Bringing the crazy to a whole new audience...

petak , 27.08.2021.

I could make money off that forehead.

So, I did go see Grandma but didn't get around to posting these pictures until today. It's busy at Chez Hairball, what can I say? (Actually, I did clean my house on Columbus Day AND do laundry and I would like to inform you I have things... underthings... I had forgotten I owned. Now that is saying something for the Panty Purchasing Power. Ya'll know of what I speak.)

That is SO not related to convalescent hospital talk! Yet, still. Quite true.

Grandma is feeling better and she has some color in her cheeks and she's as chipper and funny as ever. I took her a stack of Really Very Good reading material (i.e. tabloids) and a fresh copy of Rage of Angels because I know that if I were laid up after a stroke, I too would want to amuse and berate myself for finding Michael Moretti the better man (Adam Warner, you are no Ashley Wilkes!) (for those of you who are like, "Michael who?" you must cease enriching your brain immediately and go read Rage of Angels, awesome awesome drivel.)

Also, there is a new resident at the hospital!

This is new resident Kit E. Cat.

There are a few residents I've gotten to know who I really look forward to seeing when I go visit Grandma. Raydine is fascinating lady, and she is definitely the kitten's favorite person:

More pictures, this is Lester:

Mr. Hakim, who always has a smile:

One of the great things about Halloween is that it leeches the goober right out of us all (eeeww! leeches! spooky halloweeny!) and believe me, under the carefully controlled exterior of every man, woman and nursing attendant is a big old goober.

Is it a trained, qualified professional caregiver or a SPOOKY VILLAIN???

Derek or Baboon Boy? Mysterious! Spooky!

Aunt Pam, Nursing Administrator or Aunt Pam, cast member of CATS?

So, there was much carrying on with general tomfoolery and a good time was had by all. Thank you again to Kristy for organizing the Grandma Purl blanket-a-long, and I hope ya'll know how much everyone in my family thanks ya'll and how much I do appreciate it, even when I am out corrupting convalescent hospitals and pimping out Sidney Sheldon books and generally leeching out the goobers within.

Oh, and showing off my forehead. Of course!

Online commerce shows development

četvrtak , 19.08.2021.

Experts note the rapid growth of the global e-commerce market. According to many data, Europe is the most prepared for online commerce, which, however, can be traced in earlier analyses in this segment. It may be noted that the pandemic has played a significant role in improving performance around the world, forcing people to take a closer look at the possibilities of remote interaction between sellers and buyers. The authors also point to the need to achieve digital transformation in countries where low incomes are represented. There is now a significant gap in the field, even among the G-20 countries. By comparison, in the UK, 87% of the population makes online purchases, while in India only 3% do so.

It is worth noting that over the past year, many people have been able to look differently at the possibilities of online shopping. It turned out to be both profitable and very convenient. The latter point is ensured not only by the efforts of the trade resources themselves, but also by the presence of sites that allow the most efficient choice of suitable goods. Such projects allow the monitoring of all categories in demand among consumers. Offers from thousands of sellers can be collected in one place.

For example, one such service for Aliexpress is Pricearchive.org, which covers segments of home and pet products, electronics, auto and motorcycle products, cell phones and accessories, watches, sports and entertainment, clothing for men and women, children's products and much more. For each category, there are tens of thousands of vendors and millions of products. This opens up impressive opportunities for choosing the perfect solution in the marketplace: and to do so, you don't have to browse through countless sites with offers of interest.

You can use the project as a website and as a browser extension. The site has impressive functionality that improves the quality of shopping. For example, you can use it to check the price history of a particular product, find similar offers in one click, read real item reviews, photos and customer reviews, track the location of the parcel. This is especially convenient to do in their browser extension.

Of interest are other features of the project. For example, it selects goods with the grandest discounts: information on each category is updated daily. A great deal of attention is also paid to providing responsive support, promptly responding to any messages from users on the work of the service itself.

That's what I said in a nutshell. In fact, there is more information to study. If you want to save and not overpay on Aliexpress, you can start by watching a video or reading an article from the developers of the service.

Here are some resources to get you started.

