Hello from Mrs. Stark

Ok, ok. There's mold growing on the poor forgotten wedding sausage in the back of the fridge, so I guess it's time to write a little note about the wedding. That's right y'all, I'm a married lady. Well, married at least. I even have a new social security card. It's legal and everything.

I have to say if you weren't there, you kind of missed the best wedding of all time. Sorry. Luckily there are a ton of pictures, which I have collected on the flickr, and put on the Walgreens photo site-in case you need a coffee mug of me with my visible bra faux pas! Yes, a typical girl might be horrified at the v.b. but then again a typical girl would have purchased a new bra to wear with her wedding dress. Oops.

Aside from that, everything was fantastic. Very (very) simple, small, and easy. I was reminded (again) that I have the most badass friends in the entire world. Without Adriane, Rachel, and my dear BFF (best friend Frances) we could never have pulled it off. And our families are the best. They were at the ready for anything we needed. Plus they are all happy about us getting married! Bonus!

The ceremony was perfect. (Oh yeah, I wrote it) The cake was delicious (Sit down. I baked it myself!!-Mom did the decorating) The weather cooperated, the band was great. It seems like everyone had fun. I think-to borrow a phrase from my new Stark family-we chalk it up as a win!

The honeymoon? Again-sorry to be gushing like a silly girl,but-perfect. It was all the things we love in one extravaganza week. Driving, hiking, going to nerdy historical sites, being at the coast, finding random crazy little bars in tiny towns, eating fancy food, festing, dancing...we even camped in our new tent. I know! I camped! I've never camped as an adult, unless you count sleeping in a van as camping. It was super fun and I got to sleep in my new orange hat.

The only downside to the honeymoon was that in all my excitement about "the thing" I did a very poor job of packing. No knitting. So sad. We were in the car for literally days. I could have made a whole new wardrobe. Speaking of wardrobe I also forgot to pack enough shirts, which is why in the pictures I'm mostly wearing a Hondo High School t-shirt I got at the HEB in Hondo. Go Owls!!

All right. Enough bragging about how awesome my wedding was. But it was. I am so lucky and thankful. Yikes! I still have to send out thank you cards.

So what else has been going on? Life continues pretty much as usual. We've done some more festing and hiking-I put even more pictures of trees on the flickr. It's funny, I used to make fun of my mom for taking pictures of trees and stuff, but now I think I'm even worse. I could wallpaper my whole apartment with pictures of trees. Trees might (almost) have eclipsed the cats in number of photos. Maybe.

On the knitting front, I went to two knerdy events this past week: a Ravelry event at The Knitting Nest, and Knit Night. Once again, I've made the internal declaration that I am going to knit stuff for people for Christmas, but we'll see. Perhaps I should start making this declaration in August. We have a drive to Denton coming up for Thanksgiving, hopefully I won't be too distracted to pack some knitting for that.

What's that noise? Oh, it's my stomach. Guess I should have breakfast since it's 11. It's freezing ("freezing" in Texan = 60 degrees) so I think I'll make some oatmeal.

Maybe Mrs. Stark will blog more often. You can only hope.

My all-consuming passion for Mullet-Bono knows no bounds. Happy October y'all!!

The Usual: Open with Hat, Close with Cats

Hi y'all. The Great Hat Frenzy of 2010 continues!Here's the side view. I think this yarn, while FANTASTIC, was ever so slightly too thick for this particular stitch pattern. It's still super cute though.
Yes, I'm wearing my Rangers shirt again. Apparently the Rangers are having a miraculous year.

This weekend was my sweet love's birthday! While it would be next to impossible to top last year, we had fun. We had yummy yummy food at Mandola's, went to a rock show, and I made a cobbler! One more Texas citizenship test passed!!
Another part of the Texas Citizenship Program is paying more attention to sports. It was a bad news/good news TX sport weekend, with the Horns suffering an embarrassing defeat, but the Rangers clinching a trip to the playoffs and the Cowboys finally winning. I have to believe the Cowboys victory had something to do with the purchase of these:
Now I'm ready to:
Speaking of tough...CATFIGHT!!

