Obligatory Random Update

August 28th, 2009

Man. I really haven’t made anything in a while, but I guess I should update anyway. I want to get back in the habit of writing here since, you know, I’m paying for the web space. Once I get back in the swing, maybe I’ll start advertising it. For now, it’s a secret corner.

My hobbies lately have been mainly researching genealogy. Specifically, trying to figure out who Nicholas/Nicholson Pittman was. I finally broke down and paid for a 3-month subscription to ancestry.com. So far, it’s been fun, but I haven’t found much. I’m starting to think I need a new angle on that. How to scale the brick wall? Hmm…

I’ve been watching tons of movies. I got addicted a few months back and went on a movie-buying-binge. It didn’t help that Amazon had so many sales and that Blockbuster is going out of business. Cheap movies = lazy Joy on the couch. There were a lot of good ones though. One day I had an artist theme going: The Girl with the Pearl Earring (Vermeer), Klimt (don’t watch that one. Bad movie! Bad!), and Modigliani. I was hoping that they would inspire me to paint or something. Instead, they inspired me to read up on the history of those artists. That’s still something, I suppose.

I’ve spent too much time on Facebook. Period.

But on facebook, I’ve announced that I’m going back to school. I may as well talk about that here too. I have 4 more days until the application for Appalachian is available for fall term 2010. I requested my UNCA transcript to see how far along I’d be. Turns out most of my courses from there transfer to Appalachian as electives. Some are helpful in that they’re electives pertaining to a specific subject (History elective, psychology elective), but others are just “general elective credit.” (Astronomy 105 from UNCA transfers to a general elective. I’d have to take a science class for their core curriculum requirements. One choice is astronomy. Why, why, why doesn’t it transfer for that?)

But, after adding up all the transfer credits and looking at core requirements and major/minor requirements, I still think I can be done in two years. I may have to take classes over one summer term to achieve that, but so be it. My goal is two years, and I’m going to try my hardest to stick to that. Major: History. Minor: Psychology. Masters: Library Science.

(Ok, I confess, I already have a minor in psychology. Technically, enough credits to count for two minors in psychology, if it were possible.)

Woah.

April 27th, 2009

So I only just now realized how long it’s been since I posted on here. I’ve made stuff, but I forgot to share it. I’ll get on that.

For now, I’ll just post something old that I still really like.


Site update

February 1st, 2009

I had to update the bones of my site.  At a glance, it looks like I did ok, but let me know if you come across any weirdness.

My electric violin arrived two days ago, and I’ve been playing pretty much non-stop. I’m so happy! Music!

Music!

January 29th, 2009

My dad ordered me an electric violin! I found one on Amazon for only $80 that comes with just about everything you need. I was going to order it myself, but my dad is super nice. I’m so excited!

I’ve been plucking around with my old violin, but I can’t actually use the bow because… well, I’m in an apartment. I don’t want the neighbors to hear my rusty squeaking. Who knows. Maybe I won’t squeak. I’m still good, just a little out of practice. I’ve had my old violin for 17 years. (SEVENTEEN YEARS. I’m getting old.) For about half of that time, I haven’t been able to practice as much as I want because of dorms, townhouses, apartments, and the close proximity of potentially irritated neighbors therein. With the electric violin, I’ll be able to practice with headphones. No noise!

I really can’t believe it took me 8 years to figure out there is actually a way to practice without being annoying.

So, I’ve gotten out all of the sheet music that I still have, making sure I can still read music. (And I can! In fact, I can sight-read quite well.)

I’m so excited. It should be here soon. Yay! Violin! Music!

Albums.

January 10th, 2009

So, it’s been a little while since I posted a project. I was working on a pretty big one that I couldn’t mention because it was my Christmas gift to my grandparents. My grandmother occasionally looks at this little site, so I couldn’t post about it until after they received it.

All that genealogy work I did? I put it in an album. I cross-stitched the cover, and I scrapbooked the pictures and censuses and everything that I found:


Now that was a big project. It took quite some time to finish, but it sure turned out… well… pretty amazing. I found so much information and actually finished an album. In time for Christmas, too!

Now, I’m working on a new album. This one’s geekier. This one’s just for me.

A certain somebody who I’ve known to like cheese for a very long time brought a cheese plate to a holiday dinner at our house. I told her I wanted to do that all the time, just for myself. She kind of chuckled and said, “Yeah, me too.” But, I’m actually doing it. Fancy cheeses! Yeah!

So, in order to keep track of all the fancy schmancy cheese I eat, I’m putting pictures, descriptions, and other notes in a little journal to keep all to myself. I’ve had about seven new cheeses just since the new year, and I haven’t scratched the surface. Cheese hobby!

We Live in a Digital World, and I am a Digital Girl.

January 4th, 2009

Anti-material.

Digital.

It’s this thing that, without power, is nothing.

Digital Cameras.

Digital Picture Frames.

Digital TV.

The Internet.

