Yippee ki-yay, motherfucker!

What did you do last night? We did the Best. Thing. Ever. We went to a screening of Die Hard at the Alamo Ritz. They gave us cap guns to shoot at the screen, and they blew shit up right in the theater. Little scraps of paper even fell from the ceiling at appropriate times. If you're in Texas, you should go on the 14th, and if you're not-get to Texas!! Now!!Here's my gun. (Oh look, I put up the Christmas tree):
While I was watching, I thought this would be a great Halloween costume for me next year:
Or, could be an outfit to wear to Stark Party. Kidding! Kidding! I should watch myself during the annulment window.

You might think that Mr. Cumberdale would be the one to mess with the Christmas tree, but Lee Chat is the worst. He's always got his nose stuck in it.
Aw, but he's so cute, he can get away with anything.

Gotta go, I have to iron my husband's shirt for his interview tomorrow. What did I just type?!? I don't even know myself anymore.

I am thankful for animals in sweaters

My husband is moving into my apartment this week, so don't be surprised when you see us on one of the hoarder tv shows. No, it's not really that bad, silly (except for the bedroom) and we get a bonus piece of living room furniture. Not for the humans, though.
Instead of cleaning or sorting I thought it would be more fun to tell y'all about our Thanksgiving.

As you can imagine, it was Starktacular! I didn't take any pictures on actual Thanksgiving Day, as I was using both hands to stuff my face with delicious food. Eat, watch football, repeat. Since there was so much football to pretend to watch I got a lot of knitting done. In fact, I finished the other cupcake mitten! Check it out:
Very exciting. Maybe it will be cold again soon. It was super cold for the holiday and of course I forgot to bring a coat. Luckily my new MIL had a spare sweater and for some reason I did bring a hat.

What I did take pictures of was a fantastic art installation at the University of North Texas campus. You can read about it here, or here, and you can see my pics on the flickr. We wandered around for a bit before we found it but it was sooooo worth it. (Depending on who you ask) It was adorable.

Saturday we went for our traditional Thanksgiving (or any other time I'm in Denton) Pedis. Now I have sparkly pink toes.

Saturday night we were going to go to a rock and roll show, but it was cold outside and it was $12, so we stayed in and watched the director's cut of JFK. Mistake! It was brutal. Avoid!!

Maury's ready to give us the shocking results, must be time to leave for work.

Later!

Edited to add even more thanks to Frances

We have a new follower!! It's none other than my BFF!! She also mentioned to me that she likes the picture of John. I agree. It's perhaps my favorite pic of him ever. It's from the State Fair, and I love it because he looks like he canned all those fruits and veggies and man is he proud! I also love it because his hair is at what I call "circle of hair" level and it reminds me of this guy:

I am thankful for...

My little baby. Of course, part of me wishes she would have stayed about this age:
But I'm thankful that she has grown into this lovely young woman. (yep, that's the same octopus at the Seattle Aquarium)
Then there's this guy. He's adorable, patient, sweet, smart, fun and I love him so much that I often want to crush his head (in a good way). Maybe I should marry him. Oh yeah...

My brother and sister. They are super cool. I'm lucky we still get along well enough to get together and play Barbies every now and again.

My "most badass friends in the entire world" y'all!! There's my BFF (best friend Frances), the person who, for better or worse, knows me better than anyone. If you don't know her you should. She rules.
My ladies: Adriane and Rachel, aka "the good time girls". I love them more each time I am with them.
My mommy!! She is the best mommy ever. I'm so so thankful that she was able to be with us for our wedding. Otherwise we would have had ice cream cake from the DQ. She's had a rough year but look how beautiful and happy she is now!
My new in-laws. They are cute and smart and interesting and they have wholeheartedly welcomed K. and me into their family.
My FBF (furriest best friend), the amazing Lee Chat. I also have the urge to crush his head. He is always willing to snuggle and he never disappoints.
Oh, and Hubert Cumberdale is pretty great too. He takes care of Lee while I'm away. Thanks Hube!
Finally, a thankful shout-out to my out of state friends who I do not have pictures of: Ms. H and Mr. S.B. in WA. I love y'all-get your behinds down to TX pronto!!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING EVERYONE!!

