10) work is kicking my ass today, so i think it's time to go home...

ps--i was correct. i didn't win any prizes. good thing i wasn't holding my breath. *sigh*

the state of my knee

wow! huge and somewhat sheepish apologies for causing a panic with my offhand comment about breaking my knee. there's no need to panic, although i must say--i REALLY appreciate all the concern! here's the deal. when i was 13, i was kicked in the side of my right knee (playing co-ed soccer) by a giant of a boy who was not really in control of his long-ass arms and legs (he eventually reached 6'9"!), and my knee has never been the same. i have some weird stretched cartilage on the inside of the knee, a couple of loose chunks of cartilage in there that makes my knee all poppy, and my knee cap is a bit more float-y than it should be. add to this the fact that i am also genetically predisposed to have weak leg joints, and well--it's a mess. i've seen a couple of different orthopedists about this, and have been told by all of them that it's "not quite bad enough" for surgery. so. it's pretty easy for me to hurt it. and wednesday in our dance lesson, i wrenched it doing a tango move called a corte to roll-out, which involves a fast pivot on the leg in question. i was wearing totally incorrect shoes for this move, and they were just the smallest bit too sticky on the bottom to allow a free pivot, so stupidly, i forced it. the knee is not actually BROKEN, so perhaps i should have used a better word there. it's just really ouchie. REALLY ouchie yesterday, and pretty ouchie today. tomorrow it will be somewhat ouchie, and by sunday it will be mostly ok. however, you will not see me on a dancefloor till next wednesday, and here's hoping the proper dance shoes i just ordered will be here by then. so yeah--no need to panic, people. if a wild animal came after me, i would be toast, but other than that, i am mostly alright.

is it that late already?

wow--it's the last day of november. and i have actually posted every day this month in spite of some sketchy internet access, travel, and a couple of instances of nearly-forgetting-to-post-in-time. i admit i am a teeny bit impressed with myself for actually following through with my commitment. and now i learn that there are PRIZES associated with this thing--who knew? maybe i'll win something. although really--don't hold your breath--i am way more likely to get random harassment from police officers than to win a thing. but that's another story... i did win a wayne's world trivia contest once on the radio in new york city. i got a smashing pumpkins CD that was--wait for it--smashed--when it arrived in the mail. i kid you not. and when i won it, i yelled, "COO-UHL!!!!!" into the phone at an alarmingly high frequency as though i were a 12-year-old girl, which the radio station recorded and proceeded to use on the air for over a year. yeah. i won though. go me.

on the knitting front, let me tell you--it's not my day. there's a mistake in my red cabled scarf (back on ROW THREE, for fuck's sake), and i am faced with every knitter's nightmare decision: to rip or not to rip... so i started something new. did i really have any choice?

also, i broke my knee.

may all your offices be bright

today at lunch, i braved the mall and made a ninja strike on a couple of stores to pick up this ridiculous lime green and silver tinsel tree for my office. then i came back and decorated it. i LOVE it--and yes, i also think it's hilarious. i had a seriously hard time deciding between this tree, a silver one, or a pink one, but something about this one just appealed to me. i think it might need a little silver tinsel ON it though. and it DEFINITELY needs a little tree skirt. maybe this is a good time for SOMEONE to teach me to crochet so i can make one out of some obnoxiously bright pink and green red heart yarn. hmmmm. i wonder who's obsessed with holiday crochet right now?

after finishing up the tree and doing a modicum of actual work, i enjoyed a nice cup of afternoon tea with this delightful little apple pastry made by my friend sonya. so YUM. she claims these are easy to make (which i am not at all sure i buy), so i am going to have to get this recipe. all i can tell you right now is this: it involves muffin pans, frozen puff pastry, butter, apples, cinnamon, and apricot jam. i am ALL ABOUT some holiday baking over here people.

in other news, we had a first last night--the hippie was knitting while i was NOT knitting. he's all into the cigar gloves he's making. i did knit enough to show him how to unzip the fabric and fix a mistake instead of ripping all the work back, but that was only after a fit that involved a lot of curse words and some hurling of a half finished glove across the table. but hey--who hasn't been THERE??!

there are days...

...when your dinner plans and your hippie's dinner plans fall through, and you are faced with the prospect of cooking something for dinner that's going to require you to both wash dishes before you start so you CAN cook as well as stop at the grocery store on the way home so you HAVE something to cook, and really you just can't face it. then one of your good friends starts talking about saag paneer, and the urge to eat some indian food just overwhelms all else.^* next thing you know, you are on the phone ordering takeout from the great indian place you used to hit for lunch and haven't been to in ages. here's my dinner menu now, and all i have to do is kill 20 minutes before i can go get it:

     chicken tikka masala
     saag paneer
     nan
     raita
     rice pudding with cashews

mmmmmmm...

in other news, i was STOOD UP for knitting lunch today! i guess that's the price i pay for yesterday's knitting spontaneity. no love...

also, i can't stop shopping today. the bastards at kenneth cole put the boots i want on sale and then sold out in my size--grrrrr. there's a duvet cover at pottery barn i want. i have two pairs of dance shoes picked out and placed on my ebay watch list. and there are countless christmas gifts i need to order/buy. both time and money are in annoyingly short supply around here.

