First of all, thank you to everyone for your love, hugs, support, kind thoughts, and prayers. The last couple of days have been surreal. We (hubby, my mother, and I) will be leaving for the funeral Monday morning. The funeral is set for Tuesday morning. We won't be down in SoCal for very long. We'll be leaving sometime on Tuesday since both my husband and my mother have to get back to work on Wednesday. My sister will be following us home on Tuesday. She'll also be attending the funeral with us. She's looking forward to the time off and we'll be spending Wednesday probably working on the desserts for our Thanksgiving meal!
I received a call from the school where I did my model lesson. It was a no. It was very competitive and I was a very competitive candidate but they opted to go with someone else. The principal said that if they had another opening she hoped I would apply again and she asked if I'd consider subbing for them. I thought why not so I have to call that particular school district after next week and get on the sub list. Maybe this'll turn into something, who knows. I haven't heard from Borders either. I'm SO bummed! But maybe, since I've had two almost jobs now the next one will be mine (preferably a teaching one). Hubby is enjoying his new job and I think it helps keep his mind off things too.
There hasn't been much knitting around here. I'm trying to heal my wrist so I can go back to my marathon knitting again! On ravelry there is a Knitters with Carpal Tunnel group and there's this guy with all this sage advice about carpal tunnel or just pain in general with regard to knitting. He suggested to a bunch of people to ice their hand/wrist/arm for an hour in 5-7 second spurts for a week. I did it two days in a row and I'm actually noticing a difference! I missed yesterday though on account of my being busy with chores and then I decided to do some baking! I've had this cookbook for a lil while and finally decided to give it a shot. Wow! My niece, hubby, and I made the basic chocolate cupcakes. Those that know me well know that I'm not really a fan of chocolate cake but lately it's been growing on me and these cupcakes are quite delicious. We opted to make the mini size ones. The monkey added some ingredients and did some mixing. She also was in charge of licking the spatulas and mixing things clean. lol. It was so cute! These cupcakes are the absolute best and I can't wait to try out some of the other recipes! I'm already checking on amazon to see if the author has any other recipe books!

1. I am thankful that I had the chance to get to know my MIL who passed away early this morning. I only wish she had been around for a bit longer.
2. I am thankful for my mother who in times of crisis knows just what to say.
3. I am thankful for each day that passes.

Well, today was my model lesson and it went pretty well. I really liked the school and got a good feel from it. The teacher I would be replacing is leaving because her husband got his dream position elsewhere. She is staying through until Christmas vacation while he has already started his new position. I thought that was good of her to do. The kids were quite well behaved and worked SO quietly. I'm not used to that. I'm used to chatter and chit chatting here and there. It's promising but we all know how that goes with me. I went into it feeling as though it wasn't a big deal and I left the same way. They're hoping to fill the position by the end of this week and will be making phone calls in a day or two. I also applied to work at Borders. lol. I dreamt that I worked there so I had to at least apply. I keep thinking about the discount!
My husband left for his first day of orientation a lil while ago and he was pretty excited about it. It was cute. :) I told him that I always wanted a husband/guy that had to dress up to go to work. A man in a dress shirt and tie does it for me. :) I don't know what it is.
I can't believe Thanksgiving is already next week. We don't even have our Thanksgiving menu planned out yet! We've got the desserts covered but not any of the side dishes. For some reason, I'm wanting to do a homemade mac & cheese. I saw a recipe somewhere that utilizes butternut squash. Of course we'll have a side of potatoes but I thought we'd do something different this year and take some of the pressure off my mom! I can't wait for my sister to get here though. She is in the process of printing up a ton of patterns I had saved on my desktop. She's printing them out because when I first thought of this idea, she had been complaining about how she didn't have anything to do at work. SO I thought I'd help her out. ;) Aren't I a great sister?? lol. She told me earlier that she has half of them printed up and she also mentioned that there were some things she liked and might have me make for her (that was part of my plan in the first place!).
As I blog, I'm looking through all the patterns that have been posted at twist collective. The winter edition is out and I'm in love with Tanit's Jacket. I also took a second look at the sweet pea coat from last winter! I'm dying to cast on for audrey in unst though. Can you tell that Gudrun Johnston is my newest knitwear icon?? :)

Well, yesterday was the start of the Gap Friends and Family Sale so that's where most of my day was spent--traipsing from one old navy, gap, and banana to the next! I think it's during this sale that I sort of miss LA. There were SO many more Old Navy stores, Gap stores, and Banana Republic stores to choose from. Oh well. I think we got our fill yesterday!
My husband begins orientation on Monday for his new job and I actually have a model lesson Monday morning for a 1st/2nd grade teaching position. I know what I'm going to do but I have to figure out what I'm going to wear and I need to make copies of everything I'm bringing.
I finished seaming sesame!!!!!!!!! But guess what? I can't find buttons big enough for her. :( I wish I had made it a bit longer but that's okay.
I also finished lengthening the bottom of my wicked. While I've been away, we discovered this critter in our backyard.. He was in the midst of making a getaway after my dad had lunged a 'spear' at him and something else!
Last week I also received my first order from Wolfe Farms. :)

