Dainty Kitty

Googly Things & Knit Nights

I've been meaning to post this picture ever since I took it at Fulton Farm several weekends ago.  This isn't the pumpkin I came home with but I had to take his picture and give him a couple of googly eyes.

Today was proof that I'm not made of steel.  I think I thought of things I wanted to tell Jake no less than a dozen times and going the entire day without emailing him or getting an email from him was strange (we would email at least once or twice a day).  We also talked on our drive home every day so that was really hard - it's the first time I've cried since we actually talked.  Thank goodness my drive is only about ten minutes long. 

I had plans to meet up with a few women I met from Ravelry tonight but by the time I got home I was feeling pretty worn out.   But I made myself go!  I forced myself into the shower for a little wake up, gathered my things and hit the road.   Of course, once I got to where the Panera was supposed to be, I couldn't find it which drove me to near tears.   But I eventually found it and had a good time.  I can't imagine what I'd feel like right now if I'd just stayed home.

I think I'm going to frog the Noro hat I was working on.  It's a beehive pattern of k4, p4 but I was k4, p3 for some reason.  I kept losing track of the purls, I guess.  Over and over and over.  And it's huge so I think I'm going to drop it down a few stitches (although doing that hasn't  worked all that well for me in the past).

And I completely forgot to return Knocked Up on my way home so I have to run back out.  That reminds me, I finally watched Snow Cake.  It's like I was saving it for a special occasion when I knew I could just sit down and watch it uninterrupted, without feeling the need to do something else with my hands.  It was certainly worth the weight - Alan Rickman is just dreamy and this was such a good role for him.  That reminds me, I have bunny ears on the television in my bedroom which also double as a picture frame and held a photo of Jake.  Yesterday I replaced it with the Rickman photo Kim included in that awesome Knitter's Hunk prize package.  ;-)

Underneath My Being is a Road That Disappeared*

Waking up this morning was a little weird - knowing I didn't have any plans and my phone wasn't, for sure, going to ring.

Speaking of that - you know, I called my mom twice yesterday and finally got a hold of my Dad.  They were helping my uncle move so they were busy but my Mom didn't call me at all today.  I finally called her after my brother called to talk about Christmas plans.  She hadn't mentioned the break up at all.  I was beginning to think maybe my dad had forgotten to tell her or something.  No, she'd gotten busy and Dad had said I was doing okay so - no call.   I know I'm not a sobbing mess but...I was just really surprised not to hear from her at all. 

Anyway, I've been thinking a lot about who I was with Jake - like, who I became and what I let go.  A lot.  I didn't mean to but I think I may do this in every relationship.  I'm like a shape shifter and I take on the appearance of my significant other.   I like what they like and end up doing what they do.  Yeah, I'm not going to do that anymore.  I'm going to reach back out to my friends - the few that I have - and remember what it was like to have friends and go out and have fun.  I became more of a homebody than I meant to.  I mean, sure, there's a certain amount of that that takes place but...too much of that took place for me. 

And I'll never date a non-drinker again...as odd as that rule sounds.   No non-drinkers or men who have no interest in having babies - merely in makin'  'em.

Blog etiquette: what do I do about the fact that several of my posts are grouped in a "jake" category there on the left?  Do I go back and change them all to merely "relationship" or do I leave it as it is?  I mean, I don't want to create a category by name for the next man I date and make my category cloud a running list or anything (I have my fingers crossed that , in the future, this will not be the case).  I think I'll proablby just go back and change them to relationships...or not.  I don't know.  What do you think? 

Anyway, I've been cleaning today.  I've really not been myself lately and my apartment was really showing it.  I even went so far as to clean out my bathroom medicine cabinet and closet - throwing away old make up and things.  It's not like I need to purge Jake from my apartment - he only has a few things here, books he'd loaned me - but I want to feel good again and opening a fridge that hadn't been cleaned out in an embarrassing length of time every day wasn't helping.   

I bought myself roses, too.  I wouldn't have done that normally (I don't even like roses) but they were on clearance at the grocery store for three dollars and who doesn't want to give pretty three dollar roses a home?  They burst open overnight and are now the size of the palm of my hand.  It's sad to think they won't be around by the weekend (that's one reason why I don't like roses) but for now they look good on my coffee table. 

I went to see Into the Wild Friday night and tomorrow I'm going to track down a photo of the crocheted toboggan that played a minor role.  I think it was actually made by someone with an online shop but I'd like to make one.  It's not an uncommon pattern - it's pretty much like the cap I made my dad on the way to Nashville only a little bigger and little longer.   Anyway, it's a great movie - much more uplifting than I'd expected but still a tremendous tearjerker.  I bought the soundtrack last night - all Eddie Vedder.  It's really good, too but only about thirty-three minutes long.  I have a lot of trouble buying a cd that short but I did it anyway.

I'm in the midst of Knocked Up right now.  Cute - and a big Freaks and Geeks reunion.  And working on the Noro Hat  for my dad for Christmas.  I love Saartje's patterns.  The wine cork gnome I made this summer was one of hers and I'm working on a pair of her booties right now for a baby shower next month.

Anyway, back to the movie and the Ben & Jerry's I didn't polish off last night....

Endnote: Hooray - it was cold enough to wear my Jayne hat when I carried out the trash this morning!

