Deviant Dispatches

 For quite some time, I've wanted to make myself a black shawl. I have lots of shawls in many different colors: blue, purple, orange, tan, grey, and green. But none of those shawls can be worn with everything in my wardrobe. I wanted to make something more versatile - and lighter weight, so I could wear it in this ridiculous weather that we are calling "summer" instead of "hell on Earth," for some reason. That meant making lace. I love it more every time I make it. I made the pattern Summer Flies by Donna Griffin (click pictures for more detail). It's done on size 8 needles and works up really  fast - I started this pattern at the beginning of the month, and I had plenty of time to work on some other projects in between, too. This is the first curving shawl I've made, too - all the others are rectangles or triangles.  By the end, there were 400 stitches per row, but that was the only somewhat boring part of this pattern. Throw on some

Yesterday was a Day for me. No one particular thing went wrong, but little things compounded until I reached the boiling point and had a mini nuclear explosion. As a result, today my brain is a bit mutated from all of yesterday's radiation - my emotions have extra limbs, my thoughts are slightly warped, and my brain cells feel sterilized. (By that, I pretty much mean I can't think.) As today promises to be much like yesterday was, I'm taking a few extra minutes for myself this morning. Enjoy these links to other people's disgruntledness. - Rejection letters , including one from Disney about why they don't let "girls" draw. - Complaint about terrible plane food , with some spectacular hyperbole - Butts . Because they exist. (SFW) - Letters to Santa . My favorite is the girl who wants to turn into a dragon.

Ladies and gentlemen: I present to you... the last page of my novel. Some part of me thought I'd never see it again. I can tell that part of me to shove it, because I've finished my second draft. Now comes the hard stuff. All those little yellow post-its? Those are things I need to address in the next edit. All these pages and pages of notes? According to my  editing instructions  for this book, the next edit will be one of the most difficult: correcting all of the major faults. I addressed some of them in the most recent edit (such as changing my main character's age), but I've discovered many more problems. Maybe I should have done the really hard stuff on my first edit, but I'm glad I didn't. One of the huge problems I unveiled was a certain character who could have solved two hundred pages of problems  thirty years ago - now, I need a reason that he didn't. I also added important elements to the world I created - things that may

Yesterday, Spousal Unit and I celebrated the third annual Avatar Day . Usually, we celebrate it the day before Father's Day, but we were out of town this year. We also usually have an ice cream cake, while we completely and guiltlessly gorge ourselves on a children's cartoon for hours on end. This year, we decided to try something different.* I found a great recipe for cinnamon chocolate cake in Pillsbury's Healthy Baking cookbook , and I made cupcakes. I totally love those little silicone muffin pan liners - they keep the pan clean, and the innards always slide out easily. Next, I found a depiction of the four nations's symbols: Air, Water, Earth, and Fire. Source After mixing up some buttercream frosting, I practiced drawing the symbol into it. Here, I practiced on an old plastic lid, drawing with a toothpick and straight food coloring. But it worked better to mix 1 teaspoon of frosting with one drop of food coloring - the toothpick just d

When I first ran across this cover, I thought it was a fake title. But no. The Very Virile Viking by Sandra Hill The Very Virile Viking is a real book. By a real romance author, who apparently doesn't care about pretending to be historically accurate anymore; she just wants to get to the good stuff. The first line of this book? "In the days of old when men were... whatever... " I think this review sums it up much better than I could. I especially like the euphemism the reviewer points out: "It was not yet spring, but his sap was running high." Oh myyyyy. Our next awful book title features... Pregnesia by Carla Cassidy ...Okay. No.  I give up on this one. It's too easy. (Just let me say that either this is a condition where you forget how you got pregnant in the first place, or the lady's birthing a planet. Now I'm moving on.) We all know Harlequins are absolute crap. Here are some more wonderful baby-related tal

