It's so incredibly cold that sworn enemies have put aside their differences temporarily...



And Trouble was so cold he refused to pose for a picture (although some would argue that this is posing):



We're off for a very quick weekend to Barbados - Alex and my first airplane trip together. It will be so nice to be out of the negative temperatures if only for a few days...

A Fantastic Valentine's Day!

Alex took me to build a bear tonight and we built a pink sparkly bear in a wedding outfit that includes garter belt, flowers in hand, silk undies, shoes and a veil. It's so cute and in classic Alex style he put a sound byte into the bear's hand.

The sound byte roars like a lion. I have a roaring bride teddy bear.

I thought it was funny because somebody has to be bridezilla and I don't want it to be me.

I have a video of the roaring bear on my phone but due to sprint's picturemail charge of $29.99 I'm not downloading the software necessary to save video from sprint mail to my computer. I'll gladly show it to anyone who wants to see it.

It was a great Valentine's Day.

Stuck.

It's unfortunately become my new m.o.

On my way to meet the knitwits yesterday I managed to get Alex's car stuck in the middle of my driveway. The car was aligned straight and in the middle of the driveway, just very stuck.

Alex was unfortunately 350 miles away in my van and we decided together to wait until he got home to get his car unstuck.

That left me stuck at home all day. Meredith came over and kept me company for 5 hours until Alex got home. We played non stop Rock Band and it was awesome.

Alex and James attempted to push the car with me driving it and the car wouldn't budge. It was stuck.

So we went to plan B and called Jason, Alex's best friend who is a former UFC fighter and a 6'8" powerhouse. Jason and James pushed while Alex drove were able to get the car unstuck. Jason is unbelievably strong.

There are no pictures of the stuck car. I really want to forget the afternoon after posting this blog.

The theory of stuck continues this morning. My 8am flight to Chicago for 11:30am meetings cancelled. I've been stuck in the airport since 6:30am. So far all flights on United have cancelled. I'm on an 11am flight now which will hopefully be ontime. I will miss my client meetings but have different ones tomorrow so I still need to go to Chicago.

Alex and I had a long good bye this morning. He was gone all weekend and with me leaving early this morning for a few days just sucks. It's so hard to travel these days and I really look forward to having a different career.

I did have one small victory amongst many recent wedding obstacles - no veil. I don't understand veils, I think they look stupid and they are uncomfortable. I've decided to go the princess route and wear some type of headband or tiara. It cost me a negotiation with my mom of not wearing birkenstocks - I have to find some type of dress shoe to wear now. Not a bad trade and one I can definitely live with.

I'm not sure Trouble knows he's a cat. He's currently in the doghouse after puking on Alex while Alex was sound asleep last night. In the 5+ years Trouble has lived in my house he has never puked with the exception of twice in the last two weeks and both times Alex was the unfortunate recipient. He's been temporarily banned from sleeping with us.

In his effort to win over Alex, he looked his cutest while sitting quietly in my chair tonight - if you consider this sitting:

Pose 1:



Pose 2:



One last note - big condolescences go out to my friend and peer Rob who had to put his cat to sleep yesterday. Rob's cat mimmicked Berlin's symptoms and exact illness and in the end he too ended up putting his cat to sleep.

Alex offered to ship him Jack.

So much progress!

I ordered my wedding dress yesterday, we purchased Alex's wedding band today, Alex created the cover letter for the wedding cruise brochure and we have had numerous wedding conversations with our respective families.

Life is so busy and full of wedding plans but it's very exciting.

Big kudos to Nancy for covering my tattoo on my arm - the last trauma I wanted to deal with yesterday while wedding gown shopping was the drama over having a tattoo (or two or three).

I'm off to my first Superbowl party...

My request to join ravelry was accepted/extended last week.

I've become a ravelry junkie - I began posting my projects from what I can recall offhand since I'm not home but I plan on spending time this weekend logging my WIP's and stash. I love the photo galleries of finished projects and seeing what yarn people used for their projects. It's also good to know that many people experienced the same issue with their Tempting II as I did (I have to redo the whole neck someday soon).

For a long time now I haven't had the urge to start a new knitting project as my focus has really been on finishing items in my stash. I realized this week that it wasn't as much about finishing items as it was about finding a pattern that tripped my trigger. I've been eyeballing the Central Park Hoodie for a while and even though it takes over 3000 yards of yarn I think my interest has been triggered. Now it's a matter of finding yarn for it. I just so happen to be going to Minneapolis next week for work...

To our new team project (hopefully I won't be a party of one)??

Another hoodie finished.

Here's Nancy in her new top down hoodie made with Berroco's Pure Wool. I loved the color and the yarn. I would use Pure Wool again and it comes in many great colors. I think I'm going to make me one someday out of Malabrigo in my stash...