Just a little something to start the month off!
Have a beautiful April!
PS – if you came here looking for my stash and instead got flowers and are now sorely disappointed, please see the entry below. Thank you!
E is for
March 10, 2006 By
Eggs
G was such a sport for this photoshoot – I sent him out find me some roe. The yellow is whitefish roe in its natural state and the red is whitefish roe colored with beets and saffron. YAY G! Otherwise, I’m just playing around with the incredible edible egg.
Thanks for all the well wishes. I’m still not eating much but I slept good last night and I haven’t puked in a while. My stomach is not completely back to normal and the cold I originally thought I was getting is still working its way through me. Tomorrow I’m back at my sister’s until Tuesday. This month I feel like I will barely be home – G’s traveling a lot which means I’m traveling a lot. I hate to sleep alone. I’m by myself all day long, mostly, and I just can’t stand to extend that to the nights. I need company. So I go to my sister’s. But in a couple of weeks G goes away again and my sister will be on vacation so I have to find somewhere else to stay. Luckily I’ve got great friends who are more than willing to take me in.
Have a great weekend!
L, C
Project Spin
March 1, 2006 By
I know I said I was going to work on Short Rows, but really, that’s about weaving in ends so any distraction is welcome. Luckily, procrastination projects are close at hand as this is the first day of
the brain child of superfantastic librarian/historian extraordinaire, Lolly. As soon as I heard about Lolly’s idea to concentrate on certain colors during each month, I KNEW it would be about spinning for me. One of the main reasons I got into spinning was because of all the color possibilities – mixing colors in fibers, making my own barberpole yarns, dyeing even, maybe?
Last night I got out the old wheel. (Yeah, yeah. I know it’s brand spanking new. Don’t think that its lily whiteness doesn’t remind of my newbie status at every turn. I’m a dink-ass nub.) I’ve missed the ol’ girl. I took her up to Boston, but she got barely a workout.
Enough, though, that Claudia was able to give me some excellent advice which I incorporated into my spinning routine right away. She noticed that I was spinning, but I wasn’t actually making yarn. Which, in retrospect, I knew all along. She suggested that I move the drive band lower on the Mother of All so that I could treadle at the same speed, but have the wheel make more revolutions. Yes?
Things were a bit funky at first, but the beauty of spinning is that the more yarn you make, the faster it covers up the icky stuff with lovely, evenly spun yarn.
I know it’s not pink or red, but I love the yarn. And as I mentioned yesterday, Jan sent me more of this great Lisa Souza Biffle (Mardi Gras colorway) which I plan on diving into later today. Have I told you lately that I LOVE spinning? It’s been a while since I sat down at the wheel for some extended spinning and last night I spun up around 4 oz. and it was heavenly. The best part – G loves when I spin too. He loves to watch my feet treadle and he loves the whir the wheel makes as it goes round and round. He’s been pretty crazy at work, so it’s a nice break for him and me. Perfect!
Back to Project Spectrum. As I said, my goal is to spin yarn in the colors assigned to the month. I was behind in figuring things out fiber wise – I want to try some Grafton Fiber batts because I hear so much about their goodness, but they won’t get here in time so that will have to be for next month. In the meantime, my friend Tina is special dyeing some Biffle for me! Yay! I can hardly wait for the pink and red goodness.
So that I can start the month off right, here are a couple of pink and red pictures. (I know – the sky picture’s been getting a workout lately, but I just love it so much!) Enjoy!
Come Play With Us
February 21, 2006 By
So Becky tagged me for the “The View from Your Front Door” meme. I told her that it would be really, really boring. I’m not so sure she believed me.
I live in a high rise apartment building, so looking out my front door gives me a wall. A very boring wall. I thought I’d take a picture of the hallway too. This is walking straight out my front door and turning left:
It’s a crappy picture of the hallway, but it’s usually pretty dark out there. They’re supposed to be re-doing the hallways in the building – walls, carpeting, lighting. They’re charging us a gazillion dollars but the board’s fighting about it. As usual. Supposedly it was all supposed to be started and halfway completed by now and I think they painted the stairwells and maybe ripped out one floor. Fun, fun, fun! Anyway, the most interesting thing I can say about my hallway is that sometimes it scares the freaking crap out me. (Ask Jen. She’ll tell you. I totally wigged her out the other day.) It’s because sometimes, when I’m walking down from the elevator to my apartment, all I can think about is the twins in The Shining. You know – the ghost girls who want Danny to play and then the hallway fills with blood and I literally break into a run to my apartment. I hate scary movies and I think The Shining, with Jack Nicholson, is one of the scariest movies ever. But yet, whenever it’s on, I have to watch it.
