I have figured something out about myself - there is a very big difference between being creative and making things. I very much love to make things - but I need patterns. I cannot pick up yarn and suddenly have a hat - I need to be told how to do it. I am a maker, not a creator. I think, 5 years ago, I would have balked at this. But now? It fits, I love the distinction. And I can stop pressuring myself to be a creative type. I'm crafty, not arty.

In my sewing class (First Time Sewing at Lill) we are making a messenger bag/purse thing. So far I've learned a bunch of different seams/hems (rolled, french, straight, blind), learned how a machine works and cut out 16 pieces of bag from fabric of my choosing.

Piles of cut fabric on the right, sewn fabric on the left

The only bit of productive sewing (besides trying out all those seams and hems) I've done so far is to sew the pockets. And really, I just prepared the pockets to be sewn on to the bag (they are just flat pockets, but lined on both sides).

Here are my rectangles! Grey corduroy on one side, green pattern on the other.

At this point, I love this class.  Even though I spent three hours tracing, cutting and then measuring/marking hems on these pieces, it was my kind of three hours. I think I might be a sewer.  Seamstress seems too formal/skilled for what I'm doing, but sewer? No, I am not a place where dirty water/poop collects.

Back in December, loml and I got engaged. We picked out the ring together but he surprised me with a real Christmas tree and a ring under it. To be completely fair, I was in a super crabby mood that day and had been a bitch to him all night. And then when I saw the tree and got the ring, I danced around like a little kid. I'm so excited to officially be signing up for the long term with loml. And even just typing that makes me smirk - what a fitting nickname that has turned out to be...love of my life.

I want to be better about posting in the new year, but I clearly can't give myself deadlines or make promises to myself about how often (as you can see from my two New Years Day posts and nothing since). So I'll just promise to try.

I'm currently working, working out regularly, taking a sewing class and planning a wedding. There hasn't been as much down time as I had hoped...2012 starting off busy!

20 done, 12 to go.

From curious doodles, screen printed tea towel do-it-yourself embroidery kit

Happy New Year!

I lost track of time during the holidays and therefore left behind at least two Disney posts. I can summarize one of them in one sentence: I am a hotel snob and like a really good bed/pillows/bathroom and Disney moderate resorts does not provide that. End post.

The second post is the pintrading post. Disney has this fantastic gimmick - you wear a lanyard covered in pins around and you trade with park employees who also wear the lanyard. I have a really hard time putting in to words why this is fun. I researched it prior to our trip and decided against participating - it was just too intense. See here. Loml and I chatted about it occasionally and I ended up just deciding not to invest in a lanyard and pins to start me out.

And then one night in Disney, loml showed up at dinner with a pin for me. And it snowballed from there.  I ended up with this:

The spaceship earth mickey pin is where it all started. All things considered, I probably spent...$40 or $50 on pins. That's right - Disney is GENIUS. I bought a bunch of "starter" pins and traded all of those away. In the end, I have only 4 pins here that I originally purchased - loml's spaceship earth, the mickey and goofy nerds and the Epcot christmas pin at the very bottom (it spins!).

It took a full day to get up the nerve to actually ask a cast member to trade a pin (I was scared out of my mind). I found an old man, told him I was a newb and he treated me with love and tenderness.

Eventually, loml fell down the rabbit hole with me - he fully researched the world of cast member only pins and helped steer me in my trading selections.  I ended up with 5 "hidden mickey" cast member only pins - the two "bowling pins", the two weird eye license plate princesses and the weirdest of them all, Aurora's quote ("Okay, okay, I get the point"? Pin pun?).

Scoping cast pins was fun and the pin gimmick is just my kind of gimmick - hands off unless I take the initiative. It really is amazing to me how Disney can find something for every range of ages to drop money on. And I will do it again, next time I'm in the parks.

Cat bliss = warm radiator on a cold day.

Katie bliss = real christmas tree with a ring under it.

I'm a bit hampered by what to even start talking about with regards to Disney World. So I'll just start. I've been quite a few times and I plan to go again. As kids, Disney, for us, was a super special vacation, I went twice in my childhood. It's funny, I don't remember too much - I remember having an autograph book. I remember a real live duck visited the porch of our villa at least once. I remember a character breakfast that was Aladdin themed. That's about it. Those trips were awesome for me as a kid.

And I aged with a hearty appreciation of Disney still. It's pretty amazing what they do there. And on this trip, we took the Keys to the Kingdom tour. The tour where they don't let you take pictures while you go "backstage". We went into the tunnels under the Magic Kingdom. I learned a lot on that tour (like the fact that those tunnels are fairly small and packed with stuff, while golf carts buzz through full of maintenance staff). It takes a lot to keep the park running/clean (including a trash machine where they put all the garbage, it gets shot to a backstage location and processed). I'm not sure what else to say about the tour except that our guide Sean clearly loves Disney and at the same time was realistic about it (seemed like he had bad feelings about Eisner). On several occasions we met people who had been working at the park or their attraction since it opened. Loyalty.

