Caffy McFaFa

Holy hiatus batman.

It’s been 2 whopping months since my last post and this is due to 3 reasons – the first two legit, the third fairly sloppy.

Reason #1: Late April came with, well, a tear in the retina that needed repairing. This came with stressing, plus busyness at work, and finally surgery. Horrific eyes runs in the family and my mom (who had eye surgery twice, the first when there was no laser surgery only the old knife *ugh, vomit, scream* and only after all that grief, she developed glacouma), my aunt (hole in retina) and my uncle (hole in the retina) all said, “laser surgery? no sweat”. I’ll tell you there was plenty of sweat and while not horrifying pain, there was pain.

Reason #2: Into May and we had trip planning. Hart had a business trip in Prague and I learned mid-month that I was due in Switzerland for work (the exact same week, mind you) and so we turned it into a long and great trip to Eastern Europe. Planning a 3 week trip to 5 countries in 2 weeks was no easy task. Hart and I flew to Prague late May for a few days, Hart stayed and I flew to gorgeous Switzerland, and then we met up in Budapest, went on to Slovenia and finished up in Croatia.

I am back, jet lagged, but not afraid to discuss reason number 3.

Reason 3 is that I am not feeling the knitting lately and it’s really bumming me out. I think it’s the summer but I’m not sure. Perhaps it was the full excessiveness of knitting that occurred between November-ish and April. I think, and hope, that it's due to the summer. For the summer, knitting to me = a) I’m not into summer knit looks and b) god, it’s freaking too hot to have a lap full of wool. Also, I do keep reading in blog land about community and, with the exception of Hart’s mom, who is in Michigan, I don’t have any knitting friends. Wah. I just kind of wish I had someone to knit with (wow that sounded really weird)

In terms of the agenda, I have my lovely shawl – see last post for reminder. But this piece requires full attention and focus (not what I’m yearning for at this moment) and I have to finish and block my Rusted Root (which is actually pretty great and deserves an outing).

Other:
Onto other things, I need to figure out how to create a To Do list on this blog-thing. I said back in January that I have much self-improvement to be doing but I’d like a way to track it.

The first thing that is coming to mind as of now is that when Hart and I were in Europe I realized yet again that it’s gross that I can only speak one language. I didn’t speak a lick of any language other than English. In Hungary and Czech Republic, the term for “thank you” was actually pretty hard to even attempt to pronounce. More so, in all places we visited people were too excited to speak English that I felt it would be a disservice not to let them practice. This issue of a second language is not (and shouldn't be) a big deal for many and it’s perfectly fine, but it’s not okay for me.

For me the language that makes most sense is Spanish for fairly obvious reasons. Hart is muy supportive but he always is and does not push my laziness. I think this is why I love him but our combined laziness makes for, well, procrastination. Hart and I went to an uber crazy grad school and we always joke that we are the two most unmotivated people from our class and while our b-school friends are off making millions, running marathons, speaking 15 languages and starting charities, we’d prefer drinking beer and watching Michigan games. It only figure we found each other.

SPEAKING of Michigan games. We just bought our plane tickets for the Notre Dame game for September 15th.

Finally, I got invited to Ravelry. Tres Excited.

Y is for Yarn

Can we talk about the weather? I can. The first true gorgeous New York weekend of the year, and Hart and I took full advantage.

Saturday morning we woke up and hit Café Mogador in the East Village. It soooo didn’t matter what we ate or how good it was (but it was) because we were eating outside.

We hit the dog run at Tompkins Square Park (it’s seriously like going to a zoo- people just hang there for hours watching the dogs), then stopped by Downtown Yarns to browse, and then landed at DBA at 2pm to meet Crimenotes.

DBA, how I love thee. We were there for, seriously, 5 hours. Hart, Crimenotes and I played Scrabble and then two of CN’s friends showed up and we played hearts.

And that’s me up there, just after scoring about 7 points for Yarn.

Speaking of Yarn, my silence has been multimedia related. I have taken about 25 pictures of this gorgeous yarn below- it's Blue Sky Alpacas - Alpaca and Silk - in Spring. It it so light that it's just not very photogenic and I just need to call it a day with trying to shoot it.

I haven’t given up on Rusted Root. She’s resting. But in the meantime, I’m working on this shawl from the latest Interweave.

If you have it, the yarn and the color I’m using is featured on the cover of Last Minute Knitted Gifts.

