Jeans and Sneakers

So I’m feeling pretty good.  I woke up late today, I somehow managed to unset my alarm clock last night before falling asleep.  So I woke up at the time that I usually leave the house.  Any day that I wake up late is usually a bad day, because I start out feeling rushed and then I’m in a bad mood to start off with.  Well today wasn’t like that.

Last night, I made my first entry into my art journal.  I’ve got a cool idea for decorating the cover too.  It’s not my typical style, but I’m suprisingly happy with it.  Usually when I get a sketchbook or something I’ll go to draw something in it and I’ll hate how it comes out and I’ll either tear it out or leave it there, either way I still feel like the sketchbook is tainted, and I don’t want to draw in it anymore.  But with this, it sounds silly, but with this book, SuziBlu said it’s ok to draw or paint or color the worst crap in the world in there.  So that’s ok.  It doesn’t matter what goes in this book, no holds barred, it’s totally free territory.  And that feels great.  So great that I almost couldn’t wait to put something else in there.  Oddly enough though the next thing I put in was a drawing that I drew for some reason on a postit.  Again though, I like it the way it is.  I put it on the next blank page and I used a piece of tape to make sure it won’t come off.  I even hid a drawing behind it.  I like where this is going. 

Today I made an appointment for Wednesday for my first ever Voice Lesson.  I’m so excited.  And nervous.  But mostly excited.  I’ve been saying for years that my voice isn’t what it used to be, but I had no idea how to try and get it back on my own.  So I took the plunge and I’m going to get help.  And learn some necessary stuff that I wouldn’t have learned on my own along the way.  The guy sounds awesome, we spoke on the phone today and he was super excited for me, considering I’d first contacted him about lessons at the end of August, but couldn’t afford them yet.  He was happy that I’m still interested, and he seemed excited to get started so quickly.  And it didn’t seem like a monitary thing, he had another student there practicing when I called, he’s been doing this for years, and it doesn’t seem like he’s hard up for cash.  I’m excited.  And nervous. But definitely mostly excited.

I’ve been in kind of a funk for the past week or so, little things had culminated and really altogether began to bother me in a large way.  Rob nudged and nudged me yesterday until I spoke to him about one thing, which lead to me talking to him about some of the other things.  I think that somehow, different elements in my life have come together now, to bring me some focus.  I realized that I was looking all over for something, when all along I really knew the answer.  When you ask yourself, what do you really want, sometimes you have to listen to the tiniest of voices to get the truth.  I asked myself, when I was little, what did I want to be when I grew up?  That answer came easy enough, a Singer and an Artist.  An Artist and a Singer.  Either way, they both had equal importance to me.  I told this to Rob and explained to him how over the years, in my life, for different reasons, I lost those things.  I lost music, I lost art.  I had left myself with nothing, wondering why my life had no direction.  So now, I’m trying to get them back.  And I feel really good about it.

Oh.  I didn’t go rollerskating today.  I don’t really want to go by myself, but I don’t have anyone to ask to go with me.  I asked Rob, but I knew that he wouldn’t want to go, and that’s fine.  I just don’t want to go by myself.

Edit: I also painted today!  For some reason I didn’t want to paint in my art journal, but I found some blank cards I had and painted one of them.  Maybe tomorrow I’ll take a picture of it and post it up.  I think I’m probably going to redesign the blog in the near to not-so-near future. :]

Also. . .there’s a surprise this Thursday night, but I can’t post about it yet because it’s a surprise for Wyn, an early birfday pressie.  I’ll post about it afterwards.  :]

I feel great.  I mean, today, I did pretty much nothing other than finishing Rob’s first sock, and I feel that gross kind of feeling I get when I don’t leave the house all day, but still I feel great.

Rob and I had a conversation the other night about how my behavior and general demeanor has changed since I’ve stopped the bc.  It’s funny how you always learn more in retrospect.  For the past two and a half years. . . at least. . . .I’ve been depressed.  I was always tired, never motivated to do much of anything, and anything I did accomplish was only through the greatest effort and feat of willpower.  I had to force myself to knit.  To go bike riding.  To have sex.  I didn’t want to do anything.  And now, it’s like a storm is clearing up.  The dark thunderheads are breaking up and the sun is peeking through.  So yeah, I feel great.

I was reluctant to admit that it was having that great of an effect on me, but even Rob says that my general mood is better, and I haven’t even been trying to be nicer/happier or anything.  It’s like a weight off my shoulders knowing that the patch was what was causing my severe melancholy.

