Squeee! We got to look at cells and tiny organisms in the microscope today! Man, I TOTALLY took school for granted the first time around. People in my class literally looked at me funny for getting all jazzed about the microscopes. In other news, took exam. Might be good. Studying skills are a little rusty but I read my notes to myself aloud and re-wrote things I wasn't familiar with.

I finished hand sewing things today, I got the grommets I needed, and I went ahead and cut pieces from my extra fabric to make a bag. I am terrified of putting in the grommets because if I fuck that up, there's no going back.

I also started watching Colonial House. Definitely a weepfest for me! I am constantly amazed and impressed by everything these days. Now Jack is coming home and we are going to get the most garlicy pizza possible. Natch.

I had, after everything and all of my stressing, a terrific weekend. We had a nice, relaxed hen party for tzel on saturday, and it went beyond all my expectations! Thanks to pictsy we had intelligent, funny, and personable swordplay instructors. (Imagine my surprise to find out that several attendees actually thought that "learing the art of swordplay" during a bachelorette party would be some kind of euphemism!) We had a blast just doing the beginner stuff and now I want to run off and learn SCA fencing which is so ludicrous but what the hell. After that, we all trundled off to the Piratz Tavern to practically take over the whole bar and carouse! We were helped along by 4 or 5 pitchers of sangria and a fine gent with a guitar and some bawdy songs. The food was excellent this time (last time I'd had a so-so experience) and Tracy, the event coordinator, was completely great to work with, not that much coordinating was really needed.

Most of all thanks to tzel for bringing together such a great group of gals and thanks to those gals for coming along and having a blast.

I managed to get through much of the sewing I feared on Sunday; I am not there yet but I have a little time. Class tonight. The gorgeous fall weather is putting a spring in my step and I bought a new argyle sweater yesterday to honor it. Life is good.

Notice: I will be at renfaire this weekend. Who else is planning on being there?
( assorted other stuff )

So, my first full-fledged non-stop weekend since the Back Thing started. My back does hurt from it, but it's nice to feel like I'm living my life again. ( Read more... )

Just now I have completed the Awesomest Workout Mix. I put it together according to beats per minute so that it builds up and cools down. I am very excited about it, and will be sending it out to the requestors. If anyone wants a copy, just comment.

Due to being really excited about living a normal life this weekend (ow) I may have been way too full of 'personality'. In fact I feel very brain to mouthy lately and have a whole bunch of contrasting shame/delight feelings about that.

My hair is doing a Eric Foreman/Mo Rocca/Carol Brady thing today. And I don't hate it. Clearly I have lost all touch.

This weekend Jack taught himself to knit and nothing got done around the house. Good times. :)

Okay, I wish I could describe the past few days as a success, but overall, I can say there were a few successes and mostly unpleasantness. Starting friday things just spiralled out of control. Moodwise, planwise, I just felt like I wasn't driving. Nothing to do with the great LJ outage, just life.

I managed on friday to: get a whiteboard. That's it. I purchased a whiteboard. You mean from the time you got off work at 6pm until you went to sleep on saturday morning after 5am you merely purchased a whiteboard? Yes, that's right. And it's not due to video games or anything like that. *sigh* So we will just call friday a wipe and move on. (How many projects in my life have started and ended with purchases? I don't want to think about it.)

Saturday was rough largely due to fallout from friday; I managed to get out late to S&J's to visit with people. Late like 11pm. I completely missed the wplibaltimore meeting which I have been looking forward to for weeks. Thanks to the magic of technology I know how things went, which is to say that we are now accepting book donations! I will happily come get them or we can work something out and I can get them to our temporary storage situation. If you don't have any books but still want to help, you can always either donate or send WPLI something from our wishlist. Oh and all you karaoke fans? It looks like we might be setting up a karaoke benefit, watch this space for more info.

