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

 
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

 
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

 
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

 
Life is, as ever, superbusy. Being summertime, there's all kinds of things I want to go out and do, and Tom has been incredibly indulgent to my out-and-about whims lately. I dragged him out to the Charcoal Corral, where we had a quite nice afternoon (after he stopped being angry about my bad direction-giving...oops). Last week, I dragged him to the county fair, where I had wine ice cream (AMAZING) and bought some handmade glass necklace pendants. And there were mohair goats! They're the scruffliest looking things I have ever seen (Tom called them hobo-goats), but... well let's just say I was haaard-pressed to not go see what was going on at the hand-spinning booth. My yarn addiction is bad enough as it is, I do NOT need to let myself get into hand-dying and spinning and everything else.

The store is only now starting to slow down a bit, it's been the busiest summer there. Yesterday was the first day in probably two months I didn't have any printwork waiting for me when I got there. (So I cranked out like eight new banner template layouts - one of these days I need to post them here, because some are seriously awesome.)

Crocheting like a madwoman still: blanket for a (slightly belated) wedding gift, blanket for Tom's birthday, my half-finished skirt, and whatever random little bracelets necklaces hairthings caught my eye that day.

Cooking lots: Heidi's Marathon Cookies (anise and lemon and sesame seeds what?) are my current spazz. Also Mom visited me and brought a toooooon of spice-store goodies. I now have three different kinds of couscous! Awesome. I kind of hashed two recipes together to get a fantastic summer lunchfood, couscous with olive oil, lemon juice, lots of cucumber, and some mix of parsley and dill and things, that sort of thing. Keeps beautifully in the fridge for like a week. (I have learned that tomatoes, sadly, do not keep for crap once they've been cut up. boo.)

And! I have, randomly, been drawing! It's been ages. But there's now a big official super-thorough Lynda.com tutorial for Blender - which is the open-source (and FREE) 3D modeling program. Thus, Tom has been completely absorbed for close to a week, trying to learn this beast of a program. However, he wanted to try modeling something other than the examples included - which means he needed a drawing to work from.

...so I've learned loads already about the modeling process, and what exactly is needed in a t-pose sketch. It is FREAKING HARD, mainly because it involves a lot of things like lining things up straight, using grids, and making definite lines - y'know, all the kinds of things I'm usually awful at.

But while making myself a new shopping list notepad last week (I threw together some simple designs in Photoshop, picked up some pretty paper at work, printed, cut, glued, voila! adorable little notepad!), I drew the cutest little fairy in like ten, fifteen minutes.

Just a sketch, but despite how rough I kept it, she had a bit of personality. So, going off of that, I made up a character for Tom. That character is no longer a fairy, she's somewhere between an ancient Greek chick and a gypsy, but she's cute.

Tom, on seeing the character, was not as horrified as I'd feared. (She wasn't really what I'd had in mind to make him, but, she's what happened.) In giving me some pointers on what changes to make in future, telling me what would work best for him...I realized that what he was talking about was that he, like me, needed the girl's actual body, to layer the clothes onto, to make things work nicely. "Wait... I have that! Hang on, it's in one of these layers..."

The first couple of layers I did, my little chick was naked, so I could get proportions right and things. Being the layer psychopath that I am, they were still in there. A bit of clean-up work, and Tom had his sketches! (So I'll go back and refine the clothes when he's nearer to needing them.)

Teasers:
   
(I was focusing on the elements I figured Tom would need the most, and sketched in a few contour lines that I think might help. Also: it took me FOREVER to get that girl's profile right! ugh that was awful. I had to go search the interwebs for pictures, and then tweak the hell out of what I was looking at to fit the character I was trying to draw... but I'm REALLY psyched about the results.)

...it's a very strange, and somewhat amazing, thing, seeing what someone else does with what you've started. He's gotten as far as a semi-refined model of the body (not the head, I had to re-draw that in more detail today), and it is seriously freaking cool, recognizing the particular curves I drew in this grey stack of polygons.


Rambling aside! After putting in some more work on my girl's face, I decided to go back to my original rough little fairy sketch. Somehow or another, she got super-colorful (probably due to the style of the t-shirts I'm dying to buy)...and I am SO happy with the way the coloring worked out. I'm totally in love. It's very freeing, letting things keep some rough edges. And I actually think it adds a lot, I like this much better than the exacting sort of detailing I've done in the past, there's more motion to it, it's a lot lighter. (Also, I can actually FINISH a drawing, instead of letting it sit around half-finished because I'm too intimidated by it.)

No I have no idea why she's blue-green. I just liked the color. ;)

Full-drawing, and also a desktop-size cropped version.

   

Labels: art, cooking, crochet, drawing, printshop, work

 
Mel told me to update:

I am piiiiissed as hell at dealing with high schooler co-workers who have NO work ethic, NO responsibility, and NO common sense.

