Friday, July 16, 2004

I'm prob'ly gonna die...

Oh, my, God!

I almost forgot to take a 'before' shot.Here I've been tearing out big chunks of rotted floor with a hammerHere I've cut the hole square between joists with a handsaw and powered jigsaw.I built a frame of 2x4's to screw to the joists and here I'm testing to see if it fits snug.It did, so I attached the crosspiece and wedged it back in.Here I've begun putting in the screws from the frame to the joists and the cat decides to check out my work.Cat still helping, I'm taking a break.The nearly-finished product!


When I moved home over a year ago now, I was presented with the front three rooms in my parents' house:  a bedroom, an extraneous "Living area" and an extra bathroom.  The house has a living room/dining room combo, a kitchen, bathroom, back hall, laundry room and two bedrooms besides.  They rent.  The town has 10,000 people at a generous estimate.  The folks think they're getting robbed for rent, and I bet you pay more in car insurance.  Small towns. 
 
Anyway, about me dying.  When I first moved in, my mom explained that the toilet in 'my' bathroom was non-functional because of the amusing tendancy old houses have of shifting and letting the toilet leak, which rots the wood floor under the toilet, which allows the toilet to lean alarmingly when you sit it, which allows it to leak more, which will most likely end in the non-amusing tableau of you, drunk off your ass, sitting under your house with a toilet in your lap.  Didn't happen to me, but could have if I hadn't been so vigilant.  (In this case vigilance consists of piling millions of lightweight but bulky items on the toilet in an effort to conceal it from my drunk self...it worked.)  Anyway, mom kept putting it in upbeat terms, letting me know that the two of us could easily replace the 3 foot square of wood flooring in question and have the toilet reseated and make it functional again.  And I'm a reasonable girl, I've built things before, so I thought, what the hell?  We could do it. 
But we didn't.  And we didn't and didn't and didn't.  It started to have the feel of one of those fairy tale quests, something you've always meant to do, but haven't.  Then I got a babysitting job for tomorrow, and I haven't drank or smoked or (here's the really important part) slept for about a week, and I'm wanting to go to Austin with my babysitting money, and mom kept saying, "Maybe we'll do it this weekend."  So I did it today.  That's right, I replaced floor.  It took me all damn day (since I apparently don't sleep anymore, I got up at 9am because I was bored.)--about 12 hours, minus however long it took me to go to the library and the hardware store and the grocery store (I got beer, because, dammit, people who replace floors get beer) and the lumber yard and the hardware store and the lumber yard.  I took multiple breaks to keep from plunging the cordless screwdriver into my pumping heart, and I took an hour break to read a few chapters of Eats, Shoots and Leaves (I'm still laughing--read this book, you'll love it) and eat dinner, and I'm done.  Okay, tomorrow sometime I have to snug up the boards and screw them to the floor joists (shut up), but I tore an enormous hole in the floor of my house at approximately 10am today and it is now completely covered up.  I rock.  Pictures are eminent, as soon as I stop weeping...I pulled every muscle I own.  Apparently there is a difference between "working" and "not working" and now I know what it is.

Sunday, July 11, 2004

If you love God...

do NOT go visit The Brick Testament and especially not the naughty bits. (They've got an "N" for nudity or "S" for sex marker) The site is apparently staged and shot by this athiest who would like to destroy the faith of all true Christians by simply showing them what the Bible actually says. Check it out. Who knew that Legoman sex could be soooooo hot? Okay, yeah, me. Sorry.

My CafePress store is back up and running...

Here, so run go look at my weird designs. Or somthing. Yayyy! I took it down a while back because I hated all the designs and I wasn't making any money, and I'd foolishly started paying for a premium site after my first (and only) sale. And I thought I deleted all the designs and I was too lazy to make more or re-make those, so I wasn't hurrying to put it back up. Good thing they kept sending me e-mails about their new items, or I'd never have logged in on a whim and seen all my stuff still sitting there...anyway, it'll get more interesting when I get around to going down to the library to use the scanner and put some of my actual hand-drawn stuff in, rather than just crap I made on some imaging software...also, ignore my horrible banner at the top for now...I haven't figured out Ability Draw yet. Enjoy! P.S. once you've had your fill of my stuff, wander around. There's a lot of dreck, but I've found some seriously cute stuff on there I've sworn to buy if I ever sell anything...

Friday, July 09, 2004

Martha Stewart is my bitch.

That's right, it's a Martha Stewart prison joke. Months and months too late, and in poor taste as well. Take it, bitch, take it all. You know you love it.

Phhhhhhtt. Sorry. Anyway, the reason Martha's my bitch is this:
I made meringue.  Lots of meringue, Martha.  And I piped it into shapes.   
Here's a little meringue custard cup with a vanilla flavored sugar cookie in the bottom.  Okay, it's a Nilla Wafer, but you're still my bitch.   
Here's my personalized lemon custard with a meringue monogram.   
Here's a cup filled with custard, and a meringue puff on top.
So basically, I rock. I'm a domestic goddess and no one can resist my insanely good cooking. Oh, yeah, Martha? Here's two upside-down cakes I've made recently:
Pineapple. Mmmmm, mmmm.   
Peachy goodness.
Old-fashioned, even, with poundcake cake from scratch and made in a skillet my great-great-grandma brought from Illinois in a covered wagon. And fresh pineapple, cherries, and peaches. Okay, okay, the fruit was canned. But the rest of it is true! So, Martha, what you got?

