Miscellany of a Cheshire Cat

I may be missing out on lots of New England Autumn Colors, but I do have some colors of my own to show off. My pepper plants are producing some lovely colors. Spicy, colorful tastiness!

In other news, I am having a terribly domestic weekend.

This weekend has yielded an apple pie, a pumpkin pie and 6+ dinners worth of meatballs. The pies are almost gone thanks to very helpful people last night. The meatballs are stashed in the freezer except for the ones I saved out for tonight’s dinner. I also froze 3 packages of Anaheim and Hungarian yellow peppers. I also reorganized the pesky Corner Cabinet of Entropy. Two IKEA lazy susans are finally in place which should help fight the entropy. Maybe.

I even made breakfast today with possibly the most amazing challah I’ve every tasted. Yes, Annyswolf’s honey vanilla challah is positively sublime. Thank you so much for sending it along to bonk the Fop with! (Long story… with a tasty challah ending.)

tags: baking, challah, colors, cooking, domesticity, gardening, hot peppers

Happy First Day of AUTUMN! Welcome Fall! YAY! (I got 6 million mosquito bites while taking that photo.)

Endangered Words ALERT! Dictionary compilers are discriminating against obscure words! The TimesOnline has a list of words due to be culled from the next edition of the Collins dictionary and I’m sure there are other dictionary editors feeling the crunch. What I find counterintuitive is that editors are inclined to remove the most obscure words - these are the very words for which we find ourselves going to the dictionary!

Apple has recalled the iPhone 3G UltraCompact adapter. According to the recall notice, the prongs may break off in an outlet.

According to the Consumerist, there are 10 critical skills to have now that the economy has tanked. #10 is Food Preservation, which was on my list next anyway. I like #8 as well (Learn a Second Language). #4 is Cooperation, another key skill we all should have learned in kindergarten but seem to have forgotten sometime during the dot-com boom. It’s a very practical list - check it out.

dPS has an awesome tutorial up explaining how to make digital photos look like Lomo photography. I need to find time to follow the instructions.

My congestion is finally starting to let go. My voice is still a bit off. I feel like I have most of my brain cells back. After a week of congestion, sniffles, sneezing and general unhappiness with my head and sinuses, I’m rather happy to be feeling so well.

tags: apple, economy, english, iphone, language, photography, random, recall, technology, writing

So, not feeling well this afternoon, I went back to bed around 2:30 complete with pajamas. I read for a bit, because I’m incredibly hooked on my current book. Then I read for a while longer, despite not being able to actually keep my eyes focused for very long. Finally I put the book down and slept until 7:30 or so. I can’t say it felt like great sleep but it was good enough sleep. I got up and had popcorn for dinner. Now I’m contemplating going back to bed soon. Maybe I’ll watch an episode of something on my computer just to give the useless Tylenol a chance to kick in. I want to finish my book! There are 2 more in the series! I just have to be careful the next couple nights not to stay up too late reading it.

That is all… tired now.

tags: health, reading, sleep

Technically, today was cooler than the past few days. Technically. I’m not actually sure I believe it, but maybe it’s the heat catching up with me. I am more than ready to be on vacation. Seriously. I have dealt with double my quota of stupid people today. Stupid people and heat make me cranky all by themselves… together, monster-cranky.

So here is a pretty flower from my garden. It makes me less cranky. Sleep, sleep will be nice for reducing the cranky too I think. I love sleep. Yay sleep. Good night!

tags: flowers, heat, photographs, photography, roses, stupid people, weather

That’s right… I have fierce Mouse Guard action figures! They are so cute! Er… FIERCE! My darlingest Fop brought them to me before he went off to fencing practice so I have fierce MOUSE GUARD mice to protect me while he’s off doing swooshy-pokey things with the Tadcasters.

I have some of the most adorable creatures on the planet to comfort me until David Petersen publishes the next issue of Mouse Guard.

I saw my latest chiropractor this morning. My lower back is behaving nicely and required only cursory poking. My neck is much improved but my knee is being stubborn. As an added bonus, Dr. “I’m going to poke all your nerves really really hard” decided to work the muscles in my left shoulder to release some of the grick and stress in the interest of my neck’s continued improvement. I’m actually surprised I didn’t hit him. I wanted to. I threatened to. He giggled. Yep, giggled. I like him. And the shoulder felt good, for about 8 hours… now it’s really sore yet somehow still feels better than it did. I continue to chug down water.

Saxon, Kenzie and Lieam (the Mouse Guard trio) are currently keeping my desk very safe. Time to go to sleep!

tags: action figures, chiropractor, comics, cuteness, health, mouse guard, shoulder, stress

So, while I was home in Maine my little brother grinned with glee, took my camera and scampered (yes, scampered) to the attic of Dad’s garage with the comment, “Oh you’ve got to have a picture of this!” And this is how I ended up with the Shag King on my camera. The Shag King is, naturally, a vacuum attachment for the 30+ year old Kirby vacuum cleaner in my parents’ house. Presumably, if it were attached to said Kirby and pointed at some shag carpet, the Shag King would indeed voraciously devour all dirt in its shaggy path.

