Thursday, July 31, 2008

How About Orange, What Have You Done To Me?



First of all, have you guys ever seen How About Orange? It is my new favorite blog of all blogs. I have a favorites list of about 20 or so blogs that I check out almost every day. They are usually all some variation of just art, or just life, but mostly a mix of the two. I love the glimpses into other people's homes and lives mixed in with stuff that inspires me and makes me want to own something new and shiny.

Anyway, I stumbled across this little gem of a DIY/style blog and didn't get much done at work for like two whole days. that's not new, but now i have someone to blame it on, and I am not wasting the chance. Anyway, one of the things that I love about her DIY projects is that they involved fixing up stuff you already have, or they are just plain easy and very very cute. And just in time for me to work on fixing up my second bedroom/art room/ office!

And to prove that everything is super cheap and cute (and fortunately going to work perfectly with my upcycling endeavors, above is the spoils of last night's trip to Wal-Mart. Well, there was also some candy and kitty litter, but no sense sharing those with you. The stuff above, combined with some stuff I already have here and will need to finish should produce:
  • a makeover for a dresser
  • tiny notepads
  • a bulletin board face lift
  • recycled wall art for my bedroom
  • handmade greeting cards
Not bad for $17, huh?

post script: I published these in somewhat the wrong order. the bulletin board makeover has already taken place, as you no doubt noticed in the post below. Oopsie.

Wednesday, July 30, 2008

A Bulletin Board Gets a New Lease on Life

Okay, first of all, sorry for the not so awesome pics. But hey, there are pics! and that, my dears, is what we like to call improvement.

Today, my boss gave me a surprise day off! No real reason, I guess he just realized that there was also no real reason for us to be at work. I love days like this. I get so much done because i am still in productive mode from the work week, so I get things done. It's great!

I have already worked up about three blog posts and finished up a bunch of stuff. I am going to string them along some though, and that way you will be spared from too terribly many posts that are strictly about my day, or about beef stroganoff or complaints about my lack of WIP pics with regard to knitting. I finished the July knit along, just in time no less! and by finished, I mean went and got a button and everything! But here, thanks to How About Orange?

I was able to do a little upcycling and begin the spiffing up of the office process.

the before shot:

I got this bulletin board along with my first desk. I believe I was in second grade, but it may have been third. That was the year that my mom's gay best friend made me a copy of Madonna's "Like a Prayer" on cassette, and censored it. He wasn't sure if my mom would let me listen to blasphemous pop, but she was pretty cool and didn't mind. Anyway, the sticker on the left came with a bathing suit I got in 7th grade. The sticker on the right is a dreadful sticker I got at a Panic show a few years ago. I can't remember, but I really hope I didn't pay for it. Until last year, the frame was a yellowy-white plastic. I painted it with some crazy green acrylic. Not sure what I was thinking, but I would not call it an improvement.

The supplies:


Tacks and the little coverable buttons are the only things I bought. the rest is just glue in various forms and some fabric I got off etsy when someone was destashing.

TA DA! The finished product:


Cute little (and big) thumbtacks on a very much improved bulletin board. I see a few places that I need to fix up a little bit, but for the most part, I think that it is going to look great above my monitor. And all for about $3, and done while watching two episodes of Home Improvement, and half an episode of Just Shoot Me. I love the contrast of the pink and red with the fame and the dotted pins. I think that if you are going to give a bulletin board a makeover, you should really go all out.

Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Missing



MISSING:

I'm not making this up- you gotta believe me.

Nasty Nate has gone missing. I came home one day (shamefully not today, this is just odd news, not breaking news) and he was not in his tank. He was not floating at the top. Now he is about 2, so I would be comfortable with his passing. He lived a long fishie life. But he wasn't there. I shook up the tank, thinking that maybe he has passed away, but was stuck in the fancy live java ferns he lived in. Nope. No Nate.

I don't think that Charlie ate him. Charlie is the suckiest hunter of all things ever. He was marginally interested in Nate for about ten minutes the day I got him, and never since.

