I am ready to play nicely now.

Well, I am less cranky now. Thanks for not taking it personally. Here are some pictures of the lovely white tree that I made mr. d run around all over with me looking for. Now there's an awkward sentence. The tree, plus a peek at the wrapped presents from the weekend (there are about twenty five more from today's cranky wrapping session-- might YOUR gift be in this pile?):
So, this is not something I ever imagined wanting, but I saw heidi's post of one of her gazillion trees and was inspired... of course I wanted mine heavier on the green and orange, 'cause that's the way I am... and it's actually not done yet, 'cause I have a whole 'nother box of ornaments that are waiting for me to make hangers for them... it makes me happy anyway.

I have been avoiding the site because it makes me cranky, but I will get back to it tomorrow. Maybe even for a bit before I go back to bed. Weather forecast says 6" to 10" of snow tomorrow! If there's a snow day and mr. d doesn't have to go to school, we're going to put up the big tree AND the OTHER little one... off to make a Christmas CD, eling

Grr.

I am cranky and tired and cold. (Growl.) Solution: going to hide in bedroom with powerful area heater and many, many Christmas gifts. I will wrap lovely & cute gifts with pretty paper until I am not growly any more.

December?

When did it freaking become December? Ugh. It was a quiet weekend, full of, well, not much excitement. We did watch Kung Fu Hustle, though, which I'd been wanting to see for ages.

I have decided that Stephen Chow is up there in the category of "strangely attractive despite generally odd appearance". Joining him there is Dave Grohl (Foo Fighters). Anyone else have any other additions? Okay, actually, Stephen Chow doesn't look bad in this particular photo but if you've seen the movie, or Shaolin Soccer (also AWESOME), for that matter, then you get it.

I digress. I forgot, we also decorated my happy white Christmas tree (pictures soon) and I wrapped about a gazillion presents (okay, it was only about 30 something). This post is way too random. I think it may be a result of generally sleeping from 6 or 7 am to 11 am. I'm working on it, I swear. Actually, maybe I should go finish some other stuff so I can be in bed sleeping by 4. ttfn, ek

PS. I totally have NOT started working on my beautiful yarn below yet (:()

I'm free! So I can start on this!!!

Fine, I might not get to work on it 'til this weekend. But isn't it PRETTY?

Well, okay, and maybe I'm not completely free, but the site has launched!!! There is still a ton of stuff to tweak and lots more things to add to the shop, but it's there! And it's all I've been doing for what seems like forever, so I'm not going to talk about it any more here. If you want to hear more about that, check the tr blog. Actually, there's not really that much there either. But it IS a bit more colorful.

It's been almost two weeks since last I went on and on about myself, so where should I begin? Well, part of why things have been so insane and I've spent every waking hour staring at the computer and some hours that I should have been sleeping too is that I didn't plan November very well. Actually, I didn't plan on waiting 'til November to launch, but that is another story. So, after our trip to Baltimore, I headed to NY to stay with the newly-wed mrs. s. and go to see U2.

U2! I have been dying to see them in concert forever, and it was AWESOME. I have never been to a show before where you pay an obscene amount of money, Madison Square Garden is PACKED, everyone knows the words to EVERY song, and at the end all you want to do is spend even MORE money next time to get the best possible seats you can get. Awesome.

*I almost forgot to write about the MOMA! I had to come back. There is too much to say, but I especially liked the SAFE: Design Takes On Risk exhibit. Full of crazy science and quirky designs, plus your necessary social commentary. :) Check out the cool concept of the patches here... not for nicotine, but for junk food! While in NY, I also pulled my normal stunt, which is to force everyone to eat too much food with me because I am panicked that I will not get such a good selection of food again in the near future. But no food pics 'cause I always forget in my rush to stuff everything in my face.

The other thing I do is to force everyone I want to see to eat together regardless of whether they know each other or not, because I am on a tight schedule. In this case, it was mrs. s, plus friends mr. c and mr. r-k, and we went to Pylos, which is right in mrs. s and mr. c's neighborhood. YUM. And, disturbingly, booked solid at 6:30 on Monday night. Wow. We only got a table because someone else's party was not as big as they said it would be. Anyway, there was too much food to deal with, and I couldn't pronounce ANYTHING on the menu, either. SO GOOD. Here's us outside after, minus the mrs. I am so full I am cross-eyed. Tuesday it was rainy so we stayed in until father of mrs. s arrived to meet us all for lunch. We went to Veselka, which really was as good as everyone kept saying it would be. I had borscht for the first time, which was much lighter than I thought it would be, and not to overuse the word, but GOOD. Plus, Chloe Sevigny came in and was sitting at the table next to us. Very random. Did I say YUM yet?

