Happy Birthday Mom & Dante

Totally random, non-knitting or content-related photo

Today is my mom's birthday.  Oh, and my son's birthday.  And my good friend from high school's birthday.  And my first friend in Rhode Island's birthday.  Did I leave anyone out?

We're going to go out to Best Buy today and pick up the iPod 4g, 8GB that Dante saved up for all year.  Every time there was a gift-giving occasion, we just told people that he was saving up for a big-ticket item and to please just give cash.  They were perfectly fine with not having to stress over "what to get a 14-year old boy", and after only seven months of saving, he finally has enough for his iPod touch.  When he asked for one last Christmas, I had to put my foot down because I just couldn't justify spending over $250 for an iPod for a 13-year old (at the time) when I don't even have one of those.  After all, he'd only lose it or break it.  But he really wanted one and I didn't want to totally shoot him down at Christmas, so I told him that if he could save the money himself, he could have one.  So he did.  I didn't think he would, but he did.  So this morning I went online and ordered it for him, with in-store pickup, and I tossed in a screen protector and a decent set of headphones while I was at it.  He is a happy kid, and I know that he'll take good care of it because he had to work so hard for it.  And if he doesn't...well I won't care because I didn't have to pay for it.

In knitting news, I'm making fantastic progress on Vlad.  I started the final body repeat yesterday at my in-laws.  We had a great time there and I got a lot of knitting done at my MIL's kitchen table.  She was blown away by my shawlette, so I can see that I'll need to knit her one this year.  I'm thinking it'll probably be Ishbel.  Maybe I'll make her the matching beret.  Anyway, I'm expecting delivery of the yarn from Cascade today so I'll be starting on my next project for them soon.  Unfortunately, my other potential projects keep hitting snags.  I had a few ideas for the yarns that they sent me to play with, but then I found a similar project on Ravelry so I had to scrap that idea and go back to the drawing board.  It all goes back to my rant about how there's nothing new because it's all been done before.  But I'll just keep working on it and hopefully I'll be able to put my own spin on something, and make fresh and new.