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The End of the Year

I hope you all have been having a nice holiday season. I’ve been pretty much going non stop in December since our office has a lot of parties and I’ve had my yearly MOJITO overindulgence (always lovely to stay to the very end of an outing when you have had too many mojitos, haha!) – there’s this restaurant in Walnut Creek called Havana and it has amazing Cuban food and super delicious mojitos. HIGHLY recommended, and I think I will probably organize an outing there for my birthday next year. Crab cakes, cuban sandwiches and mojitos! A great way to ring in the big 33, yeah? Heh.

So, since I haven’t really posted since the beginning of November, I thought I would update on Operation Home Improvement Dammit. Updates in red:

  1. Clear out second closet completely, bins, dresses, paint, foam bed thing, everything. Actually unpack bins and put things away and/or get rid of stuff. DONE
  2. Move filing cabinet from big closet to second closet. Decided not to do this, it’s fine in the big closet.
  3. Install shelving into second closet so it can be a linen closet (which I don’t have – my linens live piled in a cardboard box, as they have since 2009. Oops. For someone who has a generous amount of sheet sets and towels, this is vaguely embarrassing. DONE. Installed gorgeous Algots from Ikea, which fit all my stuff with a drawer to spare and put Melmers on top for the nail polish collection. It’s literally my favorite place in the house right now.
  4. Get massive Star Wars collection out of the den and into the big closet, where the filing cabinet was. My Star Wars crap is stored in two very large bins under the bar section of my kitchen counter (on the den side). I want to get at least one bar stool to place there instead. DONE – Star Wars bins are in the small closet. Didn’t get a bar stool yet, still pondering that one.
  5. Clean out old clothes/shoes, stored clothes at bottom of the big closet, and donate to the Richmond Rescue Mission. Mostly done – need to go through my shoes, but I have a big bag of clothes in my car to be taken down to Teen Challenge on Saturday.
  6. Move shoe bin of shoes I actually wear to big closet instead of under vanity. DONE
  7. See if I can get purple luggage set into either big or second closet OR store outside in the shed. NOPE
  8. Move paint to shed. NOPE, but I did put some it in the china hutch, haha
  9. Clear off vanity of clothes thrown on it and chair, move makeup train case to vanity from bathroom and maybe get a Melmer from Michael’s to hold the nail polishes. Also get a 5x magnifying mirror for the space and move some of the other makeup crap from the bathroom to the vanity. DONE. Vanity is cleared off and Melmers installed in closet. And Abby got me a magnifying mirror for Christmas!
  10. Clear out vanity drawers (I don’t think there’s too much stuff in them) NOPE, in fact I crammed more stuff in them right before Christmas Eve.
  11. Cull books and donate to WC Library foundation for fundraisers. Did a little of this, but I decided that more needs to be done. My dad picked up a box full of books earlier this month.
  12. Straighten up living room and get cow horns up on the wall (not sure how to attach, need to check 3M products if they have a narrow hook to hang it – can’t really use a nail because the area where I want to hang it is right behind the stove vent and power outlets above the microwave in the kitchen) DONE
  13. Move old computers and Harry Potter Legos from the living room into now-organized closets. Harry Potter Legos might go into the craft room closet, but that is another disaster for another day. Moved Harry Potter Legos but didn’t get around to moving the computers.
  14. Unpack new dishes and pots and get them into rotation – clean out old dishes and pots and donate to the foster kid program (for kids who age out of the foster care system and don’t really have anything to start out with – a program I hugely support! I think these kids are often forgotten about in the grand scheme of society.) NOPE
  15. Move sconces from foyer to flank college diploma over bookshelf. I ordered a large print to hang in the foyer that I’ve been wanting. NOPE, mostly because I didn’t get around to moving the computers, which hamper access to the wall. Oh well. I did get the print up under the cow horns though.
  16. Replace pinch pleat curtain hooks – the hooks have disintegrated and I need to reinstall new hooks along the rod and rehang the curtains. I’m pretty peeved about this because I feel like I JUST replaced the one set, but what are you going to do? The sliders are plastic and don’t cost very much. I did one set of curtains but I still need to do another one, and to be honest, until these totally fall off, it’s not going to happen because changing out pinch pleat sliders SUCKS SO MUCH.

