kdlb-pad

Crazy signs

Mervyns is going out of business here and omg do they have a crazy number of signs!

Crazy signs

TGIFridays and music

Songs About Jane

I was sitting here listening to some of my pop music, and it made me crave TGIFridays because that's where I remember hearing this one first, at least the first time I recognized it: This Love by Maroon 5.

But then I got to thinking, geez, last time we were at TGIFridays, the food sucked.  :D  AND they took almost every vegetarian thing off the menu, so that means we can't go there anymore.

I love the music at Red Robin, too, but it's a little different than what comes on at TGIFridays.  Is it weird to like a restaurant just for the music?! :D

Well, and plus, it's friday.  Liking TGIFridays on a friday is probably natural ;)

knitting links?

This is what happens when I have to close my browser and end up with a ton of things opened that I didn't want to loose!

I don't seem to have found any super duper starting out knitting sites yet.  Any recommendations?  I'm really not interested in starting something big like a sweater yet, but afghans and scarfs and small things aren't too intimidating. 

BTW, My first scarf is almost done, in fact, I'm worried that if I don't start making the fringe on the bottom, I won't have enough yarn, so I really need to stop knitting :D  I took pictures of it in process yesterday and must get them off my camera at some point.

"lots" of mail screenshot

Mac_mail_lots

This is a sign that your mail has gotten out of control, when your dashboard can't even tell you the count of how many are waiting, it's just "lots".  woah!

Yes, most of it is junk that didn't filter into the junk box.  But STILL...

Blue sky

After so many days of heavy rain and flooding in some areas, it was awesome to peek out the window and see blue this am.

Blue sky

Cool signs

My first time eating frozen custard, and they had cool signs in the window. Very nice use of typeographry and icons!

Cool signs

adventures in knitting

I Can't Believe I'm Knitting! (Leisure Arts #2984)

Last weekend, I decided to get some yarn and try to learn to knit.  I thought it might be a fun stress-relieving activity that I could do while sitting in front of the tv or on a longer car ride, or something like that.  I just got basic cheap yarn (Red Heart) and some 10 needles.  And then I found a knitting guide that seemed like it would run me through the steps pretty well.

I had knitted when I was younger, but it was a very long time ago, and I don't know that I was doing *real* knitting at that point, or if it was some easy kid variation (I don't remember casting on like I did this time at all)

So, my goal was to make a nice long scarf.  I bought one last year after the holidays, but would it be fun to have one I made myself?  I thoughts so.  But I wasn't sure exactly how I wanted to do it, so I needed to do some testing.

First day, it took me quite a bit of figuring out to make a slipknot and cast on.  I did a few rows, wobbly and not very much the same each row.  Just basic knit, not purl yet.  I tore it out and started again.

Next time, I tried purling.  That went well, I figured it out, but it was still a little wobbly.  So I got adventurous and decided since I knew it was wobbly and I'd tear it out, I could try alternating knit and purl rows like one of the examples in the book.  woo, that worked well! I really liked how the end product of those 5 or 10 lines looked together.  So I tore it out and started again.

So I'm going along, knit one row, purl one row, over and over.  I get a ways done, and start to notice the edges curling in.  I figured it was just something I was doing wrong on the edges and I'd get better as I went along.  But it wasn't getting better.  I had a 20 stitch wide sample that was as long as my needle, and it kept curling in.  What do I do when things like this happen? I turn to the internet.  Oh, sure enough, the stockinette stitch info I read said "this is simply the nature of the fabric produced by stockinette".  So I needed to put a border around it or find another method of knitting.  MAN, I had gotten so far, too.  I tore it out and started again.

Next try was some ribbing ideas.  I wasn't sure how I'd like ribbing, so I did k2,p2.  This was way too ribbed for my liking, it just came out really scrunched.  Of course, I had to go quite a while before I knew that.  Alrighty, tear it out and start again.

I did some k1p1, p1k1 options to see how that looked, but that was just sloppy with no real pattern, so I bumped it up to k2p2, p2k2, which made little squares.  This was really nice but it didn't look like scarf material.  I think it would make a nice potholder or maybe even blanket.  I thought about keeping going with this and making a potholder, but I didn't want to waste the yarn, so I tore it out and started again.

Finally, I went back to the internet to look at patterns, and man there are a lot of htings out there that I don't like.  And plus, I have a really basic yarn and a lot of the patterns use fancy yarn or flutter eyelash yarn or whatever, and I wanted to start out basic to get the movements down before moving onto something more fancy.  I found one pattern that sounded easy enough, and I was surprised that I hadn't tried the combo before: k1p1.  It's still a rib, and I didn't like rib the first time, but this was much less of a rib when I got done with the first few rows.  Ahhh, this is the stuff!  Not quite as pretty to me as stockinette, but not curling on the edges, and completely do-able.

So my scarf is coming along, it's more than a needle long now, and I am very excited about how it's turning out.  Guys, I'm knitting!  And I feel like I'm knitting like a pro now that I'm moving along with it!  My thought now is, wow, I'm going to have this scarf done so quickly, then what am I going to knit? LOL!  This is so exciting, I feel like my need for some creativity in my live is being a little more satisfied and it's something I really am looking forward to spending time on when I have a chance in my day.  I am pretty proud of myself. :)  

QotD: My Vox Name

How did you pick your Vox name? Does it mean something? 
Submitted by LeendaDLL.  

This is the first time in a long while that I've used my first name for a url.  It's been kadyellebee for so long, and before that, nicknames with krissy in them.  But I've come to like my first name more and more in my online history, and starting up a new site with co-workers who would recognize me more as kristine seemed to make sense this time around.  Plus, Vox is about being more personal, to me.  I don't need to hide behind a nickname.  And that's cool!

Oh, so if you want to hear the story of my name, Kristine, I was named after my mom's best friend from college.  Actually, it was my dad's idea, he really liked the name and the unique spelling.  It causes me to say "Kristine, with a K" whenever someone asks for my name, but I do like it and think it fits me more than another spelling would.  And that's the story! ;)

QotD: My Dream Address

If you could live anywhere in the world, where would you live?  Why? 
Submitted by abcdefg81.

Definitely the Vancouver, WA area.  We are close enough to Portland that flights aren't a problem, but a little more homey than in the city.  And in any direction you drive, there is beauty (ocean, desert, mountains, woods, river).  It's a wonderful place to be, really truely.

We could move to Southern CA and have an instant group of friends, and that's tempting, but I love the area up here so much better.  Now, if I could get all those friends fo E's to just move up here, we'd have people that we really enjoy hanging out with to do things with.  We don't go out looking for friends very often, just my family.  Not to say we are lonely, we have tons of fun together, it just sure is something to look forward to when we get to visit CA and have all these people who are so much fun to be with.

Pumpkin shake

First one of the season. I love traditional things at Burgerville! (these taste like drinking a piece of pumpkin pie, seriously!)

Pumpkin shake