Spazzmanda

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!

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.

I’m still sick dammit. I’ve been sick for over a week now and hit a plateau on Monday for getting well. I ask myself each morning- Self? Do you feel better today? To which the answer has been a resounding “pllllbbbbbttttt.” But today, I think I feel better. Or maybe I’ve just gotten used to the sinus pressure and the interesting colored mucus. (Sorry, too much information.)

I haven’t knat a stitch in over a week. Or had any wine, which I hear has medicinal purposes so now would be the time to indulge. I DID have a beer or two last night when I went to the BON JOVI concert in Atlanta (but that was because I couldn’t figure out how to open the wine that was in the suite.)

Yes, you heard me correctly, we were seated in the CLUB LEVEL BOX suite thingies. My glorious mother scored some tickets from a business associate for box seats at the Phillips Arena so she, my BFF Rachel and I all went for some girly fun. Let me tall you, the BOX was the way to go. I’m so glad we got there first so we could geek out and be totally and completely uncool about how pimped out our digs were. There was nummy, nummy food and a refrigerator full of beer and wine and water and all sorts of stuff. But the concert, the concert was beyond amazing. The band puts on one heck of a show and Jon Bon- well, he flirted shamelessly with 20,000 people last night. Every time he smiled I became moist in- places. So my ubercold was put on hold- which might be the reason for my backsliding today- but it was totally worth it. Can I again tell you how much I love Mr. Bon Jovi?

I mean, I know I’m in a serious committed relationship (blah, blah) and he has been married to his high school sweetheart for, like, ever (blah, blah, blah) but for really really, I have some real and passionate LOVE for this man.

He is pretty, no?

Nomnomnomnomnomnomnomnomnom. (Much love to Nicole, I love this new noise and am using it as my new yummy-nummy-nummy expression, thank Anna-Banana for allowing me to borrow the term from her.)

Ok, so, what was I writing about? Oh yeah, I’m still sick (and it was totally worth it) and I’m not knitting a damn thing (which sucks) so, what else… Oh YES!- one of my favorite bloggers at Shut Up, I’m Counting is having a contest (part of which is to give advice to her lovely offspring about to turn 17) so go and check her out.

Been thoughtlessly neglecting ye’ olde blog lately, I have had so much to do. BIG deadlines at work - lots of fun-fun stress, not to mention that “Spring Forward” sucks ginormous donkey balls. My show is now up as of today and a full two days ahead of schedule thank you very much Senor Juan Valdez, not to mention the things that I’ve volunteered for -I’m the local chapter DAR scrapbook chairman- (did you know they gave out certificates for giving out the most certificates???) AND the square that just won’t end is due this week (you would think I could knit a 3 foot by 3 foot square in my sleep people! Not so much fun is the seaming!)

Life is overall very, very, good right now. I’ve been very busy, but that hard working exhaustion is a good thing. Been cooking a bunch, crafting a bunch, hanging with lots of new (and old) friends a bunch, pretty darn happy.

Speaking of friends, I went to a wedding for a friend last summer, he just sent me this:

Now if that isn’t a Kodak-chocolate-covered-happy moment with sprinkles on top, then I just don’t know what is! I’m going to meditate for a moment. Ahhhhh. I loves my man.

Have a lovely day folks!

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!

I had this truly batshit idea last month to replicate the original Fargo movie poster in actual (i.e. not digital) cross stitch for Fox’s birthday. (She loves the movie as much as I and I wanted to see if it could be done.)

It CAN:

I learned several things:

1. Cross stitch is NOT as fun (to me) as knitting.

2. Expect delays-elaborate borders take much TIME and you should add many hours to your initial estimation and might (cough) miss the deadline.

3. Not everyone ‘gets’ or has seen Fargo, so you have a lot of ’splaining to do when working on this project in public.

4. It was totally worth it! (See the reaction HERE and HERE.)

UPDATE: I have no pattern for this. I made the beast by using a photo of the original movie poster blown up very, very large so you could see all the little pixels. It served as a pseudo-’pattern’ and it was not really to ’scale’ (It didn’t exactly match the gauge of the grid of the cross stitch fabric) so I had to wing it a little and create the same overall shapes and shadows. I am not very skilled with cross stitch, so it probably has many imperfections. The text was backstitched except for the “Fargo” logo, which I drew on at the very end with pencil then filled in with thread using a very imperfect embroidery technique- and yes- that is a real needle.

Overall it is a success and I think it is sort of “funny looking” (like the little guy) dontcha know.

This is me.

Not only because I got my “elf on” for a face-painting job with Jeff last night (I’m making a pretty mean snowflake this year- with glitter and everything!) but also because I’m booked every freaking night from here through Christmas with little to no exception. I’m seriously buggin’ because I have some projects that need tending to and I haven’t really gotten going yet. Oh, and because someone called in ’sick’ today and it totally screwed me over- I had to cancel appointments, skip my lunch break and therefore miss running two necessary errands, the usual crap. (Note: There are pluses and minuses to working in a very small office, this would be the latter, but I suppose you can’t help when you get sick, right?)

Oh and Jeff did this last night.

Yes that would be a purple-leopard-harlequin mask themed tree. (He has enough decorations to do several ‘themed’ trees.) I let him do this one ‘cuz he does it so well. I’ll be decorating my Charlie Brown Christmas tree tonight. It will be fun.

No really, it will. Or at least that is what I keep telling myself.