I went shopping yesterday. I was perusing the shelves at Bed Bath and Beyond, Marshall’s, Office Max, and Target. Everywhere was dead. Yes, the economy is poor at the moment, but people still need things. Right? I managed to leave four stores and only spend $40. I only bought from two of them. And my bank account is pretty high at the moment.

While in Bed Bath and Beyond, I was dumbfounded by the amount of pure crap that they sell. I went looking for an automatic coffee grinder. Right? Bed Bath and Beyond. Right? But no, they only had one coffee grinder. One. It wasn’t automatic. It was fifteen dollars. Instead, they have forty-five different shapes of silicone ice cube trays. They have the latest as-seen-on-tv wonder contraption that only performs one function: toasting your bread in a spiffy design. Are you serious? I want a coffee grinder. I’m willing to drop $100 for a nice coffee grinder. You don’t want my hundred bucks? Or anyone else’s who’s looking for a nice coffee grinder? I’m not spending a dime on the crap you’re trying to get me to buy on an impulse.

Given the economy, which I’ve already addressed in a brief sentence, this is my advice for all major retailers: Stop buying the impulse crap to sell. Nobody will buy the impulse crap. Because? It’s crap.

I thought my store was dead. I don’t shop much, which is my little subconscious contribution to the economic crisis, but I really was shocked that on a Saturday at around 5:00, I was the only person in Bed Bath and Beyond. I was the ONLY person in Office Max. My store isn’t doing so bad in comparison.

My store is equally as bad with the impulse crap. My favorite came recently. It’s a small metal train painted solid white. It comes with stickers that look like grafitti. It’s forty freaking dollars. Who, in corporate, in their right mind, oh my, WHO BOUGHT THAT TO SELL? In a bookstore. And we got about fifteen of them. (Makes me want to facepalm.)

So, anyway. Apparently, if you want a nice automatic coffee grinder, you have to shop online.

Right back to Digital, baby.

I bought my husband a little digital picture frame for Christmas. It wasn’t something I would ever buy for myself, but he’d said on several occasions that he thought those things were neat. I’m not entirely sure that he liked it, since I found a place to put it and I put the picture on it, but… that’s all aside. I was just sitting and looking at it and thinking how completely useless it would be without power. Then, I started thinking about a post-apocalyptic world:

“What’s this big box with metal pieces and wires connecting to a flat rectangular black panel?”

“What are all these wires connecting post to post along these passageways?”

“This civilization was so lazy that it would buy pre-prepared meals in a box.”

Etc.

Etc.

Ok, so that last one was a completely different rant, but I had to at least show you a peek at where my thoughts were about to go.

Desktops.

January 2nd, 2009

Every once in a while I’ll do something really geeky to my desktop. My old laptop was once turned into a space scene with all of my icons being planets, asteroids, galaxies, and supernovas. Another time, it was an aquarium. In that case, the recycle bin was a puffer fish. When it was full, he would puff up, and when empty, it was just the calm puffer fish.

Now I’ve done a silly one.

(Click to enlarge)

When I was young, we had an Atari 2600 PC. This is from the game Ghostbusters. It’s the very beginning of the game, where you are choosing your car and all of the gadgets you want on it. The little guy in the forklift picks the things up and moves them over to the car. On the left, the white thing at the top is the containment unit for all the ghosts you catch. The green one is a ghost trap. You have to buy a bunch of those. I have no clue what the blue thing is. The weird brown slash-like thing is a ghost vacuum. You put it on the hood of the car and as you’re driving to go get slimer, you can catch ghosts from the road. All the while, it plays the ghostbusters song in monotone atari blips. It was awesome.

The recycle bin shows the famous no-ghost sign when it’s empty, but it turns into a ghost when there’s stuff in there. It took some hunting to find all the images to make them icons, but it was worth it. I’ll keep this one for a while.

Christmastime is Here

December 7th, 2008

I love Christmas. We got our tree a couple days after returning from Thanksgiving at the beach. It’s the only holiday that gets my full-fledged attention for decorating. I made a wreath out of the tree trimmings, I have a cheesy glittery JOY plant stake that I show off from the patio. Christmas is the only acception to my glittery policy, but still only in moderation. If glitter appears on my face, it’s not ok. If it stays confined to the item it’s decorating, then ok. No other glitter is allowed, for the rest of the year. For after all,

I found a site called Spoonflower, which is based in Mebane, NC. (Which is where the preacher who married Lindel and I lives.) You can upload your own designs and they will print it on fabric for you. That’s so awesome. I really loved carving and block-printing my own designs, but this would be really good for any entricate details that would just be too hard to carve. I’ve uploaded a few, but mostly stuff that I have already carved and printed. I think I’m going to make a very detailed pattern and order some fabric from there.

The Fantastic Day of Doing Things by Myself

November 12th, 2008

Today is a wonderful day. I’m having the greatest day off of work, and I’m just enjoying doing things by myself.

