Can't talk now. Busy!

Tomorrow I get on an airplane to fly back to the East Coast. I have WAY the heck too much to do before then including laundry, kitchen cleaning, and grocery shopping. And oh yeah, packing. whee! Now then... what knitting do I want to take? hmmm.....

What I have been Up To

Pictures!

Here's one of the fruits of my balcony (pardon the crummy cutting board)




















And this is the font of many many yummy things!! Sourdough starter.





So handy for things like, say, english muffins!!


I have also been doing some knitting (which I can't show you- it's for presents) and some spinning which came out rather badly in the photos. Maybe when it's done I'll try again on the balcony with better lighting.

Otherwise I've mostly just been unpacking and cleaning and looking for a new job, and playing a lot of World of Warcraft. My Sweetheart seems to be very happy (and very very busy) at his new job, and I am oddly happier here than I was in Tustin. I am not sure why that is, but I think it has something to do with the natural light here, and the happy homemaking I've been up to. I don't know. Also might be the fact that I haven't had to think about the wedding for about a week, really. Just sort of momentarily here and there. I really must be the anti-bride, because I can't wait for all that nonsense to be over. I want a husband and a vacuum cleaner out of the whole thing.

Then I can really get down to making the most of this starter! Sourdough bread for everyone!! WHEE!!

wow, really?

So right after that last post my betrothed got a job offer with a company that was about 45 minutes north, as the crow flies. However, this being southern California, and LA being between us and the company, that meant the commute would have been about an hour and a half to two hours. One way. So upon accepting the job (and turning in his two weeks notice an hour later,) we had to start packing, and quick.

I'm still digging out of the boxes, although there is light at the end of the tunnel! Hopefully we'll be out of moving-mode in the next few days, and hopefully by then I will have found my camera cable... and the rest of our clothes!

At any rate, I can totally recommend the new game they're working on- it went onto open Beta testing on Tuesday, so go and check it out! I will sit here and shamelessly plug it from here! :)

Brain Dump

I'm feeling really rather positive about things this morning. I'm still trying to shake off the dregs of this cold-turned-con-plague that I mutated at Anime Expo, but otherwise I'm feeling prety dang good! I also feel like I got more accomplished this morning before I left the apartment for work than I have for the past week, all put together! Things are looking pretty darned good for the future, too, with one, single exception: Ugly Shoe Blight.

I'm trying to find a decent pair of pumps, you see, that I can wear under my wedding dress without wanting to gnaw off my own feet by the end of the day. The real sticking point, however, is that I want them to be shoes I can wear more than just the once- so perfectly appropriate work shoes. Unfortunately nobody seems to be selling shoes this summer that aren't really truly ugly. I just plain don't understand it at all. Really, is anybody buying these awful things? Ah well.

In other news, I finished the market bag project I started knitting when I heard about my aunt passing away. I had been working on the baby sweater for my friend's soon-to-be new baby, but somehow the idea of knitting grief into a baby sweater felt wrong on any number of levels, so I needed something else to get me through that raw freshness of it all. So I started this, and this past weekend I finished it! I have to say that I really loved this pattern. It took me a little while to get my head around the instructions once or twice, but it wasn't actually hard. I was pretty distracted, to be totally fair. And the cotton yarn they sent in the kit is actually really fun to work with, so it was a win all around, and I've already started a second bag! I'll post a pic as soon as I remember to get the bag out of my trunk where all my grocery bags live. :P

Also I've been thinking a lot about getting unstuck and out of my Rut. I've been hitting up the Happiness Blog a lot, and actually got going with the Toolbox a bit. I have a few quibbles with the actual website layout (I think it’s a little busy, and my iPhone REALLY doesn't like to load it at all, though to be fair, that's not entirely the site designer's fault.) but the tools themselves are pretty neat. AND they are why I felt so accomplished this morning! I knocked out three out of my four resolutions, which makes me feel rather like I'm keeping my promises, even though they're just promises to myself. I am trying to really zone in on two habits that I really really want to improve- my Japanese and keeping my space tidy- and trying to make them more of a regular part of my day. I'm getting better about some of it, and that feeling of improvement really does make a huge difference in my general happiness level.

So there's today's Random Brain Dump for your reading pleasure!

[edit: I found some shoes, finally! They should arrive Tuesday and if they fit I'll post some photos. Yay!!]

