Moving Day for Bagheera

Chris's cat, Bagheera, moved in with my parents this week, in preparation for our move to Brooklyn. He has always lived in the 30-foot radius surrounding Chris's apartment so I was worried about how he might adapt to moving 3 miles away. Also, there's Rudee, our big brown dog, to contend with. (By the way, I feel like a traitor posting pictures of Bagheera before I ever posted a picture of Rudee. She's jealous enough already.)  But everything is fine so far for Bagheera. 

There have been a few face-offs between Bagheera and Rudee. Rudee sticks her nose in Bagheera's face and Bagheera sticks his nose out to meet hers, and Rudee jumps back as if he struck her. He's tough, and was always getting into fights in his old neighborhood. Chris read that you can tell how your cat handles fights by where their wounds are: wounds on the hindquarters means that they were struck while running away, and wounds on the face means they were facing their opponent head-on. A few weeks ago Bagheera got into a fight and his eye was wounded and totally swollen shut. He's healed now, but he has battle scars on his nose, ears, and close to his eyes from all of his many scuffles. He's a head-on fighter for sure.

I hope he'll get along okay in his new neighborhood. He's fitting in to his new household pretty well. He's putting on a brave face and ignoring Rudee for the most part, though I've seen him tiptoe past her on more than one occasion. Here he is making himself at home. 

By the way, that is a wedding project on the coffee table in front of him--our mixed CD we'll be giving as a wedding favor. Chris put together a playlist of our most favorite songs that will also be on the wedding reception playlist, and then we arranged them. He designed the cover and printed them, cut them out, scored the folds and we glued them together. Chris has a history of making mixed CD's for our friends for different occasions, so this is the perfect favor for us to give. I have mixed CD's for all the birthdays I've had since since we met, so I can't wait to add this one to the collection.  

Magnolia

This is the tree we'll get married under. 

These are the bricks we'll stand on. 

Michael and Sarah got married!

Last weekend our friends Michael and Sarah got married. They had a fabulous wedding. They rented a house on the sound and the ceremony and reception was all held outdoors. 

The photo above is from their choreographed first dance. They had a good friend choreograph the dance and teach it to them. There was a move from Dirty Dancing and some breakdancing on Michael's part. It was awesome. Sarah said it was her favorite part of wedding planning. 

It was really fun to be planning our wedding at the same time as these two. When they came to town to plan (they live in D.C. and were planning a "destination" wedding on the Outer Banks; we live in the destination) we compared notes and commiserated. On the day of their wedding they kept saying, "you guys are next and we're ready!" I can't wait to be in their position: wedding wrapped up and honeymoon on. 

Hey Loverbun

Chris and I went to Sanctuary Vineyards today to meet up with Brooke Mayo (our wedding photographer) for an engagement shoot. Brooke calls it a Lover Buns Session. It was the most fun. She zoomed us around the vineyards in her little red car and we posed for pictures all over the place. 

Check it out on Brooke's blog. 

Beer Decision '08

Here are the beers we considered for the wedding, from left to right: Dogfish Head 60-minute IPA, Bell's Two Hearted Ale, Big Boss Hell's Belle, The Duck-Rabbit Milk Stout, and Highland Gaelic Ale. We decided to get small kegs for the wedding reception, with the exception of a few cases of Bud or Michelob to keep the Joe six-packs happy. Just kidding: I'm not adopting that phrase. I think using kegs will create less waste and make clean-up easier for our caterer. Trash bags full of beer bottles are not fun to tote to the dumpster. Plus, we both really like draft beer. 

Chris picked up the above beers at Chip's and we had a tasting. Oh, the tortures of wedding planning! They are all excellent beers, but in the end we chose Bell's Two Hearted Ale (Chris's favorite IPA) and The Duck Rabbit Milk Stout (this is just great beer). For a Hefeweizen pick (my favorite style of beer) I think we will have a keg filled at our local brew pub. It just happens to be America's only wind-powered brew pub. Two out of our three picks are North Carolina beers, which makes us happy. Next up: Adventures in Wine Tasting as we search for an incredibly cheap, but actually pretty tasty red wine. 

If you watched the Biden/Palin debate last week you might enjoy this video, featuring Queen Latifah. 

The hand towel that wouldn't knit itself

When I started this blog I thought knitting projects would be a major component of my posts. Only I was working on one project at the time, and for months afterward. It's a hand towel in a cool moss grid pattern from the the first Mason-Dixon Knitting book. Don't get me wrong. I love the way the pattern looks, once knitted. But while knitting...I can't tell you how many stitches I had to pick back until I discovered where I had gone wrong, how many rows I ripped out, and how often I just didn't want to pick up this project and start knitting because I had to pay attention to every stitch and mark off every row. I guess I like to knit on auto-pilot. But still, I love this moss grid pattern. 

Here is the towel in March. 

Here it is in September. Finished. Finally. 

Now that this is behind me, I've begun a project with a much simpler pattern (stockinette stitch I love you). It is a wrap to wear over my wedding dress in case it is chilly on Nov. 8. (The average high for that date in Manteo, North Carolina is 65 degrees. If I knit the wrap it will be warm. If I knit the wrap it will be warm.) 

This is a very deadline-driven project. It will also be the first wearable item that I've knitted that isn't a hat or a scarf, but fortunately the ladies at Knitting Addiction have come up with an easy pattern just for me. No sleeves! No keeping track of rows! No difficult patterns! Will I make it in time?