it's glitter season!

I will probably update this later but for now I am beginning the decorating and just uttered the following to my cat:
"Elvis, so help me god, if you shit under this Christmas tree, I will stuff all the lights up your ass and plug you in"

Color by Numbers

392 days ago we bought this house.
We have painted 9 rooms (8 rooms, really, but one was done twice....in three days....)
We I have removed carpet or groaty linoleum from 7 rooms
We put a new floor down in 1 so far (hardwoods in the rest..rough hardwoods...but we can suck it up as long as it takes)
I spackled in and sanded smooth about 100 paneling grooves in the dining room to try and make the walls look like they were not paneling. It sort of worked.
The trim in the entry way took me 6 goddamn coats of white paint. Srsly.
My first heating season with oil heat cost about $2500 and that's WITH being a total miser with the thermostat.
20 is the number of cabinet doors and drawers I primed, painted and glazed.
20 is also the number of new cup pulls and knobs that I installed in those cabinets.
Jeff managed to spill 1 half gallon of paint in a box sitting on carpet that we had luckily planned to remove anway.
14 is the number of leaky, drafty, and amazing original wood 7 pane windows I need to put shrinky plastic on this winter to save myself some dough!
New gutters were the first major home project we had done here. being obsessed with running water away from the house we added 2 extra downspouts at the front where the house has sunk about 3 inches.
I lost count of my trips the the paint store, so I have no number for that, but Elliot at the Sherwin Williams around Capitol and 63rd is a delightful young man who is very patient, very knowledgeable and knows when it's just a good idea to give the lady one of the big ass paint decks to keep forever. We bought so much paint we now get their mailers for professionals.
There are still 4 rooms in the house that have not been touched by cuteness.
One of them has carpet that is old. I mean really old, like 1950s or 60s. When it gets to be over 100 up there in the summer it smells bad. Real bad. It's going to come out pretty soon. I have that room in my sights for the next project.
I have 2 boxes with light fixtures in them sitting in the junk room waiting for me to decide precisely which room to have them installed in.
There were more than a few nights when worry and insomnia were my companions and I watched every single episode of McLeod's Daughters on Netflix. Seriously. Every one. Do you know Australian series have like 32 episodes a year? That shit ran for like 9 years.
I have probably 5 gallons of paint in the basement for rooms yet to be painted. What? There was a 40% off sale. The good paint is nearly $60 a gallon.

Here are 6 pictures that show a little bit of what I have been up to:







And tomorrow is the first day of NaNoWriMo and last year I was too overwhelmed with projects and moving and still freaking out about the flood and everything and this year....I don't know. Maybe this is my year. Maybe I can both find a plot AND write 50,000 words. Who knows? I think I'm going to try.

Oh, and the number of water heaters I bought in in 392 days? Washers and dryers? Dehumidifiers? Furnaces? Shop vacs? Dirty water emergency pumps? None. And that might be my most favorite number of all.

you get what you get and you don't get upset!

you get another bullet point blog.

• I put my leg up on a dining room chair to fiddle with the rolled up leg of my jeans and The Man looked up from his computer and said "got a little captain in ya?" and was so pleased with himself the rest of the night.
  
• Marge launched himself off the back of the sofa and from my perspective, I saw a large brown blur and all of a sudden there was manscreaming and clutching of...areas. And he ended up sort of upside down on the sofa. A 20 lb cat landing squarely on your junk and launching to his next location is apparently a really bad thing. I was nice enough to go get him an ice pack.
  
• a goddamn spider descended from the ceiling inches from my face at 1 in the morning. I HATE THAT. What the hell spiders?
• I actually completed my huge deadline knitting project with plenty of time to spare!
• my kitchen is never going to be done. Really. Never. Ugh.
  

That is my Weeping Angels scarf and I luuuuurv it. It took about 2.5 months to knit and was worth it. A rarity that I don't loathe it by the end, but I don't. Go figure. It's a bout 7 feet long and also has sparkles...

I am working on some socks now, the first socks I have done in just about forever and I am using Tempted Glam Grrl which has sparkles. I am in love with this yarn! Not just for the glitter, but the texture is just eprfect and it's a thicker sock weight, so it seems to knit up fast. And it is just lovely. I may get one sock done by the end of the weekend , who knows?

random stuff

The bullet point post!

