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oof
sat 7 mar 2009 |
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Permalink: http://www.static8.com/journal/archive2009/090307.html |
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&*%*&%$#*#() *spastic keyboard* blasted and worthless Daylight Savings Time, I hate it!
Anyway! now that it is the weekend, I am excited about my projects... I stopped at the store on my walk home from work today and got some new colours of string. I've got enough to crochet a scarf or two now... I was thinking that at my current crocheting rate, which is about one dish cloth a week, it might take me about two months to finish a scarf. My dish cloths are a bit over 6x6 inches, and two months of scarf would be about 4 feet. Is that long enough?? *looking at scarf directions* hm, finished size is 8x84 inches... oh my gosh, that's 7 feet! how am I ever supposed to get that done?!? hm, well. I guess I just start on it. And maybe I'll get one of those Twilight Zone pocket watches where I can stop time so I can make scarves!
And I guess I did decide to make it another Drawing Month. "DrawMo": it's fun to say out loud. :) So. I have been drawing! I've skipped one day due to exhaustion, but I'll pick it up by doing two drawings in a day, at some point. And I'm hoping that March will be a better month for PostCrossing. Just look at my stats for February! That is one sad and pathetic dip in my graphic chart! ha. |
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Let the Drinking Commence
fri 13 mar 2009 |
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Permalink: http://www.static8.com/journal/archive2009/090313.html |
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Actually, the week wasn't that terrible. But since I had to work last saturday, I wasn't able to recover over last weekend. And a couple of minor hitches at the beginning of this week really frustrated me. So, I turned down extra work this weekend in order to do my recovering! :)
The president of the company breezed through the warehouse the other day, excited about a magazine he had just bought. An Art Journal Magazine. He showed me a few pages, saying how people paint the backgrounds and add bits of stuff and drawings. I figured I'd be able to find it online, so wasn't worried that I couldn't examine the mag right then and there. (Snatching things from the hands of the company prez might get me demoted.) But google turned up too much, and after clicking through the first few pages, I wondered if I couldn't just find the publisher. I ran through the list in my brain of art publishers and figured out Stampington. I was correct, and -fortunately- they were sold out of the single run mag... Art Journaling. eh, those Somerset people are worthless anyway. Blasphmey, I know. They have great ideas, but zetti annoys the crap out of me. More blasphmey, I know. I have gotten sucked in to their very beautiful magazines, on occasion. I ordered several of their Artfully Blogging issues. Brilliant idea, that I would have loved dearly... But then I realized every single article I read started with "I have been blogging for about six months now..." *derisive laughter* *lots of derisive laughter* Anyway, their magazines are ungodly expensive.
Last week, Fictionwise, the place where I buy my ebooks, got bought out by Barnes & Noble. I definitely congratulate the owners of Fictionwise. But I have my concerns about B&N. The books at B&N are not cheap. I think they look at Amazon prices and say "Bah! add 5 or 10 dollars to that" and then put the book on their website. Seriously! And ebook prices have enough problems as it is. So, yeah, I am rather worried about the future of my ebook consumption.
Ah the crocheting. It is not going well again. Last sunday, my one day off, I got started on my first scarf. There was a new stitch to learn but I was tired of mouse blankets, I figured I'd learn on the fly. Sadly, I was also using a new brand of string. And my beautiful new string was not appropriate for my scarf project... The new stitch had to be figured out, several times over; no pictures so I had to guess at what I was doing. But then I realized the string was too thin anyway. It kinda looked like a cat had tangled up some string, laid it flat and then tried to pretend it was eventually going to turn into a scarf. haha. But I'm so sad about this string because it is such a lovely colour... it's the eco-cotton blend (the preconsumer recycled cotton), a dark blue with bands of dark purple and dark green. I love it. And ever since, I have been trying to figure out what my next project should be. Do I do the scarf with this fatter acrylic string? I could follow the directions, but the acrylic isn't as soft and wonderful as cotton. Do I design my own scarf and use a smaller hook with the lovely dark blue string? How do I decide on a design, when I could do this / or this / or this / or this ? ha. It's a problem, ya know. ;) |
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weekend over
sun 15 mar 2009 | |
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Permalink: http://www.static8.com/journal/archive2009/090315.html | |
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I might have to do something drastic for my poor abused feet, tho. They were in such agony last week, that I actually drove to work a couple days. *ashamed* Standing for 7 hours on concrete is one thing, but walking that mile to work, and then back home, is just too much. I'm thinking about getting a bike. But I don't know the first thing about it, so I'll probably procrastinate until I pound my feet into little nubs. ;)
The book that I read this weekend fascinated me! I probably shouldn't read things that terrify me... But I figure global warming is the least of our problems. It will, of course, eventually kill us all in the biggest mass extinction ever. But the year 2100 -- when CO2 levels are over 1100 parts per million and the oceans have risen a meter or two and most of the species of the world are extinct -- is pretty far away. We still have a couple decent decades to go before things start getting really rough due to CO2. Anyway. I was fascinated. After explaining how the different mass extinctions happened, the last half of the book talks about what we're in for. It really will be terrifying. When the book was written in 2006, CO2 levels were about 380 parts per million. And the author thought that if we could just keep it under 400 parts per million, we'd be okay...