So, in conclusion, all the big projects got done! I’m super proud of myself for buckling down and getting the closet cleaned out and organized. So thrilled with the closet in fact that sometime next year I’m going to tackle the studio closet which has been a disaster from day one. Those Algots are great and I think they could be good in the studio but I have to measure in there – not sure if the closets are the same size or what. Also I don’t think I need the same size Algots, I think I can get the smaller/lower ones.

Nail Polish Melmers + Algots from Ikea! My favorite closet! Yay space for linens!
Nail Polish Melmers + Algots from Ikea! My favorite closet! Yay space for linens!

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The first weekend in December Abby and I went to see the Lion King at the Orpheum in San Francisco. It was really pretty amazing! As we all know, I am NOT a theatre person (for the most part, I truly dislike going to the theatre, not sure why, but I find it extremely tedious) so when I do go, I hope it’s very special. Most of the time it’s not and I can’t say that I liked the one Cirque du Soleil show I’ve been to, but I was relieved that I enjoyed the Lion King. The costumes and animal devices were really cool. I was a little thrown by the Timon costume/puppet but once you got past it, it was fine.

We went to high tea again with the Nice Family ladies on Dec 15, this time at a place in Lafayette, and it was good but not as good as Lovejoy’s in San Francisco (though I think we started with the best and every other place will be compared slightly unfavorably, hah). Our group was loud and scared away the other group in the room. Sorry ladies! But not really.

Christmas Eve was at my house again and it went really well. I get pretty stressed when people come over, especially so many of them. But everything was fine and nothing got broken like last year, and it was nice to hang out with my cousins – and we finally met two of the girlfriends. Christmas Day was at my uncle’s house and my cousin was there with her baby, who is pretty adorable – at that smiley, giggly stage and scooting around, putting everything he can reach in his mouth. Aw, babies!

I’m off for the full week of New Years, but I was back at work after Christmas. I’ll be heading down to LA for New Years Eve, then back up to the Bay for the rest of the week, just to relax and hang out at home. I *might* go to the Hobby Lobby in Stockton but honestly I don’t know if I’ll want to do any more driving around after going to LA and back. I want to go to the big new flagship Walgreens in Hollywood while I’m there (they have INGLOT there!) – hopefully with Sarah but if not (based on number of children she has with her that day), I’ll go by myself, and see if my cousin Alex is around and grab some coffee or something with him. He lives in Venice Beach so it’s not totally out of the realm of possibility. Also he yelled at me the last time I was in LA and didn’t tell him, heh.

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CRAFTING 2012

Even though I've been a remiss blogger this year, I did a lot of stuff – made a lot of jewelry and knit a few things. This year was not a big year for knitting. I had hoped to reach at least the same amount of items as last year (a whopping six) and I didn't, alas. I made four hats and one shawl. Two hats were great, two were kind of duds. The shawl was fabulous.

2012-12-28

Clockwise from top left Topiary Beanie (Weekend Hats by Cecily MacDonald& Melissa LaBarre), Ruche (Weekend Hats), Daybreak Shawl (Stephen West), Fern Glade Hat (Megan Marshall via Knitty), and Long Leaves Beanie (Weekend Hats).

At some point earlier this year I was on a hat kick and I went with it. The Weekend Hats book is pretty great and I started knitting through all the patterns I liked. There's still three or four that I wouldn't mind knitting. I don't feel like knitting hats much anymore (compared to when I first started knitting, that's all I ever knit) so when the urge strikes I just go go go until I'm tired of it. Of the above four hats, two are iffy in their success and the other two turned out fabulous.

Topiary and Ruche didn't turn out the way I hoped. Topiary is much (much!!) too long, but circumference-wise fits fine and it pretty cute even if I have to roll the back so it fits better. I knit it out of Madelinetosh Vintage which is soooo nice! Ruche – I think something might have been wrong with the pattern because I wound up with far too many stitches after the foldover row so I wound up doing five foldovers instead of three. Now it fits weird. Probably because my head is big. I will probably try to find somebody it fits and give it to them. I also didn't care for the yarn much (one of the Vickie Howell yarns – color's great but it was hard to work with).

