On the Road Again

So tomorrow morning at o-dark-thirty I leave for a business trip with the newbie, my boss and my boss' boss to go to Charlotte. This should be interesting. I would love to just chill in the back with my itouch but I have a feeling my boss is going to talk NON STOP!!! We are staying at hotel brand that I don't usually stay at so I hope it's not gross. When you travel as much as I do, you have every right to be picky and have favorite hotels. LOL. But it does have tv, free wi-fi and free breakfast so my basic needs will be met. I will be traveling with two computers! I am bringing my mac and the stupid work laptop so that I can use my mac in the evenings. I really need to work on finding a rolling briefcase that is still small enough to fit under an airplane seat. I saw one I liked at Best Buy but it was over a foot deep and if i took that on a plane with me that would be like the main carry-on!

I finished the deflt Homespun shawl Friday night. I started another one made out of the Montana Sky Blue Homespun and I also made a Special Olympics scarf on Saturday and I am half-way through Special Olympics scarf number #2.

I also talked to my health coach Saturday night. It's a free service through my company's insurance and if we signed up for the program we get like a big credit on our insurance premium. Anyways, I am supposed to write down what I regularly eat for the next two weeks so that she can figure out my plan of action. She's really nice and she sounds like a peppy cheerleader on the phone. We will see. I'm sure I'm going to notice some eating trends. I'm not trying to look like a toothpick but I know i packed on the pounds this summer and I would to get rid of those since the weather is starting to cool off and it will be easier for me to make myself go walking. We will see. I'm kind of curious to see what my daily caloric intake is because I have no idea.

Happy September!

I caved and went to Wal-Mart Saturday. I bought a wooden pre-assembled drying rack because my sister kept all of ours when I moved. Target didn’t have any wooden ones that were assembled and Mom needed to refill some prescriptions so stopped at Wal-Mart. I also stopped at Mc Donalds Friday night on my way to Charlotte because it was easy to get to and get back on the highway and traffic was SO AWFUL that there was no way that I was going to be able to wait until I got to my parent’s house. I left straight from work at 4:40 PM ET and did not make it to my parent’s house until 9 PM which is ridiculous. I left today (Monday) at 2PM ET and made it back at 4:45 PM ET which was a personal best. The traffic was much better and I went the speed limit because there was cops out like crazy.
Sunday night I finished the Candy Apple red Homespun shawl, my mom thinks that it is the 10th shawl that I have made this summer. This morning before I left, I started another one , this time in Homespun Delft (which is a painterly shade of blues and a little bit of white). I have at least 6 inches done on it.
My Kiehl’s order arrived on Saturday while I was gone but it was waiting on my doorstop for me when I came back. I ordered a bottle of their new Aloe Vera Bipgradable Liquid Body Cleanser, which is made out of 100% biodegradable ingredients and it is in partnership with the lovely Brad Pitt so 100% of net profits go to JPF Eco Systems which supports global environmental initiatives. It’s very light feeling and it makes you smell really good without it being overpowering. I will definitely be ordering another bottle. I love ordering from Kiehl’s because you get three free samples of your choice with your order and they are great for air traveling and for little stocking stuffers.
I popped into Books A Million on Saturday and I ended up buying a copy of March by Geraldine Brooks (which won the 2006 Pulitzer Prize). She tells the story of Mr. March , the father from Little Women, and what happened to him while he was away in the Civil War. I think it will be a quick read and I will probably take it with me on one of my work trips this month (or that is my intent, if I don’t use it as my bedtime reading).
I figured out when I came home this evening that I had downloaded FIFTEEN SONGS and one tv show through itunes this week. I am blaming it on my internet binge and the most recent copy of Blender magazine because I was reading the magazine and I would see a song that looked interesting so I would download it. I guess you could say my music dry spell is over.
Mom and I watched a lot of movies and HGTV and occasionally the news for updates about Hurricane Gustav.
I had a lot of fun this weekend and it turned out to be a highly productive one, I just wish it would have lasted a little bit longer. I can’t believe that September is here already and soon it will be my birthday (the 25th) and then we will be thrust into the Halloween-Thanksgiving-Christmas-New Year’s holiday craziness season. I am looking forward to this humidity leaving and having the opportunity to wear jeans and my hoodie without sweating to death.

Holiday!

I fell off the wagon hard. so far I downloaded the latest episode of the Cho Show and after reading the new issue of Blender magazine, I ended up downloading about 10 songs on itunes. I bought a book, eight skeins of homespun and probably four magazines. the only thing I have not been able to find is a rolling laptop case that is small enough to fit under a plane seat and non dorky. Carry around a bunch of work crap and the huge work laptop is killing my shoulders and i can't use backpacks any more because i feel like they are pulling me backwards and it still doesn't help the shoulder thing.

Mom and I hit a bunch of the Labor Day weekend sales, hence, the shopping mentioned above and now we are just chilling watching Jane Austen movies. Right now we are watching the BBC version of Mansfield Park.

I started another shawl, with some Candy Apple Homespun that is a really nice shade of red and I really like how it is turning out so far.

I was naughty and had a mango rasberry swirl smoothie and a chocolate chip bagel from Panera for breakfast this morning. I did take the dogs on two walks around the neighborhood today so hopefully that balanced things out.

Traveling!

This weekend is Labor day weekend and I should be at home rounding up the yarn and the Jane Austen movies. it's been kind of a long week and it will be nice to have a little break. My ditzy boss told me this morning that I will be traveling down to Charlotte four times this month. seriously! One of them is right two days after Labor Day but it's little 2 and 3 day trips during the week so it's not that advantageous for me but if the company wants to pay to put me up in the hotel and all that goodness, then I will happily go along with it.

I finished the Gothic shawl that I started this weekend. Last night at Michaels I discovered Bernat's new glow in the dark yarn which comes in tiny skeins but it's pretty cool so I bought a skein and made a cozy for Saffron the itouch.

My delft blue Red Heart arrived yesterday so I am excited because I can work on the Special Olympic scarf this weekend. I also received my Emily Dickinson print (ordered from the Emily Dickinson Museum) so now I just have to find a frame to fit it so that I can put it up over the manual. It's very tasteful looking. Now I am just waiting on my Kiehl's order but it didn't ship until Monday and I am not really expecting it until after the holiday.

Victory!

I finished the quilt block and it looks pretty good! I know it’s not perfect, but I think I did well considering the fact that until Saturday afternoon, I couldn’t even figure out how to thread the bobbin correctly. I packed up the sewing machine and drove it over to the local sewing machine repair store and told the lady my whole sob story. She helped me thread the bobbin and showed me how to fix the tension (the tension knob had been knocked around during all my moving this past year). I took it home and was able to finish the block in under an hour. I really need to buy a table so that I can have a place to set up the sewing machine without having to move stuff off my desk to sew.
I made a stop at Jo-Ann’s and they are carried Dritz branded Project Runway sewing notions now. It was really tempting but I didn’t buy anything because I didn’t really need any of it. I can’t wait until season 4 of Project Runway comes out on DVD. It will be fierce!
Speaking of fierce, I was at Barnes and Noble and discovered Mia Tyler’s new book, Creating Myself: How I Learned That Beauty Comes In all Shapes, Sizes and Packages, Including Me. It was so good that I started reading it this afternoon and read until I finished it. I really need to buy another bookshelf. I have two five shelf bookcases and they are packed with books. My DVD rack is also completely full too. I did watch a couple of episodes of The Tudors last night.
I was able to finish another dishcloth yesterday as well. It’s made from the Sugar N Cream Stripes too, but it’s the blue-green stripes that remind me of the ocean colors. I have about six inches done on the Gothic shawl. I really like how this colorway looks. I am using the M hook on this one because Homespun is easier to crochet with the larger hooks.
Yesterday morning when I was at Trader Joes, I discover their store brand lip balm. It’s spearmint flavored and you get three tubes in a package for about the same price as one tube of my all-time favorite Burt’s Bees. I wasn’t planning on going there this weekend but I needed mail off my car insurance payment and there was this giant festival downtown which is where the closest post office is to me but there is another post office that is over by Trader Joes and Whole Foods, so I decided that since I was already in the area it made sense to go over there. Sunshine will be amused to know that I finally discovered where Wal-Mart is located. The funniest part is that it is RIGHT ACROSS THE STREET FROM WHOLE FOODS!!!! Now, let me explain how it is possible not to notice this. Across the street from Whole Foods is this strip shopping area that is at the bottom of the slope. So Wal-Mart is at the bottom of the slope and this street is really busy but since it was early Saturday morning the traffic was light and I just happened to notice what was actually down at the bottom of the slope. I didn’t go there but at least now I can say that I know where it is. I just think it was funny that it was right under my nose the whole time because I go to Trader Joe's or Whole Foods at least once a week if I am home during the weekend.

Flying By

This week has been crazy. It really nice that I don’t have any place to go this weekend because I know this coming week is going to be rough because it’s month-end and the fiscal year end is drawing near.

Last weekend I discovered Trader Joe’s oatmeal and cranberry cookie dough. It is packaged into 16 little dough balls and smells like heaven in the oven. I have so much fun every time I go there just reading the little stories on the packages and the employees are laid back and friendly. I still love my Whole Foods too because they have my favorite croutons and dip and the trash bags I like.

I scored The Tudors Season 1 on dvd at FYE’s big dvd sale this week for only $15 and this normally retails for between $30-40. I think I am going through a Brit Lit phase again. I re-read Jane Eyre recently for the first time in ten years and then I found the BBC/Masterpiece Theatre edition on DVD and loved it. I also watched the new versions of Sense and Sensibility, Persuasion and the biopic Miss Austen Regrets. I also bought Smart People on DVD with Ellen Page and Sarah Jessica Parker and it is hilarious! I am happy that I bought that one too.

I finally read Nights in Rodanthe by Nicholas Sparks (LOVE IT) just in time for the movie to come out next month(?). I also finished reading Breaking Dawn by Stephenie Meyer. This book is definitely the most dark and twisty book in the series but I was happy with the ending. I also read Looking for Anne of Green Gables: The Story of L.M. Montgomery and Her Literary Classic by Irene Gammel and White Heat: The Friendship of Emily Dickinson & Thomas Wentworth Higginson by Brenda Wineapple. Both books were excellent and make me want to visit Prince Edward Island and Amherst. I have been reading like crazy lately and so that’s why my crafty progress has been slower.

