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This weekend was my birthday and I decided I needed to clean my room and clean out my closet.
I watched that show, Hoarders, a week ago and realized my room looks like some of those peoples’ houses. Seriously. Like, it’s really stressful to walk through there and Justin is always giving me a hard time about it and Chico is scared to jump off the bed. So, I took the plunge. I decided I needed to start with cleaning out my closet because there was a clothing mound that was growing by the day and I can never find anything to wear but my closet is stuffed with clothes. If the closet is about to explode from being packed so full, but I can’t find anything to wear, some clothes need to get the boot. I’m about to show to some before and in progress pictures. Remember, don’t judge. I’m changing my messy ways.
These are before I did anything. Normal my room. It’s extremely shameful.
So. I took all of these pictures and then I worked for about 2 hours. And I wasn’t discriminatory. I donated like nobody’s business. Each item, I was all like, “Self! I know you love this dress, but you wore it once last year and it’s gotta go,” and it did.
Here is a pile of most of the clothes I pulled out of my closet with a vengeance. (More followed, but this was the biggest pile)
Chico helped.
Here is a picture of me feeling overwhelmed, hot, and having horrible bed hair. It’s possible that I hadn’t brushed my hair at this point.
I put things in bags to be donated and was able to get rid of the mound. I’m so proud. I went through my shoes, belts and purses, too. Nothing was spared. I haven’t quite finished the shoes or the cleaning due to Roomie coming home and enticing me away with promises of a birthday pedicure. I now have yellow toes.
More bags followed, but look at all of that progress!! Yay me!
The clothing mound is gone and I found some cool things I had stored in this bin and forgotten about. I actually totally forgot the bin was under the clothes. Also, I found some knitting accessories I have been looking for for awhile. Totally awesome.
Look! My clothes are hanging up and I actually wear all of the things hanging there. Amazing!
Enough of that, for now. Sunday, on my birthday, Justin and I went to my parents house and enjoyed a wonderful home cooked meal. Then, we made our way over to Medieval Times. My first time there, ever.
I honestly thought I was going to hate it. I assumed I was going to get bored and not have a good time and that the yelling would get on my nerves and the lameness factor would be off the charts. Boy, was I wrong. I loved it!! I had a blast and I yelled for the Green Knight at the top of my lungs with the rest of my section. Their vegetarian meal was pretty great. And, I took this horrible picture of us, me complete with crown:
How was your weekend?
I made this for the fridge in the office. Enjoy.
This sign is totally asking me to disable jaywalkers. I know that crossing the street outside of the crosswalk is illegal, but I thought hitting people with my car was illegal, too. I’m so confused. Atlanta, make your signs easier to read, geez.
This is a post by Roomie. She is feeling frustrated with the Baby Boomer generation and having no blog of her own, I said I would be happy to host her frustrations.
I am fed up with the Baby Boomers. While I love my parents dearly, their generation is really a giant attention hog. Pretty much their entire lives, the Boomers have captivated the attention of our country and the almighty advertising industry. In their youth, it was all about Wonder Bread and Leave it to Beaver. When they hit their tumultuous adolescence, the country was enthralled with rebellion, and free sex and drugs, the epitome of youthful vices. Now that must have been cool.
Unfortunately, we are now hitting the age of the Baby Boomers where retirement accounts and incontinence are all the rage. As they age, the advertising industry has tried to spin the traditionally unexciting, unsexy, “golden years” as some sort of hip, new stage of life. We are bombarded by commercials with funky, salt-n-peppered people looking carefree on the back of a boat or around a camp fire. Instead of advertising something actually interesting or cool, though, the hip old people are actually worrying about their 401ks and bone loss disease. Not fascinating or charming.
