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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Saturday Sky

More alliteration! w00t! Plus, the resurrection of a meme I haven't participated in for... well, a long time.

It's about 19F and clear as a bell. Pretty day.


And yes, those are Christmas lights. We are classy like that. Snap.

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WIP Wednesday

Alliterative blog post titles make me happy, so I'm taking this opportunity to regale you with a view of my works in progress on a cold and grey Humpday. In other words, WIP Wednesday!! w00t!

I don't actually have many WIP's right now, unless you count that needlepoint heron picture that's been halfway done in a bag for eight years or the candlewicking picture I started making for my Grandmother in 1982. And we're not counting those, mmmkay?

Right! So on to the only four WIP's I have going right now!

This is a pillow and it's a wedding gift. The sides will get tied together when the back is done and that will make a fringe. I quite like the design.


The pattern said it was "advanced" and I thought, "that simple geometric pattern is considered 'advanced'?? Pshaw!" And, while I still wouldn't classify it as "advanced" necessarily, it is much more challenging than you'd think. The way the chart is followed is veeerrrrryyy different and takes a lot of getting used to. But I think the result is worth the aggravation. As you can see, the front is complete and I'm just finishing up the back. I'll get a pillow form this weekend, tie and sew her up, and voila!

I started this tissue box cover, but I knew it was going to get put on hold when I started it. So it may remain in this very primitive state for some time. But it is officially "in progress" so I must include it here. :)



If my sister is reading this, then she is waiting for me to acknowledge the very existence of this next WIP. It's her tablecloth that I agreed to make for her several years ago and it is far, far, far from finished. It was in time out for quite a while, but I've taken it out and have worked on it off and on again. The pattern comes from an old pattern book that she got from an aunt's estate and has the redonculous name "Square-a-Day Tablecloth". I have spent a Saturday doing little else but working on a square for this thing and let me tell you: If crocheting this were my actual job, on which I spent a solid eight hours in a day with no lunch or bathroom breaks and didn't stop to chat with anyone or pee, there is no way on God's green earth I could make one of these squares in one day. There must have been some supremely awesome Speed in the 50's, and all the grannies must have been on it. Although, I suppose technically a day is 24 hours. So, sorry, Sis. It's out of time out now and I'll keep plugging away at it, but it's gonna take some more time. I've almost completed three of the twelve squares.


Who knows, maybe I'll find a groove and just start crankin' 'em out. Stranger things have happened.

Now, this is the one that absolutely kills me. I started a purple (of course!) afghan for Gator over ten years ago. I got about a third of the way done and we moved. The afghan and the rest of the required yarn ended up stored in a trash bag. And then we moved again. And again. It ended up in a storage unit for awhile. When I went to get it out of storage, I couldn't find it. Now, this storage unit was one we shared with my In-Laws, so things got shuffled around a lot when I wasn't looking. So I looked some more. I asked my In-Laws. I looked some more. We emptied the storage unit a few years ago and it was nowhere to be found. I figured, hey, it was in a trash bag after all, somebody threw it away by mistake. Disappointing, but far from the end of the world.

When I moved back to Columbia from Milwaukee, I went to my In-Laws to get some stuff of ours they had stored. Guess what? It was in the bottom of a closet! No one really knew when or how it got there! So now I can finish Gator's Amethyst Blankie!


This photo is actually pretty tragic -- the color is waaaay off. It's really a very rich plum that I like very much. But mostly I lurve the combination of crocheted cables with the super cushy waffle stitch. Yum!

So there you have it! I've spent Wednesday evening showing off my Works in progress and now I'm Wiped and can no longer remain Wakeful as I need my Wits about me tomorrow at Work so I can earn my Wage.

Hee!

I crack myself up!

What I do 2.0 (sorta)

You may be wondering just what I do in my sparkly new job. Also, you may not care a fig. In that case, all is not lost today because I'm really only going to describe my work in about two or three sentences. Maybe four. Just skip down to the pretty pictures now. I won't mind.