My painting stuff came yesterday and I’m pretty excited about it.  I haven’t started anything, or even given any serious thought to what I want to paint (other than the two ideas I’ve had for months now), but I’ve got what I need to get started, and that makes me happy.  I went to the library today to renew my card and get some movies, and I also picked up an acrylic painting technique book.  It’s really old, but very informative!  I can’t wait to try and paint something.

I really shouldn’t start anything new though, since I’ve got to finish my dad’s sweater before Xmas.  I might do something anyway.  Not too sure.

I’m going to shower and pass out, so. . .good night!

This might seem kind of silly, dedicating a post to my mom on my blog, when she doesn’t even have the blog address. But the only reason she really doesn’t have this address is because (like you haven’t noticed) I talk about my knitting projects A LOT, and some of them are for her and are surprises. Also, I don’t always like it when EVERYONE close to me reads my blog and then I can’t have a conversation with anyone because they all know what’s going on in my life already, and all I can do is listen to what’s going on in theirs.

Anyway. Yeah, it’s Mother’s Day. I kind of feel bad, because my mom’s present isn’t done yet, so this is the least I can do, even if she doesn’t get to see it. I hope she knows everything I’m going to say already, anyway.

My mom and I haven’t always gotten along. I remember being somewhere between 3 and 5 years old and fighting with her every morning about waking up to go to pre-school. I’d give her hell, because I just wanted to stay asleep, and I didn’t see what the big deal was, since it wasn’t like I was going to REAL school yet. Sometimes I’d make her late for work, but she always got me up and to pre-school. I never minded once I was there, since that’s where all my friends were anyway. Sorry for making you late to work Mommy. :[

Then we got a little bit older, and I used to envy my mom. We were living in Brooklyn at the time, and I remember her having these awesome (80's) outfits that she used to wear to work, and very rarely when she'd go out. I remember one night she went to a Prince concert, and I begged her to let me come with her. Of course, she said no, but she brought me back a Prince pin, and I thought it was the coolest. :]

In middle school and high school, my mom became “the easy parent”, the one I knew I could go to when I wanted to go do something, and a lot of the time she’d say yes, and I’d love her for it. Occasionally she’d say the dreaded words, “Go ask your father,” and then I’d get mad knowing that my dad would never say ok. But seriously, looking back, none of those things that she “doomed” me to stay home from were anything I really needed to be around anyway. Thank you Mommy, good looking out. :]

When I went to college, things changed a bit. All of the sudden, out of nowhere, my parents started treating me as an adult with a brain and a full grasp of logic. It was pretty weird after having been under “lock and key” for so long, to tell my mom one summer break that I was going out at like 11pm, and have her say “Just make sure you have your keys!”, was totally the weirdest thing ever. But for the better I think. That was when I started to really look at my parents like humans too, as opposed to these god-like parental figures, and oh boy was I curious. I wanted to know everything about who my parents were, and why they think the way they do, and what events in their lives moulded their characteristics now. My mom seemed more than happy to share herself as a person with me. It only brought us closer, and I’d like to say thank you again Mommy, for being one of my best friends. :]

When you come right down to it, my mom *is* the coolest. I can’t think of anyone better to go dancing with, (and holy crap can she dance. She leaves me standing on the sidelines panting, and she’s still out on the floor, 3am, dancing the night away), no one in the world makes better fried chicken (my favorite. :] ), she’s always someone I can confide in, and always good for a silly laugh. She gave me at least half of my awesome taste in music, half of my open minded point of view, most of my MacGuyver skills around the house, and my eyes (my favorite feature. . .on both of us. :] ) So although you may not ever read this, I love you Mommy. Happy Mother’s Day!

Here’s a dope pic of my mom that my dad took sometime when they were dating I think. Isn’t she beautiful? :]

So. I haven’t heard back from that yoga lady. Maybe she found someone else to sew her ridiculously easy project. That’s fine, her yoga studio is mad far from me anyway.

Yesterday, Rob and I watched a movie, and I knitted. I managed to get some more done on Sonnet:

Please excuse the blur of the picture, I was standing on my computer chair so that I could get the entire thing in the frame. Lol.

Since this project is symmetrical, you can see I’m nearly done with the entire body!! YAY! I was looking over the pattern while knitting yesterday and realized that I can’t finish the body without knitting buttonholes. And simple logic deduces that if you have not yet picked out the buttons for the project, you won’t know how big to knit the buttonholes. Ha.