The sewing machine drama continues. I still can’t figure out how to thread the damn bobbin so I am going to go to the Singer store on Saturday and plead for help. I have the new needle installed and threaded so I am so close. I have over a foot completed on the knitted shawl but I am using two strands of TLC Amore and I knit really super slow so it is taking me forever. Plus, I am also halfway done crocheting a dishcloth and I started crocheting another shawl out of Lion Brand Homespun in Gothic (which is the deep purple that I really like). I haven’t made much progress on the tote bag I started crocheting in Virginia Beach because I have to alternate stitches every row and I keep forgetting which row I am on. I might be ripping back and marking it off as I go on a Post-It.

Breezy Days

I honestly don’t know where this weekend has gone. I ended up watching several movies, including The Notebook and Lars and the Real Girl. I also watched Sex in the City Season 1 today which sounds like a lot but the first season only has two discs. I have watched the entire series several times but I still laugh every single time and I can’t wait until the movie comes out on DVD. I have finished the Prairie shawl, the blue shawl and I am halfway done with the purple shawl that I started yesterday. It sounds like a lot but it’s a really simple pattern and I can crochet really fast when I am watching a movie or TV shows or if I’m with a big group of crocheters or knitters.
I should have been sewing but I have a small problem. I managed to thread the machine and find a bobbin and then I look down at the machine to thread the needle and I realize that there is NO NEEDLE!!!!!! It was like after lunch and I thought I would practice a little so that I got all the kinks worked out before I started to actually sew the block. So, I am just going to wait until next weekend because I have already been to Jo Ann’s this weekend and for some odd reason I just don’t feel like going out again today. Then I had to call my mother and admit how much of a spaz I am so that she could tell me what kind of sewing machine needles I needed to get because there is like a bazillion different kinds and they are all for different purposes. I think she got a good laugh out of it. Hell, I was laughing too just because it was so typical of something that would happen to me.
I am really excited though because I was reading the new issue of Crochet Today and they had mentioned that Red Heart had a new kind of yarn called Red Heart Eco-Cotton blend which is made up of 75% recycled cotton. I thought that it would be cool to try but I didn’t seriously think that any of the craft stores would have it in. Much to my surprise, AC Moore had some so I picked up a skein in Denim. It’s like 3.39 for 145 yards. There was even a free leaflet for it that has a washcloth, a hand towel and a soap holder. I think I am going to make the soap holder because it looks really cute and I have all this free hotel bar soap.
Yesterday, I had this sudden cleaning kick and I ended up reorganizing my yarn stash and my knitting and crochet books. The yarn has been consolidated more but I still want to buy some cube like shelves so that I can actually see it on display and know what all I have. The books are all on the shelf and group together by category. I am not motivated to organize the magazines, because I just have a ton of magazines in general and most of them are the reference type.
Last night I started reading Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte. I still need to finish Breaking Dawn too. I am really bad about having several books going at once and switching back and forth depending on the mood I am in. I haven’t read Jane Eyre in about ten years, so it’s like reading it for the first time all over again.
Musically speaking, it’s marching band season again. YAY! I think I am going to go to a couple of football games this season just to hear what the local marching bands sound like. One of my favorite drum corps, Phantom Regiment won the championship this week and my other favorite drum corp took third place so I was overall happy. I got to watch clips on You Tube so that was cool. I’m seriously thinking about buying the DVDs when they come out so that I can see all the shows in their entirety. I have also been listening to Coldplay, Alanis Morrisette and the Mamma Mia soundtrack. I think Violet Hill is my favorite song off the new Coldplay album so far. As for Alanis’ new cd, I actually enjoy the whole cd and it is in heavy rotation in the Subaru. The Mamma Mia soundtrack is just fun peppy music to listen to and I have always been a fan of ABBA. I was actually listening to it yesterday while I was cleaning and organizing things. I came to the conclusion that I need to hang some artwork on the walls or something because since I spent the entire weekend in my apartment for the most part, I realized how boring the walls are and they are painted that “apartment white” color that just doesn’t inspire me that much.

Here

I'm not sure how this happened, but the temperature managed to drop a few degrees today. I think I even felt a breeze walking out of the office this late afternoon. The second awesome this is when I got to Barnes and Noble, I could hear the marching band practicing and I think I let a little tiny squeal of joy out.

I did managed to find another skein of the blue homespun so I can finish the blue shawl and I am almost finished with the second skein of the Prairie shawl that I started while I waited to find more blue. Hopefully I don't run out of the Prairie. I have not worked on the Summer tote much. it uses a G hook and it alternates between single and half double crochet and so it is very slow progress.

I also have ambitious dreams of threading my sewing machine this weekend and making the quilt square this weekend for the quilt raffle at work. Lol. This could be interesting, but I have a back-up planning of taking it into the local Singer store if I can't understand the manual. I won't be going to see Mom until Labor Day weekend and we are supposed to turn in our squares on the 22nd, so that is why I am sort of paddling without an oar. I really want to learn though. My mom is a sewing goddess, so I think that somewhere inside of me I must have some repressed sewing talent. If this works out then I would like to make a little kitchen curtain and a big curtain to cover my bedroom window that faces the disgustingly bright street light.

Anyways, I am home for the whole weekend. it should be fun, I think. I have mountain dew and soy ice cream so I should be good to go.

Just Beachy

I woke up this morning and my breakfast arrived and it was huge! I forgot how big the portions are when you order room service. It also came with the world's largest Heinz Ketchup packet, so i am totally taking that home with me. Anyways, I took a picture of the whole thing because my sister likes vacation food pics.

I am nearly finished with the blue shawl but since it is a little wider than the last one I made with Homespun I am almost out of yarn and I'm not sure that it will be long enough and I know I won't have enough to add fringe. damn. I am going to hunt around for another skein this week. Hopefully AC Moore will have more of it because when I originally bought it, they only had three skeins left when I originally purchased the yarn. Oops! Once this is finished I am going to start a bag made out of kitchen cotton. It's a free leaflet pattern that I got at Hobby Lobby while I was visiting my parents the other weekend.

Since I have time to burn before the reception I am going to go back to the beach. I already checked the weather report at weather.com and there is not supposed to be any sprinkling or rain going on today.

Road Trip!

I woke up this morning and fell off the purse wagon hard. Yesterday at work, one of the other female accountants told me at lunch that I should go to the outlet mall in Smithfield because they have a Coach factory outlet store there. Smithfield is just south of Raleigh so I decided that I would take a little detour on the way to Virginia Beach. If there is such a thing as purse heaven, this would be it. I bought a brand new "Carly" purse with the purple strap (to go with my new Converses). I basically bought this purse for cheaper than my first purse that is like half the size of this one. I definitely plan on coming back. they have the scarves and the matching wallets and the keychains in all the styles and colors and shapes. I just wish that a Coach purse would have qualified for the tax-fee holiday but I got such a deal on this purse I can't complain too much because it was around 50% off the original price because it was on sale. The nice thing about buying at the actual Coach store or the Coach outlet stores is that they give you the little brown bag to store your purse in when it's not in use. They had a Fossil store there too so I was able to buy a new wallet for my sister. It is so cute!!! She needed

I'm not sure how long it took me to get to Virginia Beach but it seemed like it took awhile. The only bad thing about road tripping solo is that you don't have someone to chat with on the way there. I think the trip home will go a little faster because I will be driving straight there.

I stopped at the Virginia visitor's center and got a free "Virginia is for Lovers" bumper sticker and a map (just in case). I drove through the Chesapeake Bay Tunnel and went over the bridge. That was interesting. The only other time I have driven through a tunnel like that was when I drove through the mountains on my way out here. I stopped at First Landing State Park and spent twenty minutes on the beach before it started to rain a little. So I packed it up and headed for the hotel. The cool thing about the bay is that you can see all the barges off in the distance and the Cape Henry Lighthouse. I'm not too sad though. It has been a long week and it's nice to just hang out in the hotel and relax. I am going to finish the blue shawl and probably read some more of Breaking Dawn (soo worth the 3 1/2 wait at the store).

the best sign I saw on the road trip has to be at this Baptist church in Virginia. The quote on their sign out front read "Wal-Mart isn't the only saving place." Unfortunately, I was driving and I couldn't snap a pic. I had to smile because I haven't been to a Wal-Mart since I left Oklahoma. I was also excited to see the Welcome to Virginia sign because it meant I was almost there.

Anyways, tomorrow is the wedding reception and then I will head home to the Triangle. I can't believe that summer is almost over.

Breaking Dawn!

The wait is finally almost over! I am really mad because a certain bookstore claims they dont have my reservation. I think it's because the chick entering it had never done it before and she was a beyond air head. It just ticks me off. I wish they would give you some sort of confirmation number or something.So I am debating on whether or not to go yell at customer service or stay in one of the few chairs left in the cafe. I did not wear my fish nets today. it is like humid and 100 degrees, so i settled on the black sparkle shirt and my black pants.

the other fun thing about today is that I bought a pair of gray and purple satin double-tongue Converses at Lady Foot Locker today and they also qualified for the sales tax holiday. Hell yeah. I am wearing those right now as I speak. I went to the mall looking to find actual clothes that fit which was a total joke and most of the stores are switching to fall and it is too hot to wear long sleeves right now.

Tomorrow morning I leave for Virginia Beach. YAY!!! I am stopping at the big outlet mall on my way that is home to the Coach Outlet store. I want to look and see how much (if at all) cheaper they are then buying them from the regular mall. it is hit and miss with outlet stores sometimes. Too bad a Coach purse isn't part of the sales tax holiday. They should be. Every woman needs at least one really nice expensive purse.

