Olympic snowflake Monday

I'll probably be a little quiet for the next couple of weeks while I watch a lot of skating and skiing. It's not personal, I promise. You should probably just go enjoy some skating a skiing too. It's pretty fun.

It is Monday, howver, and snowflakes are appropriate to the Winter Olympics, so I'll show off the latest - #3. Riveting, I'm sure, but that's what you get around here. If you haven't figured that out yet. :)


Ooh! Skiing! Bye!

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When you procrastinate your ways to procrastinate, what does that make you?

Yes, it's true, sometimes I can't even procrastinate efficiently. Remember waaaaaaay back in, oh yes, March, when I told you about the fun little game I played on Facebook wherein I made gifts for five people by the end of the year?? Yeah, that one! Well, the last gift was received earlier this week! In February! So, either "end of the year" meant December 31st and I failed miserably, OR, "end of the year" meant twelve months from the day I joined the meme, in which case I made it with weeks to spare. I'm just going to put the blinders firmly on and say it's the latter. Even though I'm pretty sure it was originally worded in such a way that I don't really get that out.

I already showed you Byron's java jacket, but I'm going to re-show so it's a complete set. And, you're a rather captive audience, hmmmm? Hehehe. I also made small modifications in the same pattern for gifts for Julie and I'm Still Calling Her "New Friend" Veronica. I love these so much. I can't believe I haven't made myself one yet. The little cable is my favorite. :)

Quick and Basic Coffee Cozy by Andrea Piernock
Patons Soy Wool Stripes and Classic Wool
Size US6 dpns

I also showed you the beginning of Don's gift, but it went through a bit of transformation after it's last cameo... Don's a cool guy and a bit nerdy (which is why I love him so). I remembered him talking about a certain graphic novel many years ago when it first came out. And when the movie version of that graphic novel came out last year, I hoped that a commemorative hat would do the trick! Turns out I was right! I'm so glad he likes it. :)

Time Thief Watch Cap by Antoinette Buchanan
Unknown yellow acrylic blend with felt applique
Size US8 dpns

Speaking of nerd boys I love, Gator's best friend Wiggins was also on the list. Yes, we call lots of people by the last names around here. We're fun that way. Anyway, as a classic geek, I figured he could always use another place to stash some dice. And a dice bag shaped like a die was just too good to pass up.

D4-Shaped Dice Bag by Claire Nordlow
Red Heart Super Saver yarn
Size US8 straight needles

That's five! Whew! In the interest of full disclosure, it was the dice bag that did me in. I wanted to finish it before I started the last two gifts, but I was stymied. It was a little big fiddly to put together and get the numbers even. So I procrastinated it. I only finished it around New Year's. It turned out it wasn't so bad in the end. And I love the finished project. It was totally worth it, I think.

That's how one procrastinates the procrastination. You'd think it would take more talent than that, frankly.

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Flurries of fury!!

I swear, people are crazy. When I was a kid, we got a snow day about once every four years. And it's not because it didn't snow! I remember getting stuck in the school bus on hills, in driveways, in ditches. We were late sometimes, and sometimes we all got off the bus and went into the student's house whose driveway we were stuck in and their parents gave us all hot chocolate, but school wasn't canceled. If it was, you could bet there was a drift in the pasture twice as tall as I was.

It snowed last night, an inch or so, enough that Gator had to brush it off the windshield of the truck. So, of course, there was no school today in about four counties. It did snow all day, but by 8:00 a.m. it was melting faster than it was falling. I came home to less snow on the ground than there was yesterday. There's already talk of no school tomorrow. Who are these people?? I know, I've fully entered curmudgeondom and will soon be talking about how far I used to walk uphill both ways. But really!!!

Once again, I have snow of a different variety to show -- #2 of 99 Snowflakes.


It's a little bit larger than the last one -- certainly larger than I thought it was going to be. I'm not even sure it qualifies as a mini-flake. It might be an actual grown-up.

I've been thinking about flakes a lot. I realized recently that my own design, the Fancy Star Snowflake was on the Snowflake Crochet-a-long at Crochetville last year. I liked designing it, but I totally winged it. I just picked up a hook and started. I'm very interested in sitting down and planning one out. I've been looking at pictures of real snowflakes for inspiration. I'm setting myself a goal and you are witness to it: I would like to design two more snowflakes this year and offer the patterns for free here and on Ravelry. I would also like to design one other thing, but I'm not sure what yet. I'll keep you posted.

I've actually got lots of things to show you, but I've been waiting because some of them hadn't been sent and received by their new owners yet. I'm still waiting just a bit but then I'll bore you with endless show and tell as is my wont. :D

In the meantime I'll update you on the cross stitch which I've spent quite a bit of time on this week. Again, I'm realizing how slow I am at this.


I like it, though. I just hope I can finish it without getting stressed. I hate for my hobby to stress me out. That's kind of the opposite of the point.

During the Super Bowl (Oh yeah! Geaux Saints!) I started Baktus. I'm gonna love this. Easy peasy knit, awesome and useful little scarf when you're done. And perfect for in front of the TV.


It's great for showing off fun sock yarns somewhere other than on your feet. If you're into that sort of thing. It appears that I am. Hmmm.

Punch Tow Truck!

We were on our way home from work and stopped at a red light. All of a sudden Gator punched me in the arm. As this is actually not usual behavior from my beloved, I said something along the lines of, "Hey! What the -- ??"

