Saturday, December 31, 2005

Happy New Year!

I don't get into making resolutions for the new year (never kept 'em....who does?!), but I've enjoyed reading them on other people's blogs.
Looking back, I've done a fair amount of knitting this past year, which surprises me because it didn't seem like I got very much accomplished (pat myself on back). I moved my office into my home (and am finally getting used to it); Brad started the year with health problems--kidney stones--and I'm wrapping up the year with health problems. Does that make us a well-rounded couple?.....

I haven't been knitting at all this week, just working and resting. And reading. I have a small stack of books to read, and that's good enough for me right now!

Here's wishing you a happy and healthy new year!!

Wednesday, December 28, 2005

Graves Disease

Yep, got the diagnosis. Basically, my thyroid is producing too much thyroid hormone, and I have to go on medication to regulate it. It's going to take a few weeks for the medication to take full effect, so wish my husband and clients and family luck dealing with me!

In other news, my knitting is collecting dust (among other things. I'm sooo tired all the time, no one is allowed in my gross house right now), but I'm contemplating buying more yarn. Ha! I'd like to get started on this sweater for myself, and I can get the yarn from WEBS for $40 off. Sigh.... Let's see how long I hold off, shall we??

Monday, December 26, 2005

Christmas


Here's the Christmas tree at my parents' house. Look at all the presents packed under there!


Ah, my photogenic husband


The family. Right to left: Brad's hand, my Dad, my Grandma, Lisa, and my sister Amy


This was Taffy's gift to me (Died in the Wool by Mary Kruger). She wrapped it herself, I was told


Our stockings filled to the brim with goodies


An Ipod for me!!! Yay!
Story time...I have been coveting one of these for a year or so now, and Brad surprised me with it. He bought me books, which I opened Christmas Eve morning (while thinking, WTF did I do to get three books for Christmas?? Even thought they're books I wanted, see above; plus Needled to Death and a guidebook for my PalmPilot) At my parent's house later that day, the last package I got was a hatbox with this baby in it plus some smokin' speakers from my folks. I was really bowled over because 1. He got me the 30 GB Ipod instead of the 4 GB one I had on my wishlist and 2. He got it directly from Apple, and they do free engraving. Mine says: Lori, my lovely wife, It's real love
(referencing our wedding song) All together now, aawwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww


A wafflemaker from my parents. Yes, I've already made waffles with it, and they were awesome!



A stained glass dish my sister Amy made for me. Isn't it the most precious thing?! It has a photo of Taffy with a wire halo on top, the panels on either side are wings, and the back panels say "Our" "Angel" "Taffy". She also gave me a container of cat grass to put in it.

Other gifts: from my parents...a calendar with photos of me (and the family) when I was little, a greeting card organizer, and ornaments; my sister Angela sent me a cool handpainted ornament and some yummy Key Lime Pie scented body wash, I got some gift cards (which I used to buy a car adapter for the Ipod), and my Grandma made us some of her oh-so-good fudge. I know I'm forgetting other stuff..I need to take a photo of everything before I start putting it away, or make a list for cryin' out loud. My memory sucks. I know this. And yet....I forget.
Edit: I remembered the others! My friend Sue gave me the Knitting Pattern-a-Day calendar and a charm bracelet (I believe they're called "Italian" charm bracelets?? The ones with the changeable links) with two charms: my birthstone, and a charm that says I love knitting (actually it has I with a heart and needles and string). Also, a client of mine gave me a wall plaque with the chinese symbol for Tranquility for my office, and a card to get a free bouquet of flowers each month for a year.

In knitting news:

Here is the hat I am making for Brad. I had to frog the original because I didn't like the way the decreases looked, so I found this pattern and am making it minus the stripes.


I am also working on this dog sweater from Puppy Knits, minus the pompoms.


Here it is on the needles. You can barely see the variegated yarn and the start of the center cables.



This is one.brave.cat!

I hope everyone out there in blogland had as wonderful a holiday as I did! I'd love to hear about yours!

Tuesday, December 20, 2005

Yesterday

So, I went for my thyroid scan yesterday. First of all, I'm not a morning person, and I had to be there at 8:00am to take a pill. I decided to get up just early enough to throw on clothes, tame my messy hair, and get over there.....so of course I had to get a hottie x-ray technician, right? Sigh. It was funny, though, because his name was Mustafa, and every time I heard him tell someone his name, I kept thinking of the Will Farrell character of the same name from the Austin Powers movies. Mustafa was one of Dr. Evil's henchmen, and his weakness was when he was interrogated, if he was asked the same question three times he had to answer.

