yikes

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving; mine was lovely. I bought a whole lot of fabric, along with embroidery floss. Chain stitch & running stitch (re)mastered. But it is late and I have been feeling a bit ill all weekend and I have miles and miles to drive tomorrow, so I should sleep.

děkuju

Almost time to start the drive up north! I love Thanksgiving, but I think I love vacations more. Not that I should really be taking a vacation; two papers to write and 90 papers to grade. Nathan's going to be recording with Melange, so aside from the car ride and a few hours on Thanksgiving Day, I won't see him all weekend. I'm going fabric shopping Friday, and my mom is buying me a new coat on Saturday! Also on Saturday, I am watching The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2 with Tracey and others. Why? I don't know, bonding? Whatever. It's Thanksgiving!

impatient

Presentation in 2.5 hours; I just want it to be over.

Related: First real snow today, or last night I guess. Woke up to stupid, stupid snow.

In conclusion: after a detailed* analysis of my site statistics, I have determined that I get more traffic when I'm not posting. What could that mean?

*obvious exaggeration

catching up

Okay, trying to remember to post things here on a semi-regular basis. Also trying to take more photos, so hey guess what?



Made using this recipe, with a few modifications--yogurt instead of sour cream and quick-rise flour instead of cake flour. I accidentally bought quick-rise flour instead of all-purpose flour last time we went grocery shopping; do not buy quick-rise flour. It just makes everything more difficult.



Coaster I made last night, sitting on top of pieces I'm going to use to make three more. Coasters were one of the first things I made when I was relearning how to sew. This is probably the best one I've made yet; it was nice to realize that I have indeed gotten better at sewing.

More photos later.

first snow of the year

It was sudden and furious and ultimately short, but it was in fact snow.



Progress on the quilt I mentioned last time. I'm actually sort of happy with my progress so far, though I am totally going to plan everything out when I start my next quilt.

sometimes i wish there were like 30 hours in a day

Or even eight days in a week.

I have not been very focused about school, at least about my own classes, and I think that's going to have to end. I have two big things due in the next three weeks, and if I really start to seriously work today, I think I'll be okay. I'm starting to get a bit anxious about it; I'm hoping I can be smart about it and turn that anxiety into actually doing work instead of just, you know, sitting around worrying.

I'm working on a quilt. It'll eventually be around 60x60", so sort of a lap quilt. I started off with the intention of just doing a... actually, now that I think about it, I barely had a plan, and whatever plan I had disintegrated before I finished the first block. It's sort of an experiment, a sampler quilt maybe? Except I'm not even doing real blocks, I'm just sort of putting things together to see how they look. Photos soon; I forgot my camera in my office when I left on Friday.

Okay, anyway, Packers game, back to that.

have you heard about this?

"Out of deep concern for the challenges currently facing all of the people of our world, Nelson Mandela, Graça Machel and Desmond Tutu have convened a group of leaders to contribute their wisdom, independent leadership and integrity to tackling some of the world's toughest problems."

it's in the mail

Nathan made two different kinds of enchiladas for dinner. Living in sin is awesome. I made a pillow out of the log cabin block I've been working on this weekend. I'm working on another one; I'm going to start making blue & red blocks with scrap fabric for a large quilt. Exciting! No school, no work, this blog should be all crafty, all the time. Also, news. And history. Always history. What do you want me to write about? Wait, don't answer that, I don't care. If I did, this would have more readers. (Obviously that's why I have no readers, I'm not even trying to be "popular" or whatever. Haha, just like when I was unpopular in high school!)

ask me about IRV

You should read this article in the New York Times about possibly automatically registering every eligible voter in the country and expanding early voting to every state (currently, 32 states allow early voting). I'm really interested in electoral reform, which I usually think of as getting rid of the electoral college and using instant runoff voting, but the ideas mentioned in this article seem like they would make the actual voting process much easier and would encourage more people to turn out. On a related note, the biggest problem that I have with Ralph Nader is that instead of using his time and renown to push for electoral reform that would make it actually possible and relevant for a third party candidate to run for President, he conducts these ridiculous vanity presidential campaigns. Oh by the way, did you hear about how Nader called Barack Obama an Uncle Tom the day after he won the presidency? Classy.

jack mcbrayer is pretty funny

Hey, I learned how to make Log Cabin quilt blocks. Well, I taught myself. And I'm pretty sure I did it right, but who knows. Photos someday. Maybe tomorrow? I restarted my Etsy shop. You forgot I even had one, didn't you? I haven't added anything new yet, just relistings of what used to be on there. I'm working on a new bag; I'll finish it as soon as I can concentrate on it. My mind is just everywhere today! This is why I don't do drugs, I drank a 20oz soda and I'm practically twitching. Which is weird when you consider I drink at least 3 cups of coffee every day... Weird! In conclusion, I want to start volunteering at Voces de la Frontera, either teaching English classes or doing research. Or whatever they'll let me do. I think I'll call tomorrow after class.

excellent

[awesome illustration by Patrick Moberg]

[edited for formatting and to more properly give credit.]

wow

I can hear people cheering, still. Granted, there's a bar across the street that's full of Obama supporters, but I can hear people from other directions too. McCain's speech was gracious and reminded me of what he used to be, and Obama is going to be a great president.

A New Day in America

!!!!!!!!

Please Go Vote

Right now. Please, please, please go vote. Vote vote vote. Especially if you're in a swing state. And if you're in Milwaukee, you should really vote today, because there's a referendum on mandating paid sick days for all businesses within the city of Milwaukee. I bet there are a lot of other important referendums in your district as well. And obviously there's a presidential election going on, but since I am technically a state employee, there are rules about when I am and am not allowed to tell people who I think they should vote for, and I don't think it matters what I write on my "blog" (ha, on several different levels) but I don't want to lose my job, so yes. Go vote. Now.