That’s how we brought in the New Year. We used to do fun and exciting things, like fly off to Detroit Rock City to Kiss on New Year’s Eve, but ever since the millennium I’ve felt like staying home. My goal in life is to make my birthday as normal a day as possible. It’s not so nice to have a “special” birthday. I want a day like everyone else. Basically, I want a day I can forget about.
Yesterday came pretty close. We had some cherry pie and champagne while Regis fucked up the countdown. (He was SO off it was February already by the time he finished. Actually made me miss Dick Clark.) Waited for the calls to come in from my siblings. (Each one asked – am I the first to call? For the record, my bro, Jeddy, won this year with a call at 12:01. Of course, it was 9:01 for him – he lives in LaLa land.)
And then we went to bed.
Woke up the next morning and opened my birthday book!
Dad gets it right again! Something I don’t have and haven’t read. Yeah Daddy! I also got a very generous gift certificate to Borders from my parents and a huge gift certificate to the Yarn Market from my best friend Margo and her family! We’re talking enough for about three sweaters people! Whew!
Besides making all my dreams come true, providing a roof over my head and feeding me, Georgie got me a chocolate fondue kit and Vanilla Cocoa tea from the Chocolate Bar in New York. We’re having fondue for dessert tonight!
We started our Spanish Lessons yesterday as well. It’s our goal to learn Spanish this year. Today was lesson two – it’s going well. I’ve decided Ribby Cardi is the knit for that. I’m not in a rush on it, and it’s a good easy knit while listening to the Senor and Senora babble away in my head. We’re having fun with it. G has declared we can only greet each other in Spanish. Thank god today we learned how to say Buenos Dias, otherwise he’d be getting the silent treatment.
School Daze
I cast on for my first design! So far I’ve got the 2×2 rib done on the back and I’m in stockinette land for a while. It’s going really quickly though. I want the back done fast because it’s boring. The exciting part will be the front and the glorious cable running up the middle. I’m really excited about it – the Manos is looking beautiful too.
I’ve been reading Sweater Design in Plain English by Maggie Righetti. It is an amazing book – easy to read and I’ve learned more about knitted items in the few pages I’ve read than anything else. I think it helps that I’ve been knitting for a while and have actually made a sweater. I’ll review it in full on K1R2 tomorrow, hopefully.
I’ll take some pictures of School Daze tomorrow. I’m hoping to cast on for Picot-Boo today as well. I wound a ball of the Art Yarns Supermerino today – that stuff is beautiful!
Sounds like you had a great birthday! I have Knitting in Plain English and I find I don’t refer to it much now for quick help but I read it cover to cover the day I bought it and I learned SO much so quickly, amazing book. I mostly refer to the Knitters Handbook for quick reminders but I don’t think I could have made head nor tail of many of Montse Stanley’s instructions if I hadn’t first read Righetti’s book.
I can’t wait to see your new design. I have some Manos in my stash that I would love to put to good use.
And, champagne, cherry pie, chocolate fondue? Yum! Sounds like a wonderful birthday. 🙂
What a great blog!! Love your projects.