Birthday Girl

My birthday was on the nineteenth. My mom and dad spoiled me with a box of crazy gifts, including some items my mom informed me were re-gifted and items I had left at home in Florida. It was still so exciting to open a box of stuff. My mom rocks!



Included in the box were some Swedish candies that our friends had brought us when they visited from Sweden. Let's put it this way, my mom sent them to me because they were too gross to eat. By the end of my party, we were passing the candy around daring people to eat it. We also needed to pass around napkins so that the taste-testers could gag out the candy quickly. This was inevitable because the candy was a salty, gummy, licorice in the shape of cats and gorillas. The gorilla candy included ammonia as an ingredient. There was also a touch of menthol.

I even made a birthday bet of $10 that my friend, Abe, wouldn't put the rest of the candy in his mouth and eat it. Of course he did, then I felt bad and told him he could spit it out. But I paid the man for pure entertainment value!

I invited some of my favorite neighbors over for lasagna, beer and birthday cake. My sweet friend in the flowered dress made me the cake. Mike was going to, but we ran out of time. I now have a "free birthday cake pass" that I may have to use tonight. I mean, seriously, what is Sunday night without sweets and cake? I may have to make a pumpkin pie as well, since we are out of left-overs.



I must say that the highlight of my birthday was receiving a handmade pinata, made in the likeness of my beau, from craftster extraordinaire, Aimee. She is the founder of a very cool sewing pattern business, but can hopefully be convinced to start making party pinatas full time. (wink)

We weren't using a stick to hit it at first, because we were scared to knock down Mike's paintings...In this glamourous shot, I am unintentially imitating a favorite childhood hero--Ralph Macchio, in the Karate Kid.

All in all, I had a fabulous birthday. I am a lucky girl.

Sock Photo Shoot

In the past I have been critical of some pictures that people have taken of their hand-knitted socks being modeled on their own feet.



Kindly, let me apologize.

Taking pictures of your own feet is hard! This is the best I could get. Perhaps with better stretching techniques and some hot yoga I could have improved. Mike saw me struggling, but my pride was too much that night to ask for help with this particular photo shoot.

A close-up of some Koigu goodness. I love that it kind of looks like counted cross stitch.

The further along this sock comes, the more aware I am of my upcoming aversion to creating the second sock.

While we're discussing Koigu, can I mention my disappointment in their website? For such great products, they really should hire a web designer or something. Or perhaps their products speak for themselves... I do know that I love their yarn, but wanted to leave their site as soon as possible.

Cloudy with a Side of Meatballs

Happy things that make rainy days fun...legwarmers, fun galoshes and eighties poses.



Oh. And before you ask...no, I didn't knit the legwarmers. It's been on my project list of things to do for some time now. But I knew that I would procrastinate and not even choose the color of yarn to make the legwarmers before they went out of style again.

Congregation

I am so proud of my man. Mike East.



A few of his oil paintings will be displayed at a gallery in Soho. Yes, that's right! In New York City. I'm so excited for him. He's extremely talented, the hardest worker, one of the smartest people I know, and a great person. (He has three sisters...hmmmm.)



Here's a little preview of things to come...

Weekend of Indulgence

This Diarufuran is going to be a hat for my friend, Heather. I don't knit for people all the time, but I do have a pact with my friends from Ft. Lauderdale. If they move somewhere cold (and preferably near me!), I will make them something. Basically, I am bribing my friends to live near me with knitted incentives.



I missed going to Stitches this weekend in Baltimore, but kept myself quite occuppied. On Saturday I bought myself some new presents for starting my new job. What did I purchase, you ask?



For starters, this fantastic machine washable lunchbag from BuiltNY. I got one in black at Foster's Gourmet Cookware at the Reading Terminal. The first thing I did when I got home was see how many things I could cram into it, then did an impromptu presentation for Mike. Similar to my own tv infomercial. ("But there's MORE! Next we'll put a two liter bottle of soda in this teeny compartment!") I used it for lunch today and it was fabulous. It fits way more than I expected.



Then I 'accidentally' saw these cute shoes on sale. I wanted the blue, but no luck...but the smart saleslady had me try the brown on instead, and I decided to adopt them. They're very comfy and will be good for work...once I find some more brown clothes! (wink)

My friend Olivia had some people over for dinner, and it was better than Thanksgiving. She is an expert at roasting chicken and used a recipe of Jamie Oliver's, aka "The Naked Chef". The chicken was glorious in its rosemary, basil, and lemony goodness. However, the item that I was raving about though was her mushroom gravy. I kept going back for more mashed potatoes just to eat more gravy. I almost grabbed a straw and had at it, but thought it may be rude...

Yesterday morning I caught up with some girlfriends over brunch at The Standard Tap in Northern Liberties. We then watched Running With Scissors which is based on the book by Augusten Burroughs. It was very good and had a fantastic cast, but I think you may miss a lot of the details if you hadn't read the book. However, I think that the story still works well on it's own and is definitely worth seeing.

I also scored a free lemon bar from a good friend, Victoria, got to see an art show for First Friday and eat mussels. Talk about a perfect weekend! Even without buying any yarn!

A little bit country, a little bit rock and roll...

Your Linguistic Profile:

55% General American English

25% Yankee

10% Dixie

5% Upper Midwestern

0% Midwestern

What Kind of American English Do You Speak?

This was a fun quiz I saw on my friend, Aimee's blog. I have lived in South Florida, Indiana and now Philly, and have a mom from the Philippines, and a dad from South Jersey. I am starting to pick up random words from different areas...words like orange (AH-runge), route (rowt) and phone (very nasal Jersey way). At work in Conshohocken, I spit out a highly accented Philly word, water (wud-er) and shocked myself. My boss said she had noticed me saying some words Philly style but didn't want to tell me! Oy vey. No offense to anyone. I love accents and think linguistics are pretty cool. My own boyfriend says "crawdaddy" and "ceee-ment"...

I only hope I don't turn out like Madonna and start speaking with an affected British accent.

Some of favorite accented words are:

• panqueque (pahn-kay-kay) Spanish for pancake!
• baklat (bahk-lat) Filipino: nice word for gay people, of whom the Filipinos are very accepting
• crawdaddy (craw-dadda) Southern Indiana for a crayfish
• bubbler (bubblah) Boston speak for a water fountain
• principessa (prin-see-pe-sah) Italian for princess. Say it, right now! It's super fun.
• Louisville (Luhvell or Lullvill said with marbles in mouth) The way Mike's best friend Sheila's family pronounces their hometown. It's awesome, and her mom makes fantastic chili
• Stop (eh-stop) The way my friend from Colombia used to say things with an "S" in front of it. He's so cute! I promise this is not racist, and hope nobody is offended!

What are your favorite words?