Sparkles and Sticks

20 Random Facts

Hello!  Here is a super moody photo of myself to accompany my super silly list of 20 Random Facts About Me.  I found a list of 30 Questions on my friend Autumn's blog and I am going to tackle them over the next few months.

1.  My husband is watching baseball all the time right now.  He likes to run in the room and tell things like "So and so just got signed for ten bajillion galleons.  And today was his first game and he hit the sportsball over a rainbow and a unicorn caught it in her teeth!"  Clearly, I am not good at listening to sports talk.

2.  I recently described football as "like sumo wrestling, but with less interesting costumes."

3.  I am clearly not a sports fan.

4.  We don't have cable tv in our house, but we do have instant netflix on our playstation, a baseball season pass, and hulu on our laptops.

5.  I don't miss having "regular" tv at all.

6.  The only drawback is that our internet connection has wigged out lately, so no more than one person can be online at a time.

7.  Also, I find myself doing slightly awkward things... like watching episodes of SNL from four years ago while I drink my morning coffee.  Four years ago is too recent to be "cool and vintage" but too long ago to be considered "catching up. 

8.  Also, Saturday NIGHT Live on weekday MORNINGS?  Maybe a bit strange.

9.  I love Amy Poehler.

10.  I once called her "Queen Amy."

11.  Don't worry, I was the only person in the room when I said that.

12.  I wish I had a pair of pet bunnies.

13.  I would name them Luna and Anya.  They would keep my "Queen Amy" utterances a secret.

14.  I think it's hysterical to name a pet rabbit after a fictional 1,000 year old demon who is afraid of rabbits.  (AKA Anya)  It's kind of like my way of "cursing" a someone.  Someone who only exsists in the television.

15.  Also, naming a pet after someone isn't exactly a curse.  It's a practical joke, at best.

16.  Sometimes when I am bored, I pit my favorite supernatural book and/or tv characters against each other and try to decide who would win in a fight.

17.  Buffy always wins.

18.  I make plushy stakes and sell them in my etsy shop.

19.  The base of the stake has a felt heart with an arrow embroidered through it.

20.  It's a portable instruction manual.  You know, in case you forget what you are supposed to do with a plushy stake when a vampire is charging towards you.

12 Things To Do With Disposable Coffee Cozies: Cozy 1 of 12

Do you have this problem?

Me too.  It's what happend when you cross a love of buying coffee in coffee shops where they rarely use "for here" mugs with a propensity to save bits of paper for "yet to be determined projects."  Now, I have a drawer full of disposable coffee cozies from various coffee places, so I have determined that the project will be this:

12 Things To Do With Disposable Coffee Cozies

Project One: Mug Your Mug

In this project we will be decorating our coffee cozies with pictures of ourselves!  No one will ever mistake your coffee for their own when it has your "mug" on it. 

Supplies: textured coffee cozy, ribbon or yarn, paint, sparkle modpodge, letter stickers, stickers, glue dots, and a photo of yourself (instax or otherwise)

Start by painting your coffee cozy.  Give it two good coats.  After the paint dries, decorate it with stickers, then paint over everything with sparkle modpodge.  After that layer has dried, wrap your ribbon or yarn around the cozy and tie the ends together in a little bow.  Secure the bow with a glue dot.  Then, secure your photo* to the front of the cozy with a line of glue dots.  Use letter stickers to write your name on it anywhere where there is white space.

*I used a photo I took with my Instax Mini camera, but you can use any small photo.  If you use a regular photo, consider mounting it on thick paper or chipboard to give it some extra strength.

The Seattle Library

In honor of National Library Week, I would like to take you on a little tour of the coolest library I have ever been to: The Seattle Library.

(That's me, your bibliophile tour guide!)

Like Seattle itself, The Seattle Public Library manages to balance on the tightrope between hi-tech advancements, intelligence, style, environmentalism, and comfort.

The escalators are lit up in a school bus yellow color, the details of the dewey decimal system rotate on large television screens, rain patters on the diamond shaped window panes, and 400 computers sit ready to be used.

