Trish's World

First things first – I updated my beer list. It had been a while, so there are lots of new ones listed. I’ve had 75 beers! Only 225 to go!! We are heading out tonight so I can cross off a few more.

Last Friday we went to Grand Rapids to help Alexis celebrate her graduation. I made her the sweet afghan, of course, and I think she liked it. I didn’t really see her open it as we were on our way out the door, but I am pretty sure it was a hit. Besides that, both of her sets of grandparents, Mike & I, and another Aunt & Uncle went together and got her a laptop and a digital camera of her own. She was super stoked about that. She is leaving for Texas in September and will be gone for 3 months as part of a mission trip, so she really needed those things, and she was extremely happy to get them. The party turned out great, and it was good to see everyone.

On Sunday we hooked up with Bill & Deb and headed to Indiana because Bill needed to procure some illegal (in MI) fireworks. We had a blast! We started at the outlet mall and looked around there for a while, then hit the fireworks store. I’m not big on fireworks, so I settled for some morning glory sparklers and some of those popper thingies that you throw at the ground.  After that we decided to hit the Four Winds, but since it was a school night, we only stayed for about an hour. Bill was the big winner – he managed to wrangle $30 out of the place playing video poker!!

I finished season 5 of Lost, and that’s about as far as I can go right now, since season 6 isn’t available (legally anyway) on DVD yet. It got SO much better. When I said it was horrible, I was only about 2 episodes in, and once I got over the hump it was much more interesting. Also, I must say, I’m a big fan of Sawliet. Did Sawyer totally grow up working for the Dharma Initiative, or what? I was pretty much over Juliet as a character, but her hooking up with Sawyer totally reinvigorated her. And then there’s Locke. Alive! Dead! Alive! But not really? Anyway, I am eagerly awaiting the final season to see how this twisted story ends.

Mike & I also finished season 3 of Buffy, and it was quite awesome. I miss Spike though. I’m hoping he’ll be back pretty soon. I’m sad to see Angel go, but hey, if a dude can get his own show, he should jump at the chance. We are planning to watch the Angel episodes that crossover with Buffy as needed, with the help of our friend Dawn, who is an expert in all things Buffy/Angel. In the absence of Lost, I have been filling that hole with the first season of Bones. It’s a really good show, and I’m liking it very much. I just watched the Christmas episode where they are all trapped in the lab, and it made me weepy.

That’s all for today. I’m off to meet my mom for lunch. Toodles!

I’ve been working on this afghan for a while, and I finally finished it in time to give it to my niece, Alexis, for a graduation gift. I really hope that she digs it. And also that she isn’t reading this. The colors didn’t turn out right in the pics at all, it’s much brighter & cheerier in person. There is bubblegum pink and lime green. The photos seem much more muted than reality. But you get the idea. Her party is tomorrow night & I’m excited to give it to her.

Truthfully, I’m not sure yet if it will grow, but I have the planting done, so Phase One is complete. I had a couple of setbacks, but I powered through. It wasn’t as bad as I thought. Playing in the dirt is sort of fun. The big drawback for me is all of the bugs and critters. There weren’t a lot of flying bugs which is a huge bonus, but a chipmunk almost gave me a heart attack rooting around in the back planter, and I also found some kind of disgusting leechy looking slug on my leg at one point. I survived both of these though, so clearly I am far stronger than I thought.

Setback #1 was when I realized that the front window box is about twice the size I thought it was when I was buying the coconut liner stuff for it. The result is that I didn’t have enough and had to run to Lowe’s and get another one. Once I had 2 liners, I was all good and that planter went swimmingly until I broke my little mini shovel thingy (I call it a shovlette). So that was setback #2. I was able to get the back planter done just using my mini rake thingy (rakelette), so I overcame.

