i'm exhausted

8 years of anger and frustration will take their toll on anyone. i have been furious for 8 years.

i was furious when i saw the dirty tricks and outright illegal activity which led to the theft of the election 8 years ago.

i have been furious as the american people seemed to collectively give up any notion of being informed and pro-active.

i have been furious at the way the oxymoronic moral majority has fostered an environment of exclusion, division, fear and hate.

now, for the first time in 8 years, i am no longer furious. i am in awe.

i am in awe of an intelligent inclusive man who brought us all together.

i am in awe of a nation that did sit up and pay attention.

i am in awe of the next generation, most first time voters, who have decided to seize their future and make it a better place.

i have hope now, not just for us as a nation, but i have a great deal of hope for my daughter's generation. i have hope they too will become a great generation.

i'm exhausted...

but happy.

finally

for the first time in 8 years i feel hopeful, not fearful.

just in time for halloween

there are a ton of tutorials on the interwebs about diy halloween stuff. usually the costume ones are for adults, kids or pets. once in a while, once in a great while, someone comes along who does a costume that falls in the genius category. today i have found one such person. she's a pretty creative person anyway and, one of the things i love about her, also kind of strange in the best possible way.

case in point? here's her take on halloween costumes for "dun dun dunnnnnn"

...your houseplants!

friends don't let friends...

well, in the case of my so-called friends...

i knew these people were depraved but i continued to hang out with them. we all got together this past weekend for a planned day of "fun". my friend, let's call him dave decided to channel "the dude" and made a pitcher of white russians. i generally tend to avoid drinking with them because, well, i know how they are. this time i gave in and had some white russians.

those things are really good, you know? they go down verrrrrry easily.

i vaguely remember the rest of the evening but i do remember getting home and my DH pouring me into bed. well, in all honesty, it wasn't that bad but i was definitely happy. I awoke the next day with a feeling of dread and a vague sense of guilt. then i remembered.

my depraved friends took advantage of my inebriated state to get me to do something i swore i'd never do.

i'm so ashamed.

i now have a facebook account.

socks

one of the reasons i wanted to learn to knit was so i could make my own socks. i was never able to find the kind of socks i wanted in the stores. i wanted the nice warm thick socks for wearing around the house in cold weather. one of the first pair of socks i knitted was, well, not a disaster exactly, but not something you would hold up with pride and say "i made these!"

i did them top down, no pattern, just using math. my friend (the fiber pusher) gave me the basics and i just went to town. i used lion brand MicroSpun yarn which was not the best choice. i double stranded it and used about 4 different colors, switching out those colors to get different effects. a great idea but the yarn keeps popping out where i tried to weave it in. they are also two different sizes and keep falling off my feet since they are also too big.

it wasn't until recently that i got started on the socks again and, now that i'm using actual patterns, they fit a WHOLE lot better. want to see them? they are not in order of completion.

these are from the tidal wave pattern. i made the mistake of taking the pattern all the way down the foot and it makes the foot skewed a little. they're still comfy though.

the yarn is from what has to be my favorite source for sock yarn: thank ewe on etsy. i just love their yarn. there is so much of it that i can probably get another pair of socks out of what's left.

these are superwash. i think most of my socks will be superwash just for the ease of care.

here's a few more just for grins.



go see the rest here

way back when

i mentioned the pull that crochet was starting to have on me here. i actually started a ripple blanket which was inspired by this one. i actually tried to do it in crochet but just fought with that first row. it wasn't fun and, quite frankly, if it's not fun why do it? i really wanted one of those ripple blankets though so i am doing one in a modified feather and fan. instead of doing YOs for the increase i'm just doing a KFB at the increase stitches.

wanna see?


i really like how these pictures are coming out. i think i did the right thing by getting my daughter to do all my knitting glamour shots, don't you?

i have close-ups. wanna see?











instead of going all crazy bright with the colors, i decided to stick with a limited palette using, *ahem* palette yarn from knit picks. it's fingering weight wool and i just love the way it drapes. it won't be machine washable but i'll deal with that aspect of the blanket when the time comes. this is another long-term project. a good thing to get out when i don't feel like being inventive but want to work on something satisfying.

oh yeah. lovin' the ripple.

hexagon blanket update

i've been working on the hexagon blanket again. there for a while, i got stumped because i was starting to have problems choosing colors.

i really want to keep this looking very unplanned. do you know how hard that is to do? i realized i started clustering colors in one area so then i had to start in another area then the same thing happened and then i switched and it happened again and and and

well

it just wore me out so i took a little break.

i was looking at some of the hexagon blankets on ravelry and in the flickr hexagon love pool group to try and get umphed up about it again. one of the people mentioned she was doing hers in groups of 7 hexes. then when she got enough she joined them up. the main thing is to make sure you don't repeat the final round color choice in any of the groups of 7. then, when you join them you don't have to worry about the same colors touching! genius!

it got me out of my brain lock. it's also easier to be "unplanned" with just 7 hexes at a time, too.

