bad habits

lately i've gotten into the bad habit of not having time to write a post and just scribbling down a few notes of what i wanted to post. except then they build up into novel-like posts. so while i'm not joining any of those crazy almost-acronyms i am going to try to post rather than scribble. cuz when all those scribbles add up? it feels like work and i don't want to post anymore.

so .....let's see what i have today. i've been reading a bit on the side, mostly YA novels (this means they're shorter so i whiz through them). heartlight was a pretty good book, very similar to a wrinkle in time, but with less depth. the first few pages made me wary, because they were so so similar to l'engle. a new england farmhouse, malcontented teenage girl with braces, interested in science but not in school, father/grandfather working on faster than light travel & mysteries of the universe. the story line was original though, with some cool ideas. somehow it seemed a little superficial, with a resolution similar to wrinkle. i'd still recommend it though.

apparently the seeker wasn't a great office box hit up here cuz it was in and out before i could see it. not that i was dying to see it in the theater, but it could have been a good date. lately we've been getting lots of movies i never heard of for very short runs. thank goodness for netflix. we finally saw pan's labyrinth. i really liked it, although it was unexpectedly bloody in parts. the fairy tale aspect was fascinating and surreal, and at the end you're not sure if it was real or unreal. a good movie, but with those violent bits (most war related), i wouldn't watch it with kids.

i've been anticipating the golden compass' release next month, but i'm a bit worried about the interpretation. kind of like the seeker. *sigh* hollywood did such a good job with narnia, why can't they show the same respect to other fantasy novels?

for halloween we went to a little party (ok there was tons of kids and people you normally don't see) at church. they always call it a "harvest festival" for some reason, except it's on halloween and exactly like a halloween party. i shake my head at the silliness. kim and austin came , with seth dressed as a lion (no, we're bad, i don't have any pics). we had fun. there was one little girl around a year old in a white bear costume that had the cutest growl. her face lit up if you asked what a bear says and she'd growl a few times for you.

the last two days i had off for parent/teacher conferences. i was heartbroken - not! my math job is done. i think. the teacher is adopting her newborn granddaughter and may need more time off. the kids were still trying to convince me to somehow get their normal teacher fired and become their fulltime teacher. and they said they would miss me - one girl even gave me a hug. awww. made me feel good, even with the math element.

i got some other warm fuzzies too. the woven stitch towel and fjörgyn were faved on ravelry. somebody likes what i made! i feel so appreciated this week.

thursday i was a good girl and did some housework. ok, so i still didn't get the cobwebs (they'll just make more anyway) but i did fold the laundry that i don't remember washing, took screens out of windows and took down the curtain rods. they haven't had curtains since last winter i think. i got rid of them as fast as i could convince chuck to let me. windows are for looking out. i hate curtains, shades or anything that gets in the way of my view of outside. we have pretty wood frames to, so they look nice without the curtains. and they look better without the rods! i even did some handwashing (finally) - all while chuck was on ebay. he's like a little kid discovering a candy store in his back yard.

we babysat seth thursday night, which was fun. we don't see him very often, so i don't think he really knows that chuck is his grandpa. we had fun playing with himand feeding him pizza crusts. i took advantage of kim's white rug to take pics of old FOs for ravelry. our rug's so ugly it just detracts from the picture. it's kind of cool seeing things pile up there and realizing how much i've made in the 4 years since i started knitting again. when i go home for christmas i'll be taking more pics of stuff i gave away. since i always forget to take pics. i used to have a good excuse cuz i had a sucky camera (birthday present when i was 12, very low quality - but i actually kept it till i was 27!). now i've got the digital and still forget. . . *sigh* but i think i've got pics now of everything here that i've made.



the broadripples are all done, but will be in a future post since i washed them but want a pic of them on my feet. they went so fast once i picked them up again! the stripes are a bit different, fatter on one sock than the other, but i don't mind. they still look nice. i cast on the 2nd thuja tuesday (i think) but haven't done much on it since i haven't been in school.

despite not knitting much the last few days, the second mossgrid is halfway done. yay! i'm itching to cast on a shawl but told myself i had to finish the towels first. i was planning on knitting the summer shawlette to try out the faroese style shawls, but since i got stahman's shawls and scarves (one of my bits of plunder from the ebay spree) i decided to go with something else more interesting. a feather and fan (i love that stitch), knit neck down so i can still use up the yarn i've got. i have 2 other yarns in my stash that i'm thinking of making shawls with, but i'm not sure if i'd wear them. or what pattern they'd look good in. so those keep rolling around in the back of my head.

