I’m somewhat fried after having to watch the State of the Union address tonight with Jason for extra credit for school. Man, I avoid that at all costs normally. Now I remember why. So a meme is about all I’m up for tonight.

It has been ages since I have been tagged for a meme. It is sort of a cool feeling, you know? Props to Tara for hooking me up. Yo, yo, *insert gang sign* you rock. (I’m sure Tara has a great love of my throwing the gang signs. Especially when I’m about to get us killed for doing it.)

This one is going to be tough. That is the only down side to being a poster-child Libra!

Four Jobs I’ve Had:

1. Hostess with the mostest
2. Receptionist
3. Litigation Support
4. Website Sales / Project Manager (Scamatech!)

Four Movies I Can Watch Over and Over: (I can name a lot more than four, so this is just a random assortment!)

1. Remember the Titans
2. Down with Love
3. Addicted to Love
4. Haiku Tunnel

Four Places I’ve Lived:

1. Fargo, ND (Born there.)
2. Champaign, IL (Home of U of I.)
3. Kankakee, IL (All along the Southbound odyssey, the train pulls out of Kankakee.)
4. Illesheim, Germany (So small, it isn’t even on most maps.)

Four TV Shows I Love to Watch:

1. Project Runway
2. Grey’s Anatomy (This one is all Tara’s fault.)
3. HOUSE. (Everyone should watch House.)
4. Numbers, In Justice, Law & Order (any of them), CSI, the list goes on and on.

Four Places I’ve Been on Vacation:

1. London, England
2. Paris, France
3. Boston, MA
4. Lots of other places in the USA - mainly in the midwest.

Four of My Favorite Dishes:

1. Cheese
2. Potatoes
3. Beef
4. Anything involving the above items.

Four Websites I Visit Daily When I’m Online:

1. Flickr
2. Random sites on my Blogroll
3. Here, to approve/read comments
4. Flicrk (I spend a lot of time there!)

Four Places I Would Rather Be Right Now:

1. Travelling in the US
2. Germany and Austria
3. Europe (to cover all the other countries)
4. England

Four bloggers who I’m tagging as “it”:

1. Jenn
2. Kymberlie (Maybe this will get her to post!)
3. You, if you haven’t done it yet.
4. Updated: Danbee - TAG! You’re It!

Jason informed Mike tonight on the way home from the Scout meeting that he needs 10 magazines that he can cut up to take to school on Wednesday for English class. Then he added that they have to be age appropriate.

Mike told him, “Darn, then I’m not sending you with Playboy.”

Jason asked, “Huh? What’s that?”

Mike told him that was the right answer. Kids these days - thanks to the Internet, they have no clue what Playboy even is…

Just a reminder - it isn’t too late to vote for Mike’s wonderful Lapsang Souchong-smoked Stuffed Cornish Game Hen recipe at TeaChef.com! Pretty please?

I frogged my sock back to where I should have been doing the decreases at, carefully picked up 78 stitches, decreased down to 72 stitches, and have moved on past the point where I realized my error. Whew! Now I only have about an inch to go before I start the toe decrease. I guess I’m not going to make my original goal of having the pair done by the end of January, but they will be done in time for the JayWalking KAL deadline in February - and they will be my first pair of 2006 socks completed!

*Sigh* I turned the heel on my Jaywalkers the other day, and wrapped up the decreases this afternoon, moving on to the main body of the foot. I decreased the sole of the foot down to 38 stitches - half of the total stitches - just like I normally do.

It would have been smart to have double checked the pattern.

Yeah, I was supposed to decrease down to 32 stitches. I stopped too early. Of course I’ve knit close to an inch since then. Gah! I kept thinking the bottom of the sock looked like it was going to be loose. I think my only option is to weave a different colored yarn through the sock and frog back to where I should have done the other decreases.

Man, I hate it when I do stupid things like this!

As I mentioned before, I took a LOT of photos in Paris. Tons. I am still wrapping up posting day 1 on Flickr - and that was just a half day! The above statue is St. Denis. The angel comforting him adds a certain touch. Cracks me up every time I see it.