The stacks are spread over several floors, but there are no stair between the floors.  Much like a car driving up an elevated parking lot at an airport, library patrons walk up slightly ascending circular paths to find the books they want.  The numbers of the Dewey Decimal System are written practically on the concrete floor.

Many of the chairs are clearly from previous generations of the library, there are no artistic or architectural inefficiencies, and the companies with a presence in the library were once Seattle Start ups.

The Seattle Public Library is a great choice for book nerds, architectural enthusiasts, environmentalists, or even people who want to spend a few minutes sheltered from the rain.

Oh, and make sure you take a photo of your reflection in the awesome diamond windows that loom over you just outside the entryway.  My friend Catherine and I obviously did.

(Some of these photos are Catherine's and some are mine)

Best British TV Shows: Spaced

The Gist: Two recently homeless strangers meet in a cafe.  They pretend to be a couple in order to rent a great flat that is available for a "professional couple only."  Fantastic visual pop culture references and hilarity ensue.

Favorite Episode:

S2 E5: Gone  Tim and Daisy embark on an impromptu night out in Camden.  I love their very different ideas about where they should go and what they should do, and I love how their plans are represented visually.  I love Daisy's drunk babbling and Tim's drunk head bobbing.  I love the faux fighting connection that "all men have," and I love the "you clever girl" Jurassic Park reference near the end.

Favorite Character:

Daisy. (above, caught in an embarassing moment in a job interview).

Most Quoted Lines (in our house):

"This, is the good shit." -Daisy.  Every time I cook with oregano I say this line to myself in my head and giggle.  Honestly, sometimes I think I add oregano to our meals just so I can make myself giggle.

We quote Spaced on a regular basis at our house.  Most quotes are minor references, but when said with the correct tone they give my husband and I a good chuckle.

Does It Translate?:

Yes.  There are some references to British pop culture that not all Americans will "get," but since their flat is obsessed with American film, comics, and TV, most references are obvious.  One thing Americans do need to know for the sake of the show is this: Jaffa Cakes are a popular type of cookie.  Trust me, it's important.

Why I Love It:

Because of scenes ike this:

 

Watch it: On Hulu or Instant Netflix.

The One With the Wee Funk

This evening I shall be employing my stand-by "get me out of this wee funk" routine: making things while a Friends marathon plays in the background.  Friends makes me feel happy and safe, and making things makes me feel confident and useful.  It's a good combo.

You can expect to see a new craft project and/or tutorial tomorrow.

Fluffy the Bunny

Happy Easter!  In honor of "The Bunny Holiday" (which is obviously really about things that are much more important than bunnies) I'd like to take a moment to introduce you to the best bunny I have ever met.  Her name was Fluffy.

Santa Claus brought Fluffy to my house on Christmas morning when I was in second grade.  I loved her instantly.  I loved how she licked her paws and grabbed at her floppy ears as if she was Rapunzel brushing her long hair.  I loved the spots that were perfectly placed around her eyes and nose.  Being the brilliant seven-year-old that I was, I named this new treasure, the coolest little mammal I had ever met, the most generic name I could think of: Fluffy.

Fluffy was a good pet.  The only thing I didn't like about her is that she seemed to like my mom more than she liked me.  I think that was because thirty-somethings tend to stay a lot more still than seven-year-olds.  Bunnies are quite skittish; they like people who stay rather still.

Fluffy was sort of a wizard among rabbits; she lived way past the normal life expectancy of a normal bunny.  She never quite forgave us for packing her up in our little Mercury Tracer and driving for three days down the windy Pacific coast when we moved from Seattle to California.  This trip seemed to make her perpetually cranky.  Years later, she became blind and so thin that she seemed to weigh no more than the fluffy fur on her body, so we put her to sleep.  I was a sophmore in high school.  Fluffy-the-Wizard-Bunny lived for eight years.