Hello from Mrs. Stark

Ok, ok. There's mold growing on the poor forgotten wedding sausage in the back of the fridge, so I guess it's time to write a little note about the wedding. That's right y'all, I'm a married lady. Well, married at least. I even have a new social security card. It's legal and everything.

I have to say if you weren't there, you kind of missed the best wedding of all time. Sorry. Luckily there are a ton of pictures, which I have collected on the flickr, and put on the Walgreens photo site-in case you need a coffee mug of me with my visible bra faux pas! Yes, a typical girl might be horrified at the v.b. but then again a typical girl would have purchased a new bra to wear with her wedding dress. Oops.

Aside from that, everything was fantastic. Very (very) simple, small, and easy. I was reminded (again) that I have the most badass friends in the entire world. Without Adriane, Rachel, and my dear BFF (best friend Frances) we could never have pulled it off. And our families are the best. They were at the ready for anything we needed. Plus they are all happy about us getting married! Bonus!

The ceremony was perfect. (Oh yeah, I wrote it) The cake was delicious (Sit down. I baked it myself!!-Mom did the decorating) The weather cooperated, the band was great. It seems like everyone had fun. I think-to borrow a phrase from my new Stark family-we chalk it up as a win!

The honeymoon? Again-sorry to be gushing like a silly girl,but-perfect. It was all the things we love in one extravaganza week. Driving, hiking, going to nerdy historical sites, being at the coast, finding random crazy little bars in tiny towns, eating fancy food, festing, dancing...we even camped in our new tent. I know! I camped! I've never camped as an adult, unless you count sleeping in a van as camping. It was super fun and I got to sleep in my new orange hat.

The only downside to the honeymoon was that in all my excitement about "the thing" I did a very poor job of packing. No knitting. So sad. We were in the car for literally days. I could have made a whole new wardrobe. Speaking of wardrobe I also forgot to pack enough shirts, which is why in the pictures I'm mostly wearing a Hondo High School t-shirt I got at the HEB in Hondo. Go Owls!!

All right. Enough bragging about how awesome my wedding was. But it was. I am so lucky and thankful. Yikes! I still have to send out thank you cards.

So what else has been going on? Life continues pretty much as usual. We've done some more festing and hiking-I put even more pictures of trees on the flickr. It's funny, I used to make fun of my mom for taking pictures of trees and stuff, but now I think I'm even worse. I could wallpaper my whole apartment with pictures of trees. Trees might (almost) have eclipsed the cats in number of photos. Maybe.

On the knitting front, I went to two knerdy events this past week: a Ravelry event at The Knitting Nest, and Knit Night. Once again, I've made the internal declaration that I am going to knit stuff for people for Christmas, but we'll see. Perhaps I should start making this declaration in August. We have a drive to Denton coming up for Thanksgiving, hopefully I won't be too distracted to pack some knitting for that.

What's that noise? Oh, it's my stomach. Guess I should have breakfast since it's 11. It's freezing ("freezing" in Texan = 60 degrees) so I think I'll make some oatmeal.

Maybe Mrs. Stark will blog more often. You can only hope.

My all-consuming passion for Mullet-Bono knows no bounds. Happy October y'all!!

The Usual: Open with Hat, Close with Cats

Hi y'all. The Great Hat Frenzy of 2010 continues!Here's the side view. I think this yarn, while FANTASTIC, was ever so slightly too thick for this particular stitch pattern. It's still super cute though.
Yes, I'm wearing my Rangers shirt again. Apparently the Rangers are having a miraculous year.

This weekend was my sweet love's birthday! While it would be next to impossible to top last year, we had fun. We had yummy yummy food at Mandola's, went to a rock show, and I made a cobbler! One more Texas citizenship test passed!!
Another part of the Texas Citizenship Program is paying more attention to sports. It was a bad news/good news TX sport weekend, with the Horns suffering an embarrassing defeat, but the Rangers clinching a trip to the playoffs and the Cowboys finally winning. I have to believe the Cowboys victory had something to do with the purchase of these:
Now I'm ready to:
Speaking of tough...CATFIGHT!!

