Spazzmanda

Woah-oh, living on a prayer.  Not a bad song to have stuck in your head at all. Especially because we’ve made some serious strides in finishing up operation apartment do-over.

That is half of a finished apartment. Windows painted, patches where painters tape pulled off the paint fixed, furniture moved back (and vacuumed), new curtains courtesy of Momma (thank you again P.S. and by the way) and art work hung.  We stayed up late. I had a smidge too much wine, but it was all well worth it. Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful living room that can actually be lived in. (This might actually get me out of bed.)

Now. As far as the other half of the apartment…. not so much… yet… but there really isn’t very much painting left. I’m feeling pretty good about all of this. We watched “The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas” last night (yes, again) because musicals and whores, what is better than that? They do look so happy being whores, singing, dancing, hanging out with Dolly Parton. I asked my mother if she actually wanted to ask a local singing, whoring individual who shall remain nameless if she enjoyed her work half as much… I think I might still have her number here somewhere from the last time she called me and got all white trash on my voice mail (I might have touched a nerve with the old blog here…)

Oh, in other news, two of my college roommates delivered baby girls yesterday! Beth had her second- Sara Kate and Nicole had her fourth- Vivian Lauren. Way to go with the birthin’ ladies, the last two weeks have been all about the new humans coming into the world, I couldn’t be happier for all of you guys!

Have a great holiday weekend- I’m retreating to the mountains again, it should be fun… ish. We’ll see.

In the past 24 hours, I’ve learned the following:

1. Don’t buy painters tape at Big Lots, it can peel the drywall off of the walls (and paint too.)

2. Sweating is a good thing.

3. Don’t spray paint your switch plate covers on a teensy square of newspaper, the white over spray WILL get on your black patio table.

4. Gainesville had like a foot of rain in the past few days (and I have the full watering can I left on the patio to prove it.)

5. Cats like yarn… still. Ziplocs are your friend always.

6. NEVER stereotype the “type” of person that knits or crochets as being either elderly or female…

Don’t you love his outfit? That is dedication. That is delightful. That is… a whole lot of yellow. (Disclaimer: This is not my photograph, it was forwarded to me and I’m merely sharing it with the world because, honestly, someone must.)

I got home from my wicked cool yoga class tonight only to find a mysterious and smuooshy package. I saw it was from a little slice of heaven on earth, Knitch, only the finest yarn shop in Atlanta. Inside was this:

A pattern for a shrug and some of the most beautiful beaded silk I’ve ever seen. (I’ve been coveting this yarn for, like, ever. But it wasn’t in the budget on my current yarn diet.) I thought to myself: “Self?”  “Did I win something???”

Nope, my fantastic friend Jen (of Sugarchef.com) sent it to me as a pick me up. And boy howdy, it is the perfect end of an almost perfect day. I had a good day at work, a good evening at the gym and now I have some silky, sparkly lovliness to occupy the rest of the night.

Jen, I can’t thank you enough. You are truly a wonderful, wonderful friend and I’m missing you lots.

Ok, one close-up for the road:

MMMMMMMMMMMMMM. Have a great weekend!

Mom came over again and we painted some more. Still not finished. This is going to take a long, long time.

Here is the progress of her RUG that she is knitting. (Who knits a rug? I wouldn’t be able to bear someone putting their feet on something that took this much time, but whatever floats your boat.) I think it looks like Uncle Sam’s lower intestine, but I’m assured it will be rug-shaped.

She then made me this salad, which was very appetizing even though there were no tomatoes.

I’m mad today. Mad is better than sad. Sad sucks.

Angry is working for me today.

I has a green wall.

But just the one. It is step one in operation reclaim my apartment and love living in it again because do you really want to move to another apartment when you have one that is just fine? Also, I can’t bear to think of our plans to move out together into a home of our own. It wasn’t happening, but we did have plans and I did believe (at the time) that he was going to make good on all his promises to me, but that’s all gone in an instant. And for what? A romance that was over before it truly began? It seems that most of their “relationship” was arguing about his not leaving me and me not finding out in the first place. It all just churns your stomach thinking about it. 3 years, massive amounts of planning, love, respect, fun and familiarity, all just flushed, and for a girl that has been described as “too stupid to be called psycho.” Now we’re left empty, grasping at straws, dealing with “the rumor mill” that I didn’t even know existed.

