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Friday, December 31, 2004

Happy New Years!

On this New Years Eve in Houston Texas I was supposed to go out shooting with Evan and his brother and his father. Unfortunately, due to sickness (mine... an extra unfortunateness) and house network mishaps (which evan has been on duty for as tech support), we never made it out the shooting range. I'll save it for my next Texas trip I guess and let evan's dad build up an even larger collection of weaponry. Honestly, I had this stupid fear that I would get shot at the shooting range. Guns freak me out, which is of course why I want to go shooting.

knitting
Most of my knitting projects for Christmas came and went without me taking pictures of them. I made my brother a set of brown Irish Hiking Arm Warmers that he LOVED. They matched the fleece scarves that he had me make for his girly and himself.

I did finish my Auntie's scarf out here in H town. It's a drop stitch scarf made from the handpaintedyarn.com and lots of pretty blue ribbons in the fringe. I really really like it. I may have to make myself one.





I have had lots of lovely knitting reading on my vacation here. SEE:



My brother got me Stitch N' Bitch for my Christmas present. And My parents bought me How to Spin Designer Yarns (it will complement my spinning wheel perfectly!).

Plus I picked up Interweave Knits Crochet magazine (I still don't know how to crochet, but I think it'd be nice to learn and expand my needlework repertoire). Flipping through, I think there's only a couple patterns I'm interested in trying once I learn how to crochet. The skirt on the front looks nice, and there's a pretty tank top in there as well.

I also picked up a papercraft magazine that gives you 3984723947329 ideas on different cards to make. Actually, I find this sort of magazine a bit annoying. Paper crafting to me feels so individual. I never know what card I'm going to make before I sit down and make it. Using a preset patterns seems so fake, and somehow makes handmade cards less special.

Also, look at the cool rocking chair Evan's family has up in the garage apartment:


I had hoped to be knitting in the chair quite often over this vacation, but after getting sick and with all the many many family gatherings, I've had little time in the chair.

random
We met with Evan's friend Matt from high school. We all got along SPLENDIDLY. Matt went to NYU film school and resides in NY with his kitty and new girlfriend Elisa. Matt was supercool, and definitely out indied us in the music scene. He promised to send us some cool Death Cab tracks we hadn't heard, and pointed us out to some new bands we had never heard of.

We also accomplished a couple of things on my To Do List for my time in Houston. We went to House of Pies, a Houston Bar (Little Woodrows is a great little bar btw if you're ever in H town), I tried a Kolache (basically a pig in a blanket, a food apparently originally from Czechloslovakia that has some noteriety here in the south) from the Kolache Factory, got ahold of some Blue Bell ice cream (a local Texas ice cream), I went to a drive in Sonic and had tater tots (YUM), I had Goode Company BBQ with some amazing Jalepeno bread).

Things I didn't get to do on my Houston To Do list:
go to the Bignet place (Sean assures me we can do this on the way to the airport tomorrow)
visit a H Town yarn shop/bead shop/fiber shop/spinning wheel shop
go to a H Town thrift shop to look for weird Texan things
go shooting for the first time
see a texas longhorn (not someone from the college, but an actually cow)

We also met up with Cara and her 4yr old daughter Sophie. Cara was ervy's photo teacher/friend in high school. She gave us a candle for christmas lit from a candle that was lit by the Dali Lama. The idea is that you light other candles from from your candle and give it to your friends, and it's representative of spreading peace.

I miss my kitty!!!!!!!!!!

I have actually had quite a few kitty encounters over here in H town. The neighborhood kitties come around to ervy's house because they get fed by the front door. There is a little black female with GORGEOUS huge green yellow eyes. And there is a really tubby orange tabby with white legs and a scratched up face (probably lots of kitty fights) that are quite friendly. The orange one literally falls all over you for attention.

The "crazy family" also had a kitty (Watson was his name). He would get you to pet him and then try to bite you (neurotic kitty).

Cara had two kitties. I only saw one (named Chakra). It was the scraggiest kitty I had ever seen, and it ran away from me.

