New computer!

I have a new computer!  I'm playing on my new, little HP Pavilion dm3 right now.  I like this little guy.  It has a 13 inch screen, tons of memory and I haven't wanted to pitch it across the room yet.  I chose the computer WITHOUT a cd/dvd-rom.  It's external and this makes this sucker so light it's not even funny. 

Now, I just have to wait for my new version of Family Tree Maker and I can go wild at the library again.  I'm just not sure yet if I want to put iTunes on it or wait until I can afford another 1 TB hard drive.  The current plan is to take all extraneous stuff off the old computer, plunk it on a desk from which it shall never move and just use this one for my on-the-go computer.  The old one will be the gaming/movie/music computer.  I figure I'll add PCStitch to this one so I can design anywhere.  Basically, this one will be for research, though.

That's the plan, anyway.  We'll see how it goes.  I just have to avoid the temptation of ZooTycoon and Civ III, which I haven't been able to play on the other due to memory issues.  If I clear the huge database programs off the old one, though, I should have enough memory to use it for them.  I hope.

Totally Useless Stitch-A-Long and Growth Rings

Well, just for kicks I'm doing something called simply TUSAL (see title for translation).  We just display our ORT jars each New Moon to see the cool stuff we're all doing.  Thread, fabric, beads, yarn, needles and pins are all fair game as long as they are from your stitchy projects.  Here's mine (a bit late) for the March New Moon.

I decided to dress mine up a bit, so I stitched a Celtic knot for the jar lid and a little label for the jar.  Let's see, the major source of Orts right now is Growth Rings, with some threads from the MSAL I'm doing on my Livejournal group.

As for Growth Rings, here's what she looked like on the New Moon.

There's a sort-of new fabric store right next to White's Sewing Center that caters to quilters and I managed to find the perfect fabric to finish Growth Rings into a wall-hanging when I'm done with her.  If things go according to plan, that should be by the end of the month.

Gorgeous Men, Movies, Stitching and Sickness

I've been having a movie marathon today.  I started it and will be ending it with Bruce Greenwood.  Damn, that man is gorgeous.

Star Trek, The Pirate Movie, National Treasure and National Treasure 2

A few more days of prednisone and another week or so of antibiotics and maybe I'll actually feel well enough to go out on the weekend.  The good part is that I managed to stitch enough of Growth Rings to achieve the Bronze medal for our LiveJournal Stitching Olympics.  If I move my ass today and tomorrow I'll get the Silver.  I've even gotten part of the second page done for the Gold medal. 

I'll have to feel well (or at least decent) by Wednesday.  We're going to Celtic Women for Mom's birthday present.

Update

Wow.  Almost two months without a post.  I guess I should update a bit.  I confess to getting addicted to Farmville on facebook and just generally not bothering to get on the computer much in the past few months.

Anyway, for two, brief shining weeks I was a college student again.  My mother mentioned this to my family at Christmas and my brother's girlfriend warned me of something I hadn't thought about.  The college I was going to get my bachelor's degree through turns out not to be accredited by any of the groups accepted by the schools I wanted to go on to afterwards.  So, I disenrolled and am back to square one regarding school.  So much for the affordable option.  I'm back to trying to figure out how to afford Thomas Edison State College and still eat, pay for the bloody car, etc.

My brother is now deployed overseas again.  This time Mom and I got to say goodbye.  In a way I wish I hadn't gone.  He was all sorts of affectionate to his girlfriend (very nice, I like her a lot and hope she sticks) but basically ignored Mom and I.  I mean, he could have at least treated Mom with a bit more love.  I don't expect anything from him in the way of caring for myself, but not to give Mom any real attention was just wrong.  *sigh*  It's him, though.  I shouldn't have expected anything else.

Even being an asshole, he is my brother and if anything happens to the little shit I'll be devastated.  He'd better keep his head down and his butt covered.

