June 16, 2008
It seems that all I’ve done today is bitch about the heat, but I’m whiny—it’s 103 right now—arrrgghh! People that like this heat are nuts!!! (I know one sun-worshiper who reads this drivel; I mean you too!!!)
I’ve been journaling, but that’s about it…I don’t even want to think about knitting right now. My central park hoodie is getting dangerously close to the “sat too long” phase. Hopefully I’ll still finish it; it just won’t be any time soon when it’s over 100 degrees.
June 11, 2008
I was tagged by darling Jenn for this, so here goes….
The Rules:
~Link the person(s) who tagged you
~Mention the rules on your blog
~Tell about 6 unspectacular quirks of yours
~Tag 6 following bloggers by linking them
~Leave a comment on each of the tagged blogger’s blogs letting them know they’ve been tagged
1. When I go to bed I can’t fall asleep before a) laying on my right side, b) rolling over to my left side, c) rolling back over to my right side. Every single night. I have no idea why and I’ve stopped trying to figure it out. I liken it to a dog having to turn three times before they lay down.
2. I hate not knowing how to do things. It’s mainly prevalent in my crafting. If there’s a technique I like and I don’t know how to do it, I immediately start researching how to do it so I can doitrightaway!!!
3. If I’m eating something small like m&m’s or pretzels I have to eat them in an even number. It doesn’t matter how many I put in my mouth at once, but I count as I eat and if I have 9, I eat an extra one so it’s even.
4. I can not stop in the middle of a row when I’m knitting or crocheting. I have to finish the row and have been late going places because of this.
5. I make notes on everything! If something comes to mind and I need to remember it I will write on any available surface. I’ve been doing this for as long as I can remember. There’s a dresser in a landfill somewhere covered in phone numbers, dmc embroidery thread numbers, school notes and song lyrics covering every outside surface.
6. I take really short showers and have a “schedule” that I go through exactly every time.
I have no idea how other people shower and if they follow a routine. I’ve been doing this forever and the only time I deviate is when I shave.
Those are my weird quirks. I’m tagging:
and that’ll be it because I can’t think of anyone else at the moment.
June 11, 2008
With the weather getting warmer and my mind wandering towards non-fiber crafts, I haven’t been updating as much. I have been pretty busy though. I thought I’d do a big photo post today.
Please forgive the quality of the pictures - I took them in the back room and the light in here is really terrible. I’ve learned my lesson with these lol; I’ll continue to take them in the dining room where there’s a lot more natural light.
I didn’t have enough room to spread it all out, but the back, both fronts and what I’ve started on one sleeve are all there. I haven’t been working on it as much as I was (I’d probably be done with it by now!) but I haven’t thrown it in a drawer and forgotten about it yet. This is good!
I’ve mainly been journaling the past week or so and have a whole bunch of pictures of different pages.
The first page. I’ve had this large sketchbook for a few years now and because it was pricey and I never think my work is good enough, I’ve held off on using it for anything. This was pretty much just a page to get the ball rolling and to tell myself firmly that it didn’t matter what it looked like, as long as I was stretching my creativity and enjoying it.
I was browsing craftster awhile back and came across a large thread on journaling. I snagged a LOT of the ideas from the thread and added a few of my own to start this journal. It’s interesting enough (ie: NOT just writing about my day) that I may keep with it. Adding some artistic elements to it will help as well I’m sure.
Media/happenstance pages. These pages are where I log what I’ve read, played, watched and listened to each day. I love this because I’m able to go back and see how my music tastes change from day to day and movies and books that I’ve watched/read that I enjoyed.
Word of the day pages to brush up on my language skills. Yes, I really did use the word bird-dog in a sentence yesterday!
A directory of everyday beautiful things.
A quick blurb about how I’m feeling each day.
A dreams page that I’ve yet to fill out. I actually remember one I had last night so I’ll have to write it down.
A weather page to record the temperature and wind activity.
A page on who I consider myself to be.
Random quotes I like and find inspirational.
I learn something new every day, now I can write them down so I can appreciate the small things I take for granted.
Here’s a few of the artsy pages I’ve done. Nothing terribly great yet, but I’m expanding.
An unsent letter page. Good therapy and maybe one day I can re-read the letter in the little pocket and see if anything’s changed.
