Running to Stand Still

Since 2005, I haven't done much reading. Yes, this summer I did read that "giant-ass book" but it was definitely more chore than pleasure. So on the recommendation of one of my many imaginary friends, I decided to read some easy pop-junk. The Stand! I loved me some Stephen King in high school, but I don't think I ever read this one. And hey, even if I did you know I forgot it all. I'm only on page 29 and already there's been this sentence- "the man on the floor grunted, and then began to cough, racking chainlike explosions that sent heavy mucus spraying from his mouth in long and ropy splatters." That's what I'm talkin' about. 
Guess I was wrong about winter being over. It's COLD again (43!!!) so I might get to wear the hoodie thing (now with hood!) but I have to pick up 258 stitches around the edge for the place where the buttons go. 258! yuck. I know this means nothing to all y'all non-knitters, but picking up stitches is my least favorite knitting task. I should never make something that requires picking up stitches but sometimes I don't think things through.  

Speaking of thinking, I bet you're wondering about the fate of the Duplexicons! Sorry I forgot to mention it last week, but we "won" 3rd place. This week? 3rd! Again! If you scroll all the way down through the pictures you can see me eating a tasty burger, a new addition to the Mr. Tramp's menu. GOOD. If you're in the Ohlen Rd. area, you should check it out. Uh oh, yawning cat. I think we're done here. 

fantastic!

Hi y'all. Don't worry, Texas thawed out just fine and we seem to be no worse for wear. Finally winter is behind us. Phew! 

On Sunday Kaitlin and I went to see Fantastic Mr. Fox and it was just as advertised (fantastic!). Go to the website and watch the featurette about how they made all the miniatures of everything in Roald Dahl's house. (jumping and clapping)

Well we finally solved the problem of the giant hat. John's huge head, I mean brain! Of course. He was able to stay warm and cozy at pizza carnival on Saturday (because on Saturday it was still winter. Brrr!)
Guess I won't have to reknit the yarn into something else after all. (You're right, I probably never would have anyway. Y'all know me so well.) Some of y'all may know I have to move soon. (very soon. yikes.) So yesterday I started cleaning stuff out. First, the very important task of sorting through the junk drawer. Thanks for all your help Lee. 

Whoop de do!

Hey y'all! Happy Hollydaze from the icy depths of central Texas!! It's COLD! So much so that I've had to bust out these cool slipper sock things, my first knitted garments. 
Hubert Cumberdale and I have been busy putting up our sad little tree. I'm trying to not hate Christmas so much this year, but it's tough. It helps to have a little Texan sunshine with the tree. (But it's still COLD!!!)
One of the few things I do love about Christmastime is making paper snowflakes. That's how I've spent the morning today. 
Look at this one: a heart? I don't even know myself anymore. 
Hey, check this out! It's real live snowflakes OUTSIDE the window! See? Look very closely (or click on the picture to make it big) and you can see some tiny flurries. The local weather people are going insane. If I hear the words "winter wonderland" one more time...
Here's a "snowflake" on the Sentra. 
Guess I better go shovel out the driveway so I can get to work. Later!

Vampires and Tigers and Fire, Oh My!

I promise someday I'll really do the "no computer (insert day of the week)" thing I've been talking about, but until then here I am: it's after noon, I'm still in my loungepants, the laundry remains unfolded. But I'm totally caught up on the Yahoo! News. 

How was y'all's Thanksgivings? Ours was great. Delicious food, entertaining company and fun activities. 

Kaitlin, Aileene (John's mom) and I totally chicked out: we went to see New Moon (I know! Start making fun of me now-I didn't even hate it), shopped downtown Denton, and got pedicures!! Friday night there was a little grease fire incident, and Saturday we went to see tigers! Plus there was plenty of relaxing time for knitting. The hoodie now actually has a hood but I'm too lazy to take a picture of it today. Maybe later in the week. But not on "no computer" day. Promise. Oooh! The mail truck... 

