Warning!

I am sooo excited! I just got invited to ravelry! I have been waiting forever it seems. So my warning is that this blog may be a bit neglected as I spend some time getting onto ravelry - yay!

DC exchange Q3

Autumn has now officially begun here in the States!! What is your favorite thing about Autumn/Fall? Why?

I love the crisp weather and sleeping with the windows open. I love the turn in the leaves and seeing all the trees in all their beautiful colors. I love the food - the apples, the squash, the home canned harvest goods - it makes me wish all over again that we had a garden.

For me autumn feels like a natural place to do a thorough cleaning and nesting of my house in order to prepare for winter and more time indoors. I love getting things cleaned out of closets, getting out my sweaters and flannel pajamas.

I also love football season. We are redskins fans and we all don our sportswear every Sunday for the games. It is a lot of fun. I wish we lived near college football. I really loved those BYU football games - and we could afford those. Redskins games are just out of our price range.

Must have Tee

My DishCloth swap spoilee, put this tee on her blog as a "must-have" - and I have to say I totally agree! Isn't this the coolest knitting shirt ever!

http://www.jinx.com/women/shirts/geek/yarrrn.html

Coupling

Claire told me all about "Coupling" a British sit-com. It is a cross between Friends, Seinfeld and Sex and the City.

It is like Friends in that it is about 3 men and 3 women all single living in London and regularly meeting at the local pub to chat about life, etc. It is like Sex and the City because the show revolves around one couple and both of their best friends and both of their ex-es, so the show talkes mainly about their love and sex lives - definitely more edgey than American sitcoms. But the best part is that it is also like Seinfeld in that they use unusual ways of presenting a story of interconnectedness that is really funny. One of my favorite things they do is show one night from several different perspectives that build on top of one another.

So imagine my disappointment when it ended so strangely after 4 seasons. Arghh - please come back.

Oh, I forgot to mention the best part - I watched all of this on Netflix's Watch it now feature - Fantastic. Any other coupling fans out there?

DC exchange question #2

When you knit or crochet dishclothes, washclothes or face clothes, what do you use? What size needle or hook? Wood? what type? Metal? Plastic? A specific Brand? Why do you love that needle or hook so much? Is there one you are dying to try? Is there a particular yarn you love and use all the time for clothes? What is so special about it?

I usually use my metal needles #5 by Boye. They are purple which originally I thought was good - not necessarily purple per se, but just that they are a nice bright color. I like that the yarn slides pretty well on the aluminum metal. I don't like the tips - which have lost the paint coating slowly and the transition between the silver on the tips and the purple of the rest of the needle has become quite rough. This has been disappointing. So I am actually looking for a new set of metal needles that won't lose their slickness/paint. I do like the size 5. It makes for a nice tight dishcloth. And I usually like to do an oatmeal color trim with a bright color in the wash cloth. I like my cloths colorful. I almost always use peaches and cream and/or sugar and cream cotton. I like it, it is cheap and it comes in so many colors.

Can we really be altruistic?

Sometimes I think there is no such thing as altruism. Doing some small good for someone else makes me feel just as good if not better.

Lately, I have felt this strong affinity to help out a young unwed mother, whose family (except her mom) are trying to make her give the baby up for adoption.

A good friend asked me why I felt so strongly about this person and this cause in particular. I can't really think of any one super strong reason, though I have several smaller reasons.

For one, I feel that every child deserves to be celebrated and cherished and every mother - especially new mothers deserve to be honored. And I definitely was the lucky recipient of much love and celebration during my pregnancy and after my daughter's birth.

Another is that I was raised in a church that preached very strongly in favor of adoption when a mother is unwed. While I think that is an option that should certainly be open to a woman - I don't think it is something that should be pushed on people - EVER!! There is just too much at stake to let someone else make that decision for you or even influence you in it. Ideally a woman in this situation will have a good sounding board and people who will be straight with her about the consequences of her choices. Each of us has to live with our decisions, so I think we should take full ownership of them for better or worse. Sorry for the soapbox - I was fed the "free agency" thing while being told what to choose for a little too long and now it makes me angry to see that happening to others.

