See Ya Later, Alligator!
On a badly needed vacation. No rest for the weary; this is a working vacation -- visiting family and business associates/friends. Bringing the running shoes, but am only walking these days 'cuz the knee is still acting up (grrr). Destination: Vancouver, British Columbia for 2 days, Victoria, BC for 1 day (staying at the oh-so-elegant Empress Hotel), then on to Portland, Oregon for 4 days. We're flying from San Diego to Portland this afternoon. Then it's a Road Trip all around the Pacific Northwest, baby!
See ya in a week. Don't knit anything I wouldn't.
Thursday, July 22, 2004
Something to Cro(chet) About
If you ain't into being a hooker, move on, 'cuz I'm about to show you my latest score from Awesome Ewe:
Twilley's # 396 -- "Sheer Sophistication"
Sheer Sophistication Projects
Twilley's #391 -- "Ladies Fashion"
Ladies Fashion Projects
My favorite is the scarf on the far right from Sheer Sophistication. It's made from 3 balls of Twilleys Silky, a 100% rayon thread. I ordered 3 balls of Black from JKL Needles. I also splurged on a Boye Steel Crochet Hook Set. Hookin' fun coming up!
Radio Ruminations
So I'm driving along, and Stevie Wonder's "Part-Time Lovers" comes on the radio. Assuming that the song is somewhat autobiographical, I begin to wonder exactly how a blind person conducts an affair. In the song, he talks about sneaking around, talking on the phone, etc. How does a blind person accomplish this? For instance, if he's on the phone setting up an assignation with his amore, how does he know he's alone? Maybe his wife's right across the room. How would he know? And how does he get there? Automatically another person is involved, to at least drive Stevie to his offsite passion pit. Can you imagine if you were Stevie's wife and walked into the living room and found him whispering on the phone to another woman? "Damn you, Stevie! I told you to quit sneakin' around on me!" Sorry. It's just the way my mind works. I gotta wonder about the logistics of these things.
HappyWednesday Thursday, everyone.
If you ain't into being a hooker, move on, 'cuz I'm about to show you my latest score from Awesome Ewe:
Twilley's # 396 -- "Sheer Sophistication"
Sheer Sophistication Projects
Twilley's #391 -- "Ladies Fashion"
Ladies Fashion Projects
My favorite is the scarf on the far right from Sheer Sophistication. It's made from 3 balls of Twilleys Silky, a 100% rayon thread. I ordered 3 balls of Black from JKL Needles. I also splurged on a Boye Steel Crochet Hook Set. Hookin' fun coming up!
Radio Ruminations
So I'm driving along, and Stevie Wonder's "Part-Time Lovers" comes on the radio. Assuming that the song is somewhat autobiographical, I begin to wonder exactly how a blind person conducts an affair. In the song, he talks about sneaking around, talking on the phone, etc. How does a blind person accomplish this? For instance, if he's on the phone setting up an assignation with his amore, how does he know he's alone? Maybe his wife's right across the room. How would he know? And how does he get there? Automatically another person is involved, to at least drive Stevie to his offsite passion pit. Can you imagine if you were Stevie's wife and walked into the living room and found him whispering on the phone to another woman? "Damn you, Stevie! I told you to quit sneakin' around on me!" Sorry. It's just the way my mind works. I gotta wonder about the logistics of these things.
Happy
Wednesday, July 21, 2004
Grrr. My website seems to be down, so I can't upload any photos this morning. Double grrr. Oh well, here's the results of my latest quiz:
You are Schroeder!
Which Peanuts Character are You?
brought to you by Quizilla
Not a bad match! I'd have picked Schroeder for myself, although I have a lot of Charlie Brown days, too :-)
Happy Tuesday, everyone.
You are Schroeder!
Which Peanuts Character are You?
brought to you by Quizilla
Not a bad match! I'd have picked Schroeder for myself, although I have a lot of Charlie Brown days, too :-)
Happy Tuesday, everyone.
