snow angel

Wow, it's really coming down out there. I love big, fluffy flakes like this, when they look like white stars drifting down.

This weekend was exhausting but fun; I stayed up late Friday night reading, and on Saturday I was able to finish Gone With the Wind (I'll post further on that later)! Saturday morning, Bethany & I went to the BPL to help do some "spring cleaning" for the upcoming book sales, and of course came away with some books of our own & some "gifts" we thought others might like (at $.50 for softcover & $1 for hardcover, you just can't go wrong!). As usual, we had a blast going through all the books -- there are always some amusing surprises, heh.

Later, I accompanied Dan to his Shag appointment, and we were both so exhausted when we got home (he because he was out late the night before, me because I got up early) that we took an afternoon nap, which is actually a pretty rare thing for me these days. (I used to take them almost daily in college!)

A few of Dan's friends were in town for the evening, so we ate in Chinatown, then came back to hang out at our apartment for the rest of the night. I was still wicked tired, so I didn't last long, and ended up going to bed several hours earlier than everyone else.

Sunday morning, I watched Fever Pitch (which I thought was really cute, and I had no idea that they conceived of that movie before the Sox actually even played in the Series!) and knitted most of this


pattern: Knitty's Voodoo (1 of 2)
yarn: Red Heart Symphony in 4907 Magenta (a gift from Liz)
and then I headed back to Chinatown to meet up with Karen and Sarah K -- we wandered around during the Chinese New Year festivities (Happy Year of the Pig!), following some of the lion dancers as they went door to door to bless the businesses:


(photo courtesy of Karen)
The rest of the day we spent hanging out & talking about everything; it was so much fun to just have some really simple, supportive Girl Time. (Love you, S&K!) Tonight, we plan to go to The Melting Pot in Framingham; I am excited because I just love fondue.

Just pray that I don't drop anything in; I hate that whole kiss-the-person-to-your-left ritual, ugh. xoxo

Currently Reading:
	TITLE: Swerve AUTHOR: Aisha Tyler
	TITLE: The Tipping Point AUTHOR: Malcolm Gladwell

4 things

Due to some really weird mixup with my feed reader, I saw & subsequently stole this meme from Emily:

Four jobs I’ve had:
* painter (as in, the outside of a big barn -- all by myself)
* bored IT intern at a utilities company
* art library reshelver @ Vassar
* computer science tutor

Four movies I can watch over and over:
* Stand By Me
* Anchorman
* Office Space
* The Outsiders

Four places I have lived:
* Poughkeepsie, NY
* Nancy, France
* Woodbury, CT
* Ithaca, NY

Four television shows I love to watch:
* My So-Called Life, Daria, Whose Line Is It, Anyway? (I list these all together because i believe they are all off the air now -- but I'm not sure about WLIIA?, as we don't have a TV)
* Gilmore Girls
* The Colbert Report
* Family Guy

Four places I have been on vacation:
* across the U.S. by car
* across Canada by car
* Japan
* Miami for New Year's

Four of my favorite dishes:
* African Sweet Potato & Black Bean Stew
* pad thai
* anything alfredo
* Mom's mac & cheese

Four websites I visit daily:
* wikipedia.org
* imdb.com
* netvibes.com
* dictionary.com

Four places I would rather be right now:
* at a coffeeshop, curled up with coffee & a book (or knitting)
* at the movies
* visiting my parents & Sarah (I miss them!)
* in bed

Four bloggers I am tagging:
* anyone!

I love this one because it's not necessarily list favorites, it's just list four, in any order. Of course I wish I could list way more for some (and I tried to sneak some in there), but I mostly tried to stick to the limit! xo

p.s. I hate when I finish knitting I can't share, but alas, the pictures will just have to wait.

Currently Reading:
	TITLE: Gone With the Wind AUTHOR: Margaret Mitchell

happy late Valentine's Day!

Oops, sorry, I thought I had already posted this!

I didn't want to post this until I was sure my sister had received it:


pattern: Delite
yarn: Rowan Cashsoft DK in Opulence (SH521)
This is part of the Valentine's present Bethany & I mailed to Sarah. (Bethany is also getting a hat, which I haven't quite gotten to yet.) For some reason I miscalculated and ended up doing the decreases wrong, but the end result turned out quite nicely (if I do say so myself), and I might even be knitting a few more in the future. The twisted rib (where you knit into the back of both the knit and purl stitches) gives the hat such a great stretchiness! But it is definitely a lot more work, at least the way I knit, so the hat took a while to complete. I wish the hat edging pattern had come out more clearly; that may have been the fault of the yarn, but I really enjoyed the end result from the Cashsoft DK, so I will probably stick with it for other (possible) incarnations of this.