Really, when you compare the cleanliness, staff and decor of Disney with Universal Studios - it's no contest. Disney wins in every category. It's hard to go there and not feel happy.

That being said...loml at Disney was something. He didn't like the pace or lines or the food (which, kind of a given, most of that food is mass produced fare). He felt the vacation was too long by several days. And he napped hard every day. But I think he liked it more than he expected. He was dreading long lines and we rarely waited in lines of any real length. The longest we waited was 40 minutes, for Toy Story Mania (good ride, worth it). After that, I think most lines were barely any wait to about 15 minutes at the longest. It was, really, a dead time of year. I think the lines were a big dread factor for him and once that was clearly not our style, he lightened up. He even said he'd go again...though he said probably only for a few days and then he'd leave. That's success if you ask me...

Ron Weasley and I were in love last night in my dreams (not Rupert Grint, Ron Weasley) and so now seems as good a time as any to talk about Universal. One of the most exciting parts of our vacation was our plan to visit Universal parks (both Studios and Islands of Adventure) to see The Wizarding World of Harry Potter for the first time. And to put the cherry on the top of the excitement, my Dad generously offered to send us in style - VIP Tour style. What this meant was that we walked around with a guide for 7 hours and she let us in the exit of every ride. We skipped every line. Even the wand experience line! It was pretty fabulous and we were on the receiving end of a lot of questioning glances...and one or two dirty looks. Really, most of Universal was fun, but it's really not so...magical as Disney. I highly enjoyed almost all of the rides we went on and feel like ET is the classic, lovable ride that I remember while the Simpsons was the new break out favorite. But who cares about that.

Hogsmeade! It was really everything I had hoped. They did a fantastic, fabulous job on it. Some pictures of the buildings and such can be found at my brother-in-laws iPhone blog here. In particular, Hogwarts. I don't want to run through everything, so here's just my main feelings:

• It just FEELS like Harry Potter.
• Dueling Dragons/Dragon Challenge is too adult for what Harry Potter is all about. I didn't know this at the time, but apparently that's just a ride that was already at Islands of Adventure re-concepted for Harry Potter. The new concept sort of works, but the coaster just feels out of place. Big Time. That being said, even if you don't want to ride the coaster, go through the line. That sounds stupid, but there was some fantastic stuff to look at in that line.
• Flight of the Hippogriffs = kiddie coaster that lasts literally a minute. If there's a wait, this is not worth it at all.
• The Forbidden Journey was awesome. Cool ride mechanics, neat story, you're in Hogwarts! Though, I do have one bone to pick: MUGGLES CAN'T SEE DEMENTORS. Again, the stuff to see in the line is fantastic, so even if you don't want to ride, go get in line.
• Butterbeer is insanely sweet. I kind of liked it but I don't think I could have had a whole cup. A few sips was enough.
• The Three Broomsticks felt true. Different styles of chair, lofty, wooden, just...awesome. 

Verdict: Awesome! Love! So glad I went!

I should warn you that these Orlando vacation posts will only get nerdier, so if this is too nerdy for you, watch out. I'm about to go way down in your eyes as far as coolness goes. Being cool is pretty damn stupid when you can be off having fun instead. Like these HP nerds:

loml + katie + hogwarts express = awkward picture of two slouchy nerds

I have Disney posts in me and I can't seem to get them out. I suspect this is because the beds in the Disney compound inhibited my normal 8 hours of sleep. The bed was hard, the pillows not great and my back, chest, arms, legs, all eventually got pretty knotted. I also had some pretty bruised/blistering feet by the end. This led to cranky time and the need for recuperation.

Disney world is not relaxing.

I'm in Disney World right now which is why I suddenly stopped blogging. Loml, my mom, my sister and her husband all along for the trip. My brother is gonna show up in a couple of days to join the fun. I am pretty sure I have a few Disney posts in me. But I am mostly writing because I have realized how much I love showers.

Sometimes on the weekends, if i don't shower, I am crabby all day. A good shower just sets my mood straight. Hot water. Massage like. Brain emptying. I need that time to myself. I just took my second shower of the day, because if i'm sleepy or worn out, a shower just makes me feel better.

So I wonder, with the importance of showering in my life, how I came to be with loml. Who got made at me when I asked him to shower yesterday (he smelled) because "that's not vacation!". Opposites attract.

My holiday yesterday was spent with loml's parents. They are awesome and I'm super comfortable with them. Except for one thing. Farts.

