Sisu in the new apartment

This is a pretty picture heavy post so I will apologise in advance if it takes you a while to load. This is our new place in Anchorage, complete with a final picture of a new neighbor who came over while I was washing dishes. Sisu just stared out the window.

Little, homey touches...ignore the clutter.

The hallway leads back to 2 doors on the right and 2 on the left. The one you can see there on the L is a storage closet which is pretty darn big. It could have been a 3rd room if someone was thinking clearly…see the next photo for more of an explaination.

1/2 the bathroom. I am standing about 8' away from counter and there is about 5' to my left! This is a HUGE, freakishly and needlessly so, bathroom

Yes, it is HUGE. You could honestly fit another tub/shower in there with ease. Possibly the argument could be made for handicap accessibility but there are no fittings anywhere and the toilet doesnt have the clearance. Even a new underling who stopped by today made the comment that it was huge. They could have brought the wall shared with the storage room forward about 6′ and created a room, granted, it wouldnt have windows but still. Or they could give me a hot-tub. Just sayin’

This is the room right across from the bathroom and its the perfect size. And it has a big girl bed!

There is a closet without doors off to the left too. Another bedroom, the same size or a bit smaller is off to the right. No need to see a bare mattress and empty dressers!

The perfect place to sit and knit on...

Can someone PLEASE tell me how to rotate these darn pictures in WordPress? They are right-side up in my iPhoto and this is driving me crazy! Either way, I have this beautiful set-up here and I am 1.75″ into the ribbing on my Vail sweater.

...my Vail sweater Swatch. Hooray that I will be knitting on 4's not 1's!! I also get to...

...watch the wildlife go by. Really.

He came by the other evening and I was washing dishes and saw something out of the corner of my eye and I almost dropped my plate. He was RIGHTTHERE next my window eating the tall grass you can see close to the front of the frame. By the time I dried my hands and came around the bar, he was already moving off and this was the best shot that I got of him. Where was Sisu? Looking out the window, not making a sound. She was as baffled as I was. My first moose!

Hopefully soon I will have some more pictures of our new life here in Anchorage. I want to get some shots of Sisu playing at the dog park. She has such fun there and then always sleeps well that night. Hopefully too I can have some pictures of more progress with my Vail sweater as well as something else that I swatched for.

I made a new stalker friend and went over to her house for a knitting group on Wednesday and I had so much FUN! Thank you so much for inviting me and I cant wait for the next one. As much as I miss my knitting group friends back in Pelican, I know that this is going to be a great group of friends too. I cant wait to get to know them all better.

Off the knitting notes…Thanks to not having a car, having a bike is great for my legs and waistline! I can already feel my legs being and getting stronger. It also helps that the dog park is right across the street and Sisu wants to spend every spare moment there. I am challenging myself to 8 miles a day on the bike (has been more every day since I got it…more like 10-12) and 2 miles at the dog park (simple because 1 lap is about 1.25 miles). Add to that the fresh fruit and veggies that I can get at the farm stands and natural market about 3 miles away and I should have to buy some new clothes again in about a month or so.

Darn.

It.

All.

I used to have a pretty physically demanding job with the seaplane service simply because I had to haul the cart with, generally, 600 pounds of stuff on it.  For about 1/4 of a mile to the post office and then back to the office.  And 600 pounds is the general weight.  It was 1100 yesterday, not even joking.  Either way, its not such a physical job anymore because we got a ATV.  Early on in the ownership of this new toy, a fisherman who I am not particularly close to quipped, “You are going to have to run more and workout harder to make up for not pulling the cart every day!”  We all laughed and I acted insulted…but I was extremely mindful of keeping up my workouts…for the first month.

I pulled up my jeans this morning and I realised that there was a bit more pull going on than even a few days ago.  Granted, *ahem* there is a girly reason this is happening, but still, I dont want it to be happening at all!  So for the next few days before going to Anchorage, I am getting back into an exercise routine  and moving my rear end into a good habit again.  I know that I have missed running and that workout high, that and the exhaustion afterwards!!

Keep me in gear here people!  Ask me in a few days how I have been doing   Please.

