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.