Perhaps the most compelling reason for me right now, is that I feel like my small contribution towards this young mother and child will actually make a big difference in their lives. And how often do we (and by we I mean human beings) get the opportunity to make a concrete difference in someone's life - especially at such a special life meridian. I really feel like I am the lucky one to find someone truly in need so that I can repay a little of the human kindness shown to me in so many ways big and small.

Cool soap site

Ok, I will admit that I have had a few less than favorable run-ins with handmade soap. While I think it is an awfully nice sentiment, I like the creaminess of a bar of dove soap. So this was the one requirement for the dish cloth swap that I wasn't really excited about. It's hard to get excited about giving something you would just as soon not get yourself - KWIM?.

But, I just found the coolest soap site with all kinds of soaps that I am actually excited to give (and to try myself). My spoilee doesn't like lavender or vanilla scents, but there are lots of other good options on here. I think I may go with the green tea soap for her and I may try the lavender or jasmine for me - we shall see. I may get a bar for my mom's bday too - she is one who actually does appreciate handmade soaps.

Bomb Week at Work

This past week the building that I work in had bomb threats MTW and so we have been on lock down and higher security. It was quite crazy. Luckily no one was actually hurt, the bomber did not actually bomb the building and I was able to work from home for several afternoons.

One of the days when we were evacuated, my car was stuck in the garage below the building. I took Ryan's car home and he took the train. The next morning I took the train in and used the opportunity to start on the dish cloth for my secret pal. I am pretty sure she will really like it because it is going to have one of her favorite colors. I can't give any more details because I have not done a very good job of keeping myself anonymous and she could easily find her way to my blog.

Dish Cloth exchange - week 1 question

Now that in some geographic locations the weather is starting to turn cooler, do you change the type of yarn(s) you knit/crochet with? If so, what do you now knit/crochet with instead and why? If not, why do you not switch and what do you knit/crochet with?

As a new knitter, this is my first cooler weather change. I am considering trying to make something wearable - like a sweater, but I think I should have started a bit earlier in the year if I hope to be wearing it by the end of the winter. So instead, I am busy working on some gifts for various people right now. I am also getting really excited about the Charmed Knits book that is coming my way from zooba v. soon.

The changing of seasons is inspiring me to change out my color pallette a little bit. I think I may go to work on some halloween colored discloths for myself. I just have my doubts on how black cotton will look after a few uses.

Dish Cloth Swap Questionnaire

1. Do you knit or crochet? How long have you been doing it?

I have been crocheting on and off since I was about 10 years old, my grandma kay taught me one Christmas and I have been hooked ever since.
Recently (within the last year) I picked up knitting and I love it! I am self-taught, though to be fair to my grandma miller - she taught me one Christmas when I was a teenager, so it was probably easier to reteach myself with Internet tutorials after her kind tutelage.

2. Have you made dischloths before? Do you use them yourself, give them as gifts, or both?

I love dishcloths! I have made several for myself and I have given several away as gifts too. I have been pleasantly surprised at how well received they are.

3. What's your favorite cotton to make cloths from? What cotton would you like to try that you haven't before ?

I love the peaches and cream; sugar and cream is nice too. I would actually really like to try a cotton/linen blend for a cloth or seven.

4. If you knit, do you prefer circular or straight needles? For all, do you prefer wooden, metal, or plastic needles?

I prefer straight needles and I appreciate all types. I am a newbie knitter so I have only tried metal and bamboo.

5. What are your favorite colors? Any colors you don't like much?

I love color. I haven't seen a color yet that doesn't work well as a dishcloth.

6. What do you like best about Autumn?

I love the crisp smell in the air, the fresh apples (and going apple picking), I love the baking and I love wearing sweaters and corduroy again.

7. Pies: Pumpkin? Apple? Pecan? All of em? or No Thanks!

I will take a small bite of each - Pecan then Pumpkin then apple (if I still have room).

