General

I didn’t get a call-back. Oh, well. I think I’m actually somewhat relieved, though, because I saw my entire fall (my favorite season) getting very busy, very quickly. Now I’m only committed to band one night a week. The rest of my evenings will be spent knitting! :)

Last night I auditioned for Sound of Music. (As if I didn’t get enough of it last spring!) Rehearsals are three nights a week, and I’m starting band tonight, which would make four nights a week I’m not at home… Of course, that all assumes I get called back, and then manage to get a part. I guess the worst that could happen is that I don’t get a part and I have more time to sit at home and knit. :) I’m really glad I did the audition, though, because I was very nervous about it, and seeing as how I used to think I’d like to do theater professionally someday (way back, ages ago, in high school), I was angry with myself for being scared of it. But once I got up on stage I realized I had nothing to be nervous about, and I think I managed to not make a fool out of myself.

Part of me thinks I shouldn’t publish this, because I might jinx it, but the rest of me figures that’s silly.

..to all of you who like to put your hair up and have to travel by air… Bobby pins do set off the metal detectors, at least in the JetBlue terminal at JFK. Ugh. I figured I was safe when on the way there my jewelry didn’t set off the detector, because jewelry has at least as much metal as bobby pins do, right? No such luck. Actually, the worst part was the other passengers waiting in line staring at me suspiciously. UGH. It’s a good thing I checked the bag with my knitting needles. I can just see trying to explain those to the security guards. But here’s the thing. If you can’t bring knitting needles on (and I’m talking large, 8mm plastic needles here) why are you allowed to bring pens and pencils? I would think those would make just as good – and unlikely – weapons. Oh well. It was worth it to see my nieces and totally surprise Denis’ mom for her birthday. :)

The side trip to the yarn shop turned out to be a dud, for the first time since I’ve started going there. How disappointing – they were having a fantastic sale, just not on any yarn that I wanted. At least I got a few more pairs of needles, which I’d had a hard time finding here. Jo-Ann’s and Michaels seem to think that if you want big needles, they should also be very long. When you’re only knitting a 7-inch-across thing on 36-inch circular needles, it’s a royal pain. 10-inch straight needles work much better! (Yes, I’ve started a new project or two – I didn’t bring my computer along with me, so I haven’t updated the crafts page yet…maybe tonight, if I’m not too busy knitting!)

I finally finished something. The valances took a little longer than planned, but they’re done. It’s hard to see what they’re like, since I had to take the picture after dark, with a flash, but you get the idea. I also put up a page about my living room redecorating project. And no, I still haven’t set in the sleeves of my sweater yet. :P It’s not cool enough to wear it yet, anyway.

In other news, the spider seems to have found another home. We hadn’t seen it in a couple of days, so Denis destroyed the web, and it hasn’t been rebuilt. I really do hope the spider is living somewhere else and didn’t get eaten by a bird or anything, but quite honestly, as long as it’s not in my garden, I don’t care. :)

I know yesterday was September 11th. I meant to blog, but couldn’t find the words. I still can’t. It hurts me to think about what happened. It hurts me more to see how commercial it has become, with everyone trying to out-do everyone else’s tribute. “9-11” is a brand now, “God Bless America” our theme song. I went to a prayer service and kept my TV off. I don’t need to see the towers fall again – I can still remember them falling. I watched it happen. There was no danger of the day passing without any sort of recognition on my part. And I didn’t put out my flag. It was raining when I left home, and despite what everyone else in my neighborhood thinks, you don’t put out the flag in the rain. I’m sure I’ve made myself very unpopular with my view on things. Oh well.

On a “lighter” note, what a very bizzare, almost creepy, coincidence that yesterday’s Lotto number was “911”.

I spent the weekend feeling stuffed-up and sneezy, with only enough energy to sit on the couch and knit. Darn. :) As a result, I’m two seams away from finishing my sweater! Well, and I need to set-in the sleeves. Ick. I think if there were someone who would finish my knitting projects – like the person who frames my cross-stitches – I’d be willing to pay good money to not have to sew things together. That’s the least fun part of knitting. I ended up with exactly enough yarn – despite buying an extra skein. Thank heavens I bought the extra skein!

I haven’t finished my window treatments yet, either. The panels have been up for over a week now, but I was stuck on what to do with the valances. I think I figured that out last night, though, and I just need to stop at JoAnn’s on my way home for a couple small items. If it works, maybe I’ll be able to finish those up tonight and post pictures.

The “evil” song from Lord of the Rings is going through my head right now. (You know which one I mean if you’ve seen the movie). I just discovered a new breed of evil spam. Now, they use your email address as the “from” address, as well as the “to” address. You can’t block your own email address if you’re in the habit of cc-ing yourself in on emails, which I do somewhat regularly. And since they left the subject blank, I thought maybe I’d forgotten to put the subject in the last email I copied to myself. Pure evil. Not that I can complain that much – I have several email addresses, and I only get maybe a dozen spam messages a day between all of my accounts.

Why is it that every year around labor day weekend we find something nightmarish on our property?!? Last year, it was the hornets’ nest. This year? A gigantic spider that they must have misplaced while filming Arachnophobia 2… It’s living in the bushes near the pool, and I almost walked into it while trying to water the peppers on the other side of the fence. There is nothing in this world that I fear more than spiders, except maybe gigantic spiders. Anyway, a brief visit to google helped me figure out that it’s probably an argiope aurantia, which is not poisonous. Like I care. It had better be gone before I get home, or I’m going to find someone braver than me to evict it. In the meantime, I’m going to sit here in my safe, non-spider-infested office and try to forget about creepy-crawly things.

I spent last evening cooking (and eating) a gourmet dinner of salmon wrapped in phyllo, risotto, and grilled vegetables. Now I can count the number of times we’ve used our good china on two fingers! :) (Both of which I managed to cut while opening the plastic packaging on the new meat thermometer we bought. How was I supposed to check if the salmon flaked easily when it was wrapped in eight layers of phyllo dough? Honestly. Don’t recipes get tested before they’re published? So I used the thermometer instead, and it came out perfectly.)

No progress on the pillows, though…

My major deadline at work is over – and we made it – so maybe now I can blog a little more often! We managed to get the furniture exchanged, so it should arrive Friday (fingers crossed). I made my first pillow – I have a new respect for self-cording…thank goodness for zipper feet. Considering I didn’t have a pattern (or instructions of any sort) I think it came out pretty good. I need to add some bias tape to the inside seams – the fabric wants to shred more than I’d like. Now just three more pillows and the curtains. It’s a good thing I have nothing planned for the wonderful upcoming long weekend!