Not gonna sing a sad song tonight. Gonna dust myself off, gonna do alright

Someday....

...I will finally get my craft room in order.

....I will find the time to knit and spin and maybe even sew and bead.

...I will come home without paint in my hair.

...I will set up that Etsy shop.

....those plants that are waiting to be repotted will get there. Or they'll die first, thereby eliminating the problem.

...I will learn how everyone else manages to juggle their lives, because the more I think about it, the more I doubt that I am any busier or more stressed than anyone else.

"Someday" seems closer than it used to be, but still not quite close enough. I'm grateful for small victories-- every hard-won inch of knitting (even the gauge swatch) and every little bit of roving that manages to find it's way onto a spindle. I'm grateful for summer, because although the busy season at work is starting and won't let up until October, the days are sunny and warm and give me a renewed sense of life. And I'm grateful for Google Reader, because some days being able to read other people's crafty accomplishments is the only thing that gives me hope for myself!

Someday, the phrase "someday I'll do that" will give way to the phrase "yesterday I did that." I'm looking forward to it (and working forward to it even harder.)

I really wish I knew where our camera was. The whole thing is starting to bug me.

don't know what to say about the last week or so. I kind of feel like I'm all over the map emotionally.

I had a wonderful time during Saturday's housewarming bbq. With the help of the wonderful Shelby, I got to make all the foods I love to eat but never have the motivation to make for just myself-- tortellini bites and pita chips (my first attempt!), veggies and deviled eggs and hummus and arthichoke dip. Eric manned the grill while different friends from different parts of our lives talked and laughed and had big glasses of wine. Gus got just about all the petting one dog can handle in an evening, and even got a chance to investigate our friends' new golden retriever puppy.

I realized how generous my friends are-- not knowing that I come from a long line of small army feeders, our fridge was packed with food people brought, and the bar currently holds more booze than when we started. Steph and John, even though they weren't feeling up to attending, still stopped by with tulips and wine. The flowers are still holding strong and I can't help but admire them every time I pass through our dining room.

I looked around my warm little house on Saturday night and felt lucky.

This week, on the other hand, has been one of frustration and fights and changes and uncertainty. Some of the frustration and fights have been resolved, or are atleast on their way towards a resolution. The changes are just beginning. We're hiring a new guy (assuming all of his background checks come out okay), who we're going to be training up from scratch. There's also another big change happening and it was kind of confirmed today, but I still don't know how everything is going to play out, so I'm reserving most of my judgement until I have more information. Either way, it looks like I'm going to be working longer hours and packing more into them. I started to worry about what's going to come, because it seems a lot of important things are up in the air right now where work is involved, but then I decided to stop making myself crazy and just deal with things as they come-- play the hand I'm dealt, as it were. What other choice do I have, really?


...I still wish life would get less complicated for a change though.

My goal for this week is to break out my spindle and roving and get a little bit more accomplished on the "Maple Fire" I'm currently spinning. The last time I picked up was before we got the keys to the condo!

I'm thinking about buying into a CSA farm this year. I've been wanting to for the last few years, but I think I might finally be in a position to do so. There's about a half dozen local farms that participate in programs like this. The idea is awesome-- support a local farm while getting super-fresh veggies every week.

The only drawback is not being able to completely choose what I want or, more importantly, don't want. Some CSA farms give you a list of what they grow and you can specify what you don't really want to see in your share, but not all of them do and some of the customizable ones are way more expensive. Then again, even if I went with one that didn't, I wouldn't mind the challenge of finding new ways to cook and enjoy veggies I don't particularly like and in the worst case scenario, I could give them to our friends. After all, E and I seem to be the only people on the planet who think that mushrooms and onions are gross, and celery and I decided to see other people a while ago.

I want to write about today/tonight, but I feel so crappy that everything I write makes me angry.

The dog is home.

Gus is here, and has been for about a week. He's absolutely adorable, and if I could figure out which box we packed the camera in my blog would be flooded with pictures of him. However, it's been a bit of a roller coaster-- first he was afraid of absolutely everything, like stairs and inside the house and then outside the house and other dogs and sometimes people. He spent his first 7 months on a farm where he was not exposed to any other dogs or for that matter people so he's got a bit of a learning curve.

The first day, it took us half an hour to coax him out from under our truck. Then it took another couple hours to get him to really leave the corner of the living room that he had barricaded himself in. It took us two days to get him to use stairs. We're still working on the leash issue (he's never had one before, and he's constantly testing the boundaries.)

Currently, Gus has been tearing around the house because he can't go outside. He was just neutered on Tuesday and they want him to stay in the house for 10 days. He's like a kid with chicken pox-- he feels fine other than a little discomfort and has all this energy with nowhere to put it. I can't wait to take him outside and let him run, cause he's being a bit crazy.

...and shit, I have to go clean up...well, shit again. I'll finish this later...


...okay, the poop has been cleaned up and thrown out. Such is my life lately.

I managed to get a small bit of crafting in. The day before we got Gus, I sat down and made some of the stitch markers I've been meaning to finish. I made a set for my friend Steph, and a set for either myself or another friend. I originally bought the beads to make a set for me, but I think my friend could use them more. We've all been having some stressful times and I think she would appreciate a gift. The cool thing is, even though I'm a knitter and she's a crocheter (as most of my friends are), the stitch markers will work for both. Instead of jump rings for the tops, I used earring findings that hinge open. Knitters can use them like normal by just slipping them on the needle, and crocheters can use them by openeing the clasp and putting them where they need to go. I love things that multi-task!


This has been an uber-stressful week, the latest in a stressful two months. Most of it has been good stress, but stress nonetheless. Tomorrow will be more of the same, as my schedule is packed to the gills with the multiple sclurosis benefit walk, work (it's inventory day), and a big seder dinner. I often think lately about how nice it would be to actually sleep more than 7 hours. But I made a pact with E that I'll hang in there as long as he does. We even pinkie swore on it. So I guess it will all work out in the end.

We're home.... kinda.

We have survived the move, the furntiture assembly, atleast most of it, and the figuring out of where to put things (there was almost some bloodshed there. At one point we got so escalated E threatened to throw my beloved ugly chair away, the one I've had since the days when I lived in the Blue House, but we compromised and put it in the bedroom until I carry out my plan of eventually getting it reupholstered. ) Everything else should be smoother sailing from there.

Currently, I've got about three hours to get this house slightly more put together before the lady from the Alternative Humane Society comes over. She's meeting us here to fill out the adoption paperwork on our (hopefully) soon-to-be dog, Gus. While the boxes aren't as high as our heads anymore, I' m still a little worried that she's going to take one look at all the moving chaos, brand us as unfit dog parents, and not let us adopt him. It's a silly thought, as they are aware we just moved, but one I'm having nonetheless.

Alright, enough dawdling. My living room and craft room aren't going to unpack themselves!

Spring is finally starting to show up around here! We're actually seeing a few things growing, and even a break in the rain every once in a while. I'm hoping the good weather stays for the next couple of days while we move, it's no fun to move all your worldly possesions in the rain.

We put off packing and took a much needed break tonight. I started to look through a cookbook I borrowed from my mom (the amazing America's Test Kitchen) but started to nod off, so I decided to take a power nap. I woke up six hours later. Guess I needed the sleep.

I'm really sad to be leaving our old place, but I'm excited to be in the new one. It's two sides of the same coin really-- everything is changing and I'm feeling both the good and bad all at once. Overall, I guess I'm just excited about everything-- the new house that we've been working so hard on, spring, and in the slightly distant future-- Victoria Fibre Fest!

We live a pretty short drive from the US/Canadian border, so Victoria isn't that far to travel, and I've been itching to go to some sort of yarn/fiber/knitting festival. I just have to make sure to start applying for my passport very soon, now that the rules have changed. I'm hoping that, despite the fact that I hang out with mostly crocheters, I might be able to get a friend to join me on the excursion. Lord knows E doesn't want to go (and be surrounded by more crazy knitters? Frankly, I think just one is enough for him), and I definetely wouldn't make him.

Either way, there's time to flesh out plans. Right now I'm too busy staring down a living room full of boxes.

I got a much-needed respite tonight. I went and touched up the paint in the kitchen, but after that we went and had some beers (or double rum and cokes as it were) with some friends.

For what it's worth, I finished the kitchen tonight (but only after OCD E went through it. He is very......um.....meticulous.)

(And by that I mean obsessive. He finally started to admit his crazy behavior last night. I think it's progress.)


