Annie's Blog

in which Annie wakes at 4:00 ayem, and the day goes downhill from there.
No, actually, the day wasn’t that bad. But I did wake this morning before Carolyn, and did have not quite as restful a day as I was hoping. Although having Hannah and Eric bring me coffee (“made with LOVE, Mommy!”) in my project room was very nice.

We ended up taking the dogs to a huge farm in Oldham County (about 30 minutes away) to let them run. About four acres had been planted with sunflowers, and it was a bird paradise. I haven’t seen that many yellow finches in one place in my life. We walked the perimeter of three of the larger fields, and since it took about two hours, I’m estimating we walked about 3-4 miles. Which doesn’t sound like a lot for two hours until you figure that we were chasing both dogs and both kids (well, no, actually I was carrying Luke on my back for most of it). Luke is up to 26 pounds now (at three years old), but felt more like forty…

So that ear of roasted corn and one roll I had last night at dinner were sufficiently paid for. It’s exciting to be on track with losing weight…and those extra pounds I want to lose by Christmas all of a sudden seem like they just might be achievable. Who’dve’thunkit?

I need to bind off my square for the Fairy Godmother and get it ready to send to Jola Gayle tomorrow morning. I wasn’t sure I’d finish it, but the hour I got to knit at the coffee shop today made it happen. And the best part is that I got the needles I needed for my next project! More details on that tomorrow.

OK, time to go to work. Busy doesn’t even come close to describing my week next week, and we still have to prepare for traveling to DMIL’s for the Scandanavian Festival on Sunday. Sigh. At least it will mean tons of knitting time in the car!

In which the NY Times tickles me yet again

Andy Rooney, move over. There’s another columnist out there who tickles my funny bone nearly as much.

David Pogue’s column about the idiocy of 99-cent pricing (why don’t they just say $1.00? Do they think we’re stupid?) cracked me up this morning, especially because I remembered staring at the gas pump as I filled my truck this morning, debating with myself whether I was paying $1.779 cents per gallon or $1.78. There’s a reason we don’t have a tenth-penny coin!

Anyway, I’ve put out a call on the SheepThrills list to borrow a set of 13 DPNs and 24″ circulars…I could buy them, but kind of like the 99-cent issue, it rubs me the wrong way to have to buy a new set of needles just for one project. What are the chances that another project I do will need just those size needles, anyway? So we’ll see what happens.

In the meantime, time to head over to blogger and see if I can clean up my mess.

In which a common phrase gets stuck in my head for its wrongness

This morning, as I was walking through the office on my way to get a cup of coffee, I overheard one of my co-workers talking about how a new applicant hadn’t “passed the mustard” for the job qualifications we were looking for.

Pass the mustard? Excuse me, are we at a picnic? If we are, where’s my hot dog? It’s MUSTER, people.

Anyway, I’ve finished the Suss baby cardigan I was working on over the weekend, which is good news since my co-worker has been put on bed rest until the baby is born. I used some blue cotton yarn for the edging (instead of the kit’s pink) since Amy is so sure (after umpty-ump ultrasounds) that the baby is a boy.

I need to finish the 12-inch afghan square I’ve been working on ASAP and send it off to Tennessee. I understand why the group wanted to use naturally colored yarn, but geez louise, that sure limits my creativity/ability. I’m half tempted to just do a plain stockinette square and overstitch a pink ribbon…wonder if that would be allowed under the “naturally colored yarns” rule? We’ll see. I guess I could always graph out a ribbon and do it in knits and purls.

I don’t know if I’ll be able to figure out the picture thing anytime soon…I can surf the web with the best of them, but when it comes to actually understanding How Stuff Works, I’m a rank beginner.

BTW, I’m down ten pounds on South Beach, and really enjoyed the Ginger/Garlic/Lemon chicken I made for dinner last night. So much, in fact, that I’m having the leftovers for dinner tonight with broccoli and maybe some grilled mushrooms and onions. I also made some lentil soup last night, which should be good for me for lunch this week as well. My secret goal is to get back down to 135 by Christmas, which means another 15 pounds. Seems reasonable, no?