A bit of Knitting

I know that I said I wouldn't be posting knitting on this blog any more, but I feel compelled to share this project with you as it took me quite a while to finish. One of my very best friends, Jenny, had a baby about 6 weeks ago. This is the blanket I made for her. The pattern is Interweave Knits Yggdrasil Afghan. (ravelry link). Yarn is Knit Picks Comfy Sport in Marlin. I made the medium size, but didn't measure it before I gave it away. I think it was about 60" square-ish. I love the look of this blanket, but it was a bit fiddly to knit, especially grafting the braided borders. There are plenty of mistakes, which I won't point out, but suffice to say, it's definitely hand made. I hope that little James loves it for years to come. :)



The whole thing. The color is a little more saturated than that.



a close up of the center tree secion, knit from the center out



close up of the third border, the braid and leaves




close up of the first border, the braid. Love how this looks, but the corners and grafting were a huge pain

I've cast on for the next baby blanket. I'll not disclose details here in case the momma reads this, but I hope that it will be as beautiful as this one. :)

Voting

Well, at least it's every other day... or just less than a month in between posts for now. :) Here's the current status.

Reading: Not much has changed here. I actually haven't read anything since Monday. Special, I know. I have bene sick, which means that my normal before bed reading hasn't happened because I've been so tired. I also haven't been reading because I've been staying up late with Andrew while he works on his Halloween costume. It's turned into quite the project. I really have no good excuses though. I did however, just sign up to be a reviewer for Thomas Nelson. Basically you sign up, choose a book and they send you a preview copy. You agree to review the book (at least 200 words) on your blog and on Amazon. Fine by me. :) I think it should be an interesting project if nothing else. My first book, In the Shadow of the Sun King, by Golden Keyes Parsons, is on it's way. I have hopes that it will be good. I'd rather not write a bad review for my first one. 

Writing: Mmmm... yes, much the same as the reading. I've done nothing. I might be able to get something in today, but I just don't currently have the inspiration. I'm still trying to decide between continuing work on the current book or starting a new one for NaNoWriMo. We'll see... I'm just not feeling inspired or motivated recently. I'm hoping that some WriMo pressure might help, but I have my doubts. 

Knitting: Haven't been knitting either. I know... seriously. What have I been doing? Cleaning the house mostly and running errands. I don't understand how I can have "all the time in the world" to do things, and still not get anything done. I did buy some more shawl yarn at Walmart yesterday though. Not that I need any more yarn for shawls, but it was all on sale and I can never pass up a good sale. 

Panic: Well.. I'm actually feeling less anxious than usual today. And I VOTED! Yay! I still need to go turn in my ballot (it's a mail-in) but I figure I can do that tomorrow. I have to go to the cleark and recorder anyway to get some extra training since I am now not just an election judge, but a supply judge. Yeah, that means I'm in charge at the precinct. Honestly... that just seems like a bad idea, but we'll see. 

Voting did take forever though. I did actually read the blue book and do some research on all the issues, which definitely added time, but the ballot is huge! I STRONGLY encourage everyone to either vote early or by mail so you don't have to be stuck in line on election day. Filling out these ballots is going to take a while. And if you do vote on Election Day, please review your ballot beforehand (you can find them online) and bring a cheat-sheet so it doesn't take you forever to read everything. 

Anyway, that is all for now... I think I might go take a nap. To the rest of you-- GO VOTE!!!!!

OLYMPICS! and whatever else...

Now, I'll be the first to say that I am a bit of a TV junkie. There isn't much I like more than sitting and watching a good show, or a terribly bad show, but I can usually restrain myself. For the past week however, no such luck. It has been all Olympics all the time around our house. I'm not quite sure what it is about the Olympics that makes them so hard to stop watching, but I just can't quit. I was up until three in the morning last night watching synchronized swimming. Which, by the way, looks ridiculously hard. Loved the pretty suits though.:) I haven't gotten any writing done because I've been completely engrossed with Olympic action. I have knit some- more posts on that to come, but mainly I've been cheering on whoever is on the screen. Gymnastics, swimming (I love Phelps, he seems so nice), rowing, tennis, badminton, diving, synchronized swimming, table tennis, cycling, volleyball- indoor and outdoor, weightlifting, track, dressage, I have watched anything and everything that is on. I LOVE it! Granted, I haven't really slept or cleaned the house or anything else, but it's been worth it. The tremendous human spirit makes me want to cry constantly. Phelps winning number eight; Dara Torres holding up the race so another swimmer could get her suit fixed; any time the national anthem is played. It's so touching. I don't know what it is that makes me so emotional about all of these things, but I can barely keep it together when all of those Morgan Freeman commercials come on, and if it's the one with Bella Caroli- forget it. Tears abound. Anyway, only a few more days of Olympic action and then maybe life can get back to normal. : )

