Spazzmanda

Good news, the “vegetable” looks good.

Bad news, I still don’t know what it is. Anyone?

Oh, and now I has yellow shoes. Likes? They match these:

Meet Niles and Daphne the new ‘keets. They are professional magical birds so they earn their keep. Unfortunately, they have a raging case of “chirpees”- and sadly it is “untweetable.”

We went to Habersham for a big celebration for the 4th of July (I know, they’re early)- fireworks and live music- and saw these guys:

The King Daddy Polecats are very much fun. They opened for the Red River Band (? did I get that right?) which we skipped in lieu of Mexican food. Then on Saturday afternoon I knat with the ladies and brought a new potential member to our meeting and then, I got to see this girl:

Holly is very much fun too. We had wine and it was good.

Then I went to Knitch for the FIRST TIME EVER with the lovely and effervescent Shari on Sunday. I loooooove this store. I wasn’t really “needing” to purchase more yarn, but I found this stuff that just begged to go home with me. The brand is Araucania and the yarn is called “Ranco Multi”- a hand painted, wool blend sport weight. Mmmmmmmmmmmm.

I think I’ll make the Gigi (from the new Knitty) out of it sometime soon when I don’t have four (or six) projects on the needles. I also purchased my Hedgie pattern (the last one in the shop- score!) so I’m ready to cast on with my SNB crew for our Hedge-Along this weekend.

Then Sunday night we went to see Wall-E with our local Red-Headed Street Gang and there was a box of stuff that Jeff gave to our favorite red-headed beastie (now he has more Star Wars stuff. The boy is doomed.)

Or are WE the doomed ones?

You might remember that I won something back in May on one of my favorite blogs– Shut Up I’m Counting. Well the package arrived yesterday, and believe me, these teensy felted stitch markers were well worth the wait. Er, confession time, I got a tad impatient and so much wanted the mail to deliver cute things rather than plastic, windowed envelopes (yuck!) so yesterday I sent a strongly worded email as to why said stitch markers weren’t yet in my possession– and wouldn’t you know it- I get home and there they are, right in my mailbox. I’ll be honest, I won the contest in May so being a slight, tad-bit ornery at the end of June is probably ok, right? Can I be forgiven? How about if I give out some major accolades to the vendor and the lovely lady who ran the contest in the first place? Can I be forgiven NOW?

OK! Drinks all around! These little buggars are even cuter than their photo! Baaaaaaa. AND there was a keychain thrown in for shits and giggles (awww, thanks!)

These were handmade and sold on over at Etsy in the Jelby shop- and they really rock (I believe they are updating their inventory as we speak so take a look if you can!)

Thank you again Cass for the awesome give away!

Baaaaaaaaaaa.

We had a hot date last night, in culmination of the never ending birthday festivities, my man, a.k.a. “this” guy:

–took me to see Eddie Izzard (in concert?) It isn’t a concert when it is a comedian is it? It is a theatrical performance, right? Well, anyhoo, we LOVE Eddie Izzard. He is the funniest mo’fo’ on the planet as far as I’m concerned, I laughed so hard I almost wet myself last night.

And he looked like this:

… but less blurry and stuff. Yeah.

We saw this performance at the Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre (ooh, spelled with an “re” I wonder if things there are colourful too since we’re being all fancy pants and using Briticisms and all.) It is located on Cobb Galleria Parkway (not to be confused with Cobb Parkway, which is close, but not the same thing. Sheesh, you would think they could come up with a better road name, right? It is a really beautiful theater, new, big but not too big. There was a minor mishap with ushers sending us to the wrong side of the theater (odds and evens are on opposite ends.) Our seats were good but there didn’t seem to be a bad seat in the house. Eddie performed for like, 2 1/2 hours- just talking and being funny for over two hours! Amazing bloke that one is, talking about bollocks and being genuinely entertaining. (I wish I were British, to say things like bloke, bollocks and shag all the time, it would be sweet!) Anyways, blah, blah, great show, great new venue (but it was a tad chilly, my own fault for not bringing a wrap) good times!

Thanks honey! Nobody do a birthday like you do! Now birthday month 2008 is officially closed.

UPDATE:

Just for you, Margaret:

This was me on night of said date. And actually this was Jeff:

You can tell that it is him by the telephone surgically attached to his ear lobe. The photo at the top of the post was taken of him in his funny, magic man clothes. He has the BEST tshirt collection ever!