Some people (my mom) pointed out to me that I may have neglected to mention what a fun time I had while my mom was in town. I did. By far the highlight (for her) was our visit to the Texas State Cemetery. She was very excited. For some reason she loves (LOVES.) cemeteries. It made me so happy to make her happy that I agreed to a rare full body photo:Look, Erick, I have a Rangers shirt too.

We also did a lot of shopping and eating and stuff like that. She bought me this super cool necklace which yes, I could totally make but I never would.
Careful followers (Aileene) will remember that I've been in a bit of a reading slump. Y'all (Aileene) will be happy to know that (again, thanks to my mom) I think I'm out. I made-I mean asked nicely-my mom buy this book because of my weird refusal to be openly participating in ultra-hyped book events. Even worse, now it's an Oprah Book Club pick! I'm (once again) shaking my fist in the air at you Oprah! Goddamn your marginally good taste in books! Now I look like some O-worshipping soccer mom!! At least the book is good. Really good. While he's by no means my favorite Jonathan, I have to admit Mr. Franzen is a badass.

Speaking of badasses, look who's making yet another hat:
Yep, me! I'm in some kind of hat frenzy. This makes three! In a matter of months! Crazy!! Again, thanks to my mom, who bought me this yarn while we were in Seattle. I LOVE LOVE LOVE it. It feels really smooshy and the color (glazed carrot!) is fantastic. Here's the pattern. In case you, ya know, wanna make one for yourself.

Oops, I'm late for lady lunch! Gotta run!

Knittin'and partyin'

So yes it is almost one in the afternoon and I haven't taken a shower yet, but I thought I would take a minute (well, an hour if you count the flickr uploading, but I digress...) to update y'all on my goings-on and show you my hat:

It's just like the one I made for Amy. It's a teensy bit too big but I like it anyway. I'm sure I'll be wearing it soon since last night it dipped way down into the mid 70's. (Happy first day of fall y'all!!)

That's the "knittin'" news, on to the "partyin": On Sept. 11 the North Texas Division of our family threw us a lovely wedding shower in Denton. It was the "real"-est party that has ever been thrown for me and it was super fun even though we had to open presents in front of people (there was a margarita machine for that).

Last Sunday the Howells had a Second Week of Football party (long story/inside joke) and again-margarita machine! I'm sensing a trend...

Sadly, I didn't take any of my own pictures at the shower (left the camera at the motel, stupid! stupid!) and my mom's camera was acting a little wacky, so I just have a few pictures right now. John's cousin Leah was the official photographer so I'm hoping she got some better ones. I put what I do have on the flickr, along with a few football shots.

Uh oh, Jerry's telling me his final thought...gotta go!

Mom-soon

My mom is coming to town today, so of course it is pouring.Every single time my family comes here, the weather turns to shit. Oops, guess I shouldn't have invited them to an outdoor wedding. Bring a poncho!

Minute by Minute present update: my sis and Jon gave us a fancy new teevee!
(Reruns of Ellen in High Def!)

It has all sorts of color coded inputs and outputs but I just had to use one:
My sweet love declared last night that he is going to start "championing" Hubert, because Lee gets too much attention. He's right. Poor Hube. Here's a glamour shot:

He is a handsome little cat. Go Hubert Cumberdale Go!

Happy Labor Day

(The Koozies are here! The Koozies are here!)
I googled "september in texas" for header images, and I got this. Looks like a trip to Lubbock is in order.

Happy Labor Day y'all. I'm celebrating by having cake for breakfast, then going to work.

This weekend we watched the first (of many) ass-kickings delivered by our beloved Longhorns, but I forgot to bring knitting. I did get some reading done during the commercials. I've read it before of course, but it reminded me of my all-consuming love for Carson. She's the greatest.

My mom's coming tomorrow, so I should be putting a smackdown on this apartment. Later!

