Ten on Tuesday

10 Things That Scare You/Freak You Out

1. Sarah Palin
2. The extinction of polar bears
3. Creepy men on the train
4. Religious nuts (no matter what religion)
5. The state of popular movies in the US
6. Loud noises (I'm sort of jumpy)
7. Marx's theory of alienated labor and succumbing to it.
8. Peeing in the dark
9. hmm... now that I think about it - The dark
10. I mentioned Sarah Palin, right?

Knitting! (and a shocker post on Wednesday)

Last weekend I visited the fabulous Village Knitters in Santa Rosa with a friend of mine. We bought lots of stuff, met some great ladies, and I found some great yarn for the Serenity blanket (as I mentioned earlier). Here it is -




I really like this pattern. I made an error when I started and have since decided that it is best to only work on this project when no one is talking to me - but I didn't not frog back and repair the error. I decided it's character building. Plus, now that I've got the pattern down it's coming along great and I see no reason to undo all of that work. I hope they like it.

My garden is growing! My peppermint is psychotic (I think it may be mutant peppermint) and the parsley survived the white flies, and the dill is making a push. But my basil is dying a slow, sad death. This weekend I am going to rip it out and replace it with one of the two peppermints. Hopefully, if I move the mutant peppermint, it will give the regular peppermint a chance to get big too.

Next weekend, I will be planting a winter garden - and I am super excited to get started. Now, if only there was a way to win the lottery and then I could knit and garden all day long! That sounds like a nice aspiration!

Ten on Tuesday

It seems like I only get around to blogging when I do the Ten on Tuesday - oh well - c'est la vie. All projects are still in the same condition they were in last Tuesday - except I started a new one and finished the beanie for DH. The Serenity blanket has been started and I think it's fabulous - I've made an error inside one of the first lace cables, but I've decided that for my first lace cable pattern there isn't anything wrong with a few misplaced stitches - plus the recipients really won't give a damn... they're the type of folks that will decide the mistake makes the blanket better because it's one of a kind.

10 Great Things That Happened this Summer...

1. I went to Jenner. I heart Jenner. I heart the Russian River. I wish I lived there.
2. I gardened with my mother-in-law, thus beginning to bridge a strange gap between us that sprang from no where.
3. I went to the farmer's market every Thursday and bought a chocolate chip oatmeal cookie from a bread maker in Davis.
4. I've increased my skills as a knitter, and become unfortunately obsessed.
5. I read Cat's Eye by Margaret Atwood.
6. I realized I don't love summer as much as I did when I had them off.
7. Fall comes after summer.
8. I think that number seven explains why 8, 9, and 10 are blank!
9.
10.

In other news, I'm finishing up my master's and cannot wait to be done with school. I don't know what I'll do next but I'll be glad to have that monkey off my back.

Something May be Wrong....

I think I may have lost my mind. I've suddenly got so many projects cast on, I sit down and don't know which one to work on first. But! Before I get to that... here's my red scarf project.



So. I need to weave in those ends and block that baby and it will be ready to send to OFA! WooHoo! My first charity knit. I began working on the Perfect Fit Skirt, and I really like the striping of the yarn. It's very pretty. Right now though, my perfect fit skirt looks more like a really slutty tube top...



Sadly, here is my Isabella.


Something went horribly wrong. I messed up the decreases on the right front top panel, and now I need to frog back to the beginning of that section of the pattern. I just haven't been able to bring myself to do it yet though. I made a deal with myself that I would work on my smaller projects in between every ball of the skirt. And I finished the first ball of the skirt yesterday. So I cast on this...



So much for working on the Isabella. That little circle is a beanie for the DH. He's been asking for a beanie for a very long time, since I learned to knit. A. very. long. time.

So, you see. I think I may have developed a problem. I'm losing my mind. All I can think about lately is knitting! I think I caught a virus from you knitbloggers!

Here's my Ten Simple Things That Make Me Happy

1. Books
2. Cheesy food
3. Quiet Time
4. Nice Weather
5. Learning something new
6. Making new friends
7. French fries
8. French language (I don't know how to speak french, but it is so pretty)
9. Fires on a cold night
10. Knitting (I'm putting this at the bottom to combat this addictive behavior of late!)

