Observations, Part 2

Technology is conspiring to prevent me from ever posting another photo on this blog. The good news, though, is that Apple replaced my hard-drive and now she's back to running like a dream.

Red Mountain Family Band had a great practice earlier this week. I scored Evan some brushes for his drums and he tuned the kick, so everything sounds great. I'm really looking forward to playing on New Year's Eve. Hopefully we'll be able to get to work on some new songs now that the line-up has coalesced.

Matt arrived today and is staying with us on and off until he gets settled in Birmingham. All of Alabama's children are returning. Should be fun times around here.

I'm cranking on some hand-made gifts for the young folks in Evan's family, and trying not to get sucked into Eclipse, which I decided to buy and read, even though I skipped it initially. Oh, and through an annoying mistake I have an extra copy of Breaking Dawn if anyone wants it. If you don't know what I'm talking about, you should probably keep it that way.

I'm really digging on the idea of girlfriends these days. I've been having so much fun with all of the wonderful ladies of Birmingham and it really rocks. So, stay awesome, chicas.

Google Reader has got me stoked, too. Now that I've finally started sharing stuff, it's pretty fun. And it's sweet to see what other people are into, too.

Observations, Interesting or Otherwise

Most mornings I drive Evan to work, and I sometimes stop to get a coffee on the way home. This morning the parking meter for my spot outside of the coffee shop was out of order. Its way of telling me this was to flash the word "FAIL."

I went to my first Bottletree Music Trivia night last night, and despite being only minimally helpful, I was able to share in the collective glory of a team win. I only wish I weren't going to be out of town for the 90's theme next week, because I'm pretty sure I could own it.

Speaking of ownage, I aced my classes, as expected. Devon made it through, alright, too. Congratulations to both of us on passing first semester and may we rule it even harder in semesters to come.

Crafting is coming slowly and I now realize that my big plans for getting all sorts of things done over break are crashing and burning. But I'm having an excellent time, so it evens out. Slowly but surely I'm handling Christmas presents, some bought, some made. I wish I had more time to devote to showering my friends and family with gifts, but it's not in the cards this year.

Evan and I are trying to decide if we should go to Savannah for the opening of the Stitch Spectacular show on January 9th. Google said it's 6 hours and some, but I think I've heard 8 hours from other people. I've been wanting to visit Savannah for a while, and this seems like the perfect opportunity, but it's not great timing. Help me out with pros and cons. The age of technology has ushered in an inability to make decisions on my own.

When you feel something tickle the back of your neck and you reach up, only to discover that it actually is a bug and not some errant strand of hair, it'll make you really paranoid.

...and Done!

Woohoo! First semester is over. I won't get grades until tomorrow, but I'm positive I aced Buddhist art, and did fine in the other two as well. What a relief. I hit a snag right before exams, but I managed to make it through anyway. In a weak moment, I made the mistake of starting in on the Twilight series before exams were over. It was nearly impossible to pull myself away long enough to prepare for finals. I read three books in something like four days, and in my haste didn't realize that I had skipped the third book and gone directly to the fourth until I was almost done with it. The good news is that these books weren't nearly as awful as I was expecting. Sure, the subject matter and sentiment are a little embarrassing, but as a person who's read a lot of young adult fiction, I'd say it's par for the course and it could've been a lot worse. Regardless, it's been excellent post-semester decompression. No way was I jumping right back into War and Peace or Remembrance of Things Past.

I took my embroidery to be framed earlier this week. The guy at Forstall was very patient with my hour of debating over various frames, and the price for framing was pretty average. I'm not totally thrilled with the frame for the self-portrait. It's fine, but I couldn't find anything that made me think, "Perfect!" The ampersands, on the other hand, are going to look freaking amazing. I guess it's awesome that that's the one I'm keeping.

I'll be getting back to work (quilting, embroidering) this week, but I took the weekend off to relax. We had an awesome Rowe School Potluck Monstercards Sleepover on Friday night that lasted until about 2 am the next night. The game of Monstercards was substandard, not in content, but in actual play. Too many people, too little focus. I am at least 40% responsible for the ruination of the game. But we still had some good cards, and I had fun, anyway. The whole thing was a bit overwhelming for late-comers, though, and for that I am sorry (really, Joy, I mean it!).

I'll have some photos soon of what I've been up to, and I'll be able to post more regularly for a little while, so stay tuned.

P.S. Oh, and just in time to be devastated by a loss, I fell in love with the Crimson Tide last weekend. Sigh. Liking sports hurts.