Friday, July 16, 2004
Got Your Back
Finished the back of Summer Breeze Cardi while waiting in the car during RockStar's guitar lesson:
Just the left front and 2 sleeves to go!
Friday Slow Jam Music
The weekend's here and summer's just heating up. Here's a list of songs designed to make you grab your significant other and generate some summer heat of your own this weekend. Is it hot in here, or what?
One In a Million You, Larry Graham Betcha By Golly Wow, Stylistics Let's Get It On, Marvin Gaye Neither One of Us, Gladys Knight & The Pips If Loving You Is Wrong (I Don't Want to Be Right), Millie Jackson If I Were Your Woman, Gladys Knight & The Pips Do What You Do, Jermaine Jackson Ain't No Sunshine When She's Gone, Bill Withers Love On a Two-Way Street, The Moments
Have a good weekend, everyone!
Finished the back of Summer Breeze Cardi while waiting in the car during RockStar's guitar lesson:
Just the left front and 2 sleeves to go!
Friday Slow Jam Music
The weekend's here and summer's just heating up. Here's a list of songs designed to make you grab your significant other and generate some summer heat of your own this weekend. Is it hot in here, or what?
Have a good weekend, everyone!
Tuesday, July 13, 2004
Bonus Tuesday Post: Non-Knitting Content Ahead
You've Come a Long Way, Baby
My fellow '70s sisters will remember that slogan from a certain ad campaign back in the day. Although the product being advertised was harmful (cigarettes), the sentiment was right on. So am I wrong to be disturbed by this:
Look, Girls! It's Ho Barbie!
And her Little Ho Posse!
This was from a McDonalds Happy Meal, folks. Maybe I'm being reactionary, but these little dolls look less than wholesome, and certainly unworthy of being role models for young girls. Give me Groovy Girls anyday.
And While We're At It ...
As I've mentioned before, I try to view each stage of growing older with an air of bemused detachment, but sometimes my body does something so strange, so weird, I have to stop and contemplate the experience a little more fully. Latest musings: Hair. Unwanted hair. Hair in weird, unexpected places. OK, so basically the human body is composed of cells, all responding to on/off signals, kinda like a computer. 99.99% of the time, things work great. Skin sheds cells and regrows new layers, nails grow, hair grows in the usual places.
I was putting in an earring in my right ear the other day, and my finger became tangled in a 2" long hair growing immediately above the piercing. WTF? This sucker was baby-fine, blond, and growing straight out of my earlobe! Flying free and long enough to take a curling iron to it. And this wasn't the first one of these rogue hairs. Last year, I had one growing out of my left cheek, about 1" from my ear. How could my hairdresser not notice either of these hairs? How could I not have noticed them for (at least) the 4 months it took to grow them? And why the h*ll did they grow in the first place? What cellular signal went haywire and said, "Grow, little hair! Grow beyond your normal 1/8" length, and reach for the stars!"
The only reason (OK, 2 reasons) this bothers me is: 1) what happens when I get to be an old lady and don't notice these weird *ss hairs before they reach my knees; and 2) if hair cells can go haywire, so can other cells. After all, that's how cancer starts -- from a bad cellular signal. A cell zigging to the left instead of the right. Believe me, I don't spend hours obsessing on this stuff, but you gotta wonder about the capriciousness of the human body. Geez.
You've Come a Long Way, Baby
My fellow '70s sisters will remember that slogan from a certain ad campaign back in the day. Although the product being advertised was harmful (cigarettes), the sentiment was right on. So am I wrong to be disturbed by this:
Look, Girls! It's Ho Barbie!
And her Little Ho Posse!
This was from a McDonalds Happy Meal, folks. Maybe I'm being reactionary, but these little dolls look less than wholesome, and certainly unworthy of being role models for young girls. Give me Groovy Girls anyday.
And While We're At It ...
