Woohoo!

Hooray! The semester is over!

Okay, I'm feeling some pretty big emotions, and I know that if I go to bed right now I won't be able to sleep, so this is not house related, but here it is.

So this semester has been a rough one. I feel the need to share with the intertubes (for some strange reason) that I almost lost in my battle against depression this semester. But I stuck it out and trenched in and came out on the other side a stronger person (wow, three metaphors in one sentence for the win!). I lost the job I loved; helping to reform a preschool into a developmentally appropriate environment and am now working at a coffee shop. I really, really like my job now, and my boss is amazing to work with. My relationship with James went through a really rough patch, but we got through it.

But good things have happened, too! I've learned that I really really like dancing. I got a short walzing lesson tonight (AMAZING!) and have been taking ballet this semester. I also made some new friends and have strengthened some relationships. My knitting is coming along well, (Lil's getting an elephant for Christmas this year) and I'm working on my father's Christmas present (pics to come later). I met a friend from Ravelry (hooray!) and went to see Rocky Horror performed live with another who I haven't seen since HS.

I think (not entirely sure) that I got straight As this semester, and tonight I met a woman who teaches ballroom and spinning. (She's one of those talented people who I would love to hate if she weren't so nice.)

All in all, it was a really rough semester, but now it's over and life is looking pretty good. I'm very grateful for what I have right now, and I'm really appreciating my life.

The Catmeat

Has brought us fleas. It must be true love.

Depression

It sucks. I've been having a really hard time with this these past few months, and I feel like I have to say this somewhere, so this is it.

I've been fighting this battle for as long as I can remember, and it hurts. I feel like such a failure.

Sweet Cuppin Cakes

It's Cupcakeaggedon at my house today! I baked 18 regular sized cupcakes and 48 mini cupcakes. Woot! Made from scratch. I'm really proud of myself.

In other news, MONDAY'S MY BIRTHDAY! (I'm stoked.)

The Great Purge (Fall 2010 Edition)

I've had one project that's lasted for about a week. In case you didn't guess by the title of the post, I call it The Great Purge, Fall 2010 Edition. Here's the big pile'o'stuff that got taken to Hospice this morning.


I also made myself some new knitting toys today! I made stitch markers and a row counting bracelet. The stitch markers are made so that I can use them with huge needles or tiny needles. They also are one of the more memorable phrases from my favorite TV show. The bracelet, unfortunately, has no fun catch phrase associated with it, but it is pretty enough to wear all on it's own, and it can count up to 99 rows. Should I ever have a pattern that repeats every 99 rows, that'll come in handy. I guess. Anyways, here are the pics!

Soap on a Rope

I bought some amazing lavendar soap this weekend, and realized that I needed to make a soap sack for it. Here it is!

I crocheted it in about an hour and a half, most of which was spent trying not to fall asleep. On that note, I'm going to bed!

It's Been a While

Okay, it's been a while since I last posted, and a lot has happened. For starters, my grandmother passed away. She waited until all of her kids had come in to say goodbye (the last one came from New Jersey). And as sad an event as this has been, she is no longer in pain.
In addition to that, I'm expecting my boss to call me any minute to let me know that she doesn't have enough children to need an aide and that I'm laid off. (I haven't worked at all this week.) Enrollment has dropped significantly, and another parent let me know that she's going to pull her son from the program. I've been out interviewing, and I'm filling out paperwork for the County Office of Education so that I can sub as a preschool teacher in a state program.
Enough bad news, there's good news too! Our friend Chris came in from out of town, and we got to spend a lot of time with him. It's been a few years since we've seen him, so we were very glad to catch up. Several years ago, he asked James to be the godfather of his children, so we got an update on my future godsons.
We ran into a couple of friends last night, and I found a new stretch partner. Our friend Daniel's girlfriend is almost as excited about stretching and crafting as I am, so it'll be good.
I've spent a lot of time working on Pat's scarf instead of the house. It's almost halfway done (not bad for a couple of weeks, huh?), and I can't *wait* to be done with rows and rows of garter stitch.
I got the yarn I need for my father's Christmas mittens. It's the same yarn that I used on Megan's shrug, but the colors are a beautiful faded denim and a kind of brownish cream. The two look fantastic together and I think that they'll work well with the pattern I've chosen.

Okay, enough of that. On to what you really want to know. My project for the week was to move terrariums around. Since Tyrannus died, my brother Jeremy gave us Leila, his leopard gecko. Since leos get stressed if you move the cages, we decided that it would be best if she stayed in her home and we just moved the whole thing here. It was the logical thing to do, but now we have one terrarium too many!

