back from illness

After being out and completely removed from the world for a week due to being sick, I am back!

While I was lying in bed with fever, evvie brought me up my last package from my absolutely FABULOUS SP5! It was an especially bright moment in my illness as I poured over the treasures that my sp5 (who I now know as Nancy of bird knits)! Wow Nancy sure knows how to spoil a girl! She sent me that neat Red Cross kit I've been eyeing so that I can knit myself (or evvie) some army socks! I do love the color olive drab - how awesome! She also sent me some creamy superwash wool and a dye kit so that I can make dye it myself to create some yummy roving! She also sent some neat woolwash and two AMAZING skeins of yarn! One of the skeins is this pretty boucle and the other is a fantastic fluffy skein of handspun which I'm drooling over just thinking about it right now! Nancy went even further with her generosity and donated $100 in my name to the Red Cross for Hurricane Katrina. How did I get blessed with such a wonderful and giving Secret Pal? Honestly, I feel a bit guilty getting such a great SP when I know there were quite a few people this round who had flaky sps. Nancy, you're the BEST!


closeup of handspun from sp5


Also, a quite belated thank you to Suzie of The Purly Gates. I won her blogiversary contest and she sent a wonderful package of Japanese yarn, a CUTE japanese bag, some clover pins, a new notebook (I LOVE notebooks!), and some wonderful Japanese candy!! Thanks Suzie!


Last night I met up with some high school friends and had some pie. It was good to see people.... We ate the pie before I took the picture :(


As a last note, while I was out sick last week, many people's lives were devastated by Hurricane Katrina. Please think about giving a little to help rebuild these people's lives. Evan and I donated to the Red Cross, and I encourage y'all to give what you can to help these people. Also you might think of giving to habitat for humanity which is down there helping rebuild homes.

as much for myself to remember

Yesterday on npr, they played a bit of music from Don Juan Dracula - a band that appears from their website to not currently have distibution in the US yet....

here's a cute video with one of their songs

Evvie thinks they sound "generic" but he enjoys them too. I like 'em. It also sounds like good car riding music. There are a couple song downloads on their site tho to tide me over until the release...

Knit together

Even though I didn't make it to the knitting meetings where the campus reporters showed up (darn work for being so time consuming!), there's still a picture of some yarn I spun (now owned by Lourdes Ventura), and a small blurb about me in this article.

"Case in point: With just her two knitting needles and some yarn, Ventura made a small stuffed animal, as well as a fluffy steering wheel cover for her new car. Lori, on staff in the Psychology Department and at the Graduate School of Business's behavioral lab, made a handbag that bears an uncanny resemblance to a plate of bacon and eggs—sunny side up."

allergic...ick

I picked up about 20 skeins of yarn yesterday at st vincent de paul for $1 each. half the skeins were 50%mohair, 50%acrylic, and the other half of the lot are 100% wool.

I started knitting with them immediately, only to find I have a horrible allergic reaction to them! I think that they may just be quite dusty? or something? Will washing them help? I think when i get a chance I'm going to unwind a couple skeins and give them a good wash with some shampoo... Any other ideas would be much appreciated :)

Piggies and knitting

what's that? how bout this pic?



it's PIG RACING! Sean (evvie's bro), evvie and I went to the San Mateo County fair last Saturday! The pig racing was so cute! The little piggies raced around the track to eat an oreo at the end. I kept turning to evvie and saying, "I want one!" so cute!

The fair was also interesting in that you could go see all the different county fair entries for different things. I have to say, I should totally enter the spinning category next year. I only saw four skeins there! The baked goods and candies looked delish, and the wall of jars of pickles, preserves, and vinegars were delightful to see! There were other categories from place setting design, to plant growing. Here are a couple noteworthy cacti from the event:


We also happened to go to the fair the same day as the chili cook-off. At 3pm when the contestants sent their chili samples to the judges, you could walk around and sample all the contestants' chilis for free! Yum! My favorite was this absolutely wonderful chipotle chili. It was so smokey!


