Finished objects

I love to knit. It's definitely evolved from hobby to obsession. I've really been knitting a lot lately, though a lot of it has been because I was on a deadline. I often knit for other people and I often forget to take pictures of my finished objects before I give them away. I need to get better at taking pictures of them because I put a lot of time into my projects and I'd like to have pictures of them.

My mom and my aunty recently went to Alaska and my mother requested these scarves after she saw me knitting this one during Thanksgiving. I knit the two of them hats when they went to Vegas one winter and my aunty wanted her scarf to match her hat. Her hat was grey so the black/grey/white one is her's and was done out of di.ve yarn. My mom's hat was purpley-pink but she didn't care about matching her hat. She just wanted it pink. The pink one was made with a Debbie Bliss yarn that I think was an alpaca/silk blend. The yarn was really nice to work with, felt great through my fingers, and was delightfully springy. Oh, and the pink scarf was the scarf that M*Bark attacked.

I also finished Lance's socks! Poor guy's been waiting for these socks since August 2006, when he picked out the yarn when we went to Seattle. These socks were such a pain but I don't know why they were so difficult. They weren't any different from the other socks that I have knit but they were the most painful socks ever. I frogged the first one twice and had to rip out parts of it to get it right. All was well after that and I was almost done with the second half of the pair when I started celebrating prematurely. Of course I was punished for being cocky and screwed up. Thankfully I was able to correct my mistake without having to rip out too much, but I tread carefully after that. These socks have been on my needles for so long and they kept being pushed on the side when I had to knit other stuff for other people. I did knit Lance a pair of clogs while he waited for his socks, though. After all the trouble that these socks caused, I totally love the way they finally turned out. I knit them on size 1 needles and I love how tight the stitches are. They fit the best out of all the other socks and they fit both Lance and I perfectly. In fact, these are Lance's socks, but this picture was taken with them on my feet. Although Lance tried them on and let me take a picture of them, he got suspicious (though rightfully so) and grouchy about his feet ending up on my blog.

Renovation Update #4

Spring break is here but it has been a little bit less than restful. Granted, any day not actually at work is bloody fantastic. Anyway, we've been working a lot on our house this break and it occurred to me that although I intended to post a renovation update and never actually did post one. Anyway, from our last update, Lance and I finished the floor in the entryway and laundry room and painted the laundry room yellow. It took longer than expected to paint because we had to also paint the shoe shelf as well. The shelf was previously grey and even though we primed it, it took a few coats for the yellow to really come through. The whole area looks great and I'm starting to feel really great about our house. The best part of it is that the disgusting black plastic is gone and we have a proper entryway. I hated greeting people on the plastic.

We also got new furniture from Inspiration during the big New Year's sale. One of the things that we purchased was a really cool futon couch. The back folds down into a bed and the sides fold up to make a pillow. With the new furniture, we rearranged our living room and now we have a nice seating area for people to converse should we ever get around to having people over. This picture doesn't show it, but we also got rid of the dark curtains covering the patio door and the horrendous curtains covering the picture window. We put up horizontal blinds over the picture window and vertical blinds over the patio door. The whole room looks a lot better and and I love the view, especially if the blinds are already open when I first enter the house.

In addition to our couch, we also bought a new bed and dresser for our bedroom. I love the new bed. It's low enough that when I get up, all I have to do is put my feet on the floor and stand up instead of sliding off, which is what I had to do with our other bed. It also have a nice headboard so sitting up in bed is a lot more comfy. The new bed and dresser also makes our room look cozier, which is good because our master bedroom is fairly large. Oh, and my piano was delivered! I love having the opportunity to play again.

We made a lot of progress on the house during this break, but it's not done yet and I don't want to provide an update/pictures until we do a little more on it. I have the convention coming up in a couple of weeks, though, so it'll be a little while before Renovation Update #5. Here's a hint, though:

Top 12

Yea, American Idol has moved into the Top 12 stage. I mentioned earlier that Lance and I had a bet going and that I was about to lose the first part of it. After the Top 12 was announced, there was a lot of gloating in the house that night and sadly, I wasn't the one doing it. I hate when that happens.

Anyway, I'm moving on and hoping to at least win the second half of the bet. The second half is the most important part anyway, since it means correctly picking the next American Idol. I won the Taylor Hicks year and no one won last year because we did it a little differently and had an elaborate point system for the last half of the wager. Of course the ridiculousness of Sanjaya messed it up and no one won.

Anyway, this year Lance and I both selected two people that we thought could win the whole thing. I have David Archuleta and Jason Castro while Lance has David Cook and Brooke White. I was torn between Jason Castro and Brooke White, but Lance picked Brooke first so the decision became easy. Anyway, wish me luck.

River of Life

I'm exhausted. It's been a crazy couple of days and I think it's only gonna get crazier the closer it gets to April 10th. Between work, weddings, and the convention, it's a busy time of year. It doesn't help that I've had a lot of knitting deadlines lately, either. In fact, I'm running on very little sleep right now and am a little loopier than usual.

With all the craziness, adding the River of Life Mission to my schedule wasn't in my best interest. The complex that my school belongs to is big on character education. I personally feel that although building our kids to be good people is important, ultimately the responsibility for this should lie with the parent. I've always felt this way, even when I was an elementary school student myself. I actually remember coming home in sixth grade and telling my mom what a waste of time "character education" was. Anyway, so we always push the importance of the 6 character traits but some of our teachers felt that we as a faculty did not always demonstrate these desirable characteristics. This led to us going to serve the homeless at the River of Life Mission in Chinatown. And although my current schedule is hectic, I went ahead and signed up.

Serving the homeless is something that I've always wanted to do, but I didn't know how to go about doing it. And to be honest, I cared little about demonstrating good "citizenship" to my students because I felt that my students would be far more affected if their parents were volunteering versus their teachers. A friend of mine questioned the "why" of what we were doing and joked that I must still be in high school trying to get community service hours for a scholarship. I didn't know how to explain to her why I was going. I think I figured it out. Thus far, I've been blessed to never really know hardship and I currently work in a, um, privileged community where my kids' main problem is whether or not their parents will buy them a DS/PSP/cell phone. I wanted to go to feed the homeless just to give something back. The reason was simple: I just wanted to do some good.

It was an amazing experience. The people who run the mission have really managed to create a wonderful, safe place for those unfortunate enough to live on the streets. They distribute clothing and food and provide a safe place for people to take a shower. They even have created a homey, clean, and safe place for women to live and learn so that they can get off the streets. The mission serves three meals a day to their guests. What's more, the mission provides friendship to those in need. Yes, some of the guests are homeless because of drugs, alcohol, and mental illness, but others are just hard working people who are having a difficult time making ends meet. And they are nice people, friendly people. I can't even really explain how amazing the experience was. It's just something that I want to do again and something that I want my own (future) children to do. Of course I want to raise children who do well in life, but I also want to raise children who do good.