Mr. Golden Sun

I LOVE having to wear sunglasses to go out in November! God Bless Texas, y'all! Today I didn't have to "work" but instead of staying home and getting ready to leave for Denton tomorrow, I went to a ladies' lunch and shopping. It might be nice and sunny outside but it is definitely the holiday season because these things happened: I heard "Wonderful Christmastime" and I bought (another) performance fleece scarf. I know-I can only wear scarves for a few days, and I already have plenty. But come on, they're three dollars. Here it is and yes, that is my Texas Christmas ornament from last year still hanging on the doorknob.
When Kaitlin gets home from school, we're headed out to see Precious. Oprah presents a movie about a troubled black teen. My inner 16 year-old is very excited. And I'm excited that my actual 16 year-old wants to go with me. 

Hope y'all have a great turkey day. We're off to spend a few days with the Starks. Hopefully I'll remember to take some pictures this time. 

Special Thanksgiving Love to my Mommy! I am very thankful for you and I'm thinking about you all the time. 

Master of Puppets

Hey y'all, sorry I made you wait so long for the trivia report. Sadly,the Duplexicons made no progress, maintaining a 4th place finish for the second week in a row. But the team captain (me!) won a free beer for knowing the name of Big Bird's teddy bear. I knew watching a ton of TV as a kid would pay off someday. 
Against my better judgement I made a giant pancake for breakfast today. I'm sure I will regret it sooner rather than later.

How was your weekend? Mine was average: a party, some football. My Bengals (yes, I like the Bengals now, because of their pants) did a great job while someone else's Cowboys tanked. Guess I shouldn't get too smug because while I was watching the Boys' debacle, I completely screwed up my knitting project and had to start all over. 
Look, y'all! I didn't just get mail, I got ROYAL mail! Brilliant! It was my Ysolda book that I pre-ordered quite a while ago. There's even a little note from Ysolda herself: (it says "knit some whimsy")
And once again flying in the face of good judgement and restraint, I bought some yarn to (gulp) re-do the "shower cap mishap". I ended up trying to give it to Adriane, but she rejected it so I think I will undo it (in knitknerd speak, it's called "frogging") and use the yarn for something else. It's 5% cashmere, after all. 
But look at this! If you cared about this stuff, you would want it too. It's beauty-full and it comes from right here in TX! No wonder I never have any money. 

Time for a C & D entertainment minute, wherein I recommend entertainments only I would love! The other day I broke down and watched Away We Go. I know, it got bad reviews and I was prepared to be disappointed, but why did I doubt Dave for a second? Of course it was a little clunky and self-consciously-not-trying-to-be-sentimental-but-actually-syrupy-sweet and of course I loved it. A+. Pick #2: During the pancake eating portion of my day I watched part of disc one of Important Things with another I.B.-Demetri Martin. I'm sure this show won't be on TV very long, but it is adorable. Speaking of adorable, Lee Chat is cute even when he's bored of watching me waste half the day on this computer...

At least I had something to do while I "watched" football

How do the teenagers do it? It's hard to take decent pictures of yourself. Here's the hat. It's kind of HUGE. Less "tam", more "shower cap". I love it anyway. I love it more than ripping it out and starting all over again that is. On the plus side, I can put my hair in it (shower cap!) so it will work when I'm too lazy to wash my hair. I was able to wash my hair today though as you can see from the cute little wet spot on my shirt. Y'all know that my hair has super-human water retention capacity. It doesn't help that I usually don't get around to showering till noonish. Ah, the hardships of having to leave for work at two in the afternoon. 

