Friday FO's- Bag Lady Style

Here are the FO's from this week's knitting:*

They are based on this pattern here. They're super fun and fast to make and I think they'll be perfect for beach bags or grocery bags. Not to mention my i-cord and Kitchener stitch muscles have gotten a serious work-out and I am getting good. A few people have mentioned that I should line them with fabric. Which sounds like a great idea for practicality but then again I'm lazy and hate post-knitting construction and don't want to sew.

I have one more of these bad boys on the needles and then I'm going to try designing a few things I have in mind. Mmmmm...designing. I love it.

In addition to designing (seriously, I luuuuurve it and just want to keep talking about it), this weekend I'll be working on some other projects, doing some experimental cooking (stand back), cuddling my cats, trying to sell some of my old junk at a garage sale, and watching the first season of True Blood. And designing knitting patterns (I was going to call designing knitting patterns my non-human boyfriend but then I realized that's hardly an exclusive label. That category also includes: whiskey, my bed, and the fall. Yes, I am in a committed relationship with a season. YOU DON'T KNOW OUR LOVE.)


What are you doing this weekend?

Oh, and here's this:

I've been meaning to post this for a while, but I recently took a week off of work and found that even though I've lived alone for a while, when you are home alone for a few days straight things can get even weirder. Also, when I tried googling this video, the search returned a disturbing number of websites about loneliness. I think this video proves that living alone is not lonely. It's awesome.


*I feel like it's time to just admit that I am terrible at taking photographs. Terrrrrrrrrrrrrrible. These were taken with my iphone because I can't find my camera charger (again) and my phone was right there. I would like to promise you, my readers, that I will take some photography classes, buy a better camera, keep track of my camera charger, etc. but let's be honest: I probably won't do any of those things. I know, that's not very blog-savvy of my but I have too many interests competing for my time to add photography. Here's an adorable (but horribly taken) picture of a cat to make it up to you:

A deadly, bookish combination

One of the truly lovely things about a job in a academic setting is the holiday break. You see, my friends, in two weeks I will be on vacation for two weeks. If it helps to calm your jealousy at all, please know that for the majority of my working life this has not been the case. When I was in college, I worked at the public library and a bakery. Because I went to college in my hometown which meant to travel home for the holidays I had to drive all of, oh, five minutes, I usually volunteered to work Christmas Eve and the day after Christmas so that people with further to go could head home earlier. The bakery was a great place to work around the holidays. It was bursting with activity and pies and dinner rolls and my sister and I used to con people into buying extra pies by mentioning (maybe with tears in our eyes) that we could go home to our family as soon as all the pies were sold.

Anyway, now I have a vacation. There is no downside to this, but there is the practical concern that I live alone and most of my friends will still be working. My sister is a stay at home mom, so I plan on spending some time with her and the baby, but other than that I am free as a bird. And I don't have cable. And I'm sick of all the movies and books I own. But never fear, I work in the Interlibrary Loan department meaning all of the books and movies owned by libraries are right at my finger tips!

Here's a sample of what I've ordered so far:


Holiday Themed Books:

Movies I've been meaning to watch:

Books to keep me busy:

 And, for the record, something I will not be ordering because I haven't gone completely cat-lady-insane:

The Monday Beloveds

Welcome to the first installment of The Monday Beloveds! I've decided to blog every Monday about some stuff I'm in love with. Every week, it seems, I have a new beloved TV show or object or snack or something and I feel the need to share the love with you! I'm making it Monday because I became really irrationally attached to calling the objects of my affections "beloveds," there's no weekday starting in a "b" removing my favorite writing device the illiteration from the title option and today is Monday and I am, as always, eager and excited to get started on this project before I can really think it through! So, on that note, let's jump right in!

The Monday Beloveds!

1) Akeelah and the Bee

I watched this movie for the first time over the weekend and fell in love. I laughed, I cried, I clapped, I cheered all while sitting at home alone and therefore bumping myself one more notch in the, "She's crazy because she lives alone" meter. I highly recommend this movie because I found it inspiring and touching and really triumphant. I've been meaning to watch it for quite some time. I can't really say why I chose this time in my life to check it out from the library. I really have no idea.

Curtis Armstrong is in this movie?! What a strange coincidence!

 2) Essie Nail Polish

I tried it on a whim and it rules. It's pricier than the really cheap stuff I normally buy and worth every penny. It goes on nicely and comes in a large array of fun and unusual colors. I'm completely hooked.

3) Trail Mix

There has never been a more convincing way to eat chocolate as part of a healthy snack. Yum.

4) Artie from Glee

It took me a long time to watch Glee. I know a lot of people like it and a lot of people told me I would like it because of my love for gratuitous displays of singing and dancing. And because I live alone and because I knit a lot and because I like to watch TV while I knit I finally checked out Glee. I have to say, it is the perfect knitting show. You don't have to pay attention because the plot is not complex and not even that important. The songs are fun and can be enjoyed even if you are in the middle of a difficult Celtic cable and you can't really look at the screen. But there is something about Artie's voice and attitude that gets me to look up just about every time he's on screen, dropped stitches be damned.