Knitting update

I haven't posted much knitting lately even though I have been doing a lot of it. Right now, I have a lot projects on my sticks. I am working on a shawl/wrap for the wedding, a pair of socks for my dad, a blanket for a baby, and a hat for a friend. I also took a class at This is Knit to learn a new way of knitting sweaters and have a "pattern" to make myself a sweater but it has to wait!

So far this year, I have made:

• one baby blanket
• three baby hats
• one adult hat
• one children's hat
• finished one of my dad's socks (and am about 1/3 way done with the second)
• a head warmer thing for myself

Wow, that's a lot of knitting and probably explains why the wedding project is only 1/3 of the way done!

Planning, planning, planning

A lot of people that I know who got married talk about how stressful wedding planning was and how they're glad that they never have to do it again. So far, I think we have most things planned and I'm still enjoying it. But then, I enjoy planning and hosting events. I like thinking about decor and what coordinates with what. I liked deciding what the menu will be (and trying the food). I have enjoyed choosing a color palette. I enjoyed meeting the pastor and interviewing a couple photographers. I even enjoyed meeting with the florist that we are using. The only thing that has been stressful so far is the bridesmaids' dresses and that was because I was trying to convince them to choose their own dress when they wanted to be told what to wear. I ended up compromising and saying, "choose from these dresses." It seems to have worked well and they have dresses that they say they are comfortable in which was what I wanted.

Anyway, today we completed a major step in wedding planning: we booked our flights for our honeymoon!!!!! We are going to New Zealand for almost four weeks! I am soooooo excited about this since it is somewhere that John and I have wanted to go and really this is probably the only time in our lives that we will go that far away. The journey there (and back) are about 24 hours each! On our way there, we will arrive two days after we started. On the way back, we arrive about an hour after our departure time in New Zealand.

Doh!

The other day, I decided to make pasta and sauce for dinner. I was happily cooking the sauce and added goat's cheese as an experiment (it was tasty). I then decided that I needed to check the pasta shells to see if they were done since the sauce was ready. I used the cooking spoon to pick up a couple noodles. I carefully got the water out of the first noodle, the one I noticed on the spoon. I then tipped the spoon towards my mouth, only to feel boiling water on my lip! I didn't notice the other noodle and burned my lip.

Since my lip hurt A LOT, I made John finish dinner and find something in the freezer that we could use to ice it. All we found were frozen cranberries. I managed to cool my lip a bit but it still hurt. We then ate dinner and I convinced John to go to the store and get ice pops for me to use to ice my lip. They seemed to help and were tasty. :)

The next day, I woke up and my lip felt really tight. I looked in the mirror and there was a blister. I spent the rest of the day at work putting chap stick on my lip to make it better. Unfortunately, I also burned the inside of my lip and it hurt to talk the day after but it is all much better now.

You make my day!

Last week (I think), Aileen gave me a "you make my day award" along with some other people. She had a pretty image to go with it, which I don't seem to be able to copy. You are supposed to nominate someone else to keep the award going.

Yvonne, makes my day because she is good fun to knit with on Thursdays and is a good friend. She also has a cat and facilitates my yarn stash addiction. :) She has mentioned that I am her main enabler, she is also good at enabling. :)

Sharon also makes my day because she brings a unique perspective to being a parent of a child with autism. Through her writing, it is obvious that she loves her son dearly and really has a balanced approach to educating him. She seems to look for research based techniques and loves her son for who is he is. She isn't searching for a cure. That is refreshing to me. So, thanks Sharon!

Neptune Cave

OK, I am WAY far behind on my blogging. John has informed me that my knitting is interfering with my blogging. I am just trying to get a project done. :) Anyway, while we were away in Alghero way back in Jan, we found a cave that we could go explore. The Neptune Cave is 2500 meters but the tours only cover a portion of this. The caves are at sea level and a constant temperature (about 18 C, 68 F) throughout the year and have variable humidity. It was quite amusing to us that the Italians were wearing winter coats in the cave. We did not wear coats as we were both warm. Luckily for us, the guide spoke for English and Italian so we were able to learn a bit about the caves (which I promptly forgot).

Sunsets

I lOVE sunsets. The colors, the changes in the sky and light, it is all just so beautiful to me. I like sunrises as well but I'm not exactly a morning person so I don't see many of them. Living on the east side of water/an island, we don't get to see many amazing sunsets.

While visiting Alghero, we got to see two amazing sunsets on the coast. Sunsets on the water the best. I just love to see the reflection of the light in the water...

Changes

A while back, I went shopping with my friend Yvonne. She wanted me to take pictures of a sweater that she designed and made, and I was looking for a dress to wear to a charity event that I am going to in April. So, we went to the Debenham's that used to be the Roches store. They didn't have any dresses that I liked. I then suggested that we go to the Debenham's in Jervis street shopping centre because they usually have a bigger selection of formal dresses. When we got there, there were signs all over the windows saying it was closing down! There was almost no stock left over but a big crowd of people looking through what was there. We spent about 2 minutes inside, decided that we couldn't handle the crowds and disorganization, and went and got smoothies. I then took pictures of her in the sweater and we went home.

The next day, John and I decided to go see what the sales were like on Nassau Street. We walked down the street and saw that Eason's had closed. They were there in December when we both did our Christmas shopping. And the Blarney Woolen Mills had closed as well, with a sign saying it was relocating to Eason's. AND Reads had signs saying it was relocating to the Blarney Woolen Mills building! All of these stores were open a month before!

It is amazing to me how much turnover in stores there is in Dublin. It seems like we always see "closing down" or "opening soon" signs...

Alghero by night

As I mentioned in a previous post, John got me a new "toy" for Christmas. He got me this really cool tripod with movable legs (click on the picture with him using it to see the tripod doing its magic). It came in really handy for night shots and when we went and toured a cave.

Even though he didn't want to share at first (see the first picture and the pole silver thing jutting out? That was because he had the tripod even though I like the effect, don't tell him that). He did share the toy and I was able to get some nice shots as well.

Pictures of Alghero!

So, we've been back for a week from Alghero and I've posted no pictures. So, now I am correcting this. :) As I mentioned in my previous post, we quite enjoyed the three days of sun and a little warmth. Anyway, here are the "favs" from the trip...

They're so cute!

I know I should be posting pictures of Sardinia or knitting my wedding shawl, children's hat that I am working on, my dad's socks, or the baby blanket that I cast on yesterday, but instead I am going to post pictures of the kitties.

A couple people made comments at Christmas that they hadn't seen pictures of our little monsters in a while, and I have taken pictures of them being cute, so here are pictures of little monsters...

ugh!

I seem to have caught the cold that is going around. I was sick last week and stayed home a few days, started to feel better, and now am feeling worse again. Ugh. At least it is the weekend and I can rest again.

Last weekend, we celebrated the anniversary of our first date 7 years ago! Yep, we've been together 7 years. :) So, we checked our Ryan Air and Aer Lingus to see where we could go the cheapest and that was an interesting destination. Alghero Sardinia won. We had a wonderful weekend away. We slept in, drove around the countryside and enjoyed the sun. Yep, there was sun! Three whole days of sun. It was wonderful. It was funny to see the Italians going around all bundled up when it was 15 C or more (60 F)! It helped us understand why Ireland was called Hybernia, or land of eternal winter. If your winter is as cold as our average warm day...