Tomorrow, I start packing. We have one week to move. And my mantra remains-- "whatever shit happens, it's all worth it."

I'm so full of it.

I vowed to sit down and work out the two patterns I'm working on, but no dice. I have managed to squeeze in about one hour of knitting in the last two weeks. Most of the time that I'm not working lately I've been spending at my second job-- our new house.

So far we've redone the floors, repainted the entire downstairs and the stairwell, made a trip to Ikea for a dining table and other odds and ends, built our new barbeque, and wired outlets so that we can wall-mount our TV. Still on the to do list is finishing painting the kitchen, repainting the entire upstairs, installing some new kitchen fixtures (shelves and racks and such) and closet rods*, building our new Ikea dining table and chairs, cutting our desk down so it can fit into the closet in the 2nd bedroom, and oh yeah, moving into the damn place!

One of the main ways I've been getting through all of it without checking myself into the sanitarium is to look at it as my biggest craft project ever. That seems to help....sorta. Either way, I keep telling myself it will all be worth it when it's done and E and I can plop down on our couch, look around and say, "look at what we did!". Heck, some of it has even been fun, but I'm not sure how much more fun I can take without doing myself or someone else an injury.

"It will all be worth it." The six words that get my through the sixteen-hour day.

*the guys that did the remodel for the seller stupidly textured over every closet rod in our condo. They also install a half a dozen doors and about a mile of trim without sealing any of it. We see them working across the way, and by working I mean "chain-smoking and getting into arguments every 10 minutes."

My summer girl....

We just came back from the monthly AHS adopt-a-thon, and although the dogs we want to adopt weren't there, I'm still pretty stoked that we're getting the ball rolling. We've talked with the humane society folks and are probably going to wait until we've finished working on the condo and are fully moved before going any further, but I can't wait. I'm already envisioning trips to the dog park, summer camping, and afternoons at Toad Lake!

We'll have to see how our new dog(s) get along with Tim and Amber's pets, but I think it will be alright. (Tim and Amber have about a dozen animals, but typically only bring their two dogs, Reno and Vegas, Beaker the duck, and Honeydew the goose when we go camping. They have playpens for them and everything. They're crazy-but-in-the-cool-way pet people.)

All around, I'm really excited by how this spring/summer is shaping up. We are 4 days away from closing on our new house. It's like Christmas, only you make all your presents yourself. In two weeks, I'm going to have more closet space than I can wrap my head around and a whole room in which to put yarn. My job, minus one nagging thing that's been stressing me out, is exactly where I want to be right now. E and I are doing amazingly well, even with all the stress of starting this new chapter in our lives. My friends are wonderful. My family's been great. What more could a girl ask for?

I think I'll go work on the fuzzy sweater and my new pattern project. I'm finally settled enough to sit down and math these things out.

The Random Wrap came out a little bigger than expected, so wrapping it doesn't really work. Instead I basically have a scarf with no ends. Since it wwas a random project, with a random cast-on and a random pattern knitted into it, I suppose I could really only expect a random result. On the bright side, I'm finding that looping it twice around my neck makes it all nice and cozy. Frankly, I love the colors so much I probably would have worn it no matter how it came out.

As an added bonus, it seems making the Random Wrap has renewed my waning creative energy. I went back to the fingerless mittens, and as a result am actually writing my first-ever pattern! I finished the first one while at work today, now to do the second one and see if everything jives the way I'm hoping it will. I also thought of a couple of variations on my initial idea, so I may use some of that "stash-busting, what's that?" yarn I bought a while back to work up those. It's a good thing my friends are as big of fans of topless mittens as I am, because I'm going to be up to my neck in these things by the time I'm done.

I feel like I should be slowly moving from cold-weather gear to something more springy, but Spring seems to have not gotten the memo, atleast in the Northwest anyway. We woke up to a snowstorm the other morning-- about four inches downtown, with a little bit more in the surrounding areas. To a lot of places, like Canada and the Northeast, four inches isn't even worth mentioning, but this town practically shuts down when even a few flakes start to fall.The snow eventually started to melt off that afternoon, and most of the roads were dry by the time nightfall hit, but come on.

As previously mentioned, I LOVE snow. I love snow so much I write it letters asking if it wants to go steady, and even I'm pretty sick of it. So although I am trying to gear myself up for spring, I just don't feel it. Hopefully I'll find my spring-time muse and start making springy things.

Don't stop believin', hold onto that feeling.....

This has not been a good month for knitting. Not at all.

After I finished the purse, I put down the needles for almost two weeks. All the projects I have going require thought/math/focus that I just haven't had in me lately. Between changing jobs, buying a condo (!), counseling my best friends through their (possibly temporary?) break-up, finding out my father got married in Vegas last weekend, and everything else, who could think about knitting?

Problem is, knitting is my stress reliever. And, dear god, has there been a lot of stress. So I'm busting out a mindless project this week: a wrap cowl thingie made from Di.Ve' Teseo that I picked up not too long ago. I made the cable keyhole scarf (note to self: you still need to block that) from the same yarn in a different colorway and just love the color transitions. Rather than make something with deliberate, noticable stripes, I decided this to do something in the round that used the colors in more of a space-dyed fashion.




I call it a mindless project because, other than making sure not to drop a stitch, it requires no thinking at all. Like, really. The middle section is a random knit/purl combination that (hopefully) will create a random spacing of purl stripes on the knit background. As I'm going around, I will from time to time look down at my knitting and think I feel like purling now. So I do. I think/hope it will look awesome, but when I tried to write the whole thing down (something I've been trying to do as I knit lately at the request of a friend), it came out kind of like this:


Cast on 200 stitches.
Work in k4, p4 rib for about an inch or so, whatever you fancy.
Row ?: Throw in an eyelet row, just for fun-- k2, yo, k2tog.
Work rounds in double moss stitch until first ball runs out
Join new ball and work in random kp stitch pattern until you run out of yarn again
Join last ball and work in double moss stitch again, making sure to leave enough to do another eyelet row and an inch (or so) of the k4, p4 rib.
Bind off.

Double Moss stitch:
Rows 1 and 2: k2, p2, repeat to end.
Rows 3 and 4: p2, k2, repeat to end.
Repeat rows 1-4.

Random kp stitch pattern:
Knit sometimes, then purl sometimes, in whatever combination you choose.
Maybe k20, then purl 20, or only purl every five minutes for thirty seconds at a time.
Just make each round a little different from the one before and try not to create a repeating pattern.



Um....yeah. The whole thing sounds pretty dumb when I write it down. This is why I don't write patterns.

*puts on best italian accent*
The purse, she is fini!

I actually finished it about a week ago, but hadn't had a chance to take pictures yet. After using it for a couple of days, I've decided that adding a lining and a closure would be best. Without the lining, it tends to get stretched out by whatever's in it, and since it has a tendency to flop over when set down, it might be good to have a way to keep stuff from falling out. Otherwise, I love it-- just the right size to hold what I need, but not so big I stuff everything but the kitchen sink into it.

Even after knitting with two balls at once, things still came out a bit more solidly striped that I had planned. I'm thinking maybe next time the best bet would be to start one ball from the outer end and one from the inside. Maybe that will help?

I also finished Carly's mittens. They're green and stripey thanks to the Noro Kureyon I used. Now to mail them to her!

Next up is the Straightjacket Sweater from Naughty Needles, minus the whole buckling-in-the-back thing. I'm replacing the original thick-and-thin yarn called for with a similar one I found at Joann. Typically I've been fairly standoffish towards most of their yarns. I'm trying to avoid the term "yarn snobbery", but that's pretty much what it is. However! I found one that feels nice, looks good, has the same fiber content and has so far been getting the right gauge. And all for over $4.00 less a skein! PLUS, it's on sale for an extra $2.00 off right now. Does it get much better? I think not.

Stop the madness!

Okay, that does it-- no more buying yarn until I finish atleast one project. I'm flitting about with so many different things right now, and yet I still bought a skein of a yarn I want to test out for sweater I eventually want to make. It's like I have ADHD or something.

I did however, also manage to pick up some handles for the purse I've been working on, as well as some finishing needles, since I can't seem to figure out where I put the four I bought six months ago. I'm just really hoping they don't turn up in the couch or something. E will not be happy with me.

Right now, the current "on the needles" list is as follows:
-fuzzy sweater
-purse
-fingerless mittens (kind of like these but different), cribbed from this pattern by the girls at SpinCycle Yarns.

