Knitting a Dress Post #2

This update has been long overdue – but the pictures are more fun now than they would have been a few months ago!

I tested out the yarn and pattern on my trip through the English countryside. I made some great progress and more importantly built my confidence in my ability to complete this project. Just for some perspective on the awesome setting, check out these pics:

When I got back to the States, I bought the amount of yarn I needed for the project (turns out I did the math wrong or the way I knit uses more yarn that want the pattern indicated – but, I now have enough yarn to finish the project, and magically it is in the same dye lot despite being ordered months apart!) and really got started on this project on my long bus ride down to North Carolina for the 4^th of July.

Not sure you can really see the actual project, but here are some pics I took meaning to post an update months ago:

Fast forward four months and many, many hours of knitting, and I have what is clearly a skirt! Wahoo!

I’m still not making promises on when it will be done, but I am taking it on my Thanksgiving trip, and I anticipate having hours and hours to work on it…then there is always the long flight home for Christmas…

Happy knitting :)

Don't Mess with Texas

They mean it. It's big. It's slower pace than other places I've lived. The weather was nice for the time of year. Everything’s bigger in Texas, right? Well, my arrival at the Austin airport suggested so:

I went to visit some friends and their baby. Such a good choice! We hit the ground running with awesomeness – I was greeted by a gorgeous night that was not too hot or humid followed by a stop at a gourmet doughnut truck (Austin has all sorts of food trucks everywhere…). It was so delicious!

Apparently Austin built their overpasses to be bat habitats. So we went to watch thousands of bats head out to hunt at dusk. It was the strangest thing to go from hearing cicadas to hearing bats. And then to see them. First a few were flying around, then suddenly it was like waves and waves upon waves that seemed to never end. Dixie said this was the closest to seeing what the shape of wind was that someone might have – seems like an accurate assessment to me!

The walking tour of Hyde Park (yes, it was based on Hyde Park, London…) was one of the highlights of the trip. Dixie and I printed out a self guided tour and wandered around looking at awesome houses, finding gems like a window hanging in a tree and the Formosa – the studio of one of Austin’s most famous sculptures – and the oldest continually operating grocery store in Austin.

Food played a significant role in this trip. I failed to take a picture of the gourmet doughnut truck (which is a shame, it was so fun!). But I did get a picture at Tourchy’s where we had breakfast tacos:

And Chewy’s where we had Tex-Mex, including phenomenal jalapeño ranch sauce.

 

And Amy’s where we got ice cream to cool down after our hot walk around Hyde Park.

Okay, so it is a picture of a CRAZY sticker I saw in the bathroom, but still, from Amy's :) Seriously - a pug dog with Troll hair? Who thinks of these things...

Austin’s Capital building was also very interesting. Most capitals that I’ve been to or seen are made of white stone. Not this one. The stone is a cool pink toned stone. And the statues of Austin and Houston inside were made by the sculpture who lived in the Formasca, INSERT NAME. They also have an agricultural museum in one of the rooms showing locally grown items and this history of agriculture in Texas, which was pretty neat. 

I also really enjoyed some of the statues that were on the grounds:

 

Good thing we explored the grounds first – it started raining as we entered the Capital and didn’t let up for about 24 hours. The rain kept me from getting an iconic picture next to a famous wall painting – but couldn’t stop me from getting a picture through the window!

 

Luckily I had already gotten a picture with another awesome wall painting:

We got some good time in outside before the rain came. This “hike” was really more a climb up some stairs, but the views were beautiful:

We also just enjoyed hanging out. We spent a rainy night in playing Ticket to Ride and some lazy mornings playing with baby Joanie. She was so cute – quick to smile, slow to cry, very ticklish…how does it get better than that?

 

I was sad when this trip came to an end. So much fun, over too fast…Dixie and Matt did a great job of helping me fall in love with Austin/ Texas. So much fun to slow life down a little bit - to enjoy the scenery. Go play with a baby. To chat with old friends. To play games. To visit a capital. To eat delicious Tex-Mex. To make pumpkin treats (inspired by a random visit to a local bakery for pumpkin cake balls and pumpkin truffles). To do a self-guided walking tour of a neighborhood modeled after Hyde Park in England. To see a museum of a famous sculptor, Elisabet Ney. And so much more!

Maybe I’ll just have to go back soon...