It became apparrent that I needed to go button shopping. My only problem was that I’ve been trying. Button shopping on the internet is tricky though. I believe I’ve mentioned this before. But I didn’t know where to go to buy buttons in any actual stores. Ha. So I had an adventure.

I went to Jo-ann Fabrics first, and they had some good buttons, but nothing big enough. . .I used a kind of chunky yarn for this, and that paired with garter stitch I’m pretty sure would swallow a small button.

So then I went to Michael’s. They’re more of a craft store, but they sell yarn so I thought I’d give it a shot. Well, they only had really small scrapbooking buttons, and tiny ceramic buttons that were all cutesy. No dice.

The only Michael’s by me is pretty far east of here. And I know of a good yarn store about as far east but way north of there. So, in desperation for some freaking buttons, I drove all the way north, and went to Wild and Woolly Wools. This store is fun. Shoshana is really nice, and she’s got some beautiful yarns. She’s always helpful if you have any questions, so going was definitely worth the hike. The first yarn and needles I bought from myself, I’d purchased there. And what. . .I found buttons!!! Check it out:

Sorry for the dim lighting. I could have opened the blinds, but I didn’t want to cause a glare on Rob’s monitor.

These buttons are mother of pearl I think, and they’re huge. I bought 5 of them (and caught W&WW’s winter sale!!), and I’m so glad. They match beautifully. I promise when this piece is done, I’ll take some really nice and fitting pictures. . .since so far you can’t see the color of the yarn properly. . .or the beauty of the buttons. Anyway, these should work out great.

And also. . .uh, I might have accidentally bought some dpn’s, (and got a ball of sock yarn for free):

I didn’t think I’d like the colors, but there weren’t many balls to choose from. There were only two colors of the big balls that could yield two socks. . .it was either this, or orange, white, magenta and some other color. The magenta threw me off. I’ll pick blue over magenta any day.

So yeah, I had a nice little conversation with Soshana about knitting socks, (which I’ve never done, nor had she up until recently. I’ve never knitted on dpns.) and how when they’re done you want to wear them all the time and show off your handiwork. Sounds like me alright. So I came home and cast on:

After looking long and hard for “the perfect sock pattern”. I don’t think the one I’m working on is perfect. . .for one, I should have known better than to do something in a 2×2 rib. . .I tend to like 1×1 better, at least on something this small. Other than that, I learned a nifty new way to cast on that leaves a stretchy edge, which is always nice. I’m worried about the heel gusset. . .but until I actually get there, I’m going full steam ahead. Haha. Even Rob was impressed at how crazy it looks to knit on 4 dpn’s. I’m enjoying being enchanted by the self patterning yarn. I’ve never played with any before. And just because I’m hopelessly infatuated, here’s another pic:

Ok. Lemme see, where to start. First off, I haven’t yet heard back from the job I interviewed for a week ago. I was polite, and waited a week before sending an inquiring email asking if they’d come to a decision. No response as of yet.

I have finished the golden tunic!! Well. Sort of. It’s all pieced together, with one exception. The neck band was done in this wonky stitch that ends up looking really thick and stupid in my yarn substitute (even though the rest of the sweater looks fine.) So I’ve left it off. Unfortunately for me, I have no hips. And as this is a longish sweater, it’s a bit big down below. So no pictures as of yet. I’m giving the tunic to Wyn when I next see her (it was supposed to be a surprise, but you started asking about it Wyn, so here it is, I’m giving you the tunic, unless you prove too. . .voluptuous for it.), and I’ll take pictures of it then. I’m pretty happy with my first sweater attempt, it doesn’t look like something that a 5 year old made. Attaching the sleeves proved to be a challenge, and while they’re not totally perfect, they look good and I’ll let them be.

So I’ve begun a new sweater! A cardigan this time, I think I linked it before, it’s Sonnet from Knitty.com. This one I know won’t be for me, most likely, I want to give it to Rob’s mom, cause she’s always giving me nice things. The cardigan has presented a new challenge though. . .finding the perfect buttons! You have no idea how hard it is to find nice buttons on the internet, what with web design buttons, and the whole punk rock button (badge. . .the round things with pictures on them and a pin in the back. . .) thing, and what not. It took me awhile, but I found some good button stores on the web. I think I’m going to end up looking around fabric and craft stores ultimately (and Wyn, I remember you said something about an awesome bead/button store in Queens was it? We should go there.) just because WYSIWYG doesn’t always apply to internet orders, and it’s hard enough picking out a button that matches the stitch pattern and color and overall design of the sweater, and Rob’s mom’s personality. . .*sigh* you couldn’t tell, but it’s all of this thinking that makes knitting things enjoyable for me. It’s like getting xmas gifts whenever you want, and showing people how much you care about them by showing them that you observe their likes well.