Happiness is a Warm Gun

Hey y'all. Once again it's been a long long time since my last post. I was pretty busy, gearing up for my favorite holiday-Halloween! Hot gluing like crazy to finish the Howellkids' costumes (only to find out that Adaline attends some kind of soul crushing school that doesn't let kids dress up or have parties!!) and as usual, putting off my own costume prep till the last second, resulting in a half-assed rendition of a full-assed idea. (We were Hall and Oates!) Sadly, or maybe not so sadly as it involved a REAL moustache on the part of Mr. Oates, there is NO photographic evidence whatsoever. We did have tons of fun though, and were photographed by amateur paparazzi at Wurstfest! I guess if you did an exhaustive internet search you could find pictures of us somewhere. 

Last night, The Duplexicons! made a less than stellar 4th place showing at Mr. Tramps. But have I mentioned that the other teams are much bigger? 

In knitting news, I finished my hat. No pictures of that either, except on the Ravelry. I'm trying to finish the right front of the kind of abandoned Hoodie, but it is slow going. 

I'm sure I'm missing some important super fun thing, but for now I'll leave you with a Glamour Shot of Lee Chat:

The Sweet Perfume of Cold Hard Cash

Hey y'all this here's our winnings! Last night, in only our second appearance (technically our first full game since last week we showed up late) the newly named duplexicons! finished a respectable second in the geeks who drink pub quiz!! Yes, they beat us by 10 points, but they had twice as many people on their team. That means we are twice as smart!

In knitting news: since it's been 24 hours or so since I finished a hat, it's time to start a new one. Isn't it cool? And it has this super badass chart. Twice as smart indeed!

Hats and Rabbits

Just this morning I was telling John about my love of email newsletters. Without newsletters, my inbox would be empty. One of my favorites is the Wikipedia daily article. This is today's article. It is marvelous, too marvelous for words. 

Lately I've been a knitting maniac. I'm knitting like I've never knitted before. I've even been posting things on Ravelry, but I'm positive none of y'all are registered users so you can't see it. (Lucky!) This episode of knitmania is a little different than some of my earlier attacks though, in that I'm finishing stuff that is actually wearable. Check it:
C&D Movie Minute: On Friday, we saw A Serious Man, the new Coen Bros. pic. It was fantastic!  Maybe this weekend I'll try to see the wild things movie. I mean, I have to. Screenplay co-written by Dave Eggers? Catherine Keener? James Gandolfini? I have no choice. 

Well, gotta go study for this week's pub quiz! Later!

Happy Birthday Adaline!

The Sweet Perfume of Bacon

Last night we went to the Geeks Who Drink pub quiz at Mr. Tramp's (my new fave non-Burnet Rd. spot). We won bacon soap!! Check us out on the internets. Y'all in the NW will remember my passion for bar trivia, but this was the first time I've gone in TX. I was a little rusty, but since I plan to go each and every week, I think I'll get back in the swing soon. 
In all the hustle and bustle of festing and bacon soap winning and stuff, I forgot to mention that October 10 marked the 4th anniversary of the adoption of sweet Lee Chat. Isn't he cute? He looks just the same, only a little bigger. We love you Lee Chat! 

October and kingdoms rise and kingdoms fall but you go on and on

This photo illustrates a few key points: 

• It's cold (60 degrees!) all of a sudden, so I can wear socks and non flip flop shoes
• It's almost Halloween! 
• I can zip up the green pants again (just barely)
  

At least I could zip up the green pants the other day. Today, not so much, because yesterday we went to two count 'em two fests! Accordion Fest  and (the first in a series of, I'm guessing) Oktoberfest.
Look what I wore! That's right, the owl sweater in actual use. (I told you it was cold) I even accidentally-really!-went for the dork double play of owl sweater AND owl bag. Mmmhmm. Of course the events were somewhat documented on the flickr. Hope y'all had a good weekend too.

knitting, rain, soup, love, lee...

Hey look! I finished the back of this! It's actually a dark navy blue, but I guess with the flash you can see the fancy pants cables better. (Oohh! fancy cabled pants....wish I was five again...)

