books – Imaginary Sunshine

Thrifting, couponing and dolly meet

Michelle — Mon, 15 Aug 2011 04:47:07 +0000

I’ve gotten over the shock of having short hair now (amazing what a week does!) and I have gotten used to it to seeing it short. It still feels weird because I keep reaching for hair that’s just not there anymore, guess I’m just used to having long, long hair! But it’s a nice change (or maybe I’ve just forced myself to adapt to to change).

Work for the last week has been busy, gotten a lot of work done while trying to keep sane. Keeping sane involves a lot of tea drinking and I keep having late lunches – I don’t like that one bit. But such is life and the sacrifices made for work… I get a little testy when I haven’t had food for a while, so I’ve been bringing lots of little snacks to have throughout the day. Apparently hearing me munch of on apple slices is distraction (but then, it’s probably more acceptable than me snapping at people so I ignore the fact that people find me munching on apple slices to be distraction).

On Saturday I spent a lot of time in stores, heh. I went to two thrift stores and got some things… At the first store, I got a vintage queen-sized pillowcase with absolutely no wear to the fabric or to the tag (score!) at $1.99. Then there was two pieces of pretty Pyrex. White divided serving dish was $2.99, JaJ ‘Harvest’ casserole dish was $3.99 (missing lid but the pattern is in amazing shape and I should be able to find one for a dollar though).

Then at the second store I picked up a bunch of vintage Singer books. The two propped up (knitting) are actually for machine knitting, but a lot of the techniques that they talk about (especially regarding shaping!) can be used in hand-knitting ($2.49 each). Then there are three sewing books (prices from left to right are $1.99, $0.99, $1.99)

My sister D and I had also gone into Zellers because they have Campbell’s soup on sale at $0.54 and she had 6 coupons (yes, 6 – her condo gets newspapers delivered twice a week, they’re put in the lobby and whoever wants them can snag them. She snags some of the extra inserts only if there are good deals and if there are papers left over the night before the next delivery date.) for them, making it $0.04 a can. Zellers has it in their coupon policy that the phrase “one coupon per purchase” means “one coupon per transaction”. All other stores that my sister and I had ever shopped at took “one coupon per purchase” to mean “one coupon per item” as a purchase is for an item and a transaction is for all the items. But the cashier was quite snippy and was all “You can only use one coupon per transaction it says so in our coupon policy” (but she couldn’t actually show us the coupon policy – I looked it up later and it was true that they’re kind of whacked with their definitions). So my sister just smiled at her and said that she could ring them up. Individually. And we didn’t even have to wait in line 6 times either.

So six cans, six receipts. $0.04 per receipt. It would have been a lot easier if she would have just rang them all up together (and would have saved paper too).

Today (Sunday), I headed out to see the local dolly enthusiasts! It was such fun, I got to do a little bit of shopping first at this great store in the mall and then we hung around the food court. Some of the security guards were a little concerned about us being there (did we get permission, why did we need three tables?) but one of the ladies I was with explained to them that we were shopping at the mall and eating at the mall and we had about 3-4 people per table – much like the other similar-sized tables in the food court and we weren’t be loud/disruptive and hadn’t had any complaints from other mall patrons, so they left us alone for most of the time after that. It was fun though, getting to see people again and there were new people (yay!) that I hadn’t met in person before so it was neat getting to meet new people and their dolls.

That time of year…

Michelle — Thu, 02 Dec 2010 05:20:27 +0000

And I don’t mean the winter holidays (although I so wish I was talking about that!). In just under a week, I’ll be writing my first final exam for the term (for my ecology course). At this point, I’m usually in some kind of weird head space, just trying to go over everything and remember everything. It’s so helpful when I have professors that put together practice problems that reflect the difficulty of the kinds of questions that will be on the final exam. It’s also so helpful that my ecology profs will be doing a combined total of six review sessions. I’ll be avoiding the ones that are occuring the day before the final – I cannot deal with crazed and panicking people who didn’t bother to start studying until a night before. But I’m definitely going to at least one review session per professor (both go by a Q&A style, which I like).

For my other classes, they all just have extended office hours, so perhaps I’ll make a day out of it (going to campus to ask questions and such). I’ll be certainly making use of the office hours for my Oceanography class – beginning to doubt myself in that case, although I can recall the most oddest (but useful) facts in that class. Like the entire Redfield Ratio (106 mols of Carbon : 16 mols of Nitrogen : 15 mols of Silicone : 1 mol of Phosphorus) or how to calculate N* (N* = [N] – 16*[P]). Which is actually a good thing, seeing as those are some of the things not available on the formula sheet… Have you noticed that I’m a complete science geek sometimes? I have (noticed).