Ok, here’s the good stuff!! Photos!! First, the orange & yellow Celosia in the front window box. These flowers are so pretty. I am just in love with the cool shape and the bright colors. Would you believe that these came in pink and I opted for orange & yellow?? Next, the Astilbe in the triangular planter at the corner of the backyard. These will bloom pink and white, and the flowers will be very wispy and almost feathery. Can’t wait! The third picture is some hot pink Impatiens I planted in the two window boxes on the shed. They look great! Last, I had some extra yellow Celosia that I didn’t use in the front window box, so I planted those in this cute planter and put them on the back patio. I wish I had used orange, because this reminds me of the Goblet of Fire. Click the pics to see larger, as well as even more, photos.

So that’s it for now. Now I just need to keep everything alive. Wish me luck!

I don’t know if I mentioned it here or not, but I’ve been doing quite a bit of drawing and painting for the last couple of months. My BFF Amber gave me an art table a few months ago, and I decided to give it a go since I have some time on my hands. I started out with crayons and colored pencils, then I started experimenting with a little watercolor set I’ve had for years. I really enjoy watercolor because you can create light and shade with a single color by varying the amount of water that you add. I also recently picked up a cheap set of oil pastels, but I didn’t have a lot of luck with them because I didn’t know what I was doing. I was determined to invest the time in working with them, so I spent some time this weekend watching online videos about how to use them and blend them together. Since then my pastel drawings have done a 180 – I’m so much more comfortable using them now and I’m so much happier with the results. I also found a set of chalk pastels on clearance, so I am getting the hang of those too. I don’t consider myself a great artist by any stretch, but I love working with these different mediums. I have always enjoyed creating things, so this is sort of a natural extension I guess. I have a ton of pages that I considered scanning and including here, but I am jus not there yet. I definitely don’t feel ready to put anything I’ve done up to this point “out there”. Not yet anyway. The bottom line is, I’m really enjoying it.

Another exciting thing that’s going on is that I am going to garden. I have zero experience, but I asked a lot of questions and I think I have everything I need. So tomorrow is the big day & I will actually be planting things in the ground and hoping like hell that they survive more than a week. For those interested, I will be planting orange & yellow Celosia in the front window box, pink & white Astilbe in the large planter at the corner of the backyard, and hot pink Impatiens for the window boxes on the shed. Mike even got me a wheelbarrow to haul my soil and tools around the yard. So I own a wheelbarrow and I am going to plant things. I am so hoping this doesn’t turn out badly. I have a long list of things I want to accomplish tomorrow and they all relate to the outdoors, which is typically not my thing. Wish me luck, dudes.

Yesterday was Mike & I’s 6th wedding anniversary. We went out for dinner at this place down the street called Zooroona. It’s a Middle Eastern restaraunt and the atmosphere was so cool. But it didn’t hold a candle to the food – it was AMAZING. If you dig Middle Eastern food at all, this is the place to go. We ended up getting a 2 person sampler platter and we were very happy with everything we got. I usually don’t care for lamb, but the lamb & beef kebab turned out to be my very favorite thing that we got. We had a great time together and a great meal. After dinner we just ran around and shopped a little. We had a fun date and a stellar anniversary.

Today was Crappy Movie Sunday, natch, and this week we watched Tank Girl. I had seen a little of it years ago, but stopped watching because it was terrible. I was lured in by being promised that Ice-T was in it. I am a big fan of the T. But, wow, even T couldn’t save this trainwreck of a film. Not only was I sad that he was involved in such a disgrace, but he was a Mangaroo on top of that!!

Ok, as for TV, I’m plugging away at Lost, but season 5 is really tough for me. I really think this is the worst part of the show so far. I really don’t think it bodes well that every season I have thought it couldn’t possibly get any worse, and yet I am shocked to find that it has. I’m still hopeful for a great payoff in the end, but I’m really not holding my breath. Mike & I are still watching Buffy too, and we are about a third of the way through season 3. We still have a LONG way to go, but we are really enjoying it. I’m considering watching Dark Shadows on Netflix, too, but there are SO MANY episodes! I’m not sure I’m ready for the time commitment it will take. A season is about 40 episodes, and there are 20 seasons!! I’m still mulling this one over, I don’t know if I can handle all that. Anyone seen it? If you have an opinion about it either way, I’d love to hear it. And I’m talking about the original BTW, from 1966, not the 80s redo.

