Random stuff today, pretty much what makes up my life right now, minus family stuff.

• I didn't get to work on the Oregon Vest at all yesterday, but I am making some progress.  One more row until I start the armhole stitches – yay!  I still have a long way to go on this vest but I am loving every minute of it.  I'm starting to really get the hang of the pattern and making fewer mistakes, which is always good.  I can only hope that my skills are decent enough to pull off this knit when all is said, blocked, cut, and done!

• I have been dying up as much fiber as I possibly can in a day, which isn't a whole lot but I'm getting some stuff done.  I'd like to do a nice hefty update in my Etsy shop before my birthday.

• I've been reading a lot, every morning when I do the recumbent bike.  It seems to work out well as it is the only time I can find to read, other than doing it late at night when I can't sleep.  I've finished the first book in the Sookie Stackhouse/Southern Vampire series, Dead Until Dark.  It was pretty much just like the True Blood show, with a few differences, some of them pretty major.  I'm 2/3 of the way through the second, Living Dead in Dallas and ready to check the library to see if I can get my hands on the third book as I'll need it pretty soon.  I've seen quite a few people on the internets say that they don't like the books nearly as much as the show, but I have to say they are just fine with me!  It is keeping my interest and pretty entertaining too. 

• I have a renewed desire to get healthy and lose some weight so I've been exercising like mad.  Okay not really like mad, but I'm doing as much as I can without getting overwhelmed and tiring myself out to the point that I just stop and let it all go.  I feel great, not feeling bloated is pretty great, and I'm very optimistic that I'll keep this going for a while.  I can't look to far into the future with this as that is what really overwhelms me, so I mostly try to do good for the day.  I'm getting pretty tired of the roller coaster that is my health, that is feeling great and doing great and then letting it all go down the tubes after a week or so.  Anyway. 

• It may not be low fat or low-cal, but I know what I'm having for dinner!  I can't resist.  Since I am the only one in the house who loves mushrooms I can get pretty deprived and seeing that beautiful dish really makes my mouth water.  They can make their own dinner tonight

Have a great weekend!

I finished reading The Assault on Reason yesterday.  It really made me wake up, after I got completely outraged at how we have been purposely deceived by our current administration.  And after I got outraged, I did this – if you see this car, it’s me!  I just had to voice my opinion somehow, and that seemed like a good way to do it.  Let me say that I consider myself neither Republican or Democrat, I am more Green party than anything.  But the lies and manipulation tactics that the current administration uses are despicable and disgusting.  I’m afraid for our democracy as we know it, or used to know it?  Let me also say that Gore’s book didn’t tell me to pait that on my car, I have been thinking of doing that and more for a while now.  Anyway, I don’t want to go too far off the deep end.  It is a good book and it isn’t all bad news, there is a lot of hope that we can turn our system around, even if it will take a while.  My goal now is to find as much information as I can about things that matter to me and about what’s going on in a non-biased way and stay connected to the whole process of democracy .  So I have a question for you – where do you get your ‘bi-partisan’, un-biased news?  I’ve been reading the NYTimes online, and I listen to a lot of NPR.  I also check out BBC.com sometimes.  I’m new to all of this stuff, but I do want to be well-informed, so if you’ve got some good tips let me have ‘em!  And don’t worry, I’m not going to try and turn this blog into a political one, mostly because I would suck at it. 

I have been knitting too, my first Dalarna sock is almost done.  I’ve been working a little here and there on the Show Your Colors Shawl too.  That’s about it in the way of knitting.  I was able to get a ton of yard work done over the last few days, mostly weeding in the garden.  The garden is doing so great, we have had fresh zucchini every day for the last week and a half.  We also planted lots of pepper plants, and are now starting to enjoy fresh jalapenos, anaheims, and cayennes.  Too bad none of the bell pepper plants grew.  The coolest thing I think though are the pumpkins.  These are a small variety so they won’t get much bigger than this one, but there are a lot of them – I counted around 20 the other day!  I’m excited for the garden to keep doing well and looking forward to lots of fresh veggies to come.  Even though weeding sucks, I love everything else about having a nice garden.  I guess that’s all I’ve got today.