A sense of belonging.

In the 3 months of 2009 I feel like I have accomplished quite a few crafts. And since I like to show them off:



My hat with cables. The first time I've ever knit in the round. It came out too long, but w/e it's an awesome hat with cables.

I found an amazing craft website with tons of projects with instructions. This was one of them that I couldn't help but doing. And it turned out wonderfully! I recently gave them to a friend whom I thought could use some cheering up.

Around my birthday time TRM and I played with fondant and made these mini cakes. this is the one which I am most proud of. Although really I wasn't much good at the actual fondant covering part.

This, obviously, is not an actual craft. But I love it! You see I accidentally wore my green sweater on the day before St. Patty's day, so I had to improvise. And this is what I came up with. Basically I have ridiculous amounts of hair and am kind of ridiculous myself. I wore it with light tan pants, a white sweater shirt/v-neck with just a bit of a green tank top peaking out. I am way too proud of myself.

For some reason I have a bit of an obsession with Raphael's Cherubs. So I just had to make them into a paper cut. And it came out rather well I think.





"Crafts make us feel rooted, give us a sense of belonging and connect us with our history. Our ancestors used to create these crafts out of necessity, and now we do them for fun, to make money and to express ourselves."

Learned ones make efforts.

I had an idea yesterday. Or maybe today. I'm not sure. Concert days blend together.

So I seem to be paying off student loan #1 quite quickly. Right now I think I'll be done with it by July. Possibly sooner if I keep throwing dollars at it randomly. Then I was trying to figure out what I would do with my extra dollars once the loan was done.

I considered many things: pay off more student loans, plump the emergency fund, add to the vacation fund, take more lessons, invest, save for a house.

My current idea is that I can save for a house. But I can just keep it in either a CD or plain old in a savings account. Then if bad things happened and I needed to use my emergency fund I could raid it and it wouldn't do any harm.

Yay.


"During emergencies learned ones make efforts using their intelligence."

For a moment, nothing happened.

So I have very obviously been a complete slacker about posting here. And in fact I'm feeling quite a bit like I've been a complete slacker about quite many things in my life recently. But I'm afraid work is completely overwhelming me and beating down my psyche into mush.

Rather unpleasant.

Plus it's always to get started on something again I find because I never know where to start. It's a problem. So here goes nothing.

I've missed a few bike rides this month (still too chilly to get out very often):

3/5:
DST: 7.795
AVS: 11.4
TM: 41:05

3/7:
DST: 27.503
AVS: 11.9
TM: 21:18:35

Something is wrong here, I was not out for 21 hours, more like 3 or 4 max. Although it was a gorgeous day and TRM plotted a route that was new and I quite enjoyed. Well at least enjoyed until we turned around and were going uphill with a head wind - that was annoying. This may become the new 'long trip' route I'm thinking.

3/17:
DST: 13.431
AVS: 11.6
TM: 1:09:36

3/27:
DST: 12.939
AVS: 12.5
TM: 1:02:15

That was yesterday. I was kind of upset with myself because after 4 miles I started feeling really really crappy. And I was trying to push myself so that I can become not so slow, but I still felt slow. Although now that I compare them I think I'm just out of shape because I've not been in the 12's for a while. That and next time I won't eat a bowl of frosted mini-wheats and some orange juice before I go out.

Now I shall attempt to go and update my sidebar thingy's. If I can remember how that is.

I've also been dumping quite a bit of money into my student loan. It's pretty awesome. I got a ridiculous tax refund, $1200, which normally would be a bad sign, but actually it's not so bad of me. You see last year when the economic stimulus cash thing hit I had still been declared a minor on my parent's tax return being as I was in school the first half of the year. So I didn't get any of that money. But apparently they're still giving it out and this time I qualified!

Well that is a start. Hopefully I'll be back soon.



"For a moment, nothing happened. Then, after a second or so, nothing continued to happen."

Popous joy.

On March 1 there was a big snow storm. Out here we really didn't get hit by much of it at all. Around an inch or so I think that didn't stick around very far.

This weekend it is in the 60's. Maybe even 70's. I love it.

First TRM and went out for the first 'real' ride of the year. It was a very good ride. I felt quite strong and was very happy.