And I’ve got my eye on a few patterns in the last two Interweave knits magazines I got. Rob commented about how I’m flying at making things now. I told him it’s kind of to be expected, I don’t have anything to do all day but check my email and look for jobs. . .I like to keep busy so I pop on a movie and knit. Go through a lot of movies that way.

I’d been avoiding my project website. I was stuck on laying out the page with CSS because I’m stubborn, and wanted the entire thing done with CSS and not using tables. Well this week I jumped back on it, and while it’s not done yet, I figured some stuff out and even managed to ask Rob for some help with things I couldn’t figure out, and got a really, really basic layout done. This week I might actually start putting content into it and trying it out. We’ll see. In the end, I learned that making containers for your elements in CSS is your friend, and if you want something to be side by side, use positioning. (position: absolute; or relative;). I also learned that if you want to layer stuff using z-indexing, that element HAS to be positioned. Rob said he was proud of me, doing it all by hand. :]

I also updated my myspace profile this week. It was all black and gray and goth looking, so I brightened it up a little bit. So that got me looking for more people I haven’t spoken to in years. It’s funny how many of the people I knew in hs are now in Brooklyn or Manhattan. I guess it’s logical, because that’s where the “good” jobs are. But it makes me laugh to see people staying the same, following the flowing trends that change slightly with your age.

I’ve been having really crafty ideas for making things. Inspiration popped up out of unexpected places, and I have ideas for things to make, but I doubt I’ll actually get off my ass and make them. Knitting is my one exception. I think that my crafty progress is hindered by the fact that I do most of my crafting in my room, which I hardly ever go in, mostly because it’s freezing in there in the winter despite the single baseboard heater, but also partially because I get lonely in there. I’ve become used to having Rob around all the time. :/ Some things on my crafty to-make list are:

• A life sized statue
• A picture frame wrist cuff possibly out of duct tape or recycled magazine pages
• A figurine of me
• A yarn tote bag like this one
• A hobo pocketbook bag
• Random things with bits of fabric
• Knitted wrist cuffs

And one last thing before I go to sleep. I want to find a singing group or something. I really miss singing, too much. It’s like there’s a huge hole in my life that music used to fill, and I don’t always notice it, but when I do, it sucks so bad.

Do you want the good or the bad first?  Well, I always ask for the bad first, so here goes.  I quit my job early. I know, incredibly irresponsible of me, not to mention not getting money that I sort of really need.

I couldn’t bring myself to go back though.  Last week Ben told me he had to redo my work anyway, because he kept changing his mind about how he wanted things done, and all I could think of is how pointless it would be for me to suffer through going there for four days, when I can’t even say that “At least I got my work done.”  I mean seriously, that place had me in anxious fits every Sunday night. . .  I decided it just wasn’t worth the money to have to put up with them for any longer.  And yes, I do feel guilty about it.

And it’s not over yet, they want me to hand over the passwords to various message boards that I “represented” the company on, “so that they can be sure that I will not use it to slander the company”.  Please.  If I wanted to publicly slander them in front of all their “peers” I would have by now.  I bitch about them on here, but I’ve never mentioned the company name, or the last name of my former “supervisor”.  Besides the fact that I’ve asked them not to use my name or work alias or likeness after I’m gone, and now they think I’m just going to hand over PUBLIC message board profiles because their company name is part of my profile name?  No.  My name is the other part of that profile name, and I’ve agreed to never go on the boards again after I posted my fairwell post, which I did without slighting the company in the least.

Ugh.  So I’ve refused to give the passwords because I never conducted business on any of the boards anyway, and the reputation and personality behind the profile is mine.  Not the company’s.

So what’s the good news?  I’ve finally taught myself the very basic of basics of CSS.  I made a test index page successfully from scratch.  Amazing!  I made a completely clean looking page entirely without the use of tables.  So I’ve won half the battle of trying to create a template for this blog, and my other projects.  :]

Next is PHP.  OOOoooooOOOoOoOoOOoooooooo. . .

Rob offered to help me with learning this too, but he said something not too long ago that made me think it might be a good idea to try to tackle it on my own, and then ask questions only if absolute dire need arose.  I tend to take offense when people oversimplify things for me, or state something obvious, thinking that I wouldn’t understand, or see it for myself.  I get really, really mad.  It’s not pretty.  And I’m pretty sure that if I can sit down and focus, I can learn damned near anything, but I know that I learn less effectively when I think that someone is, advertantly or not, making me look stupid.  So.  Yeah.  I think I’ll tackle that sometime on my own.  At least at first.  We’ll see.

