don't steal my two-headed alpaca, bitch

this is logan. she is adorable. she also works at article pract. she rides a very pretty green bike everywhere. i wish i had the discipline to ride my bike half as much as she does. i mean i have a car which just makes me lazy. can i just say that it is cold and dark early? well it is. but logan is still out there on her bike. you are my biking role model. i have no excuse.
ok back to knitting. we had a gift exchange for the store. i got a two-headed alpaca. i could not be happier. logan took the fiber trends pattern for a 'normal' alpaca and made it have two heads. it is felted and she knit it out of alpaca yarn!!! my knitting heart is so happy to have them around. it was one of those gift exchanges where you could either open a new gift or steal the one from the person who just opened one. i was first. no one stole my alpaca. it was great. i have named them dartos and cremaster. thanks logan. oh and that is remy's hand behind logan's head.
today is new year's eve. i work tonight at the hospital. i am looking forward to it actually. i don't know what that says about me, well i guess that i like my job. i am working on finishing some knitted things which post soon. happy new years!! be safe and drink enough water if you are going out to have a drink or two or five.

done and done

done #1: in january i signed up to run 100 miles every 13 weeks- 400 miles in a year- yarnagogo is to blame, ok nevermind, to thank for all of my runningness in 2007. i was not sure if i should do it, i have knee pain from a car accident i was in over three years ago and i wasn't sure if it would hold up. well i signed up anyway and last week i finished my 400 miles!! (i am aware i mentioned it earlier) something i never thought i would do. the picture above is me about 30 sec after i made it home from crossing the 400 mile finish line. all that running was great and totally doable. i am going to increase my mileage for next year, i am thinking 600 miles. i was not sure i was going to make it, but with some discipline and faith in myself, i finished before the year is over and i feel great about the whole thing. one of my best accomplishments, at least during this last year. if i can do it- you can too! sign up at http://www.runagogo.com/

done #2: i just walked in the door 15 mins ago from finishing my last final for my nursing pre-requisites. this means i can now apply and then knit while waiting to hear if i get in. i decided last year that i wanted to go for nursing, and i started this jan by taking chemistry. i took two classes a semester including summer school, maybe you remember not seeing me for 2.5 months. this morning i had my physiology final and tonight i had my life span pysch final.

i now know way more about the human body than most people are interested in hearing, especially the gross stuff!!

anyway this year has been hard but very rewarding with all the studying and running and more studying. now i will sit back and let my blood pressure come down a bit and get some solid amounts of sleep and knit everything that i didn't get to this year. thanks to all of you who have supported me through this, i could not have done it without you.

ok, so yes this is a knitting blog. being that i have been busy, i have not done much knitting. but i plan on calling 2008, knit 2008.


above is a picutre of me wearing the neckwarmer i made for carrie (www.knityaya.com) for the holidays. it is prism yarns kashmir in color nevada ( 65% cashmere and 35% silk) . i used the luxe neckwarmer pattern from knit2together, a very simple 4 row repeat in a feather in fanish pattern. it only took maybe 2 hours as i was studying for my final! very nice to work with and looks great on carrie with her blue blue eyes. she is off to iowa to see her family so i hope it will keep her warm. more knitting to follow. and a two headed alpaca...

All I Want for Christmas (a public service annoucement)

All I want for Christmas is for people in public places, and not so public places, to sneeze and/or cough into their elbow and not into their hands or into the shared public air around them, and me and you. Using your elbow keeps your germs to yourself and keeps them off your hands. You know what you do with your hands, you touch things that I then touch. That is how things are spread (common name: germ theory). So also, since I am already on my soap box, wash your hands. That is all I want.

things

things I like least when I am running:
1. running through someone's just exhaled cigarette smoke

things I like most when running:
1. finishing running 400 miles this year (100 miles every 13 weeks) www.runagogo.com

things NOT to buy at the dolllar store:
1. pregnancy tests
2. condoms
3. anything that costs more than a dollar

things to buy at the dollar store:
1. everything else

Speaking of things...

... these are my two favorite male things (interviewing for a third):

my dad (left back corner):
1. he came up with the name for this blog
2. he came up with me (at least part)
3. my sense of humor, some people might not think it can be called that, is from him
4. he is a fantastic supporter of all things I do and is endlessly proud
5. when my hair feels like being curly- its from his side of the family
6. he is saving the world by being the chair of the environmental studies department at Merritt College http://merritt.edu/~envst/index.html


my schnoodle (Sammie):
1. best dog ever
2. weighs 9.8 pounds
3. very smart
4. loves to cuddle
5. does not shed or make people have allergic reactions
6. adorable
7. tiny
8. best running partner
9. adopted him from http://www.bayareapoodlerescue.org/
10. with help from Sile from www.knitoneone.com
11. loves to wear the sweaters I knit for him

some other things:
1. your pee should be clear, yellow, but clear
2. I like black licorice
3. knitting is the best hobby ever, hands down
4. my mom is one of my favorite female things, ok my fave
5. community colleges provide an amazing education for a great price

log in my eye

This is me at work. I am wearing a hat I knit for a co-workers baby, Ava (pictured above). She is adorable and deserved an adorable hat. I got it from here: http://verasunshyne.blogspot.com/2006/11/felted-baby-yoda-hat.html . I used half of a skein of Ella Rae Classic - ok actually I weighed the ball after I knit the hat and there was only 45 grams left- so it took more than half. After you felt the hat, you must mix up some white glue and water and smear that paste on the ears. See the coat hanger on the desk in front of me? While at work, the hat was hanging by its ears in my locker.
So if you look closely at my left eye, you can tell that something funny is going on. For those of you who don't know me, it is not normally like that. In the middle of the night before this picture was taken, I was awoken by the terrible feeling of having something terrible in my eye, a log really. Well I got up and went into the bathroom but I couldn't see anything in it at all. But when i closed that eye, it hurt sooooo badly. So the first thing I did was think "what would they do at the hospital?" Its kind of like WWJD, but totally different. So I spent the next couple of minutes flushing my eye out. That didn't work at all. So then I thought "what would my body try to do?", also not like WWJD at all. Homeostasis, that's what our bodies are doing all the time, trying (and doing a very good job) of keeping our body functioning normally within certain guidelines. And by guidelines I mean something else but I can't come up with a better word at the moment. Anyway homeostasis is a delicate game of balance and its just great. So I thought, if there was something in my eye, my body would try to get it out on its own, by using tears and the like. So I went and sat on my couch and watched an episode of Scrubs (the sixth season) and held my eye closed with a finger or two. I have lots of faith in the human body. Well, the show ended twenty two minutes later and I opened my eye- and the log, the invisible log, was gone! So I went to sleep. When I woke up the next morning, my eye was as it appears in the photo above.