I listen to Coast to Coast AM, or at least part of it almost nightly with Mike. This has led in the past to some hilarious conversations. Like about Eeyore, Patron Saint of Emo Kids everywhere and possibly the Lord of the Undead. He's usually asleep well before the final song. Which has changed to a fun little song by UFO Phil. I wanted the song very much, and finally searched for it today, and it's downloadable from his site. If you like Weird Al, and have a alien fascination like mine, the songs are very cute, and free. Anakin actually made Mike laugh out loud, and he said I could go ahead and put the UFO Phil songs on his ipod.
Since I found the song, I made this spacey printable box.
( clicky here )
I did get Wild Fermentation: The Flavor, Nutrition, and Craft of Live-Culture Foods and it's so good. One of my favorite cookbooks ever already. The chapter on bread is a must read for anyone who really loves making bread. Sure, the recipes and detail on how to create a wild yeast sourdough starter are great, but even better is the way Sandor Ellix Katz writes about bread. He appreciates it truly. Since we never get plain old icky regular sandwich bread unless we plan to do bread dough sculpture (you know, crustless nasty white bread mixed with glue), my family really appreciates good bread, and Mike *loves* sourdough. We've always used packaged yeast though, so the idea of growing out own yeast is really.. well.. probably a lot more exciting then it needs to be. But I won't apologize.
Other things that excite me are the really easy and understandable instructions for making vinegar using fruit scraps. Even if it turns out awful, I can make organic vinegar with bits and pieces I'd usually throw away, and use it on my hair if nothing else. If it turns out usable, the different sorts of vinegar I could make from scratch will have lots of uses in cooking and flavoring. I've also always had an interest in home brews and homemade wine, and there are a ton of instructions for that, plus a ginger ale recipe, again, using homemade starter instead of yeast, that E wants to try.
How did our cream soda turn out a couple weeks ago? E, Mike and I all like it, W disliked it, but I think in his case, since he's a really unpicky eater, it's certain types of sour/yeasty he doesn't like. He doesn't like kombucha either, and E likes it quite a bit. Well.. at least I doubt I'll have to worry about him drinking real beer!
We ordered pizza tonight for dinner. Mike says tomorrow will be quite busy, and he see no good reason for me to risk hurting myself tonight. Since you know.. stuffing.
Funny things, at work, Chef offered to roast everyone's turkey, and you'd figure, Chef=went to school to learn to cook, and would do something wonderful... Mike mentioned it, and I said "Sounds good, only drawback I see is not having drippings for gravy." and Mike said quickly "I was stating a fact. He offered. I was NOT asking you if you wanted Chef to make the turkey." Of course I jumped on that, and said consideringly "Well, I guess we could get jarred gravy." and he said "Don't mess with my turkey."
I mentioned to Gina that he's always thankful for the same thing, and she said "You." and I had to say.. "No, the fact I made stuffing." and I told Mike about that conversation. He said "Of course, I'm always happy and grateful you're in my life. But let's be realistic, I'm a fat man. Food is important." Well.. I'd rather someone who enjoyed life, enjoyed food, and didn't have steel willpower, or a masochistic desire to starve. And he really really loves my stuffing.
( stuffing recipe )

