I took Thursday off for an important appointment in Atlanta (hair). My hair is very different now than it was before but I haven't been able to capture it in a great picture yet. I'm going to bank on my photographer boyfriend's abilities and bad-ass camera to make me look gorgeous...but here's a look at the color at least. It's a little blonder than before... I loved it in the salon, freaked out on the way home, and alternated between loving it and freaking out all night. I'm still on the fence, but I haven't actually taken a shower and styled it myself yet...tomorrow will be the test.

You wanna see how cute my sister looks in the sweater I knit her?

Finally, Cathy gets her birthday present!

Doesn't it look good on her? She wore it tonight to dinner with a little black tank top underneath and it looks so cute. YAY. I'm glad I went with the little brown buttons. I came over to Cat's tonight after the haircut and remembered on the way why I hated living in Atlanta: traffic was HIDEOUS. I had to go through the toll booth on 400 twice and both times I paid with pennies. Eek. Everyone drives so close together, and super fast. I'm no scaredy cat when it comes to speeding, but not when I'm in bumper to bumper traffic. I felt like the country mouse in the city.

I'm sure Athens is going to feel a little bit like that in a few weeks when all the students come back....*sigh* Not that I'm complaining since I work for the University and they pay me, but it's nice and peaceful right now. Luckily we live a little bit out in the country now so maybe I won't notice it as much. Ha.

Susan from berrystained put up a nice long post about her trip to Athens, and all the other fun places she visited recently. It was fun to read an account of Athens through a visitor's eyes...and of course, I was a part of that visit! (Hey Susan - you and Steve should definitely move here. Don't you miss the Grit already??)

Okay, time for bed. I have to get up early tomorrow to drive back to Athens...

Posted by Carrieoke at 11:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (27)

my first blog title image

Did you know that it's been over a year since I started this little blog? The reason I know that is because my kick ass web hostess Becky told me so! Becky has been encouraging me, helping me and commenting on my site since it was a not-very-well-done free Geocities site. Thanks to her encouragement, I have learned CSS, a little php, and lots and lots about knitting. And I've met so many great people! So here's a big THANK YOU to Becky, and yay for the knitblogging community...let's pat ourselves on the back *pat* for being such a supportive and fun group of people.

Thanks also for all your kind words about my waitressing fiasco. I'll admit, I was feeling a little guilty this weekend about it...missing some of the nice people I work with...thinking that I over-reacted. And then I called up there to chat with one of the bartenders and she said "good for you, I almost walked out on Saturday myself! This place sucks!" And I remembered why I left in the first place....and the guilt went away. Mostly. ( I was raised Catholic, you know, so the guilt never fully disappears. ;) )

To break the monotony of Polka Purl Dots, I started a fun and fast project that is too cute: Stefanie's boob holder ... how freakin' cute is that ? I don't really have the boobs to hold it up, exactly, but I can always use another cute little sweater. I'm using some acrylic / nylon blend yarn that I bought really cheap a while back and it's RED. I can't wait to see how it turns out.

I'm sorry, Schmoo isn't available right now. Can I take a message?

I think Bella is mad at me. She and Chili just got a bout of fleas, and her Frontline has been applied, but it's taking a few days to work so we're having to leave Bella outside more often than usual. I'm still giving her lots of attention and affection but just not in the house. So this morning when I came outside to say hi, Chili came running up to the gate but Bella didn't even come out of their doggy mansion. She just lifted her head, and then went back to sleep. Maybe she was just REALLY comfortable. Harumph. I'm a needy dog owner!

I'll be posting pictures of Bella and L'il Frankie playing later this week. It was a strange encounter because Frankie was REALLY scared. Bella just wanted to play so she kept barking and putting her paws down in that doggy-yoga position that means PLAY WITH ME. It was so cute to watch them together. Of course they are on their way to best-friend-dom.

Okay. Gotta head to lunch. SO HUNGRY..........

Posted by Carrieoke at 10:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (22)

So, I walked out of my waitressing job on Friday night.