Wow, has it really been over a month? Well it's been busy. Wedding invitations needed planning out and cakes needed to be discussed and bills needed paying and anime conventions needed bracing for. I can't believe how soon SDCC is! I can't wait to see everyone- if I can find them!

Also, baby sweaters needed to be knit!! My friend at work is expecting his second any old time now, and being a knitter, naturally the first thing I did was to rush out to pick the perfect shade of yarn. Once you really think about Elizabeth Zimmerman's directions for a bit, it really does make a lot of sense, pithy or not. Here's my version of her February Baby Sweater:

I hope it tastes just great! (hey, I know perfectly well how babies assess things.) The only change I made was that instead of buttons I picked up stitches along the neck and did i-cord across to make the ties. (also, I really can't figure out why this photo won't stay re-oriented correctly. I'm really sorry it's on it's side, I will try to fix it later.) Anyway, it's a really fun thing to knit, I rather enjoyed it!

Let's see… what else have I been up to? I finally repotted the Japanese maple, I think it's rather happier now that it has some root space. The tomato plants have not only flowers, but some wee tomatoes on them! The snails have, unfortunately been at the peppers, but I'm hoping they're making a comeback. The peppers, I mean, not the snails.

Well, I can't think of anything else necessary to bringing y'all up to date with me. I will try to be better at this whole keeping-up-with-my-writing thing, which is of course half the point of this here blog!

grotto

So I've been on a bit of a garden kick lately. Not a surprise, really, since I've needed some just plain fun, happy things in m y life recently, and I enjoy gardens, and gardening, and so does most of my family, so there ya go. I have gotten some new plants (all in pots, of course, what with me living in an apartment and all) and I got a little fountain kit, and I've cleaned and arranged, and puttered, and, well...

I want to get a small cabinet of some sort to put all the unsightly garden implements into that can double as a table-and-or-plant stand so that the apartment people don't get on my case about having storage out there which is a big no-no. I understand the idea behind the rule, they don't want ugly plastic storage bins out on everyone's deck, but you know. Spirit of the law, not letter, right? If I can find something nice looking, maybe wicker or bamboo...




Also, I think I've mentioned that we have been adopted by a cat? my sweetie named her Margaret. I think she likes this chair because it's closer to the bird feeder.

ish

Today I put together a bamboo zen water garden fountain thingie. It's oddly comforting. I was aided in this enterprise by the neighborhood cat that has adopted us. My S.O. has decided that the cat's name is Margaret, so there ya go. Margaret and I put this fountain together and fussed a little and arranged it with some ferns and my geranium and suchlike, and it makes a nice birdbathy addition to our cement slab. I mean porch. I mean deck. Oh I don't know whatever the heck that thing is. It's a 4'x8' slab of concrete that has no railings or anything to seperate us from the landscaping, and gets not nearly enough sun.

It does get enough for our tomatoes to be going a little crazy. I shall have to get cages or stakes or something soon.

I will get photos soon, but it got too dark to take any good ones today. I promise I will start taking pictures soon!

crazy

There are a dozen birds fighting for position on my porch. There's only four perches on the bird feeder, but I think they must be taking turns. It's kinda hard to tell. They're house finches, I think, and the colored birds range from red to the same yellow-orange you find in a Crayola box. One of them looks like it flew into a bowl of orange sherbet and it stained. They make a huge old mess of seed shells and detritus underneath, but I enjoy watching them so I don't mind cleaning up after.

We just bought a hummingbird feeder, too, so that should be fun!

I'm finding that sometimes it's really just the little things that make life right. Crazy old birds. :)

smart!

The trouble with having someone you love pass away is that (after the shock wears off a bit) you start getting morbidly philosophical. I try to take a walk every day, just a bit of a break from the computer at work you know, and today I started thinking about my aunt, and how much I'm going to miss her, and how she was just so good and fun and smart, and what's the point of it all if you're just going to die anyway? I mean really?

So maybe I trend a bit pessimistic...

I'm not entirely over the morbid philosophicalness (is that even a word?) but since I'm not really a depressed sort of person, and since I really have been trying to focus on the positive lately, I have taken action instead. While I was in Oregon I got to see all sorts of wonderful, clever, fun, smart things that my aunt did. I plan to follow right in her footsteps! I bought a staple gun (Went in for a basic old T-50, came out with a Power Shot. It's an extra $4 and I've always found them easier, even if they ARE 'backwards.')

