violently happy...

things are good! i may have a freelance gig, which is uber cool. i'm going to squirrel all that extra moola into a "christie fun fund." or maybe a "greece or croatia or italy or istanbul or germany or scotland or ireland fund." or a "moving on up to the east side fund."

and there are tons of other things i love, like my ridiculous cat and his lazy tongue:


going to see shows and loving the opening band even more than the headliner. here's s. carey, who was amazing on tuesday here in sleepy bloomington.


nasa declaring last night's harvest moon "extra harvesty." see: the nasa blog.

the whole world is a song...

my song o' the day: brandi carlile's cover of bryan adams' "heaven" and its utterly bizarre video.


sponsored by MY NEW PRINCESS LEIA HEADPHONES! now i can ignore eileen (my favorite co-worker who, rest assured, i really don't want to ignore. i just like giving her a hard time).


also - i'm bustin' out the fall colors again! and SCARVES! ohmygoodness! (i'm also knitting a wool dress, but that's a story for another day). tonight, we bake apple pie - even though, ironically, it is 90 degrees today. whatever, indian summer.

if i am lost, it's only for a little while...

band of horses, "monsters."


i live in a house that was built in 1851. i have no air conditioning. you get more attuned to the outside world by force when you live in such a situation. it rained the other day for, oh, 15 minutes. i thought it would help. with heat index temps of 108 degrees, however, that didn't quite work out. instead, i live in a sauna. however, i got a pretty smeary photo from inside my car.


i still like people, though. fear not.

smashing cars and dumpster diving...

things that make me happy this weekend: the monroe county demolition derby!


the girls' heat - they kicked some serious butt.


green, hairy, spotted monsters on bicycles (won at the art hospital silent auction last weekend).


visiting three states in one day: bloomington, in > cincinnati, oh > newport, ky.


70s armchairs scooped up at goodwill. i think boombox is a fan, too. we tried some dumpster diving, too, since august 1 is the switchover day for a lot of the apartments in town. i found: multiple vacuum cleaners, various decorative wreaths, a whole chicken, a tire, a really awesome tall work table if i had a use for it... in other words, it was not too successful, but goodwill is overflowing right now.


this amazingly hot song (and amazingly bizarre video).


finally, something knitting related! this sweater from the latest interweave knits is next on my "to knit" list - as soon as i finish my current knit bomb project and a cardigan i've been working on FOR-EV-ER.
(source).

things i like today...

listening to this song: e.p. hall, "emperor's note." and watching this video. the paper trees!


finding some awesome pictures of me from 5+ years ago and thinking i looked so incredibly different back then.


thinking it's thundering out - when really they're just tearing down the old school across from my house.


receiving this guy for ben! (purchased from the brilliant daniellorama).

watch my garden grow...

i can't remember if i posted a month or so ago about going crazy in my two little backyard garden plots. i tore the heck out of them, weeded, poured on new, yummy soil, and planted a bunch of seeds. well, late-march in southern indiana really isn't the time to plant seeds - at least, not outside of the house. we had some freezes, some ice storms. lovely, right? now it is fully sunny and warm out, and i decided it was time to reassess the garden. not much really survived the freezes - except for some little, baby sunflowers, which are looking rad. so i decided it was high time for a trip to the farmers market to get some stuff in the ground. ran into marc on my way between getting money from the cash machine and picking up some iced coffee, then forced him to stop at every plant stand with me. and there are a lot of those this time of year, people.

all in all, we have pansies (i think? or were they violets of some sort?), some flowery succulent whose name i can't remember, a gerber daisy, lemon verbena, a BIG BOY pepper plant, fennel, and monkeyflower. my original plan was to do coneflower, black-eyed susans, sunflowers, and a bunch of herbs and veggie plants. why are there no coneflower or black-eyed susans at the farmers market? hmm? they're native perennials, for goodness sake!

whatever. i will find them, and i will have them. oh, yes, i will.

here's one of my baby plots, half-planted with purty flowers. don't know what will go on the other side just yet.




look! baby sunflowers! grow, sunflowers, grow!


big boy pepper plant (big b!) and lemon verbena in the terrarium, waiting to get a little bigger. you can see out onto my back porch here, too, where the garden is. they can look out the window every day and dream of the day that they, too, are planted.


and finally, i stole a broken off piece of equisetum/horsetail when i was in san diego. this is one of my favorite california plants, and i had to have it. i didn't know if it would survive the trip home in my suitcase (particularly after i got stuck in denver and my suitcase probably sat on a freezing tarmac for 12 hours), but i plunked it into some water. lo and behold, it started growing roots and new shoots! i am so excited.

mom, if you're reading this...

