Saturday, July 30, 2005

Pictures picture and more pictures!

YAY!!! I finally got a USB cable for my camera! Fry's Electronics is a wonderful place.
So now, some photos......
First of all, here are some knitting notecards I picked up from the $1 bin at Michaels... so cute, and so cheap!


A few weeks ago was the birthday of my lovely cousin Erin.
For her birthday I made her a few beaded necklaces.....
A triple strand silver pearl, iolite, and garnet.

Single strand white pearl and hematite.

A copper pearl, rose quartz and moss stone.

Silver pearl and a sparkly green stone that I can’t remember the name of.

I also made a charm for her cell phone with Swarovski crystals and a crab since she’s a cancer.

I’ve also crocheted a few things recently, and who better to model them for me than my baby cousin, the little diva in the making, Janae....
First is a black hobo bag...

Another hobo bag, this time I decided to use brighter colors and went with baby blue and lime green...

I also made a poncho with matching hat for Janae using butter yellow kitchen cotton with a light blue eyelash yarn for the trim. I thought the blue would really bring out her eyes. Here she is, showing us some of her diva poses....


And finally, my sweet baby girl. Madeleine. I know that I may be a bit biased, but I do believe that she is the cutest puppy ever.

Thursday, July 28, 2005

Sounds cool.....


So, I still haven't mastered the Art of Knitting (to many crochet projects in progress) but I saw these on
  • ShinyShiny
  • and I WANT THEM NOW!
    They're called The Knit Wit and they count your stiches AND your rows.
    I haven't been able to find anything that gives the price, though. Not even on Amazon.
    However, here is
  • the ShinyShiny review
  • .

    Tuesday, July 26, 2005

    Only a month away....

    Only a month until my 29th birthday. Exactly one month from today.
    It feels odd knowing that I'm about to begin the last year of my 20's.
    I was talking about this with a friend this past week and they asked how much I'd accomplished on my "30 by 30" list.
    I said "My whuh?"
    30 things to accomplish by the age of 30.
    Is this a standard thing that most people do but I'm not aware of?
    So, I decided to sit down and create my list. Considering I only have a little over a year its not going to include anything of any great measure, and it probably will include a few silly things, but I still thought I would be able to come up with 30 things that I wanted to do within the next 13 months. So not true.
    I am having the hardest time coming up with 30 things that I wanted to accomplish by August 26, 2006.
    So, here I am asking for suggestions.
    I only have 16 things so far.....

    16 by 30

    1. Walk across the Golden Gate Bridge.
    2. Travel somewhere that requires a passport (Ireland & Italy being my top 2 choices).
    3. Be completely debt free - even if only for 1 month.
    4. Get my motorcycle license so that I'm that much closer to getting the Vespa I want.
    5. Lose 50 lbs
    6. Take one of those cool classes at the Learning Exchange - photography, cooking, knitting, any of them!
    7. Complete the American Diabetes Association Tour de Cure bike ride
    8. Treat myself to a day spa (particular treatments as yet undecided but I'm thinking a full body massage to recover from the Tour de Cure is a top contender)
    9. Photograph at least half of the California Missions (from Jolon, north to Sonoma)
    10. Try snowboarding
    11. Throw an amazing dinner party (perhaps for my Grandmas 70th birthday in September?)
    12. Go through my closet and donate all clothing and shoes that I havent worn in the past year to a battered womens shelter such as WEAVE.
    13. Go through my book shelves and donate all books I no longer need or want to keep for sentimental reasons to a hospital or nursing home.
    14. Register as a bone marrow donor (I already donate blood every 8 weeks)
    15. Have my photography shown - even if just in a coffee shop.
    16. Have net assets of $25k (401k, stocks, bonds, etc.)


    So, offer some suggestions and on or around August 26th I'll post an updated "30 by 30"

    Tuesday, July 19, 2005

    Just you wait.......

    I had a full weekend.
    I spent it at my Aunt Marla & Uncle Mikes house in Fairfield.
    Friday night I went down and joined Aunt Marla and Uncle Mike along with my dear cousin Erin and her husband Jeremy for a comedy club fundraiser for the local girls bobby sox softball team. The show was okay - not the funniest I've heard, but okay.
    Saturday morning my younger cousin Meghan and I went into San Francisco to do a little birthday shopping for Erin. I picked up a couple of little things for her at Sephora to pair together with some necklaces that I'd made her.
    That night we had a family dinner party to celebrate Erins 30th birthday, Grandma drove down to join us - it was a nice little gathering, just a quiet evening with the family. Then Sunday we just hung out, playing Scrabble online.

    However, be prepared for an upcoming picture palooza. I have taken photos of each of the necklaces that I made for Erin along with photos of Miss Molluy's puppies. Miss Molly is my Uncle Mikes sweet sweet puppy, and her babies are so adorable! The chunkiest of which, Jennifer, will be my Grandmas new baby in about 8 weeks. I'll also have photos of my most recently completed crochet projects... 2 hobo tote bags and a crusher hat with matching scarf.
    I still don't have a USB cord for my digital camera. i've been to Best Buy but they don't have one that fits my camera. This is not going to be an easy fix. I'm still hoping that I'll find my original cord, but so far, no luck.
    But when I do get a USB cord, watch out! I'll be taking pictures of EVERYTHING!!!!!

