HSKS8: Summer Camp and first activity!

So, I'm back participating in the latest and greatest HSKS event - Summer Camp! Check out the official blog for details. Here's my first activity:
Three truths and a lie - can you spot the lie?
1. I have two brothers.
2. I play three musical instruments.
3. I speak four languages.
4 I have five binfuls of yarn stash!

Looking forward to a fun summer!

39 things

So, I've been dinged with this, like, 900 times on Facebook. But I'm going to respond here because about 200 people too many will actually see it on FB. And, well...no one reads this, really.

39 odd things...

39 ODD Things about you!

1. Do you like blue cheese? Yup.
2. Have you ever been drunk? Yup.
3. Do you own a gun? Never in a zillion years...
4. What flavor of Kool Aid was your favorite? Grape
5. What do you think of hot dogs? Burn mine over charcoal, please. Unless it's 2 in the morning and I'm drunk, then it doesn't even really have to be cooked, just hot.
6. Favorite Christmas movie? Christmas Vacation
7. What do you prefer to drink in the morning? Coffee
8. Can you do push ups? I sure do try. My goal is 30 man pushups in a row by end of 2009.
9. What's your favorite piece of jewelry? Jade heart necklace
10. Favorite hobby? Knitting
11. Do you have A.D.D.? Good lord, yes.
12. What's your favorite shoe? Don't really have one - comfy ones are best.
13. Middle name? Ann
14. Name 3 thoughts at this exact moment? I should be working more. I'm kinda hungry. I should really take a shower.
15. Name 3 drinks you regularly drink? Coffee, tea, red wine
16. Current worry? Work stuff
17. Current hate right now? Nothing springs to mind
18. How did you bring in the New Year? I fell asleep on the couch at 11:15. Sad.
19. Where would you like to go? Someplace warm.
20. Name three people who will complete this? no one, his brother, and his mom.
21. Do you own slippers? I do and I wear them almost every day.
22. What color shirt are you wearing right now? Grey
23. Do you like sleeping on satin sheets? Eww.
24. Can you whistle? Yes
25. Favorite color? Green
28. Would you be a pirate? Nope
26. What songs do you sing in the shower? I don't usually sing in the shower. Everywhere else, but not in the shower.
27. Favorite girl's Name? Elizabeth
28. Favorite boy's name? Charlie
29. What's in your pocket right now? $17. Lint. A paper clip.
30. Last thing that made you laugh? My mom.
31. Best bed sheets as a child? Peanuts
32. Worst injury you've ever had as a child? I ran into a wall (?!) and took a huge chunk out of my forehead.
33. Who is your loudest friend? It's a tie between Mel and Shan, but only after we've had a drink or three
34. How many dogs do you have? 0
35. Does someone have a crush on you? I'm quite certain that's not the case.
36. What is your favorite book? The Great Gatsby
37. What is your favorite candy? Skor bars
38. Favorite Sports Team? The Philadelphia Eagles
39. What song do you want played at your funeral? Broke-down Palace by the Grateful Dead

So much for that...

I thought I'd really blog more in 2009, but I'm not off to a very good start. Here's some randomness:

Your rainbow is shaded indigo.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What is says about you: You are a proud person. You appreciate cities, technology, and other great things people have created. Friends count on you for being honest and insightful.

Find the colors of your rainbow at spacefem.com.

Whatever that means.

Rockin' Sock Club 2009

So, I've always wanted to get in on this and this year, I have...

Evidently, you pay your $$$, and every once in awhile, you get a box filled with sock yarn and a pattern. And there's a pretty chatty blog/website you can post on and meet folks, too. Box should get here early next week (maybe on Tuesday for my birthday?), will post pics of what I get.

I haven't been knitting much since I finished my Christmas stuff, I need to get back in the swing. I have, however, been listening to the news 24-7 and am pretty pleased with the goings-down of this week. I'm hopeful, and willing to be (a little) patient.

Because I have no pics to post, here's some random thoughts...

1. I've been going to the chiropractor (4 times so far), and today I actually think I'm feeling it. Yay to not being in pain!

2. Also been going to the gym a lot and working with Liz the Wonder-Trainer. So that's good.

3. I wish I had someone who's job was to make me breakfast. Srsly, they came in for, like, 30 minutes, put the coffee on and whipped up a little something and left. That'd be so rad. As it is now, I hem and haw about what to have for breakfast and the next thing you know, it's time for lunch and I'm starving.

