NYDBP

Happy New Year! Let's wrap up a few interesting things from 2009 to start off 2010 in style with some New Year's Day Bullet Points!

• I was really hoping to finish my Cable and Rib Cardigan (Ravelry link) before December waved good-bye. This did not happen. It was due to a series of unfortunate events - the Monkey Pox figured prominently as did the end of semester exams and grade posting. Another contributing factor is the rather nasty razor cut currrently inhabiting the pad of my left middle finger.
  
  It is hard to knit with a self-adhesive bandage stuck to the end of your finger but impossible to knit with an exposed quarter inch long incision: wool fibers getting into it is reminiscent of lemon juice flooding a paper cut.
  
  Since this sweater is still in progress as is a Grown Up Skweffle - Cornflower Edition, I am starting the new year with two WIPs, one of which is a SIP.



• With this cardigan still not complete, I tried hitting up the local thrift shops and mall stores for a wool sweater or two. Did I find anything? Nope. Well, that's not entirely true. I did find a lightweight black cardigan at the thrift store. It was marked Dry Clean Only. In retrospect, for four bucks, I probably should have gotten it and simply hand-washed it.
  
  There was also a Fair Isle pullover at the mall which interested me briefly - until I felt how long the floats were. Why do clothing companies think that three inch long floats are in any way wise?!



• While working on Christmas lights for the tree last month, I realized that I was holding one of the bulbs that make a twinkly set twinkle. I tried plugging it into the strand of lights I was testing. It didn't work either in the first position from the plug end nor the farthest position, therefore I concluded that this was not a twinkling strand.
  
  Neatnik really wanted the lights to twinkle. She didn't seem to understand that you need a twinkly strand and a twinkly bulb to make the magic happen, so I tried to explain it to her.
  
  "Neatnik, a twinkly light bulb without a twinkly light strand doesn't work. It's like if you are running Windows, no number of Linux drivers will make your hardware run."
  
  I really said that to the seven-year old.
  
  Gosh, I am such a geek.



• Recently, I noticed that a new Mexican restaurant opened up across the road from one of the local thrift shops. It is a small eatery about half a block down the street from a well-respected, similar establishment. Number Guy and I decided to give the new place a try yesterday.


The dining room was empty when we arrived. We weren't worried, though: we deliberated planned an early arrival so that we wouldn't have Neatnik out late. We ordered dinner and fell upon greedily devoured daintily nibbled on tortilla chips and salsa. What delicious chips! They were piping hot and you could really taste the corn flavor - not too salty, either.


• Number Guy ordered a quesadilla and burrito combo. Neatnik selected the very traditional Mexican chicken fingers and French fries. I opted for a house specialty called molcajetes, named after the searingly hot vessel in which it was served.
  
  Most awesome Mexican meal I have ever had, including the homemade tamales and other ethnic goodies Celtic Beadie's mom's little old Mexican neighbor lady cooked when we visited for Thanksgiving back in 1991.
  
  We enjoyed this meal and the location so much that we called friends on the drive home to tell them about it.
  
  I have to admit that singing the praises of this restaurant isn't entirely altruistic. This is a small, new place and we want to encourage people to eat there so that there will be enough patrons to keep them in business in between our visits.



• I've mentioned in some past posts how happy it makes me when an author I've read comments on my blog. Late last night, I received a comment from Candace Calvert, author of Critical Care.
  
  Candace's next book, Disaster Status, hits the book shelves in April, with Code Triage scheduled for release in September.



• I went through my blogroll on Bloglines last night. There were quite a few blogs which have not been updated in months and I unsubscribed from them. I was kind of sad as I clicked the "unsubscribe" button but I was virtual house cleaning in order to make room for new feeds. I am very hopeful that I will find new (replacement) blogs to read. If you have a favorite blog which you think I might enjoy reading, leave me a link, okay? New blog friends are always a blessing.
  
  New physical friends are also a blessing but, as adults, making new friends is hard. There was even a thread on Ravelry about it recently.
  
  Where/how do you go about making new friends? Do you find it hard to make new friends or to re-establishing ties with old ones? I've never been big on new year's resolutions but if I were to think of having one, making new friends while maintaining existing relationships and reconnecting with old friends would be a very worthy goal.

While we are not particularly attached to resolutions around here, Neatnik did sort of make one: to read two hundred new books in 2010 - or at least more books than Mommy.