* i am known among my people for my somewhat random and outlandish food cravings, and will go to great lengths to get them satisfied--ask anyone i know. they make fun of me for this.

15 minutes of knitting

double cabled scarf, started

nothing like a spontaneous knitting lunch to help make an otherwise blah day more bearable. (headache--yuck!) i only got to knit for a few minutes at lunch, but i managed to cast on and get this far on this fabulously red, big and chunky, double-cabled scarf. it's been a LONG time since i knitted anything so chunky and fast! i should probably just put my head down and focus and finish the purl scarf, but i am kind of sick of purple right now, and i am definitely sick of ribbing. this scarf is my break from that one. and just look how RED it is! it's actually not as pinky-red as it looks in this picture--it's much brighter and more saturated. it's rown big wool, and i LOVE IT! i have been dying to make this scarf for over a month now, and today, i gave in to the urge. after all--i NEED this for christmas!

in other yarnful news, THK finished her elf slippers, and sonya nearly finished this cute little teal sweater she's been making for her niece--it just needs buttons.

what's going on around here?

it's sunday, and you know what that means--we're KNITTING (and crocheting)! THK is here, and she's working on these fabulous elf slippers, which are made of red heart yarn. the yarn feels nasty, and the slipper has so much structural integrity that i am almost convinced you could drink from it, but still--how freakin' cute are these??! i REALLY have to learn to crochet. she's made one whole slipper since 3pm and she's about 1/3 of the way through the second. so cute. the hippie's gotten a good start on his cigar gloves, which he's knitting out of some classic elie inca alpaca. very soft and delicious, and a very close match to the lovely cashmere scarf he made for himself last winter. as you see, fergus is supporting his efforts. in between cooking, i have been working on my purl scarf, which i have to tell you is getting a bit old. that thing's going to be 104" long, and i feel like i may never get there. right now, it's about 89", and the K1, P1 pattern of the stitch is feeling pretty damned old. however, i am determined to finish it before i start anything else. christmas is too close to get that start-a-new-thing disease again--there's not time! in the name of productiity, check out the stack of knitting at the top--this is stuff i've been working on lately. some of it needs to be fleted or finished up, and some is definitely still in progress. the sweater on top has actually been given and then sent back for a bit of neck resizing, which is done. i'll be mailing that back to it's owner tomorrow. anyway--this is just a quick progress report. here i go, back to my K1, P1, K1, P1, K1, P1, K1, P1, K1, P1, K1, P1, K1, P1, K1, P1, K1, P1, K1, P1......

ps--the house is filled with bad yarn karma today--we have all had snafus and made mistakes. what in the world is up with that??? i think it's the lack of marys. hmmmm.

if you HAVE to wash dishes...

blueberry martini

...then make yourself a blueberry martini! because let me tell you, it makes that pill a little easier to swallow. we're back home, where i am ashamed to admit that we left a sink full of dishes to deal with upon arrival. nasty, anyway. so--i am a little more focussed on the martini than i am the dishes, which i also think is the Right Thing. last christmas, someone gave me some apple martini mix from stirrings, and it was pretty great. so, i decided to try the blueberry one. it's pretty solid, but i think i am going to try a little vanilla vodka in the next one instead of all plain vodka. y'all remember that freezer full of vodka? well--it's cold weather at last, and that means vodka season has arrived! whoo hoo! screw the dishes. i need another drink.

ps--THK, i am sorry to tell you that we failed to purchase more peppar vodka today. this tragedy will come home to you tomorrow when you are faced with the prospect of NO BLOODY MARYS! but don't worry--i'll come up with something.

hometown

today, the hippie and i went out into the wide world of my hometown and wandered about. this has become something of a tradition for us. so much so that when we went into this little art gallery today, the owner said, "hey! you guys haven't been in here in what? a year? has it been a whole year? how are things in raleigh?" yeah. welcome to a small town. this town has a tiny population of about 5000 people--that's up about 2k from when i was a kid, too--so i guess it's no surprise that we are remembered. and the little gallery we were in is one of the two highlights of the yearly walk down main street. the other is an antique mall that always has different stuff to show me and where i have purchased everything from mccoy, roseville, and hull vases to a drawing of a cat to a pair of italian linen pillowcases to an eight-dollar teacup that turned out to be worth about two hundred dollars (a hand painted, bone china, fortune teller's cup). today i bought a cake plate. the little gallery, which is TINY, is packed full of beautiful high-end art and crafts from artists both local and far away. we have bought christmas presents there every year since we discovered the place. if i were still living here, i would probably be running something similar, or at the very least contributing to it. it's just strange. i come home and it makes me introspective. this is one of many roads not taken, and i am glad for that. but as i have gotten older, i realize that even had i taken this road, life need not have been as bad as i once thought it would be. i guess my point is--you carve out a place for yourself no matter where you go.