As I've mentioned before, I try to view each stage of growing older with an air of bemused detachment, but sometimes my body does something so strange, so weird, I have to stop and contemplate the experience a little more fully. Latest musings: Hair. Unwanted hair. Hair in weird, unexpected places. OK, so basically the human body is composed of cells, all responding to on/off signals, kinda like a computer. 99.99% of the time, things work great. Skin sheds cells and regrows new layers, nails grow, hair grows in the usual places.
I was putting in an earring in my right ear the other day, and my finger became tangled in a 2" long hair growing immediately above the piercing. WTF? This sucker was baby-fine, blond, and growing straight out of my earlobe! Flying free and long enough to take a curling iron to it. And this wasn't the first one of these rogue hairs. Last year, I had one growing out of my left cheek, about 1" from my ear. How could my hairdresser not notice either of these hairs? How could I not have noticed them for (at least) the 4 months it took to grow them? And why the h*ll did they grow in the first place? What cellular signal went haywire and said, "Grow, little hair! Grow beyond your normal 1/8" length, and reach for the stars!"
The only reason (OK, 2 reasons) this bothers me is: 1) what happens when I get to be an old lady and don't notice these weird *ss hairs before they reach my knees; and 2) if hair cells can go haywire, so can other cells. After all, that's how cancer starts -- from a bad cellular signal. A cell zigging to the left instead of the right. Believe me, I don't spend hours obsessing on this stuff, but you gotta wonder about the capriciousness of the human body. Geez.
Monday, July 12, 2004
Oh, what a beautiful morning!
Oh, what a beautiful day!
I've got a beautiful feeling
Everything's going my way
Oklahoma, 1955
Got some knittin' done on the Summer Sky Poncho!
Pretty, huh? I'm about 2/3 through the 3rd skein. When I finish that skein, I'm going to pop this baby off the needles and see what I've got. There's a slight chance this might end up as a shawl, depending on what I see when it's off the needles. Whee!
Pins 'n Needles
The first acupuncture appointment was interesting. The needles did not go in my knees ... I had 2 on the inside of each elbow, and 2 more on each ankle. The needles didn't hurt going in, except for a slight ache when she hit the "spot." Then the ache went away. She left me to "cook" on the table for about 15 minutes, while soft music played in the background. I dozed off (very common, according to the acupuncturist), and woke refreshed. Then the acupuncturist did a deep-tissue massage on the muscles of my inner left leg to release the tightness that's contributing to the knee pain. I stayed off the knee (no running) all weekend, and today, it feels pretty darn good. I swam on Sunday, and that also helped. I'm going to try a very light running workout on Tuesday, and then I have a swim scheduled with my trainer on Wednesday at (cough!) 6:00 am, and another acupuncture treatment that afternoon. I will get this figured out!
Have a nice Monday, everyone!
12:30pm Pacific Time: I re-read this post and didn't care for the endless whining about my knee. I guess the only point I really want to convey amidst the crybaby stuff is how much I was enjoying running after so many years of unsatisfying exercise ... how light and free I felt running outside, in the sun and wind ... and how incredibly, terribly disappointed I was to have to stop and nurse this injury. I promise to stop whining about it.
Oh, what a beautiful day!
I've got a beautiful feeling
Everything's going my way
Oklahoma, 1955
Got some knittin' done on the Summer Sky Poncho!
Pretty, huh? I'm about 2/3 through the 3rd skein. When I finish that skein, I'm going to pop this baby off the needles and see what I've got. There's a slight chance this might end up as a shawl, depending on what I see when it's off the needles. Whee!
Pins 'n Needles
The first acupuncture appointment was interesting. The needles did not go in my knees ... I had 2 on the inside of each elbow, and 2 more on each ankle. The needles didn't hurt going in, except for a slight ache when she hit the "spot." Then the ache went away. She left me to "cook" on the table for about 15 minutes, while soft music played in the background. I dozed off (very common, according to the acupuncturist), and woke refreshed. Then the acupuncturist did a deep-tissue massage on the muscles of my inner left leg to release the tightness that's contributing to the knee pain. I stayed off the knee (no running) all weekend, and today, it feels pretty darn good. I swam on Sunday, and that also helped. I'm going to try a very light running workout on Tuesday, and then I have a swim scheduled with my trainer on Wednesday at (cough!) 6:00 am, and another acupuncture treatment that afternoon. I will get this figured out!
