Blackberry cheesecake

Every morning I pass a Culver’s on my way to work and they always list the special frozen custard of the day. Today I think it was supposed to be blackberry cheesecake, however, it said blck chescke. That is how I feel today, like some of the letters are missing.

On Saturday, hubby and I went to a craft fair at the State Fairgrounds. It was cold, 37 deg and windy. We bought some pins for The Girl, I bought some yarn from Aisha Celia Designs (it was on sale and purple, I could not resist) and I bought a fabulous hat. Here are some pictures.

Isn’t it just gorgeous? I love to be able to buy a big piece from an artist. It is a hand blocked and sewn beaver hat. I bought it from Moe Sew Co. so if you want a great hat, you can buy one too. It was between this one and The Spring in Transition (which is still available on their Esty site). My husband said I looked better in this one. But all of the hats were lovely. Of course, I adore hats. I always have and I know from experience that a hand millinered hat cost a lot of money so I felt it was a really good deal.

On Sunday, we had a family lunch out and then went to the movies. We saw “Deception”. It was okay. It started out really slow and there was way too much female nudity. We went to see it because it starred Hugh Jackman and Ewan McGregor. Okay, it was just because they are both very pretty. However, Hugh was never out of his clothes and Ewan was always wearing some tighty whiteys. Not very attractive. Really, some boxer briefs would have been sexier. It was not very surprising even though it was supposed to be a thriller and it had HUGE plot holes. It did have some nice sweaters in it, so it does get some points for that. I am giving it 2 ½ knitting needles. It is watchable, but I would wait for the DVD.

I knit a lacy hat over the weekend. I do not know what I am going to do with it, because it really isn’t me. However, I was easy to do.

I am working on a tea cozy. It was a kit I bought last year at Shepherd’s Harvest, since it has almost a year I thought it was time. It is a fiddly pattern, but easy. It will be extremely cute when I am done.

I have been trying to come up with something to knit for my MIL for Mother’s Day. I am not having much luck deciding what to do and let’s face it, it is fast approaching. I do not know what I am going to do about it. Perhaps I will just knit up a little something and hope for the best.

On a totally different subject… Knitty.com has their spring surprise up and I love the Tempest sweater. It is just lovely. I think I actually have yarn I could use from my stash for it. Can you believe it? Of course, it would require me to actually knit a whole sweater, so it is not likely to happen, but it is a nice thought.

Work has been really blah. Nothing bad happening, but nothing interesting either. I really wish I did not have to work in an office any more. When did this happen? Is it because I am almost 40? The Girl asked why everything we have planned for our lives starts after she is gone. I had to explain that when you have kids you need to have health insurance so I have to keep working until she is gone. She did agree that she warrants a great deal of health insurance.
I realized today that people I work with here are the same people I worked with at my last job and several other jobs, they just have different outsides. They all blend together. And no doubt, I am just a replacement for the person who sat at my desk and did my job before me. We all want to be special, but none of us really are. Well, I take that back, at my last job, I worked with a crazy lady who was definitely different, although, I don’t think she thought so.

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

It was a very long weekend, filled with ups and downs. I think I will start with the bad and end with the good. That way it will feel upbeat at the end. Plus, there are photos today. I know, it is too exciting!

THE BAD
Last Thursday I received a phone call from my husband telling me that The Girl had been suspended from her new school for drinking. Apparently, she has been drinking on a regular basis. However, she did not bring this alcohol to school, she just helped drink it. She was suspended for the rest of the day on Thursday and all day Friday. She insisted on taking the bus home and she threatened not to come home at all. She was extra surly, which is a sign she knows that she totally screwed up and does not want to face the music. We have had several talks with her, mainly focusing on the fact that SHE was the one who choose this school and SHE managed to get in trouble the very first week. It was not a pleasant evening.
Plus, her doctor kept calling because she needed to talk to her. We gave the doctor The Girl’s cell phone number and that leads to…

THE UGLY
The Girl’s Pap smear was abnormal and she had to go see an OB/GYN ASAP. So on Friday, which I had already taken off to get the oil changed and spend time with my honey, we hauled her downtown to the OB/GYN’s office. They cut off bits of her cervix and told her she had genital warts. Apparently, she was having unprotected sex. Her response was, "I only did it once". I told her that it only takes once and that she would have to notify all the people she had sex with and let them know they may have been exposed. We will know in a week or so if she has cancer or anything. It was a miserable time and The Girl declared it the worse day of her life. So even though she was not in school, she was not having fun, so I guess that is a plus.

