Two-thirds...

...of the summer is already gone. I'm tempted to say that it seems to have gone by quickly, but it really hasn't. I don't mean that in a bad way. It's just been a really nicely paced summer for me. I think the fact that it has been unseasonably cooler than usual has helped me enjoy it more than usual. And, oddly, I think my active efforts at gardening this year have made me more aware of time passing more slowly. After all, it takes time for things to grow, and when you're the one who's planted them, you take note of how long they're taking to produce the fruits of your labors!

This past week was the kids' week away at camp. I had a grand set of plans for how I would spend the week and all that I'd get done while I was home alone. Yeah. Well, things didn't really go according to plan. I did get to have fun on Monday...

 

My friend Angela and I went kayaking! (She took this picture.) It was a perfect day for it. Beautiful, sunny, in the upper 70's. I got a little sunburn, the kind that doesn't really hurt but makes you feel all healthy and glowy, even though you know you're doing bad things to your skin. It was a 7.5 mile trip and took us about 4 hours to complete. I have a bunch of my own pictures from the trip, too. I'll try to add a few here in the coming days, but until then, you can check them all out here, if you're so inclined. 

Aside from kayaking, I enjoyed a couple days of quality time with the grandson. Have I mentioned how much I love that little boy? I was worried that he'd be bored here without his aunt and uncle to keep him occupied, but he was precious and was perfectly happy to play with me instead, or to play near me on his own, as long as I was in the room. I forgot how little privacy you have with a four year old around, but that was a small price to pay for having such a good time with him.

I also spent the week doing an inordinate amount of laundry. I'm trying to figure this out. I did ALL of the laundry before the kids left for camp, so that they had clothes to pack. And then with them gone, that cut our dirty-laundry-producing capacity in half, right? So you'd think there should have only been half as much laundry to do this week. But you'd be wrong! There was still a lot of laundry, and I got it all done, including a backlog of old sheets and towels that I don't use much and my son's blue sleeping bag that has been sitting down there waiting to be washed for probably close to two years. (We own a lot of sleeping bags, so he had one for camp without his.)

What didn't get done this week? I did no spinning. I hardly did any knitting. I didn't read any books or magazines (though I tried one night). I did not get my car aligned. I did not make much progress on planning our school year. But I did get to the gym, I did hit several new high scores in Typing Mania on Facebook, and I did download a bunch of really old, obscure country songs that I remember from my childhood (I've been in a really weird music mood lately), including this one...remember it?

All in all, it was really a good week. Relaxing. Happy. 

And now we're resume our regular lives. :)

Weezer and the anti-knit...

Before this post will make sense (well, as much as possible, anyway), you must first go and watch this Weezer video. Embedding has been disabled on YouTube for this one, so I can't insert it here, but go ahead...go watch it, listen to the lyrics, and then come back. I'll wait.

...Dum de dum de dum...

Ready to continue? Cool.

I heard this song on the radio last week for the first time in eons. I mean, it came out in 1994, so I'm sure I've heard it dozens of times. But...I wasn't a knitter for most of those years. As a knitter, I heard this song with new ears. I have since dubbed it the anti-knitting song, for obvious reasons. Let's review the four main lines of the song...

If you want to destroy my sweater...

What?? Why would someone WANT to destroy his sweater? Is it ugly? Is it some horrible, cheap, acrylic sweater bought on sale at Wal-Mart? Is the person just mean and spiteful? Perhaps did a former girlfriend knit it for him and, being a clueless guy, he doesn't realize he should not wear it around the current girlfriend? Or, is the "sweater" a metaphor for something bigger? Some aspect of his deeper being?

Pull this thread as I walk away...

OK, clearly no one consulted any knitters when these lyrics were being written because typically we do not refer to it as "thread". Unless maybe it was a store-bought, machine-knit cotton sweater. That could indeed look like thread. But really? Sweaters are made of yarn. I suppose "Pull this piece of yarn as I walk away" doesn't sound quite as rhythmic. 

Watch me unravel. 

Unlike cartoon animals whose fur unravels with ease, I don't think this will work with a sweater on a human. Even if the sweater was knit in the round, maybe a raglan, you're only going to be able to pull so far before the freed yarn wraps uncomfortably around him. To truly unravel it, he'd have to be spinning like a top, know what I mean? 

I'll soon be naked...

Naked? Seriously? This can only mean one of two things. One, the wearer is drastically under dressed and could be cited for indecent exposure. Or two, and possibly more likely, it is a hand-knit sweater whose maker failed to check gauge, thus instead of being a traditional sweater, it is more of a sweater dress. Still...he's a guy. Why is he wearing a sweater dress? Not that I'm judging. 

