Goodbye, Cruel Week

This afternoon was placed a crown of shit on top of my colossal turd of a week.
Yes, I was, at one point, literally on the floor of my office in a fetal position.
But there were high points too:

• cupcakes! Sprinkles and Kara's! (Sprinkles wins, because I have a sweet tooth. But Icing on the Cake is still my favorite)
• Having my parents over for their birthday dinner and spending the evening with my family
  
• Nearly making my boss spit coffee all over her keyboard.

None of this was enough to fend off a bout of rubber-ball-of-self-pity time upon getting home from work this evening. All week I have felt like there was a pile of bricks on my chest. I could not breathe when I walked home. Wallowing for a bit helped me breathe a little.

I will spend the next week catching up, and you know what? It will not be nearly enough.

The problem with living in a family-friendly suburb, is that there are families living here!
And their punkass kids, whose outdoor play I used to think was charming, have gotten tiresome as they leave their trash in our yard, they drag branches into our driveway, throw rocks at our fence, and stomp in Paul's new flowerbed. I can mostly ignore the constant yelling.

Paul helpfully reminded me not to worry, within a year or two they'll all be inside smoking pot and playing video games.

I can hardly wait.


In other news, Saturday night the police were being very active on our block, with cars parked all around with lights on, a helicopter circling our block and maybe two others for about 1.5 hours, and apparently, though we didn't receive this honor, the cops were in the yards of the next block over with guns and dogs.

But no one knows why.
Our neighbor who is very nice said she called the police to find out and they basically pretended there was nothing. She seemed very concerned that nothing like that had ever happened in this neighborhood before...

Yup, the place has gone to shit, could you tell the parents of those punkass boys, so they can move to a better neighborhood please?

The cat has been hollering incessantly since 7:15 this morning, and continues as I type. Is it so wrong to want to strangle a cat?

I spent the last week mostly in training, so now I'm about a week behind at work. Which means I have to weeks to actually catch up on my quarterly OKRs before declaring myself an utter failure for the quarter (wouldn't be the first time I suppose)

But we were invited to go visit friends who recently had a second baby! And are very excited. We didn't want to bug them unless invited because we don't want to be in the way, and assume they haven't gotten enough sleep and don't need our bother. We have a terrible cat and are very sympathetic to no sleep, you see?

I let Paul sleep in until 9:30 on the weekends before I start trying to convince him to make me waffles. 24 more minutes...

So! What did we do this weekend?

My parents have been dropping off bags and bags of oranges from their tree every time they dropped by for the past few weeks. And we had a lot of lemons left from our tree. So Saturday I decided to squeeze all of our citruses. I went through several bags of oranges and came up with about half a pitcher of orange juice. 10 lemons each yielded two pitchers of lemonade, and I had the satisfaction of no more unused fruits taunting me when I went in the kitchen. While I did this, Paul hovered nearby baking some bread from scratch to impress my bread-loving mother.

This is one of several lives I imagine for myself. I can't live them all, but day to day I guess I can squeeze some of them in.

Saturday night I went to the City to work and got to see Marisa which was fantastic. We're going to go see her next play on opening night! It's a good work night when it doesn't rain and I don't encounter too much "creative" 2am driving on the freeway ride home.

Sunday I got some projects in order and cleaned up the homestead a bit in time for the girls to come over for craft day. I hemmed some curtains and then moved on to more embroidery for my quilt project. "Embroidery," you're saying, "how horribly grandma!" First, I love my grandma and aspire to her greatness. Secondly, embroidery can be way cute and fun. I'll be making the busiest damn quilt ever. Sure, I considered making a classy, subdued, elegant quilt, but where would be the fun in that? This will be awesome and so busy I won't be able to sleep under it due to its loudness. And then the cat will puke on it, and like a movie theater carpet, you won't even notice because the whole thing is so busy anyway. Maybe I'll embroider around the puke stain for posterity.

Other projects boing done at craft day: knitting (and swearing), crazy quilt piecing, and painting numbers for a toddler's bedroom.

And Paul showed off by making soup as well and generally spoiling us with yummy snacks. You should totally come next time.

In case you've been wondering... This Is Why You're Fat.

