Okay, well I wasn't really sure if I was going to do anything for National Craft Month, but I had a spark of genious earlier today.

First, I'm going to be doing crafty posts for writers over on my Cid Tyer wordpress blog, which will go up on Thursdays through the end of the month.  This is in addition to my monthly topical blogging series.

Second, I started a new knitting project!  I also figured out what's been going wrong with my cast on's.  I do a long tail, or continental cast on for my projects.  Despite following along with youtube tutorials, for the last two or three years I've been knitting I've been casting on all wrong!  On the second pass through the yarn looped around the thumb, instead of passing through the loop, I have been coming back up under the loop.  Thus, when I would knit I would end up knitting three strands of yarn together as one stitch to make up for all the extra yarn.  no friggen wonder all of my first rows have always looked so sloppy!

I figured this out last night while I started my bandanna/shawl project.  I'm using a ravelry pattern called 22.5 Degrees that's sort of plain, as far as shawls go - but I like it!.  No fancy panels or weavy wavy stuff - because I can't really figure that stuff out yet!  I'll take pictures later.  For now I just wanted to check in!

Okay, so Alice and I have been hitting the idea back and forth like a never-ending game of ping pong about how we needed to get together and knit - and then there was the other conversation about doing a Harry Potter marathon since I've seen only a few of the movies in their entirety and another one in bits and pieces.  Well, yesterday was devoted to knitting - and Harry Potter.  Yup.

My goal for a while has been to knit a pair of fingerless gloves.  I want a pair.  I want to make a pair.  So after lots of digging around, Alice found this pair of wristies that were inspired by Dr. Horrible's Sing-a-Long Blog.  They used to be up on Ravelry and on Knerdy Knitting, but the site went down or expired.  Through some very impressive creative thinking on a friend of ours, we discovered that we could access the pattern through google's chache.  So, if you're interested, h e r e is a link to that pattern.

The wristies I made are a little different.  For one, my thumb hole isn't comfortable at all.  If I make another pair of these I'll have to experiment.  I also made the button track wider, and after I discovered I had no idea how to actually make the button holes, I just knitted a solid track and sewed the wristies together and will add buttons once I find some better suited to the jewel tone colors.  I have one almost completed wristie that's just missing buttons.

I've also completed another book cozie.  This one was going to be for me, but I ended up hating the way the self-striping yarn patterend on the book, so I'll be giving it away with a future book giveaway on Book Addicts.  Stay tuned!

This morning I started experimenting with an idea I hatched for a pattern for fingerless gloves, so I'll have to report back on how that's working, but later - because I need to do a lot of writing since I took yesterday off to watch Harry Potter and knit.

So we got some sad news this week.  The biggest indi bookstore in the DFW area is closing down.  They opened when the recession was just hitting and have held out for eighteen glorious months.  It's a super cool place and I wish I could share it with everyone.  I'm going to miss them.  Hopefully all of the authors who supported the bookstore find other boolalicious homes for their signings and events and stuff.

As usual I'm staying plenty busy!

This last weekend I went to my best friends, little sisters wedding in Oklahoma - I just wished someone would have told me where in Oklahoma it was before we started driving.  We assumed the wedding was in Oklahoma City - but in actuality it was in Ada, Oklahoma.  Yeah.  Making that U-Turn was not fun.  The wedding was very pretty and the couple were very happy.  I also got to see the fore mentioned best friend and her family and that's always special.  I road-tripped it with an old college friend, lots of fun talking about school, our lives now - and books!

Sunday was the official Book Addicts kick off, so several of us went over to Suz's house and camped out to write all day.  I learned something very important about myself.  Sitting at a kitchen table I will stare at the cursor mocking me and maybe dredge out 500 or 1,000 words.  If I move to the couch - BAM - thousands of words!  Yeah, after learning that I parked it across the room on the couch and pounded out words; lots of words.  It's a little disheartening because the weekends are turning into my writing time; I'm getting so busy on the weekdays it's almost impossible.

Like Monday - I did do revisions, but I also had to balance cooking, grocery shopping, cleaning, and everything else I missed out on doing this weekend because I just wasn't at home!  Tuesday was the book club up at Legacy and that's always a full evening of shopping and talking.  Wednesday I had an accident and didn't go to dance class, but I still had stuff to do for people! 

Tonight is supposed to be Harem Night; I'm thinking I'm not going to go because my weekend is already full and I need time at home to clean and knit and wash clothes and do stuff for meeeeeeee.

Friday we're going up to Legacy probably to say our goodbye to the store and attend the Rachel Caine book signing.  Saturday is dance class and I got roped into going to my friend's cooking demonstration class, and I might possibly have a movie outing if we get out early enough.  Sunday we're discussing another possible writing day... And then it starts over again!  @__@  I need a vacation from my life, lol.

I know, I'm supposed to do a Girl Talk Thursday blog today, but I haven't blogged about me in over a week so I might as well.  I've been busy, I have a lot to say.  Like - how I need to really keep my camera on me.  I really should take more pictures.  I'm bummed because we had a baby shower on Saturday - and did I think to take any pictures?  Nope.  I really would have liked to.

So, my sort of goal now is to take more pictures.  More memories.  I want new pictures to hang on my walls at home and fill those gaping places.  I should get the chance this weekend; I'm going to my best friends, little sisters wedding - in Oklahoma.  It's love to go to Oklahoma, let me tell you.

And what have I been up to the last two weeks since I haven't really been blogging?  I've been catching up with my friends.  Doing things.  Watching movies mostly.  Knitting.  Ooooh!  I knitted a book cozy.  It's going to go with my first Book-Addicts.com giveaway and it's super nifty.  I need to make one for me so that I protect the books I thoughtlessly toss into my purse all the time.  I also need to take a picture and update my Ravelry and just show it off.  The next one I make will have a few changes, like a ribbed edge instead of just a k&p every other row kind of plan. 

I've been knitting a lot more.  I think it has something to do with that whole wanting to make Christmas presents thing going on in the back of my brain.  I'm working on an adorable pink and blue stripped scarf.  It rolls in on its self, so it would be a really good accessory, but not very functional.  I'm thinking I'll give it to one of my younger nieces and do scarves for the whole brood.  That's five kids.  Just so you know.  That's a lot of knitting - but I wanna do it!

