A Little bit o'Progress

Knitting

I thought I would share my progress on the new Ribbon Xback.

Pretty cool so far. I like how the colors are coming together and how the orange and pink bring out the red.

I have a long car trip this weekend, to New Jersey, but I don’t know how much knitting I can do in the car. Like reading, it makes me kind of nauseous.

This in the first overnight exersion with G. I am a little nervous about it because I am not sure what we are doing other than going to see his friends. They have a boat so they will be waterskiing. I don’t water-ski and I am not really that interested in starting, but I do like boats and being on the water.

A gentle kick in the pants

I have been so apprehensive about this trip all week, but I keep seeing things that are telling me, “Just go, for cripes sakes!”

The first was a piece in the Washington Post Travel section about a 78 year-old woman who traveled to China alone.

And a feature on channel 4 about this Baby Boomer-woman who is turning 60 this year and all of the cool stuff she is doing every month of the year to celebrate.

At long last...

At long last...

I finished ChicKami this weekend. Here she is:

This is my second ChicKami. It's an easy knit and pretty quick. And, oh yeah, it looks cute too.

Pattern: ChicKnits
Yarn: Schachenmayr "Lipomo"
Color: Dry Lavender

Have you seen this?

Good Search, check it out, and do some good.

http://goodsearch.com/

Seahorses!

Secret Pal

I received my final Secret Pal package today. Thanks Rebecca! Check out these stitch-markers.

Sea horses! Very cool. Very summer.

Secret pal was fun. I loved getting fun packages at work.

Some Knitting Progress
Here’s the progress on Chickami. I have finished the back, now just the rest of the front and the little straps. This yarn looks really cool. The increases and decreases add to the variety. Almost done, maybe this weekend I will finish. Gabriel will be away so I will have a little more time.

Here's a little more detail:

I found this yarn (Katia “Bonita” in Salsa) on sale at elann.com. I love the color, very red, with some orange, pink, and yellow mixed in. I am thinking this might be the yarn for the next Ribbon X-back. I need to swatch, though, and see how I like it.

Early morning delivery

The world of business travel is such a glamorous one. Crammed into airplanes, surly airline employees, running through O’Hare because the plane left late because some idiot didn’t move the jetway away from the airplane, annual air-travelers who get in the way, lost luggage.

That has been my world the past couple of weeks. Last week it was Vegas. And I just got back from 2 ½ days in Austin, Texas. Not a bad place, really, for Texas. There are good bars and restaurants, lots of music, the bat bridge.

My bag didn’t arrive last night, but it showed up at 5:00 AM this morning! My phone rings and I see it’s the “Front Door.” Huh? Who is at the front door of my building at 5 o’clock in the morning? I usually ignore things like that, but I answered.

I have your suitcase.

Really?

Yes.

Ok, I will buzz you in.

For a split second I thought Gabriel was playing a joke on me because the voice had an accent.

Regardless, I was glad to have my bag.

I am heading back out tomorrow, but this is a fun trip. Every year my college friends get together in York Beach, Maine, for a reunion. Heather’s mom and step-father own an inn and they let us have it for cheap for the weekend. It is great fun, usually pretty chilly, a wonderful get-away.

But even this trip is not without drama.

A few weeks ago I invited Gabriel to join me. I figured things between us were going really well, he is always up for an adventure, and he has never been to Maine. He said sure, sounds like fun, and that was the end of the conversation. So a couple of weeks ago I mentioned it again because he needed to make his arrangements. He kind of balked, explaining he didn’t know what his work travel was going to be so he couldn’t make flight arrangements. He might be arriving from somewhere other than here and departing for another job somewhere else.

OK, fine, I let it go. He can make his own arrangements, but I forwarded him my itinerary on Southwest.

Fast forward to Monday night when he breaks the news that he can’t come to Maine. Something about an expensive ticket (no shit, you waited too long), not being able to charge the customer, blah blah. I was pretty upset and disappointed which for some reason surprised him (???).

For kicks I checked out a ticket prices on Southwest. It would have been $200. About $10 more than what I paid and I booked WEEKS ago. Am I missing something here? I did go to Expedia and saw that tickets on other airlines were in fact in the $600 range, which he claimed. But I can’t get past the cheap SW price. I didn’t say anything because I didn’t want him to think I was checking up on him.

But now I can’t shake my feeling that he really didn’t want to do. Which is fine. It’s the lying I don’t like.

Or maybe I am overreacting, making this all up in my head.

But I REALLY need to let it go.

We haven’t seen each other in 3 weeks because of our different travel schedules so finally tonight we are meeting. It’s kind of weird, I feel like there needs to be some reacquainting between us.