Drive By Picture

My first thumbless squirrel mitten!! I might do the thumb today, but who knows. :)

The Return of Thursday

Not that it was missing... but in the summer Thursday's are a bit different than in the fall for us. Thursdays in the fall/winter involve a bunch of friends coming to the house, watching Thursday night comedy (Office, 30 Rock, Community, Parks and Rec) on NBC, and enjoying dinner (typically made by me!). It is awesome. I look forward to it every week. Last week was the return of comedy, but we had breast feeding class (which W actually could not stop talking about... he is so impressed with breasts now... as he has told many people "They do so much... they are more than just good to look at!") and had to miss out. So, tonight is the official return of Thursday night. I'm making pizza. I'm excited.

Another thing that is pretty exciting is the fact that my first squirrel mitten is almost done! In fact, there is a pretty good chance it might get off the needles tonight (minus the thumb... I might have to change the chart for that, so it will require some thinking and alone time) which is awesome! I am loving them. It is amazing how once I decided to actually sit down and knit them instead of just think about them how quickly it went.  I've literally knit 85% of this mitten in the past two days. Here is the problem though... I'm not sure I want to just jump in and knit the second one. Sure, a pair would be super nice.... buuuuuut I also have some other mittens I would like to knit. Is it crazy to knit a first mitten of another pair before knitting the second mitten of this pair?? Oh, and I decided I was going to line my squirrel mittens, so really, when this is off the needles it is still only half done. (The lining should go way faster since there is no colorwork....) I don't have yarn to line them with (seriously, not even just joking around... it is laceweight and I don't buy laceweight yarn...) so I will be making a trip to the store tomorrow for that. I would love pink, but doubt I will find that. We'll see what I come up with.

Also, random side note on the mitten topic. I will wear one mitten out in public when it is done. I have no shame. I will show it off to everyone. And then when I have the first mitten of the other pair done, there is a good chance I will just wear the two mismatched ones as a pair. Whatever. I'm not trying to win a fashion contest, just keep warm....

Oh, and I'm still pregnant. :P 36 weeks and 1 day to be exact (I know you were keeping track...). I will take pictures of myself and of my mitten tonight perhaps. W is now predicting that the baby will be 2 days late (being born on Oct 29th) and a boy. I don't know anymore, so I'm not playing any predicting games. He also told me the other morning that he is really excited to meet the baby. He is so sweet. I never really thought about that... I guess I am too. (I'm actually really excited to not have heartburn and to have my body back, but meeting the baby will be a sweet bonus as well)

Alright, enough rambling about babies and mittens. (Speaking of, the baby has no mittens... does it need mittens?? oh my....) I am off to make pizza dough and enjoy my evening.

Termination Dust

It is here... termination dust... the first sign that winter is coming! Now, for a lot of people who live here, this is a sad time... but for me, I would have been dancing in the streets if I was not in a car when I noticed it!! I LOVE winter. Love it. (As long as it is a good winter, snow is soooo much better than ice or just freezing cold... but, either way, winter is amazing) It is my favorite season. And I'm sure I've mentioned that just a few times here, but in case you forgot, here is why: I love layers, I look so much better in three or four different shirts and then a scarf than I do in just a tshirt. I love snow, it makes it so sparkly and beautiful outside. My dogs love the winter... they are just so furry that this may be the only season where they are comfortable. I knit mostly with wool, so winter is just the best season for all of my handknits! I love to see my dad pull out his winter hat and wear it around... Basically, I think winter is amazing.

One thing I am happy about though, is that I am not working right now. I guarentee that a lot of people are going to spend the week lamenting the snow and complaining about the weather constantly. "We didn't even get a summer" (Which, May was amazing, and really, we have been spoiled... and we had/are having an AMAZING fall...) "I'm not ready for winter" "I hate snow" "I hate winter" "blah blah blah". Again, I know I have mentioned this before, but I don't really believe in complaining too much about the weather (or complaining in general... sometimes I will voice my frusterations to W and we will come up with a plan of action or I will just move on...) so I am very glad that I will not be around all the winter nay-sayers.

So, no matter how you feel about winter, it is almost here. After all, Friday is OCTOBER 1st! Crazy. Bundle up. Knit. Drink tea. Be happy.

Facebook

The Network (or whatever the "Facebook movie" is called) opens soon. And, truth be told, I'm a bit excited to see it.  It looks like it is well done and entertaining. The people behind it are pretty well known for making good movies.... I'll probably wait until it makes its way to Bear's Tooth just because I am frugal, but I am still looking forward to it.

Mark Zuckerburg, the founder of Facebook, has been in the news a lot recently. He is planning on donating one hundred million dollars to a struggling school district in New Jersey. Good for him. So the publicity is all positive, right?? Oh, no... for some reason the media has decided to turn it into a "why is he doing this?" story. WHO CARES!?! He is giving money to schools. I don't care why he is doing it... it is a good deed.  Do people question the motives of men who hold open doors?? Ugh. I just don't understand the media. Which is probably another reason I need to move to a small time and just live without all of this media saturation.

We had a cable box dropped off at the beginning of the week... (it is supposedly going to make our bill stay the same, but we will have unlimited internet... we will see GCI, I don't really believe you) but, we haven't even hooked it up yet. Maybe that is weird. But, that is just how we roll.

Went to the dr. this week and found out that everything is still going really well with Baby and me! So, I have been released!! I am OFF of bedrest... It was a nice anniversary present! Weston and I went to see Toy Story 3D at Bear's Tooth to celebrate. I had never seen a 3D movie, and it was ok. I did LOVE Toy Story though, they did a great job with it... Also had my breastfeeding class yesterday, and that was good. I learned a lot and feel a bit more confident that even if I don't know the answers to my questions, I know where to find them.

