If I were the praying type of person, I would be praying that it never snow again. Especially on BWI/PHL. EVER. But I am on my days off now, so maybe the crazy will die down by the time I get back to work. Maybe. I totally do not want to go back to work.

Since I'm not a praying person, I relieved my feelings by ordering the new Connie Willis book, Alison Weir's new bio about Anne Boleyn, and Inglorious Basterds from Amazon. I also ordered a really nice pair of Sajou embroidery scissors that I have long coveted. I bought some new t-shirts (clearance, yay) at Dillard's today (which doesn't count as indulgence, because my current wardrobe is all tired and raggedy.) I stopped myself before nearly ordering a USB turntable, but really, that was only so I could wait to see if they had it cheaper at Hastings and I'll probably get one sooner or later.

My sister is on leave next week and will be bringing the Guest Ferrets whom we will be pet sitting while she's off on her next deployment. I have to clean out the guest bed room, which is currently a disaster area consisting of craft supplies and paperbacks. Normally, when people come over, I just hide all the mess in there. I don't have any more room to hide the mess! ;_;

In other news, I was happy to see that the Design*Sponge blog did a city guide for Oklahoma City. Despite some jacked-up linkage, there are some really good suggestions of places to dine and shop. There are a lot of places that I really like on that list and some that I now want to visit. (Though in my opinion, Tokyo Sushi is much better than Sushi Neko, Zorba's isn't as good as they used to be since they switched locations, and Bolero's didn't impress me or my friends at all when we went there. Also, Full Circle Books is also a really good place to visit.)

Also, I finished a Little House Needleworks cross stitch. Litla Skvís sent me the chart for Morning Berries as part of a blog drawing and I finished it recently this weekend.
( cut for loooong cross stitch scroll down )

Now I just need to find something entertaining to watch on instant Netflix and maybe stitch some more.

Because of the snow/ice storm last week, I ended up with a three day Happy Unexpected Weekend. I did pretty much nothing except take long naps, watch a lot of Netflix and look at online shopping sites. I went back to work on Sunday, which turned out to be a fairly slow day, and now I am back on my Official Weekend.

( Is it payday yet? )

J.D. Salinger died on Wednesday. RIP.

I read Catcher in the Rye when I was a teenager and it had a huge influence on me at the time. It was one of my favorite books. It's been several years since I last read it though and I think growing older (not necessarily any more mature) probably has something to do with that. I feel like I should reread it again, but I'm afraid it would resurrect a spark of teenage discontent and it's more exhausting to deal with when you're in your thirties. Still, I'll always love it for how much it meant to me, how it resonated so much with how I felt at the time.

Given that, I feel rather curiously unsad about Salinger passing. He lived a long (and fairly weird) life and disassociated himself with the world and his books decades ago. He's already been a long time gone. But I think sometimes a piece of art survives and speaks for itself despite its creator's intent; Catcher is one of those and that I'm thankful for.

Yay, I am at home where it is warm and there is electricity! Work gave us the option of taking a vacation day or a day without pay and I chose the latter. Fortunate because there was a lot of freezing rain earlier this morning and it is sleeting really hard now. I think there is supposed to be snow later, but now it is just really, really icy.

Hopefully, the ice won't bring down too many powerlines around here (though it has in some places) and I can occupy myself with lots of cross stitch and watching Supernatural later. Since the local news has been harping on the ice storm for the past week, everyone is pretty well prepared. The grocery was pretty crowded when I went shopping on Monday and one of my coworkers told me yesterday that places are pretty stripped bare. I wish I had thought to buy some booze, a bottle of wine or mixed drinks would have been nice. I will have to make do with tea instead.

eta: I feel the need to point out that it was sunny and 60 degrees out yesterday.

My days off have kind of sucked. I got to leave work early on Sunday night and then immediately discovered that I had a flat tire out in the parking lot. I'm not sure exactly what flattened it, but it was definitely a rubbery puddle on the asphalt. I feel like a bad feminist, I can stitch a sampler, but I don't know how to change a tire. :( So I called AAA to come change it. That works just as well, I suppose, even if it takes longer.

