Jacquie's Journal

Stole My Heart Away

I have started Lucy's Wedding Stole at last!  I decided to start with the edgings so that I can then knit the main part without having to guess how much yarn I will need for them. 
This is the first edging.  It is the Heart edging from Barbara Walker's 2nd Treasury.  It is unblocked of course.  I will block the whole thing once it is all done.  The main part of the stole will feature the Marriage Lines pattern from BW's 1st Treasury.  Not only is it aptly named, it is also quite a simple pattern that will complement her dress perfectly.  I am very pleased with it so far.  I really want to get this done in good time so I am afraid I sacrificed my evening with my SnB girls so I could knit at home.  Unfortunately the light is not very good at the coffee shop we go to and the conversation is too interesting so concentration is not at its best either.  I will be back next week - missing you all, grrls.  Hope you had a lovely evening!

Warning!   Ewwwww! moment coming up!
I was eating my pizza and spring mix salad this evening whilst watching last week's episode of Bones.  There was a shot of a dead body crawling with maggots and other bugs (not conducive to a good appetite on its own I know) and then I looked down to fork up the last few leaves when I noticed a real life LIVE GREEDY CATERPlLLAR wriggling on my plate! 
My salad was a little more organic than necessary:-(

The first snows of the year have brought with it the first avalanche in our canyon this year.  Luckily today the skiers were prepared with beacons and phones and the one guy who was buried was found alive if unconscious within ten minutes and all were OK.  PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE  take  care in the back country if you really must go there.

Brighton ski resort opens tomorrow.  I have decided to have one more go at skiing this year.  All the squats and lunges I have been doing lately must surely have made my legs strong enough and I got a really nice down-filled ski jacket in the Sport Authority's (GARTs) annual SNIAGRAB (read it backwards!) sale.

Pro Fusion

I have lots to say today, so I hope you are sitting comfortably.

We had a really good evening yesterday.  First we went to Gary's squash club - the only one here with proper European sized courts, that they built specially for him shortly after we arrived here - to watch the club pro (Australian) play another visiting pro (also Australian, but playing for Ireland - his name is Liam so I am guessing his family may have originally come from Ireland).  The match was the best of five games and it went to 2 all and 9-9 in the last game.  Liam finally won.  Watching sports is not really my thing, but it was a very exciting match!

After that we went to dinner with one of Gary's squash buddies and his wife.  He works for the DABC (Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control) - the department responsible for enforcing the very strange liquor laws in Utah, so he knows a lot about wine and knows many of the local restaurateurs.

We went to the Butterfly restaurant that has recently opened here at The Depot.  The depot building was originally the Union Pacific Railway Station. The original Butterfly is in San Francisco.  The food is "Asian Fusion" and was really very nice.  We were introduced to the manager and he sent us a complimentary appetiser - smoked salmon and strwberry wraps which sounds like the weirdest combination but really did work.  We also had some edamame - Gary and I both discovered too late that you don't eat the pods, just the beans inside!  I had duck, kind of Peking style, but not traditionally so with the really crispy skin.  (I have never had duck served with really crispy skin here and that is the bit I really like - fatty though it is.  Or pork served with crackling for that matter.)  Gary had Fillet Mignon.  I had creme brule for dessert (my favourite) but it was not the best I have had - it didn't have the silky smooth texture I would expect.

While we were eating the chef came out to make sure we were enjoying it.  He was a nice guy not at all like the Monty Python chef with the meat cleaver, and anyway we really did enjoy the food so he would have had no need to use it.

After dinner the assistant manager took us on a tour of The Depot club.  It was shut that evening because the scheduled band had cancelled, but it was an interesting place., She showed us the VIP club room as well - very swish, but don't think we will be joining.

We were chatting with the assistant manager and it turned out that she lived in Chatham, near Maidstone in England where our families are from.  Her mother was English but her dad was Columbian, so her first language was Spanish.

A very nice evening and we didn't get home til after midnight and no one turned into a pumpkin.

