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Wednesday, December 27, 2006

wrap-up

Wow. You guys are so awesome!! I was having a gloomy Christmas (not for any particular reason, just not in the spirit), and next thing I know everyone is calling, sending texts, and emailing. I hope everyone had a great holiday...you sure made mine.

Our move has been great, minus the king size mattress and washer/dryer mishaps. Turns out those things don't really like a tight stairwell. Nothing is broken (that we can tell), but the banister and walls sure got a few scars. Sadly, the builder didn't have cable lines run when the power and water were done, so it's going to be a while before I have TV or internet service. This means I can only blog from work (ugh) and I can't go randomly look up all the things that I think of at night. Very frustrating. Oh, and my digital camera is somewhere in a box with lots of good pics on it. I'll get to those....eventually. And will someone Tivo Heros, Gray's, The Office, Earl, Buffy, and Mythbusters for me? I'm gonna be soooo bored.



I've been thinking a lot about this year and the direction(s) I led myself in and what sort of things I accomplished (or didn't). So I looked back at my goals from earlier this year to see how I did.

1 & 2: I chose not to compete after all. It was a lot more stress and work than I was willing to handle. I still have some exercise goals, but being on stage isn't one of them any more.

3: I did reign in my yarn buying (ok, just in the last month), and now I only buy for specific projects instead of being tempted by gorgeous stuff just for the hell of it. I also have focused my attention on learning and perfecting some new skills, including Fair Isle, and mastering socks.

4: I did not set up a meditation ritual, but I have a plan for that in the new house.

5: We moved, got new jobs and bought a house. And grad school awaits in just two (!!) weeks. Mission accomplished.

Overall, this was a year of change, which is exactly what I was after. Some changes were very hard but necessary (giving up gaming), and some were easy (getting jobs and moving back home).

I'm going to spend the next few days outlining a list of goals for 2007, including knitting plans, running routes, school insanity, and job hunting.

Monday, December 18, 2006

truthiness

so i am incommunicato for 4 whole days and i come back to the very condensed version of some very old events courtesy of stacy, who was just supposed to say hi ya'll, etc.

this is what i get for granting creative license.

since stace gave the short-and-dirty version of events (all true), allow me to elaborate.

i did graduate high school with a 4.2 gpa. this is due mostly to taking all AP classes my senior year, followed by failing all the exams that would have let me exempt those classes in college. smart when required, not so good at the cumulative stuff. there is only so much room in my brain.

the ex-best friend story is all true, though i did try in vain to make amends. sometimes i say i'm sorry when it's not my fault, and i shouldn't have bothered, but we had been friends all through hs and at the time it seemed right. now i realize we had a very one-way friendship and i lost absolutely nothing except the cost of a dress. hands washed clean.

all the nicknames are right but she did miss one (or probably several). i earned 'hoover' my junior year of high school. there was more myth behind it than truth, and it actually came about during an acting class, but it kinda stuck among a certain crowd of guys. (don't they wish.)

and yes, i did 'dance' for about a year. i ran out of scholarship money the last semester of my senior year of college, and my dad encouraged me to go wait tables at a local club. that lasted all of about one shift and smart me realized that keeping the clothes on was not the fastest way to pay my very due bills. i talked to some of the girls, had a drink (or five), and went for it. the first club i worked at was one of the most fun times of my life. i made a metric shit ton of money, met a lot of fun (if slightly insane) people, indulged in my most favorite pasttimes (flirting with reckless abandon), and discovered that i could be really comfortable with my body and my sexuality while on display for drooling men who dig the girl next door. i worked at a few clubs after that while looking for a 'real job' once i graduated. my dad knew the whole time, but i only told my mom after i stopped dancing. she only had a minor coronary.

maybe someday i'll post a big long story about my experience. god knows there a lot to tell! drugs, wrongful attacks of fake boobs and the nipples trying to escape them, crazy clients, indecent proposals (ya'll know), etc.

i'm not sure what the pinata bashing incident is about, but i was probably drunk. i did get married on my lunch hour, to my current husband. we had a civil marriage at the court house a month before our wedding. it was a 'just us' sort of thing since weddings are really for everyone else.

p.s. we're almost totally moved in, and we LOVE the house. pics and final xmas knitting coming soon!

Thursday, December 14, 2006

We interrupt this blog for a hostile takeover.