Nothing much happenin' here in the atx. God's been mighty generous with the free car washes lately, so much so that I've been feeling a bit northwesternly (read: depressed). Luckily I have happened upon the cutest boy on the face of the planet and last night he made me soup! He made me soup! Potato and BACON soup! (tears welling up) Then he tolerated my friend's birthday party where there was loud hip hop. (heart growing three sizes).
Yes, I let Lee drink the rest of the milk from my cereal, and yes I photograph him doing it. What's it to ya?

Chairity

Hi y'all. Happy Monday. Things have slowed a bit around here since last week's grand summer finale. It's raining and the temperature has dipped way down into the low 70's. 

Check out the cool chair I got from my sweet love. Time to start on a macrame curtain for that window. 

commentary and dissent recommends

I'm always late to the cool tv shows party with the no cable thing, but in case you've never seen this show, cancel 

your plans and watch it right now. It's great. 

In other entertainment news, I've seen a few good movies

lately. The Stark bday weekend kickoff event was 

Anvil: The Story of Anvil. It was surprisingly touching, but 

still funny. My two other picks are kind of dull and moody, but I liked them. They're both Kelly Reichardt movies: Old Joy and Wendy and Lucy. 

Any of y'all seen a good flick you'd like to share?

JEN In Touch With You Sporadically

Ok, ok, I give up. I tried to be all cool and have a wordpress blog because this one is so so annoying to use, but I couldn't even manage to make the photo upload thing work. Stupid! Stupid! So I'm back on the blogger. Don't worry, Tumblr fans, I'm still putting stuff over there. Like this!

I've been busy this morning learning about pork and the way it touches me. (Gross!) I picked up this informative pamphlet at the TEXAS STATE FAIR Y'ALL! I trust you've already seen the pictures, so you know it was the best weekend ever (to date). I've waited all my four texan years to go to the fair and it was everything (and more) that I'd hoped it would be. Fried stuff, sparkly lights, livestock, crafts...magical. And, to make it even more super fantastic, opening day just happened to be the birthday of the greatest man of all time. Perfect. More gushing about how my weekend was so much better than yours: After the fair, we went to visit the Starks in Denton. Home videos from the 80's were watched. I love the Starks, and I'm not just saying that because I know Mom Stark is reading this. It was a wonderful visit, and I even got a little present- tiny working scissors (clapping) and a cool plastic ring for my collection. 

Sunday we went to a Rangers game (sorry, Erick) and while my love for baseball is minimal, it was a beautiful day and the hotdogs were yummy.

So now I'm back to my workaday life, which let's face it involves very little work. Yesterday I bought some buttons for this sweater that I'm working on. I like them because they look like smashed up play doh, but I don't like them because they looked like smashed up play doh. We'll see. Yes, I have about 1000 buttons already, but I needed five of the same kind. 
Check it! I actually finished the owl sweater. Maybe I'll take a picture of myself on the one day in December when I'll wear it. I think I'm opting to do it without the button eyes, mostly because I'm too lazy to sew them on. 

I've become a little knitting obsessed lately, since I finished that giant ass book. No, it wasn't worth my time. Not that any of y'all would be rushing out to read it anyway. Besides, everyone knows that everything you need to know can be learned from a three and a half minute country song.
Look at this cool bag my mom sent. I love it so much I even called her to say thank you! Thanks mom! 
Yes, this is queso in the cup holder of my car, and yes my car is filthy (y'all know me!). I bet y'all in the NW don't have queso in the cup holders of your car. I heart Texas.

i'll tumble 4 ya

hey y'all. think i've decided to switch to the tumblr. so far, it was a billion zillion times less annoying to use than this. we'll see. thanks for following me, one or two readers! reset y'all's bookmarks!

Reading is FUNdamental

A dear old friend tells me "reading all that white lettering with a black background makes my eyes all stingy and blurry." I've got two things to say to this dear, old friend : 1. You're right. Is this better? 2. It's nice to know marriage hasn't changed you a bit. 

On we go. 

I'm doing a gimmicky summer reading thing. I know, but post "4/21" and everything...y'all cut me some slack. But this book is so huge! And yes, I did try (and fail) to read it before. 

