Long time...

It's not that I don't have anything to write about, I've just been
lazy. My job is oddly exhausting. The highlight of every day is going
to the courthouse and the post office. Not only do I get a bit of
fresh air, that least little bit of activity gets the blood moving
again. In the office I do normal office things...make copies, write
letters, talk to crazy people on the phone. Yesterday one of our
clients was particularly rude to me on the phone. It's extra annoying
because this client is probably about my age and already getting
divorced. She's probably tired of the ordeal and since I'm her
attorney's secretary - she feels like I'm someone she can boss around
and treat like dirt. Well, she's wrong! Lesson to the world...don't
treat secretaries like dirt! It's a bad idea!

Last night was fun. Lacy and I went shopping and she got some super
cute clothes at Target. We ate at McAllister's Deli. They have really
good sweet tea. It was the perfect evening to eat outside and sip iced
tea. Not to mention the perfect evening to celebrate Lacy's birthday!
After I got home, Baxter thought it was perfect timing for a walk. It
wasn't! A storm was threatening! Micah was already down town, so the
beast and I met him and we all strolled around the Levee Plaza area.
None of us seemed to mind the rain till there was the biggest thunder
and crack of lightening! We nearly passed out! By the time we got back
down town, we were soaked! Still, I liked being out in the warm spring
rain.

Today is full of little excitements. The attorney I work for is taking
us out to lunch and tonight is Village Fest! All kinds of fun!

Just things here and there...

Life has been fairly entertaining recently. I'm working for a lawyer as a secretary. Can't say I want to be a secretary for the rest of my life, but it's not too bad. It's been relaxed while the lawyer was on spring break. She'll be back tomorrow and I suspect things will be kicked up a notch.

I'm moving out of the guest bed (fondly referred to as my homeless shelter) and up to my old bedroom. I had to do quite a bit of cleaning and organizing before I could really settle in up there. The goal is to live at home for as long as possible. I figure every month that I live at home I save nearly $600 and although my Purdue assistantship is adequate, it is not extravegant. Money saved is a good good thing. My dad has been working on the plumbing in my bathroom. Pretty much everything up there was leaking. The faucets and the toilet ran and the shower leaks or something. Obviously I'm not plumbing expert! I love mom, but our morning schedules aren't meshing very well. She gets the bathroom first since she leaves the house first. If she's out of the bathroom by 7:30, I can get to work on time without any problems. This doesn't happen too often, so then I have to rush around and have been late a few times. It'll be so nice for us to have separate bathrooms. Plus, I still get free internet upstairs! Thank you Holiday Inn!

Tomorrow is knitting group at Barnes & Nobles. I'm half way done with a summer sweater from Knit Simple magazine. I guess technically it's called the Scallop Edge Pullover. Whatever. If you want to see a picture, click here. I'm knitting the plane yellow one, but mine will be red. Last week at the group, there were only 5 of us and 3 of us were Schaps. The other two were employees who had the night off. I guess they started the group. Annie won't be there this week, so I'm curious to see who shows up tomorrow

Wednesday starts some serious excitement. The Lafayette Police Department Citizens Academy! Mom and I are going. She did one in West Lafayette and had a blast! I don't know what all we get to learn here, but in W. Lafayette she was taught how to preserve a crime scene, gun safety, how to drive a police car really fast and stuff like that. I'm super excited!

That's all for now. Better finish up my lunch and get back to work.

National Nutrition Month is here and almost gone...

You might not know it, but March is National Nutrition Month. Very exciting, I know. But what is exciting is that the Western Indiana District Dietetic Association had their annual breakfast at Baja Peninsula. Talk about amazing food! I can't wait to go back. Their breakfast menu is to die for! The restaurant is a wee bit out of the way for most folks since it's on the way west side of town, but it's not really any further away than all the mediocre dining facilities on the way east side of town. I give it 5 stars! Lafayette has so many great restaurants that aren't chains, but people hardly think to go to them. I'm on a pseudo silent campaign to limit my chain dining experiences. Surely I can get a gang of people to do the same!

