little miss messy hair: July 2005

photo a day 3

picnic sites

so, sop and i wanted this low-key wedding. just us, really. well, and our parents, and now our siblings. it should be a good time. anyway, we really want to have the ceremony at a picnic spot up city creek canyon in salt lake; so we set out thursday night to pick a picnic site so we could make the reservation. Here are the sites that made the short list:

area 19 - shadybrook:

pretty stream:

and possibly enough room for 12:

but these might cause a problem:

area 21 - maple grove:

this could work:

area 24:

with a beautiful stream:

and a cool picnic area:

and plenty of lunch goodies:

and in case you didn't notice how lovely the stream was:

area 23 - north fork:

sop likes this place:

"i now pronounce you leaf and tree":

sop is still going strong!

area 29 - weeping rock:

probably the coolest so far, but the hardest to get into:

one of the things i loved about this area, and most of the rotary club areas, was the connection the people who built it had with the actual places. They didn't just hire someone to do the work, they did the work themselves and made it theirs. The attachment is very obvious.

area 27:

this table just about made the place for us, there were a number of these throughout the slightly overgrown site:

yeah, i could see this:

so which is the spot? sadly, none. sop called today to make the reservation and found that all the sites would be closed the week of our wedding. sigh. further hunting will have to be done.

photo a day 2

the challenge

to get off my lazy a** and take at least one photo EVERY day. i hope i am up to the challenge. Are you? Let me know if you are, i want to see!!!

don't mind me

i'm just being weird again.

the rib and cable socks are done!!!

frankenbikes

on my way to work today:

more at: frankenbikes

photo meditation 2

from the same trip to the spiral jetty:

r-r-ant-t-t-t-om im-m-mage

that is the sound lmmh makes while deciding to post a random image while abso-f*cking-lutely freezing in her office and ranting mentally about her work situation. clear, eh?

there have been many unhappy and angry emoticons in my life over the past week due to my freak asshole of a boss. it's a long story, and one that is sure to outrage, but also one that is also sure to bore and cause me countless more unhappy and angry emoticons, so i'll just skip it.

instead, let's just contemplate this for a while:

this was taken in september 2003 on my and sop's first trip together out to the spiral jetty. it was early in the morning, after a night of a full moon illuminating the sky with with its reflection off the salt and the light truly was this blue.

rib and cable and variegated yarn

so, last weekend, when i needed to go downtown and was sure i would not want to walk home in mid-day heat and would therefore want to take the bus, i felt i needed a portable project. the beaded bracelet (maryella from knitty), while quite small, has problems in the actual travelling due to the slipperiness of the thread and the needles and i really didn't see the possible scene that could ensue as i found a needle pulled out of a row on the bus as one that i really wanted to risk.

So, i decided to start something else. Socks. Socks with one ball of yarn. "ooh," i thought. "i could stop by black sheep wool on my way into town!" But then, i looked at my yarn basket. i have sock yarn in there, waiting to be used, and have absolutely no excuse NOT to use it. True, the yarn i had in mind (Koigu P522), was varigated and i am not so much of a fan of variegated yarn, but the colors are VERY me and, honestly, what else was i going to do with it? So, i pulled out the short brittany 2.25mm needles and started in on the rib and cable socks from the fall 2005 issue of Interweave Knits.

then, yesterday, i noticed that there was a new post on the wool palace. Seems she decided to get rid of some stash yarn by knitting the rib and cable socks from IK fall 2005 using a variegated koigu yarn and her very short brittany needles. hmm... i'd say it was something in the air, but due to the great distance between us, i severely doubt that.

blatant consumerism

part of my 'accomplishments' last weekend were really just purchases. but purchases i am so excited about, i have to share:

Melissa recommended this book and i have to agree it is fabulous! Tons of info and blowouts and wow!

i have been listening to their music online for over a month and never making it to a store to purchase the CD. So i was so excited to actually get to a store so i can listen to this even more! very fun music with great lyrics. in fact, the lyrics of one song actually form a nice link to the Zinn purchase.

accomplishments

this weekend i actually got some stuff DONE. it seems lately that my projects are so large that ijust chip away at them, digging away bits with my fingernails in the hopes that i will one day see a difference, but never actually seeing any change. this weekend, however, i actually got some things done!

saturday started out with gathering clothing to be donated to Odyssey House, a local organisation that helps young adults, as well as mothers and children in need. I had some clothes ready when i remembered that i might have some more things in the basement and sure enough - another box of clothes that Rich and i had put together to donate. so i was able to take even more things down! what a great feeling. then i grabbed some food and headed to work with my parents' computer to upgrade their operating system. why go to work? broadband. T1. FAST. and we have tons of resources, for which i was glad when their machine would not boot off my firewire drive, nor could i image the machine off the CDs it shipped with, nor with the CD for the new OS. So, i was able to use a CD from the previous OS to image (make a back-up of the current configuration and copy it off to my firewire drive) and wipe the machine and then do the install from the CD for the new OS. The whole upgrade went much smoother than i thought it would and i am pretty happy with it - hopefully they are too! they seemed to be when i dropped it off.

after working on their machine i headed to the store to get some peanut butter and then stopped by my local t-mobile to check out their phones. my phone gets a battery life of about 15 minutes, as long as i do not actually make a call, and so i need a new one. not that i ever get any phone calls, but i like the thought of someone being able to call me if they felt like it. the guy there was actually helpful (i have had REALLY mixed results in their stores, and on the phone, honestly). in the end, since i had ordered a phone with their customer care the other week and then returned it (i had no idea they still made phones as big as this one was). i had to call customer care again. i don't know if they put different people on when you call from a store or what, but these people did not suck. maybe they are afraid of people raising their voices and saying how unhappy they are when they are actually in a store, vs at home in the tub.

then off to the library where i decided to see what movies they had while i was there and as i glanced through the titles, i saw "he died with a felafel in his hand": one of my favorite books! oh, if you can find this movie, rent it. the movie is as good as the book. really. don't blame me if you don't like either, though, i cannot control anyone's lack of taste but my own.

sunday, we got out of town. thank goodness. we headed northwest, toward the lake, but never actually made it to the lake. instead, we saw this:

and headed back home in time to get in a traffic jam due to a hay transport catching on fire.

for thuy

those words i was looking for

events like these - meaningless, tragic deaths - always stop me cold. i become stunned, dazed, feeling like the world should just stop. Whether it be of an individual - like Rich or my friend C's husband - or groups like waco, madrid, london, i just feel this need to stop the world and recognize this moment of pain. and yet, here i am at work, evaluating CMS options and so unable to see the importance in anything.

oh no

new york
madrid
london

i can't even express my emotions today.

a fruit and lead-filled fourth

we started out this weekend with a visit to sop's parents, where the shade was plentiful, the conversation was relaxed and the black raspberries were ripe and yummy. then it was off to my parents, where the conversation was lively, the cards fierce and the cherries were ripe and yummy. the weekend continued with much lead-paint removal from sop's soffit and fascia (wow, i use those words like i know what they mean) interspresed with fruit eating. and that is as detailed as i can get without pictures:

sop at work in his lead-resistant ensemble