Happy Flag Day

Put out your flag today and be glad you don't live in North Korea--the New York Times has an interview with eight North Koreans who have left the country in the last month. It seems that the recent currency devaluation there has made life nearly unlivable (and it wasn't really that cushy before).

Just something to think about Monday as I go off to my fancy advertising job...

Friday Unrelated Information

1.Every time I watch Breakfast at Tiffany's (or even the clip I posted yesterday), I have to remember that George Peppard went from playing the love interest in that film to playing the Colonel in The A-Team. Strange.

2. Speaking of movies, I watched The Hunt for Red October last night and was struck by all number of things--how young Alec Baldwin was in 1990, how 18-year-olds have no memory of the Cold War, and how I kind of want a big furry Russian hat.

"June drifter, off to see the world"

When Toby was having his adventures outside, I would thought of that line from "Moon River," and today I woke up with it in my head. So here's the version from the film--we all need something pretty to look at on a Thursday, right?



However, my absolute favorite version of this is on the LP "Ben E. King Sings for Soulful Lovers." Go check out the sample and you'll probably agree with me.

How Did The Spending Freeze Go, You Ask?

My month of not buying non-essentials was pretty successful: I did buy a manicure last month but that was from my list so I'm not being too hard on myself for it. I also went to Starbucks a few times.

But overall, it wasn't so bad to get back in the non-spending habit--much easier than when I first went on a budget four years ago and had to approach not spending the way an alcoholic approaches not drinking (one day at a time). I'm glad I proved to myself I can still do it, because once I get a house I think not spending is going to become the new normal (again).

Tuesday Project Roundup: A Little Aubergine

The controller/head of HR at work is expecting a little girl, and I thought, "Hey, I haven't done any real knitting since March and I have some lovely leftover eggplant alpaca yarn, so why don't I make a little baby hat?" So I did.

I tried to make it a little bigger than newborn size, since babies born in July probably don't need a hat right away, but the only size gauge I had was Toby. (It's too big for him.)

Also, I remembered that I really like knitting! Maybe I need to pull out the cabled sweater and work on the sleeves, so I'll be ready to go when it's fall again.

Can Adults Get Summer Vacation, Too?

This poem about summer vacation showed up on the Writer's Almanac a couple of weeks ago. Nothing like warm weather to make you feel full of longing and think that anything is possible.

First Year Teacher to His Students

by Gary J. Whitehead

Go now into summer, into the backs of cars,
into the black maws of your own changing,
onto the boardwalks of a thousand splinters,
onto the beaches of a hundred fond memories
in wait, where the sea in all its indefatigability
stammers at the invitation. Go to your vacation,

to the late morning cool of your basement rooms,
the honeysuckle evening of the first kiss, the first
dip and pivot, swivel and twist. Go to where
the clipper ships sail far upriver, where the salmon
swim in the clean, cool pools just to spawn.
Wake to what the spider unspools into a silver

dawn dripping with light. Sleep in sleeping bags,
sleep in sand, sleep at someone else's house
in a land you've never been, where the dreamers
dream in a language you only half understand.
Slip beneath the sheets, slide toward the plate,
swing beneath the bandstand where the secret

things await. Be glad, or be sad if you want,
but be, and be a part of all that marches past
like a parade, and wade through it or swim in it
or dive in it with your eyes open and your mind
open to wind, rain, long days of sun and longer
nights of city lights mixing on wet streets like paint.

Stay up so late that you forget day-of-the-week,
week-of-the-month, month-of-the-year of what
might be the best summer, the summer
best remembered by the scar, or by the taste
you'll never now forget of someone's lips,
and the trips you took—there, there, there,

where snow still slept atop some alpine peak,
or where the moon rose so low you could see
its tranquil seas...and all your life it'll be like
some familiar body that stayed with you one night,
one summer, one year, when you were young,
and how everywhere you walked, it followed.

Friday Unrelated Information

1. Here's a Flickr set of "animals at sea" from the National Maritime Museum--I love the mongoose, mascot of the HMS Emerald.

2. The Writer's Almanac tells me that today in 1919, the 19th Amendment to the Constitution, giving women the right to vote, was passed by the United States Congress.

3. And, related to the above:

Happy Birthday, Toby!

Dear Toby,

Today is your unofficial birthday! I know you were born in June so I picked the third for you, same as my birthday. Here you are when you were a baby, before you came to live with me:

You're three now, and you've been going outside like a big boy. I'm proud that you got so brave so quickly, but it hurts my feelings a little when you run away from me to go into the neighbor's garage (or into the bushes, or into the other neighbor's yard, or under the cars in the back parking lot, etc.).

