having a great life in spite of everything

Brett Farve’s jersey is poised to take over as the highest priced item in the NFL’s Crucial Catch auction. Drew Brees’ jersey is still listed for more at $4,000, but there’s only six days left in that auction. Currently at $3,500, the Farve jersey only took one day to achieve the same numbers that it took the Brees jersey a week to reach, and there’s still 20 days left.

I predict the Farve jersey will sell for a stupid amount of money to some large corporation and wind up mounted and framed in their corporate headquarters. I’d rather it end up in some guy’s basement game room where he and his buddies will stand by it drinking beer and going, “Yup, Farve’s jersey. Yup.” But that’s just sentimental me.

The Race For The Cure went great! I managed to raise a whopping $25, but I guess that’s $25 they didn’t have before, so cool. I was part of a group I met on Twitter, Team 140 (because you can only use 140 characters in a tweet, get it? I didn’t, either, someone had to explain it to me).

The team (by their Twitter handles):

AaronStrout

andreaschulle

IleenieWeenie

incslinger

wesley83

You should go follow them, for they are all the personification of awesomeness.

Team 140 just after the start.

The weather was near perfect.

Groups of people, including several teams of cheerleaders, cheered on the racers.

The crowd of racers stretched into the distance in front of us and behind us.

Team 140 tweeted, chatted, and wheeled a small child simultaneously.

Rats, I forgot to go get my free ice cream after the race.

At the Mile 1 marker!

And the Mile 2 marker!

Unfortunately, Aaron had to cut out between miles 1 and 2, as his daughter, Audrey, was tired. Aw, he’s a good dad.

Woof! This doggie group cheered us on, too. (Hmm, would have been more interesting if I'd gotten some dogs in the shot.)

More cheerleaders!

There was something really cool about the people who came out just to cheer everyone else on. It really made the whole atmosphere festive and fun.

Couldn't resist getting a shot of this lovely scene as we passed by it.

Simon with one of the group offering free hugs and high-fives to the racers (aw!).

I took a picture of Ileene taking a picture of Andrea tweeting.

This group serenading us made me happy.

This was the peak highest moment of the race for me – something about the music made me so perfectly happy, the whole experience was too wonderful for words.

The Mile 3 marker, almost to the finish!

Hmm, I managed to not get a shot of any of Team 140 at the mile 3 marker—anyway, those kids were kind enough to take a photo of all of us with the marker using Wesley’s iphone.

Victory, we cross the finish line!

And furious tweeting ensues.

Andrea and Ileene stretch out after the race.

We all had to walk a whole lot more than the 3.1 miles of the race, due to how far away the parking was (I think I win the prize for Parked Farthest Away From The Event).  I’m completely exhausted, but I’m hopeful that all this exertion is a good thing and the fact that I could do it means I’m really okay again physically. That’s actually so incredible it’s making me cry a little. I’m so happy that I found this awesome group of people and was able to participate in this with them. Someday I’m going to look back on this year as the best year of my life, it’s when hardship forced everything to ultimately change for the better.

I just finished posting an article about GREP styles in InDesign on my graphics site. It’s a beginner-level article for anyone unfamiliar with GREP. If you’re a designer and you haven’t used GREP before, check it out, it’s a highly versatile editing and styling tool well worth learning.

In the course of doing research for the article, I came across the Online Regular Expression Testing Tool, which is a really cool resource for testing GREP codes. It also has a glossary in the sidebar where you can click on any of the expressions there and it’ll tell you clearly what it means. It’s definitely a valuable resource for anyone who uses GREP.

Not for a cake I made or link I sent in, I’m in a photo of their World Tour stop in Austin:

I’m in the front row wearing a pink scarf, and I’m knitting, of course. Hey, we had to sit there for a long time waiting, might as well make the time productive. The nice lady in the red shirt got a piece of cake for me, and I took both our plates to the trash afterwards. Teamwork, people! The CakeWrecks fans be working together!

I’m working on a knit amigurumi pattern. I’m trying to simplify it down as much as possible, working from a basic knit rectangle. What I’m going for it something so easy that a beginner knitter could do it because there’s no shaping in the knitting. The down side is that that means all the shaping is done in the sewing, and I hate sewing, but at least it’s not like trying to sew up an entire sweater. I’m trying to avoid having to knit up a bunch of extra pieces, but it’s looking like at least the arms will have to be done separately. 

This pattern from Heartstrings is probably the most well-known “make something from a square” pattern. I have a couple of these around, they’re really cute, though the sewing is definitely tricky.