So about a month back I received an email that said that I won a prize from another blogger who was running a “donate to Heifer Int. ” contest. Rules? Make a donation, let me know, you’re in the running! So I let her know about my yearly donation and I was in the contest…and won one of the prizes! It was a shawl pin, hand made and exclusively designed for me by the fantastic woman who runs the ThatLoganChick Designs Etsy shop. She asked me about what I liked and disliked and said that as soon as she could get the beads and create my pin it would be in the mail from Alberta, Canada. I was so excited about the possibility of soon getting a shawl pin I even pulled out MY shawl and did a shell! Well, yesterday we had a break in the weather and FINALLY had a plane (it had been a week) and there, waiting for me at the post office was a box much larger than I expected that had come all the way from Alberta, Canada! Go and see what she sent me!! My flickr has the pictures as well as the other fun stuff that the mail plane brought me.  I think that I just might have to cast on in that lighter Treking XXL tonight.  Not like I dont have enough on the needles already!

On my workout path, I am doing so well!  I have managed to workout 6 days a week for at least 70 minutes a day for over a month now and though I am too scared to see what the scale says, I know that fantastic things are happening to me.  First of all I am loosing my, um..pooch?  I dont know what else to call it!  Its that fantastic layer of fat right below my belly button and right above my girly bits and for years it has plagued me.  While I was really active in Cardio Kickboxing I had it way reduced but over the last 3 years it was slowly creeping back.  Not any more!  I can stand up straight and see my…well, lets just say I can see everything below my belly button (and I could always see my toes!)!!   This morning I had the dreaded task of having to put on a clean pair of jeans.  As always, I dreaded it.  That too tight feeling that every pair has unless it is a size or two big?  Yeah, that one was nonexistent in my pair of 12’s.  Yes, in my 12’s.  1-2.  I stuck my legs in, pulled them up and buttoned them without one single tug, moment of breath holding or roll of fat.  I was/am so excited that I even woke J up and made him look and admire me.  He was suitably impressed so I let him go back to sleep but man, am I ever excited.  I bought them August 2006 but they had been getting slightly tighter from then onwards, mainly from my lack of regular exercise from that month on.  I had done Tae Bo with students the year before but just didnt do it again during the 06-07 year.  They became more loose during the end of the 07 school year and the 07 fishing season but were never as comfy as they were in August 06 or as perfect as they are now!!  I look better in them now than when I bought them!

I know that I love to run and I started a new programme where you slowly build to running for 30 min straight and then I want to work up to a whole hour.  Since I was already running for 20 minutes straight, I skipped to week 7 of the 10 week 30 minute plan (walk 1 min, Run 9, Rpt. 2 more times) and did just fine.  J was wondering if this would make me lose milage and/or speed but I did 2.7 miles so that means that the whole things was just under a 10 min mile (6 mph).  Not shabby at all!  The girls and I did a bellydancing video and we are all better at it now than when we started.

I’ve finally got my workout buddies convinced that we need to do a hard cardio workout at least once per week instead of strength training and more not quite cardio workouts…FINALLY.   I started running because I knew that I just wasnt getting the cardio that I need to reshape my body but they felt that any workout where their muscles got tired was cardio enough.  The only thing that convinced them was their Wednesday workout where they almost quit part way thru the Tae Bo workout that they hadnt done in about a month.  I had been saying how important it was to keep up the cardio but they didnt listen to me…now they listen to their bodies!  They were both at a plateau so hopefully this cardio change will give them the boost that they need.

Basics of Rewarding a Knitting Fisher:

I’m a knitter.  Ok, so that is a very “Duh!” comment but its true and needed to be stated so the rest of the post makes sense.

I’m not a clothes person or a shoe girl, I have enough of each.  I dont like a lot of smelly things like perfume and bath stuff is, sadly, mostly unusable because I dont have a tub to enjoy bubbles in.  Owning movies doesnt hold appeal to me (I think I have 10 DVD’s and those are ones I have watched so many times I have them memorised), especially with Netflix.  I’m not a computer nerd, gear junkie or a fanatic about anything other than the following three things.

What I do like is good food, books and yarn.  I love to cook and eat and not cooking and eating.  My favourite restaurant while in college was the one that let you grill your own steak and had a salad bar.  I make dinner every night and we rarely eat the exact same meal twice in a month with the exception of Korean style curry which both J and I love.  Here in Pelican though I have no place to eat out so that treat is out of the question.  J can cook but I, and he, would rather I do it.   Getting good ingredients is a challenge with spotty plane service due to poor weather so being exotic with my cooking is also a challenge.  Unfortunately, you are never supposed to use food as a reward for any kind of good behavior so that option is out.

Books are a passion but they can be heavy and unless I really, really love them, I try not to buy any.  I dont want to take up the space in my suitcase of “stuffs” and besides, there is a library less than 750′ down the boardwalk.  There are also other voracious readers in this town (you kind of have to be), and they are more than willing to share their much loved, just read once books with you, provided that you bring them back.  I have no problem with this arrangement and have yet to a) not return a book and b) find and read something that I can live without owning.  So books are now out.

