Saturday was a busy day!

Yannick and I drove downtown and met my mom there to go see a jeweler friend of Yannick’s family. He (Barry) is the man who custom-made my engagement ring, and we needed to meet with him to have a wedding band designed to wear with it. My mom met us there because she wanted to pick out a chain to wear with a pendant at the wedding, but she took her own car so she could leave before us as she had to drive up north to pick my sister up from camp so she could attend my bachelorette party that night, and my grandmother’s unveiling the next day. We picked the band (plain, simple, no stones) and I had some earrings ordered to match a necklace I will be wearing at the wedding. The necklace is unique and it is impossible to find earrings to go with it! We did a bit of shopping at the Baie downtown since it was right at the corner, then headed to Decor Decarie so I could browse Winners for a shirt of the bachelorette, since I am currently unenamoured of my wardrobe. I bought 2 black tops and 1 brown one, and figured I’d decide later.

Yannick dropped me off at home then had to go work for a bit, so I went tanning and did a 30min workout video, then showered and did my nails so they’d be pretty for the evening (I’m such a girl!). The dinner was scheduled for 8pm at Baton Rouge and my sister was going to pick me up, so I got myself dressed and ready for around 7:30. I should have known better, as she picked me up around 8:45…apparently she needs 3 hrs to shower and do her hair (dry it, straighten it then curl it- don’t ask- she’s 18). We finally got there and there were 20 or so members of my family and friends snacking on hors d’oeuvres and having a jolly old time. There was an empty chair for me right in the middle…with balloons tied to it.

First they made me put on a plastic sash that said “Bride to Be” and a white veil on a hairband. Then 2 of my cousins gave me a little gift package that I had to open in front of everyone. The note said they were items to be used with Yannick or alone, and it was the “alone” part that made me nervous about opening it in public!

The first item in the package was a clear box with fake rosepetals to be sprinkled on the bed or bath. That’s really sweet. Next was what appeared to be a glow-stick (like they use at raves- the kind you “crack” in half and then it glows neon colors for 8-10 hrs) in hot pink with a cord to wear it around the neck. A closer inspection revealed it was shaped like a part of the male anatomy. The femur, yeah, that’s it, the femur. So Brigitte, Yannick’s sister, grabs the “femur”, cracks it, and hangs it around my neck. The shirt I was wearing had a very low v-neck, so people had fun all night tucking the femur into my shirt, both downwards and pointing upwards. It glowed a really, really hot pink.

The next item in the box was fun for the whole table. Remember those little foam animals that you could put in water and they would grow, and take them out and they’d shrink? Well, package #2 was a little femur, red and around 1″ long. We asked the waiter for a pitcher of water, but after placing it in we read the packaging further and saw it would take 12 hrs to grow to its full 5″ long. But it was entertaining anyways.

The last item was a soap-on-a-rope, shaped like- you guessed it- a femur. That one stayed in the box (although Yannick opened it on Sunday and it too is hot pink).

We had a fun dinner and after dinner the “young’uns” came back to my mom’s house (the “oldies” weren’t invited). My mom, ever the hostess, even in absentia, had decorated the basement with hot pink and black streamers, and had signs up proclaiming “Frisky Business”. Yes, my bachelorette party had a theme name. There was wine and veggies with dip and chips and sodas all left out for us. When we got back to the house everyone started changing into clothes they’d brought…and suddenly there appears a bag of my clothes that Yannick had dropped off. We had to wear comfy pants and heels- we would be learning the art of erotic dance!

My cousin Stacey is a fitness instructor and teaches many classes, including erotic dance. For the next hour she put us through our paces as we got intimate with the wall, the floor, and each other (not like that, dirty mind!). As the bachelorette herself, I had the priviledge of doing a few solo numbers which my sister gleefully caught on camera. It was hot in the basement, but it was fun and I think everyone had a good time. At that point my mom had set out party favors for everyone, and then most of us headed out to the bars to dance for a bit.