thankful for sleeves

thanksgiving with the family--some of it good and some not so good, as always. mostly good. i am quite tired, and i didn't take any pictures like i had intended. except for this one. check out the sleeves on ella's hoodie! its coming along quite nicely, even if i did screw up the cuff on the left sleeve, which i will now have to redo. (forgot to change to the small sized needles when i was supposed to...at least it's just 6 little rows!) that, i will fix in the morning when i am more alert and have had a bit less wine. meanwhile, i hope you all had a fabulus holiday and are all sleeping off the turkey to pleasant dreams--i know i will be in about five minutes.

UPDATE: after 7 attempts to upload a single picture to flickr, i give up! they are apparently having some server problems over there and that means i will post the updated picture of ella's hoodie in the morning. sorry people! stupid servers...

in the meantime, here's a picture i've been meaning to show you anyway. this is the baby blanket my friend sonya's been crocheting for her cousin's baby-to-be, which was made to match this fabulous crib sheet she found. i LOVE it! i tell you, between it and this, i REALLY think i must learn to crochet! (AFTER christmas!) anyway--night, y'all.

UPDATE the second: picture uploaded on the hippie's computer. (having a geeky boyfriend ROCKS!) aparently the problem here is not flickr and/or yahoo, but my own computer, which has betrayed me. technology--she's a bitch.

whew! looooong day...

blogging from the 'rents' house where we arrived and i hit the door cooking. this is after doing a couple of loads of laundry, packing, doing some work, and driving here in the drizzly rain and thanksgiving traffic. not that i'm complaining--i actually enjoy all this mayhem. tonight i have made an apple and a pumpkin pie, some broccoli casserole, and some stuffing. i am not sue there is any dish on th eplanet that involved more chpping than stuffing. my shit is TIRED, people! this is why you are not seeing any interesting photographic evidence of all this activity. i've been too busy to take pictures, and now i'm too tired to post them even if there were any to post. maybe i'll get around to that tomorrow...

tomorrow the house will fill with family and food and i will be missing my many friends who are far away. i am grateful for all of them. and most of all, i am grateful for the hippie, my chosen family, who comes home with me for these holidays now.

ps--made some more belly buttons today--they were gone in about 30 seconds, which is i guess what happens when there are nephews, boyfriends, fathers, and brothers in the house. :)

first pie of the season, 2006

somewhere around 2pm on saturday i learned from the hippie that i needed to make something to bring to the party we were going to that night. (after i had been to the grocery store, of course. and after he let me believe for, oh, about 3 weeks, that the party was a dinner party and not a party party. this is because he is a man and therefore not capable of social preparation or planning. but i digress... besides, i think i've already covered that.) so, i decided that i would get around trying this bourbon pecan pie recipe i've been wanting to make for over a year. the recipe is from the recipes from home that i've mentioned a few times in the past, and like everything else i've made from that book, it was pretty awesome. it's the kind of pecan pie that has chopped up becans in it instead of whole ones, and it has just a touch of bourbon to give it a little zing. the crust is flakey and buttery and just a teeny bit sweet. i highly recommend this and will definitely make it again. endorsement: this book also contains my standards for pumpkin pie, apple pie, and chocolate pudding as well as the recipes i use to make roasted chicken and cumin crusted pork chops. after the pie was ready to go, i made belly buttons for the hippie. i had never heard of these until i met him, but it's what his grandmother always did with leftover pie crust dough--you just roll out the dough, brush it with melted butter, sprinkle it with cinnamon and sugar, and then roll it up and cut it into little slices. bake it alongside the pie. kids and hippie's love them!

in other news, it's SLEETING outside. what the hell??!

also, i have no time to knit today in spite of the fact that it's cold and rainy and i have NEW YARN. this is just not right.

accidental joiner

apparently i joined norovember without even realizing it! i left a comment on kathy's blog, and now i am on the participant's list for it. not that i mind--it's just a lucky thing that i am actively knitting on ella's hoodie, which is made of my now beloved noro silk garden. i am nearly finished with the second sleeve--guess i should take a progress photo, huh?--and MAYBE i will actually get it done in november. next sunday, i SHOULD be able to have a knitting marathon, so we'll see. there's going to be sewing involved, so i make no promises...