I am also growing tired of freaking psychopath customers. PSYCHOPATHS. I am not even exaggerating. Poor Ann was actually flipping out to me about this one set of people.

On the other hand, last weekend I sketched out my first Paper Factory comic, and it is funny as hell. I've also been managing to stay on top of the banner thing, and pretty thoroughly rocked every assignment I've had this week. (Who can whip up some spiffy looking graduation invites in, oh, ten minutes? Oh me. Who can crank out a SEVENTEEN FOOT LONG sign, to replace the lighted sign a tractor trailer knocked off another Paper Factory's store, get it designed-printed-grommetted-gone, in like four, five hours? Oh me.)


I do not have to work tomorrow, and while I'm leaving my phone on in case of emergency, I am also playing on the Webkinz site, dealing only with non-thinking email, aaaand drinking a half-bottle of seriously froofy alcohol.

Alizé, Rose flavor. SO highly recommended. It is pink, and it is froofy, but absolutely delicious. Vodka base, with litchis, strawberries, and rose essence. I also have a little mini-bottle of vodka + herb flavors, which is also delicious.

Which reminds me. Mom and Grandma were down last weekend, we picked up...good god I can never remember how people are related to me. I think she's my great-aunt Marion? Anyway, the four of us had lunch at this tiny little local diner out in Brocton, where the food was quite good, and I got a vague tour of the town (which has exactly one stoplight). After that, I directed us to the Boardwalk down in Dunkirk, where last summer they opened up a little strip of a handful of local shops, down by the pier. It's such a nice little setup, I really love it, anytime someone visits me I try to drag them down there. There's a little shop that carries wine from ALLLLL the local wineries, and there are free samples, and a bit of everything which is wonderful. Mom bought me a bottle of wine, and it was *delicious*. A semi-sweet white that had a really great depth to it...and, as anticipated, Tom LOVED it. So much so that the bottle was *gone* before I'd had more than a glass. He has promised to buy me a replacement bottle. (But while I was quite sad it was gone, I was also quite happy I'd picked out such a good one. I usually do alright at picking out wines, though we're both still fairly noobs, while he's good with cheeses.) We nosed around some gift shops, I picked up a super-pretty multi-stranded necklace with scattered pearly stones, Mom got cornered by the rather sketchy owner of a rather sketchy half-open shop, and Mom and I both decided that I should start selling my crochet work, since someone was selling simple little knit towels for like $10. (And I knew at a glance that it was the cheap $1.50 cotton yarn they used...I've used it too. If I'm going to make something for someone else, I'm going to use nice special yarn, or at least put more effort into the colors and things!)

And, of course, we had to stop in at Yummy's and get ice cream. The owner still recognized me! I used to see him at the store every week, back when I worked day shifts and his shop was in town, but that was at least six months ago. But he remembered me! He's the friendliest guy ever, he's like on par with Ann and Bruce as a store owner, the kind of guy who knows allll of his customers by name, and makes conversation and is just so friendly and awesome.

Also, the ice cream is always AMAZING at Yummy's.


Other than that, I am on a crochet freaking BINGE. I need to post some pictures. I finished up Tom's glove and he is in SO much love. I whipped up a pair of gloves for me, because my hands freeze in air conditioning, and I had a ball of elasticy cotton yarn that I needed to test. Sushi is still not done, I get sooo booored of doing single crochet stitches in black in eeeendless rounds. But it's getting close. I poked around in my stash, and decided that I could make a nice simple little light scarf out of some yarn Mel bought me for Christmas and using part of a table runner pattern - that's nearly finished. I have the yarn picked out for my next two projects, but am not allowed to buy it until a) I finish the damn sushi, and b) next paycheck, which, OH LOOK, was today. First the skirt. Then a throw blanket in recycled cotton for Tom, to use on chilly days, and to use instead of a towel to prevent sticking to his plastic-leather computer chair on hot days, aaaand because making the blanket for Kate was so much fun and so relaxing. THEN, I'm scouting out yarns for two Christmas presents I have in mind, and since I'm binging anyway I figured I might as well actually get a head start for once in my life.

Still working on a necklace/scarf for myself, I'm in absolute freaking love with the yarn, and the end result, but, the pattern consists of doing like five feet worth of little bitty one-inch circles. So it's my dinner-break project.


I'm on the last book of the Tamir Trilogy, and I still can't put it down. I *hugely* recommend, especially to Mel. (If you want it in audiobook, I can probably do some illegal file-converting, but only because you're my sister. ;)

I have a huge stack of dishes, and am running low on clean underwear, and Tom polished off his weekly casserole. Somuch to do...but TOMORROW. Tonight, there are froofy drinks and Webkinz and crochet and SLEEEEEEEEEEEEEP. <333

Labels: books, crochet, family, printshop, product whoring, work

 
*The military junta running Myanmar (despite a democratic party being elected, oh, a decade or two ago) is trying to put Aung San Suu Kyi into prison. Again. Send an email via Amnesty.


