death of a shoe

my beloved high heeled black sandals from target bit the dust. the sole of the right one came unglued and was flapping most of the day, but we persevered. and frankly, the shoes were 3 years old and originally $20. so i think i got my money's worth.


the shoe

the damage

a glamour shot and a haiku:

strappy black glory
blisters were a guarantee
click clack click no more

gardening

since i finally have a yard and am staying in a house longer than a year, i can plant a garden! granted, most plants i have ever had have died or learned to survive without sun or water... but im going to attempt a green thumb regardless. i got two books from the library: complete idiot's guide to edible gardening and crops in pots cos it had a cute title. turns out im not a complete idiot and dont need such a basic book. but they had some good ideas on mixing crops and growing an arch trellis covered in beans and tomatoes. too bad arch trellis or arbors are like $400.

instead of looking for seed starting kits, i decided to buy a burpee newspaper potmaker and "super growing pellets". the potmaker is cool buuut the dirt pellets are definatly not worth it. they take too long to absorb water and are pretty clearly designed for the plastic cell containers. it took 2 pellets to fill one of the newspaper pots and after 4 days, several of the dirt things are molding on the top layer. i hate to think what is happening to the seeds buuuut i planted like an impatient schitzo so there are probably 5-10 seeds in each paper pot. i also assumed none of them would grow, but my bok choi have proved me wrong already!

next plan of action: find gardening book about not killing plants...

uncle giuseppe's

driving around randomly on a sunday evening, my sister, my boyfriend, and i happened upon uncle giuseppe's marketplace [website has music]. now the one thing i will miss with 100% certainty when i leave new york is the delis. uncle giuseppe's is one gigantic deli with some amazing looking produce and a very clean fresh meat department. upