That’s pretty much what I’ve been doing. Sitting on the sofa with the dog next to me, her head on my knee while I knitknitknit and watch tv. Haven’t been on the computer in three days. And I have a four foot long purple garter stitch scarf so far. In the ugliest tackiest acrylic yarn you’ve ever seen that came with my learn to knit and crochet kits. It’s not easy to find nice yarn at the mega craft stores. It’s all gross speckly acrylic stuff in totally uninteresting colors. Now I know.

The other day out of curiosity I looked up “Albuquerque Yarn Store” on google and realized that, hell, we’re in New Mexico - of course there’s going to be gorgeous wool yarn here - what did I think all those beautiful rugs and blankets were made from? As a matter of fact, I found out that there was a yarn factory right here - and they had an outlet store. They have the most beautiful, vivid colors that really capture the New Mexico palette. And I realized, it would be such a waste to use boring colors and make boring preppie crap. Especially with access to such beautiful yarn. So we went to their outlet store today and I bought some fun new yarns. Can’t wait to play with them.

So that was my valentine’s day present: some beautiful stuff from Fiesta Yarns.

Cody got a few t shirts from thinkgeek. Including this:

And for us both we’re getting a water cooler.

Happy V Day. Crafty thirsty nerds of the world unite!

So this pink thing that’s been going on. It can pretty much all be traced back to the pink ipod. No, I did not win it from Gratis networks. I tried but in the end got impatient and started feeling, well, kind of dirty for even asking for people to sign up to get me one. We all have our odd ethical boundaries and that one was just one toe over my line. Funny, I have no qualms about affiliate programs and ads out the yinyang but for some reason asking for free stuff was was more than I was comfortable with. Go figure.

Anyway, when Cody got a bonus at work for a program he wrote he bought me a little pink ipod and even took advantage of the Apple store’s free engraving to get a line from one of our songs engraved on the back. It felt a lot better getting it that way and he had enough left over from the bonus to treat himself as well
I haven’t had the opportunity to use it much the last two months. I know, I’ve been really bad about not going to the gym don’t remind me. But it really came in handy on the planes and at my parents’ house at Christmas though. I’d tagged all the holiday music and brought a small pair of speakers that had a headphone jack connection (I believe Cody had bought them for ten bucks somewhere) and we got to listen to a pretty nice shuffle of holiday tunes during dinners and while we opened our presents. I’m not much of an audio snob when it comes to quadrophonic stereophonic sound (Seriously, I don’t need a big bassline it usually makes me kind of queasy) so the cheap speakers work fine for me rather than the little white 175 dollar jobbies sold to match the ipods.

Last night we had to go back down to Los Lunas to work on a computer that’s been giving an aunt some trouble and I remembered to take my little pink ipod along for the forty minute ride. We use a simple tape player converter that was originally bought for a cd walkman to listen to our mp3 players in the car - that whole fm transmitter thing just seems to be more trouble than its worth when this works just as well without the signal issues.

I know it doesn’t hold as many songs as a regular ipod or photos and stuff like the media one. But I love my little pink ipod. And I do not feel dirty for telling you about this: I saw a promotional thing going on where if you sign up at my lancome you might win one of 90 pink ipod minis. Apparently they’re giving ten away every day for the next nine days. I don’t think you have to buy anything - just create a membership there. Now I have no idea what the odds are or anything but I figure if you really want a pink ipod it’s worth a shot. And I’m not going to sign up because I already have one and I just don’t think I need another one. So there’s one less competitor anyway
More girliness

The aunt we were going to see is the official crafty aunt of the bunch. She’s the one that always gives lovely handmade gifts at the annual girls’ ornament party and is always working on some kind of project or another. In fact the last time I’d seen her was in November during one of Cody’s grandfather’s health scares (thankfully he’s doing better these days) and she was crocheting a big blanket in the waiting room at the hospital.

So I brought my little bag of knitting stuff in the hopes she’d teach me how to do this thing.

I’m so jealous of all these knitbloggers! Last January I’d bought a little kiddie “learn to knit” kit when Cody was out of town but just couldn’t figure out the right moves on my own. There’s something about the depth of field in the drawings that just wasn’t coming across to me. And I find that I get really anxious about putting my hands just so and doing it exactly right. But without a three-dimensional reference for it I just couldn’t help second-guessing how I was doing it. My grandmother was a quilter so I have a funny instinctual knowledge of how to quilt, and mom had us making all kinds of crafts when were were kids. But I just never learned to knit. I’d gotten Stitch n’ Bitch and Stitch n’ Bitch Nation from Cody for Christmas. He seems to really want me to learn to knit - he’d even read up on what I needed for a beginner’s kit and helped me pick it all out when we went to the store last week. Apparently he wants to wear a big ugly sweater. Hehe no he just seems to think I’d really enjoy it. Jocelyn and I have designated this condition as oddly sweet.