It’s The End of the World

Not really but the end of the month is awful in the corporate accounting world and we are not playing with a full team this week so it kind of sucks a lot. I am focusing on the prize at the end of the week. Friday night I am staying up really late so I can go to the Twilight Prom at Barnes and Noble and buy Stephenie Meyer’s latest book in the Twilight series – Breaking Dawn. I am honestly excited about this book. I will probably be stoned for saying this but her books appealed to me more then Harry Potter as far as my personality goes. Plus, she has excellent taste in music and I love the playlists that she created for each book. Anyways, you are supposed to wear your dress up clothes so I am going to dust off one of my gothy party outfits. Shudders…. Yes I do have gothy type wear. I love wearing black and fish nets thigh highs. It’s not full fledged goth, just gothy. Plus, I am dying to see what people are going to wear or if they dress up because when they would have the Harry Potter release parties some of the outfits were as hardcore as attending Comic Con.
Then part two of the weekend begins when I drag myself out of bed and drive up to Virginia Beach for some fun in the sun and a wedding reception. I don’t have my outfit yet but I am planning on going to the mall Friday night before Twilight Prom so that I can find something. I live in black t-shirts and business casual. I don’t really have a lot of in between outfits because I tend to buy clothes based on what I will wear the most times.
I am halfway through the second skein of the Cobalt Homespun. I made this one a tad bit wider then my other Homespun shawl so I am a little paranoid that I won’t have enough to finish because I bought the only three skeins that AC Moore had that day. Oops. It is the brightest prettiest blue though, so I had to have it.
Since I spent the weekend at my parents house it was a big movie weekend. Mom and I watched:
1. Juno
2. Penelope
3. Definitely Maybe (April was my favorite girlfriend and I loved all the Nirvana references and Jane Eyre books)
4. Pride and Prejudice (The BBC Edition with Colin Firth – he is the only Mr. Darcy in my book)
5. And MAMMA MIA!!! (I love love love ABBA! And Colin Firth! Plus, it had Amanda S. from Big Love)

I am feverishly trying to use up my yarn stash and it didn’t help that Mom stuffed a bunch of yarn in my Subaru. Mom has discovered the art of knitting socks and as soon as she makes it through her first sock she is going to attempt to show me how. Did I mention that she has 6 socks started? We were trying out different types of dpns and weights of yarn to determine what would be the ideal.

Soundtrack of the Week:
1. If Ever – Foo Fighters
2. Free Fallin’ (Live) – John Mayer
3. Chasing Pavements – Adele
4. Heart Songs – Weezer
5. Dancing Queen – ABBA
6. Anything played on the sound system at my corner Starbucks

I would list the books on my bedside table, but I would be typing all night. Currently I am finishing up Tales of the City by Armistead Maupin and I finished The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch while I was at my parents house. I do make an honest attempt to read at least one book a week. I would read more but working and crocheting slow down the reading pace a little bit.

South for the Weekend

I actually have a post that is supposed to go before this one, but I am in Charlotte at my parents house for the weekend and I don't have it with me. The dogs started barking at 7am ET at the neighbors walking their big hunting dogs so I will not be getting any extra sleep this weekend. I am excited though because my Mom was able to get the second skein matches of the Red Heart sock yarn that we had originally bought over 4th of July but you need two balls and they only had one skein in each color at Hobby Lobby because it was a new item.

I finished the seafoam shawl last night. Now all my Mom has to do is add the fringe on and it will be ready to go. I also started a new shawl using the Cobalt blue Homespun that I bought with my 25% off everything coupon at AC Moore on Thursday. My mom has discovered the art of knitting socks now and was very excited when i brought her down a pair of bamboo size 2 DPNs. All she had were metal ones and those tend to slip out and make a big clinky noise on her hardwood floors.

So since my Amazon order FINALLY arrrived, I have been dutifully watching Season 3 episodes of Project Runway. Watching all the Project Runway episodes has given me a boost of creativity and I have found myself sketching outfits in my notebook which is not something I normally do, it's just fun and i make little stories to go with them and it's a good excuse to play with my colored pencils.

Mom and I are going to make the trek later to Kohls (fiestaware on sale, holla!) and Hobby Lobby, since I have every other craft and yarn store available to me in the Triangle except for that one. I think we might also be going to the post office to mail this big ass box of school supplies that we are sending to my sister. My mom bought this box that is like 18 inches tall and on the wide side. I am not really sure how I am going to lug that thing out to the car. It is on the heavy side and I really wish she would have bought two smaller boxes instead because she bought my sister a lot of paper and heavy stuff. Anyways, since my sister's classroom supply budget is $35 for the ENTIRE YEAR and she has students that are major kleptos and deviants, my mom and I scoured the sales for her. Hence the big box. I'm not sure how my sister is going to get it in the townhouse. She is a big wuss so I could totally see her opening it up outside and carrying stuff in by the pile. LOL.

Defying Gravity

I heart Idina forever! I was fortunate enough to see her concert here in town tonight and it was fantastic. It didn’t matter that it was humid and like 200 degrees outside or that I will probably wake up with fifty bug bites tomorrow. It was completely worth it. She has the most amazing vocal range. The concert was just really really special. I got to here a lot of my favorite songs from her latest album and she sang a song from RENT and TWO SONGS FROM WICKED!!!!!! She sang Defying Gravity from Wicked as the encore and I was so excited I seriously am amazed that I didn’t wet my pants. I had lawn seats but I was so close to the stage I could see her mascara! She really knows how to work the crowd and she made this really dirty sausage joke and told all these stories. She even sang a song in Hebrew! She also told us that a true diva can walk down the steps of a stage without having to look down and then she did it and it was so cool. If I would have tried that I would have fell flat on my ass. I also enjoyed her covers of Roxanne and Embraceable You.
It was just a really special experience because this was her first tour and it’s only 20 shows. Did I mention that I saw her hottie husband Taye Diggs in the crowd?!!! He was working the front row before she came on stage so it was like an extra bonus.
The venue was really cool. The amphitheatre is nestled in the trees and you look up into the sky and all you see is the glow from the stage lights and the tiny stars in the sky. It was just magical.
So there wasn’t a ton of merchandise at this event. All the t-shirts were like pink themed and some of on the tiny side. Just when I had given up hope, I saw this black long-sleeved thermal t-shirt with the Idina logo in hot pink. I fell in love with it so it ended up coming home with me even though I won’t be able to wear it outside until like November or something. It’s really comfortable too. I am wearing it as I type (I cranked the air conditioner too) because I wanted to make sure that it fit (surprisingly it actually does) and I am still on this big concert high.

On a side note, I couldn’t resist and started listening to the Kathy Griffin cd before the concert tonight and the Woz jokes (about Steve Wozniak, Apple GENIUS) were so hilarious I thought I was going to fall out of the recliner. I really should be going to bed because I have to work tomorrow but I am so wired there is no way I am going to fall asleep right away.

The Mini Flood

So the water heater at the apartment across the hall from me started to break late Friday night and it semi-flooded the apartment below where the lady with the little dog that smokes outside all the time lives. In fact, I think she was the one who noticed it first and reported it. Anyways, there has been a flurry of golf carts in front of our building Saturday and this morning. I woke up this morning because I could hear this giant vacuuming sound outside and so I peeked out the window and it was one of those carpet restoration vans with giant hoses running through to the smoker’s apartment. Saturday when I came back from the mall, they had a long garden hose running down the stairs draining the water out of the old water heater. The maintenance guy was trying to drag the old one out this morning down the stairs without a dolly and he about dropped it, because I heard a “oh shit” with a southern accent and I about spit out my mountain dew because my recliner is right by my front door and I was reading the ads. It’s one of those situations that isn’t funny but it is.This is one of the reasons why I decided it was actually better to have the top level apartment with no one above me.
I made two and a half more preemie hats last night while I was watching episodes of My So-Called Life. I did end up going to Borders and buying more of the mini-clothespins for my inspiration board and they had Kathy Griffin’s new cd on sale so I bought it because I needed something to listen to on the LONG drive to Charlotte. Three hours isn’t that bad but it seems like it takes longer when you don’t have someone to ride along with you. I’m going down to visit my mom so I can pick up my doll and we are going to mail off all the classroom supplies we bought for my sister. It’s my contribution to society and I absolutely love school supply shopping even if I no longer have a need for them anymore.
Tonight is the Idina Menzel concert and I have been listening to the Wicked soundtrack in my car all weekend in anticipation. Even if she doesn’t sing any of her Broadway songs and just sings her solo material, I will still be happy because she has such an amazing voice and stage presence. Cross young fingers and knock on wood that it doesn’t rain because the concert is at an outdoor amphitheatre and it rained last night for a little bit. Plus I will be wearing my funky new ballet flats and my party shirt so I really don’t want to be sopping wet.

I just walked outside to take the trash out to the dumpster and the maintenance guy drug that old water heater all the way over to the dumpster and set in on the curb next to it. Lovely. I would think there would be restrictions on dumping those but maybe there isn’t or it will just stay there for a couple of weeks until someone else takes it away. Anyways, it complements the old mattress standing up to the old dumpster very well.

The Big Day

Today was a lot of fun. I went to the mall in Raleigh to meet up with a bunch of local people from Ravelry. It was cool to actually meet people in person since I had only PMed or read their posts previously. I finished the second placement for my sister. I had to rip it out and start over because I had made one placement before I left Oklahoma and when I originally made the second one I had left the first one behind so the second placement wasn’t the same size. So my sister brought them both back with her over 4th of July and so I ripped the 2nd one out last night and then restarted it and finished at the meet-up today. I am happy to say that they are both the same size and length now.
Earlier in the week I finally bought a copy of My So-Called Life on DVD. I loved that show when it first came out and was really mad when they cancelled it because I thought it accurately captured what high school was like (or at least it did for my high school experience). My American Girl doll is slated to arrive on Tuesday so I will pick it up when I go down to my parents house next weekend. My amazon order hasn’t shipped yet but it was a big order and I made the stupid mistake of clicking the “as few shipments as possible.”
I am almost finished reading A Girl Named Zippy by Haven Kimmel. She is really funny and will be coming to my new fav indy bookstore in Raleigh at the beginning of August so I might go to that.
I did survive Crate & Barrel without spending too much. I bought this amazing can opener because the one that came with the kitchen starter set my mom bought me at Wal-Mart when I moved out here is one of those crappy silver ones and it is a real pain in the ass to use. Since I eat a lot of stuff from a can, I thought this was worth the plurge. I could have bought other stuff but honestly I was just in total awe how cool their stuff was so I brought a catalog home with me so I could look at things later and not feel so overwhelmed. I also picked up some body butter at the Body Shop. My legs have totally dried out since I moved out here and I don’t know why and I was fresh out of body butter and then I bought some Fekkai shampoo at Bath & Body Works to try out. I am such a shampoo freak. I am always trying out different kinds. I also bought a new hairbrush at the Body Shop and it is amazing and it didn’t get stuck in my hair. I have thick coarse curly hair so, comb/brush shopping is always a crapshoot.
I ended up making a total of five preemie hats this week for the Preemie Project. They are so tiny and cute! It’s a good way to use up scrap yarn because it doesn’t use much of it.

