Sunday, November 30

Game Day

Game Day

Game Day just isn't the same without Will.

Crossing my fingers that we can beat the Patriots. No, wait, I know we *can* beat the Patriots, I am crossing my fingers that we *do* beat the Patriots. To a pulp even.

Wednesday, November 26

happy happy!



Even when times are tough, I know that I am an extraordinarily lucky and really have nothing to complain about. That said, I am grateful to have a wonderful family, good friends and a roof over my head. I am also grateful to be meeting new friends and slowly but surely getting on with my life after the loss of my job. I'm still not sure what's going to happen, but I am hopeful all will work out for the best.

We're getting ready to head over to my folks house for our pre-Thanksgiving dinner of stir fry and cucumber salad. My sister and the teenage nieces are arriving this evening and they always bring crazy, entertaining energy and stories with them. Good times are ahead.

Whatever you do tomorrow, I hope it is a joyful day for you. Happy Thanksgiving!

The suspense is killing me.

PolaPremium.

Sunday, November 23

My new favorite hat!

my new favorite hat!

I love chunky yarn and I love cable stitches so when I saw this hat at Tutto last Saturday, I fell in love. Lucky for me, the pattern is free on Ravelry and I found the same yarn online. (I would have bought it at the store, but they did not have the red and I had to have the red.) I took a break from knitting holiday gifts and whipped this up while watching the Jets vs. Titans game this morning. Yea!

More things.







I'm really happy with the ways these photos turned out. More to come!

Friday, November 21

Things.



Today I spent some time taking polas of some of my statues and dolls. Things I collect. Or have collected at some point. Not exactly sure what moved me in this direction, but since I haven't been shooting much at all, it was nice to be behind the camera again. I've never been particularly good at taking pictures of objects so perhaps that's what moved me to do a photo shot with my collections. I'm actually pretty pleased with the outcome, although I have to say the original photos are much crisper than the scans.

I spent a good part of the day knitting, of course. I am working on a felted handbag for my mother-in-law. I finished the body of the bag and then discovered that I don't have the needles that I need for the straps. So it's going on the back burner until I get the right needles. Next up, hats hats and more hats!

Last night we actually went out to watch the Steelers game. It was good to be out considering how much time I spend at home, but it was frustrating too. I like to hear what's going on and the sound was way too low at the bar. And I had to keep a lid on all my cursing and Terrible Towel waving. Had we been at an actual sports bar, I probably would have felt okay being about loud, but we were at Rio Chama which shows the games but isn't really a sports bar. In fact, we saw at least six women with fur coats on while we were there. (And they were not there for the game.) Our waiter was a Packers fan and kind of an asshole. Not about the Steelers, just in general. He asked where we were all from and when Will said that I was from Santa Fe, the dude looked at me and said, "and you ADMIT that?" Kind of an atypical reaction, but whatever.

Tomorrow morning I am running the Turkey Trot or Fowl Day Run or some such thing with my dad. I'm so not into organized runs these days, but this is a "fun run" not a race, and I hate to disappoint my dad. So I'll be there. Plus the entry fee is actually a donation to the Salvation Army in the form of canned goods so that's cool.

Will's got a super busy day tomorrow so after the run, you can probably find me knitting on the couch all afternoon.

Hope you all have lovely weekends!

flickr faves

11/21/2008

1. Untitled, 2. shrouded in indian summer, 3. Lift self., 4. hello fall, 5. Afonso, 6. max in the garden, 7. Untitled, 8. two of us, 9. I heart this road., 10. Untitled, 11. Cougars Kill Cobras, 12. almost heart-shaped

Created with fds flickr toys.

Thursday, November 20

Game Day (Thursday Night)

Game Day

I *finally* got a foam finger! A dream come true.

Let's go Steelers!

The Finished Scarf.





Made for my father-in-law.

Wednesday, November 19

It's been unusually warm here.

So much so that it is hard to believe that we're more than halfway through November and Thanksgiving Day is next week! The warmer temperatures outside are nice, but sadly, it is still freezing inside. The past few days it has been warmer outside during the day than it is inside the house. It's kind of crazy. Today I sat on the front porch in the sun while I worked on some knitting. It made me extraordinarily sleepy for some reason.

Late this afternoon we took the kitties to the vet for their shots. They were less than thrilled as you can imagine. Nothing to report which is excellent. They are healthy and robust.

