Love

So I just spent my afternoon watching The Notebook and can I just tell you that I cried and cried and oh my god, that guy is so hot! I don't know who he is or where he came from....but I will vow right now to watch any movie that he's in, ever, from now on.
What a story. So good. Matt can't stop laughing at me now because I'm all wrapped up in "romantic movie mode".

I also got a lot of work done on my tank while watching tv. I've only got to do one more little bit of the front shoulder and then I'm done! I think I'll be able to finish it tonight, and the beauty of the pattern is that it was done in the round so I've only got to sew the shoulder parts together. I hate finishing, if only everything could be knit in the round!

My Masterpiece

For all of you who are familiar with the intricacies of the perfect "Egg-in-a-hole", you can understand and appreciate the art of this one.



I was almost too proud to eat it, but I got over that quickly.

So I'm officially done with my first semester back at school. I wonder what my grades will look like? This is my prediction:
English: A-
American Government: B
Interior Design: A
Asian American Women: A
We'll have to wait until June 5th to know if I am good or if I just think that I am. Either way, it's over!

Note: The spellcheck function on Blogger is not working for me. I'm a little nervous about the above spelling of "intricacies"...but I will go with my gut and publish it anyway. (This is a polite attempt to say "Koa, don't go commenting about my spelling mistake! Not everyone knows how to spell mannequin.)

Should 'a been a lawyer

Ha! What did I tell ya about books online? In my daily webnews reading I came across this.

The Tank Top

I am officially the worst photographer I know, please forgive me.

I've gotten so much done over the past few days! How exciting. This picture is of the back. I've got to do about 2 more inches until I'm finished with this part and then I start on the front. I think I'll finish it by the weekend. I have a feeling that I might need to make another one for Matt's mom because this one might not fit her. Oh well.

Tonight Jessica and I went out to dinner with our friend Amber. I am so full that I feel like I might explode. We were at a Thai restaurant and we ordered five dishes and a bottle of wine for the three of us! Maybe we overdid it a little.

We've been getting response cards back for the wedding. It's so exciting to get them in the mail every day! I think I get a little too much enjoyment out of entering each guest into the excel spreadsheet. Does this make me a nerd?

Okay, I think I need to lay down...I ate a few too many chunks of tofu tonight.

Too Tired for Pictures

So it's not like I did anything today that would make me too tired to post the picture of my tank top progress that I promised you last time...but I waited until it was too late at night to go through all of the trouble. Matt and I spent most of the day laying around reading, which was really nice and relaxing. I finished the book that I was reading "The Dim Sum of All THings" so now I guess I should stop reading for fun and start studying for my finals. But about the book, first of all since when were all books available to read on the internet? Who reads a book page by page this way? In some ways I'm a bit confused as to why this is allowed considering all of the illegal music downloading stuff going on, but then I think to myself: who in their right mind would sit at their computer and read a 300 page book? If you do this you are wierd. That's what I think.
Anyways, about the book. If you are Chinese, or part Chinese like me then I think you would enjoy the book. Don't get me wrong, it's a completely silly and ridiculous story but there are a lot of funny tidbits in there about the weirdness of Chinese people that I never realized anyone else had experienced. The Chinese grandmother in the book was my favorite character. She's pushy, loud-mouthed, direct, and she carries around way too much cash in her fanny pack-and that is so my grandmother! The author also brings up the fact that all old Chinese people refer to making out as "Hanky Panky". My grandfather totally says that! I ask myself: how did a whole generation of immigrant Chinese people pick up the term "Hanky Panky"? Who says that? I thought my Gung Gung (grandfather) was original...
I don't know if any of this is making sense. I think I better stop writing run-on sentences and go to sleep.
Nighty Night

Wednesday

I didn't have class today, so I got to hang out and be lazy for a bit. This morning I met with a counselor at CCA (California College of Arts) to find out what I need to be doing so that I can transfer there to study Interior Design. It was actually quite exciting because I learned that I can take most of my basic design courses at City College, which is almost free as compared to the tuition at CCA. So it looks like I'll be at City College for about one more year, but I have a feeling that my classes will be better next semester now that I won't be in all basic general ed courses. I'm looking forward to taking some design classes too, since I haven't really done so ever before.
I've almost got 10 inches on my tank top so far! I've been trying to do at least an inch a day, and sometimes I have been getting more. It's a very simple pattern so far, but I love the way the yarn knits up. I'll show you tomorrow, I'm gonna go knit now.

All About Food

I don't know what it says about me that all I can think of to post today is what I ate over the weekend. Here's a list:
Friday: Garlic Chicken Sausage, grilled asparagus, triple cream brie with ciabatta bread, and fresh-baked cookies with peppermint gelato for dessert.
Saturday: Grilled shrimp skewers, grilled veggie skewers, and a whole lot of cheeto-like things from Trader Joe's. Plus, more of that triple cream brie and bread.
Sunday: More peppermint gelato (straight out of the carton at this point), and a normal dinner of soup and bread, with some cheese of course since we've still got it in the fridge.
Looking at the list it doesn't look sooo bad, but I've conveniently left my secret midday gelato eating off of the list because there were too many visits to count. I'm going to be a really fat bride.

Other than that, I don't have much to say. I spent hours and hours working on getting our wedding invites done yesterday. There was a lot of double-checking and cross-checking of various lists, a trip to the Paper Source, and a lot of envelope stuffing. We're finally done though and I think that all guests have been accounted for! I'm taking them to the post office in an hour so that I can have them weighed to make sure they don't need additional postage, and then they're off! What a relief.

