And Now Back to Your Regularly Scheduled Programming....

So the header in my banner reads 'The DAILY musings of my favorite things.....'; have I become a hypocrite or what? Long gone are the lazy days at the ADAPC when I had time to blog once a day and wind balls of yarn under my desk... so much for those days when I could work from home with a a glass of vino and my cat...

Anyhow, I am going to try and ease myself back into the blog world by aiming for 3 posts a week. Not too stressful - we like attainable goals around here.

First off, Thanks to Christie, Sorka and Jacqueline for making me laugh out loud at work with their submissions to my 'write my post' contest. I'll leave it up for a few more days in case anybody else has a stoke of creative genius before I announce a winner and post what all those photos REALLY mean (although I will admit that I did whip up that wedding dress over the weekend on size 00's).

This last weekend was fab-u-lous as always; Friday night was dinner @ Bella Mia (me and Jason's monthly tradition); Saturday morning off to the Sunnyvale Farmers Market for veggies and sourdough bread (time to dig out the Farmers Market Bag); Mussels with spicy vinegar, Scallion Beef, Asparagus, and Pinot noir for dinner (I will say, I really out-did myself on the presentation of this one; when I can persuade JSwag to send me photos I will definitely post); went to Santa Cruz on Sunday for Kaci's shower and had dinner on the wharf... more shellfish and wine (I can't seem to get enough of anything that comes on the half-shell with vinegar and tabasco sauce).

Knitting.
Dammit. I knew I was going to have to get to this part. I learned lots of things this weekend about knitting and garment creation:

1) Gauge. Oh Gau-ge. Smack me because I am probably the ump-teenth knitter to come to this realization but DAMN IT I should have checked gauge. Kyoto is laughing in my face, and I am left dumb-founded that the gauge listed on Knitty can possibly be right on size 5s. I am off... like, WAY off. I was thinking it was a little tight but I figured it would work to in my benefit because I wanted the sweater to fit tighter anyways, but I am going to have to do some major reconstructive work on the bust area if I don't want my girls busting the seams. I was very frustrated after trying to pull the front triangle a million ways to get it over my boob, and I don't think any amount of blocking is going to 'fix' the problem.... SSSSHHHHIIIII...........

2) I could talk to you about the mini sweater cardi wrap as well, but you could just go back and read item #1 again. I am totally at a loss of what to do with this one; I should have cast on about 20 more stitches at the beginning. Gauge wasn't the issue here, it was just another example of me pretending that I wear a B-cup. RRRRRIIIIIPPPPPP........

3) Writing a pattern isn't tricky as I thought. It went something like this: Got the new Anthropologie catalog; drooled over it; dog-eared about 40 pages, found a sweater I must have, had dreams shattered by the price... got a bright idea.......

4) Knitting is not a form of self-torture. If you don't want to be knitting something, then STOP. Jesus christ, this is a hobby and a form of self-relaxation, not something to dread. With that in mind, I cast aside Kyoto and the Mini (fates to be determined later), and picked up the yummy Karabella yarn to start Clapotis. I. Love. This. Pattern. Knitting is fun again!

5) Socks Rule. Stargazer #1 is finished (in the sense that she has a hell, toe and cuff), but I picked up stitches at the top and started knitting up until I run out of yarn. I don't normally WEAR socks, so in this case they must be as loud and obnoxious as possible. And everyone needs a pair of pink-striped knee-high socks in their life.

5) Plan Ahead When Starting a Major Piece. As you can see by the cute little flapper doll in my side bar, spring has officially started in CA and all those lovely sweaters that are destined to be frogged because they can't conceal the knockers that I started about a month ago wouldn't get to be worn for another 8 months! I SEE said the blind man to the DEAF dog. Therefore, I sat down and made a list (gasp! I really did just say that) of when I will be starting all my newest projects.

• March - Lucky Clover Wrap / Mystery Sweater
• April/May - Sage and/or Ginger from Rowan;
• June - Funky Stripe top from Knit.1; possibly revive Kyoto.
• August - Lara from Alpaca Silk

Any bets on how quickly I will abandon this list? (Jason, you don't get a vote)

On a Random Note:
Olé, Olé, Olé, Olé, Click Here, Click Here. (UCSB's trademark chant (until Stanford stole it - as if olé, olé has anything to do with a cardinal - sorry Lori!). It's like the soccer chant, "Olé, Olé, Olé, Olé, Gauchos, Gauchos" while jumping up and down).
--> History of the political uproar at UCSB in 1970 when my dad and uncle's classmates burned down the Bank of America building. My kids better plan on going to UCSB - they'd be 3rd gen. Gauchos! Plus, what other school has athletic booster shirts like these?

Finally.... 9 days to cheaper car insurance.