I win! Finally!

Wow! I actually won something! Check it out:

http://inkthinkerblog.com/2009/02/27/winner-last-weeks-fun-friday-challenge/

Yay!

No Juice Contamination, Please!

This past weekend Noel and I went to Boone Hall Plantation, outside of Mt. Pleasant, SC (north of Charleston). It was an interesting trip - the avenue of live oaks and the house itself was made famous in North & South (love you, Patrick Swayze!), but one odd fact is that the big house that's there now was actually only built in 1936, to look like an old plantation house should look. Funny! The house that was there before, was a small 2-story white clapboard house - what you think of a farmhouse looking like nowadays.

Noel among the Live Oaks:

The garden had these neat brick walkways. I bet the azaleas will be blooming soon there - the ones in the yard here are already blooming.

Oh look! Thing In Sky! This is one half of the iron entrance gates. Lovely!

Here is the unauthentic plantation house. Looks like a proper plantation home, doesn't it? I think it's a little weird that it's lopsided though. It grates against my natural sense of symmetry. Weird that they'd put 2 windows on one side and 3 on the other.

Here's a good dose of reality to all the loveliness. Boone Hall was a working plantation starting in the 1600s (growing indigo, cotton, pecans, and peaches), and at one point had 225 slaves on the property. Here are some slave cabins. 11-16 people would stay in each, at the most crowded points in time.

More iron work. Pretty, huh?

The wall that went around the house and gardens was really cool - it undulated! Who knew brick could look so fluid?

So! Exciting other stuff too. On Saturday, Noel and I went to an outdoor/camping store, where he bought me a present:

Yay! Now my food won't touch!! Oh happy day. Sorry Rachel, you're going to have to figure out a new Christmas present for me. :) I am so dorky but happy with these (there are 2 of them). We ate off them once already and they worked perfectly. The barbecue sauce was safely ensconced away from the pasta salad, and ne'er the twain shall meet. Good stuff. I could maybe even eat juicy food again! OOh! Creamed corn! Or baked beans AND cole slaw in the same meal!!! Or anything doused in gravy!!!! The possibilities are endless.

Whew! It's Friday. Finally.

Was it just me, or did this week feel incredibly long? I felt by Wednesday like I was in that Groundhog Day movie. Script:

Wake up.
Shower & dress.
Drive to work.
Sit at desk.
Shuffle papers.
Eat lunch.
Shuffle papers.
Drink coffee.
Shuffle papers.
Go home.

Rinse and repeat until Friday.

So today finally Friday came. Hurrah! With the promise of nowhere I have to go this weekend, nothing particularly crucial to do all weekend. Deep breath....and relaaaaaaaxxxxxxxxx. Beautiful.

There's a new movie coming out that I want to see: Angels & Demons. If you haven't read anything by Dan Brown, you should. His books are just addictive (he also wrote The DaVinci Code), because he writes action that goes at such a quick pace and switches between characters a lot, so it keeps you on your toes. Anyway, that's the Literary Corner for today. :)

On another cultural note, I'm currently watching Ron White the comedian on tv. He cracks me up. hee hee.

This post is kinda like a Seinfeld episode - it's about nothing. Nothing at all. Let's liven it up a bit!

One online thing I've seen lately on Facebook is the list where you google your name and the word "needs" (apparently all in quotes) and then list what it comes up with. So here are my top 10:

1. Kelli needs laughter n love. (of course I do!)

2. Kelli needs a family that is patient and can devote time to her. (patience is key. Ask my mom.)

3. Kelli needs support. (new bras?)

4. Kelli needs a transplant. (!!!)

5. Kelli needs a kidney transplant. (Ah. Ok. Better? But not really?)

6. Kelli needs our help. (no doubt.)

7. Kelli needs a new grill. (also some steak!)

8. Kelli needs some nookie. (nice.)

9. Kelli needs to be enlightened. (well!)

10. Kelli needs loads of help. (I'm seeing a theme here.)

And in the spirit of my inability to stop a list at the right number:

11. Kelli needs to come visit and have some more wine! (Here here!)

So, anyone else come up with some interesting results from this little game?

Alright, I'm off to stop the kitten battle going on in the library. Why the little jungle jaguars insist upon going for each others' jugulars is beyond me, but let's just say that they should have less testosterone in their system in a few weeks. Snip snip. (Sorry. Was that mean? Guess I'm callous because I used to do that for a living. That and bingo calling.)

