I’m in a good mood. Why, you ask? Because the last four days have been really pretty awesome. Let’s recap:

• Friday Card Night - Recently, my group of friends has decided to establish a weekly get-together to play cards. Before now, we’ve been getting together semi-frequently, but never with the express intention of playing cards. We all (save one) love playing cards, and we’re always saying how we miss playing cards, and how we wish we did it more often. So finally we had a sort of “duh” moment and decided to establish a weekly thing. This past Friday was our second get-together, at our friends Wes and Maggie’s new house. We had a blast, and I can’t wait til next weekend to do it again.
• Sunday with Hans and Laura - I had an interview at Starbucks Sunday afternoon, but since my car was still in the shop, my friends Hans and Laura offered to drive me. We got together a little before noon and had lunch at Whole Foods (they’ve got such a great salad and hot food bar), and then hung out and played more cards until it was time to go to the interview. The interview itself was ridiculously short (seriously - like 2.5 minutes), so we ended up back at Hans and Laura’s a lot earlier than we had planned. Later in the afternoon, I went to go see Shreck the Third with Laura, since she really, really wanted to see it, and no one else would go with her (and I was mildly interested in seeing it), and then I stayed to have dinner with the two of them that evening. I came home and was finally able to get a hold of my dad, who had been gigging all day, to wish him a happy Father’s Day and chat with him for a while (which is always nice - I’m a total Daddy’s girl).
• Fixed Car Monday! - After nearly a week in the shop and a $1100 check, I finally got my car back this afternoon. There was a popped head gasket in the engine that needed to be repaired, and while they got the parts back on Thursday and were able to get everything put back together on Friday, they didn’t finish with enough time to test drive it before handing it back over to me. And because it was engine work, they didn’t feel comfortable giving me back the car before they had driven it and let it run for at least an hour - and if I had insisted, and something had gone wrong, they wouldn’t have been able to warranty it and I would have been out even more money. So… I waited until today (begrudgingly). However, it’s a good thing I did, because they called this morning to tell me that they had found another problem - my radiator was leaking so badly that it couldn’t be repaired, and it had to be replaced. It didn’t tack on that much extra, but had they not discovered it this go-around, it certainly could have cost me a bundle later.

This shop - North Raleigh Radiator - is great, though. The guy knew I was between jobs and could just barely afford these repairs in the first place, so when I explained to him that getting a ride on Monday would be difficult after I had already arranged a ride for Friday, he arranged to pick me up. As it turned out, no one from the shop was able to get away, so he called one of his customers, the owner of a small local cab company, and paid him to pick me up. It was a win-win situation, really - the cab driver was happy, and will continue to do business with these guys, I got a free ride to the shop, and even though the owner of the shop was out $15 for the cab fare, he’s secured another loyal customer. I can’t tell you how good it feels, as a young, single woman who knows absolutely nothing about cars, to find an auto mechanic that I can trust. So, for those of you in Raleigh - if you need serious work done on your car, I highly recommend North Raleigh Radiator on Wake Forest Rd. just inside the beltline, and I’ll also give a shout-out to my usual mechanic (who gave me the initial recommendation to this place), Auto Life, on New Hope Church Rd. They’re both completely trustworthy and really great shops.

So when I pulled out of the parking lot with my newly-fixed little car, you know what song was up on the CD player? “It Was a Sunny Day” by Paul Simon. The beauty of this is that this particular song is not only a happy, feel-good song, but it’s also one that I associate very closely with happy childhood memories. (It was also a fairly appropriate song, given that it was very sunny today - our high today was over 100°!) Listening to that one song as I drove home in my not-overheating-at-all car left me with a smile on my face the rest of the day.

And then to add icing on the cake, when I went into the rental office at my apartment complex to discuss my lease, it worked out completely in my favor, which I wasn’t expecting at all. See, when I first moved in, I had wanted a 24-month lease, but they had typed up a 12-month lease instead, and to get the keys to move in that day, I had to sign that particular lease. But then they had me sign a new one - a 24-month one - a few days later. However, a few days ago, I got a notice in my door saying my lease was up in August, when it oughtn’t have been up until next August. They couldn’t find the copy of my lease in the paper files, and it wasn’t recorded in their digital database. After a bit of searching, though, they find that they had the original typed-up version on their computer, and accepted that someone, after I had turned it in, had just misplaced it before they got a chance to file it. So, my old rental rate continues (yay!), and I get to stay in my apartment for another 14 months (at least). And this is good, because I really, really love my apartment.

And another great thing happened when I was at the office this afternoon - I got a package! (Mail can be good, but packages are always good - a package is never a bill or junk mail, and it’s almost always something you want.)

Interweave Knits, Winter 2006, and eight skeins of Manos del Uruguay worsted-weight yarn

I had spotted a few patterns that I wanted to add to my queue from the IK Winter 2006 issue (Arwen and the Nantucket Jacket), so Mom sent me a copy of it. I had also mentioned to her a while back that I wanted to use Manos for this sweater I’m designing, so she sent me eight skeins of this dark-bluish-purpley Manos she had at the store that wasn’t moving. See? Packages are always good!

Manos del Uruguay

I’ve also been making slow but steady progress on my Louisa Harding cardigan. Plus-size sweaters done with fingering-weight yarn done predominantly over stockinette stitch is a pain in the ass, but oh, this sweater is going to look so beautiful when I’m done with it. As you can see from the photo below, though, it’s definitely going to need some serious blocking. I know it looks like it’s biasing a little bit, too, but I think that’s just an artifact of the way the piece is sitting on the table and how it wants to roll up. Guess we’ll find out after I block it…

The unfinished back of my Louisa Harding V-neck sweater WIP in Garnstudio Silke Tweed

I’ve got one more really dorky photo to share. So backtrack to Sunday afternoon, when I was having lunch with Hans and Laura at Whole Foods. I had grabbed a bottle of iced tea to have with my meal, and it wasn’t until I sat down that I realized how wonderful a choice I had made.

The most perfect water bottle ever

You see, back when I studied abroad in Japan in 2001, I drank a lot of bottled water and iced tea. And as with a lot of things you can get in Japan, the quality of these bottles was far superior to that of soda and water bottles that you get in the US. The drinks came in firm, squarish plastic bottles with a really nice lip. These bottles hold up in the dishwasher and can be reused over and over again. I brought one back with me when I returned home from Japan, and I kept it with me for about a year, until it was just too worn out to justify keeping any longer. I was so sad to throw it away - it had been the most perfect water bottle. This bottle of iced tea that I got at Whole Foods was from that same company, so I’ve got my wonderful water bottle back! Yes, I’m a dork. But I’m a happy dork!