A few Quizzes

Okay, a ton, I've been storing them up...

So apparently, like, last year, I was tagged with this cool quiz from Lori :

A. Seven things to do before I die:
1. Become a mother
2. Go to Greece
3. Take off a year and just travel
4. Have something I've written published
5. Learn at least one other language and have an extended chance to use it
6. Earn a Master's Degree
7. Own a pet

B. Seven things I cannot do:
1. Dance. Unless you count line dancing.
2. Snorkle (well, I can, but it freaks me out)
3. Hide my emotions well
4. Listen to that annoying girl from Laguna Beach talk
5. Sing well in public
6. Golf
7. Make running look good

C. Seven things that attract me to...
1. My husband... His genuine honesty and genuine kindness and willingness to accept me for
me.
2. My career field... The constant challenge and occasional reward
3. Travel... The chance to experience different cultures and traditions
4. Reading... The amazing ability of books to take me to a completely different place
5. My family... Your zany energy and love of life
6. Knitting/Crochet... The meditational quality of the art of creating something
7. Children... Their interesting ways of looking at the world

D. Seven things I say most often...
1. Are you kidding me?
2. F---er (in traffic, it's a hellish commute, ya'll)
3. Bite me
4. Does that make sense?
5. This is Tandi (at work)
6. Love you
7. Can't think of something else.

E. Seven books (or genres or topics) I love:
1. Everything by Nicholas Evans
2. Stories of normal people overcoming adversity
3. True Crime, especially related to abnormal psychology
4. Addiction
5. Books questioning our societal norms
6. Native American history/issues
7. Cultural studies

F. Seven movies I watch over and over again (or would if I had time)
1. Shawshank Redemption
2. Forrest Gump
3. Dirty Dancing
4. When Harry Met Sally
5. Beautiful Girls
6. Legends of the Fall
7. Sleepless in Seattle


And here is the 4 Meme, the short version, I was tagged by Celeste:

Four jobs you have had:
1. Florist
2. Child Social Worker
3. Case Manager in the addiction field
4. Teaching parenting classes to teen moms and pregnant teens

Four places you have lived:
1. Outside Atlanta, GA
2. 2 towns in OK

Four vacations you have taken:
1. Europe Tour- London, Paris, Marseilles, Prague, Munich
2. Africa- Namibia and South Africa
3. Key West, FL
4. Seattle, WA

4 Vehicles you have owned:
1. 69 Nova, pea green, my first car which I paid $800 cash for.
2. 90 Mustang
3. 92 cherry red Plymouth Laser, which came to be known as the Coke Can. Ooh, not like that...
because it was little and seemed to be made of tin.
4. A sensible 98 Saturn



This one is just wierd, it's really accurate for me, I think.

I took the free ColorQuiz.com personality test! "Wants to make a favorable impression and be reward..." Click here to read the rest of the results.

Your Heart Is Orange

Love equals unbridled happiness for you. You enjoy the wild ride of falling in love. And while the ride is fun for a while, you always get off once the thrill is gone. Your flirting style: Hyper Your lucky first date: Anything you need your passport for! Your dream lover: Is both daring and well grounded What you bring to relationships: Energy

What Color Heart Do You Have?

You Are 30 Years Old

Under 12: You are a kid at heart. You still have an optimistic life view - and you look at the world with awe. 13-19: You are a teenager at heart. You question authority and are still trying to find your place in this world. 20-29: You are a twentysomething at heart. You feel excited about what's to come... love, work, and new experiences. 30-39: You are a thirtysomething at heart. You've had a taste of success and true love, but you want more! 40+: You are a mature adult. You've been through most of the ups and downs of life already. Now you get to sit back and relax.

What Age Do You Act?

Some Cool Stuff From Africa

I know, 3 posts in a row, you're probably thinking somebody hijacked my blog (would that actually be called blogjacking?) but no, it's definitely me.

Just realized I haven't shown many of the cool things we found in Africa, so here are a few of my favorites...

