email me if you dont already know what the address is.

We had an awesome day yesterday. Nothing like Halloween to get you into fall, especially when you have a toddler.

We baked some awesome cookies

Hung around giving out treats and acting silly

Hope your day was awesome too.

Wet day, cozy night

hurry knit a hat and scarf

Rhinebeck tomorrow

So I never told you about the big party.

As I said, we use the boy's birthday as an excuse to throw a big family party. We have a big one, there's 50 of us in all on my dad's side, and believe it or not, we see each other fairly often. It seems as though this party has fast become a family favorite, and is one of the few occasions where everyone is in attendance.

Every year we have a theme, and it is kept a surprise until the invitation is sent. We get harrassed all year to reveal it which keeps everyone guessing (and truth be told, gives us good

ideas for future parties). This year we decided to revive a tradition from our youth.

The Italian Feast.

No, not feast as in Big Night, or something you'd eat at Babbo. I'm talking good old church parking lot kind feast. "Casino games" in the rectory kind of feast. Pin a dollar on the saint

before it gets carried down the street kind of feast. Think San Gennaro. Get it?

If you've never lived in or near an urban city, particularly with an italian neighborhood, you may not know what I'm talking about, and unfortunately I'm not a good enough writer to describe it all to you. But I have the fondest memories of spending summer nights at my

cousin's house on the nights "the Feast" was going on. My aunt and uncle were active in their church so we were allowed to roam the place at will, a few dollars in our pockets for the games. My uncle worked the Sausage and Peppers booth, so we always split one for dinner. A big bag of zeppoles for the way home. As we got older, we ignored the games and food and set our sights on all the boys. I can close my eyes and remember clearly the sights and smells of those warm nights, giggling over the silliest stuff, following the boys without being too obvious (and

steering clear of the sausage and pepper booth) and staying up way too late (waiting for the

midnight mass of course). One year, the house next to my aunt was knocked down and they built a parking lot adjacent to a small church that was on the street behind. That year the feast was right next door! My cousin and I would beg for permission to go every night, with the excuse that we were just going to buy zeppoles to bring home to share. My cousin and I still

talk about the times we jumped the fence and lied about how long the lines were just so we could stay longer.

So we tried to bring a little of that to my backyard. Here's what we did:

This is the invite. We made it in photoshop and made it into a postcard as if it were really a feast advertisement (rsvp info on the back). The faces have been smudged to protect the innocent, but my husband was photoshopped into the first picture, I'm the nun making zep

poles with my aforementioned aunt in the background, and my dad is on the accordion. Obviously, my monkey is the one holding the pizza. My son's name was in place of the usual patron saint (funny enough August 29th is the day of another saint who shares the same name as my mom).

Thanks for your support in my last post. I realize that my boss is just an immature jerk, and while I'm not really offended, I just dont know how much longer I can work for someone who I just dont respect.

But as the title suggests, this post is about happier things.

First up, Nursery School! This week the monkey had his first official day of real live school. We had intended to just put him in a two day a week class at the same place he was going for a "mommy and me class" (or in our case, "all mommies and one daddy class"). The teacher there convinced us that he was ready for the four day a week class, and since it's close to home and only two and half hours, we agreed. An added plus is that the husband will use that time to go to the gym, something he's been trying to fit in his schedule forever. So while in general I am

happy that he is in school learning and socializing, there is a little piece of me that is completely freaked out about it. Taking his picture on the front steps with his backpack was

completely surreal and brought me back to the times my parents did that to us. In any case, he was damn cute.

On day three the teacher told us he had to be in time out for not listening. Sigh. Let the games begin.

And of course a post about happy things has to include knitting. I finished up that shawl a few weeks ago and my brother's girlfriend seemed to love it. It looked great on her.

