The Long Wait Part One

It's been a while since I blogged last. That's partly because I'm still getting used to blogging, and partly because we've just been super busy. In a mostly good way.

Some awesomeness came our way when we (a group of us from work(Barnes and Noble)) went to see John Hodgeman in Atlanta. He was talking about his new book, "More Information than You Require", which is a follow-up to his first tome, "The Areas of My Expertise". For those of you who don't know John Hodgeman you may recognize him from such pop culture icons as "The Daily Show", or more begrudgingly, those Apple Mac commercials where he plays "PC".
His books are great and are full of totally useless and desperately needed information, such as which presidents had hooks for hands, and what that 51st state is all about. I encourage you to read them.

We also took a trip down to Florida this weekend to play a few shows( did you know that my boyfriend and I are in a band called Captain #1?) and visit Tim's parents since he won't be seeing them for Thanksgiving.
We stopped on the way and got this great picture of me hugging a stuffed tiger in a Walgreens. We were trying to replicate the amazing image we found of Alan Thicke hugging a stuffed tiger. I guess it was a head shot or something, but it's just ridiculous and great.

Well, I'll have much more to look at in the next week, but there's so much to be done, with packing and crafting, and flying on jet planes, and eating turkey!

Happy Thanksgiving, Alan Thicke!

Hello Fall, Goodbye Fall

Here in Georgia it always seems that as soon as you welcome fall with pumpkins and apples and Halloween, you're waving goodbye to it and saying hello to winter. This year fall has been a bit up and down. A few weeks ago it got REALLY cold for Georgia. Down in the forties and such. But today it was almost eighty degrees, and that's just not right. So, here's a little homage to fall, in case you miss it.

Tim was smart enough to nab some photos of our spooky (and silly) jack-o-lanterns before they completely rotted. I made the spooky one on the right. Tim thought it was too scary , but it's right up my alley. I love scary movies (not gory ones) and with this pumpkin I was going for a sort of bucked-tooth vampire look. Tim leaned toward goofy, but we decided that his pumpkin looked most like Dick Cheney, and that's scarier than anything I've ever made.

Today I took some pictures of the changing leaves in our yard. The colors that nature can produce are truly amazing. There's one tree, which I haven't got a picture of, that is so large and bursting with bright yellow leaves, they look like canary feathers. A tree of canaries! What an image. Our yard is pretty too, especially this pretty red and orange number in the back.

One last fallish thing . . . I got this picture of the sky clouding over into evening. I'm not sure why it's so dark in one corner. I'm pretty sure I didn't put my thumb in it. Maybe the camera picked up something I didn't.

Well, I'll give one last sigh for fall and hope it will last a few more days, but I don't have my hopes up. No doubt in a week, it will be bitterly cold and I'll have to wear three pairs of socks to bed. You'd think if it were going to be cold we could at least get some snow, but that's a rarity as well.

Oh! Oh! Oh! It's Magic . . .

I have to say, I am so so happy and relieved that Barack Obama is going to be our next president. I really feel that he has the power to lift our country out of the mire that we're in. I was a little nervous on election day, even though I was confident that he would win. I loved that basically as soon as the polls in California closed they called the election for Obama. I hope that those who voted for McCain aren't too disappointed. I think that John McCain is truly a good man, and would not have done bad by our country. However, I do feel that he allowed his desire to win the election and the opinions of those in his campaign to skew his judgment to such an extent that he became almost unrecognizable. Given his erudite and humble concession speech, it seems that he recognizes this himself and has gone back to the real John McCain. I really do hope that Obama's presidency will open up a new era of cooperation and open-mindedness in our country.

I really wanted an Obama t-shirt for most of the election but either couldn't find one I liked, or didn't have the money for it. However, ironically enough, just a few days after the election I found just what I wanted right in my home town of Athens. I thought this one was A for awesome. Find it at Satisfctory on Etsy. My manager at work was so happy about the results of the election that she bought everyone breakfast and lunch.

I work at Barnes and Noble, and I when I came in on Wednesday I thought I'd get some newspapers to save for the headlines. I was lucky to get to work early because we only got 3 copies of the New York Times and people asked about them all day, and a few today as well.

The only thing that made me really sad this election season was to see that Proposition 8 passed in California. I'm not sure how it will actually play out legally, but this seems to be a devastating blow to civil rights. In 1967 the Supreme Court, in a case involving an interracial couple, declared that "marriage is one of the basic civil rights for man" and now that right is being threatened. Our country was founded with the idea of a separation of church and state. The only reason to not allow gay couples to marry is because you have religious moral objections to it. The fact is, two people being married, whether gay or not, does not infringe on anyone else's rights or well-being, and therefore should be legal. The only thing Prop 8 does is force a specific religious belief onto the whole of the population of California and it's citizens. Since we're a country that allows freedom of religion, and therefore the right to not practice religion at all, this is a clear violation of our consitution that I find very disheartening. Being gay should not infringe on your basic rights.

I feel that one day we'll look back on this decision and shake our heads with shame. And it is a shame, that on the day we elect our first black president, people are still battling for their rights as citizens of this country and as human beings.

Go Vote!