Noah came over to spend the night with us on Saturday. We had a blast. First we took him to see Shrek Forever After, during which I plied him with candy and popcorn. It was a cute movie. We all enjoyed it, but I don’t think it was as good as some of the other Shrek movies. I did like the tubby Puss in Boots, though. After the movie we grabbed some dinner at Friday’s, then came home to play Star Wars Monopoly. While we were eating Noah said, “Aunt Kitty, I should let you know that I’m kind of a shark at this game. I beat my mom once.” The kid cracks me up! When he plays at home with his mom and dad, they just play for an hour or so, then just count the money and whoever has the most is declared the winner. Since he knows that you have to have a lot of money to win, he won’t buy anything. He doesn’t get the “spend money to make money” concept at all. He ended up winning Jabba’s Palace (which is the Park Place of Star Wars) because we were playing special Star Wars rules where you can win an available property. He never bought another thing, and yet when it was time to count the money, he managed to have the most (wink wink). He was extremely proud of his victory over his Aunt Kitty, Uncle Mike, and George. We had a great time!

On Sunday, we had the gang over for Crappy Movie Sunday of course. This week we never really got around to planning for a movie, so Clovis brought a stack of kung fu movis over with him. We chose a movie called Chocolate that turned out to be sad, depressing, gory, and also a little absurd. We all had a great time watching it, though. After the movie we had some snackies and beers, discussed the concept of shame and how it impacts our daily lives, then we played the telephone game. The telephone game is pretty much a guaranteed good time, and we all loved it.

Yesterdy, we had my family over for a Memorial Day BBQ. It was a totally sucky and rainy day, but Mike is a trooper and stood outside grilling while holding an umbrella the whole time. We had some delicious eats, and we all enjoyed chatting and hanging out together. I made a yummy strawberry shortcake, and then I kept the strawberry tops and made fresh strawberry juice, which was really really tasty. Anyway, despite the weather, it was a great day, and a great holiday weekend.

Quick knitting update: I finished a pair of socks the other day. I think the socks theselves turned out great, but man is it some ugly sock yarn. I bought it on clearance, and I knew it wasn’t my favorite color combination, but it’s even uglier than I anticipated. I call these Toxic Sock Syndrome.

As for the sock yarn binky, there hasn’t been much progres. It’s just large enough that I don’t want to work on it when it’s hot, so I haven’t done a whole lot with it recently.

It’s been a while, and I know, I’m totally lame. I’ve actually been pretty busy for a jobless waif!

Houseboating last weekend was awesome as always! I didn’t take many pics because the landscape really hasn’t changed, plus it was rainy and/or overcast for most of the trip this time. The weather has been better, but trust me, none of us cared. We made the best of it and still had a ball. Shawn & I finally decided that we are equals when it comes to drunken Scattergories. So the grudge match is finally over and we can all rest easy. Pics are over at my Flickr, and here’s a video that I LOVE. Casey & Mike are singing along with 90’s on 9 and it’s so great. You’ll love it. Click here: Just a Dream. NSFW because Mikey says a naughty at the end. I know, I’m disappointed, too. I would have loved to embed it BTW, but Flickr and Wordpress can’t seem to play nice. I am having some kind of ongoing issue with uploading stuff to Wordpress. Super frustrating! Grrrr.

