Sock Club Ahoy!

My my. This has been an exciting week. The weather keeps flirting with the idea that 8 degrees F is not an acceptable temperature and maybe, just maybe it likes the idea of spring coming soon. We are still mired in 20-30 degree weather now, but I will take any temperature increase I can get.
Since the weather was a bit better, we ventured out this morning instead of hibernating indoors. The winter farmer's market in our neighborhood was quaint (in the 'it was small' sense of the word). We got some mango salsa, dried chantrelle mushrooms, ground beef, and some yummy cheese. I was hoping to get there by bike instead of car (since I wanted to use my new panniers), but the Captain had un torticolli (that is your french word of the day) and therefore could not turn his head well enough to check for cars, so we drove. From there we sauntered over to Chix with Stix to get buttons for my new hat. I really like this hat. It is the Robin's Egg Blue Hat knitted in Noro Iro. This was done in just 2 days and the wool/silk blend is really luxurious. If you want to knit this hat, I suggest adding two stitches before you do the decreases. That way you will have 70 stitches to go around and thus will get an even number of decrease divisions starting with K8, k2tog all the way around. (And yes, those are Christmas decorations still up. We got rid of the tree, but it seems me always leave at least something up until my birthday every year.)
The biggest news of the week though was a double whammy. I got a raise at work (yeah!) and the Captain suggested that I use the first month's raise amount to get myself something nice. I thought that this was an excellent idea, so I started poking around the interwebs for ideas. It did not take me long to decide on the Woolgirl sock club. I am so excited! I have always wanted to join a sock club, but since the up front cost is steep I had always just had it in the back of my mind as a 'someday' thing to do. But now someday is today! I can't wait 'till February for my first shipment. Of course, this means that I need to get the singleton sock (which is currently hogging my most precious ebony sock stix) and his mate finished before my new sock yarn arrives.

Pretty in Pink

I have been working on my Scheherazade stole for almost a year now. It is a beautiful pattern and I have been remiss to keep it in an unfinished state for so long. This stole has been to Texas, New York, Tennessee, and Poland. You would think that a stole this well traveled would have something more than '1/3 of the way done' to show for itself. I hope that the picture here shows up well enough on your monitor to demonstrate its beauty. I promise to finish this by 2009. I must.

I did manage to quickly knit a pair of fingerless mitts for the winter season. These took me only a couple of days, but have been worn 5 times already. They are the wine and roses mitts from the winter 2006 issue of Interweave Knits. I love this issue. I have already knit the Equestrian Blazer from this issue and plan to one day make the Nantucket Jacket for my mom.

New Year, New President, New Blog Layout

I hope y'all like the sassy new blog layout. I felt it was time for a fresh start. Let me know what you think.

Today we usher in the 44th president of the United States. I found the moment inspiring and uplifting. I believe that American's can rise above our troubles, that we can pull ourselves out of the mire of economic depressions, surmount people who do not want peace, and embrace our fellow humans to bring about a better tomorrow. I am hopeful for what we can become and where we can go. I know that it will not be perfect. I know that every choice which is made may not be something I agree with. But I have to think that hope and love are the greatest things of all.

I would also like to say a few words about our 43rd president, George Bush. I voted for him the first time. It was my first election. I was new and naive. I didn't research as much as I should have. Four years later I realized that he was not the choice for me and I voted for the loosing party. I have not agreed with him much over the past eight years, but he was our president. I respect him for the office he held and I respect him as a person. I genuinely believe he did what he thought was best with the information presented to him. Though I think he was wrong on many accounts, I don't think he is a bad man.

So, good luck to you President Bush wherever your life takes you. And good luck to our new President Obama. This is the first election I have truly been an active participant in. I hope for the environment, I hope for a bright future for science, and I hope for the longevity of our great nation. I also send hope to our troops that they may be the best they can be until they return safely home. Thank you to the veterans and the volunteers; to the teachers and the parents. Our message going forward has changed from 'yes we can' to

YES WE WILL!

Fitness

My resolution for 2009 (not a strict resolution, more like guidelines) is to get into shape. The Captain is taking me to Nicaragua for my 30th birthday, so I want to actually be beach ready for one time in my life. I have my google calendar all set up to track my fitness. I got a late start this month because of the flood and sinus infection resulting from said flood. Apparently your body does not like it when you stand in freezing water for an hour (Oy!) Last night (against protestations from my rear that likes to stay firmly seated on the couch) I did 30 min of yoga. Tony finds yoga highly amusing. If I move to the right- he follows me. He sniffs my feet and hands. Then I move left and he runs to the other side to investigate. He has still not learned the asana sequence which transitions from downward facing dog to upward facing dog. He runs under me during down dog and then has to high-tail it when I start the transition to my belly. Of course as soon as I am back to down dog he is right under me again. I suppose I get an extra work out holding poses mid air to avoid a ferret collision.

Since the wonderful city of Chicago has found it in its heart to bestow us with a high of 5 today, I am frantically reknitting the fingerless gloves that I started at the beginning of the year. Lusciousluka got me some lovely yarn for Christmas. I started knitting a certain lovely pattern from a certain company that will not be named. The pattern looked lovely. I started knitting it however to only find that the right mitt is actually a left mitt and some of the decreases were wrong. I just went along with it, finished the right mitt and started the left. That one is also a left mitt!!! With the amount of errors in the first one and the fact that I would have to rework everything to get a stinking right mitt I decided to frogg the whole thing and find a new pattern. It is super cold outside. I need mitts!

Now, the pattern is free, so I can't complain to much. C'est la vie. I just find it amusing that errata has already been published for the pattern. They caught the error on the ring finger but not the fact that you get 2 left mitts. I am trying to decide how best to tell the company about this so that a) they don't get offended that I am complaining about a free pattern and b) no one else has to deal with this. I am experienced enough to know that the pattern has errors, but some other knitter might get so frustrated thinking that they are the ones that are reading the pattern wrong.

2009 Begins

Happy 2009 everybody! I know I have been slacking with the blog, but I hope to change that in 2009. We had a super awesome time visiting our families. I think my dad should get the hero of the holidays award. He was sick all week and had to handle some super crisis at work. He still managed to make it to our new years eve bash- go dad!

This years resolutions are:

1) Make at least weekly entries on the blog
2) Get into a better yoga routine (It comes to mind that last year's routine of working out twice a month is not going to cut it)
3) Knit through more of my sock yarn stash. I have not a terrible amount of sock yarn, but I have a pathetic amount of actual finished socks. Considering that I am a pretty decent knitter and my goal is to have mostly hand knit socks at some point... the fact that I currently own a mere 4 pairs is silly. So my friends, I hope to show you more socks in the future.

Knitting and resolutions were put on hold for a while due to the small flood that was in our apartment last week. I shall not go into details here, but suffice to say I almost have the house back to normal.