Massachusetts

I’ve been wondering about this one for a while. I could start at the beginning – the first time I was in Boston with my dad on my way to start school in Virginia. Or talk about how my dream in high school was to go to school in Boston. Or the millions of awesome little things I experienced when I finally did go to school there. But how do you boil down to a few words a place that captured your heart and soul? I realized there is way too much to capture it all, so I’ve decided to go with my first themed adventures.

September: Apple Picking in Western Mass

My graduate school sponsored an apple-picking trip. I’d never been before and decided that this would be as good a way as any to get to know some people. It was wonderful. The weather cooperated and the ground wasn’t too soggy after relentless rain leading up to the trip. They told us we could eat as many apples as we wanted while picking and gave us a bag that we could fill. I don’t think I even knew there were so many kinds of apples before this trip.

I should also confess, before this trip I didn’t think I liked apples. Turns out I just hadn’t tried any of types I do like J Discovering I liked apples was definitely a highlight (and relief) of the trip. So was having apples to eat for what seemed like forever.

One of the other highlights of this adventure was learning the art of eating an entire apple. I had heard stories from my Grandma Miller eating an entire apple – seeds and all – because she was too embarrassed to go throw away the core in Elementary School. I’m not sure logistically how she did that, but I learned that eating straight through was the way to go. The seeds, core and the fuzzyish part at the bottom are not the best part so it’s awesome to have delicious parts to get back to…

October: Salem

If you have the chance to go to Salem around Halloween time, I highly recommend it! Interesting characters, who love all things Halloween, tend to congregate there in general, but it is more pronounced at the end of October to be sure.

It rained. A lot. I’m glad that didn’t stop my friends from following through on our plan to go. We wandered around town, through a cemetery, into some crazy shops, and ducked into a ship for a haunted ship ghost story adventure. Let me tell you, the increased rocking of the ship due to storm outside sure added to the mystery and tense feelings of that adventure. The best part = walking through the dark cemetery in the rain.

Side note: I also wanted to go to the pirate museum. It was closed while we were there, but the outside was super intriguing. Unfortunately I never made it back to Salem, but someone should go and tell me about it!

November: Plymouth Rock

I can’t lie – the rock is anticlimactic. But the plantation was a blast. (I really did enjoy both, but I’m glad the rock wasn’t the whole trip). My favorite part of the plantation was the live reenactments. The job of the people on the plantation and the ship is to be in character. We made it our job to test them. We came up with the most ridiculous questions and absolutely loved the quick, clever, in character, responses. I wish I could still remember some specific examples…

December: Santa coming in on a Lobster Boat

Picture Marblehead Massachusetts: Quaint coastal town, small population. It’s winter, the biting wind is blowing in off the ocean. Crowds of people are waiting to see Santa come in on a lobster boat. And suddenly, there he is! The crowd cheers! 

Then Santa and Mrs. Clause head up the parade that goes down main street and includes the local cheerleaders (and lasts five minutes :). It was amazing. We continued the festivities by buying some homemade apple cider from a local church and then checking out the gingerbread house contest at a historic landmark. All in all, a wonderful adventure!

Six Flags - Ask and ye shall Receive

Only a few days after I decided to add "Go to Six Flags" to my list, I got an email saying that there was a group from church that was going in September. Yes please! I paid the fee and secured my spot right away.

The day finally came last Saturday and it was a blast!!

The first stop was Kingda Ka - as Wikipedia says: "the world's tallest roller coaster, the world's second fastest roller coaster, and was the second strata coaster ever built" Basically it's like getting shot out of a gun, accelerating to 128 miles an hour in 3.5 seconds.

Amazing.

We waited in line for the next ride (the Green Lantern) for over an hour and a half. Which sounds terrible, I know. But it wasn't. My group of nine people included a professional game player (read theater education major) who kept us all entertained to the delight or chagrin of those in line with us.

After lunch, we went on a LAME ride, and then redeemed ourselves by riding a 24-story high swings ride. I LOVE swings! and these ones were FAST :)

Our final ride of the day was El Toro. And oh boy was it a good way to finish off the day! It was probably my favorite ride of the day. Here is what Wikipedia has to say about it: "When it opened, it had the steepest drop of any wooden roller coaster in the world at 76 degrees, until the record was broken by T Express in 2008 by one degree. Overall, its structure height of 181 feet (55 m) is ranked third, its drop height of 176 feet (54 m) is ranked first, and its top speed of 70 miles per hour (110 km/h) is ranked first among all wooden roller coasters in the world. It is also the first wooden roller coaster to use a cable lift as opposed to the traditional chain lift."