The first, on the left, is a big piece of malachite that we found at a little street market in Windhoek, Namibia. I don't remember the name of the little stone in the middle but it's really cool and also from Namibia. And the last one is a soapstone carving (the outside is the raw soapstone and the inside part is carved and polished.) We found that at this huge outside tradmarket in Cape Town, South Africa. I was told it the piece is dancing flames.














The second picture, on the right, we also found at the same market in Cape Town. You can't see it well, but it's a huge doily in about #10 thread. I think we paid about $12 for it.


The last picture is of a weaving Kevin brought back the last time he was there. I was so jealous, he actually got to tour the craft district in Windhoek and happened into this store where they make these from scratch. He said there was a really nice lady there who walked him through the process from the raw wool to the final product. The whole thing sounded so cool. Here's a link to a site with some pictures of the place, but it's in German. I think.

Thanks so much to everyone for the comments about my book list. I'll try to keep things updated as I finish them. I normally read voraciously on vacation, so hopefully I'll get some knocked out pretty quickly in the next month.

Oh, and if you ever thought you had the worst boss ever, you really need to read this post from Crazy Aunt Purl. It will definitely go in my list of random stories that I somehow always tell at inappropriate times.

50 Books

I saw this on several blogs a few weeks ago and thought it was pretty cool. I have reading ADD and tend to start about 5 books at once so I thought this would help me keep track of my book list.

1. Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World: A Novel by Haruki Murakami
2. Wild Sheep Chase by Haruki Murakami
3. Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media by Noam Chomsky
4. Blood Meridian: Or the Evening Redness in the West by Cormac McCarthy
5. A People’s History of the United States: 1492-Present by Howard Zinn
6. Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong
by James Loewzh
7. The Woman in the Dunes by Kobo Abe
8. Everything You Know is Wrong by Russ Kick
9. The Lucifer Principle: A scientific Expedition into the Forces of History
by Howard Bloom
10. The Endurance: Shackleton’s Legendary Antarctic Expedition by Caroline Alexander
11. Necessary Illusions: Thought control in Democratic Societies by Noam Chomsky
12. The Killer Inside Me by Jim Thompson
13. The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch by Phillip Dick
14. The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century by Thomas L. Friedman
15. The Tender Bar : A Memoir - J.R. Moehringer
16. On Beauty - Zadie Smith
17. Night - Elie Wiesel
18. Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life - Amy Krouse Rosenthal
19. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close - Jonathan Safran Foer
20. The Glass Castle : A Memoir - Jeannette Walls
21. Saturday - Ian McEwan
22. Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed
23. On Bullshit - Harry G. Frankfurt
24. Why Do Men Have Nipples? Hundreds of Questions You'd Only Ask a Doctor After Your Third Martini - Mark Leyner
25. A Breath of Snow and Ashes (Outlander) - Diana Gabaldon
26. The Closers - Michael Connelly
27. Mother-Daughter Wisdom : Creating a Legacy of Physical and Emotional Health - Christiane Northrup
28. Fat Girl : A True Story - Judith Moore
29. Bad Girl : Confessions of a Teenage Delinquent - Abigail Vona;
30. If I Knew Then - Amy Fisher
31. Hypocrite in a Poufy White Dress by Susan Jane Gilman
32. Julie and Julia : 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen -- by Julie Powell
33. Yarn Harlot : The Secret Life of a Knitter -- by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee
34. The Knitting Way: A Guide to Spiritual Self Discovery by Linda T. Skolnik
35. Knitting Yarns And Spinning Tales: A Knitter’s Stash Of Wit And Wisdom
by Kari Cornell
36. Gandhi An Autobiography: The Story of My Experiments With Truth -- by M.K.Gandhi
37. Long Walk to Freedom : The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela Tag: by Nelson Mandela
38. Dry : A Memoir -- by Augusten Burroughs
39. Freakonomics : A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything -- by Steven D. Levitt, Stephen J. Dubner; Roughcut
40. Crimes Against Logic -- by Jamie Whyte
41. The Know-It-All : One Man's Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World -- by A. J. Jacobs
42. An Underground Education : The Unauthorized and Outrageous Supplement to Everything You Thought You Knew About Art, Sex, Business, Crime, Science, Medicine, and Other Fields of Human by Richard Zacks
43. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
44. YOU: The Owner's Manual : An Insider's Guide to the Body that Will Make You Healthier and Younger by Michael F. Roizen, Mehmet Oz
45. Memoirs of a Geisha: A Novel by Arthur Golden
46. Black Elk Speaks: Being the Life Story of a Holy Man of the Oglala Sioux -- by John G. Neihardt
47. The Divide -- by Nicholas Evans;
48. The Road Less Traveled, 25th Anniversary Edition : A New Psychology of Love, Traditional Values and Spiritual Growth -- by M. Scott Peck
49. Me Talk Pretty One Day -- David Sedaris
50. One more I thought of at work that I can't think of now.

