Author: Sarah

Doh!

Sarah General

I took my glasses off briefly last night, and when I went to put them back on again, I thought, “gee, these feel kind of weird…” I looked down and found one of the plastic nose-piece thingies (technical term) in my lap, instead of on my glasses frame like it’s supposed to be.

Seeing as I’m blind as a bat without these things, I guess I’d better head down to my (thankfully local) eye doctor/glasses place when they open and get them fixed! (Don’t worry, I can wear my glasses while I drive, they just make me dizzy because they’re crooked on my nose.)

Why do I have this sinking feeling that it’s going to turn out to be one of those days?

Christmas Music Time!

Sarah Music

November 5th. 50 days until Christmas. Halloween pumpkins are gone… Time to break out the Christmas music!

Just to give you an idea of how much I love listening to Christmas music, I just randomly grabbed 5 hours worth of it from my iTunes library and put it in a play list…that doesn’t even account for half of it.

My favorite? John Denver and the Muppets, A Christmas Together. I could listen to just that album for days and never get bored of it. It was the first record (yes, actual record) I ever owned, and I literally did a happy dance in the store when I saw that it was out on CD!

(Huh. I just looked up the CD on Amazon to link to, and apparently it’s now only 10 songs – the one I bought has all 13 from the original album…glad I bought it when I did! And I’m not linking to the abridged version. So there.)

Afghan-A-Long

Sarah Crafts

Cindy started up a sampler afghan knit-along…and, gosh, I have a sampler afghan already started, which has become very stalled, so I joined in. I think knit-alongs are great – it’s like a support group for procrastinating knitters like me. And this is the first one I’ve seen where I didn’t have to start a new pattern or buy more yarn.

The goal is one square a week. I think I can fit that in along with all of the Christmas knitting and the one-skein distractions…yeah, about those… See, I succumbed to the temptation of glittery silver and green fuzz the last time I was at the yarn shop. Big needles and a couple hours later, and I have a soft fuzzy scarf! Now that’s instant gratification.

Oh, yeah, anyway, I cast on for another block Sunday. Cables are fun! I think all of my blocks are turning out a smidge big (despite having swatched) so the cables are a little softer than they should probably be, but it’s an afghan – it’s supposed to be soft!

Join the Sampler Afghan-a-long. You know you want to!

Joy of Joys

Sarah General

I just had the most treat-filled evening! Jo and I got together to do some shopping and knitting. First we grabbed dinner at IHOP. I mean, IHOP is a treat in general, but tonight they had pumpkin pancakes. They were absolutely fantastic! Then we went yarn shopping (I was good, and only bought crochet cotten for part of some Christmas gifts and a cute little basket that was on sale to store some of my current yarn in.) After shopping, we headed out to Starbucks to sip some coffee and knit…and here’s the best part: gingerbread lattes are back!

Fueled by caffeine, I got some serious knitting done. One more Christmas gift is finished! That makes 2 done…out of…who knows? I don’t even have the slightest clue how many projects I have started at this point, or how many are left. I’m just going to keep knitting until I run out of yarn or time, whichever comes first. Then I’ll go buy gifts for whoever I haven’t finished something for.

Wild Cats On the Loose!

Sarah General

We’ve upgraded all the macs in the house to Panther. So far, so good…and Exposé is extremely fun to play with! Other neat improvements are threaded mail and a ton of Finder changes; I’m sure I’ll discover more as I go.

One of these days, maybe after all the Christmas crafting is done, I’ll play around with the new developer tools. Yep, I’m a geek.

Woolgathering

Sarah Crafts

So, what exactly was my Halloween costume? Well, you knew I had to work crafts in there somewhere, right? So I went as a spinner! A homespun skirt with lots of layers underneath (I wasn’t planning on it being 70!), a button-up white blouse, the woven lambswool shawl I bought in Ireland, and my drop spindle. I even managed to really, truly spin…while talking and everything! (OK, so I dropped it a few times…but I also managed to get two spindles full of halfway decent yarn!)

The best part? Denis was my sheep. (Well, a spinner has to get her wool from somewhere, right?) It might have worked better if he’d agreed to wear ears, but most people got it with only a couple of hints.

There weren’t as many trick-or-treaters as I expected, especially since it fell on a Friday…but a lot of the older kids most likely went to parties instead of trick-or-treating without costumes. We took advantage of the quiet night and headed to Jenny’s party, where we were treated to a fog machine, s’mores and spooky punch.

Happy Halloween!

Sarah General

It was a close call, but the costumes are done…note to self: next year, do NOT wait until the weekend before to start costumes! I think I have enough candy (and I only snuck a couple of treats all week – you know, quality control!) The pumpkins are carved and ready to be lit. All we need now are some trick-or-treaters, who should be out in full force tonight since it’s unseasonably warm today!

I really didn’t do much decorating other than the pumpkins, though…I kind of feel like Halloween snuck up on me this year. Or maybe it’s just the general feeling I’m having lately where it seems like time has accelerated all out of proportion to the seemingly slow pace of most days, because I’m pretty sure that it was June just last week…

Am I The Only One…?

Sarah General

Am I the only one who, when faced with excessive and annoying advertising, will intentionally not buy, watch or do whatever it is the advertising suggests I buy, watch or do?

See, these television banner ads (I don’t know what they’re called…and can’t seem to find any information about them on the web) that have become incredibly common in a seemingly short amount of time are driving me crazy. You know the ones: they cover up 1/4 to 1/3 of the bottom of the screen, sometimes all the way across, in the middle of a show. They usually cover up the text at the bottom of the screen in “Whose Line is it Anyway”. I’d hate to see what it would do to closed captioning. To me, it’s as annoying as those @#$!% pop-up ads on the internet…which I no longer have to deal with thanks to Safari.

Maybe it’s just the shows I watch. But even when I randomly watch something on actual TV (as in, not TiVo’d) that’s not one of our “normal” shows, they’re still there. Last night I saw an ad not for another show on the same station – which is generally what they are – but for an actual product… Pretty soon, I expect that the shows will just have floating <blink> ads, centered over characters’ faces. Actually, why bother with the shows at all? Just run long, continuous blocks of blinking, scrolling banner ads in between the commercials.

But don’t expect me to buy, watch or do whatever it is they’re advertising. I’ll just unplug the cable box and watch old DVDs instead.

Detail-Oriented

Sarah Crafts

They’re just Halloween costumes…so why did I spend all of last night and an hour this morning hand-stitching hems and tacking down seam allowances?

Sometimes I worry myself.

A Plethora of Proto-Projects

Sarah Crafts

What are proto-projects? Those are the projects I have in my stash that have all the necessary pieces: yarn, pattern and needles (or linen, pattern, embroidery floss; or fabric, pattern, thread…you get the idea). They are in a state where they could be started at any time…I just need to find the time to start them.

Now, these are different from stalled projects, since they’ve never been started (aside from maybe a swatch). They also don’t really qualify as pure stash yarn/fabric/threads/etc., since they’re marked for specific projects. I have, oh, at least several dozen of these proto-projects floating around my house. They’re most concentrated in my craft room, but there are several in my living room, and I’m sure that I could find some in other rooms too.

I think I need to get control of these proto-projects. (I say this as I gaze longingly at the yarn I received yesterday for a new sweater…which can’t be started until Christmas knitting is under control.) I know it’s two months early, but I’m making my first new years’ resolution now: I must at least start a proto-project (thus moving it into my current project rotation…and probably eventually into stalled project mode for some amount of time) before buying supplies for another project. The word “start” is, of course, subject to interpretation… :)