Well lookie here!

Big black blob has a baby!

This is sleeve number 1, completed. Sleeve number 2 is on the needles. I guess I'm about 25% of the way through with it. This semester is speeding by, which means that the due date for this sweater is right around the corner! I have only hazy memories of making Cobblestone the first time, but I seem to recall picking up some speed at the yoke, all those wonderful decreases! I have absolutely no idea what I'll cast on for after this. I have several projects jostle-ing for attention in my mental queue. I'd love a new hat, and also a thick cozy cowl. I'm seeing these giant cowls everywhere and they look so warm and comfy. One thing I'm pretty sure of is that I won't be starting any sweaters. Unless they're baby sized. When you only get maybe an hour a week to knit, sweaters are just too slow going.

In other news, fall has arrived in Boston. Finally we're seeing some color besides dead brown.



I live a couple of miles out of the city-proper, so I've been taking advantage of the mild weather and beautiful scenery and walking in instead of taking the T. I know that before I know it, it's going to be sub zero outside and I'll be longing for a nice long walk.

Also, I went home to Maine this last weekend for a friend's birthday AND to attend the first ever Comicon in Maine! There was a tournament for Mario 3, which I was excited about, but when I got there I started to chicken out. Especially when I saw that the leader had over 150,000 points! I have no idea how he did it. The idea is to score as many points as you can in five minutes. I had been practicing on my Gameboy for days and had a strategy. Finally I signed up, getting in just under the wire. I got third place!



I was kicking myself because I would have easily taken second except that I bit it with a minute left and never recovered. Totally threw me off my game. It was exciting though! I hope they do it again next year!

Now I'm looking forward to Thanksgiving. I think Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. I spend most of it in the kitchen, which I like. (I actually had a nightmare the other night that I had to share the cooking of the feast with someone else. It didn't go well.) I get to see my family, eat pie, and enjoy that relaxing time you get only when everything is closed and you're forced to just stay in. I'm planning out my menu right now. Aside from the usual, I do these sesame green beans that my sister loves, roasted brussels sprouts, and rosemary carrots. What do you make besides the typical turkey, mashed, stuffing, sweets?

Hey, guess what?!

I went back to New York!

I went to my first Writer's Conference, put on by Slice Magazine. I took workshops in character development, dialogue and revision, and watched a panel on the importance of literary magazines. I had a great time! Even though I've heard again and again about all of those subjects, it's always helpful to hear about them again. See, the thing is, every time I learn about, say, character development, I'm able to relate it to a new piece I'm working on. In this case, one of the exercises we did gave me a great new opening to a story that I liked, but whose opening was lacking. My favorite part was probably the panel, because it was so nice to hear about people who had submitted their work upwards of one hundred times only to go on to have a bestseller. I just recently started submitted my work, and actually just got my first rejection from that round! (For the record: first rejection ever was from Fiction magazine about ten years ago, this latest was from The Atlantic. What can I say? I start at the top!) I don't exactly feel pressure to publish before I graduate, but it would be pretty great.



In addition to the conference, I spent time with my friend Erin who stayed with me. She's very familiar with New York, so it was great to see her favorite places. We did a lot of walking around and exploring. This trip more than ever made me want to move to the city. I can so totally see myself living there! Fingers crossed that I find an amazing publishing job right after graduation!

Work has slowed on Cobblestone. I'm almost to the arms now, but as it turns out both of my classes this semester are very challenging. My literature class has NINE books assigned, and my writing workshop requires one or two new stories every week. They're short-shorts (250-1000 words), but still! It takes time to come up with an idea, and then to see if it will work. We are given specific prompts (this week is to write a three page story that chains through four points of view), which adds to the challenge. Here's hoping I finish by Christmas!

Whew!