I have this old children’s book of Sleeping Beauty that I absolutely love. The pictures are beautiful so I used one of them and a small passage from the book for a page. You can’t see it in the picture, but I embellished the picture with silver and gold, and some deeper colors for her make up and the Prince’s eyes.
I named this one Tea & Sympathy. It’s mixed media with acrylic paints, gesso, vellum stickers, paper doilies, artists chalk and an old print from a book. A little bit of everything really.
When the weather gets hotter I tend to leave my blogs to collect dust. I might not update regularly, but I will definitely still be around! I need to remember that just because I’m not updating as frequently I still need to visit my friends though. So if you haven’t seen me for awhile, I’ll be by soon!
Oh! I almost forgot! The new Knitty is out - go check it out! You can click the link on my sidebar.
June 4, 2008
I actually finished this yesterday, but didn’t get the pictures uploaded until this morning.
I kind of just made it up as I went along, but it turned out really well.
I used Red Heart SS in Teal with an I hook. The stitch pattern is the block and offset shell stitch (block 27) from 63 Easy-To-Crochet Pattern Stitches Combine To Make An Heirloom Afghan (That’s a mouthful, eh?)
I lined the inside with a sweatshirt fleece in a lighter teal and used an invisible stitch to tack it down all the way around. Then I folded it to size and used crab stitch (reverse crochet) all the way around to give it a nice finished edge.
Overall, I love the way it turned out. It fits my laptop perfectly - snug, but not to tightly. I’ve been waiting for a project to use those buttons on for ages, and even though I think they look great on the cozy, I may have to wind up changing them out. They don’t have enough of a lip on them to keep the flap closed securely enough for my taste.
I’m thinking about adding a small pocket to the inside for paperwork/discs and maybe one to the back of the outside for my power cable. I haven’t decided yet. I kind of like the unfettered look of it without pockets of bulging crap hanging off of it. I may just make a separate bag for that stuff. Right now I’m just happy to have something soft and cushy to protect my new baby from dust and scratches.
June 2, 2008
I was tagged by Jenn to post ten things about myself, so here goes!
1. I’m a wallflower - online and in real life. I never used to be, but because of some physical stuff that’s happened to me and some headgames people have played with me online, I’ve kind of pulled away. I keep a very small circle of friends and even though I belong to a ton of groups online and I know a lot of people in rl, I pay attention but don’t get involved much. It’s a painful stretch for me to introduce myself to people or start friendships.
2. Once upon a time I wanted kids. Not only did I want kids, but I wanted to open a child care business. For awhile all I thought about was that I’d get married, have a few kids and spend my days taking care of babies and young children. The funny thing is that this was for a fairly short period of time. From around the time I was 17 or 18 until I was about 22 or 23. Before that, I wanted to stay single and travel, and after that I was happy with it just being Paul, me and the dogs. I’ve never quite figured out why those five or so years started and stopped so abruptly.
3. I’ve broken my right leg and fractured my left cheekbone. All in the span of about a week. When I was in the third grade I loved playing on the monkey bars at school. My mom kept telling me to stop because they didn’t have mats beneath them and she knew I was going to fall off and get hurt, but I didn’t listen. I fractured my cheek bone and there wasn’t much they could do about it. A week later, to the day, I tried to do a “cherry drop” and fell off the bar and landed sitting down on top of my foot - it was facing the other way. My mom was in talks with the school for two years trying to get them to pay my medical bills. The real kicker? They waited until right before they settled with us to put down safety mats.
4. I hate drinking water. If there’s pretty much anything in the house besides water I’ll drink that first. I know it’s not healthy and I know that water would do so much more than hydrate me, but I hate it. If we’ve got bottled water I’ll drink it, but I hate the tap water here and do a LOT to avoid drinking it.
5. I hate talking on the phone. I think that’s kind of part of number one, but I seriously hate talking on the phone so much that I finally wound up getting caller ID so I could avoid answering any calls other than the ones from family and a few friends. If it’s important, someone will leave a message.
6. Before the Dresden Dolls, I was highly obsessed with the Doors. The only reason I got interested in them in the first place though was because of this boy I had a crush on in the seventh grade. His name was Josh Foreman and he was a big fan of the Doors. Looking back, I realize that most of my favorite bands have been because of outside influence. I got in to KISS because of a boy too. He was such a fan that when other boys with playing G.I. Joe, he was playing with KISS “action figures”. Shannon (Hammie) got me hooked on the Dresden Dolls.
