Wednesday, December 3, 2008

Snow, hat!

Hi! It started snowing again, so I started knitting again. I decided I needed a slouchy hat, because everyone I saw when I went to a conference in Philadelphia was wearing a slouchy hat, so I made one! Here it is!


I'm not completely convinced that it doesn't make me look like Mario, but I love it anyway, and it's the first thing I've knit in AGES! It feels good to knit again. I already cast on for a matching scarf. Well, the hat was made using Lamb's Pride (and I had to modify the pattern a bit for that sub) that I frogged from the Fake Isle hat I started awhile back, and the scarf will be out of some really really skinny yarn. I don't anticipate the scarf ever actually getting finished....

Here's the pattern for the hat, if anyone is interested: Tam Pattern

Monday, November 3, 2008

Turtle Power!

So, I read other people's blogs and think to myself..... "maybe someday I will update my blog!" Well, today is that day!

Here is a picture of some karate friends and me in our rockin' Halloween costumes! They were so fun to make. We sewed pillowcases into shell shapes and drew shell patterns for the back. We painted cardboard for the front shells. The mismatched green sweats were very comfy and I felt very smug in the face of all the other "slutty-whoever" girls dressed up downtown. Go us!


Since they are my favorite, here is a picture of the kitties and cute and cuddly on the couch. This never happens. Usually Calvin is trying to kill Cuddle Duds.

Saturday, August 30, 2008

Meet Calvin!

Here's a new kitten I got today! His (well, I'm not quite positive it's a male, but either way) name is Calvin. We chose that name because the other cat is Cuddle Duds, like the underwear brand, so we thought it would be funny to continue giving the cats underwear names. If it was a girl, it might have been Victoria, for Victoria's Secret, for example. We had some fun vetoing "Fruit of the Loom" and "Hanes" and settled on Calvin Klein. Plus, he's orange like Hobbes, so Calvin's a good name for him.




Um... my garden is going pretty well in some areas (like the jalapenos) and not so great in others. Like corn.

This is the one ear that grew on the 2 stalks I had. The main problem, I am guessing, is that the one morning I went to look at the plants and saw that there was pollen all over the stalk, there was a huge thunderstorm an hour later and it all washed away. That's my story and I'm stickin' to it. Can you get kicked out of Iowa for failing at corn?

I should point out that I made some fabulous spaghetti sauce out of the tomatoes, basil and oregano I had growing, so I pretty much love the garden.

Tuesday, August 5, 2008

Yes, I realize this doesn't count as a real post.


Here is a picture of Radiohead playing at Lollapalooza, for your viewing pleasure!

Wednesday, July 16, 2008

It's been a month!

I was gonna upload a bunch of pictures, but it won't let me, so meh.

Sunday, June 15, 2008

Sandbagging pictures

I've been internetless since last week sometime, so I am sitting at a coffee shop in Coralville.
I took a break from sandbagging on Friday to put bandaids on my bleeding fingers and took these pictures.


Wednesday, June 11, 2008

More floods

Some of these pictures are really quite pretty. I am curious what the Coralville Dam looks like now that the water is over the spillway. I imagine it's not great.

Tuesday, June 10, 2008

Thursday, June 5, 2008

Thunderstorms

I would think that thunderstorms are terribly exciting and fun, if it weren't for the following things:

- They are always way early in the morning when I am trying to sleep. I got woken up by stormy craziness at 4:30 this morning and never managed to go back to sleep. The storm stopped literally two minutes before my alarm went off at 6 this morning. Come on, at least be later in the day when I can enjoy it, or be at night so I can just sleep in later to make up for lost sleep.

- There is a very real chance that any of these storms can turn into a tornado. I moved here a few months after a tornado tore half the city apart two years ago, and I saw how damaged all the buildings and houses were. That's just scary. It doesn't help to have a weather radio going off like crazy announcing "tornado watch in effect for the next 4 hours!" or whatever. I don't think I would freak out so much if it was just like, "Emily, there's a tornado about to hit your house, go to the basement now."

- I actually own my home. That means when stuff breaks, I have to fix it, and pay for it, which sucks. I've already gotten a rip in a window screen, chips in the tile on the table and two broken planters from storms. We've taken steps to try to prevent more outdoor furniture casualties, but I suspect we haven't seen the end of the destruction.

- Lightning's gotta strike somewhere. Last year, it hit my friend's house and like, blew up their tv. I like my tv. It has shows like House and The Office and Ace of Cakes. I don't want it to be blown up. I don't want anything else to be blown up by lightning either.

Storms can be pretty and exciting, but mostly they are loud and scary and make floods that make it hard to get to work, and I don't like them.

I guess, though, that it's our fault for being bad to the environment. You'd think this would motivate me to do good things like riding my bike to work. I might even think about it if it weren't raining so darn hard. Augh.

Here's a picture of lightning from last summer for you.

Sunday, June 1, 2008

Three posts in a day so I don't have to say anything for a long time

I got the cat a leash. Now at least when he sits at the door very loudly saying vowels ("eeeeiiiaaoooouuuuuu," says the cat) I can be like, ok, get your silly little harness on and we can go outside. I gotta tell you, though, I am not especially looking forward to picking fleas out of all of this fur insanity. Is this not the most ridiculous thing you've ever seen?


