The Weekend...Pictures Tomorrow

Sorry that there will not be any pictures today. I have a ton on my camera, but they are still on my camera right now because I was too lazy and sleepy last night to download them. We'll start with Friday...

Friday I took a half day at work and went to the last day at Keeneland. Once again, I didn't win a single bet, but after three consecutive trips there without cashing in a ticket, I'm getting used to it...DBF did pretty good and came out ahead, so that was good. After Keeneland, DBF and I went back to work to pick up Kathy. DBF won tickets to go see the Lippezaner Stallions for Friday night for four people, so we took Kathy with us. We all enjoyed seeing the horses, and I think we were all glad that it was free. After the show, we crashed.

Saturday, DBF and I ran in the 5k. I ran the whole way. DBF walked/ran the whole thing, but I was running slow enough that he didn't get behind on the walking parts :oP I finished my first 5k in 45 minutes which is pretty darned slow, but I figure that I can only get better from there :oP The rest of the day, DBF and I just sacked out. I did break down and get a new pair of running shoes though. The cheapy Walmart shoes I had been running in were killing my toes and feet in general, so I broke down and got a good pair at the local running shop.

Sunday, DBF and I went to see a production of The Music Man that one of his cousins was playing in. His cousin was a salesman, but not Harold Hill. We went to church, had lunch, went to the play, then got home about 9 last night. I did knit while in the car, so I'm hoping that I can finish a pair of socks tonight and have another finished object to show you all tomorrow.

There was my weekend in a nutshell. Plenty of pictures tomorrow, I promise.

Knit on...

When An Offer Seems To Good...

It probably is. I called the company about the camera when I got an email from them saying they needed to get in touch with me. Turns out they do this to everyone to try to talk them into buying more stuff. While on the phone, I found out that the camera is a Japanese body and that it's Japanese formatted, so there would be no English on the menu. Now if I were fluent in Japanese, this wouldn't be a problem.

I told them I wanted to cancel the order and Pissy Peter got all huffy with me saying that I wouldn't be able to find a better deal on this camera. Well, of course I won't be able to find one this cheap, but hell, this may seem like a strange concept, but I would like my camera to be in my native language. When I told him I wanted to cancel the order, he said "Fine!" and then hung up the phone on me!

Not the way to deal with customers. I may have bought memory cards and such from them in the future if they had treated me better. But, for now, I want to just leave a little warning for you all. The company is usaphotonation.com They will try to pressure you into stuff that you don't want and they get all pissy if you want to cancel the order. Good news is that my credit card was not charged and I didn't get stuck with a bad camera. Lesson learned. I'll be getting a D40x from B&H photo if I do go buy a digital any time soon. I think this also may have been God's way of telling me to use that tax refund towards the credit cards.

On a lighter note, I finished my first 5K today! I ran the whole thing, in about 45 minutes! DBF ran/walked it with me, but I'm such a slow runner that he could walk as fast as I could run. That's OK though. I managed to prove to myself that I could run the whole thing. Now I'll shoot on improving my time for the next one in May. I'm going to go collapse now...

Knit on, run on...

An Offer I Couldn't Refuse

Nikon D200: "See, now, chick. You need me. You know you do. I'm going to make you an offer you can't refuse."

Me: "Yeah, it's going to have to be a damn good offer. You're a 1500 dollar camera..."

Nikon D200: "Not for tonight. Tonight I'm a 379 dollar camera."

Me: ::Jaw dropped:: "Uh, but I don't have any Nikon lenses to go with you. I've been shooting Minolta for almost 4 years now."

Nikon D200: ::scowls, if a camera can scowl:: "Ok, fine, I'll make this a better offer for you. I'll throw in two lenses. I'll give you an ultra wide angle 18mm lens and I'll throw in a 20-200 zoom for you as well. While I'm feeling so generous, I'll give you a tripod and a memory card to."

Me: "I surrender, now where did I put that damn credit card..."