Ta ta for now! Happy Friday!

Kitten Knitting

Photo upload! I have some scattered photos from various and sundry activities from the past week. Let's see...first off,

My birthday! (Or the aftermath thereof). The shirt is a gift from my mom - isn't it fun? It was...late when this picture was taken. Let's leave it at that.



Next up, the upholstery project. This is as far as we've gotten, but it's progress. Perhaps this weekend we might get a bit further. So far it looks good though, I think!






Next up, knitting! My sister got me a gift certificate from a great website called www.Supercrafty.com, run by a woman who is apparently superhuman at getting packages in the mail quickly. This stuff shipped the same day I ordered it. Unbelievable! I ordered some pink stripey sock yarn, some double-pointed needles, and some circular needles. Isn't the yarn pretty?



I haven't started on those socks yet, because I've been busy finishing up THESE socks:


Yay! New socks!! I love them, although they didn't have as much orange in them as I thought they would. Also for some reason my right ankle looks HUGE in this picture. Huh. Not sure what that's all about. Also, I apparently don't have very big feet, or the yarn companies think everyone wears a size 17, because there is a LOT of yarn left over from these socks. So! I don't know what I'll do with it, but...oh! Maybe I can make socks for the kittens! They'd love that!

Speaking of kittens, they got baths tonight. I got clawed. But they're clean and I gave them some soft food while they laid in front of the heater, so they're not too horribly traumatized.

Also? They're growing like weeds. Here is Poe, still damp from his bath:


Loki was more concerned about the presence of food within eating distance, so he was wolfing this down. As in, eating so hard he wasn't breathing. Dude. There is no fire. Slow down. The 9-Lives is not a gazelle. It won't run away before you finish eating it.

(They're both blacker in reality than in the pictures, which I had to lighten a bit to get some contrast, so you could see them.)

And here's proof that the kittens are very helpful with knitting:

Hee hee.

Not much else to report on this end. Just working every day and....working. It's only Tuesday. Sigh.

One week of being 33

Hi all.

It's one week after my birthday, and boy do I feel old. Also I'm falling apart. I got up off the couch a few days ago and my right knee tweaked and I just stood there grimacing in pain for a few minutes, then gingerly put weight on it to make sure it wasn't going to just completely crumble apart. Boy, I love my 30s!

So the birthday festivities were very fun! I took Friday off from work in order to prepare for the party on Friday night. I wore my goth Oompa-Loompa boots and realized that the left one really wasn't comfortable at all. So! Decision made. They will be returned. My wallet will thank me.

Anyway, the party was great! About 15-20 people showed up, and we had a wonderful time. The neighbors came over and could be stand-up comedians, the way they had everyone almost in tears laughing. And people brought me presents, even though I wasn't expecting them to.

On Saturday, Noel and I went to Midway, GA to look at a neat old cemetery down there - they have the really old slate stones with people who died in the 1770s. Very cool. It was a beautiful day for a drive, just to feel the sun and enjoy the day. That night, we got all dolled up and he took me on a gambling cruise, where I proceeded to show why I should never be taken to Vegas. I ran out of tokens oh, about 19 times. Sigh. But we had fun. I love me some slot machines! :)

This week has been busy - had to go to the dentist this morning (fun) and the vet tonight (even more fun). I also gave blood yesterday while passing through Savannah, so lots of needles lately. Eeek!

Anyway, that's the update for now. Hope everyone is ok! I'll let you know how much weight the kittens have gained. Poe is the size of a regular housecat now, and Loki is bigger than Poe was when they first came home. It's getting harder and harder to tell them apart. We tried putting collars on them yesterday so we could tell them apart, but that...didn't go over so well. Although it was hilarious, watching them try to figure out what was going on. Poe did this funny jumping backwards thing, like he could get away from it, and Loki generally just ran around in circles. :)

I'll try to get a picture of them in their new collars, so you can see how handsome they are!

Got cake?

Happy Birthday to Me!

Yes, everyone, today is my birthday (thanks to those of you who have sent me cards/emails/etc). I'm not going to mention how old I am today, but suffice it to say I'm not yet in my mid-thirties. But I am standing on the brink. Looking down the slope to middle age. It's a fun place to be. :-

There will be festivities this weekend, which I'm very excited about. I promise to take photos and post them as well. I hopefully will be wearing a crown at some point. But no finger puppet. (glad to hear that, aren't you, Tom?)

