oofda.

What a few weeks ... I'm so ready for this trip to Pittsburgh tomorrow. I haven't mentioned this on here, but my brother and his fiancee ended their engagement last week. He is definitely doing the right thing, but that doesn't make it any easier or any less painful for him. Recent things have transpired, and they have made it even clearer that he has done the right thing.

As this relates to my knitting blog ... this means I have a half-completed monkey sock for someone I really don't want to see again. I think I'll keep on knitting and hope it fits me. I tried to make light of it, telling my roommate I'd regift it to her, but I don't think anyone wants them now! Ha.

I have to finish the toe of my second Steelers baby sock - the shower is Sunday in Pittsburgh. I think I'm going to sew it up right after I finish this blog.

Also, I've abandoned the idea of making socks for anyone but my mom before Christmas. Dad, roomie, brother - I'm sorry. You will get socks ... eventually. (At the moment, I'm actually relieved that my boyfriend hates to wear socks.) My new plan of action is to make hats. I bought some Patons Classic Merino and got to working on a basic 2x2 rib hat for my brother. I haven't gotten very far - maybe an inch into it. I'm hoping I make progress this weekend, though, perhaps when I'm chilling at the hotel with my mom Saturday night. We are spending most of Saturday tooling around Pittsburgh, checking out Knit One in Squirrel Hill and Bloomin' Yarns in McMurray (Oddly enough, it's across the street from my job at the Maxx in high school!) We are also going to see one of my favorite plays on Saturday night. My mom did some plays at this theater when I was in high school. It's a neat place.

I haven't hung out with my mom and gone out for the day in about two years. I can't believe it. It's unacceptable - but kind of hard to avoid, since we pretty much haven't lived in the same state (well, even the same house) since the summer after my freshman year of college.

I'm also going to dinner with Mimi (my mom's mom) and some family Friday night ... and I'm taking my Granddad (my dad's dad) out to breakfast on Saturday. I can't wait.

This is mostly a rewrite of a Ravelry post, but here goes:

Running lately has been a struggle for me - I've been going through a lot of challenges lately, family issues and the like, and I've found it hard to lace up my sneaks for training runs. I almost skipped Thursday's Turkey Trot 10K I had signed up for, but the weather was just perfect - about 70 degrees and sunny, even though the forecast called for rain and temps in the high 50s. In fact, it ended up being almost too hot.

It was a tough run. It goes to show I haven't been training as much as a year ago, because my internal clock was all off and I thought I was about 20 minutes slower than I actually was. Around mile 5, a nearby runner checked her watch, and she said we were at at about 1 hour 15 minutes. I thought we were at 1 hour 30 minutes, I felt like I was so slow! It made me hustle through the last mile, as much as I could, and I ended up with a time of 1:29:00, about seven minutes slower than last year's Turkey Trot, but I was markedly faster than any of my training runs this month, I discovered, when I checked out my times on logyourrun.com. That was a thrill.

Anyway ... I have been feeling kind of demoralized what with personal issues and I've been doubting my goal to run the Shamrock Half Marathon in March. Throughout the 10K I knew I was not as strong as I was a year ago when training to run this same race. Not to mention, I'm conservative about money and I was griping internally about the $70 entry fee. So by mile 4 of this 6.2 mile race, I was pretty much sure there was no way I was going to sign up for this half marathon.

I met up with some running buddies at the finish line, and Bethany had won a raffle prize - a free entry to the very same race I have been hemming and hawing over. Except she can't use it because she's moving to Australia at the end of the year. So she gave it to me. I was just so taken aback at her generosity and I really feel like it was some weird nudge from a higher being or something to get me back on track, to push through these tough times, and so on. I totally pulled a 180, my morale is up again and I haven't run since the race. I really believe in fate working in mysterious ways.

Thanksgiving

I'm going through some tough times right now ... I'm not going to delve into it here but life is kind of not fun right now. I'm skipping Thanksgiving dinner with my friends/co-workers (and am hemming and hawing on the Turkey Trot tomorrow morning) and staying home with my boyfriend. My Thanksgiving menu, you ask? Pulled pork BBQ on yummy bread and, for some semblance of Thanksgiving-ish-ness, green bean casserole. Sounds like a winner to me.

I'm missing my family a lot right now ... I saw them briefly in June at a family party in Pittsburgh. I keep reminding myself that I'll get to see my mom in a week and a half when I roadtrip it to the burgh for my cousin's baby shower. And my parents (and, with the latest turn of events, possibly my brother, too) will be visiting after Christmas. I can't wait.

Even though I'm feeling down, I'm thankful for so much this year. My good job, my parents, theJoshes in my life (boyfriend and brother), my true friends. Oh yes and my yarn-investigating dog:

wow, a bunch of firsts!

