This post has no intrinsic value

And what exactly is the definition of the word intrinsic?  According to dictionary.com, it means “belonging to a thing by its very nature.”  Does that mean anything to you?  ‘Cause it doesn’t mean a darned thing to me.  No matter, I still like saying it–intrinsic!

And I’m done.  Can you tell I’m bored to pieces?  I know boredom is a sign of, well, a very bad thing, I’m sure, but I find myself mired in indecision and an absence of motivation.  My downfall, you see, is my clean apartment.  When my apartment needs to be cleaned, I can find a gazillion things to do that must be done before actually cleaning; but today, I had a guest visit for some tutoring in Javascript, which of course meant lots of emergency-cannot-procrastinate cleaning.  Now here I sit, in my beautifully clean apartment, and I don’t know what to do with myself.

Knit, you say?  Crochet?  You mean pick up yarn in this admittedly not *so* sweltering heat?  You’re right, I should.  I have a booga bag that’s only half finished, and the scrap blanket that’ll probably never be finished, and I still only have one completed square for that Larger than Life bag.  I fear the yarn today, though; I know that once I pick it up, I’ll be planted in this chair for the rest of the day.  As long as I resist, there’s always the possibility, albeit a slim one, that I’ll stand up and go do something.  I don’t know what that something is, but I’m sure it’ll come to me, as long as I don’t tie myself down with yarn. (But not literally.) (This time.)

So far I’ve eaten some nuts….and put my feet in the pool….and helped my elderly neighbors with a wanna-wander cat…and eaten some cheese…and updated my Amazon wishlist (by request from my sis, as my birthday is coming up).  Um, yeah.  That’s about it.  Pathetic, isn’t it?

But on the bright side, I’ve updated my blog, so that my two readers will have something new to read, instead of wondering why I haven’t updated in a week.

Categories
Knitting and Crochet

A WIP, a pic, and an off-topic plug

Sorry for the hiatus, I was at Comic-Con this weekend in San Diego. Such a fun time! Oddly, though, I never saw anyone but myself knitting (or crocheting, for that matter) in the busy hallways of the Convention Center.

I couldn’t bring the log cabin scrap blanket, as it’s getting too big for easy transport, so I grabbed a bag of three balls of Cascade 220 that had already been ziplocked into complementary colors, printed out a copy of the Booga Bag pattern, and threw it all into my suitcase for the trip.

WIP: handbagI didn’t get very far on it–I mostly only knit in the car up and down, and a little between sessions while sitting on the floor of the main lobby–but it was nice to be knitting again after crocheting for so long. I’ll admit I was afraid I’d forget something, but my fingers knew what they were doing as soon as they touched the Addi circs, so much so that I didn’t even have to look down half the time. (This was important when the carsickness hit on the drive back north.) The color is of course slightly off–the green is more of a kelly than the forest that it looks there.

As for finished projects, I was a bad photographer and forgot to photograph the finished blankets for Grace and Noah before I delivered them to their mother on Friday. Suffice to say, they’re adorable with their single crochet borders of pink and green (Noah’s border is pink and Grace’s green, so that they match their sib’s colorway).

That’s all I’ve got for needlework/yarn news.  In off-topic news, check out page 75 of this week’s Entertainment Weekly (the one with The Deathly Hallows on the cover) for a cute write-up of my friend Allyson’s first book, Will the Vampire People Please Leave the Lobby?

Categories
Miscellaneous

Harry! [no spoilers]

THE BOOKS
These are the boxes that held the Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows books at last week’s Harry Potter release party at Barnes & Noble. It was a fun shindig, with kids and adults in costume, story circles where an employee dressed as Harry read from The Half-Blood Prince, and a Harry Potter-themed band, singing songs like “I was a teenaged werewolf”. I didn’t stick around for the big release, though; I did that last time, and it was a very uncomfortable and frustrating zoo. This time, I left shortly before midnight, went to the grocery store, stocked up on snacks for the weekend, and bought my book there.

The book was excellent–extremely intense, but excellent. I’ve spent the past week anchoring myself in the Harry Potter world by reading and posting on discussion boards, watching the dvds after work, and laughing at the crazy people.

If you would care to join me, follow these links:

Here’s a wonderful discussion going on at one of my favorite boards. Be warned, it’s all spoilers, all the time, so don’t go there if you haven’t read the final book.
LibraryThing.com’s discussion groups Look for Hogwarts Express discussions first, then branch out to others.
If My Friends List Wrote DH Hilariously funny, deeply spoilery, and heavy with the slash. If you don’t know what slash is, you may find the story disturbing, but try it anyway.
First six HP books, summarized in 100 words or less From readers of the BBC.
Potterpuffs Cleverly drawn artwork illustrating a few of the scenes from the book.
Rowling reveals character points that wouldn’t fit in the book. Squeeeee!
Readers’ reactions From MSNBC’s employees, and I assume their children (The realization that one of the greatest series is over will take a few weeks to handle. Just like how Voldemort wanted, there will be no more happiness. — From a 10 year old!)
A scripted parody of the final scenes
The beginnings of what could be an awesome Neville fic

That should keep you busy. ;-D

Categories
Knitting and Crochet

*tap* *tap* *tap*

[Note: HP7 is mentioned in this post, but there are absolutely no spoilers of any kind.]

Is this thing on?  Whew!  I tried posting yesteday, and I kept getting javascript errors that wouldn’t let me into the post field.  Yikes!  Scary!

WIP: Scrap log cabin blanketSo, as I was going to post yesterday, here is a picture of the log cabin blanket I’ve been making with “scrap” yarn, except that it stopped being scrap yarn when I started buying skeins just for this blanket.  I was working on it yesterday during my “day of processing”–that is, the day after I read Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.  Some of the blanket’s strips will be getting narrower as I reach the ends of skeins, as happened last night when I reached the end of a blue skein.  Hopefully it’ll all even out in the end.

I haven’t really been working on anything else lately.  I realized yesterday that I miss knitting Booga Bags.  I’d also like to make more of the squares for the Larger than Life bag, but it requires quiet and concentration, which makes it hard to find time to do it.

*sigh*  It’s pathetic, I really should have more to talk about, but really, my head is still trapped in The Deathly Hallows.  So much to contemplate, and revisit, and sort out.  Excellent book, but I’m having a hard time thinking of anything else.

Categories
Miscellaneous

To-Be-Read shelf

My

This is a picture of my to-be-read shelf, a bookshelf devoted to the books I have yet to read. These aren’t all of my TBR books, since they wouldn’t all fit; it’s more my top priority TBR books.

If you click on the image for a larger view, you might be able to detect two copies of The Hobbit–one fully illustrated; more than one Christopher Golden book (I’m a terrible, terrible friend); Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, which my mom bought for me on my birthday three weeks before she died, and which I’ve only read half of (I can’t help it, it’s boring–who knew my reading tates would be so far off the general public’s?); lots of Harry Dresden books, which I’ll be picking up again once the last Harry Potter has been devoured this weekend; and, well, lots of others.

You might notice a picture of J, the daughter of my friends Tony and Tricia, over there on the left–isn’t she cute? And you might also be wondering what that feathery thing is–that, my friends, is my “COQ” ring, a sequined and feathered symbol of my position as HotKaGoF (Head of the Kitchen and Goddess of Fun) (at least, I think that’s what the “H” stood for, it’s been a few years) in the Court of Quidam. It’d take too long to explain, and you’d just think I’m weider than you already do; just suffice to say it was a gift from a dear friend.

This post has been brought to you by my desire to justify the continued existence of this otherwise neglected blog. 😀