In other news- well there is no other news. :) Schools went back today. I didn't. Which, was alright overall. I'm actually subbing on Wednesday, so I won't be out of the classroom for long. :) I had an interview at an athletic club, but haven't heard anything back from them yet. So we'll have to see. Went to the wedding of a childhood friend last Wednesday. It was nice, quite beautiful and interestingly enough I learned that I used to be baby-sat by the mother-in-law of one of my best friends from Sunset. The world is quite a funny place. Always too small. It was also nice to catch up with some of my mother's old friends. They are all such lovely women.
I finished my sun ray shawl, while being an election judge for the primaries. That was pretty painfully boring, we had about no one show up to vote. Not that they really needed to, they had mail in ballots and only one contested race. I also finished and blocked the 2008 Summer of Socks socks and am working on another Wendy Knits pair. I am thoroughly addicted to her sock patterns. Quick, cute, and just the right amount of effort. I really love tow up socks now too. I don't know if I'll manage to go back to cuff down socks.
If you are a knitter and don't read Wendy's blog- well shame on you. :) And the book.... well I have about four different beginnings now. Two of them may be viable. We'll have to see. I'll be taking them to my writing group this week for some critique.

Anyway, I'm off to have some dinner with friends. My friend Emma is also struggling with finding a job... we're going to commiserate over some margs at the Rio. :)
Until... well... whenever I get back to this.

Oh... and I believe I know who wrote my first and only comment. :) I'll miss you too E.R. maybe I'll get to see you when I sub.

Weekly at least. :)

Well... again I'm not posting as often as I originally envisioned, but at least it's once a week now. There will be no pictures in this post... I'm feeling too lazy. But, the garden is surviving, despite my best attempts to kill it. I honestly juts forget to water it. Andrew and I are working on putting in the drip system, but it proved more difficult than we envisioned. Mainly because we can't run the hose underneath our deck from the spigot to the garden. We've moved on the plan b, but haven't executed yet. :)
I went to a wedding in Leadville this weekend. It was really beautiful, Jenna did an amazing job. I was sort of touched too because she used a lot of elements from my wedding last summer. It was really nice to see that someone was inspired by something that I put so much work into. I got to catch up with some old friends from high school too. At first I was nervous about this. I didn't really like high school the first time around, so I wasn't sure how it would be. It was really nice though. It was great to see everyone and from what I could tell, we all grew up a lot. I'm actually excited about my 10 year reunion next summer. I think it will be a lot of fun.
Anyway, on the way home from Leadville, Andrew and I stopped at Beau Jo's in Idaho Springs (the original one). I had heard that they have gluten free pizzas, so we decided to check it out. It was in short, awesome. Not only do they have gluten free pizzas (plural too, lots of options) but they also have all of the nutrition info and allergy info listed ON THE MENU! It was really nice and I'm sure their staff appreciates it as well. This isn't exclusive to the Idaho Springs location, so I'm sure Andrew and I will be back for pizza at Beau Jo's soon.
In other gluten-free news, I've been eating out more than I thought I would be able to. Chili's, Wendy's, Good Times, Happy Sumo, and I'm sure more places, have all been great and very accommodating. Granted, I don't think I'm super allergic (we'll see when the test results come back) so I can eat things that have been around wheat, but overall they've been really nice.
The knitting is going. I'm currently working on a shawl from Elann and some simple socks for my uncle. Reading and writing are about in the same state. :) Anyway, I'm off to go run with Jenny. I know... working out. It will be an adventure. If I survive, I'll try to write more (with pictures) later this week.

Marathon Post....

Yeah... my thought that when school was over I could totally post three or four times a week... I was wrong. I'm still working on developing my habits and learning to use my time well. It's going...well... it's going. Anyway. This will be a marathon post of all, or most, things that have happened in the past (that's p-a-s-t not passed... I've seen more people screw that one up in the last few days... it just irritates me) few weeks.
Here we go... in blog order
Reading: I haven't been able to devote much time to this, but I did pick up a new book. Simply Christian. It's pretty good so far. My sister is looking into Catholicism, and I'd like to be able to recommend some books for her to read so she has a full perspective on religion. I'm not Catholic myself, so I can't really speak directly to what she's learning at youth group, but I wanted to be able to give her some reading to understand Christianity as a whole. I think Simply Christian might be a little too academic for her, but I'm enjoying it. It's well written and very interesting. It addresses the basics of Christianity without centering on one religion and talks about why it is that Christianity makes sense, or should make sense I guess if you agree with the book. So far, so good, but I haven't had much time to read it.

