AtomicKnits

Escape to the Jersey Shore

The last few days were a real treat.  Santina's family rented a beach house near Cape May, New Jersey, and I was invited!  It was only a couple hours drive for me, so I went out on Tuesday and came back yesterday.  We packed a lot into those few days!  Of course there was lots of eating and relaxing.  On Wednesday, we too Frank, Santina's nephew, to Wildwood to go to a water park.  I hadn't been to a water park in YEARS and all of the water slides were a lot scarier than I remember them.  We also got SWEET old timey photos taken and Frank was such a good sport all of the way through.

After multiple water park fun, we treated ourselves to a southern New Jersey delicacy, the deep fried Oreo.  That's right, you heard me.  They were DELICIOUS.  If you are ever even remotely close to the New Jersey coast, it is worth stopping for these sweet bites of pure heaven.

The next day we visited the Cape May Lighthouse.  There was a small museum and several nature trails around the lighthouse and a small gift shop.  It was really neat to learn about this lighthouse.  I guess it played a pretty big role in WWII.  The folks here helped a lot of innocent merchant ships prevent getting blown up by German submarines on their way to Europe.

After checking out the museum, we all climbed the many stairs to the top of the lighthouse and took many goofy pictures in between.  It was very humid in the lighthouse.  There were a lot of places to stop and look at the views as well as some essent(ial) circular porthole windows toward the top of the climb.

It was a little hazy and foggy that day, but the views were still pretty cool.  Here you see a sweet WWII bunker on the beach.  I'm so glad I got to get away from my apartment and my job search for a couple of days.  Santina's family were so generous to me while I was there and it was really good to see them and spend time with them again!  The rest of the pictures from the Jersey shore can be found here.

The evening I got back to West Chester, Justin took me to see something really special - a Drum Corps International competition at West Chester University.  Now, my high school didn't have a marching band of any kind, so I had no idea what this was all about.  It's nuts!  It's seriously the most impressive thing I've seen done by a group of people in a long time.  You have to appreciate how much time and work all of the members of each of the teams had to have done in order to pull a show like this off.  In my next life, I am totally going to be in marching band.  The rest of the pictures from the show are here.

Santina came to visit!

This weekend Santina came to visit me for a few days!  We had an awesome time and we did lots of crafty things.  The first day she was here we ventured out to The Lamb's Wool in Landsdale and I ended up renting a spinning wheel for a month!  I'll have more on that in a separate post after I'm done my first yarn.

One of the things Santina really wanted to do was learn to macrame.  She had to special order the supplies because craft stores no longer carry it (haha) and she also ordered an instruction book with dozens of plant hangers patterns.  We both made one of the easier plant hangers and we were SO EXCITED with our results.  They are kind of silly and incredibly dated, but they were really fun to make and in no time we'll have lots of plant hangers to place all over our imaginary wrap around porches and huge gardens.

Another thing we did a lot of this weekend was EAT AND DRINK.  Justin and I took Santina to a few of our favorite spots in the boro including Kildare's Pub, Victory Brewing, and Iron Hill Brewery.  Now, at Iron Hill, they have a large seasonal selection in addition to their regular beer lineup.  As a result, the current beer sampler consists of 12 BEERS.  For $7.  How could we not pass that up?  After Santina ordered hers and discovered this wonder, Justin and I ordered them too.  Needless to say, we were a wee bit tipsy as we left the restaurant.  As we were walking home, we spotted Bam Margera walking into Kildare's across the street.  We were excited.

I also showed Santina how to carve rubber blocks to make prints with.  She did an awesome job with her first block.  She made a rotary telephone stamp.  I don't have any pictures of the finished project, but I'm hoping she'll post some!

We had a really awesome weekend, and I miss hanging out with Santina so much.  Hopefully I will see her and her family again soon at the shore!

Tim and Beth came to visit!

This weekend was a real treat, because my friends Tim and Beth came to visit!  I was so happy that they decided to come up and we had a really fun weekend.  We didn't do anything that special.  We had a lot of time to talk and catch up, which was nicest.  They also go to meet Justin and that was awesome too.

On Saturday we went into Philadelphia and took a very half-assed self guided walking tour and also met up with Beth's internet friend, Brian.  His apartment was way hipper than mine, and he was fun to hang out with.  We walked around for a bit with Brian, sat for a while in Rittenhouse Square, and then drank some coffee and enjoyed the sweet tunes at the ING Direct cafe.  Our next trip into Philly will have to be a little more planned so we can go into a museum or something, but I had a great day just hanging around.

We did see a couple of cool attractions in the city like City Hall...


...and the epic new Comcast building.  It was great to see Tim and Beth this weekend, and I can't wait until I can go down to the DC area to visit them and see their new place!

Ch-ch-changes.

