A nice ending to a not-so-nice day

This past Friday was a no good, very bad day. I had what you might call a "New York first" - I got mugged in the subway! Yep, in 6.5 years of living here (13.5 for my husband- that's 20 years between us), I had never been a victim of street crime (neither has he) up until my second-to-last week living here. Several of our friends have experienced it, but so far we had been very lucky in that regard. The story is pretty simple, a thief reached over my shoulder, grabbed my iPhone out of my hands, and ran off. Fortunately, they only took my phone and I am unharmed, if somewhat shaken up. Of course, this being an iPhone, it's a little like having a wallet stolen, because I had so many apps with personal information. The hassle of changing all those passwords, filing a police report, and dealing with AT&T (they are worse than the MTA! seriously!) has probably been the worst part. I do miss my phone, especially since I'm not going to be replacing it immediately, and now I'm on an old-school flip phone with no email. It's been a bit of a shock to realize just how dependent I was on it, and how accustomed I had gotten to being constantly connected. So in a way, it's refreshing to be cut off from all of that, and I think that if/when I do get another smartphone I'll be a bit more judicious in my use of it (and in the information I store on it, gah!).

Needless to say I was not in a good mood when I came home that afternoon. Two things cheered me up, though. One was coming home to this face- he never fails to make me smile (except when he wakes me up at 3am...).

The other was finding, and successfully completing, this crochet collar pattern from the Ongoing Project. It was my first time following a real pattern and it went pretty well although I may have messed up on a couple of the steps. Also, the pattern called for a fine, cotton yarn, but all I had was the Cascade 220 worsted I'm using for my afghan. It turned out OK, but I'd like to get some finer yarn and try again, maybe with a pale ivory so I can embellish a cardigan à la Anthropologie. As it is, I think this collar will look cute worn over a plain cardigan.

In action, on a very wrinkled J.Crew sweater....

I may need to try blocking it out again- my first attempt definitely made a difference, but it still looks a bit uneven- and small. Not too surprising, since I forgot to use pins the first time I blocked. Whoops!