New Year's Eve Already?

I swear, the end of the year kinda snuck in and waited in the dark for HOURS until I finally staggered home under way too many bags, wet, and tired from the rain (in Seattle?!? Really?!?) and packing and more packing at work, and man do my shoulders hurt...

THEN JUMPED IN MY FACE as soon as I turned on the lights with streamers and awful noisemakers and looking way too happy to be here again.

I joked at work today that if I make it past 10 PM it may be a miracle. I'm not sayin' it's old age...it's just been a harder than usual week for me. I blame at least 90% of it on the moving. I detest packing and moving in my normal hum drum life...moving offices? While still trying to conduct business? Are you kidding me? AAAAaaaaauuuummmm. What's that Bezzie recommended? Push out the jive, bring in the love....I need a whole lot more love, I think. Come 2010/Monday (and that just looks weird) we'll be situated in the new building and hello my other hated task...unpacking.

But seriously, really? New Year's Eve already? You'd think I'd keep track seeing as it happens at the same time every year.

Maybe if I caffeinate enough I'll be willing to walk to the other side of my apartment building to watch the Space Needle explode with color and lights and such at midnight...but man, that's like 6 hours away! And it is COLD outside! And did I mention the rain?

Yes, along with my borderline OCD tendencies, I am a number one wuss. It's good to know these things about yourself.

Anywho, go party it up for me. My goal is to stay awake long enough to watch the "Harry Potter 1/2 Blood Prince" movie that I TOTALLY missed this year...they are going to take away my fan card if I keep this up, I swear. I might be able to finish my baby brother's hat...or maybe just sit there and pretend to be knitting as I nod off...

May 2010 not be so very exhausting.

Bizarro Girl Strikes Again...

So you know those people who can't be the ones to finish the last piece/bite of anything?

I'm part of the clean plate society, not a problem that one.

It's the ruining of a pristine thing: cutting a pie/cake/etc., or even opening a new box of cereal (until I verify that nope, there are no other boxes of open cereal to consume) or say a bag of super tasty Trader Joe's Hickory Barbecue Potato chips that I bought...not gonna do it...not if I share my kitchen and snacks with someone else who can do it instead, EVEN IF I KNOW there are no other open bags of chips around...

This is not a problem if I live alone...only when I do silly things like share groceries with people. Yep, this means if we split a box of cookies at work, I'll wait for you to open and take the first one...unless you give me permission...no really.

You'd think I weigh 90 lbs. as everyone gets a yummy handful of barbecue potato chips, cookies, pie, anything with way too much sugar, before me...I wish...

No, instead it's just another in my long list of odd things that makes me who I am...

And if I'm at my mom's house? And I'm going to open the Eskimo Pie box? Though it might be the absolute and only ice cream in the house? Of course I ask permission first, even if it's my niece who's asking for the thing and not me.

Thus ends another interlude into my wacky way of being...brought on by the fact that Andy opened up my bag of super yummy Hickory Barbecue Potato Chips...score!

I'm Ba-a-ck...

And so hating life at hours this early in the AM knowing I have to actually go to work today.

And it's the last week of the year an the last week at the current site (the whole kit and caboodle is moving starting FRIDAY) and it's all just hitting me now.

AND OF COURSE I didn't start any office packing before I left for LA, hello? Have we been introduced?

Okay, enough negativity...time to get out there and at least pretend a bit of productivity.

(Yes, maybe I am a bit more Pollyanna than I used to be in high school...I still wear the same amount of black though.)

On the Ground

In la la LAnd.

Surprising mom? Totally priceless.

I got a hug and a kiss and a smack on the rump for not letting her clean house before I arrived. But dude, totally worth it.

I've helped put up and trim the tree, have wrapped a million presents, and oh yeah, someone remind me never ever ever to go to a mall the weekend before xmas. I have no idea what I was thinking when I volunteered to go pick up "one last thing." It must be the euphoria associated with home-cooked food and family, that's my only excuse.

Okay, little brother is eying the computer like it's his turn or something...kids these days :).

Real or Imagined?

There is an old "Rhymes with Orange" comic that I may have referred to in one of my ever-growing number of posts...the text is basically:

If you study too much your brain will swell and dislodge itself from it's place, fall down into your throat, and choke you to death...or something.

So here is my theory, having studied brains, learning, and the stuff that happens therein:

If you study a whole lot, (can there be too much?) for a long time, you crowd out things your brain feels might be so trivial that it eventually starts shoving huge swaths of stuff into places you can only access when half awake in the shower. And it might drive you mad trying to figure out if it was a dream or really happened.

A whole lot of my past falls into this category. Granted, adding um, body chemical altering substances (so as to not say booze and smokes if my little brother ever finds my blog, hi!) in the mix really makes it hard to remember feeding L stove top one turkey day...or being in other L's apartment more than just that one time we played RISK...

I feel like I'm going to need other people to help me remember my past if I keep changing careers/learning new ways to make money. (Learning about fiscal closings and GAAP and USAID requirements is a little less trivial than I thought it'd be...silly me.)

But sometimes you don't have the someone in your life anymore to verify...

I can't stop thinking about the time I arranged to pick up my best friend from high school at the airport. We were attending colleges at opposite ends of the country and I was home first. Did I call her mom and volunteer? Did I call her? I don't remember the details anymore.

But at the airport, back when you could go all the way up to the terminal door? Really, kids, you could! There was no TSA and you could take LITERS of water onto a plane and the pilots used to walk around and say "hi" (so they could take a break and maybe stretch and maybe NOT FALL ASLEEP while doing their pilot thing?!?) and if you were under twelve and FLYING ALONE (is that allowed anymore?!?) or super cute, or even just smiled and said "hi," they gave you "wings."

