Happy Last Day of 2008

My year in recap:

January: I got married, and my last name went from 1 syllable to 4.

February: We celebrated my mom's 55th Birthday Do-Over by hiking down a giant mountain, since she was in the hospital last year and I'm thankful that she's all healthy and recovered since then.

March: I turned 28, and DH took me to see LOVE in Vegas, which has been on my wishlist since it opened a few years ago.

April: I knit a sweater for DH, just in time for the weather to shoot up into the 80's.

May: We successfully staged a crab-feed in my mom's backyard for my sister's 26th birthday (this was a big year for b-days, apparently).

June: My beloved Bulldogs won the College World Series. I cried. Bought a new car.

July: Visited Chicago for the first time, and got to see my dear friend K who moved away from CA 3 years ago.

August: Knit a sweater in 14 days. Made my DH watch copious amounts of Olympic coverage.

September: Helped plan/host my 10-year HS reunion. Yep, definitely not doing that again for the 20-year.

October: FINALLY got my wedding photos. Watched my Bulldog football team slide into a depressing losing streak.

November: Hosted Thanksgiving for the first time. Doing piles of dishes for 2 days was TOTALLY worth it to not have to leave the house!

December: Met the governor of CA. But most of all (well, not really, but pretend so for dramatic effect), I finished this freaking sweater:


Thermal, from Knitty. Ravelry deats here.

It only took 1.5 years! (Casted on in July 2007).


I freaking love it. Seriously. Probably my favorite FO to date. I have no idea why I waited so long to finish it! At least it's only January and I can still get some usage it this year.

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All and all, a pretty solid year. Looking forwards to many new firsts in 2009 - we are headed to Europe, and may possibly be expanding the family (wink wink).

To ring in 2009, we are headed to a fancy-schmancy 4-course dinner tonight at a local restaurant. Nothing says 2009 like Smoked Swordfish Carpaccio and Pancetta & Radicchio Wrapped Scallops.

CHEERS to a safe and happy New Years Eve. See you all in 2009!

Absinthe, Take One

Saturday night we had our night in with the wormwood, AKA the Absinthe. I made some lobster tails (to DIE for Ginger sauce, btw), grilled some steaks, invited a few friends over, and away we went.



Matt got so creative, that he was actually mixing cocktails with it, courtesy of their website, by the end of the night. I opted for the "Red Fairy"

Mix in shaker:
* 1oz Le Tourment Vert
* 1/2 oz Grenadine (optional)
* 1/2 oz Red Bull
Shake well and strain into a rocks glass or shot glass



Anyhow... I didn't do a dance with any faeries that night like I was secretly hoping for, but it was definitely a different buzz that I have experience before. I'm interested in trying a few more of the recipes and experimenting a bit further.

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And just so this can still qualify as a knitting blog, I will show you how tantalizingly close I am to finishing Thermal:



I just started the cap shaping on my final sleeve - which is all the knitting I have left on this thing. Even with some casual knitting over the next few days, I should have this seamed up and on my body by the 25th. Only a year in the making!

Also, more kiddie stuff:


Heart Sachet from a back issue of Interweave. I needed to make this fast so I made some size mods to accommodate for the larger gauge. Basically, I started on row 5 of each chart, instead of row 1, and modified the number of picked-up stitches to accommodate.

Everyone around me is having kids. Seriously. At least these things go quick!

Cal-E-Forn-E-Ah

I just met our governator.



Working at a University can be so fun, where else do you get emails that say "Governor Schwarzenegger will be on campus from 10:15 – 10:45 a.m. today".

Cool.

Foggy Day Schedule

If you grew up in the Valley, you know those words well right? It was like, the best thing to wake up, hear those words coming across the TV on channel 18, and celebrate by jumping back into bed for an hour.

A typical morning drive to work:

I should have actually waited until I GOT to campus, because visibility was about 1/2 of what it is here.

Our Valley Fog is actually sort of infamous.

Anyhow, I took this photo yesterday because I was testing out a new toy. You see, Christmas came a little early around here.



That, or my DH was sick of hearing me talk about how much I really didn't like my old phone. Either way, I L-O-V-E my new toy. I've never been one to get overly excited about the latest fad gadget but WOW. I heart my iPhone.

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It's been really cold here lately (and by "really cold" I mean the 30s/40s, but this IS Central CA, land of the 110 degree summers), so I've had a hankering to knit all sorts of warm accessories. I just finished a Trinity Stitch Hat (haven't even taken photos yet!), started a pair of my wrist warmers, and will be starting a neck warmer soon. So nice to not have Christmas knitting this year!

Happy Thursday!



PS - We still haven't tried the Absinthe, but we definitely will sometime this weekend.

White Christmas

Hail: It's a Central Valley white Christmas

The Green Fairy

No, I'm not talking about an elf. I'm talking about a gift my DH received for his birthday this year.



Absinthe. The Green Fairy. Ernest Hemingway’s "Death in the Afternoon" cocktail ("Pour one jigger absinthe into a Champagne glass. Add iced Champagne until it attains the proper opalescent milkiness. Drink three to five of these slowly.")

We're thinking about giving it a whirl this Friday. Any tips for first-timers?

Out The Door in 5,4,3....

The weather finally dropped below 50 degrees around here.... So it's another "Wear Your Knits To Work" Day!



That stripey turtleneck? From Target, best buy EVER.

Christmasing

We are in full Holiday Spirit mood around here. If you don't know, I freaking love the Holidays. I love the cold days, Christmas Carols, the smell of pine trees in my house every morning, lighting up the fireplace, gathering with friends for spiked eggnog and champagne cocktails. As always to celebrate the start of the season, I host a holiday brunch for 12 of my girlfriends.



