Ivan the Rock Star

We have a 4 year old African Gray parrot named Ivan. He is crazy fun, and is a garbled chatterer. He doesn't photograph too well. He poses for us and as soon as we are ready to photograph him, he will turn his butt to us, or preen, or lean in to the camera.. He also has separation anxiety.. so if we are at home, he wants to be able to see us. If he cant see us, he calls us, "Come here.. Come heeeere! Want up, up, up? Gooooood boy! Come heeeeeeere!"

This morning, my husbando and I were on a mission to get ready and go out for a day of getting things done, so while we were in the back room and the bathroom, Ivan somehow either jumped or flew off his cage, walked around on the ground and then climbed up onto the legs and joiners of a TV table.. and this is how we found him:

He is a funny one!

Today I have a big list of things I want to get done:

1. Go to IHOP.

2. Go to the gym and sign us up. (After I am loaded with pancakes!)

3. Clean the cars, get some water for our water dispenser thingy, and go to the meat shop for some steaks, and fruits and spinach.

Speaking of spinach, I had the best Subway sandwich yesterday. I had them toast the wheat bread and had the chicken breast, with one stripe of chipotle sauce and spinach. Fabulous!

I also made a list of the next knit projects I have to finish for people and for myself:

1. a puppy sweater for my cousin's dachshund. I will be done with this today, post tomorrow about it.

2.My husbando's sweater.

3. A Chemo Cap for my new group on Ravelry, I think it is so cool to be able to help other people! (More about this tomorrow)

4. A tushy-load of mitered squares.

5. 2 pairs of Dashings, men's fingerless gloves.

6. A sweater for moi.

Later.

On the Road Again

Today I travel from one home to my weekend home. Doesn't that sound fabulous? Must be some fabulous vacation home or something. Not really. I work in one city and my husbando works in another city, and it is too far for us to commute every day. So we live together on the weekend. It is like dating my husband. At first, this situation was fun, but now it is kind of tedious (the travel, not the seeing of my husbando, that is always fun!). It would be so nice to live in the same place, and have relaxing weekends where we do laundry and watch Saturday morning cartoons. Right now, we make a big deal of seeing each other, and I think because he and I are so important to each other, we want to express that by doing things, like going to hockey games, spontaneous travel to exciting destinations. But I just really love being with him, I could just hang out at home with our parrot and be happy.

A little about the Parrot. Oh my.. he is a character! He is an African Gray, and they are very much one person birds. This one has finally accepted me as the second parent, and gives me kissies on the nose! At first all I got were bites. Now we have a hilarious and good relationship. He calls us "Dodo" and we call him "Dodo" and he reprimands us and laughs with us and is such a part of our little family.

So, on this road trip to my other house, lately I have been getting carsick, while I am driving. Weird.. So I have been sipping on small sodas for the carbonation, it seems to settle my stomach. I don't like drinking soda much, it seems very chemically, and counter-productive to my weight loss goals.

I lost 2 lbs this week! Almost there.. kind of.. :) Now I just have to eat more fish and vegetables.

I was invited to a new group in Ravelry. If you don't know what Ravelry is.. where have you been? (I really need to learn how to enclose links on this blog, I promise I will get there!) Ravelry is an awesome community for fiber freaks like me. It is amazing. I will talk more about what Ravelry really is another time, but if you are really curious, go to www.ravelry.com or (hey there is a link!)check out some other blogs about it, everyone has blogged about what it is, and probably a lot more succinctly than myself. This group is called Hearts of Love, and it seems very active. The goal of this group is to make Chemo Caps for patients undergoing therapy, as well as other kind gifts for these individuals. The caps can be donated to any group, but the focus project is to donate to UCDavis Medical Center Cancer Center in Davis, California. This really is special to me because my Grandmother died of cancer and did not have the chance to have treatment. I hope that when I knit a cap or a lap blanket for a patient, some of my love gor my Grandmother and my care for these patients will be felt on some level by the patient. That person will know someone cares, and someone wants them to get better.

Ok thats all for now. Off to the chiropractor, and then on the road again. Good song..

First Post! (In a sick Voice.. Cough, Cough)

OK, so this past week I decide that I want a blog, and I start writing in my notebook/journal thing what I want my blog to address, how I want my blog to look, who I want to read my blog.. Then the fantasy hits, and I am suddenly the Yarn Harlot, everyone is reading this, it is my dream job to tell you about my life, what I am knitting, what I am eating.. and then I snap out of it. No even knows I am doing this. I have zero readers.

So starting over again. If anyone ever reads my blog, it is a multi-use blog, for my words about yarn and my obsession with partially finishing objects out of string.. about my struggles losing the last pounds (not from a baby, not from anything interesting, well chocolate is interesting).. about living in a different city from my husband, and trying to move my job so we can live in the same home again.. Those are the life things I want to talk about.

I have a lot of topics I have written down in my journal/notepad, that I hope will get written about in my blog. Some ideas are about my longing to learn to spin without taking a class.. Why exercise sucks, AKA I need a sport less violent than hockey but as cool as hockey.. Podcasts.. Why knitters rock, and many more.

Today three good things happened. The first one was that I woke up and for the first time in four days, my sinus headache was less painful! Amazing. The second good thing was that my husbando called me to let me know I am a top candidate for a job I interviewed for, which is great way to wake up in the morning. The third thing that was good was that I finished a pair of socks. I call them my Lite Brite socks. The Pattern is called Anastasia. I will try to learn links for next blog.

(I like this photo, my sock is ALIVE!) Anyhow, they are really comfy, and I am really happy with them.

My next project is going to be a sweater for Husbando. Husbando has never asked in the 4 years I have been knitting, for any knitted item. This Christmas, he asked me why I don't knit for him, and I told him I didn't think he would be interested, and he said he wanted a lightweight sweater "just like the one I have that I wore out" (great, that will be easy.. sarcasm.. what if I can't do it??). The sweater he is talking about is a 2x2 ribbed, he calls it a Navy boat sweater, it has a half zip and a 2 inch collar. So I got a pattern from KnitPicks, I will post it next time. I am going to do some mods to it, and see what I get!