The other great thing about the National Nutrition Month breakfast is that I got to touch base with Dr. Boushey. As soon as I formally accept the offer, she can start registering me for classes for the summer. She's not been so bright about her conversations with me. She keeps telling me how busy I'm going to be and how much I'm going to have to do. I think she said "You're just going to be busy up to your eye balls all the time!" And she said it with such glee. Seems like maybe she should save those comments for AFTER I turn in my acceptance and I'm officially her slave! Ha ha ha! Today I got the nicest email from Dr. Fleet. He's basically the director of graduate studies and to get a personal email from him made my day! Despite the fact that I'm going to be busy up to my eye balls, I'm really looking forward to doing my PhD.

Big news. Martin and Annie got a puppy! Her name is Karenin or some spelling variation of that. I've already botched the spelling once today. I know it's not Caranan! Ha! Anyway, the puppy is half rhodesian ridge back and half black lab and 100% beautiful! It's like their little family is complete now! I love it! I can't wait until Karenin, Albert and Baxter can get together for play time. That should be hilarious.

It's all coming together...

The first week home was a wee bit discouraging. Happy as I was to be home I was dying to hear from Purdue about the PhD stuff and I couldn't find a car to buy either. But so many happy things happened! Thursday I got a package from my sock pal! She knit me gorgeous rusty orange socks! They're so cool. Plus everything else she sent was super cheerful. (I'll post about everything later so I can give her justice!) Then, on Friday I drove a sweet rental car up to Chicago and got to hang out with AnnLaura and Aurelio in Chicago for the day. We had a blast. Aurelio loved the Art Institute. Every time he saw a boat in a painting he'd say "row row row" and there were animal noises for dogs and cows. Plus we got to swing through Filene's Basement and Old Navy. Felt so good to be down town again! My friend Jenny and her husband Mike met me and John on Saturday for a crazy fun St. Paddy's day celebration. It was such a fun weekend!

It gets better!

Monday I dropped in Hodson's Bay to see if there are any adventure seeking people to climb with or learn to mountain bike with or something like that. As it turns out there's someone who works there who I can climb with at the store. The wall there is kind of tiny, but at least I can climb a bit for fun. There's a club at Purdue and they car-pool to Climb Time in Indy every week. Woohoo for that! Should I ever end up with a bike, I can go mountain biking with people from Hodson's Bay too. Things are looking up!

Wait, even more happened on Monday!

I got my acceptance letter from Purdue! I'm in! I got a research assistantship and a stipend that will be enough to live on. I'll be a poor graduate student, but it's going to be great. (Please, just let me be gleeful for a little while! I'll mope about the rough life of a grad student enough later!)

And better...

Today I started my job! I'm really making good use of my degrees and working as a secretary/PA. Today I helped fix computer problems, fixed the shredder machine and did loads of filing. (The other PA doesn't like to file.) There were fun things to do to like walk a few letters to other offices down town. It would have been perfect if the sun had been shining, but it wasn't. Oh well...can't win 'em all! I can walk to work and if I walk fast, I can get from our back door to the office door in 7 minutes.

And even better...

I got a new car!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It's a 2004, Hyundai Elantra. It's really shiny black with ghetto blaster tinted windows. Have to say, the windows make me laugh. It's nice though. I'm so lucky to have gotten such a nice car. Even Baxter was excited! When I came home I told him we had a new car to ride in and he ran outside, jumped up at the fence, gave the car a good look and then he went into ecstatic happy dog mode...tail wagging, tongue hanging out, you know the look. We drove over to Martin and Annie's which turned out great. Got to eat dinner together and take a wee trip to Von's and Cafe Vienna.

So now life feels a lot better. I'm so relieved to know about the Purdue situation and I'm so glad I don't have to be pouring over over-priced cars that have 115,000 miles on autotrader.com. And one of these days I might even get a pay check!

Home of the Free Refills...

Since I've been home, I've been out to eat a lot. In Ireland there are times when you want a really big Coke. Not a dinky little 10 oz Coke...a BIG coke. Here in the States, that's not much of a problem. You can get a 32oz coke for $1 or sometimes even less. Restaurants are a whole new ball game. I missed free refills while I was gone, but now I'm not so sure. At most restaurants you get a giant glass of coke and they refill it over and over and over again. Looking around in the restaurants, I couldn't help but wonder what would happen if there were a charge for each refill. What if the government decided that it's a health risk to provide nearly 2 liters of Coke to each customer at each meal. Isn't it ridiculous to think that any person can unknowingly drink 2 liters of soda at a meal. I'm guilty of doing it myself. Ok, 2 liters might be a stretch, but it's more than one liter. Now I'm just grossed out by it.

