Day 29: because i'm always freezing (a mini-project)

While searching for patterns for baby-mittens for Aurora, and practicing cables (upon finding a pattern that I'm actually not going to use, because it was for 6 mos-1 year, and Aurora's a newborn ... and apparently my tension is really loose, because I did not alter the pattern one bit, except to end early, and they fit my wrists ... ), I made wristwarmers!
Actually, it's less that I'm always freezing, and more that I read that legwarmers were originally only worn by dancers, etc, to keep their leg muscles warmed up, so they didn't injure themselves ... and I'm a writer, so I need to keep my arms/wrists warmed up for all the mad typing I do!

Both wristwarmers. Unfortunately, I needed one hand to take the picture ...


A close-up of the cables on the better (aka second) wristwarmer. I'm very proud of myself, I figured out how to do this from poorly written instructions and a video showing me how to do something else ...


And, somehow, I lost the better wristwarmer! At Smith's, I think. :(
But they're so quick (I made both in one evening) and take so little yarn, I may take the crappier one apart and remake it and make another.

Day 28: it's called the pentagram spread

Hmmm ... apologies for the awful fuzzy picture. I didn't realize until just now ... (and since I neglected to update all week, 'just now' is NOT Day28)
From the top, in sunwise order, the positions and related cards are:
Spirit: Six of Wands
Water: Ten of Pentacles
Fire: Five of Swords
Earth: Queen of Swords (R)
Air: Prince of Pentacles (R)



I might set these cards up again and take a better picture in the morning ... just so you can actually see my cards, because they are lovely ...

Day 27: adventures in suburbia

Another picture of my street (700 S) from the top of the hill. It's misty/inversiony ...


I thought this was really clever. I also think we need something like this. (I'll have to take a picture of the front of our house so you can see why ... )


And ... yay! Trash can fires in ... plastic trash cans.
Somehow doesn't work as well as you might think ...


Also, if you can notice the discrepancy, you get ten points!

Day 26: snow and happy birthday

Subtitle: I love the macro button.

Anyway, it snowed, so here's more snow pictures. Also, my mommy's birthday is on Day 26: happy birthday, mommy!

Some snow piled on a branch:


Snow and berries!


A snowy tree, from afar. I'd wanted to do more close-ups and maybe some odd angles with the tree, but I'm not sure they would have turned out.


The valley. This is where I live.


More of my favorite: pyrocanthus! (Thanks Beverly!) I liked the red berries against the white snow and dark branches/leaves.


And this is probably my favorite.


Love you all!!

Day 25: a new project (quick!)

I need to make more things for babies! I bought the yarn TODAY, on my way to game, and would have finished both booties and left them with Lisa to put on her new baby Aurora as soon as she's born (C-section scheduled for Friday), but I forgot the yarn needle, so I couldn't sew them up until I got home.

So this is before sewing them up:


And this is the finished product, and the picture's not a close-up, because for whatever reason I could NOT get a clear picture close up.
Click on it to enlarge. I WILL get pictures of Aurora wearing the booties when that happens, sohopefully that will be a better picture.


And I still have tons more yarn. I'm trying to decide if Aurora needs more booties, or if I should maybe do a hat? Hmmm ... maybe if I find another pattern, because then she can have multiple booties, and they're the same color, but they'd look different. I would also do a hat, and maybe I should ask Lisa if there's anything else Aurora would need/want ...

Day 24: new friends

Today I met/hung out with my new friend Jen and her kids who are adorable.
I went to Craigslist in search of more female friends, because I felt like I was drowning in male friends (I love all my male friends, dearly, but female friends are very valuable), and that's how I met Jen, who is awesome. And we got together today to wander around Pagan stores, and other similar places.
Again, I forgot my camera, so I don't have a picture of Jen, or of Steven (who owns my favorite Pagan store around here), so I took a picture instead of what I bought at Spellbound (Steven's Pagan store):


They're Ogham (pronounced OH-am) "tiles" ... usually Ogham (a Celtic divinatory system, based on trees) is done in sticks, but these are rune-like ... and they were made by a good friend of mine, who is in the Druid group I was a part of for a while (Steven runs it, and Rae (Day 22) was also in it with me) ... so that's NEAT.
The "tile" to the left of the bag, and not touching anything, that's Rowan, one of the sacred trees of the Druids/Ogham system.