The Finish Line

So I managed to finish the bag for the Going Green Swap 2 late Saturday afternoon but I didn’t finish it in time to mail it at the post office so I ended up mailing it after work at the far away post office that is open until 6pm ET unlike the closer one which is only open to 5pm. On the upside, post office #2 is really close to Whole Foods in Cary. Oh darn, I just had to stop. I’m glad I did because I discovered the most amazing croutons! Oh my god, I could eat just the croutons plain and I have only recently started liking the taste of croutons in general.
I also managed to make three preemie hats for The Preemie Project. They are so tiny. I made three out of them out of one skein of Wendy’s Peter Pan and I still had a little scrap yarn left. I also worked on the seafoam shawl and the shawl that I started knitting at my mom’s house over the 4th. My mom sent me home that weekend with a crapload of yarn which I am totally grateful for but it’s bugging me that I have no place to put it all, so it’s stacked up in my re-usable Whole Foods bags. I’m not sure if I want to buy some cubes to put it in or just leave it be and hope it inspires me to knit like the wind so that I can use it up! The Bud crate, the knitting basket and the big orange tub are all full! I realize that this is a pitiful stash size for many but this is the largest amount of yarn that I have had on hand in almost two years.
I managed to watch Sense and Sensibility this weekend and I also made it through all of Big Love: Season 2 on dvd while I was working on projects. This weekend is going to be busier. Saturday is knitting group and Sunday is the Idina Menzel concert (YAY!!—I’m so glad I decided to go). Knitting group on Saturday is at the big mall in the city and it should be interesting. I have never knitted or crocheted in a food court before. After is group is done then I am going to go shopping which could be bad. They have a Pottery Barn, Restoration Hardware, an Apple store and a Crate and Barrel and plus they have a MAC cosmetics store and Sephora. I really should leave my debit card at home. LOL. Honestly though, most of that will just be window shopping. I just bought an itouch, so I have my Apple fix for now. I’m not really sure which project I am going to take with me either. Probably a smaller one, because I don’t want to haul a big project around the mall with me.

Stuff

What a busy day. Everyone is severely cranky at work right now for a multitude of reasons, so I am really glad that I am going to be attending a Sales and Use Tax Seminar tomorrow. In order to inspire me to stay awake, I bought a new pink Hello Kitty pen with scented ink!, and I finally bought the special insulated Starbucks cup that looks exactly like the clear cups that your iced drinks come in. I am currently hooked on their blended lemonades. It is the perfect thing for when it is hot and really humid out. Since it was pay day, I ended up running a bunch of errands after work. I bought A’s birthday present and I had coupons to AC Moore and Michaels but there wasn’t any big ticket items that I had to have (and neither place carries Sock-Ease) so I ended up using it to buy baby yarn for my preemie hats that I am making.
I did order the American Girl Ruthie doll. I had it shipped to mom’s for safe keeping. American Girl dolls are nice and if the box doesn’t require a signature they just leave it on your doorstep so I just have important stuff sent to my Mom’s house and then I pick it up when I come visit. I did place my Amazon order too, I am getting the Mary Jane Farmgirl Lifebook by Mary Jane Butters, Project Runway Season three, the Raising Sand cd, and Margaret Cho’s movie Bam Bam and Celeste. I already know that I am going to watch Project Runway Season Three over and over again because that is what I have been doing with the first two seasons. Anything with Margaret Cho is a winner. Even my sister likes watching her dvds. I really like to watch dvds or crap reality shows while I am working on craft projects.
I am making progress on the seafoam shawl. I have used up the two smaller balls already and now I am starting the gigantic skein. It came in the pound of mill end yarn that I bought at AC Moore, so sometimes the yarn is skeined nicely and other times it is just a hot mess. I think it will go faster now since I have now crocheted farther on it then what I had to rip out the first time.
I also bought Penelope on DVD. I had seen the previews for it on other DVDs for the longest time and it finally came out and it has a preview for the Twilight movie (based on the Stephenie Meyer novel) so I am stoked about that too. I would have watched it tonight but by the time I came home from errands and Starbucks all these people called and I didn’t want to start the movie at 10 pm because I knew I had this seminar the next day and I have major problems paying attention at those things.

Raising Sand

I just literally came home from the Robert Plant and Alison Krauss concert in Raleigh. IT WAS SOOOOO AWESOME!!! I am wired all night, I can tell you that already. Robert Plant has always been one of my music icons. I have been a huge fan of his since my angsty teen years. He came onto the stage and with a dirty wink he said “have you been behaving?” and I was lost in his world. Alison Krauss is awesome. I wasn’t sure what she would be like without Union Station but she is awesome and I wish I could walk in boots that are taller than my knees and play the fiddle. They sang really well together and played their new songs, and some older songs from their perspective careers with new twists. I can’t even begin to describe how alive I felt inside. I was standing there, on my own, doing something I love dearly and I just felt completely free. Their opening act Sharon Little was really awesome too. I really liked her voice and I will have to see if her music is out on itunes because she is a new artist.
I am really proud of myself for making it to the arena and back without getting lost or having a nervous breakdown in the parking lot. PEOPLE WERE DRIVING OVER MEDIANS IN THEIR AUDIS!!! What the hell!!! They didn’t have a whole lot of merch, so I ended up buying the $40 souvenir program but it was hardcover and told about their creative process and the songs on their album and the photography and styling in it was great. I am going to keep it next to the Wicked book that Sunshine bought me when he went to see Wicked. I was so jealous that he has seen Wicked twice and I haven’t seen it all but then I found out Idina Menzel who was the original Elphaba is coming to town and I was able to get a ticket and it’s next weekend so now I think we are even. I am guessing she will mostly sing from her latest solo album but I am hoping for a song from Wicked or Rent. I just feel so fortunate that I am living in an area where I can see performances like these and not have to drive five hours or worry about having to stay in a hotel overnight.

The funny thing is that the one time I go to a concert without Sunshine and my sister, I have a completely normal concert experience. No smoke, no pot being passed around, it was indoors, air conditioned, you could hear clearly and there wasn’t any obnoxious people sitting next to me. I was in the lower balcony so I had a great view and I liked not being crammed down with the mess of people on the floor. I am really glad that I convinced myself to go because this was honestly the best concert I have attended. You never know what a musician is going to sound like live in concert but Robert Plant and Alison Krauss exceeded my expectations.

In some non-musical news, I received my Red Heart Swap package this week. She sent me some really pretty colors of TLC Essentials which I don’t have so I am looking forward to trying them out. Yay! It is like Christmas whenever I get a swap box in the mail. I am almost done making the bag for the Going Green 2 Swap and I would have finished it tonight but I had a date with Robert Plant and his tight jeans instead. LOL. So I am going to finish it tomorrow morning. I came home from work and my 64 peg extra-fine gauge sock loom from Décor Accents was waiting for me by my doorstep. Mom and I have been wanting to try one out so I went ahead and ordered one. I was so excited that I rushed in the door and called Mom to tell her about it. She is one of the few people in my life that can appreciate the joy of receiving a sock loom in the mail. I am going to try it out once I finish the Going Green bag.

I can’t believe that it is after midnight and I am still wound up like a corkscrew. Anyways, I highly suggest cranking up the music and dancing like nobody’s watching after you finish reading this post. It’s okay, really. I can’t dance or carry a tune either.


By the way, Sunshine, if you're reading this can you send up a flare or something so that I know you're still around and locked in the band closet or something?

The Big Rain

I’m kind of tired. I feel like I need a day to recover from the weekend. I had a really good weekend but I had the big drive and we did a lot of things over the weekend. Thursday after work, I made the Big Drive down to SC to see the folks. It’s about a three hour drive because of two bottlenecks – 1. Leaving the Triangle and 2. Concord/Kannapolis (NASCAR country and home of the big outlet mall. Leaving the Triangle wasn’t as bad as it could have been. It helped that I was heading West and not East towards the beaches. Concord is always bad and it doesn’t matter when I drive through there. There always seems to be some sort of traffic hold-up. I don’t recall doing much Thursday night. It was mostly show and tell time since my little sis had flown in on Tuesday. Friday, my sister and I ran some errands and that night we went to the Charlotte Knights/Durham Bulls baseball game. We had lawn seats which reminded us of the lawn seats we had at the DMB concert in 07. There were some interesting people sitting in front of us- the parents, the two sons and the girlfriends and they were all inappropriately dressed and groping each other periodically and throwing popcorn at each other. It was like having our own episode of The Real World only live and right in front of us. The coolest part of the whole thing was the fireworks show after the game. Those were some serious fireworks. Smiley faces, hearts, noisy ones, sparkly ones. It was really impressive and since we had lawn seats we had the best view in the stadium. The downside was that we didn’t make it out of the parking lot until 12:30 am, so I was really tired Saturday morning.
Saturday was mostly tv watching and a little more shopping. Since I don’t have a Hobby Lobby in my area (the closest one is like 1 ½ away) and Mom has one down the road from her house, we decided to go there for fun. It was a usual trip until we rounded the corner and saw a few balls of the new Lion Brand Sock-Ease and Red Heart’s Heart and Sole sock yarns! Holy Cow! This was the first time either one of us had seen it in stores and I let out the little joy squeal. It was kind of picked over and they only had one ball left of the colors but I bought one skein of Sock-Ease and three skeins of the Red Heart. I have decided that I am fired from shopping. I didn’t realize how much yarn I had accumulated since I arrived here until I came home this evening and had to start storing yarn in my vintage wood Budweiser crate. Oops! So I think I need to go on a spending diet because I still have plenty of money, but I did realize that I am shopping way more than I need to. So no more yarn buying until I use some of it up. When I was at Michael’s I did find these really cute Amy Butler fabric tags that I am going to use to decorate my Inspiration Board. It is really blank because I took it all off before I moved so I wouldn’t lose anything and I like to change the items out every few months or so. I also have mini clothespins and little binder clips with faux typewriter keys on them that I am going to use to hang stuff up on the Inspiration Board. I am going to try and work on it this coming weekend because the only event I have this weekend is the Robert Plant and Alison Krauss concert Friday night and that’s in the Triangle so I will have plenty of free time. I had a lot of quality crafty time with my mom and I got to see my little doggies so that was a good thing.
This morning (Sunday) I went to church with my Mom and then we went to the movie Kit Kitteredge: An American Girl. Yes, I am an American Girl doll fan. I still have my dolls and even though I don’t have them out on display now I still take them out every once in awhile to brush their hair and change their outfits. The movie was really good. Kit is the doll from the Great Depression era and a lot of the themes and situations in the movie parallel what our country is currently experiencing it. The kid actors were great and Julia Ormond (hello—Legends of the Fall) and Chris O’Donnell (uber hottie) played the parents and Stanley Tucci and Joan Cusack played the villain types and they were hilarious! Every once in awhile, I do break my rules, going to a kid’s movie is not my usual fare but I will always make an exception for an American Girl movie or movies like Nancy Drew last summer.
After the movie, it was time to load up the car. It was a torrential rain storm the entire way home and it is still raining hard as I type this. It took me an additional 30 minutes to get home because there were some parts where you could only see a car length ahead of you and people were going like 45 miles an hour on a major highway, that is how hard it was raining. There were several people that had pulled off the side of the road to wait it out and motorcyclists taking shelter under overpasses. It was no fun driving in that storm but I carried on because it looked like the rain wasn’t going to stop anytime soon and I wanted to make it home before it was night.
The temperature has cooled off because of the storms. It is sad when 70 feels cold. I think I am going to read for awhile before I go to bed because that is one of my favorite activities when it is storming. I have also decided that having my itouch on road trips is one of the coolest things ever. I was constantly using it to look things up and adding stuff to my calendar. So tiny, yet so much fun!
Anyways, I hope everyone enjoyed their long weekend. I know I won’t be the only one hitting the snooze button tomorrow morning.