Actually, I'm going to let the rest of the innernets give you the details -- then you can read as much or as little as you want. Ready? Basically, I'm an aerobiologist and flow cytometrist in a core facility for researchers who study pathogens and the immune response to infection. In reality, it's a brand new facility and we're still just setting up and don't have any real pathogens yet and I'm still learning to run my $1,000,000 worth of equipment. In case you were wondering where your tax dollars are going. I take really good care of them, I promise. :)

Make that $1,000,250 because I also got a new digital camera for the lab and I've been playing with it, checking the best settings for extreme close-ups, playing with the lighting, etc. You know how people take photos of ordinary things very close up and/or from an extreme angle and then it becomes "Art" photography? I really think these types of photo are pretty predictable and uninspired. I usually end up liking them anyway. I never claimed to be a particularly sophisticated art lover.

I went off on this artsy tangent because -- surprise! -- I took some of this very type of photo in my aerobiology lab. I want to blow them up really big, frame them, and hang them in the lobby and front hallway of our facility. This probably won't happen, but I can at least share them with you! Aren't you the lucky ones! ;)

Tunnel of Glove -- the inside of one of the gloves on my glovebox.

Triumph -- a row of glove ports on the box.

Rabbit Row -- animal cages.

Aspen -- the lid of the sonicator.

Parade -- rivets around the pass-through port of the glovebox.

And yes, I do find them predictable and uninspired. And yes, I like them anyway. Don't worry. I'll be keeping the day job.

Can we actually do this now?

So I've been trying to post to my blog since Wednesday. That's when the internet problems began. So I'm finally posting, but I admit I'm kinda phoning this one in. I feel bad, but I promised Aunt Judy a picture of a baby and by Jove she's gonna get a picture of a baby. Even if it's late. Hooyah.

Gator and I didn't do any traveling over the holidays. This is nominally because we needed new tires on the pickup, but it was mostly just because we don't like to travel over the holidays. The weather's usually bad, the roads are full of idiots, etc., but I digress. The result of this is that I had not seen my sister or nieces for months and months and I had a new great-niece that I had never met. Also, there were presents for the great nieces and nephews that had not yet been received.

About a week and a half ago, we finally got the new tires for the pickup. So I messaged my sis and nieces on Facebook that I would daytrip to Kansas City, meet up with as many of them as could come, deliver presents, meet a new baby, and a wonderful time would be had by all. This went over very well and fabulous plans were made, including a visit to the Nelson Atkins Museum of Art. Yay! Super fun!

So the day comes, I get around, the weather's crappy but that's not to stop me! I get to my niece Liz's house in KC and finally get to meet the newest of my greats -- Miss Eleanor!


She didn't want to look at the camera too badly, but that's okay because she was sweet and charming and let me hold her for an hour and didn't fuss once. (Here she is being held by my other niece, Becca, who is not Ellie's mother -- just to avoid confusion.)

So we're going over the line-up for the day and Liz gets to the part where the kids will open their presents... and my heart drops. In all the truck-ready-crappy-weather-getting-ready that morning, I forgot the presents. 'Cause I'm a moron dorkwad. So we had to explain to children who had been super excited to come get presents that they weren't getting presents. Oh, but they were still going to a Museum!!!! That went over great.


So I'm going back to KC soon, to meet up with my sister and nieces and great nieces and nephews and redeem myself as the cool great aunt. Which is important to me. Because "the cool great aunt" is not a term you hear every day.

Unless you're my Aunt Judy, and then you are the cool great great aunt. Which is just cool. Happy Bday, Jude. Love you. :)

Heat wave

Wow, we went from -12 to 50 F in, like, a week. Freaky deaky. I tend to not complain about nice weather, but I have two new yummy accessories and I'm not going to get to wear them if it stays this warm. And, remember, it's really all about me. ;)

On Christmas Eve, SpikeTV broadcast the original Star Wars trilogy. Of course, I have four copies of these movies (two VHS versions and two DVD versions), but whenever I come across them on TV I have to watch them. And they've become holiday standbys, which I lurve. Especially since Darth Vader speaks to me every time I turn on my Christmas tree. Which I also lurve. Hee!