Why, hello there! So, I'm pretty sure I mentioned in my last post that I'm taking a summer class. While my professor is definitely laid back, the structure of the class schedule makes it so it's a little crazy. Generally in workshops, we're required to turn in three stories over the course of the semester. Since a semester is about three months long, with breaks, that works out to about a story a month. Additionally, professors typically assign due dates for everyone's work. I had one professor who had everyone turn in stories on the same day, and another who worked out a schedule on the first day of class by having us draw numbers. The professor I have now prefers not to assign stories, which means, as I suspected, we now have 13 stories to workshop in the last 4 sessions. Ouch! The entire class is only 6 weeks anyway, so we were sure to be pinched, but I'm really looking forward to finishing this class! I love the professor and I'd love a chance to take a workshop with him during a full semester. Anyway, this explains some of my absence and the fact that my vest still isn't done!

In non-school news, I've been doing yoga!

I bought a Living Social deal for classes and fell in love. For most Sundays this month, I've been doing this thing put on by a yoga shop in town with a friend from work. We run two miles then do yoga outside in the park. Every week is a different teacher, which is cool because I get to try them out. I'm superpsyched about tomorrow, because the yoga teacher is my favorite! I've even gotten into running! I mapped out a route using MapMyRun and have been running most mornings or evenings, depending on whether I'm working.

I missed one Sunday of yoga to go to a wedding back home:



This is my favorite picture from the wedding. I worked with the bride at the old folks' home. She was working in the activities department, and it is the perfect job for her. I promise, you will never meet a nicer girl. The wedding was beautiful! Her husband's band did a couple of acoustic songs (the groom is a drummer and played the bongos), the groom's dad sang a song during the ceremony, and some other friends of their also performed. The DJ was terrific! Plenty of '90's hiphop! Awwwwwww yeah!




The wedding was on Peaks Island in Maine. The day was super hot, but just beautiful. It was so wonderful to spend the day with some of my dearest girlfriends for such a joyous occasion. Sigh.

Some linky goodness!
My Drunk Kitchen on YouTube is one of the funniest things I have ever seen.
Likewise, this video had me rolling, and then I got sucked into the vortex of this kid's YouTube channel.
I'm reading Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates. I really liked the movie, and after reading a collection of Yates' short stories last fall, I really wanted to check out the book. It's wonderful. Really great. I'll write more when I'm finished.

I'm soclose to finishing my vest! I'm predicting some FO shots on my next post! (And won't it be funny if my next post is like three months from now, ha ha)!

Day 6: Places

One of my favorite things is to daydream about places. Sometimes I imagine the places I want to go and the things I want to do and see there. Other times I fall into nostalgia for my childhood home or feel the desperate tug of homesickness. And then there are the times I'm on the train to work or sitting by the pond in the Common and think, "Holy shit! I live here!" Places are some of my favorite things to think about. My top 6?

Home. Home for me is Maine, and it always will be. Whether it's the wee tiny town I grew up in or the sweet city I lived in before I moved, Maine always gives me a feeling of calm.

Home now is Boston. There are so many things I miss about Maine: my family, friends, the beach, space... but Boston is pretty cool too. There's the Freedom Trail, which is a great walk. Delicious food options everywhere. Ducklings in the pond, museums (the MFA is my fave), streets soaked in history. I mean, I stood in Paul Revere's house!




Someplace I like to daydream about as home is New York City. I know I've only been once, but I just can't get the city out of my mind! I want the luxury of time to explore every corner of it and squeeze every drop of satisfaction I can out of it.




My dream is to travel the world, the whole thing! But the places that always come up again and again in my imaginary wandering are:
Paris! I want to go to the Louvre! See the Eiffel Tower! Drink a luxurious coffee with some pain au chocolat at a sidewalk cafe!

Rome! Again with the history and amazing food. And I don't know a single word of Italian that doesn't relate to a menu, but I'd love to listen to it spoken all day.

Alaska! I love being outdoors and whale watches, and Alaska seems like the greatest place on earth for both.

I Done Went to the City

Most people are surprised to learn that, at 35, I still hadn't been to New York City. That all changed last weekend!