I'm currently working on a lot (well, for me) of other things, which hopefully I'll be posting about soon! Stay tuned. xoxo

Currently Reading:
	TITLE: Indecision AUTHOR: Benjamin Kunkel
	TITLE: Gone With the Wind AUTHOR: Margaret Mitchell

headroom

Ugh, I hate this feeling of fighting off a lengthy cold, where you're not sick enough to take off from work, but your brain is a bit too cloudy for good use. Ah, well. Yesterday, I actually got a ton of work done, despite Dan being home for the holiday. So perhaps today I'll surprise myself again.

This weekend was nice & quiet, although unfortunately not quiet enough for me to be cured! But, I am definitely feeling much better with every day. And I'm getting a lot of sleep.

Saturday, I got up early to bake my peanut butter-Snickers cookies, which I barely got out of the oven in time to pack up & make it up to 45 Mt. Auburn Street in Harvard Square, where Marisa Handler was doing a reading/talk/performance. She is such a cool woman! I look forward to reading her book -- I think our book club will be reading it in the near future.

The rest of that day I spent knitting & watching Gilmore Girls (which has become one of my favorite shows; I can't believe no one introduced me to it earlier!), trying to just lay low and take care of my constantly running nose, yuck. I wasn't feeling up to making it out to my friend's birthday party, unfortunately, but I guess that worked out for the better because I went to bed relatively early.

I had to get up bright & early on Sunday to finish preparing the apartment for the couch delivery, which went so smoothly, huzzah! I am just so glad that that is all over. The movers were Man With a Van, and I can't recommend them enough. They were well-priced, efficient, on time (even early, but they called to clear that with us first), and they not only made the delivery but helped disassemble my futon and fix a broken door jamb (which was not in any way connected with the move). They stayed for most of their full 2-hour minimum making sure everything was okay, but didn't try to push it longer in order to get paid for a third hour. So impressive! Very good guys. One of them actually had made a special trip out to our building earlier this month to check out the stairwell & let me know if he thought it was worth even trying to move the couches in. We're definitely going to them for all of our future moving needs! :) (I know that sounded like a commercial, but seriously, they are a great service & I figure it's as important good to get praise out there about companies as it is to get complaints -- people are usually so much more motivated to report bad service than good, you know?) Oh, and thanks for the recommendation, Bethany!


My sister knit this beautiful scarf,
so I can't tell you what yarn was used, I'm sorry!
The rest of Sunday I spent reading/dozing on the new furniture (I'll eventually take a picture, but the living room is a jumble of stuff right now until we figure out what to do with the excess), and then I headed out to Waltham for a dinner of pea soup, beer-can chicken, and apple-blueberry pie at Kevin & Bethany's, yum! Following dinner, we played Scrabble & I got to try out bowling on Kevin's Wii. Bethany also brought me some fun presents from Sarah, which included a gorgeous scarf that she knitted for me (we did an impromptu scarf exchange, where she got the black-and-red star scarf from me), an interesting CD, and some fantastic cupcakes. Thanks, family, for all of the fun!

Okay, I really have to get to work now, oops. Have a good week, everyone! Not sure how much I'll update because I don't have a ton going on right now, but we'll see. xoxo

Currently Reading:
	TITLE: Indecision AUTHOR: Benjamin Kunkel
	TITLE: Gone With the Wind AUTHOR: Margaret Mitchell

reading reading everywhere

I participated in the Prison Book Program last night, and it was such a great experience! Despite the long train ride to get down to Quincy, even. I arrived and we spent some time learning about the service, and then we were given book-request letters from prisoners and set loose in the book room, to find what was asked for (or the closest we could come, as all books are donated and thus every specific request can't be filled). I love spending time with books in any capacity, and I had so much fun selecting the best copy of a Spanish-English dictionary, or choosing a novel I had enjoyed when the requests were somewhat vague. It was interesting to see the restrictions that various "correctional facilities" have on what can and cannot be mailed to those inside. The people who volunteer their time at the PBP were very nice and so helpful. I am really looking forward to going back there again sometime soon! (Karen, shall we find a good time for us to both go? Yay!)

One of the most special parts of the evening was when the woman who was showing us the ropes took us down the hallway to this small gated doorway. We went inside...to the tombs of John Adams, Abigail Adams, John Quincy Adams, and his wife (she wasn't as notable as the other three). The woman told us a fascinating story of JQA's early life, and I learned that the flags on presidents' tombs are always placed across the top, where the head should go, and they appear backwards to the live observer, so that the body in the tomb would be looking at a flag oriented correctly. How fascinating. I also noticed that the presidents are buried with the flags of their era -- I don't know if it's how many states we had when they completed their presidency, or how many there were upon their death, however.

