So I'm up early and want to read the NY Times for a change, and it's not there. Home delivery is supposed to be there at some ungodly hour of the morning, and it usually is. Except when I want it to be. Argh! All I want to do is sit quietly on the sofa and read my paper! I used to do that every weekend before I met that boy, and since he sleeps so much longer than I do, I kind of want to get back in the habit. I feel guilty when it comes Monday and the little weekend newspaper pile has been disturbed only to get the magazine section (which I adore). Even that doesn't get read the way it used to. I used to do the crossword on Sunday nights. I miss that, too. And now when I do, I am not as good as I used to be! These are things I must correct.

Well, I'll go check again and see if it came while I wasn't paying attention. Hold please.

Nope. Grrrr.

I guess I'll go knit.

Hmm, everyone seems to be moving their blogs off blogspot and onto their own domains. Been thinking about doing that myself lately, so perhaps I will join the crowd soon enough.

Not much news here. I finished off the purse for Adrienne, then wrapped it up without taking a picture. Doh! Oh well, when she opens it tonight I will take a snap or two. It came out very cute, though not quite the proportions I wanted. That's what you get for just letting it take shape as it goes along. Next time I'd go a little wider and shorter, but this is still a cute purse.

No other knitting last night. Had a nice night with my sweetie, and fell asleep exhausted around 10:30-45. Still woke up sluggish this morning, though. But the nice weather is perking me up. I think I'll take a longish lunch and maybe buy some new sunglasses.

What a morning. Up late, then in late, and still falling asleep at my desk. It's rainy and grey and traffic is hardly moving out there. I'm so sleepy my eyes are actually burning.

Hardly any knitting last night. I have been making a little knitted purse for my next-door-neighbor's birthday, and it's mostly finished. I'll post pics later, but it's quite cute - orangey-gold and purple, with mostly purple on one side, mostly orangey-gold on the other, and a little wave pattern at the top where the colors meet (stitch pattern from my Encyclopedia of Knitting). I'm making handles out of i-cord with one strand of each color.

Problem is, I can't find the fabric I wanted to use to line it with! I know it's there somewhere, but I really need to finish the purse by tomorrow, so I may just suck it up and buy some more. We tried to go to a fabric store near home last night, but it was closed after 7pm. Grrr. I was thinking of walking towards the garment district at lunchtime, but it's so crappy out and I was in late so I don't think that's going to happen. Maybe I'll go the place we tried last night after work today, since I will definitely be out of here in time.

No other progress to report, and I'd better get some work done today. Have fun!

Fun as usual last night at Stitch-n-Bitch. Quite a large crowd, particularly for such a nice, warm night. Once again, I was frogging a sleeve, leading Marney to ask if I frog all my sleeves. Sadly, that is starting to become true, it seems! I started again with 8 fewer stitches and the size looks far closer to realistic proportions.

Stayed later than I expected (10:30) and I'm paying for it a bit now. It took a long time to wind down once I got home, and I didn't fall asleep until after midnight. Yuk. Didn't have a great morning, either. I spent too long downloading new music to my MP3 player, only to discover that the stuff I recently downloaded from KazAa makes it "hang." Something to do with the ID3 tags, and I didn't have a chance to run the ID3Kill program on the new stuff. Supposedly they are releasing a firmware update sometime that will prevent this problem, but for now I am just sad and grumpy because I couldn't listen to any music on the way here! Oh well, I suppose there are far worse problems I could be having right now.

Last night, Deb commented that she was expecting someone with much longer hair when she read that I had been growing it out for several months, and that it must've been really short before this. She is absolutely correct, and I told her I'd post a pic from the shorter days. This was in October, which was right before I started growing it. My hair had been approximately this short since about 1995, so you can see I am just about starting from scratch here.

Oooh, I am so excited! We just got invited to a surprise birthday party for a friend's 30th, and it's a carnival theme! Party's going to be held at her brother's house (more like "estate" - he's a dotcom millionaire I used to work for, actually) and sounds like a real blast. But the best part is I've decided to make my first foray into really designing something. She really really loves bright colors and crazy flowers and stuff, so I am going to design something with a great flowered intarsia pattern on it. Probably a purse, since I don't really think I can finish all my other stuff and knit a tank or something in time (6/15) and she has odd measurements (skinny girl, HUGE boobs). Maybe a pillow or something, but one pillow seems lonely. So I think a purse would be perfect, and with this girl, would actually get used. It might be flowers on one side, smiley face (another fave of hers) on the other. Either way, it's going to be fu-u-un!

