Oh blog, I haven't forgotten you. I just work a whole lot during the summer and don't write like I used to. I've also been taken over to the facebook darkside due simply to the high percentage of my friends who have one and put information on it. I hate the damn thing, but can't give it up or miss out on, like, everything.



But I do miss you, my darling blog, and I have been crafting, albeit at a much smaller level. I took up canning, and am on a quest to make the ultimate bloody mary using green beans I pickled myself and an experimental jalepeno-infused vodka. It could either turn out incredibly awesome, or incredibly gross, but that's the fun of trying things out!



Truth be told, I thought of you today when I was at the bookstore, checking out what's new in crafting books. The answer: nothing. Either I have put together a really good crafting library, or people are just stealing more and more of other people's ideas.



Frankly, if I see another book that has a chapter devoted to felting sweaters and making throw pillows and crap from them, I'm going to lose my shit entirely. Note to writers/editors/publishers: If you do decide to go against my wishes and put a "no, our felted throw pillows are totally different, we put circles on them!" chapter in your book, don't make it the first one. I will not keep the book open long enough to get to the other stuff that may be possibly useful and interesting.




Seriously though, I have been doing some crafting, albeit without (current) pictures. I bought 20 t-shirts at Goodwill for $24 and am slowly making summer gear out of all of them. So far I have four tank tops and another shirt in the works.

Sadly, my knitting has suffered. 52-hour work weeks + 100 degree temps = no knitting for Jilly, so instead I'll make a few more tanks, get through this summer, and go back to being a chick with sticks.

It's a beautiful day today. The sun is shining, the breeze is flowing. There are kids playing in the yard next door, I can smell the faint scent of a charcoal grill in the air and about a block away, somebody is mowing their lawn.

It's a beautiful day, and all I can think is that today can go screw itself.

I suppose wisdom tooth surgery will do that to a person. My mouth is more swollen today than it was two days ago, when I had my teeth ripped out. The most exciting bit of food I'll get to eat this weekend will be today, when I switch out the customary mashed potatoes for mashed sweet potatoes instead. I'll admit, the tofu-blueberry-yogurt smoothie I made yesterday was pretty kick ass, but I would give almost anything to be able to eat a cheeseburger right now, and I don't even really like cheeseburgers.

You would think this would give me extra knitting time, but mostly it's just extra sleeping time with a little bit of knitting thrown in. Pre-surgery, I got inspired by Stephanie's foray into the red Glitterspun we both have and started the cups from Naughty Needles Basic Bra Pattern, with the notion that I was going to make it into a tank top with a bust area that actually fit. However, the combination of Oxycodone and Glitterspun seemed like a bad one, so I decided something simple, like another grocery bag, was a much better recovery project.

For now, I am going to work up enough energy to put a leash on my dog and step out into this beautiful day long enough for him to pee, then it's back to my comfy pillow-filled couch where I will fall asleep to yet another episode of Bones.

Things I'm stoked about today

I've been having another one of those fits lately, where I get listless and depressed and have a hard time being enthused about anything. I didn't realize how bad it had gotten until my boss pointed out that I had been completely off my game for a while.

As I drove home the other night, wondering what the heck was wrong with me, someone on the radio mentioned that it was the beginning of March, and then it hit me. In fact, I felt silly that I hadn't caught on sooner. It's March!

I started to notice about six or seven years ago that the few weeks between mid-February and mid-March are a slightly dangerous time for me. After six months of greyness, never really seeing the sun, never being able to get completely dry or warm, I start to crack a little.

Luckily, knowing what the problem is makes it that much easier to deal with. I spent yesterday buying interesting used books and getting all of my flower pots ready for spring. And today, I'm making a list of awesome things....

....starting with the "Leftovers Lasagna" I'm eating. I threw in some carrots, brocolli, green peppers, and some leftover turkey kielbasa from a dish I made earlier this week. YUM. It even got the seal of approval from Eric, who isn't at all keen on lasagna.

