Someone save me from the vampires...

Title will be explained later.
Last night Anne-Marie and I went to the Mariners Stitch & Pitch. We even won the game (walk-off home run!), which is almost a miracle considering how bad the Mariners have been this year. The game was fun, and there were a lot of vendors this year. I bought a colorwork armwarmer kit that I'll show off as soon as I take a picture of it. It was a beautiful night - I didn't even need my sweatshirt, let alone the scarf/hat/armwarmers that I brought. Here you see the field (obviously). There aren't any photos of me knitting because I was working on a secret project. In fact, the reason you haven't seen any knitting lately is because this secret project is pretty much all I've been working on. And I haven't been knitting much because I've been in a Twilight-induced haze (which I don't even want to begin to get into discussing) since I came back from Chicago. I need to get out of the haze though - my apartment is a mess, I've forgotten how to do science, and my friends probably think I've gone insane (not impossible). Although I have already gotten two of them obsessed with the books as well - it's good to pass around the crazy.
I've signed up for the WIP wrestling event of the Ravelry Olympics. I liked the idea of starting something new and then finishing during the games, but I'm really into the secret project I'm working on, and it's a gift so there are time constraints. So, I'm going to try to finish that, as well as my long-suffering Anais and the Bayu bamboo top (those are Ravelry links). We'll see how it goes - I'll try to keep you posted, if I can keep my mind off the vampires long enough to type something coherent!

A year in books

I'm back from PA, and I'll be talking about my trip (and how the knitted gifts were received) soon, but first I want to make a couple of lists. This year I decided to write down the books I read over the course of the year. I did this for no real reason other than to keep track of them, but as time went by I realized I'd been reading quite a lot of books. I have pretty eclectic taste, but this year I was on a bit of a single-word-title-non-fiction kick (subtitles accepted). When I originally planned this post I intended to write little descriptions for each, but now I'm feeling a bit too lazy for that, plus I have reading to do! I've also decided to write where I obtained the book from, just to keep track...Books are listed in order consumed. * are for books I highly recommend to you all.

Books I Devoured - 2007 Edition
1. Cell - Stephen King (bought at the Cleveland airport on route back to Seattle last Christmas)
2. Touching the Void - Joe Simpson (owned)
3. Gods in Alabama - Joshilyn Jackson (borrowed from my mother)
4. Hypocrite in a Pouffy White Dress - Susan Gilman (borrowed from Daisy)*
5. Nature Girl - Carl Hiaasen (Christmas gift from Dave)
6. Knitting under the Influence - Claire LaZebnik (Christmas gift)
7. A Painted House - John Grisham (found in apartment building lobby)
8. Coal: A Human History - Barbara Freese (bought at used book store)
9. Casts Off - Stephanie Pearl-McPhee (bought)
10. Buried Alive - Jan Bondeson (library)
11. Washington Disasters - Rob and Natalie McNair (birthday gift from Dave)
12. The Poisonwood Bible - Barbara Kingsolver (borrowed from Vivian)*
13. Sister Carrie - Theodore Dreiser (owned since high school)*
14. Corpse: Nature, Forensics, and the Struggle to Pinpoint Time of Death - Jessica Snyder (borrowed from my mother)
15. The Angel of Darkness - Caleb Carr (bought at used book store)
16. The White Cascade: The Great Northern Railway Disaster and America's Deadliest Avalanche - Gary Krist (library)*
17. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince - J.K. Rowling (owned)*
18. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - J.K. Rowling (bought on day of release)*
19. The Father of Forensics: The Groundbreaking Cases of Sir Bernard Spilsbury, and the Beginnings of Modern CSI - Colin Evans (library)*
20. The Jury Master - Robert Dugoni (found in apartment building lobby)
21. Persuasion - Jane Austen (Daily Lit)*
22. The Dawn of Human Culture - Richard Klein (library)
23. The World Without Us - Alan Weinberg (library)*
24. Drunk, Divorced, and Covered in Cat Hair - Laurie Perry (gift from Rachel)*
25. Storm World: Hurricanes, Politics, and the Battle over Global Warming - Chris Mooney (library)
26. Beyond the Body Farm: A Legendary Bone Detective Explores Murders, Mysteries, and the Revolution in Forensic Science - Bill Bass (library)
27. Tobacco: A Cultural History of How an Exotic Plant Seduced Civilization - Iain Gately (bought at used book store)
28. Bitter is the New Black - Jen Lancaster (borrowed from my mother)*
29. Emma - Jane Austen (Daily Lit)*
30. A Long Way Gone - Ishmael Beah (borrowed from my mother)*
31. Tea: Addiction, Exploitation, and Empire - Roy Moxham (bought)
32. Uncommon Carriers - John McPhee (library)*
33. Bright Lights, Big Ass - Jen Lancaster (bought at Powells)*
34. Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress - Dai Sijie (borrowed from my mother)*
35. The Gatecrasher - Madeleine Wickham (borrowed from my mother)
36. Into the Wild - Jon Krakauer (owned)

36 strikes me as quite a lot of books, especially considering I also finished 30 knitted objects! I'll be listing those shortly just to keep track. I used to read more before I started knitting, but even so I'd like to read even more books in 2008. I'm already about halfway through The Pillars of the Earth, which was a Christmas present from my dad. It gets its * even at the midway point...