(jennifer) Anne of Green (apartment complex)

Look! We got our first present. Owl salt and pepper shakers. (Thanks Michael!) Cute. Careful observers will notice that they're sitting on my Anne of Green Gables book. My dear friend Rachel (of paper doll fame) has decided to throw an A of GG tea/miniseries watching party, which has inspired me to read the book (again). We won't talk about how this party is scheduled during my "work" hours (depths of despair!) but I'm enjoying the book very much. I was able to read a good chunk of it yesterday when I had to go to the tire store (poor little Sentra was getting wobbly) and redirect a portion of my rent money to three (!) new tires. Yuck.

Maybe an easy, pleasurable book from my childhood will finally restart my interest in reading. I was trying very hard to read that dragon tattoo book, but to no avail. Snooze! Luckily the Starks shared my opinion and reminded me that massively popular bestsellers are not my bag. I'm counting on you, Anne! "The most beloved, beguiling and timeless heroine in all of fiction."

Look, I'm being productive!

See? I'm watching bad daytime TV and working on stuff for The Thing! (I just finished a summer of 10 hour days, so if I want to find out which one IS the father, I think it's o.k.) This particular mess is the invitation project, but in the background you can see supplies for some kind of centerpiece or something. Who knows. I also got this book, because $4 a slice for cake is just silly. Luckily I have several helpers for the cake testing process. I think everything is on track. Boy? Check. Dress? Check. Venue? Check. Koozies? Check.

I finished the hat for Amy, just in time for the cold front. Brrr! It's in the low 90's! It's quite cute and I think I might need one for myself.

I also had time to watch this video. It made me very very happy. What do you think?

Well, better get back to work. Unlike some other members of this family...

Two Month Warning

Hi y'all! We're at the two month mark till The Thing. I ordered the koozies, so now there's no turning back. Right now I should be working on invitations, but today is my first day back on regular school-year work schedule, so I'm enjoying my special a.m. alone time.

Oops, another month has flown by with no C&D to keep you company. Sorry. What's been happening? I've been working L O N G days, it's been HOT, but we've had some fun.

Friday we went to Rachel's (the genius behind the Jen paper dolls) apt. warming party. Look what I made for her:
A party tray of dishcloths! I didn't get a picture of the tray itself, but it has little Texases on it. Cute! I also finally finished the pillow and I'm quite pleased with it. Yesterday we went to a baseball game and I started a hat for my sis. Pretty soon it will be football season again, so the knitting will be in full swing.
Certainly I've done something besides knitting, right? Hmmm...last weekend we went to the Stark's for a Leo Birthday dinner (there's a ton of them in the family) and to see the Denton Community Theater's production of The Producers. It was great. We also got new pedis, but I'll spare you any more photos of my feet.

I finally got around to watching Greenberg. And you're right, it kind of sucked. It's sad because I love love Noah Baumbach, but I hate hate Ben Stiller. (Watch this. It's funny.)

Now that I'm back on my regular schedule, I'll try to update this more often. Like maybe twice a month.

Guess I should take a shower today. Later!

It's a yucky gray thundery day and I guess I should be knitting. I'm making this:which is going to be a throw pillow for my bed which is funny because I never never make the bed.

But first I'll tell y'all about my suicide prevention (birthday) weekend. It was spectacular. On Saturday everyone indulged me and spent $21 to go to this. It was gross, but not as amazing as I wanted it to be. Then we did a Burnet Rd. crawl: The Draughthouse, Billy's, Ginny's, The Poodle Dog, Lala's, Buddy's Place, Pluckers, and The Canary Hut Pub. Perfect perfect perfect.

Sunday we had a picnic at Pedernales Falls State Park, (if you're here in TX, they say "PERdenales"). My sweet JS made some badass T-Flo sides to go with the hot dogs, and we floated down the river. I know! A few photos exist but it's hard to remember the camera when you're having so much fun.

Monday night I finally went to "hip hop" night at Nasty's (a little bar that really lives up to its name) and while it was fun, Off the Wall is NOT hip hop, y'all. Come on. Not that I don't love Off the Wall. I do. RIP poor MJ.

