about to trip out for the holidays

Sam and I leave tomorrow for a flight to Seattle and then a drive to Corvallis and later Blachly, Oregon. The driving is not appealing, but seeing the family and getting up and out and away will be wonderful!

So, the week is almost over

Thank God. This week has not been playing well with others, well at least me. I think that the really terrible week that Chrissy had a week or so ago moved North like a weather front and fucked with me.

However, today is a shortish day at work (because I leave for a haircut which will be very nice indeed if expensive). Quilting went well. I want to start another one even though I won't even learn how to finish this one. Maybe in December I will buy the stuff to make another when I go in for the final class.

I haven't worked on the novel, but I do plan to tonight. Although if I get most of a quilt and a good start on a novel done in November that is no small thing, and I will work on finishing both of them before 2009 is out.

This weekend we will be having crazy old lady neighbor over for dinner and Sara Jo and I might go see the Plain White T's play before the parade tomorrow and I might go see some of the parade (Mickey leads a parade that turns on all the lights on Michigan Avenue and then there are fireworks). And writing and movies and TV and maybe getting a new Tivo, it is in the mail.

Seriously?

I do not know what is up with this week, but it needs to knock it the hell off.  I feel like it is out to get me and to make everything as hard as it possibly can for me.  Thank God I have the day off tomorrow!!  And I will be using it to see Pirate Radio with Sally and also to tidy up our apartment which is a total disaster.

 

I have however actually started really watching Dr. Who.  And I like it.  It is super fun, and I love me the Eccleston Doctor (which is the only one that I have watched so far).  This is a little upsetting because I am change resistant and I know that he will not be changed out soon.

 

I don't really have anything else to write, but I felt that I should post.

NaNoWriMo Write-In

So at one now.

I like Cheetos and the Diet Pepsi.

But Pandora is letting me down big time. I guess I could just use my itunes. Sigh.

Umm, this novel and this NaNoWriMo may be doomed.

However, quilting is going much better. I learned how to take my cut out pieces of long skinny strips and make them into strip set, which next week will be trimmed up into blocks (or the last week that will happen) and then those blocks will get sewn together into the quilt top. Then it will need to be quilted and bound (edged). Here is a picture I took on my cell phone and tweeted last night.

WHAT?

Look at your calendar, do it now because Thanksgiving is two weeks and a couple of days away.  WHAT?  How is that possible?  I feel like the summer just happened.  I feel like I barely got to have summer (multiple trips in July alone never no mind).  I just do not even know what is going on.  This is ridiculous.  Just silly pants.

 

Plus I really want to put my Christmas tree up, and although I know that is a ridiculous thing to do.  It isn't really all that crazy.  I want to put it up before we go to Thanksgiving, so it will be all up and lovely when we get back without me having to spend all Sunday after it doing it (that trip is going to wipe us out thanks to stupid driving I-5 plan, don't ask).  This was kind of triggered by the Ville which plays Christmas songs in the preshow, and it makes me want my Christmas tree (especially because last weekend we bought a tree topper from Crate & Barrel).  But then the more I thought about it I realized that it isn't all THAT soon to put it up yet.  Like next week I could put it up and it would only be about a week early.  WHAT?  Ridiculous. 

 

So next week I will be putting up my lovely Christmas tree!!

I hit 5k total this morning.

I will shoot for another 3k tonight. If I get into a good groove it shouldn't be that hard. It actually hasn't been that hard to write when I sit down to it so far. I usually get what I need to get as a daily writing total, but the problem is that I started a few days behind, so at this point I am still playing catch-up pretty hard.

I also need to get some thread for my sewing for the quilt, and I need to put my quilt pieces together. That is my homework for this week. Laying out the pieces to be ready to quilt them together in class next weekend. I actually think that I might buy some more fat quarters and make another one soon.

Shooting for 5,000 tonight

There is a write in downtown, and my friend Sally is at it, but I just didn't feel like seeing people. There is a large mug of peppermint tea steeping on a coaster next to me. I have had some root beer and some clementine izze.

The cat keeps alternately attacking and licking my toes.

I am at two and a half right now, so if I can get to 5k before I head to bed I will be well on my way to reasonably catching up.

Then I have quilting homework. But it mostly is just to set things out and have them ready for when we do the quilting quilting later.