8. When you were a kid, were you the one who couldn't wait to get started with school , or the one who overslept on the 1st day?

I was the one who couldn't wait. I am a morning person with a strong aversion to being late, oversleeping is an extremely rare event for me.

9. Do you celebrate Halloween? (The real key here guys is especially knowing if you have an aversion to the holiday or little goodies/decorations associated with it, given the time-frame of the swap)

I love Halloween. I think it is actually my favorite holiday. I already have my daughter's Halloween costume for the year and every year I dress up as a witch to pass out candy out of my black Calderon. It is such fun.

10. If you had to choose just 3 edible 'goodies' to eat for a full year, what 3 would you choose?

Dark Chocolate; Kona Coffee and super dark chocolate!

11. Do you have any pets? Kids? Husbands who seem like kids? ;)

I have a daughter - 2 yo and a husband. No pets - though I really want a fish :)

12. If you were to describe a particular yarn that shares traits of your personality, what would it be and why?

I think Linen is a good yarn to describe me. I can be a little rough around the edges, but quite soft after a few washings :).

13. Do you use your cloths mostly for dishcloths, or as facecloths?

I use them mostly as dishcloths, though my daughter likes to take one to her bath (along with some plastic dishes to clean while she is in there).

14. Favorite Fall Holiday: Halloween or Thanksgiving and why? (Feel free to share another fall memory if you do not celebrate either of these holidays)
I love both fall holidays. But if I were to choose I would say Halloween. I love dressing up and I love giving candy to little kids and having an excuse to dress my child up and I love decorating my house with pumpkins and black accents everywhere. I love Halloween parties and spooky treats and spooky drinks.

15. Do you have any allergies or aversions your pal should know about?

I don't really like smelly things (heavily perfumed) they tend to give me a headache. I prefer clean/light scents.

Coolest Sweater Ever!!

I found the coolest sweater I have ever seen and I wish I had the skills to make it. If you go to Practical Polly's blog, she has several really good pics of it. I hope she decides to publish the pattern because even though I am sure it would take me awhile to figure out, it would be well worth the effort for this beauty. Knitting is so cool!

In the meantime, I shall continue to knit dishcloths, because dishcloths are really cool and really useful. Perhaps I'll take a picture of all of my beautiful dishcloths someday soon.

Back to work

Being back to work is working well for me. I am really enjoying it. Though I must admit, I don't enjoy it when I have down time at work like I used to (luckily, I am busy enough that I have only had a few moments like that). It is strange though. I feel like I really like working and I feel like I am doing something good for the world in general. But when there is downtime, I wish I was home just being silly with Audrey for 5 or 10 minutes.

The real adjustment has been the hours. I am not used to waking up at 5:15 in the morning and being out the door by 5:50. I get into work at 6:30. I really love doing 4 10 hour days instead of 5 8 hour days, but I really don't have a whole lot of time at home to lounge about during my work week. I really have to be in bed by 9:15 or else I don't feel like a very happy camper. Which means that I am getting ready for bed around 8:45 - it is almost like being a kid again (I had a bedtime all the way through high-school - 9:30).

Audrey is adjusting pretty well to me being gone. We just finished our second full week of Genny being here and Audrey was actually fussier this week than last (for me, she gives G no problems at all). She is also waking up really early too - 6 ish. I am hoping once she adjusts, she will get back to her normal sleep habits - 7:30 ish pm - am. But she still seems to be her happy self.

Walkability

One thing I have always loved about my mom's houses in Seattle is the walkability factor. We walked to the grocery store, the library, the coffee shop, restaurants, parks, etc. As a kid, summertime was wide open because everything was within walking distance - no need to wait for a ride. So I was thrilled to discover a website that rates the walkability of any location - walkscore.com.

My current location got an 11 out of 100 - and I think that score is too high because someone nearby sells nutrition supplements out of their home, so it looks like food is a short walk away, but it really isn't. If you do check it out - please post your walkscore in the comments, I would love to see who lives in the walkiest place.