Pricearchive website - Aliexpress tracking

Google Chrome Aliexpress price tracker Chrome extension


Articles

Medium AliExpress search by image

Medium AliExpress price tracker


Videos

Youtube AliExpress price tracker

Youtube AliExpress price history

Youtube AliExpress search by image

Vimeo AliExpress price tracker

Vidlii AliExpress price tracker


Linkedin account of the developer of the service
Yandex profile of the service
Just happened to find a Weheartit profile of someone who uses this service like me.
Additional information can be found here.

Localized versions of the site

Aliexpress verfolgung (DE)
Historial precios Aliexpress (ES)
Suivi prix AliExpress (FR)
Monitoraggio dei prezzi (IT)
RU


In one of my next posts, I will tell you about some other interesting and useful project.

Oznake: e-commerce, shopping, aliexpress, price, Tracking, parcel, service

Wine and late nights and writing do not mix.

utorak , 17.08.2021.

Tonight I went to the grocery store after work, it was a long day, a long week, everything moving so fast at my job and all around me, almost like I'm stuck in time or molasses trying to catch up with the whole world. Everyone just a step ahead.

The Trader Joe's parking lot was packed, but I got a spot as soon as I pulled in (I have good parking karma to make up for my distinct lack of actual driving karma. Carma?) I had the windows down on the Jeep even though it wasn't hot, because I just do that sometimes. The wind is so good when the music is loud.

And I bought blackberries, they looked ripe and fresh, and stuff for a quick dinner then one last-minute purchase: cabernet. I haven't been drinking much at all, but tonight...? It just looked good. I rationalized the price, "It's organic wine." I pulled my buggy up in line with all the other eleventeen hundred Los Angeles people at the store on a Friday night (no one but me says "buggy," though.) I saw him, I mean I saw him even before we got in line, because we were standing in the frozen foods aisle at the same time and he turned just so and looked at me, caught me right in the eye (even though I prefer to look away).

So when I got in line, I knew it was him behind me even before he asked me, "Have you tried that wine before? Is it any good?" Like he was interested. In the wine.

But when I get nervous, my accent gets real thick, I hate it. Then he says "Where are you from?" It sounds like such a teeny question but it's loaded. People from out here have all these ideas about where I'm from, and besides I've lived here longer than any other one place. And it puts me just a little on the defensive, because this is why I tried real hard to lose my accent to begin with. Except, now that I'm trying to be very honest about who I am (and who I am not) it's pointless to hide it and also, why am I feeling on the defensive? Probably just nerves. I got so used to being rejected by my own husband that having someone follow me to the checkout lane is making me feel ... ? Suspicious, I think. And a little anxious, and secretly happy because he's cute and buying vitamins.

I'm putting the bag into my car and he walks up to me and hands me his business card, or something, and he says, "if you ever wanted to... or, I mean, if you're not... married? I'm Scott..." and I just stood there, like an idiot, and I was baffled. It wasn't until I got home that I realized I had dropped the card in the parking lot, because I was so unhinged, maybe? And then anyway, it was so strange, because he went back inside the store. I guess to finish shopping.

I have no idea how to handle myself now. Single is hard after married. I want to be good at it, but I'm awkward and scared. Like I'm just one step behind everyone else. Stuck in time or molasses.

PostScript

subota , 14.08.2021.

Uh, yeah, about that thing? That I had to go do? With the law?

Pretty much it couldn't have gone worse. After about twenty minutes it became very clear: if the judge stipulated that I would immediately have to remand all the cats and all my cute shoes into the custody of Mr. X, it would just be par for the fucking course.

It's kind of still at that place where you can't really laugh about it yet. But it went something like this: "And also you, Ms. Purl, Ugly Female Respondent trying to get anything from this man who left you, much like I left my Ugly Wife for a younger woman, anyway, you have to immediately hand over posession of every good thing you ever buy from now on to the ownership of one Mr. X and if I could jail you for being a woman, then I would!" So ya'll know. It's a crap shoot. It happens.

Anyway, I'm going to take a little break to wrap my mind around it and I'll see ya'll on July 5th. Enjoy our nation's birthday and remember: all those little American flags? They sprung fully formed from the brain of A WOMAN. I love you, Betsy Ross. Sure, historians have tried to strip us of the Betsy Ross story for years, g-ddamn woman haters, but I BELIEVE. She had a needle and thread and a great idea and she sewed it right up between her knitting projects and doing the laundry, and ya'll know the only reason she didn't knit up a flag was because they didn't have good acrylic blends back then.