Wow. I’m a downer. I’m harshing my own mellow with my new green wall. Mom helped me (thanks again mom, I owe you.) but so did Gnarly:

He held down the toolbox. Because I was worried about that, good thing he had it covered.

Work sucks ass, and no, I don’t want to talk about it because it reminds me of how much I hate my life right now.

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.

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!

Who knew that I was a capable seamstress? Based on the string of foul words that came out of my mouth the last time I attempted to sew something with a machine, I would have never dreamed it possible. Apparently, the right tools make all the difference in the world! I recently acquired a loverly NEW sewing machine from John Olin and Margaret (hi there folks!) and it looks something like this:

Singer Esteem say hello to the world. This thing is truly wunderbar. The first very important item of business was to fill out the warranty card, you know, just in case you monkey strength the thing and have to have something, er, replaced. (I didn’t do that by the way, but it has been known to happen to other appliances, like the Cuisnart.)

Then you can sew. Once I got through the basics I was ready to rock and roll, the Singer Esteem (don’t you just love that?) is a MUCH nicer machine than the one I inherited a few years ago, but in all fairness, it was a 50 year old dinosaur of a machine so it is like comparing apples to fossilized apples or something. my Esteem is light weight, easy to understand and it sews like buttah. I lined my rosebud bag and finished it last night! It took two tries, but I made lemons into lemonade. My first lining was much too small, so I made a second, better lining, and the first became a snazzy hidden side pocket see?

Notice the stripes in the pocket and in the bag go opposite ways, let us pretend I did that on purpose (I like the effect though) I also used my zigzag feature because that is how I roll. And here is the finished bag on the outside:

All in all, not a bad project. The actual knitting was done in a flash, then add about 2 hours to sew on all the roses, leaves and insert the handles and another 2 hours (give or take) to do a lining. I am very pleased with my new summer bag!  Hey, thanks Jenny for the pattern suggestion, and again to John and Margaret for the snazzy new machine and of course, I’d like to thank the academy…

Now, you too can create a delightful “Green Ogre” hat (a la Shrek) for your little beasties. I am thrilled I get to share this as my very first pattern. I’ve made things up before for sure, but this time I took the trouble to do MATH for you people and type it all out.

Click on the link below and you should magically have a PDF file.

Enjoy!

spazzgreenogrehat

(Modeled by my favorite red-headed monster. Photograph courtesy of my pal Olaf. I totally “borrowed” it from his flickr site because the only other hat photo I have is this. I’m sure all will understand why I thieved.)

*Disclaimer: I am not as proficient in mathematics as I am verbal, and subsequently, the pattern may not be without flaw. But handmade things have flaws and I’m ok with that. If you are not, I suggest you gauge swatch and do your own math. Let me know if you have problems with the pattern, but I reserve the right not to care. It is free. Free as a bird. Free like the wind. Free as…Well, you get it.

I had a truly awesome weekend. The perfect balance of fun and productivity- in the face of all the stress from work and some bizarre superfluous drama on the home front- we really needed it.

On Friday we went to Chow Baby, an awesome restaurant in Atlanta, for Olaf’s birthday. It is a stir fry bar- you go through and get all your stuff- veggies, noodles, sauces and meat and they stir fry it for you. The trick is to try a little at a time so you can go through more than once (it is all you can eat for $11.99) I followed a recipe the first time then went through “free style” the second time. It was awesome and so worth the trip to celebrate our super fly friend turning 31.

On Saturday, after some feverish knitting with my ladies, I went over to Rachel and Caleb’s for some much needed, drama-free camaraderie.  It was a Mexican potluck- and so awesome. We may start doing this once a month it was such a good time- I got to see some very old friends and make some new ones too(maybe next time we will actually get to playing some games!) We played with all the babies present- it seems everyone is squeezing out offspring right now- it sure makes for some fun discussions to walk in on!

And today- I did my taxes (all by myself thank you very much) and have cast on two successfully swatched projects! Oh, and I didn’t mention the very best part, here is the aforementioned EYE CANDY:

Yes, that would be some Kool-Aid dyed, self-striping (God willing) sock yarn. I followed this tutorial. Jeff has already had to help me through some tangling issues and I promised him I would not attempt to put this into a ball without his help no matter how confident I am that I won’t tangle it, because naturally, I’m a very skilled yarn tangler. (He takes such good care of me.)

So, I’m ready to face the week, and good thing too, we have a BIG event at work that I need to be on the ball for. Heck, I don’t think I’ll even need a Benadryl to help me sleep tonight!