I've gotten a new library card and have been using it often.  I'm currently reading The Great Influenza by John Barry.  It's really good.  I like the fact that he seems fair and is talking about both good moves and mistakes made by the government, military and medical people involved, as well as the civilians.  Out of curiosity I looked at some of the Scranton papers for the time and was amazed by the ads for the patent medicines all over the place.  The flu wasn't even the top story, even though Scranton was reporting a ton of deaths.  The war stayed the focus of the media and that's exactly what the government wanted.  They wanted the whole country working as a machine to support the war.  It's really interesting.

I still have to finish my Christmas gifts for a few friends since I just didn't feel like stitching the entire holiday season.  I also have to finish crocheting my Ravenclaw scarf for myself.  I have to restart from scratch my nephew's dragon since it somehow acquired a huge hole in an area I just can't fix.  Once I finish the book, I'll start stitching gifts again.

That's it.  Back to research since I'm at the library doing genealogy right now.

Fandom crocheting

Okay, I've been making myself a scarf for the winter (if it ever gets here!). It's a Ravenclaw scarf of Silver and Blue. Yes, yes, the books call for Bronze and Blue, but I like silver better, so there. I'll stick with the movies' interpretation on this one. Anyway, I figure I should make a hat and gloves to go with the scarf. I found a couple of patterns for gloves that I like. No problems there. The problem is the hat.

I thought I'd just go with a generic skully-type. I just came across this site, with instructions for a crocheted Jayne Cobb hat. I'm tempted. Oh, am I tempted. It's just that doing it in yellow, orange and red would totally clash with the scarf theme I've got going on right now. So, maybe in silver, blue and another color? Maybe a darker blue? Of course, I'm trying to stick with all recycled yarns, so that would limit my selection. Also, this particular pattern calls for chunky yarn and I haven't come across a recycled chunky yet. It really should be a simple hat, so maybe I could work it out myself...

Temptation and fandoms. Now, if I could just find a decent winter crochet pattern to bring in Star Trek, Doctor Who and Stargate, I'd be thrilled.

Fearless Vampire Killers

I'm watching Roman Polanski's Fearless Vampire Killers.  It has some funny moments, but in general this is a very unfunny movie.  I must just not get this humor.

Cake!

I baked a cake.  It's yellow cake with chocolate funfetti frosting.  It's GF and tastes good!  Betty Crocker has come out with yellow and chocolate cake, brownie and chocolate chip cookie mixes.  All GF and made in a dedicated facility.  Awesome!

Of course, me being the crummy (no pun intended) baker I am, I nearly ruined it.  I put the butter in the microwave to soften it and started mixing the ingredients before I remembered it was still in there! 

Next time, I'm thinking Vanilla-Apple Cake.  Mix our homemade apple sauce instead of water, maybe some dried apple bits added to the batter and top it with the cinnamon apple ice cream topping we sell at work.  I think I need to go down and slice myself a small piece of cake before bed.

I just got my iPod back and it has sound coming from both headphones!  Yay!  Oh, and got my phone fixed, too.  So, now back to writing since I didn't at all yesterday.  I still need to crash some day this week.  I'm so exhausted.

8.4%

NaNoWriMo - 8.4% complete, 4195 done, 45,805 more words to go.

One of the shorts is done.  Two others are started.  I think one is going to be longer than a short story, maybe middle range.  I guess it just depends on what trouble Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson get themselves into.  I'm not yet sure what the mark they found on the chest at Anthony Gethryn's house means, other than a plane ride to another continent.  At some point they or another character from Elysia is going to have to encounter flying monkeys and a trebuchet, though.

NaNoWriMo started

Off to a decent start so far. I surpassed the word goal for the day. We'll see how well I can keep it up. However, I have to go do some chores right now. Ugh! I love laundry, don't you?

Heaven and Earth Designs is evil, I tell you. Evil!

HAED is an evil design company. I found a new pattern I really really really want and Mom already has whatever my Christmas present is on layaway somewhere. WAH!

Except for Celtic Cross, this is just the stuff I like from what they've added in the last month. I need to win the Powerball so I can Stash and S.E.X. and then quit my job and do nothing but stitch and read.

