Posts have been scarce, I know. I've been on Twitter a looot, since most things are just fleeting little thoughts. But in other news, there has been:
- A walk through town (where I bought an old book on the Johnstown flood! woo!).
- Lots of cooking (macaroni salad = awesome, potato salad still kind of a fail, no idea why).
- Paper Factory picnic, where everyone brought food, Tom kicked total ass at croquet, and a good time was had by all despite drizzy weather
- Lots of banners and invitations and things (some headaches, some awesome).
- Saw Iron Man 2 - though the highlight of that trip was probably DJ's usual insanity as we (Tom, me, DJ and his gf) had burgers at Red Robin afterwards.
- Mom's graduation from MCC up in Rochester - we made a day of it, tried out the Ethiopian place, finally made it to Niblack where I got spices, hung out with family. I worked on a pretty blue doily all through the usual ceremony speeches.
- Dad and Mel came down for a visit on the fourth, we wandered around town, I introduced them to Campi's pizza (which is amazing), hit up a farm stand, and ate whoopie pies in the town commons.

Finished a few crochet things - I have a new shirt, a new pull-over tank top, and several new doilies. Making a giant insane doily for Tom's grandma, who he'll visit soon. Worried about finishing a mobius wrap (in yummy bamboo yarn) because I'm not sure I have enough yarn left, aaand I was sent the wrong yarn twice before I got that one. Yarn! I won free yarn from Phat Fiber! I have no idea what I'm going to do with it yet, and since it's 99% wool I hardly want to even touch it right now, pretty as it is.

My coworkers are all having Tupperware parties - I was stuck working for the first two, but the third I get to go to, that'll be this Tuesday at Sam's. Sam's making food plans and I suspect it is going to be a very fun evening, despite Tom's comments. A coworker is also an Avon lady now, I just placed my first order through her last night. I love Avon's stuff, and I'm glad to help Ashley out while getting stuff I want. ;) (Plus, catalogs mean I can at least sort of trust color swatches, and better define exactly what shade of pale my skin is.)

I'm trying to do more art, because I feel twitchy when I don't, and depression sneaks up on me. (I had a very, very rough night earlier this week. Rationality never can overcome 1am insomniac insecurities.) I did some actual physical sketches last week while enjoying the summer sun... and wound up with a pretty little flower sketch I really like, as well as a ridiculous sunburn on my legs. ;p

It has been insaaaaanely hot this past week. 90s most days, and I live in a brick oven that does noooot cool down. Heat finally broke today, it's been raining and was supposed to only hit 77. (10am in the bedroom? still something like 88. blehhhh.) Humidity makes a cranky Melissa. And there have been far more migraines than I've had in awhile. Heat has also thrown a serious monkeywrench into my newly-attempted exercise routine.

My plants keep dying and I don't know why. (This was before the heat wave.) Some kind of little gnat-like bug got into them, and when I took my mint outside to attempt some resuscitation, I found there were little cobwebs all around the stem! booo. My passion flower and sugar plant are still doing amazing though, and what I assume is a forget-me-not (it's a very different flower from the one I'd expected, but still similar) is blooming away happily.

Tom has all kinds of vacation time he needs to take asap, so he'll be off for nearly two weeks starting... sometime next week. He's planning on some serious immersion-time in his 3D modeling... and I'm hoping he sticks with it, because if he paws at me for attention all morning every morning before I go in to work, I am never going to get anything done.

Counting down the days 'til our trip to Florida for the Star Wars convention! woo! (Though this also means Tom has been on my back for a week and a half about making ABSOLUTELY OH GOD CERTAIN that our hotel reservations are, in fact, reservations, even though they haven't charged me any money yet. They have my credit card number on hold as a deposit, if I cancel I will be charged $70-something. The actual bill is paid at the end of your hotel stay. I know this. Tom is not reassured because he's convinced that, because I'm a scatterbrain about a lot of things, I'm a scatterbrain about EVERYTHING. Sooo, I have sent emails to three places now, trying to get 100% confirmation that will satisfy even Mr. Travelling Paranoid.)

...I did not mean for that to be a mini-rant, but, really, it feels damn good to get that off my chest. ha.

Next post: new wallpaper!

Labels: being social, cooking, crochet, drawing, family, friends, griping, life in general, navelgaze, plants, travel, work

 
Links before I forget:

Chili Beef Pie with Biscuit Crust - was dinner tonight. AWESOME. Tom was raving. And really impressed that it was (mostly) from scratch. I generally followed the recipe, but threw in extra spices. Also dumped in some leftover ranch-seasoned rice that was in the fridge.

Cake Pan Size Conversions. THE ULTIMATE LIST. This thing is AWESOME. It might actually motivate me to finally break down and buy a new ink cartridge for my printer, so I can print and keep this by my cookbooks. (Orrrr now that I have the link easily accessible, I can print it out at work for ten cents. ;p) The above recipe called for a 9- 10-inch deep dish pie pan. Who in heck has THAT?! What IS that?! Oh look! An 8x8 or 9x9 square pan! I have one of those! (Which one, I will probably never be entirely sure.) Oh look! A 9x5 pan! I have a glass one of those which will clean (comparatively) easy!


In other news... I had a funny customer story but I don't remember which it was right now. uhm. Last week was all about wedding/bridal shower invitations. This past week has been farmer's market/craft fair people remembering they need signage for the summer. It's been a good mix.

I am making a doily! A real one! That I'm actually going to finish!
...I'm aware that I have gauge-issues, but I'm still fairly astonished that this might well be 2" SMALLER than it should be. It's already thread! (Size 10, which, as thread goes, is not insane, but still.) I'm already using a steel hook! (A 6, which, again, not insane, but, we're still talking like under 2mm here.) Blocking is going to help somewhat, and I don't think I took into account the fact that I had a whole round of triple-crochet stitches to do, but, still. This is ridiculous.

I have some pretty blue thread being shipped to me, as well as a booklet with more complicated doilies if I feel ambitious. Currently, I'm working from a pdf booklet of "5-hour doilies", which is just about right for me. Couple days of on-and-off work, and half of it was finished at Tim Horton's over breakfast this morning. It's only 12 rounds, only getting up to... eh, 100-some stitches around at this point.

Though they are INSANELY tiny stitches - which are probably my favorite kind. They just look so impressive! (And apparently I am fantastic at making them TINY. good lord.)

A very sweet littleoldlady came up to me at Tim Horton's this morning and told me how much she was enjoying watching me crochet there. :) She crochets as well, including doilies - I told her this was my first one, and she complimented it. :) She even asked if I've done broomstick lace! I was under the impression that was still a tiny-niche thing! Maybe it's just that it's recently making a come-back, and was a little less obscure in years past. ...I have not tried it yet, but there are patterns in some of my books and magazines, and it *is* really pretty. I'm just wary of anything that requires more than one stick. ;p

...I am done typing. I have some things to finish upstairs, aaaaand I need to decide what to do about my creme brulee. (Do not be impressed - it is from a box. A cheap box, at that.) I do not have the proper torch. The box says to broil in oven. My dishes do not want to be subjected to broil. While on the phone with Mom, Steve (who is way more cooking expert than I am) said nooooo way would broil get the nice crunchy brown top I'm supposed to get anyway. hmmmm.

Time to let Tom decide, this was HIS idea! XP

Labels: cooking, crochet, life in general, printshop, reference, storytime

 
- Grandparents stopped by for awhile this afternoon, and it was a really nice little visit. They'd been visiting family in Cassadaga, and took Tom and I out for lunch. Grandpa seemed to be doing really well, which made me happy.

- Tom and I.. well, actually, mostly Tom, super-cleaned the apartment today. I picked up a few things, then started washing dishes. While I was doing that, and then cleaning the sink and table, Tom picked up the living room, swept, vacuumed the one carpet in the apartment, and even attempted mopping the kitchen floor (which he got annoyed with after about five minutes and quit). It looks so pretty. The re-arranging we did awhile ago really made a big difference down here, and we've been really trying to keep boxes and things from piling up in the living area. (Thus, the spare room.. well, hey, no-one needs to go in there anyway, right?) So within an hour everything looked awesome, and it makes me really happy.