I wish I could just think about sugarplums dancing in my head but I just… can’t. My brain’s all wrapped up in how animals swim, fly, walk and run (animal mechanics), how species richness changes with changes in the environment and human destruction (ecology), the beautiful and not-so-beautiful insects of the world (entomology ) and plankton and why they exist where they do (oceanography). Just, such a geek overall.

But… this geek did take a stop by the bookstore at school today! They were having a sale so obviously I went to take a look. There was a lot of crap to dig through, as well as a lot of classics that I would have been interested if I didn’t already own them in one cover type or another (seriously, there’s only so many copies of a Dickens or Austen novel I can have before people start thinking that I’m a complete nutcase). I got Holy Sh*t: The World’s Weirdest Comic Books by Paul Gravett and Peter Stanbury and a package of Jones Soda Co. Carbonated Sours (candy). Delicious. And I always love reading about comic books – it’s a full colour, glossy-paged, hardcover book that’s absolutely gorgeous when I flipped through it. Not recommended for the children though, as some of the world’s weirdest comic books includes ones with covers that feature scantily clad (or completely naked) women. Oddly enough, they don’t have naked men anywhere (or at least that I’ve seen so far).

And now… I’m just going to go and watch television for a bit, seeing as how I’ve spent over 4 hours today studying (since getting home – I studied on the bus and at school before class…).

I hope everyone had a fantastic day and that your life is so much better now that you know what the Redfield Ratio is!

And hey look, I’m still alive!

Michelle — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 20:08:59 +0000

What have I been up to since my last final (Monday night)?

Clearly not blogging….

I’ve done some baking (but, unfortunately, the proof of that has mysteriously disappeared…), some thrift store shopping (yesterday, with J), some reflection (on life – wow, I make myself sound old…), some playing of the Nintendo DS (Pokemon Platinum…) and some cleaning (although, as luck would have it, there’s very little proof of that as well!). I’ve also caught up on television that has been recorded on the DVR: General Hospital (which took up a nice chunk of the hard drive), Glee(!), some CSI-franchise episodes, Private Practice, Castle… I also need to fit in some crafting (for swaps) and crafting (for pattern writing). Whoot…

Oh, and I’m currently on pins and needles regarding finding out my grades for the term (but they won’t start coming out until Monday, May 3rd – fudge).

But here are some photos to share (mostly from thrifting):

Fugitive from the Cubicle Police and Seven Years of Highly Defective People by Scott Adams. ($4.99/each)

It’s Obvious You Won’t Survive By Your Wits Alone by Scott Adams ($4.99)

Original Soundtrack Recording of My Fair Lady – $1.99 (for my mom)

Romeo & Juliet – $1.99

The Sound of Music – $1.99 (because I really need another copy of the soundtrack, hah)

Dress shirt, for work – $4.99 (still had original tags on, and the extra button was still attached to one of the inside tags!)

Close-up of pattern (yay, sparkly metallic threads).

And last, but certainly not least, Mantracker’s autograph (courtesy of my sister, who lined up to get it!) – still need to get caught up on episodes on the DVR for this show as well…

How has everyone been the last few days? Hope you’ve all been well!

February! February!

Michelle — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 04:50:25 +0000

Yeah, it’s February. I did post yesterday, but that’s all password protected and shit so this is my official, although not technical, first post for the month of February 2010. And I know the header still says 01-2010 because even though I have the header done for February, I honestly did not get around to picking and choosing colours to update the CSS so uhh… enjoy the January theme for another… two weeks? I’ll get the new one up on the 12th (… whoo, last day of midterms before my wonderful, two weeks of break where I’m going to be high on pain medication – hell yes.) or sometime.