Task- to create new throw pillows to go with old bedspread/new sheets color palette:

But I don’t wanna cover up my circus toile (sniff, sniff)

Ok, it is a tad girly, technically it matches, but girrrrrrrrly. So now I have this:

My mother helped me select these two fabrics that contrasted each other nicely. I was wanting some sort of trim to finish these off - and we all know that trim can get expensive (right Auntie Kandie?) so she talked me through this neat trick, I took some cording I had at home and covered it with contrasting fabric then sewed it into the pillow just like trim.

And for the finished project:

This concludes our session of Adventures in Sewing. Next time, pillows the sequel- sofa throws.

I’ve been tagged, but it looks interesting, I don’t know if I have five bloggers to tag that haven’t been already so the buck might stop here.

The Rules: Rules are posted at the beginning. At the end of the post, the player tags 5 people and posts their names. Then the player goes to each of the “named” people’s blogs and leaves a comment, letting them know they’ve been tagged and asking them to read your blog. If you’ve been tagged, you do the same, letting the person who tagged you know when you’ve posted your answer. Your answer, of course, is the answer to the following questions. Here we go!

1. What was I doing 10 years ago? Back in 1998 I was still in college at UGA studying Art History, which I thought was the most important thing in the world and contemplating graduate school for the same reason. I was a cocktail waitress, student and sometimes artist and I was having a blast.

2. What are 5 things on my to-do list today? 1. Fix the computers at the office, the new system is all skrooed. 2. Go to the tanning bed for the last time this summer, a base coat has been achieved so I will not burn at the lake and/or the beach. 3. Have a moment of silence for George Carlin. 4. Cook dinner- chicken roulade and crash hot potatoes 5. Finish Plain Truth by Jodi Picoult.

3. Snacks I enjoy: Cheese and crackers- any kind of cheese really, but port wine cheese spread on a Triscuit is damn tasty and my favorite. I also like dried fruit and boiled peanuts.

4. Places I’ve lived: This isn’t going to be very impressive, I haven’t moved too far from home- Asheville (as an infant), Atlanta (Sandy Springs), Athens, Roswell, Alpharetta, Canton and Gainesville.

5. Things I would do if I were a billionaire: Well, I think I’d quit my job, buy an island, and raise miniature donkeys. (That and take care of my parents and all of that crap.)

Five people to tag? For real? Well, um… I suppose I’ll tag Olaf, he’ll love that. Everyone else I know in the blogiverse has been tagged already- sorry.

So, I have added all of my UFO’s (Unfinished Objects) to my Ravelry notebook so I will have to be forced to deal with them. Not too terribly bad-while I have technically 4 WIP’s (works in progress) my only abandoned for the time being UFO’s are a headband and a pillow, the Tumbling Blocks pillow to be exact. It is giving me a rash just thinking about it because I don’t like intarsia and no matter how much I practice I still suck at it. I suppose I am coming to terms with the fact that I don’t HAVE to be good at colorwork just because other knitters are and I am becoming okay with this although part of me wants to keep going to see if I “get it” but the other part wants to rip it now so I don’t have to be disappointed with the final product later. The yarn is so pretty (Rowan, yum, yum) I’m thinking of making an entrelac scarf out of it, but I just don’t know… yet, so I’m sittin’ on it for the time being.

Also- look what got FOUND!

Yep. That is one found alien illusion scarf. It was at Jeff’s Daddy’s house. I washed it by hand then hung it inside out to deal with the “roll” issue (which, when he starts wearing it, will only start to roll again. I may take the new slick sewing machine and “line” the wrong side of this scarf with some jersey or something to help it lay flat, I’ll talk to the boy and see what he wants. I’m really glad he found it, I was a bit bummed it was gone. So he is officially OFF the hook … (for this.)

Ok, what else? OH! Since I now fancy myself a seamstress and seem to think I can tackle a GARMENT- I think I may try a garment! My mother says she will talk me through any difficulties, but I think I will start with a simple, wrap skirt- but I want it to feel “vintage” so I think I’m going to use this tutorial and make a black and toile one (I lurrrrrrrrve toile!) We shall see. So many projects, so little time. Jeff is also going to assist me in the casting of some resin jewelry (I had a stroke of brilliance recently that I’ll blog about at a later time because it is a surprise for someone dear that may or may not be reading.) I’m knitting something also in secret so that can’t really be discussed either (but it is in my Ravelry file here if you can’t stand the anticipation.)

