Metric!!!! What a great show! They opened for The Walkmen, who Bryan and I have never heard. He just got the Metric cd “Old Word Underground, Where Are You Now?” about two weeks ago and we’ve been fighting over the cd for the last two weeks – I want to listen to it at work and he wants to listen to it too.
So we went to the see Metric at the Double Door on Oct. 25 , the same place we saw Bettie Serveert on Oct. 17. We had so much fun! Both of us were totally “rocking out” to Metric while they were on stage. We worked our way up to the front so we were right there. There were very few people who seemed to know who Metric was because they were there to see the Walkmen, but I’m sure they gained a few fans after the show. Emily, the singer, was very into the music. It was really cool – most of the bands we’ve seen recently have been the lead singer with a guitar type so they can get into it in a certain way, but they can’t really dance around the stage the way Emily did.

After Metric played we went back to the merchandise area and waited for someone to start selling Metric merchandise. It was really cool because Emily was the one selling the merchandise. We didn’t have a lot of cash with us because the ATMs around the area either weren’t working or didn’t have any money. So we bought a poster. We told her that we love the cd and that we fight over who gets to take it to work. :) She said she saw us rocking out in the front. :) It was so cool that she noticed us, now they know that people really do like them and not everyone was there to see the Walkmen. :) She signed our poster and we’re going to get it framed and add it to our collection of band posters in our office. I might have to scan it just to have it on my site. We’re both kicking ourselves for not having more cash with us because we really want to get Metric’s ep “Static Anonymity.”

So the rest of the weekend! My parents are in town for a conference that my dad is attending.
Saturday noon – I went to try on my dress at Marshall Field’s. It is SO beautiful! It was so cool to try on a dress that fit and was just the right length for me. I have a few photos of me in the dress and a photo with me in a veil that I like. I will email the photos, I don’t want to put them on my website because Bryan may be sneaky and look at them, I doubt he would, but I don’t want to tempt him. :) After I tried on my dress, Meredith tried on a bridesmaid’s dress that I really like – it’s my new favorite and definitely the one that I am going to have the girls wear. It’s so gorgeous and I think gives the girls the elegant look that I’ve been looking for all along.

After the dresses, Mom, Meredith and I went to lunch at the cafe at Marshall Fields. Then we went a looked at my china, dishes, silverware and wine glasses that I’ve registered for. Mom bought a few pieces for us. :)

Saturday evening – Bryan’s dad joined my parents, Meredith, Bryan and I for dinner at Chowpatti Vegetarian Restaurant in Arlington Heights. My dad and Bryan’s dad were both a bit hesitant about going to a strictly vegetarian restaurant, but they both had Mexican food and I know were very satisfied with their meals. We celebrated a belated birthday for Meredith and an early birthday for me. Mom gave Bryan & I a place-setting of our flatware and one of the serving sets. After dinner, Mom, Dad, Meredith, Bryan and I drove back into the city and we dropped Mom & Dad off at their hotel. Then we went to the Metric show. Bryan and I got home about 1am.

Sunday- We got up and spent a bit of time making cards. Then went to the city to take my sister to Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods. After that we went and picked up my dad at the hotel and went to dinner at the Italian Village. We had a great dinner and sat around and talked a bit after dinner.

We had our engagement photos taken on Sunday. It was so much fun! I think we giggled practically the entire time she was taking photos. Sally Washburn took them and they are wonderful. I picked them up yesterday and then put them in an album last night. I want to look at the photos over and over. We look SO cute together. Okay, so I’m bragging a bit. :) I’ll post a few of them in a few weeks.

A busy concert weekend – Neko Case on Saturday and Innocence Mission on Sunday. I don’t have any of the photos that I took up on my site yet, I can’t find the cable to attach my camera to my computer. I will get them up as soon as I find the cable.

On Sunday, I knitted two rows of the Hobo sweater. So I now have about four inches of the body completed. It’s knit sideways so I have one sleeve finished and then four inches of the body. It’s the first of two pieces so I know I have a lot more work to do on it before it’s finished. I love the sweater though and I think it might be a project that I’ll work on more as it gets colder outside.

I’m determined to finish several sweaters this winter. I will finish Karla’s sweater soon. I need to put it together and also extend the sleeves by 2 inches, so I have to rip out the ribbing and reknit it. Then I have to do the neck which will be a real chore, but at least the sweater will be finished!

Another sweater I wouldn’t mind finishing this winter is the Glint sweater. I’m tired of it sitting in the knitting basket. I just want it done!

