Friday Unrelated Information

1. Oh, this weather...at least it will be a good weekend to stay inside and sew. I've finished the third pencil skirt and am moving into a polka dot phase. Maybe someday it will even be warm enough to wear everything I've been making!

2. I can't think of anything to cook lately. I think of things that sound good and then once they're made I don't like them. Maybe this is the weather's fault, too.

3. On a less complain-y note, I found a site that makes fun of the worst science fiction covers you've seen. Like this:

You're Making Me Re-Quote Hemingway, Weather

I posted this at the beginning of April two years ago when it was merely cold and rainy, so now that it is NEARLY MAY and there is SNOW I think I am justified in re-quoting:

Sometimes the heavy cold rains would beat it [spring] back so that it would seem that it would never come and that you were losing a season out of your life...You expected to be sad in the fall. Part of you died each year when the leaves fell from the tree and their branches were bare against the wind and the cold, wintry light. But you knew there would always be the spring, as you knew the river would flow again after it was frozen. When the cold rains kept on and killed the spring, it was as though a young person had died for no reason.

Sometimes, Work Is Work

I like trying to figure out how quotes by fiction writers apply to commercial writers. This one's by Ursula LeGuin:

I am going to be rather hard-nosed and say that if you have to find devices to coax yourself to stay focused on writing, perhaps you should not be writing what you're writing. And if this lack of motivation is a constant problem, perhaps writing is not your forte. I mean, what is the problem? If writing bores you, that is pretty fatal. If that is not the case, but you find that it is hard going and it just doesn't flow, well, what did you expect? It is work; art is work.

Tuesday Project Roundup: Not A Pencil Skirt

I got a fancy new purse for spring and I didn't want to just throw it in my wire bike basket, so of course I had to sew a liner for the basket. I just made up a pattern and used some fabric on hand--a big vintage print and leftover pillow backing fabric. (When everything you own is either aqua, turquoise, or orange, all your fabric coordinates!)

Now I can carry my purse and it won't get wire marks:


And look what else fits in there!
I was putting it on and he came to investigate and jumped right in. No, I did not try taking him for a ride.

Today, We Ride

If it's not going to be like Copenhagen, maybe it will be like this:

Lady parade, coming through!

Friday Unrelated Information

1. I got caught up on the new Glee episodes last night and my favorite hair insult ever was in the latest one (the cheerleading coach is always making fun of the teacher running glee club's hair):
"I thought I smelled cookies wafting from the ovens of the little elves who live in your hair."

2. My friend Kara told me about a store that sells apparel fabrics here in town and now I can't wait to check it out! I am really excited about the thought of getting suiting and silks and nice things in person instead of online.

Thing #20: Find A Perfume

Thing #20 on the 30 Things is done, and the winner is L'Heure Bleue, by Guerlain. Created in 1912, this is described by Guerlain "a bouquet of roses softened with iris, violet and vanilla," but you have to go read some of the reviews on Basenotes: "An old woman sobbing softly in a church" (?), "a mixture of White Diamonds and baby powder" (!), "thawing earth and sulking, hardy blossoms." Apparently, it is a love it or hate it sort of smell.

To me it smells mostly like violets (I'm no perfume expert), but expensive violets--kind of how I imagine someone's apartment in Paris would smell. It seems calm, and kind, and confident, and those are all good things to be when you're 30.

This Week's Poem

"the door to the invisible," from Back Roads to Far Places by Lawrence Ferlinghetti

the door to the invisible
is visible

the hidden door

is not hidden

i walk through it forever

not seeing it

i am what i am

and will be

what i will be

Tuesday Project Roundup: Pencil Skirt #2

I'm on a roll! Here's a repeat of last week's skirt in a different print (from here):
I love this silhouette but it's not the most practical one for walking fast, riding a bike,* running away from zombies, etc., so I'm going to have to move on as soon as I get skirt #3 from this pattern finished.

*Obviously we did not die on the ride to work yesterday, but we did get two honks, and not approving ones. I'm sure cyclists don't get honked at in Copenhagen.