The other hats, Long Leaves and Fern Glade turned out great. Long Leaves is one of my favorite hats ever, knit out of Lorna's Laces Shephard Worsted in Ysolda Red (I don't know if it's called that still, the website calls a similar color Bold Red). What a treat to knit with! It's a great color and pattern. It's also the perfect beanie length – it covers my ears perfectly! Fern Glade I actually did futz around with – it's not written for heavy worsted yarn, it's written for DK weight and I was using Madelinetosh Chunky so I adjusted the pattern accordingly. It didn't turn out quite as beret-ish as I wanted but I think a more severe blocking over a plate would help that. Also my mom wears her hats farther back on her head than I do, so her bangs show (I can't seem to do this without the hat falling off) so it may be baggier on her than me. At any rate, great pattern, great yarn!

Some jewelry highlights:

Hey, look at me, inserting a gallery into a post! Go me! I wish I'd taken a picture of the awesome Southwestern-style turquoise necklace I made my mom for Christmas, it turned out really nice.

This year I went to a lot of bead shows – both of the big ones at the Oakland Marriott, and at least two up in Sacramento. I believe I even popped over to the one they started having at the Hilton in Concord. I only consciously skipped one of them – at a certain point in October I was just plain exhausted and didn't want to drive up to Sacramento again so I bailed on that one, but it was like three weeks before the huge Bay Area Bead Extravaganza (BABE!) so I wasn't too bummed about it. I got pretty tired of driving around everywhere and being busy every weekend, so I can't say that I regret missing a Gem Faire, especially when I have a room full of awesome bead stash.

So what's on the agenda for next year? Well, more resin – I didn't do too much this year, but I bought a bunch of new molds in Texas that I haven't tried out yet (bracelet molds and other shapes) and my Michael's finally started carrying the new Jewelry Resin I've been wanting to try. At BABE! I got some of the Vintaj patinas and I did patina a bunch of my filigrees, though I haven't done much with them yet.

I don't have anything planned knitting-wise. Even though I finished a hat in December I'm just not in the mood right now. Maybe it will come back – I have to repair my King George Mitts which have some inexplicable holes in them, and I would like to knit a pair of gloves at some point, but I really have to be in the mood. Maybe going to Stitches in February will jumpstart it! Or not, hah.

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Foxy Fall

Foxy Fall

Dang bros, so I hate when things I've connected from the back end update my other stuff without telling me, but hey, let's use this as an excuse to update my dear, neglected BLOG. Poor blog, so neglected and dusty.

I've been playing around on Polyvore a little during lunch, and what I like to do most on Polyvore is create outfits with things I already own, or close proximates. Obviously I don't own $185 jeans. Or Toms (yet?). But I do have that fox sweater (alas, it has disappeared from the website, only a week after I bought it, but the owl and sheep ones are still there) and I have that giraffe scarf, purchased at Target in Pinole about a year ago. This may be my casual Friday outfit. Or maybe SPARKLEPYRES PART 4 outfit on Saturday (did Malvina and I get advanced tickets to see the last installment of Twilight? MAYBE).

I don't even know what to talk about, it's been so long since I updated. 

I've mostly been working around the house and being busy doing other things, like working on OPERATION HOME IMPROVEMENT, which stalled rather impressively with the delivery of a new china hutch that I felt compelled to paint turquoise. With that done, and one closet cleaned out, I now have to clean up the living room A LOT and vaccuum A LOT all of the dust and paint detritus of various projects I've been working on around the house. I did remember after the hutch adventure that I totally hate painting. Good times! But the hutch looks nice. 

I got a Melmer for my nail polishes, which are now stored in the cleaned out closet over my linens situation. I filled up the entire Melmer in one go so now I need another one; I'm just waiting for another 50% off coupon for Michael's to drop in on me. I suspect with Black Friday next week (already!) that I will get lucky. I read somewhere that a Melmer holds like 400 nail polishes. I don't think that's true, but I stopped counting after 250. (Basically I've been spending my yarn money on nail polishes this year.)

Speaking of nail polishes, I went slightly nuts this month and got a bunch of Deborah Lippmann sets and some other things (my first Cult Nails purchase!). In the next few months and particularly next year I will be tightening my belt and not buying stuff so I am basically having a last hurrah before having no fun. Or rather, buying less stuff than usual. *cough*cough* Also it's almost Christmas and I need to stop buying nail polish and finish up getting Christmas presents. Here's what I got so far (that I could find pics of.) (Because I got like four of the China Glaze holiday collection and I found some stuff on sale places…)

November '12 Nail Polish Haul (so far)

Haha, I'm the worst. 

Till next time folks! 😛