So other than being grossed out by the amount of coke we drink with dinner in the States, I've been busy with all kinds of things. Car shopping. Ugh. I never knew it would be so hard to find a car! Part of the problem is the limited budget. With another $1000 I might have an easier time. It's a good lesson in patients. My sister got an awesome mini-van that was within her insurance budget. It's even better than her old van. So basically I'm trying to find a real bargain and unfortunately I haven't found it yet!

My mom made an appointment with a realtor for me. Ha! Think she's trying to tell me something? I'm not sure she wants me at home for very long. I really liked one of the houses and would buy it if only I had an income! I do have a job though. I'll be working for a lawyer downtown. Having a job within walking distance is exciting. Especially given the current lack of automobile! The lawyer is a friend of my mom's and she should be great to work for. She'll let me work as much or as little as I want. It's the perfect job for right now really.

It's absolutely beautiful out today. Baxter and I took a super long walk in the sunshine. We were both happy as clams! Tomorrow I get to go to the Indianapolis Zoo with the Burkholder kids. What could be better than a trip to the zoo on a sunny spring day?!?! I think spring might be here to stay. I looked at the 10 day forecast and the highs stay around 45-50 F (7-11 C). I hope it's sandal weather soon! That's my favorite time of year!

Home Sweet Home!

My trip home was pretty uneventful and for that I am grateful! I got through security just fine, but they teased me for having a vase and dishes in my carry on. Customs was fine, but after all that trouble I went through to get new pages added the guy stamped an old page! Chicago was actually the biggest pain. There were about 50 flights that came in all at the same time from Warsaw, Tokyo, Mexico, Ireland, Beijing and somewhere in India. It was mayhem! Of all those people on all those flights, I managed to be the second to last person to get through border patrol. The guy seemed a little surprised by my 75 kg of luggage, but let me through anyway and even welcomed me home!

AnnLaura and I are going to her local yarn store. I'M NOT BUYIG YARN!!!! Just browsing.

Right, I'm off. It's good to be home!

(blogger is being weird, so if this posts twice, I'm sorry!)

Honey! I'm home!

My trip home was pretty uneventful and for that I am grateful! I got through security just fine, but they teased me for having a vase and dishes in my carry on. Customs was fine, but after all that trouble I went through to get new pages added the guy stamped an old page! Chicago was actually the biggest pain. There were about 50 flights that came in all at the same time from Warsaw, Tokyo, Mexico, Ireland, Beijing and somewhere in India. It was mayhem! Of all those people on all those flights, I managed to be the second to last person to get through border patrol. The guy seemed a little surprised by my 75 kg of luggage, but let me through anyway and even welcomed me home!

AnnLaura and I are going to her local yarn store. I'M NOT BUYIG YARN!!!! Just browsing.

Right, I'm off. It's good to be home!

All these good byes...

I can't say that all these good byes are very much fun. I'm really going to miss my friends in Dublin. Today is my last day here. I'm still packing and I still have some errands to run. That's always the way isn't it? Moving is never a relaxed process. Hopefully tonight will be relaxed.

Listening to sad David Gray music isn't helping.

Anxiously waiting...

Is anyone else dying to see the new Knitty.com patterns? Not like any of us need another project to work on, but I still want to know what they have in store for spring!

One last thing to check off...

Yesterday a few of us went to Belfast. I really didn't want to go home and have to say that I never made it to Belfast the whole time I was here. They're kicking off a Titanic festival there and a part of the not-so-festive-festival was a free bus tour to the shipyards and around the city. It was actually quite interesting learning about the people who made the Titanic, Olympic and Britannic. We were allowed in the dilapidated buildings that once housed the drafting room where the ships were designed. We walked around the dry docks where the hull of the ships were launched into the water and the dock where the ships were held while they were cleaned and had finishing touches put on. It was quite spectacular to imagine the sheer magnitude of workforce needed to build the ships. I really enjoyed the tour. If you're up towards Belfast I recommend you go. Free tickets are available through the Tourism Information Office and the tour leaves daily at 2pm from the front of City Hall.

Knitting is going well. I've turned the heal on the socks I'm knitting for my swap and hope to have them done by the time I get home. The double magic loop method has gone by the way-side for the time being because it's just not fast enough for me. My so called scarf is now more than 1/3 of the way done and it's really beautiful! I'll have to post a photo soon.