Umm, for the record, this is SO not like me, I have never walked out of a job before, and I don't plan on doing it anytime in the future. But I think my frustration with the bar had been building up. I was the oldest waitress there, and the management didn't give a crap about their employees, and it's just so destructive to work in a bar -- you smoke and drink way too much, get used to people treating you like crap, etc.

And, at any rate, I was treated in an extremely rude, condescending way by my manager Friday evening. I won't go into gory details (partially because the whole fiasco started over a very petty thing and I'm a little embarrassed...), but my manager ended up yelling at me, calling me a lazy ass, and then telling me (in his own words) to "chill out or walk out." So, I chose walk out. And that I did.

I know I really need that money, and I know it's really irresponsible to walk out when I had customers (!) and there were only two other waitresses there....but I can find another part time job, one that I don't dread going to. Arrgh.

Well.

Do you want to see some Polka Purl Dots?

My hand is there for comparison. Moving S L O W L Y.

Here's a picture of the whole thing with one of my skeins of Svale for comparison. It's very, very wide and not very tall. But it's going to be cute, I promise, if I can make myself stick with it. I have discovered through this project that I am a very impatient knitter.

I am posting from the comfort of my little office at home on my fancy new cable internet connection....oh, s'marvelous. How did I ever survive without it? Jacob can't even hold a conversation anymore, he's just constantly thinking about what he can download next with the speedy internet.

Hope everyone is having a lovely weekend. I'm about to vacuum up the carpet freshener and then see if Leslie and L'il Frankie can come out to play with me and Miss Bella. For those of you who asked, Frankie is a chihuahua/ yorkie mix. She is a SCHMOO.

Posted by Carrieoke at 2:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (30)

Bella says thank you for all the well wishes. She was feeling much better yesterday after her daddy gave her a bath:

thanks for thinking of me! can I play now?

You can see other adorable Bella-bath pictures here, here, and here. Jacob took these action shots while I was at choir rehearsal the other night. I *heart* that boy.

So, this weekend, there is lots of fun in store! Tonight my friend Leslie is getting a brand new schmoo .... wanna meet her?

Hi, I'm a tiny schmoo.

So tonight I get to go play with L'il Frankie for a while, and tomorrow morning I get to go to the vet with Les and LF. Then we're going to take Bella and the wee one to the park for their first meeting in neutral territory. Did I mention that Bella and Frankie are going to be best friends? We're going to have to ease Chili into the picture because she's VERY protective of her little Bella friend.

And tomorrow morning I am also getting a CABLE MODEM installed (woo-hoo!) so I can finally have fast internet at home. And my job is paying for it, oh yes they are. yay me.

And yes I have to work tonight, but what's a few measly hours of table-waiting compared to a weekend full of schmoos, friends and FAST INTERNET?? It's nothing, I tell you, nothing.

Polka Purl Dots: moving right along. I would show you a picture but you would say, "gee, that looks so much like all the other progress pictures...is she actually knitting?" because it feels like I haven't moved a freakin' inch. But I really am, I swear. It's pretty decent Law and Order SVU knitting.

Have a fab weekend. Maybe I'll post from my super speedy cable connection this weekend...oh boy oh boy oh boy.

Posted by Carrieoke at 3:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (15)

Today is Anne Marie's birthday! Make sure you stop by and wish her lots of happiness today. I just saw her at lunch with Leslie and AM's friend Angie and she's a smiley girl today. I think it has something to do with her evening plans...

Anywho, lots of things to talk about. First of all, I voted yesterday. Yay! I haven't used the electronic machines yet that they have in Georgia and it was weird and scary to me, even though I am a computer girl at work all day. It made me afraid for all the old folks who were coming in to vote that might not be as computer savvy. I do not have a solution for this problem, just commenting. I tried to take a picture of my "I'm a Georgia Voter" sticker but here's how it came out. Anyways, you get the idea.

