New Oven Day!

my mom peeking into the new oven!
merry christmas to us!

Our new oven was installed this morning. It's really beautiful and shiny, but it doesn't make the creak-and-bang sounds like the old one, and I know it's going to take me a while to adjust to buttons instead of knobs. Still...it's really lovely. We're breaking it in right now with a mushroom pizza, something we've been desperately missing for the past six weeks. I'm also eager to try out the puzzle-shaped cookie cutters I bought at Muji on my last day in Milan, along with a lot of other baked yumminess.

Other news:

• I had a really bad day yesterday. And the exclamation point at the end of it was being pulled over by an officer from the sheriff's department, not fifty feet from my house at 1 AM. I'd never been pulled over before, and I knew I hadn't been speeding and had used my turn signal every time, so I really didn't know what was going on. Anyway, I guess the light above my license plate was burned out, and the guy was really nice about the whole thing, and I didn't get a ticket. Still, it was extremely frustrating (and a little humiliating) to be pulled over right in front of my neighbor's house, when all I wanted was to just get home.
• I've been told by a couple of people that they're having trouble commenting on my blog. I don't know if this is a general Blogger glitch, or if it's an issue with my blog in particular. Is anyone else having trouble sending and/or receiving comments?
• Be my Twitter friend!
  

Sneak Peek

one down, one to go!
p.s. sorry about the bluriness...it's really hard to take a picture of your own arm!

I just finished the first in my pair of Endpaper Mitts. I thought the colors in the Noro would change more frequently, and at first I was disappointed because I was halfway through the thumb increases by the time I got something other than pinky-purple, but actually I really like the way this turned out. I'm not even going to try to match the other mitt's striping pattern to this one, so the two will be different colors. I think it'll be fun that way, right? Anyway, I'm really hoping to get the other one done by the end of my 3-day Thanksgiving "weekend" (Tue/Wed/Thu), but I'm also hoping to finish one of Flavio's socks, our oven will be installed Tuesday morning (and I've been going through baked goods withdrawl), and I've got a really thick book about fiancé & marriage visas to read. So we'll see what happens.

What Doesn't Kill Me Makes Me Stronger

Sorry for my lack of blogging this past week. At first, I was having some trouble adjusting to being back in the US. I know, it sounds crazy since I was only gone for a week, but it seems to have been a pretty critical week in the States! Halloween, the election, and the start of the Christmas season (is it just me, or does this seem to start earlier every year?). This past week has also been plagued by several catastrophes, large and small. They're pretty personal, so I won't go into detail here, but the phrase, "what doesn't kill me makes me stronger," is pretty fitting, particularly when applied to my relationship with Flavio. I'm so eager for us to start our life together...I'm hoping that once we're living together, all of the chaos will end.

But I don't want to give you the impression that everything has been bad since I've been back! Actually, day-to-day life has been pretty good:

• We bought a new oven!! It should (hopefully) be installed sometime later this week, but most definitely before Thanksgiving.
• I finally got a new phone. I'm not in love with it, and unfortunately I had to get a new SIM card, so I don't have any of my pictures of Max or Flavio, but at least I can make phone calls now! :D
• Flavio & I have decided where we want to live when he moves here in April. I've been having fun thinking about furniture arrangements and daydreaming about going for sunset walks on the hiking trails.
• Driving home from work every night, my hands are always freezing. I've been shopping around for some fingerless gloves/mitts (I don't like gloves because I can't get a good grip on the steering wheel), but I didn't like any that I found. So I'm making my own! Last night I ordered some Louet Gems Fingering in charcoal and Noro Silk Garden Sock in S258 to make Eunny Jang's Endpaper Mitts. This will be my first time using Noro...I've heard a lot of negative things about Noro sock yarn (and I've felt it myself at Twist...it's awfully scratchy), but I'm hoping that the silk blend will be a little better.

With Christmas approaching, I won't be blogging much over the next six weeks. But in January, I'll be back with lots of things to share!

Italia è per gli innamorati!

Lucky for you, I do kiss and tell! Italy was incredible. I've been home for about 36 hours, and I miss Italy already. Milan was a madhouse, but by the end of my trip I was getting used to the rain and the crazy traffic and the bumpy metro and the vendors shoving umbrellas in my face at every corner. These are easy things to deal with when you get to have a cream-filled brioche & espresso for breakfast and everywhere you look you see beautiful plants & flowers spilling over balconies and you walk past a gelaterie every 10 or 20 meters. As if that weren't enough, I also met a lot of really wonderful people.

