Linking Wednesday

Phew, now that the "profound" post of the week is out the way, Frivolity is Job One, and I intend to do it!

1. THIS, this is genius. Television Without Pity snarks the worst Lifetime Movie EVER. Or the best, if you love camp. Either way, that thing is hilarious.

2. Photojojo - weird name, great site. I seem to have stumbled upon it rather late in the game, and I really should check it out more often because it's a great repository for shared knowledge on photo equipment, editing, and photo-related crafts for the non-pro. They don't assume you have some pricey camera and oodles of money to spend on framing. Check it out if you're low on inspiration and wall art.

3. Go to Eric Whitacre's MySpace Music site and listen to "Sleep" right now. DO IT. A couple of years ago, Hubster and I were in Michigan when my friend's choir performed it, and I walked out of that theatre transfixed. It's a GORGEOUS piece of music. Yes, I know there's the tough straight-tone singing to complete on those high soprano notes and that the dissonant chords are tougher to learn and sustain, but it all pales in comparison with how truly beautiful the music is. About minute 3, the chords and crescendos give me chills. Every single time. Oh, just break down and listen to it already. Give a nerd a break.

4. Speaking of nerds, you don't have to be one to enjoy this next bit. Occasionally Hubster and I catch Attack of the Show on G4 TV, and it depends on the day whether I enjoy it or I want to hurl something at the screen. It's TV for Nerds, but does that mean it has to adhere to all the usual cliches about women and nerds? However, despite the fact this was probably just so the fanboys could see her in costume, Olivia Munn as Wonder Woman is freakin' hilarious. I laughed so hard. And then I laughed at the outtakes. Well done, G4. Now stop making her listen to put up with all those creeps asking to get in her pants on the show, okay? Just stop.

That's all I've got for you.

Paperwork

Sometimes, when the junk mail is particularly abundant in the mailbox, I have a vision of myself expiring under a mound of it in my living room, starving to death because I can't reach the kitchen. It only gets worse if there's a magazine or catalog that I actually want to see because I know that it won't just get dumped in the recycling and taken out once a week. No, it will take up residence on my desk until I weeks later when I finally tire of the Marketing Mound (TM) and notice that 80% of those catalogs on my desk have expired. As a reformed packrat, it's one of my pet peeves that the paper still wins sometimes, no matter how hard I try to say, "it's not important to keep this." It's no good saying that if it is, in fact, important to keep the paper in question.

I realized a while back that this same anxiety can carry over into my marriage. Sometimes, when I've spent hours away from Hubster and all I want is to spend my evening enjoying his company just as soon as he sets foot in the door, I seem to pre-emptively slide into a bad mood because I know that life will get in the way. If it's not the bills that have to be discussed and then paid or the dishes that need to be done, it's the exercise time we want to take for ourselves and that new blog post which will suck me in for an hour. I even look at church activities and hanging out with friends like that, and it's obviously crazy to think that the rest of life is unimportant next to him, but when I miss him enough, my priorities get a little wonky.

On the couple-time vs. other-time spectrum, I get to spend quite a bit of time with Hubster. I don't know why it happens that one workday away can do this to me, but I guess it's the paperwork again - it's that life is populated by activities that are necessary evils. They may get in the way of other activities, but they must be done, just like getting bills is necessary even if getting spam isn't.

On good days, I overcome the paper. I control it, organize it, weed out the crap, and keep the important stuff for saving money, clothing myself, or learning something useful. On bad days, I dawdle through the pages of a catalog which I have no intention of patronizing, and I keep the coupons for the Chinese restaurant we're never going to try. On good days, I spend a few minutes talking with him when he gets home. He sets out for his run and gets back to shower, and I cook and read blogs or books while dinner simmers. We enjoy dinner together, snarking over some TV show or a recent news item.

On bad days, I let my angst help me pick a fight and get upset at him over real or imagined wrongs. I dawdle over making dinner while noticing his disinterest in me or in helping out with dinner acutely. I let the anxiety that attacks when there's paper disorder attack me anew when I feel our relationship in disorder and I don't know what to say or do to get back to a better place.

I usually sleep through this ritual, but a few weeks back, Hubster bids me goodbye before leaving for work in the morning, and he hugged me for a bit longer and kissed me a couple of times and seemed to want to stay there with me. I noticed (through the groggy haze of awakening) but never mentioned how sweet that was. I never said anything about it. I feel like that's a missed opportunity to keep the "paperwork" of life at bay. It's a way to take the drudgery and be master over it. And maybe I'm doing just that, sitting at my desk, focused on it and not on how messy the bedroom is. And maybe it just reminds me how far I have to go before I relish my relationship and don't let the paperwork it engenders drain the joy out of it.

Lemme 'Splain

Pick yourself up off the floor where you fell when you came to the Fyf and it was all boring and neutral. It's appallingly un-regal - not just you on the floor but the current look of this blog. See, the new Blogger template options allow some pretty swanky features, and I'm exploring them right now. I should be able to remake this old thing in design whilst retaining all that lovely utility, but of course it'll take time. Until then, I'll be slummin' in this drab exterior and dreaming of COLOR.