Today we went to buy hanging basket plants and found some of my favourite fuschias - the ones with the dark purple petals inside and dark red petals on the outside.  Fuschias do well on our porch as they get a bit of shade - and they attract the hummingbirds.  We still need to get plants for the window boxes and some to replace ones that Charlie dug up from the flower beds.

We also went to Joanne's for more supplies for secret projects.  Haven't done any knitting lately.  I am ready to cast on for one of the front pieces for my Vogue Top and will probably do that this evening.

I have received answers to the One Skein Secret Pal Questionnaire that was sent to us, from my 'downstream' secret Pal (who, amazingly, has a Boston Terrier too) and sent my answers to my  'upstream' secret pal.  I have a while to decide what to send but have a couple of ideas of things she might like already.

Happy Valentine's Day

I have still been prevaricating over my Knitting Olympic challenge project, also my TKGA Master Handknitter Level II vest.  But I think finally I have a workable design.  There are just so many possibilities that it has been so hard to just pick one and run with it.  Usually having a deadline gets my creative juices flowing and concentrates my mind and this evening I think it finally started happening.  Keep your fingers crossed - unless it interferes with your knitting of course.

Utahns in the news.  First, DJ Boyd is still in the running for American Idol.  We will find out whether he gets into the final 24 tomorrow.  Congratulations to Ted Ligerty for winning Gold in the combined event.

Valentine's Day was a bit of a chocolate frenzy.  We melted some chocolate chips and dipped strawberries and graham crackers - didn't have the marshmallows to make 'smores though.  All very yummy.

I am rapidly coming to the conclusion that the laws of physics do not always apply to me.  The first thing that made me think this was that when I kick my legs as you do for swimming the crawl (oe freestyle) it makes me move backwards.  It does not matter what I do - I always go backwards.  Then today we bought one of those ball throwing devices for "girlie" throwers like me so Charlie would get a decent run to fetch the ball.  My first two goes ended up on the ground about five feet in front of me.  A bigger and more horizontal swing forward sent the ball a good distance, but sideways (luckily there was no one else in the park at the time).  This happened a few times and then we had to stop because giggling wasn't helping.

Starbucks sent me a form reply thanking me for my feedback and assuring me that my comments had been passed on to all concerned.  I noticed however that the drive thru' menu is still obstructing the window - I expect they will get on to it soon though ;-)

Opening Ceremony

I have just finished watching the 2006 Olympics Opening ceremony - I loved the people mosaic ski jumper and the spidermen dove,and the parade of countries.  We felt sorry for the single athletes from some countries and hoped they would have others to share their experiences with and to hang out with when the other countries teams were having big parties!

I wasn't sure about Yoko Ono and Imagine - Imagine there's no countries? How would we have the Olympics then?

Of course being in Salt Lake we had a lot of nostagia for our own Olympics in 2002.  At the time we were bombarded with so much about the Olympics we were a bit jaded when the time actually came.  I did however jump at the chance to attend the dress rehearsal for the Opening Ceremony.  It was a fantastic experience.   None of the big celebrities were there, but we saw all the performances by local people.  I was dressed in my ski pants, thermal underwear, warm boots, hat, gloves, handwarmers, and we sat for three hours in the freezing cold, but it was totally worth every second.  We even got to see one section involving large white balloons that never made it to the final performance because it was too windy.   Gary and Sam went to see one of the luge events up at Park City, and that was really our total experience.

Everyone was very security conscious as it was so soon after 9/11 - we flew to San Diego during the middle weekend, and on the plane we were forbidden from leaving our seats within 30 minutes of arriving at SLC.  If anyone had got up we wouldn't have been allowed to land.

I am sorry about Zach Lund being sent home, but I think they made the right decision - a banned substance is a banned substance and they can't make exceptions - we can't have everyone making up excuses.

Well, I cast on my Knitting Olympic project during the ceremony, but was so mesmerised by the whole thing that I will probably have to rip it all out and start again.  Especially as I wasn't really very prepared because I thought it started tomorrow!!