This week's reading (at work): stuff about schizophrenia and atypical antipsychotic drugs. Whee!

Had an unsatisfying manicure experience at lunchtime. I went to the place I went last time, which is a little nail shop 2 blocks away from the office. The owner did my nails this time, and she was very odd. First off, she commented on my eyebrows, saying she liked them thick like that, then tried to get me to let her wax them. Now, in all fairness, they are pretty messy at the moment, because I wax and tweeze myself and just haven't gotten to it since I noticed it was time. But still, it felt weird that she was so intent on them.

Then, she made a comment I couldn't quite understand (thick accent, talking fast) about either the hair on my arms or the paleness of the skin on my arms. Either way, I know it wasn't a compliment! Then, to top it off, she "wouldn't let" me use the color I picked (the quotes are because, obviously, I have insisted, but she was very opinionated on this one.) Instead of the opaque light pink I had chosen, she made me go with a sheer light pink. It's pretty, but not what I wanted. Because of the aforementioned fair skin, I like a manicure with a big of contrast, and this just doesn't do it. My nails look very neat and clean and lovely, but not girlie-pretty the way I wanted them!

To top it off, I got a little smudgie when I went to pay for my lunch sandwich afterwards (and yes, I did sit through the whole cycle on the nail dryer and yes I was being careful.) That part isn't her fault, but it adds to the unsatisfying experience. I think I shall have to find another place for my lunchtime manicures. Someplace a bit more comfortable. It's not like there aren't 50 nail salons in a 10 block radius - I'm sure I can make a better choice next time.

OK, once again I am posting about a Rowan sleeve problem. I'm about 9 inches into the first sleeve for Mom's sweater, and the thing is way to friggin big! I even followed the smaller size instructions for the sleeve, and it's still going to be a frog-o-rama. Mom has thin arms and tiny wrists, and this will swim on her. So I know I have to adjust the pattern, but I am not sure how much I should adjust. And whether I should just cast on fewer stitches and work the increases at the same rate, etc. Also whether it will screw up the armhole and not fit. I'm going to bring it to Stitch-n-Bitch tonight. Hopefully someone there will be able to help. Obviously I'm open to suggestions here, too!

I think Spring has finally decided to stick around here. It was so nice to walk out this morning in capri pants and be comfy. Soon, I will be able to do away with those pesky socks! (I see Squib and I share this love of going sockless.) I'll still knit the ones I am working on, of course. By the time I finish them, it will likely be Fall.

I think today's the day for a lunchtime manicure. I go in cycles - for months I won't care a whit about my nails, then I'll get all into them for a few months, getting regular manicures. Then I'll go back to not caring. Funny, these cycles often correspond to my disposable income...

What a beautiful weekend! Hardly got any knitting done, but I did get to check out the new yarn store, "Knitting Hands" on Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn. Nice store, and a great selection of yarns and patterns. Lots of needles and other accessories, too. I was pretty pleased, especially since I will probably be moving to Brooklyn some months from now! The owner wasn't overly friendly, but she wasn't unfriendly either, and seems like she'd be helpful if it's needed or if one becomes a "regular."

I am very conflicted over buying yarn these days. I want to support my LYSs, but their prices are just too high sometimes, especially here in the city. And they don't always have the selection I want, particularly when it comes to color and quantity. For some yarns, like Rowan, I just can't see spending nearly 40% more to buy them locally when I can order them at far less cost online. I think I've decided I will continue to buy needles and stuff locally, and the sort of "basic" yarn - Brown Sheep, etc. that doesn't vary too much in price. And mostly I want to continue to support Downtown Yarns, since that's my "localest" store and where they are so nice to me. I wish I could see my way clear to walk in and drop 100 bucks on yarn for one basic sweater, but even when I can afford it, I hate to do that. Anyone else feel the same way?

Thanks to my dear sweetie (yay Ryan!), you can now see the "CBS Early Show" knitting segment featuring our NY Stitch-n-Bitch group. It's a quicktime movie, and you can choose either the low bandwidth or the high bandwidth version. If you're not sure what that means: if you're on a dial-up connection, definitely go with the low one. If you're on a good, speedy DSL or cable connection, or an office network, you can probably download the high bandwidth version (better resolution, looks nicer) and play it from your desktop. And if you want to know who's who, check out Carolyn's screenshots!