So, in other recent news, I met my first friend from the blogosphere ever! Susan from berrystained came into town on Monday with her twin sister Karen and her boyfriend Steve. Steve had a show to play at Tasty World and she emailed me to let me know that they were coming into town, and of course we had to meet up.

I was a little worried about meeting a blog friend for the first time, specifically because I didn't know what she looked like, and well, what if there was nothing to say in person? But luckily, they recognized me and it wasn't even awkward in the beginning, just easygoing and fun. Susan is just as intelligent and interesting in person as she is on her blog, and Karen and Steve are intelligent and interesting as well. Karen and Susan and me talked about being twins for a long time....it's been awhile, or maybe never, since I've gotten the chance to talk about twin experiences with another set of twins. So that was cool. And, we just had a lot of fun drinking and chatting and hanging out.

Susan and Steve (here's a picture) stayed at my house and crazy Karen decided to drive back to Macon at 3AM (Karen, if you're reading this, I still can't believe you actually drove home!) They got to meet Bella and Chili, who were on their best behavior for my guests and only being partially bad by scratching me and barking every now and then.

Poor Jacob came home at 6:00 and slept through the whole thing...he never actually got to meet them! I was hoping he would, too, because on some days, I think Jacob thinks that some of the folks I correspond with from the blog world are like 50 year old creepy hairy men who are pretending to be knitters. So it would have been a good experience for Jacob to meet these three, because they were fun and nice and interesting and not at all creepy.

me and Susan at the Grit.

Knitting news : same old. Polka Purl Dots -- I'm up to 2.75 inches! Yahoo! Just about to start the fun part where it says, work this waist shaping, and at the same time, work the center decreases. Oh, boy. That's usually where I have to write out the rest of the pattern line by line. Tedious, but it helps me so much to be able to check stuff off. Hopefully this week I will actually make a dent in this thing.

Well, that's all for today. Oh, and send healthy vibes to Bella Schmoo - she got stung by something right by her eye and she's been feeling a little under the weather since that happened. Her little tail is drooping, even when she wags it, which is the saddest thing EVER.

Poor little sick schmoo.

Posted by Carrieoke at 2:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (17)

I just wanted to show you my mani/pedi. And I wanted to use the phrase "mani/pedi."

Sometimes I feel like I'm surrounded by an evil force field that takes my (hopefully) positive attitude and turns it into negativitycoming right back at me from everyone else. Seriously, I really think that.

But sometimes, like this whole darn week, I feel like the happiest, luckiest girl in the world. The evil force field is gone this week; nothing but sunshiney happiness coming my way. And your way too, if you're reading this here blog. (At least for today! Remind of this post when my bills all come in or I get a nasty customer at Molly's....)

Anyways, today I had such a lovely lunch break. Usually I rush home, eat quickly, check the mail, pet the schmoos, and rush back. But today I had some leftovers at work, so I ate at my desk and then wandered over to the coffee shop for this and this:

Anne Marie gave me this totally awesome knitting bag for my b-day. I LOVE IT.

I just sat and knit by the window. For an hour. It was great! You can see in the picture above that this is a cool coffee shop because they have multiple editions of Scrabble, including the cool one with the turntable. They also didn't mind when I curled up on the leather couch and slept for 20 minutes after Polka Purl Dots put me to sleep. I've been working on nothing else for 3 days and this is all I have done (now, it's REALLY wide, like 234 stitches wide, but I didn't get all that in the pic):

Dang, this thing moves SLOW.

I know it's going to be really cute, but OH SO LONG TO KNIT. I'm so impatient. I need a project on size 35s with three strands of wool. Just kidding. I need patience. The Svale is gorgeous yarn, the color is marvelous, everything will be fabulous five yrs from now when I finish. Ha! But I will push forward. I must learn that slow and steady wins the race. Or, wins the pretty knitted shirt. Whatever.

Karaoke contest tonight after Molly's if I can convince my friends that it's the fun, cool thing to do. "Maybe he's no Romeo, but he's my lovin' one man show...oh, oh, oh, oh, let's hear it for the boh-oy!" Can you think of any other belty 80s songs? I sing that one like twice a week.