I miss Asha.

Thursday, December 30, 2004

I'm alive I swear!

I've just been on vacation. I'll update when I get back!

*Squeal*

BIG NEWS THO

ervy boy got me a spinning wheel!!

It's an Ashford Traditional!!!!

Thursday, December 16, 2004

gettin' things done

knitting
Finishing up Christmas gifts (like everyone else in the blogosphere!)

I did finish my mom's fun fur scarf (pictures to be posted later). I worked on Evan's mom's scarf yesterday evening. I've been working on that scarf for 2 months now, but I don't like to work on it. Everytime I pick it up and knit it, no matter how long I spend working on it, I swear it never gets longer. It's like the scarf from hell. It's a really boring scarf to knit too. Garter stitch one color with yarn maybe 1/3 worsted weight. It's driving me insane!

I worked a bit on my favorite aunt's scarf (drop stitch using the handpaintedyarn.com yarn). It feels absolutely wonderful to knit!! And the colors are gorgeous. I think after xmas, I'm going to make myself a garterstitch scarf out of the same yarn.

I mailed a set of handmade needles out today (yay!) but I had to drive to the post office twice. For future notice to myself, the mailbox by my house only has pickup at 12 noon :( on weekdays. (I went at 12:12pm)

other
My dad's birthday is this Saturday. I painted him a painting of our family. My whole family, including my grandma is coming to my apartment for dinner.

On the Menu:

Pork Stew with Prunes over Fettucine
Spicy Chopped Chicken & Eggs over rice
Fresh Green Salad
Raspberry Orange Trifle

A pinot noir

The spicy chopped chicken and eggs dish is really for my grandma. It doesn't fit terribly well with the rest of the menu, but I really wanted to make my dad the pork stew. My grandma doesn't like eating pork or noodles, and she prefers to eat Chinese food. So I'm making her a dish she will enjoy as well.

This will be the first time my grandma visits my apartment. My parents have been afraid to bring her since my family considers my living situation quite improper (me living with my boyfriend). So hopefully, all will go well.

I have lots of cleaning to do!

Tuesday, December 14, 2004

ha day, I beat you!

I woke up stressed to no end. Not because Asha was trying to wake me up to go feed her by licking my face and meowing... although that was happening too. But I was super stressed, because I've been trying to contact my bosses at the Business school to have them sign off on my work hours.

They all somehow forgot to tell me that they were gone on vacation. So I called GSB human resources, and the woman who's in charge of the timesheets is on vacation for a MONTH! So I called and left a message for the person in charge while she's gone.

In charge woman called me back and I have to get my boss in austrailia to approve my work hours via email by tomorrow. I sent my boss my stuff, so hopefully, time zone taken into account, my hours will get to the right person at the right time.

Then I lept in my car to go to the psych dept to turn in my work hours over there. My CAR DIDN'T START. :(

but then it did.

*phew*

I had left the inside light on for a couple days apparently. oops me.

The rest of the day was random. Fighting for parking in a lot that NEVER is more than half full except for today apparently.

knitting related
I made a knitting needle case for straight needles! It's so cute. It's pink plaid on the outside, and on the inside, the fabric is pink, and soft, with pictures of tea bags and cups of coffee. Printed on the fabric are the words, "I like boys" "I like coffee" "I like tea" "Boys like me"



It rolls up and fastens with a pretty pink ribbon:


Monday, December 13, 2004

I've been a busy girl

knitting
I worked a bit on my Grey Irish Hiking scarf. It's already longer than Irish Hiking Scarf #1 which I fear is doomed to either be frogged or live a life of WIP forever.

I was knitting it when fu, ervy, and I went to the cinema saver to see I <3 Huckabees (very funny movie by the way. So strange. You could wait to see this on video though since the cinematagraphy isn't a key factor). Anyway, we were waiting to get into the theater (the show before us was still going), and people kept pointing at me to their friends and making knitting motions. Um.. okay.

