The Seven Sevens of MeBeth

Many moons ago, Amandamonkey tagged me for a meme. It took me much longer to complete than I initially anticipated, mostly because I got all excited about my favorite books and movies, and had to go reread/review all of them, and so I got a little distracted. But here it is…

Seven things to do before I die:

(I had a list of these things somewhere, but I think I lost it. Perhaps #1 should be to get organized, eh? I don’t like the whole “before I die” thing, so these are some things I’d like to do before the year 2006 dies.)

1.) Eat at Per Se.
2.) Do wheel pose (see below).
3.) Get paid to create food for other people.
4.) Write more funny stuff. Lots more.
5.) Have one of those dinner parties where everything seems effortless and I don’t end up getting red-faced, sweaty and flustered.
6.) Run another marathon. (Please read as if I put little finger-quote things around “run” -- I’m not afraid to stop and smell the Gatorade.)
7.) Learn to tourne vegetables really well. (A tourne is a bizarre football or barrel shaped seven-sided thumb-sized cut. It is really hard.)

Seven things I cannot do:

1.) Do a multi-day rock climb and sleep in one of those hammock things 800 feet above ground.
2.) Tree pose at yoga. I suck at tree pose.
3.) Also wheel. Why is everyone else at yoga class popping up into wheel while I’m stuck doing bridge pose with the 80 year old ladies and the really fat man in sweatpants?
4.) Be a foot model.
5.) Be an opera singer .
6.) Figure out how to make the stupid banner on my blog look somewhat more interesting. (I even checked out helpful books from the library!)
7.) Walk on any kind of tightrope, even if it’s six inches off the ground.

Seven things I say:

1.) Hot Behind!
2.) Carrots, hold still. This won’t hurt a bit.
3.) Just one more mile.
4.) Just one more bite/row/glass of wine/snooze.
5.) Oops, sorry, did I spill that on you?
6.) Can I have just a little nibble of that?
7.) I’m just going to read one more chaptzzzzzzzzz.

Seven things that attract me to my mate:

1.) He smells like dryer lint. In a good way.
2.) We have the same size feet.
3.) He can’t order food without asking the server eight million questions. Annoying, but endearing.
4.) After one drink he forgets that he can’t sing.
5.) Until he met me he didn’t know that pickles came from cucumbers. He didn’t believe me about this for a very long time, like, two years.
6.) He has great intentions to do work on weekends and exercise regularly, but he can be led astray with the slightest hint of cheeseburgers and the promise of a movie.
7.) He’s smarter than me, but thinks I’m smarter than him.

Seven books I love:

1.) James and the Giant Peach
2.) Anna Karenina
3.) The entire Susan Cooper Dark is Rising series. (As a matter of fact, excuse me while I go reread it all right now.)
4.) The Moviegoer
5.) Atlas Shrugged
6.) Franny and Zooey
7.) Frost on my Moustache

Seven movies I’ve loved:

1.) The Royal Tenenbaums
2.) The Usual Suspects
3.) The Holy Grail
4.) Pride and Prejudice (BBC – mmm, I love that proud Mr. Darcy)
5.) Shaun of the Dead
6.) The Princess Bride
7.) Spellbound

Seven people to tag:

Oh crap, everyone’s done this already. Have you not done this? Leave a comment and you are hereby be-tagged.

Does Raglan Really Work?

The Hourglass is my first raglan sweater. I just joined the arms to the body, attaching two sleeves to the tube top part.



Set in sleeves make sense to me. You make a vest, you make some sleeves with round shoulder tops, and you sew them in. The finishing is annoying, but I understand how it all comes together.

The raglan thing – I just don’t get it. It looks like I’ll be making a sort of triangle up from the tube top/sleeve and ending in the neckline, but I don’t think I’m shaped that way. My shoulders are boxy; they don’t slope, they just sort of jut out. I can’t envision how this sweater will fit without having big poochy parts – either on top of my shoulders or in the front of the neckline or some other unfortunate and unflattering place.

Right now I’m just following the pattern with my fingers crossed. Please – if you’re a boxy shouldered reader out there who has knitted an hourglass that has resulted in unsightly poochy parts – let me know now so that I can resort to plan B. (Also, if you have a plan B, please let me know that too!)

Peep Research

If you’ve got even the littlest bit of either nerd or Peep lover in you, head right on over to peepresearch.org – HILARIOUS!

This weekend was Spiderrrific, with a party on Friday and Kaitlyn’s baby shower on Saturday morning. I didn’t get any decent photos, but plenty of the others have great pics on their blogs.

I’m not so coordinated when it comes to knitting and socializing, so I chugged away on my all-stockinette sock while snacking and drinking wine.

I See London, I See France

I see MeBeth’s…STASH!

Yep, today is Flash Your Stash day in the Knitblog world. Here’s a look at mine.

The basket of yarn booty from Argentina.



The messy knitting corner.



Sock yarns, a giant cone of cashmere, and some other assorted stuff.



From the underbed storage boxes, we have my spinning fiber and, you guessed it, more yarn.





Not exactly a beautiful yarn containment system (YCS) but it works in my little apartment. Hope everyone has an inspiring day revisiting some old forgotten treasures hiding in the depths of their stashes!