Go West, Young (?) Woman, Pt. 1
The insomnia that plagued me in San Francisco came back last night, so I was in no mood to sort through my three pages of hand-written notes and try to write coherent things about, for instance, the Swayze-Costner-Sagget triumvarate, which is apparently controlled by John Hughes. So, I'm just going to pop up the little bits I wrote on the road in this post, with no pics, and you'll have to wait for Thursday for the real deal. Overall, though, everything and everyone was just out-freaking-standing and I had an amazing time. Super big thanks to everyone who made it happen.
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Thursday, JFK Terminal 4, Bar
Right, so I'm here at JFK, and it's 5:07pm, and I realize this is the time I usually leave the house to pick up the kids. Sadness. BUT...much cause for rejoicing on other fronts. Just before leaving the house today I checked my email one last time (since I don't know when I'll actually have the intarwubs again), and there was a response to a resume I sent out, asking me to come in for an interview Friday or Monday! Yippee! It's actually a position I'm both very interested and very qualified for, doing campaign analysis for a small marketing company. So that was awesome – Grandma Grace will come over to watch the kids while I shlep into the city, so that's not problem...I just have to make sure my interview suit still fits (I do have alternatives). Also, TSA didn't give me any hassle about my assortment of knitting projects (or anything else), which I was a little concerned about because the terminal I'm flying out of has all the Middle Eastern airlines as well as Virgin. Not that I'm particularly concerned about people flying on Middle Eastern airlines, but I get the impression that TSA is. So, as of right now, everything's coming up Milhouse! (For those of you who don't watch the Simpsons, that's a good thing.)
I'm going to go back to knitting my socks now...you know, the ones I was/am knitting to wear on the plane. I'm actually almost done with them, and only have myself (and Puzzlequest) to blame for not having them done.
Saturday, Embassy Suites, Room 712
(8am)There was going to be a whole write up of Friday here, but I have had 4 hours sleep in the past 2 days and there is something horribly, horribly wrong with my in-room coffee maker, in that it is not actually making coffee. These two things coupled together mean that I am going out in search of coffee. Lots and lots of glorious coffee. I will write about yesterday (and likely today) later, possibly at the airport again (though it would be a different airport this time, woudn't it?).
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That's all I got written on the road. I will leave you with the thought that I only ever got one cup of coffee on Saturday, a relatively small one from the Alcatraz ferry on-board canteen.
Oh, and the interview went well, I think. More about that later, too.
Moving forward
I took a big step today, one that I've been putting off mostly because I'm lazy and last time I did it I had to go to the county courthouse and stand in line for four hours. So you can imagine how pleased I was that I was able to register my sole proprietorship online today (and it only took about 15 minutes)! This means that I can start selling patterns and whatnot -- woohoo! I'm working on book stuff for the near future, but look for some new stuff in April. And if I don't get someone to pick up the book (I'm also thinking about shopping it as a column to some of the quarterly mags), I may just sell those individually as well. I also have some ideas for t-shirt designs and other yummy stuff that I could sell -- we'll see. I find getting the paperwork out of the way often gets me out of my laziness and into full-steam-ahead creativity mode, so I'm excited.
Oh, and we have our first ever playdate tomorrow, with the wife and son of Kit's rugby coach. I have kid friendly treats, lots of toys, and the boy is Zack's age so Becky won't be super intimidated. (Hopefully. And really, she can go and play in her room if she is. Which sounds sort of mean but I totally don't mean it that way.) Wish us luck!
As it turns out, my mother was right
There it is, Mom, right there in the headline. For all these years, you've been right about that whole "clean up as you go" thing. Who knew? See, my basic cleaning philosophy has, for most of my life, been "it's just going to get messy again, so why bother until you really have to, like when company's coming?" This method has, to be fair, served me quite well...until The Children came. See, The Children are messier even than I am. And they don't clean up after themselves much (they're still quite small, as most of you know, so it's a matter of ability and not necessarily inclination). Let me clarify here for a moment -- I'm really mostly talking about picking up, not the cleaning of surfaces. I tend to clean around, say, piles of paper/yarn/unhung pictures/etc., but I don't necessarily want all that crap out when people come to visit.
So. Last weekend, we had a visit from the ever-delightful O'Kulpells, and in the interest of a) having room for them to sit on the couch (one of my personal favorite clutter collecting areas) and b) our friends not thinking we're total slobs, I cleaned the house. Now, there are a few problem areas that did not get addressed, but I think I did pretty well, and one of the main areas that has tended to be a problem is the "play area" in the back of our living room that often spills over into the front of our living room, and the dining room, and the kitchen... I clean it up every once in a while, and it usually takes me a couple of hours. Which is pretty annoying. So I got it clean for the company coming (in fact, I was still finishing up back there when they arrived), and then decided to try this whole "pick up as you go" thing that my mom's been carrying on about for all these years. For the past week, we've been stopping playtime 10 minutes before TV/nap-reading time/going outside and Becky has been helping me pick up the back (Zack is still pretty useless). It really only takes a few minutes, and the back is still looking pretty good. Does this mean Mom was right about all that other stuff, too?
