In which I feel fortunate to have had a very busy week ...

Hi y'all! Wow, I fell like I took an extended break and it's only been FOUR DAYS since I last blogged. (That feels a lot like what you might say in confession, doesn't it?)

Its been a pretty busy week for me. I've been knitting (Christmas stuff, of course, and the stray baby antennae hat!) but I've also been working a lot, trying to get my annual agenda together and catching up on all of the stuff that was cast aside so I could hurry up and get on out of the office for the holidays. Now that we're back in the swing of things I'm finally knitting something for myself! Yay!



This is the Lace Ribbon Scarf by Veronik Avery. The yarn is a fingering weight from Farmhouse Yarns called Bo Peep's Not Just For Socks, it's a wool/nylon blend. The best part, though, is the colorway. It's a fantastic mix of adobe/turquoise called Sedona.





It's already twice as long as the part you see here. Lace knitting is still totally new to me, so it's challenging, but I'm enjoying it. It's kind of addictive, really, though very slow going. I'm going to pick out one more lace project to do before I start on the February Lady Sweater. I really need to make a pair of flip-top mittens for myself, first, and then one for my sister in law. Oy.

I'm also in the midst of a simply watchcap for one of my half-dozen or so BILs. It's just 2 by 2 ribbing in a chunky weight yarn. Nothing interesting...



The highlight of this week, though, was a little fieldtrip I took through downtown on Wednesday. I took my camera with me on my lunch hour, and just strolled, took pictures, and contemplated...



I saw a guy filling holes in a historic building...



I saw a busy street that made downtown Dallas seem like a real city landscape...



And a busy DART station, too ...



And I hung around the neat architecture of Thanksgiving Square ...



And its very cool water features ...



At which I met a very curious pigeon ...



Who thought the water feature was pretty cool, too ...



And then we both looked up at Thanksgiving Chapel, which has one of the coolest stained glass windows on the planet ...



And surrounding the chapel are some old water features that have some neat texture ...





And a mosaic by Norman Rockwell ...



It's a good place to sit and contemplate, like this guy did ...



And watch the Akard DART Rail station ...



Or spy the historic structures that seem buried beneath the towering facades of modernity ...



And walking back from my field trip, some guys asked me to take their portrait, and I obliged ...



And I began to think about how old buildings can really talk, and they aren't too hung up on appearances ...



And how "modern" in the '60s is still in some ways considered "modern" today, though our conceptions of "modern" have obviously changed since then ...



But night after night, the globe of Reunion Tower lights up and shines patterns and signals to the Dallas landscape, even when a few bulbs are burnt out, but in the daylight it's all beautiful...



And sometimes you have to get outside of your comfort zone to find some truly amazing people, like this guy. I think his name was Randy. He has some kind of crippling disorder that keeps one of his legs from working and one of his hands from opening, and yet he kicked his wheelchair across an intersection to approach me while I was shooting.

"May I introduce myself?"
"Sure." I said.
"My name is [Randy]."
"Nice to meet you."
"May I pay you a compliment?"
"Depends on what my husband would think."
"Oh, I just wanted to tell you that I think you are exceptionally beautiful."
"Wow, why thank you, Randy. It was really nice to meet you."

And all this happened in a city I have yet to underestimate.

A wee one

So, my neighbors, who now know what happend that night this past summer, are about to have their first baby (isn't everyone?). Art and Lauren are fabulous, and we like them a ton, so I decided to knit them a quick baby hat last night.



Basic 2x2 rib baby hat in Bernat Softee Chunky. I added two little antennae just for kicks!

Getting there, going back

I hate turnaround trips. You really have to love someone to make a turnaround trip. I left Dallas at just after 8 a.m. on Saturday and arrived at my sister's salon just after 11:30 a.m. And then, on Sunday at 5:30 p.m., I did it again. Ugh.