I also still have the cable scarf waiting to be blocked AND I found a purse I started a couple of years ago that I want to pick back up and finish. (It was my first semi-successful attempt at argyle and could be awesome if I actually got up off my butt and finished making it. )

In other words, I REALLY had no business buying any more yarn.

Motivation, such an aggravation....

Right now I should be making pizza dough, doing dishes, finding places for the dozen-or-so bags of chips that were left over from last night's superbowl shindig, and generally getting things put in order before my friends show up in a couple of hours.

So what am I doing instead? Sitting here reading things on the internet. I'm not sure if it's my completely dysfunctional need to leave things until the last minute, or that I have a had ZERO motivation today. I think it might be a combination of both.

I think it's also some other stuff that I'm just not ready to deal with yet. Right on the heels of one big scary decision, another one came along, and I haven't had enough time to properly mull things over. This seems to be the year for making some pretty big changes I think.

Okay, I've squandered enough time. That pizza dough isn't going to make itself.

Last post of the night:

Anticraft is new! Woohoo!

I envy Crazy Aunt Purl in a way-- she is open in a way that I have never been able to achieve. Which, in it's own sort of way, brings me back to my ideas about the internet and communication and such.

I have a lot of friends that I met through the internet. We were all on the same livejournal "bellingham" community years ago and decided to stage a meet-up. I made some very good friends both on that day and even before, all through this little wonder of the internet.

The thing is, as we all became good everyday friends (one eventually became one of my roommates and best friends), we also started to get more judicious about what we said when we knew certain people were reading. We've come to a point where we hide what we really think now.

Too many people think that what is written online is about them, and they take up and arms to it. And, because we all know eachother and hang out day-to-day, some of these things are about eachother, but they seem so much worse in print. I know that I could say something to 99% of my friends and have them think whatever I said was okay, but if I wrote the exact same thing, only 50% would be okay. The other 50% would be angry. I have yet to understand this phenomenon-- how completely normal people can take such different meanings from things they hear vs. things they read.

I think a lot of it has to do with the lack of context in the written word-- when you say you're mad, there's no way to gauge how mad you are, or if you're even really that mad at all. But I also think a lot of it comes from the mindset of the reader-- the readers who have never met said writer can't place themselves in the writer's subject. Granted, they can in an "I've been there, I understand" sort of way, but they can't actually put themselves in the middle of the writer's actual daily life.

It also has to do with the finality of the written word versus saying something. We can pass off the things people say, but if they take the time to write them, holy shit.... (/sarcasm)

There's more, but I'm far too tired to go further. Goodnight, wonderful few.

Why is it that Google can save my login for google reader and gmail, but not for blogger? Hmmmph.....

Sick finally caught up with me today. I went into work for the sole reason of helping out a friend. (He is in remission from leukemia, and has a lot of follow-up appointments, one of them being today. I knew that if I called in sick, management would make going to his appointment hard for him. This is one of the reasons I am leaving my job. I feel guilty about it, not out of loyalty to my employer, but out of loyalty to my coworkers.) After that, I went home and stayed on my couch for seven hours.

Good news is, I think I might be finally getting the better of this whole sinus thing-- I was able to knit today. I will probably have pictures of my new purse sans-handles tomorrow. I am up to the point where I need handles in order to go further. I'm thinking of something new to knit with the random yarn I bought, if only to avoid the fuzzy sweater a little longer.

Honestly, there was no reason for this post, except that I really like writing on this blog.

Also, I miss my pink hair. The way I'm going, it's going to be a long time before I can have hair like that again....

Word of the day is "alternate"

With the new (tiny) merino/silk hank soaked, I might just be able to knit a coin purse from my handspun knits! I think I will knit them with alternate skeins/balls/bundles of yarn, simple because I'm thinking one is thinner than the other and knitting them alternately might make it work.

In other news, I find that I like the super-carded wool a lot better than I like the merino/silk. Shorter fiber length = easier drafting for a newbie like me.

Also, I think I'm going to rip out the new purse. One, I would rather knit two balls in alternate rows to get a more random stripe and Two, I'm not sure about the pattern I'm making up. So I'm ripping it out and starting from the bottom (bottom of the purse, I mean.)

The haze is finally starting to clear....

On top of giving me some non-drowsy Claritin, my mom may have given me a good solution to this little sinus issue I've been having. Since we think it may be because of all the dry air I've been breathing in recently, both indoors and out, my mom had the idea to put a coffee can full of water on top of my radiator. As the radiator heats up, the water will vaporize and humidify the air. I had been trying to figure out a way to do this, but she came up with the best/most simple solution. She's a smart lady, my mom.

In other news, I am loving the new Knitty suprises. I might have to add Dragonfly to the knit list, which seems to be getting longer all the time. Just yesterday I added a wrap sweater that I sketched out, with the plan to make it from one of the recycling sweaters I picked up last week. I think I may use the wrap sweater project as a "how to recycle a sweater" tutorial. From what I've seen, the only things about sweater recycling online involve felting them and using the felt. There's so many more possibilities than that, if one is willing to take the time. And really, who can pass up a handknit sweater that only cost $5.00 to make?

Yesterday and today have had me feeling pretty much like my face was going to fall off. I think it might have something to do with winter-- cold dry air followed by dry heat from our radiators-- but my sinuses are pissed. I've been waking up feeling stuffed up lately, but yesterday I woke up feeling like someone had taken some heavy-grit sandpaper to the back of my throat and up into where my sinuses drain. Then the headache came on, those kind that pretty much put a mask of pain around your eyes.

Today isn't much better. I'm still going to work, but I'm probably going to stop by the drug store and pick up some non-drowsy antihistamines, because the ones I have aren't exactly work-safe.

The worst part? I felt so worn out and crappy, I didn't even have the energy to curl up on the couch and knit, like I normally do when I'm sick. This sucks.

For now, back to bed.

No time for a real post, but since I only just wanted to post the photos that accompany my last couple of posts, I don't feel too bad.

E modelling the Tube Sock Scarf

Very blurry (it moves fast) and very big ball of roving!

The fruits of my labor-- my handspuns so far. The one on the left was done when I had been spinning for about three days and was trying to ply for the first time. I think things have gotten a lot more consistent since then. The bottom hank is from the Purple Haze ball.

The newest project, a purse. I started on it last night during Whiskey Night with Mike and Jen. It's almost but not completely in the round, since I didn't have a circular short enough. I decided to just make it with one seam up the side. I'm not entirely sure how it's going to play out yet, since I'm just kind of making it up as I go along, but it will atleast be an interesting project!

Warning: If it hasn't been made obvious yet, I write the way I speak. And I speak in parentheticals.

Do you have those friends that you can spend hours with, without ever getting bored or needing some other distraction (ie, a movie or a game or some other form of entertainment)? I do, and I am so grateful for it. I also consider myself lucky in that two of those friends are miraculously dating eachother (which means I get two for the price of one!) and another one of those is my boyfriend.

The four of us (myself, E, and our friends Jen and Mike) spent the night hanging out, having drinks, and basically shooting the shit, and it was quite honestly one of the best nights I've had all week. Sometimes I feel bad and/or neglectful of our other friends, since we hang out with these two so much. At the same time, I don't.

I even got to briefly teach Jen about spinning! I've been (very) slowly teaching her how to knit, but I'm beginning to think spinning might be more her thing.

In other news, I've come to a decision about the things I was mulling over yesterday. Basically, I was offered a really big, but kind of scary, job opportunity. I mix paint for a living, for one of those big-box hardware stores. I have been offered the option to go to a smaller, more local store a couple of times. This time, I was made a really good offer. The manager of this smaller store wants me to come work there and eventually take over his job when he moves on, which is going to happen within the next six months. On one hand, this is an amazing opportunity, and would eventually mean making almost twice as much money as I do now while doing something that I enjoy and am good at. On the other, I'm terrified that I will be biting off more than I can chew. Managing my own store would be the biggest responsibility that I've ever had in my life, and I'm scared shitless that I will fall flat on my face. But after a lot of thought I finally had to ask myself, "what is life without taking risks?"

So I think I'm going to fight my fears and go for it.

To sum up, I am feeling very good about today.

When did "sit and spin" go from being a crafting phrase to an insult?

I find that after certain events today I suddenly have a lot on my mind, but I'd rather put it aside for awhile to write about crafting. One can only mull over things for so long before people start to wonder what the constipated look on your face is about and whether you are, in fact, constipated. (In the interest of full disclosure, I wasn't.)


Meanwhile, there is so much spinning going on! Now if only I had better light for pictures/time to take pictures during the day!