Oddly nervous

About my quilting class that starts tonight. And I really shouldn't be. I know how to sew, and it is a class for basic quilting. It is called quilting 101, but I am nervous about meeting strangers and being late (I have checked my calendar and the class web posting like 18 times each to be sure that it really does start at 6:45 tonight). I have all my stuff, well all the stuff they said we need to bring to the first class, but what if I need other stuff (duh! they would've asked for it)?

But also, after visiting the quilting store to pick out my fabrics (which you can view on the internet here, I am now a little nervous about the class itself. Not that it won't teach me at least the basics of a totally awesome skill, I am sure it will, but that it might be mroe judgy pants than I will like.

I bought 14 pieces instead of the 12 required and I had a good idea of what kind of quilt it was going to be before I went shopping. I first looked for a cool piece of fabric to be my starter/inspiration and then picked fabrics I liked that went with it both by color and pattern, then I picked more and put some back until I had twelve that looked good together but getting to twelve was hard, so I went with fourteen since in all likelihood the next day I was going to hate one of my picks or more.

Then I brought them up front to pay, and mentioned that I was in the class starting tomorrow, and the woman behind the counter looked at mine and said, (instructor's name) is probably going to make you change some of those out since they are all blues.

"Umm, WHA?" I thought. I mean I get that the instructor will know a ton more than me about quilting. But I have taken multiple design courses, and done many papers and projects using color theory, and sewn for a couple DOZEN years (and won awards doing it). So clearly I have no choice of fabric. Now, I am deciding that I need to keep an open mind and see what the instructor says because maybe this lady just used a poor choice of words on a day when I am sleep deprived and cranky (seriously this week do not mess with me or Chrissy or shit gonna turn ugly, ya'll). Maybe.


********
Amended to note I might be an ass because well I was supposed to pick BOLD, BIG patterns and bright colors. I don't mind the ignoring the bright colors because I did pick a large spectrum of blues even though they aren't super crazy. However, I did kind of ignore the big patterns. Whoops. OK, so that helped me figure out what to pull from my 14. I pulled the two smallest patterns.

NaNoWriting

I have almost 2000 words as of not quite a few hours in the Chicago Public Library Lincoln Park branch.

I also bought a bunch of fat quarters for my very first ever quilt which I am making starting tomorrow with my quilting class. I also paid a few bills and made Sam an appointment for his haircut, so all in all pretty productive day AND I had some Mexican food with delicious and cinnamony horchata.

Also, apparently if you google "chase sucks" I am the fourth-ish thing that pops up. Weird.

Crapariffic week

I feel like this week or so has been out to get me. Although I think in reality it is just a slightly below average week. Or rather a perfectly normal week with a few hiccups that I am reading as giant freaking cavernous holes because my sinus medicine is making it harder for me to fall asleep and as a result I am now pretty freaking sleep deprived, so that the perfectly acceptable response to my current day is to crawl under my desk and have a good cry.

But it isn't even really all that bad. My shoes started rejecting their soles as I walked around yesterday which was weird but not too awful as it wasn't raining and I got everywhere that I needed to be just fine. There is some stupidity at work because as I put it to someone else the office dickhead has all of a sudden looked down at the shovel in his hand, looked back up at the sky, and decided to be pissed at the dirt since he found himself at the bottom of a big big hole. And I am on the periphery of it because well I went and did the things that were a part of my job as they were asked of me and dickhead doesn't like them even if he fought for them in the first place.

Added on is of course the fact that the new plan is not working out all neat and clean and perfect, so Sam has lately made some stupid choices. Choices that involve me ending up having a harder time falling asleep and getting less sleep, and all I want is some really good rest and for my life to be just a bit easier. I mean I probably shouldn't complain too much because I have a lovely home, a wonderful pet, I am well cared for, I have a decent steady job and paycheck, good health, and my fiancee loves me and I love him, so I know I have it much much better than so many other people who have big holes in many of those places. But I would really like to go a whole month without feeling like I need to break down and cry at work. A whole month without a ton of stress and worry.

All right, pity party over. Let's go back to work and hope that I can rustle up and attitude adjustment.

NaNoWriMo

Ok, I signed up I did it. I have no idea how I will write a novel, be in a show and take a quilting class that includes me making a quilt BUT I will try. I also have not started nor have I any ideas on what I will write about. So there is that. Jim, Sally, I hope you are happy.