I’ve been trying for the last week to convince myself to sit down and post. Inevitably, by the time I got home every night, I was either too busy, too exhausted, or too much of both to sit down and write about all the stuff I wanted to. I did, however, manage to take a few pictures the other evening, so at least now I have those. It seems like the minute I stepped off the plane after Christmas, I’ve been going non-stop. Work is piling up at the office, due in part to the fact that it’s the new year and everyone’s eager to get started on new projects, but also to the fact that we lost one of our team members who left us for greener pastures. I certainly don’t begrudge her her decision - she wasn’t happy at all - but it does mean that much more work that’s on each of our plates now. If I hadn’t had plans this evening, I would have ended up staying at the office til 8:00 or possibly later.

As it were, though, I did have plans tonight. It’s Tuesday - the second of our hopefully weekly Tuesday Girls Night Out gatherings. Last week, I met with E and L for dinner at an Italian restaurant down the street from my place, though M was off celebrating her birthday with her husband, so she was unable to join us. This week, L and I decided to go see Sweeney Todd (who doesn’t love a little Johnny Depp every now and then?), and luckily E and M agreed to come with us. A tradition is born. In the past, I’ve always seemed to be more comfortable surrounding myself with male friends, so for the first time in my life, I find myself with a surprisingly large group of female friends. It’s oddly nice to have these girls nights out, no boys allowed. I’m hoping it’ll be a tradition we can maintain for a decent amount of time. (Unlike our Friday game nights, which fizzled out last fall.)

I’ve actually gone out quite a bit, lately. It sometimes seems odd, even to me, that such a bubbly, extroverted person as myself ends up living the life of a hermit most days, but with a busy work schedule, a limited budget, a circle of friends consisting of nothing but married couples who are content to stay in most nights, and a household empty save for two lazy cats, the opportunity to go out usually doesn’t present itself very frequently. This Saturday, though, I went out with a co-worker (the one who left for greener pastures, actually). The Dresden Dolls, a favorite band of mine, were in town and playing at the Carolina Theater in Durham. None of my local friends like them, so my co-worker agreed to go with me. The show was incredible, and I had a real blast. I had forgotten just how much fun it was to go out. I need to make myself do it more often.

Saturday was a big day in other ways, too. I finally got around to scheduling an appointment with my hairdresser, P. I’m excrutiatingly negligent when it comes to setting aside time to visit the salon, but really, it’s his own fault since he gives such great cuts that grow out so well. At any rate, I went in for a mere cut and walked out with an entirely new look. The appointment after mine cancelled, leaving P with an open schedule for the afternoon, and he begged me to let him color my hair, something we hadn’t done in quite a while. In the past, I’ve gone for slightly wild, bright red highlights, but I didn’t think that (or the green or blue that P suggested jokingly, or at least I think jokingly) would go over so well at the office. Instead, he lightened my hair to a sort of chestnut brown and added thick chunky blonde highlights throughout. I wasn’t sure what I was going to think about it after I put my glasses back on and could actually see what he had done, but I was pleasantly surprised. I shouldn’t have been - I’ve never once been disappointed with anything P has done to my hair, no matter how drastic or extreme.

My new do! Compare it to my look in December, and you’ll see the difference.

Everyone else seems to love it, too. Even my boss commented Monday morning that it looked great. So yay for a new look!

Most of my free time between New Years and now has been spent spinning. That’s partly due to the fact that Mom gave me some audio books before I left after Christmas, and I needed something to do while I listened to them. (It’s the Twilight Saga by Stephenie Meyer, if you’re curious. I highly recommend it.) The first thing I spun up when I got home was the fiber I overdyed after Christmas. Sadly, I didn’t get around to taking a picture of it before one of the cats managed to get a hold of it (damn cats!), and now I’m not sure it’s all that nice to look at. It sure was pretty pre-feline attack, though! The second I bound off the blue skein, though, my fingers were itching to spin up the BFL I bought at Knit Nouveau after Christmas, so of course, I gave into temptation and started it right away. In something like 3 days, I had managed not only to spin three 50g bobbins of singles, but to ply them together into an absolutely beautiful, plush 150g skein of a light worsted-weight yarn.

A 3-play handspun from Fleece Artist hand-painted BFL. (the original fiber)

Still in a red mood, however, and still wanting to do little in the evenings but give myself over to the trance-like state that spinning induces, I dove in to a bit of hand-dyed merino that Mom had given me a while back. The resulting yarn was quite a bit less smooth and even, but the colors are still fabulous, and I’m finally beginning to loosen up with my spinning techniques so that I end up with plush, usable yarns instead of the tight kinky wirey crap I was putting out in the past.

Handspun 2-ply merino

It hasn’t been all spinning lately, though. I’ve started a new sweater, though I’ll have to frog what I have so far due to gauge issues. (I swatched, I swear! I just… apparently have a different gauge when I’m knitting cables and crap than when I knit in st st…). It’s the Nantucket Jacket by Norah Gaughan from the Winter 2006 issue of Interweave Knits (apologies to those of you without a ravelry account, but honestly - with nearly 60,000 members at this point, who isn’t a member of ravelry by now?) At any rate, this jacket has been at the top of my queue for ages now, and I’ve finally cast on using this beautiful brown shade of Dream in Color Classy.

(Ravelry link)

Normally, frogging that much work - especially given that it’s cables, which I usually despise knitting - would piss me off and cause me to set the project aside. But the yarn is so scrumptious to work with, and the pattern is so enticing, I’m finding it hard to make myself do other things (*cough*postintheblog*cough*) instead of just sitting around and knitting all the time.

I leave for a business trip a week from Thursday, though - several days in a resort outside of Houston where I’ll be helping run a sales meeting for our company. As I understand it, though, there will be a lot of dead time, so I’m definitely looking forward to getting paid to sit and knit for several days. My job rarely allows me much time to even check my email or eat lunch, much less knit, so this will be a nice change of pace, if only for a few days.

I was also finally able to get the remainder of my Christmas knitting pictures taken and cleaned up to share with you guys. So, without further ado, I present to you … *drumroll please*

CJ’s socks, an on-the-fly pattern using my own hand-dyed Lorna’s Laces Shepherd Sport:

(Ravelry link)

and Laura’s kitty hat, made of the ever-durable and always machine-washable Plymouth Encore and Dark Horse Fantasy:

(Ravelry link)

At any rate, I’m out of pictures, and while there are still a million things I could go on and on about, I think it’s probably best if I give your poor eyes a rest and sign off for the time being. If your eyes aren’t in need of a rest, however, go pick up a copy of Twilight. I promise that by the time you’re done with that, I’ll have updated again. (Just don’t read too fast, okay?)