I named my first kitten Betsy Ross when I was six years old. Talk about foreshadowing.

Please address your hate mail to delete@delete.com. Thanks!

četvrtak , 12.08.2021.

The August 2021 issue of Esquire magazine has an interesting cover story:

That's me, with Esquire and my boughtnpaidfor nails...

The article and a few surrounding pieces focus on "The State of the American Man" and you can read it online here. I bought this magazine because when I was flipping through it while standing in line at the 7-11 (surprise!), I saw this quote:

We're faced with the accrual of a large population of boys who aren't well-prepared for either school or work. "The problem," says one advocate, "is what this will add up to in twenty years."

As soon as I read that, I said to myself, "Oh, my little 'advocate' ... you don't have to wait twenty long years to see what this will add up to! All you need to do is come to Los Angeles right now and try this crazy thing called dating." Of course, I kept that thought to myself, because I am a nice girl and also I am deeply sensitive to the amount of hate mail I could get for saying a thing like that out loud. I know I'd be instantly branded a bitter hag of a man-hater and fish/bicycle references would pour in.

Then yesterday I saw reader Susan's comment, in which she said:

I apologize PROFUSELY for the generally horrid job our local mothers have done raising thier sons to be decent dating material. May I offer up my three most valuable bits of hard-earned dating knowledge for avoiding "Los Angelenos Horrible Mannerus"?:

#1 - Beware the "we should hang out sometime" routine! If a man isn't going to get up the nerve to ask you on a proper date - how the hell's he gonna get anything ELSE up to do even more vital functions? Just smile and change the subject. If he's dying to spend time with you, he'll find the nerve to ask properly!

#2 - I always made my weekend plans by Wednesday at 10 pm. Firm. If the guy of the moment doesn't call by then, he's gotta wait another week, or until lunch on Monday (if he wants to buy me lunch!). This culls out the possibility of being a last-minute resort some Friday night when he's realized he's bored and his x-box hasn't got breasts.

#3 - To avoid the loathed "So, whaddya wanna do?" after you're in the car, ask "So, what's the dress code?" when you settle on a time for a date. "Is it a picnic, the movies....what should I wear?" Maybe it's just me, but I HATE guys who don't properly plan a date -- it's like a host that invites you to dinner, but expects YOU to plan the menu!

I know it's kind of bitchy and old-fashioned. But hey, in a town where it seems most of the guys are watching "Entourage" as a dating manual, a girl's gotta have skills to get respect.


It was as if Susan had read my mind.

As ya'll know, I waited a LONG LONG time to venture back into dating, and I took my time, thought it through, worked on some personal stuff so that I wouldn't be working out my issues with every poor Joe and Harry who encountered me and my matched 32-piece set of heavy luggage. So I got my emotional baggage down to a manageable carry-on, handbag and drama wallet. Then I got my hair did and my nails done and ventured forth into the fray.

What I discovered was ... kind of sad, really.

In the space of time between now and when I was last actively dating (what? ten years ago? give or take a little?), men have lost the ability to properly date. Not just that, they have lost the ability to even ask a woman on a proper date.

I've only been doing this horrible dating thing since March, and I have discovered that the old, perfectly lovely phrase "Would you like to have dinner with me?" has been replaced by the following:


A: "Hey, you want to hook up sometime?"
Translation: I'm too lazy to make plans with you.


B: "Hey, wannna kick it sometime?"
Translation: See Option A, plus I have bad grammar.


C: "So, want to come over and watch a movie?"
Translation: I'm too lazy to make plans, and I am also cheap. But I'm hoping that proximity will get me laid.


D: "I could come over to your place and we could watch a movie."
Translation: My place is a mess/I live at home/I'm hiding a significant other, but I want to get laid.


E: "Call me if you want to hang out sometime."
Translation: (I have no idea. See how bad I am at this dating thing?)


One might think this sort of behavior was limited to men ages 25 and under. One would be wrong. How a man can reach the age of FORTY YEARS OLD and not know how to take a woman on a proper date is beyond me. And ya'll. This isn't brain surgery. It's not like we're asking to be catered to and financially supported and worshiped in gilt-shrine-fashion with expensive gifts in tiny, blue boxes. Just a phone call and a proper date. Call and say, "Hi. Would you like to go see a movie/go have coffee/go to dinner/attend a free concert in Woodland Hills/go on a picnic at the beach/go to a party with me next Saturday?"