Have a nice Monday, everyone!
12:30pm Pacific Time: I re-read this post and didn't care for the endless whining about my knee. I guess the only point I really want to convey amidst the crybaby stuff is how much I was enjoying running after so many years of unsatisfying exercise ... how light and free I felt running outside, in the sun and wind ... and how incredibly, terribly disappointed I was to have to stop and nurse this injury. I promise to stop whining about it.
Friday, July 09, 2004
A Mighty Wind
Are you guys as sick of seeing Summer Breeze Cardi as I am of showing it to you? "Get it done, already!" I hear you screaming. OK, OK, I'm trying! So again, for the upteenth time, is the 2" of progress on the back portion of Summer Breeze Cardi:
Not Again!
I'm feeling a bit knitterly, lately; in need of a simple-yet-chic project. So when I saw this, I said, "God bless you, Amy, for the perfect summer project!" And since I hadn't had my weekly Elann fix, I ordered up a mess 'o this:
Off we go, into the wild blue yonder ...
I'm hoping to get this onto the needles sometime this weekend. Wheee!
Stick a Fork in Me, I'm Done
At 1:15pm PST, I'm having this done to my knee:
Hold still ... don't move!
My poor left knee is in a constant state of owie-ness from the running thang. I've cut way back on the running (I was up to 12 miles/week) and will start swimming this week, but I need to get this figured out 'cuz I'm registered for a 5K race in August and a 5-mile race in September, and am training for the ultimate goal, a 1/2-marathon in November. See what DH and his crazy triathlon bunch have done to me? I've become an Athletic Stepford Wife. God help me.
Happy Friday, everyone!
Are you guys as sick of seeing Summer Breeze Cardi as I am of showing it to you? "Get it done, already!" I hear you screaming. OK, OK, I'm trying! So again, for the upteenth time, is the 2" of progress on the back portion of Summer Breeze Cardi:
Not Again!
I'm feeling a bit knitterly, lately; in need of a simple-yet-chic project. So when I saw this, I said, "God bless you, Amy, for the perfect summer project!" And since I hadn't had my weekly Elann fix, I ordered up a mess 'o this:
Off we go, into the wild blue yonder ...
I'm hoping to get this onto the needles sometime this weekend. Wheee!
Stick a Fork in Me, I'm Done
At 1:15pm PST, I'm having this done to my knee:
Hold still ... don't move!
My poor left knee is in a constant state of owie-ness from the running thang. I've cut way back on the running (I was up to 12 miles/week) and will start swimming this week, but I need to get this figured out 'cuz I'm registered for a 5K race in August and a 5-mile race in September, and am training for the ultimate goal, a 1/2-marathon in November. See what DH and his crazy triathlon bunch have done to me? I've become an Athletic Stepford Wife. God help me.
Happy Friday, everyone!
Wednesday, July 07, 2004
Glen! Glen, Glen, Glen!
In the interest of Keeping Wednesday Somewhat Interesting, I bring you my latest Guilty Pleasure:
Starbucks Doubleshot Espresso Commercial
One of the few instances where Madison Avenue does itself proud.
Glen! Glen, Glen, Glen!
If you can't access the clip from the College Humor site (it's very popular and the site is getting a lot of hits), try the link directly from the Starbucks site. Search for "doubleshot" on their site, then click on the video clip on the right side of the screen to access the commercial.
Or download the movie (4.1mg) from here.
In the interest of Keeping Wednesday Somewhat Interesting, I bring you my latest Guilty Pleasure:
Starbucks Doubleshot Espresso Commercial
One of the few instances where Madison Avenue does itself proud.
Glen! Glen, Glen, Glen!
If you can't access the clip from the College Humor site (it's very popular and the site is getting a lot of hits), try the link directly from the Starbucks site. Search for "doubleshot" on their site, then click on the video clip on the right side of the screen to access the commercial.