I also spotted this at the table by the San Jose Lace Museum. I've never seen lace made (besides knitting), and this looks like an utter headache to me! People must have much more patience than I was born with to be able to manage to create the pieces. Here's some lace "in progress"


knitting
Like so many others, I fell under the spell of the One Skein Wonder by glampyre. I bought the pattern and decided to move it right up to the top of my list of things to knit. I wasn't quite sure what size aran weight yarn was, so I doubled the worsted merino I had left over from handpainted yarn. Even so, I didn't hit gauge. I should have moved up to a size 9 needle I think. Oh well, the fabric is a little dense, but I like it anyway. I ran out of yarn just as I was about to move on to the cuffs of the OSW, so I bought some Lamb's Pride at Uncommon Threads in Los Altos to finish it off. Overall, I like it. Next time, I'm going to knit it on size 9's and make it long sleeves.
Front (a little bunched up in this photo, but I was too lazy tired to take another shot):


Back:


specs:
One Skein Wonder by Glampyre
2 skeins of worsted merino yarn from Handpaintedyarn.com (two strands held together)
size 8 needles and size 5 circulars

lol, btw, I think my boyf is one of the few males who doesn't wonder where "the rest of the sweater" went to...

interview by Ming

The Rules
1. Leave me a comment saying, "Interview Me."
2. I will respond by asking you five questions. I get to pick the questions.
3. You will update your LJ with the answers to the questions.
4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the post.
5. When others asking to be interviewed comment, you will ask them 5 questions.

Interview by Ming

1) What made you decide to switch from computer science/art to psychology? Could it have been the pizza at 2am every evening (I couldn't eat pizza chicago again without bringing back THOSE memories), the back aches and bleary eyes from hunching over a computer putting my eyes too close to the screen as I tried to debug some nastiness? I think in the beginning (back in hs and early college), I really really enjoyed the challenges of writing and planning out my code and programs. Honestly tho, as I went along through my major I realized that mostly I just didn't care anymore. The fun went away, and suddenly I was faced with, "OMG, do I really want to do this for the rest of my life in some cubicle somewhere?" I plodded along for a while just feeling more and more trapped until depression completely took over my life (I remember breaking down at a gyno appt *totally wrong kind of doctor, eh* and I ended up leaving with a little bottle of paxil which I never ended up taking because I decided I'd rather change my life than take medicine). Anyhoo, I desperately tried to figure out what I could change my major to that late in the game (for those who don't know, I switched majors my senior year of college). My parents are pretty strict about what I "can be when I grow up." I always knew that I was supposed to be a doctor or an engineer (duh, I am Chinese, right?). Up until my senior year, I had only taken 1 psychology class (cognitive psychology), but I had LOVED it. I also looked around and realized that 2 of my aunts and 1 of my uncles were psychologists (most practicing clinical psych). So I figured, psychology was at least a somewhat accepted (in my family) pathway out of the whole doctor/engineer thing. So I went for broke :)


2) What's the most interesting problem/issue to you in the world of psychology at the moment?
That answer will obviously be different depending on who you ask (and you're asking little ol' me). Every psychologist probably thinks there is something in THEIR area, THEIR research that is the most important, or at least very important, otherwise they wouldn't be pursuing that line of research. Of course, I'm not really at the point where I can dictate explicitly what projects I should be working on... I obviously find racial interactions and biases fascinating, otherwise I probably wouldn't be heading in the social psych direction. I do think some of what I'm working on right now is important as it relates to biases that everyone has, (and how it affects our actions/vigilance) especially with respect to police officer training and awareness, but I don't know that that's the most important thing in psych right now for me... honestly, I'm not quite sure EXACTLY what is most important to me because there seems like there are so many "important" issues out there. sorry for that fluff answer.

