Master of "things you can do while seated" strikes again

Which is my clever way of saying I am lazy. friday was a stupid day. stupid stupid stupid. I hated it and I was glad it ended. Even gladder when I found out we had a long weekend. What a nice surprise that was, long live situational oblivion!

Friday night consisted of HN and I going out for a rather absurdly large rack of ribs at CVP, followed by me retreating to the safety and world blocking-ness of the basement. Yesterday I left the house rather briefly but was still feeling the hateful after effects of stupid friday and so I decided I was not dealing with anyone, and having the extra day in the weekend I could also refuse to take care of any chores or other responsibilities. So I spent the day at the sewing machine, simultaneously trying to work on a quilt for Nate's wife/new baby and reducing the mile high pile of fabric I have collected over the years. I had already done about a 12x45" section of the quilt and I hated it (sensing a theme here?) so yesterday I fucked around a bit and hit on something that was far more pleasing to me. I kicked the old piece to the curb and went hog wild with the other idea. Here is the work to date, which is essentially what will be the quilt's top.

Still not necessarily my bag, but she'll like it. The colors are also badly represented here.

I'm currently cooking some seriously curry lentils up, and while I wait for that I'm trying to decide if I should sew more random projects to plow through my fabric buildup (I am apparently having some issue with this these days. I am compelled to use it up), try to get together enough crap to get a quilt bottom together (I know I have it in my stash, but I'm so lazy I'm almost tempted to go buy something, but then the conscience keeps yapping about the spending embargo and "how are you going to use all your fabric up if you keep buying more"? so it's pretty much a toss up as to what I'll do).

Somehow I suspect lying on the couch moaning about being bored will win.

good lord listen to me. I should sprinkle some prozac in my lentils.

/rant

the quid pro quo is that kerry must study on her own time

someone-ME!- just got recommended by the CTO to start taking company funded courses towards getting my MS cert in SQL server management

huzzah!

more crappy cameraphone pics

Still can't find the cord and the Radio Shack near me wants 20 bucks for a card reader. F that. So here is done quilt with matching pillowcases. Because I dont know if I've mentioned it lately, but I RULE!



Edited to add a pic from a real camera. Does it even look that different ?

p.s.

I want to make this next. In these colors.

You can't make friends with salad.

Condition: Too much time on hands/lack of motivation
Symptoms: Daily blogging, mostly about nothing.

Example: see below.

So first, a bit of excitement I forgot to mention in yesterday's post. I got some QT with the CTO of my company last week, and one of the things we talked about is getting me some more DBA training, and perhaps an MS certification or 2. Our company needs a certain percentage of MS certified people to maintain our platinum hug status, and I need some more formal training with the DB stuff as my role seems to be expanding. He said I should go through the program and who am I to argue? So that should start soon, although he also gave me a couple of other books and I've been trying to have some sort of structured learning bits with that. I'm trying to do an hour a day of SQL Server school, but it's hard to motivate. I need a proper work area, which means I would have to clean my desk and get an actual chair and well, you can see the difficulty there.

The rest of my Sunday was pretty tame. Pandora continued to make sweet love to my auditory channels, and I quilted. In the afternoon HN and I went to the state fair, apparently because I am a masochist. I always think those things sound so fun until I get there and remember I hate people. The agro parts were fun, and were I to go again I would just stick with that stuff. We spent a fair bit of time at a cow beauty pageant, where the announcer was a man trained in judging livestock and impressively thorough in his assessments. Every heifer, he would tell us what he would change about a cow if he could change just one thing. i.e. "This heifer is gorgeous, she's got a relaxed gait, she's calm, her haunches are just exciting but if I could change one thing about her, I'd bring her shoulders up a bit and just square her off" There was even cow drama!

