The Force Is With Me

Years ago, I bought this Star Wars t-shirt at the Virgin Records store at Downtown Disney (on a side note, I also got a cool Goonies t-shirt at the same time, but my ex-boyfriend ripped up the shirt during our breakup...jerk).



Whenever I wear the shirt, someone comments on it. Typically, it's a guy who says something. I've gotten "cool shirt" or "where did you get it". Today, when I was at Michael's picking up more yarn (which, by the way, I'm not buying any more yarn for at least 6 months.....I have way too much on hand right now to justify any more shopping sprees), the cashier, a young lady, said she liked my shirt but that she had never seen the movies. WHAT??? I told her it was well worth the rental to experience the Force that is the original three films.

The weirdest episode happened while Steve and I were at a pizza place for lunch. Our waiter said he loved my shirt. I thanked him while Steve rolled his eyes. Our waiter told me he felt a connection with me and took something out of his pants.....his wallet (which had the same distressed Star Wars logo as the shirt).

Sweets For the Stressed

Ah, stress. In my past jobs, I used stress to push out as much work as possible. I could do a whole heck of a lot when the pressure was on and the deadline was fast approaching. This is when I was working 60+ hours per week and at least one day on the weekend. I had no life; just work.

I've decided to embrace the old cliched adage to take each day as its own and be happy. Therefore, work seems tedious and in the way of me trying to figure out what makes me happy. My reaction to stress is completely different; I don't want it and I will not accept it. When I had to take on three different jobs at work, I simply just quit doing anything except the immediate project required each day. Every day, I was another full day behind. Very frustrating, trying to keep my energy up and looking at my desk with files everywhere and nothing moving forward.

While looking for balance in my life, I face the realization that I am 38 years old and still searching for what I want in life. This frustrates my parents, who can't understand why I seem to flounder. Sometimes, when we speak, I can hear their disapproval in the types of questions they ask me or the comments they make. I try really hard not to take it personally nor to beat myself up over it. I am responsible for who I am and if I'm a work in process, then so be it.

Today, my stress reliever was making cupcakes.


Chocolate cupcakes with vanilla icing

How I Live Frugally

I want to quit my job and knit dish towels and cozies all day.



I'm trying to decide whether to shut off my HBO subscription. I need to cut costs and my two favorite shows, Big Love and Flight of the Conchords, are finished for the season. However, I love Real Time With Bill Maher. And how much will I really be saving? $10 a month? There are many television shows that you can watch online, perhaps I can find Bill out there somewhere.

I think I could manage, albeit reluctantly, to do away with my cable package in its entirety (well, just basic) and cut my bill to close to nothing. However, I cannot live without the internet. That's my crutch. I may be reduced to eating ramen noodles and hotdogs, but I'm going to have the ability to wiki or google whatever pops into my head. And don't even get me started on Facebook.

Return of Peroni

My second attempt at the cozy is greatly improved. I can knit this thing in one evening. So, send me your addresses and I will mail you each one (at least until I get bored with knitting this).

Cozy Crazy

Today, I went to my first real yarn store, Sip and Knit. It was very relaxing. But so expensive. The yarn was so beautiful and the fibers were so soft. What a luxury; too bad my financial picture does not support me purchasing yarn at $11 per skein.

Back to my house (with my Michael's yarn stash), I am getting hang of knitting in the round. I just finished my first soda can cozy. The free pattern can be found here. I don't drink soda at home, so I had to go with a beer for posing purposes.

The Magic Of It All

Let's tackle my knitting first. So I picked up my circular needles and went in search of an easy pattern. I thought I had found it with this coffee cup cozy. I manage to cast on the stitches, but my needles are just a bit too big. I end up stretching the yarn and not "feeling" the pattern. Additionally, I don't pull my first row stitches tightly and I end up with ladders, or extra loose yarn between the last stitch on one needle and the first stitch on the other. (I tried to find a picture of a ladder for reference for you non-knitters). I threw away my first attempt at this cozy because it was like a horrible experiment, similar to the first time the scientist in The Fly tries to transport a living thing and it comes out all backwards and inside out. (So I start thinking that maybe I should start taking pictures of all my mistakes because that's the one thing I know I can do right.) Lucky for me, there is a picture of what the finished product is supposed to look like, otherwise, I would be going around town using my deformed coffee cup cozy, fully unaware of its weirdness.

When I'm stumped, I immediately head to my favorite place. Google. I start researching knitting the round (not only because of the ladders in my knitting, but the unevenness, i.e. the stitches and the seams not lining up). That's when I read about the Magic Loop, which, up until this point, I thought was just name-brand knitting needles. The Magic Loop turns out to be a knitting technique for knitting in the round and can be used with any circular needles. Everything I read promises that this is not a complicated technique; and it turns out to be the truth. I start my second attempt at this cozy; I pull my stitches tight, my seams are even, but (isn't there always a but?) my ribbing is still uneven. I was too focused on curing my past defects that I didn't actually look at the stitches. Although the pattern says knit 1,purl 1, I was not following the mandate of knitting the knits and purling the purls. As a result, I ended up with rows of uneven stitches. The finished product is not as horrible as a monkey turned inside out, but it's far from perfect.


Uneven ribbing. And dishwasher-scratched drinking glass.

I'm not giving up on this pattern and I have started my third attempt. I'm using the Magic Loop technique and so far, so good. My ribbing is actually lined up and I believe the finished product will be very similar to the picture from the pattern.

See? The ribbing lines up.