I wanted to go to Cheers for a bit for old-time’s sake, as I spent most nights there in my teens/early 20s. I couldn’t believe it when I walked in and it was dead! There was a crowd of teens on the terrasse, but I don’t think there were 40 people inside the bar. I found someone I knew who still works there, and it turns out that an old friend had just left so I couldn’t even say hi to him. We left right away and went to Bourbon Street West. We hung out there for a bit, with creepy guys coming up and trying to hit on various members of our party. There was another bachelorette there, and at one point we got pulled up on stage and had to chug a drink. That officially marked the most alcohol I’ve had in the last 7 years- 3 Amaretto Sours and 1 glass of white wine (the 1st A.S. was with dinner, the wine was at the house pre-erotica, and the other 2 drinks were at Bourbon). By that point it was about 2:15am and I decided to take pity on my poor friends and myself and call it a night. I really think I’ve grown out of the bar scene. Maybe I’d feel differently if I were single, but it really holds no interest for me any more. I even felt awkward dancing and just couldn’t “get into it”. I had a really fun time, but have no real desire to do it again any time soon. I think I’d prefer a “pub” type place, like an Irish pub or something more intimate. The band was good, though.

I think I was in bed by 3:15am, and trying to fall asleep when I kept wondering what light I’d left on, as the room had a glow to it that was keeping me awake. Turns out I’d left the femur on the counter and it as still glowing pink.

Sunday it was hard getting up, but we had the unveiling for my grandmother to go to for 12:30pm. The unveiling is when family and friends gather and the tombstone or headstone is revealed for the first time. Afterwards everyone went to my aunt’s house for lunch. It was a sad affair, I found it really hard because Bubbie Helen is buried next to her husband, my Zaida Jack, who was my best friend, and it’s hard for me to be there and see his name engraved. I was really upset with everyone who kept coming up to me to ask if I’d had a good time the night before. They didn’t even wait to get back to the house, we’d no sooner than turned around when people started asking about it. I had sunglasses on and was quiet because I’d been crying, and people were asking if I was ok, meaning was I hung over from the night before. I wish they’d left me alone.

I can’t post pics of my current knitting, as Thursday I’d picked up some new yarn and a pattern from Veronik and Mona at JCA and am working on another sample for them. I’m rushing because I need to finish it by the end of the month, both for their deadlines and also mine, as I will be taking a honeymoon in September. (Attention would-be burglars- there will be people living in my house so don’t get any ideas, plus my neighbor is a cop so you’d have to be really stupid). I had worked on it in the car on Saturday and at the lunch on Sunday, then realized I needed to start over with a smaller needle. I started over Sunday night and worked on it in the car on the way to work today, and realized I need to start over again, with the original needle size. RRR. So tonight I will be starting over for the 3rd and hopefully last time. At least it’s a beautiful yarn…although I wish it had a bit of elasticity in it. The pressure is starting to come on as I realize I have this project, a charity baby blanket, 2 pairs of socks and a shrug to do by the end of the month. Guess what? Most of that is getting dropped. The shrug is for me, and can be put off. The socks are for Yannick and can wait indefinately. My priority right now is the JCA project and then, if there is time, to finish the baby blanket. If not I will have to give it in half finished and ask them to find someone to finish it, or ask if it can wait until the end of Sept, or maybe ask (beg) my cousin to finish it up. So no knitting photos for now. I’ll have to find other photos to keep the blog interesting.

I finished the chart section for the first of Yannick’s Surprise Bowling Socks. Now the sock will be joined in the round, and a photo wouldn’t be as easy to take, so I made sure to remember to take one now.

I’m so happy with how these are turning out! Besides “Plunger”, my submission for the new SnB book (which I’m still waiting to hear about), these are my first attempts at intarsia. I don’t understand why people are leery of this technique. All you’re doing is knitting as usual! I find Fair Isle more annoying than this, it was so easy and the rows just flew by! Sure there will be ends to weave in later, but I think the results are worth it.

I’m really pleased with the red band on the pins. I was upset that I didn’t have any red or orange sock yarn, and didn’t want to buy a whole ball for just these little bits. Then I remembered- my Sunrise Socks! I have plenty left over…so I used that. I find the variegation reminds me of old fashioned bowling pins, and I smile every time I see them.This is the first sock of the pair. The two needles on either side will be joined for the heel section, and the other needle is for the top of the foot. The heel will be seamed later, as will the back of the sock, to make it into a tube. (This is because you can’t knit intarsia in the round).
A closeup. All 3 bowling balls are completed, but the needles were curling upwards so you can’t really see the full ball. I was debating putting 3 white or charcoal dots on the balls for the holes, but was afraid they’d look too much like coconuts, so I left them as is.