Pattern: Shape Shift Shawl from Interweave Crochet (Summer 2009)

Yarn: Knit Picks Gloss Lace in Celery - about three and half skeins

Mods: Added two extra buttons on each end (10)

Comments: It grew quite a bit when blocking, but I didn't mind the larger size. The drawstring idea is very cool, but you really have to tie it to make it stay. Also the button holes were too big, but you can really put the buttons through any of the holes without it looking funny. Would definitely make this again. My ravelry details here.

I also made another pair of the Mary Jane Skmimmers to match the Helena sweater I made previously.

I decided I don't love this pattern. The double soles throw the construction out of whack for me and its difficult for me to make two that look alike (or one that doesn't look slightly orthopedic). And I think the designer crochets very tightly because these come out more slipper like (flimsy) as opposed to being a real shoe as they appear in the designer's pictures.

Next up I am making my very first sweater, and for myself. I can't remember the last time I made something for myself. It's the "Hey Teach!" sweater from knitty out of Cotton Ease. I snagged this awesome magengta yarn on clearance ("azalea" colorway) and its pretty much my favoritist color in the world. Finished the back and have started the left front.

Lastly, I joined a gym. For the first time ever in my life. It's two blocks from my job, they cater to the Wall Street crowd (early mornings and late nights), its clean, bright, has tons of equipment and they were running a sale that gave me no excuse to refuse. I'm hoping I can start to fit in some exercise this way - I know that when everything else turns to shit, if you can at least feel good about yourself, you can deal with it. I'll let you know how it goes.

How was your week?

Anyway.

It's been a rough few weeks over here. Work has royally sucked and made me miserable at home because I can't sleep or stop thinking about all the crap I have to deal with. But I'm hoping the worst of it has passed. My right hand man guy who quit? I got him to stay. I'm not even sure what happened - whether I convinced him or if he decided he was nuts and was waiting for a chance to change his mind. In any case, he's staying and that takes enormous pressure off of me. We went back and forth all day, and literally minutes before the happy hour we scheduled for his send off, he came in my office and put out his arms for a hug, sealing his decision to stay. After that, I dragged him to the bar and forced him to buy me a very large Goose & 7, and watched in delight as those who came to the going away party harrassed him unrelentingly for giving me more gray hairs than my 3 year old.

With that behind me, work is slightly more tolerable. My boss is a jerk and I'm not sure how much longer I can stand to work for him. I'm going to update my resume and start looking for another job. Boy that feels so good to "say" that out loud. Last week in the midst of everything I had a little mini breakdown and was so happy that my parents and husband were supportive. I expected everyone to tell me to just suck it up and be happy I have a job in this sucky economy. But they didn't. So I'm going to take it slow and see what I can find. Maybe nothing, maybe something, we'll see. But I've been at this company 10 years and I think it's time.

A funny little thing happened which also convinces me it's time to go. CrazyAuntPurl had a little post about signs the other day, so that concept was in my head. After a particularly crappy work incident (which involved my boss saying "sorry', me saying "no you're not" and him saying "you're right I'm not" hello are you twelve) I was in the car, stuck in traffic and thinking about my job situation and if I should really leave. All of a sudden I look up and see a billboard that says: "Recession 101: Self worth beats Net Worth". It was so weird because there were no other words on the billboard and you couldn't even figure out what the ad was for (turns out it was from here). So I'm taking it as a sign, literally!

Now when I say my boss is a jerk, I am not kidding. He's not usually a jerk to me, just a jerk in general. But he's quite arrogant and competitive (which he freely admits) and most times I just deal with it, and sometimes even use his rough personality to my advantage - I talk to him like he talks to me and he seems to appreciate that he doesn't have to be all prim and proper with me. But lately it's been too much. He's been dismissive and inconsiderate and I'm tired of it. He allows a colleague to say negative things about me, tells me about it and then does nothing. He consults other people and makes decisions on my department without involving me. I complained about it the other day and he wasn't supportive at all. I said "so what you're saying is stop being a baby and just suck it up". His answer? "Yeah pretty much". Nice right?