I had to get an oil change this week anyway, but they couldn't fix the flat and I had to get brand new tires for all the wheels. *sigh* It was about time for it. And anyway, I think getting the flat was a fortunate occurence for it to happen when it did, because we are expected to get a big ice storm later this week and I prefer discovering that my tires are worn out on a mildly chilly night instead.

Supposedly the upcoming storm is going to be as bad as the ice storm from a couple years ago where the ice collapsed all the trees and the electricity was out for ages. Yay. The news channels are all pretty much PREPARE FOR DISASTER NOW RIGHT NOW about it, so it's hard to say if it's really going to be that bad or if they are still a bit jumpy from the snow storm last month.

My only worry is that I don't want to go to work if it's really going to be that bad because I don't want to get stuck there. A lot of people got stuck overnight at the center on Christmas Eve during the last storm and they were (pretty understandably) bitter about the experience.

In other news, I spoke to Nancy the framer this weekend about getting two of my cross stitch framed. I probably would have put this off had I known about my car in advance, but I'm otherwise glad to get stuff framed. Nancy does a really good job.

Also, I has a Tumblr. The general idea of it is sort of like an internet scrapbook where you post random images, quotes, bits of text that you like. I assume. I can only deal with posting on one (or two) social networks at a time and lj is mostly it. *is old* But if anyone else has a tumblr account, send me the link so I can follow yours.

(Yes, am trying to keep better track of my reading this year. We'll see how it goes.)

So far this month, I've finished reading two books. The first was Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenneger, which Nicole and Sarah lent to me, despite my protests that I am apparently the only person who didn't like The Time Traveller's Wife, which they also lent me. (It wasn't so much as that I didn't like it, as it was that I hated the ending. It was an intriguing read for the most part.) They pointed out that it was about cemeteries and ghosts, morbid subjects I usually find interesting.

And those bits I actually did like. Being a history buff, I was really interested in the parts about London's Highgate cemetry. And with some of the story being from the ghost's point of view was kind of novel. It was interesting enough for me to read it pretty quickly.

However, I disliked the way the writer handled the multiple points of view. I like multiple points of view in a novel, but changing p.o.v. in the middle of a paragraph (or two or three times a paragraph) makes it confusing about who is feeling what.

And again, Niffenegger wrote an ending that really annoyed me. There's a plot twist that makes absolutely no sense, seeing as how you'd have to be an idiot to think it was a good idea to go along with. Characters who were previously sympathetic started acting like assholes and I kind of stopped caring about them.

So what I learned here is that if I ever get to visit London, Highgate cemetery would be an interesting tourist attraction and seriously, do not lend me any more Audrey Niffenegger books.

The second book I read was a mystery novel The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley. And no, I didn't read it just because it had the word "pie" in the title. It's not really about pie. It's more about stamp collecting and murder and then pie. It's the sort of English murder mystery inhabited by generally eccentric characters. (They reminded me very much of characters you see in Edward Gorey drawings.) Anyway, the book is narrated by Flavia de Luce, an 11 year old girl obsessed with chemistry and poison, who resolves to solve a murder in which her eccentric father is implicated. I think the story would have been better served had it not been written in the first person. Although Flavia rather reminded me of Harriet the Spy, I had a hard time suspending disbelief at the idea that she's supposed to be an 11 year old girl when the narration sounds of someone much older. However, it was generally a fun read and did not especially annoy me. As it is supposed to be the first of a series, I wouldn't be opposed to reading more about Flavia either.

And now I have gone back to my favorite comfort reading, Georgette Heyer novels, and am reading The Masqueraders. It's set much earlier than her Regency stories and involves cross dressing siblings on the lam(!) after a failed Jacobite rebellion in the 18th century. So obviously, it is awesome so far.

Oh, another thing...

Roger Ebert's open letter to Rush Limbaugh on his comments about Haiti and the White House.

Just when I though I couldn't admire Roger Ebert more, he posts something like this. He is made of awesome.