cellar

the party we attended on saturday night was at the home of the woman who used to head up the start-up the hippie was working for until it went belly-up last april. she's an amazingly smart woman, very driven, very opinionated, sarcastic and a tad caustic at times, and i really like her! she and her husband have made some wise decisions along the way, and they have the house to prove it! their wine cellar was the most amazing thing i have ever seen in a private home, and i spent so much time drooling on it that i decided it deserved its own blog post.

above is the main section of the cellar, with half a wall of champagne, some big italian reds and a lot of california wines. it just seemed to go on forever.
the shelving throughout the cellar is handmade redwood, the floor is stone tile, and there is a triple-paned glass wall between the cellar and the rest of the basement, which consisted of a den, a bar, a game room, and a larger porch/patio where live music was playing. (i admit to not paying much attention to the music--i was way too distracted by the wine and by talking to people--two of my favorite things. but i digress...) there are a number of larger format bottles of wine from magnum sized up to 9 liters (!!!), and the area behind the large bottles is covered with crate tops from wines they have ordered in the past, which is just lovely--probably my favorite part of the whole thing. the doors to the cellar are stained glass in a grape vine pattern, and there are also a number of paintings in evidence. the whole thing is kept at a cool, humid 53 degrees. in all, there are about 4000 bottles of wine. we're operating on a slightly smaller scale at our house. we tend to drink wine as it comes through the door with only a few notable exceptions. these live in our four wall-mounted stainless steel ikea wine racks. we dream of one day having this in our future dining room, but for now, we're good. if we ever DO get around to building a proper cellar, i know where i'm going for advice!

more pictures from this awesome cellar can be found here.

dance dance dance!

so i had every intention of showing off the pictures i took at last night's party of the most amazing wine cellar i have ever seen, but alas--the computer is just refusing to cooperate with me! i can't seem to get the pictures uploaded, so you guys are just going to have to wait a day to see anything pretty. sorry!

meanwhile, i can tell you that dance class is just awesome. our teacher, katy masengill is so much fun and so enthusiastic that it's impossible not to both have a wonderful time and learn a ton just being around her. today we had a private lesson with her and also went to the open house our studio. occasionally holds, and we danced in a quicky little cha cha exhibition--it's so much fun we don't even notice the people watching us. and tonight, the hippie and i apparently got a little bit of a applause that we didn't notice because we were too busy dancing. so go us, i guess! :) we have two classes left in our current dance class, ane we just signed up for a round of 5 private lessons and for our next group class, bronze III--i can't wait! if you have ever thought about learning ballroom dance of any kind, i say go! learn it now! you absolutely will not be sorry.

party party party

is it rude to phone blog from a party just because it's ten till midnight and you've made a commitment to blog every day for a month? i sure hope not 'cause that's what i'm doing right now. i've been goin full throttle all day and have had no time to blog. wait till y'all see the pictures tomorow! i made a pie. i knitted. and now i'm at a party in a house that's like something out of lifestyles of the rich and famous. it's been a good day!

de-fense! de-fense! D-E-F-E-N-S-E!

today my very good friend meredith is defending her astrophysics thesis to her committee of evil torturers professors. by the end of the day, she will be DOCTOR meredith, but she has to get through her torture session defense first, which is probably the single most dreaded event in any grad student's life. i know she will be great, but i still expect all of you to be thinking good thoughts for her all day! i know i am! go meredith!!!

UPDATE: SUCCESS!!! a huge congratulations to doctor meredith, BA, BS, MS, MS, PhD!

incidentally, when i was outside a restaurant hearing this new on the phone, a homeless man yelled at me when i screamed with joy. what the hell is THAT all about?!

instant gratification

umbrella hat, finished

finished! possibly the quickest finished object i have ever produced. and how cute did this little hat turn out?? the pattern is the baby hat in leigh radford's one skein, and it's just adorable. i am still loving laura's handspun corriedale wool (which she dyed herself and spun and navajo plyed--did i mention that?), and i am really glad i happened to have that delicious creamy kidsilk haze on hand to put with it. (laura says she thinks it looks like it's knitted with angel feathers, which pleases me immensely. i am awfully glad that she's pleased with what i have done with her yarn!) and i also love the 9-point symmetry on the top of the hat--something satisfying about that. anyway--the one thing about this hat: the pattern says i have made the size for a 12-18 month old child, and my gauge is dead on. and well--there is NO WAY this hat is going to fit a child of that age--it's more like a 3-4 year old sized hat. i mean, i can put it on MY head without a struggle, and it's not THAT much too small. so. if you decide to make the hat, be aware--if you added one more 18-stitch repeat of that lace at the bottom and made it an inch or so longer, you would have a grown-up hat. which is just what i'll do next time.

whoo hoo!

