Thank You!!!

The theme for this month's special swap was "In the Garden." I was paired with the lovely and talented Margene, which was a real pleasure. I was a pretty absent partner at the beginning of our pairing because I was dealing with Fiona, but Margene was very patient with me and over the course of the last two months we've had great fun getting to know each other and putting together gardeny goodies. Since she posts daily, she's an easy one to get to know a bit and put a package together. I'm not quite as prolific, but she figured out what I like as well as Sherlock Holmes would do and sent me an AWESOME package. If you're diabetic, you may need to look away, because there are so many cute things about to be shown it may get a bit sugary around here.

First, the package itself was just gorgeous:



She wrapped many of the goodies up in those beautiful dishtowels - I love those colors! I got the package at my office, so I was tempted to wait until I got home so I could take a picture of the pretty box, but I was too impatient. I sort of re-wrapped everything to take that picture, but it all looked even better originally. We all know it's what's inside that counts, though, right :-) I don't even know where to start.



There were some yummy goodies. From the left, a nice granola, some cute buggy-shaped chocolates, some gorgeous floral decorated mints (made in SLC and DELICIOUS BTW), some fancy Belgian chocolates with black currants and lavender and in the back, some buggy window gems. I can't remember if I shared my window gems story on the blog before, so if I did, sorry to be repetitive. I love window gems and my desk is up against a long, narrow window, so I got some window gems to decorate it. And it was cute! So I got some more, but this time they were more like cheap knock offs of window gems. Still, very cute. In the summer, the sun can blast through the window into my eyes, so I close the vertical blinds and didn't really open them again until the fall. When I discovered that the sun had melted the cheap window gems. It was so sad, but also funny. Melted window gems are hard to remove!! The nice ones (like these from Margene) didn't melt at all, so don't worry if you have some. It was just the cheap ones from the dollar store. If you have those, put them on windows that don't get a lot of sun. So, I needed some new window gems!

Anyway, back to the goodies!



Again from the left, in the back there's a super cute notebook, some lavender and rosemary cuticle bar (which I need - my cuticles are in bad shape right now!), some Soak wash (if you haven't tried Soak out, do so immediately - it works wonderfully and smells great) and some chocolate covered sunflower seeds. In the front from the left, some cute flip flop candles, an amazing post-it note holder from Lantern Moon and a pretty little "pillbox" with a rhinestone flower on top. Inside the box are some cute little floral mints. The post-it note holder is embroidered with a ball of yarn and knitting needles. I was going to slip it in my knitting bag, but I decided to put it in my purse, so I can have a little piece of knitting with me all the time (i.e. at work when I'd rather be knitting :-) ).

OK, that's a lot already, isn't it? And I'm still not even close to done.



An adorable mug (I just love the design!) with some nice coffee and some flower seeds tucked inside.



A bar of Juno Soap called "sunshine" which smells heavenly. It was wrapped up in a beautiful face cloth that I'm sure Margene knit herself. It's so soft and pretty I'm almost too afraid to use it. But I hate when people do that, so I'm going to force myself to use it!



Some stitch markers and a nice tape measure (and one that I don't have in my collection yet!). If you can't see those adorable stitch markers, there's a girl knitting, an "I heart knitting" and yarn and needles. TOO CUTE!!!



I LOVE this bag. As I mentioned to Margene, I'm just obsessed with blue this summer. Last summer it was pink and lime green, this summer it's blue in all its many shades. And this beautiful turquoise floral bag is awesome!!!

And of course, saving the best for last, what would a knitter's swap be without yarn? Margene outdid herself.



Elann Baby Silk in "Gentle Violet". This is the yarn I made my Lucky Clover wrap sweater with and I LOVE it. If you're going to knit a lacy sweater on size 3 needles with parts that overlap each other for a big girl like me, this is the yarn to use! It took me 11 months to knit and I enjoyed every minute of it because this yarn is so wonderful to work with. This time I'm making something that'll be right next to my bare skin!



