Last night at knit night we had a bacon potluck of sorts.

I’m still not sure how exactly this came about, all I know is that we were discussing random things last week at knitting and it morphed into a discussion of bacon and Oh, we should have a bacon night. To which I said “I’LL BRING PIG CANDY!!!!”

Sometime on Sunday night while I was trying to fall asleep, I had an idea. Peanut Butter & Banana Bread Pudding topped with crumbled up Pig Candy. It was either the best idea in the world or one of the worst. It leaned towards the “best idea” end of the spectrum. I blogged about it over on the food blog here.

The amount of bacony goodness that arrived at knit night was absolutely insane. There was my pig candy & bread pudding, maple-bacon lollipops (also from me), bacon wrapped weenies, cheesy hot dogs wrapped in bacon, a bacon cheese ball, bacon on a stick, more pig candy, dark chocolate covered matz0h with bacon on top, and bacon caramels.

It was all delicious, but I can’t explain to you how yummy the bacon caramels are. Fi had made them once before and YUM. So when we had the party, I think there may have been mutiny if she hadn’t made them this time.

I never thought I’d say this, but I think I’m all baconed out for a while.

Earlier this week I signed up for the bone marrow registry – there was a free enrollment drive at work & my coworker convinced the youngster & I to sign up (she’s already on the list).

As we walked into the registry area, I glanced at the weight chart – if you weigh too much, you can’t be on the registry. So last year at this time, I would have been too heavy – I wouldn’t have been able to join the registry. The top weight they could accept for my height was 233 pounds and I was 5 pounds over that limit. They look at BMI & you have to be under a 40 BMI (basically, not morbidly obese) to be able to join.

I was feeling ruminative earlier today about this whole thing – how my weight kept me from doing things even when I didn’t think it did. But whatever.

There are a lot of things I wouldn’t have done a year ago. There are a lot of things I couldn’t have done a year ago. The fact is that I’m changing my life. I’m going to be healthy. I have more self confidence now, I look in the mirror and think I look better. I look at pictures of me 40 pounds ago and can’t believe that was me. I believe in myself a little more. I feel like being able to conquer the fat means that I can conquer just about anything. It’s kind of weird.

Somebody make sure to slap me if I get to be too annoying with this stuff. :)

I had the pleasure of attending my cousin Alexandra’s wedding over the weekend.

Alex recently graduated from college, so she is 22 and well old enough to get married, but in my head she is still 12. My brain refused to accept her getting older or something.*

The ceremony and reception were held at the Foundry Art Center in St. Charles, which was a great location. After the ceremony & dinner, we danced the night away – my Aunt Donna (Alex’s mom) kept me out on the dance floor, which was just fine with me. I was ready to get my boogie on.

I have made it my mission to document as much of the family as I can in photos, so whenever we have an event like this (or any gathering), I always have the camera at the ready. Needless to say, this was no exception. The entire flickr set is here**, but here are a few of my favorite shots.

This is my favorite shot of the night – Alex dancing with her dad, my uncle Jerry.

Me & My Dad

Alex & Mo (in the middle there) with Alex’s family (my aunt, uncle, cousins & their kids – Alex has 4 sisters & 1 brother). This one turned out a little fuzzy, I was trying to make sure I stayed out of the professional’s way & didn’t interrupt her flow.

One of the bridesmaid’s bouquets.

Like I said, it was a lovely ceremony & I wish the two of them a long & happy life together. :)

*Let’s not even talk about her younger sisters being old enough to be IN high school now, much less for one of them to have a boyfriend. They grow up so fast. *sniff*

**Guest pass will expire in about a week, which just means you won’t be able to see pictures of the youngsters after that time unless we’re flickr friends. Most of the set is public, though.

I still have to share last Sunday with you, but I’ve had other things taking up space in my head this week. This post, in fact, may just be a purging of my brain.

On the get healthy/weight loss front, June has been bad to me. I’m maintaining at least, but I’m tired. I’ve been very busy socially, which means I’ve eaten out. A lot. And this weekend gives me no reprieve.

I’ve grown tired of tracking my food every day. I want to step back and just eat whatever I want without thinking about the calories or fat or sodium content. But I know that I’ll eat things I shouldn’t if I’m not tracking it. “Oh, here, let me eat this 200 calorie cookie”. I seem to lack awareness of how much I’m eating when I’m not tracking.

