Have you ever had a project that you really wanted to go well? You were making it for a special person, you planned it out for ages, bought the necessary materials and started with plenty of time… but then after you have invested many, many hours into it, you realize that you just cannot make it work?

For me, that project has been the stole I have been knitting for my best friend, Julie’s wedding.

I bought this gorgeous yarn, Karabella Aurora 8 (color 705). LOTS of it.

The plan was to knit a large rectangle in stockinette stitch (complete!)

Then pick up stitches around the edge for a beautiful leaf border. Sounds simple, huh?

Aww… isn’t it pretty?

The problem is that I was stupid when I knit the rectangle and I only put about half the yarn ball transitions on the side of the piece… which was driving me nuts because you could see that the fabric got all wonky every 5 inches or so. (anal, I know.)

Like this:

Then I could not figure out how to get the pretty border to turn the corner. My only option was to just knit it straight up and then join the border to itself at each corner… which was not making me happy. AT ALL.

So, after having several good cries and mild panic attacks, I have given up. I am throwing in the towel. The wedding is 24 days away and I am starting over.

I found this pretty scarf patter (Lead or Follow Lace Scarf) from Heartstrings Fiber Arts in the middle of the night last night and assumed that I would have to wait a week… drive to my vet’s office… pay too much… Oh wait, well, you know what I mean. (I have obviously been watching waaaay too much tv while knitting lately.)

Did you know that there are these sites out there that are so efficient! You find a pattern you like, do the paypal thing, and then they send you a link right away where you can download a pdf file of the pattern. It is the awesomest. Especially when you decide to make drastic knitting decisions in the middle of the night.

Also, if you are up at 2 in the morning and can’t remember for the life of you how to slip, slip, purl (ssp), this site kicks ass. They have video! For both continental and regular knitting! It is super!

Here is what she looks like so far… I am doing a seed stitch border, instead of the lace ribbing from the pattern. (Julie wanted a warm, cozy shawl.)

Somehow I don’t feel panicked anymore now that I have made a decision… at least not yet. I am just so happy to be ripping out 10′s of hours of my work! weee!!

See… one last look! (okay, it hurts a little)

Yes, I do know I am a crazy, crazy person. Thanks for listening.

Casey and I went up to New Hampshire again this weekend, for a 60th birthday party for his uncle. It was western-themed, as you can tell by the number of occurrences of ridiculous straw cowboy hats in the pictures below.

(Casey’s cousin, Jesse and his girlfriend, Sandy)

I decided to just go with a general country kind of outfit but Casey wore his cool western- ish shirt and he looked really cute.

I look like a dweeb in that picture… and like I have no hair. Casey sporting my sunglasses.

Casey and cousin, Jed. Yes, that is really his name- wasn’t made up to go with the theme.









We were very fascinated by our sunglasses. It was very entertaining.

And the hats.

I am not sure how it happened (but this sure didn’t help)…

…but we both drank a bit too much and we ended up losing Casey’s mom (who was our ride back to where we were supposed to stay that night) and we went back to the campground with Casey’s cousins and their girlfriends. It was fun but I have the nasty feeling today that I embarrassed myself… even though I can’t remember anything particularly incriminating. (I did fall walking back to the cabin but I have weak ankles, was wearing wedges, walking on uneven ground, and it was pitch black. Also, I burst into tears because Casey’s mom was going to be very mad at us- and she was- but Casey insists that I recovered pretty quickly. Gah.)

Spent a very uncomfortable night sleeping on a twin vinyl mattress mattress with no sheets or pillow, squishing poor Casey against the wall. Ahhhh.

It took us ages to get home (4 hours instead of the normal 2.5) because there were stupid people in front of us who liked to look at stuff on the side of the road. Are you familiar with these people? It is quite a phenomenon that I still don’t understand. No one I have ever talked to will admit to rubbernecking (god, how I hate that word) but somehow everyone does it. Except me.

Okay, this wobbly head needs to hit the hay. Yeehaw.

Yesterday I had this bright idea at about 4pm that I would bake a fabulous cake for our friend, Christopher‘s birthday. The celebration began at 7pm.

Yes, it was a disaster from beginning to end, as I am sure you could have guessed.

I called my friend Julie in Germany because I knew she had the same cookbook that I was thinking of using and had her give me the ingredients as I was walking around Whole Foods. Then ran home and started the oven, threw eggs, flour, sugar, etc in a bowl. Then I realized that I had no pan like the one in the picture.

Gah!

Of course, you know poor Casey gets dragged into the nonsense… I call him and asked him to stop at Crate and Barrel (right next to his office) and pick up a pound cake pan. Then ran back into the kitchen and continued beating.

Casey came home a little while later with a long, rectangular, shallow pan.

“What the heck is that? That doesn’t look like the picture?!” I screech, oh so becomingly.

Casey takes the book and looks at the recipe. “Jess, it says a ‘bundt pan’, not a pound cake pan.”