Anyways… Things that are new:

I’ve managed to stay awake for all my classes so far for the last week. This includes my biochemistry class. Bright highlighters + content that doesn’t bore me = awake and coherent Michelle.
Earbuds! I got new ones yesterday for like $7. They rang up as being “red” but they’re actually hot pink. The other colour choices available were black (nixed because I’ve had black earbuds for forever), white (get dirty easily, I used to have white ones and would always get asked what kind of iPod I had, gack) and pink (clashed with my mp3 player case).
I bought Almost Alice by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor for 50% off at my school’s bookstore. I love that series, I’ve been reading it since I was about 8, the first book came out in 1985 with 24 books so far in the series – there’s going to be 28 by the time the author is done with the series (follows Alice from 3rd grade up until she’s 18, and the last book is supposed to cover Alice from 18 to 60).
Not-so-new, I’m fever free (yay!!!!!)
I about killed my printer last night printing off biochemistry slides (for studying purposes), biochem assignment (whoo…) and practice midterm for plants physiology (whoot). My printer? None too happy with me!
I read a book called The Last Polar Bear A Photographic Journey by Steven Kazlowski. I highly recommend it. At first glance, I thought it was like one of those coffee table photo books – it’s certainly large enough for it! It has a lot of gorgeous photos of polar bears and other arctic life (seals, walruses, birds, arctic foxes (!), whales) and talks a lot about why polar bears are important and the changes that have been occurring in the arctic and even likens to the polar bear to the canary (canaries were used in mines to help with detection of poisonous gases, when the canaries stopped singing, the miners knew that they had to get out of there). It’s a beautiful book with a strong message about the importance, and the fragility, of the world’s ecosystems.
OMG. I committed a cardinal sin and wrote something negative about the Blythe community (I know, I know!). But geez, some people are crazy uptight. And nuts. And just… yeah. =/

Hope you all had a wonderful Tuesday!

Oh, and one last thing! I spent my biology lab today dissecting a snail. Snails are hermaphrodites and I learned today that they shoot darts at one another in order to get the other snail to be sexually interested in them. Oh, and their main male reproductive organ (I’m sure you can all guess what I’m referring to!)? 1/6th of the entire length of the organism. Fascinating stuff, isn’t it?

Mishaps, cheerful antics and everything else

Michelle — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 05:31:21 +0000

I’ve been sending time away from the computer lately (I was online for ~10 minutes yesterday!). I counted it all up, and I spent nearly four and a half hours in public transit yesterday! 3 hours for to and from school, then more time on various buses and trains. I completely abused my transit pass, thank goodness I have it though – it would have cost $15 out of pocket if I didn’t have my transit pass!

Going out to dinner last night was horrible. My mom heard about this restaurant on the radio and on a tv commercial. They serve “fusion” food (Chinese food and western foods) but the service was absolutely horrible. We got seated very quickly, and we ordered within like maybe 10 minutes of arrival. After we ordered our food for dinner, it took over 50 minutes before the first dish arrived. We’d called a server over (at around 30 min) to see what was taking so long. She apologized for the wait and promised to go see what was going on. At another time (maybe at around 50 min), we called the (same!) server over again, in hopes of just getting rice or something while we were waiting (it was a 4 person combo meal, so we were supposed to get rice and dessert with 4 different dishes) and she sees us waving, walks over, stops, looks at our table and then just turns around and walks away – without even asking us what we were asking for! Every single thing that was brought to our table that night (including the bill) was brought by the manager, with an apology for the wait every single time. One of the dishes was too salty, the rice was cold (!) when it arrived at our table, the person refilling our tea cups spilled into two of dishes and… well… needless to say, they didn’t get a very sizable tip from us. But seriously, 50 minutes? One of the dishes we ordered was a type of fish with vegetables – which should have been the easiest (and quickest!) thing to cook up. The table next to us was seated after we were, ordered after we had ordered and they got their food quickly, ate, paid and left before we even got anything that we had ordered.

My dad just got home from his trip (I’m hesitant to call it a vacation, as he spent some time at tourist spots, but the reason for his trip was a death in the family). During the time, he apparently never got a hair cut and we were all like “Oh. My. Gosh.” when we saw him. There was definitely a lot of photos being taken before his hair cut last night (my mom did it) as it was the only time we’ve ever seen it that long. He did bring back gifts for us! My sister got a really nice watch (however, she’s not sure when she’d get to wear it as it’s not waterproof and she works with tanks full of water at work…), my other sister got a new cell phone (granted, she needs to use a power adapter, but it’s essentially an iPhone lookalike and she’s been wanting a new phone for ages, and her SIM card fits ‘quite nicely’ into it) and I got… Well, heh, I got another Blythe doll. I’m still bouncing around names for her, but she’s quite cute. She’s got black hair, bangs and a bowl/mushroom hair cut. So she pretty much reminds me of me when I was under the age of ten. Not quite sure what to call her, most of my childhood nicknames are related to my name and none of them seem to ‘fit’ her, especially since some of those nicknames are still in use and I haven’t had bangs and a bowl/mushroom cut since I was under the age of 10.

