Bring on the hate!

Today, I am the girl everyone hates.

And I couldn't be more happy about it.




There are several women in the office currently trying to lose weight.
And TODAY, I'm the one that can say she's lost 9 lbs.

Giddy UP.

I have literally been working my ASS OFF.  I've been riding my exercise bike like a friggin' maniac and I've been taking salads and sandwiches to work for lunch. 

Oh and me and my arch nemesis Water have totally made up. We're bff's now. We had a truce that I'd drink it, as long as it quits ruining all my electronics and trying to drown me and stuff.

I feel good. Better than I ever have about being motivated.

Last Saturday I was talking with some girls about hating skinny skanks. About how they can wear whatever they want and trendy things are always so much cuter if you're 110 lbs.  It was a hatefest towards girls in skinny jeans and slutty tank tops.  Really though, it was mostly about jealousy.

BUT.

If I ever get skinny again, I'm definitely dressing like a slut. Because I can.
And I can hardly wait to get my shit talked on.

omg. new blog.

Hello lovers! I want to welcome you to my new place.

One that still smells a little like the last one, but all the baseboards are clean.
Let's be honest. When the baseboards are dirty, it's time to just up and move.
Or get a maid.  But who has money for that shit?

I moved all my old blogs to this new site because frankly, I hated myself for going private. I'm not someone that hides from the world!  
I am, however, someone that runs away like a pussy.
I've accepted this.

Welcome to my world of weirdness. Come as you are.
Unless you're hateful.  Or cuter than me.  Yeah.

kisses!

One crafty bitch.

PART ONE:  Sweater vest

This is what happens when no one is around to take a picture of me in my sweater vest. I take like, four thousand pictures of myself hoping to get one that's moderately acceptable..... 

And when I don't... I just start being a jackass.

Sorry you can't really see anywhere except the boob region of the sweater. Contrary to Manuel's claims that I have Orangutan arms.... they aren't long enough to get a full-sweater shot.

This piece was a little bit of a challenge since the original pattern had the neckline finishing quite a bit higher and going right into the cowl. Well, as you may have read here,  I wasn't really a fan of that. It needed to be changed.

I think it turned out pretty good, considering I had no idea what the hell I was doing. Altering patterns is kinda scary, like the whole think might spontaneously combust or something.   It must have been pretty obvious that I was nervous about it since I got teased at knitting group for just sitting and staring at it :)

I'll get started on the cowl next, and hopefully get a chance to wear it once before it gets too warm. Knitting season is almost over!
Maybe I'll even have someone else take a picture of it when I'm done :)


PART TWO:  Aprons

My parents are ridiculously hard to shop for.  They pretty much just buy whatever they want. And they don't want very much.

For as long as I can remember, anytime you ask my mother what she wants for her birthday or Christmas, she replies with, "World peace".
Wow. Thanks mom. That's great. Way to make a kid feel like a total failure when they can't come through with mom's only wish....

While cleaning the craft room (aka  imaginative ground zero) last week, I came across some fabric that my mom had bought years ago for me to make her aprons with.   I think I'd made her one.  I thought that'd be pretty perfect, so I started cutting one out... and then realized that I'd cut it with the fabric pattern upside down.  Super great start, ern. Super great. 
With my sewing skills a little rusty, it took me longer than expected, but they turned out great and I think she was pleased with them.  Until she asked where the bunny fabric one was......  *sigh*



PART THREE:  Pending Projects

On my trip to Wal-Mart to replace the "bunny" fabric I ruined with something else, I found some fabric that was PERFECT for drapes in my living room. I've always wanted long whiteish drapes on my bay windows and found this fabric for $2 a yard!  I hate Wal-Mart.    They make it too damn cheap NOT to shop there :( Stupid corporate whores.
When I can afford metal thingamagigs I want to hang them from, I'll get started on them. 

On the SAME trip to the "Evil Empire" as my boss lovingly refers to Wal-Mart, this pattern caught my eye. 

