Sometimes, life gets in the way...

...of blogging.
It's been insanely busy and wildly emotional around here for the last few weeks.
I feel like a chipmunk on crack. Can't sleep, no appetite, and often, a complete blithering lack of focus.
But I'm still here. They haven't sent the nice young men with the clean white coats for me yet. So it's all good.
First there was the monkey's birthday. Which involved a fabulous meal at the Harbour House. The next day was our anniversary and the monkey's brother joined us for a nice visit and some sushi.
Then, on friday, blog-challenged Janet and Jill came up from Seattle for a kamekaze visit. We braved rush hour traffic and made it downtown in time for the first seating at Vij's.
After dinner it was on to shoe shopping and I got totally lucky. Found awesome little thinline wedge heels in black satin with cream dots and a peekaboo toe. Last pair. My size. Less than half price. The monkey said I should have bought a lottery ticket.
Then we went on to a cupcake shop. I had no idea these things existed. It was a little surreal. And there was A LOT of pink. But we bought some cupcakes (despite the fact that we all felt like we were going to explode from being so full) and went home.
Where we all crashed. And I learned that since joining Fat Losers and eating in a very healthy way, I have lost my talent for digesting lovely rich food.
It was an unpleasant discovery.
Saturday, we trekked into Richmond and hit the Daiso, the Japanese book store, a yarn store and the Japanese candy shop. Had cheap sushi for lunch and I was pretty much done in.
It was a great visit, but waaaay too short.
I did find myself an excellent new knitting bag:


It was only $20! It's lined, has a zipper and inside pockets!
Can't beat that with a stick.
That was last week. This week has been much more quiet as far as friends, but much more insanely busy because of some looming deadlines.
I can't say much about the deadline stuff yet. I really, really want to, 'cause it's sooooo exciting. But I have to keep mum for another month or so.
I can say that I should have some patterns in print very soon. Yay!
I didn't expect this to happen so fast, but it has and I'm just going with the flow. There's been a lot of stuff to learn, a lot of banging my head on my computer desk. A few Eukeka! moments and a lot ripping stuff out. Had to wrestle one pattern into submission. Damn thing just would not cooperate. If it weren't for the deadline, I would have set fire to it!
Because of all this, I've made a few decisions.
Master Spinner will have to wait a year. I don't see how I can do this and manage to take level 6 next year.
I want to have my book in print by early 2009. No more putting it off. Strike while the iron is hot and all that.
I need to go back to a gym. The fat's coming off, but I feel tired and blob-like. The only remedy for this (other than speed, and the monkey insists that's a bad idea) is exercise. Crap.
Our house is too small. I want to find out if we can put a master suite on top of the existing structure. 'Cause hey, writing a book with a house under construction is such a great idea.
So.
Somehow it's friday again. I thought it was thursday. I have no idea what happened to thursday. It may have been surgically removed from my week. Which would explain the large lump on my head.
There is some knitting fit to show others:


It's not exciting knitting, just the stuff that's been keeping me from going completely postal over the last little while. The gray is soon to be Boot socks for Angela. And yes! Those are the new Harmony needles! I really like them. They're warm, smooth and not bendy.
There's another pair of plain socks from some Lana Grossa that I had to have, a red alpaca hat and a little wool hat for my niece.

And because it is friday, and I missed last week I have another bizarre, yet fascinating link.
Ladies, meet Vincent Gallo.
What a charmer.
Almost makes those pork martinis seem like a good idea...