Sunday I had two things on my agenda, barring all the things from the previous days' agendas I didn't accomplish: to hit the Laurel Museum finally, and to head down to South Riding for re-learning to knit and viewing of Carnivale. I so did not get out of the house in time to go to the museum. Luckily I did manage to get all my knitting stuff together (I couldn't find one of the vintage pattern magazines I got from my mom, bah.) and head south at a reasonable hour. I cast on! Twice because the scarf was too wide the first time! I may just be able to keep going this time so long as I don't start another sock. Also: chenille? Not so much. Falls apart too easy; I am hard on yarn with all my tight-pulling. Big thanks to edamame for her patience with instructions. Thanks to ninjabunny for the kickass hummus. Carnivale was pretty awesome as usual and involved more Jonesy & Sophie screen time, which, well I shouldn't have to say anything about that. It was less about big reveal and more about subtle characterization and I get off on that stuff.

Oh and for all the knitters and crocheters out there, the bag I mentioned which is the miracle bag can be purchased here. omphaloskepsis says it is great but she wishes she had purchased a medium instead of a large and recommends the medium unless you do alot of large blankety things.

Monday: Surprise dental work. This temp crown is covered in excess cement and feels fuzzy in my mouth and that puts me in a killin' mood. Oh and I forgot to mention: I couldn't afford the dental work, so Jack had to cover me. My insurance, so far as I can tell, is the "we will try to prevent bad things from happening about once a year but screw you if something bad does happen" variety.

There are two movies out I really want to see. Since that's really rare, I will just say: I really want to see Guerrilla: The Taking of Patty Hearst and Million Dollar Baby.

My new slogan in all things is: Life's too short. I keep answering myself and other people with that. Will you go do ______? Life's too short to do _______. I feel like I need to focus. I put a mind map up on the new whiteboard of all my hobbies, and honestly, I have a passing/untapped interest in too many damn things. I'd like to say I'm a dilettante renaissance woman except I think to be one you actually have to take the time to develop depth in all your activities.

v. relaxing weekend. mostly WoW. went to the EB to get the strat guide because i hate looking for things and am a big cheater. while i was there i picked up katamari damacy. the earth, so full of things! sunday night we actually left the house to see carnivale on the BIG screen at nomadicryan's. during which i also snorked down a pomegranate martini etc. tolerance: low. i had fun though. :) possible return of my knitting habit, although i'm still intimidated after my aborted sock experience. welcome the new flagrant pigtail icon. i wanted something that was a picture of me but with the "growing out" going on, good pictures cannot be taken.

last night before i went to bed i couldn't stop thinking about crap - sometimes morbid things that i don't even want to name, but also sewing and how nice it would be to have faith in some sort of god when bad shit happens. hoping, as i do every day, that tonight i'll just fall into a deep sleep at the appropriate time and continue sleeping until time is up.

i ran into devolutionary on the metro today. that was neat. not so much for him because it means he's on this craptacular hideously early morning schedule. [edit] holy crap i forgot to document basically all of the weekend. oops. saturday i dyed eggs with tzel and co. and sunday we all had chinese brunch at house of peking choice and after that i visited with jack's family... all of which served to deliver me for a time from my sever funk of last week. i need to post pics of the eggs!! [/edit]

( i need to... )

If anyone is into this kind of thing (whoring out your skills for a lazy non-knitter being the thing I refer to), I'd like to commission a piece. I would like very much to have a green winter hat like the one that Mike Nesmith wore around back when he was a Monkee. Shockingly, I have scoured the web (by scour I mean look at the first two pages of google searches such as "green knit hat monkees" and "monkees mike hat" for about 15 minutes) and have come up with nary a pattern. Nor is there a comparable hat on Ebay, just when I think that you should eschew Alice's Restaurant because the place you really can get anything you want is Ebay. Lies.

Here, here, here, and here are some pictures of knit hats that Mike wore. You can see that one of them had a little panel with buttons - which would be utterly fantastic. It will need to be long enough, however, to at least cover the tops of my ears (and really, hopefull most of my ears) thus actually staying on my head. Preferred yarn: cotton or cotton blend. Wool makes me itchy. I have no idea if hats are even feasible in cotton. I guess it has to be stretchy somehow?