Yesterday I did a little research and found out that my needle phobia can KILL ME!
Actually I was hoping to find some coping methods, and I found the following:

• laughing gas (that might work, but I don't think the nurse will give me that if I just ask)
• desensitization MIGHT work, but probably not
• something called applied tension, which has to do with taking in a deep breath and tensing most of your muscles, with the idea of getting blood to your brain
• lying down and pulling your knees up to your chest (will look ridiculous, but might as well try it) - it's actually possible if you are sitting up and your blood pressure drops, for your brain to lose all its oxygen and kill you. (I know, extreme)
  
• any methods like meditation meant to relax you are contraindicated, because you're actually trying to keep your blood pressure UP, not down.

Anyway, I will try to lie down next time. All the suggestions about painkillers or anesthetics were lame because I'm not afraid of pain.

I also read that 80% of people with aversions such as mine have a close relative with the same-- maybe genetic. I don't think anyone in my family has it this bad though.

I know, I know, practically everyone dislikes needles, but do they try to pass out every time they have blood drawn, and have to have the nurses paged? Just thinking about it puts me on edge.

The past month?
We've been puttering mostly, keeping the seats warm at our local beer-serving cafe, dealing with the house, crafting, etc.

I picked up another night of cashiering at DNA Lounge this month, which was fun. Different crowd, including people I had not seen in probably 10 years. I choked back laughter as people told me sternly that they were in Steampunk costume, as though it was very serious business. The absolute best thing was parents showing up with their kids to take part in the dance lessons early in the evening-- too cute!

Then of course, New Wave City, where I got my 5 minutes/month allotment of the fabulous James and Tara!

We had advised the landlord that there was a stain on the wall in the dining room due to water damage from the heavy rains. After first asking us to find a contractor to get a quote, he instead sent over a guy to "fix" the problem with caulk. Of course this will not fix the problem, and we pointed out that we were worried about mold. We'll be testing for mold in a month or so to see whether the damage is our problem (toxic mold, we need to push to get it fixed) or their problem (rotting walls, even if they don't bring mold, do mean the house will eventually fall apart). The whole experience was pretty eye-opening. We had gone to Home Depot Saturday to get an 8 foot ladder so Paul could get up and look in the gutters. The gutters over the wall that has the stain were full-- of CEMENT. That had been put there wet (it was dried in the shape of the gutter and had to be removed by chisel) and was of course completely blocking 2/3 of that gutter. Nice work, roofers! If it were our house, we'd have the drywall ripped out and replaced to prevent more structural damage, but it's not our house. So, caulk! There, I fixed it!

Valentines Day rolled around and I made cinnamon rolls from scratch for Paul again. They were all kinds of tasty and not hard to make. We went to a nursery to pick out some flowers to plant and got seeds for vegetables too. Now we just need dirt.

Saturday we had a bunch of people over for craft day again, and I got to work on some embroidery for the quilt I am now, finally, working on. Paul fed us snacks and kept the fresh squeezed lemonade coming, and a good time was had by all. Next craft day is on the schedule for very soon. Let me know if you're interested in joining us.

Yesterday I went for a checkup and my nice-seeming doctor showed her true evil by sending me to get blood drawn. The appointment people had asked me to fast when I made the appointment, so I was already feeling pretty terrible (almost blacked out in the shower in the morning before I even went to the doctor) I keep thinking the blood draws will get easier, but they actually get worse every time. This time, they ended up paging two nurses to rush over to me and it was all very dramatic and embarrassing. This episode took the wind out of my sails and I was completely and utterly exhausted for the rest of the day. Did they get enough blood? ugh.

Today will be better, as I've been promised cupcakes.

Last weekend was Craft Day, and as I said, I actually finished a project!

From 2010

This is the embroidery sampler bag from a great book called Doodle Stitching. It is suppoed to hold your embroidery hop and since it has all the stitches on the book on it, serve as a reference. But it is really small, even thought I made mine bigger than the book suggested, so only my smallest embroidery hoop can fit (barely) in it. Also, I think I made it more crooked than was suggested by the book, but WHATEVER. I FINISHED.

From 2010

And then became obsessed with the idea of making a quilt. So I spent a week looking at fabrics in the store and online, until whenever I closed my eyes, I saw textiles prints. The ones I was hoping to find, but couldn't. I never found the right fabric for the handquilted project I want to do (inspired by a project in this fabulous book called Last Minute Patchwork + Quilted Gifts)

By this past weekend I was saturated, and finally decided to try my luck ordering several fabrics online. I expect colors will be a problem, so I'll probably have to go shopping again to replace the ones that don't work.