3) Do you think of yourself as a queer ally? What does that mean to you?
"ally." To me, the term suggests more of a war like situation in which political/human rights are fought for (in this case). I don't know that I'm politically active enough for the community to be called "a queer ally." Back in high school, I was part of the group that started the Gay Straight Alliance. I was in the meetings with the principal of the school as we fought to have the right to have the group on campus after our initial meeting signs were torn down and members threatened. Back then, I might have thought of myself as a queer ally. Now, I suppose I would be considered a queer 'friend' since I sympathize with and agree with much of what the community might want, but I am not involved enough to help or even know the intricacies of what the community is pushing for.

4) What dish (or dishes) would you want to learn to cook perfectly every time?
that yummy salty bean curd skin and chicken dish my grandma makes. and maybe that yummy savory nian gao recipe that emi made for chinese new year. oh and that chocolate cake with yummy molten center that you get at restaurants dripping with chocolate sauce. Oh yeah and lots of tasty souffles.

5) If you could go back in time and give the 12 year old Lori some advice, what would it be?
Do not date anyone named Dan. Ever.

i wanna go home...

bleh work.

I want to thank all the people who've left me bday wishes on my bloggy blog!

Thanks also to Kae who sent me the cutest belated bday card... makes me want to be late in remembering someone's bday so i can sent it out as well! just adorable!

random
taken from sanmiguelmalo
what happens to people after they leave you? (although I've always been the one to leave in the relationship...)

1) Go to U Penn to double major in European History and Biology, minors in Hispanic studies and Film studies. Then goes on to a PhD program at Carnegie Mellon in Social and Cultural History - Modern Spain

2) Goes on to Law School at Pacific McGeorge where he becomes the ATLA (I'm not sure what this stands for) chapter president

3) Went to Stanford University and majored in English and minored in computer science. He was in a rock band called Relapse. He graduated and went to work at Google as a temp for a while. Now I have no idea where he is.

4) Changed his major to Art History, graduated and got into every selective Art History PhD program. He chose to go to Harvard.

still to come... ming's interview questions....

Friends and special occasions...

Friday afternoon, I took off work early and headed to La Belle in the Stanford shopping center to get a manicure with my friend Hilary and her bridesmaid before her wedding on Saturday. Admittedly, it was fun to be pampered a bit, although if I didn't have a gift card from my boss for the place, I probably wouldn't have spent the money on such an indulgence.

Saturday, ervy and I went to our twin couple's Hilary and Steven's wedding in Portolla Valley. It was a rather small affair, but I really enjoyed being a part of their special occasion. Hilary looked absolutely wonderful, and I almost cried as they both cried in joy at the altar.


birthday celebration
I received wonderful birthday ecard from Jennie... although that darned monkey wouldn't let me pin its tail on!! :) or maybe it was my laptop touch pad... hmmm... thanks Jennie for the thoughtful card!

I also received the wonderful resource and cookbook Local Flavors from Fuson. This book documents all the best produce you can find around the country (how to pick the best ones, and how to cook them in tasty tasty ways!). I think I'll head to my farmer's market next weekend and pick up some yummy freshness to put on a pizza.... why a pizza? Because I can now make the best pizza crust EVAH since Adam and Emi bought me an awesome new pizza stone! It was the best rated one from America's test kitchen, so you KNOW it's good! hey now, Chris Kimball wouldn't lead us astray now would he? As an extra fun bit, emi and adam also bought me In Sheep's Clothing which I'm ecstatic about! I've been such a naughty handspinner by not having it at my side! Evvie also surprised me with a fibery/crafty related gifty! He bought me a beautiful wood swift so he doesn't have to play human swift so I can wind my skeins faster!! Thank you guys! Y'all rock!

Sunday was the designated "birthday" day :). We went to go see Murderball which I highly reccommend even with the shaky camera filming. I even learned the different variations of quadriplegia. I had previously thought that quadriplegia meant you couldn't move any of your limbs, but there is a HUGE range of motion capabilities depending on where in your spine your fracture/stress occurred.