Yep, last night I bought a D200 for 600 bucks. I used my tax refund for it and I really feel it was worth it. I was going to use that tax refund to pay off another credit card, but I could get that one paid off next month anyways, so my justification for buying the camera was made. I got the camera body, two lenses, memory card, tripod (I'm sure it's crap, but I already have a good one), digital slave flash, and some cleaning kits all for around 600 bucks. I'm quite pleased.

I'm also going to announce a stash sale. Next week, I'll be having a sale of a good chunk of my stash. My apartment fell through and just about every other place around here is booked through July, so it looks like I'll be moving back with my grandparents for a couple of months until I can get another place lined up. So, I'm selling off the big stuff in my stash, but saving the sock yarn. I could be content in knitting through the giant bin of sock yarn and getting rid of the rest. I'll have some Highland Wool, some superwash merino wool, and a mish-mash of odds and ends going up here. The best part? This is a "Make me and offer I can't refuse" sale. I'll take a reasonable offer on anything. I just want a little bit of money for this stuff and I want it to go to a good home where it will be appreciated and worked with.

Oh, guess what? I do still knit too. Look, a sock!

Oh, and Spooky looked like she was getting really bored with all the camera and yarn talk.

Tick In A Bag

Not Snakes On A Plane, but rather Tick In A Bag last night. I was getting ready to take a shower, had stripped down and then saw a black spot on my side. At first I thought that a new mole had popped up or something, then I realized what it was. It was a tick. A damn tick had followed me home from Cumberland Falls and decided to start feasting on me and crap. After a few failed match burning attempts, I got tweezers and yanked him out. I've never had a tick before, so I called my grandparents about what I should do and they gave me a number to call for a registered nurse hotline. So I called and they said I should bag up the tick and call the doctor this morning just to be on the safe side.

So I have a tick in a bag at work and I feel like an idiot carrying it around. DBF said he lived out in the country when he was a kid and would get 1-2 tick bites nearly every day and never had any problems. I'm not worried about it, but my grandmother freaks out over stuff like this, so I guess for her sake, I'll call the doctor and see if they want the tick or me to come in.

Anyways, that was my terribly exciting evening. I still took my nice bath after the tick was removed, and then I went to bed, feeling like my skin was crawling due to ticks :oP

Knit on...

Running

I went running last night with Rebecca and we actually made it an entire lap, 2 miles! I was happy, but man am I sore today. I'm going to try to do a run/walk on Thursday so that I can be ready to go on Saturday for the 5k. I think I might actually make the whole thing. We'll see.

Today is SnB with Kim, so I'll be knitting for once I suppose. I don't know how much I'll be knitting more than talking and eating my lunch, but I'll at least get a sock picture up here tomorrow.

Turns out I'm not going to get the apartment I wanted. Believe it or not, but I was told that I make too much money each year to qualify for that apartment complex. I guess maybe it's for the best. We'll see. Oh well.

Anyways, DBF won tickets to go see the Lippezaner Stallions on Friday. I've never seen them before, so that should be fun. Friday may be a day of horses if we go to Keeneland too.

Knitting content tomorrow.

Knit on...

My Competition Entries

OK, before I get to the pictures, a little note. These images are mine. I took them, so please don't take them from me. If you do, I'll get pissy, and we all don't want to see me get pissy. I already submitted the chipmunks to cute overload, so they should be the only ones to use them or any other image on here. OK, on to the pictures.

We'll start off with the winning one. This grabbed me third in the forest floor category.

It was really smoky and foggy on Saturday morning when I took this one. It was a one second exposure at about 6:30ish AM.

I submitted this bark as abstract in nature. Didn't do squat :oP

Last, but not least, the edited version of kissing chipmunks.

Knit on...

The Weekend In Pictures

I am much more rested today than I was yesterday morning. Of course going to bed at 7:30 usually helps. I haven't gotten my winning slide scanned in yet, but I should have that by this afternoon and I'll post it then. But now, I present the weekend in pictures taken with my point and shoot digital camera. Better pictures tomorrow from the SLR. The first thing we noticed when we got up to the park was that there was a pretty big forest fire. It smelled pretty bad and turns out it was even worse in the morning. It made for some interesting pictures though.

