Stormie style

My friends Abby and Larry recently had a little baby named Stormie. I crocheted her the Fine Lines jumpsuit/romper thing from Candy Babies. It turned out pretty cute, although I do have a few issues with it. One is that I used cotton/acrylic yarn instead of just cotton. Stupid me didn't read the label closely enough. It ended up kind of heavy and not as soft as I had hoped. And of course, plain old single crochets all the way through are so boring and kind of ugly to look at. Why can't crochet look and feel as nice as knitting? Why???

Hair help!

Dear reader(s?), I need your help. I am dreadfully sick of my hair, and I need a change. But what to do to it? Here are my main concerns:

• I haven't had it cut since July, so it's pretty shapeless and boring. I end up putting it in a ponytail a lot.


• I hate having my hair even the tiniest bit in my face, but it looks dumb when it's all shoved behind my ears. Hence the ponytails.


• I have no styling ability or patience, so I need something super easy.


• All the girls in Montreal are beautiful and hip, so I want something with at least a bit of style

Here's what it looks like now, freshly blown dry and frizzy:



Here are a few pictures I've found online that I'm considering:

Just cut bangs and let it grow.

More pictures of this same girl can be found here and here.

Cut it off in a way that will grow out nicely.

There is another, less blurry picture of this chick with her hair grown out a bit longer here.

Cut it pixie short.

Too '90s? Looks like it requires more styling than I'm prepared to give it.

Cut it boring short.

I can't tell if it's cute or if it's too Joan of Arc.

So... what should I do?

Voting has ended. View results here.

Please stand for the reading of the Gospel

How cool would it be to have William Shatner do all the scripture readings at church each week?

Two plugs

Last week saw the launch and final tweaking of two sites. They are both all Flash sites, and I developed all the Flash for both of them. The first to go live was the Kansas Health Foundation's Best State for Children campaign site. They want to make Kansas the best state for raising kids. The coolest part about the site is a drawing tool I made. You can draw a picture and then save it to a gallery and/or send it to a friend. The coolest part about the coolest part is viewing the gallery. You get to see the saved drawings being drawn out just like the artists drew them in the first place. I think it's pretty cool anyway.

The other site that went live is Houlihan's virtual I Never game. It's an online version of the drinking game. You know, the one where one person says something like, "I never had a crush on a teacher in high school," and then everyone who did crush out on a high school teacher has to drink. Yeah, that one. With the virtual game, you respond to several similar statements (or make up your own), spill the beans on the stories surrounding each one (like, describing how hot your 11th grade math teacher was [mine wasn't -- Mr. Ford, ha ha]) and then invite your friends to do the same. Then you all get to watch as the game plays out and giggle at each others' answers when you should be working or cooking dinner or something equally productive. Danger Kitty gave it a go and played with some hot randos. Check it out:

We love carbs

Matt got The Bread Baker's Apprentice for his birthday from my mom. (His response was, "Danger Kitty, we're gonna destroy this thing.") Yesterday, Matt helped me make my first loaf of bread. It actually started the night before, as I had to make a starter, but the baking was yesterday, and this is what we got out of it:



I'm pretty proud. It was tasty. There is just a tiny bit left today, and I bet it will be gone before nightfall.

A couple days ago, on Easter, Matt made us hot cross buns since all the stores were closed, and we couldn't buy any. The recipe made six. We ate them all that night. Here's a picture of the last one to be devoured:

Concussions are a gateway drug

This headline really cracks me up.

Sugar high

Today at the Jean-Talon market, I had tire d'érable for the first time. It's basically boiling maple syrup poured on snow with a stick stuck in it. It tasted like, well, maple syrup, and it made me want to bounce off the walls.

I got excited when I saw several merchants selling asparagus, but upon closer inspection, I noticed that it was all from California or Mexico. I had something of a rant to Mary about how farmers' markets should be just that: a place where local farmers come and sell food. Food from thousands of miles away belongs at the grocery store. Or, even better, thousands of miles away where it can be enjoyed as fresh, local produce.

Buck the Fruins

As pissed off as I am at KU's dismal second half performance last night, it's much easier to forget about it and move on when you live in a country where no one gives a shit about NCAA basketball. I really hope UNC loses.

We've got magic to do

Way back in the day when I only listened to cassette tapes and the radio in my now gone but still loved first ever Honda, one tape that I listened to frequently was one with Ben Folds Five's self-titled album on one side and the Pippin soundtrack on the other. The first side of the tape ended about a minute into Boxing, the last song on BF5 album, and I knew exactly when to hit the 1 radio pre-set button to make the tape play in the other direction so that there was hardly any pause in the song. Now when I listen to that BF5 CD, as Boxing ends, I still expect to hear the opening notes of Magic To Do... "Ooo-ooh! Join us, leave your fields to flower..."

My first sock ever!

One down, one to go. For all you yarn junkies out there, the yarn is Opal Flamingo.