And for something not related to knitting - I tend to shop at Publix (for the pleasure of it). The store is within walking distance and I usually make at least two walking visits per week with my greenwise shopping bags in tow. There is a WalMart Neighborhood Market in the opposite direction of Publix but close to the same walking distance for me. I walked over to WalMart this morning to get a feel for the store and see if the prices were more economical; which would need to be significant to cause me to stray from my beloved Publix. I was very impressed with the store's cleanliness and they had a great selection of all grocery and health and beauty items. The odd thing was that they had no manned cash registers; it was all self-checkout. In this economy, I'm not really sure that I feel comfortable frequenting a store that eliminated precious job opportunities for those unemployed. On the other hand, the introvert in me is thrilled that I don't have to make small talk with anyone. No matter what, I still felt I was cheating on Publix, and fully believe that they instituted their "buy one, get one free" weekly program for me. Because, in these uncertain times, you never know when you might need that extra jar of Peanut Butter or that 8-pack of wieners.

Ruts and Rectangles

I'm in the process of transferring my 401(k) from two former employers to an IRA. So much paperwork!

I started a new dishcloth, mostly because the pattern is simple but pretty. What else am I going to do with the yarn?



I finished my scarf, just in time for the Florida cold weather.



I'm through with scarves (famous last words). I've been knitting for 10 months now, but I think I need to branch out and keep challenging myself. I'm getting into a rut with all the rectangles. So I'm going to print out and prepare myself for knitting socks. There is a pretty decent (free) tutorial online, recommended by many, at Silver's Sock Class.

I Got Served!

Tuesday morning, while I'm getting ready for work, a strange man knocks on my door. He was a process server; my landlord is being sued for foreclosure.

My first response was definitely emotional. I worked myself up in a span of a few minutes and declared that I was not going to pay my rent if he wasn't going to pay his mortgage. Unfortunately for me, my lease does not include a clause that the landlord's failure to pay his mortgage is a material breach.

I've heard from so many different people; and each person tells me to do a different thing: Pay the rent; don't pay the rent; move out immediately; don't move out right away. And, I work for an attorney, so I've gotten the "legal" opinion as well. However, I have decided to do things my own way.

Therefore, I filed an answer to the summons (I was included as the "unknown tenant in possession") and I will pay March rent (due on Monday). After all, my lease is still a contract and I obligated myself to pay rent to my landlord. Stupid as it may be, I'm not going to do something ethically wrong just because it has to do with money. My plans are to eventually negotiate, or request the court to order, my release from the lease so I can move out. Even if the bank does go through the whole foreclosure process, the courts in Florida are so backed up that my lease term will naturally end before that time.

Whether or not I made the right decision will not be known until this is over. But I made a decision and I'm going to follow it through. I'll check back at the beginning of next month to see if my ethics are still intact and I haven't given in to the temptation to not pay my rent.

Equality in Knitting

I am a big proponent of fairness. Of course, holding onto this belief means I am so often disappointed or embittered. Nothing is fair; I just want it to be. Which leads me to my anger at this economy. Someone, some group, somebody is responsible for this downturn. And their greed, stupidity, or selfishness has directly affected me. I'm obviously not a employee who is a lifer. The longest job I had was immediately after I graduated from college. I worked for a law office in Lakeland for six years. Since then, I've changed jobs every three years. Of course, I have that itch to move jobs again, but circumstances dictate that I just sit still. So this is how I ended up lamenting the inequity of the recession.

I offset my troubles with my day job with my knitting. I'm still knitting novice and seek out beginner pieces, mostly patterns that are repetitious or easy to read. I finally broke down and bought some Lily's Sugar and Cream cotton yarn. There are a ton of patterns out there for this yarn, and I got a good deal at Michaels. Here's one of the dishcloths I made with it.



I've been working on a scarf (surprise! no, really?) in a lace pattern. This scarf will definitely need to be blocked because it's rolling in at the edges. The pattern repeats every four rows so I can do this practically with my eyes shut. A few mistakes here and there; but I like this because it's helped me to recognize new stitches.



I bought a lot of straight bamboo needles off of Ebay. The metal ones just don't hold the yarn well; it just slips off too easily. I also have a mishmash of circulars (only one of which is bamboo). I have one set of metal double-pointed needles. There is a sock tutorial online that many people recommend. After my scarf is done, I'm going to try it out. If I can learn socks, I might just quit my day job and become a professional sock knitter. Now that's what I call FAIR.

Friends and Flowers

Would you not agree that these are very pretty flowers? I love the purple/pink color of the daisies and whatever that mum-looking flower is (I'm really bad with identifying flowers).





The flowers are in a vase on my dining table. My night consisted of eating sushi from my favorite corner sushi place, talking to a girlfriend for an hour trying to help her upload a new profile picture to Facebook, and knitting. Not exactly an exciting night but it's enough to keep me awake and not in bed by 9 p.m.

I have to say I have really wonderful friends. Sometimes they really amaze me with what they are willing to put up with (from me). I only hope I return the favor in kind. Someone recently told me "to have a friend is to be a friend".

Happy Valentine's Day!

Before and After

As a Christmas gift, my mother went to Penney's and bought me window valances and the hardware to hang them.

I finally got around to making the apartment presentable enough for photographs, so now you can see before and after. The before is the move-in condition of the apartment and after is with all my furniture in the rooms.

The solarium, which I use as a dining area

BEFORE:


AFTER:


The family room

BEFORE:


AFTER:



I'm pleased with the window treatments; they fit the room really well. Also, I put up some pictures on the wall; the place actually looks lived in and personable. I moved my yarn into the corner by the love seat to hide it. Just before these "after" pictures, I had projects and yarn and needles everywhere. I have a shadow box I want to hang this afternoon and it will go on one of the walls in the dining area.

My mom also gave me the area rug and the lamp. In fact, I have a matching rug in the bedroom, thanks to Mom. Her hand-me-downs are usually of pretty good quality.

Now I'm off to try and fix the laundry room door. It's a bi-fold door and I pulled it off the track a few days ago.

Have a nice Saturday!