B-b-b-boots!

My new snow boots arrived yesterday. yay! They feel a little tight, but I think they'll stretch out a tad, making them much better than my current pair. I feel a bit wasteful ordering new boots when my current boots are still in fine shape. The thing is, they hurt my feet, and have always hurt my feet. On to warm tootsies!

Hooray for Snow!

Yesterday we had our first big snow here in New England. The storm was talked about for two days beforehand, speculation was rampant about how many inches, if there would be sleet, if schools should be closed, etc. Well, yesterday morning I managed to find my boots in the bottom of my closet. I was hoping I could toss them out, becuase I've just ordered a pair of snow boots from L.L. Bean, which of course will get here after our bumper storms have come and gone and the snow has melted.

I spent the morning riding the subway to and from my dentist to have a pain checked out that turned out to be nothing. She said that my front tooth has tilted in ever so slightly, not enough to see, but enough to change my bite. Now when I bite down, my front tooth hits first, putting pressure on that tooth, and it hurts. This has lead to cold and hot sensitivity, and even a little bleeding around the gums at that tooth. My dentist acctually said that I might benefit from a retainer to push my front tooth out a little bit. She said the cost was minimal, then said $250. Yikes! She said a retainer would be a little wire putting pressure on the back of the tooth to push it a bit forward. I think I'll try her first recommendmation of wearing my night guard for a week to see if it helps with the pressure on my tooth. Or I could push on it with my thumb and use the night guard. Umm, I think I'll go with the free thumb option. I don't have the luxury of dental insurance that would pay for a silly retainer. And besides, I'm sure if I did have the insurance that I would have used it all up by now in the course of a year.

There was some sort of accident in the subway this morning, so when I was trying to get to the dentist I ended up taking a shuttle bus all around town to reconnect with the working subway line and then walk to where I could pick up the right street for my dentist! I got to work at about noon.

Wait, wasn't I writing about snow? Well, I got to work at noon, where I found that two people had already left early becuase of impending snow doom. Everyone else was advising me to do the same and get the heck out. The snow started around 1:30 pm and was coming down pretty fast. I left work at 2:30 and spend an hour and a half sitting on the bus, waiting for the traffic to move. If I had been thinking, I would have been smart and taken the SUBWAY! Oh well. The snow feel hard and fast, and the city was quickly buried under a heavy wet blanket. How beautiful!

Now here I am today, having fought my way through unshoveled sidewalks and unplowed streets, and I have to say that I LOVE the snow. People here get into such a panic about it, but it's not a big deal. I guess we're supposed to have another big storm tomorrow night, so that might makes things icky, but I don't mind too much. Just you wait though, I'm sure I'll be cursing the snow tomorrow when I have to walk to a holiday show on small streets with my old boots.

A Quiet Morning

It's nice to have a quiet Saturday morning after a thoroughly stressful week. I've been enjoying my coffee, watching bad tv, and am looking forward to a weekend of making Christmas cards and doing laundry.

Technical difficulties - again?

I am the stand-in techie at my company. We are too small to have an IT department, or even one person on staff who is dedicated to computer related issues. So, it falls to me as I have the most knowledge about computers. I keep the web site going, fix software problems, monitor our mail server, etc. But when something goes wrong I feel like I am not equipped to deal with it. I don't know why the email suddenly stopped working at 8:36 pm last night! I have tried everything I can try, stop calling me! The phone is ringing off the hook with our employees in different locations calling in to find out why the mail doesn't work. Give me a chance to fix it people! Ugh. No wonder my eye is pulsing right now.

My First Finish

Well, here it is, my first knitting project. My friend Kelly is modeling a celery green basketweave scarf knitted from a pattern on the Lion Brand website. It's 66 inches long - 14 inches longer than the pattern size but I really don't think it should be any shorter.

That scarf took me a long time to make, almost two months, I think. The Tuesday before Thanksgiving I went to my craft group and everyone said that the bamboo needles I was using were really rough, kind of ridgy. Maybe that's what's been bothering my fingers. Well, that and the fact that as I type this, it's 26 degrees F with a windchill of 6. Yikes! My skin is suffering.

