Well I'm leaving for Disney tomorrow and I wasn't that pumped...
Until we took Kaitlyn to see Bolt today. It was very good and I recommend it. Also we saw it in 3 D which was awesome and I highly recommend that as well. When the movie started they do the Wish Upon a Star music and do the pan over the castle with the Walt Disney Logo. I leaned over to Kaitlyn and said "I'm going there tomorrow." Now I'm excited!

Then we played Rock Band. I played the guitar for the second time ever. As bass for the first time. I like the bass.

So remember that whole an hour a night thing I was doing reading the Twilight books?

That so went off the rails last night...

We got home from dinner last night around 8. I had gotten the next Avatar dvd that morning in my Netflix delivery, so we watched all four episodes. That put me at 10, an hour after my usual reading start time.

I started reading at ten... and didn't stop until I finished the book 768 pages later at 4 AM. Then I woke right back up at 6:30 and I'm still up, and not even really that tired. This is sooo going to kick my ass tomorrow.

Here's a question for you...
How can you tell if I am really into a movie?
-if if takes me til the second time seeing it to notice the handknits!

Amy and some of her friends and I went and saw Twilight yesterday. Loved it more the than the first time. My favorite characters (besides the obvious) are Jasper and Charlie. Charlie is such a great dad, and Jasper I just find delicious. He is much closer to the Edward in my head.

I finished Eclipse Thursday night. I went way past my hour allotment, by about 45 minutes. Then I read the whole thing though again yesterday morning, last night, and this morning. I can't wait to start Breaking Dawn this evening. Its about 700 pages, so that should just give me enough time to finish it with my hour rationing with two days to re-read it before I leave for vacation.

I let Jessie borrow my copy on Twilight and I am going to be honest with you when I say that it hurt me to see it go. But if she enjoys it, I will be ok. Even if she doesn't... I will be fine. At least I gave her the chance to see if she loved it. Not everyone does. I can only prozletize so much. ;-)

So Knitting!

I didn't work on the FLS at all yesterday. I am making mittens for Julian and I have been given a deadline of Sunday. I made them according to the pattern guidelines but they really don't look like they are going to fit. And I don't have him here to try them on. I guess I can only make them based on what the pattern says and the measurements I have taken of his hand.

I think I have finally got my FLS working ok. I am to the part right after you start the lace and divide for the sleeves. I did all that Thursday and Friday and I tried it on. Its a major pain to do because I have to slide all the stitches off and onto a piece of waste yarn. So I tried it on, and I wasn't happy with the way it fit. The sleeves are supposed to line up with the raglan increases but because of the alterations I have made to the pattern the arms looked poofy when I put it on. So I ripped back to the sleeve divide and took a few stitches off each side of each arm. Then I had to get everything back on the needles the right way which is really hard to do with lace... luckily this lace pattern is easy to figure out. But I always end up with the stitches backwards when I put the needles back in, which suuuuucks when you are trying to knit the next row. But I got everything back on and I am now at the part that I was at before I frogged back. Its all the four rows of the lace pattern til the very end. And the arms still...

I went and saw Twilight yesterday afternoon. I liked a lot. They changed some things and I am OK with what they did. My favorite lines were all there and everyone was perfect. Some parts were cheesy, but so was the book. I do love these books because they are good! I love them because of the emotional high they give me, and the movie delivered. I squealed and got all squiffy through the whole movie. But quietly. I get uncomfortable being demonstrative in movie theaters. I will definitely be seeing it again. My only disappointment was that Amy couldn't see it with me this time we tried very hard to make it work. We are going next week though. I went to the 4:25 show after work. I called her right after and gave her the full report. She got so excited about seeing it that she asked a friend to come watch her sleeping children and somehow snagged tickets for the 10 show at Tinseltown, which is about a 30 minute trip for her, if not more.

If that wasn't enough Twilight-y goodness for you! I also finished New Moon this morning. I was downstairs til about 11 last night and I knew I had about an hour of the book left to go. But reading it this morning threw off my whole schedule... I already had my dose of reading this morning... should I read again tonight?!?!? I think I am going to re-read the whole thing this weekend this morning before I start the next one anyway. I will get back on the schedule Monday for Eclipse.

