I’m thinking of buying a set of the Knit Picks interchangeable circular needles. I’d seen them before, but the original version had nickel plated brass needle tips, and I wasn’t sure about them. But now they’ve come out with a wood tip version which is calling out to me. They call them Harmony and they’re yummy looking! I’ve been moving more toward wood and bamboo needles lately, so these are definitely appealing to me. And then I could get rid of that hodgepodge of circular needles that I have now, all of which have been given to me by other people.
I spent part of the weekend finishing my Hallowe’en costume. I had wanted to go as Tigger, to co-ordinate with MB’s Pooh, but, although I was able to find a pattern that would work to make the costume, I couldn’t find fabric in the right colours that wouldn’t kill me from heat exhaustion. So, I had to find something else instead. I went with a Regency period dress – I’m going to be Lizzie Bennet. 🙂
I found a fabulous dark purple cotton fabric with sort of roses (or some other flower) in lilac all over it. All I have left is to tack down the seam between the bodice and the skirt, wash it (it’s stiff and itchy from the sizing they put on the fabric) and iron it! I’ll post a pic from the Masquerade Ball next week. I think I want to change the sash a little bit too – it’s a little too wide for my taste right now, and I think I might also sew it onto the front of the dress so that it just has to be tied at the back. I just had another thought for it… maybe I’ll do some gathers on it to narrow it, rather than cutting it down. I’ll have to see how that looks.
It was a very busy weekend, quite apart from sewing. I went to a Barrage concert on Friday night with Eileen. This is the group I got to see at Disneyland with Pabis. He was mesmerized by them, and is going to be horribly jealous when he finds out I got to see them again. I think I’ll get him one of their DVDs for Christmas. On Saturday I went to look at houses during the day, and ushered for and watched Amadeus in the evening. Good Gad that show was long – three, frickin’ hours!!! It didn’t help that I kept wanting the guy playing Salieri to turn into F. Murray Abraham (not his fault, he did a decent job… but he’s no F. Murray Abraham). 🙂
I’m considering auditioning for the Christmas show tonight. It’ll be the first time I’ve acted in one of the Christmas shows (though I stage-managed last year’s). I’ve heard conflicting accounts of what it’s like to work with that particular director, which is why I’m only “considering” right now… but I probably will, because I don’t expect to do any of the other shows until the spring musical, Nunsense. The director for Steel Magnolias asked me to audition for that, but it’s right before the musical, and I hate overlapping shows.
So my new office is frickin’ freezin’ and I’m told it gets even colder in winter, so I’ve started preparing. I made myself a pair of fingerless gloves last weekend. They turned out quite nicely, and were ridiculously quick and easy to make. I may make several pairs in different colours, but these will do for starters.
I’m still working on the elephants as well. I’ve got all the pieces made on the first and I’ve started the second (finishing is my least favourite part of knitting, so I’m putting off the evil day until they’re both done).
My office mate is wackier than I am. He decided to keep the tissue box cozy on his desk.
So, on Saturday I went to my first Baylor football game since I was an undergrad. The library won a “does your department have spirit” photo contest and we were given 200 tickets to split among us. I figured, since it was free, why not? I mean, sure I don’t like football, but watching the game isn’t really the reason I go to sporting events, it’s to hang out with friends (except tennis matches… I do enjoy watching those, but that might just be because I understand all the rules). So I went. There was also a tailgate party beforehand. MB came with me as my “tailgate date”, and then I sat with her and her friends on the student side. We definitely looked like we were having a better time on our side than where my real seats were supposed to be. We were right next to the band, and as MB and her friends are all ex-band members, I had coaches on what to yell when. So, even though we got slaughtered, and Baylor’s level of play was atrocious, I did have a good time. I don’t think I’ll be running out to buy season tickets any time soon, but it’s OK for once in a while. Plus the fact that I had such a good time yelling with MB and her friends that I yelled myself almost hoarse and didn’t get to do any recording the rest of the weekend, so it’s definitely not something I want to do regularly.
I also made one of these this weekend. Now, normally, I’m not into these sorts of items. They’re too frou-frou for my taste, but it this case, frou-frou was exactly what I was looking for. I made it as a prank for my office-mate, Eric… in pink yarn with little pastel flecks. I’m just waiting for him to step out of the office for a few minutes so I can slip it onto his tissue box. This all started because he and another guy wrapped everything in the girl across the hall’s office in foil for her birthday a few months ago, and a couple of weeks ago, when we were helping him move his desk around, she found the two boxes of foil in one of his desk drawers and decided to take revenge. I’ve been helping her, because it’s fun. I’m getting a little nervous though, because he hasn’t retaliated yet.