- Heading over to coworker Samantha's place for a small (I think) party later tonight. I'm hoping to talk Tom into coming, but I don't think it's going to happen. Sam is one of my favorite people on the planet, so though I'm not usually a going-out-places person, she never has to twist my arm very far. I'm going to try out Heidi's artichoke dip to bring with me. I have yet to make a dip recipe that really works, but this seems fairly fool-proof. While I was getting ready to make a quick run to the store (QUALITY IS GOING TO CLOSE SOON! NOOOOOO!!!) to pick up the ingredients, Tom came downstairs. He was both bored (as noted in a previous post this afternoon) and hungry. But not hungry enough to make himself something. I took pity on him and flipped through some recipes, and realized I had most of the stuff on-hand for:

- Polish Style Lasagna. Which tastes exactly like pierogies - but without the serious hassle of having to make buttloads of little pierogies. And who doesn't have random extra lasagna noodles laying around? (At least I assume other people have this problem? that you always think you'll need a full box to make lasagna, and you only use half or two-thirds, and then you have some left, and then the next time you go to make lasagna, you still think you'll need a full box...) It is definitely important to add cheese to this - I grated some sharp cheddar onto each layer. I also threw a few green onions, garlic and paprika in with the potatoes, then threw smoked paprika and parsley on top when it came out of the oven. Tom pouted to find there was no sour cream to dump on top - which would have been a plus, but I think it's perfectly good without. (So does he, given the fact that the silly thing's about a third gone now.) Definitely a keeper recipe, pierogi-flavor is seriously addicting.

- And, as mentioned, my Quality Markets (the grocery store that is a three-minute walk from my apartment) is going to close, for real this time, and I am really, REALLY sad. Tops recently bought them out, and for awhile it looked like they were going to keep it open - just stocking the Tops store brand rather than the Quality store brand, that sort of thing. Buuuut, when I went in today, there were signs all over for an upcoming EVERYTHING ON SALE STORE CLOSING, and I overheard a cashier say they were going to be open maybe another month. I am heartbroken. Largely for the convenience-factor - it was so wonderful having something right there when I just needed one more onion for a recipe, or ran out of coriander unexpectedly, or whatever. Also, their bread was cheaper than Tops. Tops is still not far away - I think it takes barely ten minutes on my bike to get there. But it's far enough that I would not be able to get a jug of milk home without issues. sigh.

- Whittling is harder than I remember it being. I wanted to get a little twig to use as a fastener for my little mohair sweater-let (which I will post a pic of one of these days). I've been using an antique stick-pin (from the family hand-me-down stash of random jewelry bits from the shop my great-grandfather once owned), buuut, I get a bit nervous about having this three-inch long sharp thing on me. And I finally poked myself with it today. So, picture in pattern book showed a little twig holding the sweater together, which I thought looked cute. I thought, well, I can get a little twig, and then maybe carve a little spiral into it, that will be easy, right?

Yeah no. It probably doesn't help that my twig is from a shrub, not really a tree, so it was a bit weak. Also, it was small. And my random little jackknife has been floating around in my stuff for probably fifteen years without being sharpened ever. Got the bark off, smoothed out the knots, and tried tracing a little line.. and it just looked awful lmao. So, I am leaving it as a little bare twig. Pretty much anything will hold lacy mohair together, so I'll test it out tonight.

Labels: art, being social, cooking, crochet, family, friends, life in general

 


Bwahahaha I have noooooo idea how much of this teeny-tiny detailing is going to print, and I'm just praying the text will be readable. Probably not. Oh well. I LIKE IT. A freaking lot.

(Obviously the reduced-size jpg that you internet viewers get to see is not as sharp, and certainly not really legible. But you get the general idea of it. I'm so in love.)

Labels: art, crochet, photos, photoshop

 
Yes I signed up for Twitter.

Mainly because I wanted to try and snap up a Phat Fiber sampler box (which I did! successfully! barely! holy CRAP they sell out in under a minute!), and I thought there might be notes on their twitter feed. (There weren't. But they were on-time with the sale, as per their email list.)

Also because Mary Beth Temple, of Getting Loopy podcast fame, is always talking about the conversations the crochet people are having on twitter, and I felt nosy.

We shall see. I'll play for awhile. I suspect it will be my doom come NaNoNovember again.


...meanwhile, I am playing in Photoshop. I've been toying with the idea of making some kind of record of my crochet projects. 1) I want to show off what I've made, which I might do via flickr. 2) It's hard enough to give things away, I need to have pictures of everything. 3) I've made enough stuff now that I'm going to stop being able to keep all the info in my head (where the pattern is from, what yarn I used - which is probably most important so I know what I can machine-wash and what I can't!).

But taking photos and uploading them is seriously, seriously boring. And I realized 95% of my digital creative output this year has been in CorelDraw, at work. Which I've grown to love, I admit, but... I feel like I've been neglecting Photoshop. Which is my onetrueluv!1!.

So I am playing, and it is looking seriously awesome. Plan is to print it out on the nice sharp color copier at work one of these days, and get a scrapbook/binder another one of these days. Playing with paper and glue is very fun, but, so is doing it without the mess.

Labels: art, being social, crochet, photoshop, technology

 
Hmm, it's been awhile since I posted. Life has consisted of, as usual, work and cooking and crocheting.

Easter dinner came together pretty well. The ham... uh, wound up WAY more tender than expected, which took Tom aback a bit. Leftovers were stunning though. Saffron also failed to impress our tastebuds, oddly. But in the days following, I found the flavors in the muffins got way, way better. The original yeast bread construction would be really, really good.

Work is busy, but mostly happily so. There's the usual bouts of drama with high school kids having no work ethic, but thanks to them being idiotic enough to post on Facebook during their work shift (not on break, but when they go to "get a drink" six times during the evening), the boss is cracking down. (Lord knows they don't listen to me and Ashley, though they should. More so with her than me, I'm getting better but am still not mean enough, I think.) APART from that... I have alllll kinds of print work lately. Banners, yes, but in the past week I've also done... notecards for local artist Ronnie Lafferty (whose new work I absolutely love), fairly boring wedding invitations, RSVP cards to go with them, two different business cards, shelf labels for the store, a flyer for our upcoming MS benefit... actually that was pretty much just Saturday and Monday lol.

Anyway, I need to keep this brief - I should make another batch of ham salad this morning, since Tom polished off the... second? third? batch yesterday. (This was my base recipe, but I've been tweaking amounts as I go, using the delicious Gulden's mustard, and throwing in tiny bits of celery. It is AMAZING. Like way more so than it should be. It's so addicting to eat.

Really posting because I have a small backlog of accomplishments to show off. :)

These are the handwarmers I made Mom - they were one of my many belated Christmas gifts this year. ^^;; Couldn't post with the rest because I hadn't given them to her yet - but they came out really, really cute. Wasn't quite the shade of blue trim I'd had in mind, but I was really happy with the result. They are SUPER cozy.



Belated Christmas gifts for Grandma and Grandpa: a market bag for Grandma, and throw blanket for Grandpa. I have made... five? of these bags so far, it's such a great pattern. Now that it's nicer out, I've been using mine again, and it's so wonderfully sturdy. Made one for Mom and Steve in all organic, undyed cottons too.


The blanket was NOT easy to pack up and send away, it is SO snuggly and warm and soft. Knit Picks' City Tweed yarn, which is merino and alpaca and donegal tweed. The alpaca keeps it from being as heavy as it otherwise would be. Not the colors I'd originally planned, since the dark gray was out of stock, but once I started on it, I was really really happy with the colors. And I'd wanted to make something really nice for Grandpa - he's usually so hard to think of gifts for, so I had no problem splurging a bit on the yarn for his gift.


SOCKS! I finally picked up the socks I started months ago, and plugged away until I finished them. Because I reallyreally wanted to wear them. They are incredibly warm and awesome looking. Unfortunately, I had no idea I was going to feel the stitches so much while walking... I didn't notice after awhile though, and I have a hunch a few washings might lessen it? Anyway, I am insanely proud of them - proudest of the stitches no-one sees though, the teeny-tiny things that make up the heel and sole.