That's all. SO EASY. (And, of course follow through on said date.) (Notice the freebie option, too. I'll take good manners over a hefty wallet any day of the week and twice on Sundays.)

I told this very thing to a guy I met recently, and he informed me he just didn't like having to "jump through some woman's hoops for a date."

Well, sir, I don't really want to shave my legs or underarms or pluck my eyebrows or get a haircut or wear my contact lenses or listen to that story about the time you won your fantasy football league, either. But because I do not want to be a rude, hairy woodland creature with bad eyesight I JUMP THROUGH THE AFOREMENTIONED HOOPS.

(Jump through hoops indeed. I quote Samantha when I say, "They don't call it a JOB for nothing.")

At this point, those of ya'll already penning your poison email should back slowly away from the keyboard. Simple fact is, I don't hate men. I wouldn't care about this apparent man crisis if I hated men! I LOVE men. I love the way they smell and walk and talk and fix stuff and you know what stuff I mean, I just love everything about them.

But I'm not real fond of BOYS. Especially BOYS that should already be grown and be MEN. Just seems like a lot of guys don't want to man up, don't want to participate in normal adult dating behavior.

Is this just a Los Angeles thing? Or am I an antique? A relic from another time, when dating meant a phone call on Wednesday asking you to a date on Saturday? Am I too small-town? Old-fashioned? Or have men really stopped being men and now they have descended into some x-box/playstation/DVD collecting no-man's-land (literally) where they desire only to live forever in an extended adolescence?

Help me. Help me understand this. I am so confused.

Send wine. And real men. c/o General Delivery, Los Angeles CA. Come to think of it, you can send your hate mail there, too. Whoops.

Small step for girl, giant leap for knitting.

srijeda , 11.08.2021.

Finished the jury duty hat last night on the bus ride home from work:

Details: One pink hat, made from the easy roll-brim hat recipe.

Materials: Clover bamboo circular needles (size 11) and Crystal Palace "Iceland" wool in a variegated pink. It came out looking a little like pink camouflage, but what can you do?

I still have two skeins of the yarn left, and of course my normal next move would be to make a matching scarf. However, I have made a decision. A big decision. A bold decision! Sometime in the middle of the night, it came to me like a dream.

It is time.

Time to break out of the rectangle. Time to explore new horizons beyond the circular hat.

It is time to make a mitten. Or two.

I thought I might start with the pattern in Weekend Knitting for "super mittens" unless anyone present can give a reason why this woman and those mittens should not be joined at the hand ...

Also, if you have any Mitten Knowledge and Wisdom you want to share, please! Feel free! I am listening! See? Ears. Open!

Also, I would never end on a cute cat picture just because I am late for a meeting and have nothing witty to say. In fact, that's just a cheap shot and a copout.

Frankie isn't a supermodel, but she plays one on the Internets.

Oznake: knitting, Work, yarn

Veuve Cliquot taste on a Colt 45 budget

ponedjeljak , 09.08.2021.

Apparently my material snobbery issues extend not only to furniture and design, but also to yarn. And knitting needles.

After spending $120 on supplies this week alone, I decided I needed to calm the fuck down on yarn spending. However, I'm totally obsessed with knitting and jonesing to practice my purl stitch skills and rib stitch and drop-stitch oh my.

So I decided to purchase some more yarn. BECAUSE THAT SOLVES THE PROBLEM. But I decided to purchase practice yarn and by "practice yarn" I mean a skein of something cheap and easy ... not the $25 hank of feathery mohair I purchased, not the Crystal Palace fuzzies in my bag, not the skein of Noro I was eying on my way out of class on Saturday. No. I need plain, bulky wool that is inexpensive and easy to work with.

In just the past few weeks I have managed to visit and patronize a rather startling number of local yarn shops. For someone who has yet to successfully cast off a single project this might be a melding of craft love + retail therapy, who can say for sure.

All I know is that if I visit another local yarn shop I'll go nutty and end up with a bag of mohair and alpaca and god only knows what novelty crap. Danger Will Robinson! Danger!

