Another NYC Weekend

Happy Birthday to annaoj, yarn goddess!

I've skimmed back 175 friendspage entries now, and I just can't devote more time to it. That's what I get for being away from my computer from Thursday night until now. But it felt really good while I was doing it. My yahoomail account that I use for Columbia House and similar junk type mail had 393 messages in its Bulk Mail folder. Wow.

New York was fabulous, as usual. It was nice to just be able to be around my Kim for a weekend -- I wish we could see each other more often :( but in any case, we yarn-shopped, saw shows, walked enough to not gain weight from daily french fry-peditions, and had a lovely visit. The weather stayed in the 60s and 70s, which was a welcome change from Maryland, and only rained on us a bit. She is good at aiding and abetting my retail therapy habit. Purchases from the weekend include much yarn, magnets for the fridge (including one made out of a postage stamp -- the travelling street fair kept finding and tempting us), kettle corn, yoga pants and a tank sweater on clearance at Eddie Bauer, the new Mary Chapin Carpenter CD, and a blank book that will contain only NYC information. I think I've accrued enough to warrant such a book, and we're there often enough for it to be worthwhile. We didn't eat anywhere too memorable -- Olive Tree Cafe, Pomme Frites, VYNL (I think I like Americanized Thai curry better than authentic Thai curry), Life Cafe -- but the food was satisfying overall, and the fries were good.

I finished The Subtle Knife while in NYC (and 100 pages of The Amber Spyglass - it's so hard to put the books down)! What an amazing series. The characters, the different worlds, the plot, the action -- everything is just believable enough to completely draw me in and make me think I could live there. The books do plenty of description and setting stuff, but not so much that it takes away from the constant movement of the story. I'm warming up to Will's character (it took awhile), and am so glad that the bears are back in this book! I can't imagine having read the books as they came out and having to wait for the third. I'm doing okay with waiting on the Harry Potters -- I wouldn't have done so well with these. I'm glad that the third one is so big -- I will savor it.

My ride to work arrived at 7:55 this morning, which is funny, since I didn't get out of bed until 7:45. Good thing I took a quick shower this morning. On the bright side, we might be leaving early.

I have piles of folders on my desk. I think I was in the middle of organizing something when I left work on Thursday, and I have no idea what it was now.

Things I would like to write entries about in the future (aka writing prompts): my favorite shoes/clothes/adornments over the years; musings about the 48 hour zine project; garden description; meal standbys; sheets.

NYC Yarning

I spent the long weekend in NYC with my sister, a fellow knitaholic, and there was much enabling on each of our parts. We visited three yarn shops - Stitches East, gotta knit, and Knit NYC (and went by Downtown Yarns, but alas, it was closed for Memorial Day). I purchased enough Ritratto (I think it's colorway 70) to make a lace shawl for someone's Christmas gift at Stitches, and some Classic Elite Provence in a green color to do a summer hat at gotta knit. I also found the circulars that I needed. I know it's cheaper to buy online most of the time, but there's something about the instant gratification that I can't pass up once in awhile.

I didn't do a lot of knitting or spinning this weekend. I started the christmas shawl, made it about 30 rows in, and ripped it all out because of a mistake three rows in that I thought I could ignore, but turns out I couldn't. Ritratto, with its 3 strands (one of which is mohair) wasn't thrilled about being ripped, and I don't know if it'll be salvageable. I will restart with one of the other balls, and let this one stretch out on my niddy noddy, and maybe use it later, if I end up needing it for length.

I was afraid to pick Charlotte up, because she never would have had my full attention, and that can only end badly.

I wish I had a fast Internet connection from home -- most of my pictures are on that computer, but then, I always want to post them here at work.