hold on, it's an FO!

two, count 'em, TWO posts in one day. this one is knitting related, so i kept it separate from the first.

i've decided to knit up some bookmarks for my book club, which i mentioned in my earlier post. i started up a feather and fan bookmark last week while i was moderating drama camp (which amounts to sitting around watching our counselors play games with the kids).

i used some beautiful fleece artist sea wool in coco raspberry to knit this up on the only set of size 3 needles i have. i received the yarn and the needles in a swap back in february. there's a pic of it back yonder somewhere.

i know i said i was going to learn socks, but after several aggravating attempts, i've decided that they are just not for me... at least not for right now. i need infinite amounts of patience for that, and during the school year i tend to use up more than my daily allotment of patience from 8am until 4pm.

so, the pretty pink fleece artist sea wool is now (well, ~20 yds of it anyway) a pretty bookmark ready for the loving hands of a fellow teacher! my mom really loves the way feather and fan knits up. hmm, possible future gifts for mom? hmm....

becoming a better blogger

it has come to my attention that i am a bad, naughty blogger. my apologies for being neglectful of my blog duties. i tend to A) forget that i have a blog and B) think that no one reads it anyway... well, clearly i am mistaken, at least on point B. i'll start taking a gingko biloba supplement for point A!

school's out for summer (insert 80s guitar solo here) so i am, contentedly, doing a lot of nothing. the end of the school year was a little chaotic - my teaching assignment for next year is just about completely different than anything i've done before. this is a good thing. a much needed thing. i get to play with the big kids now! 11th grade music and english, along with 7th grade and 8th grade choruses. the only thing i've done before? 7th grade chorus. eep! actually, that reminds me... i should start brushing up on my british lit!

i'm really quite excited about the change, actually. the last couple of years had started to become more than a little disheartening, feeling like i was heading towards bigger and better things only to end up teaching the same thing again. it's not that i didn't like what i was teaching, but i never intended to teach at a middle school level, so to be doing that for 5 years was, well, a bit too long. now i get to stretch my intellectual legs with british literature and music history, and i am thrilled. yay for finally feeling accomplished in my career!

~~note: if you are not a book geek, you can skip this paragraph~~
lately i've been reading quite a bit. i jumped in on a small book club with a few of my coworkers, which i think has been really great for my reading habits. i do love reading, i just hadn't felt motivated to really get into it in a while. we read life of pi by Yann Martel, which was a strange book. i did enjoy it a lot, but in the end, it's a head-scratcher. in a good way. then we read Cormac McCarthy's The Road which was just truly and utterly depressing. it's the only book i think i've ever read that i can only describe as "grey". our most recent read, which we're meeting for sometime in july (i think? i should email erin...) was written by Khaled Hosseini. he wrote The Kite Runner which I had read previously, and we chose another of his, A Thousand Splendid Suns. i read it in one day. i could NOT stop reading it. it was brutal at times, but his voice is truly intoxicating and it just draws you into his narratives. i can't wait for the meeting for this book! aside from the book club, i've also been reading the new David Sedaris and a book my mom got me for Christmas that's a new translation of the tale of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. it's a side-by-side text, Old English on the left, new verse on the right. i am enjoying it but i can't read a lot of it at once.

i celebrated the 4th of july in brooklyn, with Nick, my cousin Michael and a few of his friends. i have never seen the macy's fireworks anywhere except on TV... well, we watched them from Nick's roof in Brooklyn Heights! it was awesome. i'll leave this entry with a few of my better shots from the fireworks display... despite the rainy weather, the show was still amazing!

and i promise, i'll try to update again soon ;)

spring fling!

today marks my return from the senior trip to disneyworld. i don't remember my trip being quite so full of insanity, but it was fun to go along and see the kids have so much fun. and we had fun as chaperones too :)

however, i have bigger and better things to share, such as my fantastic package from my spring fling SP, Aitara! Gretchen, girl, you are AWESOME! i can't believe the stuff you sent me! thanks so much!



so, here's a rundown of all these great goodies!

edible yummies include a fantastic tin of green tea infused with coconut, lemongrass and ginger. the smell of this tea is enough to make me want to try some tonight! she also sent an extreme dark chocolate bar (mmm) and CHOCOLATE COVERED BLUEBERRIES! i haven't had these in SO long and i can't wait to indulge.

i got two books in my package... one is a billy crystal book that i'm really excited to read, i LOVE the guy, and the other looks like a blast of a book entitled "The Big Over Easy" (A Nursery Crime). i love this stuff. simply awesome.

she also included some gardening gloves, which is perfect because i think mom and i are going to start digging in the back yard next weekend! cleverly, she put a little manicure set in the package too, so i can keep my nails looking pretty even in the midst of gardening season.

the pup got a lobster squeaky toy (which he promptly claimed as his own and proudly marched down the stairs), and she even sent some cat toys for matt's kitty, leo! i can't wait to bring them up for him!

now, on to the knitting goodies... i gots some purdy yarn! Wildfoote Luxury Sock Yarn in a beautiful bright royal blue, Maizy (Crystal Palace Yarns) in the Neptune colorway, which is right up my alley. simply gorgeous, and a really cool corn fiber yarn to boot! and finally, some lovely Tatamy Tweed Worsted in Teal. i've been looking for the perfect yarn to make a cabled bag, and think the tweed will be fabulous for it! on top of the fantastic yarn, she included a little purple tape measure, some blocking pins, and some split ring markers as well.

i feel SO taken care of! and it was a great surprise to come home to this after spending the last 4 days running around like a lunatic in florida with 460 high school seniors!

