But where did the yarn go?

It has probably been noticed by a least a few people, but I have been using the same pink yarn for the last few projects.  It is the Red Heart with Love yarn and I am a pretty big fan.  It isn't my favorite yarn or anything like that, but I do enjoy working with it.  It is pretty soft to me.  I started using it because it is what I was making the swatch for work out of, so I knew it would work with the hook size I had when I went to make the fingerless mitts.  I just kind of kept using it because it was right there and I also knew it would work with US size 8 knitting needles.  I am also running into a problem.  It would make sense that while using a yarn to make things you would be causing there to be less to use later.  I didn't realize how fast I was using it.  There might not be enough from the skein I have to finish the other mitt.  I have to get this one totally bound off, then I can weigh the two and see if I will be short or not.  Good news is that the yarn isn't badly priced, so if I need to get more it won't break the bank.  The weather is also dropping about thirty degrees tonight, so I want to try and pound out as many quick things as I can.  I think some hats might be in order after I finish up all the fingerless mitts I have planned.

I finally remembered to bring the Zombunny with me to knit night and everyone loved him.  People really liked his little eye that was falling out.  I'm super proud of him and I'm glad everyone loved seeing him.  I might have to make him some family to give away, I think I've become too attached to him.  The plan had been to give him up, but I don't think I can do it now.  I'm just too darn proud of the little guy.  It's a good thing I still have a few skeins of that green yarn I used.

I also got some unexpected free yarn today!  I went to work and one of my co-workers handed me some yarn and told me they thought I would want it.  I asked where it came from and got an interesting story.  The lady who bought the yarn had tried knitting something with ribbing out of it, but did not like the yarn at all.  She pulled her needles out and tried to return it to the store.  Since the band was long gone and it was still partially knitted, she was told she could not bring it back.  It was in no way re-sellable so it would make no sense to take it back.  It seems she disliked this yarn so much that she didn't care if she got her money back at that point and just told my co-worker to take it.  I guess she didn't know anyone else who knitted, or maybe everyone else she knew had a wool allergy?  I'm not totally sure what the yarn is right now, but I will try and look into it more tomorrow.  It does feel like it has wool it in.  It might even be all wool, I'm not good at telling these things by feel.

In case anyone out there is looking for a video podcast about knitting to listen to and watch I suggest TheKnitGirllls.  I found them as one of the random podcasts on knitting I was downloading in college.  My art history teacher would put his lectures on iTunes as a free podcast so we could re-listen to them if we needed to.  It was the first I got into podcasts at all and I wanted to see if there were any other I might want to listen to.  They didn't have all the episodes available, but I downloaded all I could put onto my little iPod Touch.  It took me a while to get through the others and to TheKnitGirllls.  I had also forgotten about them for a few years.  One day before going to work I decided that I was tried of listening to the radio so I thought some knitting podcasts would be fun.  I will not deny that they are really fun to listen to, but it is missing something if you don't get to look at the video.  Most of the time it is fine, but every once and a while they will do a 'look at this' and you will really want to look.  Not advised when driving down the road at high speeds.  Highly advisable for long car rides, long waits in line, and really any time you are on the computer.
A podcast I want to listen to is Never Not Knitting.  I love the name and I also really like some of her patterns.  Those would be a lot easier to listen to when driving in the car.  No video for me to get distracted by.


While I was at knit night there were some other NaNoWriMoers there.  I was too shy to say hello to them or ask them how it was going.  One of them had the typewriter hoodie on the back of her chair.  The three of them also had laptops and were all typing for a while, talking for a bit, and then typing a lot again.  Hello fellow NaNoWriMoers!  I hope your word counts are going better than mine!  I'm also hoping that a lot more words flow freely from your fingertips for the rest of the month.

Where do you go to escape?
I am still trying to find my place around this area, but I had a perfect place when I was in college.