The writing and revising has been going very slowly.  I'm up to the third chapter on the new WIP called My Personal God.  I've cut about 7K from Sing Softly - and that hurts.  Like OUCH!  My goal with Sing Softly is to just get the plot in place and the manuscript readable and get someone to just read through it; probably the #writersdatenight girls because they're all bugging me about it.  After that I'm thinking I'll shelf it and n-e-v-e-r work on it again. 

I wound up dancing at Stratos for the oil spill fund raiser last week.  It was random and happened at like 4pm - and silly me - I thought there would be more than just one other person and myself doing it.  I'm so silly!  Over all dance has gotten much more challenging.  Myself and three others were bumped up to the intermediate class, which is also intro to zills.  Uh, I can't even move my body in all the ways they're telling me to, and now I'm supposed to zill?  For me it's the body moving that's harder.  Zilling?  Pft - I was in marching band, yeah my right hand is a little dysfunctional; I played French Horn.  But zills and moving and playing doesn't bother me.  Yes, I do get off rhythm easily, but I've always had issues with my internal metronome not functioning properly.

Oh, and I had my first ever experience at a gaming place with a friend for her hubby's birthday.  Yeah, I so don't have a nerd/geek card.  Race?  Class?  What?  *plays with Killer Bunnies*  Yeah, I have never felt so normal in my whole life.

What else?  This weekend is the wedding and the kick off for Book-Addicts.com - so go enter my friggen contest Saturday!  Fer serials people.  I'm going to be giving away a copy of Feed.  You don't know just how awesome this book is.  It's very much a rock-your-socks-off book.

And while we're talking about books, my awesome, funny, talented, mommy-amazing friend Erinn is celebrating her blogging success with a mystery box giveaway of books! G-o E-n-t-e-r N-o-w !-!-!-!

Right.  So that's all the interesting stuff I've been doing for now. 

I'm doing better at blogging, aren't I?  Yes?  Please just say yes.

Thank you!

Things are still busy, but it's a fun, good busy.

The weekend was full.  I went and saw The Sorcerers Apprentice on Friday.  I went in with mediocre expectations and I was entertained.  It's a Disney movie, about sorcerers, and Nicholas Cage is in it.  I like Nick Cage - don't ask me why, I. Just. Do.  It probably has something to do with my persisting like of The Rock and ConAir.  "Put down the bunny."  Now, the movie is fun, the affects are good, but it's total cheese - like you leave the movie theater constipated from the Cheese Factor.  It's cute.  It's interesting.  I was entertained, but I could have Netflixed it and not missed anything.

Saturday was a total race against time!  I woke up early and got writing done before dance class.  It was only a few  hundred words, but it got the gears turning and I liked what I had going on.  I think I was off kilter for class because I was letting the cogs spin about the novel and not really on beat with the class.  I think I bruised my foot when we were doing floor work; seriously!  Bruised the top of my foot!!

The rest of Saturday was spent at the monthly RA meeting, where I returned to what I'd been working on earlier and really pounded out some good stuff.  RA always has a lot of chitchat going on, but we did focus on writing for a good chunk of it.  There was a craft store run, where I bought yarn for Christmas presents.  I've made myself knit more recently - because I like it and I want to get better and do stuff!!  I'm excited about some of the projects I'm going to do; mostly scarves because lets face it: they're easy!  But there are two projects I want to do that will be fancier takes on scarves.

We watched Predator that evening.  Now, I have a deep residing love of the Predator movies.  Predator 1 & 2, and also Aliens vs Predator - love them!  Something about the Predators just makes me cheer.  I was told it was a good movie; I hadn't remembered that Adrian Brody was in it, but he does a great job.  I think he's an amazing actor that I wish did more movies.  If you like action movies, Go. See. Predator.  You'll like it.  You'll cheer.  You'll leave wanting more.

Sunday I spent cleaning.  Like deep, scrub the floors clean.  I haven't seen my kitchen table since December!  I have a kitchen table again!  It's not without purpose that I'm doing all this cleaning; this weekend we're having a baby shower for a very awesome lady at my apartment - and Crafty Day is this weekend.  Yeah, it sort of slams me, but it's all in one place so that's at least nice for my poor nerves.  LoL.  So I cleaned and scrubbed and I'm feeling uber good about my place.  I want to attack the shelves with my swiffer duster and do some moving around of books, but the living room/kitchen is looking good for this weekend.

Oh!  And I watched this movie called Daybreakers.  It's a semi-horror movie about a world where most of the population has become vampires and are facing a blood shortage.  It's a really awesome, non-sparkling vampy movie if you're into horror-vampire-gore movies.  I slept with a light on in the living room.  Not so much because of the vampires, but because of these other things that were in the movie.  Made me shudder.

Now, last night!  It was the fundraiser for the oil spill rehab at Stratos, the Greek place we go to and dance and hang out at.  I was supposed to just go and watch, hang out with friends, etc - but at like 4pm one of the girls texts me and asks me if I'll do the routine we did for Harem Night with her.  Uh - sure, why not?  I didn't realize it was just going to be the two of us.  Greeaatt.  I'm a team player and since a few people who were supposed to perform didn't show up, I did it.  I also got pulled up to dance with a few other things.  It was cool and also kinda made my skin crawl because I'm not that good.  All in all - I had fun, my friends had fun, and we raised money for a good cause.  I just didn't expect to be on the performing side of it, lol.

Okay, so off for a busy week!

Okay, so I was chatty, then silent, then chatty - dramatic! - and then silent again.  I'm sorry, very sorry - last week was just a lot to handle.  No, my father's health isn't great - and I'm not supposed to know anything so I'm not going to talk publicly about what I'm not supposed to know.  There has been Other Family Drama, resulting in me turning rather anti-social.  I think after a few crazy weeks I need some down time, without the crazies or the distractions to sort of recharge.

But wait! This is me we're talking about - I hardly know how to do nothing, ya know?  Last week was almost an experiment in just that.  Oh wait - no it wasn't! 

Monday I did spend solo, warding off the world, cleaning, doing grocery shopping, etc.