4. Snooty, condescending people at work get on my nerves.

5. I might go to England in March! I really hope that works out. Need to get with Cam, make plans.

6. Need to decide if I'm doing the HSKS swap again - sign-ups are tomorrow.

And there you have it. Oh, and today is my Ma's birthday, so happy birthday, Ma! Have a good one!

Happy 2009!

So, I really don't make New Year's resolutions, but one thing I am going to try for is to blog more. We'll see if I have more of a history of 2009 at the end of the year than I did with 2008.

Here's a great thing I stole from my friend, Mary.
1) Look at the list and italicize those you have already read.
2) Bold those you intend to read.
3) Place ** after the books you LOVE.
4) Post your list so we can try and track down these people who’ve only read 6 and force books upon them.
(Mary searched for books that are available on LibriVox and have linked them. There are a few Wikipedia links, too0

1. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen librivox link
2. The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte librivox link
4. Harry Potter series - JK Rowling **
5. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee**
6. The Bible (Can't really say I've read the whole thing.)
7. Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte librivox link
8. Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9. His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10. Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11. Little Women - Louisa M Alcott LibriVox
12. Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13. Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14. Complete Works of Shakespeare librivox links
15. Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16. The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17. Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18. Catcher in the Rye - J D Salinger
19. The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20. Middlemarch** - George Eliot librivox link
21. Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22. The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald** (In fact, favorite book of all time.)
23. Bleak House** - Charles Dickens librivox link
24. War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy librivox links
25. The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26. Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27. Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky libriVox
28. Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29. Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll libriVox
30. The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy librivox link
32. David Copperfield - Charles Dickens LibriVox
33. Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34. Emma - Jane Austen librivox link
35. Persuasion - Jane Austen
36. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37. The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres (Really?)
39. Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40. Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41. Animal Farm - George Orwell
42. The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown (Again, really?)
43. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44. A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45. The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46. Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery librivox link
47. Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48. The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49. Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50. Atonement - Ian McEwan
51. Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52. Dune - Frank Herbert
53. Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54. Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen LibriVox
55. A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56. The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57. A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58. Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60. Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61. Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63. The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64. The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65. Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas librivox link
66. On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67. Jude the Obscure** - Thomas Hardy
68. Bridget Jones’ Diary - Helen Fielding (One more time, really?)
69. Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70. Moby Dick - Herman Melville LibriVox
71. Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens librivox link
72. Dracula - Bram Stoker LibriVox
73. The Secret Garden** - Frances Hodgson Burnett (thanks to librivox & kayray)
74. Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75. Ulysses - James Joyce LibriVox
76. The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77. Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78. Germinal - Emile Zola
79. Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80. Possession** - AS Byatt
81. A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens LibriVox
82. Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83. The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84. The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85. Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert librivox link
86. A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87. Charlotte’s Web - EB White
88. The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle LibriVox
90. The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91. Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92. The Little Prince** - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93. The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94. Watership Down - Richard Adams
95. A Confederacy of Dunces** - John Kennedy Toole
96. A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97. The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas LibriVox
98. Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100. Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

So, I've read a lot, but I see a few I should add to my list. Greg got me an awesome thing for Christmas, and with it came 100 free "classics" (not sure I agree with every title being called a classic, but they're free so I won't split hairs). I'll just have to decide where to start. Happy reading in 2009!

The only knitter in the NYC area...

...who DIDN'T go to Rhinebeck, evidently. Boo. Because I was feeling sorry for myself, I started a new sweater in some super-cool yarn:


Pattern: Tangled Yoke Cardigan by Eunny Jang (from Interweave Fall 2007)
Yarn: Rowan Felted Tweed in the "Watery" colorway
Needles: circs in US5, 4 and 0 (I think) and a set of US5 DPNs

Have a long way to go, but it made me feel better. Also bought a great pattern to start on some hats for brothers and husband for Christmas - now need to get some fiber to make them! If you went to Rhinebeck, hope you had a great time - but we had fun here in Hoboken, too!

Hoboken

No time for blogging since we've moved...had tons of travel both for work AND play (Florida, Colorado, Nebraska, back to Florida), and am finally settling in. Been doing a smidge of knitting, nothing picture-worthy yet (surprising, what with all the time on planes and stuff) but have tons of beautiful new yarn and lots of ideas to work with.

In the meantime, I'll leave you with the view along the running path from this side of the Hudson:

It's me who's crooked, not New York City, just in case you were wondering.