He probably didn't jump out of the bowl and land precisely in the garbage disposal. If he did I would have seen him in there- I looked before I ran it when I could not find him. Unless- Nah, I don't think that Charlie would have watched that amazing feat of beta fish gymnastics and then rushed to go turn the disposal on. If he had, I HIGHLY doubt that he would have made the effort to turn it off afterwards.

What did he do? where did he go? What's happened to my fish? Is he alive? Is it wrong that I am debating on either making a terrarium in his bowl or getting a new purple beta fish and naming him either Mr. Belvedere or Art Garfunkel? What's the acceptable time for investigating or mourning my fish? I hope you think 15 minutes is okay, because I have pretty much already moved on.

Monday, July 28, 2008

One Foxhound's Possible Rise to Local Semi-Stardom



I took this picture this morning on the way to work- this is what I see when I look in my rearview mirror. My little shadow. She's always there, and time in the car isn't so bad with her around.

How funny that I took this picture today, just a few hours before I got a very potentially exciting call.

The lady from the shelter where I adopted Maya called. She wanted to let me know that our City Paper (one of the free weekly papers- focused on entertainment, opinions and general local goings on) is doing either a pet edition, or they have a smaller publication focused on pets- I can't remember which. Anyhow, they pick 2 adopted cats and 2 adopted dogs to profile for their pieces on adoption success stories. Anyway, Maya and I have been nominated! We are still, I think, in the running with 4 other dogs to get two spots. If we are chosen, then we have an interview and get our picture taken and put in the paper! Needless to say I am kind of excited. It feels like validation sort of, being considered a "success story."

I will be sure to keep you guys updated. Sorry I am not more enthusiastic or detailed, but I wasn't really listening to the Shelter Lady, and I also ate too much dinner and the truth is, I feel like I am gonna explode.

Thursday, July 24, 2008

Real Quick

Okay, this is gonna have to be a super quick update. I didn't want to lapse back into not really updating even when I have things to say.

Off to Charlotte tomorrow to see Panic close out the summer tour. Yay.

Maya is going to be boarded with her best dog friend for the weekend, and I am very nervous about it. I am sure she will be just fine, and she will probably not even care that I am not around. But dammit, that little freckle face goes with me everywhere and I will really miss her. I have never been away from her overnight, and I know that it will feel like something is missing, and she will always be in the back of my mind. I will wonder if she is having a blast and not missing her mom, and I will wonder if she is crouched in a corner, wondering why I abandoned her. Sigh.

MSG will not be there this weekend. Double sigh. I really miss him when I am at shows. That is one of the things we love doing together most.

Okay so maybe after this trip this blog will get more interesting. I should be home with no big trips or travel plans for several months and I think that will give me the time to get a lot of the fixer upper projects done that I want to do.

Have a fantastic weekend!

Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Felted Soaps: An Adorable Secret Weapon in the War on Germs

Okay, so I decided that in the spirit of making this blog slightly more than marginally interesting to look at once in a while when the odd picture of an unfinished Knitted Thing shows up, I would start doing a semi-regular and rather attractive compilation of lovely things I come across on the magical thing that is ETSY. It is the least I could do while spending hours and hours playing on the net at work.

So today I made a fantastic discovery. Literally life changing. Perhaps you have seen these, but I most certainly have NOT.

FELTED FREAKING SOAPS!!!!


Okay so here's how these little beauties work: it's soap (duh) but it's wrapped in wool and then hand felted so you use it like soap wrapped in a scrubby washcloth! And apparently the soap and the wool shrink together so your ingenious little funk fighter is usable all the way to the bitter end. All I know is that I am gonna start buying these up and saving them for christmas presents and cheer myself up presents and birthday presents and thank you gifts and cheer others up presents, bat mitsvah presents (one can never tell when they will befriend some little Jewish girls), sorry I forgot to feed your fish while you were in Europe present, Happy Bastille Day present and the various and assorted lame-o occasions where you need a present to give to someone who may or may not smell bad.

