Organizational porn, soup and a Friday 5

In the past two days, I have learned that Ravelry rocks! I heard about it a few months ago and signed up to get invited to the site. I eventually got the e-mail invite, set up a username/password and logged in for the first time. But my first foray into the site rocked me back on my heels. I mean, this… community is HUGE! I didn’t know where to start, so I logged off. Then two weeks ago Ellen, store owner and knitter extraordinaire over at Crazy for Ewe in Leonardtown, opened the site up on her work computer and showed me where to start — with “My Notebook” and inputting information on my past and current knitting projects.

“Okay,” I thought. “I can handle this!”

I started last night, and realized that I was in Capital-T-rouble TROUBLE… The organization and features of the Ravelry site – especially the huge database and the ability to upload your own photos – is basically porn for a Type A personality and knitter such as myself. And I must admit that I succumbed to its charms. Entirely.

I stayed up until 2 a.m. inputting all of my past and current projects, including going through my digital pictures, resizing/editing them, and loading them into a new Flickr account so I could add them to my notebook. Then this morning I took pictures of and made notes about all of the yarn I’ve bought for various knitting projects, downloaded the photos and resized/edited all of them. Next it was back into Flickr to upload all of these new yarn images, followed by a major effort of data entry to input my “stash” yarn.

I can now look in one spot to easily find all of the projects I’ve completed (e.g., Catelyn’s bunny hat and scarf set) and the ones I’m currently working on. I have an at-a-glance view of every skein and ball of yarn stashed in my bookcase, and a huge resource to help me figure out what to do with it all! I’m very excited! What can I say? I *heart* Ravelry! Are you a knitter? If so, check out Ravelry and look me up – I’m JAmber.

I managed to log out of my knitting/organizational porn with enough time to hit the gym for a workout with Darryl, and then to get cleaned up for a cooking class at Quality Street Kitchen and Catering. On the menu? SOUP! Chef Ryan Baird walked us through three different “Soups for the Soul,” including Maryland Crab, Hearty Potato and Chicken Tortilla. They were all yummy, but it was the bread that really rose to the occasion (get it? bread rises? I crack me up!!). I’m gonna have to bake up a loaf one day to go with chili – YUM!

In thinking about posting tonight, I really didn’t want to bore you guys with a Friday Recap. A quick read over at Mel’s blog gave me some extraneous fodder though… a link to Friday5.org, which basically gives you a list of five questions to answer each Friday. Here’s my Friday 5 for September 5, which is all about the color orange:

What’s your favorite orange-colored food? Cheddar cheese!

What’s the best way to drink orange juice? Pulp free, over crushed ice

Which candy’s orange-colored pieces taste best? Starburst

What are your feelings about orange soda? Well, in high school by boyfriend drank an entire orange soda fountain drink at the county fair before we got on the rocking boat. He got sick and puked all over his feet, staining his socks orange. (He threw them out as we walked away from the ride.) I was sitting right next to him, but managed to pick my own feet up and out of the way. So, every once in a long while I’ll want an orange soda, and as long as I don’t think about this particular day and the way it smelled, mixed with all the other county fair smells, I’m okay. Otherwise? No thanks.

When did you last wear an orange item of clothing? Um, probably while in Utah I wore an orange-ish tank top (it was peach). The last time I wore something truly orange was last fall; I have a really nice burnt orange wool sweater.