happy new years, knitters!

Happy Birthdays!

Yes, I said "birthdays" plural...today is my 29th and also Guinness' 3rd! So happy birthday to us!

Here's an old pic of the birthday girls (not sure when it was taken, but she looks little, so had to have been in the early days)...





















By the way, Jason couldn't wait to give me my presents last night, so after a fun night together running errands (echecks on both cars and to the bmv for tags for both and a new license for me), dinner at this new restaurant called "Melt" (gourmet grilled cheese, awesome beers and (are you ready for this?) fried twinkies dessert (awesome, by the way!) and pet store for presents for Guinness, we came home and I was presented with a beautifully wrapped boxed with lots of wrapped presents inside, including two dvd's (Christmas Vacation and The Last Kiss...both of which I wanted soooooo bad), a pug calendar (omg...they are sooo cute!), a bottle of my FAVORITE red wine ever (Francis Coppola Merlot - blue label) and...DIAMOND EARRINGS!!!!!!! He also gave me an awesome card that made me cry before I even started opening presents, including his note at the bottom telling me to "cherish my twenties", which for some reason makes me teary-eyed even now. Anyway, he always comes up w/ the most awesome perfect gifts and I just feel very lucky to have him in my life! I have pics to post of the presents, but no time to download them this morning. Tonight is dinner at Mongolian BBQ w/ Jason, my sisters and Eddie (Samantha's fiance) and my parents, so that should be fun. So far turning 29 hasn't been as bad as I thought...guess I will follow J's advice and cherish this last year of my 20's while I still have it!

merry merry ho ho ho!

hope everyone had a wonderful holiday! i'll try to post pics of my knitted gifts and of the gifts i received this week or next. until then, here's a pic of us kids on xmas eve this year...

















(from left to right...jason (my hubby), me, melissa (the middle daughter), samantha jo (the youngest) and her fiance, eddie (my soon to be "brother" and a very welcome addition to our family!)

Pachelbel Rant

Oh man, found this over at Yarn-A-Go-Go and just had to repost...toooooo funny!



Hope everyone has a wonderful holiday!!! xo

Tag, I'm it!

The Weirdness Meme

I have been 'tagged' by my blog friend, Bonnie to play "How Weird Are You?"!

"The Rules: Each player of this game starts with the "6 weird things about you." People who get tagged need to write a blog of their own 6 weird things as well as state this rule clearly. In the end, you need to choose 6 people to be tagged and list their names. Don't forget to leave a comment that says "you have been tagged" in their comments and tell them to read your blog."

Six weird things about me:

1 - I am ridiculously afraid of spiders and creepy-crawly bugs in general. I mean seriously...I pass out at the site of them and if I know there is one in a room, I will refuse to enter until I see that it is dead and gone. I attribute this fear to my dad...when we were little, he would always kill the house spiders, but then chase us around w/ the tissue that held the squished bug. Thanks, Dad ;)

2 - I'm afraid of birds, but I love bird-watching. Let me explain...I have a pretty birdfeeder on my porch (a bday present from my friend Carrie aka Carebear last year) and I love love love to fill it up on the weekends and sit on the couch to watch from the window. That is the key part...I need to be safe in the house. I am scared to death of birds when they aren't behind glass as I have this fear that they will peck my eyes out! Those huge birds at the pet stores in the open cage perches...forget about it!!

3 - I am totally grossed out by feet, although I love to wear sandals and go barefoot all summer, and I also love looking at newborn babies' feet. But naked adult feet, male or female, "pretty" (whatever that means) or not, they all gross me out.

4 - People call me grandma because I'm 28 (will be 29 next Thursday) and I 1) knit 2) have chronic back pain 3) love watching birds (from the safety of the house, of course lol)

5 - I have an overwhelming need to match colors of everything...I mean, the bra and panties gotta match the outfit, or at least each other, the socks have to match the outfit, the makeup has to match the outfit (I know that's wrong in fashion, but I can't help it), the purse, the shoes, the scarf...everything!! I even use a pen at work that matches whatever color I wear that day, if I have it (and I usually do because...)

