Life, etc.

It's rather difficult to keep this blogging thing up. I can't really talk about my job or CodeMonkey's work (just the nature of the positions), and that seems to be where we spend most of our time and mental energy. That leaves the knitting, reading, cooking, and shopping.

So, in that vein:

-I'm rehashing the 80's culture wars by reading Alan Bloom's The Closing of the American Mind. It's thought provoking, even if I don't agree with everything in it. In odd moments, I'm working my way through The Principles of Knitting. Since I'm a self-taught knitter, it's been very helpful to have someone really explain the mechanics of different techniques, and I feel a lot more confident in my skills.

-CodeMonkey has very strange feet. He wears a size 8 5E, which is extremely difficult to find. His socks have started dying en masse, so I've decided to knit him a bunch of custom fitted pairs. I may go blind knitting black dress socks over the next year. We'll see. Yarn.com has free shipping through Friday, so I grabbed a bunch of their house brand black sock yarn for this madness project.

-After years of the crotches on my tights ripping out, I found a solution. Levante makes wool stockings, which are soft and warm and totally worth the aggravation of fasting a million (ok, eight), little garter buttons every morning. They're 25% off right now at stockingshq.com.

-I bought The Knitter's Handy Book of Top Down Sweater patterns. OMG, love. It teaches you how to knit sweaters in any size, and any gauge, in four different styles. This is possibly the best knitting book I've ever bought, because it has taught me how to modify designs for my unusual figure. I'm making a top-down sweater in thin dark red wool right now, and it's beautiful.

-I was sick of my fingers freezing every morning and evening during the 30-odd blocks I walk in my commute. I treated myself to a pair of cashmere-lined black leather gloves from Coach. These are possibly the nicest things I have ever owned. My coworkers tease me because I leave them on my desk, the better to pet them at work. The only problem is that when I was at the store, I fell in love with a purse. And a wallet. I never "got" the bag thing before (my "purse" is a Timbuk2 tote bag), but this could be dangerous.

-CodeMonkey worked on Thanksgiving, so I didn't cook a full dinner, but I did make pumpkin pies, and chicken noodle soup. The soup was fantastic, and there's enough stock left over for wonton soup for supper tonight. Yum.