I'll have to post a photo of the new purple scarf I'm making for our charity donation to Rosie's Place.

Futon moving

I guess there are a few things to have to accept when you have a cat for a pet.
-You will never had an uninterrupted night's sleep again
-You are not the boss of me
-cat hair will be the reason you need a plumber, a new vacuum, and an IT guy (don't ask)
-at some point, all your furniture will be ruined by your cat.

I have an anxious cat. Every time I go away for a few days, he greets me with love and affection, and then poops on the floor. Or at least, on the floor until recently. After the last few trips, he has been pooping on the futon. YUCK! I've tried the enzymatic cleaner, but at this point in order to sit on the futon I have to put down a trash bag, then a towel, to make sure I don't end up smelling like cat poop. Gross. I have a friend coming to town in a couple weeks and one of us will have to sleep on the futon. But not with it like this! Today I'm picking up a new futon mattress and a waterproof pad to put between the futon and cover. This one is a Protect-A-Bed, and is supposed to be cloth and still waterproof. And not crinkle the entire time. I have a cheap $20 mattress cover on my bed right now, but it's definitely crinkly and hot. I hope that the pricier cover will be worth it. I've read a bunch of consumer opinions, and it sounds like this might work. I don't want to spend $90 on a new twin futon if I have to replace it in 6 months.

Typewriters Obsolete?

We had a temp working in the office today to handle the stuffing and sending of our newsletter to our target list. At one point I had Ilya, cute 24-year-old guy who just graduated with an impressive degree in bio and engineering and secured a hotsy-totsy job in downtown Boston, type up two mailing labels for names that were added to the list after the mass production of letters and labels. I pointed him in the direction of the back office, where the antiquated electric typewriter sits, and gave him some labels. After a few minutes he came to my desk. He had NEVER used a typewriter! EVER! Or a word processor either I guess, since that is almost the same as an electric typewriter.
I was stunned. I love typewriters. The immediacy of it. No programs, no additional hardware required. Just slightly upgraded handwriting. No record, no editing, just raw text. Up until recently I had a word processor in my closet for when inspiration struck. The screen no longer worked, and the disks no longer saved. [read electric typewriter] When I moved from my last apartment I put it in the large free pile on my porch and watched it walk away to a good home. I miss having a typewriter, but I just don't have the space right now. Once I graduate to a 1-bedroom maybe I can bring one the typewriters from my parents attic here and pound away a masterpiece.

Birthday Woes

You know what I would really like for my birthday? To be 4 years younger. Actually, for my sisters and I to each be 4 years younger. I would wake up tomorrow at the exact same point in my life, same debts, accomplishments, job history, stressors, anxious cat, non-car existence, but younger. Then I would be more in step with the rest of the world that has accomplished so much more than I.
You’re probably wondering how old I am to be wishing for youth – 32. Or I will be tomorrow. I certainly seem younger than I am, so I just want to abjust the number to fit with how I act and live. Lately everyone I meet my age is married with multiple children, owns a house, etc. Not me. I don't feel ready for any of those things either.

walking, knitting and more

I hate it when someone walks behind me on the street. Just behind, about 5 paces, and follows along for a while. The slap sound of their shoes, the noise of them scuffing along (pick up your feet!). I can't see them out of the corner of my eye, but I know that they must be staring at my giant ass, or thinking that I walk funny. It's worse when it's just me and that other person on the street. Why don't they speed up or slow down? If it's two people having a conversation RIGHT BEHIND me, sometimes I get so annoyed that i stop suddenly on the street and make them pass me. Weird, yes. They probably didn't even notice i was there, but they certainly notice me now. Psycho.

On another front, I saw someone kintting on the bus today and watched her stitch along for a few minutes. It looked so effortless, so contained. Much more delicate than mine. I think she was using a much thinner or lighter weight yarn. I've been practicing with a basic yarn, Red Heart, that's kind of bulky. I taught myself how to knit on September 28th from a book with excellent left-handed illustrated diagrams.