Housekeeping

Today Ryan and I made a list of all the things that we wanted done in our house - cleaning, organizing, etc. Then I took the things that I felt ownership of (such as cleaning out the fridge, planning the menu, and making a grocery list) and started on those things while Ryan started on the rest of the list. We have done so many things it is fantastic and best of all I have our menu planned for a week +, which for some reason is really the key to me feeling peaceful and happy as a homemaker/mom/wife.

Along the idea of menus/meal tricks for working moms - I know the assembly dinners for the freezer are a big thing out here. I haven't ever been to one and am reluctant to try one (cost/quality issues). The Dinner Diva had an idea that I like (though I probably will use my own recipes). She offers 5 for the freezer menus based on a certain type of meat - like chicken or ground beef. I like this idea because then you can take advantage of loss-leader sales and buy in bulk with a manageable plan. So next time I see a great deal I am going to try it.

My latest food idea is to try to implement a soup night. Soups are generally really healthy, full of veggies and beans and grains, delicious (homemade of course), frugal (you can use lots of leftovers and smaller bits of meat and still have the full wonderful flavors) and best of all they freeze well. So my plan is to make soup once a week as dinner and freeze the leftovers (in portion sized containers) to take in my lunches to work. I figure since I will be doing 10 hour days and I like to eat lots of smaller meals I will need to pack much more than a typical sandwich and fruit if I am going to be a happy camper. I think soup will bridge that gap beautifully.

So tonight we are having a tomato lentil soup. Any fellow soup lovers out there?

Cool things

I just discovered librarything.com. It is fabulous (and free)!

You can put all of your books into it or just some of them and then post the covers on your blog - as you see on mine. I am not quite tricky enough to get rid of the standard headings that they put on the code to copy and paste, but hopefully I will figure it out soon. Even with the headings, I like it much better than my old list - if for no other reason than it automatically pulls up the book covers.

New Magazine subscription

Someone was kind enough to get me a new magazine subscription for my bday that just arrived yesterday - Airstream Life. It is awesome. I nearly read the whole thing before going to bed and dreaming of doing my own tour of America.

Birthday

Since I last posted, I turned 31! And I had a great birthday. My sister, William, was in town for the past couple of weeks and helped Ryan sneekily purchase the most beautiful pair of earrings for me (William and I were shopping earlier in the week and I saw them at a jewelry counter and fell in love, so Ryan had her buy them for me). He also got me a cute pair of light pink crocs (which I have wanted forever) and a movie.

I told Audrey that since it was mama's bday she had to give me lots of kisses all day - and she obliged.

William, aside from flying out to visit me, also painted my bedroom (the cathedral ceilings made it more of an act of kindness than painting alone would have been). I also got a watch, and several new shirts and Ryan's parents got me the Anne of Green Gables DVDs set. Plus, lots of people called, sent cards and emails. It is surprising how much it still means to me (at this old of an age) to hear from people I know and love on my bday.

One of the best parts of the whole celebration was William and I having a bday adventure. Margaret was kind enough to volunteer to watch Audrey so Will and I could do something fun. So we were going to go get mani/pedis, see a movie and go to eat at my favorite Thai restaurant (Thai in Shirlington); but I decided (it is nice to be the sole person in charge on your bday) that we were going to drive 40 miles south to tour Airstream trailers - because I have wanted one forever and I have never even seen the inside of one. We got a little lost and made a couple of wrong turns. That was actually fun.

Warning: tangent - See, I live in what I consider to be the southernmost part of Northern Virginia. Technically, Virginia is Southern. But Northern Virginia, being a Washington, D.C., suburb isn't really "the South". But anything further south than me and you are in fact in "the South". For example my I-95 exit has Ikea, Potomac Mills, Costco etc. The next exit south has Cracker Barrel, Waffle House, etc. There are quite a few places in my general area that I may even say still have a strong Southern influence. We live off a parallel road to I-95 - route 1 or Jefferson-Davis Highway. If you head south about 8 miles, there is a huge (maybe 50-60 ft tall) crucifix (complete with larger than life Jesus attached) on the side of the road all on its own - no church or anything. Ryan and I now use that as a point of reference, e.g. head towards Jesus on Rt 1 or vise versa.

