1/4 life crisis

I had kind of a "what am I going to do with my life?" moment the other day. Actually I've been thinking a lot about lately; what I want to do and where I want to go...I felt like I was having a midlife crisis (okay, I'm only 23 so I guess that's 1/4?). A lot of the time I wished I had known what I wanted to do when I graduated college; it seemed like most of my friends had plans to either go to grad school or had jobs in a field they knew they wanted to be in. I really had no idea what to do with myself...I did know that as a Spanish major I didn't want to teach; what else is there?

Basically I moved to Boston because I always wanted to live here, so I found a job and picked up and moved. I love Boston but I've come to the realization that there is no where to go in my job and I'm stuck if I stay in it. I'm an admin assistant in a major hospital here in Boston and when I got hired they made all of these grandeur promises to me about how the job was going to be. Basically none of that has panned out and I've ended up doing a lot of answering phones and filing for the past (almost) year. I feel like I'm wasting my college education and time on this job; half the time I sit at my desk and have nothing to do so I'm on KH all the time. I know its hard to find a job out of college but I feel like looking at other people they had their plans and put them into action while I was kind of stuck.

I really want to go back to school full time for my masters, and I just don't think that can happen in Boston as much as I would like it to...its just waaay to expensive to be in school full time here and be able to pay rent and bills on a part time job. I've finally decided that I'm going to move back home for a little while and go to school in CT...I'm going to go for my MBA. I can save money this way and the schools I'm applying to are so much cheaper than some of the schools here in Boston. Since both of the schools I'm applying to are on rolling admissions I'm going to be really busy in the month or so to try to get admissions for the fall. So I'm going to let my boss know soon that I'll be leaving mid August, which I'm a little nervous about...I've never left a job before. I'm really excited to be moving on and finally deciding what I'm going to do!

Angel of Welcome

Just another small FO. Its supposed to be the angel of welcome dishcloth but I just wanted to make a 6x6 square so I used size 4 needles and DK weight yarn. It was really easy and quick to make, I worked on it two nights after work...just knit and purl for the whole thing.

Now I'm trying to pick back up the scarf I started for my dad except now that I've gotten a taste of lace its soooo boring...just K2, P2 ribbing. Must get it over with...

Notorious s-c-a-r-f

Well the time has almost come to send out my ISE4 scarf. Its finally done after learning new stitches, messing up, taking a loooong break, working like a pro, messing up yet again, and binding off. I think it came out pretty good for my first try at lace. It was also the first time I've ever blocked a FO. It worked well except it sticks out in little points where I put the pins on the sides. I think I'm just going to call it a design element, it actually looks fine.

During blocking:

The notorious scarf:

The first time I've gotten to use the labels my bro and SIL gave me:

Ready to be sent to my secret pal:

All I have to do is get a few goodies to send with the package for my pal. I think I'll try to go downtown to get her some Boston kind of things. That will give me an excuse to go to Windsor Button's and shop for yarn...for my yarn swap of course hehe!

Avon Walk for Breast Cancer

What a challenging and emotional weekend it was. On Saturday and Sunday I walked almost 40 miles through Boston and the surrounding areas (in the rain) for the Avon Walk for Breast Cancer. I never thought walking could be so hard, but boy was it.

Here we are starting out (I'm on the left):

Look at all those people walking...there were 2800 of us:

The first day we started out walking and by mile 10 or so my ankle was killing me…I had to keep going though. At the half way mark (13.1 miles) I had to get some blisters repaired in the medical tent. Thankfully there were rest stops every 2-3 miles with water, snacks, and medical if we needed it. There were a bunch of guys with motorcycles that volunteered....they would be at major intersections to direct traffic, then they'd ride on to their next post so we saw them all day. They were so cool and encouraging!

Here's one of their decorated bikes:

And here we are with them at the end:

With no mile markers it was really tough because it seemed like we were walking so much further than they told us. I couldn’t believe when I had finished the 26.2 miles on Saturday and finally made it to camp, it was exhausting!! But we still had to set up our tent! And I thought sleeping in the tent was going to be uncomfortable, but let me tell you, I could’ve slept under rock and probably have been comfortable…all I really wanted to do was sleep.

A view of camp:

The next morning we still had 13.1 miles to go, but I had to get some blisters taken care of before we set out. The guy in the medical tent told me he was going to have to lance one of my blisters…yikes!!! Actually it wasn’t as bad as I thought and it relieved a lot of pressure so I could walk a little more comfortably. I can’t believe I made it the second day since I was so exhausted and hurting! When we were walking back to UMASS Boston and I could finally see the end in sight I got really emotional and couldn’t believe I was almost done. When we got towards the end my friend that I was walking with and I were the only two in sight at that point….there were people far ahead and behind us, so it felt like just the two of us. There was a team called Men with Heart wearing their yellow shirts standing on either side of the walk cheering us on:

They were so awesome all weekend, and just seeing them there at the end was so encouraging. We then walked up a small hill to this grassy area under some trees and there were tons of people on either side of us cheering us on saying what a good job we did and yea we did it! I started crying at that point, all of the people were so supportive and since it was only the two of us at that point it felt like they were there for us! Hehe!

Here we are, all done and so happy:

The closing ceremonies were very emotional. A woman told us her story and how she is a three year survivor!! Good for her! And then some of the breast cancer survivors who walked went on stage so we could acknowledge them. It was amazing to see those women up there and made me feel great about participating in the whole weekend. All together we raised $6.8 million in Boston to go directly to different organizations (I helped my raising $1800…yea!).

Presenting checks at the closing ceremonies:

It was an amazing weekend that I’m so glad I got to take part in....I would suggest anyone who has a walk in their area to take part in it...its really a cool experience and you are doing something amazing to help fight a horrible disease.

Birthday/Mother's Day weekend!

Well, this isn’t a knitting related post but I just wanted to share a few pictures. I went to Portland, ME this weekend for my birthday weekend. My parents have a condo up there and live part time there and part time in CT. I haven’t been there since my niece was born in October, so I thought it was time for a trip up there. It was a very nice weekend with Mother’s Day on Sunday and my birthday on Monday!

Pretty Flowers at the farmers market in the park:

The park:

This was Pinwheels for Adoption, they were thanking all of the people who are foster patents and people who adopt:

Lots of pink tulips were planted on the western promenade for a breast cancer awareness project:

Portland is such a nice little city, there's just so much to do there and I love visiting, especially at this time of the year!

Long time no blog

Well, I haven’t posted for almost a month! I need to get better at this whole blogging this. With my birthday coming up on Monday (yea!) I got an early present from my brother and SIL:

I'm so excited to put it on my next FO, which probably will be my ISE4 scarf seeing as I've only been working on it and have put everything else aside. I really need to start picking it up now, I hope that few weeks of being frustrated and taking a break won't hurt me. I figure I'm about half way through, then I'll have to block (which I've never done before). I'm going to get down to business and be very serious about it from here on in. I hope I can do it!