Once upon a time, a girl named Katia ran off to Albuquerque long ago, where the strange and mysterious people there did something she’d never particularly seen done in her neck of the woods: drank tea every morning.

By the time she left, one week later, Katia drank tea every day, too, having swiftly been addicted to this non-coffee caffeinated drink just like ‘that’.

So… I swapped some tea on Ravelry, and got a whole random assortment of teas I’d never before tried, but along with a few bags of one of my all-time favorites, Tazo Awake. Awake is a wonderful blend of black teas, strong and smoky and powerful enough to keep me going all night long, and what’s more, it comes in the most quaint little colorful red bags. It’s very nice.

But also, I got a whole variety of Stash teas, including Irish Breakfast (which I’m drinking tonight), English Breakfast, Double Chai Spice, Chai Spice (I drink this one a fair amount), Peach Black Tea, and some others which also look good! Also, I got some tea from SBS Teas - Cranberry Orange Spice, which sounds and smells intruiging. And some tea from Trader Joes, and a packet of rooibos from somewhere that starts with a K, but is eluding my mind. Lovely!

In return, I sent off a bunch of fun teas also, and some cute little stickers and chocolates, to a lovely lady up in Canada.

And now? Now I’ve joined an Iced Tea Summer Solstice Swap. Er. Or Summer Solstice Iced Tea Swap. Whatever. But it’s more tea to swap and enjoy, and this time, there’s GOODIES involved - like summer things, and yarn, because it’s Ravelry. Gotta love the yarn…

But for now? I’m off to Adagio, because I’m nearly out of one of my other super-favorite teas, strawberry black, and that just cannot be allowed. Again, if anyone wants a $5 off coupon to Adagio, and you don’t already have an account there, just let me know, and I can send you one! :)

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.

This comes from Friday’s Feast:

Appetizer

When someone smiles at you, do you smile back? Yes, in general. Not always. Sometimes, I flat out ignore them, though, depending on how obnoxious they are, and how obnoxious I’m feeling.

Soup

Describe the flooring in your home. Do you have carpet, hardwood, vinyl, a mix? 100% carpet. Even the kitchen and bathrooms. Ewww. Shag carpet in the back bedroom. Flat industrial shit in the kitchen, hallways, dining room, one bathroom, and ‘front room’. Regular ugly stuff in the living room, master bedroom, and one bathroom. Gugh. Hate carpet. Hate. Especially all the ugly stuff I have. Puke yellow shag. Purple industrial. Pinkish beige regular stuff. Blech. My grandmother’s style sucks.

Salad

Write a sentence with only 5 words, but all of the words have to start with the first letter of your first name. … with K? Jesus. Kill me. Keep kamikaze kangaroos kissing kittens. Hey, give me a break, there’s only a handful of K-words in the entire English language!

Main Course

Do you know anyone whose life has been touched by adoption? Yep. I know a family who took in three foster kids and adopted them all. Along with their three biological children, they now have a family of six kids whose name all start with T, ages ranging from 26 to 6. (Maybe 5?) I was there for the formal adoption of one of those girls, and we went to the adoption party afterward. And also saw another little foster boy I babysat about to be adopted by a new family, too!

Dessert

Name 2 blue things. Uh, the sky. And water. I’m feeling nature-y today. Especially since it rained all day yesterday, which is awesome, because we’ve had like, NO MOISTURE WHATSOEVER this entire year. Nice! We needed the rain so bad!

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?

The last month has been a blur. A severe cold turned to severe allergies turned to a terrible cough (or perhaps it was the allergies that started it all?) and I wound up on every over-the-counter cold and allergy medication on the market the week before Easter. I was sick throughout my week-long vacation, but it was fun anyway, and I purchased yarn and quilting supplies - what could be better? However, only in the last few days has the coughing started to wear down, and that’s only because I dove into the bottle of Singulair I had from the last time I had these bronchial spasms. The inhaler the doctor prescribed me this time just didn’t do the trick. Neither did the Mucinex, Robatussin, or codeine syrup (which also, amazingly, did not knock me out like I wanted). Sleep has finally found me again, though I still nap far too much and do a whole lot of staring blankly into space instead of something more productive - say, knitting.