Since you're all grown up now, let's make a deal like grown-ups, OK? You will stay mostly inside for the rest of the summer and I will find us a new place to live, one that has a yard with a fence and less traffic. It will have lots of rooms to explore inside, too--it might even have stairs! I know you love stairs. Almost as much as you love laundry:

Even when you get too excited by the outdoors, you are still the sweetest, cutest, and best cat. I'm so glad you came to live with me.

Love,
Mama

PS--Do you think you'd like a new kitty tower? A really tall one?

Can We Say It's Almost Summer?

I am going to say it, even though there was snow ten days ago. This is the opening of Dandelion Wine, my summer book:

It was a quiet morning, the town covered over in darkness and at ease in bed. Summer gathered in the weather, the wind had the proper touch, the breathing of the world was long and warm and slow. You had only to rise, lean from your window, and know that this indeed was the first real time of freedom and living, this was the first morning of summer.

Tuesday Project Roundup: Jumping Back Into The Week. Also: Sleeves!

I meant to post something by Wilfred Owen yesterday in honor of Memorial Day, but the morning got away from me and I'm going to be confused about what day it is all week anyway, so...let's move on to sewing!

This is a blouse I made in rayon; I hadn't worked with it before and I really enjoyed it. As you can see, it's very drapey. And it has big sleeves.

The fabric is from a designer who introduced some of his prints on apparel fabric (rayon and voile) in addition to quilting cotton. I actually used this same print on regular cotton when I made my quilt. So now I match my bedding.

Friday Unrelated Information

1. I've posted this Hemingway quote before, but I'll post it again because it is SO TRUE:
When you work all day with your head and know you must again work the next day, what else can change your ideas and make them run on a different plane like whiskey?

2. I need to learn about real estate (Thing #2) sooner rather than later. Maybe I'll start that online course this weekend.

3. I must make something with this fabric. Cat heads that look like flower? Yes!

Congratulations, Altair!

My sister-in-law has been in grad school for the last two years while managing to work full-time, train a dog, maintain her yard, and keep my brother happy. (Kidding...mostly!) Tonight is the MBA ceremony and Saturday is the university-wide graduation, so congratulations to my sister-in-law! You did it!

Talking About Words A Lot

This week I got an office AND a writing intern started, so there's been lots of talking about words and training going on. I thought of this poem that I found when I posted about the poet's other featured poem last year.

Ode to American English

by Barbara Hamby

I was missing English one day, American, really,
with its pill-popping Hungarian goulash of everything
from Anglo-Saxon to Zulu, because British English
is not the same, if the paperback dictionary
I bought at Brentano's on the Avenue de l'Opera
is any indication, too cultured by half. Oh, the English
know their dahlias, but what about doowop, donuts,
Dick Tracy, Tricky Dick? With their elegant Oxfordian
accents, how could they understand my yearning for the hotrod,
hotdog, hot flash vocabulary of the U. S. of A.,
the fragmented fandango of Dagwood's everyday flattening
of Mr. Beasley on the sidewalk, fetuses floating
on billboards, drive-by monster hip-hop stereos shaking
the windows of my dining room like a 7.5 earthquake,
Ebonics, Spanglish, "you know" used as comma and period,
the inability of 90% of the population to get the present perfect:
I have went, I have saw, I have tooken Jesus into my heart,
the battle cry of the Bible Belt, but no one uses
the King James anymore, only plain-speak versions,
in which Jesus, raising Lazarus from the dead, says,
"Dude, wake up," and the L-man bolts up like a B-movie
mummy, "Whoa, I was toasted." Yes, ma'am,
I miss the mongrel plentitude of American English, its fall-guy,
rat-terrier, dog-pound neologisms, the bomb of it all,
the rushing River Jordan backwoods mutability of it, the low-rider,
boom-box cruise of it, from New Joisey to Ha-wah-ya
with its sly dog, malasada-scarfing beach blanket lingo
to the ubiquitous Valley Girl's like-like stuttering,
shopaholic rant. I miss its quotidian beauty, its querulous
back-biting righteous indignation, its preening rotgut
flag-waving cowardice. Suffering Succotash, sputters
Sylvester the Cat; sine die, say the pork-bellied legislators
of the swamps and plains. I miss all those guys, their Tweety-bird
resilience, their Doris Day optimism, the candid unguent
of utter unhappiness on every channel, the midnight televangelist
euphoric stew, the junk mail, voice mail vernacular.
On every boulevard and rue I miss the Tarzan cry of Johnny
Weismueller, Johnny Cash, Johnny B. Goode,
and all the smart-talking, gum-snapping hard-girl dialogue,
finger-popping x-rated street talk, sports babble,
Cheetoes, Cheerios, chili dog diatribes. Yeah, I miss them all,
sitting here on my sidewalk throne sipping champagne
verses lined up like hearses, metaphors juking, nouns zipping
in my head like Corvettes on Dexadrine, French verbs
slitting my throat, yearning for James Dean to jump my curb.

