Happy Thanksgiving

To all my friends in the States (and everyone else too!). Ours is going to be kind of mellow because I came down with a cold yesteday. BLECH. 4 day weekend and what do I get? Sick.

These are the leaves that are no longer on the Japanese maple trees.

Unexpected gifts

I was going to entitle this "My father doesn't have lymphoma and other good news", but we got some sunshine on Sunday and I thought of this one instead.

I wandered around with a camera Sunday morning when we got a burst of sunlight between storms. It just lit up the trees. I wish I could grasp that light and just hold it.

No, he doesn't have lymphoma, just a real nasty bacterial infection that mimicked it. His immune system isn't so great right now, but he's still around.

This is the silvervein creeper that I am very fond of, but the Love Monkey won't let me grow up the side of the garage. Neighbor around the corner has a big vine growing all over her fence.

I went to donate blood on Saturday and my systolic pressure was 38 points (38!) lower than the last time I went in. It's been steadily climbing for almost a year and a half now and I don't know why.

Maybe this is an anomaly; maybe I just used the restroom at a better time than the previously. It still feel miraculous. (note to Fillyjonk: I did completely stop taking the cetirizine months ago, even occasionally. Perhaps that's a possibility)

I really am so lucky in so many ways. I really don't need to wait until Thanksgiving to be thankful.

I am too much a nice girl

And I mean that with probably all the connotations you can think of, although one is first and foremost in my mind today.

There's a lot of shit going down lately. I won't ask for an excuse for using that phrase, as it's richly descriptive. I am subjected to a manager who believes in ludicrously unreasonable deadlines. I decided to interview for another job. I just started a home business on the side. My father got very ill and he may or may not get less or more ill again, depending on what the tests say this week.

And also, honestly the media onslaught that accompanies any large election is exhausting. Even though I don't watch tv (that's why God created DVDs) and read online papers only sparingly), it's still everywhere, down to the pile of junk mail I receive everyday and the front pages of the papers in the kiosks near where I work. Just the amount of lying bullshit in the air fills me with despair.

I kind of identify as someone trying to set the world right, even if it's just doing my job well every day, throwing away trash I pick up on the street, be polite to every person I meet. I try to reduce entropy. And to see events and issues misrepresented so badly; that just makes me weep inside that any problems could ever be fixed or any wrongs could be righted.

Somewhere deep inside me is this tiny little optimistic kernel that if only everyone UNDERSTOOD things, aided by my trying to communicate as clearly as possible, then everyone would work towards a better world. Then the nasty cynical part reminds me that no, that's not actually true. The actions of many make it clear that they are actively trying to twist the world for their own gain, and nothing matters besides that.

Anyway, random aside, whatever. Back to topic.

I really dislike interviewing. Talking doesn't come easy for me, harder still if it's someone I don't know. I don't describe things well, and I don't have a natural rhythm to my speech. It seems to take too long for things to travel from my brain to my mouth, and they get garbled along the way.

But back to the nice girl: I am crap at negotiating.

I consistently undervalue my work and worth. I am so accustomed to trying to make you happy at any cost, that I will make concessions I don't agree with, that weren't necessary anyway. I am so damn eager to please that I'll do something I don't want to do to make a third party happy, when he might not even care.

I always seem to have to wait for external validation that I am competent and hardworking and deserve that raise. I never ask.

I don't know why it's so hard for me to tell someone that I am skilled and competent and believe I should be compensated fairly for this. There's this feeling that I will somehow mortally offend them by suggesting something more advantageous to me. That I will loose that all-important validation if they say no. That they're so uninterested in me that they'll just dismiss me out of hand.

And this is for a job I am not even certain I want to take. I am already employed (knock on that wood), and really, it's Not That Bad working here. I like the people a lot. The work is interesting.

I keep trying to come up with a coping mechanism for this and failing. I have a whole script I wrote out for a phone conversation this morning. I pretend I'm playing a character. I act Vulcan and keep reminding myself this is all professional. Grrrr still blurt out stupid things.

