"Are we talking over the shirt? Frontsies? Backsies? Would I have to...give her my gift?"

One of the most hilarious lines from 30 Rock season premiere last night. Especially since it followed:

"She touched me Lemon...she touched me in my swimsuit area."

Classic.

Keeping My Eye On You...

I guess a commentary is in order. For whatever reason, Moo the cat has decided that she absolutely loves my closet. Forget the fact that she's been living here for two years and never took a liking to the inside of my closet, suddenly, it's her favorite new place, which would be fine with me, if the thought of cat pee all over my work clothes didn't strike fear into my heart.

She is shifting her rump as I type this. Mocking me.

I'm sure she won't pee or poop or drool -or whatever cats do- in there, but it's been a huge irrational fear. Of which I have many. One being the state of my closet. Thank goodness I organized it the other day because it was a right state. Come to think of it, there wouldn't have been room in there for her earlier, as I had developed the habit of simply shoving my clean clothes into the shelves instead of folding and organizing my function like I did that particular day. Contrary to popular belief, I am a pretty organized person, doncha know.

So, thought this worth sharing, because even though this is totally just a cat being a cat, any behavior from Moo that anyone would consider "normal feline" is a big milestone.

I picked the weirdest of the bunch.

24 Going On 80

Seriously, today I was telling my friend what I was doing tonight and as I was typing, I stopped dead in my tracks. I was telling her how I had my chamomile tea, my knitting, and was going to watch my shows. I fully embrace the fact that I have quirky activities, but sometimes, I go a little too far when I group them altogether.

Knitting, huge thermal cup of tea, vase full of yarn scraps,
and the telly

At least I'm getting alot of things done at once, and I'm getting closer to finishing this huge table runner project.

Projects...

I've been working on multiple projects over the past few months since I started knitting. I've so far finished three scarves, and right now I'm working on a table runner, and when I've needed a break from that huge project, I started and finished two small bags.

The first bag project, the yarn is a super soft gift from a friend. The two textures were completely accidental, but turned out great. All that's left is to find some nice green buttons to cover the connections where the handle is sewn to the bag.

Second bag project, color changes and multi-colored handle. Still have alot of finishing to do.

And of course there's always cooking adventures. I had some left over brie that I had marinated in lemon rind and olive oil, and I had eaten some great brie pastries before, so I decided to try it for myself. Here we have the brie mixture, home made pastry dough, and strawberry jam. Delicious, but needs more sugar.

Bubbly delicious goodness.

Funniest.Clip.EVER!

I have new respect for Richard Simmons (and of course the improv crew of WLIIA), especially after the new Yoplait ad, which of course I can't find right now...

Knit Knit Adventures

So I finished knitting my first scarf a while ago, but hadn't gotten around to dampening and blocking it yet, so I finally buckled and did it today:

A dampened and blocked scarf

The most hilarious part is that I did the dark half first, which actually has LESS holes than the light part, which I did second. I'm blaming the yarn and am planning to fill the holes with metal beads. Thank goodness for "homemade flair". So the whole dampening thing is something I've slowly been researching, which requires dampening the piece and then "reshaping" with or without pins to make the piece be the shape you want it to be.

Attempt #2

Above is my second attempt at a scarf, it's going alot better, I haven't spotted any holes yet, and I've been sort-of paying attention to the stitch count, so it's not suddenly ballooning from 12 stitches per line to 40, like it did my first try at knitting. All in all, a pretty positive experience so far, and I have yet to throw in the needles, although I'm considering not knitting on the bus today after I was accosted by -what I suspect was- a paranoid schizophrenic who jabbed me in the back and told me that I had to put my knitting away since the metal of my needles was reflecting the light, causing some radio frequency dissapation (or something of the like) that would result in a riot.

Yeah.

I was upset at being so violently jabbed in the back, because for a second I thought she had actually punched me in the back, but tried to get over it as fast as possible. Ugh, sometimes I hate living in a big city.

Finally Off The Deep End...

I've become a knitter. Or at least, I hope to become a knitter. I suppose that one week molesting yarn does not a knitter make. I've really come to enjoy knitting, even though it's repetitive, makes my right hand and arm and my back hurt, I still enjoy hearing the gentle clickity clack of the needles, I love gazing at all the gaping holes and tangles of my mistakes, and chuckling when I catch myself berating my ball of yarn for being such a tangled mess...

Mini yarn ball on top of the soon-to-be scarf

It's nice to be creating something that I'm not going to end up thoughtlessly ingesting. And the great thing is that knitting is a solid conversation starter, not only with strangers, but with people I already know. Everyone I know either knits or knows something that knits, and even though -yes I'll admit- I took my knitting to a dinner party the other night in an effort to speed along my scarf, and also because I needed some entertainment for the trip over, it really turned out to be a great thing, I learned alot of new things about friends, as well as became the object of some friendly ribbing, and have been deemed the "old lady" with my knitting, shawl and glasses at the end of my nose (temporarily pushed there, mind you).

Now that graduate school is over, and my only academic goal is to find a job, it's nice to have some creative outlet, something I've been yearning for the past few years. Cooking does it, but it always felt like such a waste when my labors turned out to be inedible.

At least with knitting, I can chalk up something ugly and misshapen to beginner's technique, label it and stow it away for future laughs...

Click on the picture to jump onto flickr for more snaps of what I've been working on...

It's Mostly Brain Power...

The brain power I'm referring to is what is needed for me to do multiple posts within a short amount of time. Honestly the last few months have been pretty good -relatively speaking- nice friends, good teachers, it was just alot of work for one super-short semester. But I survived, with on the only casualties being this blog, which I completely neglected. As well as non-school friendships. Oh well, I've started back up and hopefully things will grow all over again.

There is another "brain power" thing I wanted to talk about, and that is this game I just started playing called "Shift", a puzzle and skill game, which I've found fascinating only because it requires speed as well as problem solving, and it's completely spatial, which appeals to my visual brain. I'll even go as far as to say I like this better than Portal. It's slightly less creepy too, another plus.

Start getting addicted with Shift, Shift 2 or Shift 3.

No screen shots, you can just go explore for yourself. Boo hahahaha.