Since there are those of you who like this kind of thing…this is what the back looks like. Exactly like the front but with an overlapping outline of each shape because when you switch colors you need to twist the yarns to avoid holes.
The only parts I find sloppy are the edges of the red bands where I carried the white up to use again for the rest of the pins. I didn’t feel like cutting the white to reattach it 4 rows later, and have an extra 2 ends to weave in.

These are long socks! And I only did about an inch of ribbing at the top- the original pattern calls for 3.5″ of ribbing!

I’m so pleased with these so far!

Oh- and to those who (very sweetly) commented on my photos with Yannick…they were taken at Centennial Hill at the corner of Lake Road and Manual, in the West Island. And THANK YOU for the compliments…but don’t forget…200 photos were taken…I only saved about 35 to the computer…there are a LOT of fugly photos of me on that disk! Yannick looks great in almost all of them…but I’m very picky about what images of me are made public. Why else do you think my photo up in the corner there is from 1996?? ;]

As posted on the Amazing Lace boards, challenge #5 is as follows:

Do you ever get to the point where you’ve knit so much lace that you start seeing lace everywhere? A sunset reminds you of the colorway of your shawl; iron scrollwork on a bridge reminds you of the lace motif on your lacy socks; your eyes can immediately spot a flash of lace a mile away?

In honor of that slightly crazed I-see-lace-everywhere mental state that’s a symptom of obsessive lace knitting, your challenge is to post one photo on your blog in which your lace is a hidden or unexpected part of the picture. This could be interpreted in any number of ways. You could go a hidden-in-plain-sight route. You could camouflage your lace. You could make your lace a tiny part of a large scene, a la the original Where’s Waldo (I’m picturing a sea of white gym socks with one pair of white lace socks…but I didn’t have the energy or the props to make an example photo). You could do something completely unrelated to these suggestions — as long as it’s clever and fun and your lace appears in the picture.

This is the most abstract of all the challenges. In spite of these examples we’re not even sure what we’re expecting. So be creative — we can’t wait to see what you come up with!

So here is my entry. It’s not very good, but I am tired and the stuff I wanted to photograph just didn’t work in the execution. So this is what you get.

As posted on the Amazing Lace boards, challenge #5 is as follows:

Do you ever get to the point where you’ve knit so much lace that you start seeing lace everywhere? A sunset reminds you of the colorway of your shawl; iron scrollwork on a bridge reminds you of the lace motif on your lacy socks; your eyes can immediately spot a flash of lace a mile away?

In honor of that slightly crazed I-see-lace-everywhere mental state that’s a symptom of obsessive lace knitting, your challenge is to post one photo on your blog in which your lace is a hidden or unexpected part of the picture. This could be interpreted in any number of ways. You could go a hidden-in-plain-sight route. You could camouflage your lace. You could make your lace a tiny part of a large scene, a la the original Where’s Waldo (I’m picturing a sea of white gym socks with one pair of white lace socks…but I didn’t have the energy or the props to make an example photo). You could do something completely unrelated to these suggestions — as long as it’s clever and fun and your lace appears in the picture.

This is the most abstract of all the challenges. In spite of these examples we’re not even sure what we’re expecting. So be creative — we can’t wait to see what you come up with!

So here is my entry. It’s not very good, but I am tired and the stuff I wanted to photograph just didn’t work in the execution. So this is what you get.

As posted on the Amazing Lace boards, challenge #5 is as follows:

Do you ever get to the point where you’ve knit so much lace that you start seeing lace everywhere? A sunset reminds you of the colorway of your shawl; iron scrollwork on a bridge reminds you of the lace motif on your lacy socks; your eyes can immediately spot a flash of lace a mile away?

In honor of that slightly crazed I-see-lace-everywhere mental state that’s a symptom of obsessive lace knitting, your challenge is to post one photo on your blog in which your lace is a hidden or unexpected part of the picture. This could be interpreted in any number of ways. You could go a hidden-in-plain-sight route. You could camouflage your lace. You could make your lace a tiny part of a large scene, a la the original Where’s Waldo (I’m picturing a sea of white gym socks with one pair of white lace socks…but I didn’t have the energy or the props to make an example photo). You could do something completely unrelated to these suggestions — as long as it’s clever and fun and your lace appears in the picture.

