The Pre Slippers

Back in December, I knit Hubby an item at his special request. Slippers in Prefontaine signature Oregon colors. I made them and then overfelted them just a touch. They probably would have fit Hubby, but this unfortunate circumstance coincided with the very fortunate 30th birthday of my friend Chrisie. Hubby, being the amazing man that he is, was happy to repurpose his prized slippers as a gift to Chrisie, a burgeoning running star.

Pattern: Fiber Trends Felt Clogs [Rav Link]
Source: FiberTrends AC-33
Materials: Cascade 220 baby!
Amount: 2 skeins each color
Needles: US 13
Started: December, 2008
Finished: December, 2008

The story of Chrisie's birthday in a nutshell:

Chrisie was less than amped about turning 30 and I found out that she had no plans for the big day. This would not do.

• December 5th: Co-conspired with our bestie Pete to fly from Arkansas to join me in Pittsburgh for Chrisie festivities. We bought plane tickets.
• December 12th: I was supposed to fly to Pittsburgh. Instead, I got a migraine and ended up puking at work. Awesome. There was no way I was going to survive a flight. Hubby was amazing. Came all the way downtown to pick me up, took me home and called the airline in time to reschedule my flight.
• December 13th: Flew to Pittsburgh: Land of Chrisie. Finest city in the land. Laissez les bons temps rouler:

Yuengling for all!

Catnip mustaches for Oedipuss:

I got Oedipuss' at the Bazaar Bizarre, but you can get one here.

• December 14th: Birthday!! We had a rockin' birthday at Chrisie's parents house. Her parents were so gratious to me and Pete. I absolutely gorged myself on Sir Pizza and to be honest, I still didn't get enough. We watched the Steelers beat the Ravens. It was an awesome day. And while Chrisie may have been entering a new decade, she was still her same old self:
  

Before we left Chrisie's to go to her parents house
she pulled out her mom's old Bleier jersey saying, "It's a big game today."

Was she talking about the Steelers game or turning 30? I'm not sure and I don't think I want to know her answer. I love the idea of her donning her mom's old Bleier jersey on a day when she and her team needed support.

High Society

How have I never seen High Society (1956)?

Philadelphia Story is one of my favorite movies, so when my friend Terri blogged about High Society I immediately threw it in my Netflix queue. I watched it this morning and here's my take:

• I have never seen a movie with either Grace Kelly or Louis Armstrong. I feel better now that i have. Oh, Louis. He's cute.
  
• Grace Kelly is no Katharine Hepburn. I didn't care for Grace's acting. Seemed unnatural.
  
• Bing Crosby just doesn't do it for me like Cary Grant does.
• I LOVED that it was in color.
• The songs weren't too cheesy.
• I WANT the dress that Grace Kelly wears to the Bach Party. (I can't find a pic of it.)
  
• I am now obsessed with the champagne glasses they use throughout the movie. I have been scouring ebay for similar ones.
  

Here's my favorite song. Of course it's Frank.

Quarter Century Club

At my place of employment, there's this club for employees that have been there over 25 years. Oddly enough they call it the Quarter Century Club. Seeing how the only way I'd be a member is if I started working there at age 5, I'm not allowed to attend their get togethers. There are a few dinosaurs in my office that have obtained membership to this club and I've heard it's a raucous good time. Bluehairs, wheelchairs, mothballs and booze. Kickass.

My sister joins another kind of quarter century club today.
She's 25.

She kicks ass too. And if she's got a club, I'm the president!
She's the Amy Poehler to my Tina Fey.

*photo taken at her bridal shower last month.
For those that are curious, this was before the haircut.

Three Day Weekend

I kicked off the holiday weekend (Columbus Day dudes. I'm sorry you don't get it off, but I do and I'm thankful.) by making some banana bread.
(I also made cheesy muffins and a veggie tart, but those didn't last long enough for photos.)

A perfect thing to wake up to this morning.