today in an instant messaging conversation with a work friend about thanksgiving and food and ordering turkeys and the glories of free range meats, etc., i was mourning the fact that there's no trader joe's anywhere near me and writhing in jealousy over the fact that she has three of them. (which is SO not fair, by the way!) in fact, the closest one is in virginia. or well--it WAS. i just learned that a new trader joe's is opening less than 8 miles from me, and i am BESIDE MYSELF with excitement! i will be in there on november 27th with bells on!!!

in other news, go look at this. that thing makes me want a loom. bad.

and thanks, laura, for sending folks my way to see the baby hat i'm making from your yarn. a big HEY to laura's folks! :)

UPDATE: my friends apparently all hate me. they ALL know about the trader joe's already and none of them told me. not one. where is the love, people!??

obsessive compulsive knitting

you ever have a really good book you can't stop reading no matter how hard you try? and you make excuses and strange justifications for reading just one more paragraph. or chapter. or the whole book. i have read 1500-page novels in a weekend this way many times in my life. yesterday was the first time i have had some yarn do that to me. as you know, yesterday, i got some yarn in the mail. and last night, i had a big list of stuff to do around the house, but i kept stopping to fondle the yarn for a minute. just a minute... and then, when i sat down on the couch to eat dinner, and well, this happened. hmmmmm. a perfectly usable wound up ball of yarn. after that, it went something like this: i think to myself, i bet i have enough yardage to make this out of it, so i check, of course. and yes--i do! but this yarn is a little bit coarse for a baby hat. wonder if i have anything to soften it up a bit that won't drastically change the gauge? YES! the creamy kidsilk haze i bought for the purl scarf and then abandoned (it was too light for the dark purple manos). PERFECT! i'll just try it and see how it looks together. just a swatch... uh oh! the needles i need are in the sleeve of ella's hoodie--no matter--i can just steal them and put the sleeve on a stitch holder for now. (new project du jour!) so i figure, if i'm going to swatch anyway, i may as well just cast on for the hat. you know, just to see what the lace pattern looks like... you people know how this goes. suddenly, it's after midnight, and i have THIS:

lucky for me, it's a knitting lunch day. guess what i will be doing?

candy for breakfast

this morning, i arrived at work with some tea, a slice of banana bread, some clementines, and a splitting headache. holy god, my head hurt! and then my computer crashed almost immediately upon booting up. fortunately, i also arrived to find a box with my name on it! this always makes monday easiery to swallow. when i did the first knitter's tea swap, i ended up in a little triumverate of swapping with allegra and laura, which worked out beautifully for all 3 of us! so, when the second swap rolled around, the three of us decided to do our own thing rather than join up. we came up with or own version of a hot chocolate and book swap that included some yarn, a mug, and various other little things. we reversed our giving order, and had at it--today i got my box from laura, and it was filled with delight! it contained some high quality cocoa, some hot chocolate mixes, a mug and saucer, some feltable yarn in a yummy pink color, some homemade pear ginger jam (YUM!), a copy of interweave knit's scarf style (which i just added to my amazon wish list the other day), scone mix, and some other little treats i know i am forgetting. (there's a picture of the whole haul here.) oh, and there's this:

these two caramel-colored beauties are the best part of the whole package! i loved everything, but these two pieces are just over the top. the antique amber dessert plate is just lovely. and more amazing still is the skein of handspun yarn that laura made. for me. the color is called maple sugar candy, and it SO IS! the richness of it is not clear in this picture, but it was the best i could do with office lighting. it's just beautiful. i am going to have to do some serious thinking about what this, my first handspun yarn ever, will become.

thank-you so much laura, for making my day! i still can't believe you managed to put anything together with so much going on at your house, but i am sure glad you did! :)

more weekend knitting

man, i am tired. THK came over today for the knitting and cooking that has become our sunday tradition. i spent most of the day working on ella's hoodie--finished a sleeve and started the other one. but man, i am too tired to go take a picture of my progress. i also fixed the neck of adam's sweater--i had bound it off so tightly that it wouldn't go over his head! it's better now, and it wasn't that hard to fix. so while i'm at it, i decided to go ahead and loosen the sleeves, too. in other news from today, we had a banana bread bake-off, and we also made chicken and dumplings that were so good and so comforting that we both nearly fell asleep after. i still may...
note: THK's pictures of the chicken and dumplings start here. she did an awfully good job of documenting the process!

other things that are afoot in my knitting world? ('cause y'all know i can't have just one thing going at once!)

i am way into these simple little wash cloths. i am just sitting down with my vogue stitchionary and picking a random, interesting-looking stitch or using a simple stitch i already know for each one, so they are all different. my plan is to include them as part of the christmas presents for my nieces this year. the nieces (there are a lot of them) are appreciative of handmade things and things that smell good. these wash cloths are awesome because they are fast, cheap, cute, and utterly, totally practical. they're really great for knitting in front of the TV or for when you brain is tired.