It's A Big Deal When You're Sedentary

Today is the first bike ride to work! I met up with my bike-and-knitting-friend Kara on Saturday morning for some practice in a neighborhood parking lot.
(Oh hai, do I look like I know what I'm doing? Because I'm going to be on the road with the cars soon!)

We circled and stopped and started and amused/puzzled the neighbors to no end, and then we rode to get brunch. It was pretty much like this video. Let's hope the Monday commute is, too.

Wonderful Copenhagen from Copenhagenize on Vimeo.

Friday Unrelated Information

1. I found a Michael Chabon quote about being a grown-up that I liked a lot:
We are accustomed to repeating the cliche, and to believing, that “our most precious resource is our children.” But we have plenty of children to go around, God knows, and as with Doritos, we can always make more. The true scarcity we face is of practicing adults, of people who know how marginal, how fragile, how finite their lives and their stories and their ambitions really are, but who find value in this knowledge, even a sense of strange comfort, because they know their condition is universal, is shared.

2. I know this has made the rounds already, but for some reason I can't get enough of it. Inexplicable.

Yes We're Going To A Party, Party

It's my mom's birthday today! Happy birthday to a great mom!

More Background On The Skirt Obsession

Another reason I'm suddenly into skirts, as stated yesterday, deserved its own post: I've started watching the TV show Glee. A sewing blog I read linked to another blog devoted entirely to one Glee character's outfits, which were mostly cardigans and skirts. Without having seen the show, I started following the outfit blog for some fashion inspiration.

Fortunately, my friend Kara found out that I had never actually seen Glee and she loaned me her DVDs of the first part of season one--which I watched in a week. Guys, I love Glee! There's music! Unpopular kids! Insecurity! Drama club! Gay teens! I LIVED this in high school. And I can finally think about it and not cringe.

Tuesday Project Roundup: Pencil Skirt #1

Hooray, a project that fits and has big pink flowers on it!
(Toby wanted me to get him and his heater in the picture.)

This is one of my new favorite patterns: It fits, there are no fussy details (Cynthia Rowley, I'm looking at you), and I can make it in about 3 hours. In fact, I'm working on a second skirt from this same pattern this week and have a third one planned out, too.

After being more pro-dress than pro-skirt for the last couple of years, I'm really into skirts suddenly. I think that's because I realized that skirts give you far more options for wildly mixing colors and patterns.

Today's Quote

...is by Galileo. Yay science!

I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with senses, reason and intellect has intended us to forego their use and by some other means to give us knowledge which we can attain by them. He would not require us to deny sense and reason in physical matters which are set before our eyes and minds by direct experience or necessary demonstrations.

Friday Unrelated Information

1. I know why so many writers are alcoholics. It's been so busy lately that I've had a hard time shutting my brain down at night. I have also discovered the Negroni. Coincidence? If it stays busy, before you know it I'll move on to pink gin and then probably just a straw.

2. Do you need a panflute? Find out below.

Happy Birthday, Barbara Kingsolver

I have liked everything from her that I've read. Maybe instead of reading Dune for the nth time again, I should go to the library in her honor and get one of the short story collections I haven't read.

Quarterly Report: 30 Things

It's been three months since I put up my list for this year, so I thought I'd report on it. Seven things are done or going well, I've already had to modify a couple other, and the rest are pending. Commentary on successes, modifications, and challenges below:

1. Put the money that I was using to pay off debt into savings for a down payment on some sort of house, townhouse, or condo.
Yes, I am doing this every month--Toby needs a yard to play in. I'd like to start channeling some extra money in there in addition to the main savings.

3. Stop buying non-essentials (ready-made clothes, really expensive fabric, shoes, magazines, etc.) for three months (months TBD)
I'm cutting this back to a month at a time with the option to extend it to the full 3 if I can get back into the frugal habit. (I think that May and June will be the months--I want to start after I get my tax return, which is getting spent on things like vacuums and desk chairs and end tables.)