Mike is the official chef of Chez Tremoulet, and loves to try out new recipes. A few weeks ago, he signed up to compete in the TeaChef competition, and they sent him a sample of tea to create a recipe to go with it. His creation, Lapsang Souchong-smoked Stuffed Cornish Game Hen came out wonderfully. He has posted photos of it, along with the recipe.

Now, voting for his recipe is open! You can go and vote for his fabulous recipe, and you would make him very happy. And if you want to come by our house, maybe he will even cook it for you!

Vote! Vote! Vote! (And thank you for doing so!)

The Bushesque State of the Union 2006. Our children must be literized! [via Jay.]

How on earth does Katie Holmes go from looking rather pregnant on January 14th, to having a flat stomach on January 15th? [Via And Knitting.]

Seriously? That just doesn’t make sense at all. (Maybe this post should go under my “Abducted by Aliens” category too? *snark*)

I am finally adding photos from our first evening in Paris on our honeymoon back in June, 2004 to Flickr. I still have to post the photos I took of the doors of Notre Dame, but I’ll do those tomorrow. They may be boring to everyone else, but the door on the far left with the statue of St. Denis holding his head and the angel comforting him is priceless. I love church architecture, and those doors are amazing.

Actually, the whole Notre Dame Cathedral is pretty amazing. Just think of the centuries it took to build it; the generations of families that worked on it. The hard labor involved in making all of the carvings on such an ornate building. We loved it so much we visited it every day that we were in Paris.

I have finally learned not only how to convert a photo to Black & White in Photoshop, but how to make part of it be in color. Whee! I had so much fun playing with the technique that I keep looking for photos to try it on. I don’t have many pictures on the laptop though, so I’ll have to find some more to play with this weekend.

Oh! I realized after reading Elle’s comment from earlier, I should clear something up - Feedburner just serves my RSS feed; you don’t have to change what reader you use, I was just hoping to have people change the feed they are downloading. I added a “Add to Google” button in the sidebar, and I can add the My Yahoo! option and others if anyone needs them.

Below are some of my favorites from the Paris, Day 1 photoset:

I’m trying to convert all of my RSS feed readers over to using my FeedBurner feed. If you are reading this in Bloglines, NewsGatorOnline (my personal favorite), Google, My Yahoo! or your RSS feed reader of choice, would you mind converting? Just click here to subscribe. (I’ve included handy-dandy links on my sidebar too.)

One of the cool things about the Feedburner feeds now is that they offer features like including Del.icio.us links and Flickr photos in their feeds. I’ve enabled both of those for now for testing. I have considered posting my Del.icio.us links here, but this seemed like a good alternative.

If you have no idea what RSS feeds are, you might want to read these posts:
- Mmmm… Feed Me…
- NewsGator vs. Bloglines (My thoughts on why I prefer NewsGatorOnline to read RSS feeds.)
- RSS - You Know What it is, Right?

And an oldie but a goodie that I wrote for ScriptyGoddess - What is XML? And What is RSS? Why Do I Want It Anyways? Lots of little tidbits in there that are still applicable.

If you have a blog, enable feeds. Full feeds with pictures is best. Pretty please? I know it takes jumping through a few hoops on some hosted blogging platforms (namely Typepad), but it is so worthwhile. Let me know if you have any questions about this stuff - I’m a huge fan of feeds, so I’m happy to share any knowledge I might have.

But there is one thing to remember. If you read everything via feeds, take a moment to pop in to the sites you read every once in awhile and leave a comment or two. Every blogger appreciates your feedback. Well, unless they are really cold-hearted, but why would you be reading them anyways if they were?

I cast on last Thursday for the Jaywalker socks, then took them with me for my glucose test on Friday, with me when I went to see Deb on Saturday, and I’ve picked them up and worked on them here and there since then. Today while waiting for another doctor’s appointment, I reached the end of the heel flap. I decided to modify the pattern and just continue the zig zag down the heel since I normally wear shoes that don’t have a back to them. I didn’t like the heel that was on the pattern - I wanted the cool zig zags to show themselves to the world! I’ll finish the heel tomorrow and then I’m down to the foot. My feet are pretty short, so that should go by fast.