I also dyed my hair red again. And finished an awesome little hat a few weeks ago - Tom refuses to like the hat, but I adore it, and I've had enough compliments from people who did not need to compliment it that I'm satisfied it really is cute. ;)


And then today, I finally finished the shawl I've been working on for about a week. I didn't think it was going to take quite so long (had thought I could wear it by the end of last week)... but, uh, making a big giant 48" circle means that each round goes slooower and slower. 800-some stitches in the final round. X_x;; (Which didn't actually take me long, no more than like two hours - hooray for being good enough at this now that I can speeeeed through single crochet stitches!) As you can see... I need to buy more blocking mats. Here's hoping pinning into a towel works well enough...


Really, though, for as awesomely lacy as it looks, it could have taken another week and I'd have been happy. This is exactly the kind of thing I learned crochet in order to make. :) My next few patterns are going to be lacier things as well, which has me very excited. For as complex as it looks, it's really just brilliant combinations of really simple stitches. And it's all so darn pretty. <3

Labels: cooking, crochet, life in general, photos, printshop, work

 
Polishing off the picture-post:


Birthday present from Tom. I freaking adore this necklace. Silver-colored metal wing, copper disc, and actual little watch mechanism in the middle. It matches half my wardrobe, and it was all I could manage to not *quite* wear it every single day for two weeks after my birthday. There's also a matching pin, that has a little jade stone instead of the watch parts.


How pretty is this pattern?? Scarf I made Beth for Christmas, though it was late January by the time I finished it. Alpaca-silk-wool blend, I think. Probably not sturdy enough to handle me wearing it every day, but that's because I'm a spazz.


Yes it is basically that long. My coworker Lucas requested a ridiculously bright rainbow scarf. Draped around my neck, the thing went just past my knees. It is superbright. He loved it, and I freaking loved making it. (Tom had enough issues with that much color being in one spot, I don't think he could deal with me having a(nother) rainbow article of clothing.)


Soooo guess who's incapable of taking straight photos? oh me. But it's our bookcase!!! Hooray! Unfortunately, it wound up being even MORE crammed full than that. While re-doing the smaller bookshelf, I found... two? three? more boxes of books laying around. So the *entire* second-to-bottom shelf is now books stacked vertically instead of running horizontally... and I still had to add a few things to the bin upstairs. I honestly could fill another one of these... and that's still not even touching Tom's ginormous unliftable box of Star Wars books. But we have that whole little section all re-arranged now, and the couch is where Tom wants it, and everything over there is all nice and neat.

Note that there are no pictures of my computer desk area. ^^;; It's still a little scary. But! When tax refunds arrive, I am NOT going yarn shopping. I am going organizing-shopping. I am going to get an actual little drawer-thing of some sort for all my various ribbon paint fabric beads brushes scrapbooking thread pastels etc etc etc., so it will be organized AND accessible. It's not terribly unorganized right now, but, I have to move boxes to get to other boxes and then move everything around again when I'm done, and it's just not fun. Also I keep finding more spools of ribbon, and the box they're supposed to be in is at the bottom of a pile, etc.

The yarn... I'm still unsure about. What I WANT, is something like this:

Okay maybe not eating up *quite* so much wall, but I've seen setups like that in table-sizes, where the top of the bin becomes counterspace, say, for doing art on. But I love the diagonal bins. This is not, I'm sure, practical in my current living space. For now, I have... well, three baskets of yarn that Tom is aware of. I think he's figured out that the boxes beside the desk are largely yarn and yarn supplies as well. Pretty sure he's still in the dark about the whole basket of cotton yarn in the bedroom, which is for the best.

I really don't think a drawer setup is going to work for the yarn. I really like the baskets, but Tom doesn't like seeing all that yarn, while I love looking at all the pretty colors. I'll have to keep thinking on that one.


THAT ASIDE...

I have to stop there with the pictures anyway, because the only ones I have left are belated Christmas gifts that I have not given to their recipients yet, so they're still kindofsortof secrets. The snow down here is currently UP TO MY KNEES, so I may have to wind up doing another post office run, rather than wait until I physically see people. boo.

Labels: apartment, art, crochet, life in general, photos

 
Massive picture post! Finally got all the pictures off my camera... and they do date back quite a ways. But they're all nice and organized on my harddrive now, so here are some favorites. :)


Black locust trees in bloom. One of my favorite things in the world - they're gorgeous, the smell is absolutely stunning, and the flowers are such a lovely contrast to such a dark and moody looking tree.



The new outfit I crocheted during the summer for good ol' Hannah, the Cabbage Patch doll I've had since I was a year old. Based on a pattern from somewhere, changed the colors and made some tweaks to make it fit better.



Braintree Maze Afghan, made for Brian as a belated wedding gift. Still in love with the colors. :)



We made this banner. This is the beastly thing I complained about alllll summer long. Chad came up with the design, the printer cut out all the letters, and Ashley and I spent A WEEK applying those giant vinyl letters all by hand. aaaaaaargh I feel exhausted just thinking about it still. (Note: This is about the same size as any of the other across-the-road banners I've complained about.)



I just love the colors in this shot. :) This is the blanket I made Tom for his chair, so he didn't stick to it so much in the summer, and could snuggle in during the winter. Based on a pattern from Lion Brand (though some resizing was needed, given that it was a baby blanket lmao), recycled cotton yarn.



I was so happy to get the sizing on it just right. :)



My little baby pumpkin! I honestly didn't feel the need to decorate it, it was such a cute little thing all by itself. (Maybe six inches or so.)



Fall makes for such gorgeous pictures out here. :)



Maple leaves. <3



Are these colors not ridiculous?! No picture or words can do justice to the colors I saw this fall - I looked out one bedroom window into a vast pile of molten gold, looked out the other into a flame of sheer scarlet.



Twinkie sushi!!! The first batch I made, for Halloween - I made it again a few weeks later for a PF-related party. Pictures can't do it justice, the yellow of the Twinkie, bright bits of fruit, and vivid teal of fruit roll-up. Ridiculously delicious. (Kel, I can never thank you enough for the cookbook. XD)



Close-up of the shawl I made Tom's grandma for Christmas. Sooo snuggly and gorgeous, the colors are lovely.



Boteh scarf I made for Tom's mom for Christmas. I found yarn dyed with all natural plant dyes! And the pattern turned out gorgeous, I have a hunch I'll be doing this one again. Unfortunately I failed to get a good photo of the scarf I made my mom, the colors in my shots are really off... Mom, you'll have to post a pic of you wearing it. :)



Tom wearing the hat I made him for Christmas! (He only looks that cranky because I was taking a picture. He wears it like every day now that it's cold out. yay.)



Christmas tree! Showing off a new ornament, alongside some older ones. <3



Pictures of myself = fail. This is a compromise on a not-awful shot of me and a not-awful shot of my hat. The pattern I was following for this and Tom's had three variations of the same basic hat, so I did different variants and different colors... unfortunately, it still feels a little matchy-matchy to Tom and annoys him. But I think he takes far more issue with the earflaps. Which keep me AMAZINGLY WARM in this frigid place so I refuse to care. :)


A few more to post, but the chicken parmesan is ready and I need to go eat it. <333

Labels: cooking, crochet, life in general, photos, plants, printshop, work

 
Superbowl food menu:
- Pepperoni pizza from Blasdell, because Tom was starving.
- Chicken Wings by Tom - started out with a recipe, but he decided to wing the ingredient amounts. Largely bbq sauce and honey, everything in the slow cooker. meat LITERALLY fell off the bones. absolutely delicious.
- Chicken and Peach Wontons - because I'm a sucker for wontons, and wanted something a little different. These were pretty delicious, a little heavier filling than I'm used to, but very good. Tom wasn't keen on, but that was okay. Frying in a giant pot instead of a giant pan = win.
- Sausage Jalapeno Poppers - Halved this one, and glad I did, since it ended up being just Tom and I for Superbowl-watching. These would have been better if I'd broiled or something for a few minutes, and gotten more of the grease off the bacon. Filling wasn't quite as awesome as anticipated, but these were still good. Wearing plastic gloves while hacking up pappers = win.
- Smoky Cheese Ball - It was an *insanely* close call for Tom, which food was best, the cheese or the wings. The wings won only because it was football food. This silly thing is DELICIOUS. And huge. Made it with smoked gouda, coated with pecans, and it's all so sweet and creamy, and was ridiculously simple to make. I don't know why I thought it would be difficult, but, holy cow, it's awesome. And despite the fact that Tom keeps eating chunks of it at a time, totally bypassing crackers, we'll still be eating it for a week.
- Drinks were some Smirnoff ice and Coke + vanilla rum and Coke + lemon vodka.