And the piece de resistance, some Scout's Swag sock yarn dyed just for me in "Glorious Morning Glory". I've never seen Scout's Swag in person and it's gorgeous!! A very nice, soft merino yarn and the blues are killing me! Really, I absolutely love it!

I always feel like it's so inadequate to say thank you and to say how much I liked a package, because of course I'm going to say thank you and that I enjoyed the package no matter what, just to be polite. But seriously, no politeness involved, I really did just love everything and I'm so bowled over by Margene's generosity! Once again I also have to thank Lynne for creating and maintaining the special swap. She comes up with super fun themes to swap and I've never been disappointed in the people I've met through the swaps or the experience swapping. I'm thrilled!

Weekend Update

It's full on summer around these parts, so I did my usual - a nice cool, dark movie theater. Friday night I went for some scares:



It was pretty good. A nice suspenseful film, without a lot of the blood and gore of the current crop of horror films. It's based on a Stephen King story and stars John Cusack as a writer who writes books about haunted hotels, even though he's disdainful of the idea of a spirit world. He checked into room 1408 of the Dolphin Hotel in NYC against the strong advice of the hotel manager (played by Samuel L. Jackson) and scary creepiness ensues. Cusack does an awesome job of running the gamut from humor to sorrow to fear. If you like old-fashioned scary movies and/or Stephen King books, you'd probably enjoy this one.

Saturday I went for the weepie:



and cry I did. Angelina Jolie stars as Mariane Pearl, the widow of Daniel Pearl. You probably remember that Daniel Pearl was a Wall Street Journal reporter who was kidnapped by terrorists in Pakistan and eventually beheaded. The film certainly packs an emotional punch. The story is told in a very straight forward, almost documentary-style way, without a lot of extra stuff. At first, I thought the suspense of the search for Daniel was a little diluted because we know what's going to happen - they're not going to find him. But you get so drawn into the process of everything that they're doing and invested with them that by the time the video of his death is released, you feel like you've also been punched in the gut. I think a lot of that is because of the wonderful acting of the ensemble. Jolie is outstanding showing Mariane's determination and strength as well as the devastating pain when she find out her husband is dead. Dan Futterman is great as Danny Pearl - so different than his character on Judging Amy. Irrfan Khan, who I loved in "The Namesake", is terrific again as the Pakistani police captain leading the investigation. Will Patton also is great as an American diplomat - he always brings a little question about his motives and intentions to any role and it serves him well in this one.

Today I went to a baby shower/picnic, for one of my friends from one of my knitting groups. Now I can show a secret project I made this spring:



Yes, crochet! This friend taught me how to crochet, so I thought she might get a kick out of it if I crocheted something for the baby. It was really fun and I'll definitely be crocheting some more. This is the Bright Baby Blanket from Lion Brand, crocheted in LB Cottonease.

New Project!

I've been rather impatiently waiting for June to roll around so I could start this new project:



It's a scarf made with Tilli Tomas Disco Lights yarn. Red and metallic - perfect for June/July Project Spectrum! I had the worst time starting this up, though.

I was inspired by a scarf that Annie Modesitt was wearing at the Knit Out last February. It was so mesmerizing seeing those little sequins twinkling that I just had to have one. So I got the yarn when I saw it on sale at Little Knits and waited for June to arrive.

I had in mind something eyelet-y so I started with a simple eyelet pattern and size 6 needles. The fabric was too firm and didn't drape the way I wanted. So I ripped out and started over on size 10 needles. Still not what I had in mind. So I switched over to an eyelet pattern that looked like 4 leaf clovers. Still not right. Too much stockinette with the lace and too messy looking. Switched over to size 8 needles and did an eyelet rib. Perfect! Drapey, but not messy looking, fabric. Lacy looking, but still some structure to show off the sequins. I'm loving it. It's impossible to photograph, though. Red is hard to capture and you can't really see the beauty of the tiny sequins without seeing them move. I like the "wrong" side of the ribbing too - it just kind of looks like plain ribbing with eyelets instead of purls. Reversible - perfect for a scarf!



