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music news: i'm so excited a new Elected album came out and i'm thrilled to see, just now, that they're coming to San Francisco in July!

personal news: the husband turned 30 last week and his celebration went off without much of a hitch. we surprised him with some KISS masks, buttons, drawings, cake and shirts and he - being a huge KISS fan - was pumped. success! also, unrelated, but this is pretty awesome.

home news: we finally decided on a new couch and some more artwork went up, though we're still figuring some of it out. screened porch shingles (containing asbestos - fun!) came down and, this weekend, it's getting an overhaul. i'm really excited - not at all to do the work, but to have it done finally, yes. i'm trying not to be overly-ambitious and expect to get the exterior and interior all done this weekend, but every little bit we can get done this weekend will be terribly exciting.

(by fotoforest)

(by local artist Amanda Cook!)

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after a week of vacation, i have to head back to work tomorrow, which is terribly depressing. looking through photos of this week makes me feel pretty good about what we've gotten done at least. with my dad in town, visiting and wanting to help with house projects, we've been breezing through some long-standing to-do items, though a lot of them seem kind of boring now that i look at them in the context of talking about it to others. we're excited though!:

i cut some fabric for some house projects (mostly for a variety of pillows, to be honest);

we poured some concrete to bolster some sagging fence posts;

we got some free mulch from the local utility to help keep the weeds down (ever the worrier, i'm a little paranoid about the wood-on-wood bringing termites but it's great otherwise);

i mostly just supervised, but we (my gracious dad) put some boards up on our existing metal-framed side gate, which i've hated. some day, it'd be great to have some beautiful horizontal-slatted fencing but maybe that day will come when i win large amounts of money on a game show or something. in the meantime, this allows much more privacy and is awesome.

also, the husband started this project by himself, but then we joined forces and dug and dug and dug up rocks, freeing up some planting room along the fenceline;

and some prints that have been propped against the hallway walls for far too long finally got hung, as did some posters in the husband's music room, making this weekend our first with artwork actually hung on the walls. it's an exciting time to be alive.

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last weekend, i finally got to take a letterpress class through oh happy day classes that i have been wanting to take for years. i have been dying to test out letterpress and, as i expected, think i might be hooked.

we made these!

34

my dad is coming to visit from australia and winter has become spring and our backyard is a mess. it seems everything is adding up to this: it's time to whip our yards into shape and get some projects done!

To help us experiment with different looks, i've been trying to learn to use Google Sketchup, which - if used by someone who knows what they're doing - can be a really useful, beautiful tool. I started with the screened-in porch we're looking to revitalize:

um, yeah...i have a long way to go.

Nothing to do with anything, but quick note to self: these awesome zig zag streamers would look great anywhere

(photo by oh happy day, and instructions are here)

in other news, i'm getting closer to being done with this jumble of yarn;

i'm working on knitting samples of different stitches;

and just for kicks, i got these earrings recently, after the successful purchase of a gift for a friend from this shop (which has tons of great stuff). i think i look a little funny in earrings, but i really love these and am going to wear them all the time anyway. also, ears look funny up close.

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This video makes me want to be young, blonde and, well, Mary Weiss:

Also, i'm doing a bit of an experiment, so if anyone knows of someone who wants to learn to knit (or who would be willing to learn to help me out) for free, or if you already knit and just want to learn a particular technique you haven't tried on your own, please let me know!

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I am obviously terrible at this, but there's no good excuse other than...life...and no real way to get better except for just diving right in and starting:

I want to do a big update on unfinished projects i've slowly been trying to finish, mostly just to prove to myself i've gotten through some of them, but i made this in early fall 2010 - so that might help illustrate how far behind i am in even documenting projects i've been working on. please ignore the cat hairs, unflattering hands-in-pockets pose and the excessive wrinkles.

I am really loving these hair tutorials on A Cup of Jo and find myself wishing my hair was a tiny bit longer.

This is a pretty great project by Aymie Spitzer; I may NEED my own collection of hand-carved letters now. this is just in time for my renewed interest in linoleum block carving - it might be time to break out the tools.

These are still sort of awesome.

lastly, i'm really, really excited about an upcoming project that i think could be pretty great!

And, like that, i'm back on the wagon again!

