Blech. Scary Photo!

What a laggy blogger I am!  But I've been photo tagged.  I almost thought about pretending I didn't read this post from Sarah Said, but that would be cheating.  Here it is!  Friday, noon, my day off.  I'm sort of sick and was up all night, and am still in my jammies! 

I followed the rules exactly:

• Take a picture of yourself right now.
• No primping or preparing.
• Just snap a picture.
• Load the picture onto your blog.
• Tag some people to play along.

Well, except I'm not sure who to tag.  Maybe some of my favorite Ravelry blogs?  But they all blog about yarn.  Maybe I can photo tag their yarn, and some lovely pictures of yarn or projects will make me feel better...  

I think this gross feeling is existential as much as physical.  Working all these hours is killing me!  My room is a mess.  I'm a mess!  There is laundry everywhere... I haven't been to the gym in a month.  Yesterday, I slept through THREE alarms!  I've had no energy, and am feeling vaguely nauseated and achey all the time.  I think I need a good cleanse, and two days off in a row, to clean and exercise, rest, make a good meal.  To blog about yarn.  To knit!  To read!

  I am living off of caffeine, and it is no good.  Yesterday, I had, in order:

• 2 cups of coffee
  
• A bottle of Diet Coke
  
• A restaurant-size glass of Diet Coke
  
• A grande size cup of coffee
  
• Another glass of Diet Coke
  

My teeth are going to fall out.

Oh, No!

In this time of economic downturn, with blocks of foreclosed homes, vast unemployment, and businesses closing right and left, this may seem very petty, but I am so sad: Domino Magazine is shutting down!  Conde Nast publishers have cited poor advertisement revenue as the reason the magazine will no longer be in print.  

While the magazine has always carried high-end decor ideas and products (even in their "budget friendly" issues), I have always turned to this magazine for inspiration for my home (I've lived in nine different places since the first issue came out); I even bought every issue when I was living out of my car!  I think I have the first issue, and have saved every issue since, even if a few are missing pages I've torn out for collages (their photography is always gorgeous).  While I could never really afford any of the stuff in their spreads, I could always copy it really well.  With spray paint, new fabric, and some touches added from Lowes or Michaels, I could come close to some of their featured pieces.  They have featured an annual green issue, and always promote low-VOC paint, repurposed wood, and recycled flea-market antiques as viable options for decorating your home, and most of the designers and products they interview are independent.  Over the four years the magazine has been in print, many recent and current design and art-school grads have been featured, and the resulting boost to the careers of these designers is surely significant.  While the magazine is basically one big ad, the home set-ups are still inspiring, and fresh and modern, unlike most of the home decor magazines that aren't very relevant to many younger people.

Saving for grad school, and staying home so much more as a result, I am constantly looking for pieces in the magazine to copy.  I have always believed "home" is a place of activism and community, and the pages in Domino, while pretty consumerist, are great for sharing ideas that make that space open to entertaining, cooking, and just being.

Bullcrap, I say.  I'm sad. 

I Want It!

This may be the very best bracelet ever, next to my Jack Kerouac bracelet.  Same style-- lacquered images set into metal braces, with elastic cord in between, designed by Carolyn Forsman.  Seriously awesome.

It's kind of hard to see, but each one of these images is a cover of a banned book.  There is an adult version, with books like Howl, Go Ask Alice, and The Color Purple, and a children's version with Captain Underpants, King and King, and Blubber.  I found it while I was searching the ALA (American Library Association) website for scholarships.  That's right.  Spending money while I'm trying to earn it.  

Get it here, and support the ALA!

I've Got the Wanderin' Blues...

Last year, I had this job that provided room and board... except on the weekends.  And the weekends were glorious.  I lived out of my car.  I had a road atlas, and a campground guide with all the free campgrounds in California dogeared, a tiny little camp stove, a kick-ass Northface backpack, and water-proof boots.  Bottles of wine and bags of puffed brown rice cereal I had to move every week to keep the bears from can-opening my car.  And a lot of yarn and books.  All in the trunk of my car.But now I'm all responsible and stuff, with a normal job, and my own bed (which I hadn't slept on in a year and a half), electricity and continuous hot water (instead of the little bits I would warm up to wash my face).  Which is lovely.  But I'm going to post these pictures and mourn it a little bit.

OK.  I'm gonna mourn it a lot.    

NUM83R5

For an English major, my life seems to be more and more ruled by numbers.  I spent today filing my taxes; these are all of my W-2s (five), retirement accounts, student loans, and investment returns from 2008.

I thought my taxes from 2007 were crazy complicated, having worked for several non-profits, but those were nothing compared to this year!  Damn complicated.

