He burned my magical bag witha pink sword of fire

So Thursdays are for things that drive me crazy, but I passed out before I could write this...

I buy magazines by the cover picture, if I see a fashion magazine with a person I like on the cover I'll pick it up. There are a few magazines I buy regularly, Writer's Digest, Bust, Bitch, Interweave Knits, and Blue Print, but for the most part the cover shot is what gets me. This month's Vogue has a picture of Drew Barrymore on the cover. I've always loved Drew, and a lot of this had to do with the fact that she was a popular actress who looked like a normal human woman. The cover shot of her almost made me scream, it looks like her arm has been air brushed off and he face is just barely recognizable. We all know that these magazines are photo-shop happy, remember what Glamour did to America Ferrera? If you don't check this out. So here is the picture in question:




Yeah, it still makes me want to scream.

Links and Things

I fixed up the link lists, now you can have at least an idea of what you will find when you click on something. I also added a list of what I'm knitting and crocheting at the moment, and a To Be Read list. Have fun figuring all of that stuff out.

So it is Wednesday and here is the Happy List:

5 random things that make me happy
*Figuring out how to make a super easy center pull ball of yarn.
*Finding my self-striping green hat, which I lost three weeks ago.
*Not throwing up all day.
*Pamprin.
*Buffy The Vampire Slayer.



Yes Dad, I am old enough to remember to turn a friggin timer on when I stick something in the oven.

Kate Jacobs, The Friday Night Knitting Club

I just finished reading The Friday Night Knitting Club by Kate Jacobs, and I loved it. I <3 Darwin! The Yarn Craft podcast from Lion Brand Yarn recently did an interview with Kate Jacobs about the book which you can find here.


In other news I just ordered The collectors set of Buffy The Vampire Slayer on DVD, and I can't wait until the UPS guy gets here with my Buffy in hand.

I added links to the left hand side of the page, and then discovered that I can make more than one list, so in the near future I will fix that so that there are sorted lists, but for now I'm going to play bubble shooter

Making up for last week

Last week I was hiding, and making a pair of lovely fingerless gloves, which I will post a picture of later.

So here is the Happy List I was supposed to post last Wednesday:
5 completely random things that make me happy:
*Converse shoes at Target.
*Finishing a knitting project, wearing it, and having a complete stranger compliment it.
*Ben and Jerry's Half Baked Ice Cream
*Really good lotion
*Singing Avenue Q songs with your best friend while stuck in traffic.

Thursday I was going to post something called "Thursdays are for things that drive me crazy" but then I got distracted by something shiny: thumb gussets. So...

It drives me crazy when you are working a pattern in a book, and the author uses an abbreviation which they do not define. I had to set my work down in the middle of a row and look it up on knittinghelp.com.

By the way "Thursday is for things that drive me crazy" will probably be a regularly scheduled event

Saturday Melly and I went to the DMA to see the J.M.W. Turner Exhibit and it was lovely, and it will tip me back towards an A in my lit class.

Sunday Rage of The Week:
Saturday Feb 23& Sunday Feb 24

"Weekend Project:
Bond with your bad girl granny!
Your grandmother will be thrilled and delighted when you reach out and treat her like a bad girl friend. Be sure to take notes. You'll not only be laughing a lot, you'll be learning a lot.
*Sneak her cigarettes and bourbon
*Ask her to tell you all of her secret bad girl desires.
*Join her knitting circle and teach her friends to knit skimpy bikinis.
*Help her set up her computer and keep it running smoothly.
*Ask her to tell you that "I was a lesbian once, during the war" story again.
*Take her and a few bad friends to a racy movie, or badder yet, Chippendales.
*Road trip with her to Vegas!
*Give each other home perms.
*Swap dirty jokes.
*Swap pick up stories, tips, tricks, and techniques."

Now it is Monday, and I am fairly certain that this is the longest post I have made in this blog so far.

Melly - I changed the comment settings so that you can leave one if you like.

So now onto my next new regularly scheduled event: Monday Mania, where I tell you about something I'm going gaga for!

This week I'm all about bamboo knitting needles. for a long time I thought they were over priced and blah blah blah, and then I cast my newest project onto a set of bamboo circular needles, and I am in love with the feel of them.

Mmm Clean

I finally pulled out one of the bars of hand made soap I had hiding under my sink, and it was lovely. This bar was purchased at a craft bazaar and is made by "Granny's Best Soap." The bar I'm using right now is called "Forbidden Fantasy." I want to learn how to make my own soaps, and bath stuff.

I want to do "Regularly Scheduled Events" here, and these are my ideas so far:
*Rage of the week: My favorite page from the rage a day calendar to be posted on Sundays.
*Happy List: A list of 5 random things that make me happy to be posted on Wednesdays.

