Went to the Mt. St. Helens Bluegrass Festival in Toledo, WA. I learned a new tune--or at least, how to play it on guitar: Rickett's Hornpipe. Also got to hear some great local and semi-local bands, plus one of the greatest female vocalists in bluegrass today: Dale Ann Bradley. Her band is awesome, too, especially her current mandolin player, Chris Harris. That young man is going places.
Drank many, many cups of coffee, many of them at Mud Bay Coffee. I'm still mourning being on the other side of town, though in all other ways my move was a good thing. It was nice revisiting some, and I have plenty of their coffee beans on hand for at home.
Also had way too much junk food and such: a Dairy Queen Blizzard, chips and dip, my first hamburger and fries in a long while. And got my first ever Papa Murphy's pizza. I didn't have a working oven in the last place, so I couldn't have baked one until recently. I got The Cowboy: Italian sausage, pepperoni, mushrooms, black olives, cheese. Good stuff, though next time I want more vegetables. There will be a next time. Mmmm....pizza.
Drank about a glass and a half of wine, all told. A real party girl, I am.
Went on a couple nice long walks with thedog. I love my trail...
Read an average of a book a day. Mmmm....books. I also spent an afternoon at the library, and much time at Goodwills looking through the book section, among other things. I pretty much hit every thrift store within easy driving distance. My wild and crazy fun is not your average wild and crazy fun.
Speaking of books, I blew a Border's 33% off coupon on Connie Willis' Blackout, which I just read but want to read again before All Clear comes out, and I don't feel like getting back into the waiting game with the library hold queue, since I can't predict when I'll actually get a book that way. Now it's mine--all mine! Bwahahah....
Wrote a lot in my journal, and bits and pieces of stories. I didn't do as much writing as I intended, honestly. It's the sitting down and starting that's the hardest part. I did, however, in the last few days, finally get my writing space organized and continued working on some short stories I had set aside.
(I also reorganized my bookshelves, and at the moment I actually have more shelf space than books. This must be remedied ASAP.)
I went to The Tea Lady (awesome store, by the way, and highly recommended for anyone who even vaguely likes tea) and got some nice orange cinnamon spice tea, and the package of blueberry rooibos I've been coveting. It smells sooo good, that blueberry tea! Good stuff, too. It's a nice evening beverage, whilst reading a book. No caffeine.
Went to Shipwreck Beads and got stuff to make more earrings. That store...it's hard to even convey it in words. It's enormous, and there's nothing like being able to actually handle the beads, hold colors together for comparison. The hardest part of visiting is narrowing down what one wants to buy.
Got Avatar from Redbox and watched it. This is the first time I've turned on the TV since I switched off cable back in June, and it took me awhile to get everything going. I spent quite awhile searching for the remote before remembering that the all-in-one was Comcast's. Duh.
The movie itself? Hm. I'd heard it called Disney's Pocahantas in space, and I think that's pretty close to the mark. The story is pretty cliched. You've got the native princess who sticks up for one of the invaders even though he starts off as a misunderstanding, boorish lout. You've got the eeeevil, greedy invaders (updated by Hollywood into representatives of the military and the corporate world) who see the natives as subhuman and expendable and just want them gone so they can steal their property. Etc. That said, it's a very pretty movie. The animation and real footage are almost seamlessly combined, more so than anything I've ever seen before, and the planet (Pandora) is gorgeous.
All in all, I rolled my eyes a number of times, but still enjoyed it.
I didn't end up going anywhere very far or very out of the norm. It's not really something to do alone, I guess. It's one of the biggest problems with being perpetually single, especially if your friends and family all have families of their own. If they do think to invite you when they go on vacation, you're a third wheel, not really sure what to do with yourself, but most vacation fun stuff is really meant for couples and families, especially in the realm of the cheap and free. And yes, I am left feeling a little wistful. It's inevitable, I suppose. Another year, when I'm not so broke, I want to go back home, to visit Dad and hang out with my sister and visit my old haunts and break more out of my day to day.
But for what it was, it was a very successful vacation.
Showing posts with label Shipwreck beads. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Shipwreck beads. Show all posts
Sunday, August 22, 2010
Monday, April 26, 2010
Oh, the craftiness of me
Yesterday I once again went to Shipwreck Beads. Click on the link and scroll down a bit for much better pictures than I originally posted--gives you an idea of the scale and variety of the place. It's mind-blowing.
