April 2006 Archives

Yeah, I'm noticing the shocking lack of pictures around here, too. What can I say? I've been lazy. It will not be remedied tonight. See previous comment.

However, I can say as lazy as I have been in the picture area, I have not been lazy in projects.

The crochet "thing" is coming along, but I'm still not sure about it. I still think had I used a palette of various shades of the same color it would have worked better, but I'm willing to continue because sometimes the finished project looks better than the work-in-progress. Besides, I'm bound to find a use for it somewhere.

I have finished a sock! Woo! Actually, I've finished two socks. But, they're not of the same pair. They're of the same wool, but they don't match. No, that was intentional.

Confused, yet?

The story goes: I finished one sock, but screwed up the toe, so I took more of the wool of the same color and finished another, but this time working it toe up instead of cuff down, and it came out wonderful. I'm working on its mate now. What's to become of the sock with the funky toe, you ask? Sock puppet for the niece! What better use for a sock that you have no intentions of using than a sock puppet? Bring on the googly eyes!

I may have cycled out of knitting and crochet for a bit. Well, not completely. I will knit at least one day a week with a friend, and I knit during lunch at work to keep my sanity. Anyway, there is a Venetian masked ball at a SCA event next month. I have a mask already made from a previous experiment. Well, mostly made. It needs to be painted, assembled, and decorated. Of course, if I make my mask, I have to make one for Todd. I also told told a couple of people I'd help with their masks. This has given me the paper mache bug again. This is a good thing, but I've always have to fight anxiety and this time it's trying to make me worry that I can only get this stuff to work for me and what if I can't make it work for other people and end up letting them down? I know that makes no sense at all, but when you suffer from anxiety problems born of trauma and outside influences, you tend to think really weird, self-defeating shit for not reason at all. But, I'm determined to not let it get me down. I'm going to do some paper pulp mushing and get Todd's mask started this week so I can remember what I did so I might show others. Anyway, my mask has been gesso-ed and well be gesso-ed again because I made it way too delicate and it needs something to give it strength, then I will paint it and attempt to find the autumn-like decorations I need for it. (It's got maple leaves changing into their Fall brilliance across the eyes. I should have finished it last year. Damn, my tendency to jump from project to project.) If I ever finish this stuff and not cry in horror at the foul things I've created, I'll take pictures.

On a crochet note, I need to start picking out the yarn I need for my sisster-in-law's shawl. I made a shawl with a Native American motif on it for no reason at all and ended up giving it to a friend for her birthday. My sister-in-law was all sorts of, "But, I wanted that shawl!" Well, at Christmas she made a request that I make a shawl like that for her for her birthday in November. Yes, it's early, but knowing my track record, it's better if I get started on it. I need to design it out anyway. I was thinking of using that same cotton/fleece I used for the baby blanket, but Lara ended up pointing me out to this gorgeous wool that was soft and lucious and came in many more colors. It'll end up costing me an arm, a leg, and someone else's foot, but it's worth it to give my sister-in-law something she'll swoon over.

I love working on shawls. They make me feel fuzzy.

And, they're quicker than blankets.

Which is always a plus.

Speaking of blankets, I think I need to make Todd and me a nice wool one for next winter.

Boy, do I just keep adding kindling to the fire of "Holy hell, what was I thinking?!" that will burst forth come November, huh?

Ah, well, such is the way of a crocheter/knitter/paper mache artist/masochist.

Okay, so I started this freeform crochet thing. I bought several balls of Lopi wool for it. I love Lopi wool. Lopi wool is from heaven. I want to move into the Lopi room of the yarn shop.

Don't you hate it when you start something with lofty explanations and once finally looking at the work in progress you're just not sure it was worth the trouble?

Well, I'm in that place at the moment.

Does this mean I'm going to stop working on it? Nope. But, it does mean it might take me a long time. Probably.