I think some of the cows it was their first time being shown, and so they were a little surly and not that well behaved, and they were all being shown by kids under 14. There was one little girl who took a head between the shoulder blades- her cow was just mean man, woah! She got a little scared (can't blame her really, that cow was totally out to get her) and some old dude stepped in to deal with her cow. Then right after her, there was another little tiny blonde girl who was walking her cow when it also flipped out, only this little miss was a no joke cowgirl in the making. She was maybe 60lbs soaking wet, a complete willow of a thing and when her cow flipped out, she just very calmly took the fucker on. It was no doubt the highlight of the day to see this little girl start to get pulled all around by this cow, then with the calmest Marlboro man cowboy face I've ever seen just dig her fucking heels right into the ground and yank right back on the cow. She wasn't mad, she wasn't scared and she was most certainly not losing control of the cow. She gave it a solid yank and had the cow bowing to her, and even though it was off in a corner happening everyone was watching her and the place went absolutely wild. Even the old stack of actual cowboys in the corner were grinning and clapping, and when one of them finally went over to grab the mad cow he gave her a solid handshake and a big pat on the back. It is TRAGIC that I didn't have my camera. But that was my fave moment of the day. Yes, I went wild in the stands at a cow show. and immediately I wonder if that's more appropriate for my inner monologue, but it's too late.

The rest of the very brief fair visit was spent wandering around the rest of the grounds, basically dodging old ladies waving corn dogs and nattering to each other while looking anywhere but forward, and weaving in an out of the gauntlet of 30 ft wide baby carriage SUVs and screaming mothers/children. Was. Too. Crowded. HN wanted to go on a ride, and since his taste runs to the upside down, spin around rides that make me vomit I got to pick, and I chose the ferris wheel. Wouldn't you know it, this is the one ride he can't deal with and he spent the entire time being very uncomfortable with the whole thing and talking about all the things that could go wrong/made him nervous about ferris wheels. Once I confirmed that he was in fact scared on the lamest of rides, but would have happily gone on the casino showdown spin/flip/motorcoach from hell I did what any good girlfriend would do and proceeded to rock the cart while taunting him. You think you know a person...

After that I started having issues with the crowds. It was just not ok, you couldn't even walk more than 5 steps without someone smashing you,stepping on you, or just stepping out in front of you and coming to a stop. I hightailed it back to the swine area, where at least the occupants have an excuse for the way they look and smell and after a little more livestock surfing we packed it in. I can say I've done that now thank you very much.

I think that's about all I have spewing around in here today. Work should be reasonably light, so I'm hoping to get out and get a card reader. This is just ridiculous, plus I want to show what I made! and I also want some of the AK pics. Part of my present from HN was he printed a bunch out and made a thing for me, and I'm tantalized so I might be motivated enough to want ot see the rest.


Cheerio motherf*ckers!

I have found true love

I'm still on the mad sewing tear. This might be a record for the most prolonged run at a given new hobby in a while. Anyhoo, yesterday as I was finishing up my bedroom quilt I realized my big iPod was in Portland still and I didn't have enough music on my computer or my shuffle to keep me going so I gave in and tried Pandora. This dude I work with is always all "oh pandora this" and "pandora that" so I figured if nothing else it would give us something to talk about when I see him this week.

About 3 songs in I concluded that Pandora is the only one who really understands me. For real. If you haven't tried it yet you should. I listened to Pandora from about noon yesterday until 10pm when I called it quits and I'm listening to Pandora right now. It's like that!

I'm currently surfing for acorn squash recipes while macking on a smoothie made with the remnants of the Edible Arrangement JG hooked up in honor of the anniversary of the birth of both dog and myself. My dog is damn old. She's a decadian now, and her ass has some gray hair to go with.

Other stellar birfday gifts were a sweet Crate And Barrel pitcher given by my boss (I love having a chick boss. Girls do holidays better!) and the HN birthday bonanza. It's hard to explain what he did to my lawn, and I can't show the pics because we still haven't found the camera cord. Suffice it to say it was a befitting tribute to my birth.