The situation in Haiti is so sad. I didn't really want to read the news about it today, but I did text "HAITI" to 90999 though. It's a very, very easy way to contribute money to the Red Cross through one's phone bill.

Random music that I like...

My cd of Florence and the Machine's Lungs album came in the mail this week and I really love it so far. It has taken up permanent residence in my car stereo.

"Rabbit Heart (Raise it Up)" was the first song that caught my attention. My inner English major appreciates the Lady of Shalott reference in the video.


( more stuff under the cut )

Here's my first work in progress pic of the Japanese Garden.



So far, there's not been anything too complicated, a lot of Rhodes stitches, some sheaf stitches, beading and a lot of backstitching. The waves are metallic thread, backstitched 1 over 1. Using Rainbow Gallery metallics though, which are pretty easy to use and don't tangle or fray too badly. Next part are Rock Gardens and Bonsai Trees.

Other than this, I've been finding it hard to get motivated to do anything else productive this month. Except maybe napping. I think we should declare January National Hibernation Month and call it a wash.

Not snowing, but it's very icy out and the wind started howling about an hour ago. Many local schools are closed for the next two days because the wind is too cold. I have never heard of such a thing happening here before.

I'm beginning to think that Rockband/Guitar Hero are the only video games that don't give me motion sickness. I rented Arkham Asylum and the beginning made me feel queasy even when it is only Batman walking around and occasionally punching someone. *sadface*


Interesting link of the day : Vogue Korea's Corpse Bride photoshoot. Aww, I really like that. There have been quite a few Vogue Korea shoots that have been very inventive and well done. Ooh, just found this one, involving a lot of cake. I wish I could subscribe to this magazine, even if I can't read it. US Vogue is nowhere near as fun.

I had a good time at New Year's. Usually my friends wait till after Christmas to exchange gifts; this year I got Tudors Season 2 (where all the interesting head chopping action occurs), Harajuku Girls perfume and some fancy glass jewelry from Nicole and a Star Wars Cookbook and a bookstore gift card from Sarah. Yay, awesome stuff. It amuses me that the Star Wars cookbook has a recipe for Dark Side Salsa. Okay, I'm easily amused. I gave Nicole and her family some BPAL perfumes and the new Star Trek movie and I gave Sarah the Pioneer Woman cookbook and a Little House cookbook. (yes, we are all big on cookbooks, as it happens.) Nicole was making fun of Pioneer Woman for including a recipe for egg in the basket ("Seriously, Pioneer Woman?"), which is admittedly kind of lame. And now I just now realized that the Star Wars cookbook has the same recipe, except that they use two eggs and call it Twin Sun Toast.

I have a vague NY resolution to travel more this year, except that I have no set plans but for an idea that I'd like to see Chicago or Portland. Chicago might make an easy trip for day or two. This was in no way influenced by my finding out that there is a Mitsuwa market there and I could eat lots of fresh ramen and buy Japanese craft books. Possibly.

My other resolution is that I would like to read the Sherlock Holmes stories, in chronological order, if possible. So to start that, I have the Annotated Novels on order and then maybe I'll get Vol 1 of the Annotated Stories. The funny thing is, is that I've actually read a lot of them before, but I've forgotten most all of it. The capstone course for my English degree was on Sherlock Holmes, but it was also one of the worst classes I've ever had, so I somehow repressed it or something. My professor was really into Freudian theory, so pretty much every class was about the sexual symbols in the stories. Like Doyle will describe a hallway, but what it really represents is the vagina. Pretty much every class was along those lines and pretty much every expression in the class was like O_o. Now I think there are some books where this type of analysis would work (Dracula is definitely at the top of that list), but it's kind of pushing it with Sherlock Holmes, I think. It killed any enjoyment of the stories and also, I had terrible grades. Finally at the end of the semester, I gave in and wrote my final essay about how the caskets in one particular short story were vagina symbols and the trail of blood that Holmes discovered really represented menstrual blood and the fear that Doyle had of feminine power as a result of being repressed by Victorian sexual mores, etc. It was pretty cracktastic. I basically went over every line in the story to find anything that could even vaguely be a sexual symbol. It was the only A I ever got in that class. I ran into that professor the next year and not only did he remember my paper, he told me that it was the only one out of the class that did not disappoint him. O_o Yeah, I don't even know.

