January Challenge- Complete!!

As I type, the lace nightmare is upstairs, blocked and drying. I had to switch gears and knit a different shawl than the one I had originally begun knitting. I started the new pattern on the 22nd. I DO NOT advise knitting lace against a tight deadline! I will still knit the other shawl, but it will have to be a two-month-long challenge. I know it can be knit in a full month.....I'd like to be able to take enough time to do it properly, though. I kept screwing it up. Might have something to do with chasing a very mobile, very fast, almost 9 month old baby around my non-baby-friendly house. Yeah, I guess I need to do more than sweep the cat fur from the living room floor and plug up the outlets. Maybe I'll work on baby-proofing and cleaning during the next two days during my knitting time-out. (I had to swear to my husband that I wouldn't knit for at least two days once the lace was finished. And after my 19 HOUR knitting marathon last night.....my fingers are super swollen. I should finish typing and go stick them in the snow.)

Sorry for the bad pictures. Blogger and I continue to have disagreements on how well my pics should load. (I believe they should look normal, and Blogger believes otherwise. Oh well. This is a free service, and I shouldn't complain!)

Pattern: Fir Cone Wrap by Wendy D Johnson

Yarn: Knit Picks Shadow in Lost Lake Heather (This was an old color that I bought a few years ago.)

Lessons Learned in January:

1. As stated above, don't knit lace against a tight deadline.

2. Don't give up.

3. Be open to change.

4. Keep going even when you think it's impossible.

5. I am married to the most understanding and supportive husband in the world. (Ok, Ok, so I already knew that, but I had to say it again!)

6. You can't add days to the month. (I tried to tell Jason that January might have to be extended to the 32nd or even 34th, but he wasn't buying that....)

7. Sometimes you have to stop and read a book. (I read The Beach Street Knitting Society and Yarn Club by Gil McNeil to break up the monotony of k8, k1, YO, k3, sk2p0, k3, YO, k1, YO, k3 and so on for 44,460 stitches, not counting all the stitches I had to rip back and re-knit. I do recommend this book.)

8. The dishes don't do themselves. Nor does the laundry wash, dry, fold, and put itself away. If only!

February challenge project to be announced soon.......

On the Wagon

I'm talking about the year-long-bloggable-project bandwagon.  Like cooking all of Julia's or Martha's recipes.  Or spending a year trying to find happiness.  Or cooking a $5 dinner every night for a family of four.   I read on the web or saw on the news a story about how the year-long project is the new thing to do.  All the cool kids are doing it....so then, what is my project?  Well, don't get too excited, folks.  I'm not out to change the world or get a book deal.  I just want to challenge my knitting skills.  That being said, I'm going to knit something new every month (knit it AND finish it).  And by new, I mean an item I've never knit before.

My first project is a lace shawl with a difficulty rating of experienced (which I'm not concerning lace).  I started it last week, and after casting on 624 stitches with lace-weight yarn and size 3 needles SIX TIMES, I am in the groove.  It's not so bad.  (And this is where the Knitting Goddess strikes me with a bolt of lightning...)  I promise pictures the next time I'm not blogging from Pixi because I have nooooo idea how to put pics on the blog from my phone.  That's way too advanced for me.

now, back to my knitting.  January will be over before I know it, and I've got a ways to go on my first year-long-bloggable-project project....

pixi dust

Hello, 2010! You've been good so far...Jonas took his first steps on his very first New Year Day.  We finally had a decent snowfall.  Jonas really enjoyed crawling in the snow.  (And then I realized that he's never even touched grass, yet!)  Last saturday, Jason & I finally upgraded cell phones. Yay!  I got a palm pixi.  And in case, you're wondering, I LOVE this phone!  I'm even blogging from it now.  Watch out world!  

Squeezing In Another Milestone Before 2010

So I walked into the nursery yesterday when Jonas was supposed to be napping. Instead I found him STANDING UP! When Jason came home from work, he had to lower the crib again. Now it's on the lowest setting- you know the one for when the crib is converted into a toddler bed? It's so far down, I won't be able to change the sheets anymore because I'm not tall enough. (Oh gee, guess Daddy will have to change the sheets now. Darn.) Just like when he learned to roll over, learned to crawl, and learned to sit up from laying down, now all he wants to do is stand. You know what this means, don't you? Walking. Unless he skips walking and goes straight to running.....

30? Really? When Did That Happen??

Last night (or early this morning, more truthfully), I was tossing and turning in bed as I do every night (or every early morning), and it hit me- I'm THIRTY. It's not like I just turned 30 like Jennifer and Michelle. No, I've been here since last June. I think what surprised me most about realizing that I'm 30 is that I have absolutely no recollection of ever imaging what thirty would be like. (You know how you picture what life will be like when you turn 16, 18, 21.....) For me, 30 feels like 20, except for the odd aches and pains, the popping and cracking, the heartburn and insomnia. Is 30 supposed to feel like 20? Will 40 feel like 30? If 30 doesn't feel like what I think 30 should feel like, I can't even imagine the feeling of an age like 80 (God willing)!

There is one age related thing that I have imagined and that's climbing Mt Kilimanjaro for my 40th birthday. Well.......I had decided to push that back to my 45th, so Jonas would be older and also so that if he has younger siblings, they'd also be old enough to go on the trip. And then I watched a program on PBS about the mountain, and let me tell you, that IMAX program lied about the difficulty of Kilimanjaro. So as I'm watching it, I'm starting to lose my interest in climbing to the top, and then the narrator says the magic phrase: active volcano. Oh, hell no. I'd rather go lie on a beach in the Turks & Caicos for both my 40th and 45th, thank you very much. (The program also made me sad because the narrator said that the glacier at the top might be melted away by 2016, which will be very detrimental to the people living in the shadow of Kilimanjaro.)

Merry Christmas!

Santa