my new love is this lovely: purl scarl from joelle hoverson's last minutes knitted gifts. the picture does not begin to do this thing justice--the colors are so rich and vibrant, and the texture is just soft and squishy and divine. if i could afford it, i would make one of these for everyone i know. it's the simplest thing to knit, just a 1x1 rib, but it's fun just to watch the texture of my 3 yarns come together. i think i might be keeping this one for ME! i seem to be on a purple thing lately. if you recal, my clapotis was also very purple-themed, the koigu i bought to make some socks is also purlply-blue, i just finished knitting a purple bag to felt, and i don't know--i am just gravitating toward it. too bad my favorite purple sweater has a MOTH HOLE in it!!! but as usual, i digress...

i think it's past time for strangely tired jackies to go to bed.

detoxification

when i move into a new rental place, i am skeeved out by things the previous tenants may have left. if there's anything at all in the place, i trash it without question, and then i clean the shit out of everything in sight. then as i love there, i maintenance clean. i tend to be pretty clean, although a bit cluttery. (people i went to college with, y'all are not allowed to comment on that statement!) but every once in a while, something will suddenly have become utterly filthy without me noticing. does this happen to you, too? today i needed to put a vase away. the vase needed to go into the cabinet over the refridgerator. so i dragged a chair over, climbed up to move the stuff on the top of the fridge out of the way so i could open the cabinet door. and HOLY MOTHER OF GOD! the grease! the dust in the grease! the cat hair in the dust in the grease! it was vile vile vile! and what WAS all that stuff on top of there anyway?

a bottle of cheap champagne i know has gotten cold and then wamr again one too many times for consumption, some old grocery lists, an outdated can of pineapple juice--in a word: crap. so. i threw it all away. cleaned the top of the fridge. then the sides. i had to move some magnets to clean the side, and then before i knew it, i had removed ALL the magnets so i could clean the whole thing. then i was like--well--i bet the inside's no better if i really look. and boy--it wasn't! i threw away 4 grocery bads full of stuff, took everything out of the fridge, washed it all, and put it all back in an organized manner. two and a half hours after needing to put one vase away, i have a clean fridge, and most of the magnets are back on there. (we like magnets, what can i say?) nothing in there will kill you now, i promise. well--maybe the vodka will if you drink it all! check out how much vodka i have in the freezer, and please keep in mind that the hippie doesn't even LIKE vodka! (he does have some scotch, though--let me tell ya.) (and a whole keg of beer.) (but i digress...) but dude, i NEED all these kinds of vodka, so i don't want to hear a word about it.

now, i know i am going to catch shit from rick and tom about writing boring domestic posts, but this is how i spent my saturday, y'all. shut up.

i say y'all a lot.

headbanger's ballaka: steve and tiffany's wedding

best four minutes of any wedding i have ever attended: my friend steve, and our friend denise's daughter tyler dancing, 80's hair band style, to ACDC's you shook me all night long for the entire length of the song. steve started it with some air guitar, and then he grabbed tyler when the dj told him to make more people dance. she hesitated for a moment, and then just went with it. no one else dared enter the dancefloor with all that going on. there's a whole series of pictures of it in my set of phoenix pictures, but i thought this one captured the moment pretty well. :)

the wedding was fabulous, mainly because steve and tiffany are so happy that it's hard to be around them and not catch some of that yourself. i felt the same way when they came to visit last spring, and it was definitely obvious this past weekend as well. i am so happy that they have each other--not many people are as zany and crazy as they are! they have a mutual love of all things silly, and are yet two of the most caring and responsible people you will ever meet. i really, really missed the hippie at this wedding--we had so many mutual friends there whom he didn't get to see. plus they were playing all this great dance music, and he was not there to dance with me.

that's the thing about all the ballroom we have learned--we don't get to use it much out in the wild. speaking of wild, check out these his and hers slippers! how cute is THAT! someone tied them onto the limo, and the bride and groom were wearing them at brunch the next day--very THEM, and so cute! they're in hawaii now, hopefully having a fabulous time. very jealous.

that was the last wedding of 2006 for us, thank goodness! i don't know about you, but i think six is enough for one year.

rant: 'tis NOT the season!

can we just talk for a minute about how it's NOT the christmas season yet? i know i am not the only one who feels this way--i see stuff about this every year. but jesus, they have REALLY gone too far this time! it was bad enough that target had christmas cards out just around the aisle from the halloween candy at the beginning of october. hell, it was bad enough that there was halloween candy out in friggin' august! but i just could not believe it this morning when i was driving to work, trying to find one song that didn't suck on the radio, and i came across, not one, but THREE different radio stations playing nothing but holiday music from now through new year's. WHAT??!?! is thanksgiving not even a real holiday anymore??? or is it just that the marketing people can't come up with enough merchandise to make it worth their while to bother with what is probably my favorite holiday of the year? sheesh! this whole thing just makes my ass twitch.