Don't worry, it turned out to be a controlled burn. They didn't check with the state park before doing it, so we had to deal with the smoke all weekend while taking pictures. On the bright side, it gave some things that eerie look.

The sky on Friday, aside from the smoke, was gorgeous. So much so, that DBF took some pictures of it that turned out very good.

The next stop was Gatliff Bridge. This bridge is constantly being photographed. I liked the close up version best:

Next stop was with cows. We saw this little farm along the way and they were posing for us.

Then we drove out to Natural Arch. It was a pretty cool rock formation, but the light was already too bright to get any good shots of it.

After the arch, we went on a very long drive. We were in search of yellow lady slippers, and DBF's mom had received a tip on where they were. Turns out it was a tip that may have applied last year, but not this year. The major freeze that we had probably wiped them all out. Oh well. After we turned in our film, DBF and I went hiking in search of fiddlehead ferns. We found some:

We also saw a lot of wooly worms.

There's the weekend in a nutshell. I'll have some more pictures tomorrow, but they'll be better ones. Hope I didn't crash too many computers with that post.

Knit on...

The Weekend in 200 Words or Less

I'm tired. It was a nice, long weekend. We hiked, we took pictures, we drove for many miles in search of non-existant yellow lady slippers. We saw chipmunks kissing, backlit wooly worms, and even a little green snake. I won 3rd in forest floor and DBF got two honorable mentions in abstract and wildlife. We did good. I'm tired though and I didn't load any pictures. I have a ton of film to develop, so that's my next big thing to do. I'll scan in some pictures tomorrow and I'll download stuff off my camera. Will someone buy me a digital SLR? Nikon D40x perhaps?

Knit on...

Coffee is Good

In case anyone didn't know that already. Specifically, Starbucks caramel machiatto made with fat free milk is very good. I met my friend Erica at Starbies last night so we could catch up on what's been happening in the past few weeks. We talked for a couple of hours, then I had to get back home and do some laundry since I'll be gone all weekend and I've heard that clothing is typically expected when you're with a group of people...

I knit some on the never-ending piece of stockinette. I still didn't think it was worth taking a picture of, so you don't get any pictures today. I'm debating on either going to camera club or to poker tonight. If I go to poker, you'll get a picture of the stockinette because I need to hold it up to the chick and see how it's doing length-wise so far and double check my measurements. If I go to camera club, you'll get a picture of the poor, forgotten sock in progress which I will work on there (the coat is now turning into a blanket and it getting hard to travel with).

If you would like to watch something fascinating, click this link: http://www.wvec.com/cams/eagle.html

Baby bald eagles. Live camera. They're cute in that "I can peck your eye out" kind of way.

Knit on...

Crunch Time

I love deadlines. I know that they are coming up, I see them on my calendar, I even hear them announced in classes, but do I work on things until the last minute? Nope, that's just not me. I've got nine pages of a 15 page paper now that's due tomorrow, so I have to get moving on it. I'm really hoping that I can get the thing done this morning before I have to go help set up for our big meeting on Friday. Blah.

Oh, and I am really not liking petroleum geology. I like fossils, not the goo they become if they're algaes and other soft bodied things. Anyways...

Last night I went to SnB at Jane's. It was nice to see everyone again. Normally I run on Tuesday nights, so I haven't been able to get out and say hello to everyone, but Rebecca is still sick with the flu and I would prefer it if she would stay far away from me while she has that. So, I ran right after work and almost ran a full lap. The full lap was not as good as the first time I almost ran a full lap. That time running felt good, yesterday, running was not high on my list of fun things to be doing at that moment, but I pushed through and made it to the top of the last big hill before I had to walk. I'm going to see if I can push myself a little further on Thursday. I'd really like to be able to run the whole 5k and while it doesn't seem like much to run that extra mile, it is quite a bit more when my mile time is close to 14 minutes right now. Oh well.