All in all, quite the successful day. And it made me want to go again, with a little knowledge under my belt for how to have an even more exciting (read: ride even more awesome rides) experience next time. My tips:

1. Drive and pack food in a cooler in the car
2. Arrive when the park opens
3. Don't go around Halloween (fright night activities = extra crowds)
4. Know the lines are going to be long, embrace it
5. Start on one side of the park and move systematically around - even with long lines it saves time in the end
6. If you have a small(ish) group, opt for the single rider line

Florida

I love friends how plan wonderful adventures that I get to join in on - and I'm grateful for long weekends that help maximize such adventures. One of my trip planning friends said, "I like to pack so much into a day that it feels like a month - but they are very good months." I would have to agree, great, long, full days.

Yes, I went with the stereotypical visit to Florida - Disney World was AMAZING :)

Day1: Epcot Highlights:

• Delicious Moroccan food for dinner
• Fireworks show
• Ending the night creating my own car and winning against the other pair!

Day 2: The Magic Kingdom Highlights:

• Two epic Space Mountain rides
• Getting my hand kissed by the beast after delicious dinner at his castle
• Seeing the castle a million times in a variety of lighting, especially from the boat...

 Day 3: Hanging out at Resort Highlights

• We stayed on Disney property (which gave us extended hours in the parks!) and free transit to other Disney property, so we visited gorgeous hotels and had a lovely picnic lunch
• The Wilderness Lodge - think mountains. think huge. think rustic logs. You got it!

Day 4: Animal Kingdom Highlights

• The Lion King Show - especially the acrobatic monkeys...
• Jumping pictures with Tigger

• Climbing Mount Everest twice before noon :)

 On my way to the airport, I was tempted to be very sad. But the bus driver told me, "Now, no fighting over seats!" and I had to smile since I couldn't fight with myself:

Definitely a magical experience that I hope to repeat someday soon...

Celebrating with a Fist Pump :)

I was always envious of those who could kick over the heavy bag at kick boxing. I decided the best way to deal with this was to work up to being able to do so myself!

This was particularly daunting at the moment I decided to push towards that goal because I had recently injured my knee and been out for a number of weeks. Sigh. But, after dedicated focus on that goal - one day I did it!! I kicked over the heavy bag with my left leg - the one that had been hurt.

That hurdle cleared, and being the crazy person I am (or maybe ambitious is a kinder term? I'm not sure...) I decided maybe I should kick over the bag with both legs in the same class. Daunting? Yes! Doable? Maybe...

Well - I did it :) and my instructor noticed, and then shared it with our Kickboxing Facebook Group:

North Carolina

I was planning on going to DC to visit some friends for the 4^th of July. One of my friends I reached out to about staying with her told me she was actually going down to North Carolina to visit her aunt, but that I should come down to DC and join her on the trip to NC. Thinking about my goal to have a meaningful experience in all 50 states, and knowing I haven’t been to North Carolina before, I decided to go for it…

Such a good choice! I was promised a relaxing weekend, and an adventure. Seem like an oxymoron? It wasn’t! (and the promises came from two different people :)

The relaxing part:

-       Private pool in someone’s backyard

-       BBQ at someone else’s house with A/C and HGTV (and knitting…)

-       A walk around gorgeous garden’s at Duke University

The adventure:

-       Watching fireworks in downtown Raleigh on a roof top

o   This included climbing some ladders and only partial firework views

-       More hours than I care to count in a bus/ car

On our way from the parking deck to the building to watch fireworks from, we saw an outfit that rivals what I see regularly in NYC:

And after telling the others in our group about it, someone spotted her in the crowd below about 20 minutes later! Amazing – where’s Waldo anyone?

It turns out that Duke University has an amazing campus. Their gardens are beyond gorgeous

  

And their chapel is beautiful. I liked some of the things that their pamphlet said:

“I want the central building to be a church, because such an edifice would be bound to have a profound influence on the spiritual life of the young men and women who come here.” –James Buchanan Duke

Almost a century after Duke’s dream became reality, the Chapel continues to be the central building whose purpose remains, “keeping the heart of the University listening to the heart of God.”

North Carolina was beautiful, the people were so friendly, and I didn’t really get sunburned there:

But I did get burned on this trip here:

But that’s a story for another day….

