So I was going to put up a whole ton of photos here today (yesterday? It’s 5:22 a.m. - officially not the same today it was when I woke up, I suppose…) but guess who just didn’t have the motivation to do all that camera-work? Yup, that’s me.

So instead, you get to hear about the other things I’m up to in my life.

A long long time ago, in a galaxy far away… Wait, wrong script.

A long long time ago, like, say, four years ago, I used to have this awesome hobby of penpalling and swapping (things, in the mail) and postcard trading and other things. Then A came to town, and suddenly, I had a REAL LIVE FRIEND IN THE FLESH and I eventually abandoned all that other stuff. Well, that, and I got a full time job, working nights, and life just changed in general.

But I’ve done penpalling on and off for years… many years, and I missed it. So finally, I’m getting back into the swing of things. I posted a little ad on Ravelry (knitting forums, for those uncool people not in the know), and whammo, 5-6 people contacted me within two days. I rock, man. And so do they. :) So not only am I getting penpals? I’m getting KNITTING penpals. That is totally freaking awesome.

Still, I think penpalling with people you’ve met and converse with on the internet is going to be an interesting experience. A) everyone has blogs, and b) email and instant messaging and private messaging is quick and… instant. But there’s something about a handwritten letter on paper (or heck, even a typewritten letter on paper) sent through the mail that makes all the extra time and expense and wait worthwhile. It’ll be nice to expect things in the mail once in a while that aren’t bills, magazines, or packages I ordered myself.

1. Roomies leave their clothes all over the place, making you trip over them and hurry to remove underwear from the hallway before your local friendly deputy comes in to buy eggs.
2. Roomies want dinner. Now. But they don’t want to do dishes. Ever.
3. Roomies make you have to be quiiiiet while they sleep, even if that’s normally the time you’d vacuum and turn the music up loud and the lights down low and do pagan rituals in the dark.
4. Roomies leave their hair wads in your shower drain.
5. Roomies bring along evil kittehs who take glee in terrorizing your big three big fat cowardly lions.
6. Roomies wake you up all the time to ask favors like: Can I borrow your car?
7. Roomies use your stuff - makeup, qtips, jewelry, clothes, hair stuff, whatever.
8. Roomies come home drunk and eat all your cinnamon sticks and say very strange things, like: “You’ve been folding towels ALL THIS TIME?”
9. Roomies are quite unconcerned with electrical bills… as long as they aren’t footing it, anyway.
10. Roomies leave you with no *real* alone-time, because you know they could come back at any moment spoiling all the good alone-ness of the alone-time

In case you couldn’t tell, I’ve been living with a roomie for a while, and it’s been an adventure. Good friend roomie probably has a similar list of “Reasons not to live in your friend’s house” list, which would probably include things like: “Roomies nag CONSTANTLY about things they doesn’t do themselves, like rinsing one’s dishes.” Me and A don’t live well together - after many years of doing just that, we’ve learned our lesson, but when a girl’s got sewer problems, a girl’s got sewer problems, you know? And what’s a good friend to do but take in a roomie until it’s fixed?

However, she oughta be leaving today, which makes me happy, and probably her, too - I’m sure she’s dying to get away from my naggy, annoying ass just as much as I’m ready to get rid of her. Still, it’s gonna be a bit strange. Two weeks of having another body in the house to talk to will make for an odd transition to that sudden aloneness.

Still, how do married people DO IT?

So night before last (that’d be Sunday night) A. came over and thought she’d utilize my kitchen, mixer, ingredients, and “expertise” to make a coffee cake for my mother’s (belated) birthday. Now, A. is no Martha in the kitchen, and to be honest, she’s lucky to boil eggs without disaster, but everyone’s gotta start somewhere, right?

Well, after searching the internet for ages at work searching for a recipe, she came up with what is probably the world’s only coffee cake recipe that requires one of the few kitchen gadgets I do not have - a pastry cutter. It’s called Brown Sugar Crumb Cake, and you can get this recipe (with its rather unappetizing photo - holy god, could it look any more ick?) here. Now, the last recipe I made from about.com was a complete disaster. Let’s say sugar cookies that tasted like pure flour, okay? So I was skeptical from the start - I mean, bad photo, and About.com ‘certified’.

But, it sounded good. I mean, how can you go wrong with an ingredient list that doesn’t have much more than a lot of brown sugar and butter?

Hahaha.

“How could you go wrong?” is the sort of thoughtless thing Murphy (of the “Murphy’s Law” fame) catches you thinking and giggles madly at. Because what went wrong? Oh, just about everything.