I was actually buying my sister a birthday gift of the knitting book kit and yarn, and decided that I would get one for myself too. (I don't usually buy that way). It's kind of fun. It's very different from the very detailed cross stitch that I usually work on. With knitting there is no chart to follow, no needles to thread and change. I'm sure once I get practiced in the basic knit and purl motions I'll want to attempt something more complicated, but I'm trying to keep knitting simple in my life.

Less than two weeks now until my little sister's wedding!

Spooky time again

Today is August 24, and yesterday I saw Halloween decorations up in a card store at the mall. Come on! What happened to waiting for after school started, as in after Labor Day? At least give me until September 1st to enjoy summer and not think about cheesy holiday stuff. I should mention that Halloween is also my birthday, and so seeing those decorations always puts me into a tailspin.

I went to Macy's today to exchange my busted suitcase (long story) and I saw Santa decorations. Now, maybe they have some cookie jars there in the collectibles section all year round, but I have a feeling they were put out this morning. AUGH!

Starting a new sampler

I started my first cross stitch sampler recently, and I've realized that it's much hard to keep your place than on a regular design. I have just spent an evening unpicking a single stitch border. No fun. Apparently in the repeating pattern I missed a stitch, and so half the work I had done needed to be undone. Now I'm back at the place where I messed up, but I think I'll take a break and start something new.

In April I discovered The Gift of Stitching, an online magazine for cross stitchers and had to subscribe right away. One of the features of the magazine is publshing a sampler in parts, a 'mystery sampler'. Well, The 18th Century Band Sampler by Long Dog Samplers was their 4 part myster sampler. I dicovered it at Part 3, and decided to take this one on. Now I finally have all the items I ned to start, and I've stitched the edges of the fabric with my handy dandy new Stitch Pro tabletop sewing machine (bought it for $30 on Amazon).

It's amazing what people eat (or dont')

I was poking around on SparkPeople and was reading the message board for food substitutions. You know, I love chocolate, what can I eat instead that will trick me into thinking i am eating chocolate?

This person had posted on the board, I don't remember what about, but on each post it has at the bottom the person's weight loss progess tracker. It said she was at 106 pounds, her goal. WHAT? Is she crazy? I thought I'd use the convenient link to pop over to her Spark blog and see what she was like. Runner, motivated, and geez, eating about 700 calories a day. Umm, okay...I knew eventually I was going to run into the huge number of already skinny people that are trying to lose weight. I just can't deal with them. It sounds to me like this person is doing something really unhealthy. Maybe, aybe not. But since I am one of those severely overweight people, curvy, ruben-esque, whatever yhou want to call it, I've never been veyr toleant of anyone who's under 150 or so and trying to lose weight. It's my problem, and I'm fine with it. I just can't look to those people for motivation, that's all.
But I can look at her food diary and try out what she had for lunch. It looks good. In fact, her breakfast looks good too. Now, if she had only kept on eating normally...

Food Tracked

Breakfast	CALORIES	CARBS	FAT	PROTEIN
Banana, fresh, 1 extra small (less than 6" long)	75	19	0	1
Multi-Grain Cheerios Cereal, 0.5 cup	54	12	1	1
milk, 1/2%, 8 oz	90	12	1	8
Strawberries, fresh, 1.5 cup, halves	68	16	1	1
Kashi Go Lean High protein & High fiber Cereal, 0.5 cup	70	15	1	7
Egg white, cooked, no added fat-1 Large, 3 serving	51	1	0	11
Lunch
La Tortilla Factory, Whole Wheat Low Carb Tortilla, 1 serving	50	11	2	5
*Hillshire Farms Deli Select Brown Sugar Baked Ham, 2 oz	60	2	2	10
Miracle Whip, light, 1 tbsp	20	2	2	0
Kraft 2% Deli-Deluxe Swiss Cheese Slices, 1 serving	70	0	5	6
Baby Carrots-14 pieces, 1 serving	35	9	0	1
Frigo Light String Cheese, 1 oz	60	0	3	9
Cucumber (peeled), 1 medium	24	4	0	1
Dinner
None
Snack
None
Daily Totals:	727	103	16	61