This is how I plan to spend the day: coffee, knitting, America's Test Kitchen, a blanket and Django.

I might run some errands so that I can cook some more, but I'll make them quick so that I can get back to the couch and Django.

What happens when...

...you go shoe shopping with a distance runner:


Pre shoes. Hand selected by Hubby.

Husband Interview

Everyone else is doing it....

Haddy: Do you have a few minutes? Can I interview you via skype for my blog?
Hubby: Sure. But I have to warn you. We are listening to greatest hits of the 90's and "ace of base" was just on.

Haddy: What is your favorite thing about my knitting?
Hubby: My slippers. That was easy.

Haddy: Let me re-phrase the question: What is your favorite aspect of me having knitting as a hobby? (not what is your favorite knitted thing.)
Hubby: *two minute pause* one sec. thinking * two more minutes* The quiet time on the couch, particularly when I am tired. Soothing.

Haddy: What is something I have knitted that you recall as being good?
Hubby: Slippers. They are essential.

Haddy: Do you think knitters have an expensive hobby?
Hubby: Not sure. Don't think it is really expensive. Cheaper than most hobbies.
Haddy: I think you got off a little easy there. I'm not really crazy about stashing yarn. Knitters are notorious for spending a lot on yarn. But then again, you know I'm crazy frugal.
Hubby: True dat.

Haddy: Do you have any hobbies?
Hubby: Running and fly fishing and dancing.
Haddy: What is your favorite style of dance?
Hubby: improv

Haddy: Has my knitting in public ever embarrassed you?
Hubby: No. You usually do it fully clothed.
(I'm not touching that one. Seems like a trap.)

Haddy: Do you know my favorite kind of yarn?
Hubby: No.
Haddy: That was sort of a trick because I don't really have one type. My only preference is wool.
Hubby: Expensive wool
Haddy: Wait. What happened to the frugal part?
Hubby: Was supposed to be followed by a ?
Haddy: Oh. Do you mean like the Rowan I bought at WEBS?
Hubby: Yes. I know you like that stuff.
Haddy: Yes. Me likes a good classic tweed.
Hubby: Although that fancy yarn that you got from me (sangria) didn't work out. (He's referring to a skein of Seasilk that I have been wrestling with for 2 months. I'll blog about that some other time. It's a good story.)

Haddy: Can you name another blog?
** two minutes pass**
Haddy: You're googling stuff right now, huh?
**three more minutes pass**
Hubby: I am not googling stuff. Boilermaker to boston is another blog. That I know of. Running blog.
Haddy: So you really don't know any other knitting blogs.
Hubby: No other knitting blogs.
(a one knitter man. me likes.)

Haddy: Do you mind that I want to check out yarn stores everywhere we go?
Hubby: Not at all.

Haddy: Do you understand the importance of a swatch?
Hubby: No.
Haddy: Me neither.
Hubby: But they did make great watches.
**crickets**

Haddy: Do you read Knitty McGillicutty?
Hubby: Yes.
Haddy: How often?
Hubby: Couple times a month. I find out all kinds of stuff about you on it.
Haddy: Like what?
Hubby: Stuff about your work, knitting, etc.
Haddy: So you read my last post?
Hubby: Yes.

Haddy: Have you ever left a comment?
Hubby: Yes.
(I must add that you need to read the comment he left on the previous post. It's a keeper.)

Haddy: Do you mind that I refer to you as Hubby there? Would you rather I use your name?
Hubby: Hubby is fine.

Haddy: Do you think the house would be cleaner if I didn't knit?
Hubby: What kinda question is that? I don't have an issue with yarn around the house. When we get a bigger house, maybe you can have a huge yarn closet.
Haddy: I'm just following a format. I think it's meant to get at the fact that knitters like to knit and often ignore chores in favor of knitting.
Hubby: Then no.

