Retail Therapy

Mark and I received the shock of our lives last Tuesday. Statistically improbable events tend to visit our family with alarming frequency. After drying off my tears, I went shopping. Mark acted as my chauffeur and really got into the spirit of retail therapy himself. I am not going to show all that we got. I am not proud of falling off my stuff diet.

But the books I picked up at Books Sanseido are too cool to keep to myself. No, we didn't drive to Japan in the minivan. We visited the branch in Torrance, California.

It is late so I will blog about what attracted me to each of these 4 books later. I also special ordered a copy of Pattern Magic 2. I know that YesAsia.com probably could have gotten them to me sooner. But, I wanted to make sure that my local bookstore knows that there is a market for that book here. Maybe they will order two copies. You can always visit the store in about 2-4 weeks to find out.

In the meantime, I make a Flickr! photo set of the scans so you can see more detail. Check out the Knitting or Sewing sets.

While I am at it, you can visit me on Ravelry here.
Visit me at LibraryThing here.
Browse Mark's DVD collection here.
(Keep in mind that I have only uploaded about 30% of our books so far and Mark's DVD collection has grown considerably in the last 18 months.)

We are having our Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow. Yesterday, we rode our tandem bicycle with the LA Wheelman for their annual Thanksgiving Day Ride (long route, ~39 miles). It was a lovely day and the views were amazing.

Thursday, November 22 - 9:00 a.m. THANKSGIVING DAY RIDE. (Long 39, Medium 36, Short 27) This is our traditional Thanksgiving Day ride, giving you an opportunity to work up an appetite for dinner later. All routes are almost the same length and most riders could probably do any of them, so it just depends on how fast you need to get home. If you have a small 10 lb. hen in the oven, maybe you need to do the short. If you have a 15 lb. bird roasting, maybe the medium, and if you have a 20+ lb. tom, you can do the long and still have time to spare before that little pop-up timer pops. The long and medium both go to the Pacific Palisades before a trip down to Marina Del Rey for a break and then return. The short skips the Palisades, but is otherwise the same. No matter which route you choose, it’s a pleasant way to start the holiday and a surprising number of riders usually show up. START: THE "CORNER", Olympic Blvd, 1 block west of La Cienega in Beverly Hills. From the Santa Monica Frwy (10), off & north La Cienega 1½ miles, L - Olympic 1 block to R- Le Doux.

Of course, we forgot the camera. It was good to ride with the club again. Bicycle people are the best. See the LA Wheelman 2 month ride schedule to catch up with them.

I have another terrible non-green confession. We are flying on a jet across the ocean just because we thought it would be fun to visit New Zealand. Mark has always been intrigued by the natural scenery there, I am fascinated with volcanoes, and we are all eager to visit our friends. We had so much fun when they visited us in LA last year, we wanted to see them again ASAP.