9 posts tagged “randoms”

It has been almost a month.  I've composed several blog posts in my head, but haven't gotten around to posting them.  And now I'm approaching the task of rebuilding my iPhoto library due to a hard drive crash & burn.  I have back-ups, albeit, not in the most 'get it up and running' friendly format - I fear lots of importing is in my future.  And then there is the pesky problem of figuring out where I put the external hard drive with all of my documents on it.  And wondering exactly how much I am missing between my last back-up date and now.  We've had two hard drives die on us within the last month or so, luckily the first didn't contain any essential info that could only be found there (we hope - it mostly held music, which is also on TheHusbands laptop).  Needless to say we've come up with a more comprehensive, less end-user-initiated plan.  Anyway, a run-down:

I went to my cousin's wedding.  There was a bit of family drama (which seems to be the case when you know, you get lots of family members together).  The wedding itself was gorgeous and reminded me of something that you might see chronicled in a wedding magazine.  She had a great florist, oodles of orchids (yes orchids) and convinced her dad to build her lots of stuff, like the structure for the ceremony, 50 + boxes to serve as containers for the table arrangements and other things like the huge bamboo topiary things next to the ceremony structure.

A cat has started meowing around our house (it even tried to dart in the door when I went outside one day).  Dog is going nuts-- absolutely bonkers trying to get the cat.  Which means every so often we hear a loud crash that indicates our dog's head or paws have hit the glass window in the door.  We still aren't sure if he wants to play with it or eat it (I'm leaning towards "ohhhhh squeaky toy" which starts as play and ends as *chomp*).  My apologies to all my friends with cats, I love kitties, but they are not safe in my house.  I'm glad I have friends to visit where I can visit with kitties.

I have the best husband in the world.  He brought me my nectarine from the fridge instead of scarffing it down and going "nah nah nah I ate your nectarine".  Because I am a doufus who never thinks to eat fruit until someone (cough TheHusband cough) is eating fruit in front of me.  And he patiently leaves fruit in the fridge trying to be nice and not gobble it all up.

I am crafting, sort of.  I'm in the middle of an ironing board project that will not end.  And I really want it to because I'm itching, simply itching to buy some Amy Butler fabric to sew a cute summer dress.  I'm also working on several gifts that cannot be mentioned until I know they have been received.  Speaking of gifts, today I learned of the 8th baby that I know who will be born this year.  With all these babies I will never manage to knit myself a sweater.  Not to mention there are 3 babies born last year and I never managed to make a gift for them.  I just cannot keep up.  (We shall not speak of the baby blanket for the 2 3/4 year old).

While I dig around for photos of my shrug [that I don't mind posting] and decide which photo of the pajama pants is best I give you a random television list.  Well, not totally random, I found it on Fattypants blog.  According to her it is Empire Magazine's (who?) list of the 50 greatest tv shows.  You are supposed to bold the shows you've watched every episode of, underline the shows you've seen at least one episode of, and post your answers (I consider that optional).  Finally I added asterisks to each show I plan on eventually watching every episode thanks to DVDs and netflix.  Huh, I've seen at least half of these... the only thing that makes me sad is when I watch shows I hate (like Seinfield).

50. Quantum Leap
49. Prison Break
48. Veronica Mars
47. Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
46. Sex & The City
45. Farscape
44. Cracker
43. Star Trek
42. Only Fools and Horses
41. Band of Brothers
40. Life on Mars
39. Monty Python's Flying Circus
38. Curb Your Enthusiasm
37. Star Trek: The Next Generation
36. Father Ted
35. Alias
34. Frasier
33. CSI: Las Vegas
32. Babylon 5
31. Deadwood
30. Dexter
29. ER
28. Fawlty Towers
27. Six Feet Under
26. Red Dwarf
25. Futurama
24. Twin Peaks
23. The Office UK
22. The Shield
21. Angel
20. Blackadder (I, II, III, IV and all the specials)
19. Scrubs*
18. Arrested Development
17. South Park
16. Doctor Who
15. Heroes
14. Firefly
13. Battlestar Galactica (The original, not the new one)
12. Family Guy
11. Seinfeld
10. Spaced
09. The X-Files
08. The Wire
07. Friends
06. 24
05. Lost
04. The West Wing*
03. The Sopranos
02. Buffy the Vampire Slayer*
01. The Simpsons

