Tuesday, October 2, 2007

Presents for Everyone!!

Yay! Today is Jake's Birthday. His 'official' celebration is tomorrow. He asked me to cook dinner and invite a few of his friends over, rather than go out to dinner. This is Jake's stack of presents for the day (note the pretty ribbon.. . I never take this much time wrapping gifts, but I had the urge!)



He is a very lucky boy this year :) He got two books from my mom. A GPS for his car, new earbuds for his MP3 player from me and Wasabi peas and chocolate covered espresso beans from the puppies!



This is the not-as-big-a-mess-as-expected mess on my couter after making chocolate icing from scratch for Jake's cake!

This is my present!

My new washing machine. . . isn't it pretty?! (I will refrain from a tirade about Sears delivery service) HA! No picture. . . see, I actually wrote this before I had a chance to come back with pictures. . . .and now I've done one load of laundry and this Whirlpool Cabrio is GOING BACK! It ruined my bra. . . . worked the underwire right out of it. . . so much for being gentle! Now I have to pick a new new washer!

This past weekend, I was the present for my dad (isn't it scary how much we look alike!)

The trip to KC was interesting. Some aspects were better than I anticipated. Some sucked as much as I planned. I have to say it was nice to visit with my brother. It had been 9 years since the last time I saw him. . . he's grown up a lot and he and his wife seem happy.


I got LOTS of knitting done, both while flying and visiting.. . . lots of down time! I had a woman FREAK out at the airport here in Norfolk Friday morning, though. . she was appalled I could have pointy metal needles. I thought security was going to confiscate me after her showing, but everything else was uneventful.

I finished My-So-Called-Scarf for the Red Scarf Project. THANK GOD! I never want to hear of that pattern again. Now I just need to weave in the ends and mail off.



I frogged the spiral rib socks and restarted them as my 'Jeezny Crickets' socks in memory of my grandpa. I decided to make them anklets and I'm using the seeded rib pattern (totally stolen from Carrie's ND/Starry Night socks).




I cast on and currently decreasing the gusset on the 2nd of my undulating rib socks. For some reason my stitch pattern is off by 2 stitches as compared to the first sock. I don't know if the mistake was on that one or this one, so it will just have to live with being different!



I made progress on Jake's hat, too, but I'm not sure if I like it. Originally the plan was to have one stripe of the light green and two stripes of dark. I decided the colors didn't match the jacket well enough for that, so I knit them together. Well, now it looks too much like camouflage for my taste. . . Jake is debating if he likes it or not, which means I'll likely be frogging this.


Finally, I cast on for the 'Wavy Scarf' from Imagiknit with the Malabrigo (note. .. . the green colorway Cypress!). I LOVE LOVE LOVE how this looks!




When I got home from KC, I had some eBay yarn purchases. . . . fun! I will only show you this because the color is so pretty. . . .. it's called Persian Peacock. LOVE IT! (surprise. . . not a lick of green to be seen!)

And, finally. . . the moment you've all been waiting for. . . . the contest winner is. . .







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JESSICA! Seriously. . . no funny business with picking someone I liked. . . fair & square out of a hat. Apparently all her crossed fingers worked :) So now, Jessica, you can't say you've never won a contest before :) I'll plan on giving the goods to you at YfB on the 13th, unless I see you beforehand, OK?


Thanks to everyone else for entering. . . . even though there are several of you who read my blog that chose not to enter. . . were you in cahoots with Jess?


Carrie - I want that Kitchen Aid story!

3 comments:

Jen said...

Doh! What the deuce! I didn't get my entry in in time! Congrats to Jess! Love the Malabrigio scarf! Exclamation points!

Cheryl in AZ said...

I have to say, go BOSCH!!!!

I absolutely LOVE my BOSCH front loader. I got mine from Lowes, very good delivery service too. I have a girlfriend who tried a frontloader and hated it, but I am a total convert. You will NEVER get me back to a top loader.

I love that I can do my DH's Icelandic wool sweaters, silk items, any and all bedding imaginable, and I use less everything (water, energy, detergent, fabric softner). It determines how much water it needs for what amount of clothing is in there.

If you want to come take a gander at it please feel free to contact me Carly.

Did I mention that I LOVE MY BOSCH! :)

IrishGirlieKnits said...

Wow!! Presents for everyone for sure! Hope Jake's day was awesome!!

Love the socks...both of them look great, but I guess I love the seeded ribbing sock best (hehehehe!). And don't you love the Imaginknit Malabrigo scarf...that color is gorgeous that you picked!! I need to make another one of those.

And yeap, I wanted Jessica to win. Sure, we'll say that's why I didn't enter the contest. Or maybe I suck at my blogreading sometimes (nope, not that). Or maybe, I wanted to be special and tell my KitchenAid story here! :)

Okay, here goes. At the age of I think 27 maybe, after a month of tons of Christmas baking (cookies, cakes, etc.), my dad and I were watching Emeril in January (not something we normally did, it was just on). Emeril was making cookies and he put the dough into some sort of appliance. I said to my dad, "What is that?" (seriously, I am a smart girl, and I liked to bake, but my mom is not domestic at all, so can we blame her for the reason why I didn't know this?). My dad laughs and tells me its a mixer. Of course I was stunned that something could so easily mix cookies (my arms always hurt after mixing and mixing)! I guess I'd seem the "mixer" at wedding showers, but never quite got what they did. I was just AMAZED by this and we talked mixers for probably the next few weeks (dad telling me all the other cool things they did). So then, my birthday in February, my dad surprised me (I really was surprised, never imagined getting one)and bought me my own Kitchen Aid mixer (and being dad, he bought the stainless steel fancy model so all my married friends oohhed and aahhhed and I was just excited it was a mixer, not realizing at the time how freakin fancy it was!). And that present started my baking/cooking adventure. Everyone who knows me will tell you from that point on I became obsessed. I took cooking classes, baking, etc. and now I'm a pretty good cook!! That's my best present yet!

Thanks for listening!!