But the last straw came the other day. We both witnessed a woman berating her husband in a public place. She was yelling at him about taking too long with what he was doing. When we were out of their earshot, he turned to me and said "Thats why women get beat".

Seriously.

Are you horrified? I was. Stunned into silence in fact - and believe me it takes alot to render me speechless. I didn't do anything about it. If I say something it will cause a whole big thing and it will just be worse. What would you have done? It's not me, right? That's pretty damn awful to say to a woman, let alone your subordinate, right?

Tell me it isn't me and that I need to leave.

Hellacious pressure at work these days, with lots of tough projects looming on the horizon and not enough hours in the day to get them done. On top of that, I'm stressing over the big birthday bash, since most of the cooking and preparation can't be done until the end of the week. The planning is slowly killing me.

On top of THAT, today, my personal friend and right hand man, came into my office and handed me the dreaded white envelope containing a letter informing me he is resigning. I am totally fucked. I don't know how I am going to be able to keep my head above water with him gone. Worse than that, I am so unbelievably hurt that he didn't discuss this with me, didn't give me any warning - just walked into my office like any other employee and gave me three lousy weeks. This weekend our families were together. He was teaching my son to swim. Not a word about it. I think he's crazy to leave for the opportunity he's pursuing. It took everything I had not to jump out my office window today. Everyone who heard called me to see if I was okay.

I'm okay. It's not a death. I didn't lose my job. My feelings are hurt right now, but I'll get over it. I'm good at getting over it. In the long run it will be better for my department because it will shake everyone up and get them to step up to the next level, myself included. I will learn alot. It will be good. But tonight I'm not going to sleep.

On the plus side - I got my blackberry back, I bought a fabulous new pair of shoes, the shape shift shawl is done and my son is tremendously excited about his party this weekend.

Perspective.

Priorities.

I'm okay.

But the kicker was yesterday. Our communications department was sending out a new issue of the internal newsletter, which included a fluff piece about my department. It is a serious slow news week when you have to tell people what I do, as if they don't already know. The week before they had asked me to take a "head shot" for it. They picked the worst day to photograph me. It was a rainy day, so after my hour and a half commute I looked like a drowned rat. I wasn't wearing a suit but instead was wearing one of those "it's clean and relatively unwrinkled and I'm late as usual" kind of shirts. With big flowers on it. Don't judge, you have one of those shirts, don't make me come and look in your closet.

So you see where this is going. When they sent me the draft of the newsletter, my picture was literally taking up half the page, and what was supposed to be a HEAD SHOT (in my book that means a shot, or picture, of your JUST YOUR HEAD) was practically a full body shot with my hideous shirt and totally unattractive hair. So I responded back to the "communications specialist" that I totally hated the picture and it wasn't what I expected. You know what that beyotch said??

"I think you look great! :)"

I think it was the smiley face that put me over the edge. This coming from a young skinny little someone who's biggest professional challenge is deciding what font to put on the "please don't pee on the seat" sign in the ladies bathroom..... Harsh? Maybe. I suppose I could have been nicer about it, but then, I wouldn't be me. So I wrote back and said "While it may be that I look like an unprofessional slob in real life, I would prefer to change the picture".

I had my husband take one of me this morning, fresh out of the shower, and in a suit. We'll see how it looks.

Come on friday....

Since we came back from Maine I've been trying to adjust to being back. It's amazing how noisy and smelly the big city is when you've spent a week in the serene quiet of the north Maine woods. The boy did remarkably well, I think the only issue we really had is that the campground was really quiet, and we had to keep telling him to ask his never ending toddler questions in his "library voice" with minimal success. The thing he loves most is to walk back to the camper from the showers in his pajamas. Each time he would repeat my warning not to trip on the tree roots in the dark in his loud giggly voice. Every time he said "don't fip on the roops" I nearly peed my pants. Here's some pics for your viewing pleasure:

Crocheting on the way up. These are little button loafers for a co-worker who had a baby boy two weeks ago. I also mostly knitted another pair of mary janes, (same designer, can you tell?)which I still have to finish up.