I much prefer the view from my balcony:
For this very nice meme I will tag: Jasmin (because I learn something new on her blog everyday), Kris (because she’s my bp and she lives far from me), Stephanie (because she has a beautiful blog and lives in a beautiful place), and Kimberly (because she takes great pictures and here’s a good excuse to take some more.) Do you want to do it? Well, then, I tag you too!
I may have exorcised the Ikea Demons yesterday when G and I test drove a car out of Sweden known for its safety and family appeal. Welp this car is the fastest car I’ve ever driven and I’ve driven some fast cars. The last time we had that much fun in a test drive we bought the car. We’re still a couple of months away from any decisions, but I know what I want. Actually, I have to say that car shopping yesterday was one of the most pleasant experiences we’ve had in a while. Two dealerships, two different cars, two test drives. No one gave us a hard sell. Both salespeople loved the cars they were selling. Both extremely likable. I’d feel good buying a car from either one. And that says a lot. What was interesting too is that one salesperson had been in the business for over 20 years. The other was just barely OVER twenty years OLD. But that second test drive, with the young guy, MAN was that fun. You know you’re in for a good time when the salesguy gets in the car and says, don’t worry, I went to Skip Barber. Yipeee! G and I are still laughing over it!
I’m off to the dentist today. Blah. I hate the dentist. Well, I actually like my dentist and everyone in the office. I’ve been going there for 15 years and G something like 20. In fact we both have appointments today – one after the other. All together now: AWWWW! We get to see each other in the middle of the day, which is always a treat and may just help relieve the awful anxiety I get at the dentist. And it’s going to be bad today – I haven’t been in a while.
I leave you with my knitting from yesterday. Favorite STR EVAH! 😉
A is for
January 11, 2006 By
Artichoke
This is my first entry in the ABC-A-Long. As pretty much all of you know, I’m a photographer. Over the past year, I’d say 90% of my work was client related and while I love taking pictures of kids, I miss the pictures I take for myself. So when I saw this ABC thing come up I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to get back to my own photography. Hope you enjoy it. I have to say, taking these pictures today really brightened my mood.
You know how there’s all different kinds of hangovers? Alcohol, of course, too much food, too little sleep, etc – well today I’ve got an emotional hangover. Lots of working out those pesky feelings that don’t WON’T stay down no matter how much you push them. I’m very lucky though to have the amazing support of my can’tfindthewordthatreallydefineshowmuchIlovehimandhowwonderfulhereallyis husband and great family and friends but in the end you have to deal with your own shit on your own time and it sucks. But you get through it.
Right Now
December 9, 2005 By
outside my window:
I just love seeing the pool filled with snow. It’s so ironic. When I woke up this morning the first thing I did was put on my glasses and bound over to the window to check out how much snow we got! And are still getting! Of course then I was deeply disappointed by the fact that I’m no longer ten. And I won’t be having a snow day. The grind calls and, alas, I must answer. I may bundle up and go for a walk though. I’ll take the camera with me, if I dare. Time to get out the plastic wrap! 😉
Have a great day! I hope there’s something fun, like snow, where you are!
L, C
Warm Hand, Warm Heart
December 5, 2005 By
This is going to be one of those long, rambling, picture heavy posts. Consider yourself warned.
Huh. Who’d a thunk? Telling people they might have a chance at free yarn on the Internets is the same as yelling fire in a crowded movie theater. They don’t walk, they RUN! I’m sorry if anyone got trampled. Oh and don’t say I didn’t give you anything. Trust me. The answers won’t be so easy next time. For one thing, I’m going to make you email me the answer. NO CHEATING. You know who you are. That’s all I’m saying. 😉
So far I’m having a really great weekend. It’s not over yet (it’s Sunday night around 9:43.) Georgie’s making tacos and I just diced the tomatoes which was UBER FUN with G’s better-than-an-ipod type thing. It’s great to hear the music he’s got going – not all of them are my favorites, but they’re all SO G. Work wise, I’m fucked this weekend. I did manage to do a first read of stories for class this week and I folded a buttload of clothes, but I didn’t do ANY picture work which is really, really bad.
Why? I’ll tell you.
Saturday I met up with those amazing girls from Boston – Wendy, Elisa and Kellee! YAY! I met them at Macy’s and we immediately headed up to M&J Trimmings. Great buttons. Maybe better than Tenderbuttons. I WILL be going there next time I need some. I called Kay while we were there to tell her where we were so she could meet up and the first thing she asked was did you see the tape dispensers. It was the first thing I noticed. All of the tape dispensers were covered with ribbon and buttons and sequins and were the best darn tape dispensers I’ve ever seen. So pretty. Of course I don’t have a picture for you because the I didn’t bring my camera. Wendy was the only one taking pictures and I don’t know if she did or not. You’ll have to ask her.