Now don’t get me wrong, the Baby Boomers have been a great generation for America. They brought us the civil rights and women’s rights movements. They have kept our incredible economic engine humming and have put us, their children, through college. I appreciate all that they have done and concede they are truly a remarkable generation. However, as they fade into their yonder years, I wish they would give up the spotlight. I don’t care to make early onset Alzheimer’s seem trendy and I wish the advertising industry wouldn’t either. Unless the Baby Boomers want to start another revolution, like legalizing marijuana or gay marriage, then I think they need to quietly settle into their retirement communities and give up their lifetime of dominance.
Hey guys!
Remember how I was starting a really frustrating knitting project in February? And, remember how I had to start over, like, 3 times because the cast on was insane and then I found out the pattern was wrong? I have good news! I completed the back about a week ago and have started on the right front. This is very exciting for me. I thought I was going to have to pull the whole thing out there for a bit. And then I had that horrible, sinking feeling I get sometimes while knitting something frustrating. Like, I will never finish this and will be knitting this for the rest of my life (I might have a flare for the dramatic). I did a little personal party dance when I bound off the back. It was beautiful. (The binding off, not the dancing.) And then I practically
forced everyone I know to ohhh and ahh over my handiwork.
As you may be able to tell, I haven’t gotten very far. I seem to have lost my knitting motivation after finishing the back and then I started working on the headbands and the bows and flowers and now that is all I want to work on. Not to mention, I want to knit some socks. Because nothing says “I need to wear socks” like hot weather and the end of winter. Also, I found a bunch of really awesome sock yarn when foraging through my supplies for headband materials.
This conundrum often happens to us knitters. We get a little feeling of completion and abandon projects for forever. It happens. More than I would like to admit, actually. But it’s coming along. Please cheer me on. I need it :)
UPDATE: So. Last night, like I said I may do, I decided to put the headbands and crochet hook down and focus on getting this project finished. During LOST, which was excellent last night by the way. Well, after looking at the cables for a couple of minutes, I realized there was a horrible mistake that was unfixable and so obvious there was no way anyone would be able to miss it. So, I frogged. This is what the front of the cardigan looks like now.
I found Chico’s almost twin! And guess what? Her mom is also a blogger who knits. Pretty freaky…
My little Chico has allergies. Last week, here in Atlanta, the pollen count was off the charts and poor little Chico started wheezing and hacking and just being generally pathetic and mucusy.
I didn’t know dogs could have allergies like people, this is news to me. And, I have never had a dog before–everything he does is pretty new.
I’ve been giving him children’s Benadryl and snuggling him. The medicine has been making him high instead of tired. You would think medication that takes a normal sized dog down would make a Chihuahua go to sleep. Not Chico. He was running around and going into people’s offices and staring at them. Coworkers were calling it the “WTF face.” His staring was freaking some people out and he was quarantined to his bed area until he could stop with the craziness.
Chico and puppy being pathetic
I haven’t been wanting him to go outside other than to go to the bathroom. The weather has
been beautiful and Chico has been a little asshole. He goes into the most obscure bush in my yard and gets in it and glares at me. Some spankings were issued over the weekend. You would think he would learn after he comes in from being out there hacking and not being able to breathe for 5 minutes.
Last night he was lying under a blanket in my bed and I went in there to check on him. 5 feet away, he is breathing normal and sounds great. 2 feet away, still breathing normal, I’m feeling good that he is doing better. 6 inches away, Chico starts hamming it up and breathing out of his nose instead of his mouth and shuddering. He 
sounded horrible and I couldn’t help but laugh. I backed up to 2 feet again and he started breathing through him mouth. Ass! He’s trying to make me feel sorry for him. The nerve.
I left his little butt at home today so he can get to feeling better and maybe the back and forth to work is making his allergies worse. Who knows. And he won’t be putting on such a show for me. That has got to be tiring.
Do your pets do anything like that?
I would like to say that I love and hate Sunday nights.
Moving on. I have been thinking about starting an Etsy store for a long time and this weekend, I got started! I haven’t put anything online, but I am making some inventory. I have a lot of great ideas and am excited to get some of them rolling. Here is what I have so far:
Roomie says she is very excited for me and has volunteered to model anything that might need a model in the future. I’m totally taking her up on this offer. I am trying out some different things and have been brandishing the crochet hook for the first time in years. I love knitting, but I have to give a shout out to crochet…it’s sooo much faster!!