There's a lady in the next town over who buys up fiber remnants from Brown Sheep Co. and cards them into bee-you-tee-ful balls of roving. My LYS, which if not previously mentioned is NW Handspun Yarns, sells them for $10. $10 for a ball of roving bigger than my head? Why yes, I will take some of that! I picked up a colorway called "Purple Haze", which is a lovely blend of purple and royal blue with bits of lavender tossed in. Because of the way it's been carded, it drafts super-easily. Within about a day, I was able to get a decent sized ball of singles spun, soaked, and wound up into a hank.

I also finally got the merino/silk and New Zealand wool I had spun soaked as well, and it definetely makes all the difference. The silly little tangled balls that were sitting on my coffee table have now morphed into smooth not-so-tangly-twisted hanks, albeit very small ones. One of these days I might actually spin enough yarn to knit something!

The Tube Sock Scarf is, thankfully, also done. There is only so much *k2p2 (repeat from *) I can stand, so I was more than happy to bind off that little number. E is very pleased with it, and spent about two hours surfing the internet Tuesday night with it wound around his neck.

Now it's onto finishing the stupid mittens that I've been putting off (I changed the pattern on the thumbhole, but being slightly addle-minded I forgot to write down how I changed it, so I'm going to have to guess at matching them. I'm not looking forward to this, hence the procrastination. ) And then it's back to the fuzzy sweater! I think I'm also going to make a purse from some of the random yarn I've picked up recently. After that, who knows? The list of future projects is so long, I don't even know where to start!

Now where the heck do I put it all?

So when I say I went to town with the whole stash-building thing, I meant it---



Click on picture to see details about what the heck all those yarns are.

Two of this, three of that. Oh, you only have one left? Don't worry, I'll take it!


Bells had it right that I'm a yarn store owner's dream. While everyone else is busting their stash, I'm buying up oddballs like it's going out of style! So now I've got a ton of yarn for a bunch of little things. On the upside, I didn't really have much of a stash too begin with, so now I can atleast relate a little to those gals with yarn closets (or even, dare I say, yarn rooms!)



As mentioned, I also finished the slightly-short-kinda-stripey-cable-keyhole scarf, with the exception of blocking and weaving in ends. I don't know that it really needs to be blocked, but frankly I could use the practice and I think that cable pattern could benefit from it.

Full-size photo when it's all finished. As for now, the goal is to take a shower and go out, with the hopes of procuring lavender, more roving, and something to make for dinner tonight. I'm thinking I might do spinach lasagna....

I'm proud to be someone who does things and sometimes scrapes my knees...

It's official, the sweater addiction has reached dangerous levels. I now own 40 sweaters. I could wear a sweater every weekday for two months without a repeat!*

...and I just deleted a giant paragraph full of excuses for being a sweater addict. It sounded too much like an alcoholic trying to explain why he isn't an alcoholic.

The thing is, if loving knitwear is wrong, I don't want to be right.

On the cool side, I did find a couple of sweaters that are ripe for re-engineering. Well, maybe. One is perfect, but the other one may be cut from knit fabric, which will leave me nothing but a bunch of short strings.

Tomorrow is definetely picture day-- of my new yarn, and my finished keyhole scarf!


*I actually own more than that, but the rest are for recycling projects. The official sweater count only includes sweaters I've bought with the intention of wearing.

So we housed a kitty last night. We've been seeing her around the apartment building and originally thought she belonged to one of our neighbors, but after petting her we realized that she was too skinny to belong to someone. and really affectionate and people-oriented in a way that implies that someone lost or abandoned her. So we fed her, and let her hang out in our apartment, and ultimately fell so in love with her that we decided if she stayed around we would take her to the vet on Monday and find out what she needs for us to keeep her and have her healthy. We didn't want to kick her out last night, but we also didn't want to find cat poop on our rug, so we put her outside but left her food and planned on buying a litter box pretty soon.

I fed her this morning, but we didn't see her tonight. E is slightly/pretty/mostly heartbroken. Fact is, I'm slightly heartbroken too. We were hoping to take her in and put out some "found" ads and hope that no one answered so we could keep her as our own. Know how hard it is to wake up a kitty sleeping at your feet just to tell them to go outside? Yeah.

Hopefully she'll show up tomorrow. I think that she's hungry enough that she will come find food where she knows she can get it. If not, I wish her safe journey, wherever she may go.

While everyone else is busy busting there stash, I just totally built mine up with a bunch of oddballs. Details (and pictures illustrating my madness) to follow.

This isn't nearly as much about knitting as I intended it to be.

I am definetely an emotional knitter. I got in a fight with E the other night about something incredibly minor, but we both knew it was just a smokescreen for a couple other, slightly bigger frustrations. He went to bed, I sat up and finished another 8 inches on his scarf.

A couple of years ago, a friend was going through a rough time, and for my own reasons I just couldn't be as good a friend I wanted to be. At the time, I felt too caught up in my own emotional bullshit to be a good friend to anybody else. So I knit. I knit A LOT. When I gave her the stuff I had made for her, she was able to know that although I couldn't be "there", I still loved her.

I sat in my shower yesterday and cried, and I knew that I was crying about a bunch of things that wouldn't be big deals by themselves, and frankly weren't big deals no matter what, but all the little deals I've passed off as not mattering had ganged up and become one giant ball of stuff.

I cried because I felt like everything sucks, even though I knew damn good and well that that isn't true. I cried because I felt stupid and useless and helpless, even though I know that's not entirely true either. I cried because I'm not nearly as good at this whole "being an adult" thing as I should be, which quite frankly is true.

Hell, I cried because I was sick to death of doing laundry and dishes.

...but then I got out of the shower and worked out some of the little things, including some of the previously mentioned frustrations sitting between me and E, so the giant ball wasn't quite so crushingly big.

And then, I finished spinning that merino/silk. It is now sitting on a makeshift bobbin, waiting to be soaked and have the twist "set" (or atleast that's how I'm told it's supposed to work). I made a gauge swatch from some random yarn I picked up the other day, just to see its potential. I worked on E's scarf, because it is a work in progress worth working on.

The thing that always makes me feel better about life is this: We are always finding ways of improving, creating, building. Not just knitters-- everyone.

But as for me, it's pretty safe to say that I knit therefore I am.

So I was just reading this article on the mainstreaming of cruelty-free values.

I really like that vegan- and vegetarian- friendly products are becoming more available beyond just food level, but one thing struck me. From an environmental standpoint, is trading in natural materials for lots of plastics really the way to go? Although I am not vegetarian (and subsequently not vegan), I have over time started to slowly move towards eating/wearing/buying things that have less of an impact. But swapping your leather ipod case for a plastic one, while good for the cow, isn't necessarily better for the landfill it will eventually end up in. And recycled yarn is wonderful, but shearing a sheep isn't cruelty.

Sometimes I think people miss the forest for the trees.

No craft content ahead.

I've been talking tonight about...stuff. (slightly drunk, hard to explain meaning. Then again, "stuff" is pretty non-explanatory.)

There was a conversation that I wanted to spout off about, but it's too late and I'm too tired.

This is what I will spout off about:

I have a coworker who has been single for awhile and is very intent on being in a relationship. She has told me how lucky I was to have found someone, so I've been trying to explain the whole story to her.

I think a great deal of the reason that E and I fell in love was because we weren't looking to date anyone. Neither one of us was searching for a relationship. I had been single for two years and had gotten to the point where I honestly didn't care about dating, and E had been out of a relationship for awhile and wasn't worried about dating either. I was happy with myself, my friends who loved me, and my family, so I didn't look at men as dateable/undateable. I looked at them as either people I wanted to be around or people I didn't want to be around. When I met E, I didn't think about dating him, but I knew from the first night we started talking that he would be someone I wanted to be around. To this day , I still say that if we hadn't wound up dating, he would have still been my best friend.

I had already realized that I was a whole person, with or without a boyfriend, so I wasn't trying to impress anyone when I met E. As a result I acted the same around E that I did around anyone else. I was me-- sweet, averagely pretty, bitchy, brutally honest but well meaning, kinda clumsy, not-giving-a-shit me. He was the same way- cute, kind, honest to a fault, idiosycratic, mean-to-people-who-are-deliberately-assholes him. And we liked (and ultimately loved) each other for exactly who we we are. Part of the reason we were attracted to eachother,a HUGE part of the reason we work so well despite diffences, is because we are and have always been the people we claim to be. It's not the only reason I love him, but it is definetely one of the many.