It’s not about 9AM, in case you’re keeping score.
From there we made our way in the direction of Rockefeller Center. Because that’s exactly where I want to be on December 3rd – three days after they lit the damn tree – but SOMEONE insisted. And dudes, ask her how close she got to that freaking tree! RIGHT UNDERNEATH IT BABY! But I digress. On our walk we came upon Bryant Park – right behind the main NY Public Library (the one in Ghostbusters 😉 ). They had their annual holiday bazzar thing going on and I bought a few fun things for blog gifts. Look for them in future Showcases! Then we went Chipotle, apparently a delicacy unavailable in Boston, for a very nice lunch. While we were eating, we mapped our plan of attack. Literally. Did anyone get a picture of the map? Wait! I might have it!
I know it’s small, but can you make out Purl and Dinner?
Okay, so the plan was to head up to Rock Center – to see the tree blahblahblah – and head to Kinokuniya Bookstore. While they didn’t have the book (they were heavy on crochet), I did manage to pick up some more cute stuff for Showcase gifts.
We met up with a couple of friends of Wendy’s there and headed out to Habu. Where I had one of my first blogger in public moments. I wasn’t really interested in buying anything at Habu (my third time there – the first time I spent my fortune) and I was sitting on the floor knitting my Jaywalker when someone said, “Cara?” I looked up and immediately felt awful – because I had no idea who the woman was. I feel like if someone knows me – I should know them, right? Anyway – all was good when Lauren introduced herself. Lauren doesn’t have a blog, but she reads this one and I sent her some yarn she needed a few weeks ago and she’s in the Jaywalker KAL too! What a coincidence. Can I just say, Lauren was wearing THE MOST GORGEOUS wrap – from Scarf Style I think – the entrelec one? Gorgeous. We compared Jaywalkers and Lauren had to go – I think she was a little more freaked than I was running into us. Thanks for stopping Lauren! Hopefully we’ll run into each other again.
Sadly Lauren pointed out my one and only real fuck up of the day as tour guide – I didn’t know that School Products closed early on Saturday, so we missed it. Next time girls.
After they oohed and ahhed and bought, we headed down to Purl. On the subway. YAY! Purl was packed. I grabbed a seat and worked on my sock while the girls shopped as best they could. I ended up with some purchases, but they’re mainly gifts so no pictures. I was pretty good this shopping trip. I only bought one skein of yarn for myself – and that was to supliment what I already had – more on that later.
With Purl out of the way, we headed down to Seaport – I planned that stop last because it was pretty close to where we were going to eat dinner. I was PARTICULARLY proud of myself here – we got on the subway – and I managed to get us to the stop that was AROUND THE CORNER from the store. Lucky us because I always get lost down there and we were running short on time. Seaport’s where I spent the most money – but only because I bought enough Addi Turbos to have a Jaywalker on the needles for every day of the week. I’m only half kidding. The girls had fun – Elisa at one point buried herself in a pile of Cherry Tree Hill. There’s picture evidence of this so check around.
Then it was off to dinner! I’ve blogged about this restaurant before – Gigino’s. For anyone in the NYC area – it’s a must hit. Kay was there before us and we had a great table in the back corner – perfect for five hungry giggly girls. Kay had a bottle of wine waiting as well – what was it Kay? I couldn’t remember and wanted to tell G. We ate and talked and laughed and we were warm and cozy and it was the perfect ending to the perfect day.
Or it would’ve been if we hadn’t tried to leave without paying. I’ll let someone else tell that story. 😉 Suffice it say, everything’s good and I assured G that we can still show our faces there.
Girls – I hope you got home okay?! You did’t let me know like you promised! It was so, so good to see you all and hang out and I wasn’t anxious at all and I love you. Come back soon! And Kay – lunch when I’m calmer. Two weeks maybe? Love you too!
Because I don’t want this to get out of hand – I’m going to an extended entry. It’s picture heavy, so click if you want. Thanks for visiting – I totally understand – if you don’t. Have a great day!
TGIF…sort of
November 11, 2005 By
I didn’t knit at all yesterday, although I’ve got a train ride today. I’m working this weekend, but near my sister’s so that means kids, kids, kids! And maybe some new bunk beds with Darth Vader and Dora sheets. My brother’s in town too, so it’ll be cool to see him. In the meantime, I’m super busy. Seems to be a theme around here these days. I know, I’m bored with it too.
I think the leaves are supposed to peak this weekend. Although it’s been so blustery around here, there aren’t any left. Here’s one from the archives given I haven’t taken a picture for myself since, oh, I don’t know, April?
Have a good one!
L, C
