Post? Me Post?

Wow, this has been a crazy week! I have been knitting, and exercising, and avoiding vending machine candy, and all sorts of other exciting things! Over the past year with all the upheaval of moving, breaking my wrist, and other major life events, I seem to have falllen off the healthy bandwagon. I have tried multiple times to restart healthy habits, but alas, nothing stuck. Nothing stuck until now, however. :) I am going to Disney World (surprise, surprise) for a bit of my Spring Break and I really want to give Disney some of my money and get silly ridiculous things in return. So I devised a plan, a great, amazing plan, if you will. Every time a bell rings, an angel gets its...wait that's not it. Every time I do something I am supposed to be doing (exercising, taking my multi-vitamin, avoiding vending machine candy, going to be bed before 1AM, etc), I get a sticker. Each sticker represents $1 I can spend at Disney. Right now, I am positively reinforcing a million and one activities, but after a few weeks, I will begin to rein back some of the activities as they become second nature to me and reinforced by their own goodness.

So, what has this got to do with knitting, since this is a knitting blog and not a Disney blog? Well, I seem to have more time to knit. I don't know how this is working out exactly, but after I exercise, eat dinner, do some research, and vaccuum, I seem to have time to knit. I guess all the extra activity is inspiring me to keep busy when I am sitting! Speaking of knitting, here is the ribbed scarf (LB Homespun) I am working on now. The blue is making me so happy and cuddly. It is finally getting warm here in Florida, which doesn't really inspire me to knit heavy scarves, but we will see how far the exercise inspires me to knit. :)

For those of you who wanted to see the finished airy, pink, happy scarf, here it is! It is sadly getting too warm even to wear this, but every morning, I am still whipping this around my neck! :)

-SAK

Happy Scarves and Shawls

I love this Modea Dream yarn. I blocked it last night, and am wearing it right now at school and I am in love with it. The yarn doesn't itch. It is wispy and airy. It is so dainty. I positively love it! Pictures to come later tonight.

In other news, I have picked up the Twizzler shawl. I have only done a row or two but I am aiming to finish it this century. I had originally stopped, because I had come to a knitting mistake, but I think I fixed it and am ready to continue knitting.

At the same time, I started another scarf last night with the blue LB Homespun yarn I was planning to use for a garter stitch scarf with the fun fur. Oh well. At the end of all this knitting, I will have a scarf or wrap or something.

Excitement! News! Amazement!

You will not believe the news I am about to tell you. Sit down. Seriously. In under 24 hours, I started and...ahem...finished (well, finished in the sense that I CO'ed) a scarf! Yes, I actually completed a scarf in a resonable period of time. Yes I knit a garter stitch scarf on size 13 needles; however, this was the type of scarf I was craving for at the moment. Yes, it won't keep me warm, but it looks so darn cute! I used Modea Dream and this stuff is great! It has the mohair feel without being itchy at all! I made another tiny scarf with mohair yarn and as much as I like it, it is pretty scratchy. This yarn is so freakin' soft and light. I haven't even blocked it and it is feathery soft and airy.

In other news, my amazing friend E has traded me tiger sock yarn for an exciting but yet to be named item. The important news is I have tiger yarn though! I now have new motivation to learn how to knit socks properly to use this lovely, happy yarn. Now some of you might be thinking that wool socks are silly in Florida, but let me tell you that it is chilly here. Weather.com currently says that it is 48 degrees out. My cotton socks just are cutting it anymore. I desperately need to learn how to knit wooly socks to keep my feet warm.

Must Make It to Friday

Hey kids. Guess what?! I think if I can make it to Thursday afternoon, I can knit! I am very excited about this turn of events. The past couple of weeks have been crazy with allergies and grad school stuff, but come this Thursday, the trauma is beginning to subside. ::sigh:: I want to just curl up with my knitting and some old school Jonny Quest. :)

-SAK

The Scarf

I have decided on a scarf pattern! Okay, I just decided on the yarn, but the pattern is coming to me! I have this fiesta fun fur (or something like that, it has confetti in it...hmm, maybe it is confetti fun fur...anyway) in bright blue and a cozy lighter blue in homespun. I am thinking of combining these two yarns into a yummy scarf to balance out my Harry Potter scarf wearing days. Granted, this scarf won't be 100% wool and keep me super warm, but I am willing to try it out at least. At the very least, I will be able to mix up my scarf sightings a bit. Now if I could just finish a scarf in a reasonable amount of time...