After the movie, ervy and I headed over to Passage to India's bakery shop and picked up a pretty green pistachio cake!


We then all (emi, adam, fu, minger, ervy and I) headed out to Mudai, an Ethiopian restaurant in San Jose. YUM! I can't believe it's been two years since I last had Ethiopian food... Dang it's so good... too good to space out my visits that much! If you visit Mudai, I highly reccommend the chickpea and fava bean dishes, although really everything was pretty tasty! I just wish the cuisine would become more popular so we don't have to drive to San Jose or the city to get it.

spinning
despite a packed weekend, I did manage to spin up a skein of the yummy fiber my SP5 sent me! I spun up a bit of the Rhapsodies in Candy something... from Paradise Fibers. Honestly, this might have been the most excitingly dyed fiber I've ever spun! There were SO many colors that the bobbin constantly looked different as I spun the single! there were purples ranging from light to dark to burgandy which changed to yellow and green and blue! In the end I had this beautiful skein:


although the colors are a bit closer to this (on the right):


thanks again SP5! This is some AMAZING fiber you sent over!

birthday thank yous!

Yes, today, I've officially become a year older. Honestly, I have been blessed to have good friends and family, a somewhat steady job, good health, and I only hope that the next year is just as good!

I want to especially thank Angela
for the cutest birthday ecard! I'm such a sucker for cute little animals!

And thank you also Katie
for the beautiful butterfly stitch markers and lovely birthday card! I
was super excited to get that in the mail! This is how your card arrived (it's the one on the right). I'm so very very glad you taped the ribbon to the card on the inside so that the stitch markers didn't slip out! Although I have to admit, it was pretty fun having those dangling out to tease me when I got my mail!



The card on the left is from my good friend hilary who actually thought to give me something before she took off from work early this week (she's getting married this Saturday!). I'm very impressed that with all the work going on, plus this close to her wedding, she managed to think of me!

I have to mention that I was also ecstatic to get a happy birthday email from my friend Marlow in China! I haven't seen her in ages, but not only did she remember my birthday (and get the timing down right from across the globe), but she had to actively search out my current email address to send me the message! I'm not sure if you follow my bloggy shmarlow, but if so, I just wanted to let you know I was really touched to hear from you today!

One more thank you, then I promise I'll get on to something fibery! Thanks Minger for the new Fruits book! Man, you hit me right on the money this time! I love me some Fruitsy outfits. I just need to grab some ideas from the book before I go to Target this afternoon, so I can make people think I'm crazy again! :)


me being all birthday girl with my family last weekend

spinning and carding

these are the brand new full sized wool Ashford Handcarders I picked up at Lambtown last weekend. Ervy picked me up some Tung oil to finish them in (and I nearly killed us with the toxic fumes as I sat there finishing them in front of the tv... *sorry honey!*).

Anyhoosit, I pulled out the border cheviot fleece I bought and washed months ago (it had a lot of vm, so it was insane to try to pick it all out by hand) and carded it up with a bit of corriendale I had dyed. The cards got ALOT of the vm out. I ended up with lots of bits of grass all over my pants and carpet by the end of things! *I guess that's more incentive to vacuum*!

I made a bunch of these little "nests" of fiber:

You'll notice that the fibers are not completely parallel to each other (like they are when I buy some of my more expensive processed fiber). The fiber is organized, but not parallel, which should lead to a more woollen yarn (said the nice lady who taught me how to card). The yarn itself will then be lighter and warmer!

here's a poor picture of what it's coming out like on Wally. It's a very light peachy sherbety yarn. I haven't quite decided what to do with it yet... I might make a bunch of it and make a shrug like the one skein wonder....

BookCrossing and an artist

I've known about Book Crossing for a while, but it took some organization on the part of the FiberRAOK group before I signed up.