I'm a bit behind on this! I first saw this on kristyn's blog last week and wanted to give it a shot. So since I'm behind a Thursday already, here are six things I am thankful for in no particular order:

1. I am thankful that we're not homeless after our move and my parents were willing to let us live with them for a while.
2. I am thankful that my husband got a job (so maybe there's hope for me yet)!
3. I am thankful I am surrounded by family.
4. I am thankful that my MIL's health continues to improve.
5. I am thankful that things are slowly beginning to get better in my life.
6. I am thankful that this year will be the first thanksgiving spent with my husband!

Is there a reason all knitting pattern chart symbols aren't the same across the board? I ask because after having completed the blues and then moved onto green with glee, I was having a bit of a tough time adjusting to the different pattern jargon and the main cable used for both patterns was the exact same one. I kept saying over and over to my husband..I should've done green with glee before I did his. I have now finished both hats and they are in the midst of blocking. My hat came out a bit more snug than I expected. Then I realized that I should've switched to bigger needles when I started the body of the hat. Oh well. That's what blocking is for. :) Here are the hats pre-blocking stage:

Have you been to the gap recently? I was there yesterday and was surprised to find this and a cowl which I can't find on their website now. I couldn't get over the fact that their current line of cable hats looks very much like the hats I just finished and the fact that they are now selling cowls...my husband seems to think their buyers are checking out knitblogs to see what we're all up to. lol.
It's been since the day before Halloween when I began typing up this post! Halloween has now come and gone. The monkey was a hot pink supergirl. The only pictures I have of her were from when she woke up the next morning and they're not flattering! I spent Halloween night baking. We didn't get very many trick-or-treaters. The ones we did get were the really lil ones--smaller than the monkey!
Seeing as it's the season of pumpkin and chocolate goodness, I wanted to share some recipes with you all. Here is one yummy recipe that I found and here are a bunch of other equally yummy ones!
Oh! A great friend of mine has opened up her own lil online shop! If you're into herbal soaps, please do go check it out!
The weather has been unusually LA-like here..but without the hot wind that tends to accompany the warm weather typically found in LA.

Since I had to take a knitting break, that somehow equated to a blogging break. I think I just couldn't stand sitting in front of the computer waiting for it to load! The knitting break didn't last very long and when I first made mention of it, I didn't even really take one. I just took a break from the blankiet I had started. lol.
I wore this:

sometime last month. I realized that I hadn't taken a good picture of it yet so here's a better one than the one I've got on rav. When I wore it, I noticed how much it kept riding up! It wasn't a lot but I'm not a fan of tops that ride up since when I'm in my husband's car, the heat, his leather seats and my bare skin don't mix well! I happened to have one more skein of the yarn I used for my wicked so I ripped back the ribbing and went to work.

I decided on doing a crossover rib instead of the ribbing suggested in the pattern. I like how it's coming out. Though with my right hand not being up to its normal knitting stamina, it's been slow going. I had to take a break from it.

So I started working on this again:

I had cast on for the gust a while back and had put it aside for other projects. When I attempted to go back to it, I couldn't remember which row I was on and had ripped back a few rows already so this past Sunday, I just frogged it and started all over again. I'm back to where I had left it. I hope I have enough yarn for it. I'm planning to do more than the suggested repeats just because I've noticed Ann's scarves tend to be shorter than I like.

A couple weeks back (probably the week I last posted!) I had wound some yarn while the monkey was over here. Here she is riding her bday gift from my sis, my husband, and I. And here was her first experience with a winder! Being that I'm a lefty and I had already started winding some yarn, it was hard for her to wind in the same direction as I had been going.

The yarn I had wound was two skeins of malabrigo that had been sitting, waiting patiently to be knitted into something stunning. Well, I cast on for this on Sunday.

It's the habitat hat pattern from Jared Food. Can I tell you even the charts are as beautiful as the actual knitting that's going on?? I'm on row 12 of chart C and am...29 rows away from completion. My mom was bugging me about her shawl yesterday That's because I asked her what kind of a hat she wanted and she said, 'What about my shawl?'. She doesn't get that hats are faster and right now, I need to just finish something! I want to cast on for the macduff hat (that's what the other skein of malabrigo is going to be turning into!). The winds have been blowing here and it's nice to actually experience Fall again!

I have been job searching and applying to anything that seems interesting and haven't had any luck. The one lucky thing that has happened but has nothing to do with the job hunt is that my husband came back for good on Sunday. I like to think the hat I started knitting him brought him home. lol. He has done what he can for his mother and stepdad and made the (surprise) trip home. The monkey was only too happy to see him yesterday. Now she's got another playmate when she comes over!