Have an awesome weekend. I plan to! Mwah!

Posted by Carrieoke at 4:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (18)

Fun times.

Took the day off, and relaxed. My twin sis Cat came up and we had a girly day -- she treated me to lunch and manicures / pedicures, and we went shopping, and hung out. I gave Cathy this necklace that I made her and I finally got to show her the Top Secret Knitting Project I have been making for her:

that's me modeling it. I might steal it...just kidding Cathy!!

It's the Caramel Cap Sleeve pattern from the Spring IK! I love this pattern and used some lovely green yarn that a nice girl from Chicago sent me (thanks Carolyn!). Cathy loved it too! She isn't actually wearing it yet because I had to redo the buttons but it's ready to wear now. That's why I couldn't post about much knitting for a while, because my sister is a faithful reader of this blog and I didn't want to ruin the surprise. So, there it is! Ta-da!

I had to really work this piece of knitting -- boss it around if ya know what I mean. I had to re-knit the front right side after completing it once because of gauge issues. And I changed my mind about the closures about a million times. But, in the end, I really like the way it turned out. Yay! I will post a pic of Cathy wearing it as soon as I get it to her.

Jacob printed up a bunch of lovely pics that he has taken that I have been wanting for a while and put them in frames for me, including an adorable black and white of my schmoos, a beautiful sunflower pic from his parent's yard, and this really cool moth that he shot on a white background. Now my den is filled with lovely pics that Jacob took! He's so talented and thoughtful.

And, my mom came up and took me, Cathy and Jacob to dinner. Here's us girls after eating a BIG meal. Yay family!

And, to top the evening off, Jacob and I went and had a few drinks with some friends. My girls Jenna and Leslie came, and also my friend Chrissie who I haven't seen in MONTHS. (I have known my friends Ann and Chrissie since high school and they are the kind of girls who I can not see for a long time and when we finally get together, it's like no time has passed at all. I love that. ) Here's a picture of me and Chrissie gabbing away

Chrissie has a nice tan, don't ya think?

Anyways, it was an awesome day, and thanks to all my friends and family who made it that way. Again, life is good, and I'm a happy schmoo. Thanks also for all your happy birthday wishes! You make me feel so loved!

Now, I just have to keep plugging away at Polka Purl Dots...arrgghhh.....

Posted by Carrieoke at 1:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (18)

We had SO much fun this weekend.

Lately, my blog makes it seem like all we do is party all the time, party all the time, party all the tiiii-mme. Well, there HAS been a lot to celebrate lately. But before I start feeling guilty about my party behaviors, I'll show you some pics.

So, Jacob made fondue, and he knows what he's doing. We had lots of fresh veggies, salmon, shrimp, and bread, and we had a cheese and beer fondue, a vegetable broth fondue, and a oil one specifically for cooking the seafood. He also made a batter that we could dip stuff in to fry it. Oh, lordy, it was so delicious.

Here's what the table looked like right before we ate:

Jacob works hard to make the party happen.

Then, the eating began. It was a very active meal, with lots of arms and fondue sticks crossing and shrimp falling off forks and fighting for a space in the cheese fondue bowl. Mmmmm....Here's me enjoying some fondue...

Yum.


Jenna and JoAnna chow down.


>Anne Marie loves her some fondue.

But, as if the fondue wasn't fun enough, we did KARAOKE after dinner. My friends rock. Literally.

Leslie vamps it up (with some extensions from my closet, oh yeah)

Anne Marie and Jenna serenade us..
Jacob's karaoke stylings are HOT.

Knitting? Okay, I knitted all weekend on the Project That Can Not Be Named, but it will soon be revealed. And I freakin' knitted two rows on Polka Purl Dots because 234 stitches on size 4 needles takes a long, long time. For me. All you sock and lace knitters get props from me right now because I can't imagine knitting on size 1s. They look like toothpicks. One day, I'll work up the courage.

