News and events

I am blogging right now while wearing sunglasses around my apartment. Because I'm so awesome!

Just kidding. Actually, I just got my eyes dilated. They look all weird, and it's hard to focus on things up close. I felt very dorky puttering around my apartment in sunglasses while I made myself yet another cup of peppermint hot chocolate. But at least they're my own, and not those weird roll-up ones they give you. My plan is to hide in my bedroom, the darker of the two rooms in my apartment. Not counting the closet and bathroom, of course. But I don't want to sit in either of those. So I'll hang out and probably watch "Sex and the Single Girl" on Netflix, because sitting in the eye doctor's office and letting my eyes adjust reminded me of that scene where Tony Curtis keeps insisting "It's very bright" while he gets Natalie Wood very, very drunk. And then when the sun goes down, I'll go do some laundry. And then I'll go pack for the second of the three weddings. It's fun times around here, let me tell you!

I do really like my new brainy specs, though. It's been ages since I got a new pair of glasses, so that was my own nerdy brand of excitement.

In other news, fall has most definitely come to Santa Fe. I had not two but three blankets on my bed last night, it's been gray and rainy all week, and there's already snow on the mountains. I love it like this, in spite of the fact that I had to go to the grocery store in the pouring rain the other day. Fall has become my favorite season since coming to Santa Fe, and I think it's mostly because I never had it before. There really isn't a real fall in Texas, and San Diego was more or less the same year round. But it's lovely here. I've already started making big pots of comfort food- red beans and rice, ratatouille, and potato leek soup. I'm baking and knitting more- two things I never feel very inclined to do when it's hot, in spite of how much I love them. Now I'm looking forward to the first snowfall, because I've decided to celebrate it by building the first fire in my woodburning stove. Which I suppose means I should be looking for a cast iron kettle to put on it as a humidifier. Three people have now told me I should do that, so I shall.

The first of the three weddings was this last weekend, and it was way too much fun. Plus, it was on the same day that I went to Taos Sheep and Wool Fest, so it was a lovely day all around. I bought lovely yarn, which I can't wait to make into stuff (a sweater and a cowl or two is what I have planned so far), and then I got all dolled up and headed out. Apparently I did a really good job dolling myself up, because the bride didn't recognize me at first, having met me only once at a baseball game. So I guess it's good that I looked really different from that time I was in a tank top and jeans that I almost immediately dropped ketchup on.

The wedding was at a lovely hotel/resort place in Taos. It was an outdoor ceremony, and we got very lucky. Not only did we narrowly avoid getting rained on, but the bagpiper at the other wedding, elsewhere in the grounds of the resort, stopped just in time for our ceremony to start. But my friend Jeremy and I still couldn't here the woman officiating over the nearby waterfall, so we made up our own dialogue. It was mostly self-explanatory, so it was ok. Once he steps on the glass and they kiss, there's not much else to it. And then we all ate dinner and fought over the cookies on the tables and laughed a lot. My friend, the groom, said I was being seated at the fun table, and he definitely wasn't kidding. I discovered that the gay couple sitting next to me are both in rehearsals for The Nutcracker right now, and I threatened them with a dance-off. I can Sugarplum with the best of them!

And the best part is that I'm even more excited for the two weddings I still have to go to! And for Halloween, and NaNoWriMo, and Thanksgiving, and Christmas. It's going to be a very good fall, I can tell.

Lots and lots to celebrate

I've been very, very aware of the fast that I haven't posted in a week. I'm bummed that I let a whole week go by without putting anything up. But I did. Sorry, guys. I've said before that I feel like I do a lot better with structure, and I've had very little of that lately. But there is good news on that front.

I got a job! And I'm thrilled about it. There's a million things about it that are just what I was hoping for in a job, and I couldn't be happier. So starting Monday, assuming things go as planned, there will be structure again! And not the temp company kind where there's structure one week, and then for three days another week, and then nothing for a few weeks. This is reliable structure, just like I like it. I can't wait to get started.