Saturday Paul and I finally got our H1N1 vaccines. Oddly enough, NOT covered by insurance! The woman in front of us in line at the pharmacy was being told that her medicine was goint to cost her $300 because that's all her insurance would cover. She said she guessed she'd just have to do with out it if she couldn't get a special coupon from her doctor.

We need Single Payer Health coverage! It's embarrassing that we can't take care of ourselves, that "insurance" companies get to take premiums and then not cover prescribed medicines, and that they refuse to cover vaccines which? are a hell of a lot cheaper than treatments.

Oh, and ever since my vaccine, I'm feeling mildly autistic. Which I'm hoping will help me get a fancy engineering job. Maybe I should go back for another shot.

words

I for one, am VERY excited about tomorrow's closing of the despicable U.S prison in Guantanamo Bay!

I've got my party hat on in wild anticipation and everything.

Woot! Hope! Change!

Tell Congress to Get It Right! Protect Women’s Access to Abortion in Health Care Reform

I just did this, and you can too! From the ACLU:

The health care reform bills in both the Senate and the House include severe restrictions on women’s health. We must let our senators and representatives know that both provisions are unacceptable and must not be included in any final health care legislation.

Now, as the House and Senate prepare to reconcile the differences between their two bills, please tell your senators and representative to go back and get it right!

Will you take action, too?

http://action.aclu.org/StopStupak

My 10 hour honeymoon with Comcast=OVER

Update: I tried following their instructions, which didn't work. I tried using their chat support person, who finally told me "I have tried to turn it off on my end and did get errors" and I tried telling them I'd done all of this and including the chat transcript, to which they sent me back a canned answer pointing to the original docs. When I replied saying obviously you didn't read my email, so let me repeat my complaint and for good measure sent them a screenshot, then????

They finally told me that they don't support Macintosh. Which? has zero to do with DNS or why the stuff wasn't showing up in their little user settings console. (I knew this but just to be a good little user, I tested by using Paul's Windoze machine, with Internet Exploder, and it still wasn't there) But let it be a warning to any other Mac users out there: Comcast doesn't want your business, and the opt-out service (and who knows what else) are not supported for Macintosh. And they won't tell you this up front.

"After reviewing your email and checking my resources, I found out that the disable option is not available for Macintosh and likewise Intel Mac OS X 10.5 is not yet supported by us as of this time. Most Mac-compatible features of Comcast High-Speed Internet (CHSI) should work with Leopard; however, as Leopard is not yet officially supported by Comcast, there may be some Mac-compatible CHSI products that will not work. I do apologize for any inconvenience this may cause."

In case anyone besides Comcast is living under a rock, Leopard was released over 2 years ago-- not exactly bleeding edge.

Here's what I want from an ISP: send my fucking packets. The way you're supposed to. Not redirecting them to some craptastic site that makes you more money and wastes my time. The way I have my settings in my browser should be the way things work. I just want the intertubes. To send my stuff through. Not your "service" that you won't allow me to opt out of. I don't want any of your vaguely mentioned "Mac-compatible CHSI products that will not work." NO products, please! Just Internet Service. Tubes. Or, a dumptruck, or whatever.


Solution:
http://code.google.com/speed/public-dns/docs/using.html
Took me ten minutes, set it at the router level, and so far, so good. I trust google not to override my choices. I may be biased, but they have not done me wrong so far.


Update: 10 minutes later, I recieve my first bill from Comcast, and they are already trying to overcharge us. The recurring service they are trying to bill me is $15 more than we agreed on. I saved the original chat with the original number, but I'm guessing this is why they've been so opaque all along.

DNS Hijacking for only 49.99/month!

Wow, I've had Comcast internet for 1 day, and I'm already pissed off at them!

anyone using alternative DNS out there, can offer pointers or reports on how wonky it might be?

tasty cow

So that's it!
After over 20 years of being vegetarian, I have finally decided to start eating cows and pigs and chickens again.




Whew! About time!






and omg, how tasty they were!

From 2010

Having this 4 day weekend has been heaven. I know we had one for Christmas, but it had been stretched thin by family obligations. This weekend was mine! MINE! And I can't remember the last time I felt so well-rested. (no, not even the Wednesday of Christmas week when I came home from work and collapsed after dinner into a 12-hour sleep)

Wednesday night I finished sewing a Christmas present (yes, really) and started another craft experiment.