It was one of the greatest weekends of my life. Seriously. Every street we turned down, every block, had fourteen thousand things to do and see. I just walked around most of the time totally slack-jawed.



I saw the view from the (almost) top of the Empire State Building. I went to Grand Central Station and imagined passing through those beautiful hallways so often I become blind to them. I got to go to a fancy restaurant and see a magnificent burlesque show.



I even got to hang out with dinosaurs.



The best part though was day dreaming about living there. Seeing all of the activity, watching the people going about their days, sitting on the train and feeling the lull of the smooth motion. I kept feeling confused, thinking in some spots I was in Boston. NYC is really close to Boston.



I'd like to think I'd live there some day, for awhile. I always thought of New York City as somewhere to live when you're young, in your twenties, fresh. But now that I've been there, I see all this opportunity. Maybe someday.

I didn't make it to a single yarn shop. Went with a non-knitter. I'm at the tail end of my spring break and spent this evening working on my mittens and concentrating on relaxing. As promised, I am now about half a mitten away from finishing this pair and spring is sproinging all over here. You're welcome.

And so we meet again, Monday.

I spent the weekend in Austin, Texas visiting my BFF Michelle and meeting her baby (my goddaughter). I basically ate my way across the city, which is exactly how I like a vacation.

Some standouts included the Pumpkin ice cream with Pecan Praline sauce at Amy's Ice Creams; the most amazing grilled cheese of my life at the all gourmet grilled cheese restaurant, Chedd's; cupcakes at Quack's 43rd Street Bakery; and, of course, Frito Pie at Dog Almighty. Dog Almighty was my favorite place, narrowly beating out the grilled cheese. They can make anything on the menu veg, so it was the perfect place for me and my omni friends to eat. The hot dog I had was the juiciest veggie dog I had ever tasted. Seriously, if the inside hadn't had that distinctive veggie dog look, I would have been nervous. The Frito Pie did not disappoint! I'd heard of this Southern delicacy, but figured I'd never try it unless I made it myself (which just isn't the same). For those who haven't had it, it's basically chili and cheese on top of a pile of Fritos, so it's important that the chili is good. Dog Almighty boasts about all of the awards they've won for their dogs and veggie chili, and those awards are well deserved! The chili was rich and heavy, and had some kind of crumble in it (maybe TVP?) that gave it some serious heft. Deeeeeeelicious!



Since I spent the bulk of my time in Texas lazing about in a food coma, I didn't get any knitting done. But I still have something to share! I made a pretty delicious baked squash before my trip. I had bought a package of squash on impulse at the grocery, thinking I'd make some sort of chili or stew. It was a ridiculous idea, of course, since in the days leading up to my trip were filled with homework, packing, laundry and tying up lose ends. The squash languished in the refrigerator, threatening to go south before me. Baking to the rescue! I love baking/roasting root vegetables and squash in the winter. It's easy, relatively fast (almost no prep), and infinitely customizable. You can pour pretty much whatever you feel like over those suckers and it'll taste good. In this case, I started out looking at cookbooks and found a recipe for pumpkin that called for soy sauce. I thought I'd follow that recipe, but quickly went off course and made my own thing.



Baked Butternut Squash
(this made two servings for me, over rice, but as a side it'd go a lot further)
2.5 lbs squash (any kind you like, or sweet potato would be good)
1 Tbsp canola oil
1.5 Tbsp sake
1 Tbsp tamari
1 Tbsp brown sugar
1 tsp Chinese Five Spice
1/2 tsp minced garlic
Pour sauce over squash and bake! My baking was a little wonky. I started it out at 325 for about a half hour, but it wasn't cooking fast enough for my level of hunger so I turned the oven up to 400 for about 15 minutes, and got perfectly cooked squash. So maybe use a temp in between?

So now it's back to the grind! I've been spending all morning thinking about how I should be working on a paper. I think I've officially used all of my procrastination resources at this time. Better get to it.