People tend to think I am insane when I go on and on about how much I want another pet bunny.  Other people seem to think that bunnies are messy and aloof.  I think they are adorable and charming.  I can't wait until we move into a house where we can have an outdoor rabbit hutch that two little rabbits can share together.

Did you have a childhood pet?  Tell me about him/her.

Book Report: Anna and the French Kiss

The Gist:  Girl moves to Paris for her last year of high school.  Girl meets dreamiest American/livesinFrance/speakswithanEnglishaccent boy ever.  They spend the rest of the book, and their senior years of high school in an American school in Paris, falling hard in love.  The problems with that?  Several.  Including, but not limited to, an ass-of-a-dad, a friend with a crush, and a girlfriend.

Why I Love It:  A story about a girl who leaves home to study abroad falls in love with a boy with a British accent?  This is a story I can clearly relate to. Toss in the friend with a crush and the coincidence of Anna and Etienne's dorm rooms sharing a floor/ceiling and the story becomes eerily similar to Ashley's and my own.

Besides the nostalgia that Anna and the French Kiss conjures for me, I love this story is because Stephanie Perkins does an excellent job of writing about love.  I love reading romance, especially the "no one has ever had a love story more magical and true than ours" type, but I am very fussy about what I consider to be true love.  If I don't believe in their love, I  get annoyed and loose interest fast.  I never doubted Anna and Etienne's love; I was rooting for them from the first page to the last.

And yet there is something still beyond the similarities to my own life and Perkins's gift for writing about love that make me love this book.  Perkins also has an uncanny ability to make me feel I am in the story with her characters, I had the same experience when reading Anna's companion novel Lola and the Boy Next Door.  I love being in Paris with Anna.  I love standing with her and Etienne at Point Zero, I love following her down the blue guiding lights at her favorite cinemas, I love hearing Meredith blast The Beatles from her colorful room, I love petting Isis-the-rabbit in Rashmi's room, I love talking to Etienne on the phone on New Years Eve, and I love playing Star Wars with Shawnie. 

Anna's is a world I love to live in, and that kind of feeling does not happen without some damn good writing.

What Could Be Better:  It bothers me that Anna starts her year abroad so reluctantly, but that's not so much a writing issue as it is an annoying character trait that some people do have.  I just don't get it: you're going to live in Paris for a year, your dad is paying, and you're complaining?  I don't get why anyone wouldn't be up for that.  Thankfully, Anna changes her attitude quite quickly.

Judged By The Cover:  I don't love this cover.  I don't like the pastel colors, and I don't like how clean cut everything looks on the cover.  This book is by no means "naughty" but it isn't as "square" as the cover implies either.  The characters in this novel are cool in their own quirky ways. 

I also don't like how the young woman on the front looks nothing like Anna as she is described in the novel.  No bleach stripe, no gap between her two front teeth= not Anna.  I also find it a little bizarre that we only see the arm of the guy that is, presumably, supposed to be Etienne.  It's just... odd.  Also, based on the length of his arm, this model is probably way too tall to be Etienne.

Fandom Goodies: Stephanie Perkins put together an awesome playlist for Anna and the French Kiss.

If You Like Anna and the French Kiss: Try Stephanie Perkins's companion novel: Lola and the Boy Next Door.

The One Where Rainbow Bright Threw Up a Blanket.

I've been working on a secret little project the past few weeks.  And by secret, I mean that I just hadn't had a good opportunity to take pictures of it because it was raining a lot.  And by little, I mean it will be big enough to cover a Cal King sized bed when it is finished.  Ladies and Gentlemen, meet my newest crochet project: The Rainbow Bright Blanket.

The Rainbow Bright blanket is essentially a de-stash of all the random balls of worsted weight yarn I have hoarded over the years.  I decided to do this project when I was cleaning/playing in my craft room and couldn't get the drawers of my little yarn dresser to close.*  I realized: all those individual balls of yarn sitting there, with the potential yardage to make a hat each if they were lucky, weren't doing anyone any good.  So, I decided to double crochet them all together into a stripey blanket.  I started calling it The Rainbow Bright Blanket after my friend Tatiana showed me a photo of he de-stash blanket she had just completed and I told her I was making one too, and my blanket looked like Rainbow Bright barfed it up.

