The weather has turned nice here, very spring-time-y. Chilly but crisp in the mornings, warmer in the afternoons, just nice. I hope you are all enjoying spring (or fall, for a few of you) as well.

Friday Fiver 5.9.08: Buy me flowers

1. Who do you adore? Um, well, there is this guy… It’s complicated, and we’re still figuring things out, but I really do think I adore him.

2. Who adores you? See above. He adores me, too.

3. What’s in your pockets? (Hehe, am I the only one who can only think of Gollum when reading that line?) Keys. And my cell phone.

4. Who can you talk with for hours? Yeah, so the answer to #s 1 and 2? Also applies here. But Mom and my sis fit this questions as well.

5. What sounds great today? Farmer’s Market shopping. Yay fresh fruit! Also time to knit (I hope). And write (I really need to).

Thursday Thirteen: 13 Classical Pieces I Like

We’ve been listening to classical music in the car on the way to work a lot lately. And so I have remembered various pieces that I really like. Here are some, in no particular order, and without the full names and such. (Yes, I know that I’m supposed to say it’s Beethoven’s 5th Symphony in C whatever, Opus # something. But I don’t remember all of that, and frankly don’t care enough at the moment to look it all up.)

1. Tchaikovsky’s “Romeo & Juliet” (possibly my favorite classical piece ever)

2. Beethoven’s 5th Symphony

3. Berlioz’s “Symphony Fantastique” (especially the 4th and 5th movements)

4. Tchaikovsky’s “1812 Overture”

5. Mozart’s 40th Symphony (and his 41st too, but not as much as the 40th)

6. Pachelbel’s “Cannon in D” (and if you know this piece at all and haven’t seen the Pachelbel Rant on YouTube, you need to go see it)

7. Holst’s “The Planets” (’Mars’ and ‘Jupiter’ only)

8. Bach’s “Sheep May Safely Graze”

9. Tchaikovsky’s “Nutcracker Ballet” (sense a theme? I really like Tchaikovsky…) (and I’m not talking about just the Nutcracker Suite here. I mean the whole ballet. With or without dancing.)

10. Debussy’s “Claire de Lune”

11. Grieg’s “In the Hall of the Mountain King” (I like this one for memories, mostly)

12. Ravel’s “Bolero”

13. Bach’s “Toccata and Fugue in D Minor” (also possibly my favorite classical piece ever… and I loved playing it when I had an electric piano. I’d put it on the ‘organ’ setting and crank up the volume…)

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Happy Thursday! What are your favorite classical pieces? I’m always looking for more music to listen to…

Punctuality is the virtue of the bored.
- Evelyn Waugh

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(I am rarely punctual.)

And now I’ve hit the point of the ‘Lotus Blossom’ tank where it’s just knitting in circles. If the yarn was any less soft and nice and yummy I would be very bored right now. As it is, I suspect that finishing this sweater tank up will go pretty quickly (for me - and I rarely find myself with enough time to knit for long stretches at once). I have 4 inches (total) of knitting rounds to go before I start the top shaping, and that’s with an inch added to what the pattern says. (Nearly everyone on Ravelry who has knit this pattern suggests adding an inch so the seam between the stockinette and the lace pattern doesn’t fall across your bustline, but instead rests nicely below it.)

Anyway, I am loving this knit. Love love love. The yarn (KnitPicks Shine Sport) is great, too.

I know, I usually do reading posts on Tuesdays. But I don’t feel like it today. I’m currently re-reading NO HUMANS INVOLVED by Kelley Armstrong, and have already reviewed it. If you want to see what I think about it, follow the clickie. (FYI: I love it. Great addition to the series. You should read it. But more details are over there. *points to link*)

Instead, I present you with kitty pictures.

Suzy has decided she likes it when I change the sheets on my bed.

Very much.

(Hehe! Had to start the week off with an LOTR reference… couldn’t resist.)

And now for more pictures:

These are the yarn prizes I won from Miriam. The blue is Scout’s Swag (in a specially-dyed colorway!) and the red-orange one is Wooly Wonka laceweight in Vermont Maples. And that’s all the talking I feel like doing for now… just enjoy the photos. (There was also chocolate. But the chocolate was in the kitchen, and didn’t want to be in the sun for the pictures. I’m sure you understand.)

Friday Fiver 5.2.08

So, earlier this week, I got YARN IN THE MAIL! YAY! This yarn was a fun contest win from the lovely Miriam, of Icarus fame. And I had intended to take pictures yesterday so that I could show them off today.