Me and B-Dawg had already planned on taking a bag sewing class, but it's not till the end of April, and these patterns reminded me of  Fresh Tomatoes bags, which are AMAZING.  Jess is so talented and finds the greatest fabrics and maybe I just want to be like her!!!  Oh, that and I have a serious bag addiction that I should probably find a sponsor to help me with.

Part of me thought that it would be so fun to make these, and after I got home and opened the pattern and started reading through it, I decided I was out of my mind.  I should probably just wait till the class since I'm retarded and need to be shown how to do things instead of told. 

Oh, I also revised my will this weekend.  Greg will now be receiving all of my worldly possessions when I die because he's the only person that religiously comments on my posts (read: the only person that really loves me. :)

Home is where you go to curl into the fetal position and sob like a toddler.

Yesterday was pretty much the worst day EVER.  I've had a pretty good track record at not being a complete fuckup at my job, until yesterday.

We always joke around here that you shouldn't ever let anyone know that you're competent, because people will just keep stacking jobs on you if they know you can handle it. 

Well, yesterday I proved my incompetency. Hardcore.

It seems like sometimes you get so lackadaisical in your job that it's mostly effortless. You do the same things every week, and everything is fine.

Then, the universe comes down with a cosmic bitch slap and regulates you back to reality. Reminds you to pay attention, work a little harder.

I screwed up. Big time.

I asked my boss if he wanted me to throw my plant in the garbage, he said, 

"Why, was that the problem?"

"No Casey, that means that you're fired."

"Nah, shit happens."

Words of wisdom, right there.

"Do you want to slug me in the arm one time?"

"No, I think I'm good."

"Really? Cuz I'd totally let you right now...."

".....I'm good..."

That was the extent of the tongue lashing I'd been expecting, but I still don't feel any better about costing the company MILLIONS of dollars.
Ok, thousands. But thousands sounds like a lot less after I said millions, right?

Anyway, after a day-long pity party, I went home and decided I'd had enough depression, and I was going to take down all my snow related decorations. It's funny how excited I get to put up things, then by the time that season has passed, I'm really tired of them and I'm ready to move on.
So last night was the beginning of spring at the Young-Maes household.

As I wandered around thinking where to put things, I noticed that after all the time I'd tried to make my house feel like me, I think I've finally succeeded.
It's weird, and has weird stuff in it. It feels uber comfortable. I'm surrounded by things that make me happy.
Thinking these things made my totally terrible day a little better, so I thought I'd share some of them with you guys :)

I love my bookcases.  I had a sled up there with some rusty snowflakes and Christmas lights and took them down and constructed this.  The two photos on the right are mine, and the one on the left is an Ansel Adams, donated to the cause by dear Benny.  I left the Christmas lights up there and hid them all behind the photos for kindof an ambient lighting effect. Pretty cool.

 

Manny bought me this chandelier for Christmas and I absolutely love it.  When I first moved into my house, I thought that space would be perfect for one, and I was right. It finishes off the funk delightfully.  :)

This whole part of my living room.  Just looking at it makes me happy.

 

Gas/oil can collection.  One of the super odd things I like to collect.  

Don't even ask me why.

My Christmas cactus that's about to bloom... until my cats notice and decide to eat all the blooms off.   Oh, also LOVE the pots that my sister made for my birthday one year. And she says she's not crafty.....   They're more special than anything she could have bought :)

GIANT fake daisies. Usually I'm a proponent for the death penalty on all things fake-floral related, but for some reason I really get off on fake gerberas. 

They look like summer and make me smile :)

Hope you all had a better day than I had, here's to hopefully another 10 years, fuckup free!      xoxo

To cowl or not to cowl.

 

This is what I've started in February. I'm having major trauma with it though, because I can't decide what to do.  For some reason, I love the look of this on this on the model, but I'm pretty sure it isn't going to look like that on me.  

My thought process when I started went like this:

Oh! I love that!

She's cute.

Stupid cute girl with messy hair.

Why doesn't messy hair look cute on me?! It just looks messy!

I don't even wear brown. 

It'll have to be gray, of course.

I wear too much gray.

Claustrophobia. 

I'm in love with that cowl, but can't really stand stuff that close to my neck...

I'll make it bigger.