As stated in my previous post I have gone coo coo.
The only thing different is that I haven't touched my moebius scarf since last week.
I have been obsessively knitting on the FLS. The secret is that the real reason that I am obsessively knitting on it is so I don't go and read more of my book.

I read Twilight twice over the weekend. From Friday evening to Sunday, right before bed, I read a 5 hundred page book twice! That also shows how much of an easy read it is. I started the second, New Moon, and I am limiting myself to an hour a night. And I think I am going to cut it down to 30 minutes a night. It is really like a drug for me. I read then I have a hard time falling asleep thinking about what I just read. When I stop reading I'm sad because I know its 23 hours until I can read some more. I have never rationed myself like this with a book. Parts of this had me sobbing! Pure crack!!

The FLS is almost to the end of the raglan increases. Once I get there I will be able to see if the sizing is right or if I need to frog and start over with more stitches. Fingers crossed. I was thinking earlier that I would like to see one in seed stitch. I do believe that I will try it on the FBS first to see how it looks.

I have a very big problem.
Usually I'm a very monogamous person. I think it comes from my ability to to be very focused. But now I have three things I want to be doing and I can't do them all at once!

On Thursday night I cast on for both my very own moebius scarf with the Silky Malabrigo I bought, AND for the February Lady Sweater. The silky malabrigo is absolutely wonderful. I love the colors and I love knitting with it. This is the third time I have made this pattern, so now its totally mindless. The FLS is pretty mindless too. Right now I'm about four inches into it, its all just garter stitch one row and garter stitch with increases on the second row.

Part of the problem is the silky malabrigo... Have you ever watched a show on DVD when you loved it so much you wanted to make it last so you tried to watch it like a real show- just one episode a week? Especially when its the only or last season? But you are dying to know what happens?
I want to wear this scarf so bad... but I don't want to ever stop working with the pretty colors and the nice nice yarn.

Fun fact about me- pretty much any yarn that is half silk half wool is going to make me happy. I can't get enough of that sheen!

I really really want to wear the FLS too. But I am committed to having a sweater that I am 100% happy with, so I know that I will probably be ripping back at some point, so I'm trying not to get too attached to what I have now. Once I hit the lace I think everything will be smooth sailing, but its really important to get the size right of the yoke right. I don't want to make a table with wobbly legs that is going to annoy me every time I use it just for the sake of making a table.

The third drain on my time is... reading Twilight.
There I said it! I'm so in love with this book. I know its terrible for me, complete brain fluff. Even more so than the trashy historical romances that I usually read, but I can't help it. I sit there reading, thinking about how stupid some of the things sound- and I don't care! I just get all caught up in the romance of it.

Its funny... I have never read a book that I wanted to savor. But this one I do. I stopped reading at a reasonable hour last night, when usually I want to stay up til I'm done. I think its because the chapters are nice and long and they stop at good points. I want to know what happens next, but there isn't a cliffhanger that needs to be answered. For all that I'm spoiled about what happens in the very end of the series (I read the wikipedia article when the last book came out) I have no idea about what happens in this book or in the other two.

Also I need to do a bunch of other things this weekend, like clean. I also want to see Quantum of Solace. But I am going to see HSM3 tonight for my cousin's birthday, and we are going to see Mamma Mia on Sunday at the Kentucky Center. I also want to put some cold air stopping plastic up on our front windows- them things is drafty. I think Chris is planning on going to see all three Back to the Futures tonight at Baxter. The first one starts at ten. I'm sorry but that is my bedtime. Ooo mental note, Paul Rudd on SNL tonight, must Tivo.

So me and the girls went to Lexington on Saturday for a yarn crawl. Loads of fun!

After our first aborted attempt to go to Rebelle a few weeks ago we were determined to let nothing stand in our way this time. I made sure that the Keeneland fall meet had ended. Thanks to a brainwave from Jessie we realized that UK had a game Saturday. We worked around it with a minimum of stress.