I think the problem is I used too many different colors. They're all of this Autumn kind of palette, but for what I was doing, I think they might have been too different. I look at these lovely green section of the Lopi yarn and think that it would work better in a single color/several tons of shades kind of thing.

Or, the real problem is the green Lopi is calling me.

I really like green. It's my favorite color.

And, there's green Lopi.

Lots of shades of green.

.......

.......

I will ignore the green Lopi. I will ignore it...

Yeah, I'll at least finish out the Lopi I bought, but we'll see if I continue that particular pattern I'm creating. We'll see.

The really dark green was very pretty...

Perez Prado, ya'll. I mean, fun, quirky, great driving music that helps you to forgive the blasted obviously blind idiot who just cut you off and nearly took your bumper with him...

People look at me funny when I put in Perez. They look at me even funnier when I declare I want lounge music. Yeah, sure, throwing some Martin Denny, Les Baxter, or Yma Sumac into the player makes you feel like you should be wearing a smoking jacket and really makes you start to think tassles, leopard print, and red velvet would liven up the place, but hey, it's fun, it's cool, and it ramps up the surreal dial in the unsuspecting visitor's life.

My mother bought me a CD of Christmas lounge music.

I love my mother.

And, yet, there is a severe lack of lounge music in my collection. I have Perez, as I've said, but aside from a few singles, that's it.

This makes me feel a bit like the other day when I realized that as I discovered I was actually way more into zombie movies than I thought I was seriously lacking some of the most important ones, like the original "Night of the Living Dead". (Remedied this weekend. Best Buy is an evil place because it makes me spend money, but I'll forgive myself since it was zombie movies.) I felt kind of like there was this gaping hole that needed to be filled. (Mind out of the gutters, people.) I would compare this to my need to buy yarn except that every time I go into the yarn shop, no matter the amount of yarn I possess, I feel as if I'm missing some somewhere. A perpetual feeling of being denied all the yarn in the world doesn't count. That can never be cured.

So, I need lounge music. Lots and lots. I mean, I have Halloween surf music, but that's just not the same. I need that kind of hip swinging give-me-a-martini-daddy kind of music that really worries my boyfriend.

If it weren't for the cost of my damn tires ($400!) I would be taking care of that. But, you know, if anything, it's just one more thing that's easy to find for me for Christmas. One thing I have never had a complaint on is how hard it is to buy me something for Christmas. If it's weird, I probably want it. But, I don't want to wait! I want it now!

Oh, well. Maybe in a couple of paychecks I can start taking care of this deplorable situation. Until then, at least I have Tom Jones doing bad covers.

Okay, so it's a commercial, but tell me it's not something that doesn't bring tears to your eyes out of the sheer beauty of it. Tell me the thought of looking out of your window and seeing 250,000 bouncy balls boing, boing joyously out your window wouldn't make you wonder why you've missed the beauty in this world.

If you don't know what I'm talking about, then you need to see this.

It's all in the music.

(Jose Gonzales. He has an album called Veneer that you can buy on Amazon. I will be buying it. Give the boy your money, man. Anyone who can produce that kind of emotion to bouncy balls deserves your money.)

If anyone has trouble seeing it, please let me know and I'll see if I can get another link posted.

Yeah, it's a commercial, but DAMN.

By the way, has anyone ever given a moment like this? You know...that moment when the thing you do makes people stare in awe. A moment where for a brief second their world stops and they're just living in the now and wondering what their lives would have been like if they missed this moment...

I gave a moment I hope to this day made someone, anyone, feel like smiling to themselves in wonder.

I was living in the dorm. This dorm had a U shape, kind of like an open-ended square, with another smaller dorm on one side of the opening. This created a courtyard of sorts. Because of it's shape, even in the smallest breeze, this courtyard would get this kind of whirlwind effect. One day, I was bored. I sat at my open window on a day that was cool by Louisiana standards, feeling bored, and in a typical Lisa moment, decided to blow some bubbles...because I could...