Tuesday Project Roundup: More Polka Dots!

Finally, here are some halfway-decent photos of the vintage-style blouse I made a couple of weeks ago. It was fast and fun but I made it in cheap polyester print from JoAnn, so I think that is making me like it less than I would if I had made it in something a little nicer.

I do love the button-back detail, though. I have to thank this sewing blog for telling me how to put on a button-back blouse by yourself (button the middle two buttons and pull it over your head, then reach up and down to get the top and bottom ones). Genius! Who says living alone is inconvenient?

One final note: I debated looking for an actual vintage pattern, rather than paying full price for a new one, but then I read that the pattern manufacturer donates a portion of all sales to Ally Cat Allies. Sold!

Minus The Scotch (For Now)

Today is the first day that I'll be working from my new office (!). Just like Peggy Olson, I'm moving up as a copywriter. Unlike her, I don't have booze and paper cups in my desk drawer. Yet.

Friday Unrelated Information

1. On this day in 1932, Amelia Earhart took off for her solo flight across the Atlantic. She was the first woman--and the second person, period--to do so.

2. Toby has been getting more comfortable on his daily jaunts outside, which means he's getting more adventurous. Last night he discovered that he could run really fast up and down the lawn. He's still being good 90% of the time, but it's nerve-wracking. My nerves are wracked.

3. You know how I sometimes link to the Big Picture photoblog? There's a new blog puts funny captions on pictures from there: The Big Caption.

Stack Those Lions!

The week's almost over, right?

I Like These

T-shirts with book covers on them? OK! These are all from Out of Print Clothing (there are men's styles, too!).

Tuesday Project Roundup: Polka Dots!

I still need to get a picture of the blouse I talked about last week (which is also polka-dotted), but it's dark AGAIN this morning so here's a picture of the project after that, a polka dot skirt.


I found this fabric at Yellow Bird Fabrics and used a vintage pattern from my mom's collection. It's not a really fitted pattern so I had no problem riding my bike in it.

Toby, as you can see, is unimpressed. He just wants to go back outside. (That's the story here Chez Meowing at any given time, actually: at 8:00 last night, 9:00 last night, 11:00 last night, 5:00 this morning, right now, etc.)

Toby Says:

"Look at me! I'm OUTSIDE!"

"I'm not in my veranda!"

"I can watch birds!"


"I can roll and do other cute things so my mama won't suspect that I'm getting ready to chase the birds!"

(Karen says: No birds have been harmed in Toby's outside adventures. But I feel bad that the quail are so tame after three years and now I have to shoo them off when he's out. However, Toby > quail.)

Friday Unrelated Information

1. Since it looks as if the last frost danger might be behind us, I stopped at Western Garden yesterday and got some heirloom tomato starts and some non-toxic methods of snail control. Then I was nearly overwhelmed by my own smugness--good thing I wasn't driving a Prius.

1a. I am riding my bike to work today, though.

2. It was Irving Berlin's birthday this week, and the Writer's Almanac told us this about him:
He came to New York City with his family when he was five, and when he was eight his father died. That was the end of his formal education. He never learned to read or write music, and he never learned to play in any key but F sharp.
Incredible! This is the man who wrote just about every showtune I know (other than the score of The Music Man).

Want To Travel Europe Vicariously?

My work friend "Josie," who took the wine class with me and is all kinds of awesome, has QUIT (slightly less awesome, although it was to move) and is now taking the summer to travel Europe with her husband. Follow her adventures on her awesome blog.

She started her travels in London this week, and guess what? She got to go to T.S.Eliot's grave in East Coker! I am very jealous.