Hmmmmmm. One more thing- it has recently come to my attention that my grandmother is damn funny. Also because she is still with us (boy is she ever with us) I should be supremely grateful. So in the spirit of gratefulness (and funniness) I’m going to start telling some of her stories in my blog- maybe I’ll call it “Granny’s Corner” (lordy she would hate that). She also hates this picture (that I copied onto fridge magnets and gave to her children at Christmas… hee hee.)

Fist installment: Tales of a Slightly Pickled Southern Grandmother? (yeah, I need to sleep on this one.)

So, my Mamama lives in a pretty swanky retirement community in my little town (how convenient, right?) and she INSISTS on calling it “The Home” when it is anything but. I would say she likes to push buttons, but that would be making nice of the true issue, Grandmother likes to f*@k with people. Imagine a community of active seniors, all walking (or rolling) around wearing name tags and constantly greeting one another with various degrees of recognition. When asked “How are you” most respond with “Fine” or “Good.” Not my old lady, she says “Mean.” She gets endless entertainment about doing this because sometimes the inquirer doesn’t hear her or just assumes she said either “Fine” or “Good.” She gets more enjoyment when they merrily say “Greeeaaaat” after she says it. When they do, on occasion, happen to hear her, normally the LOL’s (Little Ol’ Ladies) like to say things like, “Nooo, you aren’t mean!” (and obviously they don’t know her.) This almost called a rumble in the line in the cafe the other day when one woman greeted her with “There’s that mean lady!” and then another lady in line got miffed and said “No she is NOT!” All while MMM (Mamama) looks on with glee, I can imagine a spark in her eye at what she had created. Pretty evil, huh?

She says this to Jeff when he greets her too. It cracks him up. She confided in me that her reasoning is that she doesn’t want to be a hypocrite and say she is fine when she isn’t, her arthritis is starting to bother her something fierce and her neck hurts and she is old so she figures rather than lie, mess with people.

I suppose I support her “shaking things up” over yonder at “the home” if it is for the sake of truthfulness.

More to follow…

A thought that comes to my mind almost daily. I don’t know why some greenery enjoys the pleasure of my company while some flora abandons ship almost immediately. I have no green thumb, but I like to grow stuff, when I can. This year Jeff got me a loverly hummingbird bush (amongst other fauna) and I am eternally grateful for the beauty that is our patio right now. Now we have also adopted some plants that were “liberated” from an untimely demise (i.e. the dumpster at Lowe’s by Jeff’s Mom) and we have planted them as well, what the hell.

Now it is getting truly exiting. Brace yourselves, we have a burgeoning head of lettuce (about three bites worth) happily growing alongside some cilantro, which is also flourishing, I’ll have you know.

Now for my personal favorite… drumroll please… our “vegetable.” Somewhere along the way this plant lost its tag, but from the bar code we have deciphered that, at maturity, we will have a crop of “vegetable.”

Good to know. The center green thing that is positively thriving is a lonely refugee patio tomato, of THAT I can be certain (it had a tag.) However, the two spindly things on the outside, well, that can be anyone’s guess, but by the way that they are creeping, I’m going to hypothesize that maybe… possibly… they could be a bean of some sort? An Okra plant? Won’t this be fun? I’ll be sure to take a photographic essay of our journey together –so stay tuned.

Now for your daily dose of eye candy. I merged two birthday gifts today in a most delightfully brilliant way (um thank you, thank you very much). First, some really cute glittery rock star decals with my equally rocking, slicker-than-snot sewing machine- wanna know how I know it is rockin? Take a gander:

What, what?

Now from the side:

Boo-ya! NOW I’m ready to roll!

I have much love for this blog, Franklin over at The Panopticon is truly a delightful read (for knitters and non-knitters alike.) He is a master craftsman as equally with a sentence as he is with heirloom lace.

Today, he outdid himself with a post about the world/society not understanding of knitters. Read it, you’ll thank me.

Fwiends. We went to Ichiban on Friday night, sushi and martinis followed by Sex and the City, it doesn’t get much better than that. I loves my girls (aren’t they pretty?) we don’t get to do this very often so it made for an even more special evening.