I feel like I got a lot done this weekend. I mailed off my tea-themed exchange to Lynn in the UK. I hope it gets there safely. I always worry a little when mailing something out of the counry.

Next week, I'm going to Las Vegas. My sister is arranging a vacation there for my mom's birthday and she's taking care of the hotel, while I take care of the airfare. (Granted, that's not a lot of effort on my part, as long as I can find of flight with a couple of empty seats on it, that is.) I've never been there before and am fairly excited. There will be new fuds, yay. I will have 9 days off in a row, even bigger yay!

(The only sad thing is that I won't be in town to see the midnight showing of Harry Potter with brennye. *sadface*)

I went to Sooner Fashion Mall and got my haircut today. Major accomplishment as I am now lighter of about a foot and half of hair. I'm happy with it, the hairdresser was really nice and did a good job, I think. I'm looking forward to not having to use as much shampoo and conditioner as before. (Also, it was getting uncomfortable to wake up by having rolled over onto one's own hair. It involved a lot flailing usually.)

Stopped by Border's because I will need to have something to read on the plane (besides the 13502834082 books I currently own). I bought Public Enemies and World War Z. Speaking of Public Enemies, I took my mom to see it yesterday. It was really good and Johnny Depp was awesome. The parts where Dillinger was trying to hook up with Marion Cotillard's character were incredibly hot, for a homicidal bank robber, he had some smooth moves.

(Ebert's interview with director Michael Mann is pretty intriguing. I'm kinda glad I read it before I saw the movie. It felt like it gave me a deeper understanding of what was going on.)

Also, my new doll came in the mail this week. After the hassle the last time with SMJ, I bid on YJ using Rinkya instead. And everything went find this time.

I bought a Volks YoSD Kira. I wasn't particularly interested in collecting tinies before, but then Volks had to be awesome bastards and released a yo version of the Four Sisters mold. (My doll Dorian is a four sisters. See icon on left.) So I knew I couldn't resist forever.

Her name is Truffle.

I haven't bought any new doll things in awhile, but I need to get her some new clothes (right now she's wearing her default outfit) and maybe some new wigs and glass eyes. Maybe I should commission a new faceup for her. Right now she kind of has a sad little expression like she's going "Baroo?" New doll = spending more money on more stuff.

That's probably enough randomness for now. Oh, one more: Ben and Jerry's Mission to Marzipan is the most awesome ice cream ever. I'm going to go eat some now. Nomnomnom.

Yay, brennye, it are ur burfday! I hope you're having a great day :D


see more Lolcats and funny pictures

Ugh, it's so hot outside. Can't think. Need air conditioning.

Things have been pretty quiet lately. Days got kind of blurry with with the mandatory overtime, but it seems to have slowed down over the weekend, so hopefully, it won't be so bad for awhile.

In the meantime, I am slowly, but steadily gaining ground on my exchanges. I've almost finished Lynn's (all I need to do is finish the construction tonight and get it mailed) and I have Judith's exchange halfway finished. That leaves an bloggaversary stitch that I want to do (which has technically already passed, so it will be a bit late, but then again, so are most things.) And then that leaves Taj; I have two more months to get it completely finished and framed before the state fair. Eep. It will get done. *shakes fist*

In the meantime, I have finished reading:
My Lady of Cleves by Margaret Barnes Campbell. Anne of Cleve's story doesn't get as many novels as some of the other wives, but she's a really interesting, sympathetic character.

Frederica by Georgette Heyer

Company of Liars by Karen Maitland. Pretty good novel set in the Middle Ages. Creepy, and more than a bit depressing though.

The Lost Art of Keeping Secrets by Eve Rice Very fun read.

Also, I tried listening to an audiobook for the first time and downloaded the Star Trek novelization by Alan Dean Foster. Zachary Quinto (Spock) reads it. On the whole I really enjoyed it, I should listen to more audio books. Zachary Quinto does a really good job, although the parts where he tries to do Scotty's accent are totally O_o LOL WHUT. Like Sarah asked me if it is worse than the fake Scottish guy in the Taco Mayo ads and AYE. AYE, IT IS.