I *finally* finished a scarf that I have been working on since Hector was a pup and it feels so good. I'll post some pics tomorrow if I can take some decent ones. I find that I do not excel at taking pictures of my craft projects.

Hope you all are well. More soon.

Tuesday, November 18

I was so mortified

yesterday while shopping at Whole Foods. I was browsing the wine selections, trying to decide what to get to go with our dinner. Finally decided on a wine, pulled out the top bottle and *crash* *boom* *bang*. The four bottles on the rack below slipped out and hit the floor. Good lord! Everyone in the area was staring at me, of course. I had no idea what to do. I just stood there, face bright red I am sure, completely mortified that I had caused such a ruckus. Only two of the bottles broke, but still, wine was seeping everywhere. It was quite a mess. The woman who came out to take care of the disaster area was very nice and assured me that it had happened before and I shouldn't feel so bad. Man oh man though. Not a pleasant way to start the day. And then the damn wine wasn't even that good!

Monday, November 17

It was seven years ago today

that Will and I first met!

Seven years ago.

He was in town with Crazee & Heaven, playing a show at Gooski's. The band just happened to be staying with me. I thought Will was cute. Apparently he thought I was cute. And well, here we are in Santa Fe, seven years later! After the show, we stayed up half the night talking and watching The Song Remains The Same. Good times.

Happy Seven Year Meeting Anniversary baby! I am so glad that we met. You are the best. Always.

Sunday, November 16

Wednesday, November 12

Not much going on here.

Still knitting. A lot. Today, in addition to finishing up an adult hat, I took care of some loose ends. I finally knit the leaves for the baby apple hat.



Cute, right? This baby stuff is just killing me. Maybe I need to start making hats for the cats. Speaking of cats in hats, yesterday when I went to pick up cookies (wet food) for Rocky, I got sidetracked by the display of holiday wear for cats. I came THISCLOSE to buying reindeer antlers for Simon and a Santa hat for Rocky. Later I told Will about it and he said, "we're going back for those." The response to my comment that the cats would be super pissed if we try to put hats on them: "They keep us awake at night doing all kinds of crazy shit, I think they can handle a little bit of discomfort." We shall see.

I finally finished the felted handbag as well. The felting went great and the handbag has just been sitting on my desk, waiting for little red flowers to be attached. Done.



I'm pretty happy with this piece and plan to make some more with my own felted designs sewed on. Or buttons. (I didn't make the little flowers on this one.) It's just the perfect size for a night out. Keys, cell phone and a small wallet.



I've pretty much been avoiding football news this week because I still haven't recovered from our disappointing loss to the Colts. We should have won that game, but too many mistakes were made. I have no idea what to expect this weekend. Technically it should be a fairly easy win over the Chargers, but one never knows. Any given Sunday.

We're on the final season of The Wire. It's such a great television show. Right up there with Deadwood and Six Feet Under, at least in my book. It's going to be hard to let it go when we get to the end. But man, McNulty...he is SO BAD. So bad. I mean, I love his character. But. So bad. (We're on about episode three for those who have already watched the series.)

Anyway. Time to go heat up the manicotti from last night. Because yes, I am still cooking.

Monday, November 10

Sunday, November 9

Friday, November 7

Thursday, November 6

I ordered some prints

of a couple of Polaroid shots and they arrived today.



Not totally in love with the quality. I mean, I realize Polaroid shots have a certain fuzziness to them, but I'm not crazy about the paper they were printed on.



I'm not sure what my options are as I can't print high quality prints at home. I am thinking it may be my scanning that is causing some problems. I don't know. I'm not good at this whole printing thing.

Last year I gave my dad a Katrina calendar and he loved it so I made another one for 2009. It turned out well.



Oh and the felting of the knit bag went pretty well. I'll post a shot of it once it dries.

A chilly morning.

My Google homepage tells me that it is 8 degrees outside which I know is not true. I don't know why the Google weather is always way off. It's more like 19 degrees which is still pretty damn cold. I need to get myself psyched up to go running in a few minutes here.

Also, I am really bummed to see that Proposition No. 8 passed in California. So sad that people are okay with amending their state constitution to include discrimination.

Wednesday, November 5

Knitting, chili and a 10 minute blizzard.

This morning as I drove to the post office, the wind was blowing like crazy and a few white specks seemed to be falling from the sky. I went inside for five minutes and when I got back outside, a blizzard had begun. Seriously. Snow blowing everywhere, low visibility and cold as heck. It was crazy. And kind of fun. Ten minutes later, it was over.