Touch Me

So this morning I decided to buy an itouch to replace my desktop computer that was stolen. I paid the extra money and got the 16gb because I like to watch tv shows and movies on my ipod when I travel and the itouch has a bigger screen then the ipod. I bought this hard plastic clear case for it and now I can’t get it back off so that will be kind of interesting. Anyways, I turned it on and this girly gasp came out of my mouth. Now I understood why Sunshine bought his. It is just amazing. I was able to sink my calendar and my contacts with Mackie to the touch, which I have named Saffron. I am totally going to have to crochet a cozy for her.

I just drank a venti iced vanilla latte so I am sure I am going to be up late tonight. Lol. More time to crochet and play with my itouch! I blame my love of gadgets on my father. he always made me set up the computers and vcrs when I was younger and half the time he didn't give me a manual (typical engineer!).

Last night was more of a reading night. I read my new books while watching episodes of Ballykissangel Season 1 on dvd. Did i mention how much I love the BBC?

OMG! So I am sitting at my table in the corner at Starbucks and this family of little hellions comes in to sit down. One of the little boys flung his nasty flip flop in the air and it almost hit Mackie and I!!! I gave them the stink-eye because that little brat was not apologetic at all. Rolls her eyes. i am so NOT a kid person.

Anyways, I will probably post more after the holiday weekend when I am sure I will have more interesting stories to tell.

Happy July!

This summer is just flying by so fast. Last night after I came home from Starbucks and the mall, I ended up working on the seafoam shawl a little bit but my elbow was bothering me a little so I didn’t work on it for that long. Instead I ended up reading Candy Everybody Wants by Josh Kilmer-Purcell. This was a really easy read. It’s hilarious and I found it the indy bookstore this weekend. I was walking down the fiction aisle and saw the shiny metallic silver color and picked it up off the shelf. I liked it so much that I think I am going to look for a copy of his memoir to read. I’m not sure what I’m going to read next. I have six left that I have bought this summer so I really need to read them before I go and buy more but any serious reader knows that it doesn’t work like that. Especially, now that I live within 20 minutes of three huge bookstores.
I do think I am going to have to place another order from Amazon.com. I want to buy Season Three of Project Runway on dvd and all the places I shop at around here just have Seasons 1 and 2. I also hope that they release Season 4 on DVD soon because Christian is on that season and he is one of my favorites. I’m such a big fan that I ended up joining the pool on Ravelry for Season 5. Season 5 is the last season on Bravo and then it moves to Lifetime. Lifetime is better for me because it’s not a specialty channel but I hope they don’t tame the show for Lifetime otherwise it won’t be as funny.

Purse Love

So late last night we ended having this big thunderstorm and the power flicked off twice but nothing was ruined and the Subaru got a nice wash as a result.
I ended up finishing the green apple shawl and re-started the seafoam one last night. I will probably work on it some more tonight. I am sitting at the mall Starbucks because my sister mentioned that she has worn out all the hand me down purses i've given her and would i help her buy a new one? I was suspicious already. then she tells me about a really cute Dooney and Burke purse that she saw at Belk's with swimsuits on it but she has no clue how much they cost other than she knows that I have one so they are probably not cheap. LOL. That was literally a direct summary of the conversation. So we have a Belk's out here at the mall so I decided that I would investigate them after work. I got there and right over the Dooney and Burke section was a direct sign from God that read "40% off!!!" I rush over to the clerk and ask her if it's a joke and she said it was a special one day unadvertised sale. Now, this purse is way over her $50 limit I set for her so this is definitely going to be part of her birthday present since her birthday is August. I guess I was just so excited that she took an interest in any purse at all, but I am not buying her any Coach purses anytime soon. she has to prove she can take care of this one first. Anyways, it is a cute purse and if she decides she hates I will totally adopt it for myself. I just couldn't deny her, she actually asked me very nicely and she had a really shitty weekend so it didn't take much effort on her part.

I have also come to the conclusion that I could drink tall skinny iced vanilla lattes all year round. I have finally found my signature drink and I only had to move across country to discover it.

Anyhoo, scroll down after this post because I just posted two other posts that catch up on the month of June.

Sunday the 29th

I can’t believe that June is basically over. Where did this month go by or my weekend for that matter. I did go to the yarn store in Raleigh yesterday. It had a nice selection but I think that the one in Hillsborough carried more of my personal favorite yarns. I also went to the Whole Foods next door. They had these adorable locally grown Venus Fly-Traps and I really wanted to buy one but I didn’t because I have no clue at all how to care for them. Next door to Whole Foods is Quail Ridge Books and Music, which is a really cool independent book store. It’s nice going to indy book stores because you will find more small press books and a more diverse selection then what you will find at the big box stores.
Today I ended up going to Jo-Anns and I bought two Simplicity patterns from their Project Runway series (how cool is that?!!) and some odds and ends craft supplies. Then I went next door to World Market to buy some more Dr. Pepper Jelly Bellys (theirs come in a faux plastic pop bottle that is perfect for collecting sand) and it turned out that it was free tote bag day. Then on my way home, I decided to stop by the Borders because I hadn’t been into that location before. Seriously, people I can only visit them once a month. They have a HUGE selection of Paper Source products and some really cool magazines. I found this magazine called BBC Music, which is run by my favorite BBC people and it is essentially a magazine for classical music buffs and included a free cd, so I couldn’t resist buying it for Sunshine to put in his next box. I like classic music but I am a rock n roll girl to the core. I buy Rolling Stone magazine about every third issue because I don’t like to buy the ones with politicians or plastic chicks on the covers.
When I was not out stimulating the economy, I was working on the green apple shawl (I am almost finished with skein 2) and watching old episodes of Project Runway. I am so annoyed that I would have to get satellite tv to get the Bravo channel. I only have seasons 1 and 2 so I need to see if seasons 3 or 4 are out on dvd yet.
Anyways, I am excited that this is only a 4 day work week. YAY! The worst part about 4th of July weekend is that my idiot neighbors (and yours too probably) think it is fun to shoot off fireworks at all times of the day in the apartment complex parking lot in a state that is still in a drought and still on fire in some parts of the state. I enjoy fireworks from a safe distance with a ample water supply near by that are set off by pyrotechnic professionals. It scares me when they are set off carelessly because one of my worst fears is becoming engulfed in flames. It sounds like thunder outside but I peeked out my window and it is not raining yet so it is a big tease. I don’t like being wet either but I like the fact that the rain washes the dust off my car and makes the temperature about three degrees cooler.
I also did boring chores today. I managed to vacuum, clean the bathroom and do dishes. Yay for me! I hate chores. They interrupt precious crochet and reading time. I was mainly motivated to vacuum because I hadn’t vacuumed the areas where I had all the moving boxes piled up yet since they finally picked them up this past week.
It should be an interesting week. Hopefully work goes smoothly. We are short two people in my department and soon we will be short a third so that has made things sort of hectic around there. It is definitely making things interesting.

