A-Z Meme

Because I'm just not in the mood to think much, I decided to track down a meme to jumpstart my thought processes. Enjoy, and consider yourself tagged if you feel like doing it.

A - Z OF ME

A - AVAILABLE : I'm always available for an outlet shopping spree, if that's what you mean. Otherwise, I have my hands full with the three men I live with.

B - BIRTHDAY : December

C - CRUSH : Hmmm... currently, I'll say Johnny Depp, but overall, I've got to say Kevin Smith. Because he looks like Mike in miniature.

D - DAD'S NAME : Vincent.

E - EASIEST PERSON TO TALK TO : Another toughie. I'll think on this one.

F - FAVORITE BAND : Duran Duran. Other bands may come and go, but Duran and I have had a mutually beneficial relationship for almost a quarter century now.

G - GUMMY BEARS OR GUMMY WORMS : I really like the sour gummy worms - this is the culinary delight I've inherited from my children.

H - HOMETOWN : Elmhurst, Queens!

I - INSTRUMENT : Can't play a blessed thing, but I do enjoy a good hard guitar.

J - JUGGLE : Life, yes. Those irritating little blocks, no.

K - KILLED SOMEONE : Only in my feverish, rage-induced imagination. And even then, it's in some Tom & Jerry fantasy-cartoon way, like dropping an anvil on them so they emerge with a flat head.

L - LONGEST CAR RIDE : Probably the NY-Florida drive my dad put us through several times on the "family vacation". It was basically our road trip to WallyWorld.

M - MILKSHAKE FLAVOR : Vanilla - no substitutes.

N - NUMBER OF SIBLINGS : Nada by blood, several by choice.

O - ONE WISH : That the craziness our world is spiralling into would just stop.

P - PERSON WHO EMAILED ME LAST : Karen, who regaled me with tales of her in-laws over Hanukkah. It's nice to have someone else share in the in-law joy, no matter what holiday one celebrates.

Q - QUICK FACT : The kid who was the bully in A Christmas Story is the younger brother on Titus (a hilarious Fox sitcom from a few years ago).

R - REASON TO SMILE : Gingerbread Latte.

S - SONG YOU LAST LISTENED TO : hee hee hee... Fanboy Christmas II: The Wrath of Claus.

T - TIME YOU WOKE UP : 6:30, and then 7:30.

U - UNKNOWN FACT ABOUT ME : As much as I love my heels, I've begun to prefer flats and sneakers. Shhh.

V - VEGETABLE YOU HATE : Cabbage. Smells like roasted ass.

W - WORST HABIT : Picking at my nails and fingers until they're bloody messes.

X - X-RAYS YOU'VE HAD : A couple of chest x-rays, ankle, teeth, back and neck.

Y - YOUR NUMBER OF EMAIL CONTACTS : Holy crap, it's got to be in triple digits.

Z - ZODIAC SIGN : Sagittarius, baby. Fire sign.

Bleah.

One more holiday down, one to go. Isn't that a terrible way to look at the holidays this year? But I'm burnt this year. I think I need to draw up a master schedule of 2008 so I don't run out of time before I've even begun, which is what I'm pretty sure happened this year.

New Year's should be fun, though. We've been getting together with the same group of friends for about 9 years now, so it's a tradition I look forward to. There will be, I'm sure, some intense Trivial Pursuit or other board game, some food (we'll plan, we'll plan), and lots of laughs. And, if Stacey has anything to do with it, another New Year's in a box. ;-)

I'm fried for now, I'll post after more coffee...

NORAD Tracks Santa - Mt. Fuji, Japan

Merry Christmas!! The kids and I have started tracking Santa on the Norad site, so I thought I'd share the details. Currently, Santa's going through Asia - here's video of him going by Mount Fuji in Japan.

He went through New Zealand but alas, no hobbits were to be seen. :-)

Seaming and Dexter and Holy Crap, It's Five Days Away...

So last night, I knuckled down and seamed two panels of the blanket I'm working on for Mike's great-aunt last night. It took me a good part of the evening, but it's done and it doesn't look that bad. I actually felt pretty accomplished, even though I still think seaming has to be the most tedious thing on earth... now I'm finishing up panel 4 of 7, and I may even take a crack at seaming another panel tonight.

Dexter season finale - HOLY MOSES. Let's talk about it in the comments, so as not to spoil the fun for anyone who hasn't seen it yet. I can't imagine what the next season is going to entail, but I'm psyched for it.

Five days 'til Christmas Eve. I feel like I should be in panic mode, but I'm just too tired.

Errands for today:

1. Back to Best Buy, return Heroes Season 1 DVD and get either Bourne Identity, 28 Weeks Later, or Pirates of the Caribbean 3, or Grindhouse. Or something else. Maybe the special edition of 300 or The Last Legion. Also get Naked Brothers Band CD for a stocking stuffer for Will.

2. Find stocking stuffers for Will and Alex.

3. Find stickers for Alex's holiday party on Friday. I'm giving all the kids in the class stickers, now I just have to find the buggery things.

4. Inventory of what we've gotten for who and start wrapping.

Holiday Malaise

So I am ridiculously unproductive in the hours from 9-5 these days. I putter around the office, because my brain is apparently on winter hiatus.

That aside, I am a knitting psychopath. As I've mentioned, I decided in my foolish way that I can totally knit TWO blankets by Christmas. Starting at the beginning of December. So I've been knitting my panels for Mike's Great-Aunt Trudy's blanket (seven panels in total, I'm on #3 now). I'm using this pattern, which is called an Heirloom Knit Baby Blanket, but it's a beautiful blanket for anyone. I'll put up pictures soon - I'm going to start seaming (stop laughing, I really am) up some of the panels tonight so that I don't have to do all 7 at once, thereby bringing on a nervous breakdown the likes of which haven't been seen since the nuclear winter that wiped out the dinosaurs.

