lilgirlblu

Off to the Big Top

Just a quick note tonight. I've put up most of my recent photos on my flickr, check them out if you're so inclined, and see how big Blu has gotten!

We're going off to Cirque du Soleil in about an hour and I'm super excited! This is the first time that I've had the chance to go, and its their last week playing in SF, so it was really lucky that we got tickets and that Blu can play at home with her aunt and uncle while we go out. Someday if I ever happen to be in Las Vegas I want to go to one of their standing shows too.

Hope to have lots to say about the show in the morning!

Until then~

Happy 2008!

Happy New Years! あけましておめでとう！
here's to the hope for a uneventful 2008!

Its taken me this long to decompress from the holidays and the end of last semester, I was really feeling burnt out for a few weeks there, but its better now and I'm trying to just put the last horrid semester behind me quickly.

I hope everyone had nice holidays, mine were great - if a little exhausting.
we usually go home right after finals are finished, and then I generally stay the week between Christmas and New Years. Its nice to be up there for awhile and have a nice long visit with both of our families, but its pretty tiring coming straight off the semester.
This year I decided to come back down before Blu's birthday on the 29th because peter had to work the whole week and because the weather was really crummy. So her birthday (2!) was pretty quiet with just the three of us, but we had fun.

I forgot to think about resolutions for the first couple of days of the new year, and then I could only come up with one, but its a biggie so maybe it counts for more. So my resolution is to graduate this fall and get this whole school thing over with....finally! It means doing summer school, but it will be so nice to be done at last.

Still going through the massive amount of photos I have taken over the last couple weeks, so I think I'll break stuff up into a couple of posts rather than try to stuff it all into a monster one. I took a couple of videos too, but the synchronization between the computer and camera is being really weird and not letting me copy the videos over...not sure why. hopefully I can figure it out cause they are really cute!

so more (lots more) to come, じゃね！

in praise of preparation

do you ever have times where you know you need to do (a) by some later (b) date and then decide to get on it and finish it ahead of time and then spend the remainder of time feeling good about yourself?

while i like to imagine that this actually happens to people, i'm such a terribly chronic procrastinator that my version usually goes like this:
a. read or think over what i have to do
b. look at the deadline...see that it is x amount of hours/days/months away
c. forget about it for 85% of the remaining time.
d. realize that time is running out, rush around frantically.
e. get most of the way through whatever it is. then throw it out and start over with hours to go.
f.  make it  in time/slightly late - convince my self that it couldn't have been any other way
g. swear never to do it again.

this happens to me again and again.
pathetic, no?

Ok, so why is this pertinent at all? Its just that this evening I realized I hit the 90% time mark for the JLPT that i'm taking in Dec. I've been studying very casually since the Spring, and started more daily efforts since August, but this evening I was profoundly impressed by how completely convinced I was that things were ok at my current pace, that I still had several months to prepare  - when its 3 weeks away. 3 weeks!
even if i ignored my other classes and studied day and night, i don't think i could cram enough into my head for a good grade....luckily you only need 60% to pass.
which brings me to back to thinking about preparation and success and how perhaps procrastination is a form of giving up. 
which doesn't help me formulate a new study tactic...

sigh. for the next 3 weeks no one speak to me, unless its in Japanese.

Is it really November?

Has it really been nearly 2 months since I posted?

I feel a bit like the ground hog poking up my head to see if its still winter, and yep, I'm still here. Apologies if your call/email/letter/comment/visit seemed to disappear into a vacuum, I'm terrible at returning calls and emails even under normal circumstances, and the last 6 weeks has really been a blur.

the last month or so has been insanely busy, and I've been up to the wee hours nearly every night on school and work - yet the work load never gets any smaller, and I never seem to feel like I'm making headway. From time to time I would have the impulse to write something here, but what? and why?  My thoughts never seemed to come together into a cohesive post, and really, what use would there be in a running litany of my assignments and efforts at procrastination? even with gratuitous photos of adorable toddlers, a blog about homework (second hand homework!) could never be interesting.

But forget all that. we are officially starting fresh. Finally, I feel like I have a little bit of breathing room for other things, more creative blog-worthy things, coming my way so its about time I got back into the swing of things.

so without further rambling, I give you the sole focus of all my recent creative impulses.