Let me know if anyone, anyone at all out there thinks this would be a fun project and would accept cash and materials to do it.

[edit] I forgot to mention this sermon I found while seeking hat patterns. I was with him on Matthew 6:19 but after that things get a little uh, vehement for me.

wow, i can't believe i didn't even mention the Buffy finale. it was neat. i enjoyed it. there was a Dawson's Creek reference.

last night i started the giant embroidery floss project. it is fun in the same way that rolling coins is fun. i missed going to the club but i really don't care. i wasn't in a club mood anyways. of course, i got to wind ALOT of embroidery floss onto little cardboard thingys today because the cable guy showed up at the very last minute of the 4 hour window. but... this means... i have cablemodem!!! i'm so glad.

now since i was too scared he would show up in the middle of cooking so i haven't eaten all day, i'm going to bloody well eat something. phew.

i seriously can't recall what i did on thursday night. if i was doing something with you, let me know, because uh, it's a big black hole. and not in the "dude, where's my car" kind of way.

friday i know i got up and lazed around and eventually got up the gumption to go to the tattoo parlor that pat h recommended (which was alot closer to fort meade than i expected it to be) and put $20 down for the guy to come up with a few designs for me. eek! i liked the guy, he was nice and patient, but dude he had a piercing in his gums between his two front teeth. seriously. it was very distracting. perhaps staring at it will make getting the tattoo easier. after that, i went to the mall for hair dye and discovered that i hate what they're doing with women's shoe fashions nowadays. then i got in touch with msteleute and made her go to the noodle corner with me. we went back to the condo and caught up with necrocannibal and meercat and amber and shot the shit for a good while.

oh i know, it was knitting night on thursday. but i wasn't knitting, so what the hell was i doing? oh wait i was knitting!!! i finished the shawl i started in 1994!!! i finished my first knitting project! sweet jesus, that took a little longer than it should have. but i don't remember what i was doing before that. buh...

anyways, today i took denise to the airport and tzel made us some wild turkey stew which was fucking fabulous, and if all stew tasted like that the world would be a much happier place. then we watched movies. the notorious c.h.o. and regin of fire and scotland, pa. i was disappointed by none of these films. (highlight: margaret cho explaining her fisting experience with the "it's not like it was some big guy with popeye arms *pthonk*") (other highlight: the entire set and soundtrack of scotland, pa, and maura tierney trying to eliminate a nonexistent fryer oil stain) i got seemingly nowhere on my craft project because i purchased the wrong damned fusible interfacing. but, i went ahead and got some sock-knitting done, so hey.

i've been in a real bad mood about my man, but i'm not lettin' it get me down. life is very hard, and there's no ti-i-i-i-ime, for fussing and fighting my friends. i think the reason i'm so unflappable is all this sleeping at night i'm doing. it's so nice. might be all the tryptophan in that turkey, though.

thursday night, as it turned out, was meant to be a relaxation night. i can't remember what exact sorts of errands i ran thursday morning, but by the time i woke up it was apparent that going over to knit with meercat was the best thing for me. it was nice that the entire knitting crew was there. we were so busy stitching and chatting that we even missed most of the night's television fare, which was fine with me. we all agree that luka's new hairdo is stupid anyways. heh. :) we made bad knitting jokes ("loose" knitters! ha!) (put a "spin" on it! HAA!) and there was a lace project, a scarf, a sock, a bag, and a sweater all going at the same time. WOO! I never thought I'd enjoy knitting circle so much. As a note, the lion brand cotton-ease 50 percent cotton/50 acrylic is unanimously the BEST sock yarn everyone's seen! i will remember to buy more.