I know it is quite the ambitious title for a post, but I have a lot to catch up on. Last weekend we went to see the Police in concert on Saturday and then Blue Man Group on Sunday. That is a lot of concerts. That is a lot of concerts for a girl that has a pretty strict bedtime. So, of course, on Monday I woke up with a cold (I consistently get sick when I get tired) but it was totally worth it. I got to see Sting, up close. Our tickets were for right behind the stage, but it was so much better than being in front of the stage and far, far, far, away. I swear he smiled at me, and I screamed my head off. It was awesome.

Here we are at the Police (that is me and Jeff, of course, with my mom and stepdad.)

I had seen Blue Man once before, and let me tell you, the show is an amazing experience. This time we were up front and it did not disappoint. The band that plays with Blue Man is phenomenal. Really, I don’t know if people realize what an amazing group of musicians they have backing them. Again, I jumped around, acted a fool, and quite enjoyed myself.

This year, we decided to do a low-key Thanksgiving (i.e. not to spend all day in the car going from place to place and stuffing ourselves silly.) We went to my Dad’s in Stone Mountain and just watched T.V., ate, took a little nap and had a pretty wonderful day. I made Paula Deen’s Sweet Potato Balls and they kind of flopped. You see, the mashed sweet potatoes were wrapped around a marshmallow, which I did the night before so I suppose that my marshmallows must have just dissolved or something, because they sure as heck didn’t ooze out of the balls like they did on Paula’s plate (Oh well.)

Then on Friday, Jeff, Ted and I went to Watkinsville to an artist’s open house. There were potters, jewelers and the main draw (for me) was Loretta Eby, glass blower. I met her at work, we sell some of her ornaments and things and she is one of the most entertaining people I have ever had the pleasure of knowing. Every Thanksgiving, they have an open house the weekend after the holiday. What better way to spend “Black Friday” than to watch a glass blowing demonstration? I was in awe. We bought some things for gifts (and she personalized them for us.) It was an awesome trip and well worth the hour drive.

So, now I’m full, happy, tired. I dyed my wayward gray patch (yeah that was me) and baked some ginger snaps so the house smells fantastic, and I think, I daresay, I might just be starting to feel that holiday spirit! Just let me get through the next week or two at work and I’ll be golden!

Oh, another finished object- a hat for my friend Les. I learned a wonderful technique, the duplicate stitch, it beats the hell out of intarsia any old day!

The end is in site for the costume construction for DragonCon. We will be revamping Pee Wee and Miss Yvonne (last year’s Halloween costumes) sometime this weekend in addition to our group outfit- the Life Aquatic team- and our ultra-secret creation. I just have to pack and make sure I don’t forget a single eyelash, in addition to packing up the car for the beach!

I have managed to do some knitting.

See- Baby Bobbi sans stuffing

I still have much work to do, but it is finishing stuff. The last arm is knit around the stuffing and closed up. This yarn has been a tad difficult to work with, but I went down a needle size too so the fabric would be more dense so it is probably my own fault. (I wouldn’t want his guts to come out, you know.) Then I will do the ears, a duplicate stitch around the neck - which I’m not quite sure of how or why it needs to be done, but I’ll do it. And then embroider the face. The head is freaking HUGE. I looked at the photo and I believe the head is supposed to be as big as the torso, but it looks, so far, gargantuan. But I think I may still be able to pull it off.

It snuggles good though. And, because I will eventually HAVE to mention it, so does this:

Look what Dr. Doolittle found in the woods. Yup, that would be a beh-beh kitteh, about a week old, abandoned by its momma and starving to death. No, it will not be living with us. In fact, I’m hoping that someone that will remain nameless will get off the fence and take this here little-un off our hands once it is old enough to go. (It has to be bottle fed and so far I’m proving myself to be not very maternal, thank goodness Jeff is maternal enough for the both of us.)

It is no big secret, I’m dating a geek. But, during our extensive courtship, he has taught me to embrace my inner geek. OIn fact- I’ve apparently always been a closet geek all along!

You may not realize that the biggest geek fest in the southeast, DragonCon, is this week. I’m so tired from our preparations already, and I’m not seeing much opportunity for resting in my near future as I am packing for both the convention AND the beach trip, I sure hope I don’t forget to pack enough underwear.

I will be leaving immediately from the convention on Monday morning to go to St. George. (Woo- hoo St. George!- Thank you John Olin and Margaret for inviting me again!)

Photo from last year’s trip:

From left to right- My adopted sis Anjanette, Moi with sunburn, the lovely Sally and of course John and Margaret- Babs- my adopted parents.)

Anyhoo, back to the costume, the whole point of the post! Foxy and I have been working on an UBER-Secret costume for the upcoming ‘con.’ Since I’m also going to the beach, it will be some time before photos are posted (because I’m not taking my laptop with me, sorry, but I’m totally unplugging.)

Now, I don’t sew. My mother does, but I don’t have the talent or the patience. She won’t sew for me anymore, so I have been forced to figure my own way around the machine. I can make costumes and ‘embellish’ pre-exisiting shapes with some minor sewing and adjustments. Last year, Jeff tried his best to convince me that I could sew him some Batman gloves. I refused. He persisted and it almost ended in bloodshed (his, not mine.)

This costume idea was totally Fox’s, and it is totally cool! I hope it will be a hit. She wants us to enter the big costume contest. I told her I might need a drink (or four) before I would be ok with going on a stage in front of a bout a million geeks that positively live for this stuff.

It should be pretty neat. More to follow.