Anyway, I headed back north after that-- it was already getting insane with people leaving the city for the holiday. Which totally crept up on me, by the way. Thanksgiving has long been my favorite holiday, because I love pretty much all the foods associated with it, and really, what is better than eating a ridiculous amount of food and doing nothing else? Except maybe taking a nap and then getting up to eat MORE food. We had a nice at-home deal.

Since then, I've just been trucking away at the site. I owe the CD swap people an email, sorry. I have not been the slave-driver I'm supposed to be about that. But now that I'm free, it should be forthcoming, very soon. I think I might be ready for bed now. Sleep...yay!

I'm ready to hibernate now!

Am I the only one who wants to hide under the covers when it gets COLD? It dropped below 35 sometime this afternoon... brrrr. Stupid winter. Stupid no daylight. At least there is the miracle of this...

hot caramel apple cider-- basically it was the hot apple cider COVERED in whipped cream and drizzled with caramel. Very buttery cookie on the side. In case you missed me, here's what I've been doing: eating. Okay, I've been doing rhino work too... anyway, gotta give a shout-out to the V family for taking us to Vaccaro's while we were in Baltimore last weekend. All hail Vaccaro's:

Guess who was the insane person who got the oreo sundae? Or oreo ice cream cake with two scoops of vanilla gelato plus whipped cream, hot fudge and more oreo cookies? If you guessed me, you don't know me that well. Yup, it was my chocolate-loving spouse. I got the coconut napoleon thing... and even that was too much. We were in the middle of little italy and it was so much sugar that I was actually tempted to have dinner again after we were done. Don't think that B to the altimore was all sugar and cream puffs, though... we also saw Larry Flynt's stake in the city...

The best part was that the Hustler Club was on a WHOLE STREET full of awesome seedy strip joints. Luckily someone planned ahead and the police station was right on the middle of the block too. Sweet.

On the way back from Maryland we stopped in on River Road in Edgewater, NJ to go to the Mitsuwa Marketplace, supercool Japanese supermarket, food court and bookstore! Probably by far the largest concentration of Japanese people on the East Coast. CROWDED.

Basically I've been hiding out trying to get stuff ready for the Sampler and prepping for ANOTHER trip, this one to NY to see Bono & the Edge at MSG, and to go museum-hopping and window-shopping (with money I don't have) with the newly MRS. s.

Wow, that was a lot of non-pictureness. I will try to update the other blog tomorrow with updates on the Sampler goodies and yarn! and jewelry :) I think I might go to bed! And not even 2 a.m. yet. Okay, I might finish some other emails first... I will leave you with the nice Ethel M chocolates that mr. l brought back from Las Vegas after his rendezvous with the lovely ms. f... trust me, the box looks nothing like this anymore...

daytime updating? what is this "daytime updating"?

Next thing you know, I'll be up at dawn, we'll be eating early bird dinner specials at 4pm and mr. d and I will be in our (separate) beds by 8 sharp. And I'll be dressing in all purple and red. Hopefully I'll be one of the more stylish ones, like the lady at right with the sparkly cap and structured handbag.
I have to admit though, that I HAVE been feeling quite homebody-ish lately. This may also have to do with daylight savings (seriously, doesn't it feel like 10pm at 4:30 in the afternoon?! what is that about!?), and the chilly rain we've been having. Don't forget the RIDICULOUS snow of a week and a half ago, either!:

Luckily, things turned around and here I am at the playground not two days later. How cool is this thing? Another sign of my getting older: I was kinda scared up there.

It was a pretty tame weekend. Saturday someone got her first bath in over 6 weeks. No, it wasn't me. I am trying for 8 weeks. And we did errands, and I did (gasp!) Christmas shopping. Hey, they were having a big DVD sale... yesterday we were up at mr. d-senior's house for his birthday. In other words, we drove up 2 1/2 hours and visited, then ate too much food and got tired, and drove back 2 1/2 hours. Always a good time :).

Finally, at least for now, this weekend I ...(drum roll)... spun my own yarn! Pictures to come. Very excited about this, though if this does reduce my handspun yarn consumption it will drastically increase $ spent on fiber (sigh). Oh well, it was FUN!!! !!!!!! !!!!!! Yup, I liked it a lot. Hmm. I don't think I'm very witty before 1 a.m. I'll write again later and we can compare. xoxo, eling

CD swappers, you cannot escape me.

Crappy title. Sorry. I will be gunning for you, swappers, but it probably won't be for a few days. New topic: a very belated Happy Halloween!