The first store we hit was Magpie. We figured we wouldn't be there as long as Rebelle so it worked out better to go there first because of the game end time.
I wasn't that happy with the store. It is a good yarn store, but not for me. She is definately trying to cover the market that is not being covered by ReBelle.
The main thing I didn't like about the store was the organization of the yarn. Everything was done by color and weight. It is really pretty and seems like a good idea but its really not. There was a lot of this by the three of us- "ooo this is pretty, I wonder if she has it in another color." Which led to a giant search to find all the colors. Stoopid. It reminded me of something in one of my favorite books, Scarlett. She is at her cousin's store and he has his gloves sorted by size, not color. Instead of all the black gloves being together, all the large gloves are together. Its hard to find two black gloves the same size in a bin of black gloves, but easy to find two black ones in a bin of larges. And she needed more shelves... we about tore the place apart pulling out our yarn.
I found some Louisa Harding Grace Hand dyed that I liked. It was 50 wool 50 silk like the Handmaiden I used for the Moebius scarf I made before. This yarn is also destined for a moebius scarf. I wanted something multicolored, but I settled for a kettle dyed looking blue.

Rebelle I kinda want to move into. They have tons of Cascade, which was the other item on my shopping list- for a February Lady Sweater. I saw a periwinkle that I just loved but I have already made two blue sweaters. So, after careful deliberation and holding of yarn up to my face we decided I should get green. Its lighter than the original green of the one on the pattern, but its also a different yarn... Its on the lighter side but not too light, but not emerald either. With Jessie to help with math skills I got all 7 balls they had.

I also found some Malabrigo 50 wool 50 silk, which was multi colored. It really pissed me off because it was just what I wanted for my Moebius but I had already bought the stuff at Magpie. Stupid Magpie!
But! Brilliant Jessie reminded me that Christmas is coming and I could make a present out of the Magpie yarn. Sooper. So I got the Malabrigo too. I cast on right away for the Christmas present scarf. I think this scarf and the other present I knit are the only ones I am going to make this year. I'm still on the fence about whether I'm going to make another Giant Doily for the Yankee Swap at Christmas.

I also got another magnet to match my sheep magnet at work. They are part of a set, the kinds of fibers to knit with. I've been kicking myself that I didn't get the bamboo one since last year. But I keep forgetting to bring it to work. I just love magnets. But really just the little ones that are supposed to be pins but have a magnet glued on the back instead of the pin part, or the glass dome kind. Not the ones that look like pineapples or tiny blenders.

I borrowed Holly's Magical Moebius book before to figure out how many stitches to cast on for the last moebius I made. I had a Tivo-ed episode of Knitty Gritty to teach me the cast-on, and the pattern I was going to us already in my head. I just needed to know if there was a trick about how many to cast on. I photocopied that section and gave the book back. So I went looking for it on Sunday so I could cast on. Ended up organizing all my patterns- put everything in clear pockets in a binder. But I couldn't find the sheet with the information I was looking for. I seemed to remember her talking about using a tape measure to find out the length you want, and using your stitches per inch to determine length. Which is standard practice... but I thought I recalled something about doubling your stitches to cast on, because of the wacky moebius shape. So I did all the maths and cast on and knit a row. Then I pulled all of them off with waste yarn- too big! So I scaled down a bit and tried again- still too big. Finally I talked to Holly on Monday and asked her to look at the book and tell me how many to cast-on. The book says nothing about doubling it! Just cast on the regular amount. The I realized that when she was talking about doubling it, she was refering to how when you cast on, you are casting on double because of the stitches on the top of the needle and the ones on the cord below- you only count the ones on the top. So now I'm a few rows in to it and I think I'm going to be happy with the length. The last scarf I made just about killed me, you have to stop and switch sides after just a few stitches. I kept wanting to just stop even though I knew I wouldn't be happy with the length. A moebius is different- by the time you get done with a row, its actually has two rows worth of width added- thanks to the power of the moebius. It does make it tricky when it comes to deciding if you have enough for another row before you cast off.

Seen this week-

Batesville Casket Company-
on the back of one of their semis
"Heaven Can Wait- please drive safe"

Seen last week in window of fancy condo downtown- all red Christmas tree- maybe election tree? Big RNC supporters?