I took some more pics of the items I have made so far. I’m very pumped and I’m going to work on more pieces after I finish writing this.
So, this is exciting.
J
ustin and I enjoyed a nice, laid back Sunday. I decided that I needed boiled peanuts and Justin took me to a local restaurant who has them. We actually went there Friday for dinner and they were out. But, Sunday morning was a winner. See Justin’s hands breaking open those nuts to the right. Yay. I was going to make some, but buying homemade ones is sooo much easier & faster, not to mention that my house doesn’t get covered in a layer of evaporated salt. Ew, gross.
Guess what I’m doing tomorrow? Taking my car to the shop for the 4th time in as many weeks. I know, you’re all totally jealous. Don’t be. Maybe this dream will happen for you one day.
Oh, and Caspian wanted me to tell all of you Hi!
We have a winner for Knit in Public’s first giveaway ever! I’m so excited! Yay!
Congratulations, Lisa! I will post picture of the prizes later. And by later, I don’t know when, some unspecified time in the future.
P.S. FYI, I used randomizer.org.
I have a friend who is approaching her second wedding anniversary. She told me you give cotton for second anniversaries and she’s depending on me to come up with something good. By something good, I hope she meant inappropriate. I suggested she dress up in a cotton nurse outfit for him. I haven’t heard anything back.
But, I decided to do research on the topic so that I can have some really great ideas prepared for tomorrow. This got me thinking, why the hell do people give cotton for the second anniversary? And, does that mean like a bouquet of cotton? Like, take your husband/wife to a cotton field and tell them to knock themselves out? Or, just something made of cotton? If you give someone a bouquet of cotton, do you put it in a vase? Will that keep the plant alive? Do you want it to stay alive?
Ok, so, apparently, this practice goes back to medieval times. The whole assigning certain gifts for certain holidays. And, until the early 1900′s, people only celebrated the 1st, 5th, 10th, 15th, 20th, 25th, 50th and 75th anniversaries. Or, maybe there were only certain gifts associated with these holidays. I didn’t really read the article very in depth.
In my quick research for this post, I have found conflicting facts on what is traditional to give on the second anniversary. So, the traditional gifts are cotton and straw. Straw? WTF does this mean? And, the modern gift is china. More importantly, this website is assuming I am a man who has no idea what to get for his wife. Come on, when your options are cotton or straw, it gets a little difficult. You know?
Good gift ideas, according to this, are: clothing, placemats, tablecloths (what man doesn’t want to open a gift of placemats or tablecloths?), sheets, towels, pillows or a rug. I’m a chick and I am pretty sure I don’t want any of these things unless I specifically sent Justin a picture and a link and said “OMG!! I love these placemats, I want these!”
None of these are good enough or exciting enough for my friend BB. No way. I’m going back to my original suggestion as the number one option.
1. Sexy Nurse Outfit
The website claims this outfit is completely made of cotton, but I’m suspicious about the shoes. They look more like patent leather. This gift is definitely for BB’s husband and not to be shared.
2. My other idea, a bouquet of cotton, or if you already have a cotton field, a cotton gin. Invented by Eli Whitney. People used to call me Eli. It was the only non-family nickname I’ve ever had and I loved it. Sadly, it never caught on.
3. Scrolls made of cotton fully complete with a list of things you don’t care about. Like, what your name means, BB. Because that is definitely going to take a whole scroll. Nothing says, “I’m so glad we’ve been legally together for 2 years” like a scroll.
4. A knitted penis warmer. Two positives here: first, you made it yourself. Second, it will keep his penis warm, BB, on those cold winter nights. I can rustle up a pattern if you’re interested, and some knitting lessons (we all know you can’t knit). Just let me know.
And, let’s stop here. Because, I don’t think that we can find a better gift than the Willie Warmer.
There you are, BB. You’re welcome.
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