    Wednesday, July 13, 2005

    Wow, he's right!

    "Even though I'm a tranquil guy now at this stage of my life, I have nothing but contempt and anger for those who betray the trust by exposing the name of our sources. They are, in my view, the most insidious of traitors." George H.W. Bush, April 26, 1999.

    Saturday, July 09, 2005

    All over a silly eyelash....

    Yesterday morning I felt like there was something in my eye but I couldnt see anything in it and no matter how many eyedrops I put in it, nothing helped. Nobody at work had a magnifying mirror so that I could get a better look at it, and the one friend/coworker who was willing to look in my eye said that my eyelid was a little red and swollen and it looked like I was probably getting a sty. I've had a sty before and it wasnt scratchy, it was tender and swollen. By the time I got home it felt like something was scratching my eye, so I checked it out once I was able to get up close to a big mirror with good lighting. I had an ingrown eyelash. But, it's not just a regular ingrown eyelash, but one that went through inner rim of my upper eyelid, under the skin, coming out on the INSIDE of my eyelid, scratching my eye everytime I blinked. Since it was so close to my eyeball, this wasnt something I wanted to try to tweeze myself.
    So, being the mature 28 year old woman that I am, I called my mommy.
    My rationalization in calling my mom being that she is a Medical Assistant and is constantly poking people with needles and crap like that. She came over and I told her what the situation was, and of course she didn't believe me and starts wiping a Q-Tip along the inner rim of my eyelid, thinking that the lash is just bent up underneath the lid and that she's going to be able to wipe it off. During this process I repeatedly told her "Mom, it's UNDER the skin, you're not going to be able to wipe it off with a Q-Tip." After a couple of minutes she says "OH, how WEIRD. It really is under the skin. yeah, I'm not going to be able to just wipe this off." And since so little of the lash was coming out on the underneath she didn't feel comfortable trying to get it out.
    Next step... Urgent Care. Mom and I decide that Saturday, today, she'll take me to urgent care in case they have to cut into my eyelid and possibly patch it and am not able to drive myself home. First, I wake up and theres some goopy stuff in my eye. Not a good sign.
    We get to urgent care and the triage nurse looks at my eyelid. He says "WEIRD, its really under the skin. I want to see what the Dr. does." Of course, since I'm with my mommy I get put into a pediatric room where the only reading material is Green Eggs and Ham. I couldn't talk mommy into reading me a story though. After a few minutes the doctor comes in, asks me why I'm there and I tell him about my eye.
    Then he gives me a lecture about the ills of smoking.
    Finally he looks at my eye and says, stop me if you've heard this before....
    "Oh, how WEIRD. It really IS under the skin."
    After he looks at it again he says "Yeah, I'm not going to touch that. I'll give you a referral to an opthamologist and someone will call you by Tuesday" I ask if he can give me some numbing drops for my eye since its so annoying, his response was "No, sometimes pain is your friend. It lets you know if it may be getting infected or something." Pain is my friend? Sadistic bastard. I felt like saying "No, pain MEDS are my friend" but I doubted that my humor would be appreciated.
    So, I go home thinking that I'll have to wait until probably Wednesday at the earliest before anything can be done about the damned eyelash in my eye.
    However, as the day wears on the scratching sensation goes away. Now it feels like everytime I blink something is CUTTING into my eye, and I decide to brave the emergency room. With mommy.
    We go to Sutter Roseville and I sign in. After about 20 minutes I'm called in to triage. The triage nurse says that it won't take very long since they don't need to put me in a room or bed or anything like that, but I'm doubtful. Emergency rooms are NEVER quick. Especially ones that are level one trauma centers like Sutter Roseville.
    So, I go back out and register and wait for about another 30 minutes and am called back in where I meet the wonderful Dr. Darilyn Campbell-Falck. She looks at my eye and says "I can see how that would be really annoying." she puts some lidocaine drops in my eye, gets some really small forceps, a bright light, and tries to pull the lash out. It's not budging. My favorite comment of hers? "I wish I had the tweezers I use on my eyebrows at home."
    She finds a different pair of forceps and pulls the lash out then gives me a prescription for some antibiotic drops since my eye itself has been scratched some and she wants to prevent it from becoming infected. Total time spent in the emergency room? Just an hour and a half.

    I LOVE YOU SUTTER ROSEVILLE!!!
    I LOVE YOU DR CAMPBELL-FALCK!!!

    Then I went to the new Joann Super Store in Roseville and bought yarn.

    Projects will be posted once I get off my lazy arse and go get a new usb cord for my digital camera.

    Wednesday, July 06, 2005

    I actually did it.

    For the past year I have been saying that when my hair grows out long enough I would be cutting it off to donate to Locks of Love.
    Sunday, I did it. I just could not take the July heat in Sacramento any longer with how thick & heavy my hair is. It was down to my waist and now barely hits my shoulders. I feel good about it - everyone asks if I cried when they cut it but I was okay in knowing that it was going to a good cause and would probably make some little girl happy.
    However, I do feel naked. I mean I spent the past year and a half growing out this massive amount of hair and its just gone.