Does anyone want to buy me some new running shoes? The ones I have now are from Walmart and they are already breaking down. I may have to see what money I have left after this weekend and go buy a decent pair of shoes.

The sloggy knit isn't worth photographing right now. It's over 2 feet of stockinette now, so it is growing quite rapidly, but it just won't grow fast enough for my liking. Blah.

Knit on...

Slogging a la artsy

I knit last night while at poker. The never ending stockinette back is now about a foot and a half long and growing by the hour, so that's at least encouraging to see when you're already bored with a project. I wanted to take some pictures of it, so I decided to play around with stockinette and a lilly. This weekend is the Cumberland Falls trip, so I'm hoping that even a little digital photography practice will help. I'm just afraid that there may not be that much stuff to shoot down there because of all the freezes we've had plus the water levels being so high right now. Oh well, we'll see. So now, I leave you with Stockinette Slog and Easter Lilly.
Knit on...

Once Again, I Slogged

This is kinda how I feel about the never ending duster coat. I knit on it some in the mornings and I made some good progress even, but the more I knit on it, the more I feel like it is swarming around me and that there is no end in sight. I think it's just the miles of stockinette doing that to me. I'd rather have twenty cables and a lace panel to work on than 40 inches at 85 stitches per row. Blah.

The weekend was pretty good aside from the crappy weather. Saturday was a good day to stay inside and not do a darned thing. It rained all day long. DBF and I went and had lunch then walked at the mall for a little bit since it was so crappy outside. We also saw the movie Black Snake Moan. I now understand why it went to the dollar movie so fast. Just wait for it to come on cable...You do get to see a half-naked chained up Hilary Swank for 90% of the movie, so if you need an excuse to see it, that's the only reason I can give you.

Sunday we had a nice big lunch and then went jogging at the arboretum. I was surprised that DBF would go running with me, but he did good. I think he did better than I did too :oP He's thinking about running in the 5k in a few weeks with me since Rebecca had to skip out on that one. We did a lap then ate a blizzard on the way home, so we countered any good calorie burning we did while running. We went to see the movie called The Namesake and I thought it was pretty good. The previews looked much more funny than the movie turned out to be. Kal Penn (of Harold and Kumar Go To WhiteCastle fame...) was actually pretty good in the movie. It's always nice to see someone who can play a dumb character and then switch to a very serious role and pull it off.

I've got a major paper due this week, so I may not get as much knitting in, but we'll see. I may still be able to sneak some in. I'm hoping I can finish the dumb paper either tonight or tomorrow.

Knit on...

Slogging

So I joined the Mason Dixon Knitting Slogalong yesterday to help encourage myself to finish this duster coat. I saw some of the other projects that people are working on and I think that this is definitely the space that this coat belongs to. Anyways, here's a picture of the thing in progress. I've switched to photographing it in black and white so that it shows up better.

It's about 12 inches long after working on it some last night. I was in one of those funky moods that just seem to hit every now and then. I'm blaming the weather since it was so cloudy, cold, and blah the past few days. It's still cloudy and blah, but after sleeping for 8 hours last night, I feel less blah myself. I was supposed to run with Rebecca last night, but she called and cancelled because she was sick. So, I ran over to poker and could have gotten in the tournament, but I had actually only gone over there to see DBF for a little bit. I still wanted to do something exercise-wise since I wasn't going to run (it was cold and blah outside, remember?). I got to thinking on the way over to poker that I should go to the little mall by my house and walk, so I decided to do that. I didn't stay at poker very long and I didn't want to distract DBF from his cards, so I went over to the mall and walked.

I ran into my grandparents who apparently had the same idea since it was so cold outside. I probably could have ran like DBF said and no one would have even noticed me there. I could count the people at that mall on one hand. It was rather sad and didn't help my blah mood much.