All things fibery, well, I cant live without those.  I love yarn and roving, the patterns used to transform simple string into a garment or accessory, the tools used to make the strands of sheep fuzz into yarn and then turn the miles of yarn into said garments and accessories….everything.  I can justify buying any of it because a) it will turn into something eventually and replace a store bought something thus not taking up suitcase space, b) its entertainment AND function.  Who can say the same about going bowling or to the movies?  Heck, I can even take my knitting there if I want! and c) its pretty AND functional.  How many pairs of cute wool socks would be too many when you spend days in rubber boots?   How can you knock a beautiful wool hat if you can feasibly wear it from August to July, heck all year round here?  How many outdoors-y things are made for men and women are left with either very expensive or very drab/ugly warm/functional/poorly fitting clothes that were originally made for men?  In what other craft do you only need your own two hands, two needles and a mile of string to make something that is perfect for your own body?  Like I need to convince anyone who reads this blog of the passion which is knitting (well, maybe my sister and any other stray muggles that come around).  As a reward, this would be perfect.   But…

I’m on a sock yarn diet.  I have about 24 skeins of lovely sock yarn and I want to make something with each and every skein.  A pair of socks, from each and every skein.  While I love having them all to fondle and admire, I hate that they are sitting in a box.  I want them out and about and admired as the very cool pair of socks that I knit!  So no more sock yarn for a while…at least until I get 20 skeins out of the way.  I dont want to sell them (sacrilege!) or give them away (horror!) so my last option is to knit them up.  This I am OK with.  So no rewarding myself with sock yarn.

Sweater yarn is bought for the entire year already.  I am fully planning that Vail will take me a HUGE chunk of the year and though I have the back done for the Ribby Cardi, there are still the sleeves and both fronts to go.  I cast on for a EZ saddle shoulder seamless sweater and wow, does it take a while to get around 210 stitches.  This too will take a while and then the Simple Cardi will eventually get started, probably once I finish both the RC and the EZ-SSSS.   So no more sweater yarn is needed because I have no more time for sweaters until 2009, maybe 2010!  Needles?  Check, I have the Options and the Harmony DPN set.  Patterns?  Check, I have another year of IK

What is left for a girl to reward herself with?  Give me some help people!  I am making all these changes in my life that I want to stick with because I can already see good changes happening to me.  HELP!!!   I like to travel but is that a sane reward?  Maybe for a final reward but not for the steps along the way.  Just….HELP!

I graduated college in 2004, so why am I taking Anatomy and Physiology this term?  Because, dear reader, I want to get into a Paramedic training program that will not only qualify me as a State of AK Paramedic but also ready me for the National Registry test by making me spend a term out of state.  The program I want into has never not had a Paramedic pass the NR tests and as I did so well on the Basic, I am always up for a challenge!  So I am back in the college saddle and, despite the stress of having to wait for a book and materials and the extortionist prices they charge you for THIS terms copy, of the book ($435….honestly), I am all set and rarin’ to go.  Its a distance class and you only need a mic for asking questions in the lecture if you want to so guess what I will be working on if I’m not taking notes?

Yup, the knitting.  I’ve finished the back of my Ribby cardi and boy, do I love Wool of the Andes.  I soaked it in Soak and then blocked it in the boiler room a few nights ago and right now its trying not to get lost.  I have such a worry that that is exactly what is going to happen because now I have to wait for the KnitPicks order to come in.  4 of us went in on an order and $365 later we are impatiently waiting but between snow, rain and wind, we might not get it in on a plane for a few more weeks.  Good thing my Peace Fleece came though!  I was so surprised that it got here already.  That Kamchatka Seamoss is so beautiful and I have to guard the Lenas Meadow from would-be thieves in the knitting group.  I cant wait to work with it and I think that I may cast on to swatch the KSM tonight.

I’ve got socks going, the first of a pair in the Waterfall colouway from the Woolgirl sock club (1st shipment) done in a simple 2×2 rib and I am still working on the end of the foot, almost to the toe of the first of the last of my personal designed socks for my Mum.  Instead of  Christmas they may be Valentines and hopefully not a Birthday (July) gift!

