Today

Today I'm trying to be the dancing, carefree, happy girl I want to be and know I truly am, but I'm stuck being the skulking, burdened, grumpy girl I hate being.

Bleh.

I'm having dinner tonight with a friend who I haven't seen for a year. But right now I'm going to go roll some Katamari. During the load scenes I'm going to do some mountain climbers to chase the clouds off my shoulders and out of my mind.

(I don't like to post about my dark moods, but it's a very real part of my life, and I'm working toward living out loud, so there ya go)

Summertime, and the livin' is easy

I know I said I had a project to show, but I can't find the pictures! I'm afraid that I deleted them off the camera before I could upload them. Boo.

I'm trying to get into a summer schedule that will make it easier to go back to work in August. In the summer my body wants to stay up until 3:00 or 4:00 in the morning and then sleep in until 9:30 or 10:00. It's murder when I have to go back to waking up at 5:45!

Last night we turned off the TV and the computer and hung out in the front room. It was so nice! We put on some music and just chilled for the evening.
Rocketboy got "comfy" on the couch and read.
Pixy got truly comfortable on the arm of the couch and wondered why Rocketboy didn't push things out of the way to make a cozy place to sit.
Link got snugly on the back of my chair.
And I worked on some designs in my sketchbook for a project. I'm having a really hard time translating a treasure chest into a 2D design.
LisaLove was out having fun, so she didn't join us.

We're going to try for four TV free days a week. There's nothing on TV anyway. Except for American Gladiators. Have you been watching it? You should! I find myself up out of my seat cheering people on.

Huh. That's interesting.

Just a little note for those who like to slack at work and use the free high speed Internet- CrimethINC is often blocked by a net nanny because it's "Category: Terrorist/Militant/Extremist"
That makes me laugh and cry at the same time. Sometimes I can't access instructables for the same reason.

Uh, not that I would ever use the Internet at work for time wasting purposes. No way. Not me.

Shake Girl

I've got a finished project, but I can't show it yet as it's a surprise.
In the mean time, go read Shake Girl, A really good graphic novel written by fourteen Stanford students.

Wasting time

DSCN1344
Originally uploaded by Pearliepie.

I have three big projects that I should be working on right now, but bleh. I have no crafty mojo.

Here's the second quilt block I was working on in my big crafts in progress list. The three projects I'm currently working on also feature embroidery quite heavily, and I'm getting sort of burned out on the needle and thread.


This is the make or break point- either I push through this bleh moment and finish on time or I continue to sit in front of the computer, feeling more and more guilty and becoming less and less likely to finish. Guess I'd better get my rear in gear, yeah?

Tree square

Tree square
Originally uploaded by Pearliepie.

One of the teachers I work with was diagnosed with Leukemia this year. The school has really pulled together to support her. Her students have started fund raisers to help with her medical copays, because she has to be in hospital so often, and the staff all decorated a muslin square to be sewn into a quilt for her.

I thought it would be fun to document my progress by taking a picture every time I ran out of thread. In the middle of the experiment I misplaced my camera, so there aren't many pictures of the top in progress, which was the most interesting bit. Oh well.

I did the outline of the treetop first with backstitch.



Then I got bored with green and started the trunk.

When the trunk was almost done I went back to the treetop and started filling it in.
I used two colors of thread held together for a blended look. The bigger circles are stain stitch, filled web stitch and button hole stitch.
In the middle of the trunk I used a raised rose stitch to look like a knot in the trunk. The rest of the trunk is modified long and short stitch to represent bark.

Blah blah. Back from the dead?

I always write here "I'm gonna..." and then I never do, probably because I'm catching up on old episodes of Lost or The Wire. Or Deadwood. But mostly Lost. Curse you Netflix! Uh, and my own laziness and love of television, I guess.

Speaking of Lost, there's a line that's been bouncing around in my head since we watched it a few weeks ago, "If you want to change, just change."

Duh.

But at the same time- sort of earth shattering for me. Instead of talking about all the things I want to do, why don't I just do them?
Will I change? I don't know, but I don't want to say that I'm going to do things and not do them anymore.

So. Here's a list of some of the crafty projects I've got going right now. I'm not allowed to go to the craft store for supplies until I finish five things, or start any new projects until I finish ten things.

1. Woo Woo swap- I need to finish two collages and find one that went missing.
2. Surprise project that freaking broke as I was packaging it up to send.
3. Scarf for MIL *Done and sent! She loves it!
   
4. Blanket for sister
5. Blanket for SIL's high school graduation present
6. Lady is a Tramp's quilt square ***Finished!
7. Quit square for work ***Finished!
8. Needlework swap package
9. 3 giant rasterbations for my basement
10. Sock monkey baby blanket for my cousin's baby
11. Granny square blanket for my other cousin's baby
12. Surprise Mobiles
13. Thrifted polo blanket
14. Butters ami for Rocketboy
15. blue/green circle blanket for me
16. Replace broken buttons on winter coat

I'd like to post pictures when I finish these things, but will I really do it? Who knows.
It's sort of like Lost- tune in each week for no answers and even more burning questions!