6 - I have a pen/office/school supply fetish. I get super duper excited during "back to school" days because all the stores have the new pen, pencils, folder, etc. out for me to see and buy. I prefer to write w/ regular bic pens at work, but I can't help buying every new kind I see (only to go back to the bics because they write the best).

So, now I have to tag six people. They are: Jeanne from Life In Cleveland, Melissa from Needlephile, Kristin from KristinKnits , Jannette from Knitting Nurse , Mark from Knitting Confidential and Kristin from Pens and Needles.

funny and creepy, all at once...

check it out!

thx for sharing, jannette!

lucky lucky knitwit

so my parents just got back from celebrating mom's bday in orlando...gotta love that they waited til us kids were all growed up to go to disney world ;) seriously, though...how lucky am i to have such in-love parents who still have the most fun ever w/ each other, no matter what they're doing?! i say pretty darn lucky!

chemo caps and a prize for me

ok, so i'm not sure if i blogged about this yet or not, but last year, my grandma was diagnosed with colon and ovarian cancer. she had her first round of chemo and was doing well. the chemo caused some nerve damage in her fingers and toes, but she didn't have any hair loss. after much testing, they decided it was necessary for her to begin a new type of chemo. now this is a grandma in her 80's who emails the whole family, almost daily, as kind of a blog, telling us all about how her and grandpa's day went. i love that i can keep up w/ her health and what she's up to (she's also a knitter and has ironically been very busy knitting kids chemo caps lately). anyway, i read her email on friday that informed us that the chemo this time is causing hairloss and that she better start knitting bigger hats for herself. needless to say, i spent my whole day sunday knitting up two hats as quick as possible, as well as asking a couple of my friends if they had any chemo hats knitted up that they hadn't turned in yet, in case they wanted to send them her way.

i just put these two in the mail and just sent her an email alerting her to a surprise in the mailbox from me in the next day or two. can't wait to hear if she likes them!















the pattern is a simple roll-brimmed chemo cap that i found on google and i feel so proud to have not only knitted them up so quickly (using worsted weight yarn on size 7's), but i started on circulars and then switched to dpn's when necessary, as if they haven't totally been my knitting arch-enemies since i first learned to use them knitting beer cozies ;) i just told myself that i could do it and i had no problems! i think this is partially due to the fact that i bought bamboo dpn's instead of using the slippery metal ones that i have used in the past. i'm hoping this opens a whole new world of knitting for me as i don't feel as terrified of using them anymore : ) so i accomplished two great things sunday...i made some cute hats to keep grandma warm this winter and hopefully defeated my fear of the dreaded dpn's - yay!

in other news...i won an iPod nano through a contest at work and just spent the entire evening loading songs onto it from my cd collection. it's so cute and i named it "Dinky" cuz it's about the width of my index and middle finger and not much thicker than a couple credit cards. sooo tiny and oh, so cute...i'm so lucky to have won it...like an early xmas present all for me : )

i mean really...could they be any cuter?!

yikes - guess this really could happen

ok, so i was reading this blog and thought i would share this. it's about not getting back in your car while you are pumping gas...i guess i didn't really think it could happen, but according to this video on an LA Fire Dept. blog, it can and does happen. scary...enough so that i will be following the rules from now on!

in knitting news, i'm working on my greys anatomy kal project right now (or was until i came to check my email and will be going back to it when i finish this post) along with a few other projects. haven't finished anything too exciting, hence the lack of knitting content in my posts lately.

took some super cute pics of my doggies and will post them soon...gotta love puggy faces : )

odie the i love u pug

mostly posting this so i can save it...have had it saved on my dvr since he originally aired on letterman and i'm sure i'll accidentally delete it some day. too cute!!