Writing: Well.... yes. I haven't gotten very far on my book. I only have about 25 pages written. I got a little stuck about a week ago and went off into the weeds doing some probably useless research. I haven't gotten back into it since then. Again... this going beck to my "forming habits" problem. I need to set aside time each day to write, but I haven't. I did however get an hourglass. I'm quite excited. :) It looks very writerly on my desk and it supposed to help me stick with my "at least one hour of writing a day" task.

Knitting: The blanket is finally done! YAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAY! I am so excited! I decided not to back it. Partially because EVERYONE told me that I didn't need to, and partially because I was just so sick of it. I needed to be done. :) So... here are some gratuitous pictures of the blanket. I really hope that Nicole and the baby like it. :) I also hope that none of my other friends have a baby any time soon... I really don't think I can take making another ridiculous blanket for a while.







So... there it is. I'm feeling about done with my computer taking forever to upload photos. So I'll share my haul from the Ester Park Wool Market and the re-do of the back yard, as well as current knitting projects tomorrow.... or sometime soon. :)
P.S. that blanket really is that big... it's sitting on our king-size bed in those pictures.

again with the long absence....

Right. I keep thinking that I'll post daily, or even weekly, but I just haven't gotten to it. So... here goes the marathon post. I'm not sure that any one actually reads this, but if you do, you're in for a long post. Get a snack and brace yourself.

First: School... counting down the days. Everyone's been asking if I'm getting emotional or if I'm going to miss it. I haven' t yet. I think I'll be a bit of a wreck in August when, for the first time in my life, I won't be going back to school, but we'll see. I'm excited right now. I'm really ready to have some time and energy to write.


Second: Reading... I've actually finished a couple of books. Inkheart and The Power of Intention. I wrote reviews for both of them over on my Goodreads page. So I won't bore you with a full review now. I started reading The Secret and The Birchbark House. Hopefully I can finish them in a reasonable amount of time. Yet another thing I'm looking forward to once school is out.

Third: I've been seeing an acupuncturist, as I think I've mentioned before. I'm pretty excited about it. She's the first person who has actually had some answers for all of the symptoms that I've been having for years. She believes that, among other problems, I have a gluten allergy. So, I'm going gluten -free to see if it helps. I'll be posting about that aspect of my life as well. One of the things I was really worried about when I first found out about my allergy was going out to eat. We like to go out with friends all the time and I didn't want to be the lame one that couldn't because of an allergy. So far I have had great luck though. We went out with Jenny and John last weekend to Jim and Nick's BBQ at Northfield Stapleton. They were fantastic! The server went and checked on the gluten in the chips and the BBQ sauce. We ate a giant plate of DE-licious nachos. I never thought to put BBQ sauce on nachos, but they were fantastic. Then I had a giant (literally the size of my head) backed potato with all the trimmings, plus pulled pork and BBQ sauce. Now, I believe that I'm just gluten-intolerant, not majorly allergic, so I can't say if there were trace amounts of gluten in anything or not, but the restaurant was really accommodating and helpful. It was my first outing gluten -free and definitely put me at ease.
The next outing was for Mother's Day with Andrew's mom and sister. We went to the Colorado Coal Company in Erie. They too were awesome. Granted, it's a steak house, so it's a little easier to go gluten free, but they were still nice and able to answer all of my questions.
Finally, last night we got Chipotle. At first I was really worried about going gluten free because I love Mexican food, but EVERYTHING at Chipotle is gluten0free, except the flour tortillas (duh). The guy there was also super nice and gave me a little allergy card with all of the major allergies on it and what they're in. Fantastic. I'm sure I'll be eating out more... so for those who are in Colorado and living gluten-free, hopefully my adventures can help.
Oh... I also bought some gluten-free bread at Great Harvest Bread Company today. Now... I'm only into this gluten-free thing about a week, so I haven't gotten the chance to try any other GF breads, but this stuff is pretty darn good. It's mostly buckwheat, but it's really hearty and not as crumbly as I imagined. The Great Harvest in Longmont bakes it every Wednesday, call ahead to place an order so they don't run out. Also, if you're seriously allergic, there probably is still wheat in the air and stuff. Very good though.

Finally... some knitting. :) And pictures too! I'm plugging away at the orange prayer shawl. No picture for that, it still looks the same. I did however finish the hardest thing I have ever knit in my life. Only after completely screwing it up.

That's the first one with all of the screw ups pointed out. I literally threw this thing across the room I was so irritated. Grumble...







Well, whatever... it got fixed. The next two are pictures of the finished square.

























I'm so glad it's done. I hope it looks as hard as it was. Ugh... This one I finished before the square of death.... It wasn't nearly as bad.

















And finally.... the square in progress now!


It's quite a lot easier than the last square. I really needed a break after that headache. :) Only 6 squares left. I really hope I can get this thing knit, blocked, sewn together and lined by the end of June. Yipes! Something else to do when school is out. :)
All right... hopefully I can post again soon.