7. I hate these birds:
They’re called Curved Bill Thrashers, or Mourning Doves. I seriously hate these birds and people laugh at me because of it. I hate the way they look (those beaks are freakin’ creepy!) and I hate their attitudes! I have a birdhouse my neighbor made for me for my birthday in my front yard. The wrens have started living in there and I saw one of those ugly birds hold on to the side of the birdhouse (it’s way too big of a bird to actually go in the little holes) and pull baby wrens out of it! They poop on my car and it’s like they know I don’t like them because they stare at me when I go outside like they want to pluck my eyes out. I’ve taken to throwing rocks at them when I see them - not to hurt them or even actually connect, but to get them to fly away. I can’t fully comprehend why I dislike them so much, it’s just one of those weird things about me.
8. I have four sisters and two brothers. Jeannie is my half sister through my bio-dad, Dougie is my half brother through my bio-dad, Theresa, Debbie, and Joyce are my half sisters through my Mom, and Rodger is my step-brother from my Mom’s marriage to my Dad (My step-dad). The only one I have a relationship with is Joyce, and it’s a long distance one at that. I have no full blood siblings and none of my siblings have full blood siblings - we all have different moms or dads.
9. My husband and I have gone through eight vehicles since we’ve been together - an 87 Nissan Stanza, a 78 Oldsmobile, an 80-something Dodge Charger, an 86 (I think) Oldsmobile, a 76 Firebird, a 92 Geo Metro, a 91 Astro van, and we’re currently driving a 94 Geo Prizm. Most of our recent cars have been trade ins, but I wrecked my Stanza, gave the 78 Olds to my Dad, the Charger blew the main oil gasket and died and a bitch in a Breeze crashed in to our other Olds. The Firebird, Metro and Astro all had cracked windshields and the Prizm has lasted longer than any other car we’ve had.
10. I can never fill a paper journal completely. I usually get about 1/3 through it and forget about it. There’s a few that I’ve managed to fill halfway, but I’ve never reached the last page of a journal. I tend to find them years later, scoff at the silly things I’ve wrote and toss them. I’m trying to break myself of this because I think no matter how stupid my writing can be at times, it’s something I’ll regret doing when I’m older. I always thought that by the time I was in my 60’s that I’d have shelves filled with journals, but I won’t if I keep tossing them!
I’d like to tag Hammie, Katia and Midgie if they want to do it, if not, anyone else that happens upon this post can play!
June 2, 2008
After several days of feeling like utter crap, today is a good day. Right now the neighbors dog is in the back yard playing with Moxie, I’ve got a big cup of coffee, and I’m writing this post from my new laptop!
Most of my electronic devices have names, and my laptop is no different. I thought that since I’d named my mp3 player Euterpe (after the muse of music and lyric poetry) that I’d stay with the theme and name my laptop Clio after the muse of history. It may seem odd since technology is so “now” and all, but finding my very first online diary after eight years would say different!
Clio is an Acer Aspire 4720Z. She’s got 2 gig of RAM, 120 gig hard drive, she runs on Vista. So far I have no complaints about Vista. I’ve heard awful stuff about it, but haven’t seen it myself (again, yet.) There was one other laptop in my price range that had 160 gig space and a built in webcam (which mine doesn’t have) but it didn’t have the dvd burner, which I really wanted.
I’ve spent most of the weekend playing with it and setting it up how I want it. It’s weird having a computer all to yourself that you know nobody else is going to use. I wonder if I can keep it virus/problem free?
Of course, because we spent a big chunk of money this weekend, something had to go wrong. On Saturday afternoon Paul and I were lounging in the front room - he was playing his DS and I was messing around with Clio. He got cold being directly under the a/c so he turned it down to fan and went back to playing his game. Only problem is that when the house started warming up and he switched it back to cool, it wouldn’t blow any cool air! We tried everything, including pulling the entire unit out yesterday afternoon when the house reached 94 degrees and cleaning it from top to bottom. We’re pretty sure the coolant is gone. SO, that means that we’ve got to brave the heat until Friday when we can go buy a new unit. We’d just have it serviced, but it’s a small window unit and I seriously doubt it’d be worth the time or money involved. Getting a new one is probably our best bet. Luckily, our back room has a small window a/c and now that I’ve got wireless internet and a laptop I can spend the hottest part of the day back there.