STOP READING RIGHT NOW (at least, stop if it isn't after mother's day by the time you see this)! anyone who is not my mom can continue on.

today has been an amazingly awesome, productive day. and it's sunday! who knew i could be so productive on a sunday? here's what i've accomplished thus far:
- went on a four-mile walk.
- perused the summer interweave knits magazine, which arrived yesterday.
- went to vote (i can't believe indiana actually counts for something this year! how bizarre... i voted for obama, among others, of course).
- mailed my mother's day package.
- returned some yarn i didn't need for the shrug i made for my mom (and got some more to make this gorgeous u-neck tank top thing).
- dropped a box of old office stuff at the new office.
- bought groceries for the week.

whew! and it's only 4:00! i am good. let's get to the photos, shall we?

here is the first article of clothing i've ever knitted for my mom. i followed the knob hill shrug pattern. here's the little beauty blocking.


it's pretty big on me, but i'm hoping it will fit my mom (and that it looks good!). i'm definitely going to get some really cool handpainted yarn and make one for myself one of these days.


on to the other day-to-day stuff: they gave out stickers at the polls! i'm so proud of my sticker. also, on a slightly related note, i got a campaign sign for my friend, geoff mckim, at the farmers' market yesterday. i put it proudly in my yard, and about four hours later... it was gone! someone took my mckim sign, which is ironic because i really wanted an obama sign, too, and they were all out. on the way back to my house, every house we walked past that had an obama sign i joked about taking the sign to put in my yard.


thomas and i went to the farmers' market yesterday, and i had a bit of a plant shopping spree. look! i will have roma tomatoes! (i need to go get tomato cages).


and we have baby basil, baby lavender, baby rosemary, and two different baby cherry tomato plants.


i decided i missed having succulents all over the place - so i got a new little succulent, too. senor gnomey is watching over him. so far, boombox has not decided to try eating it, which makes me happy.


and one other thing - after reading thomas' latest blog about music (okay, that isn't too specific since ALL of his blogs are about music, but whatever), i decided to do a little searching on the magical youtube for some good ol' john darnielle of the mountain goats fabulousness. and behold! a gem emerged. matt kennedy and i spent an entire winter in our san francisco flat fighting over which one of us would get to marry john darnielle.

thunderstorms and doozy weeks...

this past week was seriously a doozy - i was kind of an emotional roller coaster about a variety of things. the general busy-ness of the week didn't help, and this week won't be any better. i have a business tour tomorrow, then a lecture and fancy dinner with an out-of-town lecturer both wednesday and thursday nights. yikes! between job #1 and job #2, i really haven't had much of a chance to do europe trip planning, but since knitting is my old destressing standby, i *have* been knitting up a storm.

the mrs. darcy cardigan is nearing completion! i've blocked the front and back and finished sleeve numero uno. it's turning out way better than i had expected. before blocking it, i thought the body would be far too small, but now that it's coming together, i think it's going to be just right. score!


i have made some modifications, though not very many. i added a few stitches to each from panel and to each sleeve and made the buttonhole band longer so it's four buttons instead of three. i think i'm going to wear this sweater until it dies. now - just to finish it. here is the last little sleeve.


and i took a trip to the local yarn store yesterday. my plan was to buy some lamb's pride to knit up a full-sized version of the arty cardi (see side link). the colors were not all that fabulous, though, and then i saw the screaming, bright, saturated colors of plymouth worsted. i was sold. however, now that i'm knitting it up, i'm wondering if i'll ever wear this thing! i hope the fuschia, which i'll use for the rest of the body, calms things down a bit. i can't begin to imagine what i'll wear this with, other than some dark wash jeans. ah, well, i'm just going to keep plugging away and see how it turns out.

the pattern is heavily modified. if it turns out nicely, maybe i'll post the pattern! i have, at least, been keeping good notes on my changes.

the working title for now is "the bright and shiny grandpa cardigan."


yup... the colors are actually brighter in real-life, if you can imagine.


and, as mentioned in the subject line, we've had lines of storms moving in all day. these are the rainy, stark trees as viewed out of my car window after running some errands this morning.

we are all in some way or another going to reseda someday to die...