While I’m bitching, let me just say that I’d been suffering some odd hand aches, but that, too, is disappearing, thank the gods. So, with life finally getting back on track, I’ve started to knit again (that was generally on hold due to the severe craptasticness I felt - knitting while feeling tired, crappy, sniffly, and/or achy is nothing but a recipe for disaster over here) and finished a new kitty hat and the first of my bright daffodil colored entrelac socks (pictures coming soon).

All going well, right?

Not so fast, cowgirl. My brother, 23, is depressed - suicidally so - and my mother is stressed out beyond stressed out. My cat had urinary tract infection and requires a second trip to the vet sometime soonish so they can check his urine again to see how the disgusting and horribly expensive special food they put him on is working. A close friend is having a personal crisis (to say the least!) and we were just hit by a sudden snowstorm - the *only* such snowstorm to hit this winter, really, except for a small one that hit while I was away.

On top of all that, in the last seven days, I have broken three dishes, destroyed a perfectly good breakfast, and had some delicious hot cocoa that was (much to my horror, as I spit out something odd feeling during those first few sips) INFESTED WITH BUGS.

Nothing like a little insect larvae in your mouth to fucking ruin your day already. And there’s a photo, for ye who told me you’d never seen these horrendous things. It’s a large photo - the real thing is much smaller, but no less disgusting to eat.

Now tell me… who the hell have I pissed off, and how many chickens should I sacrifice to get rid of this curse?

Haven’t done one of these in a while, so… here I go. This week’s Friday’s Feast.

Appetizer
If you could be any current celebrity for one whole week, who would you want to be?

Celebs? Gosh, I don’t know. I have a vague phobia of the entire celeb ‘class’ in general and like to scoff at anyone like that… but I do think that being The Yarn Harlot would be kind of fun. Celeb status in a certain circle, but not too celeb for my tastes!

Soup
On a scale of 1-10 (with 10 being highest), how much do you enjoy talking on the phone?

Five, maybe six. I don’t really like to talk on the phone - it just happens to be the only way I can actually have conversations with certain people that isn’t either a) on the internet, or b) without major interruptions from other people.

Salad
Name a charitable organization to which you have donated (or would like to).

This winter I donated (not much, granted) to Feed the Children, but have swiftly been irritated by their continual harassment for more and more money… and their religious slant.

Main Course
What is a food you like so much you could eat it every single day for a month?

Cheese. And I DO eat it every day. Seriously. Or potatoes. In any form. Both together? Even better.

Dessert
Have you or anyone in your family had the flu this year?

Nope! Not yet, anyway. Sinus problems, allergies, maybe a cold - yes. But the flu? No. And no flu shot, either.

Well, that was fun, wasn’t it? This week’s FF wasn’t really that inspiring to me, so let’s talk about something else. Like the fact that I’ve embroidered my first tea towel ever! And actually, it went faster than expected. (Certainly faster than my socks are going, though at least I got the first one done and have finished the ribbing on the second!)

I’ve been going through old Workbasket magazines, finding ancient history (Okay, since 1964 anyway… ancient enough, well before I was born, anyway) embroidery transfers (so cute!) and the ugliest knitted and crocheted and otherwise crafted things EVER. Fun to look through! And gah, the hairstyles! And, as A. would say, THE TEETH! (She’s a bit of a teeth fanatic, to be honest, and those unperfect, unstraightened, non-bleached teeth shocked her a bit, I guess.)

I’ve been sorting out the ones with transfers, wondering whether to use them (and risk destroying them, maybe? I don’t know…) or do some copying of them with tracing paper and a transfer pen before I touch them. Hard to say. But I’m anxious to start embroidering something else! Heck, this is an even more portable project than knitting - it doesn’t require me to carry around magazines, books, or copied sheets of patterns!

