Things That Make Me Happy

1. Lord of the Rings- I know, you're all shocked and surprised.  But these books mean a lot to me.
2. A Good Cup of Tea- This is probably one of the most relaxing things ever . . . other than a good shoulder massage.  It's perfect with a good book on a rainy or snowy day.
3. Comfortable Shoes- See my post about heels here.  There's something comforting about slipping your feet into a pair of broken-in sneakers.
4. New Journals- They're just so pretty!
5. A Good Book- I know this is similar to #1, but on a broader scale.  Lord of the Rings is a good book . . . a great book . . . but not all good books were written by Tolkien.  There are other great authors like Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, C.S. Lewis, Shakespeare . . .
6. Hoodies- They're warm, soft and comfortable.  They're perfect for this time of year when it's too cold to just wear a T-shirt, but not cold enough for a coat.
7. Yarn- I bet you saw this one coming, too.  Sadly, I haven't had much time to play with this woolly substance lately, but some nice merino or alpaca can make my day.
8. Pillows- The fluffy ones.  Need I say more?  I didn't think so.
9. Cheesecake- I don't know what it is about this delightful dessert, but I find it hard to turn down good cheesecake.  Especially if it happens to be from the Cheesecake Factory.
10. Pens- Perhaps it's the writer in me, but I cherish a good pen that writes well and mourn it when it dies.

Please not that these are things . . . objects.  Since they are not objects, the people that make me happy don't make it onto this list.  Maybe they will get their own post sometime in the future; I don't know.  We'll have to see.

Adventure in the Supermarket

I think there comes a time in everyone's life when one must go to the grocery store and run errands for one's parents.  Suddenly, you are a licensed driver deemed mature enough to wield your parent's credit card in order to do the shopping that they themselves do not feel like or do not have the time for doing.  I have reached this point in my life.

January 15th is my little brother's birthday.  Since his birthday is on a Saturday this year, my mother decided to have his birthday party on his actual birthday.  As she was running around getting things ready for this party, she sent me to the supermarket to pick up four hoagies, a carton of strawberries, a pack of hamburger buns, and a bag of ice.  After some confusion about the hoagies and wandering around the store in search of the ice, I proceeded to the self-checkout.  

At this point, I was looking around nervously and half-expecting someone to tackle me.  "You're not Penny," they would scream.  "How dare you steal your mother's credit card!!!"  And then my mom would have to bail me out of jail in order to get her hoagies.  But, I made it through the checkout without incident (except for the challenge of fitting four two-foot hoagies, a ten pound bag of ice, a carton of strawberries, and a bag of hamburger buns on the tiny bagging shelf without the computer flipping out at me).

From there, I proceeded to the parking lot where I couldn't find my car (eh . . . well . . . my mom's car but you get the point).  I realized that it was in the next aisle of cars and that there was no way for me to get through them without going majorly out of my way with a very noisy cart.  First, I tried putting the cart in the cart return and attempted to carry everything.  That didn't work.  Not a chance.  so, backwards I went, back towards the supermarket, back into the pathway of crazy weekend drivers. Then I loaded up the car and I went home.

I'm back at school now, though, trying to get back into the swing of things.  Trying to get used to getting up at a normal hour of the morning.  But, it feels good to have stuff to occupy my time again.  I realized just how much I missed the people here.  Currently, I'm typing on a mac in the library computer lab because my computer absolutely fails.  Since I got back to campus, it hasn't been able to long onto the campus wireless (in addition to a bunch of issues that it had over the course of winter break).  At the moment, I'm caught in a bit of a catch-22.  The program that we use to access the wi-fi doesn't like the anti-virus AVG (Why?  Who knows?).  AVG being my anti-virus of choice, I wasn't able to log on.  So, I uninstalled the program with the plan of downloading a different anti-virus as soon as I could access the internet.  However, now that I don't have an anti-virus, I can't log in to go on the internet.  As a result, I don't have any pretty pictures to show you.  Were I on my own computer, I would have a picture of the project I was working on at the end of winter break.  This means that you must be content with this:

All hail the heavenly ball of yarn.  That's right, be jealous.

Oh, For the Love of Socks!

So, in my last post, I dreamed of owning this kit: Sock Cocktails (except in the Violet Martini flavor . . . they're now out of it).  And now, a couple of weeks later, guess what is now in my possession?

Yep.  The Violet Martini Sock Cocktail kit from Knit Picks is mine.  Now, for the first time in my life, I have ten skeins of quality sock yarn in my possession.  I know that, as Peter Parker so aptly declared, "with great fiber comes great responsibility."  All right . . . so it wasn't exactly like that, but you get the point.  It's good fiber, and I'm going to enjoy it.

Ahem . . . cough, cough.  Anyway.  At the beginning of the week, I cast on my first pair of toe-up socks!  It was exciting.  I'm really enjoying this method of sock-making.  It probably won't prevent the dreaded second-sock syndrome, but it definitely makes me happy.  I mean . . . the tricky part (the toe) is already done.