SOMEBODY chewed right through the wrappers to eat both a Kit Kat and a pack of Whoppers while others were eating dinner. Thank goodness for Halloween snack size candy. So if Daisy looks needy, maybe it's because she is trying to con you into leaving the room so she can steal and eat more Halloween candy out of the bowl while you're not looking.

I think I had more to say earlier but it's getting late and the bad TV watching habit that rears its ugly head when there is a lot to do has sucked any thoughts I had left out of me. Busy weekend leading to busy week. At least if I'm not too hard on myself I can admit that I have been moderately productive.

At least there was dimsum on Sunday, and all the goodness that comes with dimsum...

Bedtime... and new mattress topper... yay! Goodnight!

I may officially be nocturnal now.

Except that I'm awake for most of the day, too. What does that make me, Omniurnal? Sounds too much like urinal.

Anyway. Not too much going on. Trucking away at the website work. More on that at the tr blog later if you're interested.

We DID go to Salem earlier this evening to meet up with wayne p. and friends, who were down from the hinterlands of Maine to check out the spooky Halloween haunted houses there. We ate here. Food pictures to follow. Yum. We didn't have time to stay for the scary stuff though, unfortunately. Maybe next year, as I refuse to fight the crowds over the weekend.

Actually, the weekend looks kinda hectic anyway, as ms. f is due in from Hawaiian paradise for a brief family and mr. l visit, so we will try to have a whirlwind brunch with her Sunday, as well as grab pseudo-belated-birthday lunch with ms. p. Saturday. Plus Magpie sale Sat. AM, and Halloween party at mr. w & roommates' house Sat. PM. Ooh, I forgot dinner with mr. & mrs. w., also down from coastal Maine Sat. before Halloween bash. And I want desperately to find ms. day-z a costume for said party.

Basically, I better get a lot of work done tomorrow. And there should be a tremendous number of fun pictures to post at the end of the weekend.

Side note: if you are one of the people who actually spends time with me in person and appear here as an abbreviated name like mr. q or something, I'd love it if you let me know somehow how you feel about being mentioned by first name or other nickname or whatever. Comment or email me or whatever. I am still figuring out how much to put out there in the blogging world.

That's it for now. 5:15 AM, time for bed. Oh, and that weird dog-thing in the picture was in a window at Lord & Taylor in Philadelphia. I dunno.

PS. Shout-out to #1 for the comments... thanks for making me feel like I'm not talking to myself :) ... I could of course refer to you as ms. PPP instead...

back with a vengeance.

So... it's been quite awhile... there has been a lot going on, so this might be rather lengthy. I'll try to portion in out through the next few entries. Some stuff I still have no words for. But we also went away for awhile, so that kept me busy. Plus, my procrastinating side was taking pictures but didn't take the time to edit and upload them...

I've been slowly trucking away at traveling rhinos' things... more on that at the traveling rhinos blog if you're interested. We've also been taking pictures of our favorite ms. daisy, of course. Here she is looking tired of having her picture taken:
The big time-drainer was our trip to Philadelphia for the lovely wedding of our happy friends ms. s and mr. v.... now mr. & mrs. v! except she's not changing her name... BUT this was not an all-fun trip; I did the reception centerpieces as well as the boutonnieres, corsages and bouquets. It was fun but sorta stressful too... here are a couple shots of the final products, which I'm pretty happy about:

On the left we've got the blushing bride's bouquet, and on the right the strapping groomsmens' boutonnieres...

But the wedding was WONDERFUL... so much joy and their families were so FUN! Lots of gettin' down by people you might not normally imagine getting down. While in Philly we did also manage to get some cheesesteaks at King's the "original" cheesesteak place, and we did drag ourselves out Saturday after the wedding for some historical siteseeing at Independence Hall. Here's me looking like HELL in front of morimoto, Philadelphia restaurant of IRON CHEF MASAHARU MORIMOTO.

We REALLY wanted to eat here, but with the craziness leading up to the wedding Friday, we didn't get on top of making reservations... and then when dinner rolled around we were too exhausted to deal with getting back to morimoto... so we ended up having dinner at Roy's, which was very yummy... I was nice enough to let mr. d have the seared ahi (tuna) for once, and we definitely had the HOT CHOCOLATE SOUFFLE too... I may have had my own dessert as well... :)

Since getting to Philly was such a trial (a LONG story for another time), we were relieved that we got back without any issues on Sunday at lunchtime. We got to pick up a very-missed mz. day-z at the kennel, where we were presented with a new Halloween jack-o-lantern covered bandanna for her. More pictures on that later this week.

