Ditch or do: mitts edition

I’ve been hella busy running around this country of ours. But even travelling, I finally got these mitts competed (for myself). Huge accomplishment. They say hi.

The “hi” is from a pattern I found on Ravelry called Hi, and also here for those who are Ravelryless. The mitt itself (which I used because I had to find the right number of stitches and whatnot based on the giant “red letter” yarn* I had) comes from Gradient Mitts (and here, for the Ravel-less).

*Why is it “red-letter” yarn? Well, back in my days living in the frozen north, I was underemployed (2 part-time jobs does not a full living make) and experiencing the final few days before I had to call the bank and ask if I could wait and pay my mortgage later. To soothe myself, I was naturally at a yarn store. A fancy one! I’d gotten a gift certificate for it over Christmas and had to drive two towns over to use it, but it was well worth it for an afternoon of playdreaming in yarn. While at the shop, I stood deliberating between red and blue baby alpaca. Then I got a call from a job prospect in Texas, offering me a position. I’ve been living in the sun of Austin ever since.

I went back inside and chose the red yarn on the red letter day, when everything began to turn around. Now, finally, I’m using that yarn and welcoming more adventures in this world.

Make stuff for kiddos with cancer

via project 16 :: the littlest warriors.

Hey, fellow crafters—from the yarn and sewing communities alike. Craft Hope is requesting folks make hats for kids fighting cancer. All sizes (babies to teens), boys and girls, fiber or fabric. They’re also requesting bags for the kids to take their stuff to the hospital.

Spread the word and get makin’. One’ll do. More is good, too.

p.s. if you can’t knit, sew, or crochet, you can always make no-sew hats like this and no-sew bags just like Martha. Hating on the Martha? Ok, fine, here’s another no-sew bag that’s NOT by her.

The Greenest Building Is The One Already Standing

via No Tech Magazine: The Greenest Building Is The One Already Standing.

Ye gods, YES. I cringe every time I think of my own house—all 4 cavernous bedrooms, all 19 feet to the ceiling in the “great room”, all 4 toilets, all 2200 square feet plus full basement, and all new material cladding and constructing it—and what a waste it was to create. I could rant about just how much space I believe is enough for a person, but naturally that feeling of comfort varies and is purely subjective. And then again, maybe that number is very mathematical and logical. I mean, we only have so much space to share after all.  /pseudo rant

I wish moving houses was easier to do and afford.

Anyway, buying a house is better than building one. That is all.

I’m back, baby!!

Uh oh. Happy learned to putt.

Week of Jan 9: I ditch or I do

Last week, Jan 9-15, I burned like 50 CDs for my brother, worked on his art blog a bit, managed to beat the neighbors to raking my own leaves (my roommates assumed my neighbors HAD done it as I was so tardy in doing it), placed another trim board in—oh so lovingly, cooked dinner from stuff in the house (weird. Very weird. Much confusion is caused when I wield a spatula), finagled my houseguest into hanging some hooks in the bathroom for me (which I’m pretty sure still counts as me finally getting something done that’s been languishing as long as these hooks have), and I finally got all the labels off my copious glass bottles. I still don’t have enough bottles (I never shall! Moar! MOAR!) but what I have I’d like to sink into the ground.

Before.

After! Or during, I guess, since the true "after" is once they're in the ground.

Can you believe we didn't even try to matchy matchy?

I love love love the image he screened onto his CDs! Too bad I took a pic of the one with the partial M. Doh!

I also started going through the garagealanche I created one day when I needed to hide all my stuff away. Dirty, dirty secret.

The darkness promises to consume my shame.

Play more WoW in 2012

That’s my new year’s resolution. No, I’m not joking.

Winters in Durotar | Geek Crafts

 

Man, check out this awesome hat from Geek Crafts and Craftster. Dag. I need to get knitting again! (As a side note, I’m loving EVERYTHING I see on Geek Crafts. Le sigh.)

Link: Winters in Durotar  | Geek Crafts.

Final week of 2011: I ditch or I do

So much this week. So, so much. It’s no accident that my productivity—and re-entry to WoW—coincided with having this week off. Thank you, Uncles Steve and Tim. That allowed me to get through some serious projects. You ready for some photographic evidence? Here it comes.

I know this is peaking too soon, but it must be mentioned foremost: new floors in the master bedroom! Floors, wall color, and trim, to be precise. And dude, when I say I “installed” trim, this means acquiring, schlepping it home (a big deal in a little car), painting, sanding, counter-sinking, puttying, and touching up the trim. Ok, my brother commandeered the project and did all the wall painting and about 90% of the floor-laying. It still counts. And that trim part was 100% me. Nyah.

Rip up the carpet, glue down the boards. Not pictured: paint the walls and rip off the trim.

Le Mostly Done. Closet doors? Still sitting on the floor awaiting their fate.

And the step they don’t tell you about: set aside the afternoon to clean your feet.