Sorry, this has nothing to do with craft stuff, it's just a mental purging on my part. I've been trying to find the words to explain how I feel in love with E and why I love him so much. My apologies.

Bundle up!

It's frozen in Bellingham.

The view outside my window. The tall building is formerly City Hall but now serves as a museum. If you look next to it, you can just barely see the bay. The lack of buildings or scenery, however, makes for some amazing sunsets.

Yahoo lists our current temperature at 20 degrees, and all the snow we got last night has since frozen solid. When it started snowing last night, my inner island girl got excited. Growing up in Hawaii/San Diego/Florida, I didn't see snow until I was almost 13, so I still haven't had a chance to get sick of it.

On the other hand, the big girl voice in my head so oh crap, you might actually have to drive in it this time. I managed to get out of it during the last snow storm two months ago making E drive everywhere. This time, because of schedules, I actually have to get on the road myself. Thusfar I seem to be doing okay. I've made it to work and back twice with nary an incident.

It's really wierd to see all of this white wind whipping over the ground. Makes me think of Antartica or something, not plain old Bellingham. Luckily the boiler for our building didn't freeze this time, it's not so fun without heat.

The cold weather did give me the opportunity (like I need one) to spin some more. I had picked up some new roving from my LYS to continue spinning. Still mostly New Zealand wool, but I also picked up an ounce of a merino/silk blend to treat myself.

I know they say 100% wool is good for beginners, but I had such an easier time with the blend! The slippery-ness that I was warned about actually helps me draft more evenly. It wound up beautifully and felt so soft!

That said, I am starting to get a tiny bit better with spinning pure wool. I tried switching colors while spinning with much better results. That tightly wound little ball in my hand starts out orange but gives way to an orangey gold, a reddish color, and eventually a bright pink in the center. In fact, neither picture shows how pretty the colors actually are. The folks at NW Handspun sure do carry some pretty-colored stock! I'm still trying to figure out how to avoid overspinning without my yarn falling completely apart. Right now I seem to be at one extreme or the other.

I'm gonna go crawl back under my blankets until it's time for me to go to work.

I'm a consumer whore (and how!)

So I'm feeling pretty darn good after finding all kinds of awesome deals in my shopping excursions the last few days. Probably better than I should, given my ongoing goal to buy less. Some of it I blame on the gift cards. Some of it is just plain addiction. And some of it is because I can't pass up a REALLY good sale, especially on something I kind of already want.

Frankly, talking about how cheap one got things is pretty boring, so to sum up:

-Embroidered silk found for over 80% off! I just might have to go back and buy the rest of it up before someone else does. Also, flamingo print fabric for $1.80/yd!

-a really cute $5 sweater at Macy's (which puts the sweater count up to 38. I have a problem.)

-A discount on merino/silk roving because I let them know about an error in their price list. (yay for good karma)

And to top it all off, I found a pair of jeans that actually fit! That's right up there with the Loch Ness monster as far as "things that are rarely seen" goes.

Luckily, I think this week has been my last big binge before I go back on my clothing diet. Aside from the ones from Target, all the gift cards have now been spent, which removes the reason for me to look at clothes in the first place. I've already placed a moratorium on buying any more knitting books. And as for fiber and craft stuff, I'm trying to avoid buying anything without first having a project or goal in mind, so my own indecisiveness should slow me down a bit. That pretty much takes care of my frivilous spending with the exception of chinese food and beer, neither of which I'm willing to give up. One has to draw the line somewhere.

*****

I've been thinking a lot today about community and how the internet has both helped and hindered communication, but my thoughts aren't quite formed enough to put down in any readable format yet. I am however starting to believe that I am one of those people who communicates better and more effectively without the crutch of a backspace key.

And the day's not over!

My day in pictures:

I started off by throwing on my new t-shirt from Anthropologie. I love the pretty leaf image and the oh-so-soft organic cotton. It feels like I've owned it for ten years!

I managed to get a bit more spinning done. I kept telling myself to put it down so I could run errands, but the roving kept call me. I'm finding that I'm starting to be able to draft and spin at the same time. Up until now, it's been the "spin and park" method all the time. It does however mean that I drop the spindle a lot more.

Even though they didn't strike me as particularly Christmas-y, I bought these giant sparkly feather ornaments this year for our tree. Now that I'm taking it apart, it occurs to me that there's gotta be something fun I can do with them the rest of the year. I'm thinking maybe as part of a walll or table decoration....

Per my list, I made it to the yarn store, the bead store, and the book store and picked up all kinds of things. The only thing I came up empty on was lavender, but woman I talked to reminded me that my favorite tea shop carries bulk lavender. Why I didn't think of that before is beyond me and the tea shop is a lot easier to find than the mysterious lavender place with the unknown name. After today, though, there will be a moratorium on buying new knitting books until I actually knit something from one of them.

Although the girl at the yarn store looked at me funny, there's a reason I carry these two books everywhere I go. One is my new planner, the other is stitch-n-bitch knitting journal that has notes on my yarn stash, including dye lots. I now have the exact yarn I needed to finish Carly's mittens, including the correct dye lot, and just might be able to get them done by the time she gets to town on Saturday!

There was also hummus and a trip to the Black Drop involved, but no pictures. It should however be noted that it was somn damn good hummus.



As for now, the plan is to finish taking the tree apart so E and I can haul it downstairs, tidy up my living room and possibly have some friends over for dinner. In my adventures today, I walked past one of my favorite italian restaurants and the smell coming from inside made tonight's dinner menu abundantly clear-- cheese tortellini with veggie marinara, garlic cheese bread, and a choose-your-adventure salad*.

But enough rambling. If I'm going to get all this done AND run to JoAnn Fabrics, I'd better get crackin'!

*choose your adventure salad-- the basic salad is there, but condiments are up to you. I plan to use a tiny bit of italian dressing, craisins, feta, and some crunched-up pecans. E leans more towards bacon bits and shredded cheddar.

Note to self: spellchecker is your friend.

We're back.

E and I went down to Seattle on Saturday for our friends' housewarming. I was a bit nervous about it at first, but had a great time once we got there. Seeing our friends new house has increased that desire to move, though. I have loved living in our quirky old apartment, but it's starting to wear me down. Plus we need the space. We're batting around the idea of moving into a bigger space within this building, which may be all I need. Beyond that I've been kind of scanning the for-rent ads, but we have such particular tastes that finding what we want could be hard.

The other awesome thing about getting out of town was the shopping. I decided that since the new Wardobe Refashion doesn't start until Jan 31st, I'll let myself buy whatever I want, then go back on the wagon at the end of the month. I found a couple of cute shirts at Anthropologie, and a nifty $5 t-shirt at Urban Outfitters. Didn't get to stop by the yarn store as planned, but that's really quite okay.

Today being my day off, I have to have an overly ambitious list. Today I'm going to:

• Finish taking the ornaments off of our super-dry fire hazard of a Christmas tree
• Work on E's Tube Sock Scarf
• Spin some more. Work on getting an even draft.
• Hop on a bus and go to Fairhaven, making a stop by the yarn store, the bead store, the bookstore, and that lavender place I was told about
• Go to JoAnn fabrics for secret project fabrics. Cross my fingers that that clearanced embroidered silk is still there. Try not to cry when it isn't.
• Make a salad. And maybe eat some hummus.

Finally, for Julie the Samurai Knitter, a picture of where I knit. On our living room couch, atleast during this time of year, with my feet tucked under the super plush faux fur throw my mom made for me when I was 13.

When E asked me why the heck I was taking a picture of the couch, I explained, "cause that's where I knit." He told me that in that case I should also take pictures of the bed, the floor, work, the coffeeshop, the local bar, our truck, the park and the bus stop. I think maybe he's trying to tell me something.

(Sad thing is, I actually have a sort of make-shift craft room, but it's mainly where I store my stuff and work on beading/sewing/desk-friendly projects. )

Like a well worn shoe I'm slipping right into place...

The subject is a lyric from a song, which is followed by the line-- "every one of those 3000 miles, I was wishing I was kissing your face."
I don't know why, but I love it.


As soon as I finish E's scarf, dubbed the "Tube Sock Scarf" (pictures and an explanation later), and the random scarf I'm working on, I'm completely friggin' done with scarves. However, I might eat those words, depending on what I buy tomorrow.