Buttery Salmon and Gooey Chocolate Cake

Tonight Matt and I went to dinner at Delfina with some friends. They're actually family friends, Matt's mom's best friend's son and his wife. We've never done anything with them before but we've always said that we should, so we did. I really like Rachel, the wife, and I'd like to be better friends with her so this was a good little get together. It was also a yummy dinner. Delfina is always called one of the best restaraunts in San Francisco (where there are ALOT of fantastic restaraunts) and no one had been there before except for me, so we went. I have to say that the gooey chocolate cake was my favorite. It was an individual sized cake on a plate drizzled with vanilla cream and the middle of it was all gooey and melty. Are you jealous yet? You should be!
Aside from that, I'm officially obsessed with my new project. I do realize that this thing is going to take weeks but I can't help but work on it every minute I can. It's a little pathetic, but it's true. Here's my progress so far.

I'm a little worried that it's not going to fit her, but I can't stop! I'm going to make it anyways and hope hope hope that it does. I'm just not one of those girls that can rip something out. For some reason I would rather spend a whole month on it and then complain that it's not what I expected...this of course drives Matt crazy. Oh well! He better prepare himself for this one!

New Stuff

Today Matt and I met our minister for the first time. He's actually a monk, but I don't think we're supposed to say that "today we met our monk..." so whatever, you get the picture. Anyways, he is a very nice man with a lot to talk about and he really helped us to get the ceremony all figured out. We need that every now and then.

We also went to Clement Street, which my grandmother calls "New Chinatown" because it has all kinds of Chinese veggie, meat, and generally asian kind of shops and restaraunts. I like Clement Street alot. Matt got some dim sum at Good Luck Dim Sum and I watched him eat it so that I could go down the street and get a Pineapple Bun. A Pineapply Bun is basically a really dense sweet bun with a sugary crackly top, and I'm not quite sure why it's called a Pineapple Bun because there's no trace of Pineapple. It's very yummy regardless.

Our third and last stop was the knitting store, which I had been looking forward to all day. I started Georgine's tank top (thanks to Alexa, my new cousin-to-be) and I needed a set of 29" size six needles. I also wanted to wind up my yarn on the winder. But the most exciting point of my story is that Helen, the owner of Urban Knitting Studio, GAVE me the needles I wanted plus some yarn that I was eyeing! I couldn't be more happy with Helen right now, that was so nice.

This is a picture of my new yarn, needles, and wound up ball of tank top yarn


This is a picture of my tank top project so far

Warm and Fuzzy

Well, my friend Syrette has made up for all of the times that she's looked at my blog and not posted a comment. Yeah for Syrette! What a great picture of the Ipod cozy! So cute.

I really do knit, really

I was looking over some of my recent posts and I realized that you may have forgotten that this is a knitting blog! Most of my recent projects have been boring and unadventurous because I'm feeling really stuck since I haven't bought any new yarn lately. I just don't know how what I can do with all of my stash (and there is quite a lot of it, let me tell you!) so I've been limiting myself to safe little projects like hats and scarves. This weekend I did make an ipod cozy, but I was too excited to give it to it's (very lucky) recipient and I didn't take a picture of it. This is where I found the pattern. But rather than use a piece of plastic sleeve like the pattern calls for I used a rubbery ipod screen that Matt had. I found this to be a much easier way to achieve the correct size for the screen and they come in a bunch of colors. I used pink, of course. Maybe my friend Syrette will send a picture of it so that I can put it on my sidebar of finished projects, hint, hint.
A couple of weeks ago I also made a scarf for my friend Amanda. I haven't woven in the ends or blocked it yet, but here's a picture

For some reason I always close my eyes for digital pictures, so I decided that for this one I'd just avoid the frustration of taking ten pictures until I get a good one and squint. In case you were wondering.

Next up is a simple rolled-edge baby hat I made for a future baby...I'm not quite sure which future baby, but I was trying to use up this yarn.

I think it's a Debbie Bliss cotton yarn, but I can't remember for sure.

Lastly, this is a chemo cap I made for my mom's friend. She's going to begin treatment soon and she lives in Hawaii, so I chose a nice cotton yarn from Manos De Uruguay so that she won't be too hot when she wears her hat.

I like the color of this yarn, and it's so nice to knit with!

So there you have it, actual proof that I knit and I have been knitting. For my next project I want to make Matt's mom a tank top with some yarn that I took from her stash. Since I don't have the money to buy my own yarn I told her that I'd take some from the giant bag of yarn that she doesn't use and make something for her (I didn't just steal it, if that's what you were wondering). Anyways, now I can't find a good pattern. I like this one from Knitty.com, but I don't know how to make it using yarn with a different gauge. I'm terrified of spending a ton of time on it and then finding that it doesn't fit her. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Bad Blogger

When I first started my blog a couple of months ago I think it was a subconcious extension of my procrastination techniques. I have always been a really excellent procrastinator and somehow knitting, planning a wedding, keeping up with friends, and finding a job just wasn't enough to keep me away from my homework. All of the sudden, I have now begun to procrastinate on my blog! I haven't posted for several days, yet I continue to look at my blog daily and think to myself how I need to blog. It really is a pathetic cycle.
Today I'm working on my research paper and therefore blogging has been looking real good. I'm to page five already, so maybe with some serious attention I can get close to finishing it today.
I thought I'd leave you with something fun since I don't have any good pictures to post. This is a link to the very lovely wedding band that we've hired to play at our reception.

Back in the groove

Hi Everyone,
I was gone all weekend and now that I'm home I just haven't found any time to post! We're just finishing up with the wedding invites and I've conveniently waited until today to begin research for a 10 page paper that is due next Monday. I guess I'll have to spend some time in the library today...
Back later,
Ginny