It's almost spring, and that means that changes are a-comin'.  Plenty of changes for me, which you will hear about as plans get solidified.  I am really excited for spring.  I have been knitting very diligently on Carolyn, and I will have pictures and updates on that this week.  I found some awesome wooden buttons for it this weekend!  This weekend, Justin, Santina & Andy came to Boston to visit.  Andy's band, Moscow Telephone, played at PA's on Saturday night.  I had a lot of fun, and I'm glad that Justin finally got to meet the entire Internet.  I really miss Santina a lot!  We went to Veggie Planet for bunch on Sunday, which was AWESOME.  I hadn't been there since the last time I went with her, which was last summer.

I have been doing a lot of thinking, which has been a private process.  I have been keeping a paper journal.  I'm trying to get some goals together and things that I can do to learn more about myself and try to figure out what I really want to do.  I will probably share a lot of it on this blog as my thoughts start to take shape.  Right now, everything is still in the brain mush stage.  So, I guess, what I am trying to say is...stay tuned!

Mouse Update!

Just a quick update on the mouse situation.  Also, FYI, I have been using peanut butter.  The piece of advice that I received the most from people re: this crisis was to USE PEANUT BUTTER.  The peanut butter has been in the traps since about 10 minutes after I got home from the Home Depot that fateful night.  Still nothing.  The mouse guy came today.  He was a little weird, but tolerable weird.  He set up lots of traps and poison stations and things like that and also found a hole where he thinks mice could get in.  My landlord will be patching this hole up tomorrow.  The mouse guy said that there was only evidence of very light mouse activity in my apt.  He only found droppings under the dishwasher and the fridge (EW).  He said that my apartment was really clean for one of the apartments in my complex.  I found that really odd, because I think my apartment is so gross sometimes.  There is like caked on dust and dirt from years of not cleaning in some areas of the unit that sometimes makes me gag when I look at it for too long.  I cleaned a lot of it up right after I moved in, but there is just so much that cleaning up all of the years of gross got old and felt like a losing battle pretty quickly.  Also, now that I pretty much know I'm not going to be in this unit for *that* much longer, it makes it hard for me to care about it at all.  IN CONCLUSION, it seems like the mouse problem is taken care of for now pending ME FINDING DEAD MICE AND HAVING TO PROBABLY PICK THEM UP WITH MY OWN HANDS AND PUT THEM IN SOME KIND OF A CONTAINER AND BRING THEM DOWN TWO FLIGHTS OF STAIRS AND THEN THROW THEM IN THE DUMPSTER IN SUCH A WAY THAT THEY DON'T COME BACK TO LIFE AND EAT MY FACE AND EYES OUT.  But, I will cross that bridge when I get to it.

As for the knitting, I started a Pick-Me-Up dishtowel to go with the ballband dishcloth set, and that is moving along quite nicely.  I will have pictures of it probably tomorrow.

Dishcloths & MOUSE ADVENTURE!

So, I haven't gotten very much knitting done during the past couple of days because I have been having sort of a crisis.  A first world crisis.  Wednesday night, I was knitting and watching American Idol and having a very pleasant evening.  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw something move.  I looked over and didn't see anything at first.  I looked over again AND THERE WAS TOTALLY A MOUSE RUNNING ACROSS MY HALLWAY!!  A real mouse.  It was so scary.  SO SCARY.  My heart immediately started racing, and after my initial panic, I sat down at my computer to check how late my nearest Home Depot was open.  It was still open, so I get up with the intention of putting on my shoes and going to Home Depot to buy mouse traps.  As soon as I get up from the chair, I SEE THE MOUSE JUST SITTING RIGHT THERE IN THE MIDDLE OF THE LIVING ROOM.   That's when I let out a ridiculous scream.  I quickly gathered up my garbage, and left my apt in search of mouse traps.  While standing in an almost empty Home Depot in my pajamas, I pick out some of these, and some of these.  I go home and I set 6 of the traps (a little excessive, but I am SCARED).  I don't catch anything immediately and eventually I get into my bed and fall asleep.  I still haven't caught anything, and the exterminators are coming on Monday, so hopefully I will be mouse free soon.

I am almost finished with one of the dishcloths.  I LOVE the way these look, and the texture is great too.  I'm going to make a few of these in different color combos and then I think I'm going to knit this larger dishtowel to go with them.  Hopefully, I will be able to finish all of these during this weekend pending my face getting eaten by a mouse.

Bathing Beauties

I think I may have found the perfect swimsuit!  I AM SO EXCITED ABOUT THESE SWIMSUITS.  Someone on the board posted a link to Retrodress's Esther Williams Swimwear line.  I have been looking for these kind of vintage style swimsuits FOREVER.  For the longest time when I was young, I just wore a racer style Speedo one piece, and later when I was in high school and college I wore a bikini with boy shorts.  I've always envied actresses I saw in old movies who got to wear these types of swimsuits.  I have a long, curvy body type that would definitely be flattered by a suit like this, and it has the coverage I want on the butt.  I am going to splurge on one of these suits soon.  I really want the Black Classic Sheath - the style in the picture here.  I will be so elated when I can put on a swimsuit and feel confident about my body.  Do they make snowballs in hell now too?

