A Parade of Creatures

Recently I've been exploring a new craft; embroidery. I've always kind of thought of this as an old lady craft until I picked up a book called "Doodle-Stitching" which made it look very fun and cute. Sooooo . . . . I went out and bought my first embroidery hoop ( a cheap wooden one) and then soon went out and bought my second embroidery hoop(a much better, plastic one) and began stitching away. So far I only know how to do one real stitch but it seems to be working for my current purposes.

I've been working my way back and forth through my encyclopedia of animals trying to capture the ones that are both embroidery friendly and cute. My first attempts were an owl, a fox, and a narwhal. Yes, I said it, a narwhal. I'm going to reveal my stupidity here, but until about a year ago I thought narwhals were mythological creatures akin to a unicorn or a hobbit, but they're real. This fact blew my mind. It would seriously be like if someone told you that of course unicorns are real, haven't you ever watched the Discovery Channel?! I just had to try my hand at creating one of these guys and embroidering him on a pillow seemed the most practical way.

We're also preparing for an upcoming tour of our band, Captain #1. We'll be traveling up the East Coast and then toward Michigan where my sister lives. Tim's an old hand at this tramping around the country thing, while I'm relatively new to it. I am looking forward to seeing new places.

Well, that's all for now. I'm going back to eating popcorn and watching bad TV.

The Long Wait Part 2

So, you don't have to tell me that it's been a ridiculously long time since I updated my blog, though some of you already have. The good news is that when I wait this long I usually have more to say and more pictures to show you. I'll start with the more recent . . .

This past Sunday we awoke (in the early afternoon) to find gobs of snow on the ground and still more spilling from the sky. A week earlier we were in Detroit for my lovely sister's birthday and saw snow there, but any snow at all is a rare sight in Georgia and this was a positive blanket. Being from the Midwest (El Kansas, to be precise) I've seen my share of snow, but Tim (the bf) and basically everyone I know down here is from the South. Tim didn't get to see snow until he was 17! He just kept walking around saying, "This is blowing my mind!" To the left you'll see the slightly retarded but endearingly lovable snowman we made.

All in all, I'd say we got about a foot of snow. In the north this wouldn't be such a great big deal and people would pretty much go about their normal lives. But this is the South, meaning two things: 1) No snow plows or salt trucks, and 2) No one realizes the importance of cutting down dead trees. We were most effected by the latter, as our street became strewn with fallen limbs, and one especially monstrous tree that fell across the entire road and took out the electricity on our block. We survived by candlelight for about 36 hours until about midnight on the second day, when I had just finished a candlelit shower (luckily our hot water heater is gas) and flipped the wall switch out of habit, only to find that our electricity had miraculously been restored. I definitely don't think I could have survived before the late 1800s without complaining a lot.

Though the snow was a bit inconvenient, I think overall it was a nice change from the routine.

In other news, I have been a total bum about my Etsy shop which I guess isn't really news so much as lack of news. I have all these new ideas for really cute pillows with some embroidery, but I can't get myself motivated. So, I've decided that today is the day. I finally posted my first new item in a while. It's a cute lacy little scarf. I love this goldish mustard color a lot. I think because it looks kind of vintage. Also, it makes me want to wear shirts with poofy sleeves. Don't ask me why. This me trying to look all fashion-y and stuff. That's not what I really look like though.

Tomorrow we'll be heading down to Florida for the Harvest of Hope Music Festival. We'll only be spectating, not participating so hopefully it will be a stress-free weekend with some good music. We'll also be camping which is always both fun and irritating. Like I said, I like modern conveniences. I like to think I can be a little rough and tumble when I need to be though.

Thanks to anyone who has been willing to wait for months to read a new blog post. I hope you weren't holding your breath.


This is our cat Rilke, looking positively pissed that we've decided to let here experience snow.

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.