Because, once again, I'm not in NOLA for Jazzfest....

However, you, like me, can exceed your employer's bandwidth listening to the live feed at www.wwoz.org.

PS While this is not, actually, my favorite BTE song, it does in fact rock. Were I to pick a favorite, it would probably be Rosalia, even though I'm not sure what it means, and I don't think I want to know.

Enjoyed all of the bad stuff.

Found this awesome book/concept somewhere in blogland, so naturally, I had to head to the bookstore and order it. Then, I had to buy this awesome song on ITunes. The last thing I bought on ITunes didn't impress Lindsey, but this did, so I think we're back to even. Maybe.

So here's your challenge for the week: six word memoirs. GO!!!! We're counting this as a 5 thingies post, even if it's really 5+1.

PS Apologies to Geri, fabulous Paris Swap partner, as there are no pictures yet of her stupendous treats. However, I will remedy this soon, I promise.

Crafts to see and crafts to receive...

Since my lovely Celebrate swap partner Mary has no blog (though I think she should start one - hint, hint!), she asked me to post a picture for y'all. Quite frankly, I was pretty thrilled with how it turned out, since it was semi-monumental in embroidery size for me, and the first thing I'd really machine pieced & semi-quilted. Most such endeavors have to go to my mother, who is required to love them & praise them.

Anyway, for those of you who might care, I embroidered the words, added the buttons, pieced the front, added the embroidery with a decorative stitch (thank you, Singer!), added the backing, lined it, and added a few rows of quilting. Not too difficult, except that anytime you use that much fabric, things can get a little tricky.

My second knitting class was this morning, and it definitely was a step backward. At the first lesson, it appeared I was a continental knitter (this has to do with where you hold the yarn while you knit), and that was working for me, but then today, we had to purl, and things fell apart. I couldn't even BEGIN to purl, and it also became evident that I couldn't maintain any kind of tension. SO. Now I am becoming an English knitter, and hopefully I'll be able to knit AND to purl, which should be a good thing. I'm afraid I might have to sign up for Knitting 101 AGAIN, which is bad because: a) I have to pay to take the same class twice; b) I'm not sure I can find 3 Saturdays in a row again; and c) I am way too grade-obsessed to even contemplate viewing this as me failing, which it pretty much is. However, if this English-knitting thing works for me, I can erase what I just said.

Dinner tonight was here, where the food was yummy, the decor was beyond mid-century atomic cute, and they apparently serve sliced of cake that cover an entire dinner plate. We didn't have dessert, but I do think one slice would feed 10 people, no joke. We'll have to explore that as an option the next time folks are in town. ;)

And, in some serious excitement, it's the one year anniversary of the fabulous blog written by my dear friend Monkey. Head on over for her nifty giveaway. Crafting is awesome at the Monkeybean Mansion, so you don't want to miss this one.

Happy weekend!

Celebrate Banner Swap - The Results!

Things I'll be doing soon.

Friends, I'm going to make one of these. Maybe not today, and maybe not tomorrow, but soon, and then I'll have it forever. Isn't that exciting?

Do you remember having quote books? They were all the rage in high school. Mine was in a journal my dance teacher gave me, and I suppose it still exists somewhere at the parents' house.

I have some chipboard covers, and old cool stuff that should just get stuck on a page. I like the idea of not permanently binding it, so you can add more pages & doodles & cool stuff. I definitely like cool stuff, particularly if it's old. Having Midwestern roots is usually a good thing, but ever practical, my relatives didn't do things like save every receipt from every purchase they ever made, so I end up having to buy old billing invoices and things like that.

(Funny story - at the big 50th anniversary blast in Florida - my great uncle had the receipt from their honeymoon night - $13 in downtown Chicago at the Conrad Hilton. Isn't that funny?)

(Funny story 2 - our pastor always calls us "friends" in her sermons, which I figured was part of kindler, gentler Methodism, since she's only a bit older than we are. Her husband (also a Methodist minister) preached last Sunday (they traded churches - funny), and he called us "brothers and sisters," which I definitely haven't heard in many moons. I just chalked it up to him being from AlaBAma.)

Tomorrow is Friday. Phew. I hope I make it through.