It's the new year.

Happy New Year Everyone!  2008 is going to RULE.  I can totally feel it.  I want to do so many things this year, and I already have a bunch lined right up.  Today, I bought a brand new planner so I can keep track of all of the awesome stuff I am going to do.  I had an awesome vacation the past couple of weeks.  After Christmas with the family, I drove down to West Chester to be with Justin for a few days.  We did a lot of eating and laying on the paco pad and being total goof balls and it was blissful.  We also saw Sweeney Todd, and that was actually a lot better than I expected.

Right in the middle of my visit, we took a drive down to Baltimore to visit Santina and Andy and spend the night.  I was super psyched, because I hadn't seen Santina since she moved away and I MISS HER SO GD MUCH!  It totally ruled!  We saw a bunch of Christmas lights, went to a yarn store, went to Dizzy Izzy's and drank and whole lot!  Santina and Andy rule for having us down there and it was the best.  I miss spending time with Santina so much!

Justin & I spent a pretty quiet evening in for new years eve.  We watched a lot of Family Guy and watched the ball drop.  I didn't get a whole lot of knitting done. Surprise, surprise.  I made a little bit of progress on the Wild Kat socks, and I did cast on Cherie Amour.  I think for me the key to getting all of my 2007 wip's done is to do a little at a time.  I have designated the time between when I get home from work and when I make dinner as wip time.  I will work bit by bit only on 2007 wip's before dinner and new projects after dinner.  Eventually, they will be done right?

Another Christmas & Snowshoeing

Well, another Christmas came and gone, and it was pretty great.  We all dressed in our custom made Chinese clothes and went to Christmas dinner at Grandma's.  We had our second annual Yankee Swap, and I ended up with the Spirit Horses 2008 wall calendar and a fleece blanket.  I think the fleece blanket was only used to disguise the shape of the Spirit Horses calendar.  The same 2007 calendar was featured in last year's Yankee Swap and it kind of turned into this joke.  We ate spaghetti & meatballs and played with my cousin Jack's new Wii.  I ate too much.  I got a few really awesome presents and I will showcase those when I unpack them next week in Boston.

Today Tim, my mom and I went down to Lewis, NY to go snowshoeing on the land that my mom inherited from my Grandpa.  It was a really beautiful day and it was nice to get out and do something wintery with my family.  We started to make plans to maybe build a tent platform and a fire pit for camping next year.  My mom also explained how we can use different parts of the land in case Tim & I and our families need to retreat here if the apocalypse comes during our lifetime.  There is a stream running through it for water, and we can use the wood to build and sell, etc.  My mom kind of feels bad for our generation and is scared for us a little, I think.

So, with all of the holiday and family goings on, I haven't been knitting that much at all.  I've picked up my Wild Kat socks a couple of times and knit some rounds, but that's about it.  I really want to cast on the Cherie Amour before the week ends.  Tomorrow I am heading down to West Chester to stay with Justin for a few days.  I am also going to be seeing Santina too!

Home & Gram's Christmas Party

Yesterday, I made my way home to Plattsburgh, NY to celebrate Christmas with my family.  We decorated the tree at my mom's house, and I got to see my brother, Timmy, for the first time since August.  It's really nice to be home for Christmas, but between running around and making sure I see all of my relatives and do all of the family stuff, it can get a little hectic and stressful for me.  I am having a lot of fun so far, though!

One of the things my cousins and I always do during Christmastime is go to Grandma's Christmas party for the grandkids.  We eat hamburgers and french fries and drink out of cups with our names on them and build and decorate gingerbread houses.  This is what I came up with.  I decided to go with an earthy, rustic theme and create a log cabin style house.  Gram gave me the idea to use the long tootsie rolls for the logs.

Timmy was also very creative and came up with a Chinese theme for his house.  Check out the koi pond made out of chewed gum and the bonsai tree made out of pretzels and gumdrops.

Riley also was very resourceful and fashioned this sled made out of Bubble Tape and candy canes and mounted it on his roof.  Gram just happened to have some perfect little gifts for him to fill the sled with.  (She always has stuff like that just laying around.)

My mom and I also gave Gram some presents.  My mom knit her a tam and a pair of manly mitts, and I gave her the blue chevron scarf I knit at the end of the summer.  I think she really liked the scarf, which made me really happy.  I love my Gram.

Tomorrow is dinner and church with my dad and brother.  Christmas eve evening at my mom.  Christmas morning we'll spend at my mom's, and then drive over to dad's to do Christmas morning there, and THEN go to Gram's to do Christmas dinner.  Christmas is ALWAYS running around hectic for me and Timmy.  The nap on Gram's couch after Christmas dinner is always welcome.