Since it's Sunday here is the "Rage of the Week"

From Friday, February 15

"TODAY'S TO-DO: Be a Bad Girl Temp-tress!

Looking for exciting, new ways to interact with other party guests? Just try on this tempting temp job and see how it fits.

The Temp Job: Chiropractor
The Perks: Strangers allow you to run your hands up and down their spines.
Action Plan: As you're speaking to a handsome stranger, eye his shoulders suspiciously, look him in the eye and say, "I couldn't help but notice that you're completely out of alignment. May I?" Introduce yourself as a chiropractor, rub your hands up and down his spine, nod seriously to yourself, and say "Just what I thought." When he looks at you pleadingly, make him an offer he can't refuse: "I don't usually do this, but if you want to step into a quiet room for a minute I can give you an adjustment that will change your life." In the host's bedroom, wrap your arms around him from behind, squeeze hard, and lift until you hear a loud cracking sound or a moan of ecstasy. Try not to injure yourself - it blows your cover."

Oh the things you learn...

Earlier today I asked Grams (also known as the crazy old lady) about how a published writer would get taxed for royalties and such, at which point she revealed to me an interesting fact. Many years ago my Grandmother wrote a romance novel, long hand. She never published it but she still has the MS after all of these years. On one hand that she wrote it is not surprising in the least, I swear she put all of Jude Deveraux and Catherine Coulter's children through college single handedly, and I make frequent forrays into her library of smut when I'm looking for something racy and historical. On the other hand I am surprised that she never mentioned the damn thing to me once in the past 22 years.

The woman loves to talk, but only recently has she told me anything that I felt was of "value." In other words it's taken 22 years for her to get around to talking about herself, and the bits of our family history that I will never learn from my dad or his siblings. I've heard more about a the clothing people wore to a funeral of a little girl I never met than I do about the crazy old woman's life. I don't even know how she met my grandfather, just that like me he could not abide tomatoes on anything.

If I keep going this is going to turn into a loooooong rant so I'll sign out now.

Love from Carat Land

Walking on a Windy Day

After my incredibly (not) entertaining World Lit Exam this morning, I decided that it was a beautiful day for a long walk. I spent about an hour wandering around 'Hachie with my head phones on, and a play list with some of my favorite songs. I'm going to call it compensation for the fact that I fully plan on eating 5 pounds of valentines chocolate while hanging out with Melly this evening. I also took advantage of the time to mull over questions of plot, character, and motivation for my WIP, altogether I think it was a worthwhile venture.

So here is the plan for the evening: I go to Melly's with my brand new shiny copy of Chocolat in hand as well as any other romantic movies I can scrounge out of my collection, and we watch them. Mean while we bake brownies cook up some salmon and enjoy our single-ness together. Sounds like a perfect valentines day to me.

Rage a Day!

I have a 2008 Bad Girl Rage a Day calendar, it is great for random bits of inspiration.

This "Rage" is from a couple of weeks ago but I thought I would share.

You know it's time to start a relationship when...

*you start thinking office memos are really secret love letters.
*you keep an extra toothbrush at your place, just in case.
*you need a presentable date for your high school reunion.
*you become jealous of worms because they can mate with themselves.
The next three I get to fill in!
*you buy a set of scented candles because they smelled manly, and were cheap, but mostly because they smelled manly.
*the random stuff on your bed take up more square footage than the space where you sleep.
*you take your Johnny Depp worship to a new and kind of scary height.


Fun fun fun.

Todays page is all about Rosa Parks, but I'm too lazy to type it all up. So know this, Rosa Parks was AWESOME.

On that note it is black history month. In recognition of the month I will be reading Zora Neal Hurston's "Their Eyes Were Watching God." It's fabulous stuff so if you haven't read it go do so, right now! If you have, then read it again it's worth it.

YAY YAY YAY!

I am le uber excitemundo! (yes I am aware that I just misspelled/misused words in three different languages) I actually wrote the first scene of Tex's story, and its three pages long. That might not seem like much but I've also got working profiles on all the characters that have been introduced so far and SEVEN MAJOR PLOT POINTS. If it weren't 4 am I would call Melly and tell her all about it. As it is I will probably call her around 8 or 9. I can't believe it, I have a story, a place for it to go, a way for it to get there, and I even have a beginning! I am ecstatic! and I am using way too many exclamation points. I've started a list of links that I have used in preliminary research; and have resolved to ask my Lit professor about the horse breeding industry, as she used to do, it and it is a major part of my story. I just have to hope she doesn't think I'm crazy. And I'm off to make more tea.