Making her world debut this afternoon after a very long 21 hour labor is Maya Elizabeth Wagner! Congratulations to Stephanie, Tait, and Lehna on their newest family addition!
Welcome Maya! Yes, Uncle Kris holds you like a football.
Adorable baby girl in ruffly handknits. Ok, everyone, "aaaaahhhhh" :)
Chocolate Lovers Insta Cookies (check out my newly cleaned stove!)
Battlestar Galactica Season 1 on DVD
Fun Lace KnittingLast Friday as I was packing up stuff for D&D night, I found that I had no projects that were at a state to be portable. I grabbed a skein of my long-hoarded Opal Tiger sock yarn and a set of US 1's. Here's my progress after a D&D session and going to the movies Saturday night. Yes, I knitted through the whole movie in the dark. Hubs thinks I have a "problem" now. *scoff*
On the road knitting project
Almost 1/3 of the way finished!While I did watch a movie this weekend, today's Movie Monday post is all about last night's TV series and season enders for Rome and Battlestar Galactica. So, WARNING SPOILERS AHEAD!!! *ahem*
Last night's episode of Rome was the last episode of the series. This is the series that finally made cheap-ass me order HBO, which I will be cancelling now that Rome is over. Rome had everything - action, plot twists, intrigue, compelling characters, and beautiful settings. As per my usual, I was too wrapped up in the characters and felt it was rather a let down that Vorenus died after a small skirmish in Egypt. He was stranded on a deserted island last season and lived, rather crappy way to end a character line. I would have been much more torn up if Titus Pullo was killed, though.
OMG! Last night's season finale of Battlestar Galactica is the most amazing episode in the series. Baltar found not guilty, four newly revealed cylons, and Starbuck's back! I was surprised that the usual theme song and sneak peeks weren't shown before this episode. After seeing the episode, I'm glad no revealing previews were given. After Starbuck's return, I tossed my hands in the air and declared this to have been the best episode ever. Almost softened the blow that there will be no new Battlestar Galactica episodes until 2008.
Nine months with no BSG and no new Rome episodes ever; what a sad night.
Mountain LaurelBig thanks going out to Fab4LkManitou! I received my March SP box when I got home last night. Oh, it's a good one :)
Wonderful SP GoodiesDogs can hold grudges. After being away for 6 days over two weeks ago, as of last night, Bandit finally would acknowledge my existence. He's as stubborn as his mom! :)
Last night, I settled down with the North Star Scarf and movie reruns on HBO. Oh, how I loved Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead when I was a kid. Though, I was surprised that the ginormous shouldered clothes and even bigger 80s style hair could fit on a 65 inch TV.
I did finish the first of nine chart repeats. After admiring my handiwork, I googled around the blogosphere to see if any other knit bloggers were working on or had finished the same project. That's when I saw it - an errata for the North Star Scarf charts. There were errors in the first printing of the pattern on line 17 and 19 of the pattern, out of 56 total lines. :(
Can always count on me for an unflattering picture :)
Eh, it still looks like a star even with the erroneous pattern
No Movie Musings Monday post this week. I still haven't watched a single movie since I've returned from Boston.
Completely unrelated to the rest of this post, my previous peeves with Sprint were resolved Saturday. Hubs and I are on a shared plan with nights starting at 6pm. No more curbing late evening commute chatting for me!
Yesterday, I planned, purchased yarn, swatched, and finished a new little project. It's a cute little hat for soon-to-be neice, Maya.
Bandit was quite unwilling to model the hatSprint cell phone service completely sucks. I've been trying for almost two weeks to get Hubs and my accounts combined, and can't get it done properly. >.< I'm thisclose to cancelling our accounts and telling where to shove their crappy service.
I've lived my entire life in a state that's never sprung forward on DST during my lifetime until last year. Losing an hour of sleep doesn't feel any better this year, either. Yuck. Only two benefits to DST that I can see, later hours for dog parks that close at dusk, and later sunsets so I can take yarn pics with waning sunshine.
Cherry Tree Hill Potluck sock yarn from Windsor Button
Progress on Hubs' Socks
Elegant Ribbed Stockings
That's better.I'm all settled back into regular life here in Indiana. The trip home was much less dramatic and nauseating as the trip to Boston. Though I did find the irony in the fact that the airline was having data integration problems with a new system as I was coming home from a data management conference.
Thursday night was great. I met up with some Boston Knitties, ZantiMissKnits, Stariel, and Caflygrl for a yarn crawl around Boston. It was bitterly, coat piercing cold, but it was great fun to see several LYSes, Lush, and have dinner at Trident. Pics of the potluck Cherry Tree Hill yarn I picked up at Windsor Button will be coming this week.