The week went by super fast since we didn’t get home until late Monday night, then Mike had Tuesday off. That left me only 2 days to get all of my usual stuff done before Friday!! So I was pretty busy with chores & such. We had another busy weekend, too. Sunday we had the latest edition of Crappy Movie Sunday – the dance classic Breakin’. Our rehash will be on the CMS blog in a day or 2. After the movie we grilled some yummy ribs (that Clovis made) and some burgers. It was quite a fiesta! We had a full house and tons of yummy eats. After we ate, the whole gang, except for Mike & I, headed downstairs to watch the big Lost finale. I’m not caught up yet and Mike has no interest, so we went to the man cave and had a romantic date watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer. We’re about halfway through season 2 and it’s really starting to get good. As for Lost, I’m about 2/3 of the way through season 3. Man, is it a crazy and intense show.

My friend Dawn has convinced me that I need to sign up for Netflix so I can get all the sweet TV shows streaming. You know I love television, so it was pretty easy to sway me. As soon as I finish season 3 of Lost, I am going to sign up for the 2 week trial thingy and get rolling on season 4. I can’t wait to get a look at hat my options will be!! I’m really really excited about this.

We had a busy weekend, but it was good. I was so tired when I went to bed last night I didn’t even read first, I just collapsed.

Friday afternoon we went to Noah’s school for a music program. It was very cool. They sang a song about a bull and acted out different parts with song and they played intruments, and they had a fun little parade. It was really awesome, and we were very impressed by the kid’s music skills. Here’s some pictures.

On Saturday, we took my mom out for a mother’s day dinner. She picked Red Lobster, so we took her there. We had a great time and we gorged ourselves on cheesy biscuits and seafood. We had a great time and I hope she did too. Since I’ve been doing so much artwork lately, I made her a pretty watercolor painting of a vase of flowers in a little glass frame. I think it turned out pretty nice and she seemed to like it too.

On Sunday we went to Grand Rapid for Mother’s Day with Mike’s family, which was also nice. We went to Frederick Meijer gardens, which I love anyway because I like flowers and sculpture, but there is a new exhibit of blown glass sculptures by Dal Chihuly. I LOVED it to say the least. It was amazing and beautiful. I took some amazing photos, here are a few of my favorites.

These are just my favorites, there are so many more at my Flickr page, link is on the right. The second photo is a new piece called Blue Moon, and it was my favorite. I took several photos, and none of them do it justice. I just couldn’t seem to get a good photo from where I was. It is so amazing in person. If you get a chance to visit the gardens before this exhibit ends, you really should. It’s so worth it. I definitely would go back. One thing I found interesting is that for the larger sculptures made up of thousands of pieces of glass, the pieces arrive individually, and then it takes a team of 90 three weeks to put them all together to prepare for the exhibit. Incredible. I loved the blown glass reeds, as pictured in the third photo here, the tall blue pieces. There were lots of these around the gardens in all different colors and I think they are so cool.

After the gardens, we raced home for Crappy Movie Sunday. Last night’s feature was Purple Rain. We will have a rehash up on the blog in the next few days, so keep an eye out.

I finally finished season 2 of Lost, and I am just about to embark into totally unknown territory – season 3. I’m excited and also terrified. Wish me luck!

Oh, and houseboating is this weekend!! I could not be more excited!! I’m going to be on a boat!!! Definitely packing my flippy floppies and planning to ride a dolphin.

On Monday I had my hands-on training at the thrift shop. I was all excited, and I got all ready and then stepped outside to bring the garbage & recycle bins up from the driveway because it was garbage day. As I got to the end of the driveway, I notice a lady standing there and talking on her cell phone. As I approach, she hangs up the phone and sees me and says “Can you help me? I need help!”