Spousal Unit and I went on a library music binge recently, bringing home about a dozen CDs to listen to and enjoy. Many of them featured music from around the world - Asia, in particular. I especially love Silaihuar by Urna Chahar-Tugchi , a Mongolian musician. It's harder to tell at the beginning of the song, but her vocals really mimic the instruments. I can especially hear it around 3:55 (plus, listen to those notes she hits). It makes me draw parallels with scat singing in jazz, even though these styles are half a world apart. Another thing I love? That she's wearing a bulky jacket and sitting on the ground on her album cover. Any American artist with a voice like that would probably be wearing a fancy dress. In a big city. On a stage with red curtains. I also love the song Zara Zara by Bombay S. Jayashri from Putumayo's "India ". This is my second favorite of the Putumayo CDs - the album flows together very well, and almost all of the songs are m

Awesome things that have happened lately: I finished my bamboo shawl.  I love how the colors turned out – I was especially worried about the bind off, because I’d wanted to do it in all blue. Unfortunately, I ran out and had to resort to orange. But it ended up just fine that way. I got a gorgeous, almost brand-new jacket for $3.62 while hanging out in Milwaukee.  It’s exactly my style and exactly my size – the arms are even long enough, which is pretty unusual for me to find. It’s slightly padded, which means I’ll wear the hell out of it this fall. In the meantime, I’ve been prancing about in it at home, when the A/C is on, and being giddy over the cute little knots and the tiny guys in fishing boats. We visited Spousal Unit's family in Chicagoland for Father's Day. Everyone who's ever met Spousal Unit's dad says, "Oh. So that's  where he gets it from." So true. (In a good way, of course.) Last night, we w

I've tried hard lately to decrease my plastic consumption, for many reasons. Plastic is eternal, it's a huge pollutant (as is and in the process of making it), and using less of it is just a good habit to get into. To begin with, I stopped using Ziploc bags almost entirely. No more little sandwich bags, either - Tupperware instead. I still use super-large ones sometimes, mostly for freezing bread products, but when they're empty, I reuse them. I try to buy items in glass containers rather than plastic ones (though sometimes, the plastic price overrides the glass one). I don't get plastic bags at the store anymore, either. I take reusable cloth bags with me. One day, I had to get a plastic bag at a department store (Spousal Unit and I were wandering to other stores), and I felt so guilty about it that I came home and made plarn. Plarn is plastic yarn, made out of old plastic bags. It's easy to make, and though I haven't crafted with it yet, there are many p

The recent trend in Jobs That Will Totally Humiliate You seems to be standing out on the street corner in a costume for some business or another. That costume may or may not relate to the business, but throughout the summer, one thing is certain: the person inside it will likely have their brains fried to a crisp. One of the most high-profile street costumes is actually nothing more than a cardboard guitar, and it might be the least humiliating. Little Caesar's pizza sends their underpaid teenagers (and the older employees, too) out to the street corner to play something one step above an air guitar, decked out in a very fancy safety vest. The guitar says something about $5 pizzas, or extra breadsticks, or where to get a good bag of crack. I'm not sure, because when people are playing that guitar like mad, it's kind of impossible to actually read. Didn't think that one through, did ya, Caesar? A few blocks down from one of the pizza places is a tax place which, du

I love one part of my body above all others, and it’s not my armpits. Really, does anyone love armpits? My guess would be no. I don’t just hate my own armpits; I hate everyone else’s, too. As I’ve mentioned, this is why basketball will never be my favorite sport, or even a sport of which I can stand to watch more than one minute. Unless you have some weird armpit fetish and nothing gets you going quite like a freshly shaved underarm, my guess is you also hate them, whether you’ve ever consciously thought about it or not. And now I’m going to get all kinds of hits for people seeking armpit porn. Awesome. But armpits are not what I came to talk about today. I came to talk about how much I love my hands. I think every woman - and maybe even every man -  has at least one body part she absolutely hates and would do anything to change. Society puts so many unrealistic expectations out there for body image – thinner, firmer, taller, blonder – that it’s almost impossible to

Remember those baby hats I made? Here are some more! These were made for a friend who doesn't know if they're having a girl child or a boy child, so I went for neutrals. Blue can totally be neutral - the orange here helps with that. It drives me a little batty that colors are so attributed to gender - blue does not have to be just a boy color, and it is, in fact, my favorite. Pink does not have to be girly - it is, in fact, my least favorite color. I am all for boys wearing pink and girls wearing blue (or whatever colors they want). I'm especially proud of this little bear hat. I made the ears entirely from scratch! Spousal Unit said they look like mint Oreos (the inside of the ears is light green). The bear hat is Gir's favorite, too.