while babysitting and not-watching the kingdom of heaven, i started in the hand of the goddess. reading kids' book makes me feel like a fast reader again. i blasted through it and finished it yesterday. i'm liking those books too, even though it was will of the empress all over again - went to read trickster's choice and found out it was sequel-ish to the lioness rampant books. luckily i had just read the first one, otherwise i'd never have known and spoiled the ending for myself. knowing the ending ahead of time sucks.

chuck ran out of lights (we bought them last year, guessing how much we needed and never got them up since it was minus degrees when we moved in), so we bought a strand of blue lights to try out. we've got those icicle lights that dangle, and the pic on the blue box made the snow look like moonlight was on it. and for once, the picture didn't lie! the blue lights are pretties, and now i just have to figure out how to convince chuck we want to buy all blue lights. hmmm . . . . . .

oh, and if anyone knows how to get rid of the little gnat buggies that live in houseplant dirt, PUH-LEASE let me know. they're making me crazy, and i don't want to ditch the plants (which is chuck's idea of a solution).

sox - toberfest

this post has been stewing a while. work and knitting and life have been taking up my time. which is rather a good thing. real life wins out over the computer anytime.

so..........how bout those red socks? while the playoffs were going on chuck said "wouldn't it be funny if it ended being the rockies against the red sox?" ie His team vs. My team. he totally jinxed them. and i don't think he's happy with the results. the first game i had to tease him, and of course a little today. i can't believe they sweeped the rockies. it was the perfect ending to the whole sox-toberfest (i couldn't resist the pun - sorry).

born and raised in MA i've always been a red sox and patriots fan. they always seemed to have this pattern though: do great during the season, get into playoffs, decide it's vacation time and crash and burn. so these last few years it's great to see the teams actually remembering to play during the postseason. and win. i love it. and with the pats 8-0 the superbowl's looking pretty good too. we're coming up against the colts though. i hope we whoop em. last year i banned payton manning's name, just because they said it every other second on espn.

in other good news. . . ah yes. the grand seaming event of last saturday. i was It. so i did what i could, and still have most of the squares to sew up. *sigh* at least the pressure's off. since then i've only done "fun" projects, but there's no school thurs and fri this week so i'll have my own private netflix seaming party then. and maybe get rid of the cobwebs in the house. the whole blanket project is turning into more of an ongoing thing, which is good because i still have squares (thankfully) trickling in. so given time we can do more.

the first fun thing i did was finish the woven stitch towel. yay!

the edges curl just a bit, but i can live with that.

last weekend i worked on chuck's neglected sweater until i couldn't stand it anymore. now i'm about 3 inches from the neck decreases. like a horror film, i knit but don't seem to get any closer. stake conference this weekend gave me plenty of time to work on it. for mostly being a church knitting project, it's coming along fairly well. i have a dream of it being done in time for our thanksgiving trip, but know it probably won't happen.

i finished the thuja. i tried the sewn bind off for the first time and *really* liked it. my first toe-up sock i had to go up like 3 needle sizes for it to be loose enough to fit over my foot. the sewn bind off is like grafting half a stitch so it's super easy. and flexible! i was very happy with it.
broadripple 2 got started and almost finished last week, mostly knitting at school during my prep period. that's the best thing about high school i think. it just needs an inch or two and it'll be done. no pics, cuz, hey, it looks just like the first one. and the stripes match up pretty good, maybe half a row off.

i finished reading scions of shannara. despite having no recollection of the story line, i apparently have read it before, since i came across a quote i copied from it. i definitely don't remember it being a trilogy. so, druid of shannara up next once i go to the library tuesday. yesterday i barely started heartlight but i'll tell you about that tomorrow (it's almost bedtime).

today i started the second moss grid towel. i noticed on the first one that the seed borders on the sides fold in pretty bad. it's not blocked yet (i figured i'd do both of them at the same time) so hopefully it'll go away. that'll be my home knitting, while the socks are my school knitting.