So, I mentioned earlier that I was getting into geneaology, but that other people’s trees suck. (Remember? The ones that go back to Adam and Eve and Our God in Heaven?) I’ve stopped relying on other people’s research as the basis for my own, and instead started my own research, diving into census records, birth and death records, and all sorts of other means of piecing my family history together. From scratch. By myself. I’ve come a very long way from knowing nothing about the Pittmans (father’s side) or Smiths (mother’s side) to now knowing my great-grandfather, great-great-grandfather, and even great-great-great-grandfather’s whole name, birth and death date, occupation, marriage date, and place of burial. All from my own research.

For example, I found (again, on my own) that my 3rd, 4th, and 5th great grandfathers on my mother’s paternal side are buried practically in the back yard of where my mother moved when I was in highschool. It’s ridiculous how close it was, and neither of us had any clue. I live directly across the street from where I work, and it’s still not as close as the distance between my old house and this cemetery.

So today, I decided (once again, on my own!) I was going to go and see these graves. I pulled up to the methodist church and found that it now houses a preschool. There were all of the little children playing on swingsets and running around yelling “Trick or Treat!” even though halloween was two weeks ago. Little kids are so cute.

I drove around a small path to the rear of the building and came up on a 1700 or 1800’s building. Very small, very old. The paint was chipping off and the wood was incredibly old. This was the original church, not the big brick building in front of it. Behind this old building was the cemetery. I parked my truck, pulled out my camera, and thought “It won’t take me long to find these graves. This cemetery is small.”

I walked up, and the very first grave was Wm. H. Smith, son of W.O. Smith and Vasti. Wow! That was easy! W.O. Smith is Wesley Owen Smith, my 4th-great-grandfather. I didn’t have to look long. Here they all were. Side by side, the entire family. Several generations of Smiths, all labeled “son of,” “daughter of,” “wife of.” All with dates, neatly arranged just waiting all these years for me to find it.

My mother wanted to go with me to see this, but I just couldn’t wait. It popped into my head this morning, and I just decided to go. I found out where it was, I found it, I’ll do it alone the first time. I’ll take her with me next time. The headstones are so old that they are mostly worn away. In person, you can faintly read them. The pictures I took are mostly illegible, but I have uploaded a few. Next time, I’ll have to take rubbings.

Here is William F. Smith, son of Rev. Sion Smith (who owned much of the Crabtree area and was one of the first Methodists in the area.)

William F. Smith was the father of Wesley Owen Smith, whose stone was one of the harder to read ones. His wife was Vasti Poole:

And a wide-shot of all of the Smith graves:

It was such a pretty day. Cool, crisp air. Those leaves everywhere. I looked at these stones for a very long time before deciding to leave. But as I turned to get back to my car, I noticed an area behind an iron gate. Very wooded, very unkempt. Small stones everywhere. I walked through and touched all of the stones, wiping off dirt and debris, trying to find out if any of them red “Rev. Sion Smith.” I did not find one. As I walked through, I kept thinking how beautiful and old this area was, and how everything around it had changed so much since those graves were placed.

Upon leaving, I took another wide-shot of this older cemetery.

Immediately, I couldn’t help but notice the bright light in the back corner, between the trees:

I know it’s pretty cheesy, but I still think it’s cool. It could just be a beam of sunlight coming through the trees, but it looks to me like it’s in front of a tree trunk in the background. So, that’s all I’ll say about it.

After my cemetery adventures, I went to Brier Creek and got some crafty stuff from Michael’s and then decided to do another thing on my own. Something I’ve never done on my own before. I went to a restaurant. I ate sushi all by myself. And I really enjoyed it.

Today is a good, fun day of doing things all by myself.

Books that should stay in stores.

October 24th, 2008

Working in a bookstore, there’s a list that comes out once a month of books we have to return to the warehouse. It’s usually books that aren’t selling well and we have to remove them to make room for the books that are selling. Occasionally, there’s a book on the list that makes me very sad to return. This happened the other day.

In this case, it was The Crochet Stitch Bible.

I originally bought this book about six years ago, and it has been by far my best friend when it comes to crochet. I taught myself the craft using this as a guide, and it has clear diagrams and instructions for every kind of stitch you can imagine. If I’m bored, I’ll just grab some yarn and practice the designs in there.

I’ve become quite the skilled crocheter, and although I’ve used a few online tutorials, I wouldn’t be anywhere as good had I not owned this book. I can tackle any pattern… now I just have to make something other than little sample swatches. That’s the challenging part, and not because of difficulty. Rather, because of time.

Similarly, there’s a Knitting Stitch Bible that I also own. And it’s an equally valuable resource.

There are a few that I don’t have that I’ve been meaning to buy, but alas, they’ve all been removed from my bookstore shelves. The Embroidery Stitch Bible. The Quilter’s Stitch Bible and The Patchworker’s Stitch Bible. The Sewing Stitch and Textile Bible. Sigh. I guess I’ll have to order them online.

My first two have been so incredibly helpful that when the time comes to work on any of the other crafts (and I believe embroidery will be next), I’m not looking anywhere else for my teacher.