How do you eat a whale?

I don't know if anyone read Shel Sylverstein as a child but he had a poem about eating a whale and it basically said, one bite at a time. I may have bitten off more than I can chew with this one and I'm sure it will add unnecessary stress to my life, but I've decided to finally join the Knitters Guild of America and I've signed up for Level 1 of their Master Knitters program. This is an intensive correspondence course that will have me knitting several samples and completing research, and a written paper. After mailing back my work it will be graded and returned to me if anything needs adjustment. I won't be able to move on to Level 2 until I have passed Level 1. I've wanted to do this for five years and since I was paid out for my unused PTO and the extra week of PTO that I was purchasing, I decided to use that little bit extra to do something about it. Now when people tell me all the time that I should be selling my knitting, I can tell them that I'm in the process of improving my skill set so that I can make that happen. I feel very confident that by the time I finish this course I will have the knowledge necessary to be able to design my own patterns and then I will be able to sell my knitting because I won't be in danger of copy right infringement. I'm really excited about this and I can't wait for my kit to arrive in the mail. Maybe I'll get lucky and it will arrive during my week break between terms at Kaplan and I can spend some uninterrupted time going over it.

Today for father's day, I made my husband and boy a meat loaf with mashed potato's and a salad. They were all really impressed with the meat loaf, which I made from "The Book" and he suggested that we institute "Meat loaf Monday", which would be fine except that I've gone vegetarian and I just don't think I could struggle with the delightful smell of meat loaf coming from my oven once a week. I don't even like meat loaf but for some reason today I've been missing meat. I'm eating plenty of protein between lentil's, beans, peanut butter, and hummus but when I made my kids hot dogs for lunch (at the request of my very cranky 3-year old) I really wanted one, and again I don't even like hot dogs. Maybe I was being a bit cocky about how easy this switch off of meat has been for me and now I'm feeling it, or smelling it to be exact. I think I need to pick up some fish this week and that might take the edge off.

The FLS is cruising right along. I'm half way through the last sleeve right now and I hope to have it blocked and on my back by tomorrow, Tuesday at the latest. Then I have another sweater on deck but I've been asked by my mom to knit a pair of socks for my Grandmother, and my FIL needs a pair too, so I think the next two projects are going to be socks. Maybe I'll use the worsted weight Louet Gems I just got for practically nothing to knit his socks so that I can get them done quickly. I don't think that he'll ever wear them out of the house in shoes anyway so they don't really need to fit in his shoes. And Grandma has wool sensitivities so I'll be breaking into the cotton stash that I've been building up for my mom's socks. I don't usually deal with cotton, but I've been picking it up every time I find it on sale so that I can make her a new pair of socks, only I haven't had time to sit down and do that. I guess I do now though, and I do have a new book coming that's chocked full of great sock patterns so I think it won't be hard to get myself back in the sock knitting frame of mind.