I made more needles and stitch markers that I'm immensely happy with. My favorites in this batch (although I love them all) are the turtle needles:

They have blue glass turtles on the ends (see close up here) and whenever I look at them, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle theme song runs through my head... just because they're turtles. It's not like they're mutant.

Maybe theme songs are why I love these markers I made as well. Although I think they are the cutest stitch markers that have ever existed. They're red glass GUMMI BEARS!!!!


Dashing and daring,
Courageous and caring,
Faithful and friendly,
With stories to share.
All through the forest,
They sing out in chorus,
Marching along,
As their song fills the air.

CHORUS:
Gummi Bears,
Bouncing here and there and everywhere.
High adventure that's beyond compare,
They are the Gummi Bears.


random
I added a new link to my sidebar :)

It was a special project that has been in the works for a bit now. I've been playing around with it, and I couldn't decide whether I wanted to use Paypal's shopping cart or not. I had integrated the cart in, then I decided I didn't want it, but now I want to use it again. I'll probably integrate it and get it up later tonight.

Friday, December 10, 2004

yay weekends

Imagine a cute picture of asha investigating my shower. She hopped in there after I took a shower this morning. You all would have seen a cute photo, but my camera batteries needed to be recharged. lame.


knitting
I've decided I'm not casting on any more items until i finish the ones I have going. I have to get these gifties done!

I did cast on a grey Irish Hiking Scarf for my favorite Uncle. He and my favorite Aunt live up in Seattle and could actually use some knit items. Apparently they sent me a large xmas present, but my parents forgot to bring it down to the penninsula when they came yesterday. So it's sitting under my parent's tree and not mine ;(



I also will be doing a scarf for my auntie up there, as soon as I figure out what scarf to do, and of course as soon as I finish my 1897329874230 other WIPs.

I made some stitch markers today!!


These are made with vintage japanese glass beads.


These are made with some pretty teal glass beads


These are made with semi-precious snowflake obsidian stone and silver beads.
random

Have you all seen this Google Beta where it offers suggestions as you type in the search? It's like a history bar that comes up, but it is not just yours. And it lists how many results you'll have from each search term.

Thursday, December 09, 2004

Romy and Michelle

I just found out I have a high school reunion in Berkeley on the 23rd at a pub. That gives me two weeks to lose weight and become stylish and accomplished. That is what I'm supposed to do right?

I also just found the website of a band (punchclock) from the evites. It has three of my old high school classmates (all the males in the band) in it. Weirdly, they look the same, just scruffy and band-like. The have mp3s on the site. I only listened to one of em, "miramonte" (the name of our high school), and.... uh... well, it left a bit to be desired. But their band is young yet, maybe it'll get better, write better lyrics.

It's also really really weird just reading through the names/replies on the evite. People I haven't thought about for years! High School memories resurfacing is quite odd. Ooh, I wonder if Kenny Dorsey will come to the reunion. He's sort of our class star of the moment. I've gone all the way through elementary school with him. We've been in band where he did gross stuff with the spit from his trumpet. Now he's on the 49'ers after a great college football career.

ooh weirdness and nostalgia rolled into one giant eggroll. gotta run off to meet my grandma for lunch.

Tuesday, December 07, 2004

feline fleece scarves

Pampering my pet


catJewelryLC, originally uploaded by lwu81.



This cat necklace is created with magnetic safety clasp

yay it rained last night!


IMG_2370, originally uploaded by lwu81.

It always makes me happy when it rains at night. Not only is it soothing to listen to while I fall asleep, but it also eases my conscience about not watering my plants outside :)

speaking of plants (hideous segway...), I forgot to mention that ervy and I got a xmas tree over the weekend. We went out to home depot and snagged a 7' douglas fir (kitty friendly yay! although admittedly we found that out after the fact) for 24 bucks. I really like the tree bagger line they got going over there. In a matter of seconds, the tree you pick out has its end cut off and then it is thrown (really they throw it!) through a hoop into a net bag. It all happens so fast, people at the end trying to find their tree get all blinky and keep looking back and forth between the cutting station and the bagged trees to figure out what just happened.



ervan was worried we wouldn't have enough ornaments. Silly boy. First of all, I am of the opinion that almost any small object can be made into a nice little ornament. But I am also a crafter (duh! did i really need to state that, prolly not.) I beaded up a few snowflake ornaments and I pulled out the box of 20 polymer clay masks I had from the mask swap this year. They are the perfect size for ornaments, and many are very very cool. Last year I put my masks into a shadow box for display, but I think turning my swapped masks into ornaments is a perfect display idea!