Here's a picture of Zack sharing his bagel with Argo, who some of you may know as the gypsy dog or the Valerius dog from Otherworld:
I'm heading to San Francisco Thursday to hang with cool Otherworld peoples and am super excited about it, though I'm going to miss Kit and Becky and Zacky bunches and oodles. But I'll be back Sunday morning, so it's not for too long. Hopefully I'll get lots of writing and knitting done (I'm taking my laptop with me -- I'm flying Virgin America and they have plugs at every seat! Wheee!). I'm trying to finish up a couple of projects before I go -- socks to wear on the plane and a super-secret project, and maybe another pair of socks to wear at Alacatraz, though I could work on those on the plane and during the day Friday, too. I'm also hoping to get the first full sample chapter and project done, the intro edited, and the proposal drafted out. I won't be able to get any photography done obviously, but if I can get all of the writing done, the photography should be pretty quick and easy. (Photography which will be made much more awesome by the gift of a macro lens for my camera! Thanks, Dad!) I did finish these, which I will be wearing around on Friday if it's chilly enough to need socks (San Fran's always so unpredictable!):
Which are also my Red Sox Socks -- I started them last year on the way up to watch a Sox game with Kit and then put them down to work on other things. I picked them up a couple of weeks ago and it only took about 3 days to finish them. Blerg. Someday, I'll just finish what I start in the order I start it (HAHAHAHAHAHhahahahaha. Ha. Ha. Yeah, that's a good one. Heh.).
Is it that obvious?
When I picked the kids up yesterday, Becky's teacher shared a story with me. Apparently, during afternoon snack, the teacher mentioned that they were going to watch Cinderella when they were done and one of the kids said that his mom didn't like Cinderella. So the teacher went around the table, asking each child what their mom liked. When it was Becky's turn, she said, "My mommy likes my daddy!" Guess it shows.
I gotta start posting more often
Yet again, I've let a whole bunch of blogworthy stuff build up, and now I'm going to spew it all out at you. Duck.
I had a birthday. It was full of awesomeness. I got comfy new
snowboots (which I needed) a new
food processor (also needed) a set of
ShamWows (who doesn't need these?), dinner at
Virgil's with Merri and Sharad, and a birthday cake in the shape of Darth Vader's head. You may now all bask in the awesomeness that is my husband.
Now, I know you're thinking
Why in the world would he make the detailing brown? That's just silly. DV is clearly black all over. Well, if Betty Crocker wouldn't label cans of Easy Flow Icing "Black" when the icing inside is clearly "Brown" it would be much easier to do these things properly. Regardless, the cake is yummy and mine and you can't have any (though there is still some left -- I'm pacing myself on this one).
Becky will have a birthday or, Procrastication For the Win! I was supposed to schedule Becky's birthday party all last week. I finally headed over to the place(there's a deposit required) Tuesday of this week and of course there were no days open even close to her birthday. So the very nice guy who was helping me said he'd print out all of April and May so I could see if there was anything at all available that would work. One of the moms that was there for a class with her kid overheard him and said, "Oh, you can open up April 25th at noon -- you were holding it for me, but we're going to have a bead party instead." Which is the absolute perfect day and time for Becky's party. Thank you, Birthday Fairy!
Go West, Old Woman! Speaking of awesome things, it has been arranged that I will be able to attend the Fortunetide Ball in San Francisco at the end of the month. The only negative is that Kit will not be able to attend, and I will miss him a whole lot while I'm out there. I don't think we've spent any whole days (24 hours) apart since I moved up here. I'm just going for a couple of days, but it will be so nice to see everyone out there and hang out. I am super excited about this and have already started to pack. Why yes, I
am a big dork, why do you ask?
But wait, there's even more awesomeness! Because two of our favorite people are coming to visit next weekend! Whee! There will be White Castle and monkeybread and other yumminess (Kit claims there's more to people visiting than making sure they're well-fed, but I'm not sure about that), and doggies and KevinandPeggys. Sweet!
Owl be seeing you There's a painted tree in Becky's room, and every once in a while I like to add a little something to it. Recently, I asked her if she would like an owl in her tree (because I can draw an owl), and she said that she would. It would need to be green. So now there is a green owl in her tree. She has named it Horgan. Yes, Horgan. I have no idea.
I made mittens, because it's almost spring. I saw these in the Webs catalog and just had to have a pair. This was my first Fair Isle project, and I'm not sure I'd recommend it as that because some of the floats get really long and you have to go across the thumb gusset and it's kind of a pain. But I do lurvs them and they're nice and warm to drive in, which is what I made them for.
Service with a smile I've been working on a sock design that I really wanted to have done in time to submit for the Knitty Summer issue. I'd've had it done, too, but I was knitting the samples two at a time (one from the center, one from the outside) and they didn't even look like they were from the same ball of yarn. I am not one to insist that my socks made from hand-dyed yarn should match, but I do want them to look related.
I notified
Fleece Artist, who made the yarn, of the problem and
within an hour got an apology and offer to replace the yarn. Now, I obviously won't make the deadline (Mar. 2), but I can always self-publish the pattern. I just thought it was really awesome that they responded so quickly and generously. I also want to say about this yarn -- which is their Sea Wool blend -- that it is really a pleasure to knit with. I've got a couple of skeins in other colorways and I can't wait to knit it up.
Since when is a B-cup an extra large? Not that there's anything wrong with being a B-cup. I'm just saying, when I buy an extra-large t-shirt, I expect it to not be super-crazy tight. Even American Apparel tees, notorious for running small, fit me decently in an XL. Most tees fit me properly in a medium.
Threadless, however, makes the smallest XL I have ever experienced. Since I've already exchanged my tee once (I ordered a medium the first time, which makes me even more surprised about the XL, because it's not comparatively much bigger than the medium) I'm kind of done with it. Not sure what I'm going to do with the tee. I did get a really cute tee from them for Becky, though, and it appears to be the right size.
So that's what I've been doing. I'm going to go eat some cake and knit a few rows before I have to get the kids. Yes, the kids are still cute. See?
I think the cute might stick -- even when they're making me crazy, they're still pretty cute. Becky has entered the "why?" stage and I might strangle her soon, but I'm sure she'll be cute while I do it.
