New Glasses!

Remember when this happened? Well, holy whatsit has kept me from my new glasses since I originally had an appointment on JUNE 4. I mean, come on! First the prescription was wrong, then I came in again to pick up the glasses and contacts but the prescription was never changed! Then it took another "forever and a day" time -- until today...

How cute am I, no?
Fish-faced, or, Surprised Jenny!

Angry Jenny!

Darn you WalMart for being so gosh darn cheap and have horrible service to match! Gah.

Eat. Knit. Run. BLOG.

Blog by Picture Captions

My recipes - stained, scribbled, and disorderly - just how I like them :P
Plus essentials of a kitchen: timer, wine, food processor, vitamins (so we get big and strong like Popeye), and cookbooks

The bookshelf! We quite like the asymmetry - Notice the rubix cube - Yes, I can do it! Also, we call the posable wooden man "The Ball Holding Man" because that is the only position he has ever been in since 2004. Poor fella.

Of course, the knit (and craft) section

What I've been working on - on and off - for the past... oh 4 months...
The Knitted Weighted Companion Cube

It's coming along. THE most fiddly project I have ever - EVER - worked on. Also, my sewing skills are, um, not exactly wonderful. If you hadn't noticed... Always learning!
I will probably make a pattern for this...

Our walk-in closet!... Complete with a new set of "work-clothes" -- I've always wanted a walk-in closet. I can close the door, change, and be on my way.

Our teeny - I mean, cozy - bedroom

Spacious bathroom (with a tub!!) And bathing suit hanging because our complex has a hot tub - heck yes. Nightly visits shall ensue.

My domain. Ha, just kidding. Joe's allowed to visit.
Dig the lovely artwork - by Moi - a tribute to our departed Hand-pained Purple Volvo

Full view from the living room - you're not missing much, the living room is that wide and has no furniture. Yet. Mama's workin' hard for the money.

Eat. KNIT. Run. BLOG.

"Point Break" or "Surfing is not for Wimps"

Keanu Reeves, Patrick Swayze, day-glo neon colored early-90s everything, and wicked sweet surf. Dude. Keanu as Johnny Utah, the 25-year-old, new-to-the-FBI guy who has to learn to surf in order to go under cover to get closer to some other surfers who, in theory, may be the bank robbers they've all been looking for!

Have you ever watched people surf? It's pretty amazing. I'm always in awe when I see people in the scary ocean waves ripping it up and looking like there's nothing to it. I run by the beach a lot, and sometimes I hit the exact moment when some guy with a short board catches a wave and starts doing all sorts of tricks on it. I stop and stare (stop my stopwatch, if I remember) and don't leave until he finishes his ride.

I happen to be a bit of a scaredy cat when it comes to the ocean. I will go in up to my knees and that's about it. I get really nervous when I feel the tide pushing and pulling at the same time. When I was little, I remember my mom getting me ready to go to the beach with friends and warning me to stay away from the rip currents or they would suck me out to sea. Of course, my little 7 year old brain translated these "rip currents" as snakes or monsters with tentacles that would grab my ankles and drag me under, most likely eating me themselves or feeding me to the millions of sharks that I assumed were there stalking me... Hmm, paranoid much? Sheesh. I'm a good swimmer, but I was never really taught how to swim in the ocean.

A few weeks ago we stayed at my aunts' house and I read Surf Diva: A Girl's Guide to Getting Good Waves because I was trying to psych myself up into learning how to surf. I mean, I am a California Girl after all... Surf Diva is a surfing schools for girls (though they let the dudes in too) and it's based in La Jolla (where I live!) I learned some lingo and now know the basics of surfing and the culture that comes with it. I think I still need more months... possibly years... of psyching up before I can learn to surf, but I think the Surf Diva ladies and their school could help me :) Anyone want to learn to surf with me? :)

So back to the movie: Joe has seen this movie many more times that I, and he said he thought the last scene would translate particularly well to the stage. The following is his stage adaptation...

SPOILER ALERT. If you haven't seen Point Break, go rent it, Netflix it, whatever you do, and watch it... Oh yes, the acting is not terribly fantastic (hello, surf movie) but it's an enjoyable movie nonetheless. :)


We'll wait....


Ok not really.


Point Break - For the Stage:

"You let him get a way!" The policeman yells at Utah, pointing to the bank robber, Bohdi (Swayze's character), paddling out into the ocean.

"He's not coming back," Utah says, as he exits stage right.

The Australian police have their binoculars up; there's a sound of a huge wave crashing and they drop their binoculars in awe. We can only assume they're watching Bohdi surf a giant swell that will ultimately kill him, but is worth it because his whole life had led him to that moment and at last he is complete...

Utah re-enters from a side door in the back of the audience, walks up the stage and throws his badge onto it, then leaves.
---

F*** the boundaries. He breaks the 4th wall AND breaks away from his "The Man" job at the same time.

Ah... Southern California surf culture. Gotta love it. Even though I'm slightly less hip than the surfer dudes and dudettes, as a (SoCal) California Girl, I've gotta tip an imaginary Corona with lime to that. :)


Eat. Knit. Run. BLOG.

