Sunday, December 20, 2009

I did it!

That's right ladies and gentlemen, I am a college graduate.

And this is my little cutie, wearing the hat. when the speeches wore down and the grads started walking across the stage the Munchkin caught on that people in the stands were cheering for their friends/family. So she says to her God Mother: We can be louder than those guys. Yup! That's my kid. I clapped and screamed for her, when the Chancelor asked spouses and immediate family members to stand and be honored for the sacrificing they did to make the day possible.



It was a very emotional day that ended with cocktails and a nap on the couch. Honestly as soon as the adrenalaine wore off, the week of no sleep and too much stress caught up to me.


And here's the shameless shot of my big graduation present, my very own Manolo Blahniks. It's the pair that Carrie gets married in in the Sex and the City Movie. Quite appropriate don't you think? I did even trip when I walked across the stage.

I also got a nice surprise this morning, the new Knitty is up. So I'll be on Ravelry later updating the queue that just keeps getting bigger. I'm sorry for my lack up updating (Courtney) but I will be around much more now that I don't have classes anymore. That was hte Munchkin's response when I explained graduating.... No more Night classes! Yeah, I hate night classes Mommy! She's such a smart kid!

Monday, September 21, 2009

My Problem with the Plunge

Don't get me wrong. It's not the Plunge's fault. I am a fickle woman. The grass is always greener near someone else's project. You see when I signed up for the 52 Pair Plunge, I didn't want to knit anything but socks. And now that I'm, what, three months in I can't seem to finish a pair. It's not even a case of second sock syndrome. I can't seem to finish the first one. So far I have a number of socks on the needles, all unfinished:
*Leyburns
*Broadripple
*Leefilng
*Hedera
*Monkeys
*Coupling
*Coiriolis
*Esther
*Moss stitch for Zoe
*Embossed Leaves

So what have I been doing instead? Sweater, and scarves.

Zoe's Haiku

This one's called 198 yards of Heaven. I found it on Ravelry and I'm finally using the Ming I bout in San Fransisco three years ago. It really is Heaven to work with. I can't wait to drape it around my neck. It's getting cold enough around here to do that. Maybe that's my problem I'm working seasonally.... But that would make socks a smart choice.... So here's my new goal. I will do my best to finish two pairs of socks before I work on the munchkins next cardigan. Oh yeah did I mention I cast on for another one. And I've been working on my Minimalist Cardigan too. I love sweaters but I've never been so excited to knit them. Maybe my hormones are just out whack. It's as logical as any other excuse.

For the Indiana Girls here are some pictures from the first day of school:

Thursday, September 17, 2009

Another Year Brings More Changes



That's my birthday girl. She's four now, and a self proclaimed big girl. She's attending 4K and loving it! In fact she becomes very maudlin on the weekends because there is no school. I know this will change so I'm trying to enjoy while I can. She is desperate to write everyone's name and read by herself. She started to sound out words on her own the other day. It really freaks me out that she's growing up so fast. But everybody goes through that right?

This school year is also very exciting because I will be graduating in December. After 16 years of "on and off again" schooling I will finally be graduating. I almost don't believe it yet. Life without homework and papers, I just can't imagine. Well I can actually because this summer was blissful. I felt like I didn't get anything done, but I also avoided migraines, so I'll take it. But I just had to share my little princess. That is her goal in the life, by the way. She wants to be a princess when she grows up. What a girl!

This weekend I'll post about my 52 Pair plunge drama, so stick around!

Monday, June 01, 2009

Happy June!

If you haven't looked yet, hop on over to Twist Collective for the new summer issue. I will be making the vest for DH and I especially love Franklin Habit's spread.

June is also the beginning of The new 52 Pair Plunge and I'm just crazy enough to sign up. That's right, in a vain attempt to knit more socks for my daughter and DH I'm taking the plunge. I don't know if I'll actually make 52 but I bet I'll knit more than I would have on my own. Zoe really needs some knee socks for playing in the snow. My first fresh Plunge project is The Crystalline Lattice Sock made in Panda Wool colorway red cinnamon. Pictures will follow, but it's too little to take a shot now.

I've also made a couple Neckwarmers for Christmas presents. It's a fun cable, and knits up fast. I'm using random stash yarn and buttons form my big glass button yarns. Zoe loved playing with them. She didn't believe me when I said "We're going to dump them all out."