My knitting is still going well. I haven't been knitting too much... and only on my squirrel mittens. I did ply my first 3-ply yarn last night. It is a small skein (I only spun 1 oz of each ply because I didn't want to spin it all and then hate it...) but now that I know I like it, I plan on spinning the rest and getting it plied up. I also got back into my sewing room yesterday and sewed a little something for a special birthday boy...just need to hand stitch a button on and it will be ready to go for the party tonight!

Alright, I need to go be productive now.... enjoy your weekend!

EARTHQUAKE!!!

Oh, Alaska, how I love you. Even when you shake my house and kind of scare the crap out of me. We had a 4.92 magnitude earthquake at 1:24 today. The epicenter was only 13 miles WSW of Anchorage, so I felt it pretty strongly... (All of the earthquake info came from the Alaska Earthquake Information Center)

I realize that earthquakes can be an extremely devastating natural disaster. But, as far as natural disasters go, I much prefer and earthquake to a hurricane, tornado, or flood. Sure, those can be more predictable, but man... water is SO damaging. I can not believe how much damage water can do. So, I'll take a little earth shaking over that any day!

That's really all I had.... I just hadn't felt a big earthquake in a while... I did have another awesome mail day, but I will talk about that later after I have time to play with everything and take pictures!

Squirrels, Sundays, and Small Towns

I have cast on my squirrel mittens, and I am really liking them so far. The pattern can be found here (Rav link).  I have had these in my queue for a long time and I am really happy that I am finally getting around to them. Mine are grey and pink, which will match my winter coat wonderfully. I started knitting them on DPNs because that is how I normally knit in the round on things smaller than hats. I don't like magic loop... but I was finding with the long floats, it just wasn't turning out how I wanted it to. So my mom was able to pick me up some circular needles and I am now working the mitten on two circulars and it is turning out much better. I do like knitting on two circular needles a lot as well, but I just always feel like when I knit with DPN I look really smart... but I guess since I don't really go anywhere right now looking smart isn't a big deal. :) Instead of the year, I will be putting my initials on the mittens. This is for a few reasons... 1. I don't know if they will both be finished this year 2. I don't really know why I would want the year on them anyway... if someone was super curious what year I knit them in, I could look it up on Ravelry and 3. With my initials, they hopefully won't go missing! So I will keep you updated on the progress on those.

My Baby Christ-ma-kah sweater is going well. One sleeve is done and I am working on the second one. I keep that project in the living room and my mittens in the bedroom so I can work on both throughout the day, depending on where I am relaxing at the moment. I still REALLY need to finish up my wool baby nest. It is sad that it isn't done because all it needs is a button band. But picking up 150-ish stitches just doesn't sound appealing to me.... I should have thought ahead and knit the button band on as I went... sometimes I'm a goober. Oh well. I do plan on finishing it in time for Baby to actually use it, so I guess I better get on it. Maybe I will try to make that my goal for this week....

It's Sunday, which is one of my favorite days of the week. Typical Sundays are spent relaxing with Weston and cleaning the house, which sounds like a chore... but when we do it together is actually fun. Not that I can do too much right now, but I cheer him on and do the little bit that I can. It also means that the only thing on TV is football. Blah. I'm not a sports person. I don't follow sports, I don't really watch sports (I used to be pretty into hockey, but I'm even over that... I will occasionally go to a game, but seeing something live is so much more fun than watching it on TV), I would lose any trivia game based on sports... I do like to have the TV on when it is golf, tennis, or football because it makes it super easy to nap. :)

The last thing on the agenda today is my discussion of small towns. If you know me, or have read my blog for a while, you know that I want to move to a small town. I love my house (and if I could take it with me I would), but this town is too big. I want to live in a town where I can walk everywhere, most of the stores are local, and people actually care about each other and the well being of their fellow man. Weston loves small towns even more than I do. When he goes to one, he is constantly emailing me pictures and telling me how much he loves it... I'm sometimes worried he won't come home. (Except for the fact that he would come get me and the pups... he couldn't leave us behind) I am kind of the same way. The last time I went to Seward, I was very excited to go, but also kind of mad that I went. Upset because going there reminded me of how badly I wanted to live there and how much I didn't want to live in Anchorage forever. If I had made it to Valdez this summer, I probably wouldn't have come home... that is where I really want to live... they have amazing winters...

The reason all of this comes up is that Weston has spent the weekend in Talkeetna for a friend's wedding. He was in the wedding party, so he had rehearsal dinner Friday, the ceremony Sat, and is making his way home today. He is in love with where he is staying and told me about 15 times that we need to spend the weekend there together. We have it built into our long term budget and plan to be able to move somewhere smaller in 5-7 years, so I am looking forward to that. We haven't lived in our house long enough to make it profitable (or even to break even) to sell, and Weston needs to have a little more job experience to transfer around the state. Plus, he is working on his Master's degree and it will be a few years before he finishes that up, which will also make it a lot easier for him to get a job anywhere. Either way, I am looking forward to it. I love small towns...

Alright, off to work on knitting and relaxing. The pups had a play date yesterday, so they are still pretty tired. Weston is on his way home.... I hope everyone has a nice Sunday!

Locker room chat

So there is one hot reporter in the center of a controversy. Apparently there were some lewd comments made in the Jets locker room towards her. She didn't feel offended, but the NFL is still investigating. Whatever.

My only question is, are male reporters allowed in female locker rooms? Like after a soccer game? I honestly don't know. (If I had to make a guess, I would say no....)

Maybe we should all just respect the "male" and "female" signs on closed doors and wait to talk to people until they are dressed appropriately and in public. Just a thought....

Oh, and for those keeping track, today is 34 weeks pregnant! Baby and I are still doing awesome. 2 weeks until I have my freedom back... whoo hoo!!!