unbirthday

Yesterday was my birthday. I celebrated by having a good but "normal" workday day. Well, in the knitting department, I was abnormal. Yesterday I finished knitting 3/4 length sleeves on a size 6(4mm) needle for a sweater sample. I knit both sleeves in 6 days...New Year's Eve- January 5th. I knit the second sleeve in less than 48 hours. There were a few moments where I thought my hands might break off; they are still a bit sore. That's a serious amount of knitting. I am now on to assembling the sweater and knitting the collar, so this is great progress towards hitting my deadlines! (enough progress to warrant a post-birthday blog post.)

I had a lot of lovely birthday notes, emails, cards and phone calls--thank you, friends! The professor bought me 1000 grams (1 lb)/2,000 yards of worsted weight mulberry silk yarn from India. What's a birthday without a fibery gift?! This is a marvelous one and I can't wait to dye this and knit something fabulous out of it.

Every year my professor makes me a card.

This year was no exception!

I got sent some other fun gifts...which I will try to snap photos of if I have a bit of time. Turns out my dear professor was afraid the yarn wouldn't arrive from India in time, so he ordered some flowers. Possibly the nicest roses I've seen in a long time...

We also had a great dinner, if I do say so myself. Ginger soy smoked salmon, a pasta dish with sauteed garlic, onion, artichoke, roasted red peppers, sundried tomatoes, capers, with a white wine, olive oil and butter sauce. Then, I had a large piece of the all important chocolate cake. (Psst: I made dinner and the cake.)

All in all, a pretty good day. The best part is how much healthier I feel when compared to last year. I'm a year older, but possibly a year livelier than last birthday. The line I remember from that big NYC visit to the relatives was "Have you always gotten tired so quickly?" and my response, "Remember? I have a kidney infection!" Oh, I feel so much better that I can already tell 2009's going to be fabulous!

(... and the chocolate cake was very good.)