And then a month goes by...

It's been a busy couple of weeks, but I now I'm just making excuses.

First, with the holiday in there, I had lots of extra work around my office. Planning to be away for 3 days caused an extra week's worth of preparation. The time was much needed away from my town. It was great.

Also, right before the holiday, we bought a new car - a 2008 Toyota Corolla. We really needed this one. Back in June, the car we were driving - a '96 Mercury Tracer - was finally kicking the bucket. This car was bought brand new, off the lot by my mom, and we put over 140K miles on it. It served us well. However, in June, DH and I weren't exactly in a position to buy a car. So, we've been borrowing a car since then. It's a Saturn SL1, and a bit snug to fit into.

When DH got his awesome job in September, I knew we were on our way. Finally, we hit that point where all of our finances were flowing well with a bit of excess now, so we dove in. I had been researching the Corollas for quite a long time now, and feel totally confident in what we got. Eeeee!

In knitting news, my camera is kinda broken. It turns out that I have a defective battery. Thankfully, this is something that the manufacturer is aware of, and I should have a replacement soon. Then I can take way more pictures. In the meantime, I have been using my phone's camera, which actually takes quite good pictures. However, it doesn't transfer to my computer very easily and my work computer is kinda on the fritz (where I normally transfer everything). So, I have lots of shots, but haven't gotten around to posting them.

I have, however, been knitting up a storm. I joined the NaKnitSweMo group on Ravelry to challenge myself into knitting a sweater in a month. Well, November is almost over, but my sweater's only half done. On the other hand, my sweater's half done!! It seriously took me forever to make the last sweater that I worked on, so this is amazing to me. I'm knitting it in Cascade 220, and I bought a simple top-down v-neck raglan pattern to follow since I'm designing a full-coverage intarsia pattern as I go along. My dad is really into tigers - all kinds, too. Siberian tigers with green eyes especially, but Tigger too. I figured that I would knit him a sweater with a full body tiger-stripe pattern to it. It's taking a while, but the shaping is already done, and the stripes look awesome. Actually last night, I had it off the needles on a lifeline just to check a few things, and I'm really impressed with myself right now. The way the I'm building the stripes could have been totally disastrous. I have been taking lots of pictures, and as soon as I can get them on a computer, I will post them here, and on Ravelry.

I've covered a lot, and I will be posting more. Stay tuned...