Remember when I told you about the bird nest and roblet eggs on our porch? They've hatched, and man are they ugly little things! Really cool, but still ugly. (Click to enlarge!) See his little fuzzy white mohawk?! And who knew robin skin looked like that? Totally reptilian. No, they are not dead; they're sleeping. I'm guessing they hatched a week or two ago, because they already seem too big for the nest. There are four  little birds in there! Papa Bird gave me a funny look when I came out to pick basil for dinner, but he must have been more worried about protecting the roblets till Mama came back. He didn't move the whole time I was outside. I used the zoom quite heavily in these pictures, so as to stay a good distance from the nest. I worry a little about the neighbors, though - the little girl came out one day with a step stool and a shoebox! Who knows what her plans were, but luckily, her mom got to her before I had to. The roblets d

I'm embarking on an effort to really improve my life this summer - physically, mentally, emotionally. A physical therapist will help me with the physical - I've had leg pain pretty much every day for months now, and I am determined to run again. I've found a shrink who should be able to help with the mental and emotional part (yay shrink!), but in reality, I have to help myself with that. The shrink can only tell me so much - I have do the hard part myself. So, where do I start with that? Books, of course. I'm starting out with mindfulness and radical acceptance - terms I only recognized because the store has books with those titles. These are very Buddhist ideas. I'm a fan of Buddhism - there's a lot of peace involved with that religion, when practiced correctly. (Isn't that the key to every religion?) Mindfulness by Willams and Penman Mindfulness (according to the first chapter of this book) is being aware of how things really are in the world a

As much as I dislike hot, sticky weather, there are some things I'm excited for this summer. (Most of them food-related!) Rhubarb crumble Fresh veggies every other week from our CSA Campfires and s'mores Stargazing excursions  with Spousal Unit Listening to A Prairie Home Companion , while sitting on the porch

Now that the Wisconsin recall election is over, I'd like to shed light on something many of us may not have considered in all this: money. You may say money has been a huge  part of this election. Walker raised over $30 million in his recall campaign, trying to buy a win. Everyone's been talking about it. But I'm not talking about it in that way. Consider the following: $30 million could... Send 30,000 ShelterBoxes to families in need of disaster relief. Each box contains a tent, water purification and storage, a toolkit, and many more items that are essential when a home has been demolished. Give 60,000 cows to families in need of milk, via Heifer International . One heifer provides four gallons of milk per day, enough for a whole family and then some - not to mention a yearly calf, too. Assuming a minimum of four people per family, that many cows could provide for 240,000 people - more than the entire population of Madison, Wisconsin . 20 years of maintenance

Wisconsin, today is the day. If you signed the recall petition, that's not enough. If you support the governor with a sign in your lawn (not my cup of tea, but some do), that's not enough. The only way you can speak loudly enough is by voting. Go vote today. The months of strife, arguing, split families, and bumper stickers come down to whether or not you vote today. If any of this election talk affected you in any way - if you have any kind of opinion about Wisconsin's future - it is worthless unless you vote. Let's look at some numbers. Voter turnout for the 2008 presidential election - an election that was as much about race as politics itself - was about 58 percent. By comparison, France's recent presidential election earlier this year sported a voter turnout of 80 percent . Eighty.  Can you imagine living in a place where so many people are willing to act  to change their country - where so many use  their democratic rights? Get out there and vote toda

I've found some awesome stuff covered with my signature items lately: stars and the moon. (Or moons, I'm not picky.) For some reason, those were the things I chose when I was little, as representative of myself. Might have had something to do with the phrase my mom and I always said to each other: "I love you to the moon and stars and back home again." To the Moon and Back plaque There are some amazing teapots out there with a stars and moon theme. I'm not sure which of these is my favorite. From CeramicsLife.com Look at the cool spout! And the moon handle! I love the idea of catching stars with a net. From Vermont Pottery Works (some very cool stuff!) I guess I'm not entirely sure where the tea comes out on this one, but supposedly it does! I'd worry about breaking the delicate handle, though. I also found a moon dessert! Death Star Cake! Wait a minute... That's no moon. That's a cake station! (Sorry - I could