Anyways, I'm still recovering from a fabulous weekend and there's more fabulousness to come...my family is coming up tomorrow to have dinner with me on my birthday! And I'm taking the day off work, and Cathy and I are going to go shopping (ya know, it's her birthday too! because we're twins and all.) Yahoo. Life is good, people.

So, really, amidst all the partying, I worked Friday and Sunday. I really am a hard little worker bee. Which is why I think I also deserve to be a fun-loving karaoke singing, fondue eating partier bee as well.

Have a great day. And don't use any of the pictures to blackmail me later in life.

Posted by Carrieoke at 12:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (16)

It's Friday, ya'll. Yahoo!

Guess which girl's had more to drink.....

So Becky mentioned in her comment below that she spotted a karaoke machine in a few pictures. There was plenty of karaoke to go around at Anne Marie's festivities, I'll tell you what. I can't believe I forgot to mention that! Obviously I'm not living up to my nickname...I sang, Anne Marie sang, we sang our little hearts out. And I also forgot to tell you one of the funniest things that happened that night. My dear boyfriend Jacob, who is a karaoke god, told me that he was going to sing a love song to me. (The warning bells should've gone off at this point, but I had a few Miller High Lifes in me, okay?) So, I finished my rendition of Let's Hear It For the Boy (you know you love it) and Jacob gets up on stage and starts dedicating the song to me...pointing to me...gearing up for his song. And his love song choice? "Big Bottoms", from This Is Spinal Tap. Here's a sample lyric:

"Big bottom, big bottom
Talk about bum cakes, my girl's got 'em
Big bottom drive me out of my mind
How could I leave this behind?"

You get the picture. I laughed my ass off, ha ha ha. Ha ha ha.

So tonight there's another karaoke thingy, this one an elimination round for a big contest with an $1000 prize. There's several weeks of rounds so I may wait until another weekend because I have to work at Molly's tonight and I think I need to go home and go to bed after that. But tomorrow I'm going to have a small gathering for my birthday -- nothing fancy, just food, drink and karaoke on the trusty machine I have at home. We might even knit, because it's my party and I'm planning the activities. Tee hee.

Work has been v. v. busy as I have taken on some new responsibilities, but I also am hopefully going to start being compensated for that soon. (That's my discreet way of saying I asked for a raise and have gotten the initial okay for it. I'm scared to speak in specifics about work since I'm absolutely sure Big Brother is monitoring my website. Not really, but I'm paranoid like that. So, here's a quiet cheer for my raise. yay!)

Hope everyone has a great weekend. I swear up and down that after Tuesday you will see a finished object. And if not, I'll just post more ridiculous pictures to distract you.

Posted by Carrieoke at 12:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (14)

Wow, it's been a crazy bunch of days. Sorry I haven't posted in so long but work and holidays and family and schmoos and genetics dissertations have kept me otherwise occupied. But at least I have a crapload of pictures to show ya.

First things first: Anne Marie received her Ph.D. in genetics yesterday, and there was much rejoicing and partying. I went to her defense and it was fabulous, even though I know very little about metallothoneins and RNAi, etc. But she rocked out on her defense, stood up to the grilling of her committee, and now she's a doctor, baby! Go give her some love.

Here is Anne Marie with the gift that keeps on giving - a sno cone machine.


Crack open that champagne, Dr. Z!

I have many more fabulous pictures that I will be sending to Anne Marie and also withholding for blackmail in the near future. Hey, Doctor, we're all so proud of you. Congratulations!!! Oh, okay, here's one more funny picture.

Okay. So that was awesome. And then, on the Fourth of July (I'm working backwards in time here), I went to visit Jacob's parents and go see fireworks. Now -- I'll be honest -- I'm not really a huge fireworks girl. When I was little, we used to go to this totally rockin' Georgia summer tradition called The Laser Show. You get a bucket of KFC and a blanket, go to Stone Mountain, sit on the lawn, and watch the lasers. It's fun. But, after all the fabby lasers, there is a big fireworks display, and Cathy and I were scared of the noise. So we would hide under the blanket with our hands over our ears and cry. (We were fragile kids, okay? Stop laughing.)