Or, if we go back to the metaphor theory, then perhaps the unraveling of the sweater is meaningful in some other way. It could represent the ripping away of some dysfunctional part of his psyche, leaving his soul bare and naked to be reborn into something new and beautiful. 

Or maybe he's just into being naked on the ground.

...lying on the floor. I've come undone.

The person who is truly going to come undone is the poor knitter who put all that time and energy into that sweater! Sure hope she doesn't find out, know what I mean? 

I thought perhaps watching the video would give me some incredible insight into the meaning of this song. But no. No insights. Near as I could tell, none of those guys was even WEARING a sweater! And what was with the dogs? That was just random.

P.S. A spinning update: I have indeed been spinning every day of the Tour de Fleece so far. I'm nearing the end of my first batch of fiber and cannot wait to begin plying. I'll post more soon with pictures!

Happy 4th!

I'm no one...

...and I'm surprisingly ok with that...

(For the record, I think I actually did sign up for a Twitter account one time, used it for a day and never went back. I did Plurk (a Twitter-esque application) for a while, but I quit because I didn't get it. The main reason to Plurk was to raise your Plurk karma and get rewards for doing so...but if you didn't Plurk in the first place, you really didn't know you were missing the karmic rewards, right? Uh huh. I mean, the dancing bananas were fun, but really? There are so many better ways to spend my time. Twitter? Sorry...I'm just not going back there.)

One more good thing...

...ok, maybe it's a stupid thing, but it seriously makes me laugh like an idiot every time I see it. I love this commercial. No idea why. 

I watch it, quote it in a really bad Scottish accent, and then walk around smacking my family members with my knitting needles while yelling the word "dipsitck!", just for the effect. Try it. It's great fun. ;)

Sunny and blue...

I kind of hate this song, but 1) it's funny when Chandler sings it, 2) it ties in to this blog post...kind of, and 3) the video provides some visual amusement since my post-related photos don't show up until further on down in the text. Just trying to keep you, dear reader, engaged. ;)

It's been a delightfully warm weekend here in the 'burgh. Temps in the 40's and 50's are a veritable heat wave here at this time of year. Yesterday and today both started out sunny, though clouds inevitably moved in. Still...it all hints of spring, which is nice to see. Still a long way to go, though...it is, after all, only February in Pittsburgh!

My son and his family are home for a couple of weeks while he's on pre-deployment leave, so I got to see him and my grandson yesterday for a little while. That was a brief little bright spot in the my day. And last night I had dinner with a high school friend I haven't seen in close to 20 years...we recently reconnected through Facebook, learning that we've only lived about ten miles away from each other for the past nine years! It was a fun little reunion, hopefully to be repeated before another twenty years pass.

So, that's the sunny. The blue I refer to, however, is not the sky (clouds, remember?) but my mood despite the warmer temps and seeing family and friends. I also missed going to the gym yesterday, but that was so I could see my son, so it was an acceptable trade-off, though I'm realizing today just how much my gym days do to help my mood...who'd've thunk it? Anyway, I won't go into details of what's taken place to put me in this definitive blue funk...suffice it to say there always seems to be bad that comes with good and sometimes it can outweigh it. That has been the case since yesterday, and I'm sad and tired and feel helpless to change any of it. :::sigh::: I know it will pass and I'll get through it and the sun will come out to-MOR-row! Betcher-bottom-doll-AR--er, yeah, nevermind. 

Anyway...always a bright spot in life is the knitting, and there has been some knitting...

I finally finished the first Blackberry Jam sock, yarn by NummaNumma in the Blackberry Jam colorway. It's a simple 3x1 rib using my usual sock pattern. It's been my carry-around projects for ages now, and so it has taken much longer to complete than it otherwise would have. Need to cast on its mate so I can start carrying it around. There's nothing like a simple sock to knit on the go!

I also finished the first afghan square for the extended afghan swap I'm in...

I'm trying to kick the patterns up a notch for this next batch of seven squares, as some of the ones I did for the original swap were more simple and while they turned out nicely, I feel like I'd like to do a little more this go-around. I used the Openwork and Twist pattern from Harmony Guides 440 More Knitting Stitches, Vol. 3. (Am I the only one who just loves stitch dictionaries? I never get tired of perusing them!) The "twist" part of this pattern isn't showing up real well in this picture, but it is very pretty. I'll have to try to take a better detail picture before I send it off to its recipient (who hopefully does not visit my blog, or at least not until she receives her square!)

And now I intend to spend the rest of my Sunday drowning my sorrows -- or perhaps tying them up -- in yarn while watching comfort movies (some people have comfort food...I have comfort movies...fewer calories, just as effective). I'm thinking maybe an indulgent viewing of a Lord of the Rings movie...maybe two. We'll see how it goes.

Ultimate Showdown...