Last night we went to the zoo, since it's open late on Tuesdays during the summer for educational stuff, yesterday was bats. Unfortunately, we missed most of that.
But we did get to see the new tigers, or at least one of them. Who prowled close to where we were standing and looking, and gave me a look of utter disdain when I said "Who's a pretty kitty?" Apparently, tigers don't like baby talk.
It was a theme, only one animal active per enclosure except of course for the brown bears. Jake was Jake. He's still my favorite animal in the whole zoo. Although one of the polar bears is running a close second now. The darn thing waited until I had my camera out to start doing what most bears do in the woods, but apparently polar bears do in streams. It was.. disgusting. People were grossed out and kids were thrilled. Esp when it went a little upstream immediately after to drink some water. I waited until it was elsewhere to take pictures. Mike said I should have taken a picture of it while was doing it's thing.
The wolverine was cleaning itself very seriously, and when it got to cleaning itself down there, Mike said "Never saw that in X-men 500." and starting running a little hypothetical dialog between Scott and Logan. Had me in absolute hysterics. Funnier? I was wearing my X-men teeshirt.
The otters were perfect and fun as usual, and the ravens started "talking" as soon as I got close as usual. Mike commented to the kids "They think she's one of them. It's all the black."
After that, we went to Sicily's for dinner. Not my favorite place in town, but hey, it's cheap, and the kids love it. It's 9.99 per person, and they've always got something I'll eat. The kids were thrilled. Double treat, the zoo, then Sicily's for pizza and other goodies. On the way home, we spotted some geese, so of course I jumped out of the car to take pictures. I love geese.
I made myself a set of dpns with dowels I had, so I'll try them out later. Wish me luck. I watched StitchDiva's videos a couple times and I think it mostly makes sense to me now. I couldn't find my thicker dowels, so they are pretty close to a size 8, just a shade smaller.
( wanna see my most current knitting? )
I used own_two_hands's instructions for "embossed" knitting to design it, and worked it from the bottom corner up, and crocheted around the two short sides and crocheted the ties.
I also drew a couple new curve stitch designs, they are pretty big and pretty similar.
first one,second one. I'm thinking of turning the second one into a screen and printing it.
The gym this morning was a lot of no fun. My right knee was acting up pretty badly, but hey, on the bright side, I didn't gain any weight while I was all plague-y and not working out. I shortened my cardio workout by 10 minutes, and skipped the resistance stuff on my legs completely.

( We have come for your beads )

I didn't have the right color accents, then I spotted a keyring I made on a make and take I did with E, and it had two of just the right color beads in it.. so snip snip with my wire cutters, and I had the right accents. I wanted something bigger then my other pair of alien earrings (I'll turn that into a link when I get home, but I need to get ready to go get comics now. It's Wednesday doncha know..) so.. this is it.

This post is temporarily highjacked for the squeeage. I just got a picture of a bead that Ziggy made me.. Contact her for pricing and ordering information if you're interested.

It has sparkly eyes. Stardust eyes even. It had to be said.
She also made me a grey, and some matching accent beads.
*does the happy alien dance*

Back to your regularly scheduled post..
One of the dolls we got at the thrift store a few weeks ago was a Kelly doll with long black hair and short bangs, so I'm having W bring over his paints tonight so I can re-do the eyes/lips color to start turning it into a little Shala doll. Because I'm amused with a self portrait doll, and if I don't keep it.. I'm pretty sure I can find a home for a mini shala doll.

Wow.. I had lots of ideas for this post.. but.. I'm all alien headed now.
GOSH!!!!! I'm the luckiest girl in the world!

Time for chat. Right now. It usually lasts a couple hours. It's 7:30 am PST.

Well.. my first ever amigurumi was an alien, which my son took when he saw it.
Then I made a few more, and went to thread amigurumi, again, my first was an alien.

While I was cleaning out my purse last week, my son saw my little thread amigurumi and mentioned to me in a very subtle 17 yo boy kind of way.. "I don't have one that small"
So we talked, and he decided rather then just a loose little toy, he'd like a keyring.
( W's little alien keyring )

Yesterday I decided to straighten back out my schedule from being sick, so I was zombie like all day. You know, shuffling my feet, trying to eat brains.. or something like that. Since thinking was just beyond me, I watched Dark Angel and worked on that and on a really simple headband for E.

( Loving the alien )

Last night, Emily found a print out of a pattern I'd written and was testing, and she read it aloud completely baffled. "I don't know what this means."
Well.. she's a knitter, not a crocheter, and is as bad as I am at following other people's patterns.
I'm growing out my bangs though, so snap clips are utterly essential while I decide if I want to give up bangs or not. Otherwise it's not even a question, because despite all the years I hid behind very long bangs, having them fall in my face now makes me nuts.

If you're just dying to see it..

The next tattoo I'm getting
Kind of anyway, that's the general idea.I'll work with the artist and get his input too to polish it up and finish it up, but that's my bracelet to replace all the bracelets Mike gives me which I break because I wear them all the time.