Unfortunately, I wound up with a migraine not far into the evening (I blame the bad light in the basement at work, where I'd spent six and a half hours that day), so I didn't get to enjoy everything a whole lot. It didn't get bad until a little ways into the game, so I still got to munch and things, and keeping a hot cornbag on my head and neck meant I got to stay around and enjoy somewhat at least.

~ ~

What else is new...

I made a giant batch of chili (based on the classic BHG cookbook's recipe, but with spices according to my own tastes - smoked paprika for the win!) a week or two ago, and Tom had to admit that good food CAN come out of a slow-cooker. (He was a little traumatized when his mom got obsessive with hers for awhile during his childhood.)

~ ~

We have been SUPER-cleaning. I had one of my totally arbitrary breakdowns a few weeks ago, and couldn't deal with the mess in the apartment. So Tom proposed the reasonable plan of tackling a different little section every day that we could. That worked wonders. We had a day off together, and went to freaking town around the couch. The result? I'll have a picture later because I'm obsessively happy - WE HAVE A BOOKSHELF!!!!! I had books sitting in crates and boxes alllll down the living room wall, and it was madness. WalMart is awesome for cheap furniture, so $45 got us a bookshelf that is taller than I am, *and* a littler one to hold movies. It's so exciting. Only trouble is...our books don't all fit lmao. Tom has ONE shelf. His mega-box of Star Wars books is a project for another time. There are like two shelves of all my antique books. One shelf has my giant U2 books and old textbooks and things. One has other random stuff. There's a smaller bookshelf (like three, four feet high.. the kind of thing that's all most people need) that holds a lot of my other random books, and a little freestanding thing that I discovered I can put things back-to-back, and hold both my manga and often-reread things like Madeline L'Engle, The Dark is Rising, etc. There is also a crate upstairs of Choose Your Own Adventure books and other things that I'm not sure count as real books.

We have a buttload of books. I cannot wait to own a house, so I can have a library. If we have this many when we're still semi-poor recently-college-kids...

Side note: Our movies didn't all fit either. One shelf for me, one shelf for Tom, one shelf for vhs. The vhs (almost all mine) are arranged two-deep. The other shelves have a bit of space, since I put the four seasons of Futurama and assorted amounts of seasons of Battlestar Galactica, Babylon 5, Monkees, Jem, etc., on top of the bookshelf. We actually physically own a lot more movies than I think either of us realized.. we honestly don't buy all that many right now. (And yet, we own Road Warrior on Bluray. sigh.)

On another media-note: Tom was unaware that my whole little rubbermaid cabinet is filled with cassette tapes. It's probably best that he's also unaware of just how many records I have stashed back home somewhere. The three-and-a-half towers of cds terrify him enough.

~ ~

Books! I finally got around to reading Mel's story, since she sent me a .txt which I could put on the Kindle. While that may have contributed to it feeling like a real book to me...it's also pretty amazing. You will say I am biased, and I might well be, but it honestly sucked me right in. Couldn't put the silly thing down whenever I picked it up. I'm going to help her super-edit and fix some random wording issues, but, I'm so freaking proud that my little sister wrote the thing. If I'd bought the thing at a bookstore (once an editor fixed the "its" issue!), and paid money for it, I would have been happy to have it on my bookshelf. :)

~ ~

Katie and Jane came down to visit.. a week ago? ish? It was really great to see them, it had been way longer than I'd realized. They both seem to be doing really well, which makes me happy. :)

In other social news, Tom and I went to a party at DJ's, and got to feel all special... because DJ wound up spending most of his time talking to the two of us. Like Tom's ego needs any more inflation lol. But it was interesting... since Tom only knew one or two other people, and I didn't know anyone, we people-watched, and it was amazing how well Tom could analyze peoples' relationships. For as much as he claims to dislike people in general, he's insanely good at understanding them. His and DJ's readings can be a liiiittle bit off when they're looking at the other gender, but, well, that's where I came in. It all reminded me so much of those days back in junior high, high school, where we'd sit around Elizabeth's basement and "psychoanalyze" every boy we even remotely had crushes on. <3

~ ~

Still crocheting. Made my first money from it!!! woo!!! My coworker Luke requested a giant rainbow scarf, which I was more than happy to make. :) Finally nearly done with the hat I'm making for Sue Mac - she saw mine and loved it, so we picked out some colors to match her coat, and it's looking awesome. I love having the knowledge to make things work for people - like, Luke just wanted bright colors. So I picked out some yarn that was cheap but also wool, and made sure he didn't mind not being able to throw it in the washing machine. Mac, meanwhile, knew she wanted machine-washable, and when I showed her some color swatches in my trusty Knit Picks catalog, she totally picked out the exact colors I'd been thinking for her. :)

I am also semi-working-on slippers for Tom, at long last. I have a much-worn copy of "The Happy Hooker", which was my very first crochet book, a gift from Shannon. In it, there is a pattern that she actually wrote, for adult-size fuzzy bunny slippers. They're adorable. More importantly, I actually totally understand their construction, and could figure out how to make them man-sized. I pestered Shannon about the yarn (the book calls for expensive yarn, which I was not going to waste on boy-feet; turns out, Shannon originally used cheap yarn, yay!). A trip to WalMart turned up Lion Brand's Hometown USA, which is actually a super-bulky yarn. It is HUGE. And very cushy. And acrylic, so I can wash them without having to handle things that have been on boy-feet. This yarn is SO much bigger than what the pattern uses, that I ended up not having to increase the size at all - I'm just working with a way bigger yarn, way bigger hook, and actually leaving off a row or two here and there, and voila! Big enough for Tom!

Also, super-bulky yarn? Works up SO. FREAKING. FAST. In like half an hour, an hour, I had the sole of a slipper done, and that's including time spent waiting for Tom to reach a stopping-point in his game so I could compare my giant oval of yarn to his foot.

~ ~

I need to shower. And probably do laundry. I'm so not motivated to go out into the cold. I got through most of my taxes today, and finished Mel's story, that's some accomplishment for the day... If I'm really ambitious, you may start seeing all the photos I have taken since I last plugged the camera into my computer. That appears to have been April or May.

Labels: apartment, being social, books, cooking, crochet, family, friends, life in general, movies, music, writing

 
Halloween season is craziness, but it's fun anyway. Costume days are awesome. Today was supposed to be pirate day, so I walked in with a black'n'white striped tank top under my tattered-ruffled black jacket, dark chain necklace full of crosses and coins, and a pirate hat.

Behind the front registers were a whole swarm of Disney princesses.

...fortunately, one of my bosses was a pirate, and everybody else was whatever they felt like. I snagged one of the rental pirate costumes, and added some bits: a purple'n'black striped corset (striped the opposite direction that my tank top was, but it still worked somehow), purple'n'black striped head scarf, aaaand the most amazing skirt EVER, which I forgot we had. Long, black, with chunks of lace, mesh, and solid fabric all patchworked together, with a jagged-edged bottom. Awesome.

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Since everyone else at the store has been bringing in cookies like every week, I figured I'd chip in. Last night, I spotted a recipe for Spooky Witches Fingers, and decided THAT WAS IT OMFG. So I made a whole stack of them, skipping the green food coloring (used a bit of whole wheat flour in with the generic stuff, which made it a bit more fleshy-looking), and used the raspberry jam route instead of the red icing (since that meant assembly happened all at once). They looked AMAZING - and tasted surprisingly delicious! (Probably helps that I always throw in more vanilla than is called for...the real stuff isn't usually in my budget, I figure the fake stuff is probably a bit less potent.) Everyone at work was spazzing over them, Ann especially, and Mac asked for the recipe. YAY I win.

...though more of a win is the real food I made yesterday. This Apple-Sausage Rigatoni? Amaaaaaaazing. I'm on such a fall-food binge. I sifted through some soup recipes over on Better Homes & Gardens' site tonight, and I have a good dozen to try (with a few of Heidi's in there too). I should probably find out what kind of soups Tom likes... (Not that it will hinder my soup-making. Tom eats fast food half the time anyway, when left to his own devices. I will eat my soup.)