We’d gone out for most of today – out for tea/lunch, grocery shopping, the library (I borrowed Intensely Alice by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor, The Simpsons: An Uncensored, Unauthorized History by John Ortved with the foreword by Douglas Coupland and Rubber Soul by The Beatles because my sister said that she never knew there was a song called Michelle). Got home maybe mid-afternoon? I spent a few hours looking at trip photos/videos from when my dad was on his trip – there’s the most adorable photo of the behind of a red panda! And giant pandas! And other awesome animals! And then there were photos of relatives that I recognize (ahem, I’ve apparently met all of my uncles and aunts, at least the ones that were living when I was born, but I only recognize a handful of them because I’ve never been back to visit them after that first time… When I was under 2 years old…).

Oh, also while I was out today, I found someone’s hiding spot outside of the restaurant that my family went to for lunch (the bottle was full and unopened – but I left it there):

Birthday smasharoonies!

Michelle — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 03:00:05 +0000

(Yes, I make up words for the hell of it. It’s fun sometimes, but I do still have a great appreciation for the English language.)

So last night was my birthday party. People were fashionably (and not-so fashionably) late as well as being super early (while thinking that they were late, haha). But it was so nice to see everyone again. Some of my friends, I hadn’t seen since the summer and others I hadn’t seen since September (October was definitely an anti-social month for me, for reasons that shall not be disclosed at this time). So it’d been a while since I’ve seen a lot of people.

We watched a movie (Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix – I hadn’t seen it before and thought the kitty plates are kind of charming… if there had only been one) and had an awesome dinner (friends C and K helped out with the cooking, because I’m fairly hopeless when it comes to cooking anything beyond breakfast foods) and we had some form of pasta that was not spaghetti (my sister can’t read names on packaging, apparently) with very yummy sauce that required an impromptu shopping trip for an onion and realizing exactly how much pasta was made with one package (the family and I will be eating pasta every day for like… ever). But it was so nice seeing everyone again…

Even if my friend K was awfully mean with wrapping my present. It was a super light-weight box that had shredded paper inside with little taped folded pieces of paper. And she told me that I had to find 20 pennies in the wrapped up pieces of paper. I found 19. And then she starts giggling and laughing and hands me another penny and says that there was only 19 there. Then she goes out to her car and gets the real present, which also had duct tape… Oy. I hope her family owns stock in a company that makes duct tape, given how much she uses on me every year, haha.

My friends had gotten so good at getting me doubles of things. When I was 16, I got three copies of The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants by Ann Brashares, when I was 17, I got two copies of P.S. I love you… by Cecelia Ahern and for my 18th and 19th birthday, there were no doubles/triples (I was impressed!). Heh, this year, I got two copies of Story of O by Pauline Réage and the strangest thing that I found was that the racier looking cover was given by my friend who generally wouldn’t even given a book like that the time of day. And this morning my sister sees the two copies of the book (with different covers – one is plain white with black lettering, the other has the image of a woman sitting in lingerie, not truly modern lingerie) and asks me what the book is about. First thing that came out of my mouth? “It’s a story about BDSM from a woman’s point of view.” That was an incredibly awkward conversation to say the least.

My sister J and friend K put the candles on my cake… 20 candles is a lot and the cake was so full of holes after, so glad I wasn’t turning 50 or something, then the entire thing could have been lit with a torch or something and gotten all the candles in one go. But yeah, the candles were lit, and everyone was just sitting there kind of staring at me and someone went (I think) “Made a wish yet?” or something like that, and then someone else went “Shouldn’t we sing first?” and then everyone starts singing.

All in all, it was an excellent time with my friends. I had an awkward time fielding some questions (because when someone asks you, more than once, if someone is showing up, it gets a little awkward after a while), but overall it was a fun time. A lot of time was spent just catching up with everyone and that was fun. K managed to summarize her life from the last 1-2 months in about less than 5 minutes. A record? I think so!