I didn't know that the wind would carry them into this tornado of current, that they'd never touch the walls, that they'd seem to go on forever. I didn't know that I could create a Bubble Tornado. I was enthralled...I made more bubbles...and more bubbles...

But, in truth, what thrilled me more, the memory that I carry with me today, is the faces I saw at the windows. The women who looked outside their little dorm boxes and saw a whirlwind of bubbles dancing before them. The thought that I brought a moment to someone's day that was so surreal that they just stopped...and watched...and enjoyed...makes me very happy.

I like to think that someone smiled. I hope so. If I could do something like that every day to make one person smile so that they don't forget - so that I don't forget - there is beauty in this world of ours, I would. I most certainly would.




The other memory I have is of my best friend coming from across the building up three flights of stairs to burst through MY door with the declaration, "Tell me that isn't you."

I swear, I have no idea why people would assume I'm at the bottom of every weirdness going on around here...


Anyway, Todd and I are both in agreement that this should be the video of that song. It's called "Heartbeats".

It makes me think of that time I walked under a giant oak tree filled with birds. They sang so loudly it echoed in a city of noise, and all I could do was stand there and listen...

...the computer room just seemed too weird without Silvara in it.

But, time, whether we like it or not, tends to help wounds heel.

So, I'm back.

The computer room still feels lonely without her rubbing on my ankles, but I can handle it a little better now.

So...

Updates.

How is everyone?

I finished a sock.

My first sock.

I really royally screwed up the toe beyond repair.

So, I'm doing another pair of socks. This time, I'm ignoring that book written by drunk monkeys and getting advice from the Sock Mistress at the yarn shop.

(Bow when you speak of the Sock Mistress, human!)

I'm going toe up this time and it's turning out rather well.

I still haven't going through the vacation pictures, but I've been busy trying to get my house in some semblance of order and spending an enormous amount of money on a 50" TV because my lovely Todd and I are geeks and believe that theaters aren't worth it when you can have a better set up in your living room.

(Bow when you speak of the TV, human!)

My Tabster kitty (you know, the Lump) is officially on insulin. That's fun. I get to feed him then shoot him in the back. Nice. Well, he looks better and seems to be more his old self, which is nice. After Silvara, I've been especially worried. But, he's doing fine.

I've gotten into Spring Cleaning mode, or at least as bad as it gets with me. We're trying to get our place organized and clean it at the same time. Todd teases me that I'm nesting because I'm all about the home decorating. The truth is, I've never been able to do do that being broke and all, but now, without a car note, with finances levelling out, I can finally do things like buy slip covers for the sofa or get curtains. It's refreshing.

(Bow when you speak of the Home Improvement, human!)

That's about it on our end. I hope to have pictures for the next post.

Sorry for the absence. Call it time to mourn.

Tragedy has struck our household. The little grey steak of light, the fluffy little cat we adored and called the Kitten, our little Silvara, passed away Friday night.

We're not sure what happened. She was fine when we came home from work. We went out for about three hours, and when we came back...she was gone.

Todd thinks it might have been an intestinal blockage or a tumor or something, but regardless it was something that gave us no warning. She gave us no indication she wasn't feeling well.

As to be expected, I haven't much felt like being online these last few days, especially since her favorite place was the computer room and it feels so empty without her. I still catch myself looking for her...

She was Todd's little baby, and I loved her as if she were my own, and we miss her terribly.

I never got a chance to get a picture of her to post, but it turns out there was a couple of her on the camera that Todd had taken.



I'm sorry I didn't get your picture up sooner, little one. I hope you didn't think it was because I didn't care.







Goodbye, Fuzzy Kitten. We loved you so much, but none loved you more than Todd. Please don't forget us, and I hope when our time comes, we'll get to play with you once again.

May you get to play in green fields with lots of butterflies to chase. And, I hope the angels don't forget that you love to play with your favorite string.

We love you, Silvara.