I also tried some wine biscuits, out of my King Arthur cookie bible, but I'm not entirely satisfied with the results. They'd be better more biscotti-like than mine turned out, and I think there may actually be too much wine(!?!) in them. May also be that the red wine I had was a smidge strong - drinkable for me, but not all that great, which is why I was willing to part with half a cup for cookies. Also...they are NOT pretty little cookies. They didn't puff up or round out aaaany in the baking, so they're the same ugly little scraggly lumps they began as. (One of these days, I will pay attention to how baking soda/baking powder/eggs make things puff up/not puff up, and to what degree.) Also they are a tanned purple in color, which is disconcerting.

In other cooking news: we had an AMAZING dinner...last Monday? Monday before? whenever I last worked 9-5, and Tom didn't work at all. We thought we'd take advantage of having a normal human being evening, and actually have a nice sit-down dinner. I'd been trying to think of a main course to suit the little red potatoes I'd picked up, and had been a bit stuck. Tom has been talking steak fairly often lately. He didn't see the sort of steak he'd had in mind when we went to Tops for supplies, but, we wound up with a pretty awesome menu:

- mixed baby greens salad (which Tom wrinkled his nose at, because the leaves still had stems! oh horror! ..it was insanely delicious)
- Garlic Red Potatoes
- steak, with blue cheese on top, wrapped in bacon (which I'm pretty sure has an actual name, but Tom forbids me to look into this, since he wants to be able to claim credit for inventing it)
- really, really delicious dry red wine (yay! we're grown up enough to like (the occasional) dry red wine!)

...the potatoes, despite cooking for absolutely ages, were a smidge under-done. The steak, despite Tom's constant poking, was a smidge over-done. Didn't really matter a bit. :)

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What else is new... I went to the hospital, at the family planning clinic nurse's suggestion, and got a thyroid test taken. The day I was going to call the clinic to find out the results...I got my bill in the mail. x_x Which means I need to start figuring out how to get it paid for - the clinic said they'd be covering it, but I'm not sure how to make the paperwork know that. At which point I remembered that I canNOT, not, EVER, navigate the phone directory for the clinic. The options make no sense, I can't ever figure out which extension I'm supposed to be heading toward. Last time I wound up calling into what I think was child protective services...which is obviously not what I was looking for. (Note: this is NOT just me. A coworker assured me that she has the same problem every time she calls.) So, I'm thinking Monday morning, since I am not working, I'll gather up all my paperwork and troop down to the clinic, and ask them what I'm supposed to be doing - and ask them what the heck my thyroid is up to.

...as much as I enjoy being a generally healthy person, there's a bit of me that almost hopes there *is* something off with my thyroid. It would explain a lot of the random issues I have, including the fact that I'm always so damn tired. (Eight hours of sleep last night, probably more like nine. Alarm at 11:20 yanked me from a DEEP, deep sleep, smack in the middle of a dream, and I had to battle all morning to keep moving.) Plus the spotting (so far continuing, despite the new birth control), and the migraines (which may be linked to female cycles - I'm diligently plotting every weird thing that might possibly be related to hormones on my calender now, to see what correlations there might be). wheeee.

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I'd forgotten how freaking fast I read. I've been doing audiobooks for ages, but going through L.M. Montgomery's Anne books...there are several Librivox hasn't done yet. So, thank you Project Gutenberg - both the general and Australian sites, I snagged .txt versions of the books I needed. Flung them onto Tom's Kindle, and discovered that the sucker really *is* great for reading on. The screen does not glow, so there's no eyeball issues. Battery life is insanity (I haven't plugged it back in for like two whole books, and it's still only half down). Text size is ADJUSTABLE - so it's tiny and there's lots to a page when I'm reading normally, and I can make it bigger when I'm reading while crocheting (yes this is possible - sick, but possible) or washing dishes (shhh don't tell Tom I had it near water!). The other plus? YOU DON'T HAVE TO HOLD THE BOOK OPEN!!! I'd never even thought of that, until I started flying through the Anne books. All my actual, physical L.M. Montgomery are those little travel-sized 5x7-ish paperbacks that are like two inches thick. And they are SUCH a pain to hold open, whether you're trying to pin it under something, or using your hand, it just *hurts*. Kindle? Flat. Tap the side to turn the page. (Can tap on EITHER side to turn the page forward, even.)

Anyway, commercial aside... I remember when I first read Anne of Green Gables. Pretty sure it was when I had chicken pox in third grade. I'd always put off reading it, because the print was the tiiiiniest I'd ever seen in my life, and it was a really thick book. Chicken pox gave me a lot of time on my hands. This time around? I think some of the later books are shorter, but, honestly, maybe two days, and that was with maybe half a day of solid reading, mainly just the four hours between me getting home and Tom coming home.

So I'm audiobooking the last original Anne book (looks like there's a compilation that was published after her death, which doesn't seem to be public domain yet), but I wanted to get some more things to *read*. I had a few things sitting around on my computer, and I've a few more things in mind. I'm trying to ingest anything that might possibly inspire ideas for NaNoWriMo next month - so, ghost stories, maybe some religious things, anything set in gardens, Victorian-era things, and the cozy sort of girly classics that just make me happy. I just realized I have an audiobook of Louisa May Alcott's "Flower Fables", which I'm super-excited to dig in to. Probably going to re-read L.M. Montgomery's "Magic for Marigold", or maybe one of her others - I absolutely love her dreamy-eyed young girls, full of imagination and seeing beauty in every tiny thing around them. Trying to hash into consumable form "An Adventure", which is the book of "The Moberly-Jourdain incident" - these two scholarly women seeing ghosts around Versailles, of Marie Antoinette and others... it's such an incredibly detailed account, from these two insanely credible people, it's really grabbed my fancy. The full text is in pdf online, but... the pdf is embedded into a website in some totally absurd way, and all I could do was save it one page at a time. I just tried compiling them into a multi-page pdf...but I'm not even sure if the Kindle will take pdfs. I think it will? I don't even know. But, the book is ghosts and gardens and faded royalty and kindred spirit women at the turn of the century. Totally worth a bit of work.

Wikipedia, by the way, is so awesome for linking to the Project Gutenberg copies of books that turn up in articles. I always forget to check the Australian Project Gutenberg, and they have all sorts of things the main site doesn't, though in a less-searchable manner. Via that, I tracked down "The Well of Loneliness", which I'd been dying to read - generally considered the first lesbian novel in English, and caused all sorts of legal furor and was banned and everything else...even though there's no blatant sexual content or much of anything besides vague insinuation. But I like vague insinuation and subtle undertones and things. Just started in, and so far, I actually really like it - I've gotten as far as: a little girl is born when the parents expected a boy, so they name her Stephen, and she's developing rather male characteristics and personality quirks, hates dresses, has a crush on a serving maid... but it's all handled in such a way that... I'm not even sure how to describe it. It's handled in a very believable way, just day-to-day things, like she plays dress-up, but dresses up as a soldier... but the undertones are almost mystical, like there's a weird element of predestination, you have the sense that she's developing this way not so much due to a quirk in her genes, but because she was conceived and developed in the womb while being thought a boy. It's feeling very like the "Rose of Versaille" anime, which I adore, so it's all good.

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One of our hamsters died. :\ We knew they were nearing the end of their typical lifespan, so Tom, darling that he is, has been sure he's the first to go poking into their cage lately when we go to clean it out. This time... he told me to stay outside the room awhile. I can't even say how grateful I was for this, I really don't think I could have handled it, Tom barely could. He said it looked like they'd been in a fight (they'd always fought a bit now and again)... and I'm sure it wasn't a pretty sight. I *am* a little sad, even though we've never been overly-attached to the critters - hamsters don't really have a whole lot of personality to get attached to. Still, it was sad.

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Our ceiling in the kitchen, which has had cracked plaster for ages, finally started dripping about a week ago. Poking around in the bathroom, we discovered that the seal around the tub is totally shot. Soooo, as long as the shower curtain is plastered to the wall at that end, and we keep a towel on the floor for back-up, it doesn't leak, so that works.

