Happy Birthday to Me!

So today is my 31st birthday. Oy I am getting old! Today was a nice day considering the fact that I had to work. At least my boss was on vacation today so I did not have to deal with her craziness. Hubby took me out to dinner at Monterrey Cantina in Royal Oak and while we were there we took care of another piece of birthday business. I signed up for the Drop Spindle class at Ewe-Nique Knits next month. I am very excited even though I know this will suck up even more of my knitting time. Marilyn was a total sweetheart and explained the spinning process in length to my hubby. He also said that if I like spinning he will start saving for a wheel for my Christmas gift! Do I have the best husband in the world or what? So I have no knitting progress to show you (I am still working on the baby blanket that seems like it will never end) so I will leave you with a birthday meme.

I saw this on Kimberly's blog and thought it looked like fun. Go to Wikipedia and search you birthday (month and day only) to come up with 3 events, 2 birthdays and 1 holiday that occur on your birthday.

3 events that occured on June 26th:
1) 1819: the bicycle is patented
2) 1870: Christmas is declared a federal holiday in the United States
3) 1976: The CN Tower, the tallest free-standing structure on land in the world, was opened (this is the actual day I was born)

I share my birthday with:
1) 1909: Cololnel Tom Parker (Elvis' manager - d.1997)
2) 1974: Derek Jeter (I know he plays for the hated Yankees but he is still HOT!)

June 26th is also Independance Day in Madagascar.

Until next time ...

I have nothing so look at my pretty yarn!

So the baby shower for my cousin and his girlfriend was this past Saturday and I am still knitting their blanket. We bought some stuff off their registry so I was not empty handed. I will just mail the blanket to them with a note when it is done. I am almost done with the first ball so I will soon be able to start the decreases. I am using this pattern and it is a very easy and mindless knit.

Since the blanket is all scrunched up on the needles (I had no circs in the correct size and I am BROKE and have no money to by any) I will wait to show you all the blanket. Since that is all I have been working on I will show you the beautiful hand dyed yarn I bought from Miranda last night at knitting group.


She calls it mermaid tears. It is 400 yards of superwash wool and I hope it will become a beautiful pair of socks someday. This is my birthday gift to myself!




Today I started printing off patterns that I want to work on while I am up north on vacation at the end of the month. Now I am working on placing them in a binder, in sleeve protectors, separated by category. Yes I am a dork! Wish me luck tomorrow - I have my follow up with my diabetes doctor and I hope he gives me the all clear to go onto the fertility meds next month. Until next time ....

Summer Interweave Knits and Knitty

So I realized that, in the hell that was the entire month of May, I never did a review of the summer IK. So I decided to do that along with a review of the new Knitty.


This is my favorite design in the IK. It is so beautiful. I would look so nice with a little camisole underneath it. There were several designs that I liked in this one. The Josephine Top, Lutea Lace Should Shell, Wheat-Ear Cable Yoke, Summertime Tunic, Montego Bay Scarf and the Spiral Boot Socks are all winners in my book.





However, I was not as impressed with the Knitty. There were some things I though were ok but I would never make, like the Grrr dishcloth. However, I do like this:


This is the Chapeau Marnier. I love these old fashioned cloche hats. I may even try to make this some day. Although I do not know if it would look good on me or not.







So I give IK a yeah and Knitty an eh. Until next time ....

Bring on the red, black and metallic!

I can not believe that Project Spectrum is halfway over! We have now moved onto our third color group - red, black and metallic. Tonight, I dove into my stash to find my yarns in these colors and came up woefully short.



The black yarn has been in my stash for a while and is destined to become a hat for my hubby. Maybe I can have it done before this winter! The red skein is the beautiful merino lace weight that I won from Debi. I have been looking for shawl patterns and I think this yarn is going to become an Icarus. There is also some dishcloth cotton (the little balls are the remains of a ball of SNC that became tangled), the Bernat was a free skein from the company that I have no idea what to do with and the blue-purple Moonlight Mohair will become a potato chip scarf. I guess I better get knitting if I want to get these projects done in the next two months!

Larjmarj asked in the comments of yesterday's entry if the cotton yarn hurt my hands. I have not had a problem at all with cotton. In fact, I rather enjoy knitting with it. I do get arm fatigue from time to time while knitting but I get that no matter what fiber I knit with. I hope that helps you out! Until next time ....

Back to your regularly scheduled blogging!

Thanks to everyone for their wonderful comments on my last entry. The funeral service was nice and hubby's crazy extended family all behaved themselves. I have been working the Weight Watchers Points program to lose weight. It is going pretty well and I think I have lost some pounds. I have not weighed myself because we do not have a scale. I plan on going to Target sometime this week and will get a basic one. However, the pants I wore to my FIL's funeral kept falling down so that's a good sign!

I have just uploaded some FOs from my blogging hiatus on my Finished Objects page. There are some bookmarks and dishcloths. I am now working on a baby blanket for my cousin and his girlfriend. It has to be done for their shower on Saturday and I'm not sure if I am going to make it. All other WIPs have been put aside so I can concentrate totally on the blanket.

Finally, I leave you with my April and May mosiac for Project Spectrum. There was not as much pink, green and yellow as I would like and I have a feeling this triad will be even more sparse. I may need to step it up a bit.



Until next time ....

More bad news and a meme

So I hate to be Debbie Downer but I have more bad news. My FIL passed away on Thursday. It was a hard decision for the family to take him off the vent but I know he did not want to live as a vegetable. He was way to proud of a man to live like that. I went to the endocrinologist on Friday and got the official diagnosis of Type 2 diabetes. He said that I am lucky because we have caught it early enough where my body is resisting insulin but my blood sugar is still normal (on the higher side of normal though). He gave me a prescription for Glucophage, which is a pill, and told me to walk 30 minutes per day and go on a diet. I am actually taking this better than I thought I would, probably because I don't have to take shot everyday. As long as it is under control my Ob/Gyn will let me go on the Clomid and try to get pregnant again. I guess it has kicked me in the butt to do what I know I need to do. Since I graduated from high school in 1994 I have gained about 70 pounds and I was not even that skinny in high school!

So I have been tagged for a meme so I am going to do it and get them out of the way! Laurie, Anita and Amanda for the 7 Random Things meme. So without further ado I present 7 Random Things about me!

1) I will eat bananas in things, like fruit salads or banana splits, but I will not eat one alone out of the peel.
2) When I was younger I thought because my dad's family was from England we were royalty. When I was five I was heartbroken we were not at Princess Di & Prince Charles' wedding.
3) My mom's family is from Finland but I get my pale skin and blue eyes from my dad - go figure!
4) My dream job when I was in college was to work at the Southern Poverty Law Center after I graduated from law school. The center tracks the acts of hate groups and was instrumental in the re-trial of the Medgar Evars case and the case that practically bankrupted the Aryan Nation.
5) In my dating days I dated guys who were black, white, Cuban and Arab. My mom said I was the UN of dating.
6) I believe in God and pray often but I do not support organized religion. I believe there is a lot of hypocrisy in most organized religions.
7) I only wear silver or white gold jewelry. I would love platinum but it is way to expensive.

So next the entry will contain knitting and no bad news, I hope anyway! Until next time ....