identify my orchid

I was just given an orchid by Omar, the concierge, in the building where I work. Omar said someone gave him one last week and he brought it home and it died within two days. The same person gave him another one this week, but he didn't want it, so he gave it to me. Hurrah! I wanted to buy an orchid in October, but my mom and I went to the plant store and discovered that orchids are pricey. I've never spent more than $12 on a plant, and shelling out $40 for a plant that I don't know how to take care of seems like a gamble. When Omar offered the plant to me I thinking my eyes bugged out. I hope he really did want to give it to me and that I didn't somehow beg him for it. If he didn't want to give it to me he wouldn't have offered, right? I sort of have a problem with this kind of thing, so I've been working on it by saying yes and focusing on their generosity and not my own guilt.

So, I have no idea what kind of orchid this is. I mean, I'm pretty sure it's a phalenopsis, but beyond that... It has 4 small, rounded flowers that are a pale yellow green. The middle has some pink spotting. I will try to bring my camera to work tomorrow so I can snap a photo to post here.

Nix that Negative Thinking

I joined this free website, SparkPeople about a week ago to help me stay on track with my weight loss and healthy life efforts. I've been using the Nutrition Tracker to log my food each day, and I signed up for the weekly motivational email. This quote and blurb came from yesterday's email.

No change of circumstances can repair a defect of character.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Finding fault with everything you see
We all know people who just like to complain. It seems that no matter how good they have it, they're always spreading negative energy. Even the best, most painstaking listener can have trouble with someone who finds fault with everything around them. You can shine even in the worst situations if your character is strong. If you're starting to see the "dark side" too often and find yourself blaming your circumstances on other people, take another look. If you think a change of scenery will solve all your problems, think again. Change can be good. Moving on to new things can be an exciting chance to stretch yourself and break a rut. But it's important to start with yourself when you're finding things to improve. No matter where you live, work or play, the only constant is you. You can't escape yourself. Change on the outside will have no effect on your happiness or fulfillment unless you change on the inside too.

Boy does this quote speak to me! I find myself getting negative sometimes and realize that my comments are an indicator of something going on with me, and probably have nothing to do with my friend buying a pair of cool jeans and spending money. It's more like, "man, I want those jeans, wish I could buy them, wish I was thin, wish I was rich".

The last part of the quote says "Change on the outside will have no effect on your happiness or fulfillment unless you change on the inside too." I have spent a few years now working on my 'inside' but I still feel the same way about my outside. Now I'm trying to work on the outside at the same time, and hopefully I'll meet myself somewhere in the middle.

intrinsic memory

On my walk to work in the morning I pass by many brick buildings. At one particular moment I pass by a large brick building with a covered walkway, and I catch the strong scent of brick. I'm immediately reminded of standing outside the entrance to the church at my elementary school, the strong smell of brick and the feeling of reverence, and a little fear perhaps. The enveloping silence. In the city where I grew up there weren't many brick structures. My elementary school and the church on the same grounds must have been my first experience with brick. I think this is what we call intrinsic memory, that immediate association of a smell to a memory. The smell is a little damp, dusty, but has this pungent quality. Whenever I smell it now I think I must be in a holy place.

The church we went to as a family was stone, our house was wood, and all of our walkways, sidewalks, and garden paths were slate. In later years I had many more experiences with brick. One summer the city dug up our street, down through layers of asphalt, down to the original brick. My sisters and I spent the summer harvesting bricks from the street for our father's grand backyard schemes. These bricks were twice the size of normal bricks, and we had wide stacks four feet high when the summer was over.

CD Stomping

Last night I picked up a CD label making kit called Avery CD-Stomper CD Applicator with Software and Labels. I was about to post a photo of the kit here, but something seems to be wonky with the image loader. I've been wanting to make pretty labels for my burend cds for ages. It seems like a silly waste of money, but it would look so nice! And every so often I make a cd for someone of music, or images from a trip, and it would be nice to not have to scribble on the front of the cd with a Sharpie.