Basically it's a site where people register books they have and would like to either 'release' into the wild for someone else to find (and then you can track a book's journey as it passes through different people's hands) or for other people to borrow.

I've started registering my books (although I must admit, I've very attached to many of my books so I wouldn't be entirely ready to give them away completely). I've even registered the ones I haven't read yet, but I'm willing to lend them out to RAOK people or my blog readers :) go take a look, I've only added a few of the ones I've got, but feel free to peruse. My book crossing ID is Lwu81.

I'm currently reading Blink by Malcolm Gladwell, afterwards I would LOVE to read The Tipping Point, also by Gladwell. If anyone has this book and would be willing to lend it to me or trade or whatever, send me an email :)

Arooj Aftab
My new favorite song is a cover of Hallelujah by Arooj Aftab. You can visit her site and download some of her music from her links in her sidebar.

I heard her when NPR's The World interviewed her on Friday.
The NPR Clip can be found here.

background:
She's a Pakastani artist who is trying to buck the trend of having the
musical profession be mainly male in Pakistan. Also, it's not a very
admired profession (wage earning, etc) due to country development.
She's started taking classes from US music school online, and was
recently given a scholarship to attend the school in the US

Just thought I'd share in case y'all happen to like that song. My friend Hilary absolutely adored the version by Rufus Wainright and was ecstatic that I sent her a new one to listen to. :)

great weekend, great fun, great fiber!

Secret Pal!!!
How did you know? How did you know that I have been looking at Wally (my spinning wheel) and craving spinning again? I even finished spinning some fiber that had been on my wheel for quite a while!

So when your most recent package came in the mail, I was ECSTATIC! What gorgeous GORGEOUS fiber! And the colors are so wonderful! Thank you!!



Also, it was a perfect way to get me excited for the fiber fair this past weekend!

Lambtown, Dixon USA



This weekend ervy and I headed out to Dixon to go to the lambtown festival. Of course, I mainly went to see all the wonderful sheep breeds and purchase some wonderful wool! But they also had sheep dog trials, mutton bustin', classes, shearing competitions, and of course lamb to eat!

We got to the fair early, around 9am ish. I of course dashed over to the fiber fair part. There were bags and bags and bags of fleeces waiting to be judged on their quality.


I had fun looking in some of the bags to drool over some beautiful raw fleece.

Of course, I have to admit, I really REALLY enjoyed seeing the fleece on the animals.


So cute!!

the little black one is named Cinco de Mayo. I bought hand carders (and was taught how to use them) by his owner. She was selling him (although reluctantly) because she has over 50 sheep and she told me it is costing her $11/day to feed them all!


evan and sheep


some really awesome Jacob's Sheep. They're so pretty!


more sheepyness!


there was even a PURPLE sheep! (LOL, ok, they actually dyed the ewe's fleece with a mixture of food coloring and citric acid after washing her). Then they sheared her so they could spin colored wool right there at the fair for the sheep 2 shawl competition. Here she is being sheared (I was amazed at how calm she was during shearing):



There were other animals there too! Like goats:


and funny sheared alpaca



some angora bunnies with large blocks of ice to fight the impending heat!

Mutton Bustin' was horribly amusing. I had no idea what it was before Saturday. I tried to take a picture, but I had a really bad seat so my camera wasn't able to get a good one. Basically, they stuck little kids (as young as 4 years old) on a sheep to see how long they could hold on as it ran into a pen bucking. The sheep didn't seem to like it to much (duh!), and neither did some of the kids who started crying as soon as they were stuck on the dusty animal.

Sheep herding was interesting too, although I kept hoping someone would enter a pig (like in Babe). The dogs and their owners showed how they could round up four sheep, separate two out from the group and move them around a ring and into an enclosure. I felt bad for the sheepies, but I was impressed how well the doggies seemed to be able to control their movements.