The problems started when it became apparent that A was not exactly sure what “packed” meant in relation to “two cups brown sugar, packed”. She is, granted, a novice baker, and we got that straightened out. Then the lack of a pastry cutter (which we remedied thanks to a trip to my mother’s to borrow hers). Then… well, it’s possibly that A measured out a tablespoon of baking soda and powder, but neither of us think that’s likely. (Well, she denies it vehemently, but she also denied doing anything wrong that time she totally ripped up the directions to the tacos and added like, a lake’s worth too much water, and she also denied doing anything wrong (”You’re just skeptical, Katie!”) the time she dumped two packets of seasoning for our Rice-a-Roni into one dish, which, by the way, tasted like a giant mouthful of salt, and I do give her kudos for choking down several bites in an attempt to prove just how ‘wrong’ I was at being completely sickened at the first bite. So, make what you will of her denial, folks.)

But seriously, I watched the baking soda and baking powder measuring, and I didn’t seem too alarmed by the size of the spoon she was using, so I think she’s telling the truth this time around. Honest. ;-) Well, then… you see, there’s this line in the directions, which I did not read, because hell, A. is an English genius, I didn’t expect to have trouble with her reading them - carrying them out, perhaps, but not reading them, and it says:

Reserve 1 scant cup of crumbs and set aside. Combine remaining ingredients and whisk until smooth; stir into the remaining crumbs in bowl.

She read it line by line. “Reserve 1 scant cup of crumbs and set aside.” And after a minor discussion on what was meant by ’scant’, she removes some crumbs and sets them aside.

Then she reads: “Combine remaining ingredients and whisk until smooth.”

Did you see that? I didn’t, because i didn’t read the instructions. Read like she read it to me, it sounded like they wanted us to add the rest of the damned ingredients and mix it all up until smooth. She thought so, too. So that’s what we did. We did not combine the remaining ingredients separately. We mixed it all up together with the crumbs we had not reserved, and… mixed it smooth. This, ladies and gents, may have been a big problem.

Then she read: “Stir into the remaining crumbs.”

Yep. You bet. We stirred in the remaining - the reserved crumbs, even as we asked: “I thought there should’ve been a topping!” And even as I (and mind you, I’m no master baker either, but I’m not a novice) thought: “Funny that we did all that bloody work with the pastry cutter just to mix it all smooth like this and then add in the rest just like so… what a waste!” Did anyone re-read the instructions? Nope.

Would’ve been too late anyway.

The batter, by the way, tasted great. A. left some in the pan and ate a bunch by the spatula-ful. You think I’m kidding. I kid not.

So, that done, she poured it into a newly greased and floured pan, and popped it in the oven, while I, relieved that it was over, checked my email and told my online pals that we’d just finished mixing up our coffee cake. Thirty minutes later, D-I-S-A-S-T-E-R!!!!

A. opens the oven door to check on the bloody thing, and smoke pours out of the oven, and she starts freaking, going: “K! We have a big big problem!” I was a bit concerned that the oven was on fire, I must admit, but she assured me it wasn’t. Instead, it was…

Yeah. Picture that, in my oven, except worse, because at the time this photo was taken, a whole lot of that goo had spilled all over the damned place. For a couple minutes, we just sat there looking at it, alarmed and baffled and distressed and not at all sure what to do. Finally, A. grabbed my spiffy halloween mitt and another one, and hauled the giant mass to the dump.

And I was left pouring salt all over everything in the oven to quell the smoking. It now looks the Nevada Salt flats have just been hit by a giant asteroid.

And the house? Smelled like burnt coffee cake for hours.

Now… if you want my honest opinion, we farked the whole damned thing up from the start, and I should’ve vetoed the recipe the moment I realized you needed a bleeding pastry cutter, which is usually outside my culinary skillset, or at least read through the directions completely so I’d have a clue what was coming…. But I think the real problem lay in that the directions called for one 8×8 pan, and even all mixed up together wrong, I think it needed TWO 8×8 pans. I think A. filled it too full (I do recall her saying how heavy the pan was, several times, as she put it in the oven.), because after all, it said to only use one 8×8 pan, and we baked away. A, of course, insists she did not fill it too full, but you read the above examples of her denials, yes? Even if she didn’t fill it too full, clearly, it was too full (for whatever reason) by the time we yanked its scary ass from the oven. No denying that.