Even more things

The weekend after hiking we flew to New York to visit the Love Monkey's brother & SIL and NY niece and nephew. Yay for cheap tickets. Boo for the red eye.
It was gorgeous weather, sunny and warm the whole time. Better than Portland weather, by far. I brought a long sleeve shirt but never wore it. It's like when I was living in LA and occasionally in February it would rain, washing all the crud out of the air, and then the next day it was sunny and 75 degrees. In February. It was epiphany weather: as in, "Ah, THAT'S why everyone moved to southern California".

Mostly we hung out with the relatives, because they're fun to be around and NY niece & nephew are a hoot 'n' a half. I wish we didn't live so far away from them. NY niece is in KINDERGARTEN now. aaagh! She and I and her Mom played some great Plants vs. Zombies.

Carousel ride in Central Park. I've never heard a carousel play "There's a bad moon on the rise" on calliope pipes before.

Part of the amble through Central Park.

And HOO do you love? (yes, that's a bat to the right)

More things I did

A few weekends ago, on what we thought might be the last sunny warm weekend of the year, we went backpacking up in Indian Heaven Wilderness

What you cannot see in this picture is the west side of Mount St. Helens peaking through the trees.

Saturday was gorgeous and warm and sunny.

There were huckleberries. OK, not so many on this bush.


Sunday was not quite so warm and sunny.

But it was mysterious and interesting and not bad hiking weather. I only managed to fall over once, and really in the best possible way as I didn't break or strain anything (Except once I got home my bad knee swelled up and I couldn't really bend it much for a week. I definitely choose hiking over stairs for ways to ruin your knees, though.)

The Love Monkey contemplates the mist.
Sadly (not so sadly?) there weren't any wildlife encounters except some chipmunks and birds. I'm fine with that, as I don't really enjoy having the bear box we brought get a workout.

Not very good at being back

As you might have been able to tell.

It's really nice just to sit here and type even though my todo list is still 20 items long. Hey, I just crossed off a couple of them. Small victories, people.

In September I went to OFFF, the Oregon Flock & Fiber Festival. It was lovely, as always.
Hi Michelle, I am specifically not posting a picture of you! Even though it's a good one!

I think a lot of people got shots of this guy.

Sheep owners seem to like Papyrus a lot.

I am posting a picture of THIS Michelle. Fickleknitter was there!

I bought some pretty yarn, to add to the mountain of pretty yarn I already have.

Cookie!

Hi Cookie!

Are for

posts

These

I'm back

After a week camping in the desert. That was the week before last but then I got a head cold and spent a week coughing up small kittens. Not to mention acclimating again to society and the continuing-to-worsen circus that is my place of employment.

This week it's only baby mice, so things are getting better.

We were going to go camping this weekend (no desert, just somewhere nearby) but the rainstorms have moved in and we deemed it too soggy. I don't mind hiking in the rain, but when you stop and end up sitting in your tent, reading... not so much fun.

Sometimes it's a dryish fall here, but maybe not this year. But it's warm rain, so I don't mind so much. I rode my bike home wednesday and it was wonderful. It wasn't pouring, but it was steady. Everyone was out in raincoats and pants and I was riding home in shorts & a t-shirt and I didn't care. Riding in the rain in the dusk like that, with it so warm and wet you can smell everything, it felt like actively being alive. That's something I have not been feeling often for the last year. Maybe longer. The week in the desert helped wake me up a little. It rained there too.

Out the front of the windshield. Yes, I was completely stopped.
And part of the gorgeous sunset afterwards.

Pretty pictures of flowers

I'm up "early" (for me, ok?) on a Sunday because I kept having crap dreams, one right after another. They all had to do with me screwing something up, or not getting something done, and everyone was disappointed and angry with me. Hi Subconscious, miss me much?

I'm preparing for a weeklong camping trip to the middle of nowhere and I have a billion lists and no, am not even close to being ready. The Love Monkey's been up and down to California on weekly business trips so he's got other fish to fry.

My favorite rosebush in the front yard. I thought it had died but this year it grew a new branch and flowered anyway. Roses are weird.