So then we got back and I decided that I really needed to continue to enjoy the gloriousness. Enter in the magic of the laptop and wireless internet (that and I also took out my book and knitting).

But my amazing awesome plan has been foiled. I'm sitting here squinting at the screen and mostly just seeing my reflection.

Damn modern technology and the awesome screen that is so crisp and great but also acts as mirror. Nuts.


"March is the month of expectation,
The things we do not know,
The Persons of Prognostication
Are coming now.
We try to sham becoming firmness,
But pompous joy
Betrays us, as his first betrothal
Betrays a boy."

Knitted socks.

It's been a while. I apologize to you, my one faithful reader.

Alas work is stressing me out like whoa. And well I don't really have much of anything worth much of a life outside of work/personal life. So when one puts the two together it means I'm trying to deal with lots of stress but I don't actually have much that can function in a way to properly enable my life to balance itself into a happy medium. And so I find myself falling further and further into my own pity party.

Ah well. So it goes.

Some random highlights which follow no logical order or purpose:

Our end of row neighbor randomly asked me to cat-sit. She has 3 cats and they're all crazy in their own way. My favorite is Gigi. Shes a smaller long haired cat. It was impossible to figure her out because she would be skittish and then beg for attention. In 5 second variances. Like seriously I should have made a video of her. It is the most bizarre thing when a cat comes over looking for attention and then the next moment looks up at you like you're an ax murderer. I have a theory however. One day I noticed, as I was petting her which was having the results that I couldn't figure out of pain/disdain or pleasure, but anyways I noticed that she seemed to have a good bit of static owing to her long fur. So my figuring is that basically she's more or less constantly receiving static shocks, kinda like mild electo therapy, constantly. This is what has caused her to be completely off her rocker. Good times.

I seem to have developed a mild e-bay addition over the past 2 days. In the past I have been known to randomly start tracking a million things on ebay to see what the average and low prices one can score. For some reason on this most recent wave I was focused on bike gear. Specifically pedals. Next thing I know I'm the proud highest bidder of a new (well new to me) pair of SPD's. $13.50. Rock on. Now the ultimate test will be if they go on my bike (really not much of a concern), if they are compadible with the shoes I got when I purchased the bike (questionable, all research indicates they should, but for some reason the instructions with the shoes [yea my shoes have instructions] has some crazy line about not working with spd pedals, i don't get it), and most importantly but the thing I've thought least about is me actually learning and liking clipless. Ah well 13.50 is what a good many people might spend on lunch. Alas that logic is flawed because I'm not other people and never will be so its practically pointless to say. The whole train of thought is much more indepth as to why this is flawed but I digress. Today on ebay I scored 2 pairs of shorts for ballet for $9.75. I've been eyeing up all kinds of various dance-wear for quite a while now but can never justify the expense. Seriously I'm becoming like a spend-a-holic in my depression. I'm quite tempted by a number of other things currently. Most notibly being a pair of bike shorts that are not tight so would make me look less silly commuting or what not. And an orange/floral bike seat which would (in theory) match my orange bike but the listing has no brand so I know I really shouldn't waste $25 on a decorative idem. But it's pretty!

I bought a bed a few weeks ago. It was an adventure and a half getting the thing home. But we made it and did not loose it along side the highway - yay. I went from a twin to a queen in one fell swoop. I love having bed space!

I made some pretty awesome paper flowers based on instructions I found online. I ought to take a picture and post it. Seriously they're adorable.

I read a book that tied knitting into the story. It made me want to knit amazing awesome stuffs. Then mother randomly brought me this random sock knitting catalouge that seems to have been sent to father. Luckily I don't ask questions. Instead I went to JoAnn's yesterday and now I am knitting a crazy bright blue sock. I question what a hand knitted sock shall come out looking like, but can't hurt to try. The best part is how amazing it is to work with this crazy tiny yarn and crazy tiny needles. Why do I seem to love small things so much?

Tomorrow at work I really really really need to go and talk/call out my boss on something. It's scary but doing it should help me learn to stick up for myself and help point out the fact that he is clueless about management. Poor guy.




"It was such a lovely day I thought it a pity to get up."