--

Sometimes I can only shake my head at my coworker sometimes. She was talking today about how she's going to have to borrow some money from a friend....so she can go to the casino. She lost about $60 in thirty minutes the other night, but now that her brother has taught her the rules of blackjack, she's sure she'll be able to double her money in a hand or two. She says she has a plan now-- take the $20 she's planning on borrowing to her favorite slot machine, double it, then head to the blackjack table.

We asked her what she was going to do if she lost her money too quickly (crazy idea, I know), and she said if that happened she would go to the bar and wait for someone to buy her a drink.

...but that won't happen, because she has a plan.

I guess that's what all the other poor shmucks are doing wrong. They're failing to properly plan.

In no particular order.

1. I still say being the nicest meter maid is kind of like being the best five-dollar hooker. Seriously, he was still out ticketing at four minutes to five. Luckily, I can sprint faster than his little go-kart can drive

2. I made spanakopita last weekend to go with the fabulous gyros I picked up from the mediterranean market. Sad thing is, without thinking I chucked them into the fridge afterwards, where they have been slowly getting soft and uncrispy. I'm currently experimenting with re-crisping them in the oven for a few minutes, because I'll be damned if I let my phyllo efforts go to waste, and looking up the best way to freeze them. So far it doesn't look promising-- it seems the best way to freeze them is to have done it before I baked them in the first place. Atleast I still had some dolmathes left over, that almost makes up for it.

3. I had to rip out two or three days worth of knitting this afternoon. Stupid as it sounds, it always pains me a little when I have to pull it all apart because I screwed up.

4. My black eye is almost gone! Woohoo!

5. Even after watching the entire movie and a special feature or two, (Quentin Tarantino presents) Hell Ride made no sense whatsover.

...and I think that's pretty much it.

I'm really tired of being sick. I think I may be finally kicking the cold that moved in on me a week and a half ago. The one nice part has been days off spent alternating between sleeping on the couch and crafting while watching movies....and sometimes sleeping while trying to watch movies. (I still have no idea what the Golden Compass was about.)

Happily, I'm picking back up a nearly decade-old project. I started a quilt when I was 18 out of all of my worn out pairs of jeans. It's edged with the back pockets, and every fabric is either a former item of clothing or the leftovers from making something else-- flannel from some pajama pants, star-printed cotton from some throw pillows I sewed up for my teenage bedroom. My favorite part has always been the pegasus in the center, cut out and appliqued on after my favorite t-shirt met an unfortunate end with some bleach.

I made the quilt top at 18, then carted it around for nine years and four or five moves, not sure what to do next. I kept thinking about making it bigger or adding this or that, but when I pulled it out of the trunk a month or so ago, I realized that mostly I just wanted to finish it. So I'm going to add a little more embroidery (courtesy of some Sublime Stitching patterns I picked up last week,) then back it and finish it.

I just can't wait to have my biggest recycled project finally done!

I have to say, this year's football hangover wasn't as bad as it normally is. Normally, dumb as this may sound, I get slightly depressed the first week after the Superbowl, because it's the farthest I'm going to be from the next football season. Don't get me wrong-- I'm not crying in my shower over it, but when the shortest season in sports ends for the only sport I actually like, I get a little sad.

However, I'm already starting to look towards next season. The combine. The draft. It's going to be interesting to see how next year plays out.

....but that wasn't what i planned to write about.

Actually, I started to write about a dive bar I really like. For starters, it's lit entirely by beer signs, and still has an old-school non-internet jukebox. A very long time ago, back when I lived in the center of my podunk town, my roommates and I would go there to "go out into the county" and play pool. Most of the time, I shit you not, we were the only people there with a full set of teeth.

Now that football's over, we're thinking of making the dive bar a regular Saturday night/Sunday afternoon routine. I'm pretty stoked about it.

After reading Yarn Harlot's post about the silliness of male/female buttonholes, (which is a rant I've also had in the past) it occurred to me that I have officially gone over the knitter edge. That was the second article/blogpost I've read about freaking buttonholes today.

I might officially need to get a life. Also, after a conversation with Eric, I realized he needs to get a life too-- he just sat here and listened to me talk about reading about buttonholes.

After a week of minor wierdness and a bit of isolation, it's nice to know I can always come home and get a high-five from my dog.