Apparently I'm a 12-year-old boy or something, because I find this video incredibly amusing...

Is that the sound of...Christmas?

I started listening to my Christmas music playlist this past week...

I remember how, for many years, I was all about traditional Christmas songs. I grew up with Johnny Mathis, Peter, Paul & Mary, and the Norman Luboff Choir, and that was my Christmas music. Later, my parents bought other Christmas albums -- mostly country -- and it annoyed me when they'd have a bunch of songs on them that I didn't know. Silly, really...I mean, how many artists do you really need to listen to singing Silver Bells and Hark, the Herald Angels Sing? Srsly.

Thankfully, my holiday music preferences have widened over the years, and I am more wont to listen to the non-traditional songs now. (Though I will admit that I have at least five different versions of "The Twelve Days of Christmas" on my iPod.) In addition to the "top 20" songs on the playlist above, I've got a ton of Trans-Siberian Orchestra (I so want to see them in concert one of these years!), some Celtic Christmas music (The Night Heron Consort), Handel's Messiah, and, yeah, Johnny Mathis' Merry Christmas...just can't let go of the classics. 

Some of my favorites from the ones listed above, though, are Rudy by The Be Good Tanyas (makes me cry!), Gary by MC Lars (makes me laugh!), Barenaked Ladies' God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen (all three of which are part of the extended version A Winter's Night CD), and Snoopy's Christmas (which I posted about last year). The one I play the most, usually in the car and really loud, is Relient K's version of The Twelve Days of Christmas. Dude...rockin'!

PS...if you figure out what they're saying in the "five golden rings" part of Day 10, would you let me know? It's driving me nuts that I can't figure it out.

PPS...in the world of knitting...I was just booking along on my Paley yesterday...finished the left front and did the entire right front. As I was about halfway through the right front, however, my knitter's Spidey-sense started kicking in telling me something was no right. The right front was going way faster than the left had gone, and it clearly seemed I was working with fewer stitches than I had been on the left (as opposed to working with fewer marbles, which is not a rarity in my world). As we knitters are wont to do, though, I kept going a while before finally giving in and comparing the two panels. Yep. The left was about 2" wider than the right. I knew I had the correct number of stitches on the right because I'd counted them several times, both before and after the decreases in the first stockinette row. So I counted the stitches on the left panel. Uh huh. Too, too many. I know I'd counted them too, but clearly I counted wrong. :::sigh::: So, today's task was to rip out the left and start it over. Thankfully, it moves along quickly, but really? I prefer to knit these things only once. All I can say is this sweater darned well better fit when it's done. 

I love me some creepy, crazy characters...

Taking time out from my Twilight obsession, I wanted to share with you just how much I am totally In Love with the TV series, Fringe. Can I get a witness here people??? I mean...it's a brilliant balance of creepy and funny, and the characters are awesome. I love Joshua Jackson since I saw him in Shadows in the Sun (I am apparently the only person on earth who never watched Dawson's Creek thus didn't know he was Pacey on that show). Anna Torv is wonderful. Lance Reddick is also good but a bit creepy and I haven't figured out if he's totally a good guy or not yet. 

But overwhelmingly, it is John Noble who has me captivated...nay, dare I say I am in love with his funny-crazy-genius character, Dr. Walter Bishop? (I only recently, in a major "Ah ha!" moment, made the connection that he was also the actor who played Denethor in LOTR...he's clearly a genius at playing nutso characters.)

The show is apparently in repeats until January, which will let me catch up on the first couple of episodes that I missed. Until then, I will tide myself over with YouTube clips. The one above is a good one...a collection of the craziness that is Walter. Gotta love 'im. :)

What it all comes down to...

Being an evangelical Christian isn't all that popular in today's world climate. I think it gets a bad rap because of those extreme personalities in the media who make the world think we're all a bunch of uber-conservative whackjobs. But I am a Christian, and I do consider myself of an evangelical bent. While it isn't something I try to hide, it isn't something I talk about all the time, either, which probably makes the "evangelical" part a bit ironic. I don't think I'm perfect, and I don't think I live my life better than the rest of the world, nor do I presume that I know what Jesus would do/say/think in every social, political or relational situation. But the bottom line is my faith is important to me, and I'd gladly talk about it to anyone interested in knowing more about it.

That said, here is a Youtube video that states it beautifully. I just saw it recently and can't help but watch it again and again. So...at this time of Thanksgiving, I offer it to you...watch it if you want...or not. Either way, Happy Thanksgiving!

Sounds familiar...

Ok, so, we went and saw Twilight on Friday afternoon (are you tired of me talking about Twilight yet? Sorry.). I loved the book so much that I chose to go into the movie with neutral expectations because movies, in general, never live up to the original books, and that is especially so when they're books I love. I was surprised by how much I really loved the movie! Clearly, my inner thirteen-year-old girl is alive and well, because I giggled along with my daughter at some points and melted straight into the floor during the romantic parts.