OH. And I'm thinking about getting these t-shirts because
( my wardrobe isn't nearly geeky enough )

UGH. I just found out I have to do 2 hours overtime before my shift tomorrow. FLAMES. FLAMES ON THE SIDE OF MY FACE.

re: work
I think I need to get some kind of self-help book on How to Deal with Douchebags, because I don't think my current defense mechanism, appalled silence, is really working for me. I need to speak up (and hang up on people) more.

re: food
Ate a blueberry maple cupcake. Feel moderately better.

re: recreation
Am watching TOS Star Trek online. So far I have watched the first four episodes. Including "Charlie X", involving some feral space teenager who keeps turning crew members into iguanas and/or wishing them into the cornfield. Charlie looks a lot like Will Forte from SNL, so while the story actually is creepy, it now also feels kinda like a bad SNL skit.

"The Naked Time" has Sulu fencing w/out his shirt. Spock cries. Fun times.

OMG, what is up with Yeoman Rand's hair? It's like a basket. But of hair. It has been awhile since I watched Trek, but I can't believe that I have forgotten a literal basket of hair.

Yay, I have Firefox back up! Somehow this week I managed to get it completely borked during an upgrade, so it was running (in the background, I suppose) and yet not opening. It was like a Zen koan or something. And then I couldn't uninstall it because it was still running...somewhere. And I had to use IE, which is crappy. But now it is fixed, because I managed to uninstall it first thing before it had a chance to turn on. Gah.

Anyway, in more exciting news, cupcakes!

That is Cherries Jubilee and Coconut Cream, which are both excellent.

Today I met with brennye at Thai Kitchen downtown and then we went to SaraSara Cupcakes. Topped off with a visit to Half-Price Books. Yay, I got to hang out with Brenn again. And I found an Aubrey Beardsley artbook for $10. So that's a day of awesomness. I'm debating whether I should polish off the leftover pad thai or if I should save them for tomorrow. I'm voting for now.

When I came home, my mom shouted, "Aigoo, where is my cupcake?!? I'm starving!" at me. Thank goodness, I bought some to go too.

Here's the description of a Korean movie listed on Ebay:

Nalrari
"Inspired by Shakespeare's classic of the same name. Yeon-su is a beautiful but naughty young woman whose family became millionaires overnight. All men fall in love with her at first sight, but Jeong-do, the only son of a respected family, has no regard for her. Yet despite this, the two fall in love and get married. However, their conflicting families shake up their wedded bliss."

Wait, what? Seriously, I have no idea which play that is even supposed to resemble.

Since I've heard that my contribution to the Just Nan exchange has reached my stitching parter Sally, so I can go ahead and post pics of it.

I used a JN pattern called Flying Lessons and turned it into a pinkeep.


Here's a picture of the back. I really like this fabric, I bought it from Jo-Ann's, I think.


I've got two exchanges for my friends Lynn and Judith left to finish for the summer. I still have a bit left to work on them, need to get cracking!

Off to get sushi for dinner ^_^

Today I received a lovely cross stitch from Carol S. for the Just Nan exchange.



She made a very lovely biscornu. I like the combination of flowers and butterflies. Very pretty design!



She also very kindly sent some extra goodies: a cute postcard and a bookmark, a Just Nan chart, some really nice smelling sweet pea soap, and rainbow colored scissors (yay!).

Thank you so much, Carol! ^_^

My part of the Just Nan exchange was a little late however (as usual, I am terrible with deadlines) and I mailed it out on Tuesday. It doesn't have too far to go though, so it should arrive at its destination shortly. I really enjoyed this exchange, Just Nan is one of my favorite cross stitch designers.

I ordered some cross stitch books from French Amazon.


Not shown: the freaking gigantic cockroach (now deceased) that came in the packaging. Thanks, Amazon! Seriously, the people down the street probably heard my shrieking. Gah!

Anyway, the two books are Cartonnage Brodé and Répertoire des Alphabets. Cartonnage is a French hobby of making fabric (or paper) covered boxes. There are some pretty examples online. However, this only seems to be popular in France and Japan and there aren't many projects printed in English. I have only ever seen one article on the subject, in an issue of The Gift of Stitching.

There are some really cute projects in the book, but there aren't very many pictures of the putting-it-together process and my French is a bit rusty (le understatement!), so I'm not sure if I will get around to these. I need more of a beginners' guide to cartonnage, I think. I have this book that I found in a used bookstore, but these look way hard to make. I'm not sure I will get around to making one of these.