In a couple of weeks i am going to go back for a couple sheets of lauan and maybe some wallpaper. I have Plans. Great Plans! My poor sweetheart, he's in for such a mess and he doesn't even know it yet! But it'll make the apartment so much cozier! And more fun! And it's all because I've been inspired by my clever aunt. I'll post photos of my projects as they're completed... and I figure out how to post photos.

PS Yes I know that my grammar is somewhat creative. It's because I'm posting late at night and frankly, writing very stream of consciousness-y.

Mud bibs

Well, this Memorial Day weekend wasn't spent in the manner that I'd been hoping, that is to say sleeping in and maybe cleaning the kitchen. (Man I need to clean my kitchen, it's almost terrifyingly sloppy right now.) I didn't even get to sleep in, even. I was in Eugene Oregon, sleeping on the floor in a sleeping bag next to my brother while my folks slept in the bed. the whole family was there, and I was waking up at something around 7 am, just naturally. Grief does that.

My aunt passed away very suddenly last week, you see, and we were all sort of in shock. I know it is usual to talk about the positive things of the deceased and to ignore and forget the bad things, but I honestly can't think of anything but the good stuff. She was always helping people, and thinking of others. She was silly in all the best ways, and in my memory she was smiling and laughing all the time. Even when I was in SO MUCH TROUBLE!

I keep thinking of this one memory. My brother and I were visiting from the DC area- we must have been around 7 or 8 or so, just kids- my cousins were still pretty little kids. We were all up in her bedroom watching TV and lounging on a beanbag chair while my aunt and my mom were in the backyard I think. Eventually my brother and I got curious: what exactly IS in a beanbag chair? It didn't seem likely that it was actually filled with beans... and hey! There's a zipper! When my aunt came upstairs a few minutes later there were little styrofoam beads everywhere- those things are worse than packing peanuts for static cling and cleanup. Oh was she mad, oh man were we in trouble. The two adults were so mad that I don't even remember what they said, just the looks on their faces. It was across between 'oh these dumb kids,' 'how the hell are we going to clean this up' and 'this is so ridiculous we have to laugh at it.' Oh man were we in trouble though.

It was pointed out that my aunt was just such a good person, such a sweet soul, that we all have to be extra good to make up for her loss. I can't say that I can argue with that. I also plan to do more gardening stuff and enjoy life more. From may aunt I definitely learned that fun is, well, more fun. And you know what? I think she'd have loved my kitchen worms. ;)

worm poop!

So I have to admit that I have just gotten about half an hour of way too much fun playing with a box full of worms. I've been doing worm composting for about a month(? two?) and was a tiny bit worried that the food I'd been putting in was rotting and not getting eaten.

I need not have feared.

Most of the bedding and what little food there still was went back on into the box and I got my first little batch of castings! I only have a few potted plants upon which to bestow my gardener's gold, but man am I super excited about it. I hope this helps my tomatoes and peppers grow up giant and tasty!

What can I say? sometimes I am a giant dork about stuff. I guess we can add playing with worms to the list of things I dork out about!

Assigned to a bank

So I walked past the TV at the office today, and since it is always tuned to the same station, I was treated to a brief (and thankfully muted) glimpse of Jim Cramer doing his Mad Money thing. While I don't necessarily agree with Cramer's methodology, I did start thinking about investing, and the market, and retirement (which for me is a good ways off yet, thankfully) and other such financially responsible things.

I remembered reading a book once about a group of women that started an investment club, and in turn that led me to thinking about the Motley Fool website and wondering if I could get an investment club together. At the very least I should start investing like a crazy person since if you're going to 'buy low, sell high' then buying when the market is down seems like a no-brainer.

Ah, what's a poor girl to do? I think I'll ponder the investment question while I break out some knitting. Nothing says Southern Californian Summer like a wool sweater!

First things first! Introductions!!

Welcome folks, or more likely folk, to my little blog. (Somehow "folk" still doesn't feel like it's referring to a single person. Oh well. Moving on.)

I am not entirely sure what I am going to be putting up in this space yet, and knowing myself I probably wont post super often, but I have been feeling a need to have somewhere to release all the stuff that floats around in my head, so here I am. It's sort of a wildlife-release site, but for thoughts instead of rehabilitated animals.

Anyway, here it is! My first post here at the new blog. It's really spacious right now, but I'll bet as soon as the sofa and the coffee table get here it'll be totally cozy.