Thursday I slept in too late to allow for my scheduled errands, and then Paul and I lived it up in Sunnyvale in the following way: we gulped down a bottle of "California Sparkling Wine" on the way to the thrift store, ate a nice dinner at the local Mexican joint, and then wandered around Target drunk, wondering what the hell we could possibly do for fun in Sunnyvale on New Year's Eve. The conclusion was "nothing," so we returned home and had our very first fireplace night using the remnant of a duraflame left by previous tenants. We were in bed by 11, and woken up by the local kids screaming at midnight.

Which was nice because it meant I had saved my overindulgence for the following day, when we went to some friends' house in Alameda, where I drank many the beerz and talked to much and too loud. We saw old friends, and I realized that many of them were the same I spent my last turn-of-decade New Years' with back when the world was supposed to end due to some poor coding bug thingie.

Saturday I had my New Year's headache, a day late, which I scrubbed off at the Farmer's Market and coffee house before my parents came over to bring us more firewood and the Christmas gifts we'd left at their house. Just in time too, because we'd need the new waffle iron since our other one tried to catch fire on Thursday morning. Saturday night I worked at New Wave City.

Sunday I went to my parents' house to finally give Nuno felting a whirl, with mixed results. It was interesting and fun, and one of two projects coming out nice isn't too bad I suppose. Needs more experimenting.

In between I did some goal setting, and we hammered out finances to try to stay on track in the next year, including a series of funny discussions in the past few days about, for instance, whether we can afford to run the electric heater in the bathroom for 45 minutes/day (we can!), and whether we can afford to continue our fancy cellphone service (we cannot). We spent 30 minutes agonizing over dumping netflix or keeping on at the lowest possible subscription, where $4/month still seemed like too much to bear. Then we went and blew the difference on margaritas at the local Mexican joint. Ah! We are so enigmatic!

I also felt very proud of putting a boatload of extra time in at the gym this month, and celebrated by not exercising at all, and eating a bunch of garbage for 4 days. hooray?

Year-End Repetitive Navel-Gazing Thingie

I've been using this inventory for the past few years or so. a lot of these things don't seem to apply to me very well anymore, but I'm always loathe to give up anything that might be *tradition* so here it is:

1. What did you do in 2009 that you'd never done before?

• Saw a Grizzly Bear!
• Went Kayaking
• Visited the Lost Coast
• Took up "running"
  

2. Did you keep your new years' resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

Seems unlikely... let's see, shall we? Here's what I said:

Career:

• apply for PMP, see if they'll accept my application to take the test
• develop a plan for career. When people ask me what I want to do in the future, I should have some sort of answer. Right now, I have no idea, and it is sort of embarrassing.

Health:

• I've decided to do the 100 pushup challenge! Because, why not? And I need trackable goals, as I don't do well with things like "lose weight" or "gain muscle"
• My main concern this year is getting my heart in shape. I need to talk with my doctor to be able to figure out exactly what this goal is, though.

Other:

• Max my 401K
• Save more cash for the shit economy
• Sew and craft more, and specifically: sew more and start making my own shampoo, etc. (the chemicals they use in body care products are really fucked up)
• Get Things Done.

Yikes, no career goals were met, probably because, as illustrated by #2, I'm not very career-goal oriented. I thought I'd get my PMP app squared away in the last two weeks which I was told would be quiet at work, but instead I was hammered by incessant "emergencies"
The 100 pushup challenge was going OK until it gave me severe back pain, at which time I switched to chest presses, which got lost in the move around August.
Oh, here's one! I DID improve my cardiac health-- I think I'm doing really well on that front! yays.

The "other" goals were met... maxed my 401k and stashed some more cash besides, despite a challenging financial year for us. It just goes to show that anyone can save, even someone living in one of the most expensive areas of the country with only one income for two people.
I did ok on "more crafts" especially now that I have a sewing room. We did make a lot for Christmas, which I'll divulge after Christmas is over (after Epiphany!)
I Got Things Done. Other Things, I did not Get Done.



So how about 2010 goals?

Career:

• Keep my job.
  
• Grow my responsibilities and cross-functional work
• Do my damn PMP thing

Health:

• Continue "running," specifically continue improving my cardiovascular health

Financial

• Max out my 401K
• Meet the cash savings goals Paul and I are finalizing tonight

Other

• Have monthly crafting day at my house with family and friends
• See my friends more
  

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
I don't remember anything like that...