In un-knitting news, my new vegetable patch is coming along. And for you Indiana readers, it's bigger than the raised beds from Muncie. :)

I will find the camera cord tonight tonight and get pictures loaded after work. Included will be pictures from The Dragonfly in Amber Swap. I've been so bad about getting my pictures up. And it's shame because I got an awesome sporran!

Tuesday, May 05, 2009

Finals time treat

So I was doing some research on Robert Browning and came across this. Don't ask how it's a convoluted train. But this is so funny I had to share. So unitl my finals are over and my four papers are turned in.....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IwbB6B0cQs4

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

March in Wisconsin

Please allow me a moment to whine. I forgot what March in Wisconsin was like. I know that March is messy everywhere, but Wisconsin takes that mess to a level of artistry. Sunday we had a blizzard, which I had to drive through for work. It was the kind of snow that stick to the outer walls of houses, due to the wind. It started as icy rain, so under the foot of snow blanketing my car I had a nice layer of ice to chip off. I continued to snow until the wee hours, so the morning commute was ugly. Worse though was the fact that it warmed up over night so the un-plowed roads were compounded by a dense bright fog. As the fog burned off the sun started it's dangerous work of melting. So the streets became a bog of slush and undigested snow chunks. By the time I got home last night and got into the tub, it was raining. That's right, because we just didn't have enough precipitation. They're calling for thunderstorms through out the day, 70% chance. And then we'll be in the 20's for a high tomorrow.

Now it's important to note that I love Wisconsin. I wanted to move back. The summer is much more comfortable and the fall is beautiful. I love to drive the back roads on fall evenings and watch the threshers working with their lights on. But March is the labor pain that we all have to forget in order to propagate the species. If anyone of thought about March as a deciding factor towards where we live, I think we'd all move. So there is my little rant. I really shouldn't complain because we're off to New York in a few days, and barring freezing rain, I'll be happy with whatever weather comes my way.

Saturday, March 07, 2009

The Big Read

I found this on And She Knits Too and I think it's a cool idea. As Stephanie says, it's just one list, but as an English major I feel a responsibility to promote reading in all it's forms. I've got 35, how about you?

The Big Read (http://www.neabigread.org/) said that, on average, adults have only read six books on this list. So ... copy this list, remove my yeses and nos, and add your comments (favourable or otherwise) about the ones you have read. Don't forget to include a total.

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen - One of my favorites!
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien – No, but I've been meaning to give it another try, now that I'm older.
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte - Yes
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling – YES
5. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee - YES
6 The Bible – Yes, much more interesting if read as literature, rather than "The Word."
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte - No but it's been on my list for a awhile now.
8 1984 - George Orwell - YES
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman - No
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens - No, I have a Dickens block, maybe I'll work on that this summer.
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott - YES
12 Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy – I started but never finished it.
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller – No
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare – I've read most of it, but not in it's entirity.
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier - No
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien - No
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks - No
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger - YES
19 The Time Traveller's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger - Yes
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot- No
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell - YES
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald - On my list, intended to read it this last summer.
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens-No
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy - Started once, but didn't get very far.
25 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams - No, but it's on my list.
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh - No
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky - Not yet
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll - Reading that this semester, actually
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame - Of course
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy - No
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens - No
33 The Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis - Tried it in middle school, but it didn't grab me. I would like to try it again though.
34 Emma - Jane Austen - YES
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen - YES
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - No
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini - No
38 Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres- No
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden - Yes
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne – Yes
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell -YES
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown - Yes
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez - On my list
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving - No
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins - No
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery - Of course, most of the series, in fact.
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy - No
48 The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood - YES, I love Atwood!
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding - YES
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan - YES
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel - No
52 Dune - Frank Herbert- No
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons - Started but never finished it.
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen - YES
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth - No
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon - No
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens - No
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley - YES, my break through into Sci-Fi. Loved It!
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon - No
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez - No
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck – No
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov - Yes, I actually really liked this one.
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt - Yes, loved it!
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold – Yes
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas - No
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac - No, but I do need to give it a chance.
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy - No
68 Bridget Jones's Diary - Helen Fielding - YES
69 Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie -No
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville - No
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens - No
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker - YES
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett - Yes
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson - No
75 Ulysses - James Joyce - No
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath - Yes
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome - No
78 Germinal - Emile Zola - No
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray - Yes
80 Possession - AS Byatt- No
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens - Of course.
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell - No
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker -No
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro - Yes
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert - No
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry - No
87 Charlotte's Web - EB White - YES
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom - No, and I may never read this one.
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle - No
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton – No
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad - YES
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupe – No
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks - No
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams -Started but never finished
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole - No
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute - No
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas - No
98 Hamlet – Shakespeare – YES
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl - No
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo -Started but never finished it, maybe another summer project.