An LYS nearby is closing doors and selling all their remaining yarn at 50% off. someof them are only one or two skeins, which can mean scarf or some other item (hence eating one's words.) Somehow when I went in there today it didn't dawn on me that everything left was 50% off, so I was a bit choosier and less spendy than I would be given the circumstances. When I went to the register the ring up what I had chosen, I was caught off guard by the total and informed that the things I had thought were full price were ALSO super cheap. So I'm going back on my lunch to basically buy everything left in the store. We're talking damn nice yarn for the same price as okay/decent yarn. Woohoo!

Either way, no matter what happens, I'm taking a break from scarves. Hell, I might even work something from a pattern. (!!!)

I'm really beginning to love Google Reader for reading all the non-lj blogs I've become addicted to. It makes my bookmark list almost obselete! That said, I still sometimes prefer to read people's blogs, both on livejournal and abroad, in their own format. Makes everything seem a bit more personal or something.

The scarf that I made for E last year has now become a non-scarf for me. I realized about halfway through knitting it that it was going to be too wide, but pressed on anyway hoping that blocking could fix that as well as the length problem. Alas, it was not to be. Afterwards, E confessed he wasn't entirely sold on the yarn in it anyway, so rather than take this one apart and reknit it, it sat in the corner while I started something else. But it was given new life when wrapped around my shoulders and secured with one of my hair chopsticks, and looks (in my opinion) quite smashing to boot. So yay, new stole for me!

Work was dumb today, but I'm over it. Marie Antionette involved a whole lot of eating cupcakes and wearing dresses, but I'm over that too. Atleast I got to see Holly for the first time in a while.

I got some cool ideas for stuff I want to do last night, but for now I'm keeping them to myself. Instead I will work out the logistics in my head.

Spinning, spinning, spinning.

As soon as I put new batteries in the camer, I want to take a picture of my first spun yarn, knitted up into a swatch. It looks like crap, but it also looks like it started to even out a little as my day went on. I've worked on some more tonight and it seems to be coming out better.





We rang in the new year comfortably, having drinks with our friends at their house. E and I had contemplated going to a bar, but we looked at the calender and saw that absolutely nothing was happening, so instead we all decided to have a small pajama party, complete with fuzzy slippers. I finally got to give my friend Elena the armwarmers I made for her, which are just like mine only in a different colorway. She's been subtly and not-so-subtly hinting for the last couple of months that she would really like these, so I made them for Christmas. I was glad she finally got to open them.

I really wish I could find a decent spinning FAQ, I've got a couple of questions that I simply can't find answers to online. I'm thinking that I may take the beginning spinning class at my LYS. For now, I'm just going to sit and be inspired by these girls. They spin and dye some of the most beautiful yarn I have ever seen and, lucky me, have their studio two blocks away!

And so it begins...

I decided to start one of my knitting goals early, so I just got home with this:

(New Zealand roving and an Ashford drop spindle)

and this:

(cambric from The Black Drop)

The spinning is ready to commence!

In other news, the Bellingham Parks and Rec. has been giving horse-drawn carriage rides downtown for the last 10 days. They've been going past my apartment about every thirity minutes or so. And they tell me living downtown doesn't put me in contact with nature-- we have trees AND horses! Next time they jingle past I might try to snap a picture.

And finally, I've realized that if someone were to judge me solely by what is on top of my dresser, I'd look like kind of a badass, or atleast someone into punk and rockabilly. (which I am. The music part, not the badass part.)

(clockwise from left: two Zippo lighters, the flask belt buckle E got me for Christmas, dice from my dice necklace in with all the change, girly heart-shaped candle, and an International Playboys pin. Oh yeah, and there's a stray knitting needle leaning up in the background.)

Sometimes I think I'm losing it, am I the only one?

I wish I lived in LA, it sounds like their SnB is full of awesome people. There's not exactly an SnB here, except the craft night at the LYS that I haven't had time to go to.

I've been having knitter ADD. I can not stay on a project long enough to finish it right now. With some, it's simply because I don't have enough yarn to finish and I'm waiting for that. With others, it's because I start them, don't like them, rip them out, and then get so bored/disgusted with the yarn I pick up something else. Here's hoping the scarf I just started will be somethingI can finish. I'm sure it will be-- scarves are easy. I also can't wait to work on the fuzzy sweater, again, but I feel like there's other stuff I gotta do first.

I picked up Dominitrix today, along with some other books. I'm starting to realize that I'm am the person retail stores designed gift cards for. Dad got me a $25 gift certificate to Barnes and Noble, but I walked out with $60 in various books. It doesn't sound like a lot, but I always find interesting things on their $2/5/10 tables.

I was hoping to find Naughty Needles, but sadly my local B&N just doesn't have as many knitting books as I would like. I think it's just cause I'm picky cause they actually have quite a few, but most of them aren't for me. Which is part of the reason I like Domiknitrix-- most of the styles are simpler, with more focus on garment design instead of crazy overdone details. I'm all for cables and bobbles and intarsia and stuff, but it seems like too many books have patterns that are all of that going on at once. Either that or they're full of awful novelty yarn patterns and, frankly, a novelty yarn has to get up pretty early in the morning to impress me.

Either way, I'm stoked. I also picked up something for another secret project, and tomorrow am picking up a hand spindle and some roving from my LYS, which happens to do double duty as a spinning supply shop. Did I mention it's also a block away from my house? How awesome is that?

For now, I'm just going to go knit and watch some bad late night tv.

It's beginning to look a lot like January.

I don't believe in new year's resolutions, but since we are coming up to the end of the year, I thought I'd put together some knitting/craft goals for the next little while:

• make more stitch markers, including ones designed for crochet (with the exception of Jen, nobody I know has actual stitch markers! We all use bobby pins and safety pins and bits of stuff!)
• finish atleast half of the projects currently languishing around the apartment
• make the skirt from "Greetings from the Knit Cafe"
• learn (or atleast attempt) spinning
• pick up jeweler's anvil and metal snips (for a pendant project)
• figure out a project for that pink cotton novelty yarn!
• dye more yarn
• reinstate the use of the craft journal (as in handwritten journal, not blog). With some projects, it really does help to take notes.
• start a pair of socks and actually finish them
• finally sit down and write "tutorial" of reknitted sweater tips.
• Maybe gain enough confidence in work to set up etsy store (this one might be pushing it just a tad.)
• Two words: Fair Isle.
  

In the immediate future, the goals are to finish E's scarf and the Noro mittens, get Jenny's scarf (and my dad's presents) mailed, and find some dinner!

He's gonna have a bag of crazy toys to fill the stockings of girls and boys

Merry Christmas to any random person who finds this blog.

I have had an awesome Christms. I got to spend it with E, and we both absolutely loved the presents we got for eachtother. I like centering presents around a theme. A couple of years ago, the presents for my old roommates/best friends were all based on the theme "pink". One friend loves flamingoes and other friend's favorite color was pink, and thus a theme was born. I bought the former a flamingo ornament and a pink brooch (she loves brooches), and filled a giant-sequined pink stocking for the latter with all things pink. She got pink socks and a pink hat and Gap's "pink" scent (her favorite) and pink bracelets and a couple of things I don't even remember.

...But I digress. The theme for E's presents was "pampering", so I got him a super-plush robe, these really rad slippers with memory foam, and a homemade certificate that featured:

-a massage from our local spa
-10 at-home massages from me
-a spa day full of pampering and relaxation, complete with lunch, dinner, and parking meter duties

I included the brochure from said spa so he could pick out the type of massage he wanted the most.

That's not all, but I'm too tired to finish. Goodnight!

Come on down, every Jane and Joe. Greet your sweet 'neath the mistletoe....

Work was nice and slow today, so I took off in favor of coming home. I feel like I should be working on those unfinished Christmas presents of mine, but since I know the recipients aren't getting them by tomorrow no matter how hard I try, I kind of just don't feel like it.

There is one possible exception to this and I should probably get started on it if I'm going to do it.

I've been pretty bothered/pissed off about something the last couple of days, but it's too long a story to write and frankly, really isn't any of my direct concern. Just something that's bugging me. Long story short, driving drunk is one of the quickest ways to make me not like you and possibly punch you in the face.

Otherwise, I am having a lovely Christmas Eve. Our new comforter is so plush and big and lovely that I find myself never wanting to get out of bed. E tried to get me up the other morning buy pulling the blankets off, but I always seemed to find more to wrap myself up in. Once E get's off work, we're headed over to my mom's for our long-standing tradition of ordering pizza and watching Christmas shows. We've got close to 30 different Christmas specials and movies, including some random and odd ones. Like John Denver and The Muppets: A Christmas Together and Alf's Christmas (remember Alf?). I'm stoked cause I get to make cocoa using her Cocomotion. One of these days I'm going to get one for myself, but I know doing so will open up the floodgates on E's appliance habit. (If he had his way, we'd have a gadget for absolutely everything. Me? I'm mostly content with a blender, food processor, mixer, crockpot and Cocomotion.)