Even with the great descriptions in Stitch n Bitch I still just wasn’t getting it. I knew that I’d have to have someone show me in person and last night was a perfect opportunity. Apparently the aunt hadn’t knitted in years but she took a few minutes with the Stitch n Bitch book (a name she loved by the way) and after refreshing her memory she showed me two very important things: how to cast on and the basics of knitting a swatch. And I got it! Once I felt how to do it correctly - not worrying too much about where to hold the yarn but just to see and feel how it’s supposed to go together - it made perfect sense! Yaay!

And my latest netflix movies got in too! So today I’m going to watch the final dvd of Brideshead Revisited and Wimbledon (trying to fight the urge to slap the shit out of Kirsten Dunst) and knit a really long scarf-looking thing. I don’t know how to bind off or anything about purling but by gum I wanna practice what I can do and make sure I never forget! Man, if only I’d thought of this before I quit smoking! I’m very excited though! I get to be a punk rock femiknitter!

So after a few binges in the itunes store last year I realized that I have issues with controlling my spending habits. *Snort* This shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone that knows me irl. Fear of driving isn’t the only reason I usually bring a shopping buddy when I go out - I need someone who can help me get a grip when I start to clearly get my spendy grabby self out of control in the Swell Section at Target. Despite (or maybe because of, who knows) my mom’s mathematical prowess I am determined to be Math is Hard Barbie and this inability to add simple sums is most glaringly obvious when I’ve got a shopping cart. Even a virtual one that’s doing the math for me. To be fair, though, when buying single products out of a saved shopping cart at itunes you don’t know how much you’ve spent until you get the email a day later. And you’d be really surprised how quickly that 99 cents a song (plus tax) can add up when that clicky mouse finger gets going.

This has been the year of some financial restructuring in our household. Despite my supposedly saving around two thousand dollars annually from quitting smoking (Cody doesn’t count since he’s still spending money on the patch) we had a fairly rough year financially in 2004. Sure, there were some household things like restuccoing and major tree removal but we’re homeowners and that’s the cost of doin business when you sign on for the mortgage. The good news is neither of us ever tried to qualify for enough credit to get ourselves in serious trouble and we paid off his car three years ago. So the only real debt we carry is the house.

What’s funny is while I have an inexplicable ability to handle money in the abstract - predicting good investments, tax shelters, etc - I have an equally inexplicable inability to balance a checkbook properly. So we’ve been trying a new way to balance our budget and so far it seems to be working. Don’t want to go into it too much but basically it involves two accounts - one for the regular monthly bills and the other for food, pet expenses, and discretionary (gaming, video, website, music) funds. Manages to keep our tech spending from interfering with the regular bills that we kind of sometimes tend to forget to pay.

I’ve found a nice solution for the itunes store where my spending could be controlled but I wouldn’t feel deprived. We used Cody’s itunes account to set up a monthly allowance that sends my itunes account a 30 dollar credit every month - and I entered a dummy cc number on my account so I couldn’t “accidently” spend over the thirty dollars. It’s about what we’d spend on a movie and popcorn on a friday night at a new theater so it doesn’t seem *that* unreasonable to spend on music once a month. And I get some fun music purchases.

I used to just go and pick out thirty or so songs from my saved shopping cart. But I started getting an error message last month and the apple customer service folks had to clear it out for me. So this time I had to pick the songs out one by one.

This is what I spent my thirty bucks on this month. (I made it into an itunes imix as well if you’re interested - February’s buys)

I’ve been in a strange alterna 80s / dentist office am radio in the 70s mood lately. And it shows.

Warren Zevon - Lawyers, Guns and Money
Bright Eyes - When the President Talks to God (this was free)
Skip James - Devil Got My Woman
Skip James - Hard Time Killing Floor Blues
The Police - Invisible Sun
Kenny Rogers & The First Edition - Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Is In)
Lou Reed - This Magic Moment
Björk - Army of Me
Gene Loves Jezebel - Desire (Come and Get It)
R.E.M. - Radio Free Europe (Original Hib-Tone Single)
Morrissey - November Spawned a Monster
Bob Geldof & The Boomtown Rats - I Don’t Like Mondays
The Fixx - Red Skies (Alternate Version)
Happy Mondays - Step On
Peter Gabriel - Games Without Frontiers
Throwing Muses - Dizzy
U2 - I Will Follow (been thinking about when they were, you know, good)
Eagles - I Can’t Tell You Why
Morphine - Gone for Good (my morphine cds are scratched to shit)
Johnny Cash - Folsom Prison Blues
Alice Cooper - I’m Eighteen (please don’t make me explain this)
Bob Marley - Redemption Song (I’ve been thinking about non-overplayed bob marley songs too)
Gene Loves Jezebel - Jealous (apparently I’m a fan and didn’t notice before)
Matthew Sweet - Sick of Myself (I love him)
Gary Wright - Love Is Alive
Jackson Browne - The Pretender
The Spinners - The Rubberband Man (hee! I love the spinners I didn’t know they did this song!)