Yesterday (my actual birthday) we went on a special birthday date to Uchi. Uchi is the "it" spot here in the atx so I was a teeny bit skeptical about it living up to the hype. It did. Everything about it was ridiculously fantastic. They bring you hot towels before you eat! The waiter was nice and explained everything to us without making us feel stupid, everything was cute in that Japanese way that I love, and the food! It is an injustice to even call it food. It's some kind of insanely pleasurable experience for your mouth. I can't even describe it. Save up. Go here. Plus I had the cutest date.

I received many thoughtful gifts and cards (thank you everyone!) but this one I've got to show you:

That's right, it's a paper doll ME! The accuracy of the drawing is upsettingly good:
Excellent work, Rachel!! You are incredible.

Know what else is incredible? The amount of time it takes to update this blog. Yikes, I have to get on with my day. Later!

Any excuse to make cupcakes...

So as you can see by the painfully self-indulgent header photo, it is my birthday week but these are not for me. K's coming home from her trip tonight and we're having a welcome home party (and by "we" I mean me and an apartmentload of teenagers...gulp...wanna come over? Please?) Luckily there will be cupcakes!!!I LOVE this funfetti frosting. A mix of big and small sprinkles. Cake makes me so happy.

I even got a special party treat for the cats:
Yes, I am THAT lady.

Yikes! Looks like a whole month has flown by. What's been happening? Well, aside from the upcoming world shatteringly exciting event, just the normal sweltering heat with occasional "movie rain", Fourth of JU-ly fun, working LONG (long) days, being eaten alive by mosquitoes,

you know. I took a little (working) trip to the coast, and last weekend we had a lovely (is there any other kind?) visit from the Starks. And...sit down for this one...I've been doing water activities. Yes you read that right. Going in the water for fun. Outdoors. I don't even know me anymore either.

Now that the details are nice and hazy...

I'll finally write something about our trip. (Special apologies go out to A.S. who I know has been waiting patiently for a blog update.) You can jump straight to the photos, or read my disjointed account. It's up to you. (And if you missed the rainforest pic email, those are here.)

We had a really nice time, even though the NW is cold and dreary and drizzly. Luckily we had a few days of sunny-ish weather and a good mix of family hangout time and vacationy activities. Most importantly, I got some yarn (thanks Mom!) at my favorite yarn store. I like it there because they don't find it weird at all when I say I'm in the store mostly to smell the yarn.
Other highlights of Seattle include the EMP, where JS had tons of fun remixing Jimi Hendrix songs or something- I don't quite understand, and Dick's, the only thing I really miss about living there. We rode the ferry, went to the library, watched the Mariners lose, and saw something I've never seen before: crazy soccer fans in Seattle. I guess the Sounders have replaced the Sonics. They were singing and marching and being all European (like Seattleites are known to do) and it wasn't even a playoff game. According to the guy we asked they're "not even very good."

Our second NW weekend we went to Portland, which is way way way (way) cooler than Seattle. We stayed at the Ace Hotel which just happened to be on Stark St. which just happened to (hee hee) be Portland's gayest street. (Think lots of rainbow balloon arches) From the hotel bar window we got to watch the participants of a fantastic drag show walk to and from the backstage which was apparently around the corner. I LOVE drag shows. Really.

We went to the Contemporary Museum of Craft, and I got a cup from this guy. He's got a cool little setup right in the museum and he gives away these cups.
I chose this one because it says "knight of cups":
John chose this one because, well you can see why he chose this one.
We did some NW versions of our favorite activities, like hiking and horse racing, but they are not quite as fun when you are shivering instead of sweating.

Something I do like about the NW is there are tons and tons of microbreweries. Everywhere. But the beer is really heavy and there's no sweating so by the end of the trip I was feeling a little puffy. Luckily back here in the ATX there has been nothing but sweating so I think I'm back to some kind of equilibrium.

We got to visit with some old friends and had plenty of quality family time but I have to say I feel pretty Texan and don't miss old WA at all. It's the sunlight.

I'm sure I'm forgetting a large portion of super fun activities, but you can check out the pictures and email me questions.