Yesterday was quite productive. I wish I could have taken a photo of the yarn I dyed, but it is for February sock club and I didn’t want to spoil people. So here’s a picture of my temporarily red hair instead. I love how the gray and still-bleached parts look lighter, almost reddish-blonde. Anyway. It’s weird to see my hair as mostly just one color again!
Last night after dinner we watched an 80′s movie that neither one of us had seen before, but that Rhea keeps telling me I’ve got to see – The Goonies. Well. Now I can say I’ve seen it. I’m not going to probably ever have the urge to watch the whole thing again, but it was cute. Everyone looked so young! Young Sean Astin, before he was the “fat nasty hobbit.” I think I would have liked it a lot more thirty years ago. At the time it came out, I was 16, and remember thinking that I was too old/too much a girl to relate to a movie about 12-year-old boys, and that still mostly holds true but I could appreciate it from a nostalgic “isn’t that sweet” point of view.
OK; time to move on with my day. I have a little more glazing to do, a little more soap to wrap, laundry needs to be done, etc etc etc.
Yesterday was a throwback to the start of the year; hanging out with good friends and eating great food. Lynn came up from “down South” (and I say it like it’s a million miles away but it’s like, an hour) and helped me to wrap soap (a day off for her, and a big help to me) and we had lunch at Chopstix, dinner at Emiliano’s, and in between, knitting at Wild Iris with ciders from Cafe Colette. Definitely a day of local tasties! Damn, I just remembered I forgot to buy that last strawberry/balsamic white chocolate at the Cafe. Poo! Well, hopefully it will still be there Thursday, or more will be there. Mmmmmmm.
Anyway. Yesterday! Fun! It was great to see Lynn and catch up on what she’s doing and working on, and to just hang for a while. She has some great knitting going on right now, one of those mitered-square blankets and it is ginormous and beautiful! What a great use for scrap pieces of yarn.
…aaaaaand, that’s about it. I have a lot to do today so I’d best wrap this up. Expect many soap updates in the shop today — I’ll be listing four sets of guest soaps on both the Etsy shop and the Wild Iris Marketplace (same soaps, available two different places). And I have glazing to do, and yarn to dye. But I don’t have to go anywhere today, so I’m going to be all squirrelly and crafty and shit. Yes, I will have pants on (so that my legs don’t get covered in dye and glaze).
Tags: Gainesville, my cool friends, work
I originally meant to take this in the early morning, so the sun would be behind it (get it? The sun? Behind the sun? So it would look like a little sun? In the sun? Meta!) But I forgot, and ultimately think this one turned out fine. Besides, I think to show off the shiny more I’d have to break out my camera-camera, not just my phone-camera (which is what I take most of my daily photos with these days).
Yesterday was spent firing the kiln and cleaning the house – not only is Lynn coming up today to help me wrap soap (and eat good food – forecast calls for lunch at Chopstix and dinner at Emilianos) but we’re getting the house appraised today because we’re trying to refinance. So mostly I puttered yesterday, going through small piles of things and putting things where they belong and sweeping and whatnot. Tim completely cleaned off the back porch when he got home; I do love a clean back porch. When I unload the kiln later I’ll try to take a wide shot to show off how empty it looks.
Aaaaaaaaand, that’s all I got this morning. I need to rush off and sweep the front porch, open the kiln and inspect pieces, and do a few last-minute bits of straightening. You crazy kids have a fun day!
Treasury: Dragon + Fly
Treasury: Retro Gifts
Treasury: I Heart Coffee Browns
Treasury: Espresso
Treasury: Retro Red
Behold, my earrings! Before we painted the bathroom, they used to hang in the window (not unlike this); but they got taken down for painting, and when I went to put them back up I thought “wow, that netting is really dusty, I should pop it into the wash.” And that meant taking off all of my earrings, so you know I got right on that. HAHAHAHA. Finally last week Tim was all, “you gonna hang these?” and I explained what was taking me so long (“it is in a small box in the closet in the bathroom and I only think about it when I see it and usually then I am about to get in the shower so yeah”) and he took them all off while watching TV. I popped the netting in my next load of laundry, and… now it’s back up. So. Yeah. That only took seven months.
Sigh.
Anyway. Moving on.
