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.