It's been windy as hell all day though and freezing cold. Low tonight is supposed to be around 18 degrees. Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!

I've been spending most of my time knitting. I'm sort of obsessed with making baby stuff right now. No, not for us, for Will's sister! She's having a baby boy in March. Making baby hats is so much fun! I can finish one in 3 or 4 hours so it's instant gratification. And the hats are so tiny and cute! I've made three so far and might make one more. Not that the kid needs so many hats, I just can't resist.



The one on the left is the Baby Hat from One Skein and the one on the right is the Umbilical Cord Hat from Stitch-n-Bitch.

I also plan to make a bunch of simple bibs. I've made one so far using the Baby Bib O' Love pattern from Mason-Dixon Knitting.



Simple and cute. I might add some embroidery or a felted patch or something. There's a simple pattern for burping cloths too so I'll make a few of those as well.

Who knew that knitting for babies was so much fun?!

I've also been trying to do more of the cooking now that I am not working. (And Will is working like crazy! De-install/installs always require working for a couple of weeks straight.) It's not that I don't like cooking...well, okay, it's not my favorite thing to do. But I can do it and I'm not half bad at it so I am cooking. For my busy husband. (He usually does most of the cooking.) Anyway, yesterday I made one of my old stand-bys that we haven't had in a long time. Indonesian Peanut Chicken from one of my Betty Crocker cook books. Easy and pretty damn tasty. I mean, how can you go wrong with peanut butter?



Today I made a pot of chili. Will makes excellent chili so I followed his directions which hopefully means I currently have an excellent pot of chili on the stove. We shall see.

Tomorrow...a morning run in the freezing cold, a first attempt at felting a little handbag and leftover chili.

Yes!


[Image from Keri Smith]

Tuesday, November 4

Our defense last night was stellar.

I have to admit, that even though I didn't put too much in the NFL stat posted yesterday, I did breathe an extra sigh of relief when the Steelers won last night.

And just so you don't think I am nuts, the stat was mentioned in the Washington Post as well. [Link swiped from dangerousmeta.]

When the Redskins win their final home game before the presidential election, the incumbent party stays in office. When the Redskins lose their final home game before the election the incumbent party loses, except in 2004. Pretty simple, right? Steve Hirdt of the Elias Sports Bureau discovered it's happened precisely that way 16 of 17 times since 1940. Anything close to that exact is more than a trend and is certainly politically unbiased.

We can presume that Steelers in a romp means Obama in a landslide. You don't want to argue with numbers that overwhelming, do you? "Congratulations, Barack," Leftwich said, smiling and revealing his own preference.


When last night's game started off with a failed onside kick by the Steelers, my heart sank. And then when Ben threw an interception on the next drive, it sank again. The Redskins scored two field goals in the first 4 minutes of the game. And our offense looked totally weak. But man oh man, watching the defense play was incredible. They were ON. Big time. Seven sacks. Awesome pass coverage. They brought the Redskins offense to a complete halt. After the initial six point lead, the Redskins never scored again. It's no wonder that our defense is rated number one in the league.

Our offense, on the other hand, looked like crap until Leftwich replaced Big Ben in the second half. Leftwich! I am so not a fan of Leftwich. I never liked him when he was QB for the Jags and I wasn't thrilled when he became our back-up QB. But he got it going last night and I have to say, I'm warming up to him! (Thank god we don't have Brad Johnson!) If Ben ends up having to sit out a game, I think we'll be okay. And frankly, much as I love Big Ben, when he plays with an injury, his performance is usually sub-par and really only hurts the team.

Now that I've lost my entire audience with the football talk, I'll also mention that the polling stations don't seem to be overly crowded today. Ours is one block down the way and while I've seen people coming and going, there don't appear to be any lines. This doesn't mean people aren't voting, just that lots of us voted early!

Today is the day.


Please go out and VOTE!

Monday, November 3

Game Day

Game Day

Now, let me preface this by saying that I don't actually believe that the outcome of tonight's football game will have any bearing on the election tomorrow.

But here's a little NFL stat for you. Historically, when the Redskins have a game at home before a big election and they win, the incumbent party wins the election. If they lose, the opposite party wins the election.

So LET'S GO STEELERS!!

(I find it fascinating that the NFL has stats for any imaginable situation.)