I’ve also been stressed financially – my summer classes put me over the allowable “tax-free” amount from the IRS by, well, ALL OF IT & the taxes get taken out of my paycheck. What this means, in a nutshell, is that I’m losing half my pay every two weeks just so I can get most of that money back during tax season. WTF?

Anyway, to combat this problem I’m doing a few things:

• dropped my second summer class. This will cut the tax amount by half
• a small yarn destash – I will miss the ones I’m getting rid of, but Kara needs to pay the bills!
• Purses. I am taking orders based on the patterns and fabric I have available (you can see pictures of what I’ve made in my flickr sewing set). If you’re interested, drop me an email at starmonkeybrass(at)gmail(dot)com with something about purses in the subject line.*  Prices are based on fabric cost & labor (how long it takes for the particular bag).
• I’m also going to attempt to be more frugal. Which means books & cds come from the library. The cats get discount food.** This will be good for me – I’m bad at being frugal & I need to learn. I want to get into a debt free lifestyle, which will not happen if I keep spending money. (I seem to have inherited my inability to manage money from my mother, as well.)

I will have this same problem during the Fall semester, as dropping a class is not an option unless I want to put off graduation for another year, but it shouldn’t be quite as bad since the taxes will come out over a longer period of time.

None of this is, of course, the end of the world. It’s just stressful.
Just breathe.

*related: the halloween themed quilt top is also for sale. Note that it is JUST the quilt top, still needs backing and quilting and all that jazz, I’ve just discovered that I am not the person to do it. It would easily fit a queen sized bed as is.

**HA! Kidding. I try that, I have a constipated Ziggy and cat vomit all over my apartment.

Saturday afternoon dawned too early after the race, but Mindy & I headed out to the BlogHer meetup that Kelli organized even though we were both hella tired. We got to Soulard Coffee Garden fashionably late, chugged our lattes, then followed the group to Molly’s to continue the gathering. It was a great meetup – it’s always a pleasure to see Angie & it was good to see familiar faces & meet new people. This was a particularly good group, too. Had it not been ARRG night, I definitely would have stayed longer. (I took a few pictures. They are here.)

The only real downer was the creepy guy who came over and tried to hit on us or something. He was not easy to get rid of, but we eventually just ignored him and he went away.

As I meentioned, though, it was derby night & a girl’s gotta go watch a derby bout.

I kind of love derby. I’m sure I’ve said that before, but it’s a sport I actually enjoy watching. I’m even thinking about planning my birthday evening out at the next bout on July 11*.

*Yes, my bday is the 3rd, but people are out of town, so I’ll be celebrating a week late.

Saturday morning dawned bright and early for the Race for the Cure. Well, early, at least -  very very early. I woke up at 5am, the alarm went off at 6am, Mindy & I caught the metrolink to head downtown at 7am.

I hadn’t slept well on Friday night for fear that I might somehow oversleep, so there was also a lack of sleep to contend with. However, once we arrived I was there and waking up and it was actually a great morning to be outside.

A few months ago when I initially mentioned wanting to do the Race for the Cure and actually RUN it, I somehow inspired others to join me. I’m still not sure how that happened, but it was my pleasure to get Shannon (who was, in the end, our lone runner), Mindy, & Karen to join up and wear matching t-shirts with me.

The Komen Race for the Cure event is crowded. There were over 1,000 people on our team and over 66,000 participants. For some people, it’s a social event, for others (like us) it’s an athletic event, if you can call walking a 19 minute mile athletic. But it is for a good cause.

I initially wanted to do this “race” because I’d never run in my life and it would be a new challenge. What I learned from training, however, is that my hip is messed the eff up and I shouldn’t run on it at a minimum until we have it back in form, but possibly never. I can still walk, though. So I did.

It hit me about 2.5 miles into the “race” that I would not have been able to do it last year. We were trying to keep up a decent pace, weaving in and out of the crowd whenever we could. We finished the first mile in 15 minutes, but got bogged down by the crowd for the remaining 2.1 miles. Even with that, we moved quicker than I would have been able to in the past – I could have completed the first mile at a decent pace I’m sure, but after that I would have been in the back huffing and wheezing my way to the finish line. Or I would have done the 1 mile Fun Walk instead. Either way, it reminded me how far I’ve come in the past few months trying to get in shape and get myself healthier. And it made me feel kind of awesome, too – I felt a little like I could conquer the world (you know, if it meant walking 5k in an hour).

I loved this small groups shirts.

