Voila!

We had the extended family over for birthday cake and dinner Sunday night for Dad's belated birthday. It was the motivation I needed to finally get the Kraft Korner (or Crap Room, as Adam is fond of calling it) finally cleaned up and somewhat organized.

Basically, all that junk you're looking at has been there since we moved in right before school started. It's the remnants of what was in our spare bedroom/office at the apartment, and it was all thrown in boxes during the move.

Read: I didn't want to deal with it then, and I really still don't want to deal with it now, but it must be done.

Saturday morning, it looked like the above photos.

Sunday night, before dinner, it looked like this:

Ahhhh. Finally, some organized living. (Yes, I know our chairs and table don't match. Get over it.) Maybe we'll just call it shabby chic.

There's the built-ins, finally cleaned up.

My big project was getting my junk organized, Adam's was coordinating the hanging of the mirrors. As you can see, he was spent. But, those mirrors look pretty damn good. We weren't even thinking about them when we picked paint colors, but I think they look really good with our paint and furniture.

And, every time I look at them, I'll think of Dave and the Lovings, since they were wedding presents from them!

Hmmm - what do you do?

On a Friday afternoon, when all you want to do is pop by the ATM to pick up some weekend cash, and you pull up and see this:
You must understand - that little red car IS waiting in the ATM line, along with the other cars, and the big red truck is at the ATM.


Here's the view from the other side of the line. We decided to go through the drive-up teller line, since the ATM line was so long, and snaking like crazy.


Pretty soon, cars in the ATM line were pulling up from the right, so that our lanes out of the drive-up tellers were blocked. I don't know what engineer designed this parking lot/traffic pattern, but whoever he is, he must have gotten by with Ds in college. IT DOESN'T WORK.

So, if you can't get your car in line to get some cash, I guess you've got to be creative and problem solve.


Yes, that guy was really walking (with a baby stroller) through the drive up ATM lane. At least he didn't take up as much space in the traffic flow as the cars waiting in line...

Knits you can enjoy even when the weather is warm

Yeah, what's up with that, anyway? It was 74 degrees when I left school tonight at 4:45, as the sun was going down!

I digress...

As you think about your holiday shopping this year, I encourage you to surf around on Etsy for gifts. It's a great way to support artists, starving or otherwise, and you'll find one-of-a-kind surprises for friends and family.

There's apparel, accessories, paper goods, jewelry, and within those categories, you'll find everything under the sun. If you read Betsy's blog, you already know that we're excited about some Etsy news. They've finally decided to promote Etsy this holiday season, in various print media ads. We've been asking for and grumbling about this for awhile now. Etsy is well-known in its own community, but we need to raise the profile if we hope for members to make more sales. I'll be interested to see if the print ads make a dent in some of the items for sale.

Now, back to the title of this post: Knits you can enjoy even when the weather is warm

Also known as: Look at all of these cool felted bags, purses and accessories. The cool thing about the felting process is that it can be done in many ways - you can knit something, then felt it, crochet something, then felt it, buy an old wool sweater, then felt it...you get the idea.

The first stop along the tour of felted accessories is this Poppy the Party Purse, by seller Shanineal.



I love the flower detailing on the pink purse.

I found the next item the other day, while I was looking these up, and I had to favorite it, since it reminds me of an unfinished knitting project I've been working on for about six months here and there. I'm using a bunch of wool remnants that are making random stripes, and I think it will be sort of like this, by seller Carolinasquirrell.

I really like the colors of the stripes on that one.

Here is an example of a crocheted and felted bag, by seller mystringtheory.

It's called the Nature Stripes bag. The colors would be great for a fall accessory.

As always, with my Etsy favorites post, I have to give a shout out to myself. (Then, is it really a shout out? Or just shameless self-promotion?)

One of the recent additions to my shop is this Felted Clutch. I've had some success selling bags like these before, so maybe someone will see this one and decide they can't live without it...My lovely assistant, Mom, has to add her hands to the zipper sewing portion. I'm good with the knitting and the felting, but I still haven't gotten the sewing part down yet.

Like Betsy, I am really going to try to do most of my shopping on Etsy this year. It's my little way of paying it forward.

This just in...Obama in a landslide!

Normally, I'm well on my way to sweet dreams by this time of night. Couldn't do it tonight, though. Had to stay up to see what happened.

