OK, I couldn't resist this one. Especially since I just pre-ordered Beauty and the Beast on DVD! But I must point out that my eyes are blue, not brown. :-)

Which Disney Princess are you?

Call off the movers. The bid on Ryan's place fell through, with the bidder coming back at something like 30K below the asking price, after offering a fair bid that was just slightly under. That's pretty crappy.

Well, it was fun to go the sale with Jackie, and we were very restrained. Actually, it wasn't a very interesting sale. They did have a good number of bridal shoes on sale, mostly Vera Wang and other pricey designer names. I tried on these and found them awful - too witchy-pointy in the toe, and way too high. Not gonna happen. All the shoes were along these lines, so I satisfied myself by buying a cute little purple tank top with some beads on it for 19 bucks.

On the way home I stopped at Kenneth Cole to see his bridey shoes, since I had the chance and who knows when I will again. Turns out he is doing a new collection, so they only had two styles left. These were very comfy, and if the wedding were anytime very soon, I would probably get them. But I really would like something a little strappier, I think. These were surprisingly comfortable given the high heel, but I think I want something a bit lower (like the first pair). The boy at the store said they are going to get a whole new line of bridey shoes in the Fall, and that must be true since they are nowhere to be found on the website, and they used to be right there under women's shoes. I am in no great rush, obviously - I just want to start early because pretty but comfortable shoes are very important to me and very hard to find.

After Ken Cole I stopped at the greenmarket and got some veggies and salad stuff for dinner - I think I'm making pasta with zucchini and/or eggplant, along with a salad. I also got these beautiful roses, because the flower people were selling the whole bunch for ten bucks and I just can't resist. They smell fantastic!

Wow, I actually slept until 8:15 this morning! Of course, I was up until about 1, so I am not exactly super-rested. I didn't intend to stay up so late. I meant to clean up around this place and go to bed around 11:30-12. But I started knitting and there went the night! I did get a couple more inches done on the Moo blanket, so it's not like I was slacking. I'm maybe 15-20 rows short of halfway on this one.



I also took a few pictures of the Paper Phil tank, which I wore on Tuesday night.





I love the color of that tank (it's really a little more saturated than the photos show - I did a crappy job editing them because I just wanted to get it done fast), and it was pretty comfortable, even on a warm day.

In a few minutes I'm going to get in the shower and get moving. I still want to get to the Barney's sale, and I'm going to give Jackie a buzz and see if she's still on board. It's like two blocks from her house, so how could she say no?

Talks are progressing on the sale of Ryan's apartment. We talked about it last night and it seems like we'd probably be moving around November 1. It would definitely be good to do it before the holidays. It's funny, every time I have moved in the city, it's been during November. I moved to my first place over Thanksgiving weekend 1994, and then into this place around mid-November 1997. I can't believe I will have been here five years when I leave.

Another sleepy day. Why do I wake up in the middle of the night so much? I don't drink caffeine, I am not that stressed out, and it's even quiet in my apartment these days because I always have the air conditioner on. It's very frustrating.

No knitting again last night. But I am very much looking forward to this weekend's outing with some of our out-of-town knitting bloggers! I'm sure I will be scouting out yarns for my bridesmaid tops and other fun projects. And Susi is picking me up some of that Artfibers Luna yarn in the purple colorway, so I will get to play with that sometime after she returns. I sense yummy yarns in my near future!

Tonight Ryan is going to some sort of record-release party for a friend of our friend Emma. I'm not sure right now whether I feel like going. On one hand, I (hopefully) don't have to work tomorrow. On the other hand, I've been super-social lately and don't really feel like doing so again tonight. I guess we shall see - I have about 7 hours to decide.

Tomorrow, assuming I have my day off, I want to go to the Barneys Warehouse Sale. In all the years I've lived here, I don't think I've ever been. But I read somewhere (damned if I know where, at this point) that it can be a good place to get bridal shoes on sale. I'm sure there will be tons of groovy non-bridal stuff, too. It can't hurt (except in the wallet) to check it out for all of the above. I figure that if I go early on a Friday, it shouldn't be too terribly crowded and insane. Famous last words, but I'm an intrepid shopper - if I can handle Kate Spade at lunchtime, I can handle this.

In non-shopping but still sale-related news, Ryan received and accepted a bid on his apartment! Assuming everything goes well, we could be moving in 60-90 days. Crazy!

As planned, there was no knitting last night, because I was out with Jackie, Marney, Debbie, Deb, and a bunch of other ladies to celebrate the fabulous Ms. Jackie's birthday. I think she had a good time. She got a very surprising present, which I will let her tell you about, since it just doesn't seem like my place to do so. But we had fun drinks at the Soho Grand, and then good Italian food on MacDougal Street. I got home much later than I expected (11:30) but I'm not too fried today.

I've found some cool stuff by looking at my sitemeter references. I've actually had some work to do and haven't been surfing the knitblogs ring a lot lately, so I haven't seen a lot of the new sites. But today I discovered that - Lizzi has made me her aortal link! I'm honored and flattered - Thanks, Lizzi!

I also found out that I've done a "terrible" thing - I turned Ginger Girl on to Artfibers. I'd feel guilty but who could feel badly about such fabulous fiber? And she has unintentionally returned the favor by posting a recipe for Lavender Lemonade, which is too intriguing not to try.

My most amusing reference has got to be this one - someone in Germany used Google to search for pedicure bitch and guess who came up in the top 10? Am I so bitchy about my pedicures? Actually I just received my order from Bliss which did include their Foot Patrol lotion and a Diamancel foot buffer, so maybe I am a pedicure bitch!