Not everyone sold lamb to eat at the fair, we saw this stand there as well:


I did end up buying a beautiful fleece from a Merino X sheep named "Alice" from Merry Meadows Farm. Alice's fleece is beautiful. The owners keep their sheep covered so the fleece stays very clean. I didn't see any vm, and it smelled fairly nice an clean. It has amazing crimp, and it was only $8 a lb ($28.80 for the whole fleece). It is so wonderfully soft, I'm quite excited to play with it! I'm glad I found them, because now that I know how wonderful their fleece is, I can order from them in the future!


The rest of our time was spent in Vacaville at the outlets which was also way too much fun!

Sunday we went to visit my family to celebrate my birthday. This is the first time I won't see my family on my real birthday, so my parents made a HUGE meal in their new kitchen. My mom even made me a gorgeous fruit tart from scratch!

aha!

it's a really crappy picture (and it's with my 4 mega pixel camera, so I have no excuse but poor lighting), but LOOK! I've finished my cleaves! It's late and I looked horrible too, so I cropped my head out :)





It took 4+ balls of wool-ease chunky (color pumpkin) on US size 10.5 dpns

It's quite a heavy bulky fabric, obviously too warm for right now, but maybe if I go into the city at night or for the winter/fall :)

so darn busy

man, why does work have to be so busy it keeps me from BLOGGING! pooh.

on the plus side, it looks like I will be a coauthor on two papers for which I've been doing a lot of recent work on (WHOOPEE!). There's been a lot of talk about recommendations, and grad school applications with my boss which has been good (and quite encouraging), but has stressed me out extensively!

knitting
I've been so busy this week and evenings, that I haven't been able to knit either. So my cleaves is still ALMOST done. I have about 4 more inches to knit of the cowl part.



food
This past Monday was ervy and my 3 year anniversary (of dating). We celebrated by getting evan ourselves a smoker to make very tasty meats. Ervy has been wanting one for quite a while now, so I decided it would be more fun to put the money we would have spent on a really nice dinner out toward buying the new toy. So while I finished reading Harry Potter last Sunday, ervy spent the day smoking 3 racks of ribs and a huge pork butt. This is the smoked pork butt. We then had the task of sitting and pulling it into pulled pork strips.



After the pulling, ervy mixed it up with some bbq saucey flavoring he worked up, and we had DELICIOUS BBQ pulled pork sandwiches for a wonderful anniversary dinner!


On a more alcoholic note, ervy's new Esquire came, and both he and I were quite interested in what the magazine described as the original type of daiquiri. It takes some nice white rum (they recommend 10 Cane White rum as the best), half a lime and a little sugar shaken up with ice and you have a wonderful drink that completely shadows the overly sugary blended drinks that bear its name at restaurants and bars. Yum! Believe me, they're wonderful for taking the edge off when you get home from work. Mmmm...

random
My brother and family have been invited to the Dr. Phil show. My uncle Terril wrote an article on how teenagers use technology and it was featured on the front page of the LA Times. So the producers of the Dr. Phil show saw it, and now would like to do a show on it. None of my family has really watched the show. So my family is going to watch a few shows, and find out more from the producers about what the angle of the story is before they make any decisions.

I think it would be funny to see my brother on Dr. Phil.

Hufflepuff House

Hufflepuff House: "One of the four houses of Hogworts Academy of Witchcraft and Wizardry. The founder was Helga Hufflepuff, colors are yellow and black, the house animal is the badger and the house ghost is the Fat Friar."


Even though yesterday's talk of the nation segment annoyed me (the one that had listeners call in and be 'sorted' into a harry potter house... THAT's not NEWS!! I don't expect fluff from NPR!), I'm still so so excited about the new book coming out!

I may make this wonderful harry potter bookscarf, but since I've decided I would be in hufflepuff, I would make mine yellow and black :)

Did people hear Jon Stewart pronounce Muggles incorrectly? He pronounced it more like "Mugg - lies." like "snuggly." You should have seen being being a dork yelling at the screen, "No, No! It's "MUGGLES!!" along with a few of his audience members. eh, I still LOVE the Daily Show!!!