Do it. NOW! If you don't, you'll regret it.

Spooky and Not So Spooky

Happy Halloween Weekend!

I had a devil of a time figuring out a good costume and ultimately went with just sort of a sixties look, which Tim said looked like Rhoda from Mary Tyler Moore. Tim went as Teen Wolf with great success, although he did get a few "Geico Caveman" which made him greatly disappointed and want to say, "Kids these days".
We went downtown to see all the costumes and there were some pretty good ones. We only saw one Sarah Palin, thank god! There was a guy dressed up as The Monarch from Venture Bros. which was great. We saw a Carmen San Diego, but only for a second. She was too elusive for us to nab a picture of. And, we saw QualiMan from "Doug". Quailman! Can you believe it?! Sometimes I love people.
We've been trying to eat a little better, and we managed to keep the candy to a minimum on Halloween. Tim is trying to make me into some sort of domestic cook person. Apparently the ability to cook in my family skipped a generation because, although my mother was quite good at it, I just don't have the natural talent. Therefore, when we cook I end up asking Tim what goes where and how much, and eventually he just does it himself. This week we (he) made sausage and broccoli pitas with spinach. It sounds a little strange but it was SO good. We used kielbasa which had a lot of flavor and mixed well with the greens. I do love food. Maybe I'll be a chef someday, but not today.
In Etsy news, I've been working on a big order of custom monogrammed ornaments. I believe they're going to be handed out as party favors at a child's birthday party. They're surprisingly fun to make, especially with all the different colors. When I came up with the idea of doing custom ornaments I wasn't sure how well they'd go over or if they'd sell at all. But, if this order is any indication it wasn't such a bad idea after all! Well, that's all from Georgia for now. The weather has warmed up a little bit. Maybe our poor garden will have a chance!

Here's a picture of Rilke disguised as a chicken. She's not very happy about it.

The Trappings of Cold(er) Weather

Back blogging again. It's been a while now and the weather is getting colder. Our new house seems to have drafts in all the appropriate places, inlcuding our bedroom. We've been keeping warm by drinking lots of hot chocolate, playing music, and listening to our friends play music. Not to mention, of course, a whole lot of knitting.
I've become rather addicted to Lion Brand Thick and Quick yarn because it's so big and fluffy, and I love the bright solid colors. I feel like this may be a habit I need to grow out of, as most of my recent knitting projects revolve around this yarn, and I'm afraid the effect will get old. Neverless, I've used it to create some new items for the shop, some which I'll show here . . .

I just posted this hat today. It came out looking a lot more boy-ish than I had anticipated, but that's all right since boyish-ness isn't exactly prevalent in my shop, except of course for the adorable beardie men who are really more for lover's of beards than beards themselves. The ornaments are back, and the pins are always available.


People don't seem to be in much of a buying mood these days (hmm, I wonder why?) and the vibe over at Etsy has been decidedly down-hearted. I'm coping by trying to wear out my knitting needles and use every scrap of yarn and fiber I have in the house before buying new supplies.
Despite somewhat desperate times the changing seasons puts me in the mood to be productive and not to whine too much. Whine a little, just not too much.

We've been enjoying our weekend with our friends from the band "The Accident that Led Me to the World". They have beautiful harmonies and a very melodic acoustic sound. Check them out. They had some unfortunate luck with their van breaking down . . . twice. I'm sure they could use some encouragement, and some CD sales to help them get back home. They played a great show in our living room while we ate caramel apples with our friends. All lovely cold weather activities. Not that it has to be cold outside to do any of things, but it's probably better if it is. There's too much to write about to cover it all in one post so I'll just leave you with a few more pictures.


This is an example of a new kind of neck warmer I've been working on. The lace-up kind. They haven't sold yet, but we'll see how it goes closer to Christmas.



And this is my cat, Rilke.

Cotton and Wool

The weather is getting warmer and that only means one thing for knitters: cotton. Beautiful, soft, reliable, pure cotton. It's almost impossible to make a hat or mittens out of cotton because of it's notorious lack of stretchability. Also, you really wouldn't want to because it's not all that warm. However, it's perfect for spring and summer shawls, cardigans, loose sweater, and especially bags. I'm knitting this one with some beautiful Egyptian cotton hand-dyed by this lovely company in Chile. Only most of one side is done, but hopefully it will be as beautiful as the yarn itself.




Also, in light of the sad but undeniable fact that it is no longer winter, I must put my creative efforts toward something other than knitting. So, I've started making some felted necklaces and stuff. I started out by knitting things out of wool, but then started adding needle felted elements as well. Needle felting is very fun if you remember not to stab yourself too much. The way it works is almost like magic. You don't really fell like you're doing anything, and then, poof, you have a necklace, or a pendant, or a full grown koala bear (this can really happen!). It's pretty great.


In other crafty news, Prairie Dog Inc (www.prairiedog.etsy.com) will be selling her wares (okay, I'LL be selling MY wares) at the Athens Indie Craftstravaganzaa in Athens, GA on May 10. So, if you're in Athens, or near Athens you should come and check out all of our awesome local crafty people and their oodles of talent.

Oh, and here's a picture of my cat Rilke just because . . .