Kittens, Knitting, and Random Blah

I err, haven't knit anything at all since Spring Break. Anything. I have been occupied with all sorts of odd things and trying not to think due to some recent life disasters. But this is about the knitting. And the kittens. And the random blah. Not my whining. If you want my whining, go my my MySpace.

So, as for the kittens, I have a wonderful new subject for photos, Iggy the Stir-Fry Kitty.
He is the kitten counterpart of my best friend. Except his head is rather small. Soprano Boy's head is a fat Polish one. Believe me; I sit behind him in Band.
Isn't he just adorable? I think he's about a year old, but I'm not sure. Can't remember when they got him.
As for my cats, Spaz has quite taken to going outside. And he always comes back, at least once a day, and spends nights in, usually, so I suppose I'll just let him keep it up. Gotta get him a collar, though, so no one swipes my baby. Wiskers is being super cuddly lately, and I love it. But he needs his claws trimmed, most certainly. My legs are ample proof of that.

And my peas just started growing, finally, like Friday sometime.
Yay!!! Voici mes petit-pois!I gotta remember to get supports up for them this year, too, because I wasn't paying attention when I bought seeds and got the big plants again. Grr. Oh well. Need to cut some of my herbs soon, too. They're getting bushy and wild. Especially the Thyme! But I'm not sure what to do with them. I don't have space to sun-dry them. And my oven scares me.

I've been taking lots of pictures lately. Lots of beauty in the springtime. It's nice. Most of them are of trees, though; I've noticed. Speaking of which...

The little treeling you see to the left there is a baby maple I rescued from under our porch. She was gonna get weedwhacked. I dug out her entire taproot and the little ones around her and moved her temporarily into a tirepot next to the porch where she will be safe. She's been there for about a week now and is doing just fine.

How's that for some random blah? Now I must go check on my fanfiction stuff, as the site has not let anyone log in for like three days. Urgh.


Au revoir!!

Before we get to the main focus of this blogging, let us gaze upon the glory of my Prom shoes, which are pair #28 in my ever-growing collection: Aren't they adorable? Gold and strappy without being whorish. I love my shoes. ^_^ If there is anything definitely coming back with me from France, it will be shoes. I guarantee it.

But on to the herbs. I have recently acquired three herb babies; a plant each of Lemon Balm (Melissa officinalis), Thyme (Thymus vulgaris), and Peppermint (Mentha piperita). This afternoon, well, like fifteen minutes ago, I repotted them into their own cute little pots. Well, the pot the Thyme is in is rather monstrous, due to my own limited pot stash *snicker*, but still. Voici mes plantes:
See here, this first beauty is my Lemon Balm. Smells great. Discovered this morning he doesn't like the sun overly much. Gave me a little panic; I thought he was gonna die!


Our next little display here is my Thyme in its gargantuan pot. Seems to be rather at home, though, so I shan't complain. As long as my baby's happy. It's already started propagating, damnit! So it's gonna need to be separated off before it takes over the kitchen, methinks.



Next up is the lovely Peppermint. I do believe this one is my favorite to look at. It's just so nonconformist in its growing space! Wherever it wants to flop those stalks, it does. Not that I have favorites; I love all my plant babies; even the peas that I planted a week ago that aren't up yet. Oh well. They'll come up eventually, right? Right???

Well, anyway, in other news, I was supposed to clean my room this week while we were on Spring Break. And practice my instrument. And probably some other things. What did I do? Sit on my bum and kick around the internet, go to Gramma's and knit/shop, and stare at my ceiling. Oh, and find out that two of my dearest friends have died.

Yes, that's right. Died. And I had the good fortune to stumble upon their corpses myself. Theirs and the other twenty or so around them. And I have pictures. From the day after. I didn't think there would be any reason to have brought my camera when I found them. But this is pretty much what I saw that day:
These are the trees which have sheltered me in so much of my life. They are the place where the ties between the Three of Cups were forged and tightened. They are -or were- so much to me and to us...and now...there they are. Corpses. And that isn't the full extent of the damage. No, there are others. It looks much worse when you get close to it. Close to Shaun and Janiera, the two trees I grew close enough to to be told their names. Imagine that; walking up to visit friends only to find them hacked to pieces and lying bleeding on the ground. I don't have to imagine it; I was there. And worse yet is the fact that the rest of the Grove may go any day now. It was still standing when I went this morning, but even now, it may have fallen. I wish I had more pictures of them the way they were, but all I have is one shot from my cell phone which only has a few trees in it, and one of Steve hiding behind a tree. Which, might I add, is also one of the corpses now lying on the ground.

And, of course, the stupid image-poster thing is not allowing me to post the other images. Screw it, I'll do it tomorrow. Or whenever.