i would like to note also that i am at this point having NIGHTLY dreams about cars. i REALLY hope that this is all over with soon. i have almost decided to shuck off all my previous doubts and just buy a new goddamn car with a WARRANTY and stuff. it's very, very, very tempting to be the only person to have driven and taken care of the vehicle. it would be bad news for anyone that wanted to smoke in my car though. :) wait... brb... okay. back. anyways, i went tonight and drove a kia rio cinco. kias have a HORRIBLE reputation, but they have the BEST warranty out there. i do not know what to make of this. i am kind of interested in defending the kia, because it's kind of the underdog... not to mention that the ford aspire was originally released as, you guessed it, the KIA AVELLA. hee. this review of the rio did not help me. it dissed the aspire outright. GRR. the other option in a new car is the toyota echo... and did you know... they have released several more versions of the echo in asia and oceania... ALL THE CUTER VERSIONS. i want to import. badly. :( at any rate... cars are basically all i think about most of the time at this point. i guess it's more fun to think about than packing and moving.

speaking of moving, friday morning i signed the lease. the apartment looks smaller than i remember it, but that is to be expected. i feel it will be just as homey and happy as the one i have now. also, i am allowed to paint, and i am thinking i might need to just to cheer myself up. sunday, monday, or tuesday are the only days i have to execute that plan. i also visited the SPCA to help with the cats again friday morning. i feel i am not doing enough. there is a lovely orange cat named Lonnie there who is obviously the sweetest sweetheart that ever was. i need a new favorite there since my old favorite, carina, got adopted! good for her i hope it is a good home.

and finally, i had another great laugh and surprise tonight while on the phone with my mom... i was talking about drinking and driving and how i'm less tolerant of it than i was before, and she started to talk about how things were when she and dad were young. i believe she said something like, "i think about how we used to go out and drink and drink, and we'd be fucked up, and go get behind the wheel!!" and i think i just guffawed, because i have NEVER heard my mom say that before. it sounded pretty natural though. :) she will be mad that i posted this. but it is worth remembering.

after i get off work tonight, my week vacation begins. strangely enough, my vacation is going to be full of work!! heh. hopefully it will all be the kind of work that ends up with long term payoff by making my new place to live more comfortable and making sure i purchase the nicest car i can to get me through the next few years. well, if i buy a new car, i'd better drive it for the next TEN years. i am trying to think about that, being 37 and driving a __fillintheblank__.

i'm not even sure i could remember if i tried! there was of course the party on saturday. i had a pretty good time. i wore my crazy charlie's angels outfit that i bought at wet seal. i wanted to find it in black, but they only had them in size 1 at every stupid wet seal in the entire state. stupid wet seal. ok, so really their clothes are for people 10 years younger than i am, and also people with a completely different system of ideals, but still, i uh, apparently wanted to give that vibe off... ANYWAYS. let's see, spent an hour watching kipper videos:

i'm not sure why, but i liked them. although the rocket one was a bit much. if i could ahve found a picture to put here of that particular story, i would have. anyways, i think that was thursday. friday went to columbia for stuff. drank a bit, i suppose as a preview for the party or just because i wanted to. i was trying various beers. it was cheerful though, none of the depressant effects, as there were on saturday. it turned out OK though. not what i was hoping for, but good anyways. sunday i came into work and was told i should go home before anyone saw me wearing jeans. i know i signed on for this corporate bullshit when i came to work here, but i don't know... it just seems stupid that since i work overnight i should have to conform to some bullshit idea of what looks professional or what looks like i will get my job done better. i may just be tired and cranky though... plus, i got to go home early. heh.

anyways, i have a few craft projects i need to complete:
1. the one i already bought supplies for but have been putting off since NOVEMBER
2. the green terrycloth one
3. the Vern Yip tiny canvases idea

i think i might try to write this history thing, a la meercat and bronzemountain. but i may not have time, or my memory may simply be too hazy. reading theirs was neat though. tonight was book club. the book was lackluster, but we got a new member. i almost dyed my hair red last week. i think i'm just going to be the not-hair-dyer though.