Tuesday was Cover Girls, a monthly book club up in Plano my friends and I trek up to attend because it's just awesome.  I made cake-pops, which there are pictures of them in my Flickr.  I also made some book-pops with Dakota Cassidy's new book My Way To Hell done as a flag.  Super cute.  Check out my bakery success, fer serials.  Somehow, I'm not quite sure, but I wound up as the Teachers Pet at this event, lol.  The organizer, who turns to my friends and says, "I don't remember names, I'm sorry," proceeds to call me out of around 60 women for opinions and things.  It was funny and Certain People poked and prodded at me all night, but we were all laughing about it and really I didn't care.  Hey, it's flattering to get noticed!  You're lying if you disagree!

Wednesday was dance - but sort of a big night.  My dance school was featured by Groupon.com and Wednesday was the first night people could redeem their class voucher.  400 people signed up for the class!  400 people!  There are now two beginner classes on Wednesday.  I'm getting kicked up to the Intermediate Class that meets afterwards.  Sunday instead of just having Aliki's class, there will be two additional beginner classes taught by Neenah.  That's a lot of additional classes!  That's a lot of people!!

Thursday - Writers Date Night - and Cid forgetting the power supply.  It was a very beneficial night as I plotted out a new WIP and worked on some additional writing stuff I'm doing.

Friday - I think, don't quote me on this because I cannot for the life of me remember - I spent alone!  ALONE! HURRAY FOR ALONE TIME!

Saturday was dance class again - this one seriously kicked my butt.  We worked on floor work, and how to gracefully get onto the floor while dancing.  It's freaking Wednesday and my whole body still hurts.  The worst move we did was getting down on the floor, sitting on your legs.  Raise your butt up off of your legs just enough to clear your heels, and then move hips in a circular fashion while making your arms look pretty.  There are all sorts of directional changes and other things to do.  It also hurts like hell after not using those muscles seriously for a year!  We also did fifteen minutes of arm drills.  I didn't think this would be that bad.  Arms? Pshaw!  O. M. G.  The rest of the day I spent groaning every time I got in and out of my friend's car.  We went shopping in the pm for clothes.  I lurv shopping, and I lurv making people be my personal barbie dolls - because I never really played with them as a kid I guess I just like reliving that portion of my life now, right?  Did lots of great shopping, had dinner with some other friends and hung out for ages talking and whatnot so I got home uber late.  Now, I cannot just get home and go to bed, I have to like, unwinde and stuff, so I check my email and - So a few months ago I wrote lots of short stories and submitted them.  Haven't heard anything so I just accepted the silent rejections and moved on with my life.  Waiting in my inbox was a contract for a short story I'd written and submitted.  A contract to be published - and paid!!!!  I text'd tons of people, heck, you probably already know yourself but it's still fun to blog about!

Sunday was all about being at home and writing and reading and knitting and watching movies.  Really productive in some areas, I will say.  Started a new knitting project I'm excited about and will probably share pictures of later.

And this brings us to Monday - which was a random celebration of my impending published status and going out with the belly dancers to support Aliki dancing at Stratos.  Stratos is probably becoming my new, favorite restaurant, sorry McAllisters!  It's just a fun place.  Dance floor where the dancers dance every so often.  Amazing Greek food; I ate flaming cheese!  The waiters are almost all super cute.  And you get to dance!  Even on the tables!  Aliki got a bunch of us up to do a Shakira routine with her that we pretty much improved.  We did Greek dancing and some other line dancing - the only thing we didn't do this time - dance on the tables, lol.

So now we're at today - and today is another shutting the world out day, but only because there are books coming in on order today I'm crazy about and Must. Read.  The rest of the week is dance, writers date night and RA, so my live moves on in an ever persistent pendulum of crazy!

Well, like I said, this was bound to be an interesting week!  Thankfully the low point of the week was dealing with my exhaustion post-Tremors marathon.  The rest of the week has been a lot of fun, stuff is going on, I'm happy, blahblahblah.

I think I've read like - four books this week.  Highway to Hell, Mage in Black, Stormwalker, and Over My Dead Body.... wow, yeah, I've read four books this week!  I looked it up on Goodreads and thus far this year I've read about 59 books.  The one I'm reading now will be the 60th.  I took Kori's challenge to read 100 in a year and even if I cake walk the rest of the year I'll still make that - but I bet I blow 100 books out of the water - easy peasy.  I can't talk about why I say this with confidence, just rest assured you'll know when the time's right and everything is a well oiled machine!

Other than reading, I had a bit of a writing slump, which I discussed in todays WIP update.  I'll refrain from double posting about it, but suffice it to say - I felt uber dumb.

Because June is a five-Wednesday month, we skip one Wednesday and go without dance class.  Yes, very sad, very nervous about the upcoming harem night - but whatev, right?  I can't change it - oh well.  On the up side, girls from my class decided to pop over to Strato's where the harem night is taking place next week, and hang out for Greek Night.  I hauled a friend with me because that's the kind of person I am; if I'm going down I'm taking you with me!  I had no idea my Saturday instructor was performing; that was loads of fun!

It was kinda a bummer cuz the restaurant was mostly empty, but our table was loud and cheered a lot.  At one point we got involved in one of her routines - and in short - I wound up on tables with two of my class mates - dancing.  Yes, I was dancing on a table, stone cold sober.  There are pictures, and I trust those that have them to use discretion - because I had this pained look on my face.  The three of us had no idea what was going on, so we mostly floundered around and had fun. 

The biggest kicker was that our sub instructor decided we would do our routine - sans the two girls that didn't come with us - right then and there.  I learned a few very important things: I don't know the ending as well as I thought (and neither does anyone else!).  My jeans are really too big.  And I step on my own jeans.  I need to just not dance in jeans - so I will be finding appropriate dancing pants this weekend most likely.  All in all, Wednesday was a load of fun, I'm sure pictures will be forthcoming eventually.

This weekend should be an interesting juggling of events.  I'm trying to finish my novel by the 30th, but I'm still going to a theater event on Saturday night, Sunday is Crafty Day, and next week is it's own beast.

Now if I could only convince myself to not stay up all night reading a book - I think I could tackle the day a bit better!

Okay, so things went from, totally not busy at all, to wow.my.god.too.much.to.do!