Wait, what if I don't even want it attached to the vest at all?

Shit.

How will I finish the neck if I do them in separate pieces?

I'll wear the vest more if I do it separate.

Does that mean I won't ever wear the cowl?

I'm pretty sure the whole thing would just be cuter if I lost 40 lbs. 

And had messy cute hair.

Shit.

What color shirt am I even going to wear under it.

So now, 

I'm almost done with the back and still don't have a plan yet. 

Shit.

January

 The first project of the year was redoing an old wardrobe I bought at the DI.

 

  It now holds all my recycle bins :)

Manny gave me the greatest/worst book for Christmas. It has sooo many good knitted bag patterns, so it's great, but bad because I want to make all of them!  I already have a terrible bag fetish, so all I really need is more bags....

The first one that caught my eye was this felted one. 

Ever accidentally washed a wool sweater?  Felting is like that, only on purpose. You knit something with wool loosely and wash it till the fibers bind together tightly.   It's kindof a crapshoot how it'll turn out, which I guess is part of the fun.

I'm pretty happy with how this one turned out.

This one is made from leftover yarn from the other bag. Taylor told me that she wanted a bag out of those colors, which I thought was pretty obnoxious, but I decided to make her one for her birthday.  I made up the pattern as I went and it actually turned out pretty cool. I hope she likes it!

 

 This pretty much sums up what I've been doing so far this year. With the nasty inversion we've had, going outside was like torture, so I stayed in under my electric blankie and ott light and knitted away. 

Thankfully, Jesus heard my depressed pleas for sunshine and had pity on me.

Today was gorgeous. Bring on spring time!

I bid this year an exuberant adieu.

Like a bad ex-boyfriend, I'm throwing all this year's shit out on the lawn and turning on the sprinklers. Don't worry I'll still have those pesky memories of the good times we shared... and its hoodies, you never give those back.

• I got a Facebook page as a social experiment and hated it. I enjoyed the personality that came with MySpace, and I also hated that Facebook told everyone when I was making new friends, playing games at work and taking a piss.
I've slowly come around to Facebook, now that I've figured out how to "hide" people's stupid status updates and keep it from ratting me out when I'm doing things I'm not supposed to. Which is a lot.

• Someone shoved a giant needle through my nostril, and I paid them to do it.

• I learned that I refuse to be crucified for who I am. Take me or leave me. The saying "I'd rather be hated for who I am than loved for who I am not" is true.  If trying to play nice for the greater good just gets your ass burned in the end, why bother.

• I turned 27. This can easily be rounded up to 30. 30 is old.

• I had part of my cervix removed. Yeah, true story. This was a much bigger deal on the inside than I ever let on. Anytime the cancer word is used in your direction it's a pretty scary thing. This did encourage me to do Relay for Life, which I will not be doing next year. I'm glad I did it once, but next year I'm writing a check. Staying up all night makes ernl homicidal.

• Manuel started doing Karaoke regularly at the B&B. I even sang once.  

• I used to think that what "they" said about guys and girls not being able to be "just friends" was bullshit. I had plenty of duder friends and it was fabulous. They're far less dramatic than women and they like to eat alot. Just like me.
Unfortunately the universe decided to prove me wrong and school me hardcore. The new saying is "Guys and Girls CAN be friends, until the Guy gets a Girl that fucks everything up."

• I developed a fear of water. Nearly drowning in a river will do that to a girl. Water has always done bad things for me, like ruin nearly every electronic device I've ever owned, but not try and kill me until this year.

• We got a basketball hoop. I've wanted one for a long time so that I could become the short white Kobe of the neighborhood. Only, you know, without the hookers and stuff.

• I started collecting knitted squares for charity. To date I'm pretty sure I've got about bazillion in my garage. Ok, really like 800, but it might was well be a bazillion.  I should have thought harder about how I'm going to raise the money to send them to Africa.

Overall, I'd say that this year taught me a lot.  Mostly things I wish I'd never had to learn.  I'm going to try and leave some of last years heartache in last year, and move forward. I would never call that a resolution though, resolutions are for suckers!