No new portable electronic is complete in my house until it has a cover/cozy. I’m crocheting a cover for Clio right now to keep her protected from dirt and scratches. I’m about 3/4 through it, I still need to finish the edging, line it and then sew it up. I’ve taken a small hiatus on my hoodie until the cover is finished and I can stop being lazy long enough to wind some hanks of yarn in to balls.
May 27, 2008
I can’t think of a title right now. A . will have to do.
The weekend was very nice, but I’m not feeling very good right now and it’s casting a shadow of yuck all around me. I’m trying to figure out why my tummy hurts when I haven’t eaten anything yet! (And no, I’m not hungry!) Ugh.
Enough complaining though. Saturday was Paul’s birthday. It was a really laid back day; we didn’t do much of anything. I got up early and went to the store to get a few things to make him a nice breakfast. While I was cooking breakfast I made him his favorite cake:
He was never a big fan of pineapple upside down cake until I started making it for him. He’s the same way about gravy and mashed potatoes. It’s just a little ego boost! After we ate I gave him his gifts. He had a feeling about the ds, but he was really happy with it and surprised with the Transformer games and accessories I got for it. He spent a good chunk of the day playing around with it. I hadn’t gotten much sleep the night before, so he went to his parents house while I stayed home and napped. They gave him a gift card for Hastings, and while he was there he helped them completely rearrange their living room and move a new couch in. Not how I’d like to spend a birthday, but he didn’t mind it.
Sunday was just a boring, lazy day. Yesterday we had a barbeque and invited his parents over. It gave me the perfect excuse to get Paul to help me move our ugly old couch out of the living room, “To make more room!” It’s currently residing in the start of our hallway, but it’s covered with a blanket and looks much better there. I now have a huge amount of space in our living room, patiently awaiting a new couch. Hopefully one that will be coming within the month!
Paul went out to the garage yesterday to get the charcoal and noticed that one of the little birdies had died. He disposed of it’s body. It made me sad, but to counteract it, Paul told me that he saw one of the other little birdies flying precariously around the garage. I hope the others make it!
Over the weekend I had time to finish the left front of my Central Park Hoodie. I’m up past the ribbing on the right side now. I think it’s going to take me about a month to finish the entire sweater. It’s been about two weeks now, give or take. I’ll try to get some pictures tomorrow, I need to track my progress! I found a couple more sweater patterns that go up to my size yesterday, so I’m going to get around to queuing them sometime today. I’m wondering if I’d look good in a vest? The kind you wear a long sleeved button down under? Hmm…I just don’t know. I guess I’ll have to do a search for pictures of plus sized girls in vests. I’ve never worn one before!
May 23, 2008
I love having the option of seeing how people get to my blog through searches they’ve done. The funniest?
“How to open Mario cherry sour candy” (or something to that effect…I can’t remember word for word what it was now)
The strangest?
“She makes love with a crochet hook“
Uhh…what?
May 22, 2008
Day before yesterday I put my hubby to work on fixing the window in the back door. It’s been broken out for awhile now, and the board we had over it was loose and letting hot air in. I had him screw a board over the top and the bottom window and now it’s not only nice and dark back there, but not a wisp of air is coming through. It’s not pretty, but it did the job.
He had to go into the garage to cut the board to fit and when he did, Moxie came bolting out of the garage carrying something. She dropped it and we noticed it was a baby bird! Paul and I both freaked out a bit, got it away from her, only to have Gutter try to take off with it! After wrestling it away from him, Paul picked it up and took it back into the garage to see if we could find it’s nest. We let the wrens nest in the garage because we don’t keep anything important in there and they help keep the bugs down. We looked around a bit before realizing that the poor thing didn’t have a nest, but the mommy wren had plopped them right down on the garage floor against the wall!
Paul carefully put the little thing back with its siblings and we disposed of a fifth one that had moved away from the group and died. We finished up quickly in the garage and left them alone in hopes that mommy wren would come back and take care of them.