I'm currently at that state where I'm so busy I don't want to look at email, twitter or facebook because I'll remember yet again something else I'm supposed to do, have done, be doing - that I'm not.  And won't happen.  It's frustrating and makes me easily bummed.

Don't get me wrong, there's a lot of really good stuff happening in my life - which a good chunk of it I can't/won't blog about/yet.  And that stuff takes time, accordingly, and I know this, but I like to pretend I'm Super Woman!  I can do anything!

This last weekend saw little to no writing done.  I did, however, get most of my bedroom, you know that Epic Closet Cull 2010 thing?  It's practically done, I just need to haul off the clothes I don't want.  I discovered that I'm not a big skirt person. Or I just don't own many?

As much as I'm trying to make this week productive, I feel like I'm already failing.  Last night I marathoned Tremors 2-4, which resulted in me staying up far too late with my company over and now facing today practically main-lining Dr Pepper to stay awake.  Not that great, right?  I'm hoping to go home and take a quick nap after work and then get up and proceed to be super amazing.  I want to do things like, dishes, tidying up a bit, and writing.

As for the rest of the week, it's something like this:

• Wednesday - Strattos for Greek Night
• Thursday - Writers Date Night
• Friday - .....I don't think I'm doing anything......
• Saturday - possibly the RA meeting, but we're fer serials going to see Beauty and the Beast
• Sunday - Crafty Day

Well, at least I can't say I'm bored!

Yes, I really am.  I'm going to blog about stuff.

....Hmmmm, what should I say?

Well this weekend was one huge long social function.  Friday is somewhat of a blur.  I think there was tv watching and writing and hanging out with Alicia.  I think.  Like I said, Friday is somewhat fuzzy.

Saturday was one huge circus.  I was up early and drove to Cleburne to drop off a check and then to my parents house.  My sister and her boyfriend were there - which was a surprise.  We spent the day doing stuff around the house and talking.  My sister also thought it was okay to punch me.  She didn't like it when I punched back.  She didn't like it when I restrained her from escalating the situation further.  After a long, exhausting day at my family's place, I couldn't decide what to do when I left.

I knew there was a Supernatural marathon going on at my place.  I also knew I wasn't in the best mood to be social and watch a show I don't particularly like or dislike.  I made a weak effort to go do something else but wound up at my place piddling around on my laptop and listening to Supernatural and needling some of the girls  :P

Eventually I went to bed.  Only to wake up and .... they're still there! And Supernatural is still on!  LOL

Sunday is Crafty Day so that means it was just more people in and out of the apartment.  It's funny how Crafty Day has sort of.... become movie day.  We watched both Boondock Saints movies and started season 1 of Dexter.  It was a grand finish to a long weekend.

I now need to ensure that I bury myself in The Cave for several solo hours at some point or else I might turn into Evilness.  This is the problem with being both extroverted and introverted.

Okay, so this has been a very bad week.  Thus the no blogging because I didn't really want to talk about all this depressing stuff via the blogsphere and some of it is work-related - which is off limits.  Today, however, I have a ton of pictures to share.  The first is one of me this morning.  Just look at that mop on my head! Some days it just looks awesome, LoL, and while *I* don't look all that great, my hair is so much freaking fun I had to put that up.  Plus it shows off just how drastic the front really is.  And I'm loving the headband.  When I get some time I need to go button shopping so it's not being held together by a safety-pin.

So Tuesday I went to the eyedoctor.  Good news: My eyes aren't that much worse for wear.  Badish news: we're switching me over to a hydrogen peroxide based eye solution to soak my contacts in.  Now, the bad part of this is that if I forget it's hydrogen peroxide and wash the contact in it and stick it back in my eye, or let the contact soak for less than six hours - it's like insta-pain-please-kill-me-now!  It's sort of cool because of how the contacts are soaked. I took pictures because I think it's super nifty.  The contact vial is different than what I'm used to, each lense has it's own "cage" and it's submerged in the solution and the gray ring on the bottom of the cage-thinggie reacts to the solution and it purifies my lenses... Yeah, just look at the pictures already!

Yup, I find it totally interesting.  I do understand if you do not.

My little sprouts are shooting up!  I'm taking the cover off today because several are hitting the top of the cover and starting to grow bent.  There were also two who were just sitting on the top of the pallet, growing roots out but not putting them into the peat, so I manually planted those, LoL.  I have one pea plant that suddenly has a covering of silvery fuzz and I need to research and see what that is and if I need to remove it or kill it or something.  Any ideas?

I was going to show off some individual views, but they all look over-exposed and not all that great, so you get this.  I'm guessing I'll be planting them next week and then hopefully start a smaller tray of just veggies.

Last night was like... knitting night.  I tried and failed the fingerless gloves pattern I was irate at earlier this week.

There wasn't enough increase for it to go around my actual hand.  I'm bummed, but I went off pattern so I'm not all that surprised.  I couldn't figure out what it wanted me to do for the bow so I skipped it.  Bad idea, huh?  So I started on another piece, which was mostly me just figuring out how to read graph patterns, which I think I sort of do now, which is exciting.

I'm sortof not sure what I'm going to do with this.  It curls up on it's self really bad, but I'm thinking if I continue the stripes up a ways, I could make a dish towel or a small purse with a flap.  I don't know... Suggestions?  I think that, even though I tried not to, the yarn got pulled too tight in the back in places  :-/  Oh well, for my first try I'm happy!  I only missed one color change spot and you can't see it and it's so small you can't tell.  The picture looks a little warped, which is a bummer  :-/

And that's it!

Now for the weekend: I need to get up and get to cleaning and then write, write, write! 

The roaches are back.  Well, a single roach was seen last night and promptly attacked with all the viciousness it deserved for invading my domain.   At least I've progressed from screaming and running away, but these aren't the hissers, these are just the creepy big waterbug ones that fly.  My skin crawls just thinking about that.  I have yet to see another one, but now that I've seen one, I'm watching for the others.  I'm not stupid, I know they're out there - waiting for me to let my guard down just a bit.  That's when they'll really attack; but I'm ready.

This week is going better than last week.  It would be hard to be worse than last week, and thankfully this one is not trying to run that contest.  I'm still struggling with the previously mentioned knitting pattern, but I didn't get to mess with it today because I read Boneshaker by Cherie Priest.  I have also written this week - where I didn't read at all last week.