I looked all over for a used one, but no luck. Apparently even people who shop at the half price books way way up by the fry's are doing this too. So I went ahead and got a new one (yikes!) along with a g.d. peppermint mocha cause I was at the B&N. (Slow headshaking) Check out who wrote the forward! (This is the 10th anniversary ed.) That's right, it's Dave, the only one of my imaginary boyfriends that I pretended to marry. At the very least those five pages are worth the $17. Right? Right?!

Why yes I have gone to the movies since my last post. Today, in fact. Adaline and I went to the Hannah Montana movie. All I'll say is there was a ferret. Adaline, however, seems to think it was the best experience of her young life. The best part was that it was 10:30 in the morning and we were the only ones in the theater. I love that. 

No, I have no idea why the font just randomly changed. I have really grown to hate this blogger thing and yesterday spent a huge amount of time looking at tumblr layouts. I think I'll switch. Good news for y'all, tumblr lets you post songs. Watch out!

Monday in the garden of dirt and weeds

So yeah I've been giving in and letting the cats play outdoors. Hopefully Notlee can protect Lee from any of the backyard perils he could face: birds, dogs, creepy mutant insects...Speaking of birds, I'm still amazed at the number of bird species I can see right here in my lil' old duplex yard. Fans of the olde tyme excruciating minutiae will remember how enamored I was with the birds when I first moved here. It's still pretty exciting for me to see "exotic" birds like bluejays and cardinals in my very own yard. (Dork!)

It's been a while since I've posted anything, I hope you've found other things to do in the meantime. If I made a pie graph of my recent activities I think the biggest slice would go to watching movies. I'm finally free from the scorn of my sis because now I've seen Casablanca. It was part of the Paramount Summer Film Series. Check out the schedule of super fantastic movies! Y'all should come down here and go to some of them with us. We also went to Scarface at the Alamo Ritz and Terminator at the regular Alamo by my house. I have no idea if anything actually happened in the Terminator movie, but lots of shit blew up and that's why I went. Plus there's nothing wrong with jalapeno poppers and beer. And a side of pizza. 

Saturday evening we went to Walberg. After coming to terms with the fact that this trip had nothing to do with Marky Mark,  (it's not even spelled the same, silly!) I had a wonderful time. It meant a lot to me to get in touch with my German heritage.  Plus there was a Pollyanna style brass band. Beautiful. 

Scenes from my room

The cats and I decided to be brainy and watch Scenes from a Marriage the other night, but we all fell asleep.
It wasn't too bad of a movie, but it's in swedish and the reading was more than we could handle. Yes they did drive some badass volvos. And I loved how everything had a slightly washed out 70's look. I think they get divorced. 
Hey look! a tiny part of one sleeve. I made this much progress today while I watched The Released on Frontline. I love Frontline and I haven't watched it in ages. Good thing there are plenty of episodes to get me through the other sleeve. 

How was y'all's weekend? Mine was just fine despite a lack of crazy fun road trips. We had a lovely little staycation with John's parents. They are really sweet but I'm not surprised. Sunday we saw Star Trek and it was actually entertaining. I know! Did you know there's a new Woody Allen movie with Larry David ? Please don't let it suck...please don't let it suck....please don't let it suck...

Lazy Saturday

It is this kind of day. It's 3:30 and I just got out of the shower. I guess I'm not too lazy, because I did "work" this morning so I've been up since 7:00. It just took me till now to get motivated enough to shower. That's about where the motivation stops because then I put on my owl long john jammies.
You can see I'm getting ready to ball up the other hank of yarn so I can start the sleeves. I've got Love Story ready and I was going to eat the rest of my junior mints but I never learn that if you don't eat all of your junior mints in one sitting, you get this:
Oh well, luckily I have some texas taster crackers to get me through. Yes of course they're jalapeno cheese flavored. Most things here are.