Since I still haven’t gotten back my knitting patterns book from Meredith, I’ve decided to start a project of my choice for Asa. I figure if I don’t start it soon, I may as well give it to him for his high school graduation. So, I found this pattern for a stuffed elephant that looked really cute, and I decided to do that for now. I’ll probably still do the other when/if I get the book back from her.
Cute, isn’t he? I’m making two of them, one in a darkish blue-grey for Asa, and one in yellow for Jana, since I don’t yet know what her baby will be. I’m about two thirds of the way through the first one and I only started Friday night, so it’s knitting up really quickly. I’ll post photos of my two versions when I get them finished (this photo is one of the ones on the pattern).
I did finish A Little Princess last weekend, but I didn’t get around to finishing cataloguing until the end of the week. I decided to do a collection of Alarcón short stories for my next official project. Ans is proofing both that and P & P for me, because I was starting to run out of room on my laptop with all the audacity files for P & P that I’d been saving up. She can’t understand a word of what I’m reading for the short stories, so she’s reading along and just comparing sounds. 🙂
I finished El Dorado yesterday! Woohoo! No more wanting to smack Armand! 🙂
It really did end up being a very good book, once I got past those beginning chapters where he was being such a goose, and once the action moved onto the other characters. I’ve decided that one reason I was so annoyed with Armand was that Orczy changed him so much from the first book to this one. In that, he was the responsible elder brother, who had looked after his little sister from the time their parents died, and was completely devoted to the Scarlet Pimpernel’s cause. In this book she made him younger than Marguerite and completely reckless and foolish.
And I have two chapters left of A Little Princess, so I should be done with that this weekend. Now I need to find something new to read. I am still working on Pride and Prejudice, but when I started it, I didn’t realize there was another solo version in progress. It had been semi-abandoned, but it started back up this week. As it’s a newer reader, I don’t want them to feel like I’m infringing on their territory, so I’d rather not take P&P public just now. My plan is to keep working on it, but I need something else for my public project. I’m thinking of, perhaps, some more Nesbit, another Anne book, or maybe the first Katy Did book. But I haven’t decided yet.
I finally got my invite to Ravelry yesterday. I spent part of today adding completed projects to my page. I don’t know how much I’ll use it for organization, but it’s a great place to get new ideas!
So after everything I said about the WCT being somewhat picky about casting the leads of plays, I have to take it back. I watched Annie the weekend it opened, and ended up leaving during intermission. Like Once Upon This Island, the casting of the leads left much to be desired. I will say that the three people cast as Miss Hannigan, Rooster and Lily St. Regis were fantastic. They were the only leads who seemed confident onstage and with their lines, songs and choreography. They were also the only leads who seemed to be having fun with their parts (not really difficult with those).
My main objection was to the poor child who played Annie (well, the one I saw that night… the role was shared by two girls). It’s not her fault. I’ve worked with her before and heard her sing, and know that she has a very nice voice, but someone made the decision that she should belt all her songs… and they just weren’t in her belting range, so the result was that she sounded strained and painful.
I decided not to audition for Amadeus after all. I’d only just regained enough energy (after the stress of adjusting to the new job) to get back into my LibriVox project, and I’m on a roll with that, so I wasn’t willing to give up my evenings just yet.
I’m still working on El Dorado, but I’m not as blocked as I was before. The focus hasn’t been on Armand as much as it was in the beginning, so he’s not driving me crazy like he was. I’ve also started two other projects – A Little Princess and Pride and Prejudice. I’ve been wanting to do both for a while, and doing chapters in those was a good motivation to deal with Armand. 🙂 I haven’t put P & P into the catalogue yet, I’m just working on it on the side for now, but I’m five chapters each away from finishing El Dorado and Little Princess , and I’ll be taking it public once I do finish them.
I learned of a knitting group here in Waco a few weeks ago. I’ve been thinking of visiting it. I’m a bit shy of going because I only know one person… and also because I don’t have anything particularly interesting on the needles just now. I’ve got that scarf I started for Ethel last winter still going; and a hat for the Dulaan project. I had bought a whole bundle of a particular yarn… ooh, probably two years ago that didn’t turn out to be how I expected (it said worsted, but it’s much thicker than that), so I figured I could use it up making hats and things for the Dulaan project.