In not-necessarily-positive news, I got my coveted boots a few days ago and to be honest, I'm not so sure I like them. They kinda make my calves look fat. Also they make me feel like a short rebellious teenager, not a swash-buckling, near-mid-30s pirate queen. So. I haven't returned them yet, but am debating on getting another type and sending these back for a refund. As previously noted, they weren't cheap, and with the economy potentially tanking (and taking my job with it), it might not be a bad idea to pocket some of that money and buy a less expensive pair of boots that don't make me look like a goth Oompa-Loompa.

So in an effort at daydreaming and not actually accomplishing anything productive lately, I've been quite successful at fantasizing about life in New England (minus the seriously scary mosquitos). Check this out (these photos are shared photos from weather.com but they had no credits, so nobody sue me!):

The coast of Maine.

Here is Maine in winter. Doesn't this just make you want to knit something? Or learn to knit in the first place? Or drink a hot buttered rum?

Lovely, huh? It's at times like this that I think about how nice it would be to live in a place with snow, and then I remember the years I spent in Colorado. Where it generally looks like this (again, thanks weather.com!):

Or this:

And the miracle of Colorado and its insane weather patterns, is that it can look like that on the same day in the same exact location! Really! Clear in the morning, fog at noon, rain in the afternoon, then snow. Then the next day, 70 degrees and the snow melts and floods the roads. It's fun.

Well, I suppose I should stop with the daydreaming and do something a bit more productive before the festivities begin in an hour. Woo hoo! I wonder what the kittens got for me?

Picturama!

Ok, here we go! Lots of photos to post, and leave it to me to dump them all at once onto the blog. Sorry if this takes a while to load!

First, a couple of pictures of the library in the house. Isn't it lovely? (Please take into consideration that the table & chairs in the foreground have now been painted black except for the table top and the seat cushions - much swankier).

The green chair & ottoman was another goodwill find. $20! Can you believe it? Also, please note Loki's need to be in at least 1 picture per post. He is nothing if not an attention hog.

Next up is a shot of the living room. The cool lamp was a Christmas gift (thank you Rachel!), and the orange chair and teal cushion were both goodwill finds (chair $10, pillow $1). Bargain bonanza!

Now for a few project photos from the reupholstery project that was undertaken this weekend. First the chair as purchased, with aged icky pastel fabric:

Ok, so it's not too bad, right? Oh but wait. Let me pull up the seat cushion and show you the multitude of single-cell organisms residing in this particular piece of furniture:


One word, ladies and gentlemen: EEEEEEWWWWW. Sersely. You can also see how faded the fabric is. So really, there was no choice but to don some gloves (soaked in Lysol) and tear that puppy apart.

Here is what a chair looks like when it's naked! We got it down to the foam, the un-moldy batting (some of it had to be removed. again, eeeeeww), and the springs and wooden frame. Neat, huh? There are a bunch more pictures (read: about 65) but I figured you wouldn't be thrilled to look at 37 different views of the way the arm upholstery was attached. So. You get this one. You can thank me later.

And what happened to the sci-fi moldy horror that was removed? It was labeled, set aside, and used for patterns on the new fabric.

Can't you just smell the dank?

Oh, and just in case you thought that mold was the only thing hiding in that chair, you would be terribly mistaken! This is the chair that keeps on giving!!! Folded within the confines of the innard fabric (that's the industry term, for those of you not in the know), we found a whopping $0.40. Wow.

Oh yeah, and a really old, crusty morsel of bacon. Vintage as of yet undetermined. HOW, I ask you, HOW do you LOSE BACON in your CHAIR? And this wasn't just sitting under the seat. Oh no, it was tucked so far into the upholstery that I didn't find it for at least an hour of tearing the chair apart. This was some seriously reclusive bacon. Hermit Pig.

And to get your mind off of the question of "how much food do I have lurking within my furniture?" and "does my couch smell like old hot dog?," I'm including a photo of undeniable cuteness. Behold these adorable furry, purring little poop factories. I mean kittens. (but if you had to clean out the box, you'd think they were working on some kind of quota or something. Really).


Everyone all together now: AAAAaaawwwwwww. How cute. :)