So a little part of me is still wary of fireworks. But, seeing as how it's a holiday and everyone else is doing it, I went:

Everybody cheese out for the camera!

I love trains.

But fun times were had by all!

Whew.

I'm exhausted now. Look at all the pretty pictures and avert your eyes from the lack of knitting content! Don't be mad, there's something very pretty coming very soon....I promise.

And the new Knitty came out, and I think it's hilarious and fun and creative. I might not wear all of it, but I applaud the Knitty peeps for stretching my mind about what can be knit! Loving Lolita Legs and ALL of the articles. Yay Knitty.

There's a thread going on over at Knitter's Review about knitting being sexy, and IS knitting sexy? and the stereotype of "only grannies knit", etc. There's a line of thinking that people who start knitting because it's the "hip and sexy" thing to do are not true knitters, or their knitting is less valid. I've been reading here and there and it got me thinking about me and knitting.

I started knitting because my friend Leslie, who is hip and cool, was knitting a hat and it looked fun. So, I tried it and liked it. A LOT. And I knit lots and lots of scarfs and dishcloths before I was able to move onto sweaters and reading patterns and all that jazz. But you know what? I prefer to knit hip things, because I'm a hip girl. And I wear hip clothes. I would never, ever wear many Fair Isle sweaters that I see because I hate the colors and crazy patterns -- FOR ME. But I totally admire that talent and skill, and I think it's great that there are so many types of knitters out there. And hell yeah I'm gonna shake the hand of a Fair Isle knitter, 'cause that shit is HARD.

Who cares how anyone STARTED knitting? Because your grandmother did, because Julia Roberts did, because your dog needs a sweater? Who cares? How does that affect me? It doesn't. Knitting has been around for a really long time and I don't think the idea that "knitting is..." anything could dumb down the craft, make it disappear, or invalidate it.

I think knitting should be whatever you want to be, for yourself. I personally think knitting IS sexy, but only because I think I'm so damn sexy. Just kidding. But if someone else thinks it's not, that's cool! It takes all kinds. Yay.

Posted by Carrieoke at 11:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (14)

So my little buddies Leroy and Sal :

you came home! we love you!

But, the owners saw a sign that Wayne and Carolyn hung up and called 'em. The people own a BBQ joint here in Athens - the dogs had been MIA since Saturday - and they told Wayne and Carolyn that they were THINKING ABOUT GETTING RID OF THEM ANYWAYS. Harumph. However, they still came to claim their doggies and Leroy and Sal were super excited to see them.

Well, Wayne and Carolyn gave the owners their info and said to PLEASE call if they decided they didn't want to keep the schmoos..of course Wayne and Carolyn would take them in a second. I'm glad that Leroy and Sal (whose real names I never found out) got back hom safely, but, boo, I hope their owners are nice to them and don't get rid of them. Or at least call our neighbors if they do. At least we know by their rounded bellies that they get enough food.

Oh, the complicated life of a weiner schmoo.

Bella celebrated their departure by pooping in the computer room.

I am coming towards you! I am adorable!

Since I have no knitting updates to show you, I'm posting yet another picture of Bella. In this picture, she is participating in a very common activity that Jacob and I call "worming". When Bella wants to travel across our den floor, instead of walking like a normal dog, she does an army crawl so she can drag her belly across the floor and scratch it. So she drags her back legs across the ground and looks like a little worm, moving inch by inch. She is about to get her worm on in this picture.

Okay. Probably too much information about my dog's everyday habits. But I'm trying to distract you from my lack of knitting content. I promise I will have some kind of fabulous update after July 4th because I'm going to knit my little hands off this weekend. Oh, yes.

Gotta work now. Have a wonderful day!

Posted by Carrieoke at 4:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (16)