One of the best features for my infrequent visitors is the "Older Posts" link at the bottom of the page. Rather than having to load the entire archive for the last month (and having to guess just how long ago you visited), you can load a small chunk of them at once and just catch up. Much easier! Also? I'm unnaturally in love with the new blogger archive widget on the sidebar. Intuitive! Neato!

Although I do miss my tapestry background. *sniff*

Half of This Post Is Not Like the Other

This weekend was a lovely, much-needed break for me. I'm not sure why the week seemed so long, but it did. I didn't blog Thursday, but you didn't miss much. Plus, Wednesday's post was massive, so I figured I'd earned it.


The Tiny savors the bouquet of fresh catnip in her stuffed mouse cat-toy ornament. It is, indeed, the "good stuff." Momma hooked her up. Little looks on to make sure it passes muster.


Ha! My cat looks drunk! She might be high on the aforementioned "good stuff." So it's not so much funny as accurate. Nah, it's still funny. KITTY IS STONED, Y'ALL!

Friday night was just what the doctor ordered. Hubster and I met up with Mr. T and Southwest for dinner at the Starland Cafe. I had their fettuccine with tomatoes, fresh mozzarella, and a garlic butter sauce. The sauce was lighter than it sounds, and it hit the spot. Afterward, guys and girls parted ways for sleepovers. Southwest and I planned on watching a movie but ended up talking the night away. She gave her self a manicure, discussing all the annoying wedding-plan crap going on in her life right now, and I had talked about body image, motivations, careers and my boy, because it wouldn't be a sleepover without that. I also offered to help her, remembering those awful, lonely days of programs and favors, and TULLE EVERYWHERE. I think she'll actually take me up on it, and if I lessen the load of just one bride-to-be friend, I'll have done nicely, I think. (Speaking of, she's the only local one of the bunch, despite the fact that I'm in two other weddings this year - yiiiikes!)


Is she practicing her hunting skills or trying to rip apart that catnip-stuffed mouse? We shall never know.

I was kinda worried about talking to her, actually. Planning my wedding coincided with my stressful senior year, the search for meaning in a potential career, loneliness, a wife-to-be identity crisis, and a whole lot of funks. It was mental-problem central between my depression and my obsessive channeling of all my disappointed energies into that one event. It sucked hard. I was worried that talking with her and helping her deal with it was going to bring all that up like some forgotten boogieman. Fortunately, it didn't. I've done most of my healing through dealing with the depression and setting aside that entire episode, however, it felt good to exorsize those demons. Okay, "good" is an exaggeration, but I appreciated the fact that those emotional memories had little power over me. It wasn't fun to remember, but it didn't hurt like it used to. Praise God for time healing all wounds. And also for good wine. I'm sure that helped keep the inhibition quotient at a relative low.


The cats love them some string. Hubster loves to tie them up and watch them squirm to get out. Hubster is an evil genius. An evil genius of HUMOR!


The Tiny has shuffled off the mortal coil. Little not so much.

We hit the hay around midnight because, though we were attempting an old-fashioned sleepover, we were also working adults at the end of a long week. (Southwest might also have apologized for painting her nails. That sound you hear are all my girlhood friends laughing their heads off. I mean, we all lost a few brain cells over the mountain of nail polish we carried with us through each hotel on the Civil War battlefield trip, but are we gonna apologize? We can't remember what we did wrong!) I slept like a brick, and still managed to sleep in until 9:45am. We got ready at a leisurely pace and then met up with the boys for coffee and muffins at Greenberry's Coffee & Tea Company. I've gotta say, there aren't many better ways to start a weekend morning.


CAT FIGHT! It's too bad I have so few pictures of them doing their territorial-animal thing.

Eventually we all parted ways and headed home - they to their wedding plan and we to our house full of high kitties. We putzed and got some stuff done. I checked out this meat market I'd heard was good for some cheap steaks (not so much, booooo). Hubster and I had a good conversation distilling some of what we'd both figured out over our little sleepovers (see, not totally frivolous). We had a quiet night in, and I read until I was too tired to stay awake, which I truly love to do. Once again I felt like a high-school kid. (NOTHING FROM THE PEANUT GALLERY.)

Today we went to church, ran some errands, and I bought some delicious hummus. I guess this weekend's mostly about the simple pleasures - good friends, good food, good conversation, good thought. I think we all need those. It's been a complicated month or so - a lot on my head, on my heart. It was nice to get away for a while.


Tiny loads a blow in the windpipe, and Little prepares her ears for the mighty swipe.

French Memo Board Tutorial

These are really quite easy to make. No crafty/sew goddess skill set required. I used the following, along with a set of bullet points that make it all look so sexy:

For Each Board You Will Need:

• A piece of wood, particle board, corkboard (with a sturdy backing), or an art canvas with a wooden frame. Note: this website's tutorial mentioned art canvases which sound fantastic because you can sew on the buttons through the back. Maybe next time.
  