Nikko likes the ceiling...ALOT

It's become quite apparent that we need to get Nikko a very tall cat tree. One where he can almost be at the ceiling. I'm sure asha might enjoy it as well, but Nikko NEEDS it. He's always jumping on counters and high areas no matter what we do to try to deter him. He wanders around the house doing sad meowing and long sighs staring at high places he cannot reach. If we pick him up and bring him up high toward the ceiling or whatever he's staring at, he gets much much happier. But then my arms start to hurt after a while, and I have to put him down, and he gets sad again.

Secret Pal yayness!!!!!!!
I cannot at all explain how very very excited I was to open the new package from my Secret Pal this week!
Right on top when I opened the box were these two wonderfully soft skeins of Knit Picks Shimmer yarn in a beautiful fall colorscheme!

I immediately ran to my old IK from last fall, and checked... Indeed! These will be PERFECT for the flower basket shawl I've been wanting to do! I wanted to cast on right then... but I'm still working through Cleaves (it's been going slower since it got warmer here. Keeping heavy sweater arms on your lap while you're warm isn't fun, although I'm almost done with the 2nd arm, and will be moving on to the cowl soon). but when I finish Cleaves, I'm casting on for my FBS!!!

And look at this cool little device:

It's a pretty beaded ROW counter. I had no idea they made these! I think it's such a wonderful idea. It's used like an abacus, and a plain pink bead stands for one row, and a striped bead stands for 5 rows. NEATO!

also look at this way too cute stationary:

lol! sheep butt! such a cute set of cards! I only wish I'd thought of such a cute card idea!!

Let me say my dear SP5 you made my evening. I had fun jumping around showing ervy the wonderful things you sent!! Thank you so much!

MIT Weblog Survey

ooh i love me some new patterns!

My new Interweave Knits was waiting for me in the mail when I came back from Missouri. Just yesterday, I got a chance to flip through its pages, and besides noticing that the IK model was used in many of the yarn advertisements this issue, I also noticed how much I actually liked many of these patterns (big difference from the last issue of IK). When I get home I'll explain which ones I liked, for now, I will speak about a few of the patterns I like in the new knitty.com issue.

the first man sweater, hardcore, is ok. I'm not a fan of that style, but I think it's alright for some people. I do like that it has a hood. The graphic is kind of cute though.

the rest of the sweaters afterward through drunken argyle, either don't excite me, or just make me go "ick."

I DO love Cargo. The little pants are adorable, and the model is a cutie as well!

Tychus is interesting as a hat....I may make one of these and see how I like it.

Cigar amuses me, but as ervy doesn't smoke, I probably won't be knitting these.

Satchel looks like it could be fun (in the larger style), but honestly, I think I might just prefer to sew something like that

Yay secret pal!!

When I got home from Missouri, and our held mail was finally delivered, I found a wonderful surprise from my Secret Pal! My SP had Paradise Fibers send me some wonderful sheepy notecards and envelopes! How cute! I definitely love all things sheepy currently :) Plus, these will come in handy when sending out RAOKs and other things to knitterly friends. THANK YOU SP!!



trip story
There was only once this trip that I noticed anyone staring at me (I had expected more stares, given that Cape Girardeau doesn't exactly have a large population of Asian individuals, and evvy had said he wasn't even sure his cousins had ever seen an Asian individual beyond a Chinese restaurant).

Anyway, I was down at breakfast at the Drury Inn/Lodge thing, and this small child (maybe 5 or 6 years old) stood next to my table staring at me.

I looked up, and he was staring at me. I looked away and continued talking to Mrs. M.

I glanced back, and the child was still staring at me. So I smiled at him, and looked away continuing my conversation.

I look back, and he's still staring at me. So I wave, and look away again.

