If you’re still reading, I’m glad to be back with you!  The last couple of months have been my travel season, so they have been crazy. As a college recruiter, I spend my fall going from high school to high school in Texas to tell people my school.  It’s a fun job, but I do begin to miss my own bed.  Last week was my last week on the road, so now I’m home and happy to be back in the blog world.

While I was gone, I was knitting like a mad woman.  The only problem is that most of the things I’ve been working on are Christmas presents, so I can’t show you!  This weekend, I started a project that I can show you.  It is a Christmas present for my little cousin, who is a three year old girl.  I have been wanting to make an illusion scarf for some time and thought that this would be the ideal time to try it.  Here’s the striped angle.

And here you can see the design…

I think this is very cool! I was skeptical at first but it’s totally working and now I understand the theory behind it. I am going to alternate rows with two hearts with rows with one heart if I can get it to center correctly. We’ll see how that goes. Oh and the color is off just a bit, it’s really more of a hot pink and white rather than red and white.

In non-knitting news, my husband and I have just started training for the MS150. It’s a cycling ride that goes from Houston to Austin, which is around 180 miles, over two days.  For those of you who know how non-athletic I am, yes I have lost my mind.  The ride is not until April, but it will definitely take us that long to get in good enough shape. I got this bike last week (we got a deal so it wasn’t as much as the retail price). I have ridden it every day since we got it with one day off for a rest. Today’s ride was the best because Jason and I went together. We are going to have fun exploring the new neighborhoods that are coming up around ours. The first day, I got my butt kicked in all of about 2 miles, but it’s getting easier as I go. Riding with Jason really helped me pace myself and to realize that I don’t have to ride fast all the time. I’m a bit sore, but (this is for you mom) my back hasn’t hurt at all. I’ve had two back surgeries so I have to be careful. We got a bike with a suspension seat post and suspension fork to absorb any impact that the road may dish out.  Today was my first ride with my new bike shorts, the kind with the padding.  They feel funny but man did they make life easier!  They were well worth the $30.  I’ll probably post a bit about riding and may start a blog about my journey to the MS 150, primarily as a way to hold myself accountable. The goal is to ride for a good cause, have a cool experience and get in shape. I can already feel the soreness that comes from getting back in shape, but it’s a good kind of sore.