Ok, I said in the last post that the cookbook I used for the cobbler was my favoritest ever, but that's not true. It's amazing, but this one is better.

Oh yeah, I also made a cobbler and it was fantastic

Chelsea made a cobbler and I was jealous and I also had strawberries in the fridge so I whipped out my favoritest cookbook and made a cobbler. Well, I didn't have enough strawberries, but I found some frozen mixed berries in the freezer so I threw those in, too.

I think the use of the π plate helps add to the deliciousness.

Updates on things

So, while people were getting tornadoed up north aways, our outdoor furniture was blowing around and breaking stuff. We'd just gotten back from seeing Indiana Jones (!) and it was supposed to be stormy so we looked outside and literally like 2 seconds later our entire metal and tile (ie, not especially lightweight) furniture set took off from the place I am standing to take this picture and landed on the other side of the deck where the plants are.

Here's the damage:



I got another plastic bin and just set the broken one inside, but I haven't done anything about the terra cotta one with lavender in it. Shrug. I also moved the deck around so that the table is over on that side permanently and the plants and the plants are on the opposite side.

Speaking of plants, here are some pictures:






Now, here's some knitting:

These arm warmers look completely ridiculous and long and skinny on the needles, but they are totally comfy cozy when I put them on.

Tuesday, May 20, 2008

Pretty little seedlings

Corn

Peas

Beans

Carrots

Lettuce

Marigolds

Mystery peppers

Basil

Oregano

Cilantro

Chives

Tomatoes

Grape hyacinth

Rosemary and lavender

Monday, May 19, 2008

Pretty New Yarn

I ordered this batt from Butterfly Girl Designs and spun it up this weekend. The colorway is called Blueberry Lime Surprise and it's 50% merino, 50% bamboo and a bit of sparkly angelina for good measure. It's so soft and dreamy! I feel like it should be called mermaid hair or something.


I am starting to make some arm warmers with it, because it's about the only thing I could think of that I might possibly wear anytime in the next several months.

I went to the sock club at Crazy Girl Yarn and bought some Noro Kureyon sock yarn!!! It's so pretty! (scratchy, sure, but so, so pretty!) I can't wait to make something with it!

Tuesday, May 6, 2008

Unknown sprout and lightbulbs

Ok, so here is the unknown sprout today.

I know it's not basil, lettuce, oregano, cilantro, marigolds, chives, tomatoes, carrots.... the only thing it can be are beans or peppers. I really really hope it's peppers. Or something I didn't plant, like pineapple.
I also have lots of new sprouts this morning that I didn't have yesterday morning. Like in one place I have about a thousand lettuce sprouts. I guess I got a little seed happy. Oops! I also have a ton of marigold sprouts, which is exciting because those are ones that didn't sprout indoors. It's also how I know the unknown sprout isn't marigolds.

So, when we replaced all the lightbulbs in our house with compact fluorescents, Sean put all the old lightbulbs in a vase on an end table in the hallway. I thought it was sort of silly and didn't do anything about it. After a bit of a lightbulb disaster on Saturday, though, I got a bit annoyed about the lightbulb vase and thought it was really dumb and who in their right mind has a vase full of light bulbs?

Meta Home in Old Capital Mall, that's who. We saw this display in the window last night, and it cracked me up enough to take a picture of it.
The lightbulb vase stays.

Monday, May 5, 2008

Things that grow

I haven't really been knitting, just spinning more of the green yarn. I think I will use the green yarn to make the Urban Aran Cardigan. I also decided what I think i want to do with the alpaca! I think I will make it a 2 ply yarn and make the Apres Surf Hoodie from the new Interweave Knits! I will probably dye it a really pale shade of something using food coloring or kool-aid. Such ambition I have, considering the only thing I have knit in months is a pair of socks.

Instead of knitting I have been watching things grow! Here are some tulips that I was so excited to bloom!

Only it turns out they are actually poppies! Pretty!

(edit: I was kind of nervous posting that because figured someone would say they aren't poppies and make it obvious that I have no idea about flowers. Here is a handy hint though: don't google images of poppies. Apparently there are a lot of naked people named Poppy. Fyi.)

Anyway, here are some blue flowers that are in the same little area of our patio as the red flowers.


Since it's actually letting me upload pictures (knock on wood) I think I'll add some more pictures of dirt with teeny bits of green in it.
Here are my tomato plants! They are the only plants big enough to be mildly interesting. To me, I mean.

This particular pile of dirt is also fascinating to me, because one of the random unidentified dirt clods that fell into the sink is sprouting! See! The tiny thing down in the lower left corner! Please tell me you can see it. (Yes, I realize that you can't see it. I am ok with that, because I know it's there.) A special bonus prize will go to the first person who can correctly identify what the sprout is turning into. Your choices are: lettuce, beans, marigolds, bell peppers, jalapenos or habaneros. Or maybe basil. Or oregano. I don't think it's either of those last two, though.


And I'd be remiss if I didn't include a picture of the cat, so here he is helping garden by hiding in the barbeque cover.