So I learned a lot and had a great time last night. I hope I manage to get back there at least a few more times this year -- my goal is to go at least once a month; they are open every Tuesday & Thursday evening, so I think that should be doable.

Oh, hey, and Happy Valentine's Day, everyone! Please stay warm & cozy tonight, if you can. xoxo

Currently Reading:
	TITLE: Indecision AUTHOR: Benjamin Kunkel
	TITLE: Gone With the Wind AUTHOR: Margaret Mitchell

frogger

As much as I always say I prefer the process of knitting to the product, it still sucks to go from this:


back to this:


Oh, well -- it was a learning experience. Next time (which should be soon, as I am probably ready to try again after quite a long hiatus), I'll check more closely that I am getting gauge so I can be sure it fits much better! xo

Currently Reading:
	TITLE: Indecision AUTHOR: Benjamin Kunkel
	TITLE: Gone With the Wind AUTHOR: Margaret Mitchell

scary knitting

Dad passed on this really creepy picture of a "knitting dress":


link
I found it really rather frightening! Haha.

Currently Reading:
	TITLE: Indecision AUTHOR: Benjamin Kunkel
	TITLE: Gone With the Wind AUTHOR: Margaret Mitchell

miss dashwood

I just wanted to show off this little baby hat that I finished quite a while ago, but never wanted to actually put together until now!


pattern: Knitty's Miss Dashwood
yarn: Red Heart's TLC Baby in 7221 Banana

I was planning to donate it, but I might gift it instead. In any case, I should probably make a point to say that this was not the best yarn to use for this project, I don't think. It's nice & soft, but I don't think the bobbles or the picot edging worked well with this yarn because it's kind of shapeless when it knits up. I don't think I'll use this yarn for much baby stuff in the future; this was the yarn I used to knit my friend's baby blanket several months back, and I chose it because I thought it was the softest, but I just don't really like working with it. (Unfortunately, I've got about half a skein left to use up -- any ideas?)

Well, I should go get ready -- Shaina and I are headed down to Sweet Tooth in Southie this morning to pick up some of Glenn & David's unbelievable cupcakes, to help celebrate Shaina's upcoming birthday! It's a nice day out, so I'm looking forward to the trip. We're meeting in Downtown Crossing, which is good, because I can pick up the buttons I need for the final touches on Miss Dashwood, as well as a few other yarn-y things I am in need of.

I hope everyone has a lovely weekend! xoxo

Currently Reading:
	TITLE: Indecision AUTHOR: Benjamin Kunkel
	TITLE: Gone With the Wind AUTHOR: Margaret Mitchell

"the anatomical jewel"

TITLE: Cunt: A Declaration of Independence
AUTHOR: Inga Muscio
I know it took me forever to finish this book, but that wasn't because it was bad -- it was because it is such a great book to digest in little tiny bits. I enjoyed stretching it out over many days, treating myself to a tidbit here & there. I'd love to give this book to every woman I know. It's a joyful, celebratory, gleeful smile of a book that just cherishes & embraces the fact of woman's existence.

I am disappointed that I won't get a chance to discuss the book with the next meeting of the Code Pink Book Club, though, because that is the same evening I'm doing the Prison Book Program. So I guess I will say here a few (probably not nearly all) things that I was thinking about as I read the book:

I did not like that she presumes that every single reader of her book is unfamiliar with the gorgeous & haunting & ethereal (really, I couldn't choose from the 3 descriptive words; they all fit so well) work of Remedios Varo -- granted, I had to read one of my favorite books (Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49) before my interest was piqued about that name, and granted that was only a few years ago, but still. We're not all as in the dark as she seems to think (I know she was making a point, but still it upset me for some odd reason). Hmpf.