I'm still trying to make hubby's hat. This is the first hat I've made, and I'm so confused! Sheesh, the first knitting project I made was a freakin' pair of socks, but I can't make one lousy hat. Hopefully I'll figure it out and get it done soon.

Tomorrow is house cleaning and cookie baking day. Still trying to figure out how to juggle those two--do one at a time, or alternate them (clean while a batch of cookies is baking)? I did get all the cutout cookies ready yesterday, 4 batches of them. It is sooo much easier to do a little at a time instead of trying to make the doughs, chill, cut them out, and bake them all in one day!

Friday, December 16, 2005

Checking In

Boy oh boy is life getting busy! Christmas is coming up so fast, I can't believe it's next Sunday. So, how busy is everyone else next week?? My week:
Saturday: work, bake a cake, run errands, wrap last gifts. Hubby has a thyroid test at the hospital (go figure...we both have thyroid problems at the same time)
Sunday: family get-together in McHenry
Monday: thyroid test at hospital, work
Tuesday, Thursday, Friday: work work work
Wednesday: bake cookies; clean house
Saturday: Christmas at my Mom's
Sunday and Monday: OFF. No plans. Woohoo!

I'm finally out of my knitting rut...I have eight rows of Creatures done, I'm halfway done with a hat for my hubby, and I'm getting ready to start on a sweater for my parent's dog Taz.

Photos coming soon of WIPs

Have a good weekend!

Saturday, December 10, 2005

I won something!

I heard about Blingo through another blog, Keeping Me in Stitches. I signed up, never expecting to ever win anything, because I never do win anything. But today I won my first something! A free movie ticket! Plus, since I joined as one of Natalie's "friends", she gets a free movie ticket, also. If you're interested in joining, click

Blingo

Blingo is a search engine, and every time you use them you have a chance to win a prize. They have a toolbar you can install to make it super easy to use them.

In knitting news, I decided to return the Flash yarn because, well, it sucks. It might be OK with the right pattern, but I'm tired of trying to use this yarn and want it gone. That's one of the things I love about Patternworks...they'll take back yarn, no questions asked. Now I just need to pick out something to exchange it for. Maybe some Koigu? Or some Lamb's Pride Worsted?? Choices, choices!

I'm going to start on the Creatures shawl again this weekend, I hope. My hands are feeling better, and I think I can work with those wee little needles again. This is the first time I've knitted with needles this small, can you tell?

Have a good weekend. If this doesn't post right, you might not hear from me for a while because I'll have thrown the computer out into the snow. :P

Thursday, December 08, 2005

This put a smile on my face

If you need a pick-me-up, bookmark this site. I was in such a crabby mood last night, but this had me laughing until I closed the page!!

Yay, photos!!

This is the kind of sweater I'm thinking of making with this yarn. Cute, huh?


Our Christmas tree, finally decorated. There's even a few presents under there!
Last year after the holidays my Mom gave me a bunch of ornaments she didn't want anymore (thanks Mom!) since our tree was practically bare and she had enough ornaments to cover three huge trees. Now I love our pretty tree, and the ornaments bring back so many memories. The ones *I* had bought over the past two years commemorate our new home, our wedding, our little furball, and places we've been to. Some of the "new" ornaments this year are ones my great-grandma had made 20+ years ago, old Hallmark ornaments, and just a bunch I remember putting on the tree year after year at home. Dontcha just love that kind of hand-me-down stuff, that brings you back to your childhood, especially at Christmas? That was always the best time of year for me as a kid. Waiting for Santa to deliver lots of presents (my parents spoiled us rotten at Christmas), and getting together with all our relatives.
You might notice there's no angel on top of the tree. Our tree slowly spins, and it's a bit crooked, so the angel just accentuated the crookedness. Plus it seemed every time I looked up at her, I was lookin' at her backside. Maybe I'll get a star for next year....


...and a cute kitty picture to finish up the post. How that is a good sleeping position, I'll never know...

Wednesday, December 07, 2005

I haven't knitted at all in days....but I'm working on making a pattern for the blue/purple yarn I have for my cousin Kate. The convertible vest I was going to make for her, well, she'd swim in the smallest size, so that won't do. I think I'm going to make a simple stockinette sweater with rolled hems, instead. I do want to make the Kimono Styled Sweater for her from KnitPicks, she would look so cute in it!

Well, I went to the endocrinologist's today. She needs to run more blood tests on me because apparently my thyroid level isn't terribly low, so she needs to figure out if this is a permanent or temporary condition (Halleluja, this may be temporary!). So I'm starting a med to help slow down my heart rate, and an anxiety med to take as-needed. I go back in a month for a check-up.

