Well it shouldn't be too much longer until I get my raverly invite. Maybe another week or two?

Found you!

• You signed up on August 2, 2007
• You are #22544 on the list.
• 2690 people are ahead of you in line.
• 14755 people are behind you in line.
• 53% of the list has been invited so far

I guess I should quit my whining and be glad that I am not one of the 14755 people behind me! In the meantime I am working on uploading as many pictures as I can to flickr. Can anyone tell me how to get one of those flickr things in my side bar?

Tea Pal

I am going to start naming posts. I realize this will make life much easier for those of you who use live bookmarks like I do. A word of warning though - I am very boring with my titles, which is why I have avoided them thus far.

So what's the best way to get yourself to update your blog when you have been procrastinating? Why start writing a paper for school of course!! Haha I am suppose to be writing a paper on what the Ottawa and Jakarta Charters for health promotion mean to me, but I think I will type about knitting and tea instead :)

Here is what I have so far for my tea pal:



Above you will see a felted tea cozy made with Cascade 220. It needs to go through one or two more wash cycles still. There is also a package of tea bags for using loose tea. My tea pal only occasionally drinks loose tea because she finds bags inconvenient. So I think she will really like these. I also stuck in a bag of Royal Blend Tea.. I am not sure if she will like it though so I think I will try to get her a second kind. I also included a organic cotton face cloth and a skein of blue Drops Alpaca which from her questionnaire I think she will really LOVE.

Unfortunately she doesn't like scents. I had planned on including a few scented soaps and candles but that doesn't really fly with her so I am going to try and find some other goodies. I think I will be a little late with the shipping deadline though... October 1... but hopefully only by a couple days.

It has been a while since I updated. Sorry about that, things have been a little crazy around here.

Mike told me on Thursday night that he had to drive to Maine and back on Friday to renew his Visa. I volunteered to go with him for the trip and Mary said she would come along. It was a fun, but LONG day. We stopped in Houlton to have lunch with my buddy Amanda and her sister who just got back from two years of teaching in Japan. It was a good trip, and the Yaris did an excellent job :)

Last weekend I went up to my Mom's for a couple days. I was surrounded by furryness, which is always very nice. Here is one of her new cuddly Icelandic horses (Glode)

And here is Leif. He is not too pleased about the horses, but is a little afraid of them. So he expresses his distaste by going in the house and growling at them through the window.



Lastly here is a very manly sock I have been working on for my granddad for Christmas. The pattern is undulating rib from favorite socks. The yarn is some of the stash I scored at the last swap at KOL.

And now presenting the worst tea cozy ever made!!


Sorry tea pal, this was meant for you, but there is no way I would do that to you. The pattern is nice enough but it would really only fit the shortest, fattest tea pot ever made! So I am remaking a tea cozy, this one will be a felted one, and will tea pots of all shapes and sizes!




I have been thinking I have been sort of negative in blog land lately. Today when I was running I though about all the things in my life that make me happy and decided to post on it! Please note this is not in order. Also, I have not included knitting, friends or family because that's a given.

1. My Swift. Isn't it beautiful? It's handmade, about 100 years old. It actually belongs to one of my best friends, Gill Martin. It was her grandmothers, she gave to Gill. Gill said she had no where to keep it so I asked if I could borrow it. That was 5 years ago and it's still mine. I know that it is Gilly's though and she can have it back whenever she wants it.


2. There is a vet near my house that has a cat kennel in it. One of the rooms in the cat kennel has a big window that the cats can sit in and look out on the street. Everyday I walk by this window and there is usually a different adorable cat sitting in the window looking at people walk by. It always makes my day better.

3. Tea. I mean I love coffee and have to drink it every day, but is there really anything more comforting than a mug of your favorite tea? As much as I love coffee I can only have about 2 cups before I need to stop. Tea on the other hand I can drink as much as I want!

4. My animals :) From my crazy cat Sage, to my puppies Oliver, Baldur, Leif, Lilly and Miller - I am very blessed. Any my life is about to get furrier! Yesterday my mom got two Icelandic horses. I am going up to see them tomorrow, pictures will follow.


5. My Yaris.

6. My knitting chair. Sage is sitting in it in the above picture, it's also her favorite chair. It's an antique and is sort of falling apart. One day when I have money I will get it reupholstered.

Is raverly all its cracked up to be? Or do I just want it desperately because I can't have it!! I have been checking my list status almost obsessively now. I am about in the middle of the pack - 10,000 ahead, 10,000 behind. I want my invite oh so much!! Especially since the list has only gone done about 4,000 since I joined.

Why does gauge have to be such a dirty whore? You'd think it could be right... just once... once when it really counts!! I did everything right with my gauge swatch for my EZ sweater and the body is abut 4 inches wider than I wanted! Argh! I think it will still be ok, it will just be a looser sweater... that I will probably never wear. Sigh.