On a non-knitting, more healthy lifestyle side note, I am spending a lot of time over on Sparkpeople.com  You can create your own workouts, track your progress with healthy changes, log your foods and workouts, read articles.  Lots of fun and helpful things.  I was logging and tracking the “Old fashioned way” with grid paper and a pencil but hey, if you cant use technology for good health, what can you use it for?  I dont use the community support so much as I could, I have Ravelry and my “real” friends for that, but its nice to know its there.  Check it out sometime, you may like it.  I am already a logger/journaler/record keeper on my own and this helps me a lot.  I’ve been working out regularly since October and J says he notices changes and I am too, especially in my jeans!

Though I spent a lot of time knitting this weekend, nothing compares to being able to actually run and move. Yes, my fingers are in tip top shape and more conditioned than any other part of my body but because of my ankle/foot really hurting and needing ice and painkillers, this cancelled out my running altogether. And that sucks because I am so addicted to moving and I love running now. This is odd considering my body type but makes sense with the family history (my father ran in high school and college w scholarships) Its the only connection that I have with my father but I prefer to think of this as something that seperates me from my Mum and sister, both who hate running. But I love to run, especially on a treadmill or on the boardwalk in Pelican. Regular pavement is so much harder to run on! I tried running outside a week ago and that was the hardest thing that I have done running-wise so far. And I will try that again in a few weeks cause it was great to push myself

I love to read and do so voraciously. Its my nighttime relaxation thing and I just HAVE to read before I fall asleep and I have found that if I dont read, I dont sleep so well and it takes me longer to fall asleep. The Brian Jaques book is the most recent in the Redwall series to which I am addicted to as well I have been reading this series since 8th grade and have read and re-read the series as the new ones come out. Sadly, my copies are at my Mums house and as soon as I have a place to live on a more permanent basis, they will be mine again. I am ripping thru this one and it makes me smile. Girl meets God is an autobiography by Lauren Winner and is covers her faith life and she journeys from Orthodox Judaism to Christianity. Its a fantastic book and I have read it multiple time and have gotten other books because of this one. Yes, there are little flags in the book, they mark reference points and other books. At Knits End is a treat like fine chocolate that you can only eat one tiny piece of at a time. It is special to me and is like a little treat at the end of a day. Yarn Harlot makes me laugh and nod and that is a good feeling to go to bed with.

I Love my Mariah. The second sleeve is coming along so well and its much faster than the first one.

I made a pot of clam chowder yesterday, Manhattan style, and it is SO GOOD. Its nowhere near as good as restaurant made or if I had followed a recipie…but its almost gone so that says something! I cut lots of corners and used a tin of Veg-All, tin of stewed tomatoes, 1/2 tin of tomato paste, tin of baby clams and a bottle of clam juice. The point being I wanted Manhattan Clam Chowder and I didnt want my Mum to send me any because I wanted it NOW.

Update on my Cafepress/Runagogo adventure. I ordered and they shipped my zip-up hoodie on April 8th. It arrived in Seattle on the 11th. It hasnt arrived here yet and its the 23rd. So I called customer service and right away, just after I told the guy about my shipping concerns, he responds with, “Well, I will send you out a new one today via 2 day UPS and you should have that on Thursday. If the other one comes, you just keep that one too.” YAY for awesome service and I am so hopeing that I will have it by this weekend. The joy of living in Sitka is the joy of flying or barging in all the things that we have here. Everything. And this means that shipping times are subjected to the whims of Mother Nature and despite the best efforts of USPS and their “Code” of Neither wind nor Rain, they obviously didnt have Alaska in mind when they were established. Granted, this was before AK was a state and before quite a few other states were in exsistance either, but my point remains! Hope springs eternal though and I have my fingers and toes crossed to have my sweatshirt by Friday.

Ah, the joys of dating a fisherman. J was in town and then out again and sometimes I swear that I dont see him more than I do! Life goes on however and if I dont get this job that I am hoping for, I will see him more than either of us can stand because we will be fishing together. An interesting thought and not just a little bit scary. The good thing is that we are both scared but in a good way and actually looking forward to that being the plan, should God will it. We both would rather I have the steady paying consistant job but if not, this is a comfy plan 2A (not plan B, cause plan B requires forethought that hasnt been thought yet!) We had a great night together on the boat and had a fun morning together pitching fish and a bit of odds and ends. Namely, the ADF&G numbers got repainted in black enamel and it looks so pretty and shiny.

