Eat.Knit.Sleep

but evidence of progress!

This is actually the second sleeve of Ariann which means I might actually have a finished object some time this millennium.

I had a good time in Cleveland, but time with my family always makes me reevaluate what I'm doing with my life, as my family always seems to be doing something more meaningful and seem more content with their respective lives.

Apparently, my introspection makes me somewhat difficult to be around, and thus C has been feeling a bit like this lately.

I'm tired and it is hot, and I have to go out to dinner with the boss from hell tomorrow so I leave you with Oscar on the road . . .

CLOSEUP!!!

I love that dog!

Posted by Jenny at 09:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

So I signed up for Sockapalooza 4 even though I'm not much of a joiner, and when I was in NJ this weekend for a friend's wedding I did a little yarn shopping for her.

She lives in So Cal where it is mild in climate and she likes purple and green. She said she either likes patterned socks in solid or semi-solid colors, or plain socks in beautiful variegated yarns. She also would be interested in cotton-blend or lighter-weight socks she said. Going through my stash, and with the purchase made on Saturday, I think I have two options.

Collinette Jitterbug in a beautiful semi-solid purple. I would have the option to do a more patterned sock here. Problem is, my pal has slightly larger feet than I do, which are a women's 8.5-9 and the yardage on the Jitterbug is pretty slight, especially when taking into account a textured pattern. I'd also have ZERO problem making myself some anklets with this stuff!

I also found this in my stash, which is lovely, but also not colors I'd wear, and it has the prerequisite purple and green.

With the Wildfoote I wouldn't worry about yardage, but I'd feel weird making very plain socks, so I suppose I could do a bit of a fancy rib.

What do you guys think?

I'm a little sad today as one of my favorite people at work quit/was pushed out on Friday when I was out and it makes me really hate my job and boss right now. And one of my little baby Basil's bit it while we were away as well:

Posted by Jenny at 05:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

So I'm trying to muddle through. Things aren't much better at home, but I still managed to have a decent night. (This does not explain the way I managed to pick a fight this morning).

After dinner, which C made, and we watched a West Wing episode off our DVD, I decided to watch a movie. I brought down my basket of Romney roving and turned it into this:

I watched Thirteen. It was pretty disturbing but well made.

I also wanted to show you the status of my Everyday Cardi and my Bejeweled Scarf, both of which are lying on the floor of my office with the upmost respect. I found this:

Notice he is not just lying on the sweater, but the pattern himself. I got him off, and took this picture of my Bejeweled scarf:

And turned around and saw this:

I gave up, and went to bed.

Posted by Jenny at 11:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

One still cold . . .

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The first step is admitting you have a problem . . .

The yarn is some Cascade 220 that a secret pal once sent me to knit a felted bag . . . then I remembered while taking off my gloves on a cold morning, that I don't carry felted bags . . .

I did some spinning as well, but the picture looks pretty close to the last, but with more yarn on the bobbin.

Next run is tomorrow.

Posted by Jenny at 10:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

So this weekend was good, low key, but good.

Friday we had a work outing to go bowling. I suck at bowling, but I had a good time, and was home by 7 for pizza and wine with C.

Saturday I ran, which was really rough, after beer and wine the night before and really bizarre weather. I SO should not have been able to run in short sleeves, in January, in PA. But I logged 2.4 miles bringing my total for last week to 6.66 miles. Yes, that creeped me out.

In the afternoon, we went shopping for my running shoes, and I bought a new pair, which I LOVE, which happen to be Nike + compatible so no more knitted pouch, but I still love that little pattern.

In knitting news, I did knit my Bejeweled Scarf and made a lot of progress. I'm part of Lolly's knitalong, and the patttern puts some money towards charity and it is a lot of fun.

I also joined Project Spectrum again, and hope to do a better job of keeping up with it this year. In other crafty news, I've been spinning a bit, procrastinating finishing my Everyday Sweater (although hopefully it will get cold enough to wear it), and I cast on for Fetching this evening with some Cascade 220 from my stash.