• How the fuck did I get mashed potatoes splattered all over my left shoulder while making dinner? Gross, man, gross.
• If you want to see a handyman's eyes light up, mention in passing that the house he just installed a new faucet in is nearly 90 years old. I got a fancy welcome packet from the van. He ran to get it.
• Oh yeah, I have a new kitchen faucet. Woooooooot. The reno continues. There has been some tiling action, too. And countertoppery.
  
• I have finished the scarf of epic nerdery, finished it today. I knit for over 8 hours in the past 2 days to get the bugger done.
  
• I don't think there is any dinner that is quite as satisfying to the soul as a simple herb roasted chicken. With the epicly messy taters. And some salad. Ultimate comfort food for dinner.
  
• I have a new email address, if you think you are someone that should have it, make your case to me.
• And thus concludes the half assed blogging for August 17, 2011
  

It's not me, it's you. I'm sorry.

I don't finish knitting projects so much as I.....break up with them.
I seriously hate almost everything by the time I finish it! It's not that I don't love the knitting, I do. And after we spend some time apart, I generally love the thing I have knit. It's just spending so much time on the same thing...och, it wears on me.

I drool over patterns and yarn porn until I find the perfect combination, then cast on with so much hope and excitement. I knit happily along and then it happens. Somewhere after the halfway mark, something changes. My eye wanders. I long for the touch of another yarn. I start surreptitiously checking out other knitting, sometimes even crochet! Mmm, look at the cables on that one! I could knit that like a screen door in a hurricane...well, that's a bit of a mixed simile there. I might reach into my stash to cop a feel of the pima cotton/silk blend I have there in a lush dusty purple under the guise of rearranging things. Sometimes I stray far and begin something new, something thrilling and fraught with new possibilities. It rarely works out.

I get sick of the sight of whatever large project is getting on my nerves. I see it sitting on the chair and think, "Oh, you again." and sigh with the tragedy of it all. The last few inches of every sweater or lace shawl I have completed are riddled with foul language. Screw this pattern. The designer can go right to hell. This wool is for shit. This sheep was an asshole, in fact this sheep can go to hell with the designer. No, fuck this sheep. No, make that ALL SHEEP. EVERYWHERE. AND THE ALPACAS, TOO!

And then I am done. And I weave in the ends. And I block it and we spend some time apart and then when I come back to it I think "oh my word, how did I make such a thing?" and start all over again. Because I love it.

100 emmer effing degrees

Is it hot enough for you?
Hot? WHAT? Nope! I wish it was 25 degrees hotter!

Actual conversation between me and my neighbor's sister on Monday night. Har har har.
Well shit, I think it got 25 degrees hotter.
I don't know exactly what it was, but I am pretty sure "HOT AS A CROTCH" is a meteorological term. Mmmhmmm.

My house has many many windows and no central air. Also, she is old. We bought a new 10k btu AC unit a couple weeks ago and oh, bliss. No more toilet sweating like a whore in church. That really grosses me out for some reason. It's a tetch warm in the living room tonight, but the humidity is down and that is the main goal. I don't need it to be meat lockeresque.

I got a lot of crafting done this morning, too. Upstairs where it gets waaaay too hot. The window unit up there is in my craft cave and thanks to old wiring, I won't run it unless I'm in there with it. So getting up there early is crucial. And forget sewing until it cools off a bit. No way am I standing over the ironing board when it is 105 degrees or more up there! But beading is good. With cheesy movies, even better. :D

Today I was inspired by Sixteen Candles....will be posting some new sparklies tonight before bed!

Summer?

I think..maybe...it's summertime? But I don't want to jinx it and send temps plummeting back down to the 60s. Again.
Tonight I am enjoying one of the best parts of summer. A lemon shake up. The taste of the fairgrounds with none of the carnies! I added a good handful of the mojito mint growing in a pot outside my back door for extra yums. Basically I cut up a lemon, add some sugar, chiffonade the mint and dump it all in a cocktail shaker with a lot of ice and fill up with water. Then shake it shake it shake it and strain into a cup with still more ice. Some minty flecks and possibly some lemon pulp will transfer. Lemony minty icy happiness in a glass. If you are super fancy, garnish it with some more lemon.

I bet I could make a kick ass version with lime, mint (I have quite a lot of mint growing!) and a ginger simple syrup, too.