We have been doing, in small doses, major house-cleaning. A few weeks ago I tackled the tub hardcore, and the leak issue motivated me to clean the scary corner between the shower and the radiator. The whole town has been invaded by something like fruit flies, and they are driving me COMPLETELY FREAKING INSANE, so that motivated a hardcore cleaning of the kitchen sink. (Note: didn't help. There do seem to be a few more of the damned things when I have cookie-batter bowls in the sink, but no matter how clean things are, the flies are still there. Tom can catch the pests in mid-air, so that helps, but I can't, and they make me insane, so boo.) I bought a mop! I'd been seeing ads for the Swiffer version of a mop, and that struck me as a perfect solution for the apartment. My kitchen floor? like 3x7'. My bathroom floor? probably like 3x3'. Tiiiiiny scraps of floor. I'd been tackling them the old-school way, on my knees with a sponge, there's really no room for a full-on mop situation. But WalMart had the Swiffer things - and, for a few bucks less, a Clorox version, which is what I got. It works AWESOME. I was a little skeptical, it's basically glorified paper towel, but... one towel thing got me through 90% of my kitchen, including the scary bits under the stove and fridge. Whatever liquid is in the little sprayer (I am probably saner not knowing) is pretty amazing stuff.

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And, still crocheting. One Christmas present: DONE!, once I fix the lazy way I tried blocking it. Another Christmas present: DONE!, once I block it. Another Christmas present: ohgodSOCLOSEtodone, but I need the attention span to go back and work on the edging. Another Christmas present: started and... well, let's just say a glove that doesn't fit my hand is not going to be very useful for anyone not a lot younger than me. Nearly everything is planned, I just have to scrounge up the money for yarn, and settle on a few patterns. The main trouble is, is that since these are gifts for people important to me, I want to do the best I can. Which means, in some cases, waaay more expensive yarn than I would use for myself. I have a little throw blanket in mind for one family member, and I found the *perfect* yarn, in just the colors and texture I want, and even in an alpaca blend, which I hadn't dared hope for but wanted desperately (since it's sooo lightweight for how crazy warm it is)... but it's like $8 a skein. So I'm trying to figure out how to get as much blanket out of as little yarn as I can, but I'm soooo bored with every freaking throw blanket pattern being either V-stitches or giant granny squares. I like both well enough, but, I've done those, I want something else!

I'm a little scared, given that there's a lot of crocheting that should be done in November, when I'm going to have a novel to crank out...

Labels: apartment, books, cooking, crochet, health, work

 
It has been a very stressful couple of weeks. I was down with a maaajor cold last week, still dealing with the aftermath of being extra-tired. The store has been SWAMPED at night, between high schoolers having spirit weeks/homecoming and college chicks coming in to try on 8000 costumes apiece. And we're not even going to talk about Wing City's banners. (Except to say that, when I had called and talked to a fifth person, to verify the size so I could print it that time...FIVE MINUTES LATER the guy ran into the store to flail and say WAIT IT STILL SAYS QUESADILLAS YOU NEED TO TAKE THAT OFF THERE!1!!1 freaking disorganized idiots. Love the restauraunt, love the food, hate the lack of management organization.)

All this happening, of course, led to...was it Monday night? ALL I could do was fret about work when I got home that night. Had like three dreams about work. Couldn't drag myself out of bed because I knew that meant I'd have to actually go in and deal with things. It was bad. This has been going on for awhile, but it's finally bad enough that I know I need to do something about it. So I spent a good bit of time thinking, and I finally realized that a good bit of the problem is that there really isn't anything else in my life going on, besides work. Since my life centers around it, that's all I think about, which is not healthy or productive or making me happy. The simple distraction method, of listening to audiobooks and things all night when I came home, only worked as long as I was listening to them. Wasn't cutting it.

So, I've been trying to shift my mental focus. Not always easy, but, having NaNoWriMo looming is helping tremendously - and I've been thinking a lot about how happy I always am, being all wrapped up in stories all through November. In November, my mental focus turns to stories, and the whole drive and rush of NaNoWriMo keeps my focus there - it gives me something besides work to make my time and thoughts all about.

Every handful of months, I find myself in these depressions, and I promise all over again to do something creative every day. I always drift away, with one thing and another, but as long as I come back to it, I'll be alright. I bought myself a super pretty new notebook, to keep track of NaNo ideas and outlines and things in, gearing up for November. I also dug out my semi-current sketchbook, and both books are next to my side of the bed. With a pen attached to one or the other. I already have a page-and-a-bit of ideas for this year's NaNo, and a really gorgeous little picture popped into my head a few nights ago that I'll draw out sometime.


NaNoWriMo 2009? I'd been dying to do something like Beneath the Dust again, doing a series of short stories all set in the same location. It was the ideal mix of freedom and restraint for me, and I found so, so much to draw on in the one little room I created. So! I'm doing it again, with a fresh setting:
Mackie's garden.
...way back (i.e., a couple years ago) in my obsessive U2 rp'ing days with Megs, I created this vast garden, which was Macphisto's frequent haunt. Somewhere I actually have a sketch of the main layout, but I remember a lot of the little areas off the top of my head, easily enough to start with. I'd been just getting into the whole flower-meanings thing at the time, so I know there are places where there are trellises of...jasmine and honeysuckle, I think, with a certain type of roses nearby, all these things with complimentary and subtle interplays of meanings.

I have like ten different characters already in mind to put in the garden, some are doing things, some I just know the characters (I've been re-reading the Anne of Green Gables books, and I'm dying to try writing Anne's daydreamy point of view). I remember a few of the garden nooks, and it's never hard to think up more of them.

...so having all that to focus on, to bring my life's attentions back into the creative realm, I think is really going to help. Crocheting works in small doses, but once I get into a groove it doesn't hold my full attention, the way creating the world of a drawing or a story does. (Though crocheting + great audiobook = pretty near perfect.)


Speaking of audiobooks: The Thirteenth Tale, by Diane Setterfield. Fantastic book, I'm so sucked in it's ridiculous. The writing is absolutely gorgeous, and it's the most wonderful kind of haunting family history story, with twins and people going insane and a house falling into ruin and everything you could want in a believably haunting story. (Though I do recommend it with a bit of a cautionary note, it can really suck your emotions down a deep dark pit if you ingest it for too many hours straight all alone in the house at night.) ...it sounds over-dramatic and awful in summary, but the story itself is so grounded in the everyday that it doesn't feel unbelievable at all. Lovelovelove.

Labels: crochet, navelgaze, printshop, work, writing

 
Cooking stories!

- One of the food-goodies Mom brought down on her last visit was amaranth seeds. Yay amaranth! (It has a really dense nutty flavor to it, it's pretty darn yummy. Though I have to admit an awful lot of my fangirling over the stuff is due to my Phisto connotations.) I sorted through all my Heidi-recipes, and found one for a nice cheesy souffle with amaranth seeds in it. Not only had I never tried to make a souffle, but, I'm pretty sure I'd never eaten one before. Tom said they were successful, so we'll assume he's right. :) The silly things were *delicious*, vast amounts of Gruyere cheese, and the nice rich flavor of the amaranth (which cooks up similar to quinoa, a bit like couscous...or in normal-person terms, it's a bit like the texture of cooked rice). Really savory, and I felt all cooking-saavy about it. But I realised, as Tom and I were eating, that while *I* really liked the amaranth, I was pretty sure he wouldn't be too big on it.

Sure enough, when I peered over to see how much he'd eaten - he was just finishing scraping off all the egg'n'cheese top layer, leaving the amaranth-dense bottom almost perfectly untouched.

- Kellie, in her amazingness, sent me a Twinkie cookbook. It is AMAZING. There are tons and tons of desserts, trifles and cakes and things, but also some more unexpected things, like pancakes with Twinkie slices, and sausage nestled in a sliced-open Twinkie (similar to pigs-in-a-blanket I suppose). And while I was skeptical at first...the more I looked, the more I realized these silly things looked really, really plausible.

