Friday, February 29, 2008

A fun and relaxing night...

I guess Ron and I were feeling a bit stereotypically gay last night, so we sat around and knitted and watched a Kylie Minogue concert video! LOL... As for the knitting, Ron finished up his first sock and started on number two and I came close to finishing the back piece of the sweater. I'll finish that this weekend and hopefully get a good start on one of the sleeves. As for Kylie, we watched the Live In Sidney video which was from the tour to support her Light Years album.


A note: I feel almost guilty about my newfound love of Kylie because she is not my usual cup of tea musically. I am usually drawn to the underdogs, the alternative music crowd, the dark and dreary. But in learning a bit about her, I respect the fact that she is involved in the creative process (she writes or co-writes most of her stuff), she isn't too cool to have fun with her image and camp it up, and her stuff is just plain catchy as hell. So I have come to terms with the fact that I don't have to give up on my alterna-roots to make room for a little Kylie in my life!


Tonight we'll be heading to some friends house for a visit. We haven't seen them in a few weeks, so it'll be good to catch up. Just have to watch out for Misty's drinks...she's a little heavy handed when it comes to pouring!


LISTENING TO: Meat Beat Manifesto - "Original Fire"


A long time favorite...Jack Dangers is certainly the creative mastermind of the MBM sound which is big, danceable, electronic music. They don't happen to be all that radio friendly though with their music usually having an ominous, nosiy and/or dark quality to it. They are effectively the anti-Kylie...hehehee.

Thursday, February 28, 2008

Much better...

Well, it's been a week since I was off sick and I'm feeling a LOT better than I did. That being said, I still have some lingering bits hanging on...sore throat being the worst...and a bit of a cough. But if this is the worst I end up with this winter, I'll consider myself lucky!

Ron's doing well with his socks...they became a joint effort with me turning the heel for him, but he's currently working on doing the decreases at the toes with minimal coaching from me. How cool is that?!

And I'm moving right along on the sweater. I'm closing in on finished the back piece. Once that's done, it's just the sleeves and then piecing it all together. I never thought I'd have the drive to finish a sweater. I imagined starting it, getting less than halfway through and thinking, I want to work on something else now. But the only other project I'm daydreaming of is another sweater, one for me this time!

Wednesday, February 20, 2008

Sicky McSickerson PART 2

Well, here I am, home sick again. Whatever fluish-type-thing that's hit me has knocked me right out. The weird thing is that I definitely felt like I was improving last night and even went out for a bit with Ron. But I woke up this morning feeling worse that I did yesterday. Hmmm. The good thing is that tomorrow is my normal day off for the week, so if I'm still feeling ooky I'll be able to rest and not have to worry about calling in again.

On a totally different topic...

After watching me knit for a while, Ron decided that he'd like to learn too. So a few weeks ago he picked up the knitting needles for the first time and taught himself (from a book) how to cast on and how to do the knit stitch. I was surprised but excited at this development....would I end up with a knitting partner?...how cool would that be!

To keep the scale of his first project on the small side, he ended up making a garter-stitch scarf for a stuffed bear that we have. I thought that might be the end of his knitting career. But a few days later he cast on again and kept practicing, not really having a projects in mind, but just to practice his knitting. I finally said to him, you should probably learn how to purl, too. So we got him going on that as well.

Then a few days ago, he said that he wanted to learn how to knit in-the-round and asked if I would help him cast on for a sock. I said sure though I was a little apprehensive. On one hand, I wasn't sure if he was ready for socks yet, but since making a pair of socks was the second project that I took on after learning how to knit, how could I say no? So up to this point he has cast on, distributed the stitches and has knit a good inch and a half of the leg of a sock. Pretty impressive for a guy who is usually out tinkering with one of the cars or the 4-wheeler!


LISTENING TO: BLONDE REDHEAD - "23"



Blonde Redhead's sound is similar to a mix of My Bloody Valentine and Sonic Youth (at their most atmospheric and dreamy). Listening to them makes me go all weak, from the gorgeously off-kilter melodies to the unusual, girly voice of lead singer Kazu Makino. Sample a bit of "Dr. Strangeluv" to see what I mean.

Tuesday, February 19, 2008

Sicky McSickerson

I've been fighting off a cold/flu/sinusy type thing for a couple of days now and I had to give in, stay home and rest. So what better use of my time than to post a new entry!

As I mentioned a few posts ago, I'm in the process of making a sweater, which is the first I've ever attempted. It will be for Ron, but I'll have exclusive borrowing rights! I didn't want to make anything too fancy for him, so it's very basic, mostly one color with the exception of a stripe down each sleeve. The pattern is the "Speed Racer" from Debbie Stoller's "Son Of Stitch 'n Bitch."




Here's a shot of the progress I've made so far, which surprisingly has gone much quicker than anticipated...



This shows the front panel about 75-80% done. As soon as I'm done with that, I'll start another identical panel for the back, and lastly, both sleeves. That being said, I suppose I should wrap things up here so I can go get curled up on the couch with my knitting and a good movie!


LISTENING TO: Camera Obscura - "Biggest Bluest Hi-Fi"

Though often labeled as a Belle And Sebastian knock-off, repeated listens reveal that Camera Obscura are very much their own band. From the sweet vocals to the depth and humor of the lyrics, there is so much to like about this band. Give "Eighties Fan" a listen and see for yourself!

Monday, February 11, 2008

Painting the weekend away...

Over the past couple of weeks, Ron and I have been talking about how we would like to change the color of the kitchen. It has nice white cupboards and a sharp looking faux-granite counter, but the walls were battleship gray and it made the whole thing feel very cold. This picture shows the wall color right before we started to paint, after we had spackled and as we were taking off the cupboard doors.



So after much discussion on what color to go with (we started with shades of blue and then yellow), we settled on one called English Toffee. There are flecks of this same color in the counter and it give the kitchen the warm feel it had been missing. And despite the fear of "am I really going to like this color once it's on the walls" syndrome, we do both really like it! Whew!



Ron installed a new light fixture with three pendant lights as well. You can just see one of them on the left in the picture above. Here's one more shot so you can see them, and another view of the kitchen (and all the junk in our cupboards!).


So next weekend it's one more coat of paint and we should be done. At this point everything is taped off which takes a lot of time, so the last painting session should go pretty quickly. With all this going on, I really haven't done much on the knitting front, but I have started a sweater that I will show you the progress on soon.


LISTENING TO: Kylie - "X"


For those of you that know my music taste from past posts, you may be surprised at this choice. However, when you want to hear some pure dancey, sexy pop, you just can't ignore Kylie. As the title suggests, this is her tenth studio release and it served as the soundtrack to our painting this weekend. If your only recollection of Kylie is her kitchy 80's cover of "The Loco-Motion," clear your mind and take a listen to her new single "Wow". It's catchy as hell and will be going through your head for days!