Jersey Gas

As much as I love being a New Yorker, I still can't get past the cheap thrill of Jersey gas. $1.45 per gallon! Can you believe it. I wished I had two cars to fill up.


Not a great picture but definitely worth posting. Do you see that? Do you? Do you have any idea how exciting that is to me? It's better than chocolate! It's better than getting a surprise party! Dare I say it, it's even better than Chardonnay!

Looking Back

I've spent the past few days looking back at 2008 and wondering what the hell went so terribly wrong. Possibly the hardest part about doing this has been accepting the roll that I played in creating my own miserable year.

So here are some of the things I think I did wrong. I'm releasing them to the universe in the hopes that whatever is out there will wisk them all away with the wind.

1. I put another person's needs before my own. Now I know that sometimes that is the right thing to do but not if there is no balance. I allowed my self to stay in a relationship where I was providing all of the emotional support and I wasn't receiving any in return. I thought that loving someone was enough and that things would work out. That was a mistake.

2. I didn't stand up for myself or demand what I needed. I let people in all the areas of my life run rough shod over me. I was naive to think that things would work out in the end and I should have fought back--for myself--more often. That was a mistake.

3. I should not have let all these hurts and slights build up inside me. I'm guessing that if had done a better job at numbers 1 and 2, this would be a moot point but, I have to live with it and try to do a better job in 2009. That was a mistake.

I am still considering making 2009 the year of the bitch but it's hard to be bitchy all the time when you're used to being nice.

Okay--I'm going to try to let all of this go for the time being and see how I feel tomorrow.

Now that I have that off my chest, I can show you some of the beauties I finished for Christmas.

Here's Bratty Girl's scarf and mitts. The mitts are the Mountain Colors Mitten Trio pattern and the scarf is the Streaming Leaves Lace Scarf. Picked up both patterns at Flying Fingers and love them both. The yarn is from Rhinebeck and just gorgeous.





Here's Blueberry's scarf and mittens. The mittens are from the same pattern as Bratty Girl's and the scarf is an adaptation of Rachel's snowman dish cloth. The scarf took FOREVER but was worth every minute of it.


I love them all!

Mrs. Mallie's Birthday Party

I went to a wonderful 80th Birthday party on Sunday night. The guest of honor was just a delight as were all of her friends.

And I actually think she was surprised!

Here she is arriving.

And since this is a knitting blog, I just cast on Brooklyn Tweed's mittens from the new Vogue Knitting (scroll down on the page). I'm doing them in cream. Am halfway through the first cuff and they are just lovely.

Ripping Mad and Ripping Back

I was only five rows into the Ogee Skirt from Summer Interweave Knits when I made some ridiculous big mistake. Can't figure out what I did so I am ripping it all out and starting over. I'll bring it down to the pool today and let it enjoy the sunshine.
I have to make two of them--one for Bratty Gurl and one for her cousin in Ireland. They are very stylish girls the two of them and they'll be the hit of the high school in this one!

Lucky for some nasty guy that I didn't have knitting needles with me last night or I might be blogging from jail! Boy and I went out for a cocktail and a game of pool or two and this creep and his wife were hanging out in our favorite little watering hole. Creepo was wearing--are you ready for this--a nazi t-shirt! I was ripping mad! This is a grown man who you think would have evolved beyond bigotry by now but clearly not. Creepo asked Boy if he wanted to play pool and of course Boy said yes because he loves to play pool and I am really bad at it. I almost choked because I had seen the shirt but, clearly, Boy had not. Well about half way through the game, Boy noticed the t-shirt and I saw the look on his face. Not good.

Anyway, Creepo really thought he was going to win. He was down to the eight ball and Boy still had three balls on the table and I was on the edge of my seat because there was no way Boy was going to let Creepo win and guess what happened.

Creepo missed! Hurray!

Boy stood there looking at his remaining balls and I saw this little smile creep across his face. Boy cleared the table and won! And then guess what he did?

Creepo had bet him a drink on the game and Boy turned around and gave it to the handicapped black man sitting at the bar next to him. I couldn't help myself--I kissed him right there in the middle of the bar! (And it was a big "you won one for all the little guys" kiss.)

Of course then Creepo's wife thought she was going to start with me so I stood right back up to her (which made her really testy) and then I went outside and said 10 Hail Marys to calm down.

I can honestly say I have never been prouder of Boy nor have I ever gotten so excited about a pool game. It felt like a the balance between good and bad energy had tipped drastically to the good and I was so happy to be there for it.

It was a good, good night!

It's a big day in the Y.O.

First of all, I am back on line. For some reason, I occassionally get this weird problem and can't connect to the internet. It could be that my computer is so old that I would probably do better with an abacus and a pencil. I'm getting a new one soon.

And guess what I found when I got online? Two comments! Hurray! I had visitors! And they were nice! Now I just have to figure out how to reply to comments. I'll work on that tonight. It turns out that one of the commenters and I are doing mysterystole in the same yarn and we have the same first name! How cool is that. By the way, it's the Cherry Tree Hill Possum from Flying Fingers. I love it! It is so soft and fluffy. Tiny Cat thinks it is her baby and tries to carry the ball around with her. Elise and I had quite a few laughs when I went into the shop to get some help winding my second hank. It's so fine that the first one took me FOREVER! Anyway, when I walked into the shop and said that I needed my possum wound, it somehow sounded, shall we say, off color. Anyway, I think I'm going to use "winding my possum" as a euphamism for something--I'm just not sure what yet.

The biggest thing to happen in the past few days though is, for the first time in my life, I got my car inspected in the month that it was due. Every year, I end up leaving notes on my car over the expired inspection sticker that say things like "Hey Joe, I'm in (fill in restaurant name here). Meet me inside." For some reason I believe that the police won't look under my note. So far it has worked but I don't recommend trying it.

I have made a promise to myself that I will figure out how to use the digital camera that Granny bought me this weekend and post some projects. The cute, cute, cute baby that I went to visit on Sunday got a sweater for his baby shower and it is his favorite so I promised some more. I think red with green frog buttons is the next one up. Doesn't that sound like fun!

The Day of the Raccoon Suicides

As I drove up to Katonah today to make my first visit to Katonah Yarns, I was shocked by the number of raccoons who have chosen to end it all. Can their little raccoon lives be that awful or could it be the impending spike in the mercury? Did they realize that they are wearing fur on a blazing hot day? There were boatloads of them!

So Bratty Gurl wants the Ogee Skirt from the Summer 2007 Interweave Knits. Katonah was the only place that had the tape so I cranked up the a/c and jumped on the Saw Mill. What a treat it was. Also bought some Lorna's Lace sock yarn and some yummy blue yarn (I don't remember what it is and it is still in the car) for the new baby upstairs. Shockingly, I didn't even know his mother was pregnant and I've seen her a million times in the past nine months. He is a delicious little muffin--only eight days old and tiny tiny tiny.

This week, I feel like I am leading parallel lives with some of the bloggers that I read so I decided to start my own. Like Laurie, I've decided that I deserve (not need) a clean house. Like Brooklyn Tweed, I've found that I love knitting lace in non-lace yarn.

God I hate the heat!