Our (mostly) quiet little corner of the universe.

Pattern: Helena from Knitty

Yarn:  Cotton Ease in Berry; 2 skeins

Needles:  4 and 6

Mods:  This pattern calls for a dk weight yarn, but I obviously did this in worsted wieght.  Made the 12 month size - I think this is a bit bigger but its for a 9 month old who will wear this in the fall, so I think it's okay.  Made a button band instead of the ties.  Awesome, easy pattern.

Ravelry details HERE.

I'll make some matching Mary Janes in the car up to Maine, and maybe a hat...not sure yet.  And then it's on to my next project:

Shape Shifting Shawl from Interweave Crochet

Made with a tiny hook (1.75mm) and lace weight yarn!  I've never crocheted lace before so this should be interesting.  What I love about this pattern is that it has buttons along the bottom long edge so you can close up the sleeves and make it a shrug.  I think my brother's girlfriend will love it, especially in this beautiful shade of celery green.  The question is though - will I make the deadline of August 12th?  Probably not unless I do a lot of this while we're away next week - I would love to but I think my husband would kill me.  I do plan to get a chunk of this done in the very loooong car ride up and back - 10 hours!!

Well, off to the Maine woods!  Have a good week!

I should have known not to promise a return to blogging during the summer, what was I thinking?  We are totally enjoying the weather here, when it's not raining that is...here's a little of what we've been up to.

Camping - I am totally digging our new pop up.  We've done two trips so far this summer - First to Hither Hills in Montauk. Probably my favorite place to camp - our site was practically on the beach and every night we would fall asleep to the sound of crashing waves.  The days are spent on the practically empty and always breezy beach.  Heaven I tell ya.  Here's the monkey all snuggled up for bed.  Yes, he still does the Linus thing....

A little impromptu sand art - actually thinking of framing this one.

Our second trip was at a fairly local campground.  A bunch of my cousins came and we had hree sites next to each other.  It was alot of fun, and even my cousin K who is NOT a camper admitted that she was actually having a great time.  Here is the monkey in full white trash mode (the place we were is sort of full of that kind of thing, so you know, when in Rome...). Gotta love the ice pop melting on his bare chest.

The Fourth - We did our annual beach picnic on the fourth this year.  This kid has no fear of the water, which is not a good thing.  But it was a beautiful day and we had alot of fun.

Birthday - My brother was away on my birthday and when he came home we made plans to go out to dinner the next friday night to celebrate.  He told me to pick a place, but every place I picked he didn't like.  I'm thinking that it's so typical of my brother to do what HE wants for MY birthday.  Turns out the place he picked had four of my cousins and their husbands waiting for me!  A little impromptu surprise party, it was so awesome, if nothing else than because it is so completely out of character for my brother.  That, and the 6 layer chocolate cake with the Vodka & 7 chaser.

Knitting - I have been sticking to my plans.  I have mostly finished Helena - pics next time once I've sown the buttons on.  Will make another pair of Mary Janes and then I start my brother's girlfriends B-Day gift.  I think I've settled on the Shift Shaping Shawl that was recently in Interweave Crochet.  The yarn arrived yesterday from KnitPicks - a beautiful merino/silk lacewieght in a beautiful celery green.  More on that later too.

Ive been formulating a post in my head about how I feel about this birthday, and life in general now that I've reached this milestone.  I haven't really had time to type it up yet, so you'll have to wait a bit more for it.

Funny, when I got on the subway to go home today, a guy sitting down caught my eye and asked me if I wanted his seat.  I politely declined.  Another woman, fairly attractive and about my age got on next and stood right in front of him but he didn't ask her.  I was feeling quite smug and maybe a tad bit superior right then.  Which got me thinking about life at 40, what the next several years are going to be like and what my attitude is going to be.  I was thinking that this might be my greatest decade yet.  But then it hit me.   He probably thought I was pregnant.