Haddy: Is there anything in particular you'd like me to knit you?
Hubby: Prefontaine slippers.
Haddy: I'll need a design consult.
Hubby: Way in favor of that. Nice yellow bottoms.
Haddy: I already have the yellow yarn. May need the green. You'll need to come pick it out.
Hubby: ok. and shoe laces. The real deal!
Haddy: You already have the real deal and Nike made it.
Hubby: fake shoelaces would be great
Haddy: We'll talk.

Haddy: That's all I have for questions. Is there anything you would like to add, go on record, official statements?
Hubby: No. Just that I may need another hat in the winter. I will buy the yarn.
Haddy: Ok, deal. What's on the radio now?
Hubby: OPP.
(and then he inserted animated emoticon of weird dancer dude)
Haddy: Nice. Perfect ending.

Blues? What blues?

Before I left, everyone kept asking me, "Are you excited?!?!?" and "What are your plans???" I kept replying, "I'll be excited if I actually make it to the plane" and "My plan is to not have plans."

Hubby and I arrived to see this out our doorstep:

and then we started to do a lot of this:

After about five minutes on this beach, hearing nothing but the surf, my mind started to play its own soundtrack.

I've always enjoyed Kenny Chesney, but for some reason I spent four days with "No Shirt, No Shoes, No Problems" stuck in my head continually. Honestly, had you asked me if I knew the lyrics before I left I would have sworn I didn't know them. And no, there was no radio at all.

Want a towel on a chair in the sand by the sea

Want to look thru my shades and see you there with me

The sun and the sand and a drink in my hand with no bottom

Blues what blues..hey I forgot them

Django socks and yellow

Last spring I had a problem with the color green. I wanted to make everything in green. Every yarn I picked out was green. A new color has snuck up on me: yellow. It started with a yellow bag. Then I bought some yellow hemp. Then I bought some yellow cotton. I was winding yarn the other night and saw this on the dining room table:

hmm... subliminal yellow.

The hemp is Hemp for Knitting allhemp6 in Dijon. I'm making the everlasting bagstopper, shown above on left. Plastic needles, hemp = good beach knitting. Thanks Lisa!! On the right is a Wicked for me in my favorite cotton yarn Premiere. It's like butter and doesn't at all feel like other cottons. Knitting with cotton to me feel like ass. Premiere = not like ass. ;)

Django socks are done. They've been done for well over a week, but I kept forgetting to sew up one toe. So here they are:

Pretty good stuff.

Hubby McGillicutty

It's a little late in coming, but this is my shout out to Hubby. He ran his pants off this year and broke his personal best marathon time with 02:38.

We're proud of you for proving once again, that short dudes can run fast too!

Kiss This

I've been obsessed with lip balm for as long as I can remember. I remember I once had a chapstick for over a year. The same chapstick. I cherish a favorite, always taking care not to misplace, launder or disrespect.

For a long time DCT was my love.


Then I read somewhere (or someone told me) that petroleum products weren't as moisturizing as we thought. I banished all petro from my life.

I began a love affair with Aveda lip saver...

...but then they changed their formula and I just didn't like it.

On to the next and the next...

Burt's is good standby. I keep him in the arsenal, but it's not as creamy as I'd like...

So, I am constantly seeking the next great lip balm. I'm starting a new category called Kiss This where I hope to hold all my "haddy tested, haddy approved" items.

I'm going through a ROUGH period at the moment. I've made a couple purchases. I'll keep you posted.

Goldfrapp

I'm obsessed with Goldfrapp.

Totally Inspired

So, I made that ostrich plume scarf. I made it purposefully on the short side so that I'd have enough yarn leftover for a pair of fingerless gloves to match. My hands usually wear cheapo black gloves which I've always been a little ashamed of. A knitter's gotta have better hand flair.

I finished the scarf last week and incubated on the handness. What to do? On Friday, I saw a review of this:

Surely there had to be something in here that would catch my eye. I drew up some schematics for acquisition of this tome that would allow me to still get on the early train home, leaving to 30 whole train minutes with just me and my new book. Mission accomplished.