Well anyway, it could’ve been anything - measuring wrong, or whipping the batter up far too much, or adding the extra crumbs in instead of on top (but honestly, it all had to fit in the same pan anyway, right?), or being too full in the pan and needing two instead of the one it called for, or hell, it could’ve just been a terrible recipe. I don’t know.

But damn it all, I want to try again.

But maybe in A’s kitchen this time, eh?

Look!

It’s the beginnings of a stole! The Mystery Stole! The first half of clue 1 went by fast. I worked on it at work (yes, at work, and you would too, if you had my job!) for two nights, and it was done with - perfect and beautiful. The second half of clue 1 did NOT go so well. I won’t detail all my issues, between a loose cast on row and forgetting to knit the center row, I had to rip back three rows, tighten things up, and begin again, which was a pain in the hind end, if you know what I mean. So I ended up getting like, 11 or 12 rows of the second half done last night. Will work furiously on it tonight and hopefully get it near-finished before my fingers cramp up.

In other knitting news, I’ve begun another dishcloth, using the bamboo stitch. Should be cute. I LOVE the colors. It’s in that Peaches & Creme yarn that’s pretty much like Sugar n’ Cream, but not, and it’s all bright green and yellow and white. Gorgeous.

I also taught A. to knit. She says she’s nearly finished with her first dishcloth. It’s all garter stitch, and she’s run into some amusing yarn-over issues. I’d post a picture of her knitting here, but she despaired that I’d place those “horrible, fat pictures” of her on the internet. They’re not horrible, or fat, but whatever. ;-) Pictures or not, she has learned to knit! Triumphant at last!

So I’ve been waiting ever-so-anxiously for my KnitPicks yarn to arrive. And it sooo hasn’t. It was supposed to be here Tuesday. It wasn’t. Nor Wednesday, nor Thursday. Today, Friday, it came. But… I slept like a log and didn’t wake up until the post office was closed. See, the post office here is open for such limited hours that my graveyard schedule makes it difficult to get to it during business hours. I either have to a) stay up late to get there in the morning and hope they get all the package notices shipped out to the boxes before I arrive, or b) wake up uber early, by 4pm, to get there before they close at a quarter after. I did neither today. And of course, it being Friday, the last day of the week it’s open, I missed it. And when I went to get my mail… there was a package slip in my box. *sigh* I have the worst luck in the world.

In other news, I have company. My friend Tabby is here for a week, visiting, resting from recent surgery on her wrist, and escaping life’s woes. I picked her up from the bus station 90 miles away on Wednesday. I also bought some goodies.

These are fabrics I got for various projects. The first three from the left are for aprons. The citrus and gingerbread men fabrics are for me. The flowery fabric is for A, who decided she wanted an apron as well. I told her I’d buy the fabric if she wanted to doing the sewing. The two fabrics on the right are for the bag swap I’m doing. It’ll hopefully turn out to be a messenger bag. :)

Next up, the apron pattern I’ll be using!

Then… progress on the SBO scarf! Look how pretty it is! I’m glad it’s looking good. I can’t wait to see it blocked, but I still have quite a ways to go.

Now, off to spend more time with company and all that good stuff!

It’s happened! I’ve finally got myself signed up for one of those oh-so-cool knitting swaps. You know, the ones that aren’t on craftster, the ones where it’s all knitting themed, and everyone sends such wonderful stuff to each other, and I drool and drool and drool. Uh huh. One of those. Anyway. I stumbled upon Yarn Aboard! just about a week ago, by sheer accident, and quickly signed up for the notification list. And sure enough, notification came late last week that signups would begin Monday!

And I miraculously remembered to sign up! *laugh* Actually, I didn’t. I just happened to see the email sitting there in my inbox, already read and everything, as I was logging off the computer, and I rushed back to sign up quickly. Heh. I already sent in my questionaire and everything. I’m excited like you wouldn’t believe. Or maybe you would. I know the vast majority of my non-crafty pals (which is, sadly, the vast majority of my pals in general… like… maybe all…) will just look at me and shake their heads in shame.

Ha! But I care not. Anyway. I’ve been obsessed with sock knitting lately. Yarn Aboard is themed for sock knitting, actually. Well, to be honest, there’s two themes. One for sock knitting, and one for spinning, but I’ve only touched roving like, once, and while spinning is one of my things to learn, I don’t have the financing for even a drop spindle, let alone hunting down fiber and stuff. Not at this time. But soon. I’ll drool for now, I guess!