In the past two days, for the very first time, I:

--called my credit card company about fraud on my account. Take that, lame person who used my credit card number to buy $93 worth of flowers in South Carolina and spent $20 on your pay-as-you-go phone. My credit-card company could not have been more helpful. Boo to your fraudulent charges! I honestly have no idea how someone got my number. The S.C. charge was about three weeks after I used my card ONCE in Charleston - to pay for the hotel. That doesn't mean the number was taken there. It's still scary, though. I'm glad it was resolved so quickly.

--took my dog with me to the bank drive-through window. I've always wanted to do this but never have because I didn't trust my dog out of her crate in the car - now I do, for short trips. The teller was nice and gave her dog treats. =)

--competed in the local WorldQuest competition, repping the newspaper with seven other journalists. Good food and some tough questions. But I came through with some big ones! I knew that EADS made a huge sale of aircraft to Libya, not Lebanon or Venezuela or ... some other controversial country. But I dropped the ball on the question about which foreign nation has the most companies working in Chesapeake. I *edited* this project, for chrissakes. It will haunt me for some time. We lost by two questions (argh!) and came in second in our division. Oh well. We got some nice steel insulated coffee mugs. And I ate some yummy meatballs and crab dip stuff.

--finished my first knitted hat! It's for baby Rookie (my cousin's pregnant and doesn't want to know whether it's a boy or a girl. They're calling it Rookie because they're big football fans.)



I'm also knitting wee black-and-gold socks. One just needs the toe kitchenered:



Like the matchbox for scale? Me too. Now I should go to sleep ... I pushed my long run back to tomorrow - I'm aiming for about 5.5!

the rav, it keeeels me

Ugh, where does my time go? I spend more time on Ravelry surfing around than I do knitting. This has got to stop. There are something like 40 days before Christmas, and there is no way I'm going to finish five pairs of socks before then. I've done 1 pair, and I'm half way done with another sock. I'm not even going to delude myself into thinking I'll somehow find time to knit four hours a day to get it done.

Also, baby knitting has taken precedence, as my cousin's baby shower is in a few weeks and I'm making black-and-gold booties out of leftover Claudia's Handpainted Yarn. I cast on for a baby hat, too, just for some stockinette sanity knitting.

I think my problem is that I only like to knit when I've got a chunk of time set aside. I'm not a "work a row here and there" kind of knitter. How can I change that? I mean, I don't even know if I want to. Argh.

ahhh, weekends.

I love my weekend schedule (well, the lack thereof).

8 a.m. Alarm goes off, dutifully climb out of bed to prepare for the week's long run.
8:10 a.m. Walk dog in cold weather, curse about not being in nice warm bed.
8:17 a.m. Eat toast with butter and jam. Yummy - but not helping the not-being-in-bed situation.
8:35 a.m. Tool around on internet, still in pajamas.
9:05 a.m. Decide sleep is needed before embarking on a drive to Mount Trashmore. Alarm is set for 10 a.m.
9:15 a.m. Decide 40 minutes of sleep isn't enough ... set alarm for 10:20 a.m.
10:20 a.m. Alarm goes off, reset it for 10:45.
And so on ...

I finally made it to Trashmore by 12:30. Ran/walked three laps of the lake (4.2 miles, woohoo!). It was a good run - I had a boost in the middle, and then on the last lap I motivated myself by thinking about the fun that was ahead:

"America's Next Top Model," my robe made out of minky fabric, and my second attempt at homemade wedding soup (motto: more spinach, fewer noodles). And, oh yes, knitting.

monkeying around

I am loving my monkey sock!



I cast on Thursday night and, as of this morning, am nearly done with the second repeat. I modified the pattern to include no purls, a la this pair. It makes for a much faster pair of socks. I'm also making it a 10-row repeat instead of 11 (getting rid of the final row of all knitting stitches). It's a pretty fast knit, even for me. (I had to frog four rounds or so before I decided to do the all-knit variety ... picking up 64 stitches is pretty stressful.

I'm so addicted to the monkey that I'm going to take a really fast shower to squeeze in some more knitting time before work!

EDIT: I don't know why the photo is cropped so awkwardly. If you click on the photo, you can see a full-size version.

knitting update

I finished my mom's socks! Unfortunately I haven't taken any pictures of the pair all finished. I'm so happy with how they turned out.

Aaaand I cast on for a pair of Monkeys! I'm using Thank Ewe sock yarn in Firedancer. They're for my brother's fiancee. I started with a stockinette pattern but lost all the stitches on one needle, so after frogging and much deliberation, I decided to go off the deep end and try Monkey. I'm not even in the actual pattern yet, just a few rounds into the cuff, but I'm loving it (k1tbl, p1) and think I'll use it on future stockinette socks. It just looks really smart and snappy. I'm hoping the pattern won't be too scary - I've read a lot of people who say Monkeys are really easy and fun, so maybe that will hold true for me, too. I've never done yarnovers, or ktbl, and never used a chart. By the end ... I should be a master, right?!

running away

Nope, I'm not running away from home ... but you might have noticed I haven't hung around my blog lately. That's because I've been running a lot over the past two weeks as a test of my will to run ... and honestly it couldn't go any better. So without further ado ... I am ready to say publicly that I've committed myself to running my second half marathon.