In other news, I’ve finally finished Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver. Great book, truly great, and it would’ve been finished ages ago if I could’ve put down the knitting long enough to read it. Erm. You might say I have a bit of a problem, yes? Anyway, though the author is definitely passionate about her family’s food choices (all local food, with few exceptions, for a full year) the book is really just the story of one family’s year of “living on the farm” with a little political and environmental data thrown in. It reminded me oh so strongly of the Little House series - one family’s living with nature, for better or for worse, part story, part inspiration, part instruction manual, part values. The best part? It describes the sort of life I want to live perfectly.

I’ve always been attracted to stories like Little House on the Prairie - stories about independence, a connection to the land, making do with what you have, creating something from nothing, survival, sacrifice, and warm, happy home with good, fresh food. Stories like that have always tugged at my soul - and in the past few years, the idea of living as independently as I can - growing food, raising animals, owning not just a house, but a home. I want that for myself. I want that life; I want those stories to be mine.

But how do I get there from here?

Thirteen Random Things

Wow, do I suck at keeping good habits going, or what? I haven’t done one of these since… OCTOBER. Jebus….

1. I want to make some pantaloons. You know, for that old timey prairie fashion feeling, because I bet they’d be comfy under my long skirts!
2. A couple months ago, I purchased the Stitch It embroidery kit, and last night, i sat down and actually got to stitching! Soon to be done with my first ever embroidery work! Pictures will follow.
3. My reading input has drastically taken a dive now that my knitting output has increased. Yikes. I’m nearly finished with Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver, and it’s an excellent read! Got it from my understocked library, of all places, and will buy it soon! But perhaps in paperback.
4. I declare March the meditation month, and though I’m five days late, I’m starting today - five measly peasly minutes of meditation no less than three times a week, preferably five. How hard could it be?
5. I finished Dad’s Dashing mitts! Woot.
6. Also? I need more aprons. The only one I have is very… gingerbready. Also, after wearing said apron, I also want one that’s a bit more… ruffly. You know, not as utilitarian. More flowing, less stiff. Need a new pattern, yo!
7. I got in one of two college applications after a trip to the doctor to pick up my immunization record. The lady there was rather rude. I walked up to the window and waited patiently for her to get done with whatever she was doing, and she looks up at me and goes: “Do you need something?” as if I’m just standing there for no bloody reason at all. I tell her that I’m just there to pick up an immunization record and it should be waiting for me. She glared at me like I’d just told her I was there to audit her damned taxes, sorted through a few envelopes, and handed me one in a huff. To her credit, it was a Monday morning, bright and early at 9 a.m., but still, I was irritated.
8. I made a pot roast that S-U-C-K-E-D. Not inedible sucked, but sucked just the same. Also, I made spaghetti that did not suck! Very good! (But it always is.)
9. I have no money right now - how can I possibly buy yarn?! I want to buy yarn. I NEED to buy yarn… One week and one day, and I’ll be paid at last - but not near enough. Never enough…
10. I have a mouse problem. One little mouse… such a big problem. You wouldn’t think a mouse could survive three cats and a set of sticky traps, but this mouse is a genius. Also, he’s running around under my stovetop. Like, under the DRIP PANS for the love of god, and not just once or twice. You don’t even want to know how I found that out, but I’ll tell you anyway - mouse shit has a distinct odor when ‘cooked’. *gag*
11. I made some homemade glass cleaner. And used it! And it worked pretty well. But not as well as I’d like on a couple spots. Maybe I needed more elbow grease. Or maybe I should’ve let it sit a tiny bit longer.
12. Picked up my quilted christmas table runner from Mom’s and started in on it again! Appliqué. Oi. I have a feeling I should’ve hand-stitched them down, considering all the twists and turns and little bits to it. Next time, though I cringe at the thought. And I really don’t know what I have against hand-stitching, considering that it would take me a lot less time to sew down some appliqué than it does to knit a pair of socks. Weird.
13. Speaking of knitting socks, I have all but the toe of one of my Serendipity socks done - but would like to throw in a lifeline before I knit the toe, in case I hate it or it doesn’t fit right. I forgot my needle at home. Grrf. So they’re on hold for the night! My hands could use the rest, though, really.