Flavio's village, Vercelli, was really lovely. His family was so sweet and welcoming. We visited a street fair and Sant'Andrea (a 13th-century church in the city's center) and I had my first Italian gelato.

Then it was on to Venice! The train ride was cozy, and I got to see the sun rise over the hills. Venice was amazing. I ate four ice cream cones and we stayed at a beautiful bed & breakfast and we went to Murano and, oh, I can't even begin to tell you everything. Here are some pictures, but just believe me when I say that they don't do the city justice. If you ever have the opportunity to go to Venice, do it! I can't wait to go back someday.

Of course these aren't all of the photos I took during my trip! Although I took 300 photos, my computer is suffering from a severe memory drought, and I only managed to get about 56 photos transferred from my camera. See the rest of the photos I managed to upload here.

Arrivederci!

My dad is picking me up to drive me to the airport in 4 and a half hours--shockingly soon! I'm trying to finish up some last-minute things...knitting the last ear of the last stuffed toy, doing a small load of laundry, packing up toiletries, writing down important information, searching through the house for any little things I desperately need but will probably forget, making sure my head is still attached, etc. My stomach has been in absolute knots for the past several days. I'm excited, of course, but I'm nervous about traveling. Nothing bad ever happens to me when I travel--my luggage has never gotten lost, I've never missed a flight or had one canceled (or even delayed), I've obviously never been in any sort of crash or anything like that. But I'm still a nervous nellie about traveling abroad by myself. One thing I'm doing to combat this is by not sleeping tonight--and I'm going to try really hard not to sleep during my flight from here to Atlanta--because I want to be able to sleep through most of my 9-hour flight to Milan. Besides making the flight pass quickly for me, this will also help to reduce my sense of jet-lag, since I'll be arriving in Milan on Wednesday morning.

In spite of my nervous complaining, I truly am looking forward to this trip. It's my first real vacation in over six years! I never dreamed that I'd actually be going to Italy for a whole week, much less to meet my future in-laws. I feel so fortunate to be taking this trip, and I can't wait to share lots of pictures and stories with you when I get back. Arrivederci!!

Six Days

That's how much time I have left until my trip. It's not much, and I still have a ton of things to do before I leave...and yet I'm not really stressed out. Actually, I'm really excited. I need to get away from this place for a little while. I haven't been on a vacation in more than 6 years! And right now, especially, I feel the need to escape from my life. I keep seeing Max out of the corner of my eye, keep expecting him to be sleeping in his little bed when I wake up in the morning, keep expecting him to greet me at the door every time I come home.

I really love the little Willow Tree memory box I got for Max's collar, and I decided to get one for all of the little treasures I've been collecting with Flavio. Unfortunately, the first store I went to had Willow Tree figurines but none of the boxes, and the second store I went to didn't have the box I'd originally wanted. I didn't feel like driving to a third store to find exactly what I wanted, so I spent a little more money on one that was a little bit bigger. And, well, I'm really glad that I got this one because the few things I've collected so far have practically filled the box.

Also: a few days ago, I got a coupon from Helzberg in the mail. It was for a free pair of pink pearl earrings, no strings attached! I picked them up today, and they're really lovely.

I also bought a Hungarian phrasebook at Borders because Flavio & I are thinking about taking a little trip to Budapest, hopefully sometime next year. I've seen some pictures from other people's recent trips, and I've heard a lot of really good things about it (mostly that it's beautiful and cheaper than Vienna, which--along with Paris and St. Petersburg--is one of my dream cities to visit).

A Happier Post

Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock (in the Sept. '08 limited edition Gone Fishin' colorway), wound into a 'nest' with my tropical passionwood nostepinne

Yesterday I received this beautiful nostepinne (nosty, for short) in the mail. I purchased it on Etsy from Kari Welsh, a lady in Michigan who hand-turns them on a lathe. She makes them in all sorts of beautiful colors, but this tropical passionwood nosty really caught my eye. A nostepinne is an old Scandinavian tool used to wind yarn into center-pull balls. This was my first attempt, and although my ball turned out more egg-shaped, it was really very easy and fun.

P.S. Of course I'm not over Max's death, but I've got to let him go. I can't wallow in sadness the way I have the past couple of days. It's not healthy, and it's not going to bring him back.