So there it is.

I am currently reading Black Elk Speaks and Memoirs of a Geisha.

I hope to have these finished by the end of this year, but that's over a book a week so I may not make it. And the first part of the list were recommended by the super smart guy at work, so I may not even be able to get through some of those. But I'll give it my best shot.

I'll keep you posted on the progress!

Time For The Weekly Post...

Well, here it is, the weekly post... Things have been so crazy lately, I really hope to have more time soon to post more often. So this will be a monstrous post as I have much to catch up on.

First, since Blogger never lets me put things where I want them, is the moss stitch scarf I knitted, like, last year, with the awesome Debbie Bliss Alpaca Silk I got at the Shabby Sheep in Dallas. You probably remember it, as it was only about 2 posts ago...
I am so happy with the way this turned out. It is so soft.

And, sorry these pics really suck, but here are a few pics of my 63 squares for the longest afghan ever. Okay, it's the only one I've ever made, but it seems like it will never end. I've joined the 63 Squares Crochet Along at Crochetville, and everyone there has been immensely helpful and encouraging.



And I did end up going to that huge sale last Saturday... Went with my friend from work to Sealed With a Kiss and everything in the store was 25% off. It was so much fun. Ran into several ladies from the new Sit n Stitch and scored some awesome stash additions...
3 skeins of Cascade Palace cotton/wool on clearance for about $2.50 each! And that awesome blueish stuff is angora that was also about $2.50 each. Also got some new Addi Turbo's and some double points (details in a minute) that I finally mastered! We also ran into Susan while we were there and chatted with her for a while at the store, then went on to an awesome resturaunt called Granny Had One. Best soul food I've had in a while. I had the calorie conscious meatloaf and was in heaven! I forgot the camera but Susan has some pictures on her blog (in all our Saturday morning glory.) We had so much fun with her. She's actually the one that started the Sit n Stitch.

And finally, a pic of MY FIRST KNITTED HAT! I had been eyeing Crazy Aunt Purl's Roll Brimmed Hat recipe (gotta love a knitting recipe that includes Robert Mondavi Shiraz in the ingredients list- for the dpn's, of course) for a while and finally decided to give it a shot. Also, I needed something to do with that awesome Blue Sky Organic Cotton I got at Why Knot Knit in Atlanta. Oh, and I found a local shop last week that carries it! I was really freaked out by the double point needles, but they weren't bad at all. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out!

This week was so incredibly crazy at work. My boss came in for a few days from Portland, and we got to hang out some but mostly do some stuff I have not been looking forward to. Spent one day testifying on some really crappy stuff, spent the next addressing issues with clients that seriously needed to be addressed but did not go over well. Working in the substance abuse field (and with healthcare professionals at that) has proven to be one of the most challenging things I have ever done. But I am so thankful of the opportunities I have had because I have learned far more than I ever thought possible. And done more things than I honestly thought I was capable of. My boss flew out on Thursday evening and I was so exhausted I went home and went to bed. And missed the Sit n Stitch. That's how tired I was.

Then I got up Friday and had a horrid meeting with a group of people who should have been much more professional than they were. I was astounded at the lack of immaturity. I wish I could tell you more.

Then I had an MRI done on my TM joints so I can finally make an appointment with the surgeon in Dallas about trying to get my jaw fixed. But things have been a bit better lately, my new specialist is trying several different things and I'm feeling more encouraged than I have in a while.