Day 23: i'm a slacker!

No pictures today. I was at Rae's until about 2:30pm on Day 23, and after getting home, I went right to work, and to bed almost straight after work. And since I'd forgotten to bring my camera to Rae's Thursday night (see Day 22), I had nothin'.
:(

Day 22: a good day

My friend Rae, who got me the job at Smith's, invited me to dinner on Thursday (which is Day 22), and I meant to bring my camera along, and FORGOT, so here's my camera-phone pictures (thank you Dani (and Nick?) for helping me figure out how to get camera-phone pictures onto my computer) of the people I hung out with:

This is Puckryn. He's very cute.


And Rae is the one making the silly face, with Caroline behind her. They're awesome.


We had dinner (it was yummy!) and listened to music, and talked, and I watched movies with Puck, and it was lots of fun.

Day 21: sleep ...

Pretty much all I've done and wanted to do today ....

So, this is my bed. I might give a photo tour of my house, taking pictures of different parts of my house little by little. We'll see.

Thanks to my friend Ryan, I am now listening to Jewel. Thanks, Ry-Pie!

Day 20: more time spent outside

I went to the bank downtown, and these are some pictures I took:











I've taken pictures of this garden and the plants within before (before this year), and since it's near my house, I decided I wanted to mark it this year, watch the changes, etc. So there will be more pictures of this garden throughout the year.

Day 19: a confession

Confession: I am a generalist. I also quit things often. I have learned to embrace this side of me, the ever-changing interests, the "inability to focus", but still I mourn the loss of interests as they leave me. Photography was leaving, I could tell.
So, when I was taking these pictures, I started to feel that photography-interest coming back, that interest in making beautiful things, and in paying attention to nature by capturing it in a moment.
So, I bless Project 365 for making me a photographer again.

Now, more pictures from 1100 East:
I took a picture of this earlier this month, but there was more snow. I'm interested in taking pictures of a lot of the same things, over and over, so the changes can be documented.


A bush, covered in berries. I really wish I knew what kind of bush this is.


Making use of my macro button on my camera. This is my favorite of today's batch (and possibly of the month), and will absolutely get put on my deviantART page. I'll update with the link when it's there.


One of my favorite things to do is to make use of odd angles and such.


This is kind of a nice picture, but I'm not sure where the focus is ...


So I zoomed in a bit, and now we have a picture of water! Yay! I love water!


I just love this.


Yay! Odd angles! This didn't turn out quit how I was expecting, but whatever ...


A fallen Christmas tree ...


... and again ...


... and once more ...


Whew! Eleven pictures in all, and even though I haven't really been counting, I'm pretty sure that's a record for me.
Much love to you all!!!

Day 18: christmas popcorn

This is the airpopper I got for Christmas; whenever I pop popcorn, it's Christmas popcorn if I make it with my Christmas present.
I made popcorn today because it's soul-healing. I've been really tired and worn-out lately, and I needed that sort of thing. I watched Bones on Hulu.com, and ate popcorn and applesauce, and drank my cinnamon tea (Good Earth's Sweet and Spicy Tea Blend; it's the best tea in the world).
I also blew up the kitchen (by which I mean blew out the circuit breaker for the kitchen) by running the microwave and the airpopper at the same time. And I haven't yet found the circuit breaker that turns the kitchen on again; I flipped all the ones that were 'off', and nothing happened ... I'll have to wait till my roommate gets home ...

Day 17: i had nothing else

As glad as I am to be home again (see my personal blog about that), I'm going to need some time to recover; hence, the picture of my Christmas present from my sister Brooks (the corset sister). She got me an awesome windchime and this is a picture of it.


I am so tired. I will also be glad when this week is over, and I don't have to keep seeing the title for Day 14; I get that song stuck in my head again every time, and I'm not okay with that ...

