What is this? This!!! This is what the end of nine yards of lace looks like. This is bobbins no longer attached to a project! This is me not having to flip the cat off my lap *again*!  This is the project I was sure I could get done by May. At least I never said what *year* I'd finish in...

I still need to trim ends, but I have to say this is the most ambitious project I've ever done. I only hope it's acceptable. Heck, I hope it's even still *wanted*! Feh *smirk*

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Several thoughts that have rampaged through my head over the last couple weeks. I've thought some of it before, but we're hitting critical mass, and I need to get it out. I almost posted this in Facebook, but decided this isn't the sort of thing that all my 'friends' need access to.

I'll stop complaining that insurance doesn't cover birth control when you stop insisting that erectile dysfunction drugs must be covered. You don't get to control what goes in until I get equal control over what comes out.

I won't go near the hypocrisy that is abortion vs fertility treatment, as touted by the Bible-dependent debate society. Not in public, anyway; that slope is more slippery than I'm comfortable with. Also, I'm at work and there are only so many hours in a day.

I feel fear when people in positions of power, or who are desirous of power, feel comfortable speaking *in public and on record* of restricting freedoms for subsets of the American population. Either they are so enamoured of their beliefs that they would rather shoot themselves in the proverbial foot and lose their positions, or else they are terribly certain that such statements won't cost them a thing. My fear is that it is the second thing.

So I found myself looking up some old friends... We're talking grade school, in a couple cases, and college. Happily found a couple, especially one from college. He was, it turns out, my first desperate college crush, too, but my habit of being friends first has paid off again, thankfully. If I'm real lucky, he won't remember what a total nutbar I was then...

 

Looking him up has caused me to reevaluate a lot of the 'crushes' and friendships I had in college.  There's just enough of a pattern that, looking back, I can see a person desperate to find validation through others - a typical pastime for college age people, but through the filter of a depressed mind all that validation took on such greater meaning, along with the terrors of failure and misery of rejection. Everything magnified far out of proportion, and with no perspective to bring any sort of balancing influence. It's only looking back now that I see any real pattern, and that's, what, fifteen years down the road? Although, even in my worst times, I still seemed to have latched on to the people who, even if they weren't the right person, were at least sufficient to keep me going, or to give me the proverbial kick in the pants that would enable me to make the next step forward. I don't know how to thank those people for their help, especially the ones that have no idea they did anything at all, without sounding like a maudling idiot. But I do thank them. A lot, considering the alternatives...

 

Jack, I'm looking your direction too, just FYI. :)

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Go - Your Healthy Living Newsletter

Just a recipe I want to keep track of. I don't have an oven proof skillet, so I may never get around to it. But still...

...Because everything with a foreign language in the title is just more sexy.

Really just a quicky follow-up to Saturday. I did end up using the washer for soak and spin dry. I just put a generous squirt of dish soap in the first soak, as I felt I needed the better degreaser in it, and a second soak that was just water. Both times, as hot as the heater produces (which is HOT!!!). I only let them soak about 2 hours each time, which isn't enough time to cool off the water much in a closed washer, but it seemed ample time to get the majority of crud out. I anticipate washing the yarn once it's spun, but... At the moment stuff is finishing drying on the rack, so until I can get to it and comb some, see how it faired and how clean/greasy/whatever it still is, I will hold off any adjustments to processing. I still have plenty to do, since i'm limited in the number of bags to hold fleece plus minimum of 4 hours to process (while I could leave things alone in the middle, I don't want to leave fleece soaking in water over an 8-10 hour work day, or over night). I'm hoping things are dry enough tomorrow to play with - I promised myself I'd lace tonight. We'll see how well that holds up... :D

So today turned  into a random project day. SO was busy at work doing annoying must-be-done things, and I suddenly found myself beheading the marigolds - I've been meaning to grab their seeds since the grounds crew wacked them (grumble grumble grumble). Ended up mulching the tomato plant into that area too, no sense wasting it or it's dirt.

