So.. last night I decided to try to make wheat bread. I’ve done white bread before and usually it is pretty good, but I’ve always been scared of wheat because the dough can get so dense and gross.

Well, that did not happen.

What did happen was my loaf became monsterously large. The recipe (coughcoughMOMcough) said it was for one loaf, so I put the whole ball of dough in one bread pan when really I should have made it two. I put it in the oven, the smell wafting through the house and I was all happy and excited thinking yay! homemade bread! and it’s even made with whole grain!

And then I went to check on it and it was twice as tall as it should be.

It still tastes good, although maybe needs a LITTLE extra sugar. And to be split into two loaves.

So.. (scarf) this weekend I was working on finishing up projects, and I finished up this pink & green striped scarf, in stockinette.

Also, (hair) last week I got my hair cut. I’m still a hair model for my stylist, meaning he gets to pick my hair cut, color, style. So far I’ve liked everything he’s done, although I am hoping we go longer at some point (soon).

And (update), the days of my Jetta are done. The transmission went out and the repairs are beyond expensive. Today I went and paid $795 for basically nothing. Tomorrow once the transmission is back in, I’ll have to get it towed. Fortunately for me 1) I have great friends who are letting me borrow their car and b) my brother-in-law’s parents are selling their car and it works out for me to get it. I am taking my non-freaking out to be a sign that things will be ok. There is even a state program for retiring vehicles, and I’ll get paid $1000 to turn my old car over.

I’m a little sad, it is my first car afterall. But, it has cost me thousands in repairs in the 6.5 years I’ve had it, and I’m ready for something new (to me).

So.. I work really well with goals. I don’t know what it is, but I like having that pressure of knowing I have a deadline. And I like it when the deadline is closer, rather than far away. Saying, “this has to be done for Christmas” isn’t pressure enough because Christmas can seem so very far away. Instead I am focusing on daily goals. Andrew’s scarf has to be worked on daily, at least 12 rows a day (the pattern chart). It went from sitting at an inch long for a couple months to now being close to 8 inches. Still have a way to go, but with a daily routine of doing it, it’ll actually get done.

I have a few other projects for Christmas I need to work on, so I am setting up my goals for those as well. I haven’t quite determined what the daily/weekly requirement will be, but my hope is to finish the larger project by Thanksgiving and the smaller project shortly after.

I also realized that I have currently 4 projects on needles (including Andrew’s scarf) and I need to finish them. One is the farrow rib scarf on my current projects page. Super easy and fast, so I need to make time to just finish it. Plus then I can wear it this fall! The other is another easy scarf I started because I didn’t have my other projects handy. It’s a simple stockinette stitch and it’s alternating green and pink. It’s maybe half done. I need to get that finished. And then I still have Ruth’s bag to finish up. All I need to do is sew the handle on and make the closure. I should do that this weekend, actually.

The bag I’ve been working on all year will have to wait til after Christmas, but as soon as my other projects are done I’ll set goals to finish.

I’ve told myself no starting new projects (besides the Christmas projects) until the old ones are done. I am super excited to try out some patterns I have but, to get to them I have to finish the old ones! But just wait til you see what I have in mind!

So.. a year disappears so quickly, doesn’t it? August is ending and Christmas just seems to be sneaking up on me. My family has started doing an exchange between the adults, instead of giving gifts to everyone. We do 2 exchanges; one is a store-bought gift with a limit, the other is a home-made gift (with a limit that we sometimes ignore). We draw names right after Christmas so we all have a year to plan and work on our projects.

Now, the person I got, I immediately thought of several ideas of what to make. Which, is really good, because some people are much harder than others! Anyway, here it is, August 28th and while I have ideas, I have not started a thing on it. Yesterday I narrowed down to exactly what I am making, what my timeline is for it, and what my back up plan is should I not finish in time. I seriously vow that next year I will start sooner.

One thing I’m really going to hate about this is not being able to post pictures and updates about what I’m making because that person can’t see it! So I will have to post after Christmas.

Of course, that’s given I have a camera to take pictures of the progress. I sure hope I do. As I said earlier this week, last weekend my camera died. I looked online and it looks like a fairly common problem; there are two screws inside the camera that often come loose, fall and then short out the camera. So, I am hoping once I have $90 to fix it, that will be that and I’ll be back to shooting again.

In the mean time, I am trying desperately to finish the birthday Christmas scarf for Andrew. I love this pattern. It is just rather time consuming working it because it’s 12 rows that are all slightly different, so I have to pay close attention to which I am on. There is cabling, which I seriously love. It’s not difficult but looks beautiful. My new goal is to knit (at least) a set of 12 rows each day. That way I can hope to be done in time to mail for Christmas.

Since my camera is out of commission (sad face), I took a quick picture with my phone.

The picture quality sucks but at least you can see I made progress. I’m going to attempt an extra set of 12 rows today, for bonus points. Haha!