Yikes.

Whatever.

If you need me, I'll be at the beach all day .....

First off, I am NOT a morning person.  Unfortunately, my boss IS.  So this morning, like he does every so often, he asks me to be in his office for an early meeting.  It was only scheduled for a half hour earlier than my normal start time (8:30), but to get there a half hour earlier means I have to get up an entire HOUR earlier because of the trains, and considering my commute is already almost an hour and a half, well, "cranky" doesn't even begin to cover it.  To make matters worse, when I get there, he is on a conference call and promptly cancels our meeting. Grrr.  Off I go to sit in an empty room until the next meeting starts at 9.

By the time the next meeting starts I am really in a lovely state of mind, and I desperately try to stay awake while people with an inflated sense of self importance ramble on about insignificant mountain-like molehills.  This meeting goes on for TWO HOURS.  Honestly.  Toward the end, I get an email from my boss asking me to sit in on a meeting immediately following - apparently a potential client is coming in.  I speak to my boss briefly before the meeting starts and I ask who the client is.  "I don't know" he says, "they keep calling me and calling me and finally I just had my admin schedule a meeting".  Okay fine, so I sit in the conference room and await our guests.  Shortly thereafter, three folks come walking in and introduce themselves.  "Asshole lawyer, nice to meet you" (shaking of hands).  "Benign token woman, pleasure" (more shaking) "Potential New Client.  Charmed" (shake, shake....wait.....).  As New Potential Client (NPC) introduces himself, I start to shake his hand very slowly and blink at him.  This is because his name has just registered as the  INFAMOUS ARCH ENEMY of one of our most important clients (to be known as "Our Guy"). I mean seriously, if they developed a comic book about our industry, there would be Our Guy with his hands on his hips with a flowing red cape, and NPC twiddling his mustache and laughing maniacally over a woman tied across the railroad tracks.  This is a man who just last week was being given an industry award at a recent event and I wouldn't even look up at the podium lest Our Guy (who I was sitting with) think that for one second I supported the (blasphemous!) decision to honor this man.   I am wondering how the F my boss has allowed this man inside the building.  Now, my boss comes strolling in, and I watch him go through the same thing I just did.  And sure enough, I watch his smile fade as he realizes who New Potential Client is.  Right before NPC starts talking, my boss interrupts him and asks if he could speak to me outside for a second.  I follow him out of the room and the second he turns around I yell-whisper "WHAT THE HELL??"  to which he responds "I didn't know it was him!!!" to which we both repeat at the same time - "FUCK!!!"  We regain composure and go back in.

Turns out NPC wants to do a deal with us.  However, he knows that we have never done a deal with him in the past because Our Guy hates him.  We are not obligated to do a deal with NPC, nor do we want to because if we did Our Guy would blow a gasket.  In fact, as NPC and Big Asshole Lawyer are "giving us the background" (a background I know full well of because Our Guy professes his undying hatred for NPC on a routine basis) I am trying to calculate how likely it is that someone saw NPC enter our building, how long it will be until Our Guy finds out he was here, and which method I am going to employ to extinguish my boss for being such a complete and utter bonehead.  There is a lull in the conversation and I suddenly hear myself explaining that this deal doing is a tricky business, that involves uh, strategy and stuff, and that while we will certainly entertain any proposal you may have, we are in fact contemplating not doing deals with anyone in your particular line of work anymore....so basically - don't get your hopes up sweetheart, this ain't happenin'.  Apparently Big Asshole Lawyer didn't like that answer (cause he knows full well why we aren't going to do a deal), and proceeded to yell, pound the table and threaten us with lawsuits and the like, and it got really ugly.  So ugly we had to pull our lawyer into the room which led to a battle of the arrogant egos, which would have been entertaining if my heart wasn't pounding the whole time.  The clock strikes 11:30 and my boss decides that he must leave the room like RIGHT THIS SECOND, SO SORRY, TALK TO YOU LATER and leaves me and our lawyer in the room.  There is more arguing, more of them alluding to reasons why we wont do the deal and more of our bullshit explanations as to what the real reasons are.  We end it with our lawyer basically telling them that we can do a deal with whomever we want, or in this case NOT do a deal with whomever we want, but that we will review their proposal and get back to them forthwith.  I can tell you who is NOT signing the letter telling them we've decided to pass.  