i also got a photographer that knows her stuff. see?




i'm ready for my close-up mr. DeMille!

all in all, it was a good day

our computer died this past week. my DH troubleshot it and determined the logic board was a goner. saturday was devoted, at least on his part, with getting the new computer and getting it home and all hooked up. (i was away battling goblins and critters like that with my d&d buddies.) he was also able to get the old hard drive out and hook it up to the new computer.

the thinking was, we could get our firefox information from the old hard drive; things like the bookmarks and all the saved passwords. we also wanted to make sure we had all of our data off the old hard drive but that was easy. you see, we knew where that was.

macs don't make things easy when it comes to searching for certain things. i know where to find things in a *nix environment. i was unable to do much of anything with the hard drive when it was attached to the new mac so i hooked it up as a usb connection to my laptop which is running (thank goodness) debian. once i was able to do that i was able to search more easily for tell-tale data strings in the directory structure and generally do some more poking around. the upshot was i was able to recover the firefox information and grab the rest of the stuff off the hard drive, pass it over to a thumb drive which then got dumped to the new mac. did a little presto-change-o with default profiles and bob's-yer-uncle we were good to go.

in addition to all this productivity i was finally able to finish up 3 bags/purses for my etsy shop! take a look. the link is over there on the right. i want to start filling my etsy shop up with various things and the purses were a good start. i made these with old jeans that i have cut up and turned into fabric. fabric with some really cool texture what with the interesting fading, worn spots and all. i have a ton of old jeans so there is a lot of fabric to do things with!

i also want to offer some simple jewelry, soft dolls and photos, if i can get the D(ear)H(ubby) and D(arling)D(aughter) to get some of their photography prepared.

here's a little sneak peek of some detail on one of the purses. enjoy! (and check out the shop!)

my mind is a terrible wasted thing...

no, wait. that's not how it goes.

so, i have a disability check that i receive every month from the VA from my time in the army. no, it's not from that time i fell off the barstool.

anyhoo. i needed to change the bank this check comes to so i call up the handy dandy little number to take care of things. we go through the usual question and answer period to prove that i am who i say i am.

her: your name?
me: (gave it to her)
her: date of birth?
me: august 1955
her: day you went into service?
me: oh man. i haven't thought of that in a while. wait a minute, yes! it was 1994.
her: uh, ma'am? 1994?
me: yes, i think so.
her: ... we show the date to be quite a bit earlier.
me: no... i graduated high school in 1993, spent a year in college... no, it was definitely 1994.
her: ... and you were born in 1955?
me:
her:
me: (suddenly realizing) !! OH! no! it was 1974! 1974!

we started laughing so hard that we couldn't even continue for a while.

her: i was trying to not be rude but i was thinking wow; born in 55 and graduated HS in 95?
me: yeah; i was slow. man, i haven't even had anything to drink today! (well, that set her off again and it was some time before we could proceed)

i told her i just knew what she was going to do when she hung up with me; tell everyone around her about the nutjob she had on the phone. she said there wasn't anyone around to tell and i told her that was a shame. what a wasted opportunity! well, we finally finished our business and she very nicely told me to be sure to take my medication.

see? public service isn't dead after all.

no... i'm not becoming a video blog

but you just HAVE to see this!

harvey korman leads to...

tim conway.



which, of course, leads you right back to...

harvey korman. enjoy.

ok. i know it's a cop-out but...

kind of a neat follow-up to my last post.

it's not tourettes, i swear

but i have realized i am unable to say "dear leader's" name without swearing either before or after i say his name.

and...

i've actually tried.

*snerk*

i have a very smart daughter; very aware in some ways as i mentioned here. keep this in mind. there are times, however, when i cannot believe what she has just said.

case in point numero uno:

we were discussing sylvia plath and the fact that she committed suicide by sticking her head in the oven. my darling intelligent daughter observed that someone would really have to want to die to go that way. after discussing it some more i realized that she thought people who stuck their head in the oven cooked themselves! *snerk* i laughed so hard and long on that one i thought i was going to have an attack. i mean, she didn't even have the excuse of never having a gas oven in the house! heh. at least she's not alone.

case in point numero two-o:

last nite when she came home from work, she asked us if we noticed anything different in the front yard. nope. we took a look. there was what looked like a little sapling in the front yard! she said she had planted it.

us: you planted it?
her: yes.
us: where did you get a tree to plant?
her: i found it on fenton street! there were some planted that looked just like this one and it was just laying there so i picked it up and planted it.
us: how did you plant it? did you dig a hole for it?
her: ...no. i just stuck it in the ground.
us: wow. did it have a root ball?
her: a what?
us: a root ball; some roots or something.
her: um. no.
us: honey. that's not a tree, that's a stick. it's not going to grow unless it has some roots.
her: oh *stricken face*

oh, *snerk* indeed :)

ch-ch-ch-ch-changes

i've never been that impressed with crochet as a craft. i think this is mostly because, when i was growing up, the crochet you saw was that gawd-awful eye-gouging color-combos of acrylic in granny square vests.