-SAK

Scarves

I have come to a startingly huge revelation. I do not have enough scarves. I know you must think I am crazy, besides the fact that I have several scarves, I dislike knitting scarves, because I get bored very quickly. Well here is the deal, in dear old Gainesville, FL, the weather can get rather chilly but not very chilly. Do you see the distinction? I have fall weather scarves and heavy winter scarves, but not enough of the in between weather scarves. My Harry Potter scarf is the only one that fits the bill. In RI, it was perfectly fine to just have one of these, because the winter weather would turn to very chilly pretty quickly, but here in Florida, not so much. Oh dear, I guess it is back to the pattern books for me! Now I just need to find a light, but not too light, heavy, but not too heavy, with no lace, and not too bulky knitting pattern to go with a yarn that goes with everything I have. Yea, the Gryffindor colors do look a bit odd with some of my outfits.

-SAK

Oh My

So, if you have sent me a comment/email in the past month, you probably haven't gotten a reply (if one was required), because with three email accounts, grad school, and a Harry Potter/Disney obsession, I haven't gotten around to reading all of my email. Tonight, I decided to look through it. Do you know what I found?! A friend of mine found Opal Tiger yarn and asked me if I wanted it. Do you understand this? Tiger sock yarn. I foolishly thought it was more important to check my UF email. Stupid. Stupid. My priorities are so messed up right now.

I have now cleaned out most of my listservs, so I can quickly review the important things in life.

-SAK

Hee Hee

So I decided to start another blog today. I must admit that the new blogger really makes editing your template soooo much easier than before. Yes, there are some things that are easier when working with HTML; however, this new blog was set up in minutes and not hours like this one!

I have decided to create a Walt Disney World blog. Hopefully, the Mouse's lawyers won't shut me down. :) I had to create it, once I came up with the best name ever. Check it out here!

-SAK

Everything Good in the World & Allergies

Hey everyone,

This is a very exciting post, because it has pictures! Hurrah! Granted, the pictures aren't related to current knitting projects, but the pictures are knitting related! The first one is my "finished" Glaistig. I was supposed to knit a band, but I got bored, so I used a sparkly ribbon instead. Everyone has complimented it, but I feel it is a bit strange, but I think I carry it off well. :) The only problem I have with the hat is that it is either too short or I knit it too tightly, because it tends to ride up and create a bit of a point on the top of my head. I also keep my hair in a bun and have large earphones, which might be causing part of the dilemma as well. The second picture is of the wonderful $1.50 balls of yarn! Remember I told you about my amazing deal! All of that yarn for $12 (plus tax)! No dinky balls of yarn for me (3oz each)! No siree!

In other news, Gainesville is not the place for allergies. For the past week, I have been out of commission. My doctor suggested I switch allergy meds, and, boy, was that a bad idea, because I literally spent the entire weekend in bed. The stuff zonked me out, so alas I am back on my old stuff that doesn't work as well, but at least I am awake. Oh! Another amusing story is that this is the first time that I bought sudafed since it went behind the pharmacist's counter (people use it to make crystal meth and whatnot). I sounded like the most suspicious person! I am sure I am now on all sorts of FBI lists. Here are just some of the perfectly reasonable yet highly suspicious questions I asked the pharmacist, (while the guy is typing my info into the computer) "So is my information in all of the Walmarts in the area or do you need to insert my information into each Walmart individually?" and my favorite, "How often can I come back and buy more sudafed?" My friend told me it would have been worse if I had been buying other crystal meth ingredients, so I guess the potato chips and socks were a good cover. :) BTW, I am really curious to see what google searches pop up for this blog now!

In far more entertaining news, I am going back to Disney World in March. I have decided the only thing that is going to keep me sane in grad school is a trip to the happiest place on earth as often as I can. In January I went with my friend K who was a Disney virgin; the trip was great since I got to see him experience the "magic." This time I am going with my parents who are old school Disney folks, so the experience will be entirely different. I know there are people out there who think it is totally commercialistic and expensive, and I totally agree, but even during the few bad experiences I have had at Disney, I never feel more relaxed or happier than when I am there. Life just seems so full of possibilities there. I just love watching the parades, fireworks, and the little kids meeting their favorite characters for the first time and really believing that they are meeting Mickey, Minnie, and Donald. Dreams can come true! Yes, I am already planning on writing my Master's at Epcot, probably at a cafe in "France."

BTW, did you see my wonderful Harry Potter clock? Yea! The excitement! I cannot even begin to contain it. Oh my! I need to start rereading the first six books!

-SAK

Yea!

This isn't knitting related, but I need to announce it anway.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is coming out July 21st, 2007!

Hurrah!

-SAK