Ten on Tuesday - 9/13/2011 Weekly Expenditures

Goodness...Carole came up with a toughy this week - Ten Things You Buy Every Week.

My post should  be titled Three on Tuesday, because I am stumped! The things I buy weekly with any consistency are:
1.  groceries - because even if I'm not cooking much these days, there needs to be something around this house to eat in case we decide not to go out.
2.  gas - because I am a flighty person by nature...I don't like to stay in one spot for too long.
3.  a decaf vanilla latte - at this great locally owned coffee shop near my house, where I go weekly to collect my thoughts, people watch and pretend that I am somebody.

Since I feel as if I am shorting y'all a bit, here's a sneak peak of the socks currently on the needles:



MK out.

Movie Monday - 9/12/2011

I watched a few flicks:

Never Let Me Go is a haunting science fiction drama about cloning humans for the express purpose of organ harvesting.  It doesn’t get into the legal or ethical dilemmas involved, and neither will I.  Carey Mulligan, Keira Knightly and Andrew Garfield star as three such clones.  The movie first shows the trio growing up in a secluded, private school.  When they get older, they figure out what is going on.  Of course, human qualities have not been knocked out of their genetic material, but they do seem to be resigned to their fates.  This movie was adapted from the novel of the same name by Kazuo Ishiguro.  It was really good.

Rick Riordan authored a fantasy book series about the ancient gods. Percy Jackson & the Olympians:  The Lightning Thief is an adaptation of one of the stories.  Percy finds out he is the son of Poseidon.  When Zeus’ lightning is stolen, he has to rise to the challenge of bringing it back.  Uma Thurman, Catherine Keener, Melina Kanakaredis, Kevin McKidd, Steve Coogan, Rosario Dawson and Pierce Brosnan are among the host of actors in this movie.  It was cute.

In Ondine, Colin Ferrell plays Syracuse, a divorced father with a prior drinking problem, who fishes for a living.  One day, he brings up a woman in his net.  Is she a selkie or is there a rational explanation for the luck she brings him?  His daughter Annie needs a kidney transplant, and is leaning towards the magical explanation.   I thought it was a very good movie, but the heavy Irish accents were difficult to understand.

Director Nick Broomfield’s documentary Biggie and Tupac, alleges corrupt LAPD officers were involved in the deaths of these two talented rapsters.  Broomfield walks around interviewing people with his camera man not far behind.  There’s some concert and other footage of the stars when they were alive.  It was really interesting.  In the eight or nine years since this documentary was filmed, I wonder if more investigation into these senseless deaths has been made...

MK out.

Sunday, September 11, 2011

I Meant to Post Yesterday...

...Really, I did.  Life kind of got in the way...that's neither here nor there...

I had to have airplane knitting on our trip last weekend.  I wanted something that didn't need charts or books or pages...so, I grabbed up all the little balls of Reynolds Cabana that I had left and my trusty Boye US 6 circulars and made a couple of little somethings:



Here's another view:



Now, I am done with all that yarn!

Hope y'all are having a good weekend...

MK out.

Ten on Tuesday - 9/06/2011 Ready, Set, Knit!

Ten Things I Want to Knit This Fall/Winter:
1.   Doppleganger socks
2.   An Ishbel shawl
3.   A baby afghan for a special little one...pattern not yet determined.
4.   Impressionisme socks
5.   Pillars socks
6.   A Flourish shawl
7.   A Baby Surprise Jacket - because I haven't ever made one yet.
8.   A Shoulder Shawl
9.   An Equinox Top
10.  A Citron shawl

As you can see from this list, the season does not really inspire the item I want to knit.  You may have been expecting hats, mitts, scarves and sweaters...but no.  I listen to my stash - it tells me what I want to make next.  Of course, lists are subject to change...

If you want to participate in this week's ToT, go here.

MK out.

Movie Monday - 9/05/2011

Not much movie watching this past week:

Penelope Cruz, Johnny Depp, Ian McShane and Geoffrey Rush star in Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides.  Captain Jack Sparrow is forced to find the Fountain of Youth after being hoodwinked onto Blackbeard's ship.  It was not the best effort of this series.

They remade 1984's The Karate Kid, but this time, Jaden Smith and Jackie Chan star as the pupil and teacher.  Dre Parker and his mom move to China from Detroit.  He is harassed by the class bully, who happens to be very good in kung fu.  The maintenance man comes to his rescue by teaching him the secret to succeeding in the martial arts.  It was cute. 

The 400 Blows is an old black-n-white (subtitled) French movie from 1959. It is thought to be one of the founding films of the French New Wave. It is said to be based on the director's early life.  In it, Antoine is a young teenager who is misunderstood and typecast by his teacher and fairly ignored by this parents.  He spends most of the movie either skipping school or running away from home.  He resorts to petty crime. At their wits end, his parents turn him over to law enforcement.  He ends up in a juvenile detention facility, and ultimately runs away from there. I liked it.

There was some baseball watching.  Notice where our group sat:



In June (the birth month of The Husb), a trip to Boston to watch the Rangers play the Sox in Fenway Park was arranged.  It was supposed to be part of an RV trip that would have included stops in Vermont, Maine, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia.  Unfortunately, situations at home prevented an extended amount of time away; so, we flew to Boston just for the games.

The Rangers won Friday night, 11-0.





On Saturday morning, we had a little tour of Fenway.  We went inside the Green Monsta':



The group spent a little time with Michael Young:



We watched a little batting practice:



We were acknowleged on the Jumbotron:



Unfortunately, the Rangers lost that game, 7-11.

They did come back and win on Sunday, 11-4.  We watched that game at the airport...our flight was a little delayed.

MK out.

FO Friday - 9/1/2011

Not one...

Not two...

but three FOs!!!

First, we have the one that has been on the needles the longest....The Baby Scrap Afghan!  I started it in January and finished it in July - except for the trimming and tying of the fringe knots more securely.  I did the trimming last night.  It looks pretty straight to me:



Second, here's the Little Man Sweater for a special little boy I know.  I started it in June and finished all the knitting in July.  It just needed buttons and the ends woven in:



Finally, I made a Little Poncho from start to finish (of the knitting) in July.  I wove in the ends last week.  I made it entirely out of scraps of the Reynolds Cabana I had bought once upon a time because it was a good deal. 



Someday, I will show you all the projects that I made using this yarn.

I can be such a procrastinator...I don't know why I cannot just sit down and finish something completely and then move on.  I think I get startitis and neglect WIPs, or I get getoverititis on certain projects and set them aside.

Anyway, I have a little over half of a ball of this stuff in black, and little tiny balls in other colors.  I see a couple of little hats in my future...Maybe...

MK out.