Once we find the camera cord, you're in for it because I have to show Alaska pics, birthday lawn pictures, and quilt = finished! pics. Re: that last bit: I went out yesterday with a *list* of fabric stores, prepared to visit each and every last flipping one of them in the name of finding the right fabric for the binding (border) so that the unsightly edges from the last pic would be a thing of the past. As luck would have it, I hit it on the first spot. There was a woman in the shop who had the patience of Job, understood my babbling attempts to describe what the quilt looked like and had every bolt of fabric in the joint memorized. I was rambling on about the colors, the patches, the sequins and she just put her hand up and said "you know what? come with me" and handed me the perfect fabric. Sheila is my homegirl!!!

I spent the afternoon cutting, ironing, and sewing, taking breaks only to whip up a quiche, some zucchini bread and some roasted squash-chini fries (I'm a fucking domestic goddess. And also, HN's next door neighbor grew pumpkins, summer squash and zuke last year and this year they all cross pollinated so he's got this Frankenstein ass looking bunch of hybrids. no two are the same, and since he has a million and I love free stuff, he knows exactly where to lob the extras. I am rocking some transgenic foods- made with love!!)

I made some serious progress on Stella Jr's baby quilt but I had to take a break because it doesn't do much for me. I wrapped up my quilt- then did a big happy dance because I finished a project. Yay! As previously discussed, I am the master of putting it aside. Hence the waist high pile of fabric from which I am making all of the quilts. But not this time, this is a whole new me. The quilt is DONE. Not "done enough to be used" which is my typical stop point. It's actually a finished product. le sigh. and also, with the extra fabric from the binding I made pillowcases. That's right bitches. Custom Bedding Sets by Kerry.

And with that I'm off. Tonight's meal consists of more quiche, plus a side of acorn squash stuffed with forbidden rice and veggie medley and I have 2 more pillowcases to finish before I begin prepping.

Suck it Martha Stewart.

I've got a fever....

and the only cure is more sewing! Seriously, I have the sewing bug big time. I'm working on 2 bigger (i.e., more than one day to finish) projects, and have thrown in a gimme here and there when I start to get antsy for something finished. I have discovered through a long and painful process that this "sewing of the quickie" is the best way for me to get over my need for speed without ruining whatever labor intensive process caused the itch in the first place. This is my goto gratification thinger.

I now have about 6 of these in a variety of sizes, and they get progressively closer to being square with each one I make. Measuring really makes a difference! I was never much of a believer before, but I'm on board now. The pouches work rather well for holding pieces of sewing and knitting projects, to keep everything together and mostly free of pet hair.

One of my projects involves the fabrics below. Girly, but not nauseating. Not quite my style but right up the alley of the person I'm making it for, and also it's experience. (HN's mother and I are now penpals and she is a mad quilter. I mentioned to her that I was giving a go at quilting and she offered to have a few lessons with me when she comes to town next. In preparation for this, I'm trying to learn how to sew any sort of respectable straight line so I don't look like a total tool)

So anyhow, here's the fat quarter bundle I impulse purchased and am now trying to wrangle into something not ugly. Hopefully I will have a work in progress pic or two to share soon. I just have to find a camera to take the pictures with...

I'm not following a pattern, I'm making it up. My new technique for making up patterns goes thusly:
1)Cut out a bunch of pieces and begin to sew some of them together, as for bedroom quilt.
2)Get bored of this.
3)Decide I don't love the person for whom I'm making the quilt enough to cut out 1,000 pieces again, and also this material just wouldn't carry.
4)Curse, because other than traditional (and not my bag at ALL) quilt squares, and the patchwork/crazy thing from bedroom quilt, I have no experience to draw on when doing this. 5)Stand back and look at pieces already sewn.
6)Go lie down or read or do something else to get the conscious mind off the task at hand.
7)Wait for square based visions to insert themselves into unaware psyche. *
8)Go make that thing.

*I'm basically trying to see how far I can get through life without having to sew curves or be "very specific" in measurements. So far, so good.

