Leone, your sister turned me on to Robin McKinley, and I ADORE Sunshine. I am also a big fan of the Anita Blake books, Allison. Sadly the book I read last week was neither, and not particularly well written. I can't remember where I am in either the Blake series or in the Gentry series, so I haven't picked any up in a while.

This week I'm back to driving. It's only Tuesday and I'm already pooped. And have only managed to read about 20 pages of Kathy Reichs' Grave Secrets.

I was at Lewiscraft today (local-ish craft store chain that has been bought out and is closing down). I was trying to get stuff to knit a yoga mat bag and a cabled newsboy cap from the Stitch 'n Bitch Nation book. Unfortunately, when it's a store closing down sale you take what you can get. Instead of 100% cotton and a 50/50 alpaca/merino blend I got more Bernat Soft Boucle in Richest Red, bringing my stash total to 6 skeins, with which I am going to attempt a tubular shrug.

I've decided that my particular brand of knitting is called Commando Knitting. Although not in the underwear sense. Here's how it goes: I see a pattern that I like, or some yarn that makes me happy, or I have a device or other thing that needs a cozy; I say to myself "You know, I think I'd like to change that and make it different/better/more suited to be exactly what I need."; throwing caution to the wind I swatch using different sizes needles and a different weight yarn than is called for in the pattern, and I may fix the pattern a little too so that the lace is more visible or something (there's usually a lot of frogging involved in this step). Then I knit. And wind up with pretty good stuff on the whole, at least so far.

It's a similar to the attitude I've always taken towards my hair. Bad dye job? Horrible perm? Silly looking cut? Bah! It grows back, just shave it down to about an inch.

Crazy Aunt Purl calls it Living Out Loud. Natasha Bedingfield calls it living life with arms wide open. I'm not sure which I like better, but I'm having lots of fun.