Dainty Kitty

I Crocheted a Ski Hat in June

'Cause I'm all crazy like that.

Tahoe Ski Hat pattern from Crochet Hats! by Candi Jenson (which I picked up at Marshalls the other day for a mere $2.99 - go me).

Granny Squares & Wild Things

I picked up 200 Crochet Blocks by Jan Eaton at the library the other night and tried out block 161 - Daisy Chain.  I might make another and two plainer squares for a pillow cover.  Or maybe this'll just end up on my wall in the craft room.

While I was at the park, photographing my little granny square, I caught a flash of yellow out of the corner of my eye. This was all I was able to capture with my camera:

I had to run but I'm going to go back later.  If I can manage to capture this elusive fellow I think I have a friend who could provide a very good home for him....

In other news, I spent Tuesday night going through my clothes and dropped four bags off at Goodwill this afternoon.   Egads, did that feel good!  I got rid of two-thirds of the clothing that hung in my closet and I still have my summer clothes to go through. 

I managed to only hang on to a couple of things that I should have given away: the sweater I had my senior photo taken in and a light brown, men's corduroy jacket that I love love love.  I'm going to cut the jacket up and make it into a tote bag.   If the sweater were feltable I'd make it into a bag as well but it's not - I don't know what I'm going to do with it.  It's too tacky to wear but too sentimental to get rid of.  If anyone has any suggestions, I'd love to hear them!

On the Net for Reasons Other Than Blogging

The Alefest was voted Best Festival in Dayton and they used a photo of us!  It's not the most flattering photo of me but I can pretty much guarantee that I was feeling full and more than a bit inebriated by that point in time, hence my relaxed state.

(That's my dad in the red hat and my mom to his right - the other guys, I think, work with my dad)

Tagged

Tagged by Squeezleknits

 

What were you doing 10 years ago?

I was working on my craft room yesterday and pulled a water damaged photo album (I had a window that leaked in my last apartment and it must have been on the shelf under said window) out of a box.  I flipped through it, wanting to see if I should keep it or just take some of the photos out and trash the album.

Oddly enough, it was from ten/eleven years ago.  There were even photos in there from June 9^th, 1998…nearly ten years to the day!  I had graduated from Wright State a year earlier with a degree in English with an emphasis on Creative Writing and was working as a copy writer for a financial company (which later went under and the founder is now serving time for doing some pretty bad things).  I was with my first real (I had another but I don’t count him) live-in boyfriend, Nate, and just months away from a pretty bad break up and a major (for me at least) shift in my life. 

 

I never thought I’d be the type but I wore combat boots (that I actually need to photograph because I’m finally going to throw them away even though I still love their cracked soles) that Nate bought me when we very first started dating.  When I think of Nate, I think of his comic book collection which was…um, almost like living with a third person who never left behind any dishes for me to wash.  I collected teddy bears and had just gotten a sewing machine.  And I ate a lot of hot food – something I haven’t cared for since.    

What are 5 things on my to-do list?

1. Take care of all the account transfers on my desk
2. Buy yarn to crochet a summer hat
3. Spend at least an hour working on the craft room
4. Get the chicken ready to make Baked Fried Chicken by the Barefoot Contessa tomorrow night
5. Find a dessert to take to the family reunion this Saturday (suggestions welcome!)

It was actually kind of hard to come up with five things.  Mondays don’t motivate me much – I’m going to guess that maybe three of these things will actually get done today. 

Where have I lived?

Bah.  Dayton and Columbus – both in Ohio.  Oh and, if you were at the dinner before my five year reunion, there was that small stint in California where I lived with Pierce Brosnan. 

What would I do if I was a billionaire?

I have thought about this WAY too much.  What to do with my cats while I traveled the world kept getting in the way.  Since this isn’t likely to happen I’m going to pretend I don’t have cats.

I’d quit my job (ahem) and pay off all of my piddly little debts.  Take care of my family.  Travel and buy a home in a little town in Italy as well as in Charleston, South Carolina.  Meet my blog friends in cool places.  I’d take lots of photography and cooking classes and outfit myself with a kick ass kitchen.  And of course, I’d knit and crochet with whatever yarn made my little heart pitter pat.
 