So (back to the point) driving south on I-95 for 40 miles puts you in the South. We pulled up to a gas station to ask for directions and the only spot available was between two trucks - one was a monster truck, the other was an old well-loved truck with some colorful bumper stickers including: Keep Honking, I'm reloading and Redneck. And as we were pulling out of the gas station across Rt 1 was a huge church (they are everywhere) with a mural on the street side advertising the times of services and motorcycles (I never even knew the two were related). So we certainly enjoyed the colorfulness of our detour.

Finally we got to tour Airstream trailers to our hearts content and we both agreed they were awesome and we both want to own one and go camping together. Then it was too late to fit in all of the other stuff, so we headed North into Alexandria for lunch at my favorite restaurant and then ate so much that we had to take our Maggie Moos ice cream to go.

Working Woman

The interview at BP went well - and in fact they offered me the job and flexibility - I am going to work 3 10 hour days in the office, 1 10 hour day from home and have Friday's off. The only point of contention was the start date.

My sister G is going to come and live with us, but she could not be bribed out of her own previous engagements and can't come until mid-August. In the end, I am going to start work on August 13 and Grandma and Ryan will take time off for the first week so that we can get G settled in and Audrey used to her. Then G will be watching Audrey until the end of the year. Then she is going back to school for Winter semester and we are (tentatively) planning on getting an au pair.

Child care is a huge deal for working moms and was almost enough to make me just turn down the offer completely - luckily for both myself and BP they were willing to let me start later.

In the end, I am v. excited to be going back to BP. I am really excited to work with some old colleagues and meet some new ones. I am also excited about doing the work and having a new challenge - the two countries I will be supporting have quite large programs. I am also thrilled that I will only be commuting 3 days a week. Around these parts - the commute is what really sucks the life out of you. Plus working from home one day will let me eat lunch with cute Audrey and make her dinner too.

Jobs

Tomorrow I have an interview at BearingPoint. I worked there for a little over a year about three years ago. It was one of those slightly crazy jobs where people just didn't really believe you when you told them what you did - which was foreign military sales - which is a nice way of saying arms dealing admin.

Part of me would really love to work there again - mainly because of the people. I met and am still good friends with some amazing people there. Some of whom are still there. It would be very nice to work with them again. Plus they have hinted that they would be willing to do some sort of part-time or flex-time arrangement - which is of course dreamy.

Part of me doesn't want to work there again because of the politics of it. It is the type of job that you can and do take home - not necessarily because there is not enough time to do your work, but because there are always so many cooks in the kitchen. I think I would be better at dealing with all of that now than I was then, if only because I know what to expect (more or less). Even so, I still wonder if that is what I want.

My other option, though an interview is still pending is with a small defense agency that I worked at right before having Audrey. They are hiring my old job again and have expressed a great deal of interest.

Again, part of me would love to work there again. The work itself was extremely interesting and the nature of the job made it semi-autonomous, though still part of a team. I also liked that it was not a job that I could bring home at all. I couldn't bring home papers, my computer, nothing. So, when I was done, I was done and that was nice. And they paid well - the philosophy there was, we want to hire and keep the best, so we are willing to compensate accordingly.

The down side - there isn't any possibility for part-time or flex-time arrangements - which I really want. And my good friend and old roommate who worked with me there is no longer there, so the social aspect is greatly reduced.

Latte my way

It is a well established fact that I make the best coffee around. And with the contest going on, I have had to come up with a new lower calorie way to make it just as delicious. My solution has been to make it iced - still using whole milk, raw sugar and a double shot of coffee. Here it is right before I put the ice in and mix it up. I love how beautiful the colors are and the way they blend.