y'all can go ahead and be jolly all you want, but i am having no part of it until the day AFTER thanksgiving!

you know, i haven't written a rant in a long time. feels good!

better day

today was unseasonably warm--right around 70 degrees and sunny. my friend sonya took the week off, but still came in for our tuesday/thursday yarn lunch. she and our friend kerstin and i leave our work behind for a while twice a week and hide in a conference room or sneak outside for some fiber happiness. we've been doing this long enough that people have started calling us the knitting club, which is, you know, not quite right. we're all yarn people here, but as you see--sonya's crocheting, not knitting. silly ignorant work people! anyway--today's yarn lunch was remarkable pleasant. our friend tina (not a knitter OR a crocheter) came to hang out, which was nice. and just look at this picture of sonya--look at how happy/content she looks. yarn--it's good for the soul.

speaking of yarn, i am still loving this noro silk garden more than i can say. just look at the colors! tonight while watching grey's, i decided to take a hoodie break and play with my new yarns. and you know--they just weren't my silk garden. i shoulda just stuck with the sleeve i have half knitted. live and learn, people. live and learn...

so as you can tell, last night's funk has pretty well worn off. not sure what was up with that. hormones, maybe? maybe just adjusting to the hippie being gone for so long... whatever it was, i sprayed it with some funk-be-gone^®, and i am way better now. i'm off to curl up with the kitties and read about presidents. y'all have a good night.

loser

i missed my dance class tonight through sheer negligence. i fell asleep on the couch. maybe i am fighting off some mutant strain of the hippie's head cold or somehting, but whatever--i fell asleep and woke up half way through class. loser.

in other news, tonight my father sent me an email filled with jokes about fat people finding excuses to not exercise. that sure made me feel good about life. no matter how long i live, i will never get why he does these things. does he WANT me to feel bad? at least now that i am older, it just makes me maudin and a bit analytical instead of filling me with rage like it did when i was fifteen and he was making sarcastic comments about how he liked his women fat.

on second thought, maybe rage was better.

foul mood. miss the hippie. going to bed.

ella's hoodie, now with more hood

flying for almost 5 hours in each direction is very good for one's knitting progress. i made most of this hood on the way to phoenix, and finished knitting it on the way back. with some fabulous emailed directions from THK, to whom i will be eternally grateful, i managed to kitchener stitch its ass all the way across the top without incident on my first try, even while curious onlookers babbled at me. the seam is utterly invisible, and i am more than a little bit proud of myself. i still need to sew the edge down to make a casing for the i-cord i will also need to learn to make before the end of this project. however, that's child's play compared to the kitchener intimidation i was feeling. as you see, i have also started the sleeve. this is the part where all i want to do is finish this hoodie, to the detriment of all else. i can't wait to see how it turns out!

zip. zilch. nada.

i made it home without incident, and was surrounded by nice benign people on my flight. i didn't have any delays. there were no rude people in my whole day. in fact, people rushed to my aid. the hippie's still sick, and as far as i can tell, barely left the house while i was away. the cats are healthy and lazy as always. i have no idea what a girl has to do to get some good blog fodder around here! i DID manage to finish the hood on ella's hoodie today while flying, but alas--i have no pictures to prove it. my pictures from the weekend are all calmly resting on the SD card where they were born, waiting for me to have time and energy to deal with them. so. screw this--no blog post for you people today. i got nothing to say.

tough morning

sitting in starbucks with the sam, hanging out and drinking some much-needed tea before heading to a post-wedding brunch and then a day of shopping. the wedding was beautiful, and steve and tiffany made me cry more than once. it was awesome to send some time with old friends and make some new ones, but the hippie--he was sorely missed. they were playing some great dance music, and i had no hippie to dance with.

shifted fire tot the bookstore for a bit. i'm gonna go read some knitting books. let me tell y'all, life is hard this morning.

sam and jackie day

blogging from the spa at camelback inn in scotsdale, sitting in fabulous leather chair with a view of a sunny flower garden, sporting a new pedicure and a FABULOUS new haircut, knitting and waiting for the sam to emerge... after this, we're heading to lunch and a bit of shopping before the wedding tonight. there are definitely worse ways to spend an afternoon. let's face it people, i would make a GREAT rich person! heck, i'm already a great rich person, except for that pesky money thing. :)

sticks on a plane

in keeping with my commitment to NaBloPoMo, i am blogging today (and all weekend) in spite of the fact that i have no computer and am, in fact, writing this while on a plane using the memo function on my phone. you must therefore be extra tolerant of my atrrocious typos! i am on my way to phoenix where I will have an afternoon unexpectedly to myself. no worries though--i have done some research and am equipped with the addresses of no less than 4 yarn stores. that's more than enough to keep a jackie occupied. :) i am 1/2 way through the hood on ella's hoodie already--whoo hoo! but at the top, i will have to learn the dreaded kitchener stitch. i'm just praying someone at one of the yarn stores will be able to help! y'all wish me luck, i have to say, it cracks me up that i can get on a plane with 14-inch sharpened ebony wood sticks that are 1/2 an inch thick, but a sealed bottle of water is off limits. now, THAT'S security!

