Another weekend down

Seems like time is going so fast and then when you're waiting for something, it doesn't move at all!  I'm waiting to go to my dad's in four weeks and it seems like the time is dragging!  But then at the same time, the time is flying along and it's almost the end of February!  The weather here is balmy and gorgeous and the sun has been shining every day!  The cherry trees are in full bloom, the green mist is on it's way out on the trees, there are rose bushes and hydrangea everywhere you look.  Bummer that it's also the home of the 2010 winter olympics and I'm sure the outdoor athletes (skiing, boarding etc...) are cooking in their winter gear and wishing they brought their sunglasses and speedos!

I've dropped my Ravelympics knitting project (which is now going to be called my 'Commemorative Knitting Anniversary' project) in order to knit and design my very own Sock Monkey hat.  You see I bought a sock monkey hat downtown on Monday when Pat and I went to see the Olympic Hubub, and decided that I wanted to knit it and write the pattern for my friends who also wanted to knit it.  I had one massive fail of a start and now am well on my way with a good portion of hat done, including ear flaps!  I've sort of tossed it aside also, because I'm bored with it and instead picked up my RedTones Multnomah that I'm all of a sudden more interested in.  I have a bit of 'Knitting ADD' at the moment, but no big deal... I'll evenutally get far enough on any one of these projects that I'll want to just hunker down and finish... I suspect it will be either the Knitting Anniversary shawl, which actually has to be done by March 23, or the Multnomah, because it's mostly garter and I can take it places with me.
Today the Multnomah went to the mall and had a starbucks, and went to Mr. Lube and had an oil change!  Big day for the shawl!

Have also decided as of tomorrow when I send off my last package, that I am not swapping ANYMORE!  I will only be 'trading' with people I either know, or that I know through conversation on Ravelry, but no more of this 'thread swapping' baloney that only results in angst.  It never ceases to amaze me how many selfish people there are in the world and how much they think that everything is set up in order to be a charity for one...

This week I did have a very nice 'informal' swap with a new friend in California... And in that swap, were two (well more than two, but I'm only telling you about two) very amazing things.  One was a chocolate bacon bar!~  or a bacon chocolate bar... I don't know which way it's supposed to be said, but it was delish!  In my opinion it didn't taste enough like bacon... it was nice and salty and a nice dark chocolate, but I think it would have been nicer had it actually tasted (or even smelled, since smell is a big part of taste) like bacon!  I'm now thinking of going to the farm, getting our favorite organic farm fresh bacon, cooking it up and then coating it in chocolate to see what that tastes like... No kidding, it's pretty yummy!  The other amazing thing that I recieved in this package was a skein of o so beautiful hand dyed yarn.  It's called Wildfire Skies and it's gorgeous!  When I finish the three knitting angst pieces mentioned above, and perhaps finally finish the round shawl I've been working on since August (I'm just going to get to the next repeat in order to put the border on, throw the friggen border on and cast the MFer off!  So sick of knitting it, dying to see what it looks like finished!), then I'm going to take this very special skein of yarn and make something wonderful with it.  To me it looks like the perfect 'worn in' spring/fall colors.  I prefer skeins that aren't the really harsh jewel tones to knit with.  I love the look of them in the skein, all saturated and striking, but I find they're hard to make into something lovely.  This skein that my friend sent me has gorgeous saturated colors, but they're slightly muted in a way that makes me think of my favorite pair of jeans - oh who am I kidding, my favorite pair of Lululemon pants and a cozy sweater.

Speaking of food, since we were before the yarn talk... we had Chinese Family Dinner on Thursday in order to celebrate Chinese New Year.  And in that dinner I had something that I'd never tried before, which by now, is sort of hard to do because I've had a LOT of rather different things... such as chicken knees and jellyfish... So anyway, one of the dishes was warmed lettuce (love warm lettuce) with mushrooms, dried/rehydrated oysters (that was weird and not in a good way) and pig tongue.  Actually, it wasn't bad.  I only had one piece, because it was a bit over cooked, which made it sort of mushy for a meat item.  But the taste was fine and I would totally eat it again if presented with it.  The only thing I've ever turned down to try (well two things) was pork hock (because it's the actual foot sliced thin... bone?  No thanks!) and Goose webs, which are the feet of geese.  I guess you're supposed to stick the thing in your mouth and suck off the web part... I couldn't wouldn't won't... but tongue... not a big deal!

Okay.. time for bed.  I was planning on checking myself into the ER this afternoon due to my cramping, but ended up being able to cure myself with a concotion of advil, robax and my hotwater bottle and bed... I thought for sure that my uterus was going to come shooting out the small of my back and I nearly lost my footing in the mall a couple times as the pain came stabbing through my mid section and whisked my breath away... So I'm tired and a bit on shaky ground... hopefully it will be better tomorrow.... I see Dr. Ed on Friday, so I hope I live till then!

That's all
D

P.s.  I'll post pics of downtown adventures and knitting adventures tomorrow.