This has thrown off my whole day, because now I am scrambling to speak to everyone involved with Our Guys account, to get facts for our lawyer on several accusations Big Asshole Lawyer made.  I finish a few conference calls, run outside and grub a cigarette from a complete stranger and make a few more calls on the issue.  As I choke down my lunch before my next meeting, my cell phone rings and it's my husband.  He just got rear-ended on the way home from the zoo - the police and ambulance are on the way.  Everyone is fine, but my son was crying so much the police suggested he get checked out as a precaution.  The back bumper and hitch are demolished which isn't major but it's a royal pain.  Fortunately, monkey was fine, and even enjoyed chatting up the EMT guys  and spending time in a real live ambulance.  

At this point my nerves are frazzled - I make sure my boss has Our Guys cell phone number and a script on how to tell him why we invited the devil inside, and I came home.  

My husband cheered me up with a good dinner and a visit to Best Buy to check out SLR cameras - I'm buying myself a good one for my birthday this year so we're doing our homework (more on that one later).  I knitted a bit, posted this and now I'm off to bed.

What a freaking day!!!

There is a little golf tournament going on over here (you may have heard of it) so my husband is going to spend the day there  - assuming the weather holds up.  I am doing the ultimate sacrifice by going to his parents house without him today - I hope God is watching and is tallying up these extra points I am sure to be earning.  At least I can do a little bit of shopping before I go - very exciting - the dollar store and Walmart - but two places my husband won't step foot in.

Due to the rain and the aforementioned golf on tv all day yesterday, I was able to move forward on getting my crafty mojo back.  First we went to Lowe's and purchased a cabinet so we can move our pantry from the boiler room into the garage - necessary to make room for my new space.  Went to the diner for lunch and then sat on the couch to knit for most of the day.  As the husband napped I even got to watch some of my own tv (including Dark Knight - totally didn't get the hype) which is not a common occurrence around here.  But look, I've actually managed to cross #1 off the list!

Patterns:  Tiramisu Blanket , Matching hat (my own design I made up as I went along) and Mary Jane Skimmers.  All made with peaches and cream dishcloth cotton.  As you can see I decided to nix the bib idea and made the hat instead.  I think they all came out pretty darn cute.  Those mary janes are adorable but it was very difficult for me to get guage.  My fingertips are still sore for crocheting as tightly as I could with a D hook.  Details for all will be posted on ravelry shortly.  So on to the Helena sweater, which I've already casted on for and knit a few rows.  Taking that to the in laws to see if I can get more done.  

I'm so excited to be making progress.  In searching around blogdom I've found a few other inspirational things.  Check out this awesome collage on Michelle's blog - she stole the idea and I want to do the same - is it totally me or what?? What I can't figure out is how I can avoid buying so many different papers for just a little tiny punch.  It would be great to do a collage-along or something so a bunch of people could all share or something....I'll have to think on that one a little more.  Also, please check out the newest project from Allegra - Petite Purls.  Is it so awesome - I need to add that little Jacques to my list!  

What's been inspiring you lately?

This is my new blog.  I am going to attempt to have this be my "public blog" (no references to any other places you may know me from, please) and keep my private blog, well, for private matters.  Like bitching about work, husbands, and adoption agencies.