Moving on…. I’ve had company for the last few days. A has become severely allergic to something. It’s not the cat, as we previously thought. We /think/ it’s the Glade Oil Plugin thingie she had jacked up to HIGH in her apartment. It fits the “I’ve got hives!” timeline just fine, and she’s got sensitive skin. Anyway, she /does/ have hives. They were somewhere near AWFUL on Friday and Saturday, especially. Today, they’re going away, because — big moment of unsurprise — she hasn’t been in her apartment! And oh yeah, she’s doped up on prescription allergy meds and crap. Yay. So she’s been miserable. Poor girl.

Grandma’s out of the nursing home and back at home. Good. I hope she’ll be all right now, and eat right, and drink plenty of water, all that. *crosses fingers*

I’ve finally began knitting my Shimmer Branching Out scarf again. I’d screwed up on the third repeat, and had to put it aside for a couple days to get over the frustration of having to rip it back. Yay for lifelines, though - only ten rows lost. Last night, I managed to knit 8 repeats. Woot! Tonight, I’ve done one so far, but am trekking along. I hope to get at least four done.

Tomorrow, my KnitPicks package should be here! I hope, anyway. Then Tabbycat comes to visit, so we’ll see if any of the mystery stole actually gets done in the next couple weeks.

Seems I’m moving up in the world! A’s been studying religions. She comes from a right winger Christian family of nutcases. They’d be nutcases without all the fundie crap, mind you, but they’re /really/ nuts with it. So A mentioned to them that she’s studying religion, and somehow, the topic of paganism came up. And her grandmother says: “Pagans are an abomination to God.”

Cool. I’m an abomination now! I’ve always wanted to be an abomination, and I’m glad to know I’ve finally achieved my goal. I didn’t put it on the 1001 Days list because I just never imagined it’d happen in 3 years, but look! It did! Huzzah! Next step: Evil Overlord. Think I can do that?

Yeah. It’s been on my mind… I’m not really surprised, truthfully. They never liked me. Well, actually, that’s a lie. They did, once upon a time, when I was a sweet, shy, naive little Christian girl. Then I got moody, rebellious, angsty, depressed, and snarky. Then they didn’t like me. I got over all that, but they still don’t like me. Probably because I don’t like them. Though I’m always polite to their faces. And most of the time, they’re polite to my face. But I hear all the juicy stuff about me and my family from A, who seems to go out of her way sometimes to give them more reasons to hate me. Like… telling them I’m a pagan, who has lesbian friends.

Mind you, I’m not a lesbian, but they probably think I am. And they definately know I’m a pagan.

Heh. It was funny, A’s brother/uncle/mother’s-boyfriend/father-to-her-sister type person (we’ll call him PJ) (I tell you this family is weird, and you didn’t believe me until I said that, did you?) thought I was gonna be planting scary herbs. I was planting herbs. Including ones he thought were “scary” - like “wormwood”. Which is a pretty little shrubby thing. Then he warned of the dangers of foxtail, which is a beautiful flower. Poisonous if you eat it, yes, but who the bloody hell would? Lots of things are poisonous if you eat them. Most people don’t eat anything but /food/. But I tell you, the guy’s worried I’m gonna poison A, or bewitch her or something. And now that she’s studying you religion, you can bet whatever body part you’re most fond of that they think I’m gonna drag her to the dark side. And you can bet that if she ever leaves Christianity, they’ll blame me for it.

Wonder if they pray for my soul at night?

Probably not. They really aren’t that nice. But my grandmother prays for my soul. And she doesn’t even know I call myself a witch. Hah. She wouldn’t believe it if I told her, though. Denial is a wonderful thing.

Anyway. The abomination is going to bed now. She needs her beauty sleep so she can have energy to cast evil spells all day long. I think me needs a lil PJ voodoo doll. *sticks pins in it*

Nah. Kidding. I’m inclined to think that causing harm just for the hell of it doesn’t do anybody any good. Now, a good reflecting spell, that might be appropriate, though to be honest, his bullshit doesn’t really do /me/ any harm.

Speaking of magic on a more serious level… I did my ritual last week. And another just a couple days ago. The latest was the New Moon ritual, and pretty much just did some tarot. It was odd, because you’d think moon rituals should be at night, and I totally did it at like, 8:30 in the morning, sun shinging brightly. But that’s the only time I had free to do so. It went good. Good advice - especially the bit about being patient with people. I’ve been stressing over people for a while now, thanks to those bastards at work…

That’s another story, though, and I’m tired of this shit.

This abomination is signing off.

