LA LA Land

In my excitement over being gainfully employed, I've completely missed blogging about our awesome trip to Los Angeles to visit my beffy, Joy. I always use Travelocity when I want a last minute package deal. They are not even paying me to say that. But we got airfare, hotel, and car rental 48 hours before our trip for a screaming deal. I think our amazing hotel was only $70 per night too!

Day 1: We got off the plane, got our car, and headed out to Santa Monica Pier. The ferris wheel on the Pier is the opening shot for a lot of tv shows and movies including Private Practice and the Lost Boys.

We parked the car and saw this fun little view that David couldn't resist. I just love this photo.


When near the ocean, it is necessary to dip your toes in. Hadley clung to me like a monkey unsure of the cold waves.


Maybe she's only a fan of the Atlantic Ocean. Who knew?


I love this picture of Joy because it embodies her personality. It is "classic Joy". And she looks so effortless caring Aidrick around. Look, here I am, beautiful and natural, just lightly toting my baby around with me.


Who is missing from this photo? Da Da?



Day 2: We headed down to the Hollywood strip to see the stars and the Chinese theater. Naive tourists that we are, we got conned into having our picture taken with Tigger here. I'm not going to tell you how he sounded like he had gotten out of prison the day before and was looking to make some extra cash. Needless to say, there are a lot of fun characters out there, but watch out, they don't work for free.


We had 3 minor star sightings during our week-end which is alway fun. Mostly it was, "oh that person looks so familiar, do we know them?". Followed, hours later by us screaming out characters they had played until we figured out their names.

A good time was had by all.

Welcome to Hollywood

A lack of words from me usually means I am so busy that I don't even have time for simple grooming. Like plucking my eyebrows. We are still trodding into our new routine of me working outside the home. While you wait for my next post on our trip to Los Angeles, here is a pic of me and the DG with the Hollywood sign behind us.

LYLAS

A week ago today, Joy, Mark and Aidric flew in. ::sniff:: I had no idea how emotional I would get seeing my best friend with her new three month old baby. He's such a sweet precious little peanut. And he looks so good in his new blanket! I can barely remember when Hadley was that age and it makes me sad. Ahem, does this mean it is time to have another baby? ::shiver::

We got out once a day to hit the town and we even managed to head downtown on the light rail one day. This was perfect as Aidric is not a fan of taking naps, so he was quite up and alert with all the visual stimulation in downtown Denver.


As evidenced in this picture, Hadley had a bit of a crush on Mark. I think perhaps it is her first crush.

Joy and I had some time to reminisce as well when I pulled out the box of notes that we passed back and forth together in High School. I have so many notes from so many different people, and I have no idea why I've saved them, other than they represent an era of my life. An era of Tears for Fears and Paula Abdul. My favorite part of the notes is that instead of them being signed BFF, they are signed LYLAS. Any guesses? It stands for Love You Like a Sister. I might start using this in my chats to see if I can bring it back into the mainstream.

One year, I went all Project Manager on the notes and separated them by person filing them in large manilla envelopes. Can you say excessively detailed???


We had some good laughs, and watched video of our high school graduations, proms, day after proms, and Christmas caroling. It's always fun taking a stroll down memory lane.

Happy Happy Joy Joy

I've written about Joy so much on this blog that she has her own Label. Click on the label at the end of this post to see everything I've written about her in just the last 2 years.

You can review the story of our love here. She is my beffy, my BFF, and my BFITW3. We got married the same year, and the day I had Hadley, Joy found out that she was pregnant! Are we completely connected or what? Yes the story would have been better had we both conceived on the same night, but stop being so creepy, gawd.

I'm just so excited that she and her husband Mark and their three month old baby Aidric are coming to visit this week-end. I want to hug and cuddle him and nuzzle his soft furry head.

How to Knit an Urban Chic Baby Blanket

Two years ago, Holly and I made a baby blanket for Lora's baby Liv. You can only hope that when you put so much love into one project that it will be loved and adored. As luck has it, this blanket that we made so long ago, has a name, and it is Mimi. Mimi rarely leaves Liv's side. Mimi is Liv's soothing pacifier. Mimi cannot be put into the washing machine because the distance between Liv and Mimi would be too great.

It is with great love, that I have embarked on another baby blanket. This one for the most beautiful little boy of my Beffy Joy. (I think Beffy is the new BFF.) And in case you were interested, I wanted to show how you too can make a blanket such as this. Warning: This is NOT your grandmother's baby blanket. So you can take the polyester yarn that you've been saving for years and go make a pot holder.


