It's been a while...

I just happened to be looking at my Ravelry profile and saw that I hadn't posted a blog entry in over two and a half years!  Wow!  I admit, I'm not very good at keeping up with stuff like this, but I'd like to make more of an effort going forward.

So much has happened in the past 3 years.  Many projects.  Life changes.  Family additions...and subtractions.  The two most notable changes would be my divorce almost two years ago (a good thing, believe me) and the birth of my granddaughter, Megan.  Megan just turned one on April 1st.  What a beautiful bundle of joy!

Being a parent has been such a challenge, but grandkids make it all worth while!  I just wish she wasn't on the other side of the country.  But...there will be visits!

On the project front, my knitting has improved substantially!  I've become much more comfortable with lace and sock knitting, with some easier projects thrown into the mix as well.

Here's one I am particularly proud of.  My Aisling:

I also completed two Hitofude Cardigans:

One I made for myself, the other for my mom.  I love them both and will likely make another one...or two.  :)  For anyone interested, it is an amazingly intuitive knit with interesting construction.

I also made a scarf for my lovely daughter in law.  Have I mailed it to her yet?  HAHAHAHA!  No.  But...I made it.  LOL!  It's the Woodland Shawl pattern:

And, so as not to bore you much more, a final project to show is the 2 x 2 Ribbed for His Pleasure hat I made for my boyfriend.  :)  He liked it so much, he wants another one!

Well, that's just a quick run down on some of the things that have happened in the past two + years since I last updated. 

Until next time, Happy Knitting!

Dee  :)

I was bad...but it felt SO good!

So...to get out of my "funk", I decided to go to The City yesterday.  There's this HUGE yarn shop that I've been wanting to visit since we moved here, but I didn't have time, my husband didn't want to go, or some other excuse I had at the time.  Well...I bit the bullet and went.  I've never been to this part of The City, so it was an adventure for me!  And totally worth it!

Here's what came home with me:

 I LOVE Madelinetosh!  :)  The top two skeins are Madtosh Light in Magenta.  The bottom is Madtosh Sock in Brothers Grimm.

I'm hoping to make a Haruni shawl with the Magenta  (ravelry link to Haruni), and I'm using the black to go with a gradient yarn and make a Spectra scarf (ravelry link to Spectra).  Here's the yarn combo I intend to use:

Needless to say, today I feel MUCH better.  :)

So, funny story.  While I was on the train coming home, a couple of teenage boys trying to act like gang members came and sat near me.  One sat next to me, the other sat behind me.  I was busy knitting, so I didn't pay them any attention.  They were very loud and disruptive, trying very hard to sound tough.  As we were approaching their stop, the one sitting behind me leaned over me and said (in a very sweet voice) "What are you making?  A blanket?"  :)  I just looked up at him and smiled, and said "No.  It's a scarf."  He smiled back and said "Cool!"  Then put his "tough" look back on and got off the train.  I have to say, that made my whole week!

More...later...

Trying not to go to the Dark Place

Ok.  So those of you who actually "know" me, know that I was laid off from my job at the beginning of July.  I was (and still am) perfectly alright with that.  The job was wicked stressful, and I was honestly ready to find something else anyway.  I figured I'd have a little vacation from work, then get right back into the job scene.  I have a very marketable degree and LOTS of experience.  I also have the good fortune to live in a very large, populated area with plenty of opportunity.

The first few weeks I was getting a lot of responses to my applications, went on several interviews, and it seemed like it would be no time at all and I would be back in the game.

Here it is, almost two months later, and still no job.  I'm thankful for the time I've had to be able to relax and spend time with my knitting, but now this is really starting to suck.  This is the longest I have been without a job since I was 15 years old!  What the heck am I going to do when it comes time to retire?  I don't go anywhere because I'm afraid I'll spend too much money (or ANY money, for that matter).  Yesterday I got notice from the property management company for my apartment complex that if I don't sign a new lease by the end of October, my month to month rent will go up by over $200 per month.  Thanks assholes.  And I can't move...because I don't have current employment to qualify for an apartment elsewhere! 

So...here's what I'm going to do.  Today, I'm going to drag my sorry ass off the couch, go into the city and visit the ENORMOUS yarn shop I've been wanting to go to since I moved here.  I'm doing this for ME.  Otherwise, there may be blood...or much alcohol!

To end on an up-note, here's a picture of the yarn from a recycled Goodwill sweater that I dyed with Kool Aide.  :)

Here's what the sweater looked like "before Kool Aide."  It's the cream colored sweater in the center of the stack.

The other two sweaters will also be unraveled/recycled, but I think I'll leave them the same color. 

More...later.

The endless linen stitch scarf

I promised my husband a scarf. I let him pick the color (he picked blue...I made it blue-green in Madelinetosh Pashmina), and he picked the pattern. Linen stitch. Ok. Easy stitch. Shouldn't be too bad, right? Oh. My. God. I love, love, LOVE the yarn, but this scarf makes me want to gouge my eyes out! The wonderful yarn with it's depth of color really makes this pattern shine. I think that's whats really helping me get through it. But seriously...I am dying to move on to something else! Soon!!!

Here's a picture of the offending lovely scarf:

I'm about halfway finished. I swear it will be done by the time he needs it for winter. :/

On another topic, the weight loss battle continues. 2 pounds down, and I walked/ran for about 30 minutes today. Slow and steady...

What to do...

