Having a lot of trouble getting started today. More TV spots to write. And probably more campaign concepts for this new biz pitch. I really like my job, but I'm not in the mood today. I just want to go home and knit. (I'd stay here and knit but sooner or later someone will open my office door and catch me red-handed!) I'm hoping most of the office will leave early for Good Friday so I can, too. I shouldn't complain. I left here at 4 on Wednesday for Passover. Then yesterday at 5 because I could. But it's Friday, it's finally getting nice out, and I have plenty of knitting to do.

Tomorrow is looking to be a productive day. Ryan has to shoot a video project for school (he's getting a Masters in 3DAnimation at SVA) most of the day. So I am busy making a list of all the things I want to do. Maybe I'll post it here to force myself into it. We haven't spent much quality time together lately, so he's actually planned us a date tomorrow night! A real "put on something pretty and I'll take you somewhere" date. I love that.

Speaking of Ryan, I'm in a particularly good mood because he won his small claims court case! He did work for a client, who was a friend of a former colleague, and the jerk never paid him. The jerk said the work wasn't satisfactory (which is a big lie) and said he wouldn't pay. It turned into quite a saga. Ryan filed in small claims for $3K, which was the max allowed, and still not all he owed. And the idiots counter-sued. The original court date was 9/12. Obviously, here in NYC, THAT didn't happen! So it then got pushed off to Halloween. Then because of various stalling tactics by these people, it got pushed to Jan. 17, and finally happened Jan. 31st. Of course I was the good girlfriend at his side for all these court trips. I was very disappointed to learn that they don't give you a verdict then and there - they mail it to you. Is this true everywhere? Anyway, after all this time, he finally got the decision yesterday, and the judgement was in his favor for the full amount! Hallelujah! Now it's just a question of actually collecting from them. Eek.

And last on my agenda this morning, haven't you always wondered which muppet I was? Wonder no more!

	You are Kermit! Though you're technically the star, you're pretty mellow and don't mind letting others share the spotlight. You are also something of a dreamer.
Take the What Muppet Are You? Quiz!

I won't argue with that.

My scanner came tonight! Way sooner than expected, too. Yay Amazon! So, here's a picture of the blocks I am making for Tracy's baby:

And here's my progress so far:

Obviously I am not using exactly the same shades as in the picture, but I think it's going to be really cute in the end!

OK, I gotta get some sleep.

Just remembered one more thing. I bought some more yarn. Oh no! This fantastic lady in the UK sells a lot of Rowan on eBay, at prices WAY better than in the US. Check out her stuff and see for yourself. She's very, very nice, too. I got the Summer Tweed in Lilac, plus the Summer Tweed pattern book. 12 skeins plus the book plus shipping was 71 bucks. Would've been closer to 100 if I bought it here in the city or by mail order. I decided to go cheap and have her do surface shipping rather than airmail, so maybe I will have cleaned up some of that stash by the time it arrives!

Lotsa work to do, but need to take a break. I'm working on two different clients right now, and both projects are in the concept stage. So I am coming up with TV commercial ideas for one (which is really fun and something I haven't done a lot of) and whole ad campaign ideas for another. It's confusing to go back and forth. But since I am new here (4th week) I am hoping to have something good to present so people will not think I'm just some talentless hack! So far, so good - the creative director really liked my first TV spot idea. He said it was his favorite out of everything so far! Yay! It's been a long time since I had a job where I felt this good.

Tonight's plan - first go to the gym, then while I watch/listen to the NBC Thursday night lineup, I'm going to knit some chickies and bunnies to bring to Gary and Olga's house on Sunday. They've invited us for Easter dinner. Since my family's Jewish, and Ryan's family is far away, it'll be fun to have someone to be festive with. And Gary's quite the good cook, I hear. He is actually my brother's best friend from San Fran, who moved out here and now gets to be my friend. :-) I hope I will be able to part with the little critters - I have SUCH a weakness for cute stuffed animal things. Hmm. Keyword = stuffed. Guess I am stopping at the drugstore for more cotton balls, too!

Hopefully I will have time after the animals to do some more work on Mom's sweater. My one reservation about this project is that it might be a little too see-through. I'm not quite sure. I wouldn't worry so much except it's a boat neck, so putting a camisole or a tank under it would look sort of dumb. I think it will probably be fine for me, but Mom might have issues with it. I suppose if worse comes to worse I'll keep it for myself and start something new for her. I hope it doesn't happen though - she really liked the yarn. Even though she says "Oh, I have so much, don't waste time knitting for me" I know she will love it if I make her something.