This weekend was crazy busy, too. My mom and Chelsea came to visit Friday night and Saturday. Chelsea attended a girls' conference for careers in technology, science, and math. I was so happy that she was very enthusiastic about what she learned when we picked her up Saturday afternoon. Hopefully, getting her exposed to the sciences this early, she'll have a good base know what courses to take in high school and college.
I've tried knitting since I got back, but I seem to have misplaced my knitting mojo. Within 7 stitches of picking up the North Star Scarf, I frakked it up. *grumble* I unknit more than I knitted on the Elegant Ribbed Stockings. I did successfully work on Hubs' socks while on the plane though. I'll give it a try tonight over a few episodes of Rome to see if my knitting mojo can be found.
1 Flat-Land Dweller + 2 Flights at 35,000 feet + 1 Hotel Room on 20th Floor = 1 Awful Case of Vertigo
I now sing the praises of Bonine anti-nausea, motion sickness medicine.
Subtitled, Oh How I Hate Flying.
Hubs took me to the Indy airport this morning at 5:45 AM, and we thought I'd have plenty of time for checking in for my flight at 6:45 AM. We stood outside in the freezing cold with my 70 pounds of luggage (yeah, I'm only gone for 6 days, never know what I'll need!) waiting for the "convenient" curbside baggage check. The desk said "US Airways", the little luggage tags said "US Airways", but the attendant informed me when we got to the front of the line that this check in was only for US West flights. We go into the terminal only to see a HUGE line of folks checking in baggage and getting boarding passes. So, I do what any unseasoned, newbie traveler does - my eyes filled with tears and I started to nervously shake. Kris kept a calm head and spoke with an airline employee who informed me that I'd all ready missed the flight. Great. I was able to get on a flight to DC and make a connection to Boston from there. No problem!
I said good-bye to Hubs at the security point then had to unceremoniously remove my shoes for scanning. Apparently, something looked "funny" in my carry-on laptop case because the x-ray machine attendant ran my bag through twice and laughed and pointed the second time. Maybe it was the massive jumbles of cables and chargers, Hubs socks on the needles, or my in-flight book selection of "Stiff: The Curious Life of Human Cadavers"? My purse was also ransacked; I'm surprised that my forgotten black velvet, skull emblazoned dicebag wasn't questioned.
The flight to Washington was on the smallest plane I've ever rode; my mom informed me that it was a DC-7. It had 3 seats per row - one seat on the left side, an aisle, and two seats on the right side. To say that the flight was shaky and turbulent is an understatement. I had a deathgrip on the armrests on the descent. I made my connecting flight with no problems, and I was finally feeling a bit of relief.
The flight to Boston was pretty uneventful - much bigger plane so it was a much smoother ride. However, I realized that I made the WORST choice of in-flight book reading ever. Chapter 4 is entitled "Beyond the Black Box" which goes into detail about the gruesome details of what happens when planes crash. As I'm reading about the likelihood of surviving a drop from 35,000 feet into a body of water, I looked out to see we were circling above the Atlantic Ocean. Even worse, I read the comforting fact that most crashes occur during descent, take-off, or on the ground. Just as the plane made a big dip into the descent. I closed the book following that...
The flight on the puddle-jumper was only a precursor to how bad riding in a taxi (my first taxi ride!) turned out to be. I rode in a shuttle van with several other travelers from the airport to downtown Boston. I counted four times that I thought we were going to crash into other drivers including one spectacularly close near rear-ending, two ran stop lights, and crossed over two lanes of traffic to turn right on a red light. I will never complain about Hubs' driving again, and I will never drive in Boston. :)
To say I was relieved to get to the hotel for check-in is the understatement of the year. I have a beautiful view of the Charles River from my window.
View right after check-in
View after evening conference sessionTomorrow morning, long before my usual weekend waking-up time of noon, I'll be on a plane bound for a business conference in Boston. I'm a bit uneasy; this will be my first flight since I was 17 and my first solo trip. The more I talk with folks that are more travelled than me, the more I realize that I should be traveling with one of those "Unaccompanied Minor" signs hanging around my neck to excuse my stupidity. I had no clue that baggage can be checked with the hotel prior to checking yourself into the hotel, that the maids should be tipped to get better service, and that taxis line-up at airports to pick up travellers. I feel like such a newb! On the other hand, I'm very excited to have to opportunity to learn all about new technologies and trends. :)
My schedule will be really packed with seminars, exhibits, informational sessions, and schmoozing events. I do have a little chunk of time to visit the surrounding area though and meet up with Kris'Aunt Samantha for dinner. Within a few blocks of the hotel are two local yarn stores and a Lush store.
I'm dragging Kris' laptop computer and a digital camera with me, so I do hope to squeeze in some blog posts and pics while I'm gone.
I'm absolutely terrible about showing my caring side of my personality on this blog. But, please, send some good thoughts or prayers out to my stepmom, Betty, and her family. Her father is having some serious health problems. Hopefully, we'll know more tomorrow, but it's a scary situation. :(