Other than that not much to report these days. Work is busy but good, with enough variation to keep me awake. We installed a new wide angle camera at NSI last week, which was cool. It's a camera I've never worked with before and the Canon guy came down and helped me install and put it together so I got trained by the pros. It also has a Canon EOS 1Ds Mark II on the back of it. 16.7 Megapixels of wide angle retina goodness. The pictures are stunning, stunning I tell you! I'll purloin one this week and post, you should really see this shit. And the time away in AK did a lot of good in terms of recharging my batteries so that I'm excited about the project again. It's still a giant pain in the ass, and the people involved are still ridiculous, and the database is being a mild pain but overall when I think of the breadth of this project and how it's going to wind through 5 major departments in the hospital, and all of the different people who will use the software and system for all of the different things, I am stoked. Someone commented last week on how nice it was that I was still excited about it, and I told him I would drag these fuckers kicking and screaming all the way to paradise. And I believe I will.


HN is back in town and the camera has survived. However, now there is no cord to connect camera to pc, how frustrating! So close, but so far. My camera has gone AWOL so there is no choice to transfer card to camera for which I have cable. So I have just been reviewing the pics in miniature and grinding my teeth. Soon me hopes.


And with that I'm off to my Monday business. Lots of working from home this week, so expect lots of updating.

Ta daaaaaaaaa!

The quilt is done! The room has been rearranged into something more befitting such a work of art. And I have no camera. boo!

Here's a terrible cameraphone pic of it. You can tell how pretty it is still. HN should be back with the camera soon, I'll do it some justice then.


And here, because I'm already in the camera phone is a pic out my window. It looked better in person, I took a picture with an old school (film) camera

quilting bees and stinging bees

This is long. Get your coffee and put your calls on hold.

First and foremost I am a crafting fool this week. Ok, technically last week, but this week too. Just you wait and see. For most of the last week and weekend, I just couldn't bear to deal with the general populus, yet I struggled with the need to be productive so I decided I would just do so from the comfort of my own home. Things were cleaned. Things were sorted and piled and donated to charity. Things were washed. and so it went.

So back to the crafting for a moment: I have a bunch of half finished jobs lying around and a pile of material and yarn up to my eyeballs and I had no doubt I could find something to occupy myself. Something that was free, required no additional materials and would ever so slightly shrink my pile of "things I thought I wanted to make until I started trying to make them." It would be an extension on the cleaning/clutter reducing frenzy which has been broiling for months but really culminated when I got back from AK. Y'all I gave some shit AWAY! I may or may not admit that this was motivated by a Niecy Nash clean this house marathon into which I was sucked the night I returned home from Boston.

Anyhoo, this weekend I decided I was tired of the cleaning and should really do something more fun and more result-y so I went back and revisited "the quilt". Remember the quilt? Months ago I went gangbuster in a way that surprised myself and mildly horrified HN to produce the perfect quilt to match my room. I worked in the wall color, the trim color, the green from the plants color and SPARKLES! (aside: i love sparkles! more on that later) It was going to be tops, this quilt: literally and figuratively... Then warm weather came, and I hit the next step phase, which involved laying out the giant-ness of the quilt and assembling the sandwich and I was overwhelmed. At "the Phase of Trying Something New" is when a lot of my projects typically hit the dead zone. I just decide "I'll put it off over here while I have a think on what to do" and the next thing you know I'm donating scraps to charity. Not that that was going to happen with "the quilt" but you take the point.

"the quilt" in it's infancy. In looking at the quilt on my bed today, I notice that although they have changed, there are still a book and a bottle of seltzer water next to my bed.

So let's backtrack a little. Saturday while I was sewing/mowing/cleaning anything I could get my grubby little hands on, I began to feel a bit sorry for the dog. She doesn't share my craft bent, and while she got plenty of exercise when I walked her that night, she spent a good deal of the day bored and sighing and giving me the stinkeye. So yesterday morning I decided since I was going to make an earnest effort to finish the quilt that I should run her in the morning too and get her all tuckered out so I could quilt guilt free while she slept it off. With this in mind we packed up at around 7am and headed out to HN's place of employment, around which there is a large expanse of woods that we can and do make frequent use of.