I think they will be good running gloves . . .and I did run another 2.51 miles this evening, bringing my total to 9.21 miles so far this year.

Oscar thinks I should spend more time with him

Posted by Jenny at 09:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

On Sundays, C likes to watch football. When I say football, I do not mean American football, but what the rest of the world calls football and we silly Americans call soccer.

Today was no exception as C's Chelsea played Arsenal. Oscar hates it when he watches football -- the sounds of the crowds on the TV and C's clapping freaks the hell out of him. I was catching up on some blogs this morning, and Oscar found a perfect Oscar sized niche in my computer desk:

Click on the picture for a little context as to where he is.

Last night was really nice. I hadn't seen the movie in a long time. It was quite enjoyable with some red wine, and later ice cream. (As an aside, did you all know that Hershey's came out with a "extra dark" version of chocolate syrup? So excellent on vanilla ice cream!)

I finished sewing the buttons on the pea pod set, and as soon as the hat is dry I will take a picture before zipping it off to new mom and dad.

I finished the first sleeve of the every day cardi and started the second, and don't be suprised if I cast on for a sock in the next few days ....

Posted by Jenny at 01:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I'm not feeling too well this morning, so not much is getting done around here. Yesterday, I had a lazy morning working on my office and surfing through blogs. On Thanksgiving, C had found a water bubble in the paint in our dining room. It seems that our window was never sealed properly and water was leaking from the window into the wall. The damage isn't too great, but the handyman suggested we complain to our builder before getting an estimate so we will see how it goes.

In the afternoon, C and I headed out to beer drinker's heaven; Shangy's. Now, to understand why Shangy's is so special, you have to understand the little bit I've picked up of PA liquor laws. PA is not a state where you can buy wine and beer and the grocery store. Nor, is it a place where you can pick up six-pack along with a bottle of wine, and a bottle of Ketel One when you are having people over. No, in PA all wine and hard alcohol is sold in state-owned "Wine and Spirits" shops. The one closest to our house, is a PREMIUM Wine and Spirits. Beer is sold buy the case at beer distributors (or you can take a six-pack out from a restaurant, bar, or pizza place as packaged goods).

Shangy's is a beer distributor of the highest dimension, where along with crappy domestics, and PA's sacred lager , you can get great beers from all over the world. We picked up a case of Young's Double Chocolate Stout, and my favorite Belgian beer, Leffe Blonde which I discovered at a Belgian beer cafe in London. Life is good.

C and I had a little spat (which we do quite often) while leaving Shangy's about how we would use the time between then and dinner, and he decided to make it up to me by taking me out for a nice dinner which we do rarely when we are home. It was nice, until another spat ensued, on a more critical subject that I won't get into here. So now C is surfing the net in his office, while I'm here in mine and all I can say is that it is nice to have 2 computers.

As for knitting, I started (again) the hat to go with the peapod sweaters, and am looking forward to finishing it up once these are dry.

For further evidence we are feeling blah at Chez Jennysbelly, I give you Oscar:

Posted by Jenny at 11:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

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Posted by Jenny at 10:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I'm procrastinating while I should be packing and getting ready to go to the Boy's parents' house for Christmas eve.

I wanted to show you all my progress on the Marilyn sweater.                                                                     

Here's a picture of it on (excuse the fact that I have a new camera and don't really know how to turn off the flash yet)

The sleeve progress:

The raglan "seam" -- I'm loving the top down construction.

Oscar wishes you all a happy holiday while standing on top of his crate.

Happy holidays!

Posted by Jenny at 01:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

How can you go wrong with this:

Of course this is the unstoppable Oscar, pooped out after a day of sleeping.

and this:
< This is from a local microbrew, Bethlehem Brewworks -- a yummy ESB.

This weekend was actually relaxing. Friday night I stayed in, knit on Scoop and watched way too much Law and Order (SVU and CI). Saturday was rainy and gross, and I stayed in, and knit and read Harry Potter 6 (side note on this -- CHECK your books for missing pages before you start reading and you won't frantically be at Target when it opens on a Sunday trying to exchange the Half Blood Prince because it is missing the last 40 bloody pages!!). Sunday was more of the same.