I did, however, totally relish her idea of consuming only art created by women for a full year. While I am not certain I want to commit to a full year, what I decided to do was at least make a start in that vein. I've made a list of some of the books that I currently own & want to read, all written by women, and I fully intend (we'll see how well I stick to it) to read 10 of those as my next 10 books (alongside any book club books I might need to get done, although those are generally usually women authors, as well). These are definitely not in the order I plan to consume them. Here, then, is my list of what I have to choose from:

1. Gone With the Wind (Margaret Mitchell)
   
2. Swerve (Aisha Tyler)
   
3. Emma & Me (Elizabeth Flock)
   
4. Fashion Victim (Michelle Lee)
   
5. We Don't Need Another Wave (Melody Berger)
   
6. More Now Again (Elizabeth Wurtzel)
   
7. No Logo (Naomi Klein)
   
8. Are Men Necessary? (Maureen Dowd)
   
9. Same As It Never Was (Claire LaZebnik)
   
10. Bel Canto (Ann Pratchett)
    
11. The Red Tent (Anita Diamant)
    
12. Pure (Rebecca Ray)
    
13. Odd Girl Out (Rachel Simmons)
    
14. Best Friends (Martha Moody)
    
15. Tales of a Female Nomad (Rita Golden Gelman)
    
16. Daughter of Fortune (Isabelle Allende)
    
17. The Secret Life of Bees (Sue Monk Kidd)
    
18. Autobiography of a Blue-Eyed Devil (Inga Muscio)
    

(Wow, have I got a lot of female-authored books! And that's not even all of them, just the first several I came across.)

Granted, those 10 books could very well take me the whole of a year, so I'm not entirely dismissing the concept. I just need to approach it in my own way! :)

I will also place the list in my sidebar, under the header "Goal: 10 Female Authors", so that we can all keep track of my progress. (Or yell at me if I'm digressing terribly! Although hopefully it won't be at all difficult to stick to.)

I've already started on Gone With the Wind, partially because I want to read the book before seeing the movie (I have this weird need to do that, often), partially because it's one of those Great Novels that I've always wanted to read, and partially because my mom said she remembers reading it, and sometimes (well, often) I just like to be like my mom. :)

Speaking of awesome parents, my father is also so fantastic: he offered to buy the yarn I'll need for the cardigan I want to knit! Unfortunately, I can't seem to find the pricing for it yet, and I'm not even sure if I want to take him up on that, but I think it was such a sweet offer. (Thanks, Dad!)

And in one more note of good news, I got invited back to the closed beta of Lord of the Rings Online! I hope they've fixed some of the lag problems that were happening during the stress test (which is exactly a stress test's purpose in the first place). I still don't think I can talk about it yet, but when I can, I'll be sure to dish!

All right, everyone, have a fantastic weekend! xoxo

yes, those are what you think they are...

Just wanted to post this awesome story about how a Liverpool hospital has started to knit breasts for use in teaching new mothers how to breastfeed: Knitted breasts help new mothers.

(thanks, whipup.net!)

Currently Reading:
	TITLE: Indecision AUTHOR: Benjamin Kunkel
	TITLE: Gone With the Wind AUTHOR: Margaret Mitchell

i wish that's what it cost

I just received this month's Interweave Knits in the mail, and I am all itching to knit up "Dollar and a Half Cardigan":


...I just wish it actually did cost only $1.50 to make! Since I'm limiting myself in my yarn purchases right now (and I really really really want to make it in that brown), I am thinking that I am going to be very, very good & wait to ask for that yarn for my birthday.

May can't come fast enough! xoxo

Currently Reading:
	TITLE: Indecision AUTHOR: Benjamin Kunkel

make your mind dance

Yesterday I attended a meeting at Boston Cares, where we watched an amazing & very moving video called What I Want My Words to Do to You, about several female inmates who took a writing course with Eve Ensler (yes, of Vagina Monologues fame). Next week, as the second part of the program, we go to Quincy to work with the Prison Book Program, which is something I've been interested in checking out since I moved here (I just love the idea of everyone reading & learning, no matter who or where they are!), but never had the courage to until Boston Cares organized a Serve & Learn about it. Yay! xoxo

p.s. The title of my post is one of the things I want my words (in general) to do for my readers. Although I know at this point I've not produced much of substance. Must. Work. On that.

Currently Reading:
	TITLE: Cunt: A Declaration of Independence AUTHOR: Inga Muscio
	TITLE: Indecision AUTHOR: Benjamin Kunkel

give a little love

I didn't watch the Super Bowl (I have to admit, I don't even know who played), but I was watching a few of the commercials today (gotta love how they're online about 2 seconds after they air), and I just loved this one!


We'll ignore my feelings about Coca-Cola for the time being; I have to give it to them: great ad department (but was that ever in doubt?).

not good

This is the second time this week that I've set the alarm incorrectly & caused Dan to miss the train he normally takes to work. I realize that he is fully capable of setting his own alarm, so I know I can't feel 100% to blame, but I am so worried I am ultimately going to be the reason that he doesn't have a job anymore, or something. :(

Currently Reading:
	TITLE: Cunt: A Declaration of Independence AUTHOR: Inga Muscio
	TITLE: Apex Hides the Hurt AUTHOR: Colson Whitehead