The alphabet book has a pretty nice collection of some old fashioned lettering, although some of the fonts are repeated in different sizes. This one will probably be a lot more handy.

So, other books that I've actually read lately...
The Convenient Marriage by Georgette Heyer. This started out promising, but the heroine started out spunky and then immediately became bratty, so she annoyed me for most of the book. As did her lisping.

Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens. It took most of last month for me to get through this, although I really enjoyed it, probably more than the other Dickens novels I've read. The BBC series is excellent as well.

The Concubine by Norah Lofts. Apparently, I will never, ever tire of reading about the Tudor era.

In the Woods by Tana French. Great mystery novel! I stayed up till eight in the morning finishing this because I couldn't put it down. Very creepy and suspenseful.

I am sad though because I got the sequel,The Likeness, from the library and it doesn't have the same narrator as In the Woods. And the premise (detective goes undercover to solve the murder of a woman who looks exactly like her), seems totally improbable. Like it would not seem out of place as a storyline on One Life to Live. Whatever, I will finish it anyway.

My birthday is not coming up anytime too soon, but if you're thinking ahead, this would make a totally awesome gift.



Would this not occupy a honored place in anyone's living room? Maybe with a soft spotlight gently glowing on it. This is the most amazing piece of art that I've ever seen. If I saw it in a museum, not only would it not look out of place, it would probably be the most awesome thing there.

Just looking at it makes me want to shout, "Look around, can you form some sort of rudimentary lathe?" at it.

That one is my favorite of the collection, but I also like this figurine of Kirk in a pile of Tribbles. This would also make acceptable presents.


There's a lens flare on the pile of Tribbles. *dies*

Peonies are blooming in the yard. I really like them, they're so huge and fluffy, like giant snowballs.

Still stitching away, but working mostly on exchanges, so I don't have any pictures to post yet, but hopefully will have soon. It has been awhile since I got anything finished because I keep starting new things. Short attention span = not good. I need to buy less kits and work on working through my stash.

So will now unwind from a long day of work by stitching on my exchanges and watching Lost online. Season finale, woot! Looking forward to the mind-blowing.

ETA: That was a big plateful of . With a heaping side of

Hey, I think I'm one of the few people left on the internet who hasn't posted their thoughts on the new Star Trek movie.


( Yes. Yes it was. )

Definitely want to see it again. Note to self: download more Trek lj icons.

So a couple of months ago, I saw that Linda was celebrating the anniversary of her blog, Litla Skvís, by doing a drawing for a surprise gift. I have admired Linda's stitching for a long time, so I left a comment for the drawing and was quite surprised when a few days later to hear that I had won! Yay for random luckiness!

The first time there was a problem with the mail and it never showed up at my house, instead returning back to Linda in Iceland. And Linda very kindly mailed it again and it arrived today! I was very excited.


Wrapped in very nice tissue paper and ribbon. Also, surprisingly heavy :)


Linda stitched and covered a journal with a Little House Needleworks design. It's so cute! Her needlework and finishing is so very well done. I'll have to think of something extra special to fill this journal with. I will definitely treasure it.

But that wasn't all!

It was like I had hit the cross stitch jackpot :D My mouth literally fell open when I saw how much awesome stuff there was.

Roughly, there were several packages of decorative pins, some Piecemaker needles, 2 pieces of Silkweaver fabric (including one of the sparkly variety!), some pewter colored zwiegart evenweave, a second journal in pink, hand-dyed Needle Necessities thread, several Vikki Clayton hand-dyed silk thread (this is the first time I've seen VC silk in person; I've been very curious about it. It's very pretty and soft, very vibrant color. Can't wait to try it out!), a Just Nan witch charm...

And! she sent several charts.

Just Nan's Witch Way, the Drawn Thread's Three Friends needlebook, a Waxing Moon Designs pattern, a Sweetheart Tree sampler, and LHN's Morning Berries and Country Cottage Needleworks' Ladybugs and Bumblebees.

I am totally overwhelmed and touched by Linda's generosity. Thank you so much!

I took some pictures of the Dale Chiluly glass in the museum lobby while I waited for The Big Lebowski to start.