Went out shopping with the sister today. We went grocery shopping for the week (marshmallows was the number one thing on our shopping list), and then did some other shopping at the mall. I bought season 1 of Pushing Daisies for her, along with season 2 of Pushing Daisies (but she’s paying me back for that) and season 5 of Grey’s Anatomy. And then we happened to go wandering into Jacob’s. Whoops? Ahh well, I hadn’t bought new clothes in a while, and it’s always nice to wear nice lingerie, right? I’ve seriously gained a new appreciation for nice underthings over the last year, and learned to like handwashing clothes as well. But yeah, lots of shopping and ended up with new things to wear and season 5 of Grey’s.

It feels like it’s a Sunday even though it’s a Saturday, such a weird feeling.

Anyways, hope everyone had an awesome Friday and an even better Saturday!

Why don’t you… distract me or something?

Michelle — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 03:57:09 +0000

So this is what I did today:

Sneezed. A lot.
Watched Supersize Me with the sisters (it was the first time for both of them to watch it, D was so disgusted, it was hilarious!)
Finished notes, definitions and readings for my psychology class (midterm this Friday!)
Printed out slides for the last 4 lectures from now until my cell biology midterm (I need to go to the store at school and buy the note package – black ink is running low, I don’t think my printer will suffer printing another 70+ pages of full text!)
Sneezed some more.
Made (better) flash cards of animo acid structures
Ordered copies of my university transcripts online (not as expensive as I thought it was going to be…)
Read a chapter for organic chemistry, completed the online reading quiz (booooooooring)
Read people whining on the online discussion board for o-chem over their chem grades (I am pleased as punch to announce that I did better on the o-chem midterm compared to a guy who claims that he spent 3 weeks in the library studying and spent ~$100 on a 6 hour tutor session for the midterm – I did better by nearly 10%! Without spending ~$100 extra on the course, but I spent ~2 weeks studying for this… while juggling studying for another course.)
Sneezed some more.
Watched General Hospital (because it’s only the Canadian Thanksgiving, so I still get my American shows)
Caught up on stuff over at my roleplaying game, Ames!
Did psychology midterm essay prep for 3 of the 5 possible topics (yay)
Reread the good parts from Remember Me? by Sophie Kinsella. I swear, that part about “Mont Blanc” and the whole entire section about the sunflowers? Best parts ever.
Sneezed some more.
Commented on some of the entries that have been gathering on my RSS feeds (sorry everyone – you all blog too much and I’m only one person… It’s not my fault you all write interesting things!)
Played Mafia Wars and Farmville on Facebook… (Procrastination at its best?)
Killed a spider (forecast called for rain before I killed the spider – honest!)

And I’m going to go to sleep. Atrociously early on a Monday night. Why? Because I’m sick (tear). I also emailed the people at volunteering to let them know I wouldn’t be in this week because it’s never a good idea to go in and work with people who have compromised immune systems when you’re sick or just recovering from being sick. I’m not sure what I hate more – my immune system, or the fact that people last week refused to stay home when they were sick and coughing in enclosed rooms with poor air circulation. Damn it, I’m going to be a hypocrite and join that group of people, aren’t I?

Oh well, such is the life from the start of midterms until… finals end?

A’choo!

Almost cheery Tuesday!

Michelle — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 04:21:42 +0000

Oh dear, Caity and Jenna! I didn’t mean four hours of math! I meant four hours between my 3rd class of the day and my 4th class (being math!) on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. My math class will only be 1 hour long, three times a week. You had me scared there for a moment!

Anyways… Today’s been rather nice. I spent a lot of time today at work with my data entry, of course. I chewed someone out for being downright lazy… Despite them being higher up than me. Luckily people think I’m just so cute and funny and that I couldn’t possibly be yelling. At the end, I ended up just going straight to my supervisor who went straight to that guy’s supervisor. It’s kind of like playing leap frog up a mountain and over people. It was not a highlight of my day. Eating chocolate chip cookies and gummy worms? A lot better than having to inform a grown man that some things should not be elective (i.e. using documents required for work). But, alas, so not my problem (right now, anyways).

And enough about work!

I bought a (doll) dress online, it’s a dress that came with a different doll, but I’m in love with it. It’s white with butterflies on it. I’m hoping it arrives within a week. I have plans to do a bunch of sewing on Saturday. I’m so excited for Saturday since it’s Les Miserables night! The circumstances have changed and I’m no longer to go see the play with Clay. Instead, I offered my second ticket to my friend C and she accepted. She likes musicals and plays and such as well and plus it’s been ages since I’ve seen her (… by ‘ages’, I mean ‘May’… I think – I obviously have a very poor sense of time and a very poor memory).