Tonight I got one of many telemarketer phone calls about TV...dish network...blah blah blah.  I said, "I'm happy with my current tv service."  He asked, "Is it less than $40 a month?"  I said (very smuggly), "Yes."  And the phone call ended.  I really like when telemarketer calls end quickly without me getting rude.  I figure they have a crappy job and don't need me to be rude to them.  I also really like that we pay exactly $0 a month for TV, even though I am sad whenever I am clueless while tv talk is going on around me.  Of course I watch way too much cable tv whenever I get the chance (like staying in a hotel or visiting my parents' house).

Also, hopefully I'm back and will be posting some projects soon.  I just finished my second trip in two weeks and even though I brought my computer along with me (what leave home without it!) I didn't actually find much time to be online.  This morning when I logged into my bloglines account for the first time in about a week I found 978 unread blog posts (from my slightly excessive 133 feeds); now almost half of that is from about 4 or 5 high traffic feeds that require little more than a scan of the headlines but still that is a lot of catching up.

I didn't get much done in the way of crafty projects either, though I did acquire a cute little vintage toy machine, a vintage pattern that I think will make an excellent now top, and new yarn.  Luckily I did manage to finish the shrug I was knitting to wear to a friend's wedding (I finished it on the second leg of the plane journey the Thursday before the Saturday wedding).  I'll be posting more details about the shrug soon.

The first trip was a last minute event to help out my family (prompted by my grandmother going to the hospital but all is now as well as can be expected).  The second trip was planned well in advance and for the above mentioned wedding.  It was quite an awesome wedding and fabulous weekend to boot.

Bookishbiker's post and link about 100 things you can make yourself made me curious.  How many things have I done from that list?

1. Applesauce
2. Spaghetti sauce
3. Barbecue sauce
5. Jelly (well jam)
9. Guacamole (frankly there is no other way)
10. Pesto
11. Salsa
12. Mango salsa (I wonder why two types of salsa are listed, how about pineapple salsa?)
13. Vanilla extract
14. Hummus
15. Coffee (well, I've ground coffee and I've made french press coffee, just not at the same time)
17. Gravy
20. Stuffing
23. Pancake mix (well no, but I always make pancakes from scratch anyway)
25. Ice cream (how about ice milk?  unsuccessful sorbet?)
26. Chicken Nuggets (breaded chicken fingers?)
27. Pizza
29. Pickles (well, I'm sure I've done this with my mom, I've just blocked it out)
33. Dog treats
37. Books
39. All purpose household cleaner (dilluting white vinegar in a spray bottle with a couple drops of essential oil counts right?)
45. Baskets
47. Paper
49. Jewelry
50. Curtains
52. Candles
55. Bookshelves (in my case it was more like the plans for a kitchen cart and it was collaborative with TheHusband)
59. Sweater (one baby sweater, one toddler sweater almost done, one adult sweater in the works)
60. Skirt
63. Blouse (how about top?  I don't think I've sewn a blouse)
64. Shorts
65. Gloves (fingerless mittens?)
66. Socks
72. Compost (sort of, more like got stuck taking the compost bucket to the compost heap/bin as a kid)
77. Sun clock
78. Bread
79. Potato chips (how about tortilla chips and pita chips?)
80. Pretzels (I had and lost a fabulous easy recipe, sigh)
83. Bagels
84. A pinata
90. Tortillas (flour and corn)
93. A loofah (make?  how about grow them then dry them, again with mom)
94. Cheese (this was more like a mom did it and I was hanging around)
96. A Kite

Wow.  44 out of 100 (I kept the original list maker's numbering and my comments are in italics).  Granted some of them were one-time things and others I was more like the assistant with my mom doing the bulk of the work; but still I'm sort of impressed with myself.  I did grow up in a very DIY household.

The pair that I was working on for my March or April UFO Challenge?

Yeah, those socks.  This picture was taken at the beginning of May.  I know kitchener stitch probably isn't that hard but I'm having the darn-dest time getting it started.  FantasyLibrarian was kind enough to send me a couple pages from her knitting book on kitchener stitch but that still didn't help much.  I've watched the video on Knitting Help, I've looked at my knitting books. Anyway, I think I will be making some phone calls to the LYS to get a private lesson.