1. Di 2. storyteller 3. Sosunaolata 4. Britni 5. Briggie

6. badpuppydog 7. arlene 8. Joy Renee 9. Tissot watches 10. Music Downloads

11. phentermine 12. Michael Buble 13. Mp3 14. phentermine prescription 15. You're next!

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Can’t believe it’s March already - and we even had an extra day in February this year! How fast time flies when you’re knitting like a vampire and never see the light of day…

They say that March comes in like a lion and out like a lamb… but it’s coming in this year pretty lamblike, what with no snow on the ground and only the slightest (30% - scoff scoff!) chance of snow over the rest of the week, and temperatures starting in the 40s!!! Incredible. We had a very mind February - hell, a mild winter overall, once again.

So, February’s theme was, of course, devoted to crafting, and I think I did quite well! I made a pair of socks for A. - Embossed Leaves socks, in STR Lightweight, Blarney Stone colorway:

and am nearly finished with some Dashing mitts for Dad (birthday in less than two weeks!)

and am halfway through the first of a pair of socks for me, the Serendipity socks that came with my January 2008 Socks that Rock ‘Rockin Sock Club’ - yarn color is Dragon Dance,

made up a mini raglan sweater ornament out of leftover Blarney Stone yarn (still need to get some wire to make a hanger, though!), (sorry, picture not of the finished sweater!)

and knitted some more on the chevron scarf (no picture of updated progress. sorry.). Also, in a non-knitting arena, I’ve done some cleaning, reorganizing, dyed my valance a reddish orange (wouldn’t go redder, darn it!) and bought more lighting for my sewing area, since it… well, had none whatsoever.

And oh! I had a stitch n bitch! *beam* Much fun, that. First ever real-life person I’ve met who’s got the same yarn fetish I do. Everyone else is just like: “Oh, that’s nice… you psycho…” So Dobarah & I got together Thursday night and knitted. And fondled yarn. And complimented each other’s projects as we showed off our own. *lol* It was good.

Goals for March?

I realize that my birthday is still a month away, March 26. But in the event that anyone who’s interested in getting me something absolutely spectacular, here’s some things I’ve been lusting after lately:

Notice a lot of knitting things? A friend said I needed a 12-Step program, but… I think those are for people who want to quit, aren’t they?

However, much as I want most of these things, it’s highly likely that I won’t be getting any yarn from anyone I know. I’ve never gotten yarn as a gift before, except from two special out-of-state friends. I guess people who are around my yarn habit don’t feel the need to feed it? Who knows. People don’t buy me books either, or they haven’t, anyway, since childhood. Sad days!

But, speaking of gifts, and especially generous ones at that, a friend of my father’s, RL, has heard on the grapevine (aka, my father must’ve mentioned it) that I want to learn to spin. I told the parents once that if they came across a spinning wheel ever, to get it for me…

Minor tangent… This sounds bizarre to everyone, I know, the whole “if you happen across one…”, but you wouldn’t believe the weird and random shit my parents have just “happened across”. Once, we were in some little antiques shop, and I’m like: “Oh, look at that super old camera! How neat!” Mom: “We have a couple of those… just like that!” Rinse and repeat for nearly everything in the place. Likewise, I was looking for a nice little plain cast iron cauldron. You know, for witchly things. And what do I find in my father’s garage? Not one, but /three/ miniature cast iron cauldrons hanging on the wall. I took them. off tangent!

So anyway, I’d mentioned that if they happened on a spinning wheel, I wanted one. Because those things are freaking expensive. I’ve got cheaper computers! And here, it turns out that this friend, RL, has not one, but two very antique spinning wheels just collecting dust. He doesn’t spin, some Hutterites in the area were selling him some things, and they tossed in a couple antique spinning wheels, also! One is from the 1800s, and one from like, 1903 or something. And he’s going to give me one! Just like that!!