Salad for Lunch? Me?

I just had a great salad for lunch. It's from Au Bon Pain and has Salad Greens, Eggs, Tomatoes, Turkey Breast, Gorgonzola Cheese, Bacon, Carrots, Croutons, yum! With a little Light Ranch dressing, double yum.
I'm not really a salad person, but I'm trying to eat healthier. One might say a salad with bacon on it is not healthy, but I'd say as a whole the salad was a good choice.

Yesterday I signed up at SparkPeople.com. It's a community website where you can keep a log of your diet and exercise, get movtiation, read articles, etc. I'm just trying it out right now to learn how the tools work and if they would be beneficial to me.

To Do List

Can't stop thinking about all the things I'm going to do this weekend. I might as well write them down in a list so I can get teh satisfaction of crossing them off right?

-sew edges of fabric for 18thC Mystery Sampler
-treat cork on birkenstocks
-laundry
-watch music videos online
-burn cds from downloaded music - have a whole ton of albums that I've bought/copied that i'm not listening to because they exist only in my computer.

Prepping Time

I came back from my long weekend away for Memorial Day and there on the porch was a package from Amazon.com. The sewing machine I ordered had arrived!

Trip time!

Going on a trip. Gonna take a plane. Gonna see my friend. Going to Pittsburgh!

Even my horoscope agrees

Here is my Horoscope on MSN this morning:
Scorpio (October 23 - November 21)
Discard those items from the past for which you really have no use anymore. Much as you like to surround yourself with objects of sentimental value, the time comes when it is necessary to look to the future, rather than dwell on the past. Time spent cleaning up and throwing out will release you from the past and allow you to embrace the future...

This goes right along with my plans to clear out some clutter, reorganize my books, and make my apartment livable!

Check-in with the doc

I met with my doctor, Dr. S. this morning for a check-in with my process of tapering off of the anti-depressant Celexa. I started the weaning process on March 12th. I've now been completely off the medication since last Monday, a whole 8 days. I am still having severe withdrawal symptoms; dizziness, inability to focus, periods of hyper affect and general fatigue. The first week of the changes in tapering (20 to 15, 15 to 10, etc) have been the hardest in this process.

We talked again about by fasting blood levels. Dr. S. had me take a 12-hour fasting blood level about 6 weeks ago. My blood sugar was normal, but my blood glucose, insulin level was very high. I am not diabetic, and she told me that I am not pre-diabetic, but that my levels are a pre-diabetic indicator. She didn't do a big scare tactic with me about me having to go on a crash diet and work out an hour a day. I was pleased to discover that Dr. S. was actually listening to me, taking my history, and planning out a method of change that I can actually do.

Today she suggested a medication to help with my high insulin level called Glucophage/Metformin. It is not a weight loss drug, but for me would act as one, allowing my body to process the insulin better and distribute what it needs to so my body's metabolism can function better. Dr. S. said that my body has probably been like this my entire life. It's not something I caused to happen. In other words, not my fault. That I could do the same things as someone else my weight to and would not lose the pounds because of the way my body holds onto things.

I mean, here is someone saying 'hey, maybe it's not your fault that your fat', and I feel so guilty about it.

Reading project for summer

Once again I've been trying to get rid of some stuff in my two room studio apartment. I recently bought a used loveseat futon for my living room/lounge area. It's fantastic, exactly what I wanted, only... I don't have room to keep the chair and small table that was in that spot before I brought the futon home. Here's a shot of the futon (not in my apartment, but as shown for sale on craigslist)

I'm trying to weed out books and movies that I don't 'need' to have on my shelves. I managed to pull 4 dvds and list them on half.com (one of which sold already!) but books are much harder to relinquish. I have two bookcases that are overflowing with books

So many of the books on my shelf now are books I intend to read, but haven't yet. So, my goal for the summer is to read these books, and not buy new books. Of course this doesn't apply to any that I've already ordered that are on their way (the new Haruki Murakami, an old Murakami, and the last Harry Potter) or any books that I might get while on vacation (there are two trips coming up that I know will be a book temptation).