i mean... that's enough to scar a girl for life.

so, several years ago now, i learned to knit. loved the knitting and wanted to learn for two basic reasons: 1) sweaters and 2) socks. i could never find the kind i wanted so i wanted to learn to make my own. i could already sew; i had that aspect of clothing covered (heh). but the crochet? still not interested.

then.

well.

this started me thinking "maybe crochet isn't so bad after all". look at all that wavy stripey goodness. i thought "hmmm. i could probably find a knit stitch that would give me basically the same effect". *whew* crochet successfully fended off.

then. oh the evil that is moonstitches. i saw this and began to think "i need to learn to crochet. there is no way i can do that by knitting." i lusted after this blanket. i realize that the phrase "pure lust" is kind of an oxymoron but there it was.

pure. lust. blanket. gah. urgle.

then, as if this wasn't bad enough, moonstitches has to go and crochet this. not only does she have no shame in crocheting something this droolingly marvelous but then she posts pictures of it!

MUST LEARN CROCHET NOW!

thank goodness i'm surrounded by brilliant women. enter one (sadly blogless) becky. this woman is a fiber genius. she does spinning, knitting, needlework, quilting, and crocheting (and probably a host of other things as well). she looked at closeup pictures of the hexagons in the hexagon blanket and figured out what i need to do. she then showed me basic crochet and explained it all. then she got me started on all the little centers (i decided to take an assembly line approach). once i got a ton of little centers done i was able, with her previous instructions, to go to the next step. then a friend at work got me working on the next steps then the lovely tutorial put up by moonstitches got me to the joining step! becky was also able to track down the crochet stitch used in that lovely scarf. see? i told you she was genius!

crochet is fun! i love it!


oh, remember what i said about granny squares? yep. guess what's next?

she thought she was being kind

i recently got my hair cut. i had thought that i might let it grow really long as i had long long hair at one time in my past and it looked pretty good. i didn't take into account the fact that 1) i'm older now 2) i really don't like messing with my hair 3) and it looked just like a mess hanging down around my face.

so, i did what any reasonable person would do and went to see my hair stylist. this woman is a genius. she is the mother of a friend of my daughter; this is how i got to know her. she works out of her home and she is one of those rare stylists that i could give her basic instruction on what i was wanting and close my eyes , go to sleep and it would be just perfect when i woke up. of course, i don't go to sleep. we have things to catch up on after all.

anyhoo, she does her usual brilliant job. i just told her to cut it as short as possible without making me look goofy. i have the perfect haircut. it suits my head and face and is beyond easy to take care of.

now, here's something you need to know about me. i have wanted green hair for ages. i'm 52 years old and i finally figured "why not?" i asked my daughter if she would give me some green highlights (what? i'm not crazy; no way could i carry off all green!) and she was just thrilled. she gave me a green swatch that could go subtle or more obvious depending on how much i covered it with other layers.

i love it. i think it looks great.

now to the title of this post.

there is a security guard at my place of work when you come in the front door. she and i have had conversations about various things for some time. the day after i got it cut i came in and (it was a rainy day) showed her. she said "oh! well, don't worry, on a day like this it will do that. once it starts growing out it will look really good"

i hadn't yet had the green put in.

she saw me for the first time with the green. she said, before noticing the green, "see! its starting to grow out! it's looking better!"

then she noticed the green.

her: (eyes grow bigger) oh...
me: (smiling) yeah, my daughter did it
her: well, i figured it had to be a teenager. you can't really stop 'em can you?
me: well, i asked her to
her:

heh.

time funs when you're having flies

good lord. where did the time go? it's 2008 already!

you know, there's late, there's fashionably late, there's embarrassingly late and then there's no excuse late. guess which one this post falls under?

so, swaps. as of last year swaps. as of before thanksgiving of last year swaps.

this is all from the spindle and wheel fiber frenzy swap from mumblety-mumble of last year. this first batch of photos is from the eepster to me. this is just fantastic. want to know just how fantastic?



well, take a gander at this. do you see that beautiful soft fluffy blue fiber? that is an angora and alpaca blend that she blended herself. it is unbelievably soft. it is also incredibly fine. thank goodness then that i can spin it up with my new...





lightweight drop spindle! yes folks, she did this as well. don't you just love that gold color? i know i do :)




and just LOOK at that beautiful design. she MADE this!







then there's the romney. this is a sunset in fiber form. i have already spun this up and set the twist and actually knitted one mitten with it. pictures will have to come later on this one. believe me when i tell you this spun like a dream, knits beautifully and is gorgeous to boot.

you'll have to click on the first picture to really see the other wonderful things she included. she made those lovely little stitch markers which will be perfect for lace knitting. there's some scissors and a darning needle on ribbon, a matching gold needle holder and a plastic bag to hold it all. unseen is the chocolate (seriously, there's no way i'd let chocolate sit this long!) and some wonderful crackers.

eepster? you are beyond awesome. thank you from the bottom of my heart.