To prevent financial bloodletting, I have to remove myself from the environment of money suckage (i.e. upscale shops with a good selection) in order to buy a nice, plain practice yarn. This method of shopping is how I handle my Bloomingdale's problem. For example, if I want a simple T-shirt and I go to Bloomie's for it, I'll end up spending $72 on a white cotton T-shirt which is INSANE, and I am immediately embarrassed by my lack of self control and common sense. Plus my credit cards begin to vibrate in a bad way. To control myself, I must go to a place where the uppermost cap on T-shirt spending is a reasonable $30-40. That way I feel judiciously prudent with my $25 plain white T-shirt.

The things we do.

Back to yarn. I really had no idea where to go for the plain, wool practice yarn of my dreams. Unlike T-shirts, there is no Gap of yarn. So I went to Michael's in Encino.

It was crowded. And damp. And a ketchup-covered child was running hog wild touching everything within reach of his grimy little paws. There was not a natural fiber in the entire store. I would pick up a skein of this or that, hold it between my fingers, and feel it squeak. Some of it kind of crunched. And some of it was glazed with ketchup from hog wild kid.

As soon as I arrived in the yarn aisle I realized that I had become a yarn snob, and I was exhibiting snobbery -- something I detest to do in the presence of snobbery-free folks -- and I still couldn't stop myself. I wanted to be one with the people, the Glasnost Girl of acrylics, the Cumbaya of faux wool, but I was unable to get past myself. And the people! Ladies were swarming in there! Seriously. It was like the Soviet bread line of yarn, with people prodding and pushing, grabbing skeins out of near-empty shelves, tussling over some burgundy Red Heart.

It's not like I have never been to a Michael's before. I've clipped the 50% OFF ONE ITEM! coupon many a time for a tub of gesso, or a boar-bristle brush, a tube of titanium white. I've bought pre-stretched canvas there. Sure, I prefer to hand-stretch my own, but I also prefer the smell of home-baked bread to a microwaved tortilla and how many nights do you think I bake my own freakin' bread, people? Not too many, I'll tell you that much. I am lazy. And I am democratic with paint surfaces. I mean, if Picasso could paint on a slab of wood, I think I can handle a Michael's pre-stretched canvas. I'll paint on anything. Cardboard, masonite, wood, concrete. I'd paint on you if you'd stand still long enough.

Yet, I've never really wandered outside the painting supplies aisle of a Michael's. I don't scrapbook. I don't do fake flowers, or cake pans shaped like Andro, or year-round Easter baskets. I buy all my sewing supplies in the garment district. My beads and bobbles and such come from Bohemian Crystal or one of the other bazillion notions shops in downtown Los Angeles. I thought maybe the problem was the store. Like Target or Ralph's or Rite-Aid, sometimes location makes all the difference. Right?

So I drove to Burbank to the newer (thanks Mary to a prompt), much larger Michael's where the larger, more plentiful yarn aisles were equally as crowded as the Encino Michael's, but certainly cleaner. I searched aisle to aisle for any natural-fiber yarn. I like novelty yarn and fun fur and acrylic just fine. For some reason, however, I had 100% pure wool bulky yarn on the brain, and I wanted it cheap, and I wanted it now. Michael's is a perfectly fine store, once you get past the ketchup-covered, parentless children. Really. It is.

Finally, I located a Michael's salesperson (do you have any idea how hard that was or how long it took to find a person in a red smock who had worked there for longer than one hour and had any knowledge of the store's stock? Oh. My. God.) and I asked said salesperson if they stocked any 100% wool yarn.

"Well, we have one, but it's been discontinued, so what's here is all we have, and we won't be getting more."

It was a perfectly lovely, soft, classic bulky wool, Patons Up Country in deep charcoal grey.

"Why are you discontinuing this?" I asked. "It's so nice!"

"It's just too expensive," she said.

I looked at the price on the bin. $7.99/skein (100g). That's too expensive? And then my old pre-knitting brain kicked in and reminded me that mere months ago I would have been astonished to find that any human being on planet earth would willingly pay more than two dollars for yarn. Good Lord. I must be sucked into some netherworld of yarn snobbery whose depths are unbeknownst even to me. Maybe I've grown so accustomed to being ripped off, I just think it's natural to fork over $25 for a skein of yarn. Remember me, the dumbass? I was happy with my starter yarn, $12 for a tee-tiny ball of Filatura di Crosa.