Then I got up Saturday and ran a mile. Outside. In an actual organized fun (okay, so the 5K and 10K were the organized one and we just kinda skipped along behind) but I ran it and I finished. Good thing I carbed up all week in preperation! I think I'm close to being ready to run a 5K, that is so exciting!

My sister in law came up on Friday with our 3 year old nephew and 7 year old niece and spent the weekend. We had so much fun, took them to a Natural History Museum Saturday then to Incredible Pizza. That place is unbelievable, it's like Vegas for kids. Then today we layed around most of the day. It's been a great weekend.

Ketchup

How can it be so long since I last posted? I'm thinking surely I typed a few in there that somehow got lost.... Anywho, I have lots of catching up to do, hopefully I'll have some time this weekend to update things. I really need to get some links or something on this naked blog.

I had to work last weekend and this week was crazy at work. But I did make the new Sit n Stitch on Thursday at Borders and it was so much fun. There were 13 or so of us there! It's so great to meet people as fiber crazy as myself. My friend from work came and 2 ladies from my husband's work came and we all gabbed and stitched and had a great time. Susan put the whole thing together and did a great job. Can't wait to see things continue to grow!

On the hooks, I finished #50 of my 63 squares ghan and will hopefully be done soon, the thing seems to never end.
I had started a scarf out of the Blue Sky Organic Cotton I've had for a while (that's the thing about really nice yarn, there's so much pressure on finding exactly the right project for it.)
I did a cluster braid/cabled look in crochet and it was not working out well so I've decided to scrap that and try to knit my first hat. I'm using Crazy Aunt Purl's Roll Brimmed Hat Pattern.
I think it's going well so far, although I can't really tell if it's too big or not, hope to find out soon.
I want to make a warm scarf to take with us to Tokyo (Apparently it's going to be, like, in the 30's while we're there).
Then I think I will try knitting a sweater. I haven't decided which one yet, but when I was talking to Susan last weekend she suggested one from Cosmic Pluto's blog, a simple raglan sweater. Either that or Tempting from knitty, or actually a variation more like this. Ooh, while you're there, you'll have to check out the rest of her FO's. Her site, Progress, is really cool, I love her crocheted clothing items, she is really talented.
There were two ladies at the meeting Thursday working on the Darrell Waltrip Dishcloth and it looked so cool, I really want to give it a shot when I've finished everything I have started.

I finally did it, after saying I would for months, I got up this morning at 5:40Am and went to the gym before work with my friend from work. And it wasn't nearly as heinous as I was expecting. There were actually quite a few people there that early, I was shocked. But I did it, I survived, and I may try to do it again, who knows.

I heard at the Sit n Stich Thursday that there's a big sale at the huge yarn store here I haven't gotten to go to yet so a friend and I are taking a little road trip tomorrow. Apparently everything in the store is 25% off, woohoo!

Sit N Stitch Crasher and We're Goin to Tokyo!!!

So I have this uncanny ability to accidentally listen in on other people's conversations. Even when I am having my own with someone else. I was in Border's tonight sitting in the cafe with my husband accidentally listening to a couple who met a guy for the first time there and trying to figure out what they were talking about (I think it had something to do with photography and the Apaches and ghosts in the Southern part of the state where Geronimo was kept in prison) when I heard two ladies talk about knitting. I talked to my husband for a minute then I looked back and there were 4, all knitting. As a sidenote, I have been looking for a local stitching group for a year with no luck. They looked like the super friendly types so I strolled over it turns out this was their first meeting night and they plan to meet weekly. I am so excited.

My good friend at work, my travel buddy, lost her dad on Sunday. It was totally unexpected and we went to the funeral Tues. and I feel so incredibly sorry for her loss and I know I can't say or do anything to make it better.

My husband was surfing the other night and happened to find insanely cheap tickets to Tokyo. We've wanted to go to Japan for a long time, not necessarily Tokyo alone, but it was so reasonable we couldn't pass it up. So we booked the tickets and we go mid February. I am so excited! There are so many cool things we want to do while we're there, like visit a traditional public bath, some temples, try some awesome food. If anyone has any suggestions, let me know.

I'm up to square #42 on my 63 squares afghan so hopefully I'll have it done soon to show.