Interesting, huh? Most online sources say the upper limit should only be 350 parts per million. We've been over 350ppm since 1987. eh. Be environmental, but enjoy your life while civilization lasts! |
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sighs
fri 20 mar 2009 |
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Permalink: http://www.static8.com/journal/archive2009/090320.html |
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I was thinking about it the other evening. During february I blogged every day. I made it important. But then all of a sudden, when the month was over, I didn't "have" to blog every day and I thought I would get other things done. Well, nothing extra is actually getting done. maybe a bit more crocheting, maybe. But the blogging still feels important to me, and since I'm not doing it, it kind of throws me off a bit. Ya know? :/
Anyway. It's friday, and I'm having a couple drinks, but the weekend has not officially started since I have to work a bit on saturday morning. eh. It's been a strange week. At the day job, we've joked that it's been a whole week of mondays. Just little random things going wrong to annoy us. At home, Significant Other killed his foot and I've been attempting to take care of him. I do a really bad job of it, tho. I am just not a nurturing person. at all.
On monday, I put in my first order for markers at work. I came home with six colours: lt green, green, lt blue, brown, tan, and a pinkish tan. And black and a blender marker. Also a small wirebound notebook. The markers are expensive, even with my employee discount (they are artist quality markers)... I calculated it will cost 1,050$ to get one of each colour that they currently sell. ;) and of course, that's not including the other random things that I want: The notebooks, the glitter pens, the multiliners... And what am I going to do when I start needing refills?!? :) heh. Anyway. I printed up a couple colouring pages and did some colouring this week. Very enjoyable! But I am totally unsatisfied wth my six colours! Must have more! I was going to spend a certain amount each month. But I think I'll double it up this month. Just to get going on a few more colours! ;)
SO's computer died this week, as well. He's having a tough week! I'm going to work on it this weekend, and I am fairly optimistic. When I assessed the problem, the other evening, I was worried that the hard drive had crashed. But I think it was just over heated. I'll put a fan on it and see how it goes. I don't know why... but 100% of the computers in my life have had internal fans that burn out. I just open up the case and point a room fan at it to cool things down. seems to do the trick. And I'm hoping SO's hard drive will be okay, once it starts running cooler. We'll see how it goes... |
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Yarn Ethics
sun 22 mar 2009 |
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Permalink: http://www.static8.com/journal/archive2009/090322.html |
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As a vegan, I do not use animal fibers... no wools from sheep or alpacas or llamas or bunnies or whoever. And as an environmentalist, I know that 25% of pesticides are sprayed on cotton fields. I also know that "acrylic" yarn is plastic, and plastic is evil. My first few yarn purchases have included the pesticide cotton and a roll of acrylic. But I'm learning! And as I go exploring, I will discover more string that will satisfy my ethical cravings. The place where I get my groceries, sells an Eco-Cotton blend. But only in two colours that I really like. It's pre-consumer recycling, which is not as good as post-consumer. And also, the "blend" part is evil acrylic. (Which also means I won't be able to give the worms my string scraps. I don't want to poison my wonderful worms with plastic!) But online I have happened across organic cotton yarns and bamboo/cotton blends and cotton yarns that have been coloured naturally. Yep, even some Hemp Yarn! ;) So, now I know a little bit more of what I'm looking for, when I visit the local yarn sections. This is good. Anyway. The thing that got me thinking about all this was an item in one of the yarn newsletters that I've recently subscribed to. It included "4 free dog sweater patterns", which I thought was brilliant. I downloaded the two crochet patterns that I was interested in. And then I looked at the yarn that they recommend for the projects. a wool blend. Wool? Are you kidding me? It's okay to cloth your tiny, freezing dog with the "fur" of an animal who has been tortured and murdered? *shakes head* nope. Ban the wool, people! Go Vegan! |
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