I also got my final sock club shipment for June - from the Amazing Threads club:



I'm not very inspired by this selection, but Michael was with me when I opened the package and said he liked it and wanted a scarf knit from it, so that makes me feel better. I've been disappointed with the AT Sock Club so far. I'm hoping the future selections are a little nicer, otherwise I'll be cancelling my subscription at the end of the first round.

Happy Summer!

It's officially summer. Which is weird because it's been hotter than Hades for most of the last couple of weeks and it already feels like summer is almost half over because the 4th of July is less than 2 weeks away. I know that even if you count Memorial Day to Labor Day as summer that July 4 isn't the mid-point, but it's always seemed like the mid-point to me.

This week I haven't been that busy, but it's still speeding by so quickly. I have this horrible pattern of being really busy and just going, going, going. And then when I'm not busy, I just lose all motivation and don't do anything, so that when the deadlines hit again, I'm too busy and going, going, going again. I had every intention at the start of this week to get stuff done while I wasn't under any deadlines so that when it starts getting busy again next week, I won't be rushing around and trying to get everything done. But then I keep thinking, "oh, I can do that tomorrow" over and over. I'm so stupid for such a smart girl.

So, that's my explanation for why I'm giving my weekend round up on Thursday, the cusp of another weekend. I finally got to see my boyfriends' movie:



I love this franchise and the latest installment is a good one. I know a lot of people didn't like 12, but I liked it a lot. This one is more tight and crisp, though, so even if you didn't like 12, you may like 13. My boyfriend George Clooney is back as Danny Ocean, along with the usual gang as his heist crew. This time they are seeking revenge against Willie Bank, an unscrupulous casino owner who swindled one of their guys, played by Elliot Gould. Willie Bank is played by another boyfriend, Al Pacino. There are a couple of scenes between Clooney and Pacino that I just thrilled to watch. The energy between them was awesome. And unlike the film with Pacino and my other boyfriend Johnny Depp, both Al and George look great in this film.

The heist is very complicated with twists and turns all the time and there are plenty of good laughs. You can tell once again that the actors were having a ball making this movie and it's fun to watch. I have to admit I did miss Julia Roberts and the interplay between her and George Clooney from the last two films. But the guys all look gorgeous (except when they're hilariously "in character" from time to time) and the lines come fast and furious, so it's a perfect way to pass a hot summer afternoon in a cool movie theater.

Michael and I gave Greg "Guitar Hero" for Father's Day, so we had fun playing that game:



Then we took him to Ichiban for all you can eat sushi. It's not the best sushi in the world, but it is fun. There is a little island with boats of sushi floating around in a circle:



You just grab whatever looks good:



You can also order from a few appetizers, like gyoza and chicken wings or get miso soup or tempura. Usually when we go out for sushi it's really expensive, but this is very reasonable at $25 for the adults and $12 for kids. I was a bit worried about Michael, but he actually did really great. He tried a lot of different kinds of sushi and really liked some of them - like eel of all things. It was a very fun day for us.

Half FO

I finished my first Shimmer Sock last night:



As usual, I shorted the leg for my own comfort. I made it even 1" shorter than I normally do and I thought maybe I should rip out the ribbing and knit that extra inch, but I think this is ok. I'm going to stick with 5" legs instead of 4" legs in the future, but for these socks, it's ok. I'm pleased as punch with how this turned out. The fit of the short row toe and heel are both very nice.

Did you notice my new sock blocker in that picture? I'm very pleased with that, too:



I got a design called "Look Inside" from Leggy Creations. They are bigger and heftier than my Fiber Trends blockers so they closer to my actual feet - I bought the wrong size FT blockers. They are also gorgeous! Lovely plain wood on one side if you wanted to take a picture and not have anything distract from the socks. A really cool collage on the other side. I love collage! These have some really cool pictures, like hydrangeas, a red telephone, written words, etc. I just love them.