From their old website

It was a small coffee shop called Cafe Momus.  I was so sad to hear that it had closed, but I was glad that happened after I had left the area.  Here is some info about the owners.
They had three areas in the cafe; a main area with a tiny stage that they sometimes had poetry readings on, an upper floor for the smokers until the smoking ban, and a quiet area for stuffy groups or anyone who didn't want to deal with as much noise.  There was a huge table and some reference books in the quiet area, but I never spent a lot of time there.  The upper floor had a bunch of round chairs like on the main floor, but I didn't spend a lot of time up there either.
The main floor had two booths and a bunch of round metal tables.  Some of the chairs had a rounded back and some had flat ones like normal chairs.  All along the walls were various pieces of artwork that were made by local artists and were also for sale.  Their food menu had a few things on there all the time, but most changed depending on the day of the week.  There was always a different soup, veggie panini, meat panini, and salad.  The day of the week each happened also changed per month.
  Their desserts also changed some.  I had the best crème brûlée cheesecake I have ever had.  They didn't make it and even told me that it came from Sam's Club, but I have not been able to find it since.  Their drink menu was the same all the time.  A bunch of coffee options, some hot tea, and some bottled drinks.  One of my favorite cold drinks they served was Italian soda.  There was a pretty long list of syrups you could have them put in it.  Mango was one of my favorite syrups to add along with a few other fruity flavors.
There were also a small bookcase filled with board games for anyone to play.  Many hours were spend playing Life and other fun games.  When we weren't doing that we were talking for hours.  It was so nice of a place to be.  I would sometimes bring some of my beading supplies and work on bangle bracelets there.

One place I only went to a few times but I might have gone back to more was The Mocha Maiden.  There were artist gallery openings there and also music.  It was also a place you could get coffee and beer from.  This is where I was first introduced to the dirty chai.  To make one you take a chai latte and add a shot of espresso to it.  I think it adds more depth to the chai latte, though I can't have them too often because the espresso makes me a little bit sleepy.
Yup, that is right, coffee makes me sleepy.  I found this out for the first time at Cafe Momus when I had a large coffee and we were playing a game of Monopoly.  Later I found out that people with ADD might have that reaction.  I had been diagnosed with it at some point in elementary school, but my mom doesn't believe in lots of medication so I never got anything for it.  It wasn't too bad so I didn't really suffer.  Later we found out that the rifle team helped me to be able to concentrate more.

I thought I had found the perfect place for me here, but it also did not end well.  Greenberry’s Coffee was a bit farther than Cafe Momus had been to me, but it wasn't too far.  I invited my friend who is a semi-big coffee snob and she loved it.  You could get reduced price coffee from 4pm until they closed.  They only had a few super comfy seats but the others weren't uncomfortable or anything.  The free wifi was also nice.  I was loving everything I was trying there and they even had some food specials.  It was soon before they closed that they added FroYo.  I never tried that.  There is now a Thai place in the location.
I could go to their other location that is sort of near me, but that would almost be a half hour drive.  I could also go to Peet's Coffee or even Saxby's at that point.  While those are all very nice coffee places and I do like going to all of them, it is a bit of a drive for me just so I could hang out for a bit.  There is a bakery that I really like near me, but the shop floor is so small that not a lot of people hang out there.  I would feel odd just sitting around for a few hours.  The next nearest place I might be tempted to try would be the Lake Anne Coffee House.  While I would rather be able to walk there it might be worth a try.  So far I have been pretty happy just sitting on the giant couch we have in our gaming room and watching things on Netflix.  Maybe that's all I really need?  I know once the snow starts to fall I will want to just stay inside and under lots of cozy blankets.
There had even been a place that I could have walked to that I liked.  It wasn't a coffee shop and usually there weren't a lot of people there, but the food was amazing.  It was an African cuisine place and they got me hooked on beef patties.  When they asked me how many I wanted I really wanted to tell them all they had, but I only ever got one at a time.  Their portions were also quite large.  It was also where I got to try goat for the first time. I even got an extra copy of the menu so I could check off things as I got them so I could make sure I tried everything on the menu.  They closed as well.  It might be bad luck for small business that I really like.
There is a Starbucks in the Safeway near me, but that isn't what I'm looking for.  It isn't really a place people go to hang out and Starbucks is pretty expensive.  While Safeway does have a lot of food to buy, none of it will be warmed.  I do like being able to order food at my coffee shops.  The Starbucks in its own store doesn't have a lot of options for food and can be really tricky to get out of the parking lot to get back to my house.
Looks like I just have to keep looking.


Today's count: 2,113
Monthly count: 26,523
Prompts used: 18
Words from titles: 85
Pattern words: 1,387
Pictures posted: 3 (counting only finished objects)