Anyway, so the tree now has lots of little goodies on all of it except for the bottom two feet. I don't want to tempt asha too much to abscond with any ornaments. Thus far, the most she has done is try to eat the tree (very much in line with her character). I do spray her though when she does that even though this tree isn't poisonous to her.

spinning
finished spinning and plying some new yarn yesterday.
Here it is in the bathroom drying with a can for weight:


The colors are hard to see, but it's a heathery blue/green wool with pink/mauve cotton thread plyed with it.

I'm still not sure what I think about this yarn. fufu made the comment when he saw it lying around in its unspun state that it looked like "grandma hair"

Monday, December 06, 2004

diy day


andScarf, originally uploaded by lwu81.

The Weekend
I really enjoyed my weekend, although for some reason I was very tired throughout most of it.

Saturday morning ervy and I went out to the craft faire at Stanford. It's always fun to look at what such talented people are making. I also got to see two spinning wheels in person and see someone spinning on one of them. The first was an Ashford Joy I think. It was tiny and had it's own case. The woman was spinning mohair, and had been surrounded by this one persistent family who kept asking her questions like, "what is that?" while pointing at the clothing of passerbys, expecting her to immediately discern at a distance the fiber content of a coat. The other wheel at the faire was a handmade wheel based on the design of antique spinning wheels. I spoke with an artisan who was weaving on her loom about how she got involved in spinning and weaving. I ended up referring to the vendors at the fair as "crafty people" (people who make crafts) in the context of "I've always found crafty people to be very welcoming and nice." Then I bit my tongue. Do vendors such as these take offense at being called "crafty people" or would they prefer 'artisan' or 'artist' or 'craftsman.' Nowadays, the term 'craftsperson' seems to be held in less esteem than 'artist.' Am I crazy? Do people care, or am I just hung up on stupid semantics?

Saturday we celebrated Adam's bday and had tasty tasty ribs... mmm... ribs!

Sunday, I spent all morning re-organizing the second bedroom. I am sooo happy about the room. it's quite pleasant to be in now, and asha is quite enamored with it. She has permanently taken over the second futon that my parents gave us.



knitting
I finished my other irish hiking arm warmer on Saturday, and I've been wearing them happily ever since. Yay for warm wrists.



I think my next pair of armwarmers will actually be ARM warmers. I'm going to make them long enough to wrap around my upper arms so that I can still manage to wear tshirts without a jacket.


I don't have to go into work until 5pm tonight, so I've had alot of today to enjoy my new workspace.

I finished off a pair of handmade needles with beady goodness! I've had these beads for a couple of years, thinking I would pair them with one of the ming dynasty pottery shard pendants I have, but since that never got off the ground (big surprise, eh?) I thought they would look lovely on my new needles.


knitty put up it's new issue. I particulary am amused by Pasha the penguin which apparently should be knitted for linux lovers :) and womb.

Being a tea lover. I'm also quite happy that they've included a cute teapot cozy pattern

for my diy day today, I also sewed up a long fleece scarf (see pic with curled asha) with white mitten pockets.

Friday, December 03, 2004

Happy Birthday Adam:



Have a very happy birthday! Let us know when we all can celebrate!

oh what a beautiful mornin', oh what a beautiful day

random

Ervy sang a song of tribute to the hallowed directTV TiVo this morning. it was cute. Then the RCN man came by and we found out that the aggressive RCN sales lady was wrong and if we want RCN internet, it has to be via a cable modem, but we don't have the apartment wired for cable, so if we wanted to wire the place it would require drilling through the floor which we can't do without the landlord's permission.