Good Times

So, I'm feeling pretty awesome right now. Aside from a few brief moments of stress, the last couple of weeks have been sweet. I threw a totally wikkid party for Evan's birthday and stayed up till dawn. We had a great Thanksgiving with Evan's family in Chicago, went bowling, and ate a ten-course kaiseki. Also I turned in a paper and got a presentation and an oral exam out of the way, so I'm mostly done for the semester. Oh, and I almost forgot, Red Wagon in Homewood is now carrying my quilts.

Today is especially great, though, because of two things. First, I gave Evan an early Christmas present, which made me very happy. He is now the proud owner of a set of beautiful blue Tama drums. I snapped a photo but it won't upload, so I'll show them to you later. Second, I just found out that my self-portrait got into the Stitch Spectacular show!! It opens on January 9th in Savannah, so I have a month to get it ready to hang.

Can't wait to do some holiday decorating and work on some projects I've had to put on hold. Hooray for winter break!

Birthday Dinner

Being Evan's birthday and all we went to Bottega last night for dinner. We had been once before in late spring/early summer and I was somewhat underwhelmed. I had some kind of seafood risotto which, though good, was not really interesting enough to warrant the price. But last night's food made up for it. I had a parmesan soufflé with mushrooms and prosciutto for an appetizer. Delish, but really rich, so I'm glad it was little. My entrée was halibut with citrus and pistachio on olive oil crushed potatoes. Awesome. Seriously. Evan had some kind of braised beef stew appetizer and a beef tenderloin entrée (also very tasty). Unfortunately I spent my entire food budget for pretty much the rest of forever and will be living off canned soup for the foreseeable future. Try not to hold it against me if I start smelling like beef and barley, ok?

Procrastination

Have I ever mentioned that K-Fed reminds me of my step-dad? Sorta trashy, knocked up some rich lady who turned out to be a lunatic. They're practically the same person. I'm reminded of this fact because I've gone back to reading The Superficial. I stopped for a while when I realized I was only indulging the qualities in myself that I don't like (like being negative and judgmental). And anyway, LiLo hasn't done anything awesome in ages. So, I haven't changed my position on the subject, but I do have a lot of homework that I'm avoiding and I'm running out of ways to avoid it.

Speaking of which, I made these apple zucchini muffins just now. I used this recipe, substituting a muffin tin for a loaf pan, and reducing the baking time to 45 minutes. (In case you're wondering, I used one large zucchini and one granny smith apple.) They taste sort of like mild carrot cake? Anyway, it's part of my effort to eat more vegetables. I was pretty good about it back when I had time to cook, but my diet has gotten a lot worse these days. As part of the same effort I roasted some beets the other day. I ate them cut into chunks with poppyseed dressing and goat cheese. A pretty awesome way to consume beets, but I think it turned my pee pink. 

Oh, and one of my pillows was on the Etsy front page today! Yay!

Deadlines

I've been putting off tons of schoolwork to finish a couple of pieces to submit to the Stitch Spectacular art show in Savannah. The criteria for submissions was that the work be an original design (i.e. not from a commercially available pattern) and the main feature of the piece be embroidery. I've been working on a couple of pieces of embroidery that aren't meant to be functional (like the pillows I do for Napoleon) but I didn't think they were up to par. So I did a couple of brand new pieces that are pretty different than what I'd been working on. I doubt they'll get into the show, but it was a nice exercise.

Anyhow, the deadline was midnight on Friday, so I'd been stitching away, ignoring all sorts of other work. Now that that's done, it's time to catch up. I have two term papers to work on, one of which I haven't even picked a topic for and neither of which have been researched. I've been dreading this all semester, pretending that I was going to get an early start, not put things off like I did in college. I'm not yet in dire straits, but I can't continue to procrastinate. And if I just go ahead and do it I'll feel so much better (a fact of which I'm always aware, but consistently ignore).

Before initiating full-time schoolwork mode, I had one last hurrah shopping in Atlanta yesterday. Yes, going to Atlanta to shop is kind of ridiculous, but Evan needed work clothes and H&M and Zara are practically the only stores with clothes that fit him. We shopped to the point of exhaustion but were pretty successful in our mission. I almost find shopping for other people more satisfying than shopping for myself. I still get to be stoked when I find something amazing but without all the guilt of frivolous spending.

So, goodbye for now. If you don't hear from me for a while, blame Bernini's Papal tombs. I'll be back as soon as possible.