I've been meme'd!

I'm so excited! It's my first Meme! From Erin!I hope I do it right!

Four Jobs You Have Had In Your Life:
1. Title Officer
2. Waitress (what a frickin’ disaster that was!)
3. College bookstore employee
4. Worked in my mom’s candy store many, many years ago

Four Movies You Could Watch Over and Over:
1. Truly, Madly, Deeply
2. When Harry Met Sally
3. Annie Hall
4. The Hudsucker Proxy

Four Places You Have Lived:
1. New Jersey
2. Philadelphia
3. Annandale-on-Hudson, NY
4. It's sad when I have way more TV shows to name than places I've lived!

Four TV Shows You Love To Watch:
1. Simpsons
2. Reno911
3. Amazing Race
4. Aqua Teen Hungerforce

Four Places You Have Been On Vacation:
1. Italy
2. England
3. Bermuda
4. Nashville/Memphis

Four Websites You Visit Daily:
1. Bloglines
2. Hotmail
3. ITunes
4. Charles Jones.com for work

Four Of Your Favorite Foods:
1. Brownies
2. Pizza
3. Lamb Chops
4. Creme Brulee

Four Places You Would Rather Be Right Now:
1. Sitting on the couch knitting
2. Sitting outside knitting
3. Shopping in a yarn store
4. Visiting my sister in FL!

Four Bloggers You Are Tagging:
1. Anyone who comes across this and feels like sharing, consider yourself tagged!

The Fun Fur Bandits and Company

I know I promised pictures from Saturday. So I've shamelessly swiped Tracy's because mine came out not so great. Here we are heckling either Emily's knitting dvd or an episode of Knitty Gritty.


More heckling... And laughing... And knitting...


Looks like Adam is shaking his head at us in disbelief like he often does. Oh those wacky knitters....

We snacked on antipasto, penne with vodka sauce, lasagna, salad, garlic bread, ok I guess that's not really a snack:)

That day was Chris's birthday and mine was Monday, so we were treated to cupcakes and other goodies for dessert. I look way too excited here.

But you know that Toilet Tunes Tracy. Couldn't leave the tricks at home so she had to get "trick sparkler" candles. But they kind of fizzled. Much like Toilet Tunes which we finally opened Saturday only to find a hunk of dried up "goo."

That's ok. The cupcakes were awesome and the company even better!

Happy Birthday to me!

Older and wiser? I think not.

I still have the same clueless look now that I had when I was six months old! Alas ignorance is bliss. And if the past 31 years have taught me anything it's that the things that are important in life are learned but not necessarily taught. I've learned to trust my gut. I've learned to value what I have each day and tell the people I love that I love them as much as possible. I've learned to sweat the small stuff but disregard the dumb numbers. Really, I have. And for that reason now if you'll excuse me I'm going to go finish celebrating the second anniversary of my 29th birthday....

Stick a fork in 'er. She's done.

Branching out is finished.

This was fun. Not that hard, I used up yarn from the stash. It definitely gave me more confident as far as lace patterns go, basically I learned hey, they take concentration. If I don't concentrate I mess up, that simple. Learning this I think my next lace project (which will feature actual lace-weight yarn) will probably be a summertime endeavor when my knitting episodes are less um, tv-oriented shall we say? (Hey Amazing Race and American Idol are both on right now. Good stuff!) But I am happy with this scarf. It's a little shorter than I imagined so it will probably wait and be more of a wintertime neck-warmer item than the springtime accessory I had hoped. Alas, I am still happy with it.

The Fun Fur Bandits, otherwise known as my bad not-so-secret pals who sent me the crappy gifts are coming over later today for a Knit-In. I know, can you believe I'm letting them in my house? We'll see, maybe I'll make them do the dishes...

Sigh....

I just love this yarn...

This is Bernat Satin and I surprise myself by waxing poetic about something that retails for $2.29 a ball but it really is just so wonderful... Just looking at it in this ball I wound, doesn't it just look like spun sugar? Or like a frosty pink cupcake you could just sink your teeth into? And the thing is, it feels that way too. It is so soft, but not like lofty cotton-y soft, this is like satiny knits-like-a-dream soft. Anyway, I'm using it to start a cardigan for my niece.

The color is 'Seashell.' Of course, what else could this yarn be destined to be but a sweet little sweater for a sweet little girl? I could never make myself anything out of it-for me it's actually too soft, it has no body, it just hangs and kind of squishes around. But for my niece...

Even the seed-stitch border I've barely started already looks so cute! Just one of those times where the yarn, the needles, the process everything just clicks.

