Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Lame.

Ugh.

So, I'm moving to Eau Claire, Wi in a week and I'm trying to pack everything I won't absolutely need in the next week. I'm super stressed with the packing and transferring at work... nothing sounds like fun. All I want to do right now is spin. My fiber, however, is in one of these boxes...So lame.

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Automaton

I just finished reading The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick. I don't want to spoil it for anyone, but there is a little mechanical man involved called an automaton. I'm really excited about it and want to build one now. Check out this video. It's so amazing to me that they built these things so long ago. It would be easy to do with a little computerized man but these were all made with cogs and gears like a clock. Awesome-ness.

Thursday, June 11, 2009

Milk Days, Monkeys and Weddings



This past weekend was my town's annual festival, Milk Days, and Saturday my old college roommate got married. It was a crazy weekend.

Friday night I went to the carnival with my boyfriend (Howie), my mom and her friend's two kids. Howie won a goldfish for the kids (which, five days later, is already dead) and I won a big Wicked Witch at Whack-a-Mole. I gave that to the kids, too. The next morning I got up early to run the Milk Days 10k with my dad. He walks but he's almost as fast as I am running. It took me an hour and 11 minutes; enough to win me a 7th from last place. Then out to breakfast with my dad (french toast, hashbrowns and fruit, oh my!) and home to quickly shower and get ready for the wedding. I had one hour. We had a hotel room all lined up for after the wedding and I totally forgot to pack. So I threw some stuff in a bag, freaked out a little and we were off.

We had to stop to duct tape the windshield wiper and then we were off... again. An unexpected detour added half an hour to our time and I was seriously wondering if we were going to make it before the "I do"s. We had left an hour later than I'd anticipated, after all.

The wedding was set to start at 1:30 and we made it by 1. It was at the Morton Arboretum in Lisle, Illinois. It would have been nice if we'd had time to wander around but it was starting to rain. And we left the umbrella in the car. I also hadn't anticipated my feet being swollen from the 10k when I picked out shoes for this shin-dig. My pinky toes started to go numb. I made Howie go to the car for the umbrella. My other two old roomies, Christine and Bre, were supposed to meet us. They said they were on their way but 1:30 rolled around and people were getting seated. They showed up fashionably late.
The wedding was nice and short and the rain held out for the most part. Sandra looked awesome and her dress was super pretty.









At the reception, we were seated at a table with a horrible guy who worked in advertising and talked nonstop the whole time. I made Howie and Christine dance with me. And I dragged Christine up during the throwing of the bouquet. She didn't want to go and stood in the back. The bouquet bounced off my hands and landed right in hers. Hee hee.

It was good to see my old roomies again. We hung out and ate good food. Good times.

The next day Howie and I drove home and went to a Banana Derby, where monkeys ride on dogs.. beyond cute! We got our picture with a monkey, a lynx and one of those old timey things. It was super fun! Yay!








Goodies!


I love Ravelry.

I spend a sick amount of time on there and I love to do yarn swaps. My favorite is the Vegan for Every Season group swaps. This swap's theme was "Love Veggies/Mother Earth" so I was super excited. Of course I had to work yesterday when my package came and had to go to the post office after work to pick it up. On my way there I noticed a garage sale with a certain awesome thing out front that I had to own. So I bought it. Yay!!! She's super old and crusty and has nails sticking out of her head. I love it. And I found a snake charmer flute. It needs a reed but she threw it in free when I bought the mannequin.






And then I get my awesome package. There were so many goodies in there, it made me feel bad for the package I sent her.

And also, because I never got off my lazy butt to write a blog about it, I wanted to show off my ball winder and swift I got from Howie for our 7 year anniversary. I promise my blogs will be more timely and cohesive from now on. :p

A Memorial Day to remember!

Yeah, I know it's June and Memorial Day was last month, but I like to procrastinate. I actually had to work on Memorial Day (double-time, woo!) but this is how I spent my weekend. I got that awesome spinning wheel from a Ravelry friend, Natalie. It's made from PVC pipe but it does the job. It's the first wheel I've ever used. I spent the whole day spinning from a bag of alpaca fleece I got from the Midwest Alpaca Fest. It was nice to actually meet the animal your fiber is coming from (a sweetie named Ashley). I also met up with my dad's friend who had alpacas in the show. I was supposed to go help out on the farm sometime but I'm moving to Eau Claire in two weeks. Natalie lives there so it's going to be nice to have a fellow knitter to obsess about yarn with. I actually spent Saturday spinning up a batt she handmade for me on her new drum carder. Super exciting! It was my first time plying yarn, too. I think I could have added more twist plying, but I'm still learning. The yarn still came out pretty awesome, by far the best I've made yet. You can't tell in the picture, but it has some sparkle to it. I call it Mermaid. The pink was my first attempt at spinning on a wheel. That fiber was also given to me by Natalie.

























So yeah, I'm totally addicted to spinning and all things fibery. I must have spent 8 hours outside spinning and listening to Harry Potter books on tape. You can keep your days at the spa, I was SO relaxed after that. Best day EVER!