This is what I have to show for it:

Another view:

This is the second sleeve on my Scoop sweater, and  I can't wait to wear it. I've already seamed the first sleeve and side, and it seems really comfy if on the snug side. I was between 2 sizes and went small because at the end of the day, it will be a spring sweater, mostly worn over tanks. It was a little tight in this picture over a loose fitted LS tee
.

I'm knitting some other things too, including this shawl for C's grandmother. As I looked at this pic, I noticed some serious boo boos that will be corrected as soon as I finish this post.

That's it for me tonight. I have laundry and knitting to do. Bleh.

Posted by Jenny at 09:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Before I get any further, let me thank my WONDERFUL secret pal. She sent me this a few weeks ago.

There was also some RedVines included in the package, but they were consumed while reading the card.

What is it?

There is a calander, a card, a candle, AND . . . . some earrings made just for me!

Thanks so much!

I also feel the need to show a picture of some other recent stach acquisition, some Lorna's Laces just for me

Oscar finds it very odd that I take pictures of yarn.

And for proof that I still knit socks, and am a true member of Lolly's Socktoberfest,

Other than that, things are good. I'm finally being proactive about work issues and am going to a seminar about grad school on Tuesday. Had a great weekend. We saw Wallace and Grommit on Friday Night.  I loved it as I have had all the Nick Park films. Saturday we went home to NJ, and saw some old friends in N.B. Hope to do more of that soon. Sunday, we attempted to go Apple picking and I actually took a decent picture of my boy, so I will post it here to trump all other scary pictures . ..

  We didn't actually PICK apples, after a trip to the orchard in a convertable school bus ( I shit you not), we discovered that they only had Red Delicious left, which wasn't what we had in mind for the apple tarts that C made later that night. The scenery was still beautiful, and we did get tarts so all is well in the world.

Posted by Jenny at 10:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Just wrote long post with pictures, secret pal stuff, knitting content and personal stuff and accidenlty deleted it. Am taking this as sign from the gods that although I am only 24 and it is pathetic to be this tired at 10:23 on a Friday night, I must read more of this  and passing out with my puppy. Must leave you with.

The pig is now dead:

Guess who did it:

I swear, if Oscar were human he'd be either a surgeon or an axe murderer. We brought him this toy 2 weeks ago. Within a day he had removed the squeaker with only a tiny hole in the pig. Slowly, but surely he starting pulling all the white fluff out and scattering around rooms then passing out like an alcoholic after a 3 day bender.

I leave you with that. Good night.

Posted by Jenny at 10:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I've been having a really hard time motivating myself do work hard at work, or even do the bare minimum of what is required by me. It's like high school all over again.  I discovered early on in school, that doing the bare minimum still got good grades, and I got no extra rewards from working hard. I learned a lot more from the reading I did on my own.

I'm at the same point at work.  I'm seem to not be trying very hard, and everyone is thanking me for my hard work.  Great, you'd think. . .  but I'm not happy.  After the initial happiness of not being in an office all day, and freedom to go home at lunch, I'm finding myself needing to make excuses to not crawl back into bed, or go home and knit in front of the TV.  I honestly think I'd be happier in an office, if I liked my job.

Before we moved to Pennsylvania, I was fed up with sales, applied and got in to graduate school for education. I think I would much rather screw it,  and go back to school full time for History and get my PhD, but I don't think it is practical, and I am afraid to bring it up with C.  Especially with the Kid in the house.  Maybe I made a mistake to come out here. I don't know.

I have been knitting. I've started Scoop du Jour, and a new pair of socks. Here are some pictures I've been taking but not posting over the past few weeks.

This is Carlos with his birthday cake. He made me take that picture, which says how proud he was of the cake. He HATES his picture taken.

Here is a picture of my Fiery Bolero

Here's another one.

Here is my first pair of socks!

Anyway, I'm in a funk, and I REALLY REALLY need the weekend.

Posted by Jenny at 03:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)