sadly, the job i have right now is math. which means the kids have questions and need help during class (yeah i actually have to, like, teach) so i don't knit. luckily it was a 5 day job. the checkbook likes gigs like that. it helps keep the kids in line too. they haven't been a problem at all though, and i was a little discomfited to learn i was popular friday. i started wednesday, but only had 3 of the 5 classes. friday i had all of them. they tell me i'm better than their normal teacher, which i take with a grain of salt. (have i mentioned lately i hate math?) but then friday, the new afternoon class asked some question, which they thought i would explain well, and said they'd been told i was a good teacher. what do you say to that? not being a real teacher and hating math? i guess if they tell it to their friends they mean it.

most of my pics were taken outside cuz the inside light sucks here. you know what's tricky about takings pics in AK? your breathe fogs up the lens and makes the pic blurry :( but still, here are some pics of the fjörgyn + buttons for you to enjoy. and for all of you out there (tanya) always asking why i'm not in the pics, i even got chuck to take some with me wearing it.

i think i like not blogging for a week, i feel like i've done so much!

oh yeah

after that little practice storm, we're getting some real snow. the flakes are still a little too dandruffy for me, but i promise i won't whine about that all winter. we're getting a decent accumulation now, but it's hard to know exactly how much cuz it's just piling on top of what's left from last time. almost 6 in. i love snow, there's something magical about it. here's the view from my living room

it is starting to pile up a bit. i went to visit chuck at work for lunch, and a 5 min trip took 15 min. (the alaskan drivers don't help). tomorrow we can go sledding! that gets me all excited like a little kid every time. wanna hear about my two favorite sledding trips ever?

when i was a kid (8?10?less?) it been snowing, and my mom went out for the evening. she got home late - everyone was in bed but me. the snow had stopped, and the full moon was out, lighting up the snow with that blue sparkly halo. my mom had me wake everyone up and we went sledding at the park around the corner. we had so much fun, even though they didn't have really big hills. it had to have been around midnight, there was that late night hush, and no one was around. we got to make the first tracks in the snow, every kid's dream. i still smile, thinking about that.

the other time was when tanya and i woke up at like freaking 5 am (it might have been even earlier) to go sledding at canyon park (?i think?) in provo. people had been there before us, but the park was deserted then and it was that same suspended animation feeling of life at a distance. oh, except for there was this one guy walking his dog. who jumped on tanya when she went down the hill. hehehe. that still makes me laugh.

and then there was the time with my 2yr old nephew that he still remembers, and sliding down the hill in my mom's front yard with my 8 month old niece. she thought it was a blast. memories like that are why i love winter.
not to mention the loveliness of birch outlined by snow. everything looks like an ansel adams photo.

besides the snow, the title refers to the thuja sock i started. by wed night, i was exactly halfway throught the heel. whoo-hoo! what was i stressing for? i think it was overexcitement caused by getting yarn for 2 projects at the same time. i didn't get much knitting in yesterday (overseeing paper mache is not conducive to knitting or clean pants) but still

not bad huh? and here's the promised pic of the finished broadripple
i really like how it came out. if only the second sock would magically knit itself up now.....

and while i don't have a pic of fjörgyn (i thought i'd actually be in it - no heartattacks now - but i need chuck's help for that), i did take a pic of the buttons to tide you over that's my favorite style of viking art, the urnes style. i was glad to find something that went along with the overall design.

tonight we're going to a holiday bazaar on eielson, so i don't think i'll get much knitting done. tomorrow is the grand seaming event for the women's shelter project, so i'm trying to get a ouple more squares in. somehow i feel bad that i couldn't make a whole blanket myself, but i know there wasn't enough time and planning for it. luckily we have enough for 1 or 2 blankets with the bounty i got sunday. hopefully i won't be the only one seaming the up though.

the results of last week's knitting book spree are starting to come in also, and lure me temporarily away from knitting. although they can lay flat, so maybe i'll just have to read and knit at the same time . . . .

but for now, i've got to make dinner and start some chili for tomorrow. the flakes have gotten bigger just since i started this post. maybe they'll get the hang of things after all :D

edited to adjust pictures

catch up

if you happen to get my feed (so sorry!) you might have noticed a flood of posts today. that's cuz they've been sitting around waiting for pictures and i decided to let them go without the pics. i still haven't taken the pics. once i do, i'll have a big pic post. how's that sound? for some reason it seems like a post isn't a post without pictures of some kind. if that's true, none of those count and you can't feel overwhelmed :)

sunday i was very encouraged to get some squares from people. *whew* i was worried i was the only one making them and there wouldn't be enough for even one blanket. looks like enough for one blanket at least, which is good. now i'll just have to hope that someone wants to help me seam them together saturday....

