Thanksgiving and Mittens

Well, this Thanksgiving Ry and I had the pleasure of hosting the big meal at our place. Ry's parents went to Colorado for Thanksgiving to be with his sister, so we invited some friends who couldn't go home and see their parents for Thanksgiving and voila! Thanksgiving at our place! Ry and I made the Turkey, mashed potatoes, appetizers, and pies. Our friends J & M made the dressing, sweet potatoes and brought bread and pumpkin pie; and our friend C made a traditional English trifle. We had so much fun! The food was wonderful and I made bacon turkey
with maple flavored bacon on top and pear gravy. YUMMY! Ry and I and all of our wonderful friends had a great time, and it made Ry's first Thanksgiving away from his parents very special.

In further news, I finished one mitten for my swap partner, and am diligently working on the second one. It's turning out nicely, although it's a tad snug to put it on, but once on, it's absolutely perfect! Here's a picture of my progress:
I am really enjoying this project!

Well, I hope all your projects are going well, and that your Thanksgiving was full of much love, joy and fond memories.

Gramma

So, a couple of weeks ago my Gramma felt a Lump. She went to the doctor, and he scheduled her for a biopsy. Last week she was diagnosed with breast cancer. it sent my world into a tailspin. Now, my Gramma is one strong lady, but I just kept thinking about my Grampa all alone. It broke my heart, they've been married since they were about 18, right out of high school, they became grownups together. I can't imagine losing someone that important to me. Well yesterday Gramma had surgery to see if the cancer had spread to her lymph nodes. Grampa sent out a family e-mail last night, apparently after ten hours in the hospital she got a pass. No cancer in the lymph nodes. She'll be starting an aggressive radiation treatment next week, and we'll see from there what will happen next. So go hug your mom, sister, aunt, cousin, gramma, and friends and be thankful that you have them, because you never know what is going to happen next and where the next Lump will be.

Mystery Swap Package Goodness!

I received my Mystery Swap package the other day and Barbara really did a wonderful job. The theme she chose was "Coffee To Get Through School And Knitting". Included were coffee bean stitch markers, a coffee cozy, coffee yarn hand dyed by Barbara, chocolate, Caribou Coffee which donates money to the Susan G. Koman Breast Cancer foundation, highlighters and tags for my textbooks. It is really a wonderful package and I can't wait to get started on the sock pattern she gave me for the yarn. Anyway, without further ado here are some pictures of the package!

Happy Halloween (Belated)

Halloween rundown:

We had 3 bags of candy + 2 dogs in costumes (pics to follow)+ One eager-to-hand-out-candy female

result? NO trick-or-treaters. None.

But we did have these:


(And candy, scary movies and beer. Yum!)

Secret mitten

Well, as promised, I cast-on last night for the revamped mitten. MUCH better. Not only are the colors working together in a more cohesive way, but I was able to get the tubular cast on correct in only two tries this time! woo-hoo! Now I just need to hustle my butt and try to get it finished by next Wednesday. Why Wednesday? Because then I can cast on for the other one and hopefully get the pair done in two-ish weeks, so I can work on all the other projects in my little queue!

So I’ve been reading a lot of blogs about knitting recently, and a lot of those blogs are being written by either expectant mothers, new mommies, or moms. It’s giving me The Fever, to which an old (male) friend of mine said “What is about women our age that constantly talk about the clock ticking or wanting babies? Is it the age?” (I told him yes, and unlike men we are constantly aware of the expiration date on these little eggies.) So back to The Fever, I want kids, Ryan knows this and we’ve talked about it, we’re all set and have a Plan. The problem is I don’t have any friends with babies (yet), thus depriving me of the one thing that will help alleviate The Fever, access to a baby. See, I’m not even an Auntie, so I can’t even baby-sit a niece or nephew to get a dose of reality, nope I’m relegated to reading the blogs about babies with pictures of babies sleeping quietly or gurgling happily. When what I need is one screaming colicky baby, and I’ll be all set until the enactment of the plan. If I had friends with babies (or friends in this area for that matter), that would be one thing. All I can do is hope that when Ry’s cousin’s baby is born, we can sit for them and she screams the whole time, because if she's sweet, I'm done for.



In other news, I completely ripped out the mitten for my Swap partner. It wasn’t perfect, and I don’t like to give shoddy gifts, so I ripped it out rewound it, rethought the color scheme and have made some changes. The Great Re-Cast-On will begin tonight after a quick trip to Webs! I keep meaning to get started in this knitting group that meets once a week on Wednesdays in Noho, but I haven’t mustered up the courage to walk in alone with nothing but a bag of knitting to guide me. I used to be so bold about things like that, but I find that since moving to this state (and having been here for basically three years with no girl friends), my courage has deserted me. Which just perpetuates the situation, I know. I have tried, but law school is not the best place to make girlfriends. Most girls where I’m at tend to be mean and catty, with only a few exceptions. The nice ones are all married and living far away from me. I think, however, next week will be my week to attend. New month, new start.



In other knitting news, super-top secret gift #1 is almost complete. Unfortunately I can’t blog about it until after Christmas, but when it is done, I'll let you know so you can see it on ravelry.