• A piece of fabric equal to the size of the wood (or canvas, etc.) plus 3 inches on each side. Fabrics to avoid: stretch knits, loosely woven blends that will shred like CRAZY, and, as always, no sequins, as my life-motto dictates.
• A piece of batting equal to the size of the base plus 2 inches on each side. Polyester quilt batting (fairly low loft) is fine.
  
• A staple gun (power or manual, it matters not) and enough staples to finish the job. Also someone, like say Hubster, who knows how to reload it. You will have reloads.
• Ribbon for each board. How much? Well, I made four boards which were each 16" by 14" and I used about 15 yds of 3/8" wide grosgrain ribbon - that's less than 4yds/board, to give you an idea. Your board's size will vary those numbers. Ribbon is the cheapest thing, so overbuy and send me your scraps. Sweet.
• Buttons to place at the vertices of the ribbon to create the tension which holds up your photos and papers. I required five buttons per board so that came to 20 buttons total. I used those "Cover Your Own Buttons" kits which was annoying and painful (what with the pounding and angst) but they look lovely and were cheaper than almost all the ready-made buttons in stock.
• Thread, scissors, a ruler or measuring tape, and icepack for your sore hand after stapling four memo boards together on solid wood.

Step 1: Lay out all the pieces on a table (for better back support) or on the floor (if you're Erica, a known masochist) and line up all your edges. Make sure to smooth down the fabric and batting, which can be rather bunchy. (I forgot to take a picture at this stage because I am a flighty, flighty crafter. This looks exactly like it did then, although you do lose some texture.)


Step 2: Staple, beginning at the center of each side by turns and then stapling the rest of each side based on whatever scheme you think works best. Be ye not afraid to pull on the fabric and stretch it over the frame. Make friends with fabric tension. Marvel at how your hand already hurts.



Step 3: The corners are tricky, but the best method I've found it to staple each side's length out (as pictured above) and then fold the corner into a diagonal over itself, like a diamond. Like this:



That's hard to see, but you'll get it. Don't worry about the batting bunching at the corners. I guess you could cut out the corners a bit, but the batting keeps the board off the wall and thus the staples away from painted surfaces.

Step 4: Trim the edges of the fabric down to 1/4 - 1/2" to keep things neat. (By the by, you can't really see it, but the solid green ones I made were actually pieced because the fabric didn't fit perfectly. The ribbons and any patterns in the fabric will hide those seams so feel free to do that, making sure, of course, that you've pressed the seams to one side.)



Step 5: Measure and cut your ribbons. Sounds easy, right? Well, not so much. First, measure corner to corner diagonally and cut those with about 2 inches to spare on each side. Then staple them in and admire your work with pride before it becomes more annoying and complicated.



Step 6: Back to reality! As to cutting the rest of the ribbons, I'm not sure what to tell you. I guessed and lucked out. Use a tape measure, pieces of string, whatever you can to visualize the lengths and then cut them with a bit to spare, plus the usual 2" on each end to wrap over the frame.

Step 7: Now, I tried out some schemes for placing ribbon, but this worked well for me: place them in a diamond pattern that stretches the entire height and width of the base. To make sure the angles look roughly the same on all of them, I used a ruler to measure out from my main two diagonals - like they said in 2nd grade, it only takes two points to make a straight line. Pin the ribbons in place, applying tension as you pin.



None of this will make a lick of sense to you right now. Fear not, you'll talk yourself through it with the supplies in hand and it'll make more sense. Probably. If not, drink a beer and try again, but maybe have someone else staple.

Step 8: Trim the ribbon edges on the back. Then sew on the buttons at the inner vertices. Don't worry about the vertices near the edges of the frame because the frame itself will provide tension. Plus buttons there would be totally weird-looking. Trust.


Final Product: Chic!

Final Cost? Well, I used a floral pillow sham and parts of a dust ruffle from my bedroom set (neither of which I wanted to use) so those were free. The wood was free because it was leftover from the Great Basement Shelf Redo. I bought an entire roll of the batting, enough for a queen-sized quilt, for $9 and I have TONS leftover for other stuff. The ribbon was on clearance (it was the perfect color, so that ROCKED) for $0.25/yd making that about $4. The buttons were like $6 total. So even if we don't count using batting for later projects, I still only spent $19, plus the cost of the 4X6" prints I'll slip on them. Not bad for filling an entire bedroom wall.

P.S. I haven't hung them up, so I'm not sure what's best for that, but I'm thinking of mounting picture-hanging wire to the back and using a couple of nails per board. They're a mite heavier than an art-canvas version would be because of the solid wood, so we'll see if I have to resort to using studs for extra support. I'll update you on that. If you prefer an al fresco look, just prop the stupid things against the wall on your dresser/desk and go to town!