Skydiving

Someone on looking at my life recently might say that I'm an adrenaline junkie. I don't think I am. But, I do know that I've done a lot of things that could aptly be labeled crazy in the past year or so.

One of those things was skydiving. IT WAS AWESOME!

This one is thanks to both my brother and my roommate. My brother challenged me to do something I had never thought of. About the same time, my roommate sent an email to a group of people saying we should go skydiving. I decided to do it :)

We scheduled our appointment, rented a car and headed to Pennsylvania. We signed our lives away. And then we sat and waited. And waited. And left for breakfast. And came back and waited some more. And played Phase 10. And finally the cloud cover lifted just enough that they could take the plane up.

In the plane on the way up it really hit me what I was doing and my heart started pounding. What was I thinking? Was it too late to back out? Why does my tandem jumper keep asking me if I have something I want to say to my family before this starts? Why do I just keep nervously giggling?

And then it was my turn to jump. All I could think about was that I only got one foot on the edge of the door like I was told so everything was going to go wrong! (silly, since my tandem jumper had neither foot on the door and he didn't seem concerned…)

Good news – it went smoothly. I'm not sure I did anything they told me to do. But I am sure that I LOVED the experience. I just laughed and laughed. I enjoyed the view of the pretty landscape (and was weirdly fascinated by the local school – buses, football field, everything).

A few days later, I came across this quote:

"Adventure, yeah. I guess that's what you call it when everybody comes back alive."
-- Mercedes Lackey, Spirits White as Lightning

An adventure, to be sure.

And if the skydiving wasn't enough, we finished out the day by heading to Amish country. I'm not sure if it was a reflection of just having survived jumping out of a plane or not, but the kettle corn, the homemade pretzel, and the homemade ice cream were unbelievably delicious!

Would I do it again? Absolutely!

Knitting a Dress - Post #1

One of the goals I set was to knit a dress. I have a feeling this one is going to take awhile :)

But, I picked a dress pattern! Check it out:

Mostly I feel excited, but I also feel extremely overwhelmed. When I mentioned this to one of my friends she asked, "Isn't the point of your list to stretch yourself and grow?" I'm not sure that was the point of my list when I first made it, but it seems like a good purpose for the list, so I'm going to run with that.

This goal will certainly stretch me and increase my knitting skill level if I succeed with it.

The next hurdle is selecting yarn. That might not sound like such a big deal, but the yarn they used in the pattern picture is $32 a skein    and I can't imagine making a dress that would cost nearly $300. So, no comes my need to learn more about textures and weights of yarn AND pick out a color I want – bring it on!

The List

About a year ago I decided to create a 30 Before 30 list thanks to some inspiration from a friend, and my brother for pushing me to do something I'd never done before (that led to skydiving...)

I'm not done with the list, but I think that filling out the list is part of the fun. If you have great suggestions, send them my way!

A note: one of my goals with this was to steer away from things that are not possible to do on my own (excluding, of course, the kissing in the rain one...) Not that I'll do most of these alone, but that I have the ability to make them happen with or without others.

1. Have a Meaningful Experience in all 50 States (Retro-Active Experiences count!)
2. Knit a dress
3. Go Skydiving
4. Go on a Hot Air Balloon Ride
5. Attend a Temple Dedication
6. Go to the Olympics (as a spectator)
7. Go to London
8. Read 100 Books (starting 4/8/2012)
9. Check out a book from every (Public) Library in Manhattan
10. Memorize the Living Christ
11. Memorize the Family Proclamation
12. Go to Ireland
13. Take a dance class
14. Take a cooking class
15. Take flute lessons
16. Visit Paris
17. Go on a cruise
18. Own the Harry Potter Series - UK version
19. Kick over the heavy bag at kickboxing with both legs (in the same class)
20. Go inside the Statue of Liberty
21. Go to Six Flags
22. Eat at 5 of the top 50 restaurants in New York
23. Go to Harry Potter World (and back to Disney World? :)
24. Swim in the Great Lakes (at least one)
25. Run a Marathon (I reserve the right to choose two halves if my knees require)
26. Read The Book of Mormon and highlight all references to Christ
27. Go white water rafting (Subbing in Surfing...)
28. See the Great Wall of China, in China
29. Run, Walk, Bike Manhattan Bridges
30. Swing in Central Park in all four seasons
31. Launch an Etsy account (cards and/or knitting)
32. Kiss in the pouring rain (still want this to happen...but want my real list to be things I can control)