And now I’m off to eat lunch in the Great Hall at Hogwarts. 🙂
Life’s been pretty busy since my last post (hence no posts since then).
So, first off, I started the new job. It’s been fairly quiet for these first few weeks. The whole first week and part of the second all I did was read, because they’d ordered me a new computer (a nice, shiny new macbook!) and we were waiting for it to arrive. The rest of the second week I spent trying to install Windows and Linux on it (some of the things I’m going to be working with run on Mac, some on Windows and some on Linux, so I have to have all three OS’s). Then I went on vacation for a week, but I did finally get the various operating systems running when I got back. Since then, they’ve slowly been getting me started on some of the things I’m going to be dealing with. Oh, and kind of cool coincidence, one of the first things I worked on was a problem a professor was having with his website, which he was running with wordpress… so this blog? Not just for fun! Actual work related learning experience gained from it! 🙂
Now back to the vacation. I went out to Mum’s for ten days. This is the first time I’d been out there since she moved to Palmdale and Paul brought the family up, so I got to see the new house, and of course, all the family. The times at home were fairly quiet. The boys are sort of between activities right now, so they spend most of their time online or playing video games (sometimes both). Mum and Natalie and I had fun though. Mum and I usually try to get out to the Hollywood Bowl whenever I visit during the summer, and this year Natalie came with us. We got to see South Pacific, with Reba McEntire and Brian Stokes Mitchell. It was awesome! Then a few days later, we went to see Wicked. I’d been wanting to see this since I first found out that the book was being turned into a musical, so I did a quick search to see if the touring company might happen to be in the Los Angeles area during that week, and found that there’s a permanent (well, probably semi-permanent) production at the Pantages! I treated Mum to both shows for her birthday present. Natalie came with us to this one too. They didn’t know anything about Wicked, but they were excited to be getting out of the house for something other than work. On the Friday before I came back Natalie’s daughter Debbie was playing in the orchestra for a community college production of Once Upon This Island, so we went to that too. Needless to say, after South Pacific and Wicked, this was a bit of a letdown. Maybe if we’d seen that one first. 🙂 I mean, it wasn’t terrible, but it was definitely an amateur performance (I like to think that we’re a little pickier about our lead roles at the WCT… but I’m terribly afraid we aren’t always).
I haven’t been doing much outside of work since I got back. Though yesterday was my birthday and I did get taken out for lunch. Apparently, the Preservation people adopt whoever works in the office across the hall from them, regardless of what department they’re in, so Eric and I get included in all they do. It’s fun, and I’m enjoying getting to know that group better. I used to see them some when they were on the first floor, but we’re in much closer proximity here and it’s easier.
Annie opens next weekend at the Civic. I got cast in it, but then I found out that Linda had cast about 60 kids! I told them that I’d just started a new job and we were starting a big project and that I wasn’t sure how much spare time I was going to have in the evenings (all of which is true), so thank you but I was going to have to turn down the part. I will be ushering, though. Beth is playing Miss Hannigan and I’ve heard that she’s hilarious, so I’m looking forward to watching her.
I’m still working on El Dorado for Librivox. It’s an interesting story, but I keep putting off recording because Armand, from whose perspective most of this story is told, is driving me spare. He’s being such an absolute infant that I keep wanting to smack him upside the head. This one’s longer than the other Orczy book I did too, much longer. I originally picked it because it’s the other book they generally use when they’re making a film adaptation, so I know parts of the plot.
I got the job!!!
Yes, yes, I know I usually agree with PTerry on multiple exclamation points, but this is a special occasion. 🙂
They finally called me Wednesdy evening to offer me the job. The HR lady who likes me had told me to expect the call, and to pretend to be surprised. So I pretended, and needless to say, I accepted! I’ll be starting Monday week, but I still don’t really know what it’s going to involve… other than some amount of programming. I suppose they’ll get to that eventually.
I went to see HP5 Tuesday night with some friends from the theatre. MB bought the tickets ahead of time, and at the last minute a couple of people had dropped out, so I invited Eileen to come along with us. It was pretty good, considering it was the shortest movie so far – and based on the second longest book. They left out ridiculous amounts of stuff, but what was there was good.
In other news, I’m going to see The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged) at the Hippodrome this Saturday. It’ll be the first time I get to see the Cachinnator act; Don Boscoe is also going to be in it, plus a third guy I don’t know. I’m going with MB… Sherry was up for it, but was going to be out of town that day. Also, we’re finally going to have our Music Man intervention this coming Tuesday. Huzzah!