BUT, it's still a beautiful day. And I don't really care about the RCN stuff, because at least I'm not living in fear as I was yesterday. Yes, I was living in fear of not having internet for a brief time. As it turns out tho, SBC doesn't deactivate our internet till the RCN man installs new internet and calls SBC, so I was living in a heightened state of fear for nothing. Silly orange alerts... oh wait.. nevermind...

I played Sims 2 for a bit last night. It took FOREVER to install, but they had a fun little game called grow your sims to play while you installed. The game asks you trivia about the sims and you play a memory matching game with sims icons.

knitting and spinning related
Delia posted her pattern for Irish Hiking Arm Warmers to go with the Irish Hiking Scarf. I've been meaning to do another pair of arm warmers because it's been so gosh durn freezing lately that I'm always wearing arm warmers, even if it color clashes with the rest of my outfit. *fashion police sirens are heard*

So I knitted 1 and 1/4 arm warmers yesterday. If I have time I should be able to finish them today for weekend wear. It's knitted out of a pretty blue wool by Gallway that I picked up on The Magnificent Thrift Store Yarn Haul. It's not a store. It's just how I fondly remember the day I found a bunch of great yarn at St. Vincent de Paul. *wipes a tear* It was a lovely day then as well.



This morning I sat and predrafted some wool fiber I had dyed awhile ago. I really really REALLY like predrafting. It's very fun to pull apart the fibers from this thick bunch of wool and slide it into soft pretty predrafted lengths. I can't wait to spin!!!

here's a pic of the wool in the midst of predrafting. you can see how loose and fluffy it gets. Part on the end is still all bunched together in the pic, because I hadn't drafted it yet.



crafty dreams
I had a dream I set up my kiln in the garage finally. Yes, I have a kiln. Apparently it's a very nice one. My nai nai bought it when she used to make jewelry, but never got around to using it. So when I started making jewelry, she lent it to me. I've had it for 2 years, and I haven't opened it out of the box. Now that I have a garage, I could really use it too!

Anyway, in my dream I was playing with silver polymer metal clay (pmc). For those of you who don't know, it's 99% real silver with a polymer binder that melts away when you throw it in a kiln and heat it up. So you're actually left with something better than sterling silver. I've been wanting to work with this stuff for a while, but I haven't had the inspiration yet. However, my dream showed me a couple pendants I would <3 to make! I'm excited. Not tellin' what it is just in case I'm a loser and 1) don't drag my ass down to the garage to set up the kiln 2) I make it crappy.

Thursday, December 02, 2004

i forsee sims 2 in my future today - random drivel, no knitting done

got half a pile of data to enter still, and then i'll be playing fo' reals yo'

Liz got a new kitten! I wanna seeeeeeeeeee....

cool art from woosterfeed
All the animal lovers out there might appreciate this one.

Uneek and the StreetSweeper Crew go around urban cities and put up birdhouses that fit in with the urban scene.


oh for the ghetto birds who don't have the luxury of trees in surburbia or the countryside like their wealthier counterparts. These are the birds you see begging for bread crumbs in the street that sometimes fake a limp so you throw a little more bread over to them, only to find out that they DO have another foot! they were just holding it up where you couldn't see it! (I'm speaking from experience yo! these fowl are tricky!)


check out more of the bird houses here

semi-knitting related
Ming came over and complimented my flower washcloth. Well, he said it looked alot better than in the pictures. he then proceeded to wear i as a hat using the ends I haven't weaved in as the ties to his bonnet. He then tried to use it as a cat toy.

ervy tried on my mondial hat and people thought he looked like a chemo patient. :(
paulie tried on my mondial hat and he just looked skeezy.

random
so who did buy the chocolate sauce?

Check out this subverse iPod. Really, it just comes preloaded with music that was controversial because Negativeland had sampled some of U2's music. But man, black iPods looks so cool!