I decided to check on them this morning and get a picture of them and they’re doing great. They look pretty plump so mommy is obviously still taking care of them. We don’t go in the garage too often, so hopefully they’ll get big and strong and continue the fight against black widows and water bugs in our yard!
Anyways, here are the beads I talked about yesterday.
I’ve really been enjoying incorporating beads into my knitting. Several years ago my Aunt Noreen taught me how to add beads to my crochet. She’s amazingly talented and has a good 75 years of crafting under her belt. For some reason though I loved the look of beaded crochet, I never enjoyed doing it. It was too bothersome to string the beads on first and then crochet because I would inevitably add too few beads or colors in the wrong order. I’m loving adding them to my knitting though because I can place them one at a time without pre-stringing them. These are on the large side, about the size of a pony bead.
These ones are 2/0 seed beads; small but not tiny. I love the colors so much! The beads are kind of frosty looking, the package of the smaller ones say they’re matte. I’m not super educated on beads or beading, so I don’t know the difference. I got the beads at the swap meet in Golden Valley. GV is about 10 or so miles out of Kingman and though it’s building up fast it’s still pretty small. The lady that owns the bead shop thingy is set up year round (It’s an actual building in the open air swap meet…there’s a few long term buildings) and she’s open four or five days out of the week. She’s got this little bitty shop, but it’s stuffed to the ceiling with beads and beading equipment of all sorts. I love it there! She’s got 6/0 seed beads by the hank and she’s very reasonable with her prices. She’ll even split the hanks in half or into single strands; it’s awesome! I’m not sure what I’m making with my beads yet, but they’ll be going in to some sort of knitting.
Here’s my yarn. Nothing special, but I took a picture for my ravelry stash and decided to share. I love the color so much! One thing I love about Caron Simply Soft is that it may be acrylic and it may be cheap, but it’s so soft and I love knitting with it. The only complaint I’ve really got is that it tends to pill. I think it may be because it’s pretty loosely plied, but it’s not a huge problem.
I’m off to knit now, and do more laundry. I’ve been going nuts washing up everything in the house and getting it organized. It’s amazing how I’m always complaining about not having any clothes, yet when I go nuts and do all the laundry and put it away instead of throwing it on the bathroom counter, I’ve got a decent amount of clothes! Funny how that works.
May 21, 2008
I realized this morning that I hadn’t posted anything in almost a week!
The craft room is still clean! Success! I’m really hoping that with all the junk I threw away and how I organized it, the room will stay cleaner than before. I even threw away about 30% of my stash when I cleaned! I’d decided to get rid of a lot of partial balls of yarn and a lot of the acrylic. I’d originally planned on donating it somewhere, but truthfully I couldn’t allow myself to because there was Gutter, Moxie and Cordova hair strewn through it and I smoke. Most knitters and crocheters I know don’t smoke or if they do, they keep it away from their stash. I smoke in the house and I’d hate to foist stinky yarn off on some unsuspecting crafter. Anyways, the room’s still clean, but the dust is already threatening to take over again. One of the trials of living in the desert.
Paul took a couple of vacation days this week so he could recharge his batteries. Today is his first day back to work for the week and I can finally get back on schedule! I loved having him home, but things tend to get screwy when he’s here on vacation. I don’t clean, I cook things that are bad for us…mayhem people! Truth is, I already miss him a little because him being home was fun *wink wink*, but I’m kinda glad to be sitting here planning the rest of the day like normal.
I’ve been knitting away at the Central Park Hoodie. I’m finished with the back and I’m currently working on the ribbing for the left front. The back seemed to take a long time, but I think that’s (in part anyway) due to putting it down for almost a week to work on the craft room. I checked and my gauge is pretty much on, just a tad larger than necessary. I’m cool with that though…I personally like things to be a little larger than too snug!
So; nothing too interesting going on. I’m mainly just happy to have some things done that I’ve been wanting to do for awhile now. Not much new on the crafting front. Oh! But I did pick up some new yarn on Friday and some beads on Saturday. I’ll get pictures of the beads tomorrow. The yarn is nothing special, just some Caron Simply Soft in Deep Plum. It’s the same color I did Hammie’s Hedgerow coat out of. I loved it when I first bought it and want a sweater out of it too.
Fun Stuff