I have redrafted the pattern for Fop Pants and cut out a pair. I have more fabric in the dryer. Apparently I’m still procrastinating my Viking apron dresses. I’ve got plenty of pre-Pennsic projects to do it with too.

tags: attachment, dad’s attic, kirby, random, sewing, shag king, vacuum cleaner

For those keeping score at home, this is the 75th episode of Monster Cat!

It was a terribly hot weekend. Saturday the cats were left alone to be lumps around the house. They were very glad to see us when we got home. Since their food dishes weren’t empty, I have to assume their happiness was due to the fact that our thumbs would soon turn some AC. They did look a little wilted in their little fur coats. Sunday we did very little. I organized some sewing stuff and poked around at bits of my desk. I’m achieving greater organization but slowly. Tennyson spent the day finding the best angle on the Vornado fan. I am happy to report that it circulates air very well, even with a large, gray cat in the way!

More comics at: The Chronicles of Monster Cat

tags: cats, comics, heat, monster cat, organization, silly, tennyson, weaterh, weekend

If you’re like me and only remember/care about the dream sequences from The Cell and though they were glorious, you might be interested in the interview with the director, Tarsem, up on the AV Club. Tarsem himself admits to only taking the job so he could do the dream scenes. He’s got a new film coming to theaters: The Fall. I’m curious to see it as it sounds fascinating. Take a look at the stills or watch the trailer. It just looks like such an awesome trip.

In other news, I have 3 rose blossoms going full force in the garden and I’m considering starting construction on an ark. It’s been gray and raining here for what feels like a couple weeks. The basement seems the perfect place to test prototypes too. I really wish the washer and dryer were on the drier side of the basement. I don’t mind a wet basement but I do mind not being able to do laundry!

tags: ark, house, movies, photography, phtographs, rain, tarsem, the cell, the fall, weather

Another favorite quilt from the quilt show last month - this one is titled “Persephone” and was quilted by Peg Collins of Alamosa, Colorado. (Sometimes I did successfully get the info card in the photo!) I love that the edge of her gown is the edge of the quilt. The division between winter and summer is perhaps predictable but beautiful all the same. Persephone seemed an appropriate quilt to post for May Day.

More garden work is planned for today after work, which also seems appropriate. I want to get those beds prepped for planting before I go away next week. (I fly out Sunday, actually.)

No cat casualties yet today but Tennyson is definitely pushing it.

Coffee was applied early and will be applied often today. I didn’t sleep well and needed my brain to be awake for my 9 a.m. meeting. And my 9:30 meeting. Whee! All went well and productively so the coffee must have worked. But how long will it last?

tags: chicago, coffee, gardening, international quilt show, may day, persephone, quilts, sleep

Wednesday… half way through the week! HURRAY!

This quilt caught my eye because it was quilted with metallic thread and the whole piece really worked. I love little vines like that and the flowers are beautifully done. The dragonflies or butterflies are lovely - not so cute as to detract from the fantasy feel of the quilt as a whole. Plus the detail-work on the dragonflies is just amazing. I’m apparently a sucker for tiny stitches, especially if I didn’t have to sew them myself!

This evening I spent about an hour taming one little corner of the garden. (And it wore me out!) 2 little shrubs and 1 big, flowering, tree-like thing are now more under control. I had meant to turn the beds as I want to add a little topsoil and plant my peppers and herbs out that way… however that didn’t quite work out. I got distracted by the big, flowering, tree-like thing - it always wants a lot of pruning and has tons of dead branch bits. Now it has significantly fewer dead bits and is less intrusive on the yard.

I also pulled the latest crop of ivy off the side of the house. I always feel slightly sinister pulling ivy off the house - I have pure hatred for the horrible vine that can do much damage to the stone walls. Okay, maybe I feel more than “slightly” sinister. It feels so odd to hate something so green and lively. But the ivy wants to consume my house so it must be stopped.

Hopefully tomorrow I’ll find some time to turn the beds and run out to pick up a couple bags of topsoil to cut the clay a bit. I wonder if this weekend is too soon to put the seedlings in the ground… I’ll have to ask my Dad about that. They’re still pretty short, except the chives - the chives are ready to take over the world I think.

I’m having a remarkably productive week at work so far too. Yes, I’m startled by this myself. I think the vacation was well timed. We have a lot of big status meetings to prep project managers for in the next month. It’ll be crazy. I wonder how long this fabulous focus and mental energy will last. Luckily, today Tennyson has stayed off my conference calls as well as my computers. He’s snoozing comfortably in his bed on the corner of my desk right now. Very cute, very non-hazardous in his current state!

And I just now noticed that the rainbow-maker is not on the window… I’ll have to see if it fell.

tags: chicago, gardening, international quilt show, quilts, yard work