Last night Mike called on his way home from work,and wanted to know if I wanted to go out. He'd gotten his bonus check. WOOHOO! So we went out, and E and I got some Valentine's stuff for cute lunches and dinners. A nice heart cookie cutter set that will work great with sandwiches, some pink and red sugar for sprinkling on yogurt and other sweet things that can be sprinkled with pink sugar to look cute, and some cupcake paper liners to turn inside out and use for food cups. I'm seeing a very heart-y lunch in our future.
I told Mike "I can either give you another adorable dinner, or you can take us out" so we wound up at Sourdough Mining Co. after some discussion. The issue being, I didn't care much, I was just hungry, but wanted to go to a locally owned restaurant, and Mike wanted to go to one that was close. This time I was smart. I ordered my dinner to go, because I knew I wanted the cheese sticks as an appetiser. I almost took a picture of them. They are soo huge. Mike ordered their biggest plate of bbq ribs, and also had lots of leftovers.
Sourdough has an icecream bar, with real hot fudge which I think is why Emily always chooses them. You get the icecream bar with any meal. So she got herself icecream after packaging up her leftovers (seriously.. if you order an appetiser, count on boxing most of your meal. They don't stint on portions) and I got myself a vanilla icecream with hot fudge. Mike decided real hot fudge sounded good and got some too.
So you all know how my appetite is pretty light most days right? I didn't finish my ice cream, but was leaning forward to say something to Mike and my hair went right into that real hot fudge and icecream, then when I sat up, wound up all over my shirt? I felt stupid. Anyone have any idea how to pre-treat a hot fudge stain?
Then we went to Best Buy, because I told Mike at Christmas time that for my present to him, he could get himself a new game console. I know nothing about game consoles, so it had to be his choice. He still hasn't chosen. I picked up the Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire soundtrack for Emily who's been wanting it, and a couple cds for myself.
While we were there, this young lady just stopped cold, and started GUSHING over Emily's hat and scarf. "She's like a happy sunny sky! Look honey! She's a happy sunny sky! Isn't that just the cutest!! Oh I love that so much!" Emily smiled and said thank you. Yep. Definately why she loves that set. It does bring smiles. Sure, some people think her hats are just weird, but they never say anything, it's the people who appreciate them who comment.
(do you suppose the young lady blogs and will blog about seeing a girl who looked like a happy sunny sky?)
Came home, listened to the new cds, worked some more on my alien scarf, which is not going to have crossed stitches like I originally planned. I didn't like how they looked, so it's a stripe pattern with spike stitches. It's turning out nice. I still need to pick up more hot green for the alien pockets.
It was a really fun evening.

*singing very offkey*
I could while away the hours,
making shawls with flowers,
I only knew how to knit,
Things from outer space
I'd do at my own pace
If I only knew how to knit.
It would be a piece of cake
to frog every mistake,
if I only knew how to knit..

Except I do know how. And I do it very very slowly. And painfully. And keep going back to crochet for the joy of seeing something get done. Plus I don't do any fancy knitting. Just working on getting the basic stitches down just right.

Anyway.. point being.. remember that nifty scarf pattern I pointed out this morning? Of course you do. Unless your CRS is worse then mine.
( I graphed an alien )
-Shala

( now if I could figure out a basic cute bead woven body for mini bead amigurumi type figures.. I'm working on it.. )
Kind of want to finish my fossil necklace. Still unsure where I want to go with it. It will come to me.
-Shala

( well.. I tried. I like it. )
and a ( picture of my ocarina )
William can play Amazing Grace now. I'm still practicing scales. Thinking my son is well and truly hooked. I'll get a picture of his soon.
-Shala

While I was out doing the shopping last weekend with Dad and the kids, I was exhausted. We stopped at New Sagaya for a lb of my coffee, and I grabbed myself a ginseng root drink to help me stay awake.

The drink had in it a piece of ginseng root, and it looks like an alien podling.
( a bottle )
Not the greatest picture, the rest of the root looks like a finger with tentacles coming off of it. The little tentacle bits kept brushing my lips while I was tossing it down. A fairly unpleasant feeling.
So to the point, I've got the empty bottle with the podling in it. I love the shape of the bottle and was thinking of using it for the base of my Fur Rondy entry this year, bottles have always done well for me in competition. Do I take the podling out and bead the bottle gorgeously to look like Love Potion #9 thing, or do I leave the podling in and bead it with aliens and spirals and all sort of organic/freeform goodness with enough of a window to see the podling?

( Greetings Beadlings )
Today I think I'm going work on a pair of mittens. At least try my best. Life would be so much easier if I was more willing to follow other peoples patterns and not want so much to work it out myself.
-Shala