In the meantime I have also finished the navy wool v-neck. Well, I've finished the knitting part, I just have to tack down one part of the neckband and block it. I just want to have the recipient try it on first. I know it kills the element of surprise, but I'd rather have someone have a sweater they like and are actually going to wear. And I've promised myself not to post it's picture until it's ultimately done because otherwise, I can be the type of person to have something sit around just because it's missing one little thing like that. But pics will follow, I promise.

One sleeve down one to go...

While lots of endless stockinette usually doesn't bother me, tonight as I'm about halfway down the second sleeve now, I can feel just a little hint of boredom, just a little bit. Thinking about my next big project, starting to look forward just a little to when this one will be over.

And you know I never knit alone. And I can't help but think my knitting companion is not that excited about this sweater either...

Muppet Test!

I wouldn't have picked Scooter, but now that I think of it, it kind of makes sense....

You Are Scooter

Brainy and knowledgable, you are the perfect sidekick. You're always willing to lend a helping hand. In any big event or party, you're the one who keeps things going. "15 seconds to showtime!"

The Muppet Personality Test

The Mosh Knit

Punk. Knitting. Podcast.

What else can I say?

I told you it's punk rock.

Worst Secret Pal contest

I suppose it started innocently enough. On the Secret Pal Seven home page Erin saw one day where the hostesses had posted about the Best Secret Pal Contest. She also noticed that someone had posted a mean comment asking if they could nominate someone for the Worst Secret Pal. Being the wonderful purveyors of etiquette that they are the hostesses wisely whisked the mean comment away and replaced it with something much, much nicer. (Note SP7 hostess Erin on that page should not be confused with our Erin.) So being the sarcastic, snarky Jersey girls we can be, Erin and Tracy and our friends and I one night at knitting had a way hilarious discussion of what could this poor soul have received in the mail that made them make that comment? Well, I laughed and laughed and innocently enough went home that night. Never really thinking much of the conversation again.

You know how it's just not a good thing to get drunk and pass out around your friends if there are magic markers laying around? Or when you were 12 and went to slumber parties maybe they froze your bra when you were sleeping? Yep, night after night I was just sleeping away...

Well, lets just say the week after that I missed that knitting group to go to the other group that I go to once a month. Although I'm sure I was in the girls thoughts. Because what happened?

Well remember the two great packages from my secret pal last weekend? Well guess which one is actually not from her?

Yup. That would be the big box of Fun Fur with the mixed tape that really looked a lot like it had just been found on the street somewhere. (The music on there is actually pretty decent, but really Erin did you find this in a motel???)

And moron me of course, did it ever occur to me that "Hey? One of these doesn't have any postage on it????'' Of course, nope!

Duh.

I began to realize something was up when I then got these crappy gifts in the mail from Tracy (another package mysteriously marked 'secret pal') yesterday.

Oh man! Where do you people shop? Let's start with the not so bad stuff. The box that says 100 cats is a box of crayons, presumably to go with the Hello Kitty Coloring book (gimmie a break, you know how old I'm turning my next birthday) and the not-so-bad post-its. Those things are like, ok well, whatever. Then we move on to the Smiley face hairbrush... The crappy yarn that looks like it's like 100 years old (boy I'm using the word crappy in this post a lot) and then the candy. French Chewy Taffy. MMM MMM! I guess I get that for my comments about candy abuse. Sigh...Then there's that round thing above the taffy. That's a pretty pretty mirror covered in smiley faces! (I can just see myself whipping this out of the briefcase in the middle of a meeting.) And of course, nothing, just nothing can avert your eyes from the worst thing in this package...

Toilet tunes.

Yes, somewhere in this godforsaken world a "toy" manufacturer actually came up with this horrible idea and went far enough to actually have the product made. According to the package, it appears to be some kind of 'toilet' filled with 'goop' that when you push on it makes disgusting bathroom noises.

What the hell????

What kind of store would sell such a thing? I really hope you had your pepper spray on you when you went in the store to buy this. Have you noticed it's still in the package? That's because I'm AFRAID of it. It's existence is just disturbing enough for me, I really don't need to know what it's like inside. Not yet anyway... Maybe when the night sweats go away...

Anyway, I would just like to note on the bright side my real secret pal has been an absolute gem about all this. Besides sending me the really good package the other day filled with things that I actually like I am also extremely thankful that she seems to see this humor in this whole charade. As for my Jersey knitter friends... Just wait- you know what they say about payback... There are Fun Fur accessories in your future....