Day 16: cool things seen outside

So, I was driving around a lot in Utah County today, and, having a bit more free time than usual, I stopped to take a few pictures. So, here we go.
Snowy, misty, sun-shiny mountains:


Misty sun and trees:


This is way cool. This can be seen on the way to Amia's school. This first picture is for scale. Yes, it's as tall as a house:


A close-up of the ice-castle:

I wish I'd been able to get closer, but they had rope around it, and I could imagine they didn't want anyone climbing it, so ...

And this is my family's cat, Dudley. He's SOOOO cute and friendly. See his hugely fluffy coat; it's his winter coat. He's very soft, and he loves people, and he's gorgeous. I call him Dudders, mostly, after Dudley Dursley:


And these are my little sister's guinea pigs. The biggest one (on the lower left) is the male, and his name is Nickel, and the one on the lower right is the female, named Patches.
The two little ones are the most recent babies, and Patches is their mother and grandmother, and Nickel is their grandfather ... their daddy got a new home recently. (Nickel has been neutered.)


Since I now have a job, I see no reason why I shouldn't be able to take these guys home once they're ready to leave their mommy. (Having a job means money to buy them food and stuff.)
We don't know their genders yet, but the one with black around her eyes is going to be Panda (or Bai Li), and I don't have a name for the other yet.
Ideas?


Anyway, busy camera day!!
Also, my stint at babysitting/chauffering is at an end (as soon as I take the car back to Highland and Dad drives me home), so I will be more on top of my updating, and I will be able to go back to practicing violin and writing every day, which I have super-slacked on. ):

Day 15: because I'm always freezing part 2

I have finished an legwarmer! I have one left, but here is the finished one, isn't it lovely?

Day 14: my kielbasa sausage ...

... has just got to perform.
Because the song's stuck in my head.

Anyway, quick shots before I left my family's house, because my brother (surprisingly) did NOT make me pull out my camera to make more movies today.
So, my dad and my sister (being goofy):


and, my sister and brother playing with moon sand:


And now I'm going to bed. Tomorrow, however, I will have exciting pictures of a single finished legwarmer. Woot!

Day 13: trains and fleeking bags

As soon as I went home the first time, my little brother informed me that I was going to fleek in his room, and that I needed a fleeking bag because he was going to be using "the other bed".
He has continued this every day. I told him today that I was going to spend the night Thursday (because it just makes more sense), and he got really excited, and told me again that I was going to fleek with him in his room.
My brother's adorable.
He also adores trains. So, I had to play with him pretty much all day. The first picture is a crash site: it was meant to be an action shot of them crashing, but that didn't work too well.


This is sideways, and I don't care at the moment, and it's a shot of his massive train set/room. Where I'm supposed to put the fleeking bag is a mystery to me ...


And here are some videos I made while we were playing. Joseph got really into the idea of videos, and so he set up elaborate plots for these seconds-long videos, things about monster frogs attacking the town, and evil puppies (I don't think we got any of the puppy ones on video ... I'll have to correct that), etc.
Enjoy!

Day 12: i got out of the house today!

So, I'm helping out my dad this week some by helping to pick up and drop off siblings at places they need to be while my dad's at work; school and preschool. So, today I went down there so Dad could show me the places I needed to know, and so I could pick up a vehicle (my mom doesn't need a car because she's chaperoning my other sister's field trip to Mexico, which is why I'm helping my dad--this is more complicated than I think it really needs to be), etc., so I got to see my siblings.
Here's my brother Joseph and my sister Libby:



Joseph kept telling me I had to watch the movie; Don't look at Amia, watch the movie! (Did not get a picture of Amia this time, but I will see them all more this week, so ... )
And now I have to get a few things together for tomorrow and fall in bed. I also did not practice my violin today, and I don't think I will. I'm exhausted.

Day 11: what i did instead of taking pictures

So, Sunday usually eats up all my time, because I role-play in effing Magna (aka, BFE), which means I have to take a basically two-hour bus ride to get there.
So, my plan for the day was to take my camera with me, and then just upload the picture(s) when I got home, and all that ... but, I forgot my camera. So here's a picture of my role-playing paraphenalia: the character pictures, the character sheets, the pencil and eraser, the bag o' dice.
The top character is my Mage named Angel, and the bottom character is my Vampire named Theodosia (who was turned in the early 19th century, hence the outfit.



And now I'm going to sleep.