It starts with this book, 100 Afghan Squares to Knit which has some great patterns and gorgeous afghans. However, the blankets are all "big people" sizes. So I picked my favorite squares, Sailboats, Stripes, and Speckle and created a rough layout in excel making the blanket 7 x 5 squares. Then I figured how much yarn I would need. Now yarn for a baby blanket is very important. It needs to be extra soft and washable. No one wants to go dry clean a wool cashmere blanket. Especially one that will constantly be covered in spit up, pee, poop, or blueberry jam. My favorite yarn is the Shine Sport from Knit Picks. It is 60% Pima Cotton and 40% Modal which gives it this luxurious silky soft feel. And it is 100% washable. This blanket used about 5 skeins of Green Apple, 5 skeins of Sky, 3 skeins of Yellow and 3 skeins of Cream. You will also need 1 pair of US 5 needles, 2 circular US 3 needles 29" in length, and a tapestry needle.


During it's conception, I knew that I would need some help to finish this. So I called my mom and did some over the phone eyelash batting to convince her to help me by knitting half of the squares. She came on board like a hurricane and whipped up her squares faster than you can say knit one purl one. Even Holly got in on the action when I lured her pregnant self over for dinner a few times to help me knock out a few extra squares. I love a community blanket. Unfortunately, knitting the squares is the easy part. It's the finishing that takes the longest time.

After all of the squares are finished, you need to flatten or block them. I am lazy and do not care to block to the same size, so I spray them with some water, cover them with a damp cotton rag and iron them until they are flat.


Then I layed them all out of the floor and rearranged them ten times, until I got the pattern I wanted.


Now here is tedious part. You need to handsew the squares together using the mattress stitch. The mattress stitch consists of sewing each stitch together, which in this case is 50 stitches vertically and 39 stitches horizontally. You begin with the vertical rows. After the rows are done, you piece each of them together. If I did the math right, this works out to about 3,075 hand stitches.

When you have finished stitching the entire blanket together, you need to add a pretty border. You do this by using two size 3 29" long circular needles to pick up stitches. Do one side at a time, using a simple knit, purl. I did 3 rows of Green Apple and 3 rows of Sky, but if you want a bigger border you can add more. On the top and bottom, you can pick up all the stitches, on the side you have to do a 1:4 ratio. Seen here is a detail of the edge.


When all is said and done, the final step is to sew in all the loose ends (at least 2 per square or 70 total) and work the corners together.

And finally, here is the finished project. Just in time to keep the baby warm through the chilly fall nights.

CONTEST: What the $@*% is this?

And the weiner is...ah hem, I mean the winner is paintrly1! You are correct in saying that it is a picture of the inside of Gibson's ear. In case you forgot what the red haired little guy in the house looks like because I've inundated the blog with baby photos, here he is for reference.

I'm so excited about these comments for a few reasons: 1) 8 comments and only 3 from my family, woo hoo! 2) Marc Acito commenting on my blog is like being touched by celebrity! You may recall I've mentioned him before in the earliest of blog posts. 3) Thanks to the comment about alien vulva, I am reminded of another great blog post I've been wanting to do: what people google to find my blog...coming soon.

Thanks for playing along.


The first person who can tell me what this is a picture of will receive a $10 Starbucks card mailed to their house. The comments are open.

RULES:
One entry per person.
Entries must come through comments on the blog only.
My family ie. the guy that took the picture, his wife, and the man who sleeps in my bed at night are not eligible.
The winning answer will be the closest to what this actually is.

I will reveal the winner this evening.

Fun Week-end

You may remember Joy and Mark from a year ago when we went to their wedding on Monhegan Island in Maine. You may also remember Joy as MBFITW3, or from here, or here and here. They flew in on Friday for the week-end.

Our week-end started when we took the lightrail downtown to meet DG and get a tour of his office building. After dinner, our beautiful night ended with eating Spring Fling (our wedding cake) on the back patio late in the evening.



Saturday, we got up early and headed up to the mountains for a beautiful hike. DG posted the best shots here. After the hike, we grabbed sandwiches in Dillion and had a picnic on the lake there. Gorgeous. It's one of my favorite things to do.

The Guests are Coming, The Guests are Coming!

Floors vacuumed - check
Toilets scrubbed - check
House dusted - check
Dishes washed - check
Snacks in the fridge - check
Ingredients for Pumpkin Pancakes - check

Joy and Mark are flying in this afternoon for a week-end visit. DG and I are so excited. Joy has seen Denver many times before, but Mark was only here for roughly 24 hours for our wedding. So we want to give him the proper tour. Tonight, we're going downtown! Tomorrow, the mountains.