Christmas is only 18 days away! I only have three more people to buy gifts for, plus cat toys for Taffy. And soon it will be cookie baking time. Oh, I made cookie trays last weekend for my neighbors....the first ones weren't home, no biggie, left them on the front porch. The next ones were home and very thankful. The next one was home (I think) but didn't answer...he's weird anyways, so I didn't leave them. The last ones were home (I saw someone inside when I was at weird guy's house), but didn't answer the door; I left those at the front door, too.
Never again. I know they all loved the previous owners of our house, but come on!

Saturday, December 03, 2005

It's snowing!

The snow has been falling for about three hours now, and it looks so pretty outside. NOW it feels like Christmastime! I have most of my shopping done for the holidays, done completely online so far...no long lines in the store for me, thank you.

All I'm working on right now is Creatures, which is going very slowly. I can only seem to get a few rows done at a time, since I'm not used to working with such fine yarn; plus the end of this week was busy with clients, so my hands have been tired and hurting from all the work! (not complaining, just sayin') I think I'm going to start another sweater soon, plus as soon as I get the copy of Puppy Knits I ordered from Patternworks, I can get started on a sweater for Taz.

The endocrinologist's office finally called yesterday, and they can get me in on Wednesday! I didn't expect them to get me in that soon, but I am so relieved! Hopefully the snow won't be a problem, since it'll be a 45 minute drive to get there.

Last but not least, HP4 was sooooo good! I want to go and see it again already. The special effects are becoming more and more incredible with every movie they make, it's seamless.
If you get a chance, go and see it in the theater.

Thursday, December 01, 2005

Meme

I found this meme on MJ's blog. Here are my answers:

Have you ever...
1. smoked a cigar - no
2. crashed a friend’s car - no
3. stolen a car - no
4. been in love - yes (still am)
5. been dumped - yes (once)
6. dumped someone - yes (I was usually the dump-er)
7. taken shots of alcohol - no (I'm a mixed drink girl)
8. been fired – yes (it wasn't my fault...my boss was pressured by his landlord. Long story)
9. been in a fist fight - no
10. snuck out of a/your house - no (snuck INTO the house - yes)
11. had feelings for someone who didn’t have them back - yes (a few times)
12. been arrested - no
13. made out with a stranger - yes (no comment)
14. gone on a blind date - yes (twice. Met them through personal ads.)
15. lied to a friend - yes
16. had a crush on a teacher - yes (sigh. Mr. O'Neill and Mr. Nellessen, both math teachers)
17. seen someone die - no
18. been on a plane - yes
19. thrown up in a bar - no
20. miss someone right now - yes
21. laid on your back and watched cloud shapes go by - yes
22. made a snow angel - yes
23. played dress up - yes
24. cheated while playing a game - yes
25. been lonely - yes
26. fallen asleep at work/school - no
27. used a fake id - no
28. felt an earthquake - no
29. touched a snake - yes
30. run a red light - yes
31. had detention - no
32. been in a car accident - yes (twice, both my fault)
33. hated the way you look - yes
34. been lost - yes (too many times!)
35. been to the opposite side of the country - yes
36. felt like dying - yes
37. cried yourself to sleep - yes
38. played cops and robbers - no
39. karaoke - no
40. done something you told yourself you wouldn’t - yes (no comment)
41. laughed till some kind of beverage came out of your nose - no
42. caught a snowflake on your tongue - yes
43. kissed in the rain - no
44. sang in the shower - yes
45. made love in a park - no
46. had a dream that you married someone - yes
47. glued your hand to something - no (but a co-worker once got superglue in her eye, and not to brag but it was my quick thinking that helped keep her eye from sealing shut)
48. got your tongue stuck to a flag pole - no
49. worn the opposite sex’s clothes - yes (I snagged one of my husband's shirts, I wear it all the time; I have a pair of socks from an old boyfriend)
50. been a cheerleader – no (not in the literal sense; I signed up my freshman year of high school, but chickened out because I thought I was too fat)
51. sat on a roof top - no
52. talked on the phone all night - yes
53. ever too scared to watch scary movies alone – yes
54. played chicken fight - yes
55. been pushed into a pool with all your clothes on - no
56. been told you’re hot by a complete stranger - yes (a long time ago)
57. broken a bone - no
58. dipped snuff - no (I don't even know what that means!)
59. lived overseas - no (but want to go there once before I die)
60. ever passed out/fainted - no
61. blown bubbles in the wintertime - no

and here's one I added:
62. dreamt you were pregnant - yes