hoodie, a work in progress

so i am cranking along on ella's hoodie. as is my way, i have abandoned all else to work on this, the project du jour. the body is done (and this picture really does NOT do it justice!), and i just have the hood and sleeves to go. yay! i actually started the hood just a few minutes ago (knitting lunch at work--my favorite), but there's not enough to show yet to bother taking a picture. i have to tell you, i am in love with the silk garden--it has a lovely weight and i think blocking is going to make it wonderfully drapey, too. nevermind those little bits of stick and rock i keep picking out--look at the fabulous saturated colors instead! it's really a dream in person!

tomorrow, i will be flying to phoenix for my friend steve's wedding, so i am hoping to make some good progress on the plane. the hippie, sadly will not be coming--he is home suffering from the chicken pox, of all things. and while i am very sad about this and the fact that i will now be traveling alone, i believe the knitting will see me through. that is, IF i can make it out of here early enough to get some non-metal needles with which to knit. (i'll miss you, addi turbos!) maybe if i am lucky, they'll actually have the size i need at the LYS this time. anyway--wish me a good trip tomorrow, people. on the other end of the flight will be not only steve and his lovely bride, but also the sam and many other friends from work-that-was. i can't wait to see them all!

boo! (the morning after edition)

i don't normally make a huge deal out of halloween, mainly because i don't have time. in principle, however, i love this holiday! yesterday i became determined to at least carve a pumpkin and spend some time sitting on the porch to greet what few trick-or-treaters we actually get. it's sad, given where we live, that we don't get more of them, but it seems like so few people know or trust their neighbors these days. anyway--let's just ignore that and keep typing lest i digress... so yeah--pumpkin. i went to 3 grocery stores yesterday before i found ANY pumpkins, and was lucky enough to get a good round one with the stem in tact. i then carved it up using a pattern--my first foray into jack-o-lanterns by design. it made me a little sad really. the last time i carved a pumpkin was a thousand years ago with my nephew jeremy who has since passed away. but then--i guess ghosts are what it's all about on halloween, right? anyway--digressing again... i actually think this pumpkin came out pretty well, in spite of my lack of experience. i only had to get consults form the hippie roughly every 10 seconds. so--sporting my crazy orange pants and my boo shirt, i made my way to the porch with a lit up pumpkin, a huge bowl of candy, and some knitting. and it was worth it just to see my little neighbor nora dressed up like a chicken (slightly freaked out by my scary eyes), and my other neighbor alison's little niece dressed like a princess (doing a touchdown dance after every piece of candy). it was fairly tame, but definitely enjoyable. hopefully next year, we will be living in a neighborhood with more small children, because i plan to go all out! happy late halloween, people, and apologies for the rambling nature of this post--i am all over the place today.

i can control the weather

it's autumn, and it finally feels like it. it's been cold and rainy and kind of blah for a week, but the leaves are turning and it's gettin' pretty outside. the hippie's away for the weekend, so--in fear of freezing--i washed my brand new flannel sheets and put their warm, soft, lavender-smelling butts on the bed last night--it was divine. however, all this cold-weather preparation on my part has caused a 70-degree sunny saturday. it's BEAUTIFUL outside, and i have all the windows open in spite of the fact that i and all the weather forecasters in the area were expecting a cold overcast day. now, i KNOW if i go take my now-too-hot sheets off the bed, it will just get cold and icky again. however, if i go ahead and make stew (my original plan), it will probably be 90 degrees tomorrow. what's a girl to do?

the light was so nice this morning that i went out and took a bunch of pictures of the leaves in my yard--i added them to my yard set on flickr if you feel like checking them out.

post or die!

i've decided to join national blog posting month, which means that for the month of november, i am committing to writing at least one blog post per day. this will not be easy for me given my insanely overcommitted daily schedule, but hey--since when have you guys known that to stop my ass from committing to yet another thing? i think it will be interesting to see what i come up with. i have a lot of opinions (shocker), and i knit a lot (shocked again, aren't ya), so i think i'll be alright for material. however, let me just go ahead and pre-apologize for those days when my posts are mind-numbing to some/all of you! i figure, if all else fails, there's always this. (the book, not the shirt , perverts!)