The plants are shooting upwards.  I'm going to have to pull the top off soon - I think.  I'm a little unsure of what constitutes as leaves.  I'm really surprised because the Bluebonnets are blooming; Bluebonnets usually take a year to plant and bloom.  I'm hoping to get a few viable seedlings; that would be fantastic.  I should have taken pictures....

I'm not sure if I mentioned this, but I'm not going to my mom's race this weekend; I'll be staying home, waiting for twitter updates on my mom's progress.  Instead I will probably do some much over-due cleaning, writing and knitting.  I'm poking people to let them know it's an open invite to come over and hang out because I don't have a plan to go out. 

And, tomorrow night is the 10th anniversary of Boondock Saints.  If you're a fan, go look at the Fathom Events for locations and tickets.  Boondock Saints II came out Tuesday but I haven't had the chance to go get it -- yet.  Okay, I'm tired and the Chinchillas are begging, for something.  As always, I'm not sure what.

I don't understand you.

Casting on in the middle of a row?  What?  I seriously tried, and thank goodness I've gotten good at ripping out lines and not loosing stitches.  Headband, I can thank you for that!

Yarn Panda, you are amazing for your knitting all-knowing-power.

I'm rather pleased with how much I did tonight in an hour and a half - especially since I unraveled my first few tries....

Yours truely,
Cid

For visual proof I'm not crazy:

[Edit] Incase someone sees this and knows the pattern.  I'm trying to knit the stripy, bow fingerless gloves from the I Love Knitting book by Rachel Henderson.  The pattern has me knitting and purling 20 stitches and the bit I'm having problems with is this:

Using B, knit 12, turn, cast on 12 stitches, turn, knit to end of row. (32 stitches)

Casting on in the middle of the row?  I can understand - sort of - from the picture how it makes the bow, but I'm not really getting the hang of how to do it, or what exactly 'turn' means - when you're casting on....

((For some reason this blog is not showing up right for me. Hopefully it's just a problem on my end....))
Well this weekend was a bunch of well-I-didn't-expect-that's.  But ya know what?  It was still fun.

Friday I obviously stayed home and gardened, which I will digress immediatly into more gardening ramble....now.  OMG I had no idea things would sprout so quick! I thought it would take another day or two before I saw anything that really looked like it would make a plant.  It's been a while since I grew anything from seeds.  Anyways, several of my sugar snap peas are throwing out roots and that first little tale-tell leafy thing. I have a Sunflower that's really adamant about I-want-to-grow-NOW. I think the other ones are Johnny Jump Ups that look promising as well as several of the herbs that look like they're doing really well, but it's harder to tell with them because their seeds are so tiny so the resulting plant bits are equally as tiny.  Anyways, here are some really crappy pictures!!

Saturday was supposed to be my research day.  I posted about my like of research and how the research actually went via my other blog.  It didn't go as planned, I can say that much.  I stopped by Half Priced Books on my way home (bad idea, I know!) and sort of hit a gold mine.  I found several volumes I had been thinking about buying after at the library and two others that just looked promising.  I also bought two knitting books.  Yes!  Me - bought knitting books!  One focuses on using colors and patterns which I would like to learn.  I had sort of decided to spend the rest of a failing Saturday knitting, but a friend of mine wanted to go see Alice in Wonderland.  Long story made short, I drove all the way to Arlington - like south-west corner, lol - only to find out that the movie was sold out. Awwee!  So we saw Book of Eli instead!

Book of Eli...  Okay, so you know going into this movie that it's probably some sort of post-apocalyptic, religious  movie.  After seeing Legion I was skeptical about this one, but I had heard a few good things so I still wanted to see it - and Denzel Washington does a lot of good movies so I decided to be hopeful.  The setting was sort of Resident Evil meets I Am Legend.  It was sort of believable from what you are led to understand.  The characters were ... interesting.  You really only get inside four characters through the movie, Eli, the girl I sort of intentionally ignored, the bad guy, and the girls mom.  Can you tell I don't pay attention to names well?  Anyways, they were all pretty much okay.  The plot is that Eli is taking what is the only copy of the Bible left on earth,  west, where God told him it will be safe.  Okay, I can believe that; a hard sell to non-Christian or religious audiences but I can get that.  The really hard bit for me to accept came at the end where they do the big reveal.  I've decided to not say what it is...  I don't really think the big reveal is all that believable because he was too aware of things through the movie for that thing to be true -- though if you ignored the plausibility of it, it was a dang good kick to the evil guy.  I liked the movie.  I really did, and that surprised me.  I was pleasantly surprised.

Sunday I had decided to go to church, take the chins out to the patio and scrub their drop try.  I apparently did not set my alarm, and it was raining.  Neither of those things happened.  I did, however, get some knitting done. Here are the pictures of my headband!  Which I finished while watching Ponyo, but I'll talk about that in a moment.
So the yarn is really great and soft.  I need to get a button to sew on to really finish it, but you get the idea.  It's a headband, super fun and comfy.  Of course it's done now, when it's too warm to really wear it anymore!  Oh well, next winter, right?  I'm really proud of this!!



Right, anyways, Ponyo!  I'd posted via twitter that I had it coming in on my Netflix and a friend of mine responded that she wanted to watch it so we deiced to get together and watch it.  Now if you know anything about Miyazaki's films, they're generally a bit abstract or weird, but usually really cool!  I have heard some not-so-great opinions about it so I was ready.  However, I don't know that I was really ready for this.  Ponyo is sort of a take on The Little Mermaid, where Ponyo is the daughter of... well... I'm not quite sure what he was, but he had magic and lived under the ocean and yeah...  So Ponyo has a brush with a human and decides that she wants to be human too!  And she sort of becomes this human-chicken thing.  It was strange.  And then she becomes a human and she gets utterly obnoxious.  I think we commented more on how crazy everything was and how irresponsible the parents were and just how nutty it was and how all the characters just accepted that crazy, silly stuff was going on all around them.  I can say that Ponyo is not my favorite Miyazaki film.