Where I've Been - The Big Recap

Damn near everywhere. Work all day and play all night. Lounging on the beach on the weekends. I finished a prayer shawl and started another one. I crocheted on the beach near Wilmington for WWCIP day. I crocheted at Myrtle Beach State Park and in the Subaru (when I wasn’t driving). I discovered another couple of yarn shops. I bought a ticket to the Robert Plant and Alison Krauss concert on July 11th. I had a blast the last week or so while Sunshine was visiting. I was completely SPOILED ROTTEN while he was out here. He supervised the delivery of my furniture, did chores, made spaghetti and cleaned the inside of my Subaru and made it sparkle inside. He is just so much fun to be around and manages to handle all my quirks. He is the only person I would get up at 4am eastern time to drive to the airport. I’m not even sure I would willingly do that for my sister.
I did finish reading the book Bonk by Mary Roach. This book is probably not for everyone but I was completely engrossed by it. You will definitely learn a lot about sex and the study of it from reading this book in a humorous and non-gross way. I have read a pile of magazines. I can’t help it, they last longer than newspapers and the good ones are like little flat books.
Wilmington was a lot of fun, but I think I would pick Myrtle Beach State Park as being my favorite beach. While in the Wilmington area, we went to the NC Aquarium at Fort Fisher. We walk in the front door of the Aquarium and this photographer pulls us over in front of a green screen and all of a sudden, he’s taking our picture without even telling us to say cheese. Sunshine hates the pictures but I honestly know we have taken worse pics and I am a sucker for souvenir. Right next to the Aquarium, is a nice state park beach (with free parking). Sunshine spent most of the time in the water and I spent most of the time sitting on my Little Mermaid beach towel crocheting the teal prayer shawl.
The day after Wilmington, we went to a newer yarn store in Hillsborough. I went a little nuts there, but it was all in the name of creativity and stimulating the economy. I bought Noro sock yarn, Plymouth Yarn Happy Feet and Brown Sheep Prairie Silk, some heart shaped stitch markers and a tiny tiny crochet hook the size of a tooth pick.
This past weekend, I rocked my world at the Hard Rock Café and the Hard Rock Park in Myrtle Beach. I rode the Led Zeppelin roller coaster and drank a rockuccino at the KISS Coffeehouse. The Hard Rock Park is really cool. The first time I rode the Led Zeppelin roller coaster I was scared shitless but the second time I was more prepared so I loved it. Our favorite ride though, was Moody Blues: Nights in White Satin – The Trip. You sit in a little car with 3D glasses on looking at all these optical illusions while listening to Nights in White Satin. Words cannot due justice to the awesomeness of this ride. You just kind of relax and are lost in the moment of it all and it is really peaceful. I think we rode it at least 4 times.
The Hard Rock Café in Myrtle Beach is really unique. It is in the shape of a pyramid and I had the world’s best Caesar salad there and the photographer there took one of the best pictures of Sunshine and I ever. Right around the corner is the KISS Coffeehouse. I love their French Vanilla Kiss Rockuccinos. Yum. They had a Cabbage Patch doll by the cash register that had full KISS face paint on and it was so awesome. I would totally do this to my old Cabbage Patch dolls but my mom would kill me.
We went to Myrtle Beach State Park and it is really pretty and you can find the biggest seashells there. I am not a huge fan of popular crowded beaches. Beaches are supposed to be pretty and peaceful. It also has a nice pier that you can walk out on and you can fish off the far end of the pier. I finished the teal shawl and started the seafoam one. Later on that week, I ended up frogging the shawl that I started at Myrtle Beach State Park. I was trying to gauge how much yarn it was going to take and I laid it out and realized it was the size of a couch cover and not a shawl, so I ripped it out and now I have a giant ball of seafoam green yarn sitting on my desk. I was so made that I started another shawl with the green apple Homespun that I had purchased on sale at AC Moore. I will use the seafoam green yarn eventually.
It really sucked to leave Myrtle Beach. I really felt like I was on an actual vacation there even though we only spent one night there. On the way down there we listened to Margaret Cho’s Revolution cd and it was absolutely hilarious. She is one of my all time favorite chicks and a true inspiration.
When we weren’t at the beach, I was at work or we were unpacking my furniture that finally arrived. We did a lot of shopping, I introduced Sunshine to the joy of Whole Foods and we found cool bookstore and club in downtown Raleigh. We also watched a couple of cool documentaries. This Thursday, I went to TJ Maxx for fun and they had a ton of Converses there and it was really hard not to buy a pair because I was really looking for new work shoes. Then on the last rack in my size range I found a pair of size 8 ½ Borns! Normally I don’t wear 8 ½ unless I am wearing arch supports or socks but they are narrow enough that I can keep them on without them slipping too much. So I bought $100 shoes for under $30 and I fully understand why my Mom and my sister love them so much. They are so cushy. These are brown leather squared off ballet flats with corset stitching on the heels and thin leather bow ties on the toes. They are hawt. I am wearing them to work today even though it’s casual day and I could wear Converses. I just have to wear new shoes right after I buy them. The funny part is that while Sunshine was here, we spent all this time looking at shoes for him, and I didn’t really see any that just had to come home with me. Then he leaves and I just find these cute little Borns that just called out to be adopted.
Prior to the shoes, I had gone to the Suncoast Video store in the mall in hopes of finding something to watch this weekend. I ended up finding a used copy of Big Love Season 2 and The Vicar of Dibley: A Holy Wholly Happy Ending. It was like 100 degrees out and I am pretty sure it is going to be like that here all weekend because when it rains it is only for a couple of hours and then sometimes we get a bunch of humidity afterwards.
So tomorrow, I am going to the post office to mail off swap stuff and post cards. I am also going to try and go to the yarn store in Raleigh. I don’t need more yarn but I am determined to experience everything possible while I am out here. 4th of July weekend I am driving down to Charlotte to see the parents and my sister who is flying in for the week. I am such a book slut and bought a copy of The Importance of Music to Girls, which is a memoir by Lavinia Greenlaw. It looked good flipping through it and it reminded me of my angsty teenage years lying on my bed listening to Nirvana and Pearl Jam and Led Zeppelin. I plan on working on the green apple prayer shawl and watching dvds for the majority of the weekend. It is just really hot again and I don’t like going to a ton of places when it is hot out because I become uber cranky very fast.

HOT HOT HOT!

So I'm still here. I am working on several mega posts but work was INSANE this week so I am not finished with them yet. I had so much fun with Sunshine last week that there is a crapload of stuff and funny stories for me to post about. I am hoping to finish the posts while I am at my parents for the big 4th weekend. LOL. Plus did I mention that as soon as Sunshine left the temperature returned to a 100 bazillion degrees? Yuck!

Random Crazy Talk

My home state is beyond flooded, my newly adopted home has wildfires and water usage restrictions. What is going on the world this summer?

THE MOVERS SUCK MONKEYS! Not the company just the driver. He failed to tell anyone that he wasn't going to make it until 4pm so now he has to load tomorrow morning. I am not a happy camper at all and don't even want to go into all the drama but if my stuff isn't picked up tomorrow and delivered on monday I am going to have a good ol' hissy fit of diva proportions.

In other news, my BFF Sunshine arrives tomorrow. I can't wait. It will be very nice to have company and show him the important things like my favorite Starbucks.

I started skein 3 of the prayer shawl tonight and plan to make more progress tonight while I am watching Project Runway Season 2 and Army Wives Season 1. Damn Barnes and Noble DVD sales. I am also a giddy dork because New Kids on the Block has released their new single Summertime and it takes me back to the days when I was young and beautiful and skinny and optimistic.

Other than that, I am mainly doing some last minute chores and trying to deal with the relocation BS in a calm manner. i have been reading several books too lately.

Vanilla Latte Heaven

I am happily addicted to iced vanilla lattes now. I blame it on the heat, the high gas prices and the change of place. They are actually really good and I have a tall one once a week. LOL.

I am also blaming the heat for going to Target and buying a new comforter, a throw pillow and a portable bed. the comforter is plain white but I decided it would be easier to save the color for the accent throws and pillows so that if I wanted to change my style I could.

I started skein 2 on the shawl yesterday afternoon and I have made it 3/4 of the way through of that skein. It is going fast, so I might be chaining on another one sometime this week.

Work is wonderful and the movers packed my stuff up back in Oklahoma and I didn't receive any frantic phone calls from my sister which was a good sign I think. I am also loving my pedal pushers that I bought at the mall this weekend. They turned out to be a good thing after all.

Sunday Morning

So last night and this morning I started listening to some back episodes of Brenda Dayne’s Cast-On from the summer of 2006 just to have something to listen to while I was working on the prayer shawl. I have found that I crochet faster when I listen to her podcasts because her voice is steady and entertaining and I achieve a really nice rhythm. I also put down the last of the drawer liner that I bought in Charlotte last weekend and organized my yarn stash out here a little. I told myself that I was just going to use up the yarn that I packed to come out here and I wasn’t going to buy anything new. I kind of failed on that one but it’s not my fault that there is an LYS like a mile away and a Joann’s, Michaels and A.C. Moore within a three mile distance of me.
Tonight is baseball game #2 and this time I have a box suite ticket. I am dreading the driving and parking thing because this time I have to drive myself. At least it will be daylight so that it will be easier to find exits and such.
I haven’t made much progress on the decorating front and I think that a lot of it is that I want to see how my current furniture and possessions fit into the apartment before I make decisions on new stuff to buy. The other problem is that I am really picky and things end up either being overpriced or I find that I just don’t love them enough to buy them.

Technically a Saturday Post

It is so stinking hot. I honestly thought I would have a couple more weeks before it hit above 90. This is full sun too, it has rained twice since I have been here, but not heavy rain, just enough to wash the layer of dust off the car. I can’t believe I spent Friday at the ballpark and lived to blog about it. It was a good thing that it was a night game but those first couple of hours were miserable hot. I had a blast though. It was my first time to see the Durham Bulls play (AAA baseball) and it was a good game and it was fun spending time outside the office with my new co-workers.
I heard from the movers this past week. They pack on Monday, load on Thursday and my stuff will allegedly be out here on the 16th but that won’t be confirmed until they load my stuff up. It’s mixed feelings because I will be glad to have my stuff again but the whole unpacking process is going to potentially suck a lot and poor Sunshine will be here that week. I am apologizing in advance for the box pile. It’s a small price to pay for living in such a nice area and having a job that I love now.
Today I ventured out and discovered Whole Foods and the yarn store that is like a mile from my house. Karma has been very good to me lately. Whole Foods was fun. I didn’t realize that you could actually eat there. You can buy chocolate in like pound bricks. I didn’t buy any because it would’ve melted in the car on my errands.
The yarn store was probably the best part of the day. They carry hooks!!! Like Addi hooks and Brittany hooks and a few aluminum hooks. I was slap-happy because a lot of yarn stores only have knitting needles and the lone hook for weaving in ends. So I replaced the Brittany size H hook that was stolen over Christmas and I bought two skeins of Patagonia Nature Cotton color 212 to use for a swap and then I bought a skein of Colinette JitterBug in Kingfisher. The Patagonia is a aqua/seafoam blend and the Kingfisher is a black/purple/blue/green mix that just popped out at me. They even sell back issues of Vogue Knitting (some from the early 90s even) and it was so tempting to buy a bunch but I am supposed to be saving money so I resisted. Anyways, the store is in an old house and it is covered from floor to ceiling in yarn and it is a small square of heaven. I walked in the front door and I was like damn, this is better than an old lady’s attic! I spent an hour there and I know I only saw about ¼ of the yarn there. They even carry tatting supplies and they have a couple of spinning wheels in the back. I was in a major crafty mood today because I used my 15% off coupon at BN to buy Amy Butler’s Sew-It Kit. It has some really cool patterns and I am a huge fan of her fabric.
I am still working on the shawl for my mom’s prayer shawl ministry at her church. I think I have finished about a foot so far. I would be making faster progress but I was dumb and started this in single crochet and it’s some Red Heart Plush that was donated to the group so it doesn’t frog easily, so I decided to just keep going with the single crochet. Their goal is to have 59 shawls completed by Christmas so that they can give one to each resident of a local nursing home that her church has adopted. It’s a nice summer project because it doesn’t cover your whole entire lap so you don’t get as hot but you can finish them a lot quicker than an afghan.
Hell also froze over for a little bit because I bought a pair of pedal-pushers at Lane Bryant that cost more than my jeans. The problem was that I wanted long shorts made out of a reasonable quality material that were plain and did not have a bunch of wild colors, sequins, embroidery or weird washes. Anyways, they are the perfect fit and a nice shade of khaki and now I won’t sweat to death going to the beach and baseball games this summer. I looked at swimsuits and said hell no. Anything that was remotely cute was a bikini and you couldn’t pay me enough to go out in public in a bikini or even a tankini for that matter. I also found a waterproof wristlet that I can snap on to my pants when I am at the beach or the amusement park because I am not taking my beloved Coach purse to the beach and get sand all over it. It’s really cute and it’s big enough to fit my chapstick, cell phone, keys and chapstick in. Plus it was 50% off at Aeropostale so it was only $5 which made it even better.