Sanctuary of Knowledge - New top of my HAED wishlist
Audobon - I like this one, reminds me of a Klimt painting
My Pretty Blues - I like the smirk on this dragon
Faux Fabulous - What can I say other than, "It's a frog!"
Fablemaker - I want to cover my walls with every single one of James Christensen's designs!
Tinderbox - I have no clue why I like this one, I just do.
Pescatus Mechanicus - Erin, you have to look at this one! Atlantean Steampunk? Here's the artist's site: Ciro Marchetti
Medusa - I've always felt sorry for her and this is an amazing rendition
Dreams of Gaudi - So maybe Marchetti will join Christensen in my "Everything done by them" list


Mom would love this one: Celtic Cross

Anger = exercise

Found a way to inspire me to go to the gym: get me so furious I can't even relax enough to read or stitch to make myself calm down.  It worked yesterday.

cell phone happiness

My brother got my nephew a cell phone for his birthday. We've been swapping text messages lately and now we're swapping voice messages. I love those little buggers so much, even if my nephew's first conversation with me was him pulling a very successful prank on me.

Lists

I've been seeing 101 lists all over the place and some are extremely profound.  I'd like to make one of my own.  I know I make a list of goals for myself each birthday.  I rarely fulfill them.  I've been working on the damned driver's license forever now.  Things are happening right now in my family life that will probably mean I'll have to get it as soon as humanly possible, though.  More on that after the 1st, which is when all of the information will become available to me and decisions will have to be made.

I keep telling myself the gym is important and it is.  Following a strict Gluten-free diet.  Going back to school and actually making something of my life.  Writing a book.  Publishing it might be nice, but the writing of it most important.  Maybe sell some cross-stitch designs.  Learn ASL.  Relearn German. 

I need to sit down and really think about this.  I wonder what it will tell me about myself.

PCStitch woes

Okay, I'm frustrated.  I wanted to do a new design.  Since I now have my computer, I wanted to put PCStitch Pro 9 on it, which is on Mom's computer since this one was acting up when I got it.  The disc has disappeared so I tried to copy the files from one computer to the other and now not even the old version of PCStitch I had on here will work.  Argh!

Time for major fiddling to figure out what's wrong.

Cross-stitch update

I have some pictures to show off.  I have a teeny little finished piece of a scooter that I'm going to make into a magnet using some old Red Barons fridge magnets.  (Name removed to protect the guilty.)  The scooter was in one of last month's British mags, the name of which escapes me at the moment, except that it was supposed to be stitched in pinks.  Ugh!  So, I converted it to greens.

The next pictures are the WIPs I'm actively working on right now.  Herbs & Spices will be going to my cousin for Christmas and should be finished and framed by Halloween.  It's from a very old Cross Stitch & Country Crafts, October 1988, in fact.

This is Crescent Dragon from Joan Elliott's Bewitching Cross-Stitch for my nephew.

And this is Growth Rings by the designer Ink Circles.  It was in one of the American magazines a few months ago.  I can track it down if someone wants to know.  I'm using DMC 4130 and 4140.

Stargate cross-stitch geekdom

One of my fellow stitchers on the LiveJournal Cross-Stitch community made a gorgeous design based on the stained-glass windows from Stargate: Atlantis.  I am so damned tempted to make a large design of the windows myself.  Not like I don't have a million other things to do, right?

Yippee Skippy!

I have my computer back and running!  She's awesome.  I've already done some research at the library and updated my iPod finally.

Now my goal is to clean all the sundry stuff off it and stash it and iTunes on my external hard-drive so my baby runs faster.  Life is good and it's time for me to get off the computer so I can finish cinnamon on my Herbs & Spices sampler.

Stashing

You know, maybe fixing my computer will be a bad thing. Using Mom's once or twice a week or so cuts down on the time I spend looking for more stash. I just made a wish list on 123 Stitch. Eep! It's huge.

But I'll let my family know about it anyway, just in case one of them wants to buy something on it for me. ;p

Saving change makes me happy...

I have enough saved to fix my computer finally! Yay! And it's all saved out of change, which I'll admit to dipping into on more than one occasion. Now to send the computer off on Monday and hopefully see it back here by the middle of next week.

Okay, time to get off the computer and actually do some chores.