the first day of real snow has arrived, and i am listening to a song about los angeles. my toes are cold, my hands are cold because my house, well... it's freaking cold. but snow! i almost bit it on my front porch, which really could use some of those grippy duckies you stick on the floor of your bathtub. i opted for salt instead, but it sure doesn't seem to do a whole heck of a lot. maybe i need to stick grippy duckies to the bottoms of my worn out converse. now there's an idea!

i also made a mix cd for someone that i dubbed "the wintry mix." i am so punny! i know - hardy har har.

i've still been knitting some for christmas and birthday presents, but i'm realizing a couple of things are most definitely going to arrive late, so the urgency has passed a bit.

first, my favorite place to be in the world during christmas - the bloomington square. explosions in the air above our heads.




the buttery side cable mittens are done! voila! i based the general pattern on the warmest mittens pattern and just played it by ear from there.


shocking, i know!


and another modified mit from the same warmest mittens pattern - this time in pine sol green. note that i did, in fact, manage to get the cables to go down the MIDDLE of the mit this time around. so proud! so lucky!


this was made with debbie mumm's traditions yarn, which i absolutely hated after the buttery mitten debacle of the twisty-turny-untwisty variety. however, this skein was not so awful, for whatever reason. probably because it is, in fact, cheap and chintzy yarn that you simply can't rely on to be awesome OR awful.


and what else have i been doing? well, i baked a metric fuckton of cookies last weekend. oatmeal, pecan, and chocolate chip; ginger snaps; and oh-my-god-yum mexican chocolate chip, which are my new personal favorite.




and my big baby boombox - his favorite cat bed would be me.


and the view out my window this morning was something along these lines. look at my poor, lonely, snowy car, all cold and shrouded in snow.

ahem... i said, a-HEM!

to welcome the first real snow of the year, i also got to welcome and become the home to a nice little cold. fun! there are cold bugs having a party in my nose and throat. i wish they'd keep it down a little. those cold bugs sure are party animals.

i managed to sleep until 11:30 this morning. at 10:30, i thought, "i should really get up," plopped my glasses onto my face... then woke up an hour later with glasses marks pressed into my cheeks. a good look for me. so yeah. good times.

on the plus side of the ledger, i finished making and addressing almost all of my christmas cards, watched "batman returns" (it's a christmas movie... really, it is!), and worked on some knitting. specifically, i finished dad's present, the sharfik scarf. i am so in love with this scarf that i wish i could keep it for myself. i guess i'll just have to make my own one of these years. i also didn't take a shower until 3:30 this afternoon. yummy.

first, some "i just woke up and it snowed last night" pictures. this is the view out my window through my sorry excuse for a curtain. note the vw bus that hasn't moved since i moved in.


me gazing out the window.


my little lovey, boombox. he's about 2-1/2 years old now, but he was born in the wilds of bloomington, indiana. one day, his mama (monster kitty - the sweetest stray cat i have ever met) just disappeared; about a month later, she showed up on my friend's front porch with six fit-in-the-palm-of-your-hand fuzzballs. over the next month or so, i changed my mind roughly 15 times about which kitty i wanted to take home with me, but boombox had just a little extra sass. a lot of personality in that little furball, lemme tell ya.


finished! my very own noro kureyon mittens.
yarn: noro kureyon #212
pattern: warmest mittens
needles: US 4 (cuff) and US 5 (all the rest)


i know, i know... it is SO DAMN EXCITING! first pair of mittens EVAH!


i decided to explore cables with the warmest mittens pattern. yup, these cables were supposed to be in the MIDDLE of the mitten. however, i kind of like the side-cable look of them. the yarn colors are gorgeous, but let me advise anyone against ever buying this stuff. it twists and unwinds and winds up on itself the entire time you're working with it. in other words, joann fabrics' debbie mumm traditions yarn is a total pain in the ass. don't go there.


cable close-up:


and drumroll please... as mentioned above (i think? i don't know, i'm delirious), i finally finished the sharfik scarf for my dad for christmas. i don't know why, but those last three cable sets were impossible for me to finish. like pulling teeth. like knitting and walking at the same time. in short, impossible.


"i'm a model, you know what i mean," and i wear my little scarf on the catwalk. i also am a total nerd and have no idea why i look so serious here. smile, dammit!


in other news, the entrelac scarf is coming right along. i really like it, but my picked up stitches are a bit, erm, obvious. ah, well, i'll keep chugging away and see if i can't figure out what the hell i'm doing wrong.


oh, and? i have a football watching date on sunday. wahoo! i am way too excited about football this week. for serious.