I submit as evidence, the name of the freaking recipe is the ‘ultimate lemon pound cake’ and within the recipe is the small, tiny note that you need a bundt cake pan.

Yes, I know I am an idiot.

So I ended up making cupcakes, without the cute little cups because we didn’t have them and we are trashy like that. Then, I completed the masterpieces by putting a single blueberry in the middle of each cupcake. They were boobcakes. Niiiiice. (Sorry, no pics… I was not in the mood to document by the time we actually had a finished product.)

Tonight I baked the rest of the batter and added some blueberries to the recipe. It turned out pretty ugly but it tasted okay. The blueberries helped make it moister… not too bad. My brother Kyle and his girlfriend, Erica, seemed to like it okay. It definitely turned out better than the ghetto cupcakes, sorry Chris.

(If anyone cares, the book is Luscious Lemon Desserts. It actually does have good recipes in it- that don’t look like that thing above.)

Um yeah.

and the back! ah!!!

I did one of those things yesterday that makes you wish you had special powers and could rewind time.

See, I have been going nuts cleaning out our storage space in the basement over the past few days… yes it is taking days even though it is only about 4′ by 8′. You know how it is, you are busy so instead of really thinking about whether you need to keep something, into a box it goes down in the storage area! No problem! I will deal with it later!

Only we are going to want to move out of this apartment (and hopefully out of the country) next year and I just need to get our life in order. We just kept saying that we would take real time to do things right after the wedding and, well, here we are.

Anyhoo.

Just so you can get the mental picture: I was down in the basement covered in dust and sweat, no bra, hair tied up with clips- looking and feeling mighty attractive. Also sneezing and coughing from the dust and the mold.

I went outside to the garbage with yet another warped cardboard box to empty the contents into the trash and I shut the door behind me… My hand was still on the doorknob when I realized that my keys were sitting on the suitcase in the basement. Crap.

The thing is, there is no exit from the garbage area. If I had my keys, I could go up to my apartment or down to the basement. Since I had no keys, I would just rot there for hours since it was the middle of the afternoon and no one was answering my timid calls for help. And I had to pee.

So what did I do? Jumped the fence, of course. Into some strangers backyard who I was convinced would run out of the house screaming for the police, which they did not. Because no one is home at that time on a Wednesday, which you should keep in mind for the next point of the story.

I ended up on the street next to ours, which still seems strange to me. (Apparently I have a terrible sense of direction.) I walked back to our apartment building trying not to be too self-conscious with my boobies bouncing in my little t-shirt that I was not supposed to be in public in!

I got to the lobby of our building, investigated both doors thoroughly- finding both tightly shut. Dammit.

Settled in to wait for a little bit, I was optimistic that someone would come home or leave the building soon. We live right near Harvard, our building has a pretty good grad student population and they surely keep different schedules….

Ho hum…

LOTS of time passes… Jiggle Jiggle. Boy, do I ever have to pee. Yet, I am parched at the same time… isn’t that curious…

More time passes…

Okay, I can’t deal with it anymore! Time to start pushing people’s buzzers. Who has a friendly name? Certainly not Blum next door, who reported us to the building managers for having a dog that took a crap in the lobby- even though we have no dog! Avoid that one.

GAH! Turns out no one is home or too busy to respond until I get mostly done with all the apartments in the building.

Hello? What!?

Um- hi! Um, this is Jessica and I live at number X and I accidently locked myself out, HEHEHEHEHEHE…

(Silence)

So, um…. would you mind buzzing me in? Please? HEHEHEHEHEHEHEHE…

BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ!

Oh, thank you! Thank you! HEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHE…

Classic.

What Not to Wear is touring the country and they are actually coming to “Boston.” (I am sorry but the Northshore Mall is not Boston- ahem.) Click here to get the full schedule.

If Stacy and Clinton are there, I will pee my pants.

eeek! That is this weekend!

Can’t. Stop. Eating.

Help!

Casey and I had quite a weekend. We drove from our apartment to Casey’s mom’s house in seacoast New Hampshire. Then down to my parent’s house in New Jersey and back up here to Cambridge in one day.

Um yeah, we are idiots.

Why did we do that? Well, we bought that dresser on ebay and saved a few hundred dollars and then decided it wouldn’t be a big deal to have my dad pick it up and then we could go get it in our Corolla. Of course, that huge box didn’t fit in our car so we had to borrow Casey’s mom’s minivan. I know, we are not the smartest…

….but this is in our apartment now! Yippi!

(For the tons of people who asked where it is originally from, go here.)

In other news, I am crying my eyes out watching the last few episodes of Six Feet Under. Man, that show is screwed up.

*sniff*

If you are not Julie, you can click below for the extended entry…

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mmmmm….

Obviously, I was too lazy to arrange the peaches all pretty… next time though, I am so doing it right.

Also, I will make sure I have vanilla ice cream in the house.