I really ought to spend time with my friends more often, I really don’t see them often enough and it’s easy to remember how much I’ve missed them when I’m actually spending time with them after a month-plus of only talking on the phone, or texting or chatting online. I guess I never really noticed it during high school because all I did was see everyone five days out of the week and chatting online in the evenings or weekends was perfectly fine because I’d just see them again in less than ~48 hours. But now it’s just a whole different dynamic and things are different. We’re all at different schools, we all work at various places with different hours. Some of us can drive, some of us can never seem to borrow the car (that would be me!), some of us just have different groups of friends now, or spend copious amounts of time doing something else. Like me with my blogs, crafts, tv shows (The Bachelorette is ending in a few weeks, whatever am I going to do for entertainment?!), doll (!!!), work, volunteering and trying to stay sane around my dad…

I’ve been working on loads of things lately, especially at home. My sister J and I cleaned out the closet where we keep all the wrapping paper and gift bags and massive rolls of Christmas paper. You do not want to know how many rolls of wrapping paper that we have that is red with dull gold holly with the words ‘Happy Holidays!‘ we have. I wish I hadn’t counted. I’ve been working on cleaning my room, which is a huge task in itself because while I’m fairly organized in many aspects of my life (i.e. my desk at work, usually my school stuff) the rest of my room is a disaster. I’m going to be getting a new bookshelf (which will not be going in my room, but will be doing downstairs so I have a new ‘expansion’ in terms of storage space!) so a lot of my novels will be moving, as well as a lot of resource books (i.e. my physiology book that I’m never selling, a bunch of books about animals for children) and I’ll free up some space and just keep my ‘favourite’ books upstairs. Which will be… a lot, to tell you the truth. I’m also going to clean out my wardrobe, figure out what I’m never wearing again in my life (or haven’t worn since I was in high school). Once I figure that out, I can figure out which fabrics I want to keep to cut up to be sewed into dolly-wear.

And speaking of dolls… I’m also working away on my (new!) dolly blog. I’m quite happy with it so far, but it won’t probably be done until tomorrow. I’m getting picky about the colours and such… I do occasionally wish that I was more decisive.

And… That was my day! And me going on and on about nothing and everything all at the same time.

April Fools!

Michelle — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 00:02:47 +0000

I woke up this morning and it was snowing.This is not an April Fools joke. It was snowing. There was probably about 3-4 cm of fresh snow on the steps leading up to my front door. And then there was rain. And wind, I can’t forget the rain. And no sun.

I thought it was supposed to be spring? Where’s the flowers? Where is the sunshine? Where are the bright blue skies, only disrupted by fluffy white, non-rain expelling clouds? Instead, there was rain, rain, snow, rain, rain, snow, snow, snow, wind, rain, windy snowy rain. Which compels me to write this letter.

Dear Mother Nature,

Sometimes, you’re really wonderful. Sometimes it’s great that there’s someone controlling the weather, because if I was in charge, it’d be pissing rain every single time that I got upset. That being said, snow is not appropriate for spring. Snow is appropriate for very late autumn (even if I am grouchy about it at times) and it is appropriate for winter. Snow is not appropriate in the time of the year that is associated with blooming flowers and fresh grass and sunshine. Lots of sunshine. And flowers.

So, just so that we’re clear. Snow = winter. Snow ≠spring. Okay? Try better tomorrow.

Sincerely,
Michelle

Besides the craptastic weather that I’ve been experiencing today, today’s been kinda crappy overall. Luckily, no one’s played any April Fools jokes on me today (thank goodness…). I went to the library today as I had a lot of books to return and I borrowed only three (three!) books today. I returned much more than 3, so overall I had a loss. So I’m doing okay and not being all crazy-book-addict. Yet, anyways! I borrowed a super cute book called Tiny Yarn Animals: Amigurumi Friends to Make and Enjoy by Tamie Snow. It has some really cute things in it! Shall have to see what I feel like making… I also borrowed Knitting Rules! and Stephanie Pearl-McPhee Casts Off: The Yarn Harlot’s Guide to the Land of Knitting, both books (obviously…) by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee. I think the second title is a bit… umm… long, shall I say? The first title is nice, it’s short but descriptive. But the second one is just so damn long. I feel like I need to pause and take a drink of water before continuing on.