So, I started something new tonight. When my parents were here the other night, my Mom admired some yarn I had gotten at the Smiley's sale. It's a natural colored nubbly kind of yarn with champagne/metallic bits in it. (I'll post a picture when I can) It's by Lane Borgosesia and it's called Gelato. I haven't found it anywhere online. Anyway, I know it would look fantastic on her, so I started playing with it and found the gauge is basically the same as Rowan's Summer Tweed, so I can make her this sweater. Her birthday isn't until June, so I have plenty of time, but I figure I'm better off starting while the inspiration is fresh. I've gotten about 4" done so far and will probably have a few more done before I go to sleep. Yay!

Busy day so I probably won't post for real until later. But one thing's irking me - suddenly I can't see the nice knitting bloggers graphic on my page. It was fine the other day, and the code still looks good to me so I am baffled. The path works when I cut and paste it, so I know the file is still there and accessible on my server. Then it occurs to me that maybe it's just the stupid mac I'm working on that can't see it? I'm hoping? Can anyone else see it down there underneath the links?

Decisions, decisions. I skipped the gym yesterday because I was so tired from the car-alarm ordeal. So that means I should skip my intended plan to go to stitch-n-bitch tonight and go to the gym now. But it's cold and rainy and icky so I kind of feel like just hopping on the bus and heading home. Hmm, let's see what weather.com says. 41 and drizzling. I guess that's not SO bad. I should go. I promised myself I'd go 4x a week, and if I skip today, that doesn't give me much leeway for the rest of the week. OK, OK, you talked me into it - here I go!

OK, I got back to knitting last night. I'm making these really cute foam-stuffed blocks from Vogue Knitting Baby Gifts. Once again, there was NO way I was going to use 12+ balls of Rowan yarn for this one. No offense to Tracy, my best friend's sister who is having the baby, but that's a bit of a hefty price for a baby gift. Particularly when it's not even going to be something the baby WEARS - it's something he or she will play with, so it's not like it has to be super-soft.

Anyway, I bought a variety of colors of acrylic yarn that seemed like they would match well when I was at the yarn sale the other day and so far so good. I still need to get a few more colors, but I have stuff to work with. Baby's not due until May, so I'm OK for a bit. There are three blocks - small, medium and large. So far I have one medium square and two small ones. Now that I've gotten my yarn bobbins and figured out how to do the intarsia knitting the right way, it should go pretty quickly.

No pictures yet. I'm awaiting delivery of a new scanner, and I have Ryan's digital camera, but no way right now to connect it to my PC. Kind of a convoluted story. He has the card reader at home. (Hey, it IS his camera!) I have the serial cable, but my newish PC (got in November) no longer has a serial port. So I used to connect it using the USB to serial connector I got for my Palm cradle. But then I had to bring that to work to connect my Palm to the (ack!) iMac I have there. I'm awaiting delivery of another USB to serial I bought on eBay, so we'll see which comes first - that or the scanner. I guess I should also find out if there's a USB cable for the camera (Nikon Coolpix 700). Either way, eventually I'll get pics of the pattern and the squares as I finish them. It's a really cute project and I can't wait to see it finished!

What a Monday. Some jerk's car alarm was going off right outside my window from 3am to 5am. It would go off for a minute, stop, start, stop for 10 minutes, start, etc. And to think I skipped watching the Oscars so I could go to bed at a reasonable hour and get a good night's sleep!

On the up side, saw a fantastic play last night. QED, starring Alan Alda. The play is about Richard Feynman, the Nobel Prize-winning physicist who died about ten years ago. Alda is on stage alone for nearly the whole play (there is only one other character, and she is in and out just a few times) and does an absolutely amazing job. Our seats were in the first row, so much of the time he was sitting just 5-6 feet away from us - it was a very intimate theater experience, and one I doubt I'll find again. If you can, go see it!

The other excitement was the big yarn sale at Smiley's! More on this later, but I spent about 100 bucks and came home with a hefty bag full of yarn. I'll take a picture when I can. I better start knitting fast - I have a small apartment and my stash is threatening to take over the place.