This and That

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so firstly, well aware that I totally forgot to get a family photo over xmas to cross off one of my 30 by 30, I have finally applied to get my passport. I was stuck after realizing I had no idea where my birth certificate was but knowing it was somewhere 'safe' in my apartment. Turned out safe meant stuck inside a mass conglomerate of cards and photos I have pinned to a corkboard in my kitchen. The only reason I found it was because I couldn't fit all my xmas and birthday cards on there so I decided to take down the old ones. Anyhoo.

On the knitting front~ got an issue to show you and then some fun stuff. Firstly, totally messed up my shawl.
Honestly, I had stopped feeling it awhile ago. I don't know why. I was so excited by the pattern but I just... fell out of love. Sigh. But mohair is impossible to frog so I just decided to make it smaller and cut out a lot of the rows and jumped right to next charts. The other night I picked it up to work on it some more but I don't know what happened~ there are a lot of yarnovers before and after purls and knits so I don't know if I fell asleep at the wheel or what because...
It's hard to tell but it's pretty fugly. Some of the yarnovers are monster yarnovers while others are not even holes. I also realized I had been purling all stitches on the wrong side row like the first chart said but didn't notice that the next charts had knit stitches on the wrong side too. Argh. I may try the pattern again with something other than mohair but for right now~ blarg. I can't frog it. I don't want to finish it. But it's pink! Sigh.

In happier knitting news....

My mom got me some awesome yarn that I'm turning into mittens for someone else because they're kinda small.
I got some awesome sock yarn from my teaching partner. It's a faux fair isle from Opal in a Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince (?) colourway. It's so much fun! Fun fun fun.

The Jellyfish is done!!!! I just need to steek it (cut it) and then figure out what exactly I want to do with it. I'm almost thinking a pillow set and doing an octopus and a sea horse or something. I just don't think it'll work as anything else. Ideas? Opinions? Thoughts?
Okay, and both of my sisters (hi hi) are going to read 50 books this year and I've decided to take the challenge with them. I have a book-book that I've been keeping since 2004 and have decided to bore you with the facts from it. The slow years are called 'soul-sucking university'. I use to read all the time but it's taken me forever to get back into reading. I actually had a mini crisis where I felt really bad about the fact that I wasn't reading and felt very poor about myself. Luckily I had friends there to tell me otherwise and now I'm very happy to say I'm finally back there~ reading and loving books.

2004: 27 books (starting in May)
Five stars: The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold, A Little Piece of Sky by Nicole Bailey-Williams, A Blade of Grass by Lewis DeSoto, The Sweet Hereafter by Russel Banks, A Pair of Scissors by Sharon Thesen, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime by Mark Haddon

2005: 12 books
Five stars: Sunshine by Robin McKinley

2006: 10 books
Five Stars: The Red Tent by Anita Diament, Knitting Rules by Stephanie Pearl McPhee, V for Vendetta by Alan Moore, The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls

2007: 12 books
Five stars: The Girls by Lori Lansen, The Golden Compass by Phillip Pullman, The View from Saturday by E.L. Konigsbury

2008: 7 books
Five Stars: The Wheel of Surya by Jamila Gavin, Maniac McGee by Jerry Spinelle, Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt, Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger,

2009: 21 books
Five stars: The Number One Ladies Dectective Agency by Alexander McCall, Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris, The Plain Janes by Cecil Castellucci and Jim Rugs, Push by Sapphire, Book Theif by Markus Zusak, Persepholis by Marijane Satrapi, The Guernsey Literary and Potatoe Peel Pie Society by Schaffer and Burrows, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian by Sherman Alexei

This is averaging out to only 15 books a year but I think I can still do the 50. Anyone else with us?