My Mariah is coming along well and I have finished the first sleeve! And then I noticed that I didnt increase on the left side of said sleeve TWICE (after doing so on the Right) No, I am not going to frog it. I’m going to be lazy and pray the knitting goddesses out there wont punish me by sending swarms of moths and I will simply increase 2 more stitches on the L side in the last two rows before I slide them to the holder and begin on sleeve 2 and do it the right way on that one. Since the increases are in the seam I dont think that it will be noticiable. If it is, then I will admit defeat and frog but not before. Of course, I had to attatch a new ball 6 stitches before the end!! I would have done it on the edge if I had remembered and I will probably pull that back and do it right…but I hate “wasting” all that yarn. I know that its a bit odd but really, If I had not left such a long tail on the cast-on, I wouldnt have run out like I did. *Sigh*

I have been really good about working out and feel great for all my miles that I am logging for Runagogo and myself.

Unfortunatly, I did somthing to my ankle/foot on Wednesday and it feels like a sprain when I walk on it so today (Thursday) was full of ice and resting for it. No running for me until maybe tomorrow and if its not 100%, I will have fun with weights instead Either way, I will be at the gym!

This post has lots of tags mainly because this has been a busy weekend for me. A good kind of busy too and that makes me feel immensely satisfied; isnt that how we all should feel at the beginning of the week?

On the knitting front: Mariah sleeves finally got more attention and I am almost thru the second repeat of the cable, this time I remembered to do the blasted increases! It is easy to knit and memorise, even if it is cables. I am still in love with this red yarn and I cant wait until its a sweater I’m going to finish this sleeve and then CO the back. I think that I might go faster with the stockinette stitches and not feel so slow. Most likely though I will do the second sleeve so I can have 2 matching.

The PNW Shawl got plenty of attention too and I just finished another 4 rows before blogging and got 8 done over Friday and Saturday. This is coming up beautifully in the Anne and I couldnt be happier with the color. Wether or not I ever attempt a lace project remains to be seen. I just dont know if it is worth it for daily wear. For my special day however, I will knit just about anything!!!

I CO a sock in Juneau (Glacier by Cider Moon) and yesterday I got my box with 2 skeins of their Habanero colourway and another of Juneau. Why so much Juneau? Because I want this pair to be knee socks. One of the Habanero is for P’s socks and the other is for J (who LOVES his European Waffles!) I swear that I am adding more to than I am knitting from my stash for the LnV marathon! I’m too scared to count what I have now (and what I will add from Scout in 2 weeks) and I think that I will hold off and not buy ANYTHING else until at least August. You are my witnesses. No more yarn until after the wedding! I am going to CO P’s socks today because I want to get those done by May 1st or so.

Springtime in Sitka really is beautiful. The trees have started to sprout again and though nothing has turned that beautiful “new green” colour yet, the moss ON the trees has and that looks pretty too. New grasses are coming up and the daffodils are getting ready to pop. It has been quite windy here the past 3 days and will be for the next 3 if the Marine forecast is anything to go on. Its funny to realise that once you start dating a fisherman you no longer trust the weatherman on the TV rather, your trusted source is the computerised voice that comes over the NOAA channel.

No special plans for Easter here because it is a regular workday for me but I did get up earlier than normal and get in a 2 mile run at the school gym and did arm weights, leg lifts and crunches.

Hope you have a Happy and Blessed Easter!

I was really happy to get back to excercising this week after my surgury and so far, I feel great about it. I had my post-op on Monday and I asked my dr/surgon about my weight and he said that, and I asked him to be brutally honest, though I was a bit flabby, my mid-section was remarkably fat-free and I had virtually no viceral fat…great news!

He had me jump on the scale and I about fell off when I read 175. I have lost 5 pounds in 2 weeks and I have noticed a difference in my eating habits post-op too. I have been concious about trying to eat smaller portions for a while now but post-op, I can only eat about half of my “normal” smaller meal. I asked the doc about this too and he looked at me strangely and said that most women dont complain about eating less and losing weight! but said that it was perfectly normal and as long as I was feeling OK, eating a variety of fruits and veggies and not feeling poorly because of lack of food/eating, I would be just fine and to come in if I noticed any physical change like drastic weight loss or changes to my excrement

On the excercise level, I gave myself a few more days to finish the Runagogo challenge since I was cheated by the surgury and I finished my 100th mile of running yesterday! I am going to join round 2 (April 1st-July 4th – 100 miles) and actually participate on the site. I bought myself a hoodie from Cafepress as a reward for round 1 and incentive for round 2. Check it out if you havent already! I chose to log the miles I ran only but I found that my other activities increased as my milage did. I am still doing weights EO day and crunches daily and can actually look down now, while standing straight up, and see my girly bits without a pooch getting in the way. Such an amazing thing to me, it makes me smile all day

So I figured out how to put in in THIS post but I would like to put it on the side. Not that its huge to add daily but I would like to not have to think about it each time. Talk about lazy, hmmm?