I'm leaving Ireland on Friday and I've said it before, but it's still true...leaving Ireland is horribly sad, but I've got so much to go home to. I'm dying to see my little niece and nephew again. My sister has a new dog, Albert and that awesome new van that I haven't seen yet. Of course there's Baxter who I can hardly wait to start running around with again. Keeping busy shouldn't be a problem! Keeping busy before I leave shouldn't be a problem either. Packing is a pain. (it's my own fault for having too much stuff) Speaking of packing, I better do a bit of that before I head out to lunch.

So dreamy....

As it turns out, we have the hottest electrician ever. Several things have broken in our house since I've been here and I'm always lucky enough to be here when the electrician comes. The first time, it was our water heater. After a week of cold showers I would have welcomed any electrician, but I was extra happy to find out our electrician is stinkin' hot! I'd say he could be in one of those fireman calenders, but he doesn't have the bad boy look. He's just tall, dark and handsome. The second time we needed his services, it was my fault. I plugged in an electric blanket from the states. I should have known it would blow a fuse, but I was cold and plugged it in anyway. So Hottie McHottie came to fix the fuse. That time it was funny because there were three guys waiting in a van outside our house and I only saw one young funny looking kid and one middle aged balding guy. It was so hard to conceal my surprise when I turned around and saw Mr. Dreamboat. This time there was no power to the washer and drier. I was so mad that none of my other roommates could be home. I wanted to go get my hair cut and the only appointment I could get was for 6:30. Someone had to be here between 6 and 7. Two roommates were working, one was in Cork and the other was taking some class from Amnesty International. So that left me at the bottom of the totem poll. Cheered up quite a bit when I opened the door. I think maybe I'll move back to Ireland and make a career of breaking all things electronic.

For better or worse...

Disclaimer, this post has nothing to do with marriage!

Yesterday was such a wonderfully productive day. I was walking all over town running errands. The best part is I got all but one done! I even stopped in a few charity shops and found more yarn. This yarn thing is becoming a bit of a problem. It's to the point that I think I have a stash that would rival anyone else! I've yet to knit anything with mohair, but for whatever reason I really like it and seem to keep buying it. Knitting group was fun. Trish and Harriet and I smushed on one couch together. We had lots of fun knitting and laughing!

I'm starting to get really sentimental about leaving Ireland. I was such a softy last night. Sniffing and trying to hide tears as I looked at all my happy stuff that has to be packed. Then all hell broke loose! Our electricity bill is 90 euro more than usual. I wasn't in Ireland during the billing period, so at least I can't be blamed. Everyone is furious about it. So a huge fight broke out. Mostly between two of my house mates who don't get along that well anyway. I got stuck in the middle. I'm no drama queen, but since I was already a little emotionally charged, and ended up yelling at both my roommates. Pretty sure I even used a few curse words. They weren't having a rational argument. It was so dumb! One of my roommates and I were still friends and laughing at the end of the night. Got the silent treatment from the other one. Oh well, I survived my first major drama queen even. Hopefully it will be the last.

Today I'm busy writing thank you notes to all the people who've made my time in Ireland so wonderful. Better get back to it.

Oh and by the way...I'm officially coming home. March 8th, I think. It's a Friday.

Do I really have to pack?

Mom and John are back home safe and sound. I sent them with quite a bit of stuff and a strange collection of stuff too! Mom's carry-on was full of steins and beer glasses that I've collected from pubs here and there. John's carry-on was packed with those pretty dishes mom and I bought when she was here this summer. Plus, mom had an extra checked bag full of maps and guidebooks and various random clothes and such. Even though mom and John took a bunch of my stuff home with them I still have a lot to pack.

I really enjoy having all the free samples of lotions and such from make up counters and hotels. Unfortunately I rarely end up using them. But I'm too stingy to give them away. So I'm going to try to use them all up! I don't know how my body is going to react to the bombardment of new products, but I'll give it a try.

Yesterday I stopped by the bookstore to buy a knitting magazine to cheer myself up after mom and John left. No joy there, so I checked the knitting books. They had a book called Nursery Knits for only 2.99! I bought a few copies to give away! So exciting! I also got a book called Knitting Patterns for Dummies. It's good actually. Maybe it's because I'm a dummy, I don't know. But I'm working on taking a baby sweater pattern and turning it into a TusaRebecca size pattern. I did some ratio math (thanks to all that GRE studying) and figured out some basic measurements. Now it's just a matter of trail and error. The yarn I'm using is kind of ghetto. It's kind of the color of a green bell pepper and used to be in the form of several really ugly ponchos at a St. Vincent's charity shop. Perfect yarn for testing out a pattern for a cozy sweater that I'll probably only ever wear around the house anyway. I'm having fun with my first pattern design.
I don't know about the rest of you knitters out there, but I can't work on one project at a time. I get too bored. The socks are first priority, but it's nice to have a few other projects to keep me entertained!