I am so very old. Where was I...

At the terminal...a roundish one...I sat and waited for K's plane to arrive and...here is where I am wondering "live or memorex"...K's mom/dad/both? Appear...just to make sure I showed, then left before K's plane landed.

My 19 year-old self felt utter disappointment that they didn't trust me. (My 35 year-old self smiles at the lengths parents went through in the days before cell phones.) See, I remember the feelings associated with the whole experience...and I'm getting extreme deja vu writing this out...if I did already once, long ago, I blame learning about Use Tax Application.

Well...I gotta finish packing (procrastination, I am it), my flight to El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Angeles del Río de Porciúncula (frankly, much cooler that just plain "LA" in my over-filled mind) is only a few hours away...so unless I can wrest the keyboard from my baby brother's grasp, more radio silence to come...

If I don't make it back on to post: Happy Holidays! Cuz they're all piling up around us whether or not we celebrate any of them.

Unless Blood or Tears are Involved, it Doesn't Count

I'm talkin' 'bout a sewing project of course!

So...I'm done.

I know, I know, my little Janome Jem (truly outrageous - sorry, couldn't help it) has been through thick and thin...some of these instances have even been chronicled here! Therefor it should be no surprise that it's bound to be an adventure whenever I have to take out my little patchwork Jem.

This was to be an easy venture. My dad's xmas gift, which needs to be packed and shipped tomorrow if I'm to fulfill my ruse. Oh, did I not mention this?

Right, it's been a while. And I've been under radio silence because somehow time keeps passing much quicker than I need it to and it's easier to keep quiet about everything to everyone that to make up stories to keep the lie going....

See, for the first time in what seems like decades, I'm going home for xmas. To make it extra crispy special, we're not telling my mom, it's her xmas gift :). Why am I spilling the beans now? Because I leave in 4 days and I needed some rant and understanding time.

I've planned and plotted with my mom every year to try to get the gifts home on time for distribution and general last minute nonsenses (i.e. "I don't know what to get so-and-so, what are "we" getting him/her/them.") It's usually my dad's gift, you see.

This time though! I figured it out! ALL. By. Myself. I was soooo proud.

The man needs an upgrade from the sad towels he uses to warm his legs in the early winter mornings on his drive across LA to get to work. I would find him a cool lap blanket. Yes, I do know the term oxymoron. Yes, I quickly found out that there is no such thing as a "cool" and/or lap-sized anything with the term "blanket" as a part of its name.

See, this year? It's about throws. Big, fluffy, floofy, fancy throws made of cashmere, merino, mink (seriously?), high quality fake furs, and any and all things non machine-washable.

Hence the need for a trip to a big box craft store to pick up some fleece and thread, and time to pull out my wee little Janome Jem (truly outrageous) for some sewing fun!

Cuz sewing is fun! Really! Unless you need to wind a bobbin and notice this:
My bobbin winder's bobbin holder (say that 3xs fast) has had a piece of it snapped off. I found the piece in the bag. My theory is that it happened during the last move... Regardless, I either need to find a way to fix it, or buy a new machine.

What? Why so drastic a remedy? Because I am done.

I never loved this machine the way I did my Singer (see that linked post above), and every, single, time I need to use it lately has involved my laying out cash for bits, pieces or, in this case, pre-spooled bobbins.

Why didn't I just go get one of those "side-winder" thingies? Because I did. Go out. In the freezing pre-snow-feeling Seattle weather (maybe not down here, but it is snowing in Everett as I type), to hunt it down. The one place that had it? The same big box store previously mentioned, for $40. No, you're not reading that wrong. Yes, I know it's only $19 for the pink one on the website, but in the store? It costs more than I'm willing to shell out for something that might not even wind bobbins that fit with my machine. They had a whole list down the side of the box...not a gamble I wanted to take, I'd rather spend that $40 in LA next week.

So instead I went to Quality Sewing & Vacuum in Ballard to see what my options were...fixing that wee piece, is now more than the machine is worth. See, it's $150 just to send it in to be looked at. When I needed it cleaned and checked out for last years stockings? It was cheaper than buying a new one, I had a coupon, so I went for it.

After being told everything is good and yet STILL having to fight with it every step of the way? I kinda came to the realization that this little machine and I may need to part ways. Today? possibly the last straw.

See, I did accomplish my task:
One lap blanket in black fleece and some black/gray flannel that was going to become pajama pants, but as it was mis-measured for me at the same big-named craft store it was sitting in my sewing tub waiting for a project.

I folded it so you could see the two sides, but also so that it hides the fact that it's not quite rectangular. See, along with the usual cursing and letting of blood that my sewing adventure usually gives me...I also fought with the "teeth" that help move the fabric along. Apparently my little Jem was hungry.

I may have mentioned a straw breaking above? Yep...I'm thinking I need to start saving for a new sewing machine. By the time I need to sew again? I may have gathered enough pennies. (Have you all noticed I only bust out the machine a couple times a year? And to prove I'm not the professional sewer, um, this is the machine that I'm thinking of replacing my little guy with, and before you say anything, yes, it's another Janome.)

And for you knitters:

Done!

65 inches after washing. I didn't block it because, well, it's Berocco Comfort and it's not like the college student that gets this will either.

It's to be packed and sent off to OFA tomorrow...yey!

Speaking of packing? I need to get my act together as I leave on Thursday morning and there are a million things on my to do list before I get dropped off at the airport. This is the part of traveling that I really really hate.