30 January 2008

homemade

I am now the secretary of the UWM student chapter of the Society of American Archivists. Exciting!

I also made some peanut butter with my food processor. Double exciting!!

DSCN3714.JPG

Click the photo for more pictures of peanut butter (you know you want to see more pictures of peanut butter). I reused a peanut butter jar, so it feels so much more official than the first time I made it (I used Tupperware). Next time, I want to try adding things. Definitely honey, possibly chocolate? Or cinnamon? Or maybe cayenne? Probably I would use the cayenne mix to make peanut sauce.

Next on my list of things to make myself instead of buying premade--salsa!

29 January 2008

four fruits

dear astronaut best band ever

Phase one of the new site. Jeb and I are working on it together. He worked out the design; I'm trying desperately to remember CSS so I can make a site out of his design.



Strange face beads that I'm selling on Etsy. They're listed as a lot of 10, but I found some more recently, so I can sell them in larger amounts as well.

28 January 2008

pins and needles

I can't seem to get into a regular pattern with this blogging thing. Minimal posts for a month or two, then multiple posts per day for a week or so, then nothing. I'm trying to get organized and start adding an item a week to my Etsy shop, so maybe I will also try to update this more regularly.

I'm not big on taking things seriously, or at least admitting that I take things seriously, but I do want to start putting more energy into selling things that I make. I applied for a sales tax number and everything. I have to send in a form for my sales through December 31, or possibly January 1st? Not that it matters; I have no sales to report. I did make two sales on Etsy, of these strange face beads that I bought at Bobby Bead, but neither of them were shipped to Wisconsin, so I do not need to pay sales tax on the grand total of $9 that I made last year.

Probably I'm being a little hard on myself. I've only been doing this since mid-October, and I was working two jobs for the first few months and then distracted by the holidays and my grandma's... passing. Wow, that is not an easy thing to write. So, I've been distracted, but I am now both effectively unemployed and temporarily financially solvent thanks to my student loan, so I have a real opportunity to take some time to build up a business. I don't know that it'll ever pay my rent, but if it could possibly pay for me to buy more beads and fabric, that would be pretty sweet.

I labeled this post "important decisions," along with a bunch of other ridiculous labels, because I think I am still going through the long process of admitting to myself that I need to really try to make this crafting thing work. I had a pretty severe panic attack yesterday; possibly the worst one yet. I'm not even really sure what it was about. Everything is going pretty well in my life. Being back in school is amazing, I love Milwaukee, my friends and family are great, my boyfriend makes me so happy, and I'm not broke. I guess that's probably what the problem is though. Things haven't gone this well for me at any point in recent memory; I don't know how to handle not being depressed. (And also I probably have not completely dealt with my grandma and how much I miss her, but this is already personal enough.)

I'm not quite sure how to end this. I'm not quite sure what my point is. I know I started this post to talk about how I got a lot done today and walked around and enjoyed the temporary warm weather. That is obviously not what I actually wrote about. I think for now I'll just leave this be. I'll add some more photos soon; that's more fun than this personal stuff, I think.

22 January 2008

sometimes i can't shut up

First class of grad school was today.

Things started to go wrong even before class started. I knew the building and floor where the class was meeting, but I did not know the room number. Something was up with the UWM servers today, so for about 20 minutes all three sites where I could get course information were down. One of them finally started working about 20 minutes before class started, so I didn't have to wander around the ninth floor of Curtin, looking for people talking about colonialism and culture. I did not, however, have time to eat dinner. That, combined with my year and half break from anything academic or in any way mentally stimulating, meant that I had no real ability to think clearly or make a coherent argument. Of course, that did not stop me from talking constantly. I just couldn't stop; we were talking about colonialism in India and in France, and I had anthro classes about both countries, and no one else was talking, and I really honestly had something to contribute, and I could not stop myself from spouting off every two minutes, even though I knew I was making absolutely no sense.

So... yes. Mixed feelings, I guess. I was not shy about participating, which is good. And, um, I guess I'm cautiously optimistic that if I do the reading and go to class prepared (and fed) next week, I will not make an ass of myself again.

now this is an effective psa

Wow, chilling is right. From Jezebel.

triumphal


triumphal
Originally uploaded by marinatina
I figured out what was wrong with my machine, from the FAQs on the official Singer website if you're curious. Apparently all that loopy thread on the back of the fabric is called "birdnesting," and it happens when there's not enough tension in the needle thread, which is generally caused by mis-threading the needle. I reloaded the bobbin at least three times, but I did not think to make sure the needle thread was loaded correctly. Um, that's possibly not the correct terminology. Anyway! Now I have another set of coasters I'll never use! This set is definitely the best yet. They're all basically the same size, and you can barely tell where I left a gap to turn them.

(Are you into coasters? Would red/blue or pink/brown match your decor? Drop me a line, you could be the proud owner of a new set of handmade coasters.)

21 January 2008

frustration


frustration
Originally uploaded by marinatina
Did I mention that I'm using my grandma's sewing machine? And that the bobbin thread keeps suddenly going crazy for no apparent reason? It is not supposed to look like that, though it does make for a good picture. It happened a few times while I was at home. My mom fixed it then; I wish she were here to fix it now. And I really wish my grandma was here to fix it and show me how to thread her machine and wind a bobbin and catch the bobbin thread correctly, but now I'm making myself sad.

20 January 2008

borders

The Packers lost to the Giants today. They didn't seem to care much about winning, so I guess I shouldn't bother being pissed that they lost.

School starts in two days. I'm not going to lie--I'm super excited. I just finished my reading for my Wednesday class (Foundations of Library and Information Science--so fascinating, right?), and I'm going to do my first readings for my history class (colloquia in Colonialism & Culture, nearly guaranteed to be amazing) tomorrow. They aren't even really due until next Tuesday, but I am just so fucking excited!

Also, I'm unemployed, so I don't really have anything else to do. Related--I put together the three bookshelves I bought on Thursday. I also put all my books on them, cleaned my room for a few hours (I can see my floor!), figured out a makeshift sewing table (um, my desk), used my new (thrifted) iron & (fold out) ironing board while working on (another) set of coasters, and I need to stop because why all the parentheses?

I'll have pictures of all these things soon, but I will leave you with my favorite line from my readings for Wednesday--"one should not assume that it is the kids watching the TV" (Rubin, Foundations of Library and Information Science 13). Remember that.

18 January 2008

back

We got to Milwaukee about an hour ago. I slept nearly the entire way, and I'm still tired.

I wanted to post a few pictures of my grandma and grandpa from right around the time they got married, but my parents have dial-up, and it is so, so slow. My grandma sorted out all of her pictures at some point in the past few years, and I want to find a way to scan most if not all of them. Of course, they're up north and I'm in Milwaukee, so... I don't know.

Anyway, back in Milwaukee. School starts on Tuesday; I guess I'm ready. My parents are going to drive me around tomorrow so I can buy bookshelves and possibly also a filing cabinet. And possibly we will go to Costco! Exciting. Right now, I should go to sleep.

09 January 2008

star power



The service was okay--unexpectedly comforting.

I will be back in Milwaukee on Sunday, or so.