It ended up being a pretty busy day considering my plans were to go to the grocery, go home, do laundry and take a nap. I went to Collin's Barracks (aka National Museum of Ireland). They have a nice exhibit about the history of military in Ireland. It's not chronological though, so there was no way to really piece the history together. Maybe I'll go back and try to sort things out. Last night Kevin and I went to see Sons & Daughters at Wheelon's. Great show. Really had a lot of fun. Katharine was supposed to go, but never got around to buying a ticket and it was sold out.

So now I'm going to knit and contemplate how all the stuff in my room is going to fit into two suitcases and one carry-on. Should be interesting.

Sock ripping clarification...

So the socks I was knitting...it was going really well, except that I just didn't like the pattern. It's got an knit to together, knit 3, ssk in the center front of the sock. Maybe I do ssk wrong, but it always ends up bulkier than the rest of my stitches and so it just looked dumb. I thought about finishing the socks for myself later, but I don't want socks that look dumb. That was the kicker. So I ripped them. Now I'm doing a slip stitch rib that's going a bit faster and still looks nice.

And for the knitting stash confessions...
Mom and I bought a HUGE lot of yarn at a charity shop for 5 euro! There's some lovely brown aran tweed and some natural colored wool and beautiful blue and a lot of odd green, plus other bits and bobs. We're talking a ton of yarn! We went to This Is Knit yesterday and I got 3 skeins of Debbie Bliss SoHo to make a My So Called Scarf with. I already have about 3 inches done! Might I put a plug in for Lisa at This Is Knit. She is soooooo nice! Every time I go in there she's all smiley and has loads of ideas and encouragement. I bet she's never mean to anyone.

Graduation!!!!!!!!!

I now have a European Master of Science! Graduation was awesome. St Patrick's cathedral is really dark, so a lot of the photos aren't that great, but here they are for your enjoyment anyway! The best part was when the President of DIT mentioned that Dr. Boushey was an honored guest from Purdue and that two of her former student from Indiana were graduating!



There are a lot of highlights from the past week that mom and John have been here. We went out west for two days and saw the Cliffs of Moher and Alwee Cave in County Clair. In County Connemara we saw Kylemore Abby. The abby was breath taking. We had perfect weather...sunny, warm, not a cloud in the sky. I could hardly believe I was still in Ireland let alone Ireland in February! On the train ride home mom and I were knitting and the girl across from us had the prettiest scarf. As it turns out, she knits too! She got out her knitting and so there we were...three crazy ladies knitting on the train happy as we could be. This is going to be a picturific post!



Last night I had dinner with Dr. Boushey at Brasserie Sixty6 (my favorite fancy restaurant). We really had a delightful meal except there were some problems with the timing of the service. It took nearly 45 minutes between the clearing of the starters and the bringing of the entrees. I bet it was 20 minutes or more before they brought us our desserts after we ordered them. Supposedly two cooks went home sick, so I can imagine that left them in a bind. The food was still really good, so that helped a lot and we had a nice time chatting away. At least it wasn't really awkard! Dr. Boushey talked a lot about the projects she might have me do and is happy that I will be starting in June. I think that's a good sign, but I started to wonder what I've signed up for! She will work me pretty hard, but I think I'll really enjoy it.

Right, well this is mom and John's last day here and we're going out to Howth. It's a peninsula off the coast of Dublin and they have a market and I've heard there's good places to eat fresh fish! Should be a good day!

Really really quick...

Pretty sure I haven't blogged in ages, so here's a super-duper quick update...

Life is rosy. I haven't had a nightmare or bad dream in 3 nights! It's a record! I've had nightmares and bad dreams almost every night since I've been back in Ireland. Pretty much sucked, so I'm happy to be sleeping normal again though! Very very exciting! I take the GRE in the morning. Kind of nervous, but should be fine. Graduation is Thursday. Can't wait to see St. Patrick's Cathedral! I'm almost done knitting my fetchings. Bet I can get them done tomorrow. That would be great. Right, I have to review a few more things and get a good night's rest.