No word yet on whether or not they’ve got everything they need to, you know, spin, but we shall see, we shall see. I’m thrilled to death! I can learn to *spin*!

Envious of those able to be green, that is. I like “being green”. You know, environmentally conscious? But has anyone noticed that it’s a lot easier to be green in a city? Ironic, isn’t it, how the further removed from nature you get by moving to a concrete city that the easier it is to be green in your choices? I live in the middle of nature here, but it’s awfully hard to be green when there’s no mass transportation (and it’s too frickin’ cold to walk - hello, the wind chill is -48 right now… what in mother earth’s ass am I doing walking even two blocks to work? I’m gonna freeze my skin black walking back home in the morning if this wind doesn’t die down!), no recycling whatsoever (even for newspapers or cans), no organic anything, the “farmer’s market” is mostly a joke, (and only open for about 2 hours, one day a week, for 2 months, usually while I’m sleeping, thank you very much for this job), and you have to travel 60-90 miles ONE WAY to buy essential supplies like… underwear. Everything is shipped in from billions of miles away. Buying ‘local’ is a joke on most things. I consider “made in Montana” about as local as I can get, and frankly, there just isn’t a whole lot that’s locally available.

My house is not really my own - I rent it from my parents. I can’t make changes to it to greenify it for two reasons: a) uh, it’s not mine, hello, and b) I am just not that rich. It’s all electric everything, meaning, it’s an electricity HOG. It’s poorly insulated. The toilet-that-ran-for-months was finally fixed after my mother gasped at the $80 water bill - something I’d asked my father to do many times (it’s not exactly a normal floating ball toilet, okay? It’s weird. I didn’t know how to do it.)

I’m trying to greenify my life a little, nonetheless. My car gets good gas mileage, and I don’t go very many places, really. I fill up maybe twice a month on average. I’ve purchased a couple canvas bags and use them not only for groceries at the local store, but to tote things around in everywhere. I just purchased a $20 aluminum water bottle to spare me from constantly buying single-use beverages to pack to work, where the water is pretty well undrinkable. That’ll save money and reduce garbage.

I use cloth pads. When I started this cloth pad venture a couple years back, I never thought I’d like them as much as I do. I can’t imagine going back to spending $10-$15 a month on bleached, chemical-drenched feminine hygiene products when cloth is cheaper, reusable, and far, far more comfortable. I just need to make more of them. My stash is a bit small. *lol*

I’ve been freezing more of my leftovers for later, instead of just throwing them out. Reducing waste there, and in buying more things in bulk, and things with less packaging (read: fresh food, not processed food) helps considerably - and I eat better, too.

I use paper towels only for messy jobs - cat vomit, for instance - and for cleaning up kitchen spills. Never for wiping my hands after I’ve washed them. (I’ve yet to break friends of this habit, despite the ever-present hanging towels and reminders.) I intend to buy a few packs of cloth napkins to cut down on paper towel usage there, too, but I’m afraid I’d need quite a few of them.

I’ve been slowly transferring my cleaning to natural products. I like (and use) Method’s products, which are nice, but expensive, and available only at ONE store, in a city I rarely get to… so I do plenty of cleaning with baking soda and vinegar - this, by the way, makes a nice, nontoxic toilet cleaner, but does use QUITE a lot of vinegar.

I’d like to do a bit more of that this year. I’d love to start a compost pile - especially with the chickens - but I don’t have the resources right now, and more, I may be moving into an apartment in late August (in a city, heh) and may not have any good use for compost anyway. Hmm. With any luck, I’ll find a way to get a house, rather than an apartment, though!

And moving, you ask? Why yes. This year, with my credit card debt 100% eliminated, and my car very nearly paid off, I’m headed back to school. And that’s another thing the city has that this beautiful little rural, close-to-nature town just doesn’t: opportunity.