Laziness I had to face the facts - since I ran the Shamrock Half Marathon, my running has been practically nonexistent. I've been spending more time with my boyfriend, who, bless him, isn't the healthiest creature in the world. I sleep in more ... we go on dates to restaurants ... it is a vicious cycle when I am not as active as I was during training. I love the fact that we are what you would call a Serious Couple, but it has wreaked havoc on my running schedule. I thought I would want to run just to run, but that hasn't happened. I would take Gracie on long walks under the guise of a workout, but I realize that I used that as a crutch to avoid running - it was too hot, she couldn't keep up or she wanted to stop and smell things, etc.

Physically Selfishly, I hate seeing myself in pictures right now. I think my face looks more round. I think about how happy I was with the way I looked a year ago, and I just get depressed about how different I look now. I get the same (slightly disgusted) reaction I get when I look at pictures of my bloated self during my senior year of college, and it's certainly a motivator to go out and run. I have been down in the dumps a lot lately, and as superficial as it is, I know it's in part because of my body and how I'm disappointed in myself for not keeping off the 20-plus pounds I lost more than a year ago.

Mentally I don't know how to describe it, but running is a mental release. It's like charging my phone battery ... or that feeling of satisfaction when you slide the last piece in the puzzle. Once I get moving, after even just a third of a mile, I get in the best mood. Today, I just wanted to stay out there forever - I had a route all planned out (in fact, I usually leave it up on my computer screen in case for some reason I don't return, and then someone will know where to look for me. Crazy or smart? You decide.), but traffic was nuts on Brambleton Avenue and I couldn't cross it, so I diverted from my plan because I was itching to keep moving, I didn't want to lose my groove. I ran along Brambleton, heading opposite all the busy cars, and I sprinted at the end of my burst, and it was great. Before today, I hadn't really had that great burst of a good mood from running since the half marathon, and it was just so awesome. I really missed it.

I realize this will take away from my knitting time (not that I was super fast to begin with ... ) but I'm fine with that - in fact, I think knitting could be a reward for the running I plan on doing (I've been doing it 4x a week, and I plan on keeping it that way). I haven't committed financially, but I plan on doing that in a couple weeks. I plan on running the Turkey Trot (10K - that's 6.2 miles) on Thanksgiving, if my training keeps progressing as planned. I think I'm really going to stick with this, though - I even ran a few miles in the pouring down rain last Thursday and it was so great. I've come up with a training schedule that really flows with my work schedule - I plan on doing a 3-mile run every Saturday, a medium-ish run on Mondays, a 3-miler on Tuesdays, and my weekly long run on Thursdays (my day off work). That gives me my second day off to recuperate once I get up there in mileage. I know I will be slightly less motivated when it gets super cold, but I've already seen progress since the 5K a week and a half ago. Keep your fingers crossed for me!

weekend recap

Yeah it's almost the following weekend but I wanted to make note of this amazingly fun weekend I had. This weekend was a blast. I woke up ridiculously early on Saturday morning for the Race for the Cure in Virginia Beach. I headed up a team consisting of 15 people from the paper. We raised about $400! Here's who carpooled with me before the race (I would have photographed everyone but I didn't take my camera to the start of the race, it's a bit clunky.)



It was Bethany's (second from left) first 5K! Girl is going to do Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving, too. The weather was pretty nice - and it was way inspiring to see so many people there, and so many survivors in their pink T-shirts. I ran the first half-mile or mile and walked the rest with some co-workers.

After I caught up on sleep and did a little shopping with the boyfriend (nothing like waiting till the day of the wedding to buy a new dress shirt, dude), it was time for Judy's wedding! My roommate's boyfriend came in from New Jersey and of course we did a photo shoot at home (sadly, we didn't get the combination of our boyfriends. I think that would have been kind of funny.) We frequently take photos with Capt. Jack.



You can see we were drinking wine ... but in no way were we toasted like all the people at Town Point Park for the Virginia Wine Festival. We actually saw someone throwing up on our our way to catch the boat for the wedding. Gross.

Judy's wedding could not have been more perfect. For starters, the weather was gorgeous. And the time of departure on the American Rover?



The perfect sunset! The ceremony happened within 20 minutes of our departure, before it got too dark. It was really quick (I guess I'm just used to long Catholic masses). A former co-worker was the officiant and she gave a sweet speech. There was yummy food and drink, and lots of people to hang out with. It really felt like a party.



In more than a year of dating ... I've never seen him in a tie. I had to document it whenever I could. =) I'm really bummed I didn't get a picture of Judy in her gorgeous red dress. Here is her's and Jeffrey's first dance:



There was good music, and I especially liked the slow dances. Dancing on a boat = ultra romantic! After the cruise was over, we went back to Lori and JJ's and hung out till 1 a.m. I woke up sore (from the race and my high heels) and hungover but it was such a great day.