There are many tasty endeavors in this book, but strangely this has me all a flutter:

Layering gloves. hm. Sock yarn. Durable. Light weight. The same reason I love sock yarn for scarves makes it great for gloves. Lightweight = totally layerable.

I'm thinking about frogging those gray socks (that I didn't post a pic of) to make gloves.

Biggest snowflakes ever:

I forgot to post these. This was my Saturday:

Sorry for the blurry, but I cannot for the life of me figure out the no flash thing on my camera and Django needs face time on the blog. Roxie gets it all.

My new view.

Whenever I'm at home these days, this is my view:

Hubby and I made a new office. I don't have pics of what it looked like before, but it was bright red with built in all white desks. This is the sunniest room we have and the red just made it dark. We had our computers in the corners of the room and we spent a lot of time facing opposite directions, not really sharing the space.

Our goal was a place for the computers, but also a reading/knitting/chillin' nook. We accomplished it and now we can't seem to leave. What living room? Where?

Our desks now face each other:
(How cool is that light?!)

My view:

His:

I think his might be better:

(that's about as clean as the stash is gonna get until I get some projects done)

Bookshelves!!
For the first time since we've been married all of our books are out of boxes:

Of course, one whole shelf dedicated to knitting books.
Awesome.

Being the good project manager that I am, the project was conceived, planned and executed in 3 weeks and delivered under budget. The budget part: I'm notoriously cheap, economy conscious. So under budget is saying something.
Besides filling an enormous cart at Ikea, my favorite budget buster is our new bulletin boards:

Cork panels on black form board.

We're still tweaking here and there. More pictures to hang, radiator covers to paint, etc.
We may never watch tv again and that's ok with me.

Herding Cats

Sometimes I work with academics. Sometimes I enjoy this, sometimes I do not. Sometimes they are insensitive. Sometimes wise. Every now and then, one of them says something that stays with me. The following we said to me this week:

• "As we all have been saying, scheduling seems to become more difficult as a geometric function as time passes." ...um yeah....
• "Thanks for trying to herd the cats on this." I didn't get this at first, but then it seemed hysterical. I imagined myself with a net and screeching cats everywhere. I relayed this to a friend and he pointed me to this ad from the Superbowl:

That's me, Haddy, the cat herder.

Roxie is 5!

The only good thing (in my opinion) about the greyhound racing industry is their recording system. All greyhounds have tattoos in their ears that give vital information about their identity. The right ear give birth info: month, year, birth order. Roxie's says, "23F" meaning: February, 2003, 6th born in litter. The left ear is an identification number similar to a SSN.

When we adopted Griffin in 2005, we learned of the greyhound-data website. Using the database we were able to find out pedigree and race information on Django and Griffin. Django was born "Dg's Fina" which we did not know at all (and btw, had nothing to do with him being named Django). Django did not race at all, which did not surprise us in the least and explains the whip scars he has (jerks!). We knew Griffin raced as "Wild Pepper" and was successful until he broke his leg. It was so great to find out where he had raced and that he'd actually won a few.

For the last year, Roxie's been a mystery. Her left ear tattoo is blurry. All I can read is 17----. When we first got her I did some digging on the greyhound-data site and even emailed them, but without the left ear I was out of luck. On Friday, we were reminded of Roxie's birthday by the dog walker. She left treats. I went online again to find that they had updated the site. There's an advanced search option now and I believe that Miss Roxie is "M's Fixed Option." The description and geography match, which means if this is her, she raced in 112 races, winning 15! She has the most wins of her litter. I'm 95% sure this is her.

This calls for celebration!

Meatloaf cakes with mashed potato icing for everydog!!!

At first, we were shy and tried to lick our way in:

Then we got so excited we needed a spotter to keep from knocking the cake onto the floor:

Dj, with his lack of front teeth, also needed some help. We tag-teamed it.
I'd break off pieces, he'd eat them:


Floor licking good:


Happy Birthday Baby Girl!

We also found out that Roxie and Django have the same grandpa!
They are cousins!