I'm also trying to get ready for a costume party, the more lurid the outfit the better. Love Monkey is going to go in a Sarong Suit (his own invention: suit coat, brightly colored tie, sarong) so I've got some pinstriped suiting that I'm making him a wrap skirt out of (shhh, it's going to be a fakey sarong because the fabric is a little too heavy to use in full sarong style.) I'm just going to do once & a half around and put in some buttons to secure it at the waist instead of ties. I'm trying to figure out how to get the pinstripes to go mostly up and down. He also doesn't have much of a waist so maybe I'll put in belt loops.

This year we finally caught the iris bloom at the Japanese garden.

Me, I'm going as tragic 80s; I've got some day-glow pink small-mesh nylon and lime-green big-mesh nylon that I'm somehow going to turn into a skirt. There'll probably be lots of draping. I've got some aluminum chain for the waist (oh yes!) and I'm going to pick up a pair of these gloves. Or maybe these; I haven't yet decided. And some fishnets, since a mesh skirt isn't quite enough, right?

I am stymied on the top, though. Any ideas? It might be kind of cold so more substantial is better. Maybe this shirt? but it is kind of expensive to be a one-off costume, and it only comes in purple and grey. Maybe I'll just strategically rip up a t-shirt.

And the hydrangeas, who are just fine with the cooler summer this year, thank you.

Baby Blankets of DOOM

So this story starts off with me admitting that sometimes I have a remnants problem. Remnants being little bits of fabric or trim or whatever is left over when you've almost used up almost all the bolt or the spool or the skein.

Part of it is the thrill of the hunt, that I have discovered Something Valuable! that would otherwise have been thrown away. And! It's! On! Sale!

I really do get a little jolt of happiness when this happens. I think this might be partly genetic. You laugh, but one of my grandfather's hobbies was competitive shopping; I kid you not.

Another part is that my tastes could kindly be called eclectic. For example, sometimes when I go out to dinner I can't decide on any particular food and just order multiple appetizers (tapas places are fantastic at enabling this behavior). I like scrap quilts and collage and especially the idea that lots of disparate parts can be brought together to make a whole more fabulous than its parts.

Any other parts probably require therapy and therefore I refuse to admit them.

ANYWAY. Fabric Depot can be a dangerous place for me. One time I spotted about a yard & a half cut of white plush Minky. If you aren't familiar with the Better-Living-Through-Chemistry wonder of Minky, it's that polyester microfiber fleece, the really soft stuff. It's woven or some magic construction, so it doesn't unravel or fray (although it does roll a bit). This was a piece of the shag carpet kind.

Somehow I thought it would be a good idea to own this piece of Minky and bought it at its fabulous price (win!) It then proceeded to sit in my closet for oh, 5 years or so. I didn't want to throw it out but I didn't know what to use it for.

Recently I had 2 new nephews come along, and one of my ideas was that I could make them blankets! Out of the Minky! Yay, something useful and soft! I googled around and found a couple of tutorials on making Minky blankets. This didn't sound so bad. The latter warns about the Minky slipperyness, so I resolved to pin assiduously.

I, ahem, went out and bought more fabric for the backing, some baby satin in this big polka dot print. Nephew #1 got brown + blue dots, and nephew #2 got brown + green dots. Hey, I got it during a sale, so not so bad. Also I owned no baby satin so of course I had to buy some (I probably could have saved myself pain and grief and money just using some of that pile of cotton I own).


I have no pictures of blanket #1. This is blanket #2, and from a camera distance, it doesn't look half bad. That's because the puckered edge is folded under, and you can't see the stitches I ripped out from one side, and the slightly lopsided mitered corners.

See, I thought this would be easy because I've sewn a lot of cotton and thought how hard could it be? HAHAHAHAHAHA
Not only did I have slippery minky to cope with, I'd backed it with polyester satin. POLYESTER SATIN. Could there be any more slippery than that?