after finishing broadripple friday (i even grafted the toe and weaved in the ends! i'm such a good girl), i swatched all weekend for thuja. first a normal swatch to get the gauge i wanted, and then to test the stitch pattern. since the pattern is for worsted yarn and i'm using sock, it did look a bit different. i adapted the seed rib to have the same wide look as the original. and then i figured out all the math for the size and the repeats, and then i worked through 3 different toes. cuz, oh yeah, i'm knitting it toe up and with a short row heel. so basically it's a totally different sock, except the idea for the seed rib came from bobby whats-is-name (which i still give him credit for).

i ended up using a crocheted provisional cast on, because the other ones seemed to leave the stitches too loose. i hate having to go back to tighten stitches and stuff. after finishing the broadripple, there was still a decent amount of yarn left and i thought, darn i could have added a couple inches to the leg. so i figured going toe up will help me use up more yarn. those little bits of leftover yarn make me nuts. i don't want to throw them out, but usually can't find a practical use for them. argh.

so the thujas are on a roll, the pattern is easy and fast (so far - bet it'd be faster with worsted yarn). the socktoberfest is still moving along. today i got the yarn for the second mossgrid and woven towels, plus another set of US 1 dpns. goody goody. now i can cast on the second broadripple too. i figure if i work 3 days this week, i'll get the second broadripple and the thujas done.

for a special treat try this rosemary apple meatloaf. it's good stuff. very juicy with interesting flavors. i only used one apple, and some of the rosemary i grew this summer.

the other day i was leaving my web page while commenting somewhere (still diligently trying to delurk), and accidentally left out the "p" in blogspot, making it blogsot. hmmm....do you thin it's possible to get drunk on blogs? if i'm reading so many blogs i don't have time to post in my own, if i eagerly check every couple hours for new posts, would that be a blogsot? are you a blogsot?

tempt me not. . . .

o thou evil purveyor of out of print knitting books and coins and steins

this weekend chuck discovered ebay. he knew of it, but hadn't really looked on it. i was looking for myrna stahman's shawls and scarves (prompted by something i no longer remember on ravelry) which i found. while i was there i looked up aran knitting, the horribly expensive out of print book, cuz i would love to have it, and look for it if i happen to remember it. it doesn't happen often. this weekend, there was actually two of them for sale. unfortunately, chuck had just gotten a bonus from work. oh, the temptation.

while i dithered over spending so much money on a book (i mean, it cost like 30 bucks when it came out, how did the paper get to be worth so much? supply and demand, man, it's all supply and demand), chuck asked what else they sell on ebay. hello. is he on drugs? they sell everything. so we looked up some ship's chronometers and beer steins, both of which chuck loves for some unclear reason. now, chuck is an auction man through and through. i think he picked it up in arkansas. of course he had to place some bids. and then he started looking at coins, which he collects (cuz they're an Investment and Will Be Worth Something Some Day).

so.....by today, chuck had won 2 steins and some mercury dimes (never heard of 'em before). and i ended up with both books. ebay is a dangerous place. i am both elated and ashamed of the aran knitting. the final cost was still less then $200 but more than $150. ajajaj. the worst part was i did a brother tom. let me explain.

at church a while back we had a dessert auction to help fund the youth group. chuck, as i said, is an auction man. he likes to bid even if he's not going to buy. he likes to bid people up and watch them fall on their faces. we were sitting with our home teacher, brother tom. after watching the fun chuck was having, he decided to join in. him and chuck went back and forth for a bit and suddenly chuck stopped bidding. tom was dumbfounded, and ended up with a german chocolate cake.

so back to ebay. since chuck spoils me so much, and knows how much i wanted this book, he said i could bid. the lowest price i've seen it for is $200 on amazon, and i wasn't sure if i wanted it that bad. saturday morning the auction was ending, and i thought, i'll just bid a little. i was automatically bid up a couple times, which made me curious. how high had the person set their limit? the highest i would go was $175. i bid up to that, and was still outbid. by then i was really curious, and thought to myself, i'll go just 5 more dollars and that's final. seriously. $180 for a book? it was a big stretch but i was expecting to be outbid again. oops. i wasn't. so i am now the ashamed proud owner of aran knitting. not quite the same as german chocolate cake, but it'll last longer.