And, because I’m terribly likeable and now well known, meeting celebrities would be a breeze.  I’d have dinner with Elvis Costello and make a failed attempt to woo him away from Diana Krall. Oh well – it was worth a try.

Who would I like to know more about?

 

Kim - Hand Eye Crafts

Delly - Delly Bean (if she ever gets a chance)

Bertha - Karma Kitties

Lisa - Punch Pink - because I love Ginny's idea of having her answer the questions with photos.  :-)

and Mary - Mary Love - because she's fallen off the face of the earth and I keep meaning to email her.  :-)

My Political Heart

There's not much room in my heart for politics but Tim Russert took up what little space there was - I'm really going to miss him.

Kitschy Crewel

I spotted this from across the room, high up on a shelf at the Salvation Army (which used to be a dance club/skating rink called the Bus Stop because the dj booth was the front of a school bus and the back end stuck out into the parking lot).  I walked across what used to be the skating rink, sure that it would have a large price tag because a.) retro is "in" and b.) the Salvation Army puts stupid ridiculously high price tags on some things but was delighted to find that it was in excellent condition and the frame was just as unique as the piece itself.  And what's the price on that little blue sticker?  $4.99?  Hooray! 

I love this nearly as much as I love my scrapghan.  No, wait...I might actually love it more.  Maybe.



This kind of kitsch is representative of how I'd love my entire apartment to look.  I've always loved that seventies look even though you'd never know it to see my apartment now.  My last apartment, that is, since the current one is a serious work in process.  I also found the most amazing hide-a-bed couch at a second hand store a few weeks ago.  I nearly purchased its green, yellow and white flowery goodness.  It was a bit steep at $250 but it was in fantastic shape and, honestly, how great is a hide-a-bed?  I'm sure someone snapped it up but it's been on my mind like a boy I met at a bar, talked with for hours and then let get away without a name or number.   Finding that bed, this picture and starting that afghan has made me think about how I thrift shop (mostly books) and I think I might focus more on this kind of stuff - the stuff that makes me happy. 

My New Love

I'm in love and I can only hope that our relationship is strong enough to see us through to the tail end.

No I'm not talking about any man/boy.  I'm talking about the scrapghan I started last week.  I love, love, love it!

I've got eighteen rows finished and I'd be tickled if I could keep up this pace but I'll be happy with any pace if I can finish it by September.  So far I haven't had to repeat any colors but I did have to go out and buy a couple skeins because I was lacking in a couple of bright colors (pink and orange) and I needed to balance out my plethora of greens and blues.  I knew I had a lot of greens because it's my favorite color but I have even more blues which was surprising. 

4,501 stitches so far (the one is because I double crocheted twice into one space on a blue row and refused to go back and fix it since I didn't find it until I'd gotten to it with the next row)!

The Zoo

I picked up a very distracting splinter on the bottom of my right foot while I was at the park for lunch today.  This is why everyone should carry a Swiss Army knife, I guess.  And - note to self - putting rubber cement on a splinter does not have the same effect as Elmer's Glue. 

Saturday I took a trip to the Columbus Zoo.  Unfortunately, I didn't get very many good photos because a lot of them they were taken through glass and I desperately need to clean my camera lens so everything kind of has this white glow.  I will share a couple, though.

It must have been near feeding time for this Bengal tiger because he'd travel from one side of the window to the other, turn around and then wait at each of the doors that you can't really see up in the left hand corner of the photo...and then start all over again.  This is an example of a not so good photo but there's a reason why I'm posting it.  I was crouched right where he made his turn so I came face to face with him several times (because I couldn't pull myself away, "One more time, one more time....").  I know there was several inches of heavy duty glass between the two of us and he probably wasn't really looking right into my eyes but...it seemed like it and it was amazing. 

The lorikeets, I think, are my favorite part of this zoo.  They don't have a hippo, after all (although I do love the manatee exhibit).  For a buck you get a tiny cup of nectar and the chance to really get close to these beautiful birds.  This little guy hopped up onto my hand without hesitation.  Lots of poop-dodging in this area, though. 