- In other news, Tom and I made a day-trip up to Buffalo, and saw the Star Trek movie. It is AWESOME. Whether you're a Star Trek person or no, it is quite enjoyable. The character continuity is phenomenal, the characters shown in the movie are so perfectly younger (and thus more volatile) versions of everybody. Tom wants to watch it again just so he can memorize more of the "Scotty-isms". It's a wonderfully fresh take on the whole Star Trek universe, and it's been a long time since we've seen that, and god is it great to see. At the same time though, there are still elements to tie it to the previous things - the style of the music, the way certain shots are set up, the vaguely-plausible science, the same cross-screen linear lens flares... Also, the whole intro-bit where Kirk is born, made me cry. Star Trek doesn't usually do that. It was pretty awesome.

- I was going to post a picture of the dress I bought, but I can't find one. Least-painful dress shopping I have ever managed - once I, uh, actually *found* the dress-section in Macy's, the first dress I spotted was the one I ended up with. It's really simple and un-fussy, but very cute and very me. Olive green with dark brown trim, and this intricate geometric pattern in dark brown on the green. And I found shoes to match nearly as quickly! This was all still too long a process for Tom ("Wait... you're not going to try that on, are you?"), but he is a boy and doesn't understand these things. (Though he did luck out, I only went into the dressing room once, since there was a freaking line. The one I tried on was just a *bit* too small, and I could tell going a size up would be perfect, so I just snagged and bought.)

- We also bought more tea! And it is DELICIOUS. Samurai Chai Maté - *awesome*. We love the Maté Vana they sell, and this is similar, but with a slight citrus twist, instead of the more chocolate-nut flavor of Vana. We're finding that herbal teas are too weak, we're tea-wimps and need something with some... depth? to it, something with the substance that coffee and hot chocolate and things have. The two maté teas we've had totally fit the bill. I also got a rooibos chai, which I think is delicious, though Tom's not so keen on. But the boy is freaking adorable - mostly, the tea is my thing, inasmuch as I'm the one who knows how to make it right, and am more interested in reading through all the descriptions and picking things out and whatnot. But Tom wanted to be in on it too, so he made me spreadsheets with allll the different teas they offer (with hyperlinks to the corresponding webpage), and columns for us to rate and put in comments. We are actually kind of considering their Tea of the Month thing - though it seems a little pricey, it actually averages out pretty nicely, given how expensive some of the teas are. Plus, it would be shipped to us. And a good way to sample different things. I'm also considering getting one of their travel tea mugs, so I can have tea at work on days when I'm feeling icky. (Heating a paper cup of water in the microwave and dropping a teabag in feels pretty sacrilegious even to me - and doesn't taste a tenth as nice.)

- It would appear - so far - to be a calmer week at work, which is good. I have a big pile of paperwork still, but I'm waiting for people to send photos on most, and none of them need done before June. (I have most of the layouts done already anyway.) The princess banner, I've been poking at on and off for like a week or two. I made a freaking awesome tiara, but, it doesn't fit into the space I need it to very well, so I'm kind of butchering it now. I may have gotten a layout that works today, but, we'll see what I think of it tomorrow. I am also feeling better after talking with the other girl who does banners the other day. Chad showed her how to use the giant laminator and the cutting machine, both of which I am not at ALL comfortable handling on my own. She, on the other hand, said she'd rather do that kind of thing than the designing. "YES! We are going to ROCK IT this summer!" I'm really enjoying the designing lately, I've got a good handle on our fonts, and every now and again I get a new and interesting idea about how to set things up. Plus I somehow manage to come up with decent graphics under the gun, which is a great feeling. :)

- I am, however, going to lose my temper with a couple of employees in the near future. I got pretty exasperated with one girl today (she was the THIRD interruption while I was on my dinner break - BREAK, people, that means I AM NOT WORKING), and while it's not entirely her fault she doesn't know how to use the fax machine...it still kind of *is* her fault, because the main reason she hasn't been shown is because everyone knows it's pointless because we'll have to show her AGAIN every freaking time she goes to do one. x_____X

- This Tamir Trilogy I'm listening to? Is freaking awesome. This is the kind of fantasy I like - there are no elves dwarves ditzy knights and corseted princesses with swords and really, REALLY cliché storylines. It's a fully-realized world, with believable magic, and believable people who get trapped by circumstances and political machinations and unsought destiny. In some ways, it's like the Earthsea stuff, only more accessible - the oooonly time I felt overwhelmed by weird names and references to things not explained was in the first ten minutes of the first book. That didn't last long. The characters are believable and people you care about. There are some seriously strong emotions all through it. Very vivid ghosts and spirits. And playing with gender roles! Fantastic stuff. I'm halfway through the second book, and it is damned hard to press pause. The writing style is seamless, I haven't even thought about it in awhile, which is a very good sign.