Speaking Of Styles From The 40s

I started thinking about Raymond Chandler yesterday and all the women's outfits he described. They're really fantastic--"a brown linen suit with a pimento-colored scarf," a white suit with delphinium blue gloves and hat--but this one is the clear winner:

She was searing a white wool skirt, a burgundy silk blouse and a black velvet overjacket with short sleeves. Her hair was a hot sunset. She wore a golden topaz bracelet and topaz earrings and a topaz dinner ring in the shape of a shield. Her fingernails matched her blouse exactly. She looked as if it would take a couple of weeks to get her dressed.

Tuesday Project Roundup: Should I Attempt Pants?

I have a finished project for this week (a blouse from this pattern, to go with pencil skirts), but it was too dark last night to get a good picture with my toy camera. So instead, let's talk about pants:

That blouse pattern is very 40s, which is an era I love only for Raymond Chandler, but it and some sewing blogs I've found have had me considering a pair of high-waisted 1940's button trousers.

I have avoided making pants because of difficulty fitting two curved tubes (vs. one mostly straight tube for a skirt), but I'm also fairly confident that Simplicity patterns fit me well. With that in mind, there's this re-print:

Except it uses a zipper closure instead of buttons, which as I understand it is a modern tweak (it was considered unfeminine to have pants that zipped--and a fly was definitely out!).

I could also go full-on vintage, with something like this...
...but I think the potential for fit issues goes up exponentially.

I'm probably only considering pants because of the STUPID WEATHER, which should be warmer again by the weekend. So maybe I'll stew on the pants idea for a fall project.

Next Up: Stealing Money Out Of My Purse And Taking The Car Without Permission

Toby will be three in less than a month, so in cat years that means he's anywhere from 18 to 28 (the internet has no clear answer on this). It also means that he's suddenly decided he wants to go OUTSIDE.

He's been an inside cat here for two years and his foster mom said that he had been inside before that, but he caught the call of the wild last Monday and started charging out the door whenever I opened it. In an effort to control the situation a little, I started putting a collar on him and letting him out for short bursts. He LOVES it.

[No picture because I am terrified of leaving him unsupervised for even 30 seconds.]

I am all kinds of conflicted--I always planned on letting him out (with supervision) when I had a yard with a secure fence, but the apartment is open in front and back to cars and other yards and more scary things. He's being really good about staying close, but I think this tiny taste of freedom is going to go to his head. But I don't think there's any going back now....

Friday Unrelated Information

1. The Writer's Almanac was all about Hemingway earlier this week. It talked about his life in Cuba and how "The Old Man and the Sea" was originally going to be part of something called The Land, Sea, and Air Book. I wish I could have seen that.

2. Meowmania! Visit the link and start clicking.

Thing #3 Starts Today

I am FINALLY instituting my spending freeze...it's a little sad that I meant to do it for three months at the beginning of the year, and here I am a week into May hoping I can make it a month. (Why a week into May? The local fabric store had an anniversary sale and, um, so did J. Crew.)

So from now until June 6, I will not buy shoes, ready-made clothing, or ANY fabric*, nor things for the house that I want but aren't essential (a desk chair is the exception, if I find one, since it's on the list.)

I hope I can do it!

And that is definitely a first-world worry...


*I had originally said "no really expensive fabric" but I have enough yardage stacked up to be sewing through July without buying any more, expensive or not.

I Have No Words

It's not health food...do they think...whose idea...that URL...I mean...just NO.

(This came in the mail yesterday with the grocery ads. It was so inexplicable I had to take a picture of it.)

Tuesday Project Roundup: Pencil Skirt #3

Here's the third variation on a pencil skirt, with a shaped waistband. (I love the fits of that Burda pattern; can you tell?) This is an orange pique that I bought thinking it would be a top, but then I caught Skirt Mania so now it's a skirt.
(My legs really aren't blue in real life, I promise. This camera is really temperamental in low light and with the color orange.)

"no guarantees in this life"

I probably think about the end of the world more than is healthy. I remember seeing Mad Max as a kid and obsessing over what I would do in that situation. (I still cant watch disaster movies.) Between unseasonable weather, bomb attempts in New York, oil spills, etc., I was thinking about it again more than I probably should. So I had to remember this poem:

Yes, by William Stafford

It could happen any time, tornado,
earthquake, Armageddon. It could happen.
Or sunshine, love, salvation.

It could you know. Thats why we wake
and look out--no guarantees
in this life.

But some bonuses, like morning,
like right now, like noon,
like evening.

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

Manicure SOS (First-World Problem)

Does anyone reading this get manicures and have a place to recommend? I don't know what it's going to take to get me to stop destroying my hands, but that might be a place to start. (Of course, I would feel too embarrassed at the state of my hands right now to go to a manicurist, so I'd have to try to get them fixed up a little beforehand. Kind of like cleaning the house before the cleaning lady gets there.)