Sorry about the itunes links but I’ve been barred from posting mp3s by the ever paranoid Mr Man and I still want you to be able to get them if you want.

And finally,

According to this Rockstar name generator my Rockstar name is…

Paula Saturn

I honestly don’t remember where I got this. Maybe Yummy Wakame?

I am worth $91,798,037.29 for one night of wild lovin’! How much are you worth?
Get my worth

This one was also stolen from Ms Motor City Bad Kitty. She’s been Quizzerific lately.

I first saw this one at Cheeky Prof, who also has a side-splitting totally spooky post about being a girl growing up in the seventies.

You are a Go-Go Girl! Yay you!

What kind of Sixties Person are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

I think I got this result simply because I said I prefer stripes. Pattern-alistic Bastards, how dare they Pattern-ize me?

Also stolen from MCBK

Wilma Flintstone

Who ’s Your Inner Sexy Cartoon Chick ?
brought to you by Quizilla

As good as any I suppose. I tell ya one thing though, Cody’s way more Barney than Fred. And that’s a good thing.

Just realized it’s been a while since I’ve posted a silly quiz. So I’m going to post a few.

This one was stolen from my favorite Bad Kitty

Take the quiz: “Your Psych-Ward diagnosis”

Bipolar Disorder
Diagnosis: BiPolar Disorder Sometimes severe mental disorder involving manic episodes that are usually accompanied by episodes of depression. The manic phase of the disorder is characterized by an abnormally elevated or irritable mood, grandiosity, sleeplessness, extravagance, and a tendency toward irrational judgment. During the depressed phase, the person tends to appear lethargic and withdrawn, shows a lack of concentration, and expresses feelings of worthlessness, self-blame, and guilt.

Oh if only I could have the hyperactive manic time I’d probably get some housecleaning done! But, alas, I’m usually in the depressive no energy whatsoever funk.

Cheeky Prof wrote about an encounter with one of those crooked parkers and I didn’t want to hijack her comments completely (which I think is more rude than a bad parking job) so I thought I’d post my complete thought here
I think this whole parking crookedly thing is just part of this complete utter bubble of self-involvement that everyone seems to have these days. Talking about really personal things on the cellphones in front of complete strangers in public, playing with the latest electronic gadget in line, and, yes, even being wrapped up in an ipod mental cocoon. I’m not saying these things are bad neccesarily - just, personal communication (aside from electronically at a distance) is at a low tide. A lot of that electronic barrier stuff is for self preservation. I know I use the ipod in public rather than risk overhearing some annoying conversation, or mean remark at places like the gym. And it’s kind of sad that I feel I run the risk of hearing that or that it would affect me such that I need to block it out. But I fully admit I have issues with the social phobia thing and seemingly throwaway comments can sometimes end up torturing me for years.

Anyway, I don’t think the crooked parking is usually an act of defiance or outright meanness - just, as the woman Cheeky dealt with showed, a complete lack of thought for anyone other than herself and her immediate world. Like stopping in the middle of the aisle to peruse the cereal aisle blissfully unaware that people need to get by. In a way, I’m kind of jealous of their ability to be so completely absorbed in their own worlds - not weighed down by concern for everyone else around them. Must be nice to really and truly be the center of your own universe. I know people who spend a fortune on various escapist hobbies and treatments and these folks get to do it for free!

Did you know that Groundhog Day used to be Hedgehog Day? S’true!

At the first of February, the days were growing noticeably longer. Candles were lit to help warm the earth and bring even more light to the earth. When the Christians took over the Roman empire, they changed this to Candlemas.

The Germans had a folklore that on Candlemas day, if a hedgehog saw its shadow, there would be 6 more weeks of winter, else it was almost over. This supposedly came from the Romans. When they migrated to the United States. there were no hedgehogs. The local Indians had great respect for the ground hog which they called Wojac (where we get the name “woodchuck”), which they considered an ancestor, so Pennsylvania Dutch changed their traditions from a hedgehog to a woodchuck or groundhog. ” per Larry Freeman

In the early 1880’s a few residents of Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania began to celebrate the legend of the groundhog as a weather prognosticator. If Punxsutawney Phil, upon emerging from his burrow, saw his shadow, there would be six more weeks of bad weather or two winters. If he did not see his shadow, the forecast would be for an early spring. Today, the popularity of Groundhog Day continues to grow.