Day 2

I'm on day 2 of feeling more depressed than normal. I understand that even with medication, these times come along anyway, just to be pains in my ass. But its interfering with my ability to apply for jobs, as I keep getting rejection emails (which frankly, I'm sick of), and of completing my homework, which I'm falling behind on this week. I have been spending too much time staring off into space not being able to see any possible future. My thoughts are plagued with darkness, that only help with making me feel worse about myself. I'm also feeling lonely, even though my brother is home all day and my parents came home last night. Didn't see Mike yesterday, but I'll see him today. But will it lift the loneliness? Who knows.

I also still don't know if I should go to Kohl's and ask for my job back. I probably should, since I have no other prospects. But I'm afraid of making decisions because so many of my big decisions have ended up being terrible decisions, most of which I'm still trying to deal with, such as going to school for something enjoyable instead of something useful. And even going to Western in the first place. So many things just adding up to where I am now, which is nowhere. I don't even know if I should be back in school or not. Will it even help me?

Little bro brought home pizza. Going to indulge. With coffee.

Flower Hat and Scarf

I feel entitled to complain a bit here, so I'm going to.

Been having one of those blah days. No motivation to do anything, and I could pretty much sleep all day... and all night probably. I'm feel depressed about the whole not having a job and not sure what to do about it/still waiting for HP to quit being douches (which apparently will be in November) and I've been stressing about if I should go back to Kohls or not. It's not fun. And it's bringing me down. I also feel lonely, as my parents are gone, my older brother is in Chicago, my little brother is passed out on the couch and the boyfriend is working late tonight. I'm so lame, I don't have the TV on or music playing as I sit in my computer chair and list around on the internet.

So anyways...

Over the weekend I finished a hat/scarf set for the 14 year old daughter of my friend Amber. I love the colors she chose, though my hands have suffered from using so much Red Heart Super Saver (I didn't buy it, so I can't complain). But still, I'm proud of the way the project turned out, if not the pictures. Couldn't get the lighting right and I was using my phone.



Yes, as you can see, it's not the best picture, but you get the gist. I actually really enjoy crocheting flowers, so I was glad that the flowers on the scarf turned out okay, except for the one that only has 5 petals instead of 6. But Oh well.

Hopefully she enjoys it, since winter should be upon us soon.

Its-a Me! Mario!

I started this project in September of last year, and finally finished a few weeks ago. I've been too lazy/busy to post anything on here, but here I am at last, being a little more productive than usual (and avoiding working out for the moment).

This blanket is made up of 234 little 4" granny squares, that I sewed together with a yarn needle using various left over colors to minimize the amount of random colors seen in the seems. Ha ha. Seen in the seems. Anyways, I'm pretty proud of this blanket, and hope that one day, when I have my own place, it will sit in a place on honor on the back of my couch, that is, unless I actually complete my attempt at making a Detroit Lions afghan, which will then hold a place of honor.

It's big enough to fit completely over my double bed.

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On a semi-unrelated note, my mom and I have been making Scarves for the Special Olympics, and I have managed to complete one so far. This one, I used a size N hook and doubled up on the yarn. Hopefully I can actually make more than one, but we'll see.

Knooking!

I finally found the Leisure Arts Knooking kit at Wal-Mart when I was shopping before my trip to New Jersey. I was excited, so I bought a skein of Red Heart Super Saver (Yeah, I know) in pink so I could mess around with it.

Needless to say, I had a little trouble getting the hang of it. I couldn't, for the life of me, figure out which way to put the hook through the loop on the string. Finally, I had to watch a video on their website and I got it. Then, I would keep forgetting which way to wrap the yarn.

Also, I have trouble figuring out how to count rows in knit. Crochet is easy. =-P

So I frogged and knooked and frogged and knooked. Finally, I decided to try making a scarf out of the stockinette stitch (knit one row, purl one row) just to see how it goes. I did manage to drop a loop, even though Knooking boasts no dropped stitches. But I haphazardly added a stitch in the area that I lost the stitch, and kept going. I used a piece of thread and sewed up the loose loop and now, you can barely tell that I messed up. Yay!