THANKS GRETCHEN! You are an awesome pal! *hugs*

long day's journey

ah... at last, i am home and in my comfy chair.

it has been a slightly hectic week of vacation. only slightly because most of the craziness was self-induced and actually enjoyable.

easter was a lot of fun and extremely tasty. we had aunt celeste, uncle gary, uncle bill and grandma over for dinner. the guys actually managed to get my dad's ship together. he's had it for quite a few years now, a gift from my uncle JT, and just never got it back up and together. it looks great on top of the chest in the living room! i'll post pics of that when i remember to snap them. maybe later.

monday my parents and i headed over to a local nursery to get inspired for gardening. i brought my tiny cam and took some lovely pics while we were there. i'll post a few down below.

tuesday and wednesday were spent with the high school band kids on their first trip in 7 years or so. we went up to boston where they braved 35 degree weather in quincy market to play! they did well. and then they invaded the starbucks ;)

thursday i headed up to 'cuse to visit matt. well, i really wanted to visit his kitty, but we'll just say i wanted to visit matt. he's aware that i adore his kitty, possibly more than i adore him. ah, love. the drive there was awesome, no traffic at all actually. today was similar, except for a few thickheaded motorists who don't understand the idea of a PASSING lane.

now i'm home. back to the grind tomorrow, but i suppose with all the fun i had over vacation, i shouldn't complain.

i probably will though. ;)

and now, for some pretty flowies! happy spring!

inspirational things

it's getting to be that time of year when things are getting green again, and that always improves my mood tenfold. having daylight savings early is fantastic!

yesterday i played in the dirt in the back and front yards planting bulbs. we'll see if they decide to come out and play, as it's a little late in the season for them. mom and i have plans to go to the local nursery later this week for garden inspiration. since the major renovations last summer, we have a clean slate in both yards, and we're looking very much forward to getting to play with lots of new ideas.

while out looking for summery clothes (i'm chaperoning the senior trip to disneyworld in a month!), i wandered into pottery barn and found, on sale, a bright, cheery duvet! the perfect thing to spruce up my room for spring! it makes me happy. :)

and finally, for fun, a survey stolen from my friend suz's LJ...

Open up your iTunes and fill out the survey.

How many songs total: 1556

How many hours or days of music: 4.2 days

Most recently played: Matt's internet radio show!

Most played: Duncan Sheik - Longing Town

Most recently added: for some reason, there's nothing here...

Sort by song title:
First Song: Across the Universe (The Beatles)
Last Song: Your Redneck Past (Ben Folds Five)

Sort by time:
Shortest Song: Frog on my Toe (Tori Amos) 27 seconds
Longest Song: Miss Blue (Filter) 19 minutes

Sort by album:
First album: The All American Rejects (Self Titled)
Last album: Elliot Smith (XO)


Search the following and state how many songs come up:
Death - 0
Life - 20
Hate - 3
Love - 89 (wow!)
You - 148 (more wow!)
Sex - 4

i've got the VD!

i loved the snowflake swap so much that i jumped right in for the valentine's themed swap on knitty... i sent my secret pal a big box o' love last week that she really seemed to enjoy, so once she received mine, i just had to wait for mine to get to me!


THANK YOU to Sarah! she sent me a box full of pink fun goodies! my VD included two fantastic hand knit dishcloths in beautiful shades of pink with white, heart shaped peeps (tee hee!), reese's chocolate hearts, some wonderful tea, a pretty lip balm, heart shaped post-its, a heart shaped cookie cutter complete with recipe for mom's sugar cookies, a Yarn Harlot book "At Knit's End" which i thumbed through and giggled at last night, and last but NOT least some FANTASTICALLY FABULOUS sock yarn in a gorgeous pink colorway. with the DPNs she sent and the sock pattern, how can i NOT learn to knit socks?! i'm excited and terrified all at once.

thanks again to my VD SP! and special awesome props for it getting here RIGHT on V-Day, all the way from Canada!

Sarah, you rock!

insomnolence

Mondays, in general, are less than desirable. Today in particular was just plain awful. I spent most of yesterday on a sort of cleaning bender... I guess I got myself going full speed ahead, because by the time I decided I should probably go to bed, I was still wide awake. Got off the phone with the boy around 12:30. Tossed. Turned. Looked at the clock. 1:!5am... 2am... 2:45am... I think I passed out somewhere near 3:30am or so. Up at 6am for Monday.

There's nothing quite as wearisome as trudging through your day just knowing that you have so much more to do and zilch in the energy department. I don't know how I drove my car home.

Highlight of the day was my father banning me from the kitchen for clean-up because I couldn't operate the plastic wrap.



Do not operate heavy machinery. Or plastic wrap.