*Doesn't that post title look like it could be a song title?

Tuesday Project Roundup: Prints Charming

Groan! Sorry, I only have a pile of spring fabrics this week. The current project has to be turned into a tunic instead of a dress because of length and fit issues, so I wasn't very excited to finish it Saturday.
But as soon as I can finish the now-a-tunic, I can make those pink flowers on top into a pencil skirt. The bottom fabric is for another skirt and the two in the middle will be dresses.

It's Monday

It's going to be a busy week at work, but at least I can listen to Otis Redding knocking it out of the park with his cover of "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction."



Otis knows what it's like to be unsatisfied! He knows how it feels to have to write websites when you just want to shop online! Sing it, Otis!

Friday Unrelated Information

1. Life has posted some previously unpublished pictures of Steve McQueen from 1963--"enlarge" will take you to the full gallery, which is well worth it:


2. My office started a March Madness bracket thing, which I don't understand at all. I do understand a contest between cake and pie, though. (Pie for the win!) March Madness: Cake vs. Pie.

3. I don't get a newspaper any more, as you might have guessed from the lack of all political content over the last six months, but yay, a health care bill passed! I really didn't expect it to.There's a good Paul Krugmen op-ed from the NYTimes to read here.

A Poem For Thinking About Stuff

Lately I've been going crazy shopping for spring fabric and thinking about shoes to buy and things to get for the apartment (more than usual, I mean), so today's poem is about things.

Things

Liesel Mueller

What happened is, we grew lonely
living among the things,
so we gave the clock a face,
the chair a back,
the table four stout legs
which will never suffer fatigue.

We fitted our shoes with tongues
as smooth as our own
and hung tongues inside bells
so we could listen
to their emotional language,

and because we loved graceful profiles
the pitcher received a lip,
the bottle a long, slender neck.

Even what was beyond us
was recast in our image;
we gave the country a heart,
the storm an eye,
the cave a mouth
so we could pass into safety.

I Know It's Called "Before," But A Lot Of "After" Was Left Out

I finally watched Coco Before Chanel last night and it was about what I expected: More romance than fashion, with lots of montages. It started out pretty well but ended with Chanel being reflected in endless mirrors while models who were 2010-skinny put on a fashion show. I know there was more to the "after" of her career than that.

I enjoyed that the film's first half presented her as so cynical about love...until "the love of her life" died and the penultimate montage made it seem like she spent the rest of her life mourning him. (What about Stravinsky? Or that German officer she met in WWII? Talk about a pretext for a film.)

But it was enjoyable, if only to see some sewing and fabric on film. My favorite part was near the end, when she unrolled a bolt of powder-pink boucle suiting in that same "my lover is dead and I'm sewing through my grief" montage. I want some of that boucle!

Tuesday Project Roundup: If You Get An Outfit You Can Be A Yogi, Too

When I wrote "Refresh my yoga skills" on my list of 30 Things, I never really did the math on when I actually last did yoga. Well, it turns out that "in college" doesn't mean just a few years ago anymore, and after a decade without yoga I think I need to amend #9 to be "Learn yoga skills all over again."

Fortunately, I have a way to carry my mat to class now, assuming I can make myself start going:

This was a fun, fast project made entirely of fabrics I had around the house. The pockets around the bottom, the strap, and the lining were left over from the pillows I made before Christmas, and the body fabric was a filing cabinet cover I made when I moved here that was recently retired in the Post-breakup Living Room Re-do of '09.

I have to give special thanks to my crafty friend Kara, who inspired me with her bag last month and then suggested this pattern (a free Amy Butler download). Thanks, Kara!

Two Years Of Toby

Today marks two years of Toby in my life! He's the best cat and the best friend and very probably the love of my life.*

Here he is on day 3 (so small!):

And here he is on day 728:
I love this cat so much. Here's to many more days.

*I'm also celebrating two years of being a crazy cat lady; can you tell?

Friday Unrelated Information

1. Today in 2003--seven years ago--W announced the beginning of the Iraq War. Seven years is longer than our involvement in any war except Vietnam, but don't worry: The War in Afghanistan has just tied that (8 years, 5 months).

2. Moving right along, this set of pictures of Paris in the springtime will get you singing "April in Paris" or "I Love Paris [in the springtime]."

3. It will be bike-riding season soon. I see many more devoted riders out already. I'm always intimidated by the thought of riding again but then I get over it.