( more pics under cut )

I have the next two days off from work. YES. Tomorrow I am going to the city art museum because they are showing The Big Lebowski. It occurs to me that it's pretty silly to take the day off to see a movie that I already have on dvd and have seen a hundred times already, but I've never seen it on a big screen and that sounds like a good enough reason to me to not work. Two hours of Jeff Bridges as the Dude is much preferable to productive customer service.

Friday I'm taking off so I can go see Star Trek with Sarah and Martin. YAY. I am so excited over this. I loves me some old school sci-fi.
( tl:dr anecdote of geekiness under the cut )

Check surfthechannel.com for Pushing Daisies' last three episodes.

*sigh* Not sure whether to use sad or happy Chuck & Olive icon. Happy to see the remaining episodes. Really, really sad that there's no more left. I really miss this show. It always made me smile.

I still don't want to see Angels & Demons, but I really like this bit of music from Hans Zimmer's score. Also, Ewan McGregor is hot. So at least it looks like an improvement over The DaVinci Code.



After watching that video a couple of times, I almost felt like maybe it wouldn't be too bad a way to spend a couple of hours, so out of curiosity, I read the plot summary and spoilers on Wikipedia. And oy :P That's a lot worse than I thought. Pass.

And now, a cute story for your personal edification:
George Harrison forged the other Beatles' autographs for terminally ill fan.
*sniffles* And apparently, he forged the other Beatles' signatures all the time, to the point that he got really good at it. That kind of cracks me up too, the image of George surrounded by a mountain of letters, forging everyone else's names, while they are off getting into Hard Day's Night-type shenanigans. I think George may now be my favorite Beatle.

I asked my mom for her wonton recipe. I think it is the best dish that she cooks, but it's been a long time since she's cooked this. That's because while it's very inexpensive and fairly simple to make, it takes a lot of time. I've been craving them lately, so I decided to try to learn how to make them myself.

( pics or it didn't happen )

Lately, it has been Neko Case's new album, Middle Cyclone. The first time I heard it, I wasn't sure I really liked it, but it has grown on me to the extent that now I think this, along with Blacklisted, are my two favorite Case albums. "This Tornado Loves You" stands out in particular, it reminds me of home. Especially lately, as every other day the tv runs a marathon weather alert.


In other news, I cannot believe that the little suburb I live in finally has a sushi restaurant. :D Progress, people! I decided to check it out today and it was pretty good. My favorite sushi place is still Tokyo Sushi, but at least now, I don't have to drive all the way up to the north side of the city to get decent sushi.



I had smoked salmon, tuna, eel and an Okie roll. The Okie roll had eel on top, plus salmon, cream cheese, jalapeno and bacon. Guess why I ordered it? It was good. Could have been more bacon-y though.

There's also a Vietnamese pho restauarant next door. I am not as crazy about Vietnamese food as I am about other Asian foods, but it seems they do serve bubble tea, so I will probably stop there to get a drink sometime. (I will probably try pho again too. I like to try things several times before I give up on them.)

I don't think the recession is affecting Oklahoma all that badly. A couple of large plants closed, but it's not been that bad and it's still really inexpensive to live here. And in Moore, there are pretty much new restaurants and businesses opening all the time. It has really grown a lot over the past two years. Now they just need to open a bookstore.

I talk to a lot of people over the phone who confess that they're not good with computers. Some of it is kind of understandable, not everyone knows what a cookie is or how to clear their cache, but generally it is stuff that is lacking in common sense. Like they will sit and look at the screen and ask, "What do I do next?" and I have to tell them, "You click the button that says, 'Next Step'." This happens quite a lot.

Today was exceptional, however, as I spoke to a customer who didn't know where the Back button was on her browser. I'm really kind of stumped by that. I'm flabbergasted that she got as far as she did on our website or in fact, on the internet at all, without ever having to hit the Back button at least once.

I described it to her, but she still couldn't find it and gave up, ending our brief conversation. I was trying really hard (okay, maybe not that hard) to not sound judgemental, but I'm not sure I was very successful with that.

So that was my day, trying as it was. Now I have two days off, yays. I came home and watched the last episode of Little Dorritt on PBS. It was such a good miniseries, I'm kind of sad that it's over now. I've enjoyed it so much that I picked up a copy of the book and am about halfway through it so far, although it is taking me forever to get through.
( some spoilers about the conclusion )
On the whole, I really enjoyed it. Great story, acting, and costumes. A+, would get for the dvd collection. Now need moar costume dramas, rawr.