I even began writing a list that I could cross stuff off of, since I was going so crazy-go-nuts on my honey-do list. Hey, if you assign these projects to yourself, is it just a “me-do” or “to-do” list? That’s way less fun. I’m gonna start referring to myself as honey.

I could save money. Or I could user your junk mail to kick ass instead.

I also, immediately upon dropping MBF off at the airport for his 6-week hide-from-the-cedar hiatus in a whole nother ecosystem, organized the pantry…

Believe it or not, this is organized. Very.

…and my desk.

A desk! When did that show up underneath all my crap?

Naturally, within a week my desk was back to being fully piled up. Like… way way up. To the point that next week you’ll be reading about how I sorted through all the crap I boxed up and hid in the garage. Crap which had been atop my desk all this time. Atop, under, beside, and even somehow within. Whoa.

I also delivered a box of scrapbooking stuff I’d earmarked for a friend about a year ago, and mailed off yet another laptop. This second laptop wasn’t mine, and thus counts only as a “do”, not a “ditch”, but I did reformat it, tracked down a suitable box for careful mailing, and did all the packaging and postal legwork, including getting a hold of the recipients to get the mailing address.

A ditch and a done, bitches!

AND, if that weren’t enough, I:

• took the bottles in from the lawn to scrub their labels off before putting them into the ground (you’re welcome, neighbors)
• created a CD for my brother to send to galleries
• began work on a website to which said CD refers
• cleaned the pool filter
• baked a sweet-potato pie and eggnog muffins
• made a breadbowl cheese dip
• researched and hired a new cleaning service (house of 4 adults requires the sanity of professional cleaning. Trust me.)
• hired a specialist to come to the house to address a … pest problem we had
• blocked up the entries said pests use to get into the house
• helped a roommate have an epic day by jumping into the pool with her on Dec. 29, spending most of the day shopping at her favorite outlet mall and Ikea, teaching her to play shuffleboard and 2×4 Jenga in a dive bar that smelled like puke inside and hog manure outside, and ending the night at the top of the erotic photo-find winner list
• started down the path to purchasing new windows and doors, which included visiting a window and door showroom out in BFE
• hired a dude to come clean my air ducts and inspect my chimney. Those are not euphamisms.

I. Am. On. Fire.

I also now need a vacation, so for the next 2 days, I expect a lot of WoW time. Oh, did I mention? I got a 10-day trial of Cataclysm and fired up my account again. Can I just say how awesome it is on a 27-inch iMac? It’s*.

Well eff. Since writing all of that, I’ve gone and gotten even MORE done, albeit in a virtual realm:

Yes, Blizzard. It HAS been a long, strange trip.

*Why the contraction? Cause I don’t have time for complete spelling, foolsicles! I gots levelling to do! Oh, except one more thing: turns out if you’re using a trial version of Cataclysm, you can’t level past 80. L2BuyCataclysm, n00b.

Well, looks like it's alt time.

prAna blog » Handbook For Life 2012

Happy new year. As my mom said to me once: “Today’s the first day of the rest of your life… but don’t sweat it: tomorrow is too.”

prAna blog » Handbook For Life 2012.

Check out #33: Keep only things that are useful, beautiful or joyful.

This is so in line with my decluttering, destashing, and detangling of all my junk. It’s nice when you get a little confirmation that you’re headed in the right direction. And I really feel like I am, and with more than just my dejunkification. Thanks, Prana. I like you.

 

Christmas week: I ditch or I do

This was a good’n.

I finally sent off my laptop to family who had requested it a full year ago. Yikes. How’s that for procrastination? Well, it’s all updated and clean now, and the recipient even liked the cherry blossoms on it. Good thing, too, cause those weren’t coming off. Ya know, it’s the one I had lasered up.

Finally. Sheesh.

I already mentioned that I mailed off my nieces’ gifts—ones I’d gotten in January of this year, and again yikes—and was pretty happy with my non-packaging package.

What I didn’t say was inside those gifts were mostly purchased items, but with one solitary handmade item: a necklace for my youngest niece. It’s a rock from a beach in Punakaiki, New Zealand, strung with copper wire and copper-colored silk cord. I was pretty happy with it.

In a Burt's Bees lotion bottle. A nice fit, actually.

And finally, I made a necklace from another stone. This one was for my brother, a stone he’d picked up and tossed back down on a walk he and I took with MBF. Well, MBF picked the rock back up, asked me to string it as a gift, and wrote a few words to go with it. I think my brother liked it, as all day and the next I saw him wearing it nonstop.

Goober grin upon completion

The nice thing about both necklaces—or necklii if you will—is they are adjustable. I knotted them so that you simply pull the knots (in the photo they’re next to the white shell beads) apart. This lengthens the necklace. If you want to wear it tighter, as in the photo, you pull the knots towards the center of the necklace. If anyone cares I can post a tutorial on how I knotted them.

So that was the week before Christmas, necessarily a do-or-ditch week. Maybe it’s cheating at this game, but maybe not. Yo, Jon, you still playing ditch-or-do with me? If you are, I’m kicking your ass. If you’re not, you should be kicked in the ass.