My sister and I had already picked up some beads, but not some other essentials like, say, an actual tool of any kind. Or the right sort of wire--for earrings, the easiest method is to start with a "head pin," which is a short section of wire with a knob or loop on one end to anchor the beads. You string on your beads, loop the other end (trimming off excess if needed) around a hook or fastener of some sort, and voila, earrings! At least, in theory. In practice, it takes...well, practice. My first set turned out nicely from a color perspective, but don't look too closely at the bent parts....
I also made a pair of very simple green fiber optic bead earrings, and a pair of earrings using those crazy rubber beads I mentioned last week. The final and most ambitious project of the day was to use the dangly-earring frames my sister had picked up, thinking they'd at least be an interesting experiment, just to see if we could do it. I think they turned out rather well!
The wire loops aren't altogether even, and some of the wood beads are more apt than others to half eat the beads next to them, making it tricky to keep them all together. They're actually tidier in person, since I had these laid out on a flat surface rather than hanging, and it was tough to get all the bits and pieces to lay out nicely.
They only swing at the top. There are additional pliers you can get to do chain work, and though that's probably more complicated than I want to deal with right now, I could see working up to that. I like dangly earrings....
In other news, my sister fairly suddenly decided to abandon the Washington relocation idea--she had a friend coming through town, and hitched a ride. So...there's that. I now suddenly have an office / writing space I need to set up, and I guess need to get my mind back to where I was and all the things I planned to do before she arrived with equal suddenness. I think my plan is to keep the computer where it is in my room, and leave that new room pretty much an analog only sort of space, with no distractions except maybe a music source. It'll be a nice writing space--it's nice and bright and has a view out the window. I need more plants, I think. And to set up my far too many pen cups and notepads and Circa stuff and index card boxes and...all the other stuff that has spent the last month or so crammed into drawers and boxes. Oh, to write again....
My sister and I had already picked up some beads, but not some other essentials like, say, an actual tool of any kind. Or the right sort of wire--for earrings, the easiest method is to start with a "head pin," which is a short section of wire with a knob or loop on one end to anchor the beads. You string on your beads, loop the other end (trimming off excess if needed) around a hook or fastener of some sort, and voila, earrings! At least, in theory. In practice, it takes...well, practice. My first set turned out nicely from a color perspective, but don't look too closely at the bent parts....
I also made a pair of very simple green fiber optic bead earrings, and a pair of earrings using those crazy rubber beads I mentioned last week. The final and most ambitious project of the day was to use the dangly-earring frames my sister had picked up, thinking they'd at least be an interesting experiment, just to see if we could do it. I think they turned out rather well!
The wire loops aren't altogether even, and some of the wood beads are more apt than others to half eat the beads next to them, making it tricky to keep them all together. They're actually tidier in person, since I had these laid out on a flat surface rather than hanging, and it was tough to get all the bits and pieces to lay out nicely.
They only swing at the top. There are additional pliers you can get to do chain work, and though that's probably more complicated than I want to deal with right now, I could see working up to that. I like dangly earrings....
In other news, my sister fairly suddenly decided to abandon the Washington relocation idea--she had a friend coming through town, and hitched a ride. So...there's that. I now suddenly have an office / writing space I need to set up, and I guess need to get my mind back to where I was and all the things I planned to do before she arrived with equal suddenness. I think my plan is to keep the computer where it is in my room, and leave that new room pretty much an analog only sort of space, with no distractions except maybe a music source. It'll be a nice writing space--it's nice and bright and has a view out the window. I need more plants, I think. And to set up my far too many pen cups and notepads and Circa stuff and index card boxes and...all the other stuff that has spent the last month or so crammed into drawers and boxes. Oh, to write again....
Monday, April 19, 2010
Cave in
1. Cave in #1
Well, after resisting various posts on the subject for a bit over a year, I've finally given into temptation and ordered a clicky keyboard from Unicomp.
It should be here Tuesday. I'm trying to resist the urge to check UPS for status updates every five minutes. I'll report fully after a few days of using the thing.
2. Cave-in #2
I still have about a chapter left to go on my '09 NaNo, but I'm stalling on actually writing by working on the digitization instead. Actually, it's not really stalling--I need this time to get back into the story, since I abandoned the poor thing for so long. I started out typing things up on the Neo, but in the last week, I started doing OCR instead. The mini version of OmniPage that comes with the inexpensive Canon scanners is actually really good--at least for fairly dark type and certain typefaces. It really likes the SG-1. As I'm getting into the later pages, when I was debating whether or not to change the ribbon, it's a little more challenging. Still a lot faster than retyping, and with all the going over the text I have to do, still a good review and opportunity to do a first-pass edit. I'll be printing it up to really hack away at after this part is done.
