Happy Half Birthday to ME!

(Yes, I am silly enough to celebrate my half birthday.)

Remember the episode of Seinfeld when Kramer decides to live in his shower? If you don't you can watch it here. What did we do before the internets? (Oh yeah, read books and interact with other humans) I could so do that-if I came into some money and got a fancy continuous hot water thing. But as much as I love the in-shower, I hate hate hate the aftermath: wet hair. Yuck! Most of y'all know my hair stays wet FOREVER and is very tangly and sticky. Yes, I am aware of this invention called the hair dryer, but 1. I can't stand still for that long and 2. it takes FOREVER for my hair to dry even with a dryer. While we're on the (riveting) subject of my hair, it's time for my yearly breakdown wherein I feel compelled to get a haircut. Here's a reminder of last year's "ready for kindergarten" look:

And here I am today, all shaggy and overgrown:
Yeah, I guess my hair did grow a lot in a year. Maybe beer makes hair grow. So, the eternal question: bangs or no bangs? I always had bangs as a kid, the classic cut by grandma (crooked), straight across, and then of course the junior high pathetic attempt at high bangs (if my stuff wasn't all packed up I could scan a sweet yearbook photo for ya) and then as an adult, I've toyed here and there with the "sidesweep". Ah, what to do...Man, this is the most self-indulgent post ever! (The key word here is "indulgent") But hey, y'all, it's my half birthday!!

Look, I finished the green lacy scarfette thing. Taking pictures of yourself is NOT good for the self-esteem. Apparently self-indulgent blogging is though.
Ok, I should get back to some move-related tasks. Thanks for wasting time on my hair. Any ideas, y'all?

The Final Countdown

Well y'all, here we are at the last week at the 'plex. We've had a few good times here (mostly in the last year :) ) but all in all I would have to say that life here on Treeline Dr. has pretty much sucked. On to better-and less expensive-things!

I spent most of yesterday feeling yucky (the unadvertised austin "cedar fever") but still managed to pack a bunch of junk up. Lee and I have a system. I take all the things out of a cupboard and then he goes in to make sure I got everything. He's handy to have around.

Thumbs up

Lee thought the cupcake mitten looked so good, he just had to take a bite. One down, one to go. But yes, I'm supposed to be getting ready to move (!) y'all, not knit. Not waste my day on the computer. No.

First and foremost, I must go to the grocery for food. I can't possibly be expected to pack/clean out stuff/knit...no! I mean pack! on an empty stomach.

Moving right along

Hey y'all, guess I'm doing the L O N G break between posts thing again. Wish I could say it's because I've been crazy busy doing super fun stuff, but mostly I've been sitting around talking to the cats. I have been doing some slow packing, though, because I'm moving (!) on the 29th. Yep, it's my very first big girl apartment at the tender age of 36. Instead of being depressed about just now embarking on living on my own (I mean, it wasn't like I was living in my mom's basement or anything-she doesn't even have a basement-but still) I've decided to treat it like my hyper-birthday celebration and have already started planning a party. (Feb. 20th if you're in town) Here's a cute pic of some of my stuff:
There will be much much less stuff than in previous moves in my life, but packing/moving still sucks. Luckily I have a cute and hardworking boy to help me. We've already been taking advantage of some of our local dumpsters and the Goodwill. Fun.

Hey look! Now that it's back in the high 60's-low 70's outside, I finished (one) of the cupcake mittens. Well, not finished, since I still have to do the thumb, but almost. See the red line? That's where the thumb goes. I can do that tomorrow while I watch GA online.
Have I ever told y'all about my passionate love for McSweeney's? Sometimes when the cats and I run out of things to talk about I spend large amounts of time there. Funny funny stuff. Once I was reading this hilarious piece about the Maury show while I just happened to be watching the Maury show. I mean, while I was doing something productive and smart.

What have y'all been up to? Seems no one emails me anymore unless I send them a picture of an ice penis...

laid back

In the NW, we say "couchlock" to indicate an inability (for whatever reason :) ) to remove your body from the couch. Well, I don't technically have a couch but I am surely experiencing some "futonlock" today my friends. But look, I'm plugging away at the mittens. Did you know it's National Knit Mittens Month (NaKniMitMo to the uber-geeky)? No of course you didn't. I didn't either until this morning. So these are my entry! Yes, I entered them in the Ravelry group. UBER geek, remember? 