And OF COURSE, mr. d came back with a cold, which he promptly spent the last three days trying to give to me. I have managed to fight it off, mostly by sleeping a lot. Ugh. Getting back into a normal routine is rougher than I thought it would be...

At least I'm surrounded by cuteness while I work...

Does anyone actually read this?

If so, maybe I should find some friends who actually comment on things they read... although now that I think about it, I don't know what I've written that one would actually comment on. Hmm. Fine. Maybe you could just write, "Hi, I read this, how are you?"
(or "I hate you so much! PS. Page me later." hi kk!)
Just a thought. (Someone's found a new place to curl up. Not so convenient for all involved, however. This is directly below my desk. The big-ass printer/scanner/copier is now where the half a tissue box is. Day-Z is monopolizing where my feet and chair normally go.)

Today was Day 1 on the new Eling Scheduling Plan. So far, so good. If it continues to work, I may market it to others. Pictures of cool stuff I got done today and more updates at tr and mini-store tomorrow. Tomorrow there will also be a routine reorganization of the jewelry-making workspace. You'll understand when you see the pictures. Right now, I'm digging on: Hello Yarn, calendars, barley tea, warm slippers, and little watercolor paintings of yummy food.

I did this one yesterday, it's less than an old-school 3 x 5" photograph... haven't decided if I'm going to ink it or not. Any opinions?

Currently hating on: Netflix (so slow... you said by today! and this after you sent me the wrong DVD on FRIDAY! so you wouldn't have to process anything until yesterday), canned food, not getting enough sleep, cold nights, and drafty window. Goodnight!

More attempts at dealing with myself...

Maybe Blogger will be nicer to me tonight?... In an attempt to organize my self-employed self a bit better, I just spent I dunno how long creating personalized weekly, multi-month and yearly calendars. Yup, I'm a freak. But look at the pretty picture I took last week, before the sun went away.

Shows I am finding myself disturbingly addicted to and make a serious effort to watch right now:

America's Next Top Model (that's actually not disturbing or a surprise)

Laguna Beach (I know, what's wrong with me?)

My Super Sweet Sixteen (where do they find these people?)

Will definitely be making an effort to watch Project Runway when it reappears too. Shows I don't search out but definitely don't turn off, either: The Closer, Without A Trace, Todd Oldham's new show on HGTV, Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, any The Fabulous Life of: episode. Okay, there are a lot of things I will watch if the TV's already on, hence my rule of no TV during the day. Am desperately trying not to get sucked into any of the new "must-see" cliffhanger shows like Lost, Desperate Housewives, etc. etc...

Now that I've blabbed about TV for so long, here's the picture I was trying to get up last night:

More KAWAII collectibles for me!

Finally, I noticed that lots of pictures of our lovely wedding are now being featured on our wedding photographer's website, studioatticus. Apparently, one bride-to-be liked our groomsmens' get-up so much that she asked Connie to get the info from me. Yup, we're cool.

Netflix, why hast thou forsaken me?

Hmm... it's 3:22 AM on Sunday night/Monday morning and I am still awake. And we wonder why I have issues getting an early start at the beginning of the week. Though, for the record, I did go to sleep before 3 AM both last night and Friday night, and I got to sleep LATE all weekend too. Yay!

Okay, I won't bore you with what I did all weekend, 'cause it was really work (and it was so cloudy all weekend I got no good pictures) and lame stuff like grocery shopping. Me = Cool. Right. Anyway, I was going to leave you with a picture of yet another random cute thing that I find myself buying, but apparently blogger hates me as much as netflix does and there will be no picture uploading.

This must be a sign that I should go to bed. (It's now 3:35. That was 3 minutes of typing and 11 futile minutes of trying to upload my stupid picture.)

i heart alton brown...

...so I made him my current wallpaper. Really, I'm just here for the food.
hmm, tired. Slow progress today. Made less productive by sloooooooooow dinner at Evil Cheesecake Factory and super sloooooooow EXTRA EVIL Verizon Wireless Customer Service people who were COMPLETELY UNHELPFUL about my evil broken phone. Bastards. Anyway.

Wednesday is supposed to = gym day, but obviously that didn't happen. Tomorrow (or rather 7.5 hours from now) = Maine! with mr. dhl. I swear, I'm going to try to be awake for the ride! Woo hoo, we're going to Freeport! which = outlet shopping and beads! and Brunswick! which = carrot cake and cookies!

In other news, Ms. Daisy has become quite unruly as we've become less able to spend as much time with her :( bad doggy parents!
See? She hates us. I think the weekend will have to be dedicated to Daisy and WORK instead of fun Open Studios... so sad. Damnit, watching Good Eats makes me HUNGRY. Eat or sleep? Hmmm....

