First FO of 2008

Rambling Rows is done! Well, it would have been done on my lazy Sunday, except I got this far:
and ran out of yarn. At 9:12p, twelve minutes after the local Michaels closed. Can we say, "Grrr!"? So I had to wait until yesterday to get the yarn and finish the knitting, then last night I finished weaving in the ends and washed it. I'm still not guaranteeing that I got all the cat hair off of it - Teddie is still madly in love with the thing - but it turned out a heck of a lot better than I thought it would.

Pattern specs:
Name: Ramblng Rows Afghan
Designer: Carol Anderson of Cottage Creations (can't find a direct link)
Yarn: Lion Brand Wool-Ease Thick & Quick 10 skeins Fisherman, 6 skeins each of Navy, Claret, and Pine, and 5 skeins of Butterscotch.
Needles: US 17 (KnitPicks Options)
Finished size: I have no idea what the actual final measurements are - my tape measure is currently in the office from helping tape out a floor - but that's a queen-sized bed it's draped on in the finished photo, so I'm going to go with size Pretty Darn Big.
Notes: I did the baby blanket size stitch counts with the Thick & Quick and large needles, and it turned out smashingly huge. Perfect for a 6'5" guy (we're all petite flowers in my family - it's those delicate Scandinavian genes, you know). Picking up the stitches along the knitted edges was easy as pie, but picking up stitches along the cast-on edges didn't always work out so well and puckered sometimes. I tried a couple different COs when I started, and had the same problem with all of them. I'm not quite sure how to deal with it. I also decided not to put a border on it; I don't think it needs one.

Anyway, that's going to the post office tomorrow. Other than that, not a lot going so far this week, thank goodness. I did actually get to go to knitting Monday morning. If the world ends soon, it's because Kim and I actually were able to come to the same knitting morning! It was so nice to see everyone again! Work is back down to just regular office stuff and meetings, with possibly an audition tour in a few weeks, until Godspell starts rehearsal in March. We're still trying to figure out intern assignments, but that's really our only major conundrum right now.

I rolled my ankle again on that $%^@ jump side kick board break. Mrs. S and Ma'am taught class last night, and Mrs. S wouldn't let me try the break again, even though my ankle didn't hurt. She told me it wasn't worth it, and made me do the break with just a regular #3 side kick, which I can do in my sleep. The bruise on my palm heel from holding the boards for everyone else hurts more (bad enough that I couldn't do the medicine ball pushups in FIGHT tonight, which sucked). What hurts the most, actually, is that once again, I couldn't do the board break correctly. I did it Just Fine last week with Sir and Mr. R. This is SO frustrating! I didn't get a chance to talk to Sir about it tonight but I'm definitely going to try to talk to him tomorrow. I'm already going in early to talk to Mrs. S about kickboxing, since she's asked me to cover class on Friday for her.

So tomorrow is all meetings, paperwork, learning to teach, and most likely a lot of jump side kick drills. And I wouldn't want it any other way =)