novamade

island in the sun

On an island in the sun
We’ll be playing and having fun
And it makes me feel so fine
I can’t control my brain *

I am not a beach person. 

I am not crazy about sand finding its way into places it should not be. 

I am not a fan of tanning (being of natural beige-ness), and I am most definitely not a fan of the sun burning one's epidermis. 

Despite my curmudgeonly views of beach-y places, I had a fabulous time in Hawaii. I even enjoyed the beaches.  How could I not?

Special K attended a conference in Waikiki for a few days (clearly the archivists need to get on board this ship of having conferences in exotic locations) so it was something work related that provided the impetus for this island jaunt, but no complaints here. 

The beaches were beautiful, the ocean blue, the weather perfect; and the mojitos, well, they were unparalleled. 

There were beautiful things to see,

wonderful things to do,

and many things to spend money on

--some things completely unnecessary;

but most were totally justifiable.

A high point for this knitter was meeting up with the Aloha Knitters at their weekly meet up.

(photo taken by Special K)

Thank you for the invitation Barb,

and thanks to the other Aloha Knitters for letting me crash in on the group--they are a lively bunch.

I conveniently sat next to Opal (knitting socks which turned out just perfectly) without realizing that she was the author of one of the many blogs that I lurk on (I am obviously a lurker no more).

It was a very successful trip.  And I haven't even talked about the knitting projects I took with me (and worked on).  Well, not yet anyway.

*weezer

i just want to celebrate

May has been a  month of celebration for me.  Special K says I must think of it as "the month of me."  It's a celebratory month, sure, but there have been a lot of things to celebrate this month not just my birthday (but yes, that was really great!). 

Every time I skein my newly plied yarn, I feel like I am celebrating a little bit of success (have I mentioned how much I love "making yarn" with a drop spindle?  It's magic, people). 

So, celebrating new skills, that has been big this month.
 
I got a chance to celebrate being a mother (as most mothers did this month).

That was pretty cool (but maybe not as cool as standing all by yourself).

And really, I got a chance to celebrate childhood. Not just my own, which is (in some small way) part of a birthday celebration, but also Little Sir's. 

He has a lot of fun, and I have fun watching him do the kid thing.

And it's always fun celebrating not being just a mom, but also a wife.

So, celebrating family, if you will.

As May comes to a close, I find there is one more thing to celebrate.  It's the whole wife thing again.  Special K and I have a wedding anniversary coming up this weekend.  That's a reason to celebrate, right?  Unfortunately, Special K isn't going to be around this weekend, so that means I have to celebrate alone...or do I?  How about I celebrate with you?  Contests are very celebratory, so let's do that. 

Here's how it goes, leave your guess as to which wedding anniversary Special K and I are celebrating (or how many years we will have been married) in the comments of this post.  You have till Sunday (the 27th) 0600/ 6:00 a.m. EST to enter.  I will draw a name from those who answer correctly.  And just to be sporting, if you received an invitation to my wedding, then you can't play...that just wouldn't be fair, now would it.  Winner gets a gift package o' fun (you know, yarn and other stuff).

So, please excuse me while I go and celebrate...another day of living...

good, better, best

I intended to put this post up last month--on the 30th to be exact, but I decided to observe blog silence; but, then I forgot, better late than never I suppose.   

I would like to say that I am a student of photography, but really I just point and shoot and try to figure things out as I am going along.  There are so many great (exceptional, really) photographers in our "little" knitting community, they are inspirational (especially the professional ones).  I wonder if they read manuals to understand their cameras...I should try this manual reading thing, it seems like a plausible road to success.  In any case, I am trying to figure out how to take non-blurry close-up shots working with available light. I think it might be more of a lens issue (ISO, what's that?), with some of the pictures I have taken, but whatever.   In an effort to take some close-up shots while also highlighting "the good, better, best" nature of my April, I am giving you three photos.

The good:

buttons, green buttons for some green goodness... It took me a while to find the right buttons for my little project. Happiness is finding appropriate buttons, my friends.

Striving for better:

truly better than some past iterations of this scarf; better than my last try, at least.

The best way to end any month?  Well, food.  I make things for people.  Besides the knitting there is food, I cook for people, sometimes for no reason at all, most times because they can't cook for themselves, for whatever reason.  And you know, people have to eat.  So last weekend I made dinner for some friends who had a baby.  They asked me to make this cake for them. I am known in my circle for this, the best of chocolate cakes. It's flourless, it's sinful, it's easy, well, sort of.