- I just realized what the little silver round thing on the floor is. It's my computer's power button. I have no idea how that fell off, and if I try to put it back on I'm going to turn my computer off. damnit.

- Food! I have made some awesome food again. I fiiiinally made it to the organic food store in town. Dad came down to visit...a week ago? and we actually made a fantastic afternoon of it, going to the organic store, and down by the pier in Dunkirk, checked out the gift shop on the Boardwalk strip that went in last year (allll locally produced goodies! yay!), and had a really nice time. It made me happy. :) Anyway, I FOUND AMARANTH FLOUR!!! So I finally got to make the ginger-amaranth shortbread I've had on my list since Christmas, and it is delicious. (WAY ginger-intensive, which's fine by me.) The flour has a really rich nutty flavor, I'm looking forward to making more with it. I also found several types of seaweed and other odd goodies, and! Tom and I made a trip back a few days later to pick up REAL WASABI. (Well, 45% real wasabi anyway. Which's a vast improvement on the 0% real wasabi in eeeevery other jar of wasabi we've ever found.)

- So, yesterday, I made up a big delicious casserole for the week (Ground Turkey Noodle Bake, which is far more like lasagna than it looks - just throw in more spices and more mozzarella than called for), and then I made us a dinner. I don't usually do more than one dish, since there's just the two of us, but this time I had a gut instinct that a few things on my list would go nicely together.
- Middle Eastern Turkey Dogs: These required me handling raw meat again, but I managed 3/4 of the mixing with a fork, so that helped. These were freaking *delicious*. I popped them onto bamboo skewers, and we didn't actually need any condiments, though I suspect flavored mustards would be good with them.
- Satsumaimo Amani: I spotted "Japanese Sweet Potato" at the organic store, and snagged one on a whim. I got home, and Google gave me its actual name of satsumaimo. From there, I found recipes, and this one looked both simple and *awesome*. Which it was. I did finally make my own dashi, though I kept it simple (i.e., cheap) by just making it with some kombu (seaweed). I have yet to tackle the giant mound of scalded sugar I accidentally ended up with in my littlest saucepan, but oh it was so worth it. Quite like the candied sweet potatoes with marshmellows, only a little less intensely sweet. I nibbled at a bit of the satsumaimo before I cooked it, and it has a *really* great flavor, it has a bit of a sweet spiciness to it.
- And to round things out, I whipped up a batch of rice (holy cow has a rice cooker been an awesome investment for us), throwing in some leftover coconut milk and just a touch of garam masala. It came out a little less flavored than I'd wanted, so I drizzled it with some of the Samurai Chai Maté tea I'd just made, and *oh* was it perfect.
- And it all tasted so good together! I was bouncing off the walls, I was so excited at how well everything complimented each other. I so rarely make full meals, and that one worked out so, so well. YAY.

- Quinoa! That was one of my other new foods. Heidi always uses all sorts of grains and things that I've never tried, so I snagged one to give a shot. I kept it simple for my first try of the stuff, to see how it tastes on its own, so I went with her Delicious Big Bowl of Quinoa recipe. Veggies and olive oil and quinoa. It *is* delicious - the quinoa has a great nutty flavor to it, about the same consistency as rice and couscous, but a little more stable, a little more solid flavor. (Plus, it is super-fun to cook: You start out with these perfect little spheres, which you need to rinse, and it is super-addicting to run your fingers through the stuff under running water. Then, as the perfect little beads cook, they uncurl! And there are little spiral-y bits that show up as they expand! ...I was seriously entertained by all this.) Tom is not a big fan, but I'm pretty sure if I flavored it up like I do with rice, he'd eat it. Put a sauce over pretty much anything and he'll eat it.

- Picked up the latest R.E.M. album, Accelerate, which came out not too long ago. It is GREAT. All of their albums for the past decade or so have been pretty wimpy, each has had like two really great songs, and then the rest very dreary and thin-sounding. This album really does sound more like their older stuff (offhand, I'd say a halfway between Monster and Automatic for the People), it's nice and dense and has their trademark harmonies and there is guitar and volume and it is GOOD. I'm so glad to hear them back again. I've only listened through to it once (and that via my craptastic laptop speakers), so I haven't analyzed anything in depth, but I've heard enough to be happy about it. :)


- And it is time for me to stop putting off washing dishes. booooo.

Labels: activism, books, cooking, life in general, movies, music, printshop, product whoring, silliness, spazz, storytime, work