Sorry to disappoint Mel's meager little readership, but she's currently indisposed and won't be writing any time soon. She's asked me to check in and do some updating for her, and I've gained creative license to blab all her dirty little secrets, or whatever I might decide to make up. Oh, and hi! I'm Stacy, longtime friend and chief secret-keeper.

I've also posted all the yarn she wanted to sell over at the Destash blog. If you like yarn, and I bet most of you do, go take a peek. The girl is not halting her knitting processes, but she is now on the verge of broke, what with the house buying and all, and wants to buy more yarn so she's selling stash that she won't be using. There's a lot up for sale. I think she might have some sort of yarn-buying disorder. Ya'll should make sure she's not sick or something. She's also real bad about making everyone around her learn to knit. She tried to teach me in March when we went to NYC, but it didn't really stick.

So, I bet you guys would just love some little secrets about our dear Mel. Let's see. In high school our girl was a bit of an overachiever. I think she graduated with a 4.2 or something close if I remember right. But she wasn't valedictorian. That prize went to her insanely bitchy ex-friend Melissa, who was not near as smart but she definitely worked hard I guess. Melissa showed her true colors when Mel got married the first time. Melissa was the maid-of-honor and threw an all out temper tantrum when Mel wanted to have actual living, breathing fun for her bachelorette party. She quit the wedding and I don't think they ever spoke again. In the meantime, I took her to an awesome male revue and we drooled over penises all night. Can I say penises here? Oh well.

In college, Mel's nicknames ran the gamut from Daley to Habib and Blueberry Muffin. One of her roommates gave her the Habib name when they were at a bar and she danced on a table to some song. Not long after that Mel did a little exotic dancing for real. I think her drinking had finally made her broke. She worked at the college during the day between classes and danced at night. And I'm not a lesbian or anything, but damn she could work it! And she has no shame whatsoever. All her roommates and everyone from her day job would come to see her. Ok I'm going to shut up about all that. Sorry Mel, don't kill me!

Oh yeah! The real reason I'm blogging for her is because she's moving into her house this week. It's really cute! But I'm pretty sure after this I won't be invited into the house or even to blog for her again. I'm sure she says hi to all you imaginary people. If you have her number, don't call or she might drop heavy furniture to answer. She's crazy like that.

Ok, now to find a way to dig myself out of this hole I've just created. Hey Mel, at least I didn't tell them about the pinata bashing, and that time you got married on your lunch hour!

Bye!!

S

Tuesday, December 05, 2006

i think i smell brains....

Wow so many things are happening at once right now that I can barely focus on any of it. I'm just head down, powering through and hoping there's some light when I look up again.

1. We close on the house tomorrow. I'm nervous, and giddy, and ready for it to be over already. Yes, the painters hate me. No, I don't care because they know I'm right. Yard work is done. Only some minor things remain (aside from the driveway) so we're closing anyway and holding money in escrow for those things.

2. I'm being advised next week for my first classes in grad school, and then I have to apply for loans. It's so bizarre because buying a house makes me feel all grown up, and going back to school makes me feel like a teenager again. I haven't done homework in eight years. I might hurt my cranium or something. Also, being this much in debt makes me feel like I might suffocate. Welcome to the American Dream.

3. Work is trying to dominate me in ways I'm not appreciating. Never really got into that whole S&M thing. But I can put on a good show. Ahem.

4. Knitting is my savior, my sanity, my freedom. I'm finishing the last hat tonight, along with finally finishing the first sleeve of the SKB. I just got so sick of that sweater and the sleeve's lace panels almost broke me, so I put it down for a while. Now I just want it off my needles. I've also started on Wendy's Drive Thru pattern as an 'extra' Christmas gift for my niece. She's tiny and the sweater is fast. I'm using KP's Swish, and it is so super soft that I don't even want to pick up anything else. There's definitely a sweater for myself in the works out of this stuff soon.

5. In my need to occasionally divert my thoughts (read: avoid some responsibility) I've found this game. I ditched gaming cold turkey about 6 months ago and I'm all the better for it (other than some wonderful people I miss). But, as a recovering addict, I know that the itch I feel to start spelling new words out of any text I'm given is just a thin layer of vaseline down that slippery slope. It's shocking that defeating an opponent with 'exacerbate' provides such a rush!! I'm a big fat nerd, and I'm ok. (And no, I'm not going back to any other kinds of gaming.)

Whew. Ok, I'm done. You may now return to your regularly scheduled life.