I’ve also been working on Level 2 of the TKGA (knitting guild of america) Master Knitting Program. I’ve knit 8 of the 10 little swatches that are 10 stitches each – they are for the seams that I have to demostrate I know how to do. Seams in stockinette, reverse stockinette, seed stitch, k1 p1 rib and k2 p2 rib. I’ve also done two swatches to demonstrate raglan “seams” – a yarn-over on each side of the seam stitch and then a bar-increase on each side of the seam stitch. Sometimes it feels like I’m just knitting little things for no reason, but I am enjoying getting back into knitting by just knitting little swatches. Plus I know eventually having passed several levels of Master Knitting Program are more for myself than for anyone else. It’s like, look what I’ve proven to myself and I’ve also learned some things in the process. It’s like I can have friends tell me that I’m a great knitter, but haven’t experts tell me that I’m a good knitter just boosts my knitting confidence.

At one time, I thought that I wanted teach knitting professionally but I’m not enjoying it as much as I once did. It started to feel too much like a job and it’s not fun if it feels like a job. I haven’t been teaching at the Knitting Workshop in the city because no one signed up for my class in September and in October I had the testing exam that I was studying for and my time was stretched way too thin. I don’t know if I want to teach anymore. I am teaching a class next Tuesday at the guild in McHenry County. I’m teaching Seaman scarfs with the ribbing around the neck area to keep the person wearing the scarf warm. I think they are a really cool way to make a scarf and everyone that I’ve given them to LOVES them! So we’ll see how this goes on Tuesday. Depending on how it goes, it might be my last knitting class for a while. I’m hoping that I’ll be able to teach knitting at a Waldorf school because then I would be doing something I love to do – knitting and teaching and they would be kids so I wouldn’t have the adults who say, “I can’t do this” and have a self-defeating attitude and wonder why they aren’t getting it.

I’ve done a lot of card making to make up for my not knitting for the last month or so. I will have to get the photos of my cards on my site soon!

From my former “up to” blog:
Bryan and I went for a walk last night after he got home from work. I picked up several leaves for my cards-to-be-made. The leaves are absolutely GORGEOUS right now! I wish they would be this way longer. I don’t want them to be this way all the time because then we wouldn’t appreciate them. I hope they are this gorgeous when we have our engagement photos taken next weekend.

Bryan and I are looking forward to another exciting weekend of loud music and clapping our fingers off. :) We going to two shows this weekend! :)
Neko Case is Saturday night at Schuba’s in Chicago. It’s the same place that we saw Erin McKeown at nearly two weeks ago. The Innocence Mission is Sunday night also at Schuba’s. I think they will be pretty mellow shows – no slam dancing and no drunken idiots flailing themselves around trying to dance to the music.

Bryan is working all weekend so our main plans together are the concerts. I will be around the house knitting, scrapbooking/making cards and picking up after myself (maybe). I have some errands to run but they aren’t life-changing. :) Saturday, we will be stopping by my sister Meredith’s new apartment to check it out and wish her a happy birthday, which was yesterday. HAPPY BIRTHDAY M!

I was just looking at my statistics for this page, there are stats that tell me how people find this page. I am always fascinated by how people find me, especially when it’s from a search engine because sometimes I know what the search was. The last one that gave me the search results was “no sugar for a week” and the blog’s date that pops up is last year in November. It made me realize that I really really need to drastically curb my sugar intake from once or twice a week right now to absolutely zero like it was last year at this time!
Warning political ranting ahead.
I’ve been reading Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them by Al Franken and I’m mad that more people aren’t outraged by Bush’s latest problems. There is so much more to the leaks about the CIA agent that no one seems to be paying attention to. It’s serious and the Bushies are brushing it off and trying to make it sound like it’s not a big deal. I just read the chapters on how Clinton did a lot to stop terrorism during his time in the White House, but the Bush administration chose to ignore a lot of the information that the Clinton White House passed on to Bush’s administration. Then 9/11 happened and the right-wingers decided to blame Clinton. They should have been blaming Bush because he and his administration decided it wasn’t a big enough deal. Damn it, thousands of people died and shouldn’t have if Bush and his cronies had paid attention. Now we’re in a stupid war where men and women are dying just because Bush felt he needed to flex his military muscles. Yes, it’s good Saddam is gone but we should have had a plan. And need to have a plan now that we are there and men and women are dying every day. Don’t fund the reconstruction if all the money is eventually going to end up in Bush’s friend’s pockets. Put it where it really needs to go. And this probably sounds a bit calous, but do the Iraqis need a cell system that is based on our system when most of the cell phones that are there work on a different system? And do we need to build a more sophisticated electrical system than we have in this country? Shouldn’t we be concentrating on fixing our electrical system and just trying to get theirs up and running? I feel like we’re rebuilding Iraq so that it’s going to be more sophisticated than the US, especially when we can’t afford it. You don’t go out and buy a Hummer for your first car when you’re only making $10,000 a year, it just doesn’t make sense.

