All good things...

Forgive me for letting my geek show, but all good things come to an end; and today I find my tenure at Yahoo! coming to a close.

I can't say I was surprised, and am a bit releived after having it hang over my head since our last all hands before Halloween (honestly, announce you're going to lay off 15% of your headcount before the end of the year and then take 6 weeks to do it?).

I met some ridiculously talented people, learned a heck of a lot about myself and working in a ginormous organization, and I think I've come out of it a better person....and with better swag (serioulsy, lot's of swag)

I think I'm going to wait until after the holidays are over to really start my search, I hear Monster is re-doing their job board :o). In the meantime, I think the yarn store is hiring and there's all that Christmas knitting that needs to be finished.

Peace out!

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Pumpkin time

This past weekend we did a first for us - we both carved pumpkins! I guess we cheated a bit becuase the carving kit that we bought had stencils. Danny shrunk them down (we got small pumpkins at the store) and we carved away on Sunday afternoon.

mine:

Danny's:

How cute are they? I have to admit, I thought Dan was being overly ambitious with his, but it came out so good!



While we were carving away, I also made a bolognese sauce. I wanted spaghetti squash for dinner, but didn't have any sauce in the house. I said to Danny that I was going to run out to the store to get a jar, and he said no no no - we make sauce, not buy it. Luckily I got him to concede to canned tomatoes, I really wasn't up for blanching and peeling whole fresh tomatoes.


You like-a the sauce?

Holy Fast Knitter Batman!

I have no idea how I did it, but I started and finised Alex's Christmas Sweater within a week.


Pattern: Child's Placket Neck Pullover from Last Minute Knitted Gifts
Yarn: KnitPicks Swish DK in Hollyberry, 4 skiens + a little bit
Needles: Size 7 circs and dpns
Outcome: I'm thrilled, I still can't believe that I was able to finish this in just 6 days. I guess it's all that stockinette, it makes for good mindless knitting.

With the leftover skein, I'm going to try to knit a hat to go with it. I think I'll have enough, but Alex is getting so big and I haven't seen him since April!

In other news, we've got the W Hotel Scottsdale official Grand Opening tomorrow night (I say 'official' becuase the soft opening was September 5th and we've been there 3 times since then). I have to put my company hat on and be cordial...thankfully, we're not going to be with Danny's work people on Saturday - one day a weekend is about all I can take. It will be fun though, good sushi right next door (Sushi Roku - YUMM!), sushi makes everything okay.

Funk

I've been in a serious funk lately. Sad about being away from New York during my favorite season, imagining the leaves changing color, the crispness in the air, the apples and pumpkins and bright orange and red flowers.

Had a big change at work, and really react badly to change. I don't like it when someone else moves my cheese; hell, I don't even like it when someone touches my cheese.

I guess it was just a bout of homesickness, we've been gone 5 1/2 months already. That combined with the anticipation of being back twice in November (the 7th - 11th for a meetings with work and the 26th - 30th for Turkey Day). Funny though, to compound the funk I didn't call or email anyone for about a month; most of the girls had it figured out - they're smart cookies they are.

And I can't seem to get the weight that I've put back on back off. I'm one step away from resorting to a grapefruit diet or something of the like. I've been working out like a feind, but nothing has changed, so it must be my nutrition. But on the good side, I've come to love pilates; or at least this one pilates class I take at my gym.

But, I think I've almost gotten it kicked, knit night this week helped; I had missed the last two which was a self imposed pile on to the funk. I think just admitting that I was funked helped kick it.

I'm medicating with yarn...bought some yarn from knit picks to attempt to start and complete a sweater for my godson by November 9th; and I've started cabling. Cables bring me much joy.

Romeo, O Romeo

Work on Juliet is almost complete - which is a good thing as I only have 1 skein of yarn left. I can get about 4 pattern repeats from one skein at this point, so I'm hopeful that it will be long enough.

I hope to have it finished by Tuesday when my knitting group meets up that way I can prove to them that I DO knit things other than socks. Well, that and I don't know how to crochet so I'll need someone to teach me how to make the crochet loops for the buttons.

Now that this is almost done, I really need to get a head start on Christmas presents. The ladies in my knitting group are cray about washcloths. I admit, I knit one as a test to check out a certain yarn and I really do like it; so I think I'm going to knit a bunch more out of the same yarn for people.

I think I need to either move my office, or move my stash, because directly to my right is my yarn cabinet and it's looking at me saying 'stop playing with that silly laptop, come knit something yummy'.

AZ Life

We've been in Arizona almost 5 months. Crazy, I know. One of the things that I'm now making a priority is eating healthier. We were really heathly before we left NY, but with the move and everthing, I've let that go to the wayside. Well, no longer.

Healthy lunch: curried chicken salad with carrots and raisin in lettuce cups

One major problem - supermarkets in Arizona don't have my favorite health foods :o( I can't find fat free sour cream (honestly, I don't think this is very obscure), low fat cheese (everything is full fatty), turkey bacon (I love turkey bacon, can't find it anywhere), and no one carries the Weight Watchers brand breads, pitas and english muffins. It's been rough. I was lucky enough to find tofu, but only the full calorie kind, not the light tofu that I used to get...I guess it's a start.

There's one health food store that I haven't looked at yet, but I'm scared to see what the prices are going to be.

Ah, life in Arizona...just one of the many (many) problems that makes me miss New York (fall is another one, I've heard the tempurature changed this week, it's 104 today).