A sad day

I bought anti-wrinkle cream. Those creases on my nose between my eyes and on either side of my mouth have really started to get to me. The light tinted moisturizer I use on the few days I actually wear makeup has started settling into those creases. Yuck.

I'm not old enough for wrinkle cream. I know the stuff wont do squat, but oh well. I'll at least try.

In knitting news, the Twister Diva Shrug is complete:



Yes, the sleeves are even, I just didn't lay it out well. We'll have to wait until after next weekend for a shot of it on me in my full getup. And yes, that's a partial skein of yarn stuffed inside the left boob. I needed something to give it shape as I hot glued beads onto it. It's too bad I can't fill the things out.

Dinner tonight was chicken curry and peas. It's a recipe I always make extra of when I cook for a client. I haven't come up with tomorrow's menu yet, so I don't know what we'll be eating.

When he's in charge of dinner

I have a cold. I'm whiny and miserable, and I've postponed my first two clients to the end of the week to avoid coughing on their kids and their food. For dinner last night I made a nice big pot of homemade chicken soup (sending R to the store for ingredients before he went to watch football with a friend), so tonight we had leftovers. I asked him to get a pot and empty the soup into it.

You'd think that such a technical person would have better spacial recognition.



But then perhaps he was trying to be as efficient as possible. Who knows, but I had to be very careful when stirring it to make sure it didn't splash all over the stove top (which of course it did anyway...).

I took a sort of nap during the middle of the afternoon, but much of the rest of the day was spent knitting. I started on a hat yesterday with some of the yarn left over from my mother-in-law's sweater:



But I set it aside to start a shrug for my Mardi Gras costume. Right now, the forecast is calling for weather in the 50's, so I need something to cover my arms but not my chest. While not as cold as originally forecast, it's not your typical walking around in a bustier weather. This basic rectangle seamed up on the sleeves should work just fine. It's just boring as hell to knit.

I'm using Hayfield Exquisite Shimmer, an eyelash yarn that I now have 4 skeins of. The color should go well with my red gogo boots.



Since arriving on Friday, these have only come off my feet to sleep and shower:

Eat, Love, Knit, but don't pray

I seriously feel like I could sit on the couch all day and work on a project. It's really all I did yesterday. It has a perfect accompaniment to my book-on-iPod, which I finished last night around 9:00.

I can't say the book "changed my life" (which apparently was the tone of Oprah's show on the subject). I found reading through some of the reviews on amazon to be more entertaining and interesting that the book itself. The chapter on India was my least favorite part, and I might have skipped through chapters had I been reading it. At first I came out of it with a sort of realization of "wow, I must not be a spiritual person at all," but then decided that this was not true. Instead, the author just thinks she's a gazillion times more spiritual and important than just about anyone else in the world.

I just went to the author's website and it kind of summed it up for me. There are huge (I'm talking huge) pictures of her face on every page. It's a little too much.

Anyway, I did get a bit emotional while listening to it, but it was the result of the sweater I was knitting. Having finished Dad's scarf earlier in the day, I got back to working on the sweater my Mother-in-Law had been working on before her death. I was binding off for the shoulder (3 stitches every row for 12 rows) when I realized that the last row (minus the ribbing, but we'll forget that) was 108, a number whose sacred nature is pounded into your head by the book. I cried a little bit.

And my weekend begins

I just returned from dropping R off at the airport. I drove his jeep, which was an experience in itself. I drove a 5-speed (and occasionally a 4+) for a long time, and learned to drive on one. However I've been happy with my automatic for almost 6 years now. I'd forgotten what it's like to drive in the right lanes on the freeway. It's like being on a different road!

It does not handle like my VW...

Last night's dinner:



Chicken stuffed with figs & goat cheese, roasted fingerling potatoes (with a bit of duck fat), and haricots verts. Mmm.

Lucky for me it cleared up yesterday and I was able to get some more yarn photos. There are still a few photo-less skeins on my ravelry stash page, but I'm getting there. I also managed to order everything I needed minus the boots, plus a wig. The only thing I have left for today is laundry. woo hoo!

Today must be productive

Yesterday was a gorgeously beautiful day. Not a cloud in the sky. I should have come home and started taking pictures of my newly inherited yarn stash (the first box that has been shipped down...there's more to come), but I'm not working today so I figured I'd get it done this morning. I don't think it's worth dragging the box out on the porch for cloudy-day photos.



Other things I must do today:

1) Finish Dad's Christmas Scarf (only 4 more repeats!!!), while listening to Eat, Pray, Love for a book club I've been invited to. I don't usually read Oprah's Book Club selections, but I wasn't involved in the choice. I did buy the book as well, but I think I'm going to have to work with a combination of the two.



2) Drop of some old paint at the monthly hazardous waste drop-off.

3) Order this, and these (or something similar), some of these, and a white satin corset. (I'd post a link, but that wouldn't exactly be safe for work now, would it?)

4) Do laundry

5) Go to the store for a few more things for the "nice dinner" I promised R yesterday. We ordered pizza Tuesday, which meant leftovers last night, and he's off to Vegas for a bachelor party tomorrow. This meal is suppose to make up for my laziness.

It is 10:15 and I am still in my robe.

Wow I didn't realize that my last post was the 9th. I thought I must have posted something closer to when we left for Chicago, but I guess not.

I have been away, longer than I had planned. My mother in law passed away the day after Christmas after a 9 1/2 month battle with pancreatic cancer. She was weak when we got up on the 21st, but still had enough energy to take over my attempt at making waffles on Sunday morning. On Monday morning she just started going downhill, falling asleep mid bites of breakfast that she was unable to swallow and didn't want to admit that she couldn't. She had forgotten to take her pain medicine but didn't tell us she was in pain. She slept through most of Christmas eve day, but managed to gather up enough strength and will to demand she attend the neighborhood Christmas eve party. Her other daughter-in-law did her hair and makeup and got her dressed, and we drove her the two doors down where she ended up sleeping in a chair for most of the hour she was there. When we brought her home she fell back asleep, and but for a few eye openings, didn't wake up again.

She passed away around 2:45 in the afternoon, at home with all of us around her but for once not hovering over her. I think she wanted it that way. My sister-in-law had been falling asleep next to her and just minutes earlier decided to get up and make a sandwich. I was talking to her cousin about how we'd spent that night. R came back with a sandwich and sat down next to me at the foot of where she was sleeping. I took one bite of sandwich and realized that her chest was no longer moving. I slowly put the sandwich down and went to her without saying anything. Her heart had been racing all night, but there was nothing when I placed my hand on her chest. I had to go into the kitchen to give my brother & sister-in-law the news.

Her breathing had been shallow and congested for hours, but there was nothing to alert us that it was time. She was probably gone for a few minutes before we even noticed.

She wanted to make it through Christmas, and did. I'm just so thankful that we were up there.