Speaking of being bitchy...I am very jealous of Julie today because she has already received her Fall/Winter Rowan magazine! I have been crossing my fingers every time I open my mailbox since August began, but nothing yet. Best friend and original knitting buddy Leanne hasn't received hers yet, but my guess is they will appear simultaneously and soon. I hope!

After work, I think I am heading over to the Malia Mills sample sale. She's got cute little bathing suits and stuff, and the sale is supposed to be pretty damn good. I am hoping to find the cute bridal swimsuit or undies there at a bargain price, but I don't know if that's gonna happen. It would be an awfully fun little item for my honeymoon, but I don't think I could bear to buy it at full price.

So here I sit, fully unmotivated to work. I have a project to do but it's very disorganized, the direction is unclear, and there's no real deadline other than "soon." Ugh. Very hard to motivate for that. Instead, I'd rather read knitblogs, wedding porn and daydream. But, I am going to suck it up and write these stupid things - they are big panels to go in a client's booth at a medical convention. Fun fun fun, here we go!

I was quite the industrious little camper last night! In addition to swatching all nine of my yummy Artfibers yarns below, I finished sewing up the side seams for my Paper Phil tank. Guess what I'm wearing today? Good guess!

Maybe the new top will bring me some luck - I have an interview at another ad agency today. Although I now have a client to work on, I am still not very busy here, and the past few months of "work famine" have made me wary. When the most recent client tanked, I called my headhunter, and this interview came from that call. It's at a competing agency, which is also owned by the same big corporate group that my current agency is owned by. That always strikes me as odd - one big conglomerate owns all these smaller agencies that compete in the same markets. Very weird.

Anyway, although I am not desperate to leave here, there are definitely things that I am not happy with, so I owe it to myself to check out other options, as long as they exist. I had another call yesterday from a different headhunter in Florida. Apparently someone I am currently working with gave her my name and said good things about me. Obviously she can't tell me who it was, and now I am so deadly curious! Things like that always drive me batty. But, I may never know.

Looks like I am not going to Stitch-n-Bitch tonight. Instead I will be joining Jackie and Marney and their out-of-town friend for drinks to celebrate Jackie's birthday! Happy birthday, Jackie! I won't get to knit but at least I will get to show off my new tank a bit. Damn, I should've brought my camera with me - but I think I will have time to stop home and grab it before heading downtown.

My Artfibers yarns came today! I immediately got to swatching. They are all really lovely - I want them all! Here are the swatches to take a peek at (click on the pictures for a larger view). This first one is of the yarns that I am considering for the bridesmaid tops. The Cousteau (sparkly stuff on the bottom) is really pretty, but I think the color isn't quite right - I like it, but I think my girls might not. I wanted the color Venice, which is a pretty blueish one, but they sent a note that it was sold out. :-( The silk yarn (all four other swatches - same yarn, various colors) is really beautiful. I am torn because I like all the colors! The top left looks more orangey than it really is. I think that's another one that I like but the girls probably wouldn't.



These other swatches are other yarns I tried for fun. The Chianti is really nice and soft! So is the Sanskrit. The one called Diva (solid blue) is also really yummy to knit with and to touch - I think those last two would make really nice scarves. I don't think I'd wear a whole sweater of that, but the scarf idea would be nice. And would feel yummy on the neck!



I definitely like Artfibers yarns and the way they do business so far. My swatches came quickly (I ordered them on Thursday), and they were packaged really nicely, wound around those little tags with the name, gauge and fiber content information. Very helpful. I wish I were going to San Francisco like Susi is! I might have to go plan a visit to my brother just so I can have an excuse to go to the store. :-)

I can't believe it's Monday already. I can't believe a three-day weekend could pass so quickly, especially considering the ground we covered!

On Friday, Deb took us to her beach club for the day, along with her extremely cute (and bright) daughter Alix. We spent a really lovely day, until we got called out of the water because of an approaching thunderstorm. It got dark and thundered a lot, and we saw some cool lightening, but it never quite did rain there. On the way home we could tell it had poured elsewhere, but somehow we were spared down at the beach. I took some cute pics of Ryan and Alix playing in the sand, but we haven't had a chance to download them just yet.

On Saturday we headed up to Connecticut for a clambake at my former boss Marc's house, where we had a grand old time eating lobsters (well, I ate lobster - Ryan isn't a fan), shrimp, clams, oysters and more. There was another midday thunderstorm - this one included actual rain - and once it cleared a bunch of us headed back into the pool. We ended up going back to my friend (and Marc's sister) Leslie's house, where she, her husband, another friend and Ryan and I stayed up far too late playing Outlaw Golf on the Xbox.

Yesterday was something of a loss, since we got home from CT around 2, and were both completely exhausted. It was ridiculously hot and humid, but I did make it to the Greenmarket and got some canteloupe and peaches, which I am very excited to turn into sorbet, possibly tonight. If I can stay conscious that long!

I did manage to finish knitting the back of my Paper Phil tank and did a three-needle bind-off on the shoulders. I wove in all my ends, too, so all that's left is to sew it together. Maybe that will happen tonight, too.

Not much other knitting news. I am excitedly awaiting my yarn from Artfibers, and can hardly wait to swatch it, especially after seeing the scarf that Deb is knitting using the Luna yarn in Pewter. And how nice is Susi, who showed up to Stitch-n-Bitch for (I think?) the first time last week - she is going to be out in SF later this week and offered to pick me up some yarn if I needed it! What a sweetheart!

Please forgive the lack of cohesion in this entry - I'm still pretty sleepy, partly because of my cat and my mosquito bites. For some reason, both are nocturnal - cat wanted to play at 5am and mosquito bites wanted to itch. Not fun. Now that I've given you that interesting news, I think I will go and pretend to work.