6. Buy a living room chair--armless, small-ish, but comfy. This will help with seating to accomplish #22.
Done!

7. Sew new pillow covers for the living room.
Done!

8. Buy a vacuum.
As soon as I get my tax return.

9. Refresh my yoga skills and then...
10. Start doing yoga once or twice a week.
I'm going to try to get to the intro class this month, then get into the habit of an evening class in May.

13. November-March, walk or ride to work at least twice a month. April-September, up it to at least four times a month.
I get a resounding FAIL on walking from November to March--I think it only happened once. And my 4 times/month goal in April isn't going to happen, but I will try to ride at least once. Fortunately, I have a bike buddy who works across the street from me to get me going.

14. Eat at one new restaurant a month--any meal, but it has to be somewhere I haven't been before.
So far, so good! Between Vegas and fun work lunches with my bike buddy, I'm doing just fine. And I'm counting the bar at Bambara as a restaurant for this month.

18. Stop biting my fingernails (I mean it this year).
Really, how hard should this be? It's not so much the nail as the skin around the nail that I destroy, and the more stressed I get the more that happens. Maybe I will try a manicure next week.

19. Wear more colors of lipstick than "pink" and "darker pink."
Um, not only have I not been wearing new colors, I've pretty much stopped re-applying it after all the morning coffee at work.

20. Find a perfume I want to wear regularly.
Samples of some classic Guerlain and a new Chanel scent are on their way!

21. Stock and maintain a home bar and keep it stocked. No drinking it up and not replacing it. TAX RETURN = BOOZE. Hooray!

22. Have more people over to the apartment--not huge parties, but a few people for dinner, or drinks before a restaurant, etc.
Yes! Between a wine class (see below) and the three attempts to see Sherlock Holmes, Toby has had lots of after-work visitors.

23. Learn more about wine.
I learned about value wines of Italy in January and that was really fun. I really want to take one of the classes on French wine later this year.

Tuesday Project Roundup: Not Easy, Green, Etc.

I can't say this is my favorite project ever, but at least it's wearable:

It's another Cynthia Rowley for Simplicity pattern, but I have to complain that the fit is really inconsistent from pattern to pattern: Cutting the same size in all three, the yellow dress was way too big in the bust, this tank from last year was also a little loose, but this tunic ended up really snug in places.

Unfortunately, it's easier to take something in than to add fabric that you've already cut off*, so even though I planned this as a dress it ended up as a tunic. (I, ah, probably need to start walking more and stop eating lemon bars for breakfast, too.)

But it's wearable, and it's done, and I do like this part of the pattern a lot--that decorative piece around the slit has a backing of sky blue, for just a little contrast:




*Say it with me now: MEASURE TWICE, CUT ONCE!

Probably Wrong, But Funny

(Click for big. Not as wrong--or as funny--as this, though.)

Friday Unrelated Information

1. Have you seen this story of the World Rally Championship in Mexico? You need to read it because it's awesome:
Bill Caswell, an unemployed Chicago racing freak, entered the Mexico round of the World Rally Championship in a 1991 BMW 318i that he found on Craigslist. The car cost $500...he found a loophole in the FIA rules that let him enter a twenty-year-old car in the same event as guys like Ken Block and former F1 driver Kimi Raikkonen.
He gets mooned! He almost falls off a bridge! He finishes third in his class!

2. Haven't we all wanted to see Michael Buble being stalked by a velociraptor? Now we can, thanks to bubleraptor.tumblr.com.

A Poem For When It Is NOT Snowing

I am not even going to talk about this snowstorm. Instead, here's a poem from The Writer's Almanac this morning about springtime and Easter.

The Saints of April

by Todd Davis

Coltsfoot gives way to dandelion,
plum to apple blossom. Cherry fills
our woods, white petals melting
like the last late snow. Dogwood's
stigmata shine with the blood
of this season. How holy
forsythia and redbud are
as they consume their own
flowers, green leaves running
down their crowns. Here is
the shapeliness of bodies
newly formed, the rich cloth
that covers frail bones and hides
roots that hold fervently
to this dark earth.

--For Jack Ridl