(c)Rude Awakening

It's Friday, but is it the 13th?! Geesh. (Please note: 'Tis not a crafty post today. Beware.)

10:50 am
Get up, eat yogurt, get cup of juice, go putz on the internet.

11:05 am
Attempting to hang up a poster in the office next to my computer and set down the box of thumbtacks, setting off a chain reaction in the process... the open drawer fell out of the desk, so I picked it up and put it back, which then caused my cup (brimming with cranberry-cherry juice!) to splatter all over the carpet. So it looks like somebody eviscerated a morbidly obese leprechaun on my WHITE carpet. Go through a container and a half of that Oxy Deep spray (which is FABULOUS, btw) -- no more slaughtered-leprechaun look to the carpet. Yay! Then hear mysterious crunching noise... cat is eating thumbtacks. Whack cat on back of head, causing it to spit out thumbtacks, glare at me and retreat to top of laser printer. Return to checking email and Googling random things.

11:30 am
Bathroom break. Use Dan's bathroom that has cat box in it, so door stays open a crack in case cat needs in too. Cat bursts through the door, leaving it pretty much wide open. Ignore and return to job at hand ;) Heart stops as there is a knock at the front door. Ignore knock, thinking it's probably the FedEx guy, continue about my business. Front door opens, maintenance guys walk in to do pest control spraying (!!!!!!) whilst yours truly is camped out on the toilet in her bra and undies with the bathroom door seriously ajar.

12:45 pm
Finally see humor of the situation(s), decide to share morbid embarrassment with blog-reading public.

So you can see how my day has started. Crus. Tee. Gotta go do something productive now to prevent the usual curling up into a ball and crying that should accompany these types of events. :)

Can you hear me now?

Today I facilitated a video teleconference for my capstone class. The whole thing scared me to death, but about half way through it everything got more comfortable. There was a whole lot of "Is this thing on?" and "Can you see us?" back and forth, but we tried as hard as we could to make it work out. I don't think we were as productive as we could have been, but it was a start. It was a good effort and a learning experience if there ever was one (can you say 'trial by fire'?) ;) Got to bust out a new suit, though. So it was worth it.

Kiri, 2006 Corporate Edition. ;)

I went ahead and registered for the arts and crafts fair in March and have started gathering ideas about what to make. I can't start anything until I get this overdue sock finished and it's been a looong week at school (two exams, teleconference, meetings, planning classes for the summer so I can get outta grad school after 3 years, job interviews), so hopefully next week there will be time to get cracking and put a serious dent in the whole merchandise creation thing.

On a side note, this is what my week has reduced me to creating:
Skittlebrau, people. Being the daughter-in-law of an engineer, I had to go out and make my own. The verdict: Do it with regular Skittles, not those gross new Smoothie Mix things. Maybe even Sour Skittles would be okay, who knows. Skittlebrau... Good times.

Of Tweeters and Fuzz

Hi! Long time, no see. So here's what's been going on:

Tweeters
Gone are the days of getting up and rolling into the lab, bleary-eyed and grumpy. I'm no longer a lab wench. How about them apples, Number 468?!?! That darn bird pecked me every single day since classes started this semester. And only when I reached in to set down his food dish. He became my arch nemesis. Anyhow, a nice (and probably unsuspecting, if 468 has it his way) chick took over my job. I still have to go and turn in my key this week. There was no parking by the building on Friday, so I couldn't get over to the Med Sci office to return it. Why no more birdies? Well, two reasons. One: I have to drive an hour up to Indy for one of my classes every so often and there wouldn't be anyone to fill in for me at the lab. Two: I decided that coming home itching everyday was not worth it. Either I was allergic to the birds or they had mites. Or both. But it was a learning experience. I got some basic animal lab skills and the birds got somebody to feed them and make sure they got the best parts of the IU student newspaper under their little talons. Some of them were really cute. One of them actually had a great personality as far as an animal goes. I miss that one little cardinal.



Fuzz
I am quite possibly the lone person not finished with their sock buddy's gift for the Holiday Knit Sox Exchange. Not for lack of trying, though. I started a nice pair of Jaywalkers in ArtYarns Supersock Merino #111, then ran out of it after starting the second sock... the dreaded second sock syndrome, particularly the lack-of-yarn strain. After much haggling with the web shop that I re-ordered from, the yarn finally appeared this weekend. The goal is to finish up this week, at the lastest over the coming weekend, and then send to my sock buddy. She's also getting a little surprise, which I won't say anything about (just incase she's lurking close by). But I hope she likes her socks and doesn't hate me too much for taking so darn long.

I received an awesome pair of socks from Elizabeth from the sock exchange - pics will go up soon. I really appreciate them and apologize for dropping out of blog land for a while and not giving her the recognition she truly deserved.

Art Fair
Up in the air about this one. There's a women-only arts and crafts fair coming up in March before spring break. I have a ton of stuff I could put in a booth and hopefully sell. Handwoven shawls and scarves, quilts, pillows, other sewn things... even made some topiaries today. I'm kind of worried that my stuff will be totally sub-par compared to all of the other artisans who dot the Bloomington landscape. But one thing I have going for me is my unusual sense of color when making things. I'm not your traditional plaid, calico or monochrome gal when it comes to fabric. Basically my big obstacle is that I don't want to be one of "those people" that over values their art/crafts and acts like nobody can afford me. There's way too much of that in this town, seeing as we have a million art majors and random local artists. I would definitely like to have a little money to go on a mini vacation this summer or pay a car payment... and our first wedding anniversary is coming up on St. Patrick's Day. But I'm not going to price stuff so high that I only sell one little thing. Or worse, nothing. It's one of those problems that everybody selling their wares runs into. I just haven't figure out a system, I guess. Need to do that. Pee or get off the pot, huh?


Okay, so that's all that's fit to blog right now. Pics of finished socks and Liz's lovely socks soon!

Quick update

Once again, not dead. Just festering. More later.