So much for earlier bedtimes...

I feel like I talk about trying to get to bed earlier in every other entry. Maybe I should just give up. Last night I couldn't keep my eyes open past 11pm, but tonight I just felt like there was so much to DO. I am excited, 'cause I finally put some things in the etsy shop... somewhere to get things out while the site is still in progress... Here is what I've been entertaining myself with when taking breaks from work...

This is my beloved Sir White Static Cling from the lovely Sarah of the small object, posing on some gorgeous GREEN yarn from Tamara of Houndscroft Farm.

This is the yummy yarn I got from the very sweet Linda of stoneleafmoon and crochetlab (which I didn't know she was responsible for!) while at the Brookline 300 this weekend.

Finally, while we're on the subject of the Brookline 300 again, here is the ADORABLE koh-bee that both k.k. and I wanted to marry! (someone had to remind me that I am now ineligible to marry this charmer...damn. kidding, mr. d) koh-bee was selling his Femonz, seen here, and was quite the little salesman for his creatures. Note: he is sitting at one of those tiny plastic tables. All these monsters had NAMES! Mine is named Creshtan, you can just make out the arrow pointing him out. When I asked if HIS (koh-bee's) name was on his Femonz information cards, he said no, he didn't really have a phone number :), but he wrote his name on the card when I bought my monster!

koh-bee was skillfully giving advice about which would be suitable gifts for girls to the adults, while simultaneously chatting up the kids that were crowded around his table. He packaged each sale up carefully in a white chinese food takeout container, and deftly made change for his customers. He was doing better sales than his mom was! And when we happened to pass by the booth a bit later, koh-bee was running to the back of the tent to grab another tiny plastic chair so the younger boy who was looking at his monsters would be more comfortable. SOOOO cute!!!! ugh, 4:08 am now... c u soon!

Presenting Her Royal Highness...

Queen Daisy says, "Sorry mommy is so crappy about her updates. She is clearly behind on everything 'cause she's neglecting me too."

Seriously, not sure what happened this week! There was soooo much going on... desperately trying to get work done before meeting up with ms. s (soon to be married to mr. v) on Thursday to talk about the flowers for her Philly wedding next month... and I was so distracted by this new friend the entire time:

Twiggy was very snuffly. And licky. The Queen (see above) is not licky (or snuffly for that matter), so this was new for me.

and then there was ms. s' shower Saturday, and the AMAZING PIES... newest obsession = Petsi Pies!

Sunday I wandered the Brookline 300 and PRFM with the lovely ms. k.k.... there was definitely frozen lemonade, pizza, yarn and cute stuff involved. Dinner: MORE cambridge 1 pizza (yes! thanks mr. l for conceding). After dinner: sleep-inducing benefit concert (sorry, mom). Whew! More on street festival purchases and happenings once I get out into the light to take some pictures of the goodies...

Finally, totally in love with these paintings from Bren Bataclan, who is doing the COOLEST project with these happy guys... anyone doing any Christmas shopping for me... hint, hint...

See you later on tonight... :)

Happy Birthday to me!

Even though it's technically over now... what a nice birthday weekend! Thank you, mr. d and friends!

Here's what went down... There was the ekcd BCPpI (Birthday Celebrity Putt-putt Invitational), here. A shot of the course... And guess what? I won first place! To EVERYONE's surprise, I think... it wasn't rigged, though. We still have the scorecards, if you want to check. mr. d had some nice prizes for us... I got a GC for Newbury Comics, 2nd place mr. w got Netflix for a month, and 3rd place mr. n got big-ass ice cream.

Amazingly, he opted for something smaller than this:

I think to save room for this at dinner, after:

Mmm... sushi and noodles. Is there anything better? I think I like the Fugakyu in Sudbury better than Brookline... cozier... and still soooo much food... and then there was this:

"Temptation Apple". Talk about food comas... and bad MSG headache before bed... but, it was worth it.

Yay! Then today, I slept late and woke up to pizzelles, presents, and my two favorite beings in the world, mr. d and daisy. (More on presents and nice friends tomorrow.) After much lounging about, we went to Cambridge 1 for yummy fresh salad (bibb lettuce, grape tomatoes & gorgonzola!) and wood-grilled pizza. Then mr. d patiently let me browse vintage beads and cute things. It was my birthday, after all!

Later we went out to eat AGAIN. Here. "World-famous" clam chowder, rolls, and cajun-grilled bluefish with mashed potatoes and broccoli (I think it may have been an entire head of broccoli).

Oh, and did I mention that there was cake after we got home? Goodnight, fat me. :)