Here's a pic of what I have going on right now...



After doing that much, I have decided that knooking is fun, but I think I'd still like to learn how to knit better. But I will finish it the scarf. :-)

Mystery Plant!

We have a deck in our backyard, and ever since we moved here, there have been this giant, unruly bushes growing on the other side. Finally, my mom and dad ripped these bushes out and planted normal plants. It really opened up that area, and makes it easier to see my nieces and nephew playing in the backyard from the deck.

This summer, though, we noticed that there were three plants growing in the flowerbed that no one had planted. There were two growing in the flower bed, and a third, little one, growing out of one of those long flower box things that you can put under windows or whatever. The technical term escapes me. We wondered and wondered what could possibly be growing there in that flowerbed. And the plant seemed to be growing quickly. Here are some pictures.




You can see how big it was already. Since then, it has grown even more, and we finally have fruits growing. Now, I had HOPED that it would be a pumpkin plant, because I thought that would be awesome to have homegrown pumpkins. But, after some research into the leaves of various plants, I finally have to conceed that it is not a pumpkin plant. This is what we have:



Butternut Squash. I'm trying to remember if this is what I decided I liked at some point last year (when cooked right) and I'm still not sure. It might be. Anyway, the plant just keeps getting bigger and bigger, and is starting to grow into the yard and onto the walkway from the deck. It's climbing over all the other plants that are in the flowerbed. Hopefully it doesn't choke them out.

It's funny and exciting to have a random plant growing so well away from the rest of the garden, and if this IS something I like, maybe we can grow some more like this next year.

Pod B!tch

Who knew that when I started dating Mike, I would become immersed into his world of paintball. I go to his practices (on the occasion that I can), attend tournaments, and even take weekends to go to national tournaments. At these national tournaments, I am on their roster for the team, so that I (and a few others) can be in the pits with the boys, cleaning off hits and filling up pods so they have enough paint to play. The running joke with the woman I do this with is that we are "Pod Bitches." One, Wendy, even has that on the back of a shirt, which is awesome.

Amber, yet another woman in this group, is ordering me a custom bracelet from Wrist Band Connection that will have my name, as well as the words "Pod B!tch."

Going from this idea, I crocheted a hat. Here it is:



And here:



To make it, I copied the pattern, mostly, from the "Boy Beanie" pattern that is in the Stitch and Bitch: The Happy Hooker book. I ignored the rows of HDC and made them all double crochet rows. Then using a graph paper notebook that I bought, I mapped out the pattern of the letters (which is the first time I've ever done that). I'm pretty happy with the results, but I'm not sure that I would actually wear it...? Maybe. Depends on the weather in New Jersey next week I guess.

My next goal is to make one that is in a single crochet, because I think the letters couldn't be so stretched out. Also, I wanted to learn to knit hats (scary) and then maybe make one that way as well. While I love crocheting, I have to admit that when it comes to text on a hat, knitting gets the point across better.

Does anyone know how to knit a hat without double pointed needles? I have a couple of sets... but... I'd rather not. Haha.

You'd think she'd know...

A while ago, on Ravelry, I found these really cute Angry Birds patterns for crochet. I didn't realize it at the time, but apparently you had to pay for these patterns.

Now I'm pretty sure this person was not a part of the company who had the license to sell Angry Birds products and make a profit off of them. You'd think she'd know, as I believe she is a frequent seller of patterns, that you can't make money off of something that is the likeness of a copyrighted product.

So now, those patterns are unavailable because she was asked to stop selling the patterns for a profit. Why was she selling them in the first place? If you look on Ravelry, there are tons of other patterns of people like Mario, characters from Despicable Me etc... and these patterns remain on the site. Because no one is making an illegal profit off the likenesses.

I hope that someone else comes up with the patterns and doesn't try to sell them so I can make them.

I feel bad for ranting about this person, but I mean, come on!