Adios!

I passed!

That's it! I'm done! They're going to let me graduate! Woohoo!

The poster presentation wasn't too hard. Just had to talk to to examiners about my project.

Here are some photos from the poster presentations...

Ugliest coldest most miserable weather day ever!

Today is the most miserable weather day ever. It's freezing cold. The internet says it's 39 out, but there are 30 mph winds so it's not like it feels anywhere close to 39 degrees. It's precipitating, but I don't know what to call it. Snowy rainy sleety stuff. Well, now it's just snowing I think. If it's snowing, I doubt it's 39 out! I'd say it's pretty close to impossible to be in a good mood on a day like today, so there's no point trying to adjust my attitude! I've already been out in it. That was two hours ago and I'm still cold.

Well, maybe there's one thing to be happy about. I discovered digestive biscuits with a layer of caramel hidden under a coating of chocolate. But that's the only happy thing! So don't try to make me think of more happy things. I'm working hard at being a miserable grump here!

Magic!

I finally figured out the magic loop method! It's not looking pretty yet, but I have high hopes that if my patients holds I'll make it through another few rows and things will look a little better.

Yesterday I went out to Blackrock to my favorite knitting shop...This is Knit. Lisa is awesome. She's got great ideas and isn't pushy or snobby and has the most scrumptious yarns. Since mom doesn't read my blog I can post this. I bought her a huge hank of wool. Actually it's 55% Bluefaced Leicester Wool and 45% silk. The brand is Fyberspates Yarn from Wales. I also got mom a pair of beautiful Peace Fleece knitting needles. This way mom can knit herself a scarf while she's here. Very fun! Kevin's been bugging me to knit him a hat, so I made him pick and buy his own yarn. The boy has good taste and picked some Mirasol wool that's a wool, alpaca, silk blend.

All my post-flood thank you notes are written and ready to go in the mail so now I have to stop in town and grab stamps and get them in the post. Tomorrow is knitting group, so I'll have an excuse to knit for a few hours and won't feel guilty about it. Very exciting!

Almost all done!

I'm one step closer to being all the way done with my thesis. Today I picked up two beautifully bound copies of my thesis. My thesis is now available in a hardback edition! It's got a navy blue faux leather cover and metallic gold print. Sounds tacky, but it does look pretty nice. Of course this was to the tune of nearly 70euro. Criminy!

The buses in Dublin are an adventure. To my surprise, the bus fare went up while I was gone. Some grumpy driver barked at me that it's one euro, five cents now. My bad! Used to be 1.40 from home to town and now it's 1.50. That, I don't really mind. But 1.05? That's annoying. Five cent pieces are the same color and nearly the same size as two cent coins and pennies. It's really a pain to dig them out of your coin purse. I'm thoroughly annoyed.

The bus adventure doesn't end there. What's the deal with headphones? Almost every time you ride the bus, you have the pleasure of music. It's not provided by the bus, but usually some moron in the back of the bus who has his iPod on full blast. I worry that my ears may be damaged from wearing headphones so often and I don't even wear them every day and I certainly don't listen to it loud enough that anyone else knows what I'm listening to! I think we should start investing in hearing aid companies.


Another thing is that cars do stupid things around busses. Just yesterday a bus started to pull away from a stop light and some idiot who was to the right of the bus made a left turn in front of the bus. As if the giant double decker bus full of people wasn't going to go on green or something. Of course the driver slammed on his breaks which sent some poor unsuspecting lady flying. Looking in the window I could see people jump out of their seats to help her and she was holding her nose. The bus driver tried running down the street after the car, but any jackass who pulls a left hand turn in front of a moving bus isn't going to stop and see if any harm was caused by his negligence.

Usually I would walk into town, but today the wind was so strong I had to stop on the way down the sidewalk just to get my balance. Didn't seem like walking for 30 minutes in wind like that was going to be much fun. If I can barely walk in the wind, heck if I'm going to try to bike! So there I was...digging through my change for an extra five cents.

On a happy note, I did a little charity shopping yesterday and got a giant bag of wool! No, I didn't need it, but amongst other beautiful yarns there's enough natural cotton/flax to make a sweater. I have to measure a skein first so I can estimate how much is there. I think I even have a good pattern to use! Very exciting!