I look back, he's still staring at me. So, being silly me, I stuck my tongue out at him (I'm just a child at heart, I didn't mean it offensively). OMG. He started screaming at the top of his lungs, "STOP THAT! STOP IT!!!" Then he ran to his parents to tell them about the mean lady who stuck her tongue out at him. I apologized. And as he left with his family, he stuck his tongue out at me (which I found entirely amusing). Mrs. M said, "Oh what a little imp!" and stuck her tongue out back at him as well (which was also entirely too amusing).

That's my story, now ya know. Just an amusing thing for me to refer back to and reread and laugh about :)

reader responses
THANK YOU Nathania, for helping translate those swedish board things I bought at the flea market!!

And to answer Hollis' question, unfortunately there was no knitting in Cape Girardeau. I did bring knitting, but most of my time was spent at Grandma's house, and as she and the cousins seem to be chain smokers, I didn't want anything I brought back to get as smokey as I did during my stay.

my condolences

37 killed as Blast rock London top to bottom- The Times of India

*sigh*

after listening to kqed online for 4 hrs, getting majorly depressed, sniffly, and very prone to sighing loudly, I've switched to listening to the new Coldplay cd my brother loaded into my iTunes.

Still, my thoughts and prayers go out to those in London affected by this tragedy.

My Missouri weekend

I'm back (about 15 bug bites later) from my visit to Missouri to visit with ervy's cousins, grandma, and uncle. We flew into St. Louis around midnight on Thursday and then drove 2 hours to Cape Girardeau.


evvie and me in front of one of the murals in cape by the mississippi

We had reservations at the Drury hotel (according to evvie's grandma, "those Drury boys did well. They tiled our bathroom too"), located right across from the Walmart supercenter. We crashed there until morning and then drove over to Grandma's house (evvie's grandma, but i'll refer to her as just grandma from here on). I met Grandma, Uncle Barry, his girlfriend Marty, Cousin Russell, Russell's girlfriend Christy, Cousin Lucas, pitbull puppy Jada, and large black lab puppy Cole.



Amusing things of note from this family trip:
1) Grandma's favorite and only swear word she'll say is "shit poop"
2) Uncle Barry has major beef with Sears over a rebates
3) Uncle Barry will always get angered over people shopping anywhere except Walmart and Sam's Club. (like when we wanted to go to Petco to get the puppies some toys that would last longer than 30 minutes, we got an earful of 'WHY ARE YA GOING THERE?' questions, statements)
4) Basements can be frightening
5) people seem to like to turn the tv on when they get up in the morning, and leave it on all day, even if they leave the house. I find this to be very odd as well as a waste of electricity.
6) people in cape girardeau don't donate much other than clothes to goodwill. My trip there to see what people give up left me empty handed.
7) the other side of the mississippi river, Illinois, has an old speakeasy (the Purple Crackle) but besides that, seems to just be miles and miles of farmland
8) there really aren't any coffee shops. There was a Starbucks in the Barnes and Noble, but the grocery store clerks looked at me pretty blankly when I asked about local coffee spots
9) there's so much porch sittin'
10) there are a bijillion religious/political billboards around Missouri

I went shootin' in Missouri. We went out to Uncle Barry's house in the country (near Jackson, MO) off some dirt road. Unlce Barry lives in a double wide (pre fab house) to which he has added a large family room and an above ground pool. I immediately noticed mosquitoes landing on me, although Uncle Barry loudly disputed that I had indeed seen a mosquito. I sprayed myself with OFF! as Uncle Barry and Marty told me what I really had to worry about was all the ticks they have right now. Eeeks!

I'm not a big fan of guns. I actually find them quite scary, which is why I wanted to shoot at least once. I used one of the lighter weight guns and shot off 9 bullets (there was a dud in the clip).


I didn't do too shabby. I hit the target each time, just not always on the black part. Looky! I got through the heart once! This is the only target I ever plan on shootin', just wanted to do it once.


Here's evvy loading a gun and cousin Luke in his shooting attire.