So I broke down and bought a box of Twinkies. (You do not get enough Twinkies for your money.) I decided to try a pumpkin bread pudding, using Twinkies in place of bread or pound cake. HOLY CRAP was it delicious! The Twinkies had the perfect consistency for that sort of thing. Recipe called for making a sugary syrup to drizzle overtop, but we have a bottle of happy local maple syrup in the fridge, so I went with that instead. *Awesome*. (Tom liked it too! ...recipes always go over better if he tries some before I tell him what all is in things.)

- Due to the previous, I had leftover pumpkin puree in my fridge. Pumpkin is delicious, I always forget how much I love dense squash-type things. (I picked up a frozen dinner for myself last week - pumpkin ravioli! it was SO good!) I'd spotted a recipe for pumpkin soup over on Heidi's blog, and it sounded pretty darn yummy. I wound up doing some tweaking - obviously, I took the lazy way out and did not bake up fresh pumpkin, though I can only imagine how much more delicious that would have been. I threw in a loooot of garam masala, and not so much curry paste (since the flavor of mine tends to distract from flavors around it). A few other tweaks...and I'm not sure how I feel about the thickness of what I ended up with, but I can always adjust that when I re-heat later. It is DELICIOUS, the absolutely perfect fall food.

- With the coconut milk from the pumpkin soup in my mind, the other recipe I decided on for the day was a coconut rice recipe, also from Heidi. Quality Market was lacking any purple rice, and I forgot until afterwards that I might have a bit still in my own cupboard, but I picked up a nice bag of jasmine rice that'll keep me happy for awhile. I recently realized that Quality actually *does* have shallots, so I picked up some of those to finally try (I usually sub in green onions, since they're so easy to deal with). The recipe's really simple, but surprisingly delicious, salty and sweet and rich.

...so I'm having pumpkin soup and coconut rice for my dinner, and it is a pretty perfect combination. Which I'll probably continue to have for lunch for the next several days. <3

- Tom wants to eat at home, rather than fast food, more often again. Eating out always costs so much, not to mention, y'know, that it's awful for you, and there's a fair chance of your stomach getting revenge on you later. So this is good, except that it requires having Tom-food around. I'm still doing casseroles, I was doing fewer through the summer, but now that it's getting cooler I can bring a few more back in. But Tom doesn't like eating the same thing twice in a day. And, given time limits (and his own lack of patience), the food has to be something that's ready in about five minutes, maybe ten tops. So, at his request, I picked up some random pre-made frozen things today...we'll see how it goes. Tops has a better range of boxed meals, but either way it's pretty impossible to find something that doesn't require meat being browned and added, and is under $5. WalMart actually has a decent selection of (mostly) freshly-made food, and I know he's burned out on their popcorn chicken and potato salad, but the enchiladas I snagged for him a few days ago, he enjoyed pretty well.

...I haaaate buying the pre-made stuff. Not only is it disproportionately expensive, but the portions aren't anywhere near Tom-sized, and I know the food isn't half so healthy as what I'd make at home. I should start making notes on sauces and basic combinations again, so Tom can throw together the same kind of random stir-fries and Ramen concoctions and things I usually make.



In other news!

- Since I've spent the last forever working on crochet projects for other people, I splurged on some me-yarn a week or so ago. I got some sock yarn, and made that scarf I was spazzing about awhile ago. I got some ridiculously soft light blue stuff to make arm-warmers with (so I can continue wearing my t-shirts into the colder weather). I also got a ball of Noro, just because it makes me happy. <3

...and I have a whole bunch of pictures of things I've made lately (including Tom's throw, which I FINALLY finished!!!), but I can't for the life of me find my camera cable. I have a sneaky suspicion that is Tom's fault, and his pile of computer-cables is even scarier than mine, so those will have to wait.

- Work was going along just fine, until I had to print the 2 giant 44.5" x 26' banners for Basil's. About 24 feet were done on the first one, I was all happy it was working so well...and all the sudden, within like six inches, the whole design went peeeeeeeeewwwwwwwwwwwww angling straight off the edge of the material. I'd no idea what happened. I tried some other things, and then we noticed these LINES OF DOOM. On the purple background I was trying to do, there was a little pink line, and a little blue line. When I tried other things, the lines were still there. Something in the heads just weren't hitting those spots right, like it would spit out all but one color in that one area. I tried EVERYTHING I could think of, I spent probably five or six hours doing every test, running any procedure I could find in the manual, scouring the internet, cleaning everything I felt safe touching in the printer...nothing.

So I thought, well, let's try just printing something that's narrow enough that it won't have to print at the bad spot. First inch looked perfect. After that: peeeeeeeeewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww my rectangle became a serious parallelogram.

Thus, on the...either Friday or Saturday starting off Labor Day weekend, Chad declared the printer out of commission until we could get a repair guy in.

A repair guy, based all the way in Rochester, who last time wasn't able to come out for like four or five days - and that wasn't a holiday weekend.

Basil's needed done asap, I had a job due Tuesday, three for a guy on Wednesday, a big 4'x8' for Thursday, a potential one for Friday, and a seriously obnoxious 18"x14' one for Saturday, as well as another I didn't have a clear date on.

...needless to say, I've been pretty panic-y lately. Thankfully, the repair guy was out Tuesday afternoon. After lecturing us on using pre-grommetted material (which Chad promised we weren't really using anymore...and we hadn't, except for the Basil's banner of DOOM), the guy worked miracles and got the printer running *beautifully*, teaching us all kinds of nifty tidbits about the machine in the process. (I was in a bit of geek-heaven, learning all this stuff about how the thing works, and why it was doing what it did. This guy knows *everything*.)

Somehow, we are now back on schedule - despite one customer adding another three banners needed for Thursday, and a request for 300 little 2" stickers coming in, and me having to deal with new kids and being short-handed with Ann and Bruce on (a MUCH needed) vacation. I wish I'd gotten a picture of the Basil's banner - I wanted to spread it out so it would dry properly, but, where in the Paper Factory is there 26 feet of open space?? So I did something I'd been dying to try for ages:

In the very back of the store, is Bruce's frame shop. Half of it is open up to the roof, and there are gazillions of long pieces of molding he makes into frames, as well as mat board EVERYWHERE, the scary guillotine cutting machine, the giant laminator, the table we trim banners and do shrink-wrapping and t-shirt making on, and all kinds of crap laying around everywhere. Running alongside of this is a stairway up to the loft, which is a handy little sawdust-covered storage area overtop of Bruce's smaller framing room (which has a normal-height drop ceiling).

Now there's never enough space for me to even trim banners back there, BUT... there's nothing at all taking up the space between all of our crap and the ceiling.

So! I hauled the banners up to the loft, and let them unroll down toward the floor.

...at which point, I learned that the loft is only about 14 feet above the floor. Fortunately, by draping the banners over a few stacks of boxes in the loft, and then down over the banner-trimming table, dipping down toward the floor, and then up and over the laminator, VOILA! Twenty-six feet of purple banner! It was a pretty impressive/ridiculous sight.

(And then I remembered I still had to trim and seam the ends of the stupid things. At which point I panicked again.)

Somehow, by last night, I was able to stay up front and keep an eye on the new kids. We still didn't get out on time, and I was still panicking a bit at the end of the night, because things weren't getting done that should have been obvious to have gotten done... but I was pretty darn happy when I got home.

Today, of course, I had residual emotional issues, and flipped out over stupid things and felt tense and angry that I wasn't enjoying my day off enough (which is ridiculous, but happens, and makes me even crazier). Successful recipes helped worlds, as did finally getting R.E.M.'s "Murmur" album into mp3 form and listening to it about four times in a row.

- ahhhhhhhhhhh why is it 9:30 already??? I'm dying to go back to the weeks of working four days, having three days off. I really think I was saner then. I feel like such a wimp, not being able to handle a 40-hour week, and the money has been reeeaally nice. Plus everyone but me has classes now, and there are five new people to train with only two "good" people and two pretty-good people to train them, given that half of last year's batch are still fairly useless. sigh. It is going to be a loooooong Halloween season this year.

- On the bright side, I have an AWESOME costume set aside. '80s pop dress! Cyndi Lauper-ish, pink and black and lace. Too many good accessories at the store, and I might crochet some fingerless gloves, and I've done a test-run on my hair (which, yes, will still go into the perfect level of '80s poofiness)... and I'm actually honestly considering really dying pink streaks into my hair. (I'm getting bored again. I found some nice browns I might try now that summer's over, but, there are also fuchsia streaking kits. That could be fun.)