There is my student loans; in preparation for grad. school, I consolidated my loans and in return, the federal government sent me a lovely pay schedule, with an estimated pay-off date, if I continue to pay the payment I'm making (which, granted, is tiny): April 31st, 2031!

Then there is grad. school: GRE minimum scores, actual GRE scores, application deadlines, application fees, projected tuition rates, cost of living, fellowship awards, fellowship application deadlines.

Numbers stress me out.  If I were from the Kingdom of Wisdom, I would live in Dictionopolis and very rarely travel.

Something is Very Wrong With Me...

I did it.  I frogged it.  I frogged the damned Frock Camisole.

Allow me to share two comments on this project from my Ravelry Project Page:

9/29/2008: ...This will be the first garment I knit that I won't frog, I swear! (For some reason, I knit tops, then frog them, a habit that stops here)...

10/28/2008: ...I am not sure why I am so darn determined not to frog this thing-- as I mentioned above, I have frogged whole tops just for not liking the drape!  I think it's the symbolic meaning of this top, which makes me feel-- contrary to what I normally feel when I have a mistake in my knitting-- very strong.  I am liking this idea of incorporating a "mistake" into the design of my work, instead of freaking out over one inconsistent stitch in that lovely seed stitch tank I made two years ago, which is now re-balled into a million balls of Lamb's Pride in my stash basket...

I suck.  This top, as these comments hint at, was supposed to be symbolic of starting anew, accepting the mistakes I make, and being at peace with them.  Nope.  No such luck.  It wasn't even just the mistakes with this top (there weren't even that many, just a change in the pattern).  After taking a break for some other knits, including my Christmas knits, I picked this top back up, and was just so frustrated and in such a funk, I decided to be done with it.  And now I am-- and I have a huge ball of 30% acrylic/70% cotton hanging out on top of my dresser, staring at me as I put my pajamas on, being like, "What, fool?  What now?"  

I don't know, yarn.  I just don't know.

Crafty Me

Oh, how sweet it is-- a day off, with no errands to run, nowhere to be!  

I decided to take a few pictures of the crafts and baking I have been doing over the last month, but haven't had a chance to post!

I made this earring holder in a couple of hours-- and it would have been less if it hadn't been raining, and the spray paint wasn't drying like... well.  Like paint drying.  I love the color-- it's a new color, Paprika-- and having all of my cute earrings out instead of jumbled in a box makes it easier for me to remember what I have.

Earring Holder

Frame, Goodwill: $2.00

Screen, OSH, 2 yrds.: $1.39

Dowels, OSH: $0.39

Spray Paint, OSH: $3.49

Total Cost: $7.27

I baked this cake from scratch, using this recipe from Family Circle.  Seriously-- this cake is one of the most beautiful I have ever made.  I wasn't crazy about the cake itself, though; it was really heavy, almost like a cheese-cake.  Everyone in my family loved it, though-- there wasn't a single piece left!

This rocking chair is one of the first major projects I took on since I moved back to Clovis.  I got the rocking chair from Sarah and John, when they moved out of their old apartment.  It was pretty badly broken at the join between the rocker and the chair, and the dowel keeping them together had snapped off and was stuck in the join.  They were going to through it away, but since I didn't have much to do, I thought I would make it a project.

It's totally fixed, with new woodscrews and a new dowel to reinforce the old broken join, with new foam padding on the seat, and new adorable birdie fabric.  I also had to do a little creative sanding, because some kitties who shall not be named had been nibbling away on the edges. This is the fabric I used; it's so stinkin' cute!  It's called "Bird Seed," and I love it to death.  JoAnn's has suddenly gotten kind of hip with their fabric choices.

Rocking Chair

Chair: Free (Thanks, Sarah and John!)

Woodscrews, Dowels, and Sandpaper: Free (just lying around the craft bin)

Spray Paint, Lowes: $2.50 (with 25% off coupon)

Foam: $8.99, JoAnn's

Fabric, 1 yrd.: $4.99

Total: $16.48

The Milkweed Project

There is a lovely collaborative art project germinating (hee, hee) over at Stitches and Sticks.  Shan is asking knitters and crocheters to make long swatches of knitting in white or off-white to construct a giant milkweed pod that gallery visitors can walk through.  Her concept is beautiful and just the thought of walking through a soft white pod of fluff makes me want to wrap myself in hugs.  If you are a stitcher, head on over to the site to volunteer.  Pass the info along to really get this thing in bloom!

I Wanna Be Your Fine and Feathered Friend...

And I want these tights to be it in...

What?  Why are they so adorable? And why are they thirty dollars?  There is no way I could wear these to work, what with all the crawling around on the floor I do.  Somebody take me to the symphony and I'll rock these.

Get 'em here.