We proceeded to watch bad TV that I think was Legend of the Seeker -- based off of books I hated.  Eventually - thankfully - the Oscars came on.  We were both struggling to write and outline and be productive during all of this.  The best part of the Oscar's might have been Neil Patrick Harris doing the opener.  After that I officially didn't care as much about the awards.  Now, Ben Stiller coming out as a Na'vi was awesome and I still want to know if the fishing pole bit was planned...  I will have to say, after watching the Oscars I now need to see: The Hurt Locker, The Blind Side, and The Secret of Kells.  The fun part about watching award shows, all the movies you decide that you might as well watch.


Okay, so that was my long-winded weekend that was apparently all about movies....and gardening......and knitting......and not as much about writing and books as I intended.

No, I am not blogging much right now.  The dreaded Other-Stuff (generally speaking work things) leave me with little other to say.  Today has been a "special" day already.  I forgot to make tea last night, so I have no tea to drink today at work so I will be drinking Dr Pepper - all day.  I left my apartment this morning - and started driving towards my friend's house - NOT work.  And there was one other uber special thing I did but I can't remember what it was...  Apparently my body also hates me.  I have slept very funny on my right arm and it hurts.  Now, I know I sleep funny when I curl my arms up and under my head. Why?  Well because a few years ago I decided it would be a great idea to get Industrial Barbells through BOTH of my ears IN the SAME WEEK.  This was not smart.  For almost a year I couldn't put my head against anything.  So I slept with my head on my arm, but with my arm making a triangle so my ear could be suspended in the open space and Not. Touch. Anything.  It's habit now.  I think maybe my computer bag has irritated this.  I also have sore spots on my outer leg/thigh - and I have no idea why!  Okay, that's all I have to write about I think.

Oh no, I bought another Beauty and the Beast book, called Beastly, and finished it yesterday.  Yes, I am terrible about this.  The review is on my other blog connected to my CidWrites.com site.  I'm working on a new skin that will hopefully rock.  Hopefully.

Now, for the real reason I prodded myself into writing this blog...  Yes, there was a purpose!

My awesomely, adorable friend Alice, even in the midst of her impending wedding is hosting a knitting book giveaway via her knitting blog/website.  The book is Knits Three Ways, and you can see her blog and the instructions for entering here.  I'm totally already guilty of retweeting and now blogging - but I was already a facebook fan.  I attribute any ability I have to read knitting patterns to the Yarn Panda.  She is amazing and ever so patient. GO ENTER NOW!!!

Knitting ~ so I'm doing this headband.  Tuesday I took it with me to critique to knit before and between our critiques.  I was too busy trying to talk, follow the pattern and k, p, yo, k2tog to notice I inverted the pattern and had done a good two inches - wrong.  I've ripped out those two inches and got back on track, and put it down.  I obviously cannot do anything complicated while something else is going on around me.  LoL.

I have just said for more than I thought was in me.  I haven't done much this week.  I haven't written anything, I read Beastly, and that's about it other than the normal weekly activities; critique group and church.  This coming weekend will be dedicated to research... Yes. Research.  SAGU I'm coming to visit your library.  Please let me in, okay?

[Edit]
I had NO idea March was National Craft Month!  Well, in the spirit I guess I'll break out my pottery wheel in a few weeks and try some pottery.  In the meantime my knitting and repainting of flower buckets will have to suffice.

Okay, so there's lots of new stuff up and going on.  I've made my own website!  Nothing too fancy, but it's up and it's mine and I'm working on a customized layout/design all my own.  It's been a pain learning all this but I'm really glad now.  If you know anything about making websites or FTP servers (which is the next thing I need to learn) please, please, please feel free to email (cid@cidwrites.com), twitter(@cidwrites), or IM(aim-spazticstarfish, msn-slippersarecool, skype-cid.tyer) me.  The website is www.cidwrites.com This will change how I blog a bit.  I will very much limit how much I blog about writing and books here and save that for my website blog.  Why?  Because should I make the decision to peruse something different in the future, it would be wise to have some content and history already established.  Now what will I be perusing?  Well that's my secret.

Right now there is a lot that is rocky, and since it pertains to work and other delicate matters - I can't blog about what has me seriously stressed, so excuse me if my blogs are scattered and sparce for the next few days to months as things are sorted out.

Um, on to something more interesting!  In the wake of these stressful events, I gave myself the night off to do - whatever.  I have knitted more on the headband I showed off last night.  It's not as far along as I would like but I would imagine it will be finished by the end of the week and I will be making a decision about making another one or trying something else.  I also watched Angels and Demons, which I was really apprehensive about watching.  I think knitting while "watching" it helped a lot.  I anticipated it being a lot slower and - well - boring.  I've heard that said a lot in reference to both book and movie, but I have to say I was pleasantly surprised.  It makes me want to reread my church history books.  The Catholic church has such a vast, complicated and interesting history.  Now, I don't believe in the myths brought up by the books, but it is interesting and I have to applaud how the fact and fiction is interwoven.

Okay, so I am putting this plug in here because a) it's my friend and b) the more plugs I stick in the more times I'm put in to win the book, soooo... A good friend of mine over at Ninja vs Pirate Book Reviews did a recent interview with new author Patrick Doud.  You can read the interview here. There is also a book give-away which I will be shamelessly entering.  Good luck!

Okay, so the weekend was crazy intense, but oh so much fun!

Friday I was lazy and watched the Olympics.  I should have been cleaning.  I didn't.

Saturday Linda and I went to the SNaP Creative Writing Conference at TCC.  It was really nifty.  Now, Linda and I only stayed for the morning sessions.  There were several writing exercises we did that were really fun.  We left once they joined everyone back together to talk about TCC stuff - and went shopping.  It was lots of fun.  Didn't spend an arm and a leg, but I did get some good stuff at Macy's and Ross.  There was of course a trip to B&N where I caved and bought a book I'd eyed the cover and back synopsis of a few weeks ago.  I impulse bought another Beauty and the Beast novel to feed my obsession.  I think I spent the rest of Saturday night watching the Olympics... I did go to bed early, however, because I was really exhausted for some reason.

Sunday, today, I got up far too early, and continued to lay in bed until I had to get up for church.  After church I scurried home and got ready for everyone to come over for Crafty Day.  Now, the catch with Crafty Day was that today was also the gold medal round of the men's hockey where USA faced off against Canada.  I let everyone know it was going to be on, and lets just say it was a riot!  I mean come on, what's not funny about seven girls, wielding knitting needles yelling and screaming at the TV??  I really pity my neighbors.  There was a *lot* of yelling.