Anyway, now I just want to read the SH stories and enjoy them for the the popular genre fiction that they are. Sometimes a hallway is just a hallway.

I can't believe it's the end of the year/decade already. It went by so fast. I wish I had done a better job of documenting my year; I neglected my book list again and I still need to charge up my camera batteries so I can take pics of some finished cross stitch.

This year I read a ton of Georgette Heyer novels, The Corinthian and The Grand Sophy were probably my favorites although the audio book of Sprig Muslin is up there too.

Among movies, Star Trek was probably my favorite of this year. I also really liked Inglorious Basterds, Up and (500) Days of Summer, though there are still a bunch of holiday movies that I haven't gotten around to seeing yet.

Anyway, I'm off to go get ready for a small party with some friends tonight. I hope everyone has a Happy New Year! {{hugs}}

They closed my call center so I didn't have to work today! Awesome. Getting paid time and a half would have been good, but I'm relieved I don't have to go out today. I had anxiety dreams last night about trying to drive to work (and trying to cook pork chops, which I overcooked. And I didn't get to work either). It stopped snowing last night (breaking a new record here for amount of snowfall in one day) and the wind died down and the sun is out. I hope everyone is doing okay and with their families today. I feel badly for the people who got stuck at work or worse yet, stranded in their cars overnight.

However, we're well occupied for the time being. I got my Christmas present, a PS3, early so I've been playing Beatles rockband earlier and now we're watching instant Netflix episodes of No Reservations. I gave my mom Korean dramas so she has plenty of tv to watch too. My sister sent us a gift basket of desserts, so there are plenty of noms. So far it's been a pretty good Xmas.

Wow, I can't believe it's been two weeks since I last updated. Sometimes I get in a rut where it seems like there's not much worthwhile to post until it all builds up into a big info dump.

Yesterday, I took my mom downtown with the intention of going ice skating. When she was a little girl in Korea, she wanted to learn to ice skate, but never got the opportunity, so I figured that this would be a good chance to fufill a childhood dream. However, when she saw that the rink was outside and pretty wet from being recently zambonied, she balked. I might try taking her to one of the indoor rinks next time. It was fun to people watch though.


And then we went over to the OKC art museum to see a preview screening of The Young Victoria. It was really good! The costumes were really well done and Emily Blunt and Rupert Friend did great jobs of portraying Victoria and Albert. I really liked the story of their relationship and Victoria was a surprisingly independent and rebellious woman for her time. I'm very glad that OKCMOA had the chance to show it. The theater was packed, by the way. It was either a sold out show or very close to it.

Anyway, I'm glad we got a chance to get out and have yesterday, because it got progressively colder while we were out and today we are in the middle of a full scale blizzard. Like, we hardly ever have white christmases in Oklahoma and then this year, we have roughly a foot of snow in one day. BUT, this being OK, we also have 50mph winds at the same time, so it's snowing sideways and while some places just have a dusting of snow on the ground, there are drifts several feet deep in other areas.

Here's a pic from the porch of my house snow fortress.


Today is my day off from work , so I didn't have to worry about getting through this mess, thankfully. Last I heard, most of the interstates are closed down and a lot of cars are piled up out there. I hope everyone is safe and warm at home.

I'm supposed to work Christmas day, but I'm not sure if it'll clear up enough for me to leave the house tomorrow. I'll just have to see how it goes.

In the meantime, I hope everyone has a happy holidays :D

The fabric for my Japanese Mandala Garden finally came in. The LNS had some trouble with their distributor getting the fabric from Germany, but it finally showed up and I picked it up today. It's 32 ct belfast linen in Fairy Dust. It's a very pretty light yellow/cream color, which okay, is completely indiscernible from the iPhone pic that I took for the floss toss. It took a stupid long time for me to decide on the color, why are there a million different shades of off white? :P Anyway, I'm glad I can start another Big Ass Project. I missed working on Chatelaine.