Eurovision 2008: Croatia

Thanks to the wonders of the Internet, we can now fully understand why my people left the old country. I ended up here because of this article about the current French entry in the Eurovision songwriting contest. While the singing is actually interesting, and pretty good, the visual effects here are just plain bizarre. The end is my favorite. Straight from "Fiddler on the Roof," folks. We won't discuss who won last year's contest, and I sure as heck am not going to link you to it. :) I'm sure Petey will be able to figure out why.

In other, much more serious, news, this is not a good story to read. I look forward to the day when our country puts this sad behavior behind us.

Y'all have got to see this...

It's my fantastic banner, made by my sweet Celebrate Swap partner, Mary. Mary lives ON Cape Cod, which obviously makes her creatively wonderful. This is going smack on the light blue wall of the kitchen, surrounded by red-handled kitchen utensils - did I mention she sent me one of those, as well? And a vintage apron & hanky? She's a sweetie. THANKS MARY!

This little picture is a hint for Mary of what her banner will include when she receives it soon.


Finally, thanks to Tamy for hosting a great swap full of inspiring folks.

Ta-Da!

Thanks to Dawn, queen of the Feathered Nest, and former proprietor of The Plum Tree, a lovely little shop south of Atlanta, for sharing her how-to-change-your-blog-background wisdom with the blogworld.

I feel better just looking at those lotuses.

Knitting was a huge success - I can now cast on, knit, and increase! I've been trying to teach myself to knit from a book for a while now, and it's been an utter failure. Definitely worth the moola to have someone really show me how.

+ & -

Pluses for today:
*My new banner arrived from the Celebrate! banner swap! Mary, my lovely partner, is blogless, but made me a gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous banner, and I will show it to you soon. She also sent some additional goodies. Now, she is being very patient because I am STILL waiting on some supplies to finish her banner. However, if the supplies do not arrive tomorrow (hmpf), I have a contingency plan in place!
*Visit to Charis Books, where I found several books I'd been coveting. (And heavens to Betsy, please don't buy those from Amazon, should I inspire you. And you should know that while I don't agree with everything that bookstore stands for, I do admire (in a big way) their desire to effect change in the world & make our planet & country better. Further, I'd like you to notice my use of "effect" as a verb, which is something I like to do just to show off. Sorry. It's true.)
*Visit to Abbadabba's, in Little 5, where I found two pairs of new summer flip flops on sale WITH tax for less than the price of one new pair BEFORE tax.
*Dinner at La Fonda Latina, where you can get all sorts of yummy things, and because it's a converted gas station (remember Beebo's, Tulane folks?), there is a big door/window that is open while you eat.
*More yardwork completed.
*Visit to yarn/knitting store where I will be taking my first knitting class tomorrow morning (!) to purchase required yarn & needles.
*Discovery of 10,000 Villages store next door to yarn store!

Minuses for tonight:
*TurboTax hates my guts & somehow converted me to the "deluxe" version so they want an obscene amount of money to file my taxes. As if!!!!!!!!
*Now Lindsey must go & get us the old-fashioned PAPER forms (i.e., stone aged materials, practically) so we can still file on time.
*It is pouring rain, so the windows cannot be open & the house somehow got infested with mosquitoes for the maybe 10 minutes we had the windows open.

All in all, today is ending on the plus side, and I am sticking my tongue out at TurboTax for trying to ruin it.

Happy Friday...

Since we last talked....

Lindsey & I attended my Great-Aunt & Uncle's 50th wedding anniversary bash in south Florida. Highlights included meeting a bunch of relatives (my great-grandmother's brother's children), watching some crazed "blonde" "tanned" "lady" attack my father on the dance floor, and my aunt starting a conga line, complete with napkin twirling. Pictures of these festive events to come...

Lindsey & I went to the Everglades, where we took a cool boat tour of the mangrove islands off the coast (and I did NOT get sick on the boat, which is much improved over my last boat trip, i.e., the ferry to the Statue of Liberty), and saw a bunch of alligators & wading birds. Oh, we also saw dolphins TWICE.
We ended our Floridian adventure in Sarasota, where we visited the Ringling Museum (cool place) and spent some quality time on the beach at Siesta Key (my favorite beach anywhere).

And my sweet cousin Beth found out that baby #2 is going to be a little girl. Congratulations, Johnsons!