What's new, pussycat?

Yeah, it's been awhile. Whatever. I've been busy. You know, with the working full time and the two kids and the knitting and the reading other people's blogs...well, really, it's mostly the working. But I've been in the mood for blogging quite frequently lately, so I revamped the site (oh, you noticed?) and here I am. And here's what's been happening since April:

BUST party -- what a bust

A bunch of the girls at work decided to get together and go to this shindig BUST was throwing to celebrate their 15th anniversary. BUST is cool, even though I let my subscription drop a few years ago when I started feeling like every issue was the same and not terribly relevant or interesting to me. On further reflection, I think I just outgrew it. Which is fine. But I was a charter subscriber, the thing was literally up the street from work, and there were goodie bags and free cupcakes to be had. I think we all know how I feel about the "f" word.

The "pre-party" was scheduled from 8-9:45pm, then there were supposed to be shows after that. So we all went to dinner and ended up getting there around 7:30. They let us in, but weren't giving out the goodie bags until 8. Also fine. So we stood over by the goodie bag table (we're no dummies and they said there were limited quantities). well, they were still putting them together and didn't start handing them out until 8:15, by which time the crowd was starting to get ugly. The table was pretty much rshed, and they had no barriers or anything up to control the line. Then one of the girls working there stands infrom of the table and screams "Chill out!" at the crowd. Um, excuse me? Your lack of crowd control measures (not setting up a line for people to stand in or a path for them to follow to exit after receiving the goodie bag) does not mean you get to yell at me.

So we escaped the melee with our gift bags (the contents of which were pretty cool, as was the bag itself, to be fair) and headed over to the three chicks holding trays of very tiny cupcakes. Erica went to grab one, and the same chick who yelled at us wouldn't let her take one because she wanted to take a picture. Was she polite about his? No. She "Bup-bup-bup!"ed at Erica! WTF?!?! BUST, you need some party planners and some people with manners. And also, better cupcakes.

Ravelympics

Yes, I am a Ravthlete. Okay, since most of you are my friends and family and sadly, not knitters (I'll get you yet, my pretties!), I shall explain. There's this site called "Ravelry" (linked on the right there), and it's a combination project planner/eye candy/social networking site for knitters. I'm not so much with the social networking part (I know, you're shocked). But for the duration of the Olympics (you know, the ones in Beijing. There's this swimmer you might have heard of who's won a few medals?), we knitters are performing our own feats of knitting derring-do. What this means is that I chose a sweater (this one, also linked over on the right, where you can see my progress), cast on during the opening ceremonies (except I forgot the pattern at work the night before so got a late start :( ), and must be done by the time the flame goes out. The sweater I chose is pretty challenging, as it was supposed to be. I really felt like the spirit of this was to push myself to my knitting limits. There are some folks that finished the first day, and that's fine for them, but if I had done that I'd've felt like I cheated myself. I've got both sleeves and about half the back done at this point, so I'll just have the front left after tonight (tomorrow morning? more likely). It's still possible, but it'll be a stretch.

Kids

Still got two of 'em. Not much else to tell. Heh. No, but seriously, they're adorable as hell.

Zacky has teeth, screeches for food (okay, that's maybe not so adorable), sleeps through the night more often than not, smiles all the time as long as there's no camera around, and has said "mama" "dada" and "Becky." I think he might also be saying "ba-ba" but it's hard to tell.



Becky is talking a mile a minute and starting to make real conversation. She can tell a story, orders her own bagels and donuts in stores, reminds daddy that mommy needs coffee when we go for a walk (bless her little heart), and is the bestest big sister ever. Also, I painted a big tree on her wall. The pic doesn't really do it justice -- it came out very artsy and mural-y. I just have to keep adding bugs and critters now.













Other Knitting

I'll talk more about this next post, but I've written a new pattern that I'll be posting sometime soon -- a super easy shrug knitted in some gorgeous Lisa Souza silk/wool. I've also finally taken the pics for the crocheted seams tutorial that I promised a good long time ago, so that will be going up as well. Both will be free. I had offered the Inflorescence sock pattern to MezzoDiva for her breast cancer fundraising efforts, but she decided to go with a different sock (which is totally cool -- no hard feelings, and the one she went with is totally gorgeous). So, since I was going to donate it, I've decided to just charge for it here and donate the money to a deserving charity. I still need to do a tech edit, design the PDF, figure out how to collect money, and decide which charity, but once all that's done, it'll be available here as well. I'll keep you posted.

I also knitted Sahara in Berroco Touche (not sure what the color is off the top of my head -- a very grey off white color). It came out absolutely beautiful. The only modification I made was to add an extra repeat of the pattern stitch at the sleeve edge to cover my very broad, square shoulders. It is the perfect thing for me to wear now that I'm nearly at my goal weight.

Weight Loss



That's right, folks -- in the 4 months since I last posted, I've lost about 25 pounds. I'm at 147 now, which is just two pounds shy of my 145 goal weight. I'm not sweating it, though I still have a bit of a belly I'd like to lose. I'm feeling pretty damn good about myself. The question I always get is "how did you do it?" The answer is: I stopped eating like a pig. Most days I have a coffee in the morning, a small sandwich (made at home) for lunch, and a salad (prepackaged with dressing so I know the actual calories) for dinner. I might have a handful of chocolate covered coffee beans for a little afternoon pick-me-up, but that's about it.

I think that's about everything. I'll try to post much, much more often -- as I said, I've been in the mood lately, so odds are good.

posted by Laura Y. @ 1:55 PM