![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
ktria's journalLog in Create a LiveJournal Account Learn more
| You are viewing ktria's journal Log in Create a LiveJournal Account Learn more | Explore LJ: Life Entertainment Music Culture News & Politics Technology |
|
|||||||
 |
|
|
|||||
|
Ktria's Little World  So they unblocked Facebook at work, allowing me to actually CHECK Facebook more than once a day, and voila...my LJ post frequency promptly went to zero. Apparently I can only handle one social network at a time. I tried to get into the Twitter thing too. Yeah, guess how that went. Anyway, let's see, what have I been up to? After another month, several spools of thread, a great deal of trial and error, and a new sewing machine, the quilt is actually DONE! And it looks lovely on our bed. (At least, I think so. The cats think it is an evil mountain that must be attacked.) Now I can get on with decorating the rest of our bedroom. I apparently subscribe to a "gradual" theory of home decoration - we've been in this house a year now, and half the rooms don't have curtains yet. One of these days... But I have more exciting things coming up - vacation! Next month is our big spend-all-the-frequent-flier-miles extravaganza - Ed and I are going to England and Ireland! It's going to be amazing. We have a week and a half, which is not nearly enough time for all the places we want to see, but we're going to make the most of it. Anybody have must-see recommendations? Today what makes me happy is shorts weather! And more of the same tomorrow! So remember, months ago, how I was going to blog the progress of my big quilt-making project? Yeah, about that. However, I have been much better about working on the quilt than I was about blogging it. And voila - the whole quilt top is done!  It took a bit of trial and error, and a few fabrics that weren't in the original design - but this is a learning experience, after all! And I'm very happy with how it's coming out. Now I just have to practice my machine quilting a bit more, until I'm ready to tackle the job of sewing all the layers together. Oh, and find a floor in my house big enough to lay a king-sized quilt out flat. Some moving of furniture may be required. Today what makes me happy is getting up into my first-ever headstand in yoga tonight! Finally, I've got some muscles! Finally, the craziness is over! We're back in our house, with the addition of some beautiful new floors...and a brand-new layer of sawdust over everything :) After a few long days of cleaning, the dust is mostly gone, and the end result is definitely worth the trouble. Pictures, you say? Why yes, I do have pictures.  We still haven't taken any with the furniture back IN the room, but you get the idea :) Anyway, must run to yoga now...enjoy! Today what makes me happy is rediscovering the trove of old high school pictures on my computer. HS friends, I'm working on getting these up somewhere so you can share them too! So apparently my life hasn't been crazy enough lately, and I had to do something about it :) Many of you already know this (since I've been obnoxiously finding ways to slip it into every conversation) but Ed and I have embarked on our first big home improvement project - we're having hardwood floors installed! Now apparently there's a way to do this that doesn't involve turning your house into a big sawdusty mess. We're not doing it that way :) Right now we are still living in the house, but we're down to one and a half inhabitable rooms (kitchen not included) so "camping" might be a more accurate term. In a few days we'll have to move out entirely so they can sand and finish the floors. (Luckily, some wonderful friends are taking us in for the week!) But I can already see that it's going to be worth it. Watching the project progress is a lot of fun. It's actually rather dangerous that I work so close to home, because I'm constantly tempted to run back and see how it is going! We're taking pictures every day, so I'll have fun before-and-after shots for you eventually. But that might have to wait until we get back to reliable and non-stolen internet. You see, we didn't have enough cable jacks in those one and a half rooms to plug in both the modem and the DVR. Guess which one won? Today what makes me happy is weather warm enough that the rain actually feels nice. An awesome Orson Scott Card quote from his column: "When I was a kid... basically I read books the way those leaf-sucking trucks that drive along the streets in the autumn suck leaves. If it was there, I read it, leaving my eye-tracks on anything with letters on it." OMG THIS IS ME. I've never been able to look at words and not read them. Has anybody else ever been to the Blue Man Group show where they stand at the front of the stage with three different sets of placards, and flip through them fast enough that you can only read one? I read all three anyway, Today what makes me happy is a gift certificate for free Starbucks. Apparently, it pays to order something they've run out of :) The first winter I lived in NoVA, I was floored by the local government's response to snow. They actually knew what to do with it! Snowplows were out, sidewalks cleared, roads salted, and all of this before the morning rush hour! I'd never seen such a thing in my Chapel-Hill-and-Williamsburg life. I was very impressed. Today, though, I realized the downside of all this efficiency: it means that life no longer grinds to a halt when the first snowflake hits the ground. This morning, with a few inches of snow and a glaze of ice outside, I settled down in my pajamas for a work-at-home day...only to discover that everybody else was in the office, and the roads were fine. Damn! So I hauled out the snow shovel, dug out my driveway, and went in to work. And to my yoga class afterward. Apart from the unusual sight of some drivers actually going the speed limit, it was just another normal day. Which defeats the whole purpose of snow, if you ask me :) Today what makes me happy is having a garage. BEST INVENTION EVER in the winter. 