I often hear a debate among knitters about blocking socks. Why do it? Won't they just naturally be blocked once they're on your feet? Sure, and for the first 10 years I knit, I didn't block socks. But once I got my sock blockers, I wouldn't ever go back. Here are my reasons for blocking socks:

1. It's so easy to take pictures for the blog. You can really see how they look while on the blocker and I don't have to contort myself to get an on the leg view (I have incredibly short, fat legs) and I don't have to expose my unnaturally pale skin to my readers as often. I still always take the sole to sole picture when I finish a pair, just out of tradition.

2. They're so great for drying my washed socks. I tend to wash my socks on a gentle cycle and then air dry them. Sure, you can hang them up to dry or lay them out flat, but the sock blockers make it so quick and easy.

3. Blocked socks are aesthetically pleasing. After they dry, you take them off the blocker and they look great. I tend to knit socks in patterns because I'm bored with just ribbing or stockinette and a blocked knit looks better than an unblocked one. Yes, once it's on my feet, it probably looks the same as an unblocked one, but in my sock basket the blocked socks look so nice and inviting. It's the same reason I iron clothes even though they're going to get wrinkled once I wear them, or fold clothes instead of just rolling them into a ball or throwing them all together in a drawer any old way - I just want them to look nice for me.

I don't say that everyone should block their socks. Those octopus hanger things from Ikea are cool and if it seems like a hassle to you, don't do it. But let me enjoy my blocked socks without thinking I'm being ridiculous, ok?

Sock Yarn Clubs

This week just flew by, didn't it? I worked a lot, had a few evening social engagements, but the big news is that I had a bat in my house. UGH!! I seem to get a bat in the house every summer, so now I'm totally paranoid about it. Every time I walk in a room during the summer, I scan the ceilings to make sure there isn't a bat hanging up there. I thought I truly was being paranoid, but then another one came in on Wednesday night. Most of the time I'm perfectly happy being a single woman, but when something like that happens, I really wish there was a nice man around to save me. I haven't been sleeping well since then, because I keep worrying that I'm going to wake up to a bat flying around my head again.

I have gotten some good mail to make me feel better, though. I got my last shipment in the Posh Sock Yarn Club:



Once again I didn't care for this colorway. I was very disappointed in this club and won't be renewing again. I already gave this skein away so I wouldn't have to deal with it.



It was also the last month for the Sweet Sheep Sock Club. This month's selection was from C*eye*ber Fiber - a colorway called Little Miss M. Of course I like this one with the pink and purple combo. I've been very happy with this sock club and if she starts it up again, I will join again.



Sweet Sheep also has a Project Spectrum Sock Club. It's all Sweet Sheep yarn in a nearly solid, one skein per month in the PS colorway. I've also been thrilled with this sock club. Her yarns are nice and the colorways are usually really gorgeous.

I also bought one more skein of yarn from Webs. I was ordering yarn for another project and just threw this skein into the cart because I wanted to check it out:



It's Silky Sock from Great Adirondack Yarns in the Pineapple Polly colorway. Love the colorway. I like the yarn, but I think I prefer Soxie.

Crazy Love

I think Ocean's 13 will be around for at least a couple more weeks, so I decided to see a smaller movie yesterday:



This is a documentary about a famous crime that occurred in 1959. In 1957, Burt Pugach saw Linda Riss sitting on a park bench and instantly fell in love. Burt was a wealthy attorney in his early 30s and Linda was a woman in her early 20s from a working class background. Linda was beautiful and vivacious and was won over by Burt's extravagent attention and gifts. Eventually Linda found out that Burt wasn't really going to marry her like he promised and so she broke up, found a new guy and got engaged. Burt was obsessed and stalking her and when he found out Linda was engaged, he hired three guys to attack her. As I mentioned, the story was huge news in New York and all over the country because it was so sensational. I don't want to go into too many other details, in case you, like me, aren't familiar with the story. It's much better to watch it unfold on the screen because it's just unbelievable. The film is structured around interviews in the present day with Linda and Burt, who are both real characters. The director also interviews some of their friends, who also are really colorful. The interviews are interwoven with photographs and home movies of Linda and Burt and stock footage of the times, to set the scene. I really found it absorbing and really easy to follow. The story is all told in chronological order, so you start with a little bit of background information about Linda and Burt's childhoods and it ends with the two of them right now. The soundtrack is great - there are A LOT of songs about obsessional love! There's even a little knitting content - They show pictures from a People magazine article about Burt and Linda and Linda is knitting Burt a scarf or sweater or something, and draping it around his shoulders, on the needles. It's really a fascinating story, so even if you're not a big fan of documentaries, if you are interested in people and their stories, check this one out.

Speaking of people and their stories, for what it's worth, I loved the Sopranos Finale. I don't want to ruin it for anyone who hasn't seen it yet, but I'll just say that I thought it was a great way to end the series and that the writing, directing and acting in that final scene were all fantastic.

And finally, I'll show you some yarn I got on sale:



I bought some yarn at Webs for a project I've been wanting to do for a while, but I'm not ready to talk about it yet. This Regia silk was on sale, so I threw it in the cart, too. It's really hard to capture red, but this is pretty close - it's a very orangeish, kind of cherry red.

The Drive-In

I wish I knew how to make a little map of the Twin Cities and show you how much ground I covered yesterday. It's a good thing gas is cheap (NOT!!) I started in St. Paul at my house, drove to Woodbury to pick up Red, then Richfield to pick up Michael, and then Minnetrista for mini golf at Big Stone Mini Golf. There was a new hole this year, which I was quite taken with. It was underneath a metal sculpture - it looks like a canoe with round holes all over it. Inside the holes are brightly colored plastic sculptures - it sort of looks like stained glass:



You start at the left side of one end of the "boat" to tee off. If you hit your ball correctly, it goes down to the other end of the boat and hits a dish-like object, arcs up and back down to the right side of the boat and the hole is at the end of the boat on the right side, next to where you teed off.

After we mini-golfed and fed the goats, we had lunch at an old-style drive-in restaurant. Then we drove back to Woodbury to drop Red off and Michael and I continued on to Treasure Island casino to visit with my sister Kerry and Jason. Jason's dad, Raine, is a musician and his band is playing at the casino this weekend, so Kerry came along so she could visit us. Here's Jason with his new blanket:



He's getting so big! After we spent the afternoon with Kerry and Jason and had dinner with them and Raine, we headed up to Cottage Grove to meet Bill and his family for a drive-in movie. It was a double-feature.



It was ok. Not hilarious, but not horrible. It's about a penguin named Cody in Antarctica whose father has been eaten by a killer whale who leaves his mean brother and sort of overbearing mother to follow his dream of entering a surfing contest in Hawaii. His idol is "Big Z", the best surfing penguin ever who died 10 years earlier during a surfing competition. The film is structured as a documentary about Big Z, which gives it a nice layer of reality with things like cracked lenses or boom microphones and scratchy historical footage. When Cody is injured in a pre-competition surfing challenge, the lifeguard penguin he has a flirtation with brings him to her uncle living in the jungle to help him recover. Of course it turns out the uncle is actually Big Z, who didn't like the way competitive surfing was evolving, so he faked his death and just hangs out. Big Z is voiced by Jeff Bridges and immediately brings "The Dude" to mind to adult movie lovers. Of course eventually Big Z agrees to tutor Cody and prepare him for the competition. One of the funniest characters in the film is a surfing chicken that Cody becomes friends with. They really connect because the chicken also lost his father, who is shown as a bucket of fried chicken. The messages of the movie are good and there are some funny lines, quite a few of which would be over the head of the little ones, so I enjoyed it more than Happy Feet, but I wouldn't put it on the level of the great Pixar or Disney animations. It's less than an hour and a half long and it moves pretty quickly, so it wouldn't be a bad choice for the younger kids, even if a lot of the humor is aimed at adults. I should also mention that the soundtrack includes songs by Pearl Jam and Green Day, so I enjoyed that, as well.



The second film was Shred the Third. Why are there so many third sequels out this summer? Like pretty much all the other "3"s I saw so far, this one wasn't horrible, but it wasn't great either. This one finds our pal Shrek next in line for King of Far Far Away after Fiona's father dies. That's a little more responsibility than our hero can imagine, so he sets out to find and bring back the next in line after him, Arthur, known as Artie at the high school Shrek finds him at. While Shrek's away, Prince Charming has captured Fiona and the other princesses and plans to kill Shrek and take over as King. This one has the same sense of humor as the first two Shreks, but we've seen it before, so it isn't as fresh and fun as it once was. Shrek's anxiety about settling down into civilized life as a King is only sharpened by the news he's about to become a father. As usual, the film is set to a nice soundtrack of familiar oldies and the voices are all-stars. I'd say if your a big Shrek fan, it's worth checking out, but I really hope this is the last of the sequels. The "3" I want to see next is Ocean's 13, with my other boyfriend, George Clooney and my old boyfriend, Al Pacino!

Not Much Progress

There's not a lot to blog about around here lately. I've been busy, but it's mostly been work or things that just aren't that interesting. I did try out the new Taste of Thailand in downtown Minneapolis on Thursday night. Just as good as the St. Paul location.

I have been knitting a bit, but I haven't made a lot of progress. I'm almost done with knitting up my Yarn of the Month samples - I'm working on this month's selections. I have fallen in love with a couple of the yarns. I spent about two hours spinning my wheels on the Weeping Willow Shawl. This pattern is just one big chart and there's an error on the last row that I knit (there's a K2Tog toward the beginning of the row that should just be a knit). I knit and re-knit and counted and just couldn't figure out why it wasn't coming out right. I FINALLY figured out that I should check to make sure that all of the YOs were paired with decreases and found the extra K2Tog. So, I need to undo that row again and re-knit it. UGH!!!

I made it through the heel and started the leg on my Shimmer Socks too. I put all the stitches on a piece of yarn and tried it on and it seems like the short row heel and toe fit really nicely. Here's how the toe looks:



and here's the heel:



I can't wait to finish the leg and really try it on and see how the ankle fits. Still loving the pattern.

While I was knitting on these I was watching "Shut Up and Sing", a documentary from last year about the Dixie Chicks and the whole controversy about Natalie Maines' comments about being ashamed that the President is from Texas. I'm not a huge country music fan, but I did really like the film. It was interesting to see how these women work together as a group and their reactions musically and emotionally to the controversy. I wonder how an all-male group would be different. I'd recommend checking it out if you like documentaries or have any interest in the DC music.

Happiness!

Last night I saw a great short play at Bryant Lake Bowl, "Adventures in Mating". I saw this originally when it was part of the Fringe Festival in 2005. It stars Joseph Scrimshaw (one of the funniest people in the Twin Cities) and Alayne Hopkins as two people on a blind date. I orginally saw Craig Johnson as the waiter in the restaurant they meet at but the waiter is now being played by Jim Robinson. The show always starts out with the man trying to prove he's a "bad boy" in the hopes that the woman will like him and the woman breaking out a checklist to determine whether this guy is worth even getting to know. From there, it's all up to the audience. Throughout the rest of the play, there are key decisions to be made as to where the play will go and it's up to us to make them. It's very funny and fun without being too scary for reserved Minnesotans. I'd highly recommend it for a girls night out or a date night. It has an open run on Monday nights at 8:00 at Bryant Lake Bowl.