My new neighborhood is still thrilling me. First of all, we had one of Milwaukee's famous torrential rains on Tuesday night. The kind the news guy calls a 100 year rain. The kind we seem to get every 8-10 months? I got water in through my chimney which has a screen on it but not a proper cap to divert the water, but nothing from any walls or drains or utility sinks. I was beside myself with worry and panic while it came down and J went to check right after the worst bout of it and when he came up and gave me the all clear, I cried. Just burst into tears. I really needed that.
And if being dry wasn't enough on Sunday we were driving down the road and all of a sudden I said to J "What the fuck is that?"
He starts looking around "What? What is what?"
"Oh, it was a sparkly clown. On a Vespa."
"Well, they gotta get around somehow!"
He has a point.

Earlier on Sunday I was in a clean all the things kind of mood so he went to the nearby Green Market to see what they had since it was the first of the season. He came home and reported that there were 5 tables with spinach and strawberries, a lady selling earrings and a guy selling t-shirts with Teddy Roosevelt on them, Which is fantastically random. And then I saw a brown smear in the corner of his mouth.
"Did you eat a crepe? SERIOUSLY? DID YOU EAT A GODDAMN CREPE?! HOLY SHIT YOU SMELL OF NUTELLA AND BANANAS!!!"
"..........."
" OH MY GOD I CANNOT BELIEVE YOU DID NOT GET ME A CREPE!"
by this point he was scrambling to get his shoes on....
"but but but...i thought they might have nutmeg in them...."
pause to consider "did you ask them?"
"I'll be right back.."
"I WANT MAH CREEEEEEEEPES!!!! Why would you not get me a crepe? I love crepes!"
15 minutes pass.
he returns with crepey goodness*.
"So, did the crepe guy wonder why you were back?"
"Well, no, because the two guys in line in front of me were back after going home and their wives found out they had crepes and didn't bring them any, either."
"SEE BECAUSE YOU SHOULD ALWAYS GET A CREPE FOR YOUR WIFE!"

* the tomato, basil, mozzarella and prosciutto buckwheat crepe from Satellite Crepes is seriously amazing and you should stalk them around Milwaukee until you get one. Or terrify your husband until he goes to fetch one. Seriously, they are on Facebook, you can see where they will be.

I'm not dead yet!

If I blogged more often , then maybe I would remember how to log in to this bastard.
I keep meaning to blog, I even compose entries in my head and then I get the lazy and they never make it to the computer.

And today it's gonna be lazy bullet points!

• I bought some horseradish cheddar I thought would be nice, like a cheese spread sorta kinda, for crackers. I put some on a triscuit last night and GODDAMN. It was like eating a glob of wasabi. I thought my nose was going to bleed. I can't wait to see what happens to my husband when he eats it...muwhahahaha.
• My house is never going to be finished. Ahhhhh. Flail arms, breathe, flail some more. That is less than helpful. The carpet is now out of the dining room. That floor looks like shit, too. Which is probably better than if for some odd reason it had looked great. Now it at least matches the living room in its shitness. I have begun to collect things for the kitchen makeover, but I'm still not feeling moved to strike on it. The bathroom has been calling me so it is probably going to win this round. It should not take too long to do. It's a tiny room. I always say that, I am always wrong. Always.
  
• I am so looking forward to spring! I have been drooling over gardening sites, seed catalogs and wondering how to care for my new apple trees and roses. Just a could months until my newly planted assload of bulbs should begin to appear. I forget what I have even planted. And what other goodies lurk as remnants of the old garden. I am envisioning drifts of snapdragons. Ooooh, exciting!
• I made lotion from scratch today with coconut oil, olive oil, beeswax, and mint tea. Do you know how delicious coconut oil smells? Well, it smells delicious. I scented it lightly with apple and peppermint oil and it's pretty greasy stuff, but I think I like it. I would rather be greasy for a while than have a migraine, right? I sincerely hope I did not ruin my new blender.
  
• Old navy had a 20% off coupon today. Damn you Old Navy!!! *shakes fists*
  
• I am still getting used to living in a bungalow where the second floor is smaller than the first so it has overhanging roofs. ON sunny days like today bit icebergs fall down on the lower level and scare the bejeesus out of me every now and then. Yeesh!
• One of these days I will write a real blog post again, with real knitting and fiber content.