One thing I’m discovering about making a schedule and sticking to it is that I’m stressing a lot less over things not getting done. At the same time, I’m getting a lot more things finished. Does that make sense? For instance, Sunday is OFFICE DAY. And that means that during the week I stress less about there being random piles of paper around that need to be filed, because I know I’m going to get to it on Sunday. And when I do get to it on Sunday, it takes me less time to finish it than I thought (probably because there’s a week of receipts and not seven months worth) and then I feel accomplished, and done with something. Saturday when I loaded up the kiln with greenware, I felt like I finished it and was ready to fire with much less stress than in November or December, even though I worked on it the same amount of hours I would have then — just spread out over two days instead of crammed into one day. CRAZY.
Tags: ramblings
The Girl Who Played With Fire by Stieg Larsson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Like the first one, this one started off just a tad slowly, and I did wonder where he was going with it. It picked up considerable speed, though, and I absolutely devoured it.
One thing I found myself thinking, though, is about the hacker mentality in Sweden. Or perhaps I should say the mentality that people who are not hackers think that hackers have. Also, I found myself a little confused about why a photographic memory might be something to be embarrassed or ashamed about. But then I don’t see things like someone’s talents and abilities as something to hide… maybe that’s just me.
If you haven’t read the first book, you won’t be too lost. Sure, there are relationships the characters had prior to the second book starting, but nothing that isn’t filled in throughout the course of the book.
View all my reviews
Tags: book review, books, mystery
Tags: indie music, music, youtube
Friday’s kiln firing. All four of those messily wrapped mugs will show up for sale soon.
One thing I noticed yesterday is that by cleaning greenware every Saturday, but only loading the kiln up to fire every other Saturday, it doesn’t take as long to get work done! I mean, it does; it still takes six to eight hours to get enough cleaned to load the kiln. But four hours each Saturday rather than eight hours all at once just… seems faster.
Last night we went to the grand opening of a friend’s new sewing studio, Sew Make Do. I guess I should say acquaintance more than friend (I actually know her mom better :waves to Joan: and kind of suspect that her mom and my mom would hit it off) but she’s someone whose blog I have read for a while and I have had a crush on her kitchen clocks for.ev.er. and a day and I would like to get to know her better as it seems like we have a lot of friends in common. Is that the longest, most rambling sentence I’ve ever written? Anyway, Kim is opening a sewing studio and wants it to be a crafting hub (I hear Sharon’s going to be teaching an intro to knitting class there in February), and y’all know I’m all about crafty hubs, so anything to show my support! And yes, I did register to maybe win a free class, but probably won’t win (I never win anything) and have my eye on an upcoming learn-about-patterns/how-to-make-pajama-bottoms class. I feel like I’m in that in-between stage of knowing about sewing. I basically know how to do it, but could use a confidence builder and some reinforcement that I do know what I’m doing even if I doubt myself. Is that what people felt when thinking about taking classes at Hanks?
Whoops. I decided while writing this to take the dog on a walk (almost four miles!) and saved this in drafts, and then forgot about it when I got home. Der.
What are your Sunday plans?
Tags: ceramics, Gainesville, sewing, work
Yarn: Briar Rose Wistful and HaldeCraft HandDyed in “None of your Beeswax”
Pattern: Mostly the EZ percentage system for a pullover, but also a few touches made up as I went along (like a picot bindoff, double rolled collar, hemmed sleeves and bottom.
Notes: I wanted something that looked like a t-shirt over a long-sleeved shirt, and am pretty sure I got what I was aiming for!
Tags: HaldeCraft HandDyed, Knitting
1. Clover Green Good Morning Mug – redsigned with a new mug style (to match the yellow).
2. The 40s Have Called in Octavia – new in the shop!
3. Watership Down soap set – new in the shop!
4. Sea Breeze scented Celtic Square soap
5. Lemon Yellow Good Morning mug – restocked!
6. Pretty in Pink in Octavia – new in the shop!
7. The 80s Have Called in Octavia – new in the shop!
8. Cattail & Dragonfly soap in Kentish Rain and Sea Breeze.
9. Pair of yellow mugs – renewed item.
10. Pair of footed mugs – already sold! Victory to the swift!
11. Kentish Rain scented Longevity knot soap – new in the shop
12. Afternoon Skies in Octavia – back in stock!
Tags: ceramics, HaldeCraft HandDyed, HaldeSoap, work
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