In other crafty news, Bliss is almost finished or at least, the stitching part is done and I just need to do the beading. I might put that off for a bit so I can play around with the Japanese Garden though.

I think that's about it for me for right now. I wanted to do some traveling during my week off, but it's been so cold this week, that I just blew off planning anything. I need to be better organized :(

Yay, my internetz is back up. It turned out that the wireless router was fine, but the adaptor was fried and it was much less expensive to replace. Oh, internet, never leave me again. *hugs* I celebrated by having a maple brownie from Panera Bread.

In the meantime, I'm thinking about doing christmas cards this year. (I am feeling fractionally more holiday spirit this year, I guess. Next year, I may even work up enough energy to hang up ornaments.) So, if you'd like a Christmas card, please leave a comment with your address and I'll send you one. Comments will be screened, so it's private.

Cracked.com's guide to Supernatural

This article is a)quite accurate and b)made me lol. It also tells you all you really need to know about the show:

"1. Supernatural is about two brothers, Sam and Dean Winchester.
2. The show revolves around them traveling around what claims to be America, killing stuff.
3. It remains the only show on television in which the two lead characters have either attempted to kill or succeeded in killing each other with an ax."

Thanksgiving was fine. Mom and I had dinner before I went to work, although this might have actually been great timing because all the turkey tryptophan made me extremely sleepy within like, 5 minutes of leaving the table. Work was relatively painless and afterwards, I stopped by a party at a friend's house and got to see quite a few people I hadn't seen in awhile.
There was Beatles Rock Band, and it was awesome. I enjoyed it very much (finally a video game I enjoy), though it took me forever to figure out how the guitar controller works.

This meme sounded like fun,
• Leave me a comment saying "Resistance is Futile."
• I'll respond to the first five by asking you five questions so I can satisfy my curiosity
• Update your journal with the answers to the questions
• Include this explanation in the post and offer to ask other people questions

questions from padawansguide
1. What are you top three favorite fandoms?

Probably Star Trek, Supernatural (which is a fairly recent obsession) and Doctor Who (although only the recent series; I can't seem to get too into the earlier shows)

2. What are your three favorite bands?

My all time favorite band is the Beatles. I can't even explain how much I love them and how transcendental their music is without sounding like a mad hippie, so I'll just say that they were all geniuses and that even 40+ years on their music still sounds amazing and new.

I also really love Radiohead, although I'd have to admit that my love for them probably peaked around OK Computer and Kid A. I once drove 8 hours to Houston to see them in concert and while I'm not sure I'd do that again for any band, it was definitely worth it.

Third place is a lot harder because I love a lot of bands (Are you British? Do you have guitars? Yes, please.), but after the Beatles and Radiohead, I'm not quite as obsessive over the others to the point that I have to have all their albums and read biographies of them. But since I'm on a British guitar band theme, I'll go with the Smiths. If only I had known about them when I was growing up, I would have probably enjoyed the 80's a lot more.

3. Where do you see yourself in five years?
Oh goodness, I can't even see myself in next week. I don't know. But I know this, if I keep buying books and craft stash at my current rate, in five years, we'll all see myself on the show Hoarders, if it's still on.

4. Favorite era of history?
Ack, I can't narrow it down. I love the Tudor era, the fin de siècle period of the 1890's, and the Roaring '20s. Those are the top three that I've always been fascinated by since childhood. I'm also very interested in Regency England (thanks Austen and Heyer), the French Revolution, the English Restoration and the Japanese Heian period.

5. Favorite artist?
Hmm, really hard to narrow down too! I like Alphonse Mucha, Toulouse-Lautrec, many members of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, and Mark Ryden, but my sentimental favorite is probably Edward Gorey. I want to plan a visit to his house,which is now a museum.

Happy Thanksgiving, y'all. :D

Have a Muppet rendition of "Bohemian Rhapsody".