I’m using Trekking XXL in color 109; I think I got it at Yarns 2 Ewe here in Houston. I love the colors, and they are blending together so nicely. The pattern is perfect for showing the colors off. I normally have to go down 2 needle sizes; I tried the first pattern using an Addi Turbo 2.25mm (not quite a US 1), but it was too big. I cast on using the larger size and then switched to Addis 1.25mm - a US 000! The needle is as skinny as the cable for the needles. It is just crazy! Now that I’m used to them, it is pretty smooth knitting.

I still need to figure out what to knit for the Knitting Olympics. I want to use yarn that I already own. I want something that will be a challenge to make in 16 days (from cast on to blocking), but I need to make sure I have time to study. I’m down to one of these (or something similar):
- Helen’s Lace in Black Purl.
- Another Clapotis, using the yarn just like Julia’s.
- Another Charlotte’s Web, using the yarn I bought on my summer vacation

The Helen’s Lace is the one I am most likely to choose - it is garter stitch, short rows, and “simple” enough that I can still watch the ice skating while knitting. We can’t have something that could be distracting! I’m still worried though that it might be too easy, but I need to remember that I’ll have projects to work on for my classes at the same time. Set the bar high, but know your limits, right?

Speaking of decisions, I’m considering doing a knitting podcast. Yeah, I’m hooked after listening to them for the past week. Now I just need to decide - should I host it here, and post show notes at BigPinkCookie? Or should I use either SimplyTwisted.org or PointySticks.org for it? I’m leaning towards PointySticks.org since I can think of cute themes to go with it. Hmmm… Any suggestions?

Hey, if anyone uses RSS feeds to read my site, could you let me know if they are showing up ok? My subscription through NewsGatorOnline is fine, but it has been so quiet in the comments I wondered if the others were showing up. Say “Hi!” if you see this so I know it is working ok! It is like a mini Delurking Day!

The above photograph from our honeymoon; it is the view we had of the Pantheon every time we walked up the street in Paris to our hotel. This was from our first night in Paris, and the sun seemed to take forever to set, giving the sky the most amazing glow. It isn’t the best photograph, but it has great memories for me. Plus the priest on the cell phone is amusing.

I had such a good day yesterday. One of those days that words can’t even begin to describe. Just … magical, for no special reason. I remember at one point wishing I could just capture it all - take a photograph of it somehow, but a photograph would only capture a moment, and while it might give you a sense of the day, it wouldn’t really convey it as well as it deserves. I get goosebumps and misty-eyed just thinking about it.

Yes, I’m rambling. But I want to be able to look back and remember what a good day it was.

After taking care of some school-related business yesterday, I drove over to Pappasito’s to pick up her favorite salad and headed down to M.D. Anderson to see Deb. Of course, as luck would have it, right as I pulled in to park they took her away for a test. A very important test to make her radioactive to confirm that her heart was doing ok. She was worried about me, but I reminded her that my plan wasn’t to come to “visit” with her, because “visiting” implies that I expected her to entertain me. No, I was coming to stay with her. I had a bag full of knitting, a book, my iPod. I was all good. I parked and went up to her floor to wait for her. I was greeted as I got off the elevator by her nurse, who knew who I was there to see because of the Pappasito’s bag in my hand. I found her room, scrubbed up, put on gloves, and settled in. Man, they have some really cozy chairs in those rooms.

I learned that you can NOT knit with latex gloves on. Especially if you knit Continental style like I do. I added about two rows to my Jaywalker sock and I put it away.

I read a bit of my Outlander book (almost done - I’ve stalled for at least a week now because I don’t want to finish it, it is so good.) I realized that I was hungry, so I went down to the cafeteria. When I returned to her floor, I turned the corner and spotted two small girls sitting on the floor, looking down the hallway. I recognized Zoe, Deb’s daughter, right away. I knew then that the other one must be J.’s daughter - and when I turned the corner, there was J - in person!

