Rhinebeck!

I finally took some time and worked out the whole flickr to blogger thing! Woot! Now I can share my Rhinebeckian experience with y'all.

First off, it all began on Friday morning. We knew we had a long, long drive ahead of us, so we were on the road by 9 am. It wasn't long until we hit the border.

It was a little bit busy at the border. It only took a few minutes though, and we were stateside.

Of course, it was a kind of a miserable day . . . lots of rain, lots of grey. At one point, it was raining so hard, you could hardly see out the windows!

But Jen is a very level-headed driver, and she got us through it easy peasy.

It was just getting dark when we arrived at our motel and checked into our room. There were lots of knitters there, hanging yarn by the door to get other knitter's attention. It worked! I got totally busted fondling some yarn outside of one door. It was really soft, for what it's worth. *blush*

The next day, we got up really early. Etcgirl wanted to get her some STR, so we had to be at the gates when they opened. And we almost made it! We were just a few minutes 'late'.


There's Etcgirl looking pleased to be at Rhinebeck, and JennyP looking anxious to bust down the gates and get to the yarn! She was practically doing a 'let's go, let's go, let's go' dance in the parking lot.

The first day we hit a lot of tents and looked at a lot of yarn. It was absolutely lovely. Yarn Mecca, if you will.

We went to the Knitty meetup. Sadly, it coincided with the fleece sale, so there weren't many peeps there.

Now, I went with a set budget. I took cash. I told myself 'self, this is cash you can spend' I gave myself permission to go a little hog wild. Want to see what I bought on the FIRST day? Okay, I'll show you.


Yes, that's right . . . I bought myself a lovely drop spindle, and a few ounces of fibre to go with it. I spent less than $60. Not even 25% of my budget. See, I have this problem. I won't spend money. I just won't. And then all of a sudden, I'll go crazy and spend way too much money. Saturday, I was not spending money. I had a chat with my companions, and they promised to help me spend my money on Sunday.


We went to the Ravelry party, which was sadly kind of a bust . . . it was PACKED and impossible to move and this was all I saw . . . .

Well, that and the smoking area. But once it cleared out a bit, I got to say hello to Jess - Mama Rav. That was pretty cool!

Sunday I bought yarn! Etcgirl and JennyP helped me plow through my cash, and I'm really pleased with my purchases. I'll have to show them off later. We met more knitties. We left the festival, and hit Target for a little more shopping. There are some truly interesting chocolates on the shelves of Target. I brought Mr. Wonderful a Choxie with peanut butter and pretzels. He loved it. I also bought the now-famous pregnancy test, which I took at the motel. You know the results. :)

Monday we headed back to our regular lives.

Generally I don't like to be away from home. I'm far too much of a homebody to be 27 . . . but there it is. I have to say, at Rhinebeck, I did not pine for home once. I missed my husband, but I was really glad I went. I met some truly awesome people, ate some delicious peanut butter cookies, and got some great yarn. I'm sorry I'll miss it next year, but I think a festival of this magnitude, an 8 hour drive and a three - four month old baby may not be conducive. Sad but true.

Alpacas in scarves!!

I'm pregnant.

Wait, let me say it again. I'm pregnant.

Mind-blowing, right? Terrifying? Exciting? Thing is, I feel like I'm going to get my period tomorrow, so I'm scared to get too attached to this pregnancy. I guess it's disbelief, or denial, or whatever. But I'm taking a prenatal vitamin, and eating right, and what not . . now that I know.

I'm pregnant. Crazy.

Thing is, Mr. Wonderful and I just decided, just this month, to relax our birth control standards, and let nature take her course. If it's meant to be, it'll be, we said. Apparently it's very much meant to be.

How do you get over the fear of miscarriage? And why am I so afraid that I'm going to miscarry?




Rhinebeck post to follow . . . once I work out how to blog photos from Flickr. Any input??

Look what I did!
Take that Etcgirl! Only a few hours away from finished now . . . I suppose. Honestly, I'm not sure if I can get it done by the end of the weekend, but I AM sure it will be done for Rhinebeck.

Let me share the journey of the Tangled Yoke. First, it took me just over a week to get from cast on, to the yoke. Then it took me a whole week to get the cabling done!
First, I read the chart backwards.
I made the cables go like this:
//
.//
..//

Rather than like this:
\\
.\\
..\\

So I had to rip it back. It took me one whole night to rip back, and then one whole night to re-do and correct one row.

And then I went crazy on the cables! I did them in 2 days. In fact, I did 5 straight hours of cables this morning.

This was the view in my lap this morning:


Don't let her fool you -- she's pure evil!

JEBUS!

Did I seriously drop off the face of the earth for like . . . almost a month? Cripes, that's significant!

Here I am, tooling around the internet and I think to myself "hey, what's my blog url again?" . . . Good thing too, otherwise, I might never have remembered that I forgot!

Catch up?
I have a new shift at work, which has messed about with my/our routine. I have to get used to being at work in the morning, and Mr. Wonderful has to get used to me not being at work in the evening. It's been a little awkward, because we're both total creatures of habit. That, and I likes me a good sleep in. Now I can't sleep past 8. Dammit.
I also won a prize at work - a shiny new cell phone. I was so excited! I worked my tail off for that prize! And then I opened the box, and my heart sank a little. It had been opened and tried out previous to me. I cried a little in my heart. Then I found out the phone didn't work. It's now been 2 weeks since I was awarded my 'prize' and I'm still waiting for the replacement. It shouldn't be so difficult! Gimme my phone!!
That, and my 7% raise is now 4 pays (8 weeks) past due. They owe me! I want it!
That sums up work.

Mr. Wonderful and I will be celebrating our vacation and 2ND anniversary in just one short week. Wow, I can't believe it's only been 2 years. The wedding is such a distant memory. It was so beautiful.

I've been knitting my hands off. I cast on for the Tangled Yoke Cardi exactly one week ago. I will show you my progress thus far:This is the body, up to the armpits, and one sleeve. Not bad for one week, eh? I'm hoping to have it finished for Rhinebeck.

Yes, you heard me right, Rhinebeck. I'm going! And I'm going with 2 of the funnest people I know! You know how there are some people you just don't click with? I mean, they're alright, but you wouldn't go out of your way to grab coffee with them? Well, these 2 ladies are not in that column at all. They are awesome!
Etcgirl has the most amazing life experiences under her belt. She's a talented artist, great story-teller, and all around inspiring woman.
JennP gets me. She's a great listener, great enabler, great friend, and I find her . . . well, intoxicating, I guess. I always want to spend more time in her presence. In fact, Mr. Wonderful and I are hoping to have her and her man over for dinner next week. Now, that almost never happens.

And I got my Ravelry invite today, which is exciting! Now I can share this with the world:

I just got it yesterday, and wow does it ever make my mouth water. It's the embodiment of autumn to me. Look at those colours. I'm going to make the Column of leaves scarf with it.
Actually, I stumbled across it whilst looking for an alternate for the Knitty board's not so secret scarf swap. I have some Lamb's Pride, but I was thinking I could send something more interesting, you know? Well, I saw this, and it really grabbed my ass . . . but I can't send it away. I want it to be that scarf - not just any scarf, or some scarf, but that specific scarf. And it's against the rules to demand a specific pattern. So I'll send the Lamb's Pride and hope it doesn't make my not so secret pal sad inside.