Now that I’m over the CSS obstacle, I can start doing great things with my project.  It’s not like I’m short on time now. . .

I know.  I know all about how the original background is showing around the borders of the body.  Please, don’t point it out.  I haven’t the energy to sit down and try to either make the bg part of the sides and line up with the actual bg, or figure out how to make the side parts transparent, if that’s at all possible. . .  I’m still planning on changing the entire theme, so it doesn’t really matter anyway.  I was just proud that I did it because it wasn’t defined in the css style sheet like I thought it would be, it was elsewhere, but I still found it and changed it.  Hurrah!

What I didn’t end up doing was designing my new project page.  Well, sort of.  I’m closer to knowing how I want it to actually look, and I’ve made a header for it.  So that’s the farthest I’ve gotten thus far, but when I was done with that, after I turned ambitiously towards putting it into production and actually making the page, I stumbled over the fact that I really want to make the page with css, so that if in the future I want to change the style it will be easy, rather than having to redo the whole thing.  Which lead me to remember about how I don’t know css, and if it were any earlier than. . .oh, say 3am, as it was at the time. . .I probably would have had a better tolerance for trying to learn something new.  I know.  Excuses, excuses.  At least I got as far as I did.  I’m now convinced that I’m going to teach myself this css business already.  It’s just a matter of when.  And Rob has been so sweet, trying to help, he loves to teach me things, but you can ask my sister, who I’m sure remembers, I’m the worst possible person to try to teach one-on-one.  If I don’t grasp things right away, I get frustrated, and angry and start yelling non-sensical things and being an all around pain.  I’m sure Rob would do a beautiful job teaching me this, but I’d probably make him hate me in the process.  :[

Write things down, write them down, write them down.  I had a fantastic idea for something while I was driving home from work on Friday.  Unfortunately, I was driving at the time, could not write it down, and now the only thing I remember about it is that it was a fantastic idea.  I don't even remember what it had to do with.

Speaking of work. . .this will be my last week at this job, thank goodness.  I'm promising myself that I will at the very least, go in to work every day this week.

The search for a job is kind of unnerving still.  I went to Michael's today to pick up some #7 knitting needles and to get an application.  Got the needles. . . .no application.  Rob even got a general bad feeling about the state of the workers there.  It was less than an hour before they got off work, and they all looked so disgruntled.  I don't know.  I'm trying to go with my feelings this time, and my feelings said "don't bother".

I'm excited though.  I found a pattern I thought I'd lost.  I had actually bought yarn for this pattern and then came home and couldn't find it, and yesterday I did find it, hence the purchase of the #7's.  Wyn, if you're reading this, I should have a very lovely golden tunic sometime in the future.  :]

I installed an open source message board on my new domain and have been playing with it. I don’t even have a site up for the page yet, just the incomplete forum, so I’m not posting a link yet. But man. There’s so much I don’t know!! I’m getting frustrated too because I want to build my own template, I’m going to have to, to match my site and then ultimately a blog to match both, but I have no idea how, and most of the quick google search results just tell you to take the standart template and change the color. >_< THAT'S NOT MAKING YOUR OWN TEMPLATE!!

I found some awesome marketing and small business/entrepeneur blogs today by browsing American Express' Small Business Resources page. One of them had a "manifesto" of Guerilla Marketing that actually got me excited about doing things to push my new project. Gave me lots of good ideas, and I didn't even read through half of it.

I'm supposed to be sleeping. Ha. Word.

So with the help of my multi talented, very intelligent boyfriend, I have changed the header background image to a photo of my feet. Also, I managed to keep the h1 text in the header, without displaying it, so that if need be, search engines can find it, while I saved the pretty font text in the header image itself.

What? Yeah, ok, so I took the image that this template’s stylesheet calls for, brought it into photoshop, replaced the blue area with a photo, added in some pretty font text, and voila!! Save new photo header, upload to the proper directory, change the image name in the header template file, go back to the stylesheet and change the h1 size to 0px, and also the description size to 0px, save or update files, and done!!

Over all though, I really haven’t learned anything new. I just replaced things that were already there. But I have an image now, and I’m going to try to design a whole new look and make my own template. God help me. It’s Friday, and the weekend stretches blissfully beyond me. Maybe I’ll actually get some work done.