On the knitting front, I am making a renewed commitment to my PNW Shawl too. I want to do 4 pattern rows a day (8 rows total) Not a huge commitment in terms of words but it is in stitches! This next row is 177sts and I will end with 365sts before edging. Since I

must have this done by August 1st, I need to make this committment. There are 117 days until the August 1st and 95 rows to go (before edging and blocking). This challenge must be met too! Funnily enough, one commitment ties into the other. Running 100 miles will improve my hike up the mountian to wear this shawl to get married in. I love how life works

Ever notice how good you feel after a workout but how jittery you get if you dont? Its kinda what I would expect a junkie would feel without their fix. I had, ahem, chosen, to take some time off from working out…Ok, more like I was too lazy to do anything…and just got back into my running/weights cycle yesterday. Felt awesome and, though I didnt go as long as I did a month ago, still did a mile and a half. Yay me! And then today, I walked into town (about .5 mile) and back. That was it. I am so jittery right now, you have no idea. I am kinda scared to try to knit anything because I am scared of how it might come out I have volunteered to drive the van for the school swim class to the pool every day and the really good thing about that is the GYM that is at the same place. Now, I can go in and get in a workout while they are having their class. Maybe I can even get in a pool session which is something I never thought I could live without. Class is 80 mins long, including drive times so I think that I will have about 45 mins which is totally OK with me, it just means that I have to be focused. And I know they will pick on me if I am just sitting in the van. I can get in a quick shower and though I still have to work for the rest of the night, this will be the perfect energiser for me. Workouts pump me up…which is another reason why I cant go run now to relax…it just wont work.

I am so scared that I am going to run out of yarn for the 2nd of J’s socks. I am in a push to finish it before he comes in this first time from longlining for black cod. It would be a great surprise present, even though I swore that I wouldnt give him another pair until he found the first…WHICH HE LOST!!! There are a limited number of places where they could be so I am not too worried. Either way, I dont know that I will have enough yarn and that would totally sucks because these are cuff down and there is no well in hades that I will rip them back. He was laughing at someone elses blog when they blogged about having to do that. His solution? Just knit the toes in another yarn. No one sees your toes anyway. It will serve him right for laughing if he ends up with blue toes on this pair! It will be good to get this pair done. Even though I know I cant “win” the LnV marathon (which they extended to July), I still want to get through as much as I can. I was feeling *smile* whelmed by my stash the other day and still want to reduce it by a few…though I think this feeling was brought about by the 9 skeins of red Mariah yarn pyramid-ed up next to the nice, neat plastic box of sock yarn.

I just put on J’s 1st and 2nd socks…um. yeah. those toes will be different…oops.

ETA: I thought I actually posted that post but I guess not! Therefore, this is gonna be a long one After examining the finished sock and the yarn left over, I have deduced that I will be short by the final reduction rows (2) and the bind off. So close yet so far. P laughed at me and then suggested that I make J’s socks have a hot pink toe. I would too, if I thought for an instand that he would even comment on it! J is just not that type of guy. Seriously, he chose THIS yarn for himself for socks. It is very pink and I dont think that I would wear it. He LOVES it. Loves it. I still look at the yarn and wonder what he was thinking. The gist of it is that he doesnt care. As long as its comfy and warm, he is all for it, whatever IT is I love that nothing phases him and that he is so happy-go-lucky about most things. He does worry about fishing and making money for our family, but what guy doesnt?

On that line, what is your definition of “family”? Even though we have yet to get honestly legally married (darn IRS and backtaxes!), most people refer to J as ‘hubby’ and everyone knows that we are together. We live together, share all expenses and plan together for the future. We talk about how we are to save for the next 2 years before we start trying for children and the travelling that we want to do before said kids. We only make decisions together, especially when they will impact us in a big way. He asks my permission to leave me to go fishing for heavens sake! In my mind, we are a family unit. To him, though all the above is true, we arn’t a real family until we have kids. He doesnt like my arguments about childless couples and maintains that pets dont count as kids, furbaby isnt a word and family means children. *sigh* At least I can say it here. Its not that I want to change his mind, I just want to know what the general consensus is. What with the changing of family units due to divorce and an aging population, I really dont know. In my mind, we are a family simply because family means love, caring and unconditional support for the person, if not always their choices. Granted with this definition my “family” is pretty darn huge but I am OK with that