Anyway, Hart and I ended our weekend in Battery Park yesterday, where we kicked off our shoes, did crossword puzzles, and I started my shawl.

Six Degrees

Knitware Vase by Alyssa Ettinger

I've been in great awe of Etsy lately - only discovering it a few months ago. It's funny the degrees of separation, or the path you take to a new discovery on a blog or website. It happens all the time. I'll get so wrapped up into looking at new things and often times I'll think of something weeks later and have absolutely NO idea which site it was on and knowing that I probably pathed through 9 websites to get there in the first place, it's a lost cause.

I wish I could remember how far back it went, and the exact path, but I somehow ended up at a knit blog- the writer of which turned me onto Design Sponge. I love Design Sponge - it has turned into a daily read. And while I had perused Etsy a bit before that, looking for random things, it was Design Sponge that opened my eyes to lots of artists who sell work that I can actually afford to buy. More on that later.

Anyway, Design Sponge is on vacay, so in "path-like" fashion, I visited her guestblog, hosted by Victoria and saw a link for Poppytalk. Clicked on that, and found the above vase in her category called "Etsy Pick of the Day".

Cute vase, right? BTW there are several different vases and coasters available, in different cable patterns. Love that.

Operation

I needed to perform some very scary surgery on Rusted Root this morning and I will say it was not fun. Not fun at all.

I had been knitting along at a good speed and was quite excited about it. This morning I was just making coffee, whistling, thinking about how far I had come...And then it hit me.

I put my coffee cup down, clenched my fists and hissed quietly through bared teeth, "I forgot to do the shaping".

At the end of the day I had to pull out about 4 inches worth of sweater so that I could do my decreases and shape. Again, Vogue Knitting saves the day. Even though I know how to do this method, it's always reassuring to have the visuals in front of me.

I haven't knit an entire round since this happened as I needed a much needed break after the 1 1/2 hour surgery. Also, just thinking about getting to the lace part is incredibly scary and it's making me nervous. I have really no idea what row of the pattern I'm on. Ugh. I just hope it works out.

Anyway. Off to enjoy the weather. The storm is coming and we've decided to have movie marathon tomorrow so I may need to hit Purl or The Point for another project. I almost want to stick RR in the corner until she behaves and starts telling me things in advance so I don't screw up again.

God Bless You Mr. Rosewater

Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

1922 — 2007

I’ve been knitting up Rusted Root at a fairly rapid pace after frogging 7 times in the beginning (more on that later).

Lack of progress shots is because she's not as photogenic as I’d like.

this is a better shot of the actual color

I recently got a new camera and I’m kind of not loving it. It’s a Canon A570 IS. We did plenty of research and we actually waited to buy as we knew this was coming out. I think the lighting/crispness kind of sucks and yes, I could probably learn more about the camera and take better pictures but at the end of the day, I bought my mom a Kodak Easyshare for Christmas last year and I like hers better.

Had a great weekend. But first, this. I have decided once and for all that I am taking a step back into anonymity and will be calling said boyfriend “Hart” from now on. I will discuss later, maybe.

Anyway, on Friday Hart and I had no plans and he convinced me to go to Sripraphai in Woodside, Queens. This review finally put us over the edge.

This was embarrassingly my first time in Queens outside of commuting through but I’m happy that going to this restaurant was my first experience. I first heard of it in 2004. Hart and I had dinner at Veritas and started up a conversation with the sommelier about food. We asked, and he told us that it was his absolute favorite Thai restaurant in New York. For the record, this was NOT when Hart first heard of Sripraphai. When recounting the story of dinner later to friends, I told the Veritas story and asked him when he first heard of it and he gave me that look that meant, “er, wayyy before that.” Like in 1990 when he was 16, as though he had walkie talkies with Zagat and they called when it opened.

Anyway - this place is ridiculous. Hands down the best Thai food I have ever eaten outside of Thailand. It is 100% the trek and they make the best Penang Curry with Tofu. We seriously ordered 6 dishes for the two of us and brought half home.

Who's on a roll?

Another from Veggie Meal Plans (let's recap that while this may be boring - you're talking to a lady who cooks no more than 2 times a year. just humor me)

Been thinking about this recipe for awhile. Went to my new best friend's place to shop, and spent $14.85 on enough for 8 - at least 50% of which was organic. How amazing is that?

Honestly, I have been knitting. She's just not ready for debut yet.