I love my family a lot. In fact, I love them enough to not only make that turnaround trip, but to lose sleep in order to spend as much time with that lovable crowd as possible. Most notably, though, my brother-in-law's mother was in town. I totally love her, and I had to see her before she left for SCOTLAND, so the trip was completely reasonable when compared with her flight over the Atlantic. But you know what a bummer is, the fact that we didn't get a picture together! DAMMIT!

So, I'm driving from Dallas to Houston in the a.m., which I think is the perfect time to be on the road. The sun is still low and so is the traffic. Anyway, I think I've described this drive before, and this one wasn't much different, though, the reward of McKenzie's Barbecue wasn't the light at the end of the tunnel. But what I did notice, as I passed through long stretches of pastures populated only by cows and the occasional gas station, were these amazing trees. During the spring, the last time I made this trip in the full-fledged daylight, you couldn't tell, but they are the kind of trees that you see on the cover of young-adult thrillers: thick trunks that all the sudden split into the most amazing, complex structures. Full of crooks, twists, turns and tapering out into delicate webs. I wished so bad that I wasn't in a hurry, that I could stop on the side of the road and take a few shots.

I only stopped once on my way down, and that was in Fairfield. The entire service station smelled like urine, so I didn't hang around to stretch my legs.

I finally arrived at the salon, got my hair cut, and we picked up some lunch at a nearby deli. We went over to my sister's house, which has been a big labor of love for her and her boyfriend. They've put so much sweat and tears (didn't ask about blood!) and it is starting to really take shape! While we were there, I took a few shots:





And then I headed over to my other sister's house to visit with my niece and my BIL's mom (who is awesome!!!!). There, I took even more photos:



"Wow! Auntie Jo is so cool with that camera! I want to be like her someday!"



"This bottle is sooooo good, but I'm watching my waist, so I'll puke up some of it later."

My BIL has the most awesome salt water tank. It's great picture fodder! And, boy, are his fish grumpy!









And my BIL's mom showed me the most awesome knitted blanket I've ever seen:



Seriously, guys, that's a lot of lace.



So much detail!



I can't believe that this thing is all handknitted! So many awesomely executed k3togs, and that's just an unbelievable number of stitches!

So, we went back to my other sister's house and she said that Dorothy had brought a few holiday treats for us all:



Mince pies and Christmas pudding

And then we took silly portraits of one another, and of the bell pepper-shaped cookie jar that needed a brownie:



And of a cool glass that my grand mother made. She would pick up wine bottles off the side of the road and cut off the tops:



And then we decided to have banana splits for dinner and watch "The Dark Knight," which I highly recommend. SO AWESOME! At first, I didn't think I would like Heath Ledger as the joker, but it was fabulous. Too bad about him. Fine actor.

I went to bed early, and woke up the next morning a little later than I would like. I made coffee, drank it up quickly and wrote a few things down in my Moleskine:

1/04/2009, 11 a.m.

I was just thinking over a conversation I had with my sister about her new digital camera. She rarely used a 35mm SLR, and most likely never had a chance to really learn about film.

So we were talking about her new DSLR, and she asked me about what, exactly, ISO is, and what does it do? On the inside, I laughed a little. We've so embraced technology when it comes to photography, and yet, the business of pictures is still spoken in the language of film.

I got dressed in a hurry and headed over to my parents place. Now, on my way down to Houston, I called my mom to tell her I was on my way, and she said she had news for me:

"You know what happened this week?" she asked.
"What?"
"I got my first deer!"
"That's fantastic!"
"You know what happened after that?"
"WHAT?!"
"I got my second!"

So, my mom got 2 deer this season, and so did my father, and my brother got one. That's so much meat that they had to run out and get a chest freezer!

So, I arrive at my parents' house, and my dad is in good spirits and my mom is processing deer in the kitchen sink.





And my dad says that, come to think of it, I look a lot like my great-grandmother now that I'm older and wiser. I'm cool with that, mostly because she was good lookin'.