I find that I tend to write in this thing as one of the last actions of my day. A sum-up, if you will. This is definetely a drunk sum-up, but you can't win them all.

So here's some things that happened tonight, most of them at the cocktail party:

-I spent time with a good friend that I haven't hung out with in a while. I took it as a huge compliment when he told me that he loved me not just because of our friendship history and all we've been through, but because I was one of his "low-drama friends." It's sweet to hear that someone misses hanging out with you not only because they have an awesome time, but also because there's no aftermath. I'm always so glad when people recognize me for the traits I look for in others.

-I am starting to form some new friendships with people that I have always gotten along with and liked, but have never truly gotten to know.

-I am finding more and more that I like my new neighbor and her boyfriend.

-While I was on my lunch and waiting at a traffic light, the Clash's "Should I stay or should I go" came on, and I danced like crazy in my car. I realized, midst-dance, that the cars around me (or rather the people in them), probably thought I was being nutty, but I was happy, so fuck them.

Some friends never showed up tonight, and while one called and another one is known to do her own thing and/or flake out, the other two (who are two of my best friends and also dating) haven't talked to me tonight. Which isn't like either one of them. It makes me worry, since last time the boy talked to them they were in the midst of a fight. I love them both a lot, so I worry about their individual and collective happiness.

-I got to buy martini glasses tonight. I only owned one, from when the girls and I lived together, and it was piddly and sad. Now I have a set of six basic-but-awesome ones. The boy got to buy our new down comforter. For various reasons, it's a king size comforter even though we only own a full-size bed, which makes it huge. It does mean never having to worry about the other one stealing blankets.

-Tonight I wished that I was bold enough to say exactly what is on my mind at any given moment with no worry. I'm a gal who's pretty much known for telling people exactly what I think, but at the same time I can't leave a comment on one of my favorite blogs for worry that I will sound dumb.

I think that's it. Time for bed.

Time for bed, but not before the requisite post.

I need to invite people over more often. It gives me incentive to clean house.

E and I spent the evening getting the house in order and, other than some odds and ends, everything is tidier than it has been in about six weeks. No dishes in the sink for the first time in about a month, we can actually see our coffee table AND our bedroom floor (!), and all the crap that had been taken out of our office closet and strewn throughout the room is safely tucked back inside. Well, maybe not safely, it is pretty packed. However, I took care to put empty boxes and extra bedding on top, so that atleast if there's an avalanche we'll only get hit with the soft and light things. Having things this tidy definetely has a calming effect on me, since all the clutter we build starts to stress me out. Yay for neatness!

Whine, whine, whine.

I want Studio 60 to come back already. I know they're on hiatus until mid-January, but I want it back. And now NBC has taken off the web versions of the already-aired episodes, the bastards. Atleast now I can record the future episodes on the dvr we just added to our cable. And to think, I didn't have tv before I moved in with E. Now I'm practically planning my life about it.

Well, if all else fails, I've always got the Christmas episodes of Sports Night to watch.

3-day weekends are bad for my head.

The hangover's not as bad as I expected, but it's not fun either, especially when I have so much to do. I'm heading over to my mom's to finish laundry and bake cheese crackers, chocolate chip cookies and more cut-out sugar cookies if I can get a chance to go buy more dough (I'm lazy and don't feel like making dough from scratch.)

here's the list:
-finish laundry and cookies
-finish carly's present
-buy supplies for Steph and John's present
-buy supplies for the girl's gift bags (the sachets, bath bombs and something else!)
-make sachets and bath bombs


list for the week:
-switch dressers (I think E and I might actually use our dressers if they were on our sides of the bed)
-clean house
-buy booze
-make finger foods
-find place to set up bar
-move bikes
-try and get office organized before Friday

And then, after this week and Christmas are over, I'm going to collapse in a fit of inactivity.

Happy Birthday to me!

This is gonna have yesterday's date on it, simply because I've been trying to finish writing this for the last two days.

On Saturday, I was given the best birthday present by my boyfriend-- an awesome evening full of fun.

Thanks to the generosity of my coworker, I was able to get off work early enough to make our dinner reservations at Buca di Beppo. I had never been there before, and Eric hadn't been there in years, but I really enjoyed it, with all of the quirky photographs and the wierd restaraunt layout. Watching the waiters and servers and hostesses and bussers run around seemed like a study in controlled chaos. Some high school must have been having their winter formal last night, cause I kept seeing groups of five or six dressed-up teenage girls heading for the bathroom. Always in groups, never individually-- makes me remember what it was like to be 16 and, for reasons I still can't explain, unable to go to a bathroom alone.

We had a huge, really delicious meal, then jetted off to The Crocodile to see The Living End. Having been a fan of this band for years (a little before and long after "Roll On" came and went), I was pretty excited to see them. Eric had seen them years ago on Warped Tour and became a fan from that, so we were both pretty stoked to go.

It was, quite honestly, one of the best shows I've been to in... well, years. The last time I remember being that blown away was Death Cab for Cutie at Viking Union three years ago. The musicianship was impressive-- I have no idea how Chris Cheney can play like that and manage to sing at the same time. Their new songs are just as good as the old ones they made eight years ago, and are somehow managing to keep the same distinctive sound while (atleast on some songs) doing something other than punk rock beats and hooks. I was having such a wonderful time that at one point I just closed my eyes and enjoyed the moment.

The following day, my actual birthday, was much more low-key, which is exactly how I wanted it. I got to sleep in without having to worry about the meter maids, have dinner with my mom where she gave me traditional birthday dessert of Death by Chocolate (my favorite), go play boards games with some of my best friends, then go out for a casual drink with some other good buddies. All in all, I call this birthday a roaring success.

I started to write a giant post about how I'm feeling right this second. And it was the most honest thing I've written in the last year or so. But I erased it all, simply because I can't explain it, even to myself. Sometimes life is unexplainable and feelings can't always be quantified by words.

Oh what a day.

I have done nothing but mix paint, scrape paint, and fight with computers today. The big painting project I have at work is a little more behind than I'd like it to be, but since there's not a deadline it's not a big deal. It's just that, as nice as having a project to focus on can be, I would just as well like to be done with it sooner rather than later.

Tomorrow marks the last day at work before my three-day weekend, which is set to include going to a birthday dinner with my boyfriend before we go see the Living End (yay!), baking lots of cookies (yay!), doing lots of laundry (meh), and knitting lots of stitches. I'm going to try to throw mailing christmas cards and making sachets and bath bombs into the mix as well.

Holy crap that's a lot of stuff to pack into three days. If half of that gets accomplished I'll feel good.

Maybe it was the super-windy weather we've been having, or maybe it was the realization that I had been screwing up a knitting project for about the last fifteen rows, but I was really restless last night. I stayed up watching Queer As Folk and reknitting the part of my project that I had been forced to rip out. Mittens don't exactly fit when there's now thumb hole increases, now do they?

There will be no early night tonight, however, as we have dinner plans with an old friend of E's, followed by some boozy fun with our little crew of miscreants. I doubt we'll get into too much trouble since we're not planning on staying out all night, but with our group of buddies you never know. All I know is, whenever I wake up with the kill-me-please hangover and a bunch of bruises, it always seems to be worth it. Hopefully I'll still say that when I'm old.

Wow, I suck at this whole posting every day thing. I think it's cause I'm just not that interesting, even to me.

You'd have been better to stay 'round our way....

I started a scarf for my sister last night. I had decided to make her a ribbon scarf since, living just outside of Orlando, she doesn't have much use for the warm and cozy kind. I had gotten about six inches into it when I asked myself, if I were 15 and a slave to Aeropostale, would I wear this?

....So I'm giving her gift cards instead. They're much safer. I'm thinking I'll make her some sort of jewelry in the near future, but Christmas is too much pressure to craft for my sister. It's not like with my parents-- Sisters aren't required to pretend they like the crap you make for them, although my sister probably would anyway just to spare my feelings. Either way, I'd rather get her something she actually wants.

I got some errands done today, with the exception of one. I had meant to pick up dried lavender, but I'll have to just save that for my next day off. I would try to do it after work, but the store I need to get it from keeps the same hours my job does. So next day off it is.

