Housewife?

I'm starting to miss my short foray last week into being purely a housewife. This working stuff is no fun, especially when you have 5 million emails to catch up on b/c you were out for a week. But... I think my dreams of sitting at home watching daytime reruns of Law and Order, NCIS, Gilmore Girls, and Bones while knitting and constantly checking Facebook updates are not quite going to pan out. This life can only be supported by a double income...my part would be sorely missed...maybe we should all ban together to start selling our knitting, baking, quilting, sewing, artistic creations to somehow support ourselves so we can run away from these other jobs...any takers?

Going to a wedding this Saturday followed by a 5 night cruise of the Caribbean...totally not going to help my desire to not have to work...oh well, that's what vacations are for right, to unwind, relax and make work seem possible again.

Next Project- Trellis Sweater

The thing about craft and home projects, is as soon as you are done one [or even before completion] you are ready to start a new one. So the next project is the Trellis baby sweater found here:
http://knitty.com/ISSUEspring05/PATTtrellis.html

And no, this is not my veiled way to tell you all I am pregnant, we're friends, I would at least tell you on facebook :-) No, I've got two friends who are expecting this year, and baby sweaters are fun to knit and go quick! I think this is going to be really cute and I hope it comes out right. I'm not too good w/ the 'gauge' which is where you make sure you are making it the right size by doing a test swatch of the pattern and switch needle size if it is too big/small. I did it twice and just decided to go w/ what I've got. So, hey, if it's too big, kids grow right? It will fit some time...

So, I'm even trying to make some changes to the pattern to make it easier to knit. I joined this cool knitting/crocheting web group where people post projects and pictures and tips and stuff called https://www.ravelry.com/account/login It's great b/c you can browse all kinds of projects and get ideas of what to work on next.

This website also helped me realize that I didn't know how to read graphic charts for knitting. I worked on the project for a few days and it just didn't look right and while looking over someone else's comments realized that I was doing it all wrong...so I had to start over which is never fun, but now it looks great and much better so I'm happy. I'm hoping to make some major progress on this while snowed in...for the sixth day! I had a flex day Friday so I didn't work and now we are going on 3 snow days...I'm not totally bored or cabin crazy yet. It helps that we were able to make a path to the neighbor's house to go have some drinks and enjoy some company. We even made it over there for the SuperBowl- a snow blog post to come soon!

Alright, back to the knitting for a while. Good luck to all you other bloggers/readers out there w/ your snow projects and enjoy the time off.

Finished Projects!

So here are the final "final" pictures of my sweater. I got buttons from JoAnn's that match really well though you can't see it that well in the pictures. I took the pictures w/o the flash b/c it comes out better but then you can't see the colors as well. Now it's all ready for me to wear out! I'm excited.


Next I finally completed this afghan I started at least 4ish years ago. It's the first real complicated thing I started but it wasn't that hard to make. The hardest part was seaming all 15 squares together, ugh. I've probably taken a year to do that, but now it's finally done. It's technically a baby blanket, my mom made one for me before I was born. I thought it would be fun to make b/c each square is a different pattern and you get experience trying out 15 different patterns and the squares are small enough you don't really get bored. I'm glad it is finally done and I think I'll go cuddle under it on the couch and watch our snow hit at least 2 feet by noon!

house envy

I love visiting other people's houses. I love to see how people decorate and what their tastes are like. And I inevitably go home wanting to do something with my own house. Whether its feeling like, ugh, I realllly need to get new carpet/kitchen/bathroom/deck/ you name it, or wanting to try some new decorating ideas, I always feel inspired to improve. The other night we went to dinner at our neighbor's house. It was really nice. They are another young couple, and have a 2 year old boy. The little one was put to bed as we got there and we had a nice dinner. It was really nice to be able to hang out w/ our neighbors. I've lived next door to them going on 4 years [!] and I'm glad to get to know them better. We all realized we live in a good neighborhood, nice neighbors overall, kid friendly, safe feeling. It's nice to interact more than the wave and hello when you pass in the yard. I hope we continue to spend time with them.

So, it was fun to see their house b/c it's kind of the slightly larger carbon copy of our own. It is laid slightly different but overall they are similar. So, on top of the list of home decorating improvements is put up wedding pictures!!!!! It's now been over a year and we don't have any pictures printed and hung up. I'm so indecisive that I know it will take me forever to decide which ones to print and then how to arrange...I just need to dive in.

So, on this snowy [?] weekend, I think I'm going to work on completing my afghan that I started long ago and just tidy up the house. That's an achievable goal I think. Beyond that, anything I get done is bonus.

Have fun in the snow!

Workout Update

I finally [like 5 days later] made it to the gym. And I ran 1.5 miles!! Now my legs feel like jelly, the good kind, not the kind you feel like when you are nervous or something. Hopefully this is me finally getting back on track and getting to the gym more often. Only tomorrow will tell :-)