Labels: cooking, crochet, printshop, work

 
I haven't updated in an age. Summary:

- Tom and I took a trip last week down to North Carolina, to visit his grandma; his dad also met us down there. Was a nice relaxing getaway. I won at euchre a lot - this happens every time, and I haven't the faintest idea why. I wish Tom was able to see his family as often as I see mine...he and his dad are always so happy when they're together, two peas in a geektastic pod.

- I thought print-work at the store was slowing down, but then yesterday happened. Chad is back, but only part-part-time, he's been gone by the time I've come in so far. Which is fine, Ashley and I have the printshop pretty under control most of the time...but the store's office supplies were in pretty rough shape after several months of him being gone, so I'm psyched he's back. (It is probably quite sad how excited I am about having our wall'o'copy paper fully stocked again.)

- We have lost some people and gained some noobs at the store. I am really sad about having lost Casey and Amanda, they made work so entertaining, and are just good people. Too early to tell much about the new girls yet, and we may have a new boy turning up in the near future, which will be exciting if he's a halfway decent worker. We need someone who has no problem with ladders + heavy boxes. I can manage fairly heavy boxes, but not so much with ladders.

- Crocheting like a madwoman still, that's pretty much been the bulk of my spare time. Working on a few Christmas gifts, and the end is in sight for Tom's throw blanket! Also had a brief binge with making anklets and bracelets, which are *so* pretty, and I'm plotting some kind of spiderweb-looking anklet or bracelet or something now that Halloween season is approaching. (Yes I know retail makes things start early, but I LOVE Halloween, and it's a pretty big thing at the Paper Factory. We're still digging things out of boxes but I'm already getting excited.)

// warning: what follows is me just writing to get things out of my head, where they have been running around in circles. not something I'd put on your recommended reading list, it's just to help me. //

...and you can probably see from the recurring mentions of it that I have a hell of a hard time getting work out of my head. I always have, but it got WAY worse when I started taking on so much work in the print shop. (Note: I think I'm the only one who refers to a "print shop" at all around the store...but, honestly, we do enough business with the stuff to justify the term.) I was finally getting to the point where I was calmer about that...and now that Chad's back I'm spazzing out because I feel way more pressured to not screw things up, now that he's here to see. Which is ridiculous, because a) I really do usually know what I'm doing; b) I don't think he's even really looked at any of the print work, since he has other things to do and knows he can rely on me and Ashley; c) we've been doing it on our own for months and months. And d) I have the most understanding sympathetic amazing bosses in the world. Yes they get cranky when things get screwed up, but it doesn't last. Even then, I think I had a five-minute lecture about a door being left open at night (it was an overhead door, open two inches because the mechanism conked out; I didn't think it was an issue, given that mice already have their own routes into the basement, but I understand). And that's been it, that I can even remember, so that's all for like months and months.

Hell, I got another raise not long ago, and I'm pretty sure I'm at the top of the known Paper Factory payscale. (There was a rumor going around that one of the younger crew, who has since left, was getting $10 an hour, but we were pretty sure that was crazy talk. ...I'm not far from that now.) Obviously, I am not screwing up.

...but every day off, I make sure my phone is on and not far from me. I go in to work most days a little jittery, thinking of all the things I might have screwed up the last time I was in. I've been shoving aside a stupid pointless thing all day - it is my day off, I should not be thinking about work. But, yesterday (Thursday), Chad left a note for me and Ashley, that a frequent customer needed a bunch of posters printed up again. Three posters, ten copies of two of those printed on paper to be laminated, and five copies of all three on some other material, which he wanted some test prints done on. By Monday or Tuesday.

Now, the process for this customer: Print the posters on paper one day, and they need the full 24 hour drying time, before they are laminated, after which they should get another 24 hours, and then trimmed. Sometimes we have to cut a few corners, since she usually needs things in a rush. Also... the laminating is a big process. Chad or Bruce needs to be there to head it up, with Ashley (or sometimes another grown-up) to help. I've helped before too, but, I really don't know what I'm doing. (I'm trying to keep it that way - I really don't have a good memory for procedural things, and, honestly, I have to draw the line somewhere, because if I know how to do EVERYTHING in the store, I will try to DO all of it, and I will go even more crazy.)

The test prints he wanted... I'd never even used the material before, and it was weeeiiird stuff, so I had no clue what settings to give the printer. I considered just guessing, but... the material was just *so* different, I felt like the ink settings should be something other than our usual. I don't know. And it turned out anyway, I didn't even have time to get all of the paper posters printed - we've always run high-quality prints for this woman, and it literally took 5 hours to print out ten of these suckers.

...all of that, on a night where I had two new girls working, one semi-new person, and a second semi-new person who was coming in two hours late. I did not get much done in the basement at all, which was where I was supposed to be all night.

So I came home feeling wretched, like I'd let everyone down and they were all going to have so much more work to do tomorrow than they'd expected, and it would just make everything run so much less smoothly, and Chad would be annoyed with me and think I was an idiot for not knowing how to run those prints, and in all the confusion at the end of the night I was sure to have forgotten something...

...

...and this is why I am writing all of this out. There was absolutely no reason for me to feel awful. And there's no reason for me to have a knot in my stomach now when I think about going in tomorrow afternoon. Chad knows how long it takes things to print. Flyer understands that, when new people are around, older people can't get a whole lot done. (Flyer also understands that the kid who was supposed to be helping me move things is... a bit flaky, let's leave it at that.) Ashley was in today, and she'd have given the work a look-over, and saved anything in dire straits. If there was a crisis, she would have called me.


I did manage to relax alright most of today. My stop by the health clinic this afternoon went much more smoothly than I'd feared (as it always does). Tom went into a mild panic when I told him what the nurse had told me - the spotting I keep getting midway through the month might be a sign that my birth control isn't giving me the coverage it ought to. I tried to allay his worries by joking about it...which I did in a completely nonsensical and... well let's just say that it made no sense at all to do, and did not help, which Tom duly pointed out, and then mocked me for, which I think did, in the end, help. Anyway, I need to head back in during September for the annual joy of a pap smear, at which point they will probably change my birth control aaaagain. Hopefully it helps this time. About six months ago, they started me on the next-higher strength stuff, and it helped for I think the first month. And then the spotting was back where it was. Also, my cramps are briefer, but MUCH more intense, so I haven't decided if that's better or worse. I also need to start tracking when I have migraines, because I'm starting to think the two issues are connected.

We had lunch at Bob Evans, watched some more Babylon 5, I picked up a few groceries, made Tom the pizza casserole I've promised him all week, and, as always, washed some dishes. I reloaded my iPod with some fresh podcasts, and looked at my email for the first time since I got back from North Carolina. Which was pretty terrifying, but, I did discover that my Paper Factory buddies have been posting pictures of people on Facebook, which is entertaining. I'd forgotten Mac has one of me from last October, wearing my favorite rental costume - the pink'n'black striped polka-dotted 80s-overload foofy-sleeved dress, which claims to be a saloon girl or can-can dancer costume, I forget which because it is so blatantly neither. (On that note - I have my eye on a seriously awesome 80s dress to buy this year.) There are also copious group photos from the last Paper Factory Crew party, a Disney movie night/cookie baking + chocolate pretzel making night. Which was quite a bit of fun, and was also the last get-together with a few people before they left. sigh.

Which reminds me, I need to decide if I'm going to go out with people Sunday night - Sam turns 21, so people are going downtown to celebrate. I love hanging out with Sam, who is one of the most entertaining people ever, and PF crew are pretty entertaining in general... but I'm really not a downtown person. I've honestly never been to any of the bars in town. Also, it'll be the first real weekend all the college kids are back, and I don't know if I want to deal with that. Sam's luau, Kate's Disney night, things like that, I love.

Though, looking at the photos, even then I'm always hanging around the edges of things...just how I am I guess.


Alright, enough of the emo. I feel loads better than I did earlier. Except that now my neck hurts from hunching over the keyboard like the ill-postured idiot that I am. The iPod should be re-charged by now, time for some more crochet before bedtime. <3

Labels: crochet, navelgaze, printshop, work