from the evils of ebay, dear lord, preserve us

fiddling

this weekend was great for snow, conference and knitting. it snowed for 3 days, but only worked its way up to real snowflakes yesterday (day 3). total accumulation was (maybe) 2 inches. back home in MA if it snowed for 3 days (o glorious blizzard) we'd have 4 feet or more. cuz we get real snowflakes there, not these dandruff flakes. *sigh*

clessidra got a lot of attention. i got to the bit in the pattern that says knit 4 inches to the top of the ankle, which should have been about 3 reps of the hourglass pattern. except i got through 1 rep, and tried it on. came exactly to the top of my ankle. hmmm. since i have big feet and long legs i didn't know what the heck was going on. until a rare thought struck me - what was my row gauge? yeah that. usually it doesn't matter. this time it did. so i knit less reps, and got through the heel - twice. the whole heel/ankle needs some fiddling to fit, just because of the gauge difference. augh. and here i though i'd be avoiding the math and fiddling with patterns.

so i'm still not sure if i'm satisfied, but by then i'd had enough of one project and needed to move on. i'll let it stew in the back of my brain until i figure out what i want to do. i figured 4+ hours of sock knitting was a good start to socktoberfest.

but - i finished the first moss grid towel!!hoo-ra!

started the other towel in a woven stitch pattern that chuck picked out. i'm liking it. too bad towels have to come in twos, cuz i'm not looking forward to the other moss grid one.

and the log cabin square is done (from mason-dixon knitting btw, forgot to mention that last time). i really like the technique. for this shelter project, somebody donated a huge bag of (horrible) acrylic yarn. there aren't very many colors in there to match, but i think i got a decent color combo for my log cabin square. but next time i think i'll plan out the color placement a little better, cuz i'm not sure about the green and yellow opposing each other. oh well.
the ill-fated knitting group met. it's living up to its name. i'm going to have to give it initials, just to avoid writing it out all the time. the IFKG. one person showed up thursday morning. she was reminding herself how to knit. it was fun, but only 1 other person to a meeting is not exactly encouraging. interestingly enough, none of the people wanting to learn came. hmmm....

my ravelry is slowly shaping up. i'm (sort of) doing good not spending too much time there. the hardest thing is getting pictures and specs of finished projects. a photo shoot in MA is already planned to get pics of gifted projects. ravelry has so much information gathered in one spot that it's easy to wander around and lose track of time.

a funny story to end with: i know i've become a mild sort of yarn snob, turning my nose up at acrylic. wool is queen or a cotton blend, although i'm still too poor to be a rowan or mohair addict (besides mohair is too furry for me i think). if i could afford it, i'd be a quviut junkie. but anyway. chuck has apparently been on enough LYS trips with me to become a mild snob himself, because when i got that bag of free yarn he said, "that's the yucky stuff isn't it?"

i was so proud of him.

home again jiggedy jigg

we came home from anchorage yesterday. it's crazy how much can change in the spring and fall in just a few days. we were only gone 2 whole days, and yet when we left, blue sky was just beginning to show in patches through the trees out back. and today, there are just a few leaves peeking out from the skeletal trees. i love fall, i just wish it took longer here. and had a few more colors like back home.

we spent most of saturday in the temple, till it closed anyway. i love the temple. so peaceful. i've felt pulled in so many directions lately, and when the stillness and calm finally penetrated i felt much more grounded. if only it were closer.

chuck took monday off, and we did some shopping. all chuck's jeans have been turning him into a plumber lately, so i told him i would buy him pants in anchorage. he only agreed on the condition that i buy some shirts that i needed too. augh. on top shoe shopping. he'd just had a conversation with his boss in which the word "non-negotiable" figured. it was chuck's favorite new word this weekend, especially when i didn't want to look at clothes.

so we found me some shoes, and got some nicer clothes for subbing. it was nice to get stuff i needed, i just wish the checkbook wasn't so nasty about it all. we do seem to luck out, and happen onto sales when we decide to shop. that mellows the checkbook out some. chuck got new jeans that look very nice on him, and i talked him into a couple shirts. he's got a good stash of banker clothes, but not much in the way of real people clothes. i've been working on it. he's very cooperative, just not used to taking care of himself or being taken care of.

the irony of it all is, we bought me dressier (i can't say dressy cuz i can't do businessy dressy) clothes and today i got a 5 day job as a recess teacher. shrug. can't say i mind wearing jeans to work though.