But then the pictures would have been in icky man-made light, and anyway I needed a night of doing nothing (well, not *nothing* - I knit my Lotus Blossom tank some while watching “The Incredibles”) and so the pictures didn’t get taken. I’ll take them over the weekend in the sunlight.

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1. Describe where you grew up: I grew up in Silicon Valley. A very fun place for a tech geek to be… though maybe this is why I am a tech geek.

2. Do you wear any jewelery? Oh, absolutely.

3. What do you have too much of? Projects. No - wait. Can’t have too many projects. Um. Debt. We’ll go with that.

4. Who is a fool? The person who doesn’t believe. Everyone must have something to believe in.

5. What’s your nickname? ‘Bookie’ is the one I’ll share here, a shortened form of Bookwyrm.

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Have a great weekend everyone!

Thursday Thirteen: 13 Things I Look Forward To This Month

Because April was weird. And May has just got to be better.

1. Birthday month! Always good.

2. Giving away blog prizes for said birthday! It was so much fun last year that I’m doing it again. Stay tuned.

3. Spring - really and truly spring.

4. Knitting outside on my lunch break, and neither freezing nor having my knitting blowing away.

5. One month closer to my various fun trips planned for this summer.

6. ‘Beauty and the Beast’ on stage at a theatre near us…

7. Birthday mont- Oh. Wait. Already used that one…  ;)  (But it’s worth repeating, too.)

8. Leaving the windows open at night for fresh air because it’s no longer too cold to do so - nor are the windows left open because it is a dire necessity due to the heat of summer (yet).

9. Longer stretches of daylight.

10. The container garden in the backyard should start showing signs of produce. And the strawberries (which already have little green fruit) should be edible.

11. My sister should get slightly less busy, so I’ll finally be able to take her out for hot chocolate. Just in time for it to be too warm for hot chocolate.

11a. Taking my sister out for ice cream instead.

12. It’s my brother-in-law’s birthday month! (I also like giving other people presents.)

13. Sunnier mornings, hopefully making it easier to get up.

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Happy Thursday!

… which is something I have not been doing.

I am not referring to the “making food” version of cooking, however, I’m referring to the “really making progress on my story” version. My progress bar is the sad proof of that.

However, today is the last day of what has been an odd month. I can’t say that I’ll be sorry to see it end. (My TT tomorrow will include some of the things that make me happiest about May.) And during May, I intend - hope - to do much more cooking (of both versions).

Here is some cooking-related cute to distract you, in the meantime, from the lack of forward Progress Bar progress.

Today I’m going to mention two books, both enjoyable.

The first is A GRAVE TALENT by Laurie R. King. It’s a straight mystery, and was a blog contest gift from Ann of Fractured Fiction. (Thanks, Ann!) Though it was strange to read something outside my comfort zone, it was a good read. The basic premise is that someone is murdering kids, and leaving their bodies along a Road in the San Francisco Bay Area. Everything points to an artist who lives on the Road and has a prior conviction of child murder… and part of the mystery part is the “did she do it, or not?” part.

(The Road is capitalized for a reason, but it’s too much to try to explain here.)

Part of the reason I liked this book was the depth to character. I’m not used to finding character depth in mysteries… though I suppose I mostly read more-fluff mysteries before. The kind where cats feature heavily. Another part I particularly liked was the setting. I have always enjoyed reading books that were set in my backyard, as it were. And this one was done very nicely. It’s obvious that the author has actually been to San Francisco, unlike some other books I’ve read.

Book two in the two-fer is THE COLOUR OF MAGIC by Terry Pratchett. I’m not quite done with this one yet, but I will be soon, so I thought I’d add it anyway.

This is the first Discworld book, and is quite amusing. At this point, I like SOURCERY better, and I think it’s because the world had a few books in which to develop by that point. However, the humour (British book, British spellings) is still very funny, and the characters are enjoyable.

I am definitely not done with this series.

Ahhh. A man with a sharp wit. Someone ought to take it away from him before he cuts himself.
- Peter da Silva

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Exhibit 1: A broken shoe.

Exhibit 2: PMS.

Exhibit 3: The discovery that I will be getting next-to-no (if any at all) video/voice chat time with someone I love talking to for around a month and a half.

Don’t you love Mondays? I think I will avoid touching my knitting today, for fear of creating an Exhibit 4.

see more crazy cat pics

At least the cat is cute.