Here are shots of my three bookshelves. This is really pared downfrom what I used to have. I moved to this apartment in September 2006, and had to get rid of a lot of things to make better use of my space. As you can see, some shelves are now two layers deep with books.




LIST:
Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy
Vanity Fair
The Sensualist (by one of my favorite authors, and I've started it a few times over the years, getting more than halfway through, but something happens and i've never finished!)
The Go-Girl guide (or maybe just sell)
Crime and Punishment
Germinal by Emil Zola
Les Miserables
From Dalloway to Woolf
Mama Gena's Guide to Womanly Arts
The Reign of Law
The Phish Book
Fight Club

Resisting Temptation

Why does it take all of my strength lately to resist buying more cross stitch supplies?

I have just started a gift project, and received the supply order I placed last week for the threads and fabric to start the 18th Century Mystery Sampler in The Gift of Stitching, but i want more. I also have some other WIPs, and the freebie kits that came with my last few issues of The Cross Stitcher UK.

Right now I'm looking at the it designed by Sheila Hudson, a vase of anemones. It's very pretty and comes with yellow aida cloth, the threads (presorted), and a needle even! Why do I think i need more projects to work on? More fabric? More threads? I also feel like I need more hoops for holding my work, but I have a tendency to want to leave pieces stretched. I know that's not good, that it'll mark the fabric, so I'm trying to avoid getting more hoops. That way, I can have a max of 3 projects stretched at once, and if I want to switch to something else, I have to take one out of the hoop. That's good isn't it?

The Gimmies

Lately I've been suffering from the gimmies. Long lists of things I want/need desperately pop into my head and I quickly become obsessed, researching different models, prices, etc. At least now a lot of the items are things to improve my quality of life, make my apartment less cluttered, although it doesn't seem right that buying a bunch of things will make my apartment more organized.

The things I've purchased will help me organize my kitchen, wall mount a lot of stuff I use to get the clutter off of the surfaces:

magnetic knife rack - bought one and hung it last month
grocery bag holder/dispenser - bought Tuesday
2-in-1 salt and pepper shaker - bought Tuesday
two stainless steel spice jar shelves - bought last night
mat to put under the cat dish - bought last night
Oh, and I bought a feather duster too. I wanted to get a static duster wand so that the dust wouldn't fly all over the place, but if I dust before I vacuum, that should take care of it.

-a plant for my desk at work (i have LOTS of plants at home, but I've been at this job almost 3 years now and have never brought one in. I guess it's something to do with permanence...)
-body fat scale
-treadmill - so i don't have to go outside or go to the gym (um, I live in a studio?)
-stationary bicycle (same)

things I've always wanted:
chess match clock
manual typewriter (had an electric one until my last move in September. I got rid of it because i never used it.)
metronome

People reading On the bus

People reading On the bus this morning- Angels & demons by dan brown. Red rabbit by tomclancy. Bo-ring.

Cross Stitch

This is the latest picture of the card I'm making. I know it is a huge file, I have to get my photo program out and edit a bunch of stitching images to post on here.

I originally started this card to send to my grandmother for Easter. Well, Easter has come and gone, and the card is still not finished. I took this poicture on the train ride down to my uncle's house to celebrate Easter.

Leave me alone!

Is it just me or is there some cosmic force at work this week that is turning evverything to muck this week? I am in the middle of yet another crisis at work. Apparently one of our consultatns just discovered that he doesn't have a flight booked from philly to LAX for the 15th. 3 days from now. And this is supposed to me my fault? I don't think so. So now I am scrambling to fix the mistake that was made and get him on a flight asap. Only he's not returning my emails or phone calls. Great. Just great.

Okay, Here is my third attempt at fashioning a blog out of template software. I have tried on tripod and msnspaces, but I have found that the majority of the blogs I read are blogspot, so why not build one here?



I plan to keep a log of the craft projects I'm working on, upcoming trips, what I'm reading, thoughts, etc. Whatever you'd normally find in a blog. I'm sure there won't be much traffic to this site, but that's not really the point is it.