The mother of all updates

I, lomester, hereby swear, that I will, from now on, not subject you - my 5 loyal readers - to any more crazy updates. Instead, I, lomester, promise to continuously update my blog, thereby eliminating remarks such as "update your blog all-ready" from such friends as Reese.*

Phew - now that that is over! Let the updates begin!

From my last post *ahem -tease* you guys might have deduced that I went on a trip! Tony turned thirty this past July (gulp!) so, being the amazingly wonderful girlfriend that I am, I treated him to a little 7 day cruise in the Eastern Caribbean!

It was such a nice, relaxing time! First we stopped in Old San Juan, where the humidity completely messed with my camera and I almost cried thinking that the poor machine was broken. The day turned out to be absolutely perfect. We really enjoyed walking through the streets of this little city, and although completely packed with cruisers wanting to buy sou verniers, we managed to find a nice quiet little restaurant where we had some Puerto Rican and Spanish tapas, and a nice bottle of Sangria. The best part, the waiter was Argentinian.Next we spent a day in St. Thomas. Again, as soon as you get off the ship you are overwhelmed with how "turisty" the place is. Everyone is trying to sell half off diamonds, and perfumes and makeup and jewelry, and it is all stuff that you can get at home. So, we asked a local what beach we should go to where there were not a lot of people, and he suggested Sapphire Beach. We got in a cab with another couple going to the same location, and headed on a 30 minute bumpy windy drive. I am not sure if I will accurately describe the cab, but picture a big golf cart that fits 10 people. The roads were so hilly, and I had not had a drop of rum. My recommendation, have some rum before you get into one of these. :) The couple we rode with ended up being a blast to hang out with. They live in Chicago, but vacation in the same exact Virginia Beach location we go to every year - at approximately the same time! What a small world!

I did get some knitting done in St. Thomas, as you can see above, but not much. Why "not much" you ask? More on that later. The picture on the left is the view from my beach chair, then there is me knitting, and my Kusha Shawl.
The last place we went to was St. Maarten. St. Maarten, for those of you that do not know, is split up into French St. Maarten and Dutch St. Maarten. We spent the day in the Dutch side, but did have lunch in a wonderful (although horrifically overpriced) little French restaurant.

The whole vacation was absolutely perfect. When Tony and I go on vacation, we always want to see this and do that, and go here and explore there, and we never get the chance to just... be. This was the point of this vacation. To not plan on going snorkeling, or rock climbing or mountain biking...just to be. This being got my pant size in trouble, cause being mostly meant hanging out by the pool having the Royal Caribbean drink of the day, but I see a Detox diet in the future.

For all you nosy people (I am one of them, so this is not an insult), you can check out the rest of the birthday celebration extravaganza here.

Now that the "life" portion of the update has been completed, here is the "knitting" portion of the update.The pictures above are of a little "habu party" we had at Olga's a few weeks back. Isel's best friend was very very smart and got married in New York. Therefore, we made Isel go to Habu and get us some stuff. You know, just a little somethin' somethin'.

It is always fun to hang out with these girls, and when there is some lovely yarn to play with, even more fun. Isel brought me back a Kusha Kusha Shawl kit. I was so excited! I stared at it, and looked at it, and told everyone about my lovely steel and merino shawl that was coming up! I did not want to cast on or do anything until I went on the cruise, so I patiently waited. Then when the day came, and we were waiting to board the ship - I took a deep breath and cast on. My one way of describing this was : painful. I had bought some addi naturas since my steel addis would have not worked well with the silk and steel, they would have just slid off the needles. But the naturas were worse! The joints are not good at all. My work kept getting all tangled up, and the steel kept falling off the needles. I cast on 4 times. I was so disappointed that my vacation project was not going as easily as I wanted to.

Things got a little easier when I worked in the merino. The fact that it looks so pretty made me want to persevere. I still do not know if I want to felt the finished project, or leave as is. We will see as I keep going. I think it may be a while before you see this as an FO. I do have a couple of FOs to show you, but I am not too happy with my Royal Caribbean buffet look right now - so give me a few more days. More pics coming soon!














*this disclaimer is subject to people from work not having any more children which make me not have time to update my blog, any subsequent audits at work, and frankly, the amount of amusing anecdotes in my head. (Yes, I am not always this witty).