It's 95 degrees and I am in a coffee shop

Well, Mackie and I decided to try out the atmosphere at the Starbucks by the new apt. I really like the setting especially once the creepy old guy stopped staring at my boobs. Seriously? It was beyond obvious. Anyways, since it was hotter than hell, I decided to not buy my usual hot cocoa and I bought a mint mocha chocolate frapp. It's like someone stuck a Thin Mint in your frapp. Pretty tasty, but I still taste the coffee part. I am trying really hard to become a coffee addict, but it is slow going. I love the music they play in the store too. Anyways, I got a little wifi account so now I have internet access and I don't have to commit to either dsl or cable. I just hate setting up all that when I am going to be moving at least 2 times within the next three years because of the rotational program that I am. Plus, if I had internet in my apartment, I would never leave and since I live in a metro area now, I feel like I need to take advantage of the opportunities.

I did make it to my parents' house outside of Charlotte this weekend. It took me three hours and I did not get lost once, so that was good. I met my aunt's canadian fiancee for the first time so that was cool. The best part was seeing Sex in the City the movie. I ended up buying the movie book and the tv show episode guide. I definitely want to see it again. I ended up getting some apartment stuff while I was there and it took me forever to get it all back in the house when I came home saturday night.

I did finally get a date from the movers. I have bribed my sister into handing the whole thing. all I have to deal with is when my stuff finally gets out here. Anyways, I about dropped the phone when my moving coordinator said they were coming to Oklahoma to pack on Monday the 9th. yes, that is June. Hence sister bribery. Hello Apple. Buying her a little Nano video was a lot cheaper then buying a last minute plane ticket.

I did order Sunshine's plane ticket today and it was way cheaper than I had budgeted for. YAY!!! Anyways, he has this crazy idea that we are going swimming in the ocean and doing beachy stuff. I don't mind going to the beach or getting in the ocean but the whole swimsuit in public thing is a totally different story. We will have to see. I will add that to my list of things to do when I go to the mall next. I really want to go to the brand new Hard Rock Park in Myrtle Beach so that I can ride the Led Zeppelin roller coaster. I think we will do the Outer Banks too since he will be here for two weekends. I've kind of left the schedule up to him. He is the planner. I might be a planner at work but when it hits 5pm ET, all planning stops and I just do whatever.

Anyways, I will post more soon.

Life in the Enchanted Forest

I need to give a little shout out to Sunshine and let him know that this entry is proudly posted from the Barnes and Noble by my new apartment. LOL. I heart wi-fi. Anyways, I am living in my apartment now. I have slept there for two nights and yes, it is completely undecorated and has like no furniture but I still love it. I am supposed to talk to the moving people on Tuesday after the holiday.

I have discovered the Barnes and Noble, the Target, Michaels, grocery stores, and AC Moore. Once I am done at BN, I am going to visit Bed Bath and Beyond. All of this is within a five mile radius from work and home. I have died and gone to some sort of nerd heaven. I filled up on Sunday and it is Saturday and I haven't even used a 1/4 tank of gas yet. I am still in shock.

I don't have cable or internet set up at home yet. That is on my list of things to do after payday and before Sunshine visits. he has informed me that normal people have things like tv and internet and furniture and silverware. I do have silverware, it is just made out of recyclable plastic. I guess my main concern is finding a way to decorate the white walls without violating the apartment's long list of decorating no-nos. I did see some stuff I liked at target last night so i am going to keep that in mind for when I get paid and I can decorate. I have money still but I am squirrling it away because I spent so much in apartment costs and hotel and gas to move out here that my debit card hates me. Luckily, now that I don't have to spend a bazillion dollars on gas for my commute I can use that to buy fun things. YAY FOR ME!

Lucky for me, Lime N Violet has put out two podcasts within the last week or so, so I am not bored and I have something to listen to while I am hanging out in the new apartment.

I just thought I would wave hello, so that people know that I am still alive, I have just been busy relocating and learning the new job.

P.S. Did I mention that the climate out here is turning my hair into a hot mess of spiral curls? Is this good or bad? I'm not sure yet but my co-workers seem to think it looks great. I just wish people would stop touching my hair when I have it down. I don't know where your hands have been people!

Finally!!!!

So after a few delays, everything is finally straightened out and I got my apartment. I get to pick up the keys on my lunch break tomorrow. I was going to do it after work today but then the IT guy at work brought over my new computer at like ten minutes til 5pm (eastern time) so I didn't leave on time. Then we were walking out of the office and it just started pouring like the sky was going to fall and I knew that there was no way I was going to make it to the grocery store to get a money order and make it over to the apartment office before they closed at 6pm. It would be different if I knew my way around here but I don't and there is a ton of crazy drivers and trees around here. I did manage to get my renter's insurance taken care of and electricity set up.

I finished my pink placemat and I think the 2nd one for my sister is basically finished but I am not sure if it is the right length or not because the first one I made is at the Oklahoma house. I started another RH Mexicana scarf with a skein from my stash here just so I would have something to take my mind off things while I was waiting on the apartment stuff.

I'm not planning on going anywhere for Memorial Day weekend other than doing some exploring around my neighborhood. After all of this traveling it will be kind of nice to stay in one place. Hell, I might even decorate a little. That's a big maybe on that.

Anyways, once I check out of the hotel it might be a week or two before I can post again because they are picky at work about using the internet and I am waiting until payday before I set up the internet because I just spent a bejesus amount of money on the trip out here and rent.

Finally Here!

I am sooooo tired. We didn't make it to the hotel until 2am last night because of all the time we spent at Cooter's Place (Dukes of Hazzard Museum) and Dollywood but it was completely worth it. It was sunny the whole entire trip right up until a couple of minutes ago when it started raining. My sister is currently on her way back to Oklahoma (flying of course). My mighty Subaru was a trooper and held strong the whole trip even when we were winding through the Great Smoky Mountains. I died a little inside when I tallied up all my gas receipts because with our detour to Dollywood in Pigeon Forge, TN it was a grand total of 1200 miles one way which makes me really glad that I got an oil change before I left.

We took I-40 all the way out there. I think every bug in Oklahoma and Arkansas died on my car windshield. We drove past 52 Cracker Barrels (we might have missed a couple but pretty close). By the time we made it to Little Rock, the sun had already gone down and so there wasn't much to see but I did see a couple of signs for Bill Clinton's Presidential Library. We drove through Memphis and it really sucked because it was late at night and they had two lanes of I-40 closed due to construction. We made it through and stopped for the night at a Hampton Inn in Jackson, TN. Even though we didn't get there until 2am it was worth it because then we had less of a drive on Saturday and more time to do stuff. Plus this Hampton Inn had only been open since the beginning of this year and IT WAS AWESOME. Big plasma tv, granite shower, a bed that we had to take a running leap to get into and it was really nice to stay there after such a long day.

Driving through Tennessee was GORGEOUS. I still can't get over all the trees that are in TN and NC. It is like some big enchanted forest. I had promised my sister that we would be able to stop along the way and do some touristy things. One of my old co-workers had told me that Ben "Cooter" Jones from Dukes of Hazzard had a museum called Cooter's Place. My sister and I grew up watching Dukes of Hazzard on tv (i saw some of them when they originally aired) and so when I told her about it she said we had to stop. By a twist of fate we happened to go there on a day when Cooter himself was going to be doing an autograph signing. I was a little nervous waiting in line due to the excitement of it all but it was all worth it. He is one of the nicest people and nicest celebrities you will ever meet. He talked to us and even posed for pics and signed our souvenirs and even gave me directions to Raleigh! I am going to frame my autographed picture and proudly display it when I move into my apartment. It was a neat place. there is a gift shop and memorabilia to see and a good representation of the vehicles are on display.

Next door to Cooter's Place was a little musuem called Willie Nelson and Friends Museum Showcase. It was started with some memorabilia purchased at Willie Nelson's tax evasion auction. It had some cool stuff in it. it was one of those things where we were like why not and I don't think that either one of us wanted to get back in the car right away. there was a Wax Museum next door but we didn't go through it because it was going to be $9 each and it looked like it wasn't going to be that fancy.

Finally we were on our way again. We took a slight detour so that we could go to Dollywood in Pigeon Forge. Neither one of us had ever been there before but I am a huge Dolly fan, so I knew that we had to stop since we were going to be so close. Pigeon Forge is like a mini Branson. It seemed like we constantly had to stop for stoplights and there was a lot of traffic. It is one of the prettiest theme parks I have ever been to. It's nestled in the Smokies and there are trees everywhere which was nice because then it wasn't as hot. We only got to spend a couple of hours there since we got there just before closing but it was so much fun. There was a lot of craftsman demonstrations that were interesting and I was able to get some pins at the pin shop. I definitely plan on going back.

Driving through the Smoky Mountains wasn't as bad as I thought it would be but we did drive through a couple of tunnels and there were some places where we had to slow down to 45 and 50 mph because of the steepness and curves. We drove by Asheville, NC but it was pitch black by then and late at night so I didn't really see much driving through there. By the time we made it to my temporary home aka the hotel it was 2am and all we wanted to do was hit the sack.