4. Did anyone close to you die?
No

5. What countries did you visit?
Canuckistan


6. What would you like to have in 2010 that you lacked in 2009?
hmmm, a second income? oh! A GOAT! and renter's insurance

7. What date from 2009 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
September 27th, 2009! Our first wedding anniversary, and we spent it with my entire family. How... romantic. :/

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
I had some successes at work in a correcting an abandoned cross-functional project. That was relatively successful despite the complete abandonment from its previous owner.

More importantly, I handmade many of my Christmas gifts!

And, I stuck with "running" in spite of my inherent physical unfitness.

9. What was your biggest failure?
I still have not submitted my PMP application, despite my boss' not-always-gentle nagging

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
just little things like needing physical therapy after taking up "running"

11. What was the best thing you bought?
tickets to the South. Savannah and Charleston and surrounding swamps were beautiful.

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?
I am so proud of Paul for deciding to go back to school, and persevering through all the red tape bullshit getting transcripts transferred (and opened) and all of that.

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
Teabaggers. Michelle Bachmann. OMG, Glenn Beck-- holy crap if I see him cry on TeeVee one more time I may jump through the TeeVee and strangle him.

14. Where did most of your money go?
Savings and rent.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
Moving out of our shithole in Mountain View. It had been so depressing and we were so happy to leave.

16. What songs/bands will always remind you of 2009?

Is it sick that I really like Lady Gaga's videos, which I only know about because they occasionally have them playing at breakfast in the cafe I eat in at work?

17. Compared to this time last year, are you happier or sadder?
Happier

ii. thinner or fatter?
Fatter.

iii. richer or poorer?
Richer

18. What do you wish you'd done more of?
Reading books, crafting, adventuring, learning

19. What do you wish you'd done less of?
I try to read the whole internet. It is to much, and I wish I could figure out how to stay so informed with less time. Without giving up all the cool blogs I read (yay Scienceblogs!)

20. How will you be spending Christmas?
I spent Christmas with family as always. This year, Paul and I finally had a house to put lights on and next year we hope to do more more more! I also spent quite a bit of time crafting for Christmas, with mostly good, and a few "uh, ok, that will have to do," results.

22. Did you fall in love in 2009?
I still fall! Every day!

23. How many one night stands?
No. I decided last year I'd change this question going forward to "What's on your night stand?"

• credit card from buying airline tickets last night
• glass of water, almost exactly half full, from drinking water in my sleep last night
• alarm clock-- truly alarming. I got it for Christmas and still have not gotten used to it
• Glasses-because I'm legally bind in one eye
• two red pens
• a piece of thread left from sewing in bed (what, I don't know)
• an fancy phone which I also am not yet used to
• The case for my NTI nightguard, which I still love
  

24. What were your favorite TV programs?
We still don't have TV but we still watch The Daily Show and Colbert Report on the internet for free, though lately we've been too busy


(what happened to 25?)

26. What was the best book you read?
Confederates in the Attic

27. What was your greatest musical discovery?
89.1 FM KCEA. It is THE BEST.

28. What did you want and get?
I desperately wanted to move from the shithole in Mountain View, and I am so happy with the place we live now. It is a boring place, but at least we don't have tweakers on our roof anymore.

Also, very importantly, a clean bill of health for my mother-in-law after some particularly nasty cancer treatment.

29. What did you want and not get?
ahem, have I mentioned A GOAT?
OK, what I really wanted and did not get was a Mission Motors electric bike hottness. I know they do not exist for reals yet, but the proof-of-concept bike was SO much fun to ride.
Really... I guess there are few crafty buildy projects around the house I'd like.. like the glass display table and the ribbon/notions rack in the sewing room.

30. What was your favorite film(s) of this year?
We didn't go to the movies this year a single time. It's a total ripoff.

31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
My parents were out of town, so we totally had a party at their house! It was nice: Paul BBQ'd, people brought their kids over to swim, and a nice mellow time was had by us old farts. I turned 32.

32. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
My grandfather. I think of him every day, and James too.

33. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2007?
I can't afford fancy new clothes, and they are all made in China anyway.
I do like little bits of handmade jewelry though, and Paul got me several cute necklaces. And I got nice accessories from Etsy and my knitting mother... handmade FTW!