I want to take better food shots.  I wish I could convey through a photograph how good this cake is. It's called la bete noir, French for "the black beast."  In French or English, this cake is just good, no the BEST.  I guess you will just have to make it for yourself if you don't want to take my word for it.

one

So we celebrated Little Sir's first birthday over the weekend.

 

It was a really special celebration (birthday's usually are), because we decided to honor Little Sir's Korean and American heritage.  He won't remember any of it, but I think it was an important thing to do (for us; and, really it made my mother happy and who is going to argue with that?).

I learned that I am truly my mother's daughter in planning this event.  There was really no such thing as "simple."  The first birthday celebration in Korean culture is called a Tol.  You can read more about it here, if interested.  I think we went a little overboard, it was fun though.

There was a great deal of food (and I didn't prepare any of it!).  My mom is kind of a rockstar, truly (even if she is a little nuts sometimes).  Hey, did you notice the rug hooked flags in the background?  My mom made them around 30 years ago.  Shortly after she married my dad and came to the U.S.  And she knits too!

As much as Little Sir enjoyed wearing his traditional Hanbok, he was clearly more interested in changing so he could play (it was a little big for him).

There were a lot of firsts for Little Sir.  Firstly, he has never looked so preppy or college bound in his life.  Also, I don't think he had ever seen fire (okay, a flame) before his birthday.  He was kind of nervous about it.  It was also the first time he had cake of any sort.

He really enjoyed the chocolate.

There are more pictures of this most auspicious of days here.

And because his thumbs were working, he was able to pull some names of people who celebrated his birthday with us in the blogosphere. Little Big Sir drew the following names:

Megan who blogs at The Knitting Philistine

Felicia of Fluffy Flowers

Heidi of Step Into My Thimble

Brenda at Molecular Knitting

Please e-mail me with your addresses I can get you your goods, or your "presents."

Thanks for partying with us! 

snap a dozen days, january edition

I figure a good time to reflect on January and its significance to me is the very end of the month. For some people, January is all about renewal, a fresh start and all that.  For me January is all about love, my love for my husband, Special K.

There are so many reasons that I love this guy, but to keep this list bearable I will boil it down, David Letterman style and just give you ten...

10. Special K is goofy. Most people who think they know him really well don't really know about his goofiness because he is usually pretty serious. A good deal of our time together has me rolling my eyes while he yucks it up...

9. He is supportive. When I had a job that burned me out and came home in a crummy mood for about a month he listened to me every single night as I vented about how horrible my life was. When I came home one day and said, "I want to be an archivist." He asked, "how do we make that happen?" And he was totally serious, he didn't even ask me what an archivist was.

8. He puts my needs first whenever possible (and practical).  After figuring out how to make being an archivist happen, you know--developing a plan, Special K changed his career/academic plans to accomodate mine .

7. He is interested in everything I have to say. Now that Special K knows what an archivist is, he listens to me talk about my profession at great length...with interest. I, on the other hand, find his work completely dull (it is over my head really) and I make no effort to fain interest in the technical math-y stuff. I consider this my gift of honesty to him...

6. He is always thinking about ways to make me smile. When we were in Maryland so he could attend some seminar on something technical that I don't understand, he heard about the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival on the radio and thought, "hey, my wife likes to knit, I bet she would like to go to that." And he took me there, it was a nice surprise.

5. He is generator of great ideas. After taking me to MDSW and listening to me talk about knitting, wool, Rowan and Koigu ad nauseum all the way back to Connecticut, he suggested that I start a blog (actually, now that I think of it, this means he doesn't have to listen to me talk about knitting as much...huh). Clearly, this would have never occured to me. It still astounds me that anyone is interested in anything I have to say...

4. He is the yin to my yang, the moon to my sun, and all that.

3. He makes me feel beautiful.

2. He is an awesome dad. He likes being a husband and all, but being a dad? That is his thing. He would like to become an "expert dad" and thinks that requires having four more kids. I have suggested that he take this issue up with his next wife...

1. Special K is truly special, and he loves me just the way I am...and if I change, he will still love me.

Good grief, with all this talk of love, WHAT will I talk about next month?