I don’t think I would do the Komen event again as a real attempt at a 5k, but I am sure that I’ll do a smaller one sometime soon. In fact, I’m already thinking about my next cause – this time something that has affected someone in my family. You’ll hear more about that once I’m sure, though.

There are more pictures in my flickr set here.

I feel like I have been going non-stop since Thursday this week.

The short version:

• gym on Thursday (only important because I came home exhausted), followed by doing laundry.
• Friday: Work, dinner & bowling out for Mindy’s hubby’s birthday.
• Saturday: Race for the Cure, BlogHer meetup organized by Kelli, ARRG bout.
• Sunday: brunch with Stonecutter friends from out of town, knitting, & dinner with the Stonecutter crew.

The long version will come over a few days just so this isn’t the longest blog post EVER. There are pictures to go with it all (and some of the events may be mostly photos).

Friday night was dinner at Wasabi on Wash Ave, then bowling at Flamingo Bowl. So much fun, even if we did have some lane issues while bowling. I am not good at bowling*, but I do have fun trying. :)

Boatload of Sushi.

Mindy eating the Spider Roll

Bowling – this picture was totally accidental, but I think it turned out really cool.

The Birthday Boy

All in all, it was a fun night – good food, good people, and bowling. How can you go wrong? (A few more pictures here)

*Little known fact about Kara – during my two required years of gym in high school, I took the 8 or 10 week bowling option twice. I did whatever I could to get out of actual physical activity because I was not athletic in any way, shape, or form. It was embarrassing how bad I was at things that might be considered real sports. Like basketball and field hockey.

I’m begging for dollars again. Last time, I promise.

As I’ve mentioned, I’m participating in the Susan G Komen Foundation’s Race for the Cure here in St. Louis this weekend. I am, unfortunately, not going to be able to run as I had planned due to a hip injury* (stupid hip), but I am still walking the 5k.

So, anyway, I’m doing one last push for donations. Komen is a great organization and the Race is their largest fundraiser of the year, providing grants for many great programs in the St. Louis area – I worked on a Komen funded program for 2 years, so I know of what I speak. The money goes into our community to support breast cancer detection, awareness, & treatment programs.

For every donation I get between now and tomorrow (June 11) by 5pm Central Time, I will knit a sock ornament for your Christmas Tree or other holiday decorating.

I know that money is tight for a lot of people right now, but every little bit helps. So if you can spare $5-10 (or even more), please go to my personal pledge page here and donate. And remember, each donation gets you a hand-knitted sock ornament with love and appreciation in EVERY stitch!

Thanks!

*Such that I may not be able to run at all ever, but WHATEVER. I am still trying to obtain rock star weight-loss/get healthy status.

This is just a quickie FO post.

About 2 weeks before I headed to Detroit my favorite LYS got a shipment of Dream In Color Starry in the shop. I had been toying with the idea of making a second Ishbel* for Sally for no reason at all and this yarn was perfect for her – glittery & pink. So I cast on and started knitting.

I did actually finish in time to take it to Detroit with me & hand it to Sal, who loved it. Yay!

Details:
Pattern: Ishbel from Ysolda
Yarn: Dream In Color Starry, Punky Fuschia. 0.56 skeins
Needles: Size 7 Knit Picks Options
Started: May 23, 2009. Finished & Blocked: May 31, 2009.

*I just realized that I have not shared information about my first Ishbel. I will do that later this week.

I am currently sitting at home on my couch debating making a cup of coffee. Screw debating, coffee is made. (Also, this post is photo heavy & any picture with more than my hand in it was blatantly stolen from Kirsti.)

I had a whirlwind weekend of fun – I flew to Detroit on Thursday after spending 6 hours in my class and returned on Saturday morning. In between, I got to spend time with a few of my favorite people in the world – Stonecutter Sally was in from London visiting her sister Kirsti (who has become our official photographer somehow), so we had a small scale get together with fellow Stonecutters Tiff (who lives in Detroit already) and Jan (our Canadian, eh).

Our gathering officially started on Friday since I didn’t even get to my hotel until 9pm on Thursday (at which point I ate McDonald’s for the first time in 6 months – I was starving and it was easy to find before I hit the highway).

Anyway, Friday morning dawned bright and early and we headed to IHOP for breakfast around 10am (one of Sal’s favorite stateside eateries), where we ate pancakes and yummy foodstuffs. After our late breakfast, we headed to a local shop – Leon & Lulu – which was in an old skating rink and named after the owner’s dogs. It was very cool – they had old skates as part of the decorating theme and a lot of fun stuff. It is definitely worth a visit if you’re ever in the area.

