is anyone out there?

Hello blog land? I'm back!

Since the last time I blogged I...

-graduated college
-moved out of San Francisco and back with... my parents
-got a full time job
-stopped sewing
-ended my 5 year relationship
-had the most epic fun summer ever in the history of my life
-lost my job
-started sewing

So, now that I'm unemployed (but diligently looking for work) I now have time to...
-go to the gym, which I hate more than anything
-sell a bunch of junk of craigslist and ebay
-finish some quilts I started, and of course start some more
-do a craft show, which was an EPIC FAIL
-list all my unsold things from the craft fair (um, all of them) on etsy
-make some Christmas presents
-do my hair fancy every single day! This brings me great excitement.
-blog. See?

I was hesitant to start blogging again because my interests are all over the place these days. I read as many fashion and music blogs as I do sewing ones. So my genius plan is to smoosh it all in to one blog. Maybe cover what I'm sewing, what I'm wearing and what I'm listening to in each post. That sounds like a surefire way to alienate every reader in some way but I'll give it a go and see what happens.

and because blogs are no fun without pictures, this is the thing I miss most about San Francisco... watching the sun set over the ocean every single day.

summer summer summertime

Ayyy. I love summer despite the fact that I'm in summer school. I only have classes 2 days a week right now, so I've been spending a lot of time cooking, sleeping, sewing and all of the other things that I don't do very much during the regular school year. Somehow my camera is lost in my apartment, which makes me think I should replace some of my sleeping with cleaning.

Highlights of the summer so far:

-getting a brand spanking new Kitchenaid stand mixer for $163 out the door at a department store closing. I told the lady that was ringing me up that I thought I'd have to get married to get one of these mixers. Thank you, recession; you came through for me again.

-while walking to my apartment, Matt saying "look, an Irish flag in the window," and pumping his fists in a fit of Irish pride; when I looked up at the window, a naked man jumped on to the windowsill and shook his junk right at us while Matt was still pumping his fists in the air. Talk about delayed reaction!

-getting to spend 2 weeks with my dogs while my parents were on vacation. I really miss those stinky little monsters. I also miss living in a house, with a yard, and a barbeque, and a car. My life in SF is great in it's own way, but I spent 19 years in  the suburbs and it's just such a comfortable, easy way of life. I can't wait to go back on a more permanent basis.  

-on a high note, I finally saw the bird that wakes me up every morning. I've been trying for a year to see what bird(s) made the song. I finally did when I was walking home from the bodega. It's a tiny little thing--I was expecting something bigger.

-seeing 'Up.' It was pretty heavy for a kids movie, but I really liked it. Matt went to the bathroom and proclaimed that we were never seeing a kids movie in public again, even if we have kids. Apparently, unsupervised little boys don't keep a public bathroom very tidy.

-starting and finishing an entire quilt top in 4 days using comfortstitching's half hexagon tutorial.

-did I mention the sleeping, sewing and cooking? WOW. I just love it.

I hope that in the next few days I can find my camera and post some pictures. Nobody reads posts without words so I better find that camera!

guinea pig parenting at it's finest

I'm so lame for not posting in 3 weeks!

I've had a really long, tiring few weeks getting ready for finals. On Wednesday, I had the biggest presentation of the semester and got to play business lady for an hour. Just when I thought I could rest easy, Frankenstein got sick and kept me up literally all night with a horrible choking sound. I spent Thursday at the vet watching him get violated in every oriface possible. He made so many poops that they had to change the towel FOUR TIMES. I was half way expecting them to charge me for all the laundry they were going to have to do.

In the end, Frankenstein doesn't have any internal problem (that she could find) but she thinks maybe he choked on his food and had an irritation in this throat. He did have a skin problem and got some medicine for it. He acted very unlike himself the rest of the day and I was pretty convinced that there was still something very wrong. I really thought that he was going to die from the stress (2 cab rides, nails clipped, his mouth washed out with solution, a phsyical examination, skin scrapings, eye exam, his temperature "the hard way".) Guinea pigs handle stress 2 ways: they freeze or they stampede. Frankenstein spent all day at the vets trying to stampede, and all night frozen at home. He wouldn't look at me and when I turned his house around so I could see him through the door, he would turn it back around so I couldn't see him. I just cried and cried and cried. Today he is back to his cute, squeaking, carrot-loving self so hopefully things will keep getting better. I just hate giving him medicine and I can't stop thinking about his tiny little liver trying to metabolize the drug. Ugh. It kills me.

The only highlight of the day was the cab ride home.

Cab driver: I never see a bird that looks like that before.

Me: It's a guinea pig, it's a rodent...kind of like a rabbit.

Cab Driver: ...So what kind of bird is it?

would you like some cookies?

My parents have a sign in their window that says ‘no solicitiation…unless you’re selling cookies, then it’s ok.’ I made it and put it up because Girl Scouts truly are the only people welcome at my door without an invitation. When I was growing up, it was normal for people to come to the door to sell you food. Most of my summertime calories as a child came in the form of half-melted ice cream from a one-armed Indian man that drove a rusty truck full of freezers down my block. It was fantastic. Sometimes the doorbell would ring and I’d look out the window and see a little man with a dolly laden with boxes of un-ripened strawberries waiting patiently at the door. “Fresas, lady?” Sometimes the door-to-door tamale lady would come by but that is where I draw the line. I do not buy tamales from strangers that come to my door. That’s just ridiculous.
Anyway, I digress. Imagine my shock and awe when I opened my apartment door and found two little girls with a basket of cookies greeting me. This was an awesome surprise since I live in a security building with fancy key codes and secret cameras. How did these girls find their way in? Maybe they live here. I didn’t have time to learn the logistics; the point was that they have cookies and they were AT MY DOOR. I asked if they had any Caramel Delights, to which they replied, ‘no, but we have Samoas.’ What? Samoas? WHAT?! Just a week before, Matt’s mom had emailed me to tell me that the Girl Scouts had changed the name of my most favorite cookie ever, the Samoa, to ‘Caramel Delights’ for some unknown reason. She even bought me a box to 'Caramel Delights' to show me. It was then that I realized that these girls just looked like regular girls, not scouts. They were wearing Hannah Montana shirts and no green sashes or berets. They had no badges and I had no reason to believe that they were anything but Disney loving girls who robbed some legitimate Girl Scouts of their cookies and then broke in to my building to sell the black market confectionaries.
I bought a box… but not the Samoas. I just felt weird. I got the shortbreads instead. I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. However, these girls needed to be praised for their bravery of doing door to door to all the crazies (myself included.) I have been eating one cookie a day so that of they were poised by these “Girl Scouts” maybe I wouldn’t die so quickly. These cookies have been a constant source of paranoia for me for a WEEK now. A whole week.
Imagine my surprise and relief when I was riding the train this weekend and happened to look out the window at the perfect moment and saw MY Girl Scouts in uniform with a table full of cookies. I will probably eat the whole rest of the box of cookies today.
I looked in to it more and it turns out that the name of the cookie is dependent on what company the troop buys their cookies from. So 'Caramel Delights' are legit, though still not as catchy as 'Samoas.' I remain suspicious about that whole situation, though.