When the game was finally over Alice taught me how to read knitting patterns and several of the little abbreviations and what they  meant.  I failed at the first pattern, a headband with some issues on the numbers and finally gave up on it in favor of another pattern, which I am glad to say is still going strong.  I'm probably 25% of the way through it .... I think.  I will update on it later.

For now, however, I am exhausted and going to bed.  Tomorrow is Monday.  Hopefully it's nice to me.

See, after last week I knew this weekend would be a lot of fun - and I was right!! I love it when that happens.  ^__^

Friday I went with a friend to see Legion.  Now I wanted this movie to be good.  I know, I know - it was doomed from the moment you put an angel on it and expected me to take it seriously.  However, the first 3/4's of the movie I thought were done really well and though not exactly believable, were good and entertaining and drew you into the story.  That last 1/4 with the angel-car-chase and weird moment-on-the-mountain were.... like from a completely different, cheesy movie.  I liked the characters, even if they were a bit predictable.  Jeep gets my favorite character award for simply being named Jeep!  I liked his character, even if I thought he was foolish at times.  For the most part, I really liked and thought the characters and setting worked.  The plot wasn't even that bad - the dialogue during the last bit, however, killed it.  When an audience laughs during what should be the most poignant moment of the film - well - you know something wasn't done well.  My biggest beef with the movie - the name.  Legion was the name of a demon and I was totally ready for some demon interaction - which I didn't get.  Hollywood should have done a little more research and given it a better, more fitting name.

Saturday I made cake-pops (I have pictures... I will probably do a follow-up cake-pop blog because I have 20 more pops to dip that we didn't do Sunday. I should have been more like, hey lets all do an activity! CAKE-POP TIME!) and cleaned and did shopping stuff.  I also went out with some friends to Trinity Hall, which is always an awesome experience! And I saw my first karaoke!  I remember vagely having really bad karaoke at SAGU, but I never hung around or participated in it.  This was an interesting experience though.  Small room, lined with couches, and a big tv that played random Korean tv with the lyrics to whatever songs they pulled up.  It was fun!!  (even if I was a wallflower....)

Sunday was mostly cleaning and reading Recorded Attacks until people came over around 2:30 and we started knitting and crocheting and watching movies.  I think we watched Dr Horible's Sing-a-Long Blog, Star Trek (the new one), Connie and Carla, and Howel's Moving Castle.  I did a big chunk on the scarf I've been working on, which is good since I'm getting bored of it!!  I don't know that I want to do another circularly knitted scarf again.

So I'm getting head aches, and I think it's due to my eyes.  I need new glasses/contacts and I haven't done anything about this issue yet. I have one more set of contacts to go through and then I'll get my eyes checked.... I'd better switch contacts soon and make my appointment.  This whole hard-to-focus-on-stuff is a pain.

I look back at the last week and I failed doing some things I had hoped to get done.  So this week I will be more proactive!  First, I'm sort of excited about this one, I'm going to try my hand at embroidering cards.  I got the idea from the What Katie Does blog, which if you're a fan of tshirt surgery, you probably know her website, Oh My Stars.  I went through a phase in college where all the shirts I wore were taken apart and put back together in interesting ways.  Some better than others!  Anyways, I must refrain from saying more on this project until it's reached the recipient since I think there's a slim chance that person might read this.... *waves*  I will, however, update with pictures later!

[edit] I'm actually going to see about making a get-well card tonight after writing if I can grab the materials.  My boss had an emergency surgery this weekend so I'll make a card. I printed off one design and punched it out during lunch and then looked at the pattern... and realized I couldn't make heads or tails of it! Need a simpler something I think!

This week I want to eat at home more.  Except for Tuesday because it's impossible.  I have more than enough food to feed myself this week and I don't need to go out and spend money on food that is more fattening and less healthy than what I have at my apartment.  And I bought blueberries! YUMMY! I have a tub of that plain, vanilla yogurt.  Vanilla yogurt + blueberries = YUMMIER!!!!

I also failed last week on editing on my 2nd chapter of The Barking Dog.  Granted it's a huge undertaking because the chapter was ginormous but it still needs to be done and I totally dropped the ball in favor of other things, so this week I will redouble my efforts to not only edit that but write some more and do some more chapters in the Writing Magic book.  Most of my writing numbers have been either in my blog or rp related things this week, which is not what I wanted, but it was a really stressful week so I will forgive myself a little.

Also, I didn't do anything this last week.  I stayed up too late and struggled to get out of bed and just get to work last week. I want to try to get in bed reasonably this week and get up in the morning and do the whole Wii thing.  It makes me feel more productive about my day, even if it is only a little bit of exercise.  I should do it!

Alright, I have successfully rambled through my lunch of leftover lasagna from yesterday and will now proceed to muddle through the red items in my email in-box....

Okay, so I'm hosting a crafty day on Sunday at my place and this weekend is going to be spent cleaning, making cake-pops, revising The Barking Dog and doing things with yarn.  I'm excited!  Yes, it's really domesticated like, but oh well!  Was mildly frusterated to not find the candy melt I needed at the other Wal-Mart, but I found GREEN candy melt! I found that entertaining and might play with it a bit...  Also bought some more sprinkle options which are more Easter like in the colors but it's all about variety!!!

And then.... I found yarn.  I know I should start buying really quality yarns - but I'm still learning a lot so I don't think buying expensive stuff is justified - yet.


Okay! Time to get a little more cleaning and reading done before crashing!!!!!

I finished the birthday scarf! And I can show pictures off because, well, this friend doesn't know about my blog and even if she did I'd still be excited about actually finishing a project this year!  LoL!! See - I do stuff besides read and whine!!  It's red, not pink like the picture kinda makes it out to be.  It's silly how excited I was to stick the completed picture up on Ravelry and move the status bar to 100%.  This maybe the new motivator for finishing projects.....  I'm working up on the stripy scarf for my other friend who may or may not ever actually get it.  He asked me to make him one when I was in a really good mood and I found yarn I liked so I started.... I like the scarf, I'm knitting it on those round, circular needles and the yarn's nice and soft.  I'm not exactly motoring on ahead on that project, so I'm toying around with the idea of some others and looking forward to the 24th and the crafty day!!  I think I need new yarn..... And apparently I have a free weekend!!!!

