Bocce Ball

Tonight I went out to a get together after work with my boss and team members. This is our very first outing since we formed our group, which is entirely new to the company. I got to suggest the first outing adventure, and I choose Bocce Ball. We have Campi De Bocce in Los Gatos, Ca, and I've went to it before with a previous company.

It was a fun evening, unfortunatley no knitting 8(, but alot of game play. Bocce is an age old game, similar to bowling and or pool. The goal of the game is to get your balls as close to the main ball, closer than your opponents. Each ball you have closer than your opponent is 1 point for your time at the end of the game when all balls have been thrown.



First I should say the scenery and ambience is very nice, in fact this is the first time I've went to play Bocce in about 8 years, and last time was indoors, outdoors is way more fun. I had 2 glasses of a delicious red wine Merlot Lael, very smooth. Everyone else had their own choice of beer, we had Fried Calamari, Lamb Chops, and Tenderloin (YUM-O!).

Here's the gang I work with..



From left to right, it is Rich (my boss), Ernest, ME, Leslie, and Mike. Gosh looking at this, I seriously need a new hairdo, and need to shed count it, at least 20lbs, oh well, guess that's what New Year's Resolutions are for, right?

Sad to say, I have no new knitting, I'm stuck in this odd purgatory knitting this cable beanie, that's turning out to be my worst nightmare. I can cable wihout a cable need now, but I'm not happy with it, and it feels uncomfortable, and too tight. At what point do you give up on a WIP? I've yet to encounter one like this, that for some reason or another just isn't satisfying, but I so desperately want to finish to have it as a present to my hubby. I think I'll give it one more day of knitting it, and hopefully, it will end!

By the way, I also have to start a new TWEED seedlet for my Traveling Scarves 42 Tweed Heads group, because I found out from Cpurl17 that my poor little seedlet was stolen from her doorstep when she left it there to send out. The nerve of people! What a dissapointment they'll get when they open the package to see it's yarn and a journal. It's kind of sad because it has more emotional value than monetary value, I can't imagine they'd get anything for it, it will probably get tossed in the trash. 8( Poor scarfy, I'll send it my best wishes and will start a new one to send off this weekend. ::Ok, I know I sound insane, sorry::

I'll share more with you later on "As the Knitting Turns", (LOL), have a good weekend! TGIF!
~Rocky

And I'm off!

The De La Hoya vs. Pacquaio boxing get together party Saturday went great. We BBQ some marinated carne asada and chicken, I made a fresh macaroni salad. For orderbs we served Garlic & Cheese Toast with fresh Spinach Dip, BBQ Hot wings and Chips & Salsa. For desert, I whipped out my secret weapon.



I made some Cranberry-Pumpkin bread that I make every year around this time, it's delish!



It's a combination of fresh cranberries and pumpkin puree with seasonal spices. I know the recipe by hard and right smack in the middle of it, I realized I was missing my key ingredients, FUDGERS! Well, not wanting to waste more time, I decided to improvise and make my own combo of spices, and boy, what a great thing that was, my bread came out better than it's ever tasted. So good in fact, I'll stick with my new combo of spices and will no longer make the original recipe. My bread was a complete hit and before I could snap any fresh out of the oven baked pictures, it was almost all gone! Here are a few left over morsels...



I'll be making more later this week because I still have 1 bag of fresh cranberries left. I shared the original recipe click here if your interested 8-)

Our get together was fun and relaxing, but the event we all gathered to watch, De La Hoya vs. Pacquiao turned out to be horrible. I was hoping that De La Hoya would pull it off, but he did such a horrible job, in fact he didn't even fight? Pacquiao had such an easy job to do and win when all De La Hoya did was just stand there and get hit. I never saw De La Hoya do this before, it was so upsetting. He may just be done with boxing as a fighter, but as a presence and force in the sport, he'll be around forever.

Friday evening before the party, I finished off the last 3 Traveling Scarves I had, which I had one from each group.

Here is Purpleturtle's scarf from Group 25 SO, I added the top brown section using Lamb's Pride Wool, I strung 2 ends of the yarn together to get the right gauge for the section. I went with a Box Stitch.



A full shot of the scarf



Here is Mspalmtree's scarf from Group 37 Noro. My section at the top, using Noro Silk Garden in 245 & 279 knit with the Box Stitch.



A full view of the scarf



Finally here is Adore1's scarf from Group 42 Tweeds. I added a Mock Cable stitch using O'Wool 100% Organic Brown Tweed yarn.



And I'm off finally knitting my Christmas gifts, starting with my husband's beanie that I've been improvising the design on. It's nothing fancy and nothing cutting edge, a Cable beanie.



I'm slow at cables, it's annoying, and I can get slower if I let the cables annoy me. I need to get this done by Tuesday, if I can without wanting to kill the cable needle.

Last, I'll leave you with a snugly picture of my doggy sleeping by our Christmas tree, she looked to precious to not take a picture!