Oh yeah, there’s also a new header and colour scheme… I hope you’ve noticed it. It’s a lot more spring-like than the weather is outside…

Questions

What was/is the weather like where you are today?
When’s the last time that you experienced snow?
What is your absolutely favourite flower? If you only had to pick one?

My answers

Crappy.
Today.
Daisies! The ones with the white petals and the yellow middles.

When I grow up, I want to be yarn harlot too!

Michelle — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 03:06:28 +0000

A library that I frequented almost daily throughout my grades 11 and 12 years of high school recently reopened to the public after undergoing extensive renovations (it’s really pretty inside, but you can tell that they’re not quite done yet as none of the shelves have signs!). So, of course I had to go, even though the grand reopening isn’t until later (the place still smelled like fresh paint – probably because when I walked in, I passed two guys wearing those white overalls and hauling paint around…). Due to the fact that none of the shelves had signs, it was a pain for me to find what I was looking for, but I eventually found the craft books (yay!) and I picked out a few books to read.

Things I Learned from Knitting …whether I wanted to or not by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee (i.e. The Yarn Harlot)
Anticraft: Knitting, Beading and Stitching For the Slightly Sinister by Renée Rigdon and Zabet Stewart
The Ultimate Sourcebook of Knitting and Crochet Stitches from Reader’s Digest
The Crafter’s Guide to Pricing Your Work by Dan Ramsey

And yes, I do knit. Even though it doesn’t seem like it… I learned how to knit (and purl! The only two real stitches in knitting.) before I learned how to crochet. However… While crochet may take up approximately twice as much of yarn as knitting would for something that’s the same size in terms of area… Crochet’s a lot faster. And I’m less likely to drop stitches (… I do that a lot). And I just find it easier (which is really odd, because most people who learn one before the other almost always find the first one that they learned easier). Plus, you know… amigurumi.

That being said, I found an awesome page in the first book (the one by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee). The book has no patterns and it reads more like a list… With a lot of stories. And there was one page in particular that I really liked. It’s on page 122. The page is titled “5 Ways That Knitting is Better Than Video Games”. Numbers 2, 3 and 4 I really like and they apply greatly with crocheting as well (Number 1 doesn’t work for me and number 5 doesn’t apply to crocheting at all).

2. I decide how many points I get and for what.
3. I can do it even if the power goes out.
4 I never lose something because I forget to hit “save” before I go do something else.
– Things I Learned from Knitting … whether I wanted to or not by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee (page 122)

It’s a really quick read, but some of the humour would be difficult to understand if you’ve never been in some of the situations (i.e. really screwing up a pattern, working on something with an intensive deadline, frogging an entire project due to something you messed up in row 2…). I finished the book today (I read a large majority of it while walking home – it’s a fairly small book and I really like it, I’ve never seen it in a bookstore before though, which is why I thought it was either very old or very new – until I saw who it was by, then I knew that I’m either just blind or it’s new).

I’m planning on finishing up my English paper today, printing it out and reading it over tomorrow on the bus. It now has a title! Before it just had “Working Title”, highlighted in red, at the top of the page (and centered). Now it has a title and it is… Paving a Road to Hell. Which is kind of ironic considering my paper is a) about hell and b) about hell isn’t a literal place. Still have have of the conclusion to go, hopefully I’ll get it done.

Oh, plus, I’ve been in the process of designing (ohemgee, I used the d-word!) a crocheted hat. I keep on seeing hats with cat ears everywhere. And, while I do like cats – I really do think that they look best knit. The last time I knit anything was when Goose’s wife was about to have their baby girl. And, well, that was last year. Plus, I don’t really want a cat hat, crocheted, knit or otherwise. Or rather, I don’t want to make one. But I shall post photos when the hat is done! I’m hoping that everyone will be able to tell what it is when I get photos up… Let’s see how good I am at mimicking nature.

Questions

How often do you go to your local public library?
What kinds of books do you normally borrow?
Do you think the road to hell is paved with good intentions?

My answers

Used to be frequently, then dwindled down to about once a month or so (which makes me sad, but keeps my reading in check – what with school and all).
Craft books, romance (paranormal romance, the smutty romance), chick lit, fantasy, sci-fi (depends on the author though), literary fiction (usually the teen stuff only – it’s quicker reads).
Yeah, pretty much