knitting update for this weekend: i had not-really promised to work only on chuck's sweater. really i was agonizing cuz i had yarn in the mail and all i wanted was to get started on those projects. we checked the mail on the way out, and of course the yarn was in there. augh!!! and me without my needles and patterns. so all weekend the yarn sat in the back seat and taunted me.

irish moss: the pre-anchorage shot. the lighting doesn't do the color any justice. it's a darker red.

so i worked on chuck's sweater a bunch. started my second building block slipper, and ran out of yarn. *sigh* a pitfall of using up stash yarn i guess. i have some orange of the same yarn, i'll use that for the bottom where i don't have to see it. and i started my clessidra's. yay!! i'm excited about getting some knee socks - so i can avoid the abominable nylons/tights this winter. i was amazed to see how much knitting got done with 12 hours in the car and no computer distractions. imagine!

then this morning, somehow, finally, i found a live link for some bars. whoo-hoo! somewhere i saw them called percentage bars rather than progress or project bars. if you're searching for them, go with "percentage bars" as your term. ojojoj. all that time i wasted looking for progress bars. and then of course i had to make them mine, which involved learning a bit of HTML. i'm slowly picking that up, as i need it. i figured out how to change colors and add links for online patterns. and i found the HTML for a strike through, which i'd been wanting too.

so despite the blanket of bright yellow birch leaves on the lawn, this was a good day. a good ending to the weekend and a good start to the week.

P.S. - did i forget to say how great it was to have chuck all to myself for the whole weekend and then some? the bank even left him alone. i loved it.

there is light at the end of the sunbeam tunnel

last sunday the counselor guy said they were releasing me as sunbeam teacher. bummer :D it feels like i’ve been in there forever, though it’s only been maybe 6 months. not too long after we moved into the ward. now i’m free! sort of. my new calling is sunday school teacher for 16-17 year olds. not bad. i don’t know any of them so well have to see. chuck’s being released as gospel doctrine teacher after about a month, and being called as the employment specialist. sounds like loads of fun. he already got to go to some ultra boring classes for it. but this whole calling thing has given me something else to like about military wards: when they say they’re going to do something, by golly they do it. this sunday they took care of everything and i’ll be teaching the teenagers next sunday. whew.

det helige skriftet

sunday night our home teacher came to visit with his wife. they're really cool. probably about chuck's age, but they just talk to us like we're people. so many people seem to have mental blocks for certain groups, like married, single, married w/kids, old farts etc. chuck and i are between most of those groups, so it's nice to run into people who don't care. but anyway, pam has Norwegian roots which we've talked about since i'm so into sweden. she brought over a family bible, printed 1890. old norwegian is about as fun as old swedish. it was cool just to look at it. there's these random scraps of a norwegian newspaper in minnesota, from the language around 1890 too. it's cool just to read old stuff like that.

and at church a lady introduced herself, a new move-in, and she's an anthropologist. so we had a short conversation before i had to go to outer darkness, i mean primary. hopefully we can talk more sometime, it's fun to have another anthro geek to discuss society with.

today i've been in the yard a bit harvesting some herbs and deadheading flowers. it really does help them to bloom longer! who knew. the chamomile was so top heavy it was trying to lie on the ground, but now it's standing up again. and i have flowers for tea! i'm not very fond of chamomile tea alone, but it should make a good add in. there's only the one plant but if it keeps blooming like it is, i should have plenty to last until next summer. of course i'm hedging my bets with most of the herb plants and bringing at least one of them in for the winter, but it would be nice if some of them survived. about half of our flowers should come back next year, and i'm planning on stealing some iris next spring from the roadside for our beds.

i've got an overdue library book to read this afternoon, and some plant ones. i want to be able to save seed from the plants we have for next year. why buy them if i can keep them? the borage has so many blooms (which tasted ok in salad btw) that we should have lots of them coming up next year. self seeding is the preferred method for us lazy gardeners.

my bike needs a check up too. i've had it over a year but the last 2 times i rode it, the pedal has been coming off. somehow it started binding against the nut holding it to the frame, cuz it loosens as i ride, to the point of falling off. so i'm going to take it apart and clean it and see if that helps; if not, it's going back to the bike shop for their expertise - it's free since we bought it there.

last night we took out the busted dishwasher. yay! now we have undercounter storage space for juice, potatoes etc. i'm glad we can do small things like that without it costing lots of money. now if only we can put in those last 2 closet door handles we have.....