Just waiting for the upgrade...

Well, it's a convenient excuse for not blogging for so long!

Just imagine the usual excuses (traveling, working, prepping for holidays) x 10. Working on web content as a day to day job makes me pretty sick of hunching over my laptop, staring at a screen all the time. When I had the flexibility to take some time off over the holidays, I did _not_ want to go near my laptop any more than was necessary.

I was pretty industrious over the holidays, too. I made a sweater jacket -- from cast on to blocking -- in about 10 days. It was my holiday gift to myself.
This jacket is really warm. It's made with Noro Kocheron, which is a blend of wool, silk, and angora. I'd picked up an entire bag of 10 skeins at the very last minute during Stitches Midwest this past August, and thought that I may felt with it. But, I liked the idea of using the yarn's striping to my advantage by making a sideways-knit project. I happened to have the pattern for Lara from the Debbie Bliss Alpaca Silk pattern booklet (the first one), because I had admired this jacket on a fellow SnB member about a year ago and ordered it for myself. So, when I got the itch to make a sweater over my holiday time off, all these things fell into place for me at just the right time.

Up until last week, we've had such a freakishly warm winter that I thought I'd never get a chance to wear it. But, now the weather has shifted and I'm actually getting a lot of use out of this sweater.

In December I got a bit of a break from all the work travel, but it's started picking up in January. Last week I was in New York City from Monday until Friday.

This is maybe the 8th business trip I've had to make to NYC in the past few years, and I finally am getting to appreciate the city a bit. I had last Thursday evening free, and I did something very unusual for me: I attended a musical theater performance.

Well, here I was staying and working in the Theater District all week and walking by these theaters every day on my way from hotel to office and back again. So, I decided to ask my friend Adrienne (who has herself performed in several musicals) for a few recommendations. I had literally 5 minutes to stop at a theater and buy a ticket before meeting some colleagues for a drink, and since I was walking right by the Walter Kerr Theatre, and it was one of her recommendations...well...I went to see Grey Gardens.

Wow.

I loved the whole experience. The theater was a lovely gem, and I felt so connected to the performers in that small, intimate setting. (Well, compared to the cavernous auditoriums that we call theaters in Chicago, it was pretty small and intimate, even though there were at least 200 people in there.) The performance was compelling and the story was wonderful: funny, sad, and really moving. Yeah, I had a few tears in my eyes at the end, but I wasn't depressed by it or anything.

By the time the performance was over, it was after 10:30 PM and I hadn't eaten anything for dinner. So, I stopped by one of those little Asian delis and picked up some salad and a beer, then headed back to the hotel. Now I certainly couldn't have done that in Chicago!

I really felt like I was in a dream sequence or something that night. Walking along Broadway, with all the lights and people about...on a buzz from such a lovely experience at the theater...able to find a decent selection of food at such an odd hour...Now I see why people love New York City.

What do you think of this new Blogger template? I like the new Labels; it's something I really wanted from blogging software and I'm glad they've added this functionality.