Here are some of my faves, and the shops in which they dwell:
Cucumber, Lemon and Aloe from Amelia Makes Art


Never in my life have I wanted to hug or squealed at the sight of soap. Frankly, if I had before seeing the uber cute soaps in PoofNoggin's Shop I would commit myself, or at least re-examine my hygeine habits.

And finally one that seems to be really functional and good smelling, and gawd do I adore the smell of green tea, alpaca felted soaps from RainMAMA's shop



mmmmmmm, soap.

Monday, July 21, 2008

Ground Hog Day



I think that I am living the same day over and over again via my blog. How sad is that, really?

So I am on the Manage Posts page, and I am thinking about what to discuss today. I would have tried to have some WIP pics to share today, but I have not made any P this week, which for those of you playing along at home, stands for progress. Dammit. After frogging the blasted calorimetry again and again, the only reason I am sticking with it is because now it has become a gift. I haven't made a bit of progress elsewhere though. I mean, aren't you tired of the word 'calorimetry?' Who knew that it could dominate someone's life?

So yeah, then i think about how I could go to the store and get some fixings for beef stroganoff, and how i need to drop the dog off first, and blah blah blah. Oh and I also think that I must be crabby because I have a case of the Mondays. Then I happen to notice that beef stroganoff*, Maya, and Cases of the Mondays have all been covered at great length!

Woe to me and the sad, sad life i lead. I MUST find a way to be more interesting. Especially since I added Google Analytics to my blog today. I would hate to run off the tens of you that read this blog because I am boring and repetitive. I would love to run the tens of you off that read this because I have an offensive odor and use the C word a bit too freely.

*i left "stroganoff" uncapitalized for a reason. Blogger spellcheck does not like it (or perhaps it's Firefox; I have trouble keeping up with who I offend) and when I right clicked to see what the suggested spelling was, it suggested that I use the word 'estrogen' instead. Coincidence? Most likely. Amusing? Highly likely.

Sunday, July 20, 2008

Long Time, No Update

Wow, it's been forever since I updated, and now July is almost over. At least that is what it feels like to me! Alright so here's what I have been up to (you may want to get a snack, or a beer or something. Go on, I'll wait.)

Okay so I returned home from Knoxville, and it was awesome! Lots of time by the pool, three stellar shows at an amazing venue, and most importantly plenty of quality time with MSG. It was great to have that time together, and we had a blast. Of course, it was terribly hard to say good bye, but there is still so much going on that I am just trying not to dwell on it too much. Anyway, the shows were truly something. I just love being able to see a concert like that; it just feels so much more intimate than a big amphitheater. Fancy! Maya was on super good girl behavior the whole week. She was perfect in the car for the 5+ hour drives and just generally nice to have around. Thank god for that one, because it could really have been a disaster.

In health news, I am under the weather. I think that it just comes as a side effect of Post Panic Depression. I usually get a case of the sniffles along with PPD, so this little summer cold was not unexpected. Too much hotel room air, booze, and late nights. They catch up to me these days. Sigh.

Luckily since I have been under the weather I finally got to get back to the knitting. I have really neglected that for about as long as I neglected the blog. Shame on me! But now I am working on the calorimetry again- this time in Lamb's pride Worsted- it's a wool blend and it is some leftovers in the prettiest color blue. Anyway it is a belated b-day present now, and I think that it will be just the thing for the recipient. Hopefully i will take some pics tomorrow of all my WIPs so that I can actually have pics on this blog again. Anyway, I think that 6th time is the charm. Now if I could just finish that damn bag!