Shalom in the home

I have a theory about people and their houses: the home of a person who feels really comfortable and at peace when they are there sort of soaks in that peacefulness and it eminates from the very walls of the space. I used to think this peaceful house phenomenon only happened with aging hippies, but now I realize that it can be anyone; aging hippies just tend to have a sense of peace about them. Some peaceful homes I have encountered are the Gelbarts' house, my great-grandma's house, Matt's mom's back porch, and the peaceful home to end all peaceful homes: Kathy and Howard's house on Jefferson. My goodness, you walk in that house, and it's like all your troubles have melted away. Sometimes they would go out of town, and we would be in charge of feeding Caramel and Missy the cats. I didn't take near enough advantage of those times when I was allowed to go in that house all by myself and bask in the serenity. One time they were out of town during one of those pre-spring warm spells, when for a couple of days in late February or early March, it's in the mid-70s and sunny with a nice breeze and you're tricked into thinking it's time to start planting your garden. During that time, I went over to feed the cats and then sat on their back porch -- screened in, unlike ours -- and sat and played with Caramel and let the sun and wind calm me. It's one of the most peaceful moments I can think of. Since then, at this time of year when spring seems to be creeping in, daylight savings time has started, and march madness is on tv, I long to be in a peaceful house with a peaceful back porch on a peaceful day. This is my ultimate goal: to have that kind of pervading serenity and calm in my house.

Hungry hungry hippos

Last night I dreamt I was at a nature park in Colorado Springs that had an exhibit dedicated to the more exotic native animals of Kansas including several types of large spiders and about four different types of hippopotami. They just had baby hippos there, lots of them living in a muddy pool of water. I stepped across the stepping stones in the pool to the side where the spiders were, and as I did, the baby hippos snapped at me. Several managed to get up the sleeves of my shirt and bit my arms and refused to let go. It took some forceful pulling to get them off me.

In another dream last night, I dreamt I was with Elise and Ilana but in this dream they were triplets. I felt really bad that I'd forgotten the third one even existed.

I am not Pandora

This is not a box that I really want to open for fear of what will fly out, but sometimes, especially when I read this ever-increasingly Matt-filled blog, I wonder why Matt and I are together. Why do we we even like each other? Don't get me wrong. I'm not complaining. I'm completely head over heels for the guy, and I'm pretty damn sure the feeling is requited. But it often seems that we don't have anything in common: music, movies, books, ideas. None of these things. We don't even really have anything we like to do together besides just sit around and be in each other's presence. This is one great mystery of my life upon which I must be content to turn my back and say, "Eh. Whatever."

Mary Poppins pooped on my lawn

For the last few days, I've had Cat Stevens' Longer Boats in my head, except I don't know all the words, so I make them up. As usual, my lyrics include the word "poop." In this case, the line that Stevens intended to be "I don't want no god on my lawn / Just a flower I can help along" becomes "Mary Poppins pooped on my lawn / And said, 'Here's a beer for you to sip upon.'" At first, it was Danger Kitty instead of Mary Poppins making an appearance in the song, but I like the latter better... for this song, anyway.

I'm not going to blog anymore until Matt cleans the cat box two times (not on the same day, lazyhead).

Consumer madness

I am in love with this sweater, but it's costs $650. Why???

Pee-Wee loves me

Check out what I got from Pee-Wee Herman. (I don't check that email account very often or I would have seen it earlier!)

Changing tastes

Here is a list of foods I like now but I didn't like or hadn't tried before I started living with Matt. Is it all his fault? Who is to say?

• butter


• beer


• wine


• party pizza


• mushrooms


• olives — green and black


• capers


• asparagus


• pizza crust dipped in ranch dressing


• goat cheese


• onion rings


• pickled eggs


• eggplant


• Indian food


• seven layer burritos

Are you from the 50s or something?

Tonight I discovered that IKEA has stopped carrying the bedframe I planned to buy next month. Bastards. We found a nice looking dining table and chairs and cabinet/server thing on Craigslist (go Craigslist!) that we are going to go see tomorrow. I really like the (currently out of stock) table from IKEA that we picked out. It's very solid. But maybe this table and chairs will fit the bill even better. And hopefully the dude who is selling me two bookcases will get his helldamn act together and actually bring them by this weekend.

Mustafa just cleaned out Danger Kitty's ear with his tongue. Gross. Yet intriguing.

TJ is now on Myspace. Woop! He says his favorite TV show is That 70s Show. I'll pretend I didn't read that.

Matt has turned me into a wino.

Today I remembered that we have the first eight episodes of season three of Battlestar Galactica downloaded from iTunes, and that kind of got my inner geek excited. But I pushed her back down. She's not allowed to come out.

Matt is in love with this one song by TV On The Radio that is straight out of the 80s and makes me want to listen to the Pointer Sisters. Jump for my love!

I am crocheting red, white, and blue leg warmers. Hell yes!

I think I'm going to be entering into the world of tight deadlines this upcoming week. Wish me luck.

Done, done and done!

This morning, I finished the baby blanket for Lauren's baby. I could have finished it last night, but as the midnight hour approached, my level of sobriety decreased, and I thought it wiser to finish up in the morning. I guess it works out better this way since I finished the blanket in 2007, and the baby will be born in 2007 too! All in all, this took about four months to finish with a few Christmas presents taking up some of that time too. I started it in the car on the way to a canoe trip on the Niagua River in Missouri this June and finished it this morning on the couch here in Montreal. I also worked on it on a few different Greyhound buses on trips to Vermont and Boston. I'd say it's a well traveled blanket. I'll be sad to see it go, but we had a good time together, and now I know that I can easily make another with fewer mistakes in it. (Don't tell Lauren about that last part.)

Extra protein?

Today I made two recipes from the cookbook Chelka sent us for Christmas, The Balanced Plate by Renee Loux. One was seasoned steamed greens and the other was wasabi mashed sweet potatoes. Both were quite tasty and pretty darn easy, although I did put a bit too much wasabi in the potatoes. Matt finished his food, and I had about two bites left when I wondered aloud about the little white oval shaped things in the mashed potatoes and popped one in my mouth to see if the taste would give it away. "Looks like insect eggs," Matt said as I swallowed. I didn't finish my mashed potatoes.