i like lemons

I took Monday off from work and decided to go to the beach. The quality of the light during autumn is amazing, especially at the coast. It was cold enough to wear a hoodie, knit hat and scarf, but still warm enough that when my feet got wet, it wasn’t uncomfortable. You *have* to get your feet wet at my favorite beach in order to access the majority of it.

Been playing Little Big Planet on the weekends. The game really is wonderful.

After several years of being good, I’ve started regularly drinking coffee again. Sticking with one small cup a day, and so far I’ve been trying to limit it to three times a week. If it starts affecting my skin/complexion, I’m going to have to cut it out again.

I haven’t had the chance to knit anything more than olives in quite a while, but this past weekend was a nice time to get back into it. A little bit of rain put me in the mood. I’ve started to work on a new pattern.

The above picture shows some of what I worked on over the weekend. I’m not going to say what it is yet, but I think (hope?) that it will turn out nice enough to show off the finished project once it’s complete. My goal is to finish before the end of this month.

Unfortunately I won’t be able to share the actual pattern for this project (I’ll explain why once I’m done), but as always seems to be the case when doing pattern design, I am enjoying the challenge of trying to figure out shaping and how to pull everything together.

*sigh*

I haven’t been able to knit for the past several weeks. I barely have been able to knit my olives. Perhaps that’s ok, since it means I can put off finding a new/bigger jar if I’m only managing one olive per week. But even the one olive is accomplishing the goal of the Olive Plan. I really am fortunate.

There are tiny sprouts of an Olive Plan 2009 in my mind. I need to sort out whether it’s do-able and the general logistics, and if I have the discipline to keep up with it. I will say that it wouldn’t really be knitting related and I would create a separate blog for it. I’ll have to see what develops.

I did treat myself to a new point-and-shoot camera (Nikon Coolpix S600). It’s around the same size as a business card, so no excuses for not taking it with me everywhere. The DSLR I was interested in is no longer in production and I haven’t had the time to research new or upcoming models, so I figured this would hold me over until I can read up on DSLRs again.

The weather has been teasing with some cooler days here and there, but mixing in those warm days typical of September and October around these parts. I’m looking forward to being able to wear hats, scarves, coats and gloves.

A question from Heidi about learning to knit made me think about how I first learned. I think I had seen some knitted project in a crafty LiveJournal community and decided I wanted to learn… right away. I found an online, written tutorial (no pictures or videos) that explained things in a way that made sense to me and took a pair of no. 2 pencils and some pearl cotton that were sitting on my desk and went at it. The pictures here show the result: my first attempt at knitting.

A big, big thank you to Harper for recommending Juice Beauty products. I have been using their SPF 30 Mineral Sheer Moisturizer for the past month and I am very impressed with it. I wear it under my powder foundation all day and my skin stays so soft and smooth. I’ve also noticed that my skin tone has evened out a bit too. I’ve been using their Green Apple SPF 20 Antioxidant Body Moisturizer and that works wonderfully too.

If you use multiple chat clients (Y!IM, AIM, etc.) and want to consolidate, I recommend Digsby. Digsby also handles email and social networking notifications. It’s only available for Windows right now, but they are working on Linux and Mac versions. I have been using it for a couple of weeks and I like it so much more than Trillian. Please note that Digsby is still in beta, so if you aren’t willing to put up with issues (such as RAM hogging) that go along with using a beta product, skip it.

Busy, busy. Need more sleep. I’m getting bags under my eyes.

This really does calm and relax me. Just get a bag of assorted sequins and go about sorting them. The simple task helps me clear my mind and the colors, shininess and shapes of the sequins give me that “ooooo, preeetty” feeling.

I start a new job soon. New beginnings are always a hopeful time. A little bit scary, but mostly exciting.

Trying to finish up a couple of fun knitting projects before the new gig starts. Next, it’s on to getting more Kitschmas Trees done, and then a couple of scarves and hats. It’s a little difficult to think about cool-weather knitting when it’s been so hot out.