I keep going to start revising and.... I don't.  I just don't revise at all.  I do nothing.  It's bad.  I need to do something about it but I'm not sure what.  I'm still sort of stuck on what I'm doing and without an identifiable goal, well, I'm a bit listless.  That was written this morning.  I had a long conversation with a friend of mine and he read what I'd revised, as well as what I'd rewritten and we decided that the rewritten was aimed in the better direction and was just more engaging so I believe I have a bit more direction now, though it's still a daunting task.  Since I suddenly have my weekend free I will see if I can't encourage someone to go to a  movie tonight and the rest of the weekend will be spent completing chapter 1.  I am more encouraged by this, but in the manner and style I'm writing now all three books will just be sections of the same book....if that makes any sense..... Oh well - hopefully it does and will and I can plow through this with grace and poise and come out with something decent on the other side!!!!

OMG - stop the presses - I just found out that Brandon Sanderson, the person who is completing Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series will be at Dragon*Con this coming year.  My friends have been trying to coerce me into going but I think this just won me over. Go to Dragon*Con, hear him speak, maybe see the other Writing Excuses guys?  HECK YES!  *strangles inner fan-girl*

I'm adding two more things to my 2010 Goals.  I can't recall if I blogged about this already and I'm too lazy to go back and look. I'm joining in the blogging adventure, Project 52.  The idea is that you write 52 blogs a year, once a week.  Now I know I can do this; I wrote close to 80 to close out 2009 and only started in like...September.  However, I think it's a good goal and I'm doing it.  The other goal is a bit more daunting; it means I have to be a bit more disciplined.  Inky Girl is challenging people to write 1000 Words a Day in 2010.  This means I'm already behind, having written a whopping 1500 words last night on Premonition.  Gee, I need to get something cranked out today. I'm hoping this motivates me some more this year to continue with my writing.  I'm even biting my teeth, really wanting to go to the DFW Writer's Conference in April, but I don't have the cash just quite yet.  I emailed my mother, thinking she'd talk me out of it because that much money right after Christmas is hard to come by - but instead she was very excited and is encouraging me to go.  *sigh*  We'll see what I can come up with in the next few weeks.

Okay, so I haven't blogged much because New Years sort of tirededed me out.....

I spent New Years at my friends place; we played some cards, some other odd games and then did a champagne toast at midnight where I discovered - I don't like champagne.  No big surprise, honestly.  Then someone had the great idea to go out on the balcony and light up sparklers and stand in a circle facing each other. Yeah - doesn't that sound like a great idea to you too? Not to me. I stood outside of the circle and was the only person to not get burned.  I was the first to leave, but I also had the furthest to drive and went home and I think I went to bed fairly early.

New Years Day my brother came over around noon and we hung out for a bit.  I introduced him to The Lightning Thief and I believe he's currently hooked.  We also went down to Chance Webb's Tattoo Emporium and got our tattoo finished - finally!  We're both really happy with how it turned out.  I'm entering that painfully itchy stage of healing that makes me want to go cross-eyed all the time, but soon enough it'll all be over!  I think I cooked us dinner and we watched some Four Star and then went to go see Avatar in 3D which wasn't all that much different from the normal one; I thought it looked a lot more unfocused and that it would have been just fine to see it without the 3D nonsense.

The next day my brother and I went to a Stars game.  It was super fun and I got a Dallas Stars SNUGGIE!  Don't be fooled by their strange looks, they rock. I really like mine, even if it's all covered in rabbit hair now; silly rabbit.  Brother left not long after the game to go back to Wyoming and I had a few hours to myself.   (Note - I waylaid the Ice Girls and informed him he was getting his picture with them.  He didn't protest.)

My friend Micah came over late (I'm talking either 9 or 10pm) that night.  It's probably the last time I'll see him for several years.  His parents are taking up a church in Vietnam and they'll probably stay over there for most of the next three years and he lives in Virginia Beach now doing his doctoral so though we talk on Skype a lot (during his classes sometimes - oopse!) we probably won't get to hang out.  I was super impressed when he gave me a bottle of home-made vanilla extract.  Like REAL vanilla extract! He MADE it.  Really - like it's real stuff and wow.  I'm just blown away by that. I think I'm going to try to make some myself.  How cool is that???

Eventually Micah had to scoot out and that left me going to bed a bit late - but because I made Sunday my Selfish-Day, well, it was okay.  Really I stayed home by myself and read The Titan's Curse and watched a movie and did some cleaning and played with my Chins and the rabbit and did laundry and went grocery shopping and had a great, stress-free day.  I think I'm going to start requiring more of these in my life; like once a week or something.  I knew going into this week that we were having a writing night Monday, Critique Group was Tuesday, The Mix where I volunteer with the youth is on Wednesday, people come over to my place on Thursday - the only other time I'd have to just veg would be FRIDAY!  So I didn't feel bad about taking Sunday to myself.

A little update on my challenge to write 1000 words a day.... I wrote a little over 1000 on Monday, and like 700 on Tuesday.  I'm a bit frusterated with those numbers, I'd like them to be higher, but oh well.  Now if I'm really going to this Writer's Conference I need to have a finished something to take with me.  This means I'm going to be putting a lot of effort into Premonition now and hopefully will finish it in January and start editing Suspicion in February and get the second draft done and start getting critiques and reads in March.  WHEW!

Bah! I checked my Amazon order and it's STILL not here! I ordered my bookclub book before Christmas and it's yet to show up.  I'm getting impatient. I think I shall read Gail Carson Levine's Writing Magic the rest of the week and camp out at BandN and read the last Olympian book because I just don't want to buy brand new hardcover.

[edit] After skimming through the first two chapters of Writing Magic, I realize I need to do as the book suggests and sit down and do the writing exercises.  I'll be doing this, but I think I might take it slower - maybe do one chapter a day or something and compile all of the writing exercises into a yWriter project.....

And one last interesting bit. I joined Ravelry this morning at the urging of another knitting friend.

And with that, lunch is over and I must go back to work....