Blanket #1 I pinned out on a bed. That was a mistake. I did pin it every inch. Yes, every inch. It took me all day to make that blanket and I have no pictures of the puckery ugliness of those seams. The corners are embarassing. I really ought not to have sent it, but I am ashamed to admit I did and hopefully my sister-in-law will forgive me. It's soft and machine washable and not likely to fall apart any time soon, so it's got that going for it.

Blanket #2 I got wise and pinned out on a HARD SURFACE, straightening out the backing as much as possible. It still took over an hour to get the sides pinned over (I went with tutorial #1 with the big ol' satin border, since I had more satin than minky.) There was another hour or so getting those mitered corners so they didn't suck (so much. I didn't get them perfect, ever).

Again, I pinned it every inch, oh yes I did. Tutorial #2 was using cotton as a backing which probably stabilized things a bit, so even though she says you don't need it, I hauled out the walking foot. I haven't had much practice with it, since I'm still trying to get around to teaching myself machine quilting. I hoped the learning curve was small. Fortunately it was really easy to use and did just what I needed.

There were many pins.

Really, many many pins.

This one did go a lot smoother, especially along the long sides, which didn't stretch or shift as much. I didn't pay enough attention to underneath on one of the short sides and ended up with puckered on top and double layers on the bottom. That's the side I ripped out completely (and I will second Tutorial #2's observation that picking stitches out of minky (or baby satin) is Not Fun.)

So that my "if you can't be a good example, at least be a horrible warning" experience might be helpful to someone:

1. Do yourself a favor and use a walking foot.

2. That said it still puckered a bit on the short edges.

3. When they suggest pinning every inch, they mean it.

4. When you set out the layers to pin, do it on a hard, flat surface, and be sure you're not pinning up extra folds of fabric from the back.

5. Tutorial #1 is nice but I decided to go with a double stitch line. I didn't like how the edge popped up so much with a single line near the edge, and it's harder to do. Much easier to fold over a BIG seam allowance underneath (probably 5/8"? I eyeballed it), stitch a first inner line about 1/2" in from the edge, and then stitch another line an 1/8" or so in from the edge.

6. If you do do a double line, beware, as the satin likes to edge up through the opening in the presser foot and then it puckers and doubles and you cry a lot. I used a seam ripper and my fingers to keep it flat, stopping and straightening it when necessary. Sew slowly.

7. I should mention that anyway. SEW SLOWLY. It's too easy for the layers to shift, even with all the pins.

8. I guided with my right hand, SLOWLY, and kept my left hand under the blanket, making sure that the back was kept smooth. This helps to avoid having to rip out a whole side when you accidentally trap a couple of folds on the back into the seam and can't live with yourself until it's fixed.

9. And last but not least: Don't prewash the minky with anything else, except maybe the satin. It pilled like crazy on the back, and you could feel it through the satin. Another hour I spent was shaving the minky. Ha, that sounds like some horrible euphemism.

The funny thing was that once I'd spent another few hours ripping out that side and restitching, I actually feel like I'm a much more skilled minky blanket sewer now. #3 would probably turn out great and take half the time. That would require me to actually do a #3 and I don't think that's going to happen. I am sticking to cotton for now.

Hey, those stitch lines don't quite meet!

2 cool things

1. Slow motion videos of lightning

2. 100 pounds of stoned feline

One of the reasons I dislike airlines

Guess what I'm doing today!!??

That would be trawling online underwear stores looking for a non-wired bra. See, the last couple times I flew I set off the metal detector. The ONLY metal I was wearing on my body happened to be in the breastal area and the button & zip on my pants.

"Oh no," the wanding person assured me, "it's not sensitive enough to pick up that." She didn't say any more after she wanded me all over (including the turning over of the waistband, blah blah blah) and yet failed to pick up any evil terrorist bombs anywhere on my body, including hiding between my boobs.

The next time I flew I wore my sports bra, which is fine for small periods of time but it's kind of BIG and gets a bit scratchy after several hours. Didn't set of the detector, though.