This is the most abstract of all the challenges. In spite of these examples we’re not even sure what we’re expecting. So be creative — we can’t wait to see what you come up with!

So here is my entry. It’s not very good, but I am tired and the stuff I wanted to photograph just didn’t work in the execution. So this is what you get.

Ugh.

The heat and humidity yesterday was awful! 34 degrees C (if I remember correctly) and 60-70% humidity. My parents lost power at their house by 5pm, but I was lucky and still had it when I got home. There was still no rain or storms, but lots of fast winds. I had enough time to eat supper and set the VCR to tape Big Brother: All Stars and Rock Star: Supernova (I was going to watch Last Comic Standing at 9pm). I even took a photo for the next Amazing Lace challenge and was too lazy to go sit at the computer so I decided I’d upload it and post before bed. So much for my planning. At 8:40, just as I sat down with my knitting in front of the TV BAM the power goes out. And I mean OUT- everything on Sources below the 40 was out.

The winds outside were whipping everything around, there was lightning and thunder so bad that the claps never stopped. I got nervous being home alone because there was such an absence of sound from the house that all the outdoor noises sounded like they were inside- so I kept thinking someone had broken in and the door was open. Strangely enough I felt safer and less anxious each time I went to stand outside on my porch, than I did in my own home!

I called Yannick and asked him to come home so I wouldn’t be frightened. We went out for a drive (insane, I know) because he wanted to catch the storm to show me how bad it was. Turns out that when I called him- while standing outside in the humidity and thunder and everything- he was running to his car in pouring rain. Sleeting, nasty pouring rain- only 10 minutes down the road but not at my house! Crazy.

We couldn’t catch up to the storm because I wouldn’t let him speed (lost count of the number of cops we saw at accident sites) so we turned back and went to the Wendy’s/Tim Horton’s on Hymus. Ran into Janna there, an old friend from high school, with her husband and her parents. I had just seen her Saturday night when we went out for dinner with Jessa and a bunch of old friends, and it was nice to catch up again. It was her 4 year wedding anniversary- congrats Janna!

When we got home at 11:30 there was still no power and by this morning…you guessed it…still no power. Hydro Quebec has no estimated up time and over 450 homes are still without power this morning. It’s sad that I’m more upset about missing my TV shows and not being able to set the VCR for tonight. I’m such a TV junkie!

Oh- and I just heard on the radio that they are calling for more thunderstorms tonight. Crazy!

I finally got the photos to upload. Turns out they were HUGE and that was why Blogger was crashing with the uploads.

There were about 200 photos in all, and we received about 100. There were a few more we really liked, so maybe I’ll make a personal photo gallery one day and upload them there. For now, these are my favorites from our casual shoot with our wedding photographer:

I know I haven’t posted in a while. On Wednesday we got the cd with the photos from our casual shoot with our wedding photographer. A few of them came out great and I wanted to post them here, but Blogger won’t let me. I’m fed up and had enough of it, so you’re not getting to see them. More on knitting later!

When I got out of the shower last night I opened the bathroom door and saw this scene at the landing at the top of the stairs. Kinda made me feel domestic.

Saturday night my family (sans Laura who was at camp) went up north for dinner at Yannick’s family’s house. We had a great time up there, and during some downtime I hung my sock yarn from a little pouch on my wrist and knit. I did the same thing last night while we watched Hoodwinked on DVD, and by the time I went to bed here is how the sock looked- all that is missing are the toes:Yannick had stayed up north after the dinner because he had some work to do with his parents on Sunday. I got a lift back home with my family, and since he wasn’t home I got some knitting in on the surprise bowling socks too:
I would have had a lot more done, because he originally told me he’d be home no earlier than 7pm. So I spent until 3 doing all kinds of errands, figuring I’d still have a good chunk of time to work on the socks that I can’t take out when he’s here. Instead he called me at 4:30 that he was on his way home. I didn’t know how far away he was, so I put them away so as not to be in the middle of a row when he got back. Turns out he only came to pick me up to go to my parents’ for dinner around 6:45pm, because he met with my parents first at the tux place to go over the details for the wedding.