1. The recipe for Potbelly's oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. Google, what good are you if you can't index the world's corporate secrets? :) Today what makes me happy is a kitten who has her nose against my monitor trying to chase the cursor as I type this. Also my new blue living room. Crap, have I really not posted since October? Oops. I wonder if it has something to do with the fact that the computer is in the COLDEST room of the house. Again. This seems to happen no matter where I live. At least this is an improvement over the Chapel Hill apartment, where the coldest room of the house was also my bedroom :) Anyway, capriciousbee has tagged me for a "what makes me happy" meme (does this girl know me or what?) so I shall use that as motivation to post. Here's a random thought I had the other day: As kids, we see pretty much everything we encounter (even normal everyday stuff) as new and exciting. When we grow up, most of it becomes - well - normal everyday stuff. But I, at least, have a few random exceptions: things that still trigger that childlike excitement every time. Airplanes are one. I may be the only person within earshot of Dulles that actually loves hearing the rumble of jet engines every evening, as the big planes line up for international flights. Every time I glance up and see a plane taking off, it puts a smile on my face for no reason I can explain. And of course, there's the first snowfall of the year. We had that last night, as I was driving to a friend's house; even though the adult part of my mind was thinking "Ok, watch out for ice / I freaking hate Beltway drivers" it was easily overpowered by the part that was just thinking "Hooray for snow!"What are your "everyday" experiences that you still find exciting? This whole post has been about things that make me happy, so that should count :) Whee random tech rant. The two-sided Apple experience: When it works, it looks beautiful. When it doesn't, it continues to look beautiful, unmarred by "Help Menus" or "Advanced Options" or any such nonsense. I would like to dramatize for you my first attempt to upload data from my new Nike+ sensor to the Nike+ website. Me: I probably have to go to the site and create an account first. Firefox: (blank page) Me (muttering): Stupid Internet Explorer-only websites. Good thing I have the IE Tab extension. Nike+ site: Now I'll load! Look at the ridiculous amount of Flash on this site! It's so pretty! Me: (creates account) Ok, now let's see what happens when I plug in the iPod. iTunes: Would you like to upload your workout data? Don't worry, all you have to do is click one button! Me: Ok, sure! That was easy. Hmm, I wonder how it knew what my account was. Maybe it's magic. Let's see. Nike+ site: You have not synced any runs! What are you waiting for? Me: Ok, apparently not magic. Maybe I have to set up my account information in iTunes. (fumbles around menus, finds the Nike + iPod tab) Interesting. All I get is one button: "Visit nikeplus.com." (clicks) Firefox: (blank page) Me: Oh, crap. Right. IE Tab again. Nike+ site: You have not synced any runs! What are you waiting for? Me: Looks like somebody didn't think this through very well. Do I have to set up my iTunes account from this end? Is that how it works? (fumbles around menus, finds nothing useful) Apparently not. Maybe the Apple site has some help pages? Apple site: It's so easy! All you have to do is click the button in iTunes and you will be taken to the Nike+ site! Me: Okay, how DOES this work? I can only upload my data by clicking on the button in iTunes, which opens my default browser...Firefox. Where the site doesn't work. And when I reload it in IE, whatever data it submitted is gone. Please don't tell me you want me to change my default browser to make this one stupid site work. IE Tab: I will save you! I am smart enough to automatically open certain sites using IE. Me: Sweet! (configures this, tries again) Nike+ site: Look! You have a fancy animated graph of your run! Wasn't that easy? Me: Sigh... Unfortunately this ends with an anticlimax...a bit more searching (done after writing the above bit of snark) revealed that it's actually Adblock Plus in Firefox 3 that objects to the Nike site, and it worked fine once I added an exception for that. So I suppose it is not the glaring omission that I originally thought. Although I would have hoped Nike and Apple between them had the sense to write a page that wouldn't get mistaken for an ad. Anyway, I shall still post the snark, in the hopes that it'll be amusing. I think I'm spending too much time around computers if I can discern this much personality in webpages. Today what makes me happy is the hope that I may have finally found an honest mechanic... Ah, the monthly update. I don't have any pretty pictures for you this time, but I want to post, because I've been anxiously anticipating today for two reasons: 1. Ed and I finally bought real bedroom furniture, which I am in love with, and it was being delivered today. 2. New iPods! Mine stopped working last month (at the ripe old age of almost 4 years) and I wanted to wait for this release to get the newest and coolest whatever-it-is. Well, one of these worked out as planned. There is indeed a new iPod touch, not drastically different but upgraded and pretty, and I have splurged and ordered the 32GB version. They claim it ships in 1-3 days. Given the inevitable rush of Apple fanboys (yes, I suppose I'm one of them now) I will be very impressed if that actually happens. But I should get it in a week or so regardless. The bedroom furniture, on the other hand, arrived right on schedule and worked out fine...until they got to the headboard, and it refused to fit up the stairs. Crap. The movers tried their best, but it just wasn't going to happen. They thought there was a lower-profile version that we could exchange for, so we are going to talk to the store, but I am not terribly confident that such a thing actually exists since I can't find it anywhere on the internet. Bah. Anybody want to volunteer their carpentry skills to chop a headboard in half and put it back together? Or have a crane we can borrow? :) Oh well. We still have a REALLY comfortable new king-sized mattress, even if it is sitting on the floor for the time being. Today what makes me happy is making friends with our neighbors. |
|||||||
|
|
|
|||||