I came home after walking and knit some and watched the Office. Some nights you just need some comedy on TV, so that was good. I got tired about 9:30 and went to bed. Terribly exciting evening, huh? Spooky didn't want to go to bed, and I could still hear her chewing on her cage, wanting back out when I was trying to get to sleep. The rabbit was definitely not in a blah mood :oP

I'm better today. I think it was just one of those days when you wake up on the wrong side of the bed. Maybe I was just tired or something, who knows. Maybe the lack of hot water at the house when you really want to take a morning bath put me in a blah mood. Have I mentioned I'll be happy to get out of this house in another month?

Knit on...

40-9=31, plus some stuff to buy

Just 31 more inches to go! It rained yesterday, so I didn't get a picture of the sweater in progress, but I'll try to get one up here tomorrow. It's really not that exciting. Stockinette out of acrylic yarn just doesn't thrill me much. But I did work on it some at SnB during lunch yesterday. I went from 8 inches to about 9 inches done. No one wanted to get out last night, so I wasn't able to force myself to knit on the thing any more after lunch. Instead I visited my grandparents and went to bed early last night. I needed sleep it seems since I didn't wake up until my alarm rang this morning.

Damn alarms...

Anyways, tonight I'll be running with Rebecca again. My legs are still sore from Tuesday, so hopefully some jogging will work that out of my system.

I have a few things for sale right now. I am too lazy to put them up on the etsy store right now, so I'll just plop them up here for the moment. I have seven skeins total of this red/black/white mix called lava that I spun up. Each skein is about 70-80 yards. I'd really like to sell the whole lot of seven for 40 bucks. If not, then I'll sell individual skeins for 7 bucks each. One skein is enough to make a buttonhole scarf, but two skeins will give you plenty for a nice long scarf. It's a wool mix, so can't say what kinds of sheep helped make this, but it's pretty soft. Here's a few pictures. Email me at knittingmagicgirl @ gmail dot com if you would be interested in picking these up. Help a girl get out of debt! :oP

The yarn is a heavy worsted to slightly bulky thick and thin yarn. It makes for a nice subtle texture, but an overall evenness in the knitted fabric.

The skeins are predominately red with some subtle black and white tones mixed in.

Also, I have one non-crafty thing for sale. Thought I would throw it up here before sticking it up on ebay. It's the FIRM exercise system. Comes with the step and all three original DVDs in the original box. I found that I just don't have room for this anymore and I really don't use it. I have an exercise bike and I'm running, so that gets me my aerobics in. It's a fun system though and I do recommend it. 20 bucks to a good home. Again, email me at knittingmagicgirl @ gmail dot com if ingterested.

OK, no more shameless self promotion.

Knit on...

Already Bored?

Yeah, the forty inches of stockinette has already gotten boring to me. I did knit on it some last night and I'll knit on it this afternoon at SnB. I may even see if any of the SnBers want to get out tonight so that I can force myself to knit some more on it. I'm about 8-9 inches along now, but the thing photographs horribly, so I'll try to get a good picture whenever it stops raining here and I can get outside to shoot it.

In the meantime, you all get a running story. To make it slightly less boring, here's a cartoon:

Yesterday before lunch, Rebecca let me know that she couldn't make it for running last night, so I decided that I would go ahead and run at lunch so that I could have the evening off and go play poker since DBF was going to be there again (I like that he's on first shift, but I'm sure he's not liking the time shift for his sleeping pattern) and I needed something to take my mind off the miles of stockinette. I decided that I would see how far I could go before I had to stop and walk. I almost made it a full lap and I ran 20 minutes. A full lap is two miles, so I was pretty happy to be in the around 10ish miles per hour. I sat down in my car after stretching and when I got back to work, I didn't want to get up. My legs were screaming at me for running that far.

They're still screaming at me today. I'll be doing the time intervals with Rebecca on Thursday. Hopefully I can handle running 4 minutes and walking for 2.

The Yarn Harlot is coming into town on the 21. It figures that the weekend she comes in would be the weekend that I will be out of town, running through the woods, taking pictures of whatever is left after that dumb freeze came through. Oh well. I'm thinking about sending something with someone anyways, but not sure yet. I got to see her briefly last year before having to pick up my grandmother. I even made it on her blog! Still, I'd like to see her, but seeing as I've already paid for this photography weekend, have a cabin reserved and such, I think I'll go there :oP

Knit on...

Look, Knitting! It Can Be Done!

Yes, last night, I knit. I played poker and I took knitting with me. But first, remember how I said that it snowed the other day here? Here's proof:

There ended up being more as the snow accumulated, but it was cold and I wasn't going back out there. Happy Easter! At least it keeps the eggs cool...

On to some knitting now. I knit a whopping three rounds on the sock:

Can't you tell? Anyways, while I was knitting on the sock and getting into the ribbing groove, I thought about the massive ankle-length duster that I needed to start making. I'm getting paid to do this, so I suppose I should get my butt in gear. So, before poker, I cast it on. I knit the entire time while playing poker and finished this much:

This thing is going to photograph horribly inside. If it ever warms up again, I'll go outside and get some shots so that you can see the real color of this. It's mostly black, but it has some wisps of gray in there as well. It's made out of Lionbrand Homespun in the Edwardian colorway. At least it's a start. Only 40 more inches to go before I can decrease for the arms! Doesn't 40 inches of plain stockinette sound like fun to you?...

Yeah, I'll have to push through. So right before the first tourney starts for poker, I get a call. Turns out it's DBF and he's coming to play poker! He got moved to first shift for the next couple of weeks so he can train for a new job and he'll even get a pay raise once he's trained! I was happy to see him since I normally don't see him at all except for the weekends. I know he'll be glad to be able to see everyone at poker again for a few weeks anyways.

The last news from yesterday is that I found an apartment. I didn't sign the lease since they are still waiting to see if any more open up before June 15, but if not, then I have one set aside for me. They're pretty good size and pretty cheap too and only a mile from where I work, which is why I wanted to look at them. Glad I did though since they only had one opening up in June so far. They apparently don't have a huge turnover rate which is always a good sign I think.

Anyways, I saw a closet that is perfect for yarn and Magic cards. Priorities after all...

Knit on...

Ever Wonder What To Do With Those Old Phones?

This was sent to me. I think it's fascinating:

Here's the link to the website they are found on. You can get better pictures there.

http://www.cualquiera.com.ar/notas/arte.html

Knit on...

Uh, yeah, what's knitting?

OK, so I lied on Friday when I promised that I would have actual knitting pictures on here today. I didn't knit a single stitch all weekend. Friday after work, DBF and I had dinner and just sacked out for the rest of the evening. Saturday, I attempted to go running in the morning, but it was so cold that it was hurting to breathe, so I decided very strongly against finishing the whole lap. After I got home and warmed up some, DBF and I went to my family's Easter gathering. There was lots of good food, some I could eat, some I couldn't, but it was the one thing I wouldn't have given a second thought to that got me.

Stuffing...I ate one of my granny's stuffing balls and within 10 minutes of eating it, I felt that familiar twinge that something just isn't right. A few minutes later, I was getting sick in the bathroom and it then dawned on me...I wonder what had chicken, eggs, or pork in it? I immediately thought of the stuffing since everything else I ate was pretty much just macaroni and cheese and green beans. So I asked my grandma what was in it and she said Stovetop stuffing. I asked her what flavor. Chicken she said, and the realization hit her as soon as she said it. She realized why I was asking and apologized for not telling me before I ate it. I told her it wasn't her fault and that I should have asked, but I was OK now.

Anyways, the rest of Saturday, DBF and I napped and took stomach medicine. Doesn't that sound thrilling?