34. What kept you sane?
My dear patient husband... who watches me blow up on a regular basis and supports me when I take on too much. My job, which I love, and all the supporting stuff around that that removes roadblocks in my life (I don't have to cook! or join a gym! or have a cold butt when I got to the bathroom!)

35. Which celebrity/public figure(s) did you fancy the most?
Jon Stewart? Rachel Maddow?

36. What political issue stirred you the most?

Healthcare reform. We need a public option!

37. Who did you miss?
My grandfather and James, who are gone

My friends, who are all too far away or busy

38. Who was the best new person you met?
New person? There are new people out there?

39. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2009.

As Colbert noted the other night when talking with Tom Brokaw, a few hundred noisy people can become the majority in this country just by making a scene.

Also, don't count on there being jobs available-- you need savings, and a lot of it

40. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.

I don't know... something about being poor but in love. We don't need money really.

First sentence of the month. And! A picture from each month!

oooh it's been a lazy year in blogging. I didn't even have a first sentence of blogging for each month. How embarrassing!


January
I've been using this inventory for the past few years or so. a lot of these things don't seem to apply to me very well anymore, but I'm always loathe to give up anything that might be *tradition* so here it is:

From 2009.01.30 Kansas Trip

February
Kansas!
(no photos)


March
Paul and I have had an eye on the real estate markets for a couple of years now, and like to visit houses for sale when we can.

From 2009.03 Trip to the South

April
Homeopathy and all manner of stoopid pseudoscience crap bugs me.

From 2009

May
(no sentences.)

From 2009.05.23-25 Westport

June
We decided to go for a ride today.

From 2009

July
When I lived in downtown San Francisco, there was a little building crammed in amongst the others that always caught my eye.

From 2009

August
Keys to the new place!!!!!!

From 2009

September
(no blogs.)

From 2009.09 Canada

October
(no blogs.)

From 2009.09 Canada

November
I kept thinking that if I just had a chunk of quiet time, I would finally catch up on my blog.

From 2009

December
I've been sick the past two weeks, and you'd think staying at home would have given me time to update, but you'd be wrong.

From 2009

Atheist Christmas Traditions

by way of ScienceBlogs...
In case you were wondering what I did for Christmas as a heathen atheist (or agnostic anyway)

All Is Calm (finally!)

I slept for 12 hours last night. Incredible.

Work was insane for the past few days. Hopes that I'd use the quiet week to catch up on overdue projects were dashed and bashed repeatedly and violently by the demands of sales teams making the end of quarter work around the holidays. Glad to be of help, but gave me an insane headache yesterday, which I slept off for a luxurious 12 hours.

Not to say I didn't work a little today, but! I woke up so refreshed, I finally moved some money around and made some year-end donations to a few charities: ACLU, Planned Parenthood Golden Gate, Donors Choose, and SPCA East Bay. Got a few bucks extra at the end of the year? The ACLU and PPGG are being matched by outside donors if you donate by the end of this year. Donors Choose has a lot of projects which are being matched by corporate donors too.

I tried this year to do a lot of handmade, with mixed results. Today I had a few projects left, which, if I'd run errands last night or this morning, I totally could have finished. However, I would have been a mess of stress and I really don't think Paul deserves much more of me being like that. So I decided to accept where I was and take it easy today. From cards and cookies to gifts and (half-finished) decorations, it's been fun, but it's time to accept our flaws and move on to the "peace" part of the holiday!

I love you all and hope you are having a wonderful holiday of choice, or if you choose no holiday at all, a merry merry Thursday!

Craft Day

We've set a date for our next stitch and bitch craft day thingie -- Saturday, January 16th
I've sent a calendar invite if I knew you were interested. If you are interested and didn't get an invite, please send me a message!
Nothing major, just sitting around doing crafty stuff and talking smack.

Happy Solstice!

I'm a Christmas girl, through and through.
"Happy Holidays" is fine, and so is "Season's Greetings," but for me it's "Merry Christmas!"

Still, today is Winter Solstice, and it's basically the same mixed-up business. (religions have been "borrowing" gods, holidays, and myths from each other forever, and this is no exception.) From darkness to light! Hope is born! And the cycle continues.

I came across this short article at Scienceblogs with a quick explanation of the astronomy, and, more importantly, pretty pictures of the sun in its various phases. oooooh, purty!