Oh and I've promised to give Joy her brown socks back.

Old Brown Socks

DG came home the other day, handed me a pair of brown socks he had found in his car and asked if they were mine? Though it was no bra or lace panties, my first response was, "who was stripping in the back of your car?" said with indignant indifference. Then I realized that when Joy was here, she had mentioned changing her socks in the car. I tossed them in the laundry and figured I'd give them to her when I saw her again.

Until the other night, when I needed a warm pair of socks to wear to bed, and I chose the clean brown ones in my drawer. As I put them on, I wondered what it would be like to walk in Joy's socks. Where had these socks been? Was the spirit of Joy going to be with me when I slept? Was I going to be a more compassionate and caring friend? What made Joy buy these socks? Did she miss them? I know none of these things.

Do you pay to mail socks back? If they are your absolute favorite socks, Joy, I will mail them back!

Too sad to write...

Joy left this morning *sniff* after our fun 48 hour extravangza. We hung out and coffee clutched Saturday afternoon while perusing houses for sale in Burbank before heading downtown to drink red wine and listen to a great jazz band. Cabbing home, these two desperate housewives stayed up giggling until 2:30am. Thank god Joy had the sense to say no when I wanted to open another bottle of wine before going to bed. After the dogs let us sleep in until 9am, I made an honorary breakfast of a crab cheese egg scramble. I was trying to recreate the lobster casserole that we ate every morning at The Island Inn on Monhegan when we were there for Joy's wedding. It was a really good substitute.



Crab Cheese Egg Scramble

5 eggs
1 can REAL crab meat
shredded cheddar cheese
3 green onions, chopped
some 1/2 and 1/2 (use at your discretion - a couple of tablespoon fulls is good)
salt and pepper
1TBL butter for frying

Scramble all of the above and cook. It is suprisingly tasty.

More on our adventures tomorrow, maybe when Joy sends me some pictures. I have to go to bed early tonight to recover from our trip!

While the Cat is Away...

my best friend JOY is going to visit!! David is leaving me to go to Washington D.C. this week-end with his sister to spend some time with his parents. His Dad wanted to go see an art installation there. Meanwhile, I got the efares yesterday and there was a direct flight from Burbank to Denver. Wow, what are the chances? So Joy booked her flight and is going to come hang out with me for the week-end so I won't be lonely.

We are going to hang out, drink wine, pet the dogs, wash our hands, make yummy dinner, eat pancakes, go to the art museum, snow shoe, act like girls, buy silly earrings and shop at funky stores. I will try to fit as much fun as possible into the 48 hours she is here.

If you have any suggestions as to what we should cook and what other activities we should do, let me know.

The Chocolate Club

THE CHOCOLATE CLUB 1987
In High School, there was a group of 6 of us that were great friends. A clique you may say. A marching band, top of the class, side of geeky, not the most popular clique. At one point, and I may need some help from ladies here, we starting calling ourselves The Chocolate Club. This picture, taken in Ellen's basement, may have been our only meeting.

Twenty years later, all the ladies attended Joy's reception in CT. Roxanne took this picture, and though I was not there, through the magic of graphic design, she digitally added me to the picture. *smiles*

THE CHOCOLATE CLUB 2006

Happy Wedding Day

In our travels, we went to two vastly different, yet gorgeously done weddings. After we came got back from Alaska, we went to Kevin and Kim's wedding in Seattle. Now the picture below is perhaps not the best view and honestly, I don't know that they want their picture on the blog, but this shot is actually about the green kissing ball. These flower balls, made from green kermit mums are my absolute favorite. Their ceremony was held on a grassy lawn and these lined the aisles beautifully. Had I been able to splurge on flowers at our wedding, I would have ordered dozens of these green balls. LOVE THEM.


The next wedding was for my MBFITW3 Joy and her husband Mark. It was held outdoors in front of the Island Inn in Monegan. Have I mentioned that you need to go there? No really, fly cross country and go, or drive, you will not be dissappointed. Did I mention the lobster strata at breakfast every morning? That alone is worth the plane fare.

Ok, back to the wedding. It was sweet, beautiful, and just so filled with Joy's personality. One woman on the island with an amazing flower garden, created all of the boquets for the entire group. Even David got a bout that we kept because the aroma of whatever plant she used was amazing. After Joy and Mark gave their vows, a whale spouted in the harbor behind them creating this magical aura over the event. Afterwards, we went inside the Inn and dined on Lobster, blueberry soup, and cake. It was a perfect week-end.


Congratulations to all the new brides.