All for now.

Another weekend has gone by way toooooo fast! Nothing really that exciting went on this weekend.

Friday night, we drove up to Milwaukee to see Erin McKeown again! :) It wasn’t as fun as the show at Schuba’s but it was still fun to see Erin again. :)

Bryan’s nephew Michael was our house Saturday morning. He helped Bryan make breakfast – pancakes and scrambled tofu. Then he and Bryan went to the park/playground, while I went shopping for ingredients for artichoke dip for my scrapbooking party that afternoon. About 11:30am, they came back to the apartment and Michael vacuumed part of our apartment and helped clean off the kitchen table. He wanted to clean everything, he even asked if he could wash the windows of the sliding glass doors. We should have him over more often to clean. :) I’m kidding.

About 1pm, I went to Colleen’s house for a scrapbooking party. I work with Colleen and she’s mostly responsible for me getting into scrapbooking. She, Gelila, another girl I work with, and I go to the scrapbooking store during lunch a lot. We all have decided we need to curb our scrapbook store spending for a while, so I think the trips will be less frequent in the future. So I went to Colleen’s about 1pm, thinking that I would be home about 5 or 5:30pm, but I didn’t come home until after 10pm. It was a lot of fun, I worked on two scrapbook pages for the time Bryan and I went to the Garfield Park Conservatory in Chicago to see the Chihuly glass exhibit, which was amazing. After I finished those two pages, I worked on making cards. I finished six cards yesterday, all but one are Halloween cards. I’ve really gotten into the card-making because they are such instant gratification. Plus, I’m also 90% caught up on putting together my engagement/wedding scrapbook. I have a few journal entries to add in the scrapbook, but other than that I have to wait until th ings happen to add them.

Today (Sunday), we did some serious cleaning up of our apartment. We organized the towels in the linen closet (oh so exciting, I know), straightened up the living room – it needed a lot of work, I put about 1/2 of my yarn in one of my knitting baskets instead of it sitting in a laundry basket in the hallway, the other half is in waiting in plastic boxes in the office’s closet, and I folded clothes. See, nothing too exciting today. But it was one of those days where I felt really good about what we got done today. The living room just feels better to be in. There isn’t stuff piled on the coffee table and we found a place for the books and DVD’s from the library. :) I think our apartment is finally really coming together. Today is the first day that I really feel like I helped get the apartment in order because Bryan seems to do so much when I’m not here and I feel SO guilty about it. My chore next weekend is putting all the summer clothes away and getting the winter clothes out. Hopefully, I’ll have enough room with the space that I have in the dresser and closet for all of my winter clothes – a far amount of them are in a box right now.

I haven’t really started reading a new book since finishing Life of Pi, I haven’t had time to start anything. Tonight, I did start to read Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them by Al Franken. I only read the first chapter but I really like it so far. I’m sure it will be a great read! I’m also positive that it will make its rounds through the family, when Bryan and I are finished with it, I know my dad will want to read it, then it will probably go to my mom, my grandpa and then Aunt Nan might want to read it. Based on the snickers and giggles of Bryan while he was reading it last week, I’m sure it’s going to be very entertaining and very informative. Anything that exposes more of Bush’s cronism and how he’s ruining the country, I know I’ll like. Speaking of Bush there was a very interesting piece on 60 Minutes tonight about the Skull & Bones society. I found it very interesting that at least five of Bush’s top administration members are Skull & Bones members, although I can’t say that I’m surprised. I wasn’t happy to hear that Sen. John Kerry is also a Skull & Bones member. I just feel like if they are part of a secret society and carry that secrecy with them even know, what are they holding from the public that we should know about. I know that there are things that the public can’t know about security-wise but I think we have a right to know who our “elected” officials are meeting with in secret when it should be public record – ie. the energy meetings with Cheney.

I think I’ve knit about two rows in the last week, pretty pathetic. I’ve been making a lot of cards lately, so my knitting is still on the back burner. I will try to put photos of some of the cards up on the website.

Bryan and I spent most of the weekend reading. We were both finishing Life of Pi by Yann Martel for Bryan’s book group on Tuesday, 30 Sept. I was on page 119 when I woke up on Saturday morning, I read 90 pages that day and then Sunday, we both completed the book, which has 336 pages.

Monday evening, we went to see Erin McKeown. What a great show. I don’t remember a show where the audience was asked to sing along so much. It was so fun! After the show, I was able to meet Erin, I have a photo to prove it (she’s shorter than me), and she signed my cd! :) It was so much fun that I’ve talked Bryan into driving up to Milwaukee on Friday night to see Erin again! I hope to get the photos of the show up on my music page.