Editions of Me

I give to you... some of my favorite Sparkle Snark. Yes, I'm a Twilight fan, but with some ironic distance. Meaning, I've read the books a gazillion times, I could probably write a thesis about it, and I can toss around the characters and factoids as well as any Twihard (and heck, I am even acquainted with the term "Twihard"!), but I could just as easily roll my eyes at the drama and ridiculousness and bad writing as I could squee over how freakin' awesome Alice is. (She's my favorite character. Team Alice!) Anyway, naturally, I'm drawn to other people who can manage to be more smark than mark (those two terms come from wrestling - a "mark" is wrestling fan who totally buys into everything that's going on story-wise, and a "smark" is a wrestling fan who is smart enough to know better, but enjoys it anyway). I've amassed a collection of fun writings, reviews, and commentary on the Twilight movies and books, and now I'm doin...

Attended my second practice with SBDM last night, and had a blast. Jamie, who was one of the co-founders of SVRG, came out to coach, and she did not disappoint - my legs were burning about halfway through. How could I have stayed away so long? I LOVE this. I feel like I'm better and stronger than I was during bootcamp, and that could be due to a number of factors. When I started bootcamp, I was coming off of over a year of being inactive. Right now, I'm coming off of... well, bootcamp, and a few months of running. My stamina is better right now than it has been, and my muscles are stronger. Also, I'm sure this makes a difference - we're skating on a concrete outdoor basketball court, so I'm on my outdoor wheels. In bootcamp, I could NOT do crossovers for the life of me, but apparently I can do them now. I guess I can thank the grippiness of my Radar Zens. Maybe I should skate on them indoor too...? Just kidding. And I'm just feeling relaxed. There's no p...

They were both stashbuster/quick work pieces with Lion Brand Wool-Ease Thick & Quick - things I've been meaning to make, and I managed to get them done. The Balthazar Vest pattern wasn't very well written, I would say. Or, rather, it wasn't well-edited - totally riddled with mistakes, and luckily, I'm an experienced enough knitter to either fix the mistakes or completely improvise. That said, I really like them both :) I also made the Fingerless Gloves from Vogue Holiday 2009 - Is this my first VK finished project? I THINK SO!!! I bought my first copy of VK aaaaaaages ago, with the intent of one day getting good enough to knit from it, and finally, I ventured out on my first foray. Oh, Mari Muinonen, you plague me. Sylvie was very kind to me, but these gloves took me four attempts before I finally got it right. I decided to make only the small stars, so the gloves are wrist-length instead of elbow length. It was just enough for me to get a sense of the c...

I've gained back 10 pounds in the last month. I've totally let myself go. And worst, I've stopped running. Have I so easily abandoned my dream of this being the year that I run a full marathon? I HAVE to find my way back. I don't know why I just up and quit. It's not like I was discouraged. I was totally seeing results. I think I just got really tired or lazy or the rest of my life was getting me down. And I let it affect my personal goals. Well, no more. I've been on summer break one week, and I've given myself a chance to loaf around the house and do nothing, and now I've got to get back to work, so to speak.

Knit up with Stitch Nation Bamboo Ewe in Lipstick :) (A soft red yarn called Lipstick? OF COURSE I love it!) The body was done double-stranded on size 17's, and the crochet trim on the front was done single-stranded with a size G hook. Obviously I decided to keep it as a vest rather than making it a jacket. (The weather's warming up for summer, and I wanted to be able to wear it before, you know, November.) I'm also wearing it "upside-down," so the collar would be flatter and not bunch up around my neck. Of course, there's some red lipstick to go with it :)

MAC liner in Brick, topped with lipstick in Ladybug :) (And my newly finished sweater vest!)

MAC lipliner in Chicory, topped with Viva Glam Cyndi = a nice coral-red

So, I've been thinking a lot about how my training is going. I haven't run in two weeks (and it'll be miraculous if I manage to get up early enough to run tomorrow). And I'm not going particularly fast - I'm running a 5/1 at a 13:00 pace, so my adjusted pace is actually 13:57. Here's the problem - the NWM gives you 6 and a half hours to finish, from the time the gun goes off . It starts at 7am, and we have to be finished by 1:30pm. BUT... if you're slower, you start further back. And you have to wait and wait and wait... I think I timed it once - I finally crossed the START line about 15 minutes after the race had actually started. So, really, I have 6 hours and 15 minutes at MOST to finish the race. My pace will have me finish in about 6 hours and 5 minutes. And that's if I can stick to it - nevermind the giant hills in the first 6 miles, the crowds of people walking in my way (DOES "RUNNERS ON THE LEFT, WALKERS ON THE RIGHT" MEAN ANYTHI...

Man, every time I finish a scarf, I remember why I hate making scarves. (Boring.) But there is nothing boring about these colors!: I made the Taffy Pull Scarf, which is a new, free pattern to promote Debbie Stoller's Stitch Nation yarn. I used Stitch Nation Bamboo Ewe yarn. I got the colors wrong to begin with - the red color and pink are fine, but the blue and teal are not - in the original pattern, they're purple and green! And then I just ended up finishing the scarf when I felt like it. Which was soon. :) I think I got the "spirit" of the pattern right :)

I wish I could love this sweater. I loved the pattern. I loved knitting it. I loved the yarn I used (di.Ve Zenith in Lilac on size 13s). But the finished product... just didn't look great on me. Mostly due to the sleeves. It would be an easy fix if I hadn't already finished everything - if they were only a bit longer, to actually cover my shoulders, it would look pretty good. If I end up being stuck with this sweater for a while (as in, no one wants it - I'm offering it up free to any takers), I just might take apart the sleeves and do that. But as it is, it doesn't look good on me, and because I just finished it, I have no will to get right back to work on it and take it apart. Oh well. They can't all be perfect. :)