While knitting I saw something upsetting on the tv. Snoop Dogg on The View! Yikes. Am I in the nursing home already? He was talking about how there are "fewer" bitches and ho's on his new record because he's "grown up a little". He brought the ladies cupcake hats as Christmas gifts (it was a repeat). Seems like good ol' Snoop spent a few too many years in couchlock. 
Last time I showed y'all my yarn, so today it's buttons! Think I'm pretty well stocked on those too. The other day I started a new scarf thingy because I left the mittens at John's. It needs a button eventually, and these are the ones in contention:
I kind of like the big plain green one. The others are cool and everything but I think they'll be too small. Any thoughts, y'all?

Ok, I'll lay off the U2 song titles

Hey y'all. Today I've been slowly continuing the move-prep cleanout. Think I'm all stocked up on yarn. On Ravelry, there's this "10 in 10" group where everyone is pledging to knit 10 (or more) projects in 2010. I think I'll join and pledge to make 10 things out of all of this. (Along with the stuff I'll buy new yarn for of course. You know I can't go too long without mail from Jimmy Bean's Wool.) Speaking of knitting, ta-da! The hoodie thing is finally, finally all the way done:
I think I'll try wearing it out in the world today. Since it's still cold cold cold! Yuck. Makes me miss the 120 degree Hot August Nights. Don't worry. They'll be back soon. Right?!

Not much to report since Sunday. Yesterday I did what I think might be one of the most fun things you can do: roller skating with a kid in a wheelchair. It's great. You can go really fast and not worry about falling because you're being such a good person and holding on to a wheelchair! F.U.N.!

Then I came home and watched a pretty good show on PBS. I love PBS. All right, I think I'm out of things to say. H.C. is ready to help with the cleanout. Later!

The Unforgettable Fire

So the youtube won't let me embed this video, but I want you to go watch it now. I'll wait. Did you love it? There is no bad mood that the Great Mullet Bono can not destroy. What a perfect example of 80's video art this is. The slo-mo, the night in the city scenes, the dramatic facial expressions, the randomly placed televisions, the walking through the snow. Beautiful. 

Well, of course I missed doing an actual New Year's (or for that matter a Christmas) post, but I'll try to catch up. 2010 started with a literal bang, as we blew up the leftover fireworks from the 4th of July! It's always fun to blow shit up. 

Christmas itself was extremely low key. Sweet JS made a delicious dinner and we went bowling with my sister. Kaitlin was up in the NW with my mom. 

The weekend before Christmas was the highlight of the holiday season because I finally attended the long anticipated Starkparty! As usual, my photos don't begin to illustrate the level of fun, but you can check them out anyway. Remember the Thanksgiving fire? (I'm sure you do, since 90% of my readership was there!) Santa made sure there would be no repeat, bringing Aileene a special "okra fire only" extinguisher. Phew!
In knitting news, I'm working on these cupcake mittens. Aren't they the cutest thing since Lee Chat? On the drive to Starkparty weekend, I picked up stitches for the button band on the hoodie thing, but of course I ignored the directions and picked up too many, making it all ruffly and bad. So I ripped it out (!) and started over. Yuck. But don't worry, I finished it again on our New Year's Day trip to Gruene. I just have to put the buttons (back) on. Conveniently it's still FREEZING, so I may actually wear the stupid thing after all. 

In entertainment news, we saw the fox movie and I loved it even more the second time. We also saw Sherlock Holmes which was pretty entertaining, and District 9 (on dvd) which was much better than I thought it would be. 

I'm sure I'm forgetting to write about a ton of fun stuff that happened between December 11 and today-oh yeah, like going to the Texas History Museum's exhibit of quilts! Quilting is by far the most badass of all crafts. Especially the kind they had on display, stitched by hand! Very very cool. But, this post has already taken me way longer than it should have so I'll just end by saying thank you to everyone for the Christmas cards and gifts, and Happy New Year Y'all!! And yes, I am posting this (y'all know me). I was going to put up the regular video for this song, but it is awful. (Especially when compared to the genius that is The Unforgettable Fire) So we'll settle for the first national television appearance. Hey whatever happened to this Craig Kilborn guy? Remember when he used to host The Daily Show? (yes he did! remember that for trivia night...)