Long story short, I ended up moving around everything on/under the bar (where we had Tyrannus, and where we kept Leila until we got things shifted).

Ta Da!

Doesn't it look fantastic? I got rid of a set of canisters that we weren't really using for anything since they weren't airtight. I'm not sure whether we're going to store them or send them to hospice, but we'll figure that out later.

Table

Well, this week has been insane! The old saying of "when it rains, it pours" certainly applied to my life. Good news is that the dining room table has been cleared off! Bad news is that I didn't finish any other big projects. I did get started on rearranging my books, so that's at least a start on next week's project.

Labor Day Part Two

Okay, so the second set of tasks to which I set myself this week was to wash and cut my new fabric for the quilt. I haven't gotten all of the cutting done yet, but I *had* to put the two fabrics together. As you can see, I still have one more fabric to purchase, I'm thinking it's going to be a blue batik. I'm really excited!

This upcoming week's task: my dining room table. (*shudder*)

Happy Labor Day!

Okay, so this weekend's posts are both two in one. The chores for the week and the weekend all went hand-in-hand (I decided to do a bonus round since I had five days off)
The first chore was cleaning the kitchen floor and cabinet faces. Normally I just use my Swiffer-style mop and call it a day. This time I was down on my hands and knees for two hours cleaning. Let me say that again. Two hours. But now it's clean (yay!)
This morning's chore was to clean off my countertops. I did it while getting ready to bake a whole-wheat sundried tomato braid. (It's rising right now) The kitchen looks AMAZING!

Cupcakes

Baking project this week was Guiness-Chocolate cupcakes with Bailey's ganache and frosting. Amazing! My good friend Megan (who is going away to school soon) came over to hang out, and we decided that cupcakes were on the menu for the day. I got the recipe from Confessions of a Tart

http://confessionsoftart.blogspot.com/2009/04/guinness-cupcakes-with-baileys.html

They were so good! They're gooey and drippey and all over incredible. I'm not sure that they're a winner at the Christmas party, though. Going to keep looking for that perfect dish. (This year I'm winning the cooking competition)

Household Organizer

As you enter our apartment there's a small household organizer. I got it at a thrift store, and until this morning the top was corkboard. The previous owners had clearly painted the frame black. The reason I know this is that they got black paint all over the corkboard. (Which is why I picked it up so cheap. Difficult to complain.) So I've been ignoring it for the past few months.
Fast forward to today. My local quilt shop celebrated its second birthday! www.sharedstitches.com It was amazing! There was birthday cake, there were fruit trays, door prizes, and they gave away free stuff if you bought enough. (I bought enough.) And, by the way, THE ENTIRE STORE WAS 20% OFF. Holy cow! I met a girlfriend there at ten and we didn't leave until one. It was amazing.


I bought the next fabric I need for the quilt I'm making, a ruler set so that I can make a really cool design (I'll post once I finish one), a few yards of some out-of-my-comfort-zone fabrics, a few fat quarters, and one fat eighth. I didn't know what I was going to do with the fat eighth, but it was this beautiful cream batik, and I couldn't pass up the oportunity to have it. I'm kind of a batik fiend.
I got home today and was drooling over my new fabrics, I figured out how to use the fat eighth and cover up the corkboard!

Beer Shelf

In the process of cleaning the kitchen, I moved James' beer bottle collection. (Oh, the horror!) We talked about them and agreed that we would put up a shelf in the kitchen for the beers we have regularly. I went to a thrift store and spent $6 for a set of three shelves. We don't know what we're going to do with the small ones yet. I'm thinking I might put a bottle with some straight knitting needles on one... We hung the one shelf above the door into the kitchen. All it needs now is the Guiness bottle that James is drinking from and we'll have a complete set of the house beers.

Cheers!

James finished the Guiness. Yay!

Day One

Today I realized that I could take better care of my home. Okay, so this realization has been skulking around in the recesses of my mind, but today I decided to change this.
I had a headache from sleeping too much (since I didn't have much to do today) and was feeling generally irritable. I went to bake some bread and realized that before I could make said bread, I would have to clean off at least a section of counter. As I was kneading my bread (a cheese and garlic loaf, yum, yum) it occured to me that almost every other part of my life is regulated, calendared, and checklisted to death, and almost everything gets done on a regular basis. But since no one *makes* me do housework, I'd rather sit and knit or read instead. In the interest of domestic happiness, I'm going to change that.
So here's the deal; at least once a week and once on the weekend I will clean something or work on a project for the home.
Today's goal: bread and a clean spot in the kitchen.