Dubya movie. Looks like a bunch of clips from Don Knott's old movies pulled together for a story of the current president.

more than meets the eye. quicktime video of a car commercial

Wednesday, December 01, 2004

eBay item 5142129647 (Ends Dec-03-04 07:00:52 PST) - Blogger for Hire - Start or Improve Your Blog

eBay item 5142129647 (Ends Dec-03-04 07:00:52 PST) - Blogger for Hire - Start or Improve Your Blog

sorry for the linking today... but since 'blog' is the newly discovered word for many people this year, I thought it only appropriate to point to an auction where you can buy your own blogger for your company. It's going for a pretty sum right now.

yay changed date

wahoo! Sims 2 is all mine tonight!!! *rubbing hands together eagerly!*

oh and if you didn't hear, that jeapardy boy finally lost although, honestly, I'd stopped following that story FOREVER ago.

Also, apparently the target ad that ervan found for a 'blowjob' on their website wasn't alone. there was also an ad for marijuana. the hacks have been found tho (I'm sure greatly due to the blogging community linking). here's a screenshot for the mj sold at target

And for all you fans of Zach Braff (Scrubs & Garden State), you can check out his garden state blog complete with a video post

finished my flower!

knitting
voila! my flower washcloth! You'll notice I haven't woven in the ends (darn it, i was trying to hide the ends under the other side for the photo, but I didn't notice some poking out!)


I think it's too adorable. I would gift it, but honestly, I want to try using it myself and sending it through the wash to see how it holds up before I cast it upon someone else :)

I used my new dpns from elann for this. They are tortoise shell swallow casein double points
I'll be honest, I got them because I thought they were pretty. While they are nice to look at and feel good in the hand, they also seem rather flimsy. They bend ALOT more than my other dpns (metal and wood), and they seem to flutter around alot more while I'm knitting making them more unweildy. Maybe I just haven't gotten used to them yet.

by the by, I had best make myself a knitting needle case soon, because I think I'm losing dpns all over the apartment. Someone's gonna sit down one of these days and get a dpn up their ass. *ouch*

decisions
I'm thinking about moving my GRE subject to April since I'm not applying this year. It will give me more time to study and I'll get to relax a bit more... or I just love to procrastinate. If I do move it though, you can bet Sims 2 will be loaded onto the house computer as soon as I get my work done.

random
For all you word enthusiasts out there (ahem, fuson this means you):

'Blog' is the number 1 word of the year according to Merriam-Webster.
"Merriam-Webster Inc. said on Tuesday that blog, defined as "a Web site that contains an online personal journal with reflections, comments and often hyperlinks," was one of the most looked-up words on its Internet sites this year."

see cnn news article

alright, honestly though, that many people didn't know what a blog was by now? Or did blogs really just become ultra popculture this year?

Speaking of, I realized I missed the one year anniversary of me starting this blog. It was November 4, 2003 that I posted my first post in true geek retardo fashion.

both margueritte drivers I had yesterday struck up conversation with me for the first time. One was the lady driver who I always fear will kill me in some crash due to distraction from the radio she always talks to (okay so I wouldn't die since the Margueritte goes majorly slowly, but it sounds nice and dramatic, right?). Anyway, she asked about my knitting (YAY!), and then felt obliged to tell me about how Stanford's football coach got fired, and Stanford had better start paying coaches more to get a good coach. She even said it was rumored Stanford might get rid of football all together. *ahem* I highly doubt Stanford would remove football, for many reasons, not the least of which would be a loss of Alumni donations.

the second margueritte conversation came from a bus driver I'd never had before (all the C-Line peeps are actually quite familiar with me, and they no longer question my long ride to the stadium parking lot). Anyway we got into some conversation where he told me a couple times in a heavy middle eastern accent, "you know everything is about money. you know this. it's all about money." He just kept repeating it, and then talked about how people came to stanford for the name even though they just had to keep shelling out money, etc.

I'm hopefully going to find a nice large crockpot at st vincent de paul today. I want to do some crock cookin' although all amazon reviews of crockpots seem quite daunting. It seems that most crock pots aren't slow cookers at all, and most will cook much faster than the said times. I'm not sure this would be a bad thing in my case. but still... angry bad reviews always make me wary.