3. Other update-just-to-update type jabbering: After years of hearing their ads and thinking, "hey, betcha that'd be a cool place to visit," I finally went to Shipwreck Beads with my sister yesterday. I *love* beaded earrings, but have never gotten into making them. She does a bit. I'm gonna have to learn.
That place is overwhelming. Good golly. Imagine a grocery store sized place of nothing but beads and associated crafty things, in all sorts of colors and shapes and sizes and textures and materials. There are strings of beads, drawers and drawers full of charms, loose beads of all sorts, from tiny shell beads to big blown glass beads and everything in between. Also these funky little rubber beads, which I wanted to buy in great quantities just to handle.
You carry a little tray through the store to pick out what you want, writing down codes for any loose stuff, like at a hardware store. For the more intrepid shoppers, they even had carts with space where you could lay out bunches of trays, and pegs for hanging stringed beads and such like.
We didn't spend much, partly just because there was too much to take in on a first trip. Wayyy too much. Margaret got a few beads and earring supplies and we walked out, a little dazed. We'll have to go back.
Also, after we got back from the bead store, I finally did a dry-run for my new bike commute on the trail from the new house. It's not a bad ride, *except* for a *different* fun busy-four-lane-road crossing, where you either have to go a lonnng way out of the way to get to a very slow traffic light and wait to cross at the crosswalk, OR do what 95% of folks do and wait for a gap in traffic, dash for the median, wait for another gap, and run like mad for the other side. It's like real life Frogger. Lots of fun. At least the rest of the ride is simple and entirely off roads. Lots of people around still, but that's OK.
My bike is purty.
Well, after resisting various posts on the subject for a bit over a year, I've finally given into temptation and ordered a clicky keyboard from Unicomp.
It should be here Tuesday. I'm trying to resist the urge to check UPS for status updates every five minutes. I'll report fully after a few days of using the thing.
2. Cave-in #2
I still have about a chapter left to go on my '09 NaNo, but I'm stalling on actually writing by working on the digitization instead. Actually, it's not really stalling--I need this time to get back into the story, since I abandoned the poor thing for so long. I started out typing things up on the Neo, but in the last week, I started doing OCR instead. The mini version of OmniPage that comes with the inexpensive Canon scanners is actually really good--at least for fairly dark type and certain typefaces. It really likes the SG-1. As I'm getting into the later pages, when I was debating whether or not to change the ribbon, it's a little more challenging. Still a lot faster than retyping, and with all the going over the text I have to do, still a good review and opportunity to do a first-pass edit. I'll be printing it up to really hack away at after this part is done.
3. Other update-just-to-update type jabbering: After years of hearing their ads and thinking, "hey, betcha that'd be a cool place to visit," I finally went to Shipwreck Beads with my sister yesterday. I *love* beaded earrings, but have never gotten into making them. She does a bit. I'm gonna have to learn.
That place is overwhelming. Good golly. Imagine a grocery store sized place of nothing but beads and associated crafty things, in all sorts of colors and shapes and sizes and textures and materials. There are strings of beads, drawers and drawers full of charms, loose beads of all sorts, from tiny shell beads to big blown glass beads and everything in between. Also these funky little rubber beads, which I wanted to buy in great quantities just to handle.
You carry a little tray through the store to pick out what you want, writing down codes for any loose stuff, like at a hardware store. For the more intrepid shoppers, they even had carts with space where you could lay out bunches of trays, and pegs for hanging stringed beads and such like.
We didn't spend much, partly just because there was too much to take in on a first trip. Wayyy too much. Margaret got a few beads and earring supplies and we walked out, a little dazed. We'll have to go back.
Also, after we got back from the bead store, I finally did a dry-run for my new bike commute on the trail from the new house. It's not a bad ride, *except* for a *different* fun busy-four-lane-road crossing, where you either have to go a lonnng way out of the way to get to a very slow traffic light and wait to cross at the crosswalk, OR do what 95% of folks do and wait for a gap in traffic, dash for the median, wait for another gap, and run like mad for the other side. It's like real life Frogger. Lots of fun. At least the rest of the ride is simple and entirely off roads. Lots of people around still, but that's OK.
My bike is purty.
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