So I’m a bad witch. A terrible one, really. In the 5 months since Yule, I have done…. nothing - absolutely nothing - even remotely magical. Well, I planted some herbs, but I didn’t even do that right. I mean, sure, they’re growing… kinda… but it’s not like I did any spells over them, and I didn’t even plant them at the right phase of the moon. I don’t think. I’m so bad, I didn’t even record when I planted them. I don’t think. Maybe I did, but nowhere I see. So yeah. Bad me. No tarot. No runes. No ritual. No candles, no incense, no prayer, no… anything. My “altar” is covered in junk, my house isn’t clean, I never got the spring clean/house blessing bit done.

Gahhh! I’m awful.

So tomorrow night on the night of the last quarter moon, I’m gonna do some ritual. Lightweight ritual, mind you. And a little banishing magic on my debt situation. My debt’s getting better, but who couldn’t use a little help, ne? Oh yes, and maybe a financial-trouble-banishing add-on for my parents, who are heading for desperate times. I’ve never worked any waning moon magic before. In fact, the only magic I’ve ever worked has either been on the full moon, or on a major sabbat, so… Well, how hard can it be, ne?

And then I gotta kick-start my witchy studies. Truly. I need to do tarot. See where I stand these days. I’m feeling pretty good, but I’d like a little spiritual feedback, you know? Next Saturday, on the new moon, would probably be good for that. I think I even have that day/night off. Well, actually, I just checked, and I don’t. Whatever. Tarot doesn’t take long. *laugh*

I need to start pulling a card every day and taking notes. But that seems like so much /work/. You know, a whole two minutes a day of it. *gasp* Right. Can you tell I’m not only a bad witch, but a lazy one?

Note to self: Enough laziness!

Later today when I wake up, I’m gonna drag that A. person of mine up to start more herbs. And my carrots in a bucket. Yes. I’m growing carrots in a bucket. Hopefully.

Then Saturday, I wanna drag her to Havre as soon as she gets off work to, uh… shop. Yes. Shop. Not for much. I have a whopping total of $30 to my name, and $16 of that goes to cat food. So yeah, my shopping will be, uh, limited.

Another reason I need to do spellwork. Banish those poor finances, bring in something better!

I really want to buy this: Summer Magic Course. Oh yes, yes I do. But gugh… pricey for this broke dog.

The next two months are so short on finances I’m considering not putting any money into savings. Or at least cutting my savings contributions by half. I have nearly $500 in there, and no plans to spend it. Whereas, in June, I’ll only have a whopping $60ish to spend on misc stuff that isn’t allocated to specific bills or groceries. That’s not much, considering I have exactly 1 pair of shorts, 2-3 summery shirts, no face toner, moisturizer, q-tips, etc. and a shopping fetish.

Hoi.

I figure if I cut my savings contributions, I’ll be less likely to bust into the savings account to buy things I “need”. I guess it’s really the same thing, but I feel guiltier about taking money I’ve already set aside for savings. *lol*

Yeah. I need a bit more income, somehow. Hopefully, me and my magic will find some. We’ll see how it goes.

So for those who don’t know already… Saturday was a bizarre circus-like mixture of hell and hilarity, if that’s even a word. Let’s just say… my friend, A, who was staying over for the weekend, got smashingly drunk, completely made an ass of herself in ways a good friend like me should not repeat on public blogs, vomited /all over/ my bathroom, and provided me with hours of fuming laughter. Hours? No, I’m wrong - /years/. Nevertheless, once the initial horror slash insanity slash furious rage at having to clean up her vomited mess passed, I was well on my way to laughing about the entire incident, while she sat quietly reflecting on the utter idiocy of the entire night.

Nonetheless, she insists she had fun. And in some ways, I guess, so did I. Nothing like true friendship there…

But just in case you wonder why I don’t get out and get drunk… the utter loss of self control is pretty much it.

I have company at my house for the next three days. All right, I lie. I have a single guest. And she’s hardly that - it’s my friend A., who’s just using my apartment as an escape because she and the grandmother she lives with can’t get along for the three entire days they have off work at the same time. So she’s staying here - first time she’s spent the night in a long time. Like… over a year. Wow. Too bad I have to work at midnight, or we could do a pajama party.

A pajama party… that sounds like a lot of fun, actually. Just popcorn, pjs, some random girly stuff, chit chat, music, maybe a movie… The only problem with this? I only have one friend here. *laugh* But oh well. A party for two is better than just a party for… me. Right?