9.01.2011

Hello Friends!

I'm so happy you're here!  I'm Meredith, and I knit.  (Self-explanatory, yes?)
(My hoodie in this pic says "I Knit, Therefore I Am.")

I taught myself how to knit when I was nineteen.  On a whim I went into Hobby Lobby one day and came out with size 8 needles, Red Heart variegated yarn, and a book called Learn To Knit In One Day.  (This book ended up taking me three months to get through entirely.)  At the time I was kind of a mess and knitting became one of the few things I did that my parents said was "constructive."  I didn't know any other knitters (that I knew of) and didn't have a car, so instead of being totally solitary I began to discover and read KNITTING BLOGS.  (Insert jazz hands here!)  I not only loved reading about new knitting projects and different yarns but also enjoyed reading about the blogger's personal life.  Back in 2005, it seemed like every knit blogger I knew about was getting divorced, starting a new job, or moving to a totally different time zone.

...Fast forward to this year!  I'm a little older and A LOT wiser, but a little closer to becoming like the knit bloggers I just mentioned.  In the last year I have started a new job (which I still have, and LOVE), adopted a dog from the Humane Society, broken up with the man I was 98% sure I was going to marry someday (and living with at the time), stared a crap part-time job, quit crap part-time job a month and a half later, and haven't had the same address for more than three months since last March.  Yeah.  

In other words, right now I:

~*~ Work in a local high school as an ESL (English as a Second Language) teaching assistant.  I LOVE my job! I'm going back to college later this year after lots of flip-flopping and "taking time off" to finally become a real teacher.  (Speaking of high school, I also volunteer with the knitting club after school.  Love that too!)

~*~ Am single with no chilluns.  Most days I love not having to be home at certain times or having lots of big responsibilities, but there are a *few* days when growing old without someone kind of scares me.  Especially since I work in a high school and I've seen the generation that's going to care for me in my nursing home.  

~*~ Love my dog!  Buddy the Super Puggle (pug\beagle mix) Dog came home from the Humane Society in February of last year and he's been making me laugh ever since.  


~*~ Am a former employee of a certain (I'll keep it anonymous) chain pet supply store.  I'll admit, I belong nowhere near retail, but I have almost zero nice things to say about working there.

~*~Live in a house with three roomies.  Of course I have my few complaints, but I'm loving living in this house.


One of my favorite knitbloggers, Meredith (Love the name!) from One Sheepish Girl suggested I do these awesome questions for my first post.  Loved answering these!

Seven Things!

Seven places I would like to visit:
1.  Austin, TX
2.  Anywhere in Canada
3.  Chicago
4.  Afghanistan (A woman I worked with last year grew up there.  It's a beautiful country, but a little....scary?)
5.  San Fransisco
6.  Africa
7.  New Orleans

Seven things I would like to make:
1.  Vickie Howell's cassette wall art
2.  Karen Baumer's Sock It To Me
4.  Cheesecake.  Successfully.  (I tried making a cheesecake for my friend's birthday in June.  It turned out dry and the wrong color on top.  And this was to prove to him that I really COULD cook.  Go figure?)
5.  The Skinny Scarf from Knitty Gritty
6.  Handmade books (and\or paper)
7.  My own knitted burial quilt (is that morbid?)

Seven people I'd like to meet (dead or alive):
1.  Pete Seeger
2.  Woody Guthrie
3.  Gilda Radner
4.  Lance Loud
5.  Abraham Lincoln
6.  Bill Cosby
7.  James Reeb

Seven things I would like to own:
1.  A hybrid car
2.  An expensive coffee maker
3.  The kind of shoes (sandals?) that outline your toes
4.  A kiddie pool (the round, plastic kind they sell in toy stores with fish painted on them)
5.  A wine fridge
6.  A heated foot bath 
7.  A hammock

Seven things that annoy me:
1.  Women who make conversation in public restrooms (the lunch ladies at the school where I work do this ALL the time)
2.  Realizing I made a knitting mistake ROWS later than I should have
3.  Facebook.  
4.  The neighbor's dog barking at OBSCENE hours of the morning
5.  The yarn aisles in Michael's craft stores (or is it just my local Michael's?)--the yarn is NEVER neat in its packaging.  It looks like a 10-year-old kid touched every rack and then a tornado went through it.
6.  Not buying enough yarn for a project.  The most recent time I pulled this rookie mistake, the yarn had even been discontinued when I went back to buy more.  
7.  Waiting for coffee.  Either waiting for my own to brew in a coffee pot or long lines in the drive thru when I choose to buy from a coffee shop in the morning.  

Seven films I love:
1.  Up
2.  Guess Who's Coming To Dinner
3.  Citizen Kane
4.  The Green Mile
5.  I'm Not There
6.  Finding Nemo
7.  Driving Miss Daisy

Seven funny words:
1.  Scintillating 
2.  Oggle
3.  Tinkle
4.  Tweet
5.  Poop
6.  Mojo
7.  Hexadecimal


Thank you SO much for taking time to read my first blog post!  There will be many more to come!