Apparently dinner made both loml and myself gassy (and one would assume his parents felt the same way). We were all just hanging out in the living room. And I heard a fart. A pretty rumbly though muffled fart. This crossed loml's mom off the culprit list because she was sitting in a wooden rocking chair.

And then I smelled it. And let me tell you, that was one thick and pungent fart. All I wanted to do was comment on the horrifying smell - but what if papa loml had done it? And I embarrassed him by commenting on the purtridness? But what if he thought it was me? In the end, no one said anything until I got into the car with loml alone. It belonged to loml. Which means it's highly possible his dad thought it was me.

NOT IT.

Thanksgiving

I hope most of us feel thankful more than just one day a year- but I love that we all are kind of forced to do it on this day, together. I hope you all take some time and list out the things you are thankful for, even if only in your head. This post is probably going to veer into the sappy so if you are cynical, step away. I am thankful for:

1. The people I love. 
1. Loml. Two and a half years ago, I jokingly nicknamed him the love of my life. On his suggestion. But even then, I pretty much knew. He makes me laugh every day. And almost every day I say to him, we are so lucky. To have found each other and have this life we have. We are so lucky.
2. Family. You don't get to choose them, but mine are pretty fantastic. We're all so different, it enriches my life to have them around. 
3. Friends. I have a fantastic support system, these people are the best. 
2. My job. With the economy the way it is, I am glad that I can go to work everyday doing something I enjoy at a place I mostly enjoy. Knowing how a lot of people feel about their jobs (mostly hate), I am thankful that I enjoy it most of the time.
3. This house. When you buy something so big and life changing (30 years of my life, life changing), you hope that a year in, ten years in, 30 years in, you still love it. And this home of ours, it still feels right. I love it.
4. Mashed potatoes. I made these yesterday to be eaten today and they are insanely good already. I can't imagine after they bake covered in butter. I am so excited to eat them.
5. Disney World! We're going on vacation to Disney in a few days and I can't wait to hang out at the happiest place on earth.

Really, I'm thankful for my life. Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I hope you enjoy good food and good company.

Today I realized that I almost never think, when creeping around on someone's facebook, "wow that person has gotten fat". I can think of actually only one instance where I remember thinking that and it was about a dude. 

But I frequently, almost regularly, think that someone has lost way too much weight. And these are almost always ladies.

I don't know about you all, but to me, skeletor is much uglier than a pleasantly plump care-bear. No one wants to see or touch your bones ladies.

Every day for the past week and a half, I've come home and tried to check one thing off of a to-do list. This to-do list does not actually exist. I tend to come home from work and sit slothily on the couch and watch a lot of TV and play a lot of flash games. I think this is a perpetual cycle of tiredness and inactivity. I'm tired after work every day so I do nothing and then I'm tired and depressed about how inactive I am so I feel tired and go to bed. Then I wake up the next day tired and come home tired, etc. So I'm stopping that.

Things that, in my head, there is a checkbox next to:

• Knitting at least a few rows (one row doesn't count)
• Cooking a real dinner
• Playing with paper to try to "design" a Christmas card. This has been a hopeless pursuit for days. Until tonight! I think I have my card designed. Though you should know I went with super simple this year for my first trial at this
• General craftiness

Things there is no checkbox for:

• Writing a blog post (whooops, missed a whole chunk of days. Fail at nablopomo)
• Watching TV
• Flash games
• Reading books

Besides the blogging, all of those uncheckbox items are things I will do every night no matter what. So they don't qualify as getting anything done.

It's feeling pretty good to check a box every day. Even if it's a fake box.

Finding something to talk about every day is starting to become an issue. It's not that my life is boring (though it mostly is) but that the things that I find interest in aren't good blog posts. Or I don't want to talk about them here.

Tonight I learned that Valentine's Day was not a great movie. And that I am tired in the same way I am on weekdays when I have an almost normal morning routine (book club fairly early this morning had me up and showered). This exciting blog post brought to you by: happily going to bed at 10pm on a Saturday.

absolutely nothing.

Two of the last three books I read during my epic reading journey (the Time 100 list + librarian recommended books before you die) were set in World War I. Both involved trench warfare and the horrors of the front line. One was from the German point of view, one from the English. Both fascinating, gruesome and really depressing.

Birdsong was kind of surprisingly, a lovely love story. It was also about family and really, the word I keep coming up with is love. There were some really dark war filled sections of the book but it fit and felt exactly what I imagine war feels like in anyone's life - uncomfortable, uncertain, dirty, dark. 

All Quiet on the Western Front was really just a war novel. I walked away struck by the book - I really enjoyed it and at the same time, didn't enjoy anything about it. The novelist was a veteran of the war, so I can only imagine that the harrowing story, while fictionalized, is also taken from real experience. 

Recommend them both. Really liked that I read them within a month span of each other as well.