At this point, I notice a second lady slumped over onto the curb with her feet in the street and resting on top of a 2 liter of Ohana Lemonade. Lady 1 tells me that she was driving down my street, and noticed Lady 2 lying there. She had stopped to check on her and make sure she was ok. She shook her several times and Lady 2 did not respond at all. Lady 1 tells me that she has called 911 and they will be there in 5 minutes. Ok, wow. I take a closer look at Lady 2 and I can see that her chest is rising and falling, so she is definitely breathing. After a few minutes Lady 2 started moving a bit – she scratched at her face, but then went right back to catatonic and wouldn’t respond again. We waited way longer than 5 minutes, but finally, a cop showed up. He did the same things Lady 1 did – shake her, try to talk to her. She opened her eyes for a sec, but still no response. Then the paramedics got there. The siren seemed to rouse her a bit, and the paramedics actually were able to get Lady 2 to sit up. They spoke to her and she spoke back, but she definitely wasn’t coherent. They finally put her on a gurney and took her away. I sure hope that she’s ok, but I don’t know if I’ll ever know. It was a scary situation, that’s for sure.

Anyway, I was late for my first day at the shop! I explained what happened and they were super understanding, though. I had a good time there! I was mostly working the front of the store, but I am also eager to work in the back and actually accept donations and then sort through them. It’s been really fun and a good experience so far.

I’ve been watching Lost, and I am about halfway through Season 2 right now. I am trying to power through it so I can get to True Blood. I am trying to stay caught up on my regular weeklys too. George & I are almost caught up with Vampire Diaries, and I am only a week behind on everything else. Man, I love me some tv.

Oh, and I obviously changed some things around again. I kind of like it for now, but you know I’m sort of indecisive, so we’ll see how long this lasts.

First, an update on the sock yarn binky. It’s really coming along, and I must say, I like the way it’s turning out. It’s fun to work on too! I guess I was wrong about not having many solid colors. There were more than I expected. Anyway, Ta-da!!

Last week, I had my orientation for a volunteer position, and today I have my hands on training. I’ll be working at a volunteer run charity thrift store! I’m excited about it, and I think it’s going to be really fun. I am definitely going to do this at least one day a week, maybe even 2. I’ll get my schedule all firmed up after my training session this afternoon. I LOVE thrift shopping, so I think this is going to be awesome.

Crappy Movie Sunday continued yesterday with the latest installment – Berry Gordy’s The Last Dragon. The CMS blog is all up in your grill here (I also added it to my links over on the right). If you haven’t seen this movie, I’m really not sure what you’re waiting for. It’s a kung-fu classic with music from DeBarge, so if that doesn’t have you running to the video store to rent a copy, then you must be crazy. Oh, and don’t forget to follow Crappy Movie Sunday on Twitter for all the latest.

We are houseboating in Kentucky in less than 2 weeks, and I could NOT be any more excited than I am right now. I can’t wait!! I found out last week who is going, and that made me even more excited. It’s an awesome group and it will be a ball. Pls it will be totally sweet to get out of town for a bit and relax with my homies. YAY!!

Wow, it seems like there really isn’t too much going on latelt that I want to post about. Mostly because I have been completely wrapped up in the Southern Vampire series of books. These are the Sookie Stackhouse books that the show True Blood is based on. I’ve had them for a while but wasn’t too excited about getting into them since I had seen the pilot for True Blood and was not at all impressed. However, the books were good. I finished all 9 books in about a week and a half. I finally finished the last book last night, and also found out that the 10th comes out on May 4th, so I am eagerly awaiting it’s arrival. Also, I really want to watch the show now, so I’m looking for someone who has True Blood season 1 on DVD or BD that I can borrow. If you have it, please let me know! In the meantime, I am taking book suggestions – let me know about any good books you’ve read recently. I think I’m going to hit up the Stuart Woods series about Stone Barrington in the meantime.

I finished this scarf recently, and it is for sale at Fuzzy Paws Knits. It took me forever to finish this thing because I used the tiniest little bits of yarn to create my own yarn for this. It took along time to collect all the yarn bits and then tie them together and then knit them., Whew. I think the result is worth the effort though. I call it “Fluffy Fingers”.

And just for giggles, here’s Dawn & I boozing it up at Gallagher’s last week. We are making a dent in the beer list. Distinguished status, here we come!