I hesitate to even bring this up, because apparently some folks are getting restless about it, but I have to encourage everyone to sign up for Ravelry. I'm sure you've heard all about it around the blogosphere, but just in case you haven't, here's the scoop: It's a brand new website developed to create a community of fiber lovers as well as provide a tool for the individual fiber artist. It's currently not even final, it's just in beta testing. But it's so awesome, everyone wants in. If you haven't yet, sign up for the waiting list. I first heard about it a couple of weeks ago and got on the waiting list and I got an invitation last week and entered some of my stuff over the weekend.

I was a little foggy on what exactly was what, so here's a little more info, if you're interested. Before I had a blog, I had a website where I kept info about all of my finished projects. You can see it here. After I started the blog, I decided to continue to keep this central place where all of my finished objects were available for me to look at or send links to people online. I also decided to start cataloging and inventorying my yarn stash, so I could see what I have or if I found a great pattern, I could look to see what I have at that gauge, etc. You can see my stash inventory here. I didn't get everything photographed and entered into the list, though. I also hosted my own pictures for the blog off that website. Then, disaster struck late last year. The server that my website was on crashed. A blog without pictures is boring (as you can tell from this post), so I signed up for Flickr as a temporary measure. The website got moved to another server, but because of technical issues, Microsoft software I was using to do my website didn't work on the new server. Tech guys pissing match ensued. I've finally got access to my website with a different software, but it doesn't work the same and I can't access it from home and blah blah blah. I haven't updated my website since last fall.

But in to save the day is Ravelry!! Ravelry is integrated with Flickr, so all your Flickr pictures can be imported into your Ravelry notebook. In your notebook, you can track your current and then completed projects. So I don't need that website. You can create an inventory of your stash, too! You can make a list of projects you want to do in the future. You can also inventory your needles and books. So, everything I was doing on my webpage, I can do through Ravelry, with pretty pictures from Flickr! Yay, it makes my anal-retentive heart happy. But even more than that, it links you with the rest of the Ravelry community. Want to find out who else has or is knitting that sock pattern you're working on? Ravelry will tell you. Want to know who has some Lorna's Laces in the stash? Ravelry will tell you that, too. It's so cool. And the more people that are using it, the more people that can link up. So, go get on the waiting list. But be patient - it's worth the wait!

Happy June

I can't believe how fast May went. I guess that's good, since it was a difficult month. Let's see time slow down a bit so we can enjoy a nice summer, though, ok?

I saw another great summer comedy:



You've probably seen the ads, but in short, it's about a lovely professional woman, Alison (Katherine Heigl) who goes out to celebrate a promotion, gets drunk and has a one night stand with a schlumpy but funny loser, Ben (Seth Rogan), then gets pregnant. They decide to have the baby and have to decide if they can make it together as a couple or just be parents and nothing else. The supporting characters are Ben's loser friends and Alison's sister and brother-in-law. Everyone in the cast is fantastic. They hit their marks perfectly, without over-doing it into caricature. The director, Judd Apatow (he previously made The 40-Year-Old-Virgin and hilarious tv shows like Freaks and Geeks and Undeclared) does such a good job of capturing the viewpoint of both the women and the men in the film. Ben and Alison's brother-in-law (played by Paul Rudd who really should be a bigger star, he's so fantastic in everything he's in) both deal with the fear that settling down and having a family means losing "your guyness" and Alison and her sister have fears about getting old and being alone. There are times when people act like jerks, just like in real life, but they always seem relatable and understandable. But it all is very, very funny, too. This is the type of romantic comedy that will be enjoyed by both men and women and those who love rom-coms and those who think they're too slight and silly, because there's real substance to this one. But it's funny!

In other news, I've mentioned before that I have my own little rule that before I can put yarn away into stash, I need to confess to buying it on the blog. My hope is that having to admit to buying way too much yarn will keep me from buying way too much yarn. So, since I didn't get this yarn cast on during April or May, I'll come clean and then put it into stash for now:



I bought enough for a sleeveless shell. Happily, I got it on sale at Mary Lue's, so it wasn't too much of a splurge.