All was well. It was early, sunny, warm and I had coffee and a plan. I also had a stick, which I was throwing so mia perra could get even more exercise, plus just to have some good old fashioned fun. Then a funny thing happened: I threw the stick, dog went roving to get it, then dog began turning in circles, sitting and standing quickly and just generally looking like she was losing her mind. I could see little black things on her butt so I thought she might have jumped into a thorn thicket or something. Never being one to look before I leap (and not intending to start now), I think I will gallantly jump in and save her. There was a log in the way so I had to take a running leap. (note: I am sure I have a thought process at times like these, but I am never quite able to put my finger on what was going on in there when I make decisions like "take a running leap into the thorn thicket with the dog to save the dog" Admittedly in retrospect it doesn't seem that smart)

Running leap taken, and Kerry now airborne for the briefest of moments, a couple of things occur to me:

1)I am going to land in the thorn thicket.
2)Crap
3)There is no thorn thicket. But there are thorns on the dog. DOES NOT COMPUTE.
4)The thorns are moving.
5)CRAP

As I hit the ground I'm a little relieved that there is no thorn thicket, but I'm still 100% sure there are thorns on the dog. My circuit board was frying, I was just very confused, but thoughts went a little bit like this: How did my dog get covered with bugs? oh not bug, bees. Well I'll just wipe them off of her. How come there are so many bees? Why are there more bees? I'll wipe those off too. OUCH. So many bees! oh, right: WE HAVE JUMPED ON A YELLOWJACKET GROUND HIVE.

It becomes clear to me we're going to have to run for it. I push the dog. She has no interest in doing anything but addressing the sharp pains in her ass and nether regions, belly, armpit, foot. She won't go. I'm starting to lose it, so I kicked her in the ass and gave her a rather decisive push in the general direction of "out of the woods".

and we ran.
and the bees ran with us.

Yellowjackets are mean! and tenacious. We ran for a solid (scary) 10 minutes before the buzzing in my ears died down to where I felt ok enough to stop and handle the dog, who was by now REALLY VERY UNHAPPY and also BEING EATEN ALIVE. I got a couple of sticks and made chopsticky like bee extractors and was horrified to see the size of the stingers that the little bastards come out with. I pulled the remaining fuckers out of her and we bee-lined (no pun intended) for the car, as I was not only freaking out about becoming 1 of the 3 people a year killed by swarming bees, but a little alarmed as to how many stings a 55lb animal can take and really be ok. It turns out, more than however many she got, but there will be much inflammation and even more stinkeye. I gave dog as much Benadryl as I felt comfortable, and iced the worst parts for a minute, although I stopped when she made clear she did not like that game. She went off into doggy snooze land, dreaming I'm sure about poking me all over with hot needles, then kicking me in the ass and making run like that. And I went back to quilting.

and I quilted all day. and I was way more excited than it seems grown woman should be about a quilt. Roughly every 10 minutes I stopped what i was doing to either lay it out or go put it on my bed and just be happy about it. This as you can imagine adds time to the whole endeavor. Still, I put in a solid effort and just about got it done to the point where I could use it on my bed last night when my bobbin ran out. Normally not a showstopper, but for some reason when I went to wind a new one, my sewing machine went "SPROING" and the bobbin, it no spins.

Have I ever told you my mother calls me Calamity Jane?
I'm also changing the blog title back, if you even noticed it was different. Apparently I am a cautionary tale, and to pretend otherwise simply tempts fate.

and with that I'm off to work for a bit. Then I'm going to buy a bobbin winder, because I will not be stopped. Will post quilt pics (complete with the whole room redesign that such a work of art demands) and artist's representation of something later. There have been many things worth rendering this week.