Let's see what else: oh I have new music to share with you:
This album is fantastic, and I highly suggest picking it up:

Buddy Guy can't really do much wring in my eyes, but when you add in others that I also happen to like a whole lot like Eric Clapton, Derek Trucks, Susan Tedeschi, and Robert Randolph (well his act is a bit tired IMO but he is still talented nonetheless)and wow, just wow. Also, this is a band I heard on the radio this morning and I thought they were really great. I liked what I heard on MySpace a lot:

Wild Sweet Orange outta Birmingham. You can listen to them on their MySpace so that you can rapidly fall in love with them and then snag their album (and their EP for that matter!) just like I did. Anyway, I like finding out about good new bands that everyone else should know and love. Telling others about music is just a stunning combo of some of my favorite things: music, telling people what to think, and my impeccable taste. Sadly, my humility does not fit in there anywhere. Oh well.

Alright, that is all the news that is fit to print today. I think that I am going to start tackling the second bedroom, this den of clutter and ick in which I sit to blog, and then maybe go to the soup store and get some soup. Yes, sick people need soup. Everyone knows that. In which case, maybe I will go for soup first. You know, to build up my strength. Yeah that's it. Then some knitting, then some napping. Yeah, there's worse things that being me today.

Wednesday, July 9, 2008



Well, I have finally gotten to the uber un-fun task of listing things on Etsy again. You can find my etsy shop HERE and I would really like to see some of this stuff moving out the door. Guess I gotta list it first, huh? Anyway, I put up five books, and I am gonna list more tomorrow. Then a few more on Friday, and then it's off to Knoxville!

Well that's all I have to report. I have a piece of baklava calling my name, as well as MORE laundry and some cleaning of bathrooms. Have a lovely evening.

Monday, July 7, 2008

Procrastination




That's a picture of my fish, Nasty Nate. Just thought I would share.

I have a million and five things to do between now and Saturday, including but not limited to a mountain of laundry, cleaning the shit out of both bedrooms, bathrooms and the car, packing for the dog and I to go to Knoxville, listing a bunch of shit on etsy, mailing out all the spoken for Destash Items and maybe getting a few things made.

Okay, back to work.

Thursday, July 3, 2008

Ugh

well I can't believe the weekend has come and gone like this. Actually I can, and i am sort of relieved at this point. I am very happy to have this somewhat nightmarish three days put behind me.

On the knitting front, this weekend was a collosal failure. I worked on my calorimetry, and it really didn't go all that hot. I am currently about halfway done with it, and that is because I cast on like 4 times before I got it right. I wasn't really paying attention so I kept having to frog it and then start over. Boo. I really wanted to have it done so I could feel all productive. oh well. I didn't even touch my purse or my cable scarf at all this weekend either, because the calorimetry taunted me the whole time. stupid knitting.

Then yesterday, Maya almost ruined my weekend. She ATE my cell phone. Well she chewed it up real good, and ruined it. I flipped out and raced to the store to get a new phone, and paid full price for the bunkest phone they had- $189. UGH. Now I would ordinarily have been EXTREMELY PISSED about this, but I was also frantic. I already do not have quite as much cash as I would like to for this coming trip to Knoxville, and then take another $200 out of the equation, and ouch. Well! it occured to me last night (as I was sitting on the couch pouting and fretting) that I still had my old phone, the one that I upgraded from for no good reason other than I could! So, i took it back to the store today, got my money back, and now I am back on the clunky 3 year old silly red phone and I feel just fine about that. However, Maya learned a lesson about what happens when you chew up electronics. she is still a little scared of me, but I don't care. She's lucky I found that other phone or her ass would have been kicked to the curb.

So yeah, here it is Sunday night, I have half a calorimetry done, and one load of laundry. Gah, I suck. God bless America indeed. Maybe I will go work on the cable scarf or the purse or something for tomorrow's in progress shots.

Wednesday, July 2, 2008

today gets a gold star



Today was a great day!

I got my half day at work that would make up for the half day off on Friday (its a paid holiday, but I only work till 11:30 on Fridays so I would have missed out on half a paid day. Nevermind. It's confusing.) so I left work on a beautiful day and set out for the yarn store.