So it was all Christmassy and Star Warsy and it was cold out and I was cozy and so I made a hat! It's very warm and cute and it has a huge flower and I love it! But now it's warm again and I'm wishing for just a little bit more cold so I can wear this more.

Beanie Brim Cap by Hannah Levine
Lion Brad Jiffy in Charcoal
Size USJ hook

One of my favorite go-to wool yarns is Lion Brand Fisherman's Wool. Almost three years ago I used it to make a cabled scarf and two years ago I used it to make a cabled hat. That left a desperate need for cabled mittens to go with. Had to fix that, right?? So I spent the first two days of 2010 filling the cable void in my accessory wardrobe.

Very Cabley Mittens by Kelly Porpiglia
Lion Brand Fisherman's Yarn
Size US6 needles

I think knitters and skiers are the only people who wish for more winter. We're so crazy that way!
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I'll take "Things That Came in the Mail Today" for $200, Alex

So, hi, howya been? Cold enough for you? Yeah. Me too.

::looks around::

Yeah, we're just going to pretend those last nine months of silence didn't happen. Moving on!!

Here's some pretty things I made! Observe! Allow me to distract you with photos because my new camera cord came today!!

In August I moved away from the town that I love more than any town I've ever lived in. I left awesome friends that I adore. I came back to Missouri, which I don't adore. I got a new place with Gator, the love of my life, whom I adore more than anyone ever. Which is very, very good. I just fail to see why I can't have both Gator AND Milwaukee and will feel this way for ever and ever Amen.

So I left MKE in August and I didn't have time to make awesome going away presents for all my dear friends, most notably the Smart Girls (tm), because I was busy doing fanciful things like writing a thesis and having a lot of fun with said Smart Girls (tm). But I did make my thesis advisor a yummy silk and viscose scarf (zomg, that yarn is to DIE for!!!).

Breast Cancer Awareness Scarf by Heather Bagni
Rowan RYC Natural Silk Aran Yarn
Size US6 and US8 needles

I also made a little something for my neighbor and friend Ron, who helped me out a lot and showed me a ton of great things in SE Wisconsin and was generally a great guy. He sails on tallships twice a year in different exotic locations like Spain, Fiji, Rio de Janeiro, etc. I know, must be rough, eh? So I made him this:


It's pretty darned straightforward stitching, but the frame was a total find (love you, Michael's!) and makes it look much more awesome.

So then I moved back to Columbia. Into a duplex. A duplex previously inhabited by three undergrad guys. That was not cleaned before we moved in. Or, most probably, before they had moved in. Or the people before them. After crying, screaming, calling the landlord, and going into what Gator calls Completely Polite But Completely Terrifying mode, we did get the landlord to deal with the inch of moldy slime in the bottom of the refrigerator. And the oven was "cleaned" (but it was much better).

So began the systematic scrubbing of the duplex. Honestly, I'm still not done. But there's only so long I can stay in that mode before I just have to start vegging out again. Oh, and we got a Wii, which totally cuts in to the cleaning time. And I started knitting and crocheting again after a brief hiatus.

My friend Tricia's SO Tommy really liked the bear I made for Gator last year. So I finally made one for Tommy, too. Here Tommy's orange bear sits beside his purple brother, Bearsly, who actually sleeps in our bed every night. Aren't they the cutest things?

Animal Pillows by Jennifer Down Under
Red Heart Super Saver Yarn
Size I US hook

I only made one handcrafted Christmas gift this year, which is kind of weird, actually. My niece is a total Twilight fangirl, so I made her the scarf that Bella wears during the baseball game in the first movie.

Bella Swan's Baseball Scarf by Nancy Fry
Caron Simply Soft Yarn
Size US8 needles

I think it was a big hit. :)

So that's a little of what I've been up to. Stay tuned for more and, before you know it, you'll be all caught up with me!

And they say all people who blog are Narcissistic. Pshaw.