"Slug Rooter," he said nonchalantly.

"What????"

He pointed out the front window to a van approaching the intersection. "Slug Rooter."

Sure enough, there was a van just like this crossing in front of us.


I just didn't realize you get to make up new Slug Bug variations on the fly.

Now I know.

Amy Amy!

Since I've moved back to Columbia, I've spent very little time with my friends here. Partly it's because I just kind of holed up with Gator for awhile when I first got here. Conflicting schedules are to blame in some cases. But, really, a lot of it has to do with the fact that I just kind of drifted out of contact with a lot of folks over the last three years. They got new routines with other people, got into new relationships, moved, had kids, etc. And now that I'm back, I'm just not a normal part of their lives anymore and it's hard to find time to smush one more thing into a busy life. I get it. I don't take it personally. Technically, anyway. I know I'm as much to blame for the drifting as anyone. I went off and had an adventure. I made new friends. Just because I decided to pop back into town is no reason for anyone to drop everything and accommodate me. But, even though Gator is awesome and my very best friend and I like him better than anyone on the planet, he's... Well, he's a delightful homebody. And a tiny bit antisocial. (Those that know him can stop chuckling now. I know. I understate.) I like to gad about! I like to do fun things with all manner of fun people! I like adventures! I'd like to have adventures here in College Town and then maybe, maybe, I can learn to love it more and not pine endlessly for Beer Town. And as much as I love being with Gator, not having girlfriends to gad about with makes me lonely.

So I became determined to hook up with my old friends, even if I had to become a nuisance. The other problem is, I lost my old address book with everyone's phone numbers in it. If their number wasn't programmed into my landline phone (and it only held 10 numbers, so those were mostly family and almost none of my friends were in it), I didn't have their number anymore. I didn't have a cell phone before I moved to Milwaukee. Yes, I know. I wish I still didn't have one, ridiculous things, but that's another post, I reckon. ANYWAY, I had to pester my friend Amy via Facebook for weeks and finally we managed to exchange digits (I know, it shouldn't be so hard but somehow it was!) and set a day and time to get together!

Last night we went to Murry's, an awesome little restaurant here in College Town that I had not been to in almost four years. It's exactly the same as it was, which is kind of comforting. We had one of their most famous menu items: Green pepper rings. They are like onion rings, but green peppers. And they're covered with powdered sugar. Yes, you read that right. Powdered sugar. Oh, I know what it sounds like. It sounds horrible. It sounds like the worst idea ever. But. They. Are. AWESOME. There's some sort of magic that happens when the ingredients touch each other and they are transformed. It is a delicious example of something being far greater than the sum of its parts. I should have taken a picture of the dish itself but I did not because I was too busy eating it. But I did take a smooshy face picture of me and my AmyAmy (that's what I call her):


Our hair didn't used to match that well. Hehe. We picked right up like we hadn't been apart at all. It was really great. We talked and talked and talked. And ate, of course. The seafood linguine is really great there, too. :) We've already got plans for more fun!

So the College Town adventure has begun! Next I'm going to pester my friend Sarah, again via Facebook, into seeing me! I'm gonna get all re-friended up in no time!

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Let's try a little Snowflake Monday, shall we?

Awesomeness of awesomenesses when I got home tonight -- broken hot water heater!! I never thought I would miss the creaks and clanks that thing used to make whenever I washed dishes. Oh, but I do! Not that I will be sad if it has to be replaced with a brand new one that doesn't make all those noises, mind you.

Only light yoga tonight, 'cause I'm going to work dirty!! (Yeah, like that's never happened before. Ha!)

Now back to your regularly scheduled handwork discourse! (I know you were worried I was going to further discuss my hygiene.)

So last year I totally fell off the Snowflake Monday wagon (pretty much everyone else did, too, so I didn't really feel too bad). And, come the holidays, guess what? I had no snowflakes to give to people! Amazing how that works! So I'm going to try to get back into the habit of making one flake a week and posting them on Mondays. I've got a copy of the book 99 Snowflakes and I've decided that this year I'm going to start with number 1 and see how far I get. The only problem with that is that the first several flake patterns are for small flakes...


That's just fine though because, as we must always remember, size matters not. Next week there will be another little tiny cute flake! And I will love it and stroke it and pet it...

I was at Hobby Lobby on Saturday to get a pillow form for the now-finished Not Terra Cotta Pillow (pictures coming later) and I "stumbled" upon the clearance section. I have a serious thing for clearance yarn. Pretty much, if it is marked way down and it's yarn, I will buy it. They didn't have any regular yarn, but they did have crochet nylon, which is awesome because I just saw a pattern in a magazine (Gator sweetly got me a subscription to this odd little 'zine) for an awesome little purse made of nylon -- and I had none in my stash! Whew! Glad that was rectified!!

But that is a project for much, much later! I also found a cute little cross stitch kit for $4 that will make an awesome mother's day gift! I haven't done a serious cross stitch project for some time and it feels a little foreign, I must admit. And, apparently, I am really slow at stitching these days. This is several hours' worth of work from Sunday:


It seems pretty pathetic to me. But it will be very pretty when it's done. It even came with a pre-cut mat board and I got the frame for it and everything (they were 50% off!)! So, now all I have to do is stitch! After I do some hopefully-non-sweat-inducing yoga.

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