Yes, the movie left out a lot of stuff that I wish they could have developed, and it added things not in the book, which is always irksome (but in their defense, the book had so much narration, I think they had to add new material to help illustrate in a timely manner what was originally narration), and it was kind of corny at some places (which led to audience laughter at places that probably weren't meant to be funny), but overall, I think they did a respectable job of condensing an intricate, well-loved, 500+ page book into the space of two hours of screen time.

But I wasn't really planning to talk about the movie. What I do want to talk about, though, is the music from the movie. I bought the soundtrack a couple weeks before seeing the movie -- I rarely ever buy movie soundtracks and never before a movie comes out, but I was dying to hear Bella's Lullaby and darned iTunes only lets you get it by buying the whole soundtrack, so I just went out and bought the CD instead.

I. Love. It. The music is fabulous. The lullaby permeates the movie at all the pivotal places (though the soundtrack doesn't do it justice...it's just too short and too mixed up with other instruments than just the piano). I totally love Muse's Supermassive Black Hole...excellent song to play at full volume in the car. (Though I admit to not reading the song title on the CD and thinking they were saying "super magic vagabond." Yeah. "Black hole" and "vagabond"? Sound nothing alike. But that's what I heard. I'm weird.)

But the song in the movie that most captured me isn't even on the freakin' CD (though it is a bonus song in the iTunes album download, go figure, argh), and that is Debussy's Clair de Lune. It is beautiful. I'm not a big classical music buff, but I recognized the tune as soon as I heard it in the movie. So I came home and Googled it (Ha! "You can Google it." Ahem...let the gratuitous movie quotes begin.) because I'm a geek and that's what I do. I played several versions of it over and over. I definitely love the piano solo versions the best. But what kept nagging at me is that I knew I'd heard it in another movie before -- I'm sure it's been in lots of movies, but I knew there was a specific one that I was thinking of, but I just couldn't place it.

Until tonight! Thank you, YouTube! It is the song that plays at the end of Ocean's Eleven, when the guys are all staring at the Bellagio's fountain show, and they all start to walk away one by one. Love that scene. (Here's the YouTube video that helped me figure it out, though it is not the actual movie clip.)

...and the choreography was unbelievable!

This has to be one of the best non-stupid Youtube videos I've ever seen. These guys are amazing! It totally made me smile and laugh first thing this morning -- before coffee, even! Enjoy!

Goin' to Candy Mountain...

So, yesterday I followed the magical liopleurodon's* directions to Candy Mountain...the land of sweets and joy, and joyness...er, ok...yesterday, I went to the Apple store. But seriously? Compared to the prospect of buying a new PC and having to face the Darkness and Evil Doom that is currently known as Vista [insert "Jaws" shark-approach or "Psycho" stabbing-scene music track -- your choice], going to the Apple store to buy a pretty, pretty new MacBook seems like a trip to Candy Mountain. Without the kidney loss.

And here she is...meet Buffy!


Isn't she pretty? And look at her pretty apple icon...

And here she is getting to know my Facebook page...


My old laptop has been dying a slow death for a while now. I've been trying to resurrect it so I can at least use it for word processing, but it's just too hit or miss. After surprisingly little discussion, the hub actually encouraged me to go buy the MacBook. I haven't used a Mac in over 15 years, but so far, no major trauma about that. It's prettiness is enough to make me overlook the things I have not yet figured out. And I did buy Office for the Mac, so I'm not completely starting from scratch with everything.

On the way home from the Apple store, I stopped at a yarn shop that I don't get to very often. Me and the yarn diet? Yeah. Not going so well this past week. Bought yarn last Friday and Saturday because I was back at the shop for one last hurrah (and since I bought yarn there, I opted to just be really bad and ordered some from The Loopy Ewe, too...just like a regular diet...you blow it for lunch, you might as well eat the bag of chips and a few cookies after dinner too, since the day's already shot). Anyhoo...I found this beautiful prettiness at the yarn shop yesterday...


It's Dream in Color's "Smooshy" in Deep Seaflower. Gawd, is it gorgeous! I bought two skeins to have enough to make a shawl or something lovely and lacy to show off the color changes. Can't wait to play with it. Now I must get back on the yarn wagon. Really. I must.

*(If you have no idea what a magical liopleurodon is -- as opposed to an actual liopleurodon, which I linked to a wiki above -- or what happens at Candy Mountain, please, oh please, watch this video...



And just a head's up...it gets funnier every time you watch it. Drinking helps. Just sayin'. (Courtesy of My Children...who think it is ridiculously funny even without alcohol.)