I'm being a bad Blogger

...but, I hardly have any free time anymore. Most of the time I am not working, I am sleeping.

I finally got my sock needles (size 6 bamboo double points, wheee!), so now I'm hoping to finish up the baby sweater so I can get going on these socks. It's pretty ridiculous how excited I am about knitting socks. :)

Bryon's doing fine. He IMed my phone today, plus wrote me two emails. He says that what he's been doing lately has put him on almost EXACTLY the opposite schedule to mine, so he hasn't been on much lately. He says he'll try to get on more.

So uh... my lack of a life has also given me a lack of material from which to draw for blogger posts. I'm really excited about the pending magazine/etc swap with Pinku! She's getting me some Japanese fashion magazines... they are SO much fun to look through. I just want to go shopping in Japan. ;_; Yarn shopping, clothing shopping... and I *still* wish I could find those translucent acrylic knitting needles they were using in PGSM. Even though I love my Lion Brand acrylics.

Ok, off to try and finish this sweater, so I can working on mastering the dpns! :D

Weekend Update

Brion's graduation is today.

Bryon's birthday is today.

I am burnt out from work, but happily I have Sunday, Monday and Wednesday off this week. Also, the front and back of the sweater are done, and seamed together at the shoulders. I've started the first sleeve.

I have to go get ready for the graduation thingy, so... more later.

Colonial House, part 2

Well, I am impressed that the family came back. It's kind of an odd way to try and get past your grieving, but... at least there are more women to cook now. It kind of frustrated me (and must have frustrated them) that a whole bunch more men showed up. I know this show is structured to have people leaving early and new people coming in, but that must have been quite a blow for the women.

I've determined these people are NOT putting any effort into "letting go" for this project. It really frustrated me when, after the governor abolished the punishments for not going to Sabbath services, the preacher's wife decided she had to stand up for "the feminist cause" by not wearing her head covering. The FEMINIST CAUSE? In colonial America?? What are these people thinking? I will say, with the church-going part of it, everyone has their breaking point. If someone asked me to do one of these programs and then told me I'd have to agree to sleep with the other guys because "that's how they did it then," I'm sorry, I wouldn't be joining that program. But at the same time, I can't believe they didn't know about the Sabbath services when they first were learning about the program! Did they just think, "well, we're supposed to do that but I'm just not going to"? If it was going to bother them that much, they shouldn't have signed up at all!

My final gripe: why, oh why, did that guy need to tell everyone he was gay? Unless he was planning on sleeping with someone there, it was not pertinent information! *sigh* He himself said he wouldn't have told anyone if it was really colonial times. Why couldn't he just keep his mouth shut? He's put the governor in a really difficult situation, as he had to determine how far to take his role when discussing something like this. And gee, it was pretty interesting to see the governor's views on homosexuality as well.

More tomorrow night, as we get to see part 3.

Colonial House

Oh yeah, I also watched the first night of Colonial House on PBS. It's the latest in a series of sort of... re-enactment shows, such as The 1900 House, Frontier House, and Manor House. I am proud to say that I got to tour the 1940 House at the Imperial War Museum in London! I tell you, I could have lived there. And it was so fun to go back and watch the show, knowing I'd really been there.

These shows always have a pattern: at the very beginning, the people are doing ok, but by episode 2, they start trying to apply 21st-century thinking to a non-21st-century situation. This time, the women (who admittedly are down to just three because three others left - one girl's fiance was killed in a car accident, so her whole family left) are trying to get the men to cook for themselves three days of the week. Let me tell you, it's VERY rare that someone joins this show and is really, truly willing to adopt the mentality the experiment requires. They just can't let go of their 21st-century beliefs and accept that things were very different in their chosen time period - the exceptions being the head butler from the Manor House, and one woman from this show.

The other part of the pattern is, by the halfway point, nearly everyone is crying and saying they want to go home. The Manor House represented somewhat of an exception, with a very decisive split between the "family" of the manor, and the servants! I think the mother would have stayed there forever if she could. She had no problem being waited on hand and foot, her toughest problem creating a seating chart for a dinner party. The servants did have it very rough, but they also had no interest in adopting the servant role for the sake of the project - it grated on their 21st-century souls and they were just horrible to watch. Only the head butler, and to some extent the ladies' maid, worked to keep everyone else in line.

Well, that's my current Colonial House update - two more episodes are on tonight.

Nice emails, and a pretty good day

Got out at 6:30 tonight, woo! I feel like I have all this TIME tonight. I only get 1 day off this week, then I have Sunday and possibly 2 days during next week. I can't complain, because I did ask for Sunday off for Brion's graduation. And I get overtime. Wheeee!

I was doing data calls today, and one girl not only got a text messaging feature, but I was on the phone with her for 15 minutes fixing some problems she'd been trying to fix through Customer Service for 3 months. Got her some money back, and saved her some money on her monthly bill. She said I was the nicest and most competent customer care person she'd ever talked to! :D :D I'm pretty good at the helping people part.. it's just the general knowldege ("how the heck do I do this??") stuff that is taking some time. Then again, it takes everyone a long time to get really good at it all.

Somehow, my mood has finally lifted. I've been completely in the dumps the past 4-5 days, and it's been really hard on me, and hard on everyone around me. Today I got two nice emails from Bryon, and... I don't know. A good day at work just helps me feel better. I really do like this job, more than I've liked a job in a longgggg time. Maybe ever.

A vague haunting mass appeal

Well, let's see. I got almost everything on my list done: went to the bank and post office, started the website thing, and found my cell phone (in my mom's car). Plus my dad returned the book to the library for me, since he was going there anyway.

