Aaaargh!

I DETEST MICROSOFT WORD

Strange Brain

Ever since I can remember, I have considered colors (represented best by the Crayola 8 we used in early grades) to have gender: blue, purple, yellow, and orange are girls, and red, green, brown, and black are boys.

I can remember coloring in kindergarten or first grade and the girls and boys even had distinct personalities (still do): purple is the heroine, blue the mean girl, orange plain and sweet; red is the prince, green the snide iago, brown the stalwart friend.

Obviously, these assignments have something to do with society and my personal tastes—purple has always been my favorite color, and green is often associated with sickness and jealousy. But those explanations only go so far, because I was awfully young, and the sex assignment isn't limited to colors.

I have come to discover that this sexing of inanimate objects (and I'm not even French!) extends to many other categories: numbers, letters, even shapes. The numbers have personalities like the colors do, but not the letters so much.

An accounting:

Girls

3, 4, 7, 9, 13, 14, 17, 19 (higher numbers are just mixed, both feminine and masculine)

a c e f o p q s u v w y

circle, triangle, heptagon

Boys

1, 2, 5, 6, 8, 10, 11, 12, 15, 16, 18 (0 itself is neuter)

b d g h i j k l m n r t x z

square, rectangle, pentagon, hexagon, octagon

I don't know how to explain how ingrained these sexes are. I don't have to sit here and ponder it, "r" just "is" masculine, "4" just "is" feminine. And although I tuned in to the phenomenon only recently (except for the colors, which I've realized for many years), it goes as far back as my memory.

Is this related to synesthesia? (that would be cool!) Anyone out there know what I'm talking about?

Motown vs Elektra/Asylum

Bob is listening to music through his bluetooth fancy-schmancy earphones (which I gave him for Christmas); I have music playing through my computer speakers. So imagine the cognitive dissonance that results when he sings along to “Dream Weaver” while I hear “Reach Out I'll Be There.”

I Sewed! The World Must Be Ending!

I crocheted a bag from a pattern on the internet (Starling Handbag at futuregirl.com). It came out so well that, although I hate sewing and am bad at it, I decided to make a lining to really finish it right.

It wasn't actually that difficult! and it came out great!

I'm especially proud of the special pocket created just for my iPhone :)

Bob doesn't like the ribbons -- I like them, but maybe not in such a girly bow? Advice appreciated.

Predawn Snow, MLK Day

Opera Sucks

(the browser, that is—okay, I kind of hate the musical style too, but whatever)

I was enamored of Opera for a couple of weeks. It does have some cool features (speed dial), but it has SO MANY PROBLEMS (won't play Flash right, copy and pasting deletes line breaks, just two of the many). So it is back to Safari, which, although it also has some problems, I prefer to Firefox.

What do you use, PC and Mac people?

Is it lame to love photoshop filters so much? Here's a photo I took a few days ago:

and with "reticulated" filter applied.

Medway Visit

While in Medway for boring reasons, I went by Christ Church, which Mom attended for many years; I was baptized there.

I love the architecture and especially the stained glass. They still had some Christmas decorations on the tree outside.

 

The Coasters

For her birthday, I made my sister a set of custom-designed and
-stitched coasters. I started them in the spring and managed to finish them by October.

I found most of the stitches in books and on the internet, and I adapted them to the coaster size. I used DMC threads throughout.

The colors of the first one were inspired by an abstract painting she has in her living room:

The second one was just kind of pieced together. I wasn't happy with how it came out, but everyone else seems to like it. The little lavender bits in these two were a motif I intended to carry through all the coasters, but abandoned the idea when I started designing the rest.

The third one was almost straight from an internet design, except it wasn't big enough and I added motifs on the outside. The picture doesn't show the color (ecru) too well.

The fourth one I designed completely, and I love it. My sister has a lamp in her living room that was our parents'. It is an Indian (dot, not feather) design with a stylized elephant and polo player. I mimicked it for the coaster, then added a background that I hoped would resemble madras.

A pretty design from a book with my own color choices, including a variegated thread in the middle dark flowers. The lighter flowers are both white and very pale pink. (The photograph is overexposed in the highlights, alas.)

Another pattern from the book, this time adapted with a colonial color palette:

A third design from the book, with a sunburst that was achieved pretty well with standard DMC colors.

And my pièce de résistance, the coup de grâce, my stylized flowers and grass. Had a lot of fun with this one, and it came out even better than I imagined.

 

Puzzle from Keith (where does HE get them?)

You are in a windowless room with 3 switches which correspond to 3 bulbs in another room and you don't know which switch corresponds to which bulb. You can only enter the room with the bulbs once. You can not use any external equipment (power supplies, resistors, etc.). How do you find out which bulb corresponds to which switch?

Craft Explosion

So, now that I've finished my MUST DO projects (the three christmas scarves—entrelac in maroon sock yarn for Mom, knit/purl squares in brown tweed for Andrew, and hobo in green tweed for Olivia—I have turned to a ton of free patterns on the internet. More pics to come...

Waiting for the Service

Christmas Eve, Church of Our Savior, Milford, New Hampshire

Needle-Felted Ornament

I had been dying to try needle felting, so I got a needle and some roving. Here's a blow-by-blow of my first project. (I don't count the first practice round, in which I double-poked my thumb and bled a lot.)

Below is the first step, needling some undyed roving. (You use the undyed/natural roving underneath so as not to waste the dyed roving.)


Then I covered the ball with green and kept poking.

After smoothing it some more (needling and squishing), I sketched in the star in yellow. To do this, you carefully poke some roving along the edge of your design:

Then work on poking the middle:
And filling in spots, and poking some more!:
I lined the star with variegated sock wool:
And added some lettering ("Peace") in magenta sock wool:


Then I thought the star needed some more work, so I added some white roving for highlight:


And that's it! I added a hook (right through the top of the wool) and it's ready to hang.

So here is a shot of the finished ornament in situ:

Crop Circle in the Ice

Are aliens among us? Crop circles have adapted to northern climes...

Still Pictures

I'm re-watching Ken Burns's The Civil War (on my iphone) and am astonished anew at the power of those old photographs. Most of all the simple ones that weren't supposed to be "historic"—the family posing with slaves in the background, soldiers warming their hands...

Sicky Whine

The worst part of being sick right now is I don't have the energy to play with the NEW CAMERA I got for my birthday! But perhaps there will be more frequent photo updates in the future...

Thanks, BVD

BVD at the DailySunTimes paid me several compliments tonight -- remembering my birthday, plugging my blog, thinking I'm under 40 (!), and supposing I'm a witch. Hey, whatever works.

Here is my spell to get rid of H1N1:

Pig germs, pig germs,
I will defeat you in certain terms.
Porcine RNA,
You cannot stay.
I will rid myself of you:
By cough, by sneeze, and down the loo.

THE BEST

Stephen Fry

I just discovered stephenfry.com. With apologies to those who have known and loved it as it deserves, I, a newbie to frydom, present it as brilliance incarnated.

Just listened to the first two episodes of "Series 2." (I listened to it as a podgram, but you can get the audio episodes on his site on a desktop computer too, or in iTunes.)

I'm sure I would love to read his writing, but to hear him speak it with that Fry voice is ineffably fulfilling. (and it makes me use words like "ineffably")

I have yet to explore the rest of the site; that's my plan as soon as I "publish post."

www.stephenfry.com

Technology, entertainment, design

TED.com

It's free!

Stars, moons, nebulae, and planets of the day

Astronomy Picture of the Day

Do what I do, browse the universe with your morning cup of coffee.

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html

App of the Day

It has to be Blogwriter, since I'm composing this on the iPhone. Free version works great.

Hidden gems of wikipedia

Best of Wikipedia

I'm not going to talk about Wikipedia itself—I find it very useful and all (with grains of salt at the ready), but you already know everything you want to know about it, I'm sure.

Twice a day "Best of Wikipedia" highlights a weird, fascinating, and/or loopy entry; visitors can also nominate their picks.

http://bestofwikipedia.tumblr.com/

Site of the Day: What's that song mean?

I'm not going to recommend a site for song lyrics—there's tons of them out there, and each one seems to be as good (bad) as the other.

After wading through many sites for song meanings, however, I do have one that stands out. There's no guarantee that anything on it is true, but at least you can easily find your song or artist without being bombarded by obnoxious ads.

http://www.songfacts.com/

Starting Apps

Facebook ... free
Kindle ... free
NYTimes ... free
TwitterFon ... free
WeatherBug Elite ... 99¢
Brushes ... $4.99
iBird North ... $9.99
Just Tune ... 99¢ (guitar tuner)
Pandora ... free
Public Radio ... free
Remote ... free
Shazam ... free
SmackTalk ... 99¢
TED ... free
What's On TV? ... free
Wikiamo ... free
YouTube ... free

Starting Sites (no one should be without) III

Pandora

If you don't use it, start. On the iPhone, too.

http://www.pandora.com/

Starting Sites (no one should be without) II

Go Fug Yourself

Guilty secret (no longer): I waste a lot of time looking at celebrity fashion and critiques thereof. My favorite fashion site features two writers (Jessica and Heather) of infinite wit and irrepressible sensibility. Ogling Tilda Swinton and Rumer Willis just doesn't get any better.

http://gofugyourself.celebuzz.com/

Starting Sites (no one should be without)

The Daily Dish

Andrew Sullivan, of The Atlantic Monthly, blogs about politics, culture, and blogging itself. A self-described conservative, Sullivan collates much of the daily chatter that would otherwise be bewilderingly noisy. I don't always agree with him, but I trust his discernment, and he's proven that he'll admit when he's wrong.

Look for occasional Mental Health Breaks for just that.

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/

Blooming blooms

I wish pictures and internet could transmit scent—this variety of daphne is the sweetest:



and dianthus (dianthi?) are no slouches in the pretty-smell department:


On the right you can see one of my garden markers—gel pen on river rock.

flowers of the day

I'm feeling a bit cranky about politics and such... thought I'd restart some blogging time with FLOWERS

The lilacs were, as usual in New Hampshire, lovely this spring. I caught our Pocahontas just before the main bloom:


I planted a new columbine variety; here it is in almost-bloom:



and full blown:

Dickensian nap

I know you were wondering—the Dickens URL for this blog is:

http://dickensurl.com/48a7/Thats_the_state_to_live_and_die_inRrrich

(see dickensurl.com for explanation)