“Finish it” February

That’s it.  I’m sick of putting off projects I get really amped about (like my garden or learning to write iPhone apps!) because of some other project I haven’t finished yet.   Sure, I like finishing what I started; it feels good.  But when slogging through alllll my WIPs becomes a chore, it’s time for an ultimatum.

Here’s my Ravelry queue.  Note the 2 projects over 90% done.  Ugh.

And that’s just what I’ve decided to finish now, putting off three hibernaters for next Christmas (or Aftermas), and visually clipping off another project that’s done but waiting to be sent.  What??!  Sigh.  Oh, and I also have a (simple) website to whip together and business cards to print for a family member.  Those are obviously coming first.

So February will be “finish-it” February.  If I don’t get to it now, I’ll allow myself the leeway to put it off until I feel like it.

Time to GSD.

My theory about pollen.com’s blatantly wrong pollen counts

Quizzle me this.  The allergens drop to near-zero overnight, then come back up to high the next day.  How?  Merely the rain? Ehhhh, I doubt it.  How about the fact that on the days the chart drops to almost zero, like today, I am rendered completely useless, quivering in a whining mass of mucous in my safe little beddy-bye.  Could it be, then, that on the days the counts “drop”, they’re actually going off the chart and basically breaking the engine that puts them into chart form?  Hmmm.

Today: zomg, kill me now.

Nerd cookies! Nommable Asteroids

Asteroids (the edible kind) – Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories.

Thank you, Evil Mad Scientists!!  These look super nom-able and super easy and super other good things.

Guild hacked, again

Sheesh. I pretty much am just logging in to WoW lately to do the world event achievements and drink my sweet sweet monthly brews.  When I do finally log in, my guildies challenge me with whispers to make sure I’m not a hacker.  Yeah, it’s that infrequently that I’m on.  Annnnyway, last night I’d been demoted from officerhood*.  Well, we all had.  Evidently, we’ve been getting hacked about once a month.  Yep, too many officers with guild bank access and no authenticators.

Now, most of us play on Macs and let’s face it, we don’t do stupid things on our computers to allow keyloggers and other crap onto our computers.  But in order to get re-promoted, we all have to post a screenshot with our corehound pet.  Well, this morning I downloaded the authenticator app to my iPhone.  Sigh.  It begins.

I don’t know why it makes me sad to have one, but it does.  Just like the day I had to go battle.net with my account and leave my sweet little login name behind and take my stupid email address instead.  Sheesh, giving up my maiden name wasn’t even this hard.  Man.  Lol @ my priorities.

*Re: officerhood in my guild.  Dude, we’re all just friends and family.  You don’t get into our guild unless you’re a friend IRL somehow, somewhere.  Your “sponsor” doesn’t even have to be an active player anymore, although typically they’re the ones playing with you as you begin your sweet sweet descent into seductive addiction.  You don’t have to raid.  You don’t have to be awesomesauce.  Hell, you don’t even have to be an active player.  You just have to not be an asshat.  That’s it.

Another nerd license plate

Can’t escape em, even on vacay.

Fabric postcard, nay a whole host of mailed fabric items: an idea

Seeing this fabric envelope (purse) on WhipUp.net gives me an idea, or rather reminds me of something I have been wanting to do for a long time, thanks to Sharon B’s fabric postcards I have oogled through the years.  By the way, the tutorial for this cute envelope purse is at Sew Mama Sew.

Perpetual calendar

Wouldn’t it be amazingly fun to get an envelope like this, or a fabric postcard, in your real-life mailbox?  I’ll have to think of some way to have its contents open up to something useful so it makes sense to keep around.  Perhaps a perpetual calendar, which I’ve also been oogling and meaning to make…

Now, of course, my faithful WoW peeps might ask how one could Azerothify* it.  Well, I’m thinking maybe a perpetual calendar might have a little fabric bunting (tiny, perhaps rick-rack sized) for in-game events.  Damn, I could actually use that _now_, since I’ve only logged in lately to get World Event achievements and my monthly brew in the mail.

Perpetual calendar (left) I have oogled and loved is from iheartlinen.typepad.com, originally seen on Discovery’s PlanetGreen.

*Azerothification: to make real-life things more like World of Warcraft, coined by Nimcraft.  ;)  Usage: Her azerothification of that hat is emblematic** of life imitating art.

**C wut I did ther?

Cat house turned Tauren teepee?

tutorial: a cat house » whip up.

Surly cat is....surly. And spoiled. Spoiled and surly.

This really could not crack me up more.  Maybe I could make it into a Tauren teepee/long house like I’ve always wanted….  /daydream.

My weekend in pictures

I decided that corner of the lawn has sucked long enough.

I (actually the manboyfriend) tore down the gross busted fence last weekend.

Some salvaged some stakes from "neighborhood swap day" in June.

The salvaged gross-fence boards.

Stakes + fence boards + bags of dirt = raised beds for a garden.

I rushed to finish a scarf hat for mom and deliver it to her. (I finished the last 5 rows at her kitchen table.)

We hiked at Cow Creek.

Dinner and watching the sun sink over the lake.

Huzzah! Mom’s “heelhead” hood complete

I'm not modelling nearly as silly as mom does...

This was an epic “knitting every spare moment” project. Christmas was well and over, and this is now my first official “Aftermas” gift. That’s a floating holiday sometime after the new year…it goes on for days!

Anyway, this is a great pattern and I could see it done really neatly with the cables in one color, the background in another, and maybe a pattern/chart in the hood part.

Just glad to finished! Hopefully we’ll hve some more cold before the year is up. But I guess it’ll work for next year, too… sigh.  I didn’t _quite_ finish it in the car as planned, but I did do the last few rows at mom’s kitchen table.  I explained to her about blocking and I know she’s up for that task.  She said she went to bed wearing it, which I think is high praise.

Ok, an explanation of mom’s pictures.  First of all, in every picture I have of mom, her eyes are closed and her mouth is open.  Every one.  I have the same malady unless I concentrate very very hard.  So the first picture I sent, of course that’s exactly what happened.  Then I got frustrated and was all “Dammit, mom!  Every picture…” This naturally opened the floodgates of silliness on my mom’s part.  So we have:

Ha! My eyes are open!

Ha ha!  Ya like this? Eyes open AND mouth open!

And finally, at long last, a non-silly eyes open and *gasp* mouth closed picture of mom. Thanks for being silly, Mamaceeder. And thanks for giving Billy and me a sense of humor, too.

Death Metal Rooster will crush your case of the Mondays

YouTube – Death Metal Rooster.

This broke me.  It ruined me for the entire afternoon.  Crushed me.  I am still unrecovered.  <3 and thanks to Mara, who showed it to me on kindasurly.tumblr.com.