So, a little over a year ago (I can't believe it's been that long!), my dear husband and I packed our things and moved across the country from Florida to California. I got this great new job, and the timing was perfect. We moved to an area we loved, and life became wonderful! Then...this perfect job laid me off. Well crap. Now what do I do? I've been sitting at home for three weeks now, looking for a job, going on interviews, knitting like crazy, and being bored to tears. I love my dogs, but so much "quality time" with them is making me INSANE! :) What to do, what to do... I've been working on a scarf for my husband out of Madelinetosh Pashmina. It's very soft, and I SERIOUSLY love this yarn...but the pattern is boring. (Yes...I'll finish it by the time he needs it! Promise!) I did some thrift shopping at the local Goodwill and found a few sweaters to unravel and reclaim the yarn. I've got one taken apart and plan to overdye it another color. Maybe make a shawl? Hm... Ok. Since shopping every day is out of the question (especially since unemployment doesn't pay very well), I guess it's time to get back on the exercise train. (Do you feel my dread and sarcasm here??) I really, really, really do NOT like to exercise. I hate being hot and sweaty, but I hate feeling depressed and sick worse. My new goal is to get out and walk/run for at least 30 minutes every weekday. Weekends are for spending time with Larry. If he wants to walk with me, then I'll walk on weekends too. I've re-joined Spark (my ID is DLBOOP), and if you're interested in joining me, come look me up! I'll try to keep this blog updated on my current projects and weight loss tracking. I'm going for a total loss of at least 65 pounds. Fingers crossed!! I think my biggest hurdle will be food. I LOVE food. And wine. I live in wine country after all. :) And here we go...

Been neglecting the blog...

I realized today that I haven't posted in a while.  I've got no good excuse.  I was off work for a week between Christmas and New Years, and didn't do much of anything except watch Greys Anatomy reruns, and knit.  I did finish my mother's Dipped Infinity Scarf.

I really like how it turned out!  And she loved it.  Yay!

I've also had a lot of ups and downs these past few weeks.  I finally started getting hits on my resume for jobs out in California.  Yes...I desperately want to move to the San Francisco Bay area.  In the most recent job hit, I made it to one of the final 3 candidates.  And didn't get it.  I seriously had a little pity party for myself, but have decided that it just wasn't meant to be.  This gives me more time to actually get my crap together, get organized, save a little money, and be prepared when the time comes.  But I'm still bummed.  I had even started looking at housing options.  Oh well.

SO...to keep my mind off of my depression, I'm knitting a new scarf for myself.  The pattern is Aria Delicato by Anne Hanson, and I'm using Knit Picks Chroma Fingering in the Midwinter colorway.  So far so good!

Another thing I'm trying to do is be a little more active.  Not only will it help my state of mind, but my health too.  I've started walking again, and really hope to get to the running stage.  Larry (my hubby) is already running half marathons (yes...he's crazy), and while I may or may not get up to that level, I really think that this is what I need to complete the whole "Mind, Body, Soul" transformation.

So...if you're ever driving through Panama City Beach and see this tall chubby woman shuffling along, trying to look like a runner, just shout a few words of encouragement!  Please!  ;)

Signing off for now.  I promise to try to post more frequently in the future!!  Seriously!

More later,

Dee

WARNING! Bitchfest/Pity Party...and other ramblings

So, I haven't written in a while, and probably should have.  Maybe I wouldn't be so stressed if I had.  So far I've just had a crap-tastic December.  So...here's a little background info:

I live in the Southeastern US.  (Working on changing that, but I digress...)  Here in the Southeast, football is a religion.  Seriously.  The world revolves around football season here.  Mostly college football.  People who don't live here don't get it.  But the rivalries are pretty fierce, and the fans are very intense.  My husband included.  So...being that it's the end of regular season for college football in the Southeast, what would you think would be the worst possible thing that could happen to me?  Yes my friends...my television went out.  Horror of all horrors!  Christmas presents be damned...I had to get another television, lest there be a bloodbath in my little household.  After an emergency trip to Best Buy, my darling husband is now the proud owner of a 51" plasma flat screen TV.  Of course, it doesn't end there.  With that lovely 51" plasma flat screen TV, we had to buy special HDMI cables to get the full benefit of the 600Hz refresh rate.  Which meant spending $100 per cable (total of 2) to hook the damn thing up to the Tivo and DVD player.  OH!  Wait!  DVD player!  Well...the really nice 5 disk DVD player we have doesn't USE HDMI cables!  Imagine that!  SO...we ended up buying a brand new wireless internet BlueRay player to go with the plasma screen television.  Holy cow...what a slippery slope that turned into.  (Did I mention that just before this I had JUST bought a brand new stove and microwave for my kitchen?  That was SUPPOSED to be my big expense for the family this year.  So much for that, right?)

So, when I tell you that the day all this happened, I suddenly came down with the mother of all intestinal issues, you wouldn't be surprised, right?  HA!  I was.  I had no idea why I couldn't eat without severe stomach cramps, nausea and a migraine.  REALLY?  I honestly did NOT make the connection until I was telling a friend how badly I was feeling and she asked "Are you stressed?"  Well...DUH!  It's the holidays, I haven't bought all my gifts yet, I'm still working on knitting some gifts, and I just dropped a boatload of money on a dang entertainment system that I had no intention of buying any time in the near future.  Hell yeah I'm stressed!  So, I'm back on my "don't kill people" pills.  :)  For now.  Until the stress is reduced.

::End of Bitchfest/Pity Party::

So, I'm currently still trying to finish my Vitamin D cardigan, but I've put it to the side to work on my Christmas knitting.  Since the recipient may read this...all I'm going to say about the current project I'm knitting is the colors are beautiful and I think she's going to love it!  :)

I may even make something to match the thing I'm making with these colors.  If I have time.  Maybe it will be an "after Christmas" gift.  LOL!  (In case anyone is wondering, this yarn is KnitPicks Palette.)

Well...I guess that's all for now.  More...later.

Dee  :)