So that's the best news, and it was already a good week. Yesterday was the Boy-Creature's birthday!


We got fondue for his birthday dinner, and I baked him a strawberry cake with strawberry icing. The kitchen smelled amazing, and I didn't even bake it here, since the oven is still on the fritz. Just the cake itself smelled delicious. And yes, there are only ten candles on that cake, but he turned twenty four, not ten. It's just that by the time I got the first eight on, he decided that was enough and wanted me to light them already. I made him let me put two more on so they'd be in the shape of a star. Please also ignore the fact that there are two mismatched candles right in front, along with ignoring all the junk on the counter. He really wanted some of that cake, so there wasn't a ton of time for a photo shoot. Not long after that picture was taken, the cake looked more like this.


It's a really tasty cake. There's even less of it now, and we only cut into it at lunchtime today. We wanted to cut it last night, but we forgot how freaking long a fondue dinner takes, and we didn't get home until ten thirty, and we were both stuffed. Upon coming home, I fell into an immediate food coma and had more super crazy weird dreams. So we had strawberry birthday cake for lunch today. I wish I could say that wasn't all we had for lunch, but alas, it was. Yet another reason I'm looking forward to going back to work. I eat better when I'm planning out lunches to take to the office.

A momentous occasion

Image source: this fantastic bakery, makers of some crazy-gorgeous baked goods. I especially love the Chanel-inspired cupcakes.

Happy 100th post, everybody! I'm celebrating with a new header photo. Like it?

It's a really good day for it, too. There's quite a convergence of knitting-related awesomeness today. Not only is it Knitlove Wednesday, but today just happens to be the day I hit 1000 posts on the Ravelry message boards and my two-year Ravelry anniversary! I joined back when there was still an invite list and a 2-3 week wait, so I was really excited when I finally got in. So when I posted about hitting 1000 posts, we were joking that it'll be no time at all until I get to 10,000. I mentioned it only took two years, and then checked how long it'd been, just out of curiosity. And there it was. "Raveler since February 3, 2008" Yay me!

In actual knitting news (read: things people other than me might actually care about), my Kaleidoscope sweater is coming along.


I did my very first provisional cast-on for the sleeves the other day (or at least my first successful provisional cast-on. There have been several failed attempts), and I'm nearing the end of the yoke. I think I'll do one more round of decreases, since I don't want it to be quite as off-the-shoulder as the original design, and then I'll move on to the sleeves and the button band! I oughta start looking for buttons soon, too. Mom will be in town this weekend. I bet she'd be happy to help me look. Maybe she'll even give me some of hers. Maybe. She's got a button obsession that has yielded buckets and buckets (literally) of buttons.

Since I'm nearing the end of the sweater (sort of), and I've never been a monogamous knitter, I've been thinking about other things to cast on. I was planning to cast on a washcloth or two, until I remembered that my one ball of kitchen cotton was used for packing material in one of the boxes that hasn't made it to Texas yet. Luckily, those are coming with Mom this weekend, so I won't have to wait much longer. I'm thinking I'll do EXFOLIATE!, in honor of my recently developed crush on David Tennant, thanks to the posting of many, many Hamlet and Doctor Who videos, not to mention the scads of photos. He's on my desktop now, too. I'm also planning to knit a Skully dishcloth, too, since I have a whole ball of the stuff, and I don't know what else to do with it. I haven't been bitten by the dishcloth bug yet, and I'm not yet convinced I will, so we'll see how it goes.

Those won't take long, though, so I'm thinking I'll cast on a lace shawl after that. It'll be my first! I haven't decided which yet, but it'll probably be the Haruni shawl, in some Pagewood Farms sock yarn I got in Las Cruces this summer.

So that's all the knitting news from me on this, the second anniversary of my Raveling adventures. I think I'll go knit on my sweater now.