The Knitting Fiend that Lives inside my Head

My brain has been fixed on knitting lately, often at inappropriate times. Like at work when I'm helping a customer.... I mean "GUEST".... this one woman was wearing a gorgeous knitted lace jacket, 3/4 sleeve (my personal fav), and I had to force myself to keep my eyes on hers so she didn't think I was ogling her breasts or something horrible like that. But really, it was gorgeous! I felt compelled to see what kind of pattern it was so I could sketch it out later. When she turned around I stared at her back intently, but alas, the back was solid St st. Cruel knitting gods!! I shake my fist at you!

::Not really:: J/K Knitting gods. I heart you. Really. Don't smite me, please.::

Then this afternoon, between work and school, I was reading The Silmarillion by J.R.R. Tolkien.(I think Tolkien has a beautiful way with words. ::Content sigh::) Well, I was trying to relax after being on my feet for hours and hours, reading this particular passage:

"...Of the fabric of Earth had Aulë thought... but the delight and pride of Aulë is in the deed of making, and of the thing made, and neither in his own possession nor in his own mastery; wherefore her gives and hoards not, and is free from care, passing ever on to some new work." (8)

And I thought, Aulë would probably be a process knitter...

And then I thought, I wonder what his stash would look like...

And then of course, I wonder what kind of lace Aulë would use for a 3/4 sleeve cardigan...

Can't I just have ONE quiet moment to myself to enjoy a book without interruptions from my brain? The knitting fiend that lives inside my head (no, really) is giving me no rest lately. I laughed to myself and decided on the spot that I needed to share it with you all.

So there you go. :)

Eat. KNIT. Run. Blog.

Quick update

So everything is going well. I HAVE A JOB! I won't say where, since the employee handbook gave me a stern lecture about personal websites and company policy, where I technically can post about my job, it's not a good idea. So let's just say I work someplace that sells home decor :) I work in the windows and decoration section of the store. I've been spending the last 10 working hours listening to tapes watching videos about very enthusiastic people, and other mind-numbing activities. Everyone seems very nice though, and they say after training it gets much better. That's encouraging.

We're still without internet. It's an experiment actually. We feel more productive without the computer around. We don't have a tv for that purpose. And I think the term is called "mouse potato". So, we'll see -- but don't worry, I can still blog and post later!

Pictures of the new place coming soon. Hope everybody's having a great week :)

Explosives, new job interviews, new apartment, and new classes

Yup. That's about sums up what I've neglecting the blog for. Wanna hear about it?

First off, we had a great 4th of July doing a fireworks show!... Right, DOING, not just watching. My uncle is a licensed pyrotechnician and does a fireworks show every year for the 4th and we help out. Meaning we get to play with explosives for two days straight :) We unload heavy wooden crates with dark fiberglass tubes from a moving truck, mark out the layout on the grass field, then spend hours in the sun nailing stabilizer boards onto the bottoms of the crates so they don't wiggle. THEN the next day we get "The Product" -- meaning 350 firework bomb shells in neat little boxes. They all have numbers and we play "Memory" and "Find the Matching number", placing the bombs onto the rims of their respective tubes. THEN we wire them and lower the bombs into the tubes (I love calling them bombs). That's my favorite part, methinks. I also love saying I spent an afternoon wiring explosives..... So cut to the evening, pretty pretty lights in the sky, watching them explode out of the tubes from a couple hundred feet away (so cool, btw, I highly recommend it... um if you're part of the crew, otherwise we'll chase you down!! Plus you have to wear a hardhat for falling debris). ....THEN it's cleanup time. Thank goodness the grounds crew do most of the debris cleanup, but everything gets loaded back into the truck that night. It's hard work. But so damn cool.

Next on the agenda - job interviews. Why don't people just give me a job and be done with it? I'm really good at jobs. I'm totally hard-working ,responsible, reliable, punctual, etc etc etc. I mean, all those damn slackers ruin it for us reliable-types. Interviewers go to long measures to make sure I'm not a slacker. And then there are the questions... "Describe a great customer service experience you've had" and conversely "your worst customer service experience" (btw, I'm trying to get a customer service job, if you haven't guessed already). At this point I'm ready to take anything. I've been on four interviews (no call backs yet, grr), handed in a dozen applications. I've smiled my little cheekbones off until they hurt, agreed and sucked up (hopefully not too blatantly), described my excellent work ethics and job experiences, and felt like a fool. I hate interviews....

But I need a job because.... we got an apartment! In La Jolla... For those of you not familiar with San Diego, La Jolla is about the nicest zip code to live in here. That's where the rich people live. We're right on the edge next to the UCSD campus, but it's lovely! We move in today. TODAY! We've been living in my parents' house for a month now. On an inflatable mattress. In the living room. I completely appreciate it, but we'll be happy to have our own space again. Married people need space to make their lives together. Or at least that's what Joe and I need. So wish us luck. I'll post pictures of the place soon.

And last but not least, I am a student at UCSD too! Oooh la la. Well, at least I'm taking courses through the rec center :) I'm going through a mentor program to become a Group Fitness Instructor! The lectures are a lot of review for me (I was a personal trainer before, but never renewed my certification) but the hands on mentor instruction is going to be great. Then i may be able to teach classes at UCSD. Wish me luck again! (Only if you want to, ha, i know I'm demanding with all this luck wishing lately).

So that's what I've been up to. :) I'm knitting the rest of Joe's present. And my secret projects have been put off, so knitting shall ensue soon.

Eat. Knit. Run. BLOG.