megrje's Xanga

Winter

Tue, 22 Jan 2008 13:30:57 GMT

The thing about living in Virginia is that you don't usually get your Christmas scenery until long past Christmas.

The snow came Saturday and started melting Sunday, so even though there are still little patches around we didn't get any snow days from this batch.

kind of out of the habit of posting

Fri, 18 Jan 2008 15:21:29 GMT

Once I stop posting it's kind of hard to do it again, for some reason. I post pictures on flickr at least once a week, though. If they have people I try to post them on facebook, too.

I spend plenty of time during the week clicking around flickr for favorites, looking at contacts' photos, commenting, and reading comments back. If none of my contacts have posted, I'm over to a group. But it doesn't work unless I'm taking new pictures to put up, too. I'm loving this set of diptychs today.

On Sunday I had the most people I can have over at one time without using paper plates and sitting on the floor. I did borrow bowls and some silverware, though. It just wouldn't work to use the fine china with plastic silverware.

I got a (much-needed) new camera for Christmas, and I'm having fun playing around with the manual settings, but I'm not quite used to them yet.

Classes started this week, so I'm back to having deadlines, but hopefully I'll continue to check things of the craft to-do list too. I'm working on a lap quilt a bit at a time, but it would be nice to have that out of the way waiting for binding soon! I'm not a fan of unfinished projects.

An indoors kind of day

Sat, 10 Nov 2007 18:07:24 GMT

Why is it that when I'm supposed to be hard at work or studying I get the best ideas about craft projects that I could be doing? Exactly when I have no time to do anything about them. Except for a few breaks maybe, but those are hardly long enough to finish them, and even the breaks may be disappearing soon.

I could loop this song over and over all day long today. And it is a little weird to me that I'm enjoying a cover of a Bee Gees song right now (How Deep is Your Love by The Bird and The Bee, if you're curious).

Thursday, November 08, 2007

Thu, 08 Nov 2007 16:46:53 GMT

you are turquoise
#40E0D0

Your dominant hues are green and blue. You're smart and you know it, and want to use your power to help people and relate to others. Even though you tend to battle with yourself, you solve other people's conflicts well.

Your saturation level is higher than average - You know what you want, but sometimes know not to tell everyone. You value accomplishments and know you can get the job done, so don't be afraid to run out and make things happen.

Your outlook on life is bright. You see good things in situations where others may not be able to, and it frustrates you to see them get down on everything.

the spacefem.com html color quiz

Art on the wall

Tue, 06 Nov 2007 15:16:14 GMT

I have this little habit of buying art from etsy and blogs. I'm finally getting some of it hung on the wall, but it's really hard to get pictures of it without reflections from the glass.

The bottom one here is the first one I bought, from The Small Object.

Here are a few more, click through to the flickr photo to see the names in the notes. Ordering from etsy is such a great experience- the packages are always beautiful, and a lot of times there are little extras slipped inside, and I usually feel like I know some of the personal background of the artists by reading their blogs and looking and their flickr streams. I've bought originals and limited edition prints, but I love hanging postcards and notecards, too.

Here's something a little different, a couple totes I made recently from Lotta Jansdotter's Simple Sewing. I won't say how long the fabric was cut out for these before they were sewn! I bought the yellow at a thrift store in Rockford last Christmas, I think. One was sent to Nicole for the Muslin Tote Swap . I'm excited to get hers in the mail now!

Stressful week, foggy morning, pretty pictures.

Wed, 17 Oct 2007 11:39:56 GMT

Such a beautiful morning, I had to go for a walk with my camera.

Flickr favorites, and recent crafts

Sun, 09 Sep 2007 19:08:16 GMT

Go to www.flickr.com/photos/megrje to see my recent craftiness.
Here's what I'm loving from everyone else right now:

Monday, September 03, 2007

Mon, 03 Sep 2007 14:56:00 GMT

Glad to be alive today.

Oh my, I agree with Suzie's justification here.

27 things for my 27th

Mon, 20 Aug 2007 19:15:50 GMT

1. The night before my 26th birthday, a friend and i started working on a list of things for me to do before I'm 30. We may have gotten as far as #3. I've completed two of the items. Now if I could only remember what the third was.
2. I would make a really good spy. That's probably all I should say about that, except that sometimes when I'm people-watching at the airport I see how much I can figure out just from observation without having to make up a story to fill in the other random details.
3. My favorite number is 3. 27 is 9 of them. I love math and numbers.
4. I've lived in Virginia 6 years now. Longer than in North Dakota (5 years) or Illinois (3 years).
5. I was kind of worried that someone would steal my new ice cream maker at the airport since I checked the box without wrapping it in anything.
6. I like some dogs, but pretty much no cats. Cats are only okay if they stay far away from me.
7. My new year's resolution for this year is still good advice for me- things are a lot better when I take it.
8. I'm not always good at taking advice. I'd rather pretend that I figured it out by myself.
9. My air conditioner does weird things in storms. I thought I'd set it correctly before I went to bed last night, but I woke up at 4 am because my bedroom was too cold and had to reset it and get a blanket. I was plenty warm in the morning.
10. My birthday breakfast consisted of whole wheat bagels and spicy hummus. I'm not a sweet tooth, and don't see why breakfast food has to be sweet either.
11. I like living in small towns. I love spending time in big cities. Whenever I go to big cities, no matter how hard I try, I feel like it's obvious that I'm from a small town.
12. I like to drive. I'm not convinced that my life couldn't be better without driving two hours a day, but I'm really not sure what it would look like to have that extra time.
13. Facebook birthday greetings are a pretty great thing. They're a little easier to send and receive at work than phone calls, and I don't have to wait all day for them.
14. I'd rather have my knowledge be a mile wide and an inch deep than an inch wide and a mile deep.
15. I don't think I pictured my adult life as a child. I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have pictured my life now, though, since it's pretty different from anything I had experienced before.
16. My google ads right now include www.areyouaslackermom.com, betternpeanutbutter.com, furrylittlemonsters.com, and niftycool.com
17. I like sending out postcards with random quotes on them. I don't do it nearly enough.
18. I have a stationery collection. I should really write letters instead of just buying pretty paper. But emailing gets a faster reply.
19. I like the illustration style of graphic novels, but something doesn't link up between my eyes and brain when I try to read them.
20. I'm fascinated by geek culture, cosplay, anime, manga, etc, but I won't ever participate- I still think they're weird. The closest I could see myself getting would be to collect toys from kidrobot or blythe dolls. I'm content having friends (brother's friends) who are into that stuff to fulfill my geeky side for me.
21. Who am I kidding, just about every side of me is geeky. #20 is only about techno-geeks, I guess.
22. In kindergarten or thereabouts I said I wanted to be an artist when I grew up. I still do.
23. My favorite flowers are poppies and irises and peonies. That would be a pretty ugly bouquet.
24. I'm staying away from knitting as a hobby because I'm afraid of developing a yarn stash. There's no more room in my craft closet as it is.
25. Some of my favorite Japanese things: shibori, wabi-sabi, and zakka.
26. I may be outgrowing the idea of wearing novelty T's. Just another side effect of getting older, I guess.
27. I still haven't decided what wish I'll make when I'm blowing out my candles. But I have a couple hours to think about it.

dessert

Fri, 13 Jul 2007 11:18:11 GMT

These...

...became blueberry cupcakes. Not frosted blueberry muffins, because that would just be weird. Okay, so maybe they were still a little bit weird. But kids at chapel life will eat anything with blue frosting. And I still got a couple for myself.