Some people (my mom) pointed out to me that I may have neglected to mention what a fun time I had while my mom was in town. I did. By far the highlight (for her) was our visit to the Texas State Cemetery. She was very excited. For some reason she loves (LOVES.) cemeteries. It made me so happy to make her happy that I agreed to a rare full body photo:Look, Erick, I have a Rangers shirt too.

We also did a lot of shopping and eating and stuff like that. She bought me this super cool necklace which yes, I could totally make but I never would.
Careful followers (Aileene) will remember that I've been in a bit of a reading slump. Y'all (Aileene) will be happy to know that (again, thanks to my mom) I think I'm out. I made-I mean asked nicely-my mom buy this book because of my weird refusal to be openly participating in ultra-hyped book events. Even worse, now it's an Oprah Book Club pick! I'm (once again) shaking my fist in the air at you Oprah! Goddamn your marginally good taste in books! Now I look like some O-worshipping soccer mom!! At least the book is good. Really good. While he's by no means my favorite Jonathan, I have to admit Mr. Franzen is a badass.

Speaking of badasses, look who's making yet another hat:
Yep, me! I'm in some kind of hat frenzy. This makes three! In a matter of months! Crazy!! Again, thanks to my mom, who bought me this yarn while we were in Seattle. I LOVE LOVE LOVE it. It feels really smooshy and the color (glazed carrot!) is fantastic. Here's the pattern. In case you, ya know, wanna make one for yourself.

Oops, I'm late for lady lunch! Gotta run!

Knittin'and partyin'

So yes it is almost one in the afternoon and I haven't taken a shower yet, but I thought I would take a minute (well, an hour if you count the flickr uploading, but I digress...) to update y'all on my goings-on and show you my hat:

It's just like the one I made for Amy. It's a teensy bit too big but I like it anyway. I'm sure I'll be wearing it soon since last night it dipped way down into the mid 70's. (Happy first day of fall y'all!!)

That's the "knittin'" news, on to the "partyin": On Sept. 11 the North Texas Division of our family threw us a lovely wedding shower in Denton. It was the "real"-est party that has ever been thrown for me and it was super fun even though we had to open presents in front of people (there was a margarita machine for that).

Last Sunday the Howells had a Second Week of Football party (long story/inside joke) and again-margarita machine! I'm sensing a trend...

Sadly, I didn't take any of my own pictures at the shower (left the camera at the motel, stupid! stupid!) and my mom's camera was acting a little wacky, so I just have a few pictures right now. John's cousin Leah was the official photographer so I'm hoping she got some better ones. I put what I do have on the flickr, along with a few football shots.

Uh oh, Jerry's telling me his final thought...gotta go!

Mom-soon

My mom is coming to town today, so of course it is pouring.Every single time my family comes here, the weather turns to shit. Oops, guess I shouldn't have invited them to an outdoor wedding. Bring a poncho!

Minute by Minute present update: my sis and Jon gave us a fancy new teevee!
(Reruns of Ellen in High Def!)

It has all sorts of color coded inputs and outputs but I just had to use one:
My sweet love declared last night that he is going to start "championing" Hubert, because Lee gets too much attention. He's right. Poor Hube. Here's a glamour shot:

He is a handsome little cat. Go Hubert Cumberdale Go!

Happy Labor Day

(The Koozies are here! The Koozies are here!)
I googled "september in texas" for header images, and I got this. Looks like a trip to Lubbock is in order.

Happy Labor Day y'all. I'm celebrating by having cake for breakfast, then going to work.

This weekend we watched the first (of many) ass-kickings delivered by our beloved Longhorns, but I forgot to bring knitting. I did get some reading done during the commercials. I've read it before of course, but it reminded me of my all-consuming love for Carson. She's the greatest.

My mom's coming tomorrow, so I should be putting a smackdown on this apartment. Later!