I bought the Yaris :) Mike has decided to call it Captain Long John Silver, because as Mary has pointed out it is rather Pirate like being a YARRRRRis and all. She says I should call it Cap'n for short. I agree. Now I just hope that I can work enough to pay for it! Could be tricky with school and all that fun stuff.

Now for some very bad news. Due to life circumstances Oliver is moving to Moncton. I won't get into the details on the internet, but I am really devastated. I have been teary ever since I found out on Sunday and I am still having a hard time getting control. I know he's not really my dog, so I don't get a say in what happens to him. But I really can't express how much I am going to miss him. I love seeing him and he is the closest thing I have to a dog. Plus we do have a really special connection.

Yaris!!



So I went to a couple dealerships, and at both places I feel in love with a Yaris. One was a cherry red two door, and the other was a silver four door. We decided the four door would be more convenient and Mike said that he would be embarrassed to drive a cherry red car that small.


So here is my silver beauty. It's not officially mine yet. I have it on an extended test drive until Monday night when I will make my final decision. This will be great because I am driving to Shelburne on Monday so I will get to see how it feels over a variety of road surfaces.



I think my mind is pretty much made up though, Oh Yaris you are so nice!

I would be lying though if I claimed I wasn't feeling guilty about leaving the beast. I have grown surprisingly attached to it, and I am gonna miss it too. I won't miss it's worn out brakes, leaking fuel tank, dripping oil pan and crappy wipers though.

Rough day yesterday. I wanted to get my car inspected but on the way their noticed a giant crack in the wind shield. I took it Apple to get it fixed (because it won't pass inspection with a crack), that set me back $312.00. That's a lot of yarn!! I took it to Mighty to get it fixed and was told I really shouldn't have bothered fixing the window because the car is a write off.

Fuck.

So now I am trying to decide if I will get my dear sweet brother Lionel to fix my car. Or if I should just get a new one. When I bought the beast I was in a really different position that I am in now. I intended to drive it for the summer and then see from there what happened. I didn't count on getting so attached to the beige hunk o junk though!!

But now I am driving all over the province for work - and I do get paid for the travel - and I think I want something that I know will work and that I know will be safe. My brother has been great about fixing it when it needs some work, but what if it breaks down when I am in Shelburne? On the other hand, not having a car payment is awfully nice.

I like any rock star that incorporates late 19th century poetry into their concerts. Last night I went to the Frosh Week Joel Plaskett concert on Dal Campus. It was quite fun, really great concert.

My favorite part though was during the last song which lasted about 15 minutes and was very Pink Floyd ish, Plaskett went through a lyric of Annabel Lee, the Edgar Allen Poe poem. Oddly enough I was the only person who recognized it among my friends. Bear in mind I am a science student and only took one arts course, English 1000 the whole time I was in university. Anyway it's a very pretty, but very sad poem, and I thought I would share it with you fine people.

Annabel Lee

It was many and many a year ago,
In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
By the name of ANNABEL LEE;
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
Than to love and be loved by me.

I was a child and she was a child,
In this kingdom by the sea;
But we loved with a love that was more than love-
I and my Annabel Lee;
With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven
Coveted her and me.

And this was the reason that, long ago,
In this kingdom by the sea,
A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling
My beautiful Annabel Lee;
So that her highborn kinsman came
And bore her away from me,
To shut her up in a sepulchre
In this kingdom by the sea.

The angels, not half so happy in heaven,
Went envying her and me-
Yes!- that was the reason (as all men know,
In this kingdom by the sea)
That the wind came out of the cloud by night,
Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.

But our love it was stronger by far than the love
Of those who were older than we-
Of many far wiser than we-
And neither the angels in heaven above,
Nor the demons down under the sea,
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee.

For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And the stars never rise but I feel the bright eyes
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling- my darling- my life and my bride,
In the sepulchre there by the sea,
In her tomb by the sounding sea.

Not much knitting got done this weekend. I went to PEI early yesterday morning to attend the wedding of one Ms. Anne-Marie Brunet to a Mr. Wayne Peters. The wedding was that afternoon and I just got back this afternoon. Overall it was a great weekend, I drove up with an OT friend Sarah and we stayed in the luxurious 1 star Howard Johnson.


All joking aside the wedding was really beautiful. Anne-Marie was stunning in her dress and Wayne could not have looked happier as she walked down the aisle. Anne-Marie's family is Scottish and they was a charming Scottish favor to the whole affair. It was wonderful to see two such thoughtful and amazing people celebrate their relationship.

I made some good progress on my black sweater, of which I will post a picture of soon. I have done about 4 inches of twist ribbing, and about another 2 of plain stockinette. I only left 4 stitches for steeking, will that be enough? I think it will, I did one once with only two stitches, but that was a machine sewn steek not a crochet one, which I plan to do with this one.