THE GOOD
Yes, there were several highlights to the weekend. On Friday morning, my husband and I went and got the oil changed on the car. On the way home, we stopped at our local thrift store and I hit the jackpot. I bought 18 knitting magazines; most of them were copies of Knitter’s, which I just really like. They are not overly trendy, plus there were several with great info about techniques. Plus, they were only $0.69 each. I was so happy.
On Saturday, I went over to the Needlework Unlimited Outlet, which was having a moving sale. All the yarn in there was $2 / ball and sweaters were $15 each. So I bought a ton of yarns.

A mitered blanket, which cost $15

A couple of sweaters, one of which I spent Saturday afternoon ripping out. It was a long coat made out of bulky yarn. I retrieve about 27 balls. All this yarn for only 15 bucks! Can you believe it? I was so happy. I am going to make a shrug and something else, not sure what yet, but I know I have plenty of it.


On Saturday night, DH and I went to a small local theater (Bryant Lake Bowl, yes, it is a bowling alley as well) to see a production called Stitch, Bitch and Die. It was hilarious. It is playing next weekend as well, so if you live in the Twin Cities, go check it out.

On Sunday, I finished the rug for my mom for Mother’s Day. I just need to weave in the ends.

I finally finished The Girl’s poncho, it only took 1 ½ years, but it is done. She wore it to school on Monday. I personally think it is hideous, but she thinks it “sweet”.

Spring, such as it is

It is very grey out today. Yesterday was sunny and breezy and today, it is cloudy. It makes me tired. I actually have been off kilter all week. I am not sure why. I know that last night instead of working hard to get done with my mom’s rug, I played some stupid game on the computer. Off course, I had worked on the rug for a little bit and then put it away before I went to bed. However, The Girl’s kitten LOVES Sugar N’ Cream yarn and pulled it all out of my bag today. My husband called to tell me the there were 3 balls pulled out of the bag. I am hoping she did not pull any of the stitches off of the needle. It would be a pain to figure out which of the strands went where since I am using 4 strands held together.

We ordered seedlings for my salsa garden. And my lovely husband cleared all the crap out of my raised bed, so when the plants come, we can just shove them right in.

The Girl has to take the bus to her new school and every night this week she has pretty much come home and just crashed. So maybe this extra activity out in the real world is good for her.

I really don’t have much to say today I guess. I had hoped I would, but alas the words are not flowing as they should. One week until a new Lost. I guess that is something to look forward to. Later.

Where have I been? Working hard!

I know I have AWOL the last couple of weeks. Things have been really crazy, so here is a little update.

Yarnover was on Saturday. It went well. The only problem I had was I got a headache about 10:30 and it hurt for the rest of the day. Yuck. I struggled through, but I was very glad to be done with the day. There was a lot of planning for this event and I hope everyone who came had a good time. I took a class with Lucy Neatby and I would like to say it was awesome. If you ever have a chance to take one of her classes, jump on it. She is a wonderful teacher and very fun. The class I took was Equilateral Triangles. I think I could come up with some fun stuff to do with it and it is really easy. Best of both worlds. In the afternoon I took a class with Beth Brown-Rensel – Latvian Wristers. I am not as good at the Latvian knitting. Well mainly I can not do the braiding deal. I will keep trying, but I really did not know what I was doing wrong and truthfully, my head hurt so badly by that point, I could not even think.
I did not spend too much money at the market. I bought another cup from Jennie the Potter this one has purple yarn on it with the sheep. Her stuff is so fabulous. I bought a skein of alpaca from Alpacas of the Ark. Their yarn is so soft and yummy. It is some of the softest yarn you will find. I also bought a couple of skeins from Blackberry Hills. Their yarn is very nice and reasonably priced.

The Girl started at her new school on Friday. So far she loves it. She really likes her advisor and she has started on a project already. So hopefully this will be a good move. They said she will be able to make up any missing credits over the summer by doing projects instead of going to summer school. So that will be a good thing. Getting her moved over was a huge hassle. I hate dealing with the school system, any school system. It is just so much bureaucracy. It has always been the thing that has bugged me the most since The Girl moved in with us.