I just caught up with my neighborhood reading (4 pages!) and am baffled how I let so much time pass.  I feel like I haven't accomplished anything lately, I keep stumbling into various roadblocks, I know I've made progress on various projects but I haven't finished anything.

Granted the weekend before last we went on a little getaway to the coast, staying in a room at an Inn with a kitchen, cavorting on the beach, wandering around a little town and going on a nice hike.  So that week I was awash in meal planning prep.  I ended up going to Whole Foods, Wild Oats, a local store that could out my location, Trader Joe's, World Market and the local supermarket to get everything I planned on buying (and of course we brought so much home).  What did I get?

• Cheese (manchego, rogue smoky blue, brie with mushrooms, monterey jack with rosemary, chevre)
• Bread (one par-baked baguette, one baguette sliced and made into crostini)
• Crackers (water and mixed seed flat bread)
• starfruit
• apples
• minneola tangelos
• sparkling blueberry juice
• "fresh" orange juice
• a tub of stuff from the antipasto/olive bar
  
• fresh salsa
• cilantro-jalapeno hummus
• pretzel slims
• tortilla chips
• dried figs
• dried papaya
• dried apples
• mexican-spiced mixed nuts (a New Best Recipe Book, amazing even though I screwed it up)
• nuts over blueberries trail mix
• hot chocolate mix
• mini-marshmallows
• chocolate covered caramels
• tomato and roasted red pepper soup
• 1 bottle of wine and 2 half bottles of wine
• and a car snack bag with chips, haribo grapefruit gummies and soda

Honestly I feel like I'm forgetting some of the food (I did forget to pack the eggs for breakfast so we had to skip our omelets with goat cheese) because it filled two grocery bags plus one smaller bag and a bag for the wine.  We ate so good that weekend.  If you get a chance to try Rogue Smokey Blue cheese do it, it is so yummy, blue but not too tangy, smoky but not overpowering.  I can't wait to eat it again.  We didn't even touch the stuff in italics and had lug that home.  It was a very nice refreshing weekend together.

Well tonight TheHusband tackled the obstinate hole that would not drill and now I can finish putting up the curtain rod (I got one bracket up but couldn't get the other bracket up) tomorrow.  I will then put up the bought curtains and move my desk back into place, make the bulletin board I've planned for a month or more, hang that and another picture, put files away and somehow clear off our futon so I have some craft-working space that isn't our bed.

And I finally tackled seaming and finished my brother's christmas hat.  Pictures tomorrow, I promise.  I also started a new secret project (DK weight plus seaming, ack).  And I got stuck on my UFO sock, hopefully someone will have advice at tomorrows knit night (though asking questions isn't as big there as my last knit group).  A few days ago I finished hand quilting a blanket I'm working on, hopefully the binding will go on tomorrow.  I have a lot of hopes for tomorrow, better go make a list.

TheHusband sent me this link of artwork today.

As my other post indicated I think I'm ready to post again.  So, a variety of thoughts that I have in my head:

• I am wondering if bookishbiker has her curtains up again.
• My middle name is Marie.  My mom also gave my little sister the same middle name cause it worked with her name too.
• I finally bought VM season 2 today.  Yay!
• We went camping over the weekend.  Yet again, we managed to only camp once in a year.
• I'm just not feeling the nesting thing like I normally do when I am in a new place.
• I'm still working on the x-back tank.  So close, I am nearly done with the second half of the triangle part of the top and realized that something is amise with my decreases.  So i need to rip it and do it again.
  
• I'm knitting the "one skien" baby hat in Artful yarns Candy.  I am doing it on dpns to avoid seaming.  And it seems bigger than I remember the sample in the yarn store.  I'm about 2 inches in, second cast-on attempt.
• I'm not sure if I'm stuck on the socks or not.  Should pick them up again and figure it out.
• I am becoming obsessed with Amy Butler designs.  On one hand they are rather simple, on the other it is the perfect fabric and proportions that make them just so, and while I could probably recreated some of it on my own I bet I wouldn't get the lovely proportions that her patterns have.  And I have doubts on finding such divine fabrics, although I have a hope in a local fabric shop.
• I got a card at the local library today and limited myself to 5 books.  So of course I brought 6 home.