Click for notes on food





"Brunch" is actually a little misleading. It's actually cocktails, brunch, run out of champagne and move onto wine, dance party in living room, husbands and boyfriends arrive, decide on a dinner spot, take party across town, come home and pass out at 1:30am. That about sums it up.

The decorating is also finished:

Please excuse Katy's backside in this photo
I'm not knitting gifts for anyone this year because this season snuck up on me and I have no time. I might make something for my cousin or niece, but nothing I couldn't finish in a couple days.

FA LA LA!

Oh Yeah, Thanksgiving

I was going to write about our adventure with the Christmas tree last night but then I realized, oh yeah, might want to actually talk about Thanksgiving first. After many hours of cooking, cleaning, and grilling a ridiculous amount of lamb on a BBQ, we had a very, very successful Thanksgiving.


Click the photos for food information

We had to squeeze to fit, but it just made it more cozy that way.

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Like their parents, Katy and Viva were exhausted by the end of the night.


The moment Viva discovered Katy was on the bed, and was not happy about it.

The Menu, 2008

Thanksgiving Menu, 2008

Mushroom Tarts
Prosciutto Wrapped Asparagus
Grilled Leg of Lamb with Rosemary Salt
Armenian Manti with Tomato-Beef Broth and Yogurt
Potato Gratin with Gruyère and Crème Fraîche
Greens With Warm Turkey Bacon Dressing
Various Desserts

And of course all the wine, scotch, and cigars one could want. I love our non-traditional Thanksgiving!

It's my first time using all the nice stuff, which I can't WAIT to get out of the way. (In fact, I hope someone scratches something so I can just be over it already!)

Quickie

First for some housekeeping: Someone brought to my attention that the link for the Irish Hiking Wristwarmers wasn't working anymore, so I fixed that. You can find the new download here (link will open a .pdf in a new window).

So anyway, I'm on a roll with the FO's:




Quickie Baby Sweater. Completed in about 1.5 days of leisure knitting. If only Thermal went this fast.

Details at Ravelry

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Only 2 days to go until we host our first Thanksgiving at Casa D' W&N. Yup, just a little busy over here.



PS - I still LOVE the boots. Wore them ALL weekend. With black leggings.

A Tale of Frye Boots

I'm working from home today and this is my co-worker:



Whenever I work on website stuff it's so much easier for me to be here because I don't have phones and students and general distractions like I do at the office. I am lucky my boss understands that and I don't have to try and read html code in that environment.

Anyhow, that's not why I'm here today. I'm hear to talk about a milestone in my life. Yeah yeah yeah, I bought the house, got married, etc, but this milestone in some ways is much more important (I hope my husband didn't just read that!)

Ever since college, I've wanted a pair of boots. Not just any boots, but some oh-so-boho-chic Frye Campus boots. All the Socal-casual ladies in Santa Barbara had them. I've lusted over A Friend To Knit With's laced number. Seriously, I've thought about these for like, 8 years. However, being a broke student and then a broke education worker never accomodated for purchasing $280 boots.

Monday morning I get this overwhelming urge to look for them again. I'm sort of a tight-wad (see: I work in Education) but I knew I had the money for them. Still that little voice in my head was screaming "ECONOMY!!! SAVE!!! EKK!!!".

I found a site called Endless shoes that was running a sale (which, sadly, appears to be gone), with free overnight shipping and everything. I had the webpage with those boots open and staring at me all day. I was chatting with Matt about it and about 4pm he was like "BUY THE DAMN BOOTS". So I did.



I got them last night. I put them on instantly. I didn't know it was possible to love a pair of shoes this much.



That, and realizing that I had reached a point in my life where all the years of cutting my own hair and drinking $2-buck chuck had paid off.


(ps - I also have a newfound love for black leggings. I see many nights of leggings and Frye boots this winter)

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On a final note, the Quickie Baby Sweater is awesome. Progress from last night, and should be done today. Why can't all patterns be like this?



Raveled

All Good Things Must Come to an End

This weekend sadly marked the end of the 2008 tailgating season at the U:



I made sujuk and eggs for the occasion:



Grilling it up with the hostess with the mostess:



Pomegranates, proper decor for a Central Valley event:



Laziness in the Red Lot:



If the weather looked perfect, it's because it was. About 78 degrees. Nevermind that I am apparently the scrooge of Fresno because I hate it because it is NOVEMBER and we've got a short enough winter around here as it is! I've got handknit sweaters to wear people!

Speaking of handknits, one of them made its work debut today:


(no car accidents were caused in the snapping of this photograph)

and while I had the camera with me, I took this one of the trees in the parking lot at work.


[click for larger]

How beautiful is that?!?

Mer-Lot's of FO's

Back for FO #2 of the week:



Pattern: BFF Socks by Cookie A.
Yarn/Needles: Koigu, 2 skiens. Size 2 dpns
Raveled



These took WAAY too long to finish. Heh, story of my [knitting] life. Also, they are already getting fuzzy, which is surprising given the yarn.

Every Good Dog Deserves Handknits

I have officially vaulted over "occassional knitter" to crazy old knitter lady:



Also, my dog is a natural model. It's my photography that sucks because A) It was nightime and our living room is now 50% darker thanks to the Wool Tweed, B) This camera is fading fast, and C) We had been drinking (see wine bottle over Katy's head)



Knit in Araucania Nature Wool Chunky, 2.5 skeins, on size 9 & 10.5 needles. I added some single crochet along the bottom of the sweater to help with curling, but it's going to need something else.

RAVELED

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PS - Did anyone notice anything strange about the new Anthropologie catalog?

hmmm.... where have I seen this before?