Saturday, February 28, 2009

The Barking Seal

Life has been a little too unreal around these lately. DH has been traveling a lot. And the munchkin celebrated the break in her four day fever streak, by bashing her head into her head board. No kidding she had skull x-rays to make sure she didn't break her orbital socket. See:

But eventually my planned pampering break time was drawing near. I was scheduled to get a cut and color at my favorite Aveda salon, complete with yummy hot tea. But then the barking started. Wednesday morning I took a breathing treatment before leaving for class, and had to call in to work just before my class started, because I could not breathe. I rested and went to my night class, where it seemed that the tight knot in my lungs was finally loosening. I went to class on Thursday feeling a little chipper. But within two hours at work, my co-workers were throwing me out. Thanks Linda, by the way! So I barked my way home and took an other treatment. Well that sent me into such a fit that my legs were curling into my chest all on their own as I coughed, no really it was barking. Luckily DH was home and he drove to the doctor in the snow and ice, where I barked for a couple hours more. So the verdict, you ask? No haircut, no school, no work, no moving really. I have been banished to my bed with a harem of disgusting medicine. DH won't even let me cook, or make my own tea. And I'm still barking as I type this. But I have gotten a lot done while in bed.... see.....




Maybe tonight I should actually do some home work, but at this rate I may not even be in school this week. So maybe I'll go back to the knitting it's much more soothing.

Saturday, January 24, 2009

Brighten Up

We've been dealing with the plague here at Casa del Filak. So what better way to cheer up than with flowers. At least that's how i feel about it.

A


The munchkin and I did a truck load of baking as well. The Amish friendship bread starter was ready so we made a lot of muffins, in mini form. They are in the freezer waitign for school lunches.




That's right, she's off to pre-school in February, and very excited about it. We're also planning a Valentine's Party. She lost her little mind at the Factory Card Outlet, yesterday. I had to limit the amount of party favors and fancy plates. I did promise that we would go back, since I haven't ordered balloons yet. But maybe I can do that on my own. She has no control in that store.

Thursday, January 15, 2009

Those Icicles Have Been Known to Kill People

I have the unfortunate fate of being a person who unabashedly loves winter. Whenever it snows, I get blamed for it. And when the wind-chill is dangerously low that they close schools I’m asked if it’s cold enough for me. And to put the record straight no one is happy when it’s that cold. So why is winter my favorite season? I can best explain it on my drive home from work. The sun is down but it’s not completely dark yet. The snow is glowing blue and the whole world is silent. Not just quiet, the type of silence that comes from insulation. The snow does it. It muffles the sounds and world is silent.
When I was little the first snows were always linked with the holidays. It was enchanted snow that twinkled in the Christmas lights. Anticipation is a hard force to argue with. But as I get older it’s the second half of winter that appeals to me, the quiet of January after the frantic holiday schedule. I flip through the seed catalogues while snuggling into my armchair. I plan the New Year’s garden with a hot mug of tea and a cozy afghan. In January I bake and cook like a woman possessed. And it’s not the fancy holiday stuff; it’s good wholesome basics. Breads and pot roasts and chili stock my kitchen. January is a time for healing and finding yourself again after the crazy end of the previous year.
Some of my fondest childhood memories involve quiet snowy mornings and bundling up in thick sweaters. I can still smell the furniture polish on my old desk where I did homework and listened to unending love song sessions wishing for my own Romeo in Black jeans. That Valentine’s Day it was Rocco I was dreaming of, the high school boy who refereed our junior high basketball games. Every cozy memory I have is a winter memory and really aren’t those the best kind? So why wouldn’t I love driving home on a cold snowy night with the smell of wood fires seeping into my car. I lean back in my seat and smile at the warm glow coming from the farmhouses and get ready for the big hug waiting for me at home. What can top that?

Wednesday, January 14, 2009