Eeeeeeeee!!!

I haven’t seen her in (*counting*) 15 years. 15 years! Too long. Too very long. But it was like it had only been months since the last time I saw her, not years. What a fabulous feeling. Just thinking about it makes me want to squeal.

So we took the girls to the “Park” at the hospital - a nice open space where families can visit. We were all alone, so we let the girls run around. We talked about life, our families, you name it. Awhile after we went down there, Deb came down. Eeeeeeee! It was so fabulous to see her in person after reading her blog for all this time.

We laughed as we discussed how we had read one another’s site for at least a year, and there were many tiara happy hours that she tried to make but didn’t get to attend, all of this while we had known each other long ago but never realized it.

It was magical to see her and Zoe together. Beautiful and heartbreaking at the same time. It was such a blessing for me to get to see J again, and I hope to see her much more now that we have reconnected. Just thinking about it makes me warm and fuzzy inside.

As Deb said, it was like the cancer disappeared for awhile, like the craziness of us sitting in a hospital cafeteria visiting with her ass-kicking cancer drugs right there on the IV cart just didn’t exist.

I hope we have many more moments like that in the years ahead.

J had to leave with the girls to meet her husband for dinner. After they left, Deb & I headed back up to her room and visited. Good times, good times. I’m so glad that I was able to be there yesterday, and I can’t wait to see all of them again soon. I’m lucky to have such good people in my life. And while I’m always thankful for my family, seeing them together made me ponder just how special my life really is; a wonderful son, a fantastic husband, terrific parents and great in-laws. I’m blessed.

Warm fuzzy memories. Look around your life for them, big and small. Hold them close and cherish them.

I’ve talked about him before, but he is worthy of a mention again. If you like music, especially cover songs, or just good amusing stuff in general, you MUST check out Jonathan Coulton. I highly recommend his version of Baby Got Back. I know, some people hate that song. You may be one of them. You should still listen to it, because it is good for you. Refreshing. It will make you laugh.

Well, it makes me laugh. So I’m assuming it will make you laugh. Maybe it is just me.

Plus he gives this stuff away for free. Free! Who doesn’t like free music? Free - and it is ok for you to share it too! How is that for wonderful?

Anyways - check him out. Let me know what you think. There are a lot of songs avaialble there, and so far all of the ones I have checked out are good. He keeps coming up with new stuff too, so check back regularly.

Let me know what you think, ok? I am really curious…

On a completely separate note - I took a nap when Mike got home from work and by the time I ate dinner and drank about 6-7 glasses of water, I finally felt better. Although I am still parched and thirsty, so I’m going to go and get another glass of water to drink. I suspect I won’t be sleeping well tonight…

If you ever have a 3-hour fasting glucose tolerance test and you feel all “woo woo” as you’re driving home because your blood sugar is crashing, do NOT be an idiot and run around the house doing other stuff for at least 30 minutes before you bother to eat. When you suddenly realize you’re on the verge of falling over, you will regret it.

Walk in the door. Put down your keys. Eat. Immediately. Protein would be a good choice.

My kitchen now looks like a war zone as I dug through the pantry and fridge pulling out anything that I thought might bring me back up. I knew there was some leftover, unopened Halloween candy in there somewhere. Thanks to a Reese’s Peanut Butter cup or two and a ham and turkey sandwich, I feel so much better now. Now I’m going to have a bowl of soup and all should be right again. I hope.

I still have the woo woo feeling though. Man, I hate that.

I just discovered the Yarn Harlot’s Olympic knitting challenge. Hmmm… I’m game. I’ll do it. But what should I knit?

I have to consider this carefully, because I will have to study during the Olympics. I will be TiVo’ing a lot of figure skating though - I can’t miss that. No way.

By the way, 10+ years later and Nancy Kerrigan still gives me the creeps. Is it just me?

So, what should I knit? It must be something in the stash already though. I’ll go through it and give it some consideration and the put my ideas out here for feedback. It is too bad I already cast on for the Lady Eleanor, because that would be the perfect thing to try to knit in 16 days. Hm.