Halloween.

Our miniature Dorothy, who was more excited by the idea of red shoes and wearing a pretty dress than the event of trick-or-treating. But she had loads of fun regardless! If you were around last year, you know that our plans for her first Halloween were canceled after she had an accident, so I was determined to make up for it.

The dress took me a ridiculously long time to make, as I've never tackled anything with so many things going on - zippers, gathers, buttons, and biases - before. This picture makes it all worth it. (that and the fact that she wants to wear it all the time)

I'm already planning next year.

happiness is:

1. new yarn - after a disastrous organic chemistry exam on friday, i bought myself a present. some beautiful black/purple malibrigo worsted called 'tortuga' - how can one resist yarn named for pirates?? - for blu's fall sweater....

2. summer's last strawberries - transformed here into a strawberry cheese(cake) pie - very creamy, a little tart, so so yummy.

3. an unexpected 'b' - my mark on that horrid chemistry exam. better than i hoped for, shockingly good, considering the class average was a d+.

4. finished objects - my swallowtail shawl is finished!! its off the needles and its gorgeous, and finally finished. ok, its not blocked yet, but its done - hopefully i'll get around to blocking it tonight and have pictures tomorrow

turning 26

on sunday we had a lovely barbeque in golden gate park to celebrate my birthday a day early, as i turned 26 on monday. it was one of those perfect combinations of nice weather (the sun came out just in time!), good food, and great people that made it the perfect closure of summer for me.
just in time too, its supposed to rain tomorrow.

last days of summer

i'm in a quiet space this week. the last week of vacation, the last hot weekend at home, the first week of school have all wizzed by quietly, eclipsed by both the lunar eclipse and the passing of my grandmother (here with blu last month). i think that i will be quiet for a bit longer, as i'm am not really in the headspace to blog right now, but will surely be back soon.  until then ~ laura

ps: i'm having a fabric sale in the shop this weekend, so stop by!

Does it make up for lack of posts if I do two in one day? I'm in a bit of a manic rush to finish all of my Summer tasks as i start counting down my last week of vacation. Today I finished sewing up this little softie (face still in process) and culled the massive pile of Blu's clothes that are too small. Tomorrow I'll do my closet (ugh :-( ), try to find Blu a backpack, and tackle some of the sewing projects I have lying around.
Monday we're back at school (how did summer go so fast??), and I'm taking some really heavy classes this semester ~ O. Chem ~ I doubt I'll have much energy for thorough housecleaning so it has to be done now.

oh and before the week is out I have to hit up Poppy Fabric in Oakland. I've been meaning to go since i moved to the city, and I'm always hearing how great they are, but didn't have a car, or time - and can you believe they are closing down? I'm making the time now.

from the other side

If you've ever wondered,
this is what the city looks like from the other side of the Golden Gate Bridge.

Sunday was fantastically warm here, and after discovering that my camera was not as fried as previously thought - and actually still worked after it's three day drip dry (Yippee!), we packed ourselves up and tried to escape the city. we only made it as far as Sausalito though, as Blu spent the whole ride demanding 'da boat??' so we took her to the marina.

Evidently many yuppie tourists people had the same idea. Luckily the mobs kept to the shops, and we had the boats to ourselves.

Loved these buoys.

There were some incredible houseboats, this Taj Mahal one was enormous - we had to google it afterwards, apparently someone lived in it for 25 years! I've always thought that living on a house boat would be pretty cool, but can't imagine doing so for that long. Wouldn't you have to cart in all of your drinking water? and it was a pretty long walk from land.

Some boats had nice embellishments for luck.

A guy was building these along the sidewalk, pretty neat but it was super windy so they may not have lasted all that long.

It was really nice to make it out of the city for a warm afternoon, naturally the fog rolled in on our way home and today was freezing again.

crochet anyone?

Can anyone explain to me what this drawing is trying to tell me here? I can't figure out if the stitch with the arrow is supposed to be part of the 2nd row or the 3rd....while were at it maybe it would be good to know into which stitch specifically the 2 to eitherside of the arrowed one go (in row 2 - the gap its pointing to doesn't do it for me).