 

As I was dinking with the garden stuff in the garage, I remembered that I still had some fleece taking up shelf space there, so I thought I'd take a stab at dealing with that. Note: it is not recommended to wait 5+ years before washing a fleece. Just saying. This will probably take more than the one day, but I'm also taking the opportunity to try using the washer to make some of the job less tedious, so that's a double win - it's been in the garage so long, I clearly don't care if I mess some of it up. Also, that's about a full shelf of space we get back in the garage. And a lot of yarn to be spun for certain other fiber greek friends of mine to turn pretty colors :D  Despite the rain, I ran lunch over to Himself and I'm hanging around getting in his way for a bit before I go back and wrassle with dirty wet sheep bits. Man, I'm gonna smell like a farm for a week...

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I don't know if this is a case of police doing it right, or if it's a regionalism that ended up working against the protesters, and wouldn't work in any other city, but:

http://bradhicks.livejournal.com/452788.html

Apparently St Louis has (at least in this case) figured out that you *can* actually kill ( a protest) with kindness. It's made me shake my head enough that I figure it's worth reposting.

http://www.thistle-threads.com/teaching/projects/onlineclasses/casket/casket_registration.html

I'm trying really hard to remind myself that money, while it isn't everything, is certainly *useful*. And that, while this is interesting stuff, I'm not an embroiderer. At least, not any kind of serious embroiderer - sometimes it's a change, or a tool, but it's not even close to my focus. $1200 is a lot of money, for information that is interesting but not necessarily useful and for materials that are cool but aren't necessary and a project that I'd make once and never again and what would I even *do* with it except stare at it, assuming I even finish it, and then get it lost in the morass that is the rest of my craft life, because it has no bearing on any of the historic stuff I even actually *do*. In summary, cool but ultimately useless except for the pretty factor, and I don't do pretty. But I've had the page up all day staring at it occasionally, and I stared at it the last two times it came up in a discussion, before dates or prices were finalized, and it *would* be really cool, even just for the info and for the kits, assuming I never bothered getting around to the box itself, and... I'm just really trying to talk some sense into myself. Not that I've ever been particularly good at that. I'm such a G-D- magpie... ::eyeroll::

At some point I will probably want to revisit in more detail the weekend trip to the grandparents et al. Or not, because in short order I'll retty well have forgotten most of it :/ Short attention spans being what they are... But I randomly realized today - I am apparently the only only-child in the whole family that I can think of. I'm not 100% sure about grandad, but I have a passing recollection of a sister that was in their wedding party. Grandma's got 3 brothers, I know one great grandma had at least two sibs, although I know nothing of the other three. Dad has two brothers, each of whom has two children, and the aunts all have brothers or sisters. Mom's side is a little smaller, and I think my cousin on her side might be an only as well (which, to be rude, is probably just as well considering how genetically challenged I think that particular branch is.) I know the maternal grands had siblings, but that whole set was already significantly older so I never knew anything about their parents. All of which is, I'm sure, irrelevant to anyone else. Just one of those passing 'Huh!' moments. I will say, this is the first time in, like, ever that I've felt anything like my actual linear age. Most likely because the uncle that I've always been closest to, in age especially, is *grey*! And BALDING! AUGH!! :D

I still have to figure out how to find out why my other uncle pretty much ignored me, if that matters, and/or if I care. Well, obviously I care at least a little or I wouldn't even contemplate the question in the first place. It might just be me justifying losing touch with him and his kids, and not wanting it to be my fault. *shrug* I'll figure out how much I care at some point, if it's beyond mere curiosity. Ramble ramble...

I Probably shouldn't post in the middle of the two eps -- we've only seen half of the second round of groups. Sara is indeed the touchy-feely judge, although she makes me cringe less than Nicole. I think they made a mistake in who they voted off this week - as desperately as I want a girl group to kick ass, Delilah had better really step up their game, because they got lucky. Having said that, I don't think Kinfolk 9 would make it all the way to the end. At the moment, our money is on either Urban Method or Afro-blue. They've both done songs that, under any other circumstances, I don't like. And yet... flechyr said it best, there's just something about U M that reaches even through the television and makes their sound really amazing. I don't know, but whatever ...I'm pretty jazzed to see what's still to come. Even the college groups are really stepping up their game -- I think the previous years have set the bar pretty high, and it's really awesome to hear these groups step up and try to beat it.