Sunday was Easter and we went to church which was rediculously packed for once. We both tried to concentrate during the sermon, but there was this one kid who's parents were letting him run up and down the aisle, swing from the guard rail, and disturb all the people around him. He even had a DS game system in church! My parents taught me early on that there are places I must behave like an adult and places I could act like a kid. Church was always one of those adult places and if I was really fidgety, I would get the offering envelope and a pencil and draw until I had covered it up. I know I don't have kids, but you can teach a kid to behave in certain situations. Threatening them with death works I've been told :oP

That was my weekend in a nutshell. Hope everyone had a good Easter weekend. I'll try to knit some here soon.

Knit on...

A Little Bit of Running, Not Much Knitting

Yeah, so yesterday after work, I ran home and cooked dinner, stuffed my face with garlic rice noodles, hominy, and asparagus (yes, Mom, I am going to turn into an asparagus based on how much I have been eating here recently), then crashed in front of the TV for a little bit. Yes, I could have been knitting, but instead, I pet Spooky and watched the news. I read a little bit about using an exercise ball for a chair at work since I just picked up one on sale the other night and blew it up this morning at work. Yeah, I'm sitting on it, but I keep feeling like I am going to fall off (coordination is not my middle name) and my stomach is tired now, but that's supposed to be the whole point. I'll have to build up tolerance to sitting on it all day. On the bright side, my posture is about perfect on this thing.

After crashing for a little bit, I drove over to the arboretum to meet Rebecca for a run. It was cold as ice outside last night. I wore sweatpants, a sweatshirt, ear muffs, and gloves. Rebecca hadn't been out in it during the day, so she didn't come as prepared. I'm sure Bob is still trying to thaw her out from the run. We did it though. We ran for three minutes then walked for two minutes. We're trying to increase the running time each week until we're running for the full lap. We'll get there (a lap by the way is 2 miles). We found a road race yesterday that we may enter too if our schedules are free. It's on April 28. Three weeks away for a 5k. I know we won't be able to run the whole thing by then, but we may be able to run half of it at least. According to our training schedule, we'll be up to running 6 minutes then walking for 2, so that could get us pretty far. We'll see.

I know you all are tired of hearing about my running schedule. I'm just excited to see the scale moving towards the direction I want to see finally. I swear I'll have some knitting to show you all on Monday. In the meantime, have a good weekend and knit something or go running. Hopefully it's not frigid where you are.

Knit on...

Wednesday Report

How's that for a post title? Nothing really exciting happened yesterday aside from SnB at lunch with Kim and a few others. I almost finished the k2p2 ribbing on the cuff of the second purple sock while there, but I didn't do any more knitting last night. Instead, I cooked dinner and then met my friend Laura at the bookstore. I ended up buying a new journal there, but that was about the most exciting thing aside from the fat free, sugar free vanilla steamer at Starbucks afterwards.

I saw the scale move in the right direction today. I really do think I am the only person who can actually gain weight on weight watchers! I was doing everything right, counting points, activity, getting in my veggies, and I was gaining weight! After my doctor inspected me upon my completion of the flu medicine, I gave her my food journal and asked her what in the name of heaven was I doing wrong. She looked at the journal for a minute and said, "You're eating too many calories".

"Huh? I'm a good weight watcher though!"

"Yeah, but you're eating all these meat substitutes that have similar calories to meat, but they have a ton of fiber, so they register as 1 point where they should be 3 to 4 if they were real meat."

"Ah, so how many calories does it look like I'm eating?"

"About 3000 a day..."

::Jaw drops:: "Um, what should I do?"

"Count calories." ::hands me giant packet of information on how to do that and figure out how much to eat.

"Oh."

So, that is what I have been doing the past two weeks or so now. I had shot back up to 234ish, but this morning I was at 230ish, so it's moving in the right direction. Plus I'm sure the added running is helping a lot too. Speaking of that, I'll be running tonight, but it's a lot colder. Blah.

Knit on...