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there's so much to catch up on, but in the meantime, you can download a song from jenny lewis and johnathan rice's project jenny and johnny here or below:

Also, this is just so, so beautiful. I can't get enough of it:

Last but not least, this song is going to be in an upcoming movie and I'd heard it around. It really does me in:

30

the past several weeks have been a blur. my dad is visiting from australia and work has been insane. we've been making a little bit of headway on the yards and inside, but still have a long way to go. it's been busy, but good. i feel laziness approaching, though, and need to work on maintaining some sense of motivation to keep up the momentum.

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what i'm working on tonight:

tracing pattern and cutting fabric for my sewing class

this one's cheating because i started this months ago and haven't spent much time on it, and probably have run out of time to do anything with it tonight, but it looks like i'm more productive than i actually am with a second picture up.

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yikes, i'm terrible at this. it's been so busy, but - surprise - mostly just revolving around the house, which i'm completely in love with for no good reason other than it's ours (in 30 years).

so, i'll just throw some pictures up to get my feet wet again and then i'll get back to business, whatever that could mean. i don't have a ton of pictures available right now, though, because we haven't transferred them over yet. transferred over to what? why, the bad boy below, which we got super cheap from some friends who got an even more bad and more recent boy. we're counting ourselves really lucky on this one and are really grateful and excited to play with it some more:

we've been taking walks and collecting pictures of yards and plants we like. these were at our neighborhood nursery.

a recent and much-loved craigslist acquisition.

a mask the husband made which i love - i thought it was from when he was a kid but it was a high school project for a children"s theater. i still love it an unreasonable amount.

classy paper blinds taped to the window produce a bit of afternoon delight.

our first real meal at the house.

a source of pride: our first bit of electrical work. also a great craigslist find (all our craigslist finds courtesy of our excllent unofficial decorator).

our first night at the house, complete with kiss-opoly.

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technically, there are a lot of more important things to think about, but i just wanted to take a moment to say goodbye to an old friend:

on to bigger and better things, i'm sure, but you will be missed.

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this may be the best thing that's ever happened to me at work. ever.

i had to go through old photos and records for this sort-of-fundraiser/initiative we're working on, and i found this. i kind of don't want to ever find out what this is about. terrifying and amazing.

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well, today kind of sucked. it started off well, though, so i can't complain.

instead of packing - which is what i definitely should be doing, this (and, sort of, this) is what i've done with my entire evening. i haven't gotten to go crazy on it for a while, so it was pretty fun. but now - maybe - packing.

here's to a better tomorrow, for everyone.

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it's impossible to believe that december is over and that the holidays have come and passed! things have been busy with painting and spackling and caulking (insert caulk joke here, husband), dishes and laundry, buying and wrapping gifts, barely getting our tree up in time, and the like. but we've also found a small amount of time for some definite december fun, and since you pals who look this way already have to hear about the house 24-7 from me, here's a little recent inspiration :

i've had a fair isle craze for a while and have been working on a faux fair isle vest, but a special holiday movie didn't hurt the situtation. we only got around to watching "a christmas story" this year, but i was reminded of all the amazing, amazing knits in the movie (especially in the classroom scenes! where are all the pictures of those?). i may have to base my entire wardrobe around this movie.

i made some time for some other movies while i knit a few weeks ago, and was again inspired by these two stylish ladies! a you've got to love that bathing suit. how gorgeous are they?

speaking of bathing suits, i also have been loving "two for the road" much too much lately and it doesn't hurt to have albert finney and, well, i just dig the whole thing, but their bathing suits in their first week together scenes are just too much.

then again, the past several months i've also been obsessed with a general 1930s style, as evidenced by, well, projects i never finished. but, i've also been pretty into 1930s-nostalgia movies, like "sweet and lowdown" and "papermoon." seriously, how gorgeous is ryan o'neal in "papermoon"?

of course, my heart will always belong to this guy. we can't even get into all this or i'll be here forever, though.

i've been working on a few other projects but have to wait until i can get some pictures. most importantly, i made these for my family's traditional christmas cinnamon roll breakfast and just about died. we've decided they're too delicious to make more than once a year.

anyway, this all helps remind me that i haven't been only buried in paint (besides, there are worse things), but have had a very lovely past few weeks. belated happy holidays to all! (of course, only the bottom photo belongs to me)