Go like this: Weeeeee!

Weeeeee!

Thursday, July 08, 2004

Rarrrrrrrrggghhhggghhh!

I'm a lonely Yeti on a mountain.    I like to yodel and drink elderberry wine.    I wanted to be a Mountie but they were gonna make me shave.
I knitted a yeti finger puppet, that's right, and I'll do it again if I have to! Don't make me do it! Don't make me! Why are you prejudiced against yeti?
Yes, as you can tell, I'm fooling around and goofing off and not knitting anything I said I would. I'm knitting finger puppets and swatches of new patterns, and weird stuffed cats, basically just being a dork. I promise I'm going to finish the tank this week, though and cast on either Bella's thing or Jessica's...so, pictures soon of authorized projects, or else no ice cream for a week!

Monday, July 05, 2004

Knitting Rock-Along news

My tiny candy pink knit jolly roger is up! It's the last picture at the bottom of the page, the link is over there in the sidebar under knitting, under "knit-alongs." The page explains exactly what a rock-along is and there are super cool pictures of what everyone else did. I'm going to get going on the project for my niece Bella soon so that can go up, as well. I can't tell exactly what it is, cause it's a secret, but it includes a rock-along design, a pocket, and an ultra special secret-secret component too secret to name here. Also, the new Knitty is out! Yayyy! And you will want to see it, because everyone has rocked and rolled and produced the sexiest designs they can stand, including the designer from White Lies Design, and remember, Knitty designs are free! I can't wait to point Jess here so she can pick out the pattern for her super secret surprise bikini or halter top, 'cause I think there'll be one there she'll like.

And now, totally negating my rock-along wannabe coolness, shots of my latest project, the dread knitted kitty from Woolworks:
Before I finished the tail and stuffed and blocked it.  Oh, yes, I blocked it.I know, I'm a super lame freak.I knitted it a little ruffle to go around it's neck.  Please send help.Looking directly at the kitty may cause spinsterhood, multiple cat ownership, and total knitting dorkiness.
Don't worry, I'm heading right over to Knitty and making myself a corset or something.

Irony.

I don't have any knitting stuff to talk about because I've been too busy reading about knitting online to actually do any knitting. Well, I finished knitting the body of that kitty I was talking about, despite the fact that the instructions just sort of peter out around the nose and the rest of it is vaguer than my resume cover letter. I just cast on the tail and am about 1/3 of the way down it...I'd show you pictures but the computer and camera aren't speaking. I've moved the cable to different ports, I've done every troubleshoot in the little book it came with...yesterday the computer just arbitrarily decided that the camera is "D drive" and the cd is now "E drive." Although that might have been my fault, I was mucking around with the booklet and it said to try switching the cam to "mass storage." And sometimes when I take the camera out of the cradle and put it back in, everything works like a charm. But not often and not right now. I'm losing my mind trying to figure it out, but right now I'm too fucking tired to bother about it. Anyway, the Tank is kind of stalled, definite second-sock-syndrome going on, it has taken me 4 days to get most of the way through the "knit 14 rows even" at the waist. I can't remember whether I posted the last pics here or the Shapely Blog, but I've progressed about an inch since then. It's really hot and sweaty. I mowed most of the back yard and baked a cake this weekend. More on the cake when I can actually get to my pictures. I made banana pudding, which I would never voluntarily waste my time on, but which my mom loves. The cat wants me to go to bed, and I think I will...good night, good night...

Friday, July 02, 2004

Mr. Yuck advises you not to read ahead...

Remember Mr. Yuck? He would come to your school and give you lots of acid green stickers with a yucchy face on them for mom to put on all the toxic substances in the house, to help you remember not to drink them. This is kind of like that, only in blog form.
See, what happened is, about three weeks ago I was at my friend Jessica's house, and I had been at my grandma's house for a couple weeks before that, and I started spotting. I spotted for about a week, including the last few days I was at grandma's, and the whole 6 days I was at Jessica's. Then I had a regular (for me) 4 day period. Which led me to belive I was starting menopause (at 27, no less, it has happened to my kin before) and I should immediately have my uterus removed. Then I forgot about it. Figured it was a normal deviation and nothing would come of it. I mean, I've had irregular periods nearly every month since I was 11.
Then, three days ago, I started spotting again. And I'm still spotting. I'm talking incredibly heavy flow for oh, 2 minutes. With cramping. Then nothing for 6 hours. And repeat. For 7 days. Plus a regular/heavy 4 day normal period. So e-mail me now with your donation pledge to the "Remove Kellye's Uterus" fund, because I'm not putting up with this shit too much longer.