Knitting Magic Girl, the Dumbass

OK, I feel stupid. Remember how I complained about running out of yarn? If I had read the pattern all the way through, I would have figured out why I was running out of yarn...The instructions said to cast on double stranded, but nothing about knitting the whole scarf double stranded. So, I should have cast on double, knit with one strand, and then bound off double. Dumbass...Anyways, I finished the Fiddlehead scarf last night, double stranded, so it's not as wide as the pattern calls for, but it is thicker and works more as a scarf than a decorative thing. First, the pre-blocked scarf:

Gotta love lacy things. You have such faith that they will look better after you block them! Next, the scarf in blocking mode:

Would anyone like to buy me some blocking wires? This would have been the perfect project in which to use them.I really do love this pattern. Sure, the wrapped stitches got annoying sometimes, but they really made for a neat texture and I would do it all again to achieve the same results. Well, maybe I would have knit it like the pattern so it would be wider...

Finally, the finished scarf in all its glory!

Again, see why I needed blocking wires? That was not supposed to be a wonky edge like that. Of course I'm pretty new to the whole blocking thing anyways, so I'm sure that with more practice, I'll get better.

The other thing you will notice about these pictures is that I went from wearing a t-shirt to a full blown cushy sweater. Yeah, we had big storms go through last night, so we have gone from high 70's to low 80s to 45 today. Blah. I know it's not like it snowed or something, but that was a pretty stark contrast in weather. On the bright side, I got to knit while watching the severe weather come on the TV all freaking night. I was going to run with Rebecca last night too, but when I heard the first warning come out for the city next to us, I knew I had about 15 minutes to get home, so I called her and bailed even though I was already there at the arboretum. I ended up passing her on the way home since she was heading home herself. At least I walked at lunch yesterday.

Oh, and I also cast on the second sock out of that purple merino. It's about time I suppose. I guess I just keep putting off that giant duster sweater...I'll start that as soon as the sock is done...

Knit on...

This is the scarf that never ends...

Or at least that's how I feel about the fiddlehead scarf. I'm through two pattern repeats now and I have come to a morbid conclusion that I am not going to have enough yarn to finish this thing. Before I get to that though, look, a scarf in progress!

This is the back neck part of the scarf. It ends up being straight garter stitch through the whole thing and is only maybe 3 inches wide so far.

Here is the pattern part of the scarf. It's a little over four inches wide now, but with major blocking, I can probably get it to five inches or so.

Here are the fiddlehead parts in all their tangled glory. Again, blocking should do wonders with this. Finally, here is how much yarn I have left. I need to do another full repeat and I just don't think I'll have enough.

For a better view, Serra Sphinx says hello and wonders why she isn't in my blue/white Magic deck that I'm working on.

I'm going to at least start the next repeat. We'll see how it's looking when I get to the wrapped stitches. If I run out of yarn, just ignore than blood curdling scream you may hear.

I also went running last night. God help us all, I have now been running 3 times in the past 5 days. The world is coming to an end...

Knit on...

Not Much Knitting

Not much knitting occurred this weekend. On Friday, DBF and I tried out the new dinner theater in town. The food was way overpriced and so were the drinks. During the movie, people were continuously talking too, so that was rather distracting. We probably won't be going back there, but at least we can say that we tried it. We saw Meet the Robinsons which was pretty cute.

On Saturday, I went running/waddling again. I managed to do the whole lap this time of run 2 minutes, walk 2 minutes, so I was proud of myself for doing that. It actually seemed to help my legs become slightly less sore by going out and doing that, so I was happy for that. In the evening, we went to the dollar, oh sorry, 1.50 movie to see Arthur and the Invisibles. It was another cute movie. I'm glad we waited until the dollar movie though.

Sunday morning I did a little knitting before church, then went to an absolutely packed church service. Thankfully we got there early enough to get a parking spot. The only bad thing was that DBF's car started doing weird things. It felt to him like the transmission was going out. Hopefully it's just something simple and not a huge major repair or anything. I guess we'll find out. We watched the Amazing Race last night and I was happy to see the Guidos go. Just something about them irks me to no end. Now I would really like Myrna and Charla to go next. They bug me more than any other team on there.

Anyways, that was the weekend. Pictures tomorrow of the scarf which is almost done.

Knit on...