Knitting update: I am working on a rug for my mom for Mother’s Day. It is a pattern that was in my 2008 Knitting Pattern a Day calendar. It is just pretty much seed stitch, but it uses 4 strands of Sugar N’ Cream held together so it is getting heavy. Plus, it makes my hands hurt because of the cotton and the weight combined, and I really do not like working with such big needles. This is something I discovered quite some time ago, I would rather work with size 2 needles than size 15. I think it is because my hands are small and I hold the needles oddly.
I have also started making the Hoppy Easter Bunny from Simply Knitting. I believe that I mentioned this before, but I have made progress on it. I have completed the back, 2 ear fronts and 2 cheeks. I have started the belly and that is where it is at right now.
There are so many things I want to knit. I have already begun to think about what I want to knit during my vacation this summer. I don’t know if I want to bring one big thing or several little things. I have thought that it might be nice to make afghan squares as I travel, perhaps picking up some local yarn in each place we go and making it to a trip blanket as it were. I do have an old pattern book with all these different afghan squares in it. It is meant to be used for learning to knit new stitches. That might just be really fun. I will have to think on it though.

MOVIE REVIEW
I have not been to the movies in just forever, but yesterday, the whole family went to see “Run, Fat Boy, Run”. It is an English comedy. I t is a very cute little movie about a guy who leaves his pregnant girlfriend at the alter and then 5 years later decides he wants her back and decides to run a marathon to win her back. It is not a deep movie, but it is fun and it made me laugh. You can not think to hard about the plot because, well, it is a light fluffy comedy full of plot holes. I enjoyed it and there were several nice knits in the film. In particular, there is a grey sweater that I absolutely loved. I give it 3 knitting needles.

Lots of Topics, Just One Blog

WEATHER
It snowed here yesterday. We got about 4 inches or so at my house. I know what you thinking… what the hell is with this woman and the weather? Get over it! I am a born and breed Minnesotan and weather is very important to us. It has been a long time since we have had snow on the 31st of March. It was all gone on Sunday and now the ground is again covered. It is amazing to me. Plus, by the weekend, it will be in the 50s and all of it will be gone again.
However, it did make me realize that my shoes I wear to work are definitely NOT water proof. It was so slushy when I went out to my car last night after work and my feet were soaked by the time I got to my car. Yuck! I really should buy some boots.

REVELATIONS
On Saturday night we were talking to The Girl and she revealed that she wanted a career where she could make good money and have a big house and live comfortably. And, are you sitting down? so she can take care of us! Who knew? When we acted surprised, she said that had always the plan. It was nice to know that she is willing to take care of us in our old age. Of course, she then said that we would be free babysitters. I think she must think we are older than she can image since I think she is talking about having us live with her when we are in our 50s. Kids. They are too funny.

SUPERTASTING
The hubby and I have started watching a show on TLC called “I Can Make You Thin”. I know, it is a terrible title, but it really is very interesting. Basically there are 4 rules. Eat when you are hungry. Eat what you want. Eat consciously. And stop when you are full. We have been doing this for 2 weeks now. I am amazed by how much less I eat when I eat slowly and really taste the food. The Girl has dubbed it Supertasting, as in popcorn is good when you supertaste it. Which I will agree with. I have also discovered that most French fries are really not very good when you eat them slowly and I find that asparagus tastes like dirt and grass. But more importantly, it feels like you have eaten the same amount of food because you have tasted the same amount of food. Plus, it fills you up like nobody’s business. I know I have lost weight because my coat is fitting better, not a lot of weight, but it is amazing because I do not feel like I am being deprived and there are things that I just do not want to eat any more.

KNITTING
I am almost done with my shawl! Hooray! I would have had it finished over the weekend, but on Sunday I had a Yarnover meeting to attend and then we all went out with my husband’s uncle, who was in town visiting his son. Regardless, I will finish it tonight and then I can devote myself to Alan Dart’s Hoppity Bunny out of Simply Knitting issue 39. I had to order the yarn from England, so of course when it came I had to cast on with it. I have done the belly. If this goes well, I have enough yarn for 2 bunnies. It is incredibly soft yarn. I will probably make one for me and give one away.
Yarnover is in less than 2 weeks, April 12th. I will be glad when it is over. I do not think I will volunteer for next year’s event. It is just really time consuming. Plus, I do not think I am really very good at event planning and coordinating activities. I always feel like I am behind the eight ball.