We also went down to the Short North for dinner at Betty's (I get to cross #43 off my 101 list - sans the PBR - I had Betty Beer [vanilla vodka and rootbeer] instead).  They had an Art in the Park festival going on and it was crazy busy.  A lot of the little shops that I loved when I lived there have turned into restaurants which was kind of sad.  I did find one shop - Flower Child - that I'd like to visit when I have a fat amount of cash to spend on 60's and 70's memorabilia...and when it's not so crowded.  The mad bubble machine outside the door really set the tone - it was an amazing place with two floors and I forget how many rooms...lots.  I managed to only walk out with only a four dollar shot glass for my dad, though, and my frugalness paid off a block or two later when I found a crumpled twenty on the sidewalk!

So that's my weekend in a nutshell.  I have some other photos to post including this amazing crewel picture I picked up at the Salvation Army on Friday but they'll have to wait.  I actually have work to do!  :-)

A Better Day

This is my kind of evening.  I came home and immediately plunked down on the couch to finish I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith (who wrote 101 Dalmations) which is a great book.  I'm hoping it's a good movie, too because Bill Nighy plays Mortmain and I think they couldn't have chosen a better actor - it's like it was written for him even though, I believe, it was written in the 1940s.  

Then I went into the kitchen and made up some banana bread which is in the oven.  Man oh man do I love banana bread batter....  I don't often wear aprons but put a little half one one because I was washing and drying my hands after nearly every ingredient and came to the conclusion that I think I might make an apron that I could possibly pull off with jeans, out in public.  Maybe.

I carried my timer upstairs with me and it's making me feel like I'm working against the clock...eleven minutes to finish this post!

And then I stepped outside to take a photo of the Magritte bag I made on my way down to Kentucky.   

 

I love quick crochet projects and I think I might have to work on something like this tonight because I'm hankering to finish something.  My ego also loved showing it to my mom in the car and hearing her say, "You started that on the drive?"  Hee hee.

And tonight I'm making the last of the peas with pork chops and mashed potatoes.  Mmmm, now that's how you eat peas fresh from a Southern garden!  Oh, and watching a special showing of The Princess Bride on AMC with interviews with Rob Reiner and Mandy Patinkin.  I'm looking forward to seeing Wallace Shawn (Vizzini) - I harbor a great and not so secret lust-crush on the man.  It doesn't rival Alan Rickman or anything but...yeah, there's something about that him that's always appealed to me in, I guess, a Woody Allen kind of way.  

Now that I think about it, last night was pretty good, too.  I started my menu for next week (salsa and quesadillas from the Grit cookbook, Kim!) and actually finished the crossword puzzle (only hopping on to an online crossword dictionary once to find the answer to "Fountain for wishes" - trevi - I had no idea).  

My time is nearly up!  

  

Fun Flickr Game

One more post this morning!

Found via a wonderful blog I recently discovered, A Pillow Monster a Day.

Here is how you play:

• type your answer to each question below into Flickr Search
• using only the first page, pick an image
• copy and paste each of the URLs for the image into fd's mosaic maker

The Questions:

1. What is your first name?
2. What is your favorite food?
3. What high school did you go to?
4. What is your favorite color?
5. Who is your celebrity crush?
6. Favorite drink?
7. Dream vacation?
8. Favorite dessert
9. What do you want to be when you grow up?
10. What do you love most in your life?
11. One word to describe you.
12. Your Flickr Name.

 

1. Roses for Emily! 2. Dance 3. Red Flower 4. Frog 5. Actor 6. love you water. i miss you diet coke 7. things in life are free 8. Meltdown 9. Antique 10. Family 11. yawn 12. bertha-final

Here's what's really funny about this: when I posted my little retrospective, my friend Bertha of Karma Kitties commented that she'd participated in the first round of Back Tack as well.  I'm 95% sure we hadn't met on LJ yet so it was funny to type in my Flickr name (daintykitty of course) for this meme and see her project pop up.  They had mistakenly posted that her finished products were going to me!