I'll probably be awfully tired at school tomorrow, but I think the energy and excitement surrounding the news will make up for it. The newspaper staff got permission to send one page tomorrow (our deadline was tonight at 5), so they get to have one page of election coverage. We've got to meet at school at 7:10 to get the page done, and have it sent by 10 a.m. Hopefully as I type this, the two columnists are typing their own words, and we'll dump them on the page first thing in the a.m.

He did it. We did it. And this isn't one that's going to be contested in courts for the next two months. Obama won, and he won big.

As I watch the footage of celebrations in Times Square and Grant Park, where he'll be speaking (hopefully) soon, I'm only thinking one thing - please, let this energy and level of political engagement continue. The kids at school (who aren't even old enough to vote yet, in most cases) were abuzz with election politics the last few weeks.

This has been an inspiring campaign, one that I hope will turn into an inspiring presidency. President-elect (!) Obama and his crew have proven that they know how to organize and mobilize the electorate. Will that grass-roots involvement continue? Can we make some things happen?

I truly believe that Barack Obama has the promise of being a president for all Americans, not just the ones who fall in lock-step with his beliefs. Open exchange of ideas and partnership can help us move in the right direction.

Change has been a long time coming, and it's finally here.

Everybody's doing it - you should too!

I've already done it, but if you haven't...

Get out and vote today!

Bring something to read - you'll probably be waiting in long lines, but don't let that deter you.

I've been wondering what the polls would look like on election day, since we voted in advance, I thought I wouldn't get to see it. But, our school is a polling place, so I'll be able to get an idea of how crowded it is by checking that out.

Happy First Tuesday after the First Monday of November!

Double the dress up, double the fun

Last Thursday, at Adam's school, all of the teachers got to dress up crazy for Breast Cancer Awareness Month. As I'm sure most of you know, the chance to dress all crazy doesn't usually pass Adam by. He went all out.

Some of you probably recognize that scarf, from my knitting works in progress post of last week.

Then, the next day it was Halloween. He's been working on a "sweet 'stache" for the last few weeks, so he could dress up as Magnum P.I.

Thank God for ebay so we could find a cheap Hawaiian shirt, and a Detroit Tigers hat.

When I got up Saturday morning, I fired up the DVR to watch "My Name is Earl" and guess what? Earl dressed as Magnum P.I., too!

Yes, I totally paused the DVR, grabbed the phone and shot a photo of the show just so I could put it on here. Hold your snarky comments!

P.S. I'm campaigning for the mustache to make a hasty departure. It's okay for a Halloween costume, but it's not 1976.

DON'T take the kids, DO check out the knits!

Last night we saw "Zack and Miri Make A Porno," the new Kevin Smith movie. At the theater, they had blacked out all of the posters and signs, so that they just said "Zack and Miri."

Right next door to our theater they were showing "High School Musical 3: Senior Year." As we exited our theater, the screaming tweens came pouring out of that one, too. Thank God they didn't get the films switched and accidentally show the wrong ones - moms would have been quite peeved about that...

We were in the mood for a silly, laugh out loud movie, and that's what we got. Just be warned if you go, though - the title of this blog could easily have been "Don't take the kids, do check out the-something-that-rhymes-with-knits" because they were all over the place.

I'm such a knitting dork, because here we are watching a movie about making a movie where people take OFF their clothes, and I'm watching all the of hats, scarves, sweaters and shawls worn by Miri and the scarves worn by Zack.

The movie takes place in Pittsburgh, in the winter time, so they're always bundled up when they go out. That's something I remember vividly from the only time I've been to Minneapolis. It was January, and we went to a bar, and everyone there had giant parkas and hats and scarves and mittens and gloves that were draped over the backs of chairs. Here, when it's cold and people go out, they leave coats in the car, and run, not walk, into establishments.

I guess in colder climes, you've grown up with the need for coats, so it's not a big deal to wear it into a bar.

The photos I found aren't the greatest to showcase all of the knitwear, but it's the best I can do. I've written about this before. It's one of the hazards of being a knitter - you go to a movie to watch the movie, get the plot, explore the characters, and all that jazz, but you end up looking at the wardrobe, trying to decipher a pattern for what you're looking at.



As we walked out of the theater, Adam said "That movie should have been called "Kevin Smith and Judd Apatow Make A Porno." It was hilarious - if you're in the mood to laugh, go see it. If you're on a first date, or with one of your parents, DON'T go see it. Potentially awkward in those situations!