(Tiff, Sal, & myself posing with martini glasses) (Sal & me hanging in the back of Tiff’s van w/Tiff in the front)

Then, of course, we hit up a nearby yarn shop Ewe-nique Knits (Kirsti is a fellow knitter) where I got a lovely bit of souvenier yarn. The owner & staff were very nice ladies & had a nice selection of yarn & fiber. Our trip to the yarn shop was followed by an extremely healthy lunch at the Cupcake Station, where I bought a half dozen mini-cupcakes that traveled home with me (the 4* I inhaled yesterday morning were delicious) and had a Pineapple Delight cupcake for “lunch”. About the time we left there, Jan arrived in town and we caught up with her. The plan was then to head to a local tattoo parlor and for Sally & I to get inked. Unfortunately, they couldn’t fit us in on a Friday afternoon/early evening and didn’t seem to be that keen on trying to fit us in that day at all, so there is no new ink. :(  After that rather disappointing turn of events, we headed to Michaels so Sal could pick up some supplies to learn to crochet & cross-stitch (she had picked up the Subversive Cross-Stitch book at Leon & Lulu).

(me & Sal with our Cupcakes)

Dinner was, of course, at Red Lobster (another of Sal’s favorite places), where Sal got a margarita the size of her head and we all ate our weight in biscuits & fish and Tiff’s son also joined us as the token male. After dinner, we headed back to Kirsti’s house to chill & knit (me & Kirsti) and learn crochet (Sal, taught by Tiff who does crochet & Jan who doesn’t, but was an excellent teacher).

(Sal, me, Jan, & Tiff at Red Lobster) (Sal & her Lobsterita)

Once we had digested enough of our dinner, Tiff headed home so she wouldn’t fall asleep on the road and the rest of us headed to a local ice cream parlor – Ray’s – and had a delicious late night treat. At that point, we were a bit inappropriate and Sal & I ended up laughing until we cried a little. At that point we were getting a bit tired (at least Sal & I were), so Sal went to bed and Jan & I headed back to our hotel rooms.**

I returned home early Saturday morning, arriving back in St. Louis around 9:30am. Once I got home, I napped for several hours so I could be fresh and awake for a viewing of Rent with my friend & former co-worker Steph.

Y’all, this was BY FAR the BEST cast I have seen perform Rent. Anthony Rapp & Adam Pascal were reprising their roles as Mark & Roger. Even though they are easily too old now to play 20-somethings since they were actually the proper age for the roles when they opened on Broadway 13 years ago, I don’t care. They were fantastic. Everyone in the cast was fantastic, even our last minute sub for Joanne. I can’t even put into words how good they all were. If you have a chance to see this particular tour, DO IT. Steph did a great job with our seats – were were on the main level towards the back, but dead center so we could see the entire stage. There is something to be said for being able to see the entire stage in a production like this, so I was glad we were able to. LOVE LOVE LOVED it. I am so excited still that we were able to see Anthony & Adam reprising their original roles in the show. So fantastic. I could say that about 15 more times & I don’t think I’d be able to impress on you how great it was. :)

After the show, we hit up Ted Drewes, where Steph shared some exciting news in a sneaky little way (it’s her news to share, even though you guys don’t know her, it’s not mine to tell the world). It was so great to see Steph again, since she & her husband are living in Peoria during his residency. I hadn’t seen her in almost 2 years (since her wedding), although we’ve done better about keeping in touch. I really have to thank Facebook for stuff like that – it’s easier to keep in touch with someone even when they do those small little updates. As silly as it is, Facebook does help. :)

As it turns out, I left my camera cord in my hotel room somehow, but they are going to send it back to me. We’ll have to thank Mindy for having a similar camera so I was able to download my pictures using her cord. As always, a few more pictures in my flickr set here.

The plan for the remainder of Sunday involves resting, knitting, and more coffee. And if you made it all the way through this post, you get a gold star. :)

*They were Cookies & Cream, Gone Bananas, PB & C, & What’s Up Doc (which was sugar overload). I still have Chocolate Vegan & Chocolate Cheesecake to try.

**I was so very bad with the food this weekend, but screw it. I made some good food choices, but a cupcake lunch, cheddar bay biscuits, and coconut shrimp were not those choices. :)