What I love about this project so far:  Unless I make a horrible mistake that puts the structural integrity of the blanket in jeopardy, there is no ripping allowed in this project.  No do-overs.  No, "but, I am feeling really judgmental of myself  today so I am going to retaliate by being super controlling over the color succession of stripes in this blanket I am making."  I didn't even let myself rip the rows where I had accidentally been adding an extra stitch to each row.  Those rows are a bit fatter than the others.  I'm dealing with it, and crocheting on.

This project is not about following a pre-determined plan.  It's about creating in the moment.  It's about rolling with it.  It's a metaphor for how I am encouraging myself to live my life: with less self judgement, with more intuitive confidence, and with more trust.

That being said, I am also considering adding a pretty border of white crocheted stars to cover each "rough" end when the stripes are done. Considering my current feelings about Stars, this feels more like it could be a crowning a beautiful finished project, rather than simply a cover up of the "fat rows" and messy edges.  It will also work well with the whole Rainbow Bright idea.  We'll see.

That's the important bit.  We'll see.

*Wow.  If you ever wonder whether I am a spoiled lady, just read that sentence over again.  A craft room and a yarn dresser!?!?  For Pete's sake...

Best British TV Shows: Coupling

The Gist:  Bloke dates babe.  Their friends tag along.  They all obsess about sex and the opposite gender.  Hilarity ensues.

Favorite Episode:

Season 3, Episode 2: Faithless.  The awkwardness that has ruled Jeff's life turns out to be his saving grace in this episode.  RESULT!

Favorite Character:

Richard Coyle as Jeff Murdoch.  Clearly, I am a sucker for a Welsh accent.  And faces that look like my husband's.

Does It Translate?:  Yes, I think that Americans will understand Coupling fully.  While Americans may not understand the technicalities of all of the British cultural references, they will understand the implications. 

Why I Love It:  This is the first British Show that I found on my own accord, rented from the fantastic independent video rental place in my town (that my BFF worked at in High School and has since, sadly, been put out of business by little read envelopes), and watched all four seasons of.  I loved how each episode started out not-too-funny, and then built on itself until I was laughing out loud.  At the TV.  All by myself.  In an empty flat.  With little to no wine present.

Coupling is the show that made me fall in love with British television, and I have not looked back since.

In My Bag: On Training Walks

These are the things I bring with me when I go on my training walks for the Avon Walk for Breast Cancer.

1.  My drawstring Nike bag.  Call me silly, but I am glad I found a bag in pretty pinks, greys, and purples.  Why go for a boring color scheme when you can have a fun one?

2.  iPod stuffed full of audiobooks.  I am currently listening to The Name of The Star by Maureen Johnson.  I have read the book already, but I love the story so I am enjoying it again.  I have also re-listened to Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins and I have listened to The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern for the first time.  For the record, I highly recommend The Night Circus in audio.  Jim Dale is a fantastic narrator and the format of the story lends it self to an audio tale well.

3.  Sunglasses.  This one should be pretty self explanatory.

4.  Instax Mini 7 Camera.  I don't usually take this camera, but I am currently working on a project that warrants taking it on a few walks.

5.  Snacks.  I usually bring an apple and a Fiber One bar.  Sometimes my blood sugar gets low with minimal forewarning, so I always bring snacks.

6.  Hat.  Early spring weather can be tricky, so I bring a hat in case I get caught in a chill.

7.  Phone.  For safety reasons.  And, in case I think I find someone's lost cat.  (This actually happened yesterday.  Sadly, it was not the correct cat.)

8.  Water bottle.  For hydration, obviously.

9.  Chapstick.  SPF 15.  Tinted.

Not Pictured:  Wallet.  I take my wallet primarily for two reasons.  A.  Mocha Emergencies.  B.  In case I get hit by a bus.  I want who ever rushes me to the hospital to be able to identify me.