Two on Tuesday

Happy Tuesday everyone!  I hope that your week has been off to a great start!

 Things that are making me happy today:

1.  Hair tutorials, like THESE, from Kate over at The Small Things Blog.  I woke up this morning in no mood to go through the process of doing my hair for work.  Typically I am terrible at any sort of "styling" when it comes to my hair, so I'm usually a bit of a "hot mess" after these types of mornings.  I've kinda, sorta, half-@ssed tried this Mid-Knot style before but it went all kinds of wrong.  Today though?  Well, it must be my lucky day, because I think I [almost] got it!

And yes, after about 10 photos, I've also realized that my "skill" for taking back of my head #selfies in the bathroom mirror rivals my standard inability to style my own hair.  Either way - this was over my late lunch hour so not only did my hair go up on the first try and look decent, it still looks decent this far into my day!  (yeah me!)

This will likely never happen again, and the next time I think I'm going to sleep in the extra 15 min and put my hair up all "cute" I'll show up 15 min late to work, overly frustrated with my hair in a nasty little knot/bun/thing.  So for now, I'll enjoying having hair that looks like I'm capable of doing something with it.

2.  Getting to crochet over my lunch hour.  While my commute to work is about 35 min on dry roads (to go 32 miles - such an improvement over DC traffic!),  my parents live 8ish min from my office so I frequently head over there on my lunch hour.  Always on the days my Mom is off from work, and on the other days (like today) it just depends on my work load, the weather, if I remembered to bring anything to do while I'm there, general mood, if I'm in need of food (and too cheap to buy something), etc.  I headed over today so that I could finish crocheting up my mock-ups of the three patterns I was deciding between yesterday for my 2014 Mood Blanket.  

That's right - WAS deciding between - I've totally made my decision, and I'm so excited to get going on my blanket!

Here are the 2 that I crocheted up last night.  I'd already made my decision by the time I'd finished the 2nd one, but continued on to the third, just to be sure.  I messed up #3 as I was trying to beat the clock to my final Christmas dinner of the holiday season..  I tried #3 again today, and while I was doing it right this go-around, I still didn't like how it looked compared to the one I was already in love with:

That's right.  I shoulda just trusted my gut!  I'm using THIS pattern, and to get three rows of color before my border, I'm adding a 4th row of single crochet.  Each corner space is a sc ch1 sc.  I'm using a G hook and my finished hex is about 3.5" across.  I just love this little "peanut" and they only take me 10 min to crochet, 15 max with weaving in ends!  Perfect for me to get caught up on January, not over look on a busy night, and/or catch up again when life gets too busy!  I also really like the narrow border of sc so that when everything is joined together you'll primarily see my "mood colors" with a little connecting border throughout.

Still a little unsure of my connecting method and how I'm going to lay everything out, but I'm certain that by my next "Moody Monday" post I'll have so much more to share!

So what did I decide to do with my other mock ups?  Well, the one I didn't finish I will frog this evening so I can reuse the yarn on my blanket.  The other one?

I've been in need of a new Spring-time coaster in my office.  This works perfectly! (I'm not a big fan of how this pattern is written, but the finished product definitely makes adorable coasters with ENDLESS color possibilities.  One day when I have some free time (ha-ha) I may have to try and adjust the pattern a bit for my liking)