* From "Guaranteed" on the Into the Wild soundtrack

This Just In, My Friends

I can finally shed some light on my last entry - Jake and I just broke up.  It's good, though - I'm all right.  I mean, he didn't want to have children and I did so it was bound to happen eventually.   It took some thinking and things to get there but it's done.   

So now the odd and the sad is over - it's time to move back into the beautiful, right?

Odd and Beautiful and Sad

As I drove out to my parents' house earlier this evening, I spotted this rainbow and pulled over to take a quick photo.  It's not a great photograph - the sunset was strange, everything was oversaturated and bright - but I've got some personal things going on right now and seeing this made me cry.  I'm not sure why - I don't think it's because I'm sad.  Perhaps I felt something between the beauty of the rainbow (which was gone by the time I reached my parents' house) and the odd sky, something that's familiar to me right now.  Something odd and beautiful and sad.

It could also be the fever I think I might be developing...I don't know. 

Leaf Peeping: Everyone's Doing It

Cox Arboretum - Dayton, Ohio - October 21st, 2007

And a purposely over-saturated photo of me that I kind of like.   

DO NOT BUY THIS YARN

This is the Noro knock off by Debbie Bliss that JoAnn's is selling for $5.99 a skein.  There's even a thread on Ravelry about it.  Looks kind of nice, doesn't it?  It isn't.  I loved the redish brown tones and thought it would make a lovely ripple scarf for my granny (who isn't a red hat lady but loves every thing red and purple)...nope.  First of all, I couldn't get it to look right when crocheting with it at all.  So I started knitting a scarf like the one I made with the Misti Alpaca.  First I found out it gathers quite a bit but it wasn't too bad...until I got to a point where they knotted two pieces together: a red end and brown end so it immediately changed colors which looked pretty funny but it awful and I'd already knitted a couple of feet so I continued.  Today, the last day I'll ever knit with it, I found that it's actually just fibers wrapped around black core.  It had gathered to the point where there was more of the core yarn than the outside fibers so a quarter inch of the black stuck out. No more.  Anyway, I bought two skeins and am taking this one back.  I'm tempted to toss the one I started to knit with just so that I'll never use it again but I hate to just throw yarn out. 

Anyway, this is a perfect example of why Good Yarn is a bit more expensive.  I have two Christmas project in mind that require Noro and I'm not going to have any trouble what so ever shelling out twelve or thirteen bucks for a skein.

Some Times I Think I'm Crazy

I woke up on my couch at seven-thirty this morning (I often prefer sleeping on the couch), fresh from the most wonderful dream.  I crawled into bed and, luckily, managed to recapture some form of it, briefly, some time during the next two hours.  After getting up, eating breakfast, cleaning a bit and read a couple of chapters of The Gates of the Alamo, I curled up under my blanket with both cats and tried to get it back.  I only managed to take the same idea and twist it into something else that just wasn't as good.

So that's how I spent my morning  - trying to chase down the man who lived in my dreams in a house by the beach and ran a bird sanctuary out of his basement (?).  Because I fell so in love with this man - skinny and balding and so much taller than than me - who managed to court me in a dream that I'm sure that only lasted a few minutes.  I've honestly not been able to get him out of my mind all day. 

I'm pretty sure this means something and I think I know what that is.  And I guess I'm not really crazy - I'm just trying to straighten out my life. 

Beep's First Trip to a Yarn Shop

Meet Beep.  He's an UglyDoll.   

While in Destin, Beep and I took a stroll down Miracle Strip Parkway and came across the cutest little yarn shop called Unwind.

Beep's first trip to a yarn shop couldn't have been a better experience.  It was a beautiful place and the owner, Ellen, was absolutely wonderful.  I wish I could move her and her shop here (because I really don't like going to my LYS all that much - it's never a very warm experience).

I fell in love with the felted Noro bag with the big red dot.  And keep an eye on the scarf next to the pretty blue sweater. 

Her window displays were adorable, too. 

I also fell quite in love with these seventy-five dollar namaste leather bags.

If you look closely, you'll see the reflection of a striped bag in the window.  I managed to walk out with only three skeins of yarn.  Remember that scarf I said you should keep your eye on?  My mom admired it so I (pretty blatantly) bought a skein of the Misti Alpaca 100% baby alpaca it was made from (the pattern was conveniently free with purchase) to make her one for Christmas.  I admired the other colors but the color they had chosen to knit it in was really the prettiest.  Maybe by the time December 25th rolls around, she'll have forgotten....I love this yarn and I love this rib pattern.  It's so soft (I gave a piece to Jake while we were watching BSG the other night and he rubbed it between his fingers for several episodes) and the pattern is so easy but makes such a pretty scarf.  I'm definitely going to make one of these for myself as well. 

I also bought two skeins of Jojoland Melody sock yarn for my second pair of socks.  :-)

And that was our trip to Unwind, the sweet little yarn shop!  Later on you'll get to meet Beep's friend, Bop.  But that's for another day.

Besides finishing my sock, I managed to (finally) unpack and get things ready for the living room rearrangement tomorrow so right now I think I deserve some curled up in bed book time....

My Ninety-Nine Cent Thrift Store Find

It's Finished!

My first sock!  Pardon the L O U S Y photo but it is ten o'clock after all.  I finished it up with a shaky kitchener stitch just as House was ending (it was a tearjerker - and, Kim, doesn't the next episode look awesome?).  I know I should cast the second one on asap but I really want to finish my Hep Cat from the Doherty book (if I can remember where I left off on the his head).  But it will get done - I can't wait to wear my new socks!