So this is how it's gonna be, I guess. It's my hobby after all, not the makings of a scarf sweatshop. Why not indulge myself? I have so few hobbies that I love these days. I'm too depressed and love-hating to finish my novel, I don't have a studio any more to paint in, and if you give me enough time I will think of some other dramatical reason to add to this list.

It's been a rough few months. I need this hobby. I love this hobby. So, if I want to be a high-end yarn ho, then dammit, a-ho'ing I will go.

A little freeway shooting

subota , 07.08.2021.

This may come as a real surprise to ya'll, but I take my camera with me everywhere I go. It's an extension of my arm, just like that professor I had back in college who had a coffee cup permanently cemented to one hand. You never saw him without that coffee cup. Many theories swirled about what was really in The Mug, but no one was brave enough to get close-up and personal for a whiff.

Anyway, I love my camera. It's nothing fancy (a Kodak EasyShare with practically no megapixels) but no matter. I'm not a photographer girl. I'm a picture taker. Snapshots R Us, right here.

My dad is also a cameraholic, so this is probably genetic. He's had a camera pointed at us kids since the time we were little, even on occassion taking pictures to document the following: my messy teenage room, the worst perm I ever had, and the time I pitched a hissy fit at Sea World. Thanks, Dad. The therapist's bill is in the mail!

So, yes, I love taking pictures. If someone told me I would have to choose between my camera and wine, well, let me tell you I would REALLY REALLY miss my camera.

Yesterday I had to drive into work. I needed to get there early and stay late to finish up a Big Project, which I must complete before Ginormous Soul-Sucking Project begins on June 1. All this time commuting to work on the bus has really spoiled me because I now have NO PATIENCE for traffic. NONE. And I am convinced I may be the last good driver left in the city of Los Angeles. So, the only way I could possibly deal with traffic and bad mergers and crappy drivers was to shoot them, as is the Los Angeles way. But since I don't believe in guns, I used my best weapon for DOCUMENTING and also SHAMING those who needed it. My camera.

(Also, yes I take pictures while I drive. But I am a GOOD driver. I am! Shutup.) What's really funny is that the guy in the blue Mercedes tried to merge into me, then changed lanes haphazardly to GET AHEAD of the traffic, then tried to merge into someone else, and then later I saw him pulled over on the side of the 101 with another car he'd apparently run into. I didn't get a picture of that. But HE DESERVED IT. The dumbass.

OK. Now, I'm just going to be honest with you. I know some people see a guy in a candy-apple red Ferrari and think, "That's Hot!"

Me? I see a guy in a car like that and I think, "He's overcompensating for something. Something very, very small." In Los Angeles, you need a car that can go from 60 to ZERO on a dime, not the other way around. And I think a red gajillion-dollar car is just the non-surgical method of penis enlargement. But then again, I am from the country. Give me a man with a beat-up pickup anyday. Or a nice sleek black Mercedes. Whatever. (I'm not picky. Heh.)

Back where I'm from, a.k.a. The Buckle of the Bible Belt, it's not unusual to see whole Jesus paintings on a car. But I was a little surprised to see this on the Hollywood Freeway. And did I learn wrong? I thought Jesus was the SON of God? Damn semantics. Gets me every time.

And finally, I leave you with the guy who tailgated me for forty minutes. Tailgating in bumper-to-bumper No Mile Per Hour traffic does you no good, people!!! Back off my bumper! Or I will photograph you looking at your own booger.

Oznake: photo, Camera

Knitting with telephone poles

četvrtak , 05.08.2021.

Working away on the Raven Scarf. Initially, I cast on ten stitches with size 15 needles. My swatch was WAY too tight, this combo is much thicker than I anticipated. After some trial and error, I decided on 7 stitches on a size 17 needle. This should go quickly.

Mistakenly, I assumed the big size 17 needles would be easier to handle but they make my hands cramp and I fear I may even be burning calories hoisting those giants. It's so awkward maneuvering the stitches I could almost break a sweat.

Aside from the prematurely arthritic cramping of my hands, the Raven scarf is turning out well. It's fuzzy and dense but the pink chenille yarn makes a faint stripe, almost like a candycane.