So, we eat some ham with warm mustard (awesome!) and everyone sort of converges on my parents' house and we hang out, and I go outside to take pictures of random things:


The rusty door of the barbecue pit.


The misplaced lawn toilet.


Some old trailer tires.


Some wildflowers.


Some weeds.


Some veggies in their garden.


And a huge aloe plant.

And then, I packed up the car and turned around. It was a long, lonely trip back. I miss them all already.

Big Bang Before and After

Here I am right about to go to the shampoo bowl...



And here I am, after, with winning bang-style No. 2!



More on my weekend in Houston later!

Good things come...

... eventually. (I bet you thought I was going to finish that with "...to those who wait," but if I had a choice in the matter, fuck all that waiting!)

You'd never guess what came by truck today...



Yes, ladies and gents, that's the long-awaited Canon 40D with a 17-85mm IS USM lens.

Can you tell I am excited? How about I show you how excited I was. I was so excited that the moment I got the battery charged and the system unpacked, I started shooting like crazy and no one was immune.







(Good thing I live in a house full of photogenic creatures, no?)







So, what do you think?

P.S. I'm still fucking pissed at the UPS guy. When he dropped the camera off at around 6:45 p.m. (I'd been waiting since Wednesday) he had the gall to say "You know, I came by on Wednesday." No, really, fucktard? You came by on Wednesday, but you couldn't figure out where our fucking front door is? Moron.

Looking back, stepping forward

In the tradition of New Years Guilt, I present to you my unfulfilled resolutions, just like last year.

In 2008 I was to:

1) Stay in bikini shape and make more trips to the beach this summer to motivate me.

I got into a bathing suit, like, once this summer, at my cousins house for a pool party. Didn't make it to the beach once. I also kind of slacked off from the gym this year, taking breaks from my workout routine for weeks at a time. This a bikini bod does not make.

2) Take my inversions off of the wall. (eek!)

I got pretty close, I think, to doing this.





It's a process in yoga, and I want to really keep up at this, and really concentrate on my practice.

3) Run the 5k Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving.

Uh... Moving on...

4) Keep up with my knitting.

Yes, yes I did keep up with my knitting. thanks for asking! I knit a lot this year, making a total of four pairs of socks, numerous pairs of mittens and a couple of really cool hats. I even made some washcloths for my sister's baby shower.

Check out my FOs (that's Finished Objects for the non-knitters among us) in my Flickr Knitting! set. (I really should be knitting right now... )

And, last but not least...

5) Make a genuine effort to simplify and organize.

I mentioned that this was my No. 5 goal to Dave and he said, "Well, I tried to help get you organized, like I told you to go through the file cabinet and all those boxes from when we moved that are still in the closet, but noooooooooooo..."

So, it appears that I didn't totally simplify and get organized, but hey, I did make a genuine effort by going through a few boxes and getting a closet organizer from IKEA. I even donated a ton of my clothes and refashioned others. It's a wash in my book, but it will definitely stay on my 2009 list, which, without further ado...

In 2009 I will:

1) Go to the gym more regularly and take charge of my eating habits. And I should probably get my boozing under control. I drink a lot of beer and eat a lot of carbs. Hard to get lean when you're drinking all of your calories and washing that down with cheese and crackers.

2) Keep working on my yoga practice. I think that continuing to be conscious of myself in my practice and learning how to better achieve optimal alignment will help with my inversions.

3) Keep knitting and finish at least two sweaters this year. Top two on my ravelry queue are the February Lady sweater and the Shalom cardigan.

4) Make an even more genuine effort at reducing our clutter and getting things organized. I think that since we're redoing the office right now, that might actually be in the cards this year. Our storage closets really need a good go-through, and I might just get motivated to install more organizers!

Wish me luck in 2009!

P.S. effing UPS guy never came. Don't know what I'm going to do about that... :(

P.P.S. Hope you ate your Hop-n-John and cabbage!