FO!

Yeah, my Red Scarf Project scarf is finished... but I have no photos to show you. Sorry! Perhaps tomorrow I will remember to take some photographs. I've started a new skirt - which I'm loving.

Not much to say, but if you haven't seen the Tina Fey/Amy Poehler skit from last weekend's Saturday Night Live, go to youtube directly and watch! Cracking me up!

Who's a Gifted Gardner... ummm...

I am probably not a gifted gardner, but I'm giving it a go regardless...

This is the side of my garage. There used to be a rock, and a broken clay pot sitting on those shelves. From the previous owner, I might add. So, I bought those pots on sale at a local nursery and added those things with the petals to give it some flare. I am in love with the yellow pot with the purple flowers. It makes me smile, so I suppose if this experimental dip into gardening ends up being a complete bust I can at least say that I've gained some smiles.





We also cleaned out the area to the side of our house. This area was so disgusting that not even our dogs would go back there. It was fully covered with dead leaves, some old ground border stuff, some old cracking plastic piping, and two tree stumps that had to be axed out...



And one day the whole side yard will look like this...



I've also decided to give a go at having an herb/vegetable garden. I've planted no veggies yet, as winter gardens don't plant until late-september, but I did put the herbs in some dirt and damned if they didn't attracted some f-ing white flies two days later. I am in a fight to the death with these white flies, and something much larger than a white fly is eating my basil... but I have hope that I will prevail. Bugs be damned!



In non-garden news, I was forwarded this link and think that it's important we all remember that our predecessors did not fight for our right to vote so that we could blindly vote for anything with tits... this lady's a lunatic!

On the push-up front, I made it to ten in a row baby!

No real new knitting news... except that I've finished the third ball of yarn, and only have one left so hopefully the scarf will be long enough. The goal is to finish the scarf and the Isabella top before I go to Jenner so that I can buy new projects while I'm out!

Mia and Merlin hope you take their lead and sniff out your favorite buddy this weekend! Happy Friday!

Mosaic

I'm not on flickr, don't know enough about cameras, pictures, or flickr to be on flickr, but I saw a meme once that I thought produced the greatest little about me in a twelve picture flash, so I did it... and here is my result.



To do...

Go to flickr, type your answer to the following questions in the search, and choose a photo that comes up - but you have to choose one from the first page of the search results. Fun!

1. What is your name?
2. What is your favorite food?
3. Where did you go to high school?
4. What is your favorite color?
5. Who is your celebrity crush?
6. What is your favorite drink?
7. Where is your dream vacation?
8. What is your favorite dessert?
9. What is your dream job?
10. What do you love most?
11. One word to describe you.
12. What is your flickr name (I used my first name again and chose a different photo)?

So - I think it turned out quite nice. I especially love the apple pie. In other news, I've started school so knitting is slow. Still working that red scarf. It's so pretty and easy to do. I need to find a knitting group so that I can sit down for a good couple of hours and get it done! I want to send it in a pretty package with a gift card and all that - but if I don't get it knitted it'll be all for naught.

Is it me or are there about a million too many great things on this issue of Knitty? I want to knit them all - I especially want to knit Camden and then be skinny enough to look good in Camden!

10 favorite movie songs

Now... this is a Ten on Tuesday I can get my head around! Once, in Mexico, we played a game at the bar and had to name the movie that the songs came from. I think we only gave up two points. I am a soundtrack crazy person.

1. I'm Hooked on a Feeling - Reservoir Dogs
2. Tempted by the Fruit of Another - Reality Bites
3. Jungle Boogie - Pulp Fiction
4. Tiny Dancer - Almost Famous
5. You and Me - Romeo & Juliet
6. Let's Stay Together - Pulp Fiction
7. I Know - 10 Thing I Hate About You
8. Sweet Jane - Natural Born Killers
9. Voodoo People - Hackers
10. Creature of the Night - Rocky Horror Picture Show

Ta da! Also, the new Knitty is out - who's stoked?!