Close-up of the yarn:

In other breaking scarf news, my practice yarn scarf is coming along just swimmingly. It's an original all right. I'm using the Patons Up Country wool yarn in dark grey. By the way, it's much harder to see your stitches in a dark yarn. But my unique one-of-a-kind scarf has got ribbing in the middle of some stockinette, right next to some drop-stitch madness, where I apparently increased a stitch magically. Practice makes perfect.

I can't seem to figure out the proper way to do a drop-stitch row, since my end stitches are either way too tight or way too lose, hopefully I can make it to class on Saturday to ask the instructor what the hell I'm doing wrong. Teaching myself to knit from a book is a real adventure in patience and screwing up. Does anybody know if you're supposed to knit the first stitch, then start your yarnover on the second stitch? I was yarn-overing on the first stitch and getting a mess.

It should be very clear now why I needed a "practice yarn" and a "practice scarf."

Oznake: knitting

Read An E-Book Week!

srijeda , 04.08.2021.

This week has been declared Read an E-Book Week. Now I’m assuming if you hang out at this site with any regularity, then you’ve read an e-book. And many of you have been published via e-book. So y’all know what I’m talking about, right?

Well many people have NO CLUE what they are. At least people I know. And I know I’m not the first e-published author to say this. Heck a few years ago, I didn’t know they existed!

Let’s just say I certainly know what they are now! E-books are fabulous. They’re on the cutting edge of trends - they’ve gone green baby! No trees died for those books. Also, I’ve discovered a lot of great authors who write for e-publishers. Sometimes I feel like it’s unchartered territory and the general public is missing out.

But here’s my favorite thing about e-books - the instant gratification factor. You want to read that book now right? No waiting to order from Amazon, B&N or where ever, you get to read it the minute you download it onto your computer, reader, PDA, whatever you use.

Personally I don’t have an e-book reader but I want one. BAD. So I’m going to end this post and ask if any of you have one? What would you recommend? What brand would you not recommend?

Let’s hear it for e-books!

Query Letter Fun

utorak , 03.08.2021.

No….really….it is! I’ll be on Candace Havens’ Write Workshop loop this week talking query letters and blurbs! Please note, there are TWO loops. The Workshop loop is just the lesson and the Chat loop will be more interactive. Tuesday we’re talking the basics and Wednesday - Friday we’re talking blurbs so get our your wip, dust off that query letter and find your favorite books.

In honor of a class on my favorite subject….*ducks rotten eggs*….I swiped this Query Letter MadLib from Agent Nathan Bransford. I know you remember these…did you know they STILL sell them? Anyway I thought it might be fun to see what twisted books ya’ll could come up with, so here we go!

[Agent name], [genre], [personalized tidbit about agent], [title], [word count], [protagonist name], [description of protagonist], [setting], [complicating incident], [verb], [villain], [protagonist’s quest], [protagonist’s goal], [author’s credits (optional)], [your name]

Fill in the blanks and post your results below. I’ll be back in a few minutes to do mine!

You’re on my list

ponedjeljak , 02.08.2021.

Every year around August, my Mom starts asking Jason and I what we want for Christmas. We are to put our wishes in list form and then not tell anyone else what we want, unless it is not part of The List.

It is confusing to me, this making of the list, especially since my brain refuses to handle Christmas-related thoughts until right after I’ve devoured my third helping of Thanksgiving stuffing.

Regardless, I dutifully wrote down a variety of possible “wants,” ranging from very cheap and reasonable (a case of Mt. Dew) to slightly more expensive (X-Files DVDs – Seasons 6 through 9) to expensive (an iPod) to “never gonna happen” (my own private island).

Jason and I both turned in our lists. But what did we get in return? No lists. No reasonably good gift ideas for any of the other members of my family (with the exception of my brother, who, thank you, provided me with a very good gift idea that didn’t require me to leave the house to purchase). But everyone else is playing coy. This frustrates me, especially since when I personally called these individuals I got the same response: “Oh, I don’t know what I want.”

Look people, I hate going to the mall as it is, even when I know exactly what I need to purchase, but the thought of slaloming my way through herds of humans when I have no idea what to buy? MADNESS.

To cap it off, I’ve been told what NOT to buy for certain individuals. Had I known this was an option, I would’ve modified my list: “Yes, I won’t give you any ideas as to what I DO want, but I most definitely do NOT want a samurai sword, Paris Hilton’s CD, a bottle of Goo-Gone, or corduroy earmuffs.”

Oznake: Miscellaneous