Got a NINE-PAGE LETTER from the boyfriend yesterday. :D And he writes SO tiny... it was a really good letter. He explained to me what happened the day his company took a casualty; what the living conditions are like during his missions with the Special Forces; and there was lots of really sweet, personal stuff too. Plus after finding my phone, I discovered 5 text messages on it (sent through IM). Very amusing. :)

I got a letter from Mike yesterday too. I've never met anyone who writes such uninformative letters. :) I'm glad to hear from him though. Looks like I'll be sending out another box to him sometime soon.

I think it's time for a little more Sailor Moon (animated this time). I got my mom to watch the first two episodes of the Live Action version and... she actually liked it. :D This is why I love my mom. :)

Hmm, not sure how I feel about this.

Blogger's relaunch hasn't exactly thrilled me so far. I mean, the graphics are a bit "fancier" I suppose, but... I was very used to the other way. Hm.

In other news, here's a pic of the vases I painted the other night:



Work was better yesterday. Today I don't have to work, but I have lot of errands to do:

• Take a book back to the library.


• Mail a book out for a half.com sale (yay!).


• Visit the museum and try to do an upload of the gift shop crap.


• Deposit two paychecks (yay again!).


• Find my frigging cell phone.


• Maybe take a walk.


• Work on a new section for the museum's website, now that I have the info I needed.

I'm also feeling a tiny itching to come up with a new blog layout. I don't know what it would have on it (but it might possibly involve Sailor Mercury...) and I do really like the layout I have. It's just that the whole transparency thing is really annoying me - how it works, except that the images are transparent too so you can't see them well until they are over the plain background and not the picture. I think in the meantime I will just take the transparency out. *sigh*

Bryon emailed me twice in the past two days, wahooo! He got his laptop, and his birthday presents (Game Boy Advance SP, wheee!). I'm so glad to know that. I mailed another package out to him yesterday.

Ok, I'm off to shower so I can start Getting Things Done.

Picturrrrrrres.

Well, today I had sushi (real sushi) for the first time. I got my parents to go to the new Japanese restaurant in town. We had a fun waiter, and I had this lovely plate of sushi, with tuna/cucumber/red pepper in rolls with nori wrapped around them; sliced salmon on top of rice rolls; and California rolls with crab meat in them. Mmmm. Stayed away from the wasabi, though.

I also (finally) loaded the pictures from my camera into the computer. It's been a while. So, let's see... here's all the origami stuff I've made over the past few days:



And here's the gorgeous crabapple tree in our yard, in full bloom.



And finally... the roundest, flattest potato chip I've ever seen. Ok, I didn't say they were GREAT pictures.



Anyway... last night at 10 pm my brother and I made a Walmart run, so I could buy Kill Bill. Now that I know Bryon's seen vol. 2 already, I'm itching to go - but I have no one to go with. So I've convinced Brion to watch vol. 1, then go see 2 with me. Neither of us is that big a Quentin Tarantino fan - we've never seen any of his other movies. But Kill Bill was really impressive.

I finished another book, too, and I will soon post the review in my book blog. Oh yeah, I also dropped off my key at my old job today, and gave my ex-boss her present. I hope likes it (and knows what it is - I told her if she didn't know to email me or something). :D

No word from Bryon; his mom did stop by and drop off a large yellow ribbon magnet, some window decals, and a lovely "yellow ribbon pin" from Avon. I hope I hear from him tomorrow.

I'm too tired to even come up with a subject line. Last night I was up until 2:30 making a knitting needle roll for my former boss. She has a ton of needles which she inherited from her grandmother, and she just has a plastic tube to keep them in. I hope she enjoys it. When I get up the energy, I'm going to make one for myself to match my knitting bag, but right now I can't face it. I need to come up with a better way to keep my lines straight - invest in chalk or a removable marking pen or something. All in all it went well - a second successful sewing project.

Work is work. Today was kind of rough in spots, but overall it was fine. Just... every hour felt like three hours.

Bryon called me the night before last, around 4 am. I talked to him for about 20 mins or so, and in the morning I checked for the email he said he'd sent - it was huge! I actually had to scroll down. That never happens, because he's not a speedy typer and he only gets half an hour online at a time. So, love, I just want to say again how much I appreciated the effort.

As it turns out, it was his company who found the hostage guy who escaped a few days ago! Or, perhaps he found them. It sounded like he heard tanks/trucks going by, and went looking for them. This is also cool, since these are Bryon's guys too.

So um... war sucks. And I miss my boyfriend. I will post pics of the needle roll when I have the time and energy to do so. I don't have a day off again til Saturday, so it could be that long before I even post again.

Ac-cow-mplishments.

Well, it was another day off. What did I accomplish?

* Finished my laundry.
* Got groceries.
* Made dinner.
* Found the bead stuff to give to Bert at work; thus began a weeding out/organizing session for my craft stuff.
* Finally made a pillow out of this latch-hook project I did when I was somewhere around 12. Now I have to figure out what the heck to do with it... it's a big cow face with a bright blue background; not exactly my taste in throw pillows. Sheesh.
* Reeeeeeeally enjoyed the day off again.

I will also enjoy the fact that tomorrow (while admittedly I originally had the day off), I will be making 15 dollars an hour. Yay. :) No word from Bryon today though. Boo. Of course, looking at the news, that's not surprising. *sigh*

I'm off to sew, knit, or read - maybe a little of each. For anyone who cares, I finished the Bonnie and Clyde book and updated Readbooks. I have no idea when my next day off will be.