My birthday is in five days and I don't really feel that excited over it. It's not that I'm dreading it. I'm just kind of feeling like "whaddayaknow it's my birthday how bout that. " I'm more excited about going to see The Living End the night before and baking snowflake sugar cookies the day after. I'm more excited for Christmas and giving people things that show them I love them. I'm more excited for New Year's, when we tell the old year to kiss our asses goodbye and wave hello to the new one. Birthday? meh.

Dragging his sack thru a chimney stack, all the little hepcats jump for joy

Okay, I managed to get the move over to Blogger Beta done, but it's gonna take a bit before I can customize this thing the way I want to. I just kinda hate default settings, you know?

The cold I've been trying to outrun finally caught up to me, so I'm planting myself on the couch tonight. The boy was offered a spare ticket to a Guns n' Roses show, so he's currently on his way down to Seattle, which gives me some decent craft and chill time. So I'm playing with beads and yarn.

The design for a pair of earrings that I've been trying to work out is finally starting to take shape after about three failed attempts. It came to me while I was at work and was one of those ideas that is so simple you ask yourself why the hell didn't I think of that sooner, before I did it all these dumb ways?" So I played with that a little bit, but now I'm setting it aside-- I've still got presents to finish!

I've been thinking about hosting a cocktail party for whoever of my friends feels like coming over, and right after I got this idea I saw an article in Domino Magazine about it. I realize this isn't some big shock as just about every home-and-lifestyle magazine has a cocktail party article in December, but what fascinated me was this:

The inside table of contents mentioned how the writer threw this great party and it was so easy and fairly cheap. Easy? Probably. Cheap? God, no. When I tallied up all the things this woman got for this party (which to be fair, does include an artificial tree and ornaments, which she'll be able to use in the future), the total came to just over $1000! I suppose when you're a Fancy Shmancy New York Magazine Editor, this makes sense, but to those of us that live in the real world, spending $100 on thirty custom-printed invitations seems just a little bit nuts for one little cocktail party. Nevermind the custom matchbooks (which I actually secretly dig.)

I'm all for splurging, but damn.

Silly me, I made a post yesterday, but to my livejournal instead! It wasn't that great anyway-- just me complaining about the fact that so many old men and middle-aged women automatically assume that being young and female means I must be dumb too.

An outing with Mum.

As it stands, I now in fact need the Wardrobe Refashion get-out-of-jail-free card. But I'm not using it yet, cause I've still got a little bit of consumer sinning to do. I'm fairly certain I won't be happy until I've picked up that dress from Target, and maybe a pair of shoes to go with it. Makes me want to slap my own hand for being so wicked.

Today was mostly spent on an outing with my mom. Once a month, we drive an hour down to Smokey Point to go grocery shopping.

...yeah, I know. It sounds wierd and I suppose kind of is. But Smokey Point has a commissary, and being retired navy my mother has access to it. The savings are worth the hour trip. On the way, we stopped by a fabric outlet we've been meaning to check out and found to our slight dissappointment it was mostly just quilting fabrics. So the detour wasn't a complete loss, I hit the Gap outlet and picked up a sweater and a couple of t-shirts. (Bad Jilly!)

These excursions with my mom are always two parts enjoyable, one part mildly aggravating. When my mom retired from the navy, she never went back to the workforce, in part due to an illness that would eventually require four surgeries, but probably for some other reasons too. She is not nearly as social as she used to be, and I sometimes think the isolation has prematurely turned her old. The reason I say this--- because she gripes about the price of everything ever made. And these damn (30-yr-old) kids and their video games. Eh, atleast she's a loveable curmudgeon.

While we were out, I picked up a couple of other things. I found an awesome present for my dad-- a barometer! Being a fomer navy man as well, it's right up his alley. Along with that, I got myself the new issue of knit 1. A quick glance through it reveals atleast a few patterns that (unlike most of the regular vogue knitting stuff) aren't entirely ridiculous. Yay! I might not have wasted $6.00!

I'm slowly but surely starting to get the hang of the whole online knitting community thing, beyond just reading the billion blogs I've got bookmarked. Hell, I'm almost ready to write my first tutorial! First to finish my 101 in 1001 (more on this later....)

I might need a get-out-of-jail-free card soon.

Here's a couple of the things I've been working on lately, or atleast major close-ups of them. The only two I'm not worried about spilling the beans on are my mom's scarf and (well, duh) my Christmas tree. Yes, there has been and underlying theme of greens and blues this season, but that's because the favorite color of a lot of the recipients happens to be blue and/or green. The other theme-- Noro yarns. I might even attribute the fact that I've been working with Noro to me being ahead of schedule. The beautiful color changes make me want to keep knitting so I can see what happens next!

I finished Mom's scarf today, save for weaving in one or two ends. Now it's onto the tea cozy.

In other news, I've been really good about being a wardrobe refashionista-- since August 1 (or really a couple of weeks before), I have bought only one item of clothing that wasn't for work, and I've been making things like crazy. Having said that, I'm really itching to do some shopping. I saw a dress that would look fabulous on me at Target, along with all kinds of fun gaudy jewelry. And I can always find super cute stuff on the sale racks at Old Navy. I'm slowly talking myself into the notion that, since I've been so good the last four months (not bad since I only signed up for two!), it just might be time to add a couple new things to the wardrobe. Plus, so many things have now become work clothes, what with being covered in paint and all. Maybe I can justify a tiny fall off the wagon?

I'm a bad blogger.

How sad, only four days into Holidailies and I've already missed postings!. In my defense, the recent snowy weather wreaked a little bit of havic with our ISP and our router, causing a temporary lack of internet.

We picked up our Christmas tree last night after we got off work. We've put it up and now we just have to shift all the furniture just slighly to make more room for it. I pulled out the suprise I told the boy about-- a big sparkly champagne-colored star for the top.

It made me think of last year, when lacking a topper we stuck a little teddy bear in a pilot costume up there. This was after we had to throw it in the back of the truck, lights and all, to take it from my apartment to the boy's. See, he had bought a tree for my apartment as a suprise, but never quite got around to buying a tree fort his place. By the time he decided to do that, Bellingham had become a tree stand-free state. It wouldn't have been a big deal except he had family coming, including a 2-year-old nephew. We weren't about to let him spend Christmas day without a Christmas tree, so we took most of the breakable ornaments off and carted it over to the boy's apartment.

The whole thing makes me want to launch into a funny tree stories essay, but if I do that I'll miss the football game. Just know one involves a SWAT team.

Crafts are going along slowly but surely. Some of the momentum I had has petered out of me. I suppose working for six days and having to explain, "no, we don't have any more shovels. We ran out six days ago," 187237 times gets a little trying. Also, I've been doing a few more social things after work the last few nights-- seeing a band I really wanted to see, wishing a friend well before he moved down to Portland-- and really, things like that tend to take a slight precedence for me.

Thankfully, I've got the next to days off and my only commitments are to help a friend move some stuff and go grocery shopping with my mom. Otherwise, it's veg city, baby!

Either way, enough excuses. More posting to a journal know one ever sees, and more crafting things that I can't yet talk about. (just in case, you know.)

Day 1....

So I just (hesitantly) opened my bill from the hospital for my emergency room visit. About a week ago I tripped over my couch and smashed my face into an end table, resulting in a bump on the noggin, an ugly-looking cut, and two black eyes. Yes, there was alcohol involved and, yes I really did trip and fall, but feel free to insert some domestic violence joke here. God know's everyone else has. I have been dreading getting this bill, but was convinced by the boy to open it.

....$28.40. Not a typo. Twenty eight dollars and forty cents.

I keep thinking that that can't be right, but there it is. I suppose that might make sense, since all the hospital did was ask me how I was feeling, give me a not-really-needed tetanus shot and some neosporin, and send me on my way. Either way, I'm incredibly grateful that it wasn't the $200-300 I expected it to be, and feeling pretty damn lucky all around.

I've been knitting like crazy the last few days, with two Christmas presents done, a couple more half-finished, and some more still to come. I've been itching to take pictures of the stuff I'm finishing, but they will all have to wait to be posted until after Christmas when they've been opened by the recipients. So instead I'll just put them all into one big gluttonous "look what I've done with the last six weeks!" post.

I made a list today-- well, actually I made three: the who's-getting-what list, the Christmas card list, and the to do/make/buy list. All of them still look pretty long, but somehow I'll get it all done. Up next is cleaning our apartment and reorganizing our furniture in anticipation of getting our Christmas tree tomorrow.

...and thus begins my attempt at Holidailies. Maybe by commiting to writing everyday I'll become a better writer, but somehow I kind of doubt it.