Genetics has gifted me with a largish bosom and it's not that easy finding unwired support. Thank goodness for teh Interwebs, because no one local seems to have them. For my size, there is very little intersection between comfortable, cute, and supportive, although usually I can get 2 out of 3. I'm reminded of the fluff NY Times article about some woman who decided to get breast augmentation surgery and then afterwards discovered that most clothes aren't really designed for busty ladies (the mental image I get when I use that phrase is like a crowd of rhinoceros with enormous breasts pushing forward) and she could no longer wear those "cute t-shirts". Ha ha. When I find a sleeveless top that fits there's a faint sound of trumpets and angelic choirs. It's as if society's beauty standards prize busty women, but only with all their clothes off.

Those puppies aren't going anywhere.

Thank you

Thank you all so very much for your kind compliments. I'm very pleased The Haircut turned out so well, after years of apprehension. It's so light! I can swish my hair around! It looks cute!

It is true I can no longer do a true Princess Leia

but I never have gotten around to that by now; it's ridiculous to think I will in the next 5 years. Not to mention that my stature more closely resembles Darth Vader than it does Carrie Fisher's petite Leia (there is no jiggling in the Empire!)
But I can wash it and it dries in under an hour!

Small miracles, my friends.

Who is this woman and why is she posting on my blog?

Before
After

I had no idea I had curly hair.

Hair Anxiety

I'm finally going to do it. I made an appointment for a haircut, on Saturday.

It's a place that'll do the donation to Locks of Love; if I'm going to cut off a foot & a half, someone might as well get some use out of it.

I really shouldn't be so apprehensive about such a transitory thing. It's just... I've had long hair forever, and that really isn't an exaggeration, as I have never cut it. Oh, I trim it now and then so it's not so straggly, but the only major cut I ever got was for bangs when I was 11 or so. And that wasn't really all that major.

For someone who doesn't give much of a care about how she looks, I seem to be startlingly vain about my hair. I was trying to explain why to the Love Monkey. For one, it's the only source of random complements I really ever get. Damn, it's pretty shallow that I care about that but it's nice, okay? -- almost especially because it's various strangers on the street. I don't get many compliments. I'm not ever winning any beauty contests and never have.

Another part of it is more personal, in that it immediately identifies me as FEMALE to anyone (from behind. From in front, there's no doubt at all, which I guess an be a mixed blessing). I've had a lot of trouble finding my own space for feeling female, as I don't really fit into any of the archetype woman categories. I don't always get along with other women very well, and I don't know why; maybe I don't think in quite the same way. It bleeds into all those feelings of inadequacy and poor self-image and all that crap. So frequently at the base of my fear is a declaration that dammit, at least I HAVE GOOD HAIR.

Aaaand yet another Terry Pratchett reference enters my life, via Agnes Nitt, who was: 'Tired of being seen as just another overweight girl with "a nice personality and good hair" '.

And so, it's really past time for some kind of change. I'm just steeling myself so I don't do something ridiculous like burst into tears. I have no idea even what kind of haircut to ask for. I will throw myself upon their mercy and hope for the best and not too much hairspray, as it gives me a headache. Meanwhile I am rocking the Little House On the Prairie look for as long as I'm able.

Die, mosquitos, DIE

An extremely wet June followed by really hot weather (someone flicked the summer switch here. It's been 95 degrees for the last 3 days. I'm not complaining, I'm so happy to see solid sunshine for more than a day) seems to have bred a pack of monster killer mosquitos this year. I think I have about 20 bites now but I've stopped counting.

Just going outside to water the plants for 5 minutes I got 6 more tonight. And 3 more just sitting here inside; they must've snuck in when I had the door open.

Yeah, I'm a wimp, I don't know how to handle my mosquitos like seasoned midwesterners. But please can I STOP ITCHING ALREADY?

Did I mention...

that I also took a wirework class a couple months ago? Because you know, I just have NOTHING to fill my spare time.



The first is quartz chips; the second various stuff. Guess I wanted to do the wire equivalent of a scrappy quilt.

I'm making earrings and I DON'T EVEN HAVE PIERCED EARS. I am in trouble now.