Seriously, I'm knitting everywhere - on the trains, in restaurants, in the car - wherever I can get the needles clacking. I'm a woman on a mission.

Of course, the craft stores are also sold out of the one freaking skein I need to finish off Mike's Great-Aunt Jeannie's blanket. So I may frog it and make her a nice wrap. We shall see. Fear not, I'm on the case.

I've got pictures to come - lots of fun stuff over the past weekend.

2008 Knitting Resolutions

TexasPurlGirl, a compadre on Ravelry, has created a list of 2008 knitting resolutions and asked anyone with a blog to do the same. So here we go...

1. You know this one - stop laughing at me - I have to sew projects up. Don't ask me about the stuff I've been working on for Nancy's shower. You know they're still sitting in pieces in my stash basket. No, the baby won't be in college before I give them the goodies. With God as my witness, I will have those projects ready by the baby shower!

2. Finish the adorable U-Neck sweater vest from Knit.1 that Stacey bought me the yarn for (via year's birthday gift, a Michael's gift card) which is roughly 2/3 done and sitting in the stash basket.

3. Find the yarn I need for 'Blanket' and finish it, before Alex no longer speaks to me.

4. Organize my patterns that I print out from the Web - currently, they're sitting in a giant folder, so there's step one. But I need to organize them so I can find an adorable baby blanket or pair of booties without sitting on the couch and screaming.

5. Decrease some stash so I can do some real projects with nice yarn that I salivate over.

6. Oh yeah - learn how to knit socks.

Some Progress Made...

I did not have to commit heinous acts last night; I ended up getting a seat, knitting podcast happily in my ears, and I knitted all the way home. How I'm going to finish a 7-panel afghan and seam it together (stop laughing; I know I'm horrible at actually seaming things up), AND finish the other afghan (no seams required, and it is 3/4 of the way done) by Christmas Eve is beyond me. But best not to think about it; I'll just knit.

I did mail Christmas cards yesterday, so that's one more thing down.

Because the kitten is still psychotic, we haven't really done much with the tree. This could be another reason for my holiday ennui, since I do love the tree decorating. I had the kids make paper snowflakes last night, and Will made an Advent wreath that I stuck in there, too. I'm trying, I'm just so wiped. I'm not even tired so much as just wiped. I just wish some spark of energy would visit me so I could get jazzed about the holidays.

Christmas Is Two Weeks Away. Holy Crap.

I have two blankets and some other things to finish in TWO WEEKS. Somehow, I think sleep may not be on the agenda from now 'til the 24th. I may have to brutalize someone on the train ride home tonight, because I need a seat - that's 40 minutes of knitting time right there.

I haven't even put all the ornaments on the tree - but that's not as much me not being prepared as we're still concerned that the dopey kitten will be in the tree if she sees a bunch of dangly things on it. We may stealthily add some more tonight. We did make a big construction paper chain garland that went on last night, so that was cute. And even Mike got in on it, which was adorable.

Pictures of the tree to come, I just want to put a little more on it...

How cute is this?

Where Do I Begin?

Thanks to PopCandy's blog, I found this great Geeks poster - I fit into way too many categories here. Now I just need a knitting geek and a blogging geek and I'd complete my journey to the dark side. Or is that the geek side?

Podling

I'm continuing my obsessive podcasting downloading. I've been HUGELY digging the Monday Night 80s podcast - the host, K-Day, has some amazing new wave (and yes, some pop) stuff that I haven't heard in years. He plays Ministry and Bauhaus! And he's good with the Duran Duran - always gives a shoutout to the Durannies. There are remixes and delves depper into popular artists' catalogs (like Wire by U2 - love it) to give lesser-known sounds a listen. You can check out the podcasts on the MySpace site, which I've linked above, or you can search on them at iTunes. There are also great movie clips all over the podcast, including one of my favorites - Bill Murray saying, "You are a maaaadman," from Stripes.

Another good 'cast is the Sci Fi/Fantasy podcast done by Anthony and Scott. They offer some great insight and hilarious commentary into science fiction and fantasy movies including - yes, I am going to bring up the Holy Trilogy again - the Star Wars movies, Battlestar Galactica, Planet of the Apes, and more. I've listened to three episodes so far, and have gone back and downloaded as many as I could from iTunes. Anthony's having some troubles at the moment, so I'm not sure when the next one will be up, but please - do yourself a favor and check out some of the old ones. I e-mailed Chris and Lauren a couple of the episodes because I knew they'd love them, and they remind me of a more in-depth version of Chris' (sadly not UPDATED) blog, Guiltless Pleasures (hint, hint).

I have been wading through a bunch of knitting podcasts - more on those to come...

Sock Knitting and Other Travails

So I decided it was time to make my foray into sock knitting with the Easy Aran Sock pattern from My Life's Work. (I love Ravelry - I've been introduced to more knitting patterns and cool bloggers and podcasters than I could have imagined!) I went to the yarn store like a big girl, got the right yarn thanks to the nice lady at Yarn Connection, and went home, convinced I was on my way.

WTF?

Casting onto three double pointed needles? Sure. I even did the tube part of the sock. But then I got to the actual shaping and almost had a nervous breakdown. Back to the LYS (local yarn store - in this case, local to my job) and whined. The two lovely ladies at Yarn Connection deciphered the mysteries for me... so we'll see. I've already warned them that I may be back tomorrow with a ball of tangled wool, felted by my tears and sweat.