Well, I had the very very best of intentions. I really did. I told myself that I could spend $25, and that was IT. Since i got the email about their big huge sale with tons of stuff being half off, i decided to go and get a little treat, namely something cheap and nice for the calorimeter for this month's knitalong. Well, as you can see above I got a bit carried away. I only shopped the sale, but I really shopped it out. that is $150 worth of yarn for like $73. I cleaned them out of both colorways of the Needful Yarns, and those two GLORIOUS skeins of Prism Lotus yarn in Peacock. I wish the pic showed how beautiful they are. And the are a wool, bamboo, and silk blend, so they feel amazing. Those were the last two in that colorway, and I am do glad I got them. They were too spendy for me even on sale, but I can honestly say that it will be a long time before I spend that much regular price on a skein of yarn. or two. Oh and that little orange ball at the bottom is my greatest triumph. It is Debbie Bliss cashmerino and it was in the orphan bin for $3! Sigh. I just love sales!

then, the best part of the day happened: I got a call from Kerry, who I haven't talked to in ages and needed to desperately catch up with. It was great talking to her and catching up on what the two of us have been up too. And although she is quite the glass artist, she is also a knitter too and so it was fun to squeal about my three dollar debbie bliss find and have someone react with appropriate shock and awe. Hi Kerry!

then after that I took Maya to a friend's house for some play time. She was so cute; when we go over the speed humps on his street, she sits up and knows that it is party time. I could hardly turn off the car and get her out for all her jumping around. She actually got very excited, which i rarely see from her, but pleases me to no end. Such a serious little dog. Anyway, she got to run and play with Wilson for a bit, and is consequently snoring on the couch now. I love to see her having fun.

that's it on a stick. Goodnight!

Tuesday, July 1, 2008

Premature Hump Day

Hooray!

Today is sort of like hump day for me since it is a short week what with Fourth of July and all. Thank goodness too, because I have very little patience with my job right now. I am really looking forward to the long weekend, followed by one week, then my trip to Knoxville! Hooray! I am excited for the week off, and I am excited for the three Panic shows at the Tennessee Theater, which is truly a special place to see a show, but mostly I am excited to see G again. We haven't seen each other since Memorial Day weekend, and that distance gets to be really tough after a while. I love when it gets down to us counting down the days, and then the time together flies by, and then it's super hard to say goodbye. But right now it is close, and I love having big fun times to look forward to.

The great destash is going well. I haven't listed anything else other than those three cabs because I am a total slacker. But, I have tons of books to list, and several tools, and some silver maybe, oh and lotsa beads. And resin stuff! I hope to get a lot of that up this weekend so that I can be done with it till someone buys it.

Let's see, what else? Ah yes, knitting crap. Well, I finally cast on that cable scarf, and I am loving it. It is really the first thing I have done like it: my first go at cables, and also the first pattern in a while where there's a lot of changing up of stitches and what not. It's really fun, and it is helping to break the monotony of the bag that wants to kill me. Still working on it, but I had to set it aside because I am just bored to tears with the never ending body. Oh well. I really need to get some more pics of my stuff so that I can show instead of just telling. I hate that I am making stuff hoping that I can use it for Christmas presents, but I love it so much that I want to keep it for myself! Oh well, I am sure that once I finish it and toss it in a trunk it will be forgotten about while I move onto the next big thing. I know that I am joining my first ever knitalong, and it was a really good one to get into right now for me- it's a small headband type thingy for winter, so i could actually wear it, it takes one skein, free pattern, and uses needles I already have. Plus it looks like it knits up so quickly that I could make one for me and still have one to give away come Christmas. I plan to head on down to Knit on Thursday with that $4 that I faithfully did not spend- I got an uber-clearance e-mail, so that must be a sign that I deserve to find a new super cheap and fun skein or two for my very own. You know I won't leave spending only $4, though. Oh well.

okay well that's all I got. This night really seems to have gotten away from me, so maybe I should go do something, or go entertain the dog before she eats my notes for another pattern. Sigh.