Or download the movie (4.1mg) from here.
Tuesday, July 06, 2004
Tour de Crochet
Now that DH is fully assimilated into the Cult of Triathlon, our TV viewing has changed. For instance, there was much monitoring of the Tour de France this holiday weekend.
Me, I continued my participation in the Tour de Crochet, aka Summer Breeze Cardi. I had to frog and re-do the right front -- I'd done it in the wrong size -- durr! After re-doing it, I started the back and got about 4.5" done this weekend:
I left my heart
in Delta, British Columbia ...
Elann, Elann, what is this hold you have over me? Every Tuesday and Thursday, I log onto your site with breathless anticipation and, dare I say it, dread of what lovely little yarn goodie you'll have posted to tempt my heart and wallet! Today was no exception ... Jo Sharp Soho Summer cotton yarn and one of my favorite sweaters, Chaise. Sigh. I surrender. I ordered the book, and enough of the Putty colorway for Chaise. Elann, if loving you is wrong, I don't wanna be right.
Happy Tuesday (Monday!), everyone.
Now that DH is fully assimilated into the Cult of Triathlon, our TV viewing has changed. For instance, there was much monitoring of the Tour de France this holiday weekend.
Me, I continued my participation in the Tour de Crochet, aka Summer Breeze Cardi. I had to frog and re-do the right front -- I'd done it in the wrong size -- durr! After re-doing it, I started the back and got about 4.5" done this weekend:
I left my heart
in Delta, British Columbia ...
Elann, Elann, what is this hold you have over me? Every Tuesday and Thursday, I log onto your site with breathless anticipation and, dare I say it, dread of what lovely little yarn goodie you'll have posted to tempt my heart and wallet! Today was no exception ... Jo Sharp Soho Summer cotton yarn and one of my favorite sweaters, Chaise. Sigh. I surrender. I ordered the book, and enough of the Putty colorway for Chaise. Elann, if loving you is wrong, I don't wanna be right.
Happy Tuesday (Monday!), everyone.
Thursday, July 01, 2004
Go, Speed Racer!
Summer Breeze Cardi is slowly inching along. I almost finished the right front during RockStar's guitar lesson:
Notice the mondo bottle of Diet Pepsi keeping watch over my project. It's the Go Juice of Choice for this Caffeine Achiever!
Not sure how much I'll get done tonight ... I seem to have, well, gotten a bit too enthusiastic with my running. Seems that going from zero exercise to running 3 miles 4x per week (in an 8-week period) is too much too soon for my poor knees. I've developed "runner's knee" on my left knee -- pain directly under the kneecap, even when I'm not running. I'm going to try to get an acupuncture treatment sometime today to relieve the pain. My trainer is going to give me a bunch of exercises to strengthen my quadriceps (the source of the problem). Pooh! This is the first exercise I've enjoyed in years, and I don't want to stop, but I also don't want to develop a problem that might really mess me up later. Grrr. Wish me luck trying to get this figured out!
I'm going to console myself with the new Summer Knitty.
Summer Breeze Cardi is slowly inching along. I almost finished the right front during RockStar's guitar lesson:
Notice the mondo bottle of Diet Pepsi keeping watch over my project. It's the Go Juice of Choice for this Caffeine Achiever!
Not sure how much I'll get done tonight ... I seem to have, well, gotten a bit too enthusiastic with my running. Seems that going from zero exercise to running 3 miles 4x per week (in an 8-week period) is too much too soon for my poor knees. I've developed "runner's knee" on my left knee -- pain directly under the kneecap, even when I'm not running. I'm going to try to get an acupuncture treatment sometime today to relieve the pain. My trainer is going to give me a bunch of exercises to strengthen my quadriceps (the source of the problem). Pooh! This is the first exercise I've enjoyed in years, and I don't want to stop, but I also don't want to develop a problem that might really mess me up later. Grrr. Wish me luck trying to get this figured out!
I'm going to console myself with the new Summer Knitty.