This morning we slept in. the whole Eastern time is really messing with me. It feels like i am getting gipped an hour but I finally got all my clocks changed over so that I knew what the hell time it was. We watched some tv and then we headed over to the apartment office as soon as it opened since I wasn't going to have much time before I had to take her to the airport. The apartment complex is gorgeous and clean and QUIET. I actually got to tour the actual apartment and it is really nice and very white. No 70s decor here. everything is painted white and I have a light beige kitchen and a balcony and a walk in closet. it is a very pretty area with lots of trees, sand volleyball, tennis, a pool and fitness center. Unless it turns out that I have some criminal background that I don't know about then I should be able to move in on Tuesday which would be great because then I could check out of the hotel early and hopefully save a little money. It is all electric so that saves me from having to call another utility.

Anyways, tomorrow is the first day of work so hopefully everything goes well. i think it will be fine, it's just kind of the big scary until I get there and meet my department.

East Bound

Okay, so I lied. I decided to post today just for kicks. My entire life is in a ziploc bag. Lol. well several of them. Snacks, candy, tolietries, computer cords. It is a little crazy, but this is what happens when you move out of state and not just across town. I updated the maps on TomTom the GPS so we will not be led astray. He is snug as a bug in a rug in his hot pink felted Malabrigo case. It kind of coordinates with Mackie the laptop's pink sleeve.

Yesterday, I ran a bunch of errands and watched Project Runway Season 1 on dvd. I needed something to keep me occupied since I fidget too much when i am at home all day. I have been busy printing off all my hotel reservations and maps and addresses to places. It is kind of crazy. I have two folders and a ziploc bag full of important papers.

I know it will be fun, it will just be interesting because I have never driven cross-country east before past Memphis anyways. I feel like I am taking a ton of stuff but most of it is stuff the movers won't take or stuff I don't want to get lost in the move. I think i will be able to fit it all in the trunk with the cover pulled over it.

Happy Trails!

Covered Wagon

So today was my last day at work locally. I start at the new unit on Monday and hopefully I am as smart as everyone says I am. It was really sweet. My co-workers took me out to eat at one of our favorite places and they bestowed me with lots of nice gifts and cards and gave nice speeches. I think i have been hugged more times today then I have in the last year. The sis and I leave friday afternoon to make the big trek out east. I feel like I should be loading up the covered wagon and saying good-bye to Pa. Okay, maybe not that dramatic because the covered wagon is really a Subaru.

I did receive a package from my spoiler in the Swap on a Budget. The highlights include stitch markers, MALABRIGO (YUMMY!), Eucalan, pure Maine maple syrup, candy, and the tiniest bamboo crochet hook I have ever seen, and a little felted case that just happens to fit my Tomtom perfectly. So I was really excited to receive all the goodies and managed to eat the candy and shove the rest into my knitting basket that I am taking with me as one of my "necessities" in the Subaru.

For the road trip, I purchased the new issues of Interweave Knits, Creative Knitting and the book knitalong: Celebrating the Tradition of Knitting Together. I also found a used copy of Loving Frank by Nancy Horan which is the fictionalized love tale of Frank Lloyd Wright and Mamah Cheney. This is also intended to help me bide the time until I am into an apartment and my stuff is moved in. Plus, the tv lineup for this summer really blows, so this might just be the push I need to read more. I also downloaded Pearl Jam's Ten album. it is my all time favorite cd and around a year ago, i accidently shut it in my dash lid and it broke in half, so I downloaded it on itunes so I could have some good tunes to accompany us on the long trip.

Anyways, I don't know how much I will be able to post in the next couple of weeks. Assume that I am still alive, I am just going to be busy starting a new position and trying to find things like an apartment and knit nights.

Wicked Storms

So this weekend there was some bad storms in the region, but we lucked out and completely missed them and it was sunny with high winds all weekend. I did talk to Relocation on Thursday morning and received my relocation money on Friday so things are moving faster. My sister's return ticket is ordered and I am working on the apartment thing but it is really hard to apartment hunt when you are not on that side of the country. Friday morning I ended up selling my books back online, I keep forgetting to buy boxes but I plan on mailing them prior to leaving for NC on friday.

I did buy a GPS. It is a Tomtom like the one that Sunshine and Debbie Stoller have. I am such a follower! It's programmed but i keep forgetting to take it with me in the car! Maybe I will take it with me on my commute. I have purchased two books for the road trip--The Host by Stephenie Meyer (author of the Twilight series) and Wicked Lovely by Melissa Marr. Wicked Lovely is a YA book about faeries that I saw on the rack at Target and I thought what the hell, it's written by a Melissa and it is about faeries, so I think it will be good road trip reading. Road trips are supposed to be fun and carefree, so I didn't want to bring any serious literary-type books with me. I also bought P.S. I Love You and Living with Ed Season 1 on DVD and watched those while I was hanging out around the house.

I am almost finished with placemat #1 for my sister which is made from some orange/pink/yellow sugar n cream cotton. it was supposed to be for the new kitchen table, but when we brought it home from Kmart, one of the underneath pieces of the table top was broken and so we had to take it back to Kmart and it was such an ordeal in the first place that we didn't get another one. Note to self: do not let high-schooler stockroom boy jam a table into the back of your subaru. Sunday morning, we went to Wal-mart to get my sister a new bookshelf and we got this $18 bookcase and we get the back all nailed on and realize that it is like the leaning tower of pisa bookcase because of the way the pre-drilled holes and the crooked-cut back. So it is still upstairs because neither one of us thought we could take the back off in one piece and our dumpster is full right now.

I have decided that I am DEFINITELY NOT buying any furniture for the new apartment until sunshine comes to visit because A). he enjoys furniture shopping and B). he has handy-man skillz and likes assembling things and I am convinced that he has more patience than I do. My mother and Sunshine have started this little campaign to convince me to actually buy furniture for my place like a real bed (to replace my futon) and my mom keeps mentioning dirty words like lamps and end tables and a couch! I really that these are normal, basic ideas but I just honestly don't care about decorating and furnishing a home. I am not a nester.

It is amazing how fast time flies by. I am really not sure where the weekend went. My head keeps spinning with all the things I need to do for the Big Move. I'm sure everything will be all fantastic in the end, but I until I get to that point it is going to be all shades of crazy.

Things

Well HR blows. they screwed up my paperwork and that is what took so damn long. after several frantic emails and phone calls, it has been fixed and I should hear from relocation hopefully tomorrow. I am still starting the new job on the 19th. Little Sis and I are going to drive out starting on the 16th, in the Subaru (full o yarn) Thelma and Louise style sans Brad Pitt and we are not planning on driving off a cliff. New boss has found me an potential apartment so I might not have to crochet a house out of yarn. This is a plus. LOL. Isn't it good that I am maintaining a sense of humor? I just keep reminding me that they are PAYING ME to move to an awesome place.

I am not making much crafty progress this week. I started having allergy issues today. I think I am allergic to either the outdoors or my cubicle. It's muggy which I don't like. I am just cranky right now I guess. It's finals week too. It also doesn't help that they are tearing up two major streets downtown, so driving home takes longer and I never know which lane is going to be open today.

Anyways, I am taking another personal day on friday, so I can sell my stupid textbooks back, work on a Ravelry swap and visit the insurance people. I also need to figure out what I am going to take out there with me to tide me over until I am in an apartment and my stuff is moved in.

Princess and the Purse

I finally did it! I bought my Coach purse! I am in my own little state of Nirvana. It is the Soho hobo small flap (camel color). it is the perfect fit for my shoulder and it holds everything I need with some spare room. I even bought the special cleaner for it to keep the fabric all nice and beautiful. I feel especially grown up carrying it around. I also stopped at the Origins store and bought a tube of their lip saver which is amazing!! I did go to Barnes and Noble and I bought a magazine and I bought the paperback edition of Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver. I originally checked out this book when it first came out in hardback at the library. There is just so much good information and it is really well written.

We also ate at The Cheesecake Factory. Even though they stuck us at the tiniest table there, the slice of cheesecake I had for dessert was completely awesome (and totally worth it even though I don't really tolerate dairy well). I would like to state for the record that Sunshine spoils me rotten! He is so patient with me when I drag him on all of my shopping and yarn expeditions. He taped a bunch of my Bravo shows for me so I got to watch them on his big new tv and crochet and it was just fantastic.

It was definitely a cultural weekend. I went to a band concert and an orchestra concert and listened to NPR (which I secretly love). Sunshine and I drove over to A's house to see her and L. That was a very interesting experience. I don't think I will be having kids any time soon.I think the best part of the visit was the light up crochet hook she gave me (it lights up really bright) and the brief trip to Jo-Ann's Etc store which is like the supercenter version of Jo-Ann's. I bought a skein of Debbie Mumm's Traditions yarn in Chocolate Raspberry because it was so pretty and soft and it is 75% acrylic and 23% wool. If it didn't say Debbie Mumm for Jo-Ann's on it you would mistake it for fancy yarn store yarn.

I finished a pink placemat made of Sugar n Cream. I started the Malabrigo purse but I don't see how in the hell one skein is going to make this purse, so I think I am going to have to call my mom and have her interpret the pattern for me. I am happy to report that Sunshine's cat loves her new kitty bed and that he liked the plarn bag that I made for him.

Anyways, now I am back home and have to go back to work tomorrow. Boo! I don't want to deal with annoying HR and Relocation people.

Same Old Song and Dance

I have now started stripe five on the stripy shawl and from the looks of it I am almost certain that it will need a sixth stripe at least. I've been working on it because I am hesitant to start any projects that might require thought at the moment. Plus, Rambo the co-worker loaned me his copy of Oil! by Upton Sinclair which was the basis for the movie There Will Be Blood. I have been reading it in between reality tv shows. I really like Upton Sinclair's style of writing, I had read The Jungle in gifted and talented class back in middle school and found it to be fascinating (and gross). So this book is sucking up my crochet time, but that's okay since this book needs to be returned by the time I move.

Not much is really going on right now. I have been sitting around waiting on the stupid Relocation people to call me back which is annoying me to no end. I should have more to report after this weekend's festivities are over

Playing on my ipod: Love Remains the Same - Gavin Rossdale (I heard this on last night's episode of The Hills and loved it so much I had to download it because I have always been a fan of Gavin's music).