LOTS of news for this one. First off, the Waiting scarf is finally done. Woo! Sure there are some ends to weave, but eh, maybe I just won't. Then, I began making a Nautie from the most recent issue of Knitty. Those things are so adorable! I belong to the KAL, too. Have like six planned. Yeah...a practice one for me, one for Mr. David, one for Mr. Forbush, one for Mr. Macklem, and an experimental oversized one, and one just to use up (what should be) the last of the acrylic stash ^_^.
So here's that practice one now, in all its glory. I think I did all of what's there in roughly eight hours or such:
So yeah...this is the spiral, which was much easier to pull off than I thought it would be.
Sitting up like a good l'il Nautie. Yep.
Its good side. So, what should I name it? Something cute!
The requisite artsy shot :p
Up-close inner spiral. I guess by now you recognize those first couple colors in the Nautie, hmm? Yeah, that means I cheated my scarf by a block or two or three. Eh. Close enough :p. The other colors are from my beloved Gamma's stash ^_^. And uh, so is the stuffing...she's a quilter. I was the lucky recipient of her first quilt, way back when I was like eight or nine. My Kitty Quilt. It's just adorable. But falling apart in a couple places. It needs a few repairs.
Yeah...I have totally forgotten what else I was going to say. Other than that I recently acquired my 28th pair of shoes. For Prom. Whee...I shall have pics later, most certainly.

So I was sitting in Physics this past Friday, and Nikki, my oddball little basson-playing friend, reminded me I told her that if she bought the yarn and whatever other supplies I required, I would knit her the Snowball's Chance in Hell armwarmers from The Anticraft. So I said "Oh yeah..." and we got online and checked it all out, and I helped her pick out colors and stuff (don't worry, we kind of had a free day, so we weren't slacking off or anything this time, not really, anyway...) and she's gonna work on getting those for me to start. And taking the appropriate measurements. My reward? Getting to knit something I was curious about anyway, without worrying about screwing them up too bad, and she's gonna get an extra ball of the yarn for me, too, just to play with. Well, it's a just-in-case ball, but I don't foresee needing it. She's got little arms like mine.

Then, when I was complaining about how I'm sick of knitting my Waiting Scarf, she says, "Will you make me an Ugly Scarf?" And I stared at her. She kinda looked sheepish, and muttered some things about knowing how much work it was to make scarves and stuff and that it was a stupid question and stuff and that I was already gonna be making armwarmers...and I still stared. And I was like "Seriously?" and she was like "Well, yeah, if you want," and I was all like "Damn straight I will!"

Seriously, how do I turn down someone who has asked for an Ugly Scarf? And actually wants it hideous? That is like the highest knitterly honor I have ever gotten, to be asked for one of my Ugly Scarves. I'm so freaking excited, too. Heh. Now the surprise comes in what the hell I make it out of...And Nikki shall not see it until the day it is finished. So it shall be a Surprise Ugly Scarf. Excellent.

Now then, just to finish that damned Waiting Scarf! Urgh...

Yeah. This is an update on the status of my Waiting Scarf. Which I am sick of. I know I'll enjoy it when it's done, but as close as I am to the end, I just wanna quit! But then I'd have these two itty-bitty balls rolling around in my stash instead of one bigass scarf to look at and say "I have triumphed over my stash! I guess now, ironically enough, I am waiting for it to be finished and over with :p.

There it be, with Wisk examining it carefully. That actually is the scarf. With its two measly balls lolling about by the working end. Lovely, isn't it? It is roughly 6' 5" long, according to my dad's bigass tape measure-thing. That's 195.58 cm, for my metric stalkers...I mean readers. The standard system pisses me off. Oh well. I shall soon be spending a week in France, where I shall see metrics everywhere and love it!

Mmm...France...Where I shall also be sharing a glass of wine every night with my best friend and two more of my good friends. And my favorite HS English teacher ever, though she will have her own glass, doubtless. A different wine at every place we eat is our goal. Even if we don't like the first glass. And not to get wasted, either. We honestly want the cultural experience. About France, too; I'm scared of our first day. I'm scared that after however long on the plane, I will be too tired and worn out from the strain of stopping myself from having a panic attack to actually use the French I know I can. It's not the flying that bothers me, rather, I love flying. It is all the people. I have like 8 related social phobias, the simplest of which to pronounce is Agoraphobia. What will keep me sane is being between Steve and Zazi the whole trip. I absolutely could not be that close to strangers for that long. I would be entirely unable to function. With someone near me I really trust, I guess some part of my brain says "They'll protect me" or something, and I'm mostly alright.

And here is a really cute picture of Wisk playing with one of the scarf's balls, just because:

Yeah. I've been up to rather a lot lately. Possibly too much. Finishing a few things before I move on with my knitting, though. Gotta knock off a couple scarves and a bunch of stash, lol. I'm thinking about buying the biggest, fattest pair of needles I can and just triple, maybe even quadruple, stranding some of my miscellanious worsted stash into something resembling a blanket. Of course, I could also look at it as the fact that it only fills ONE drawer in my desk, and kind of a small one, at that, except for those twelve balls kicking around my floor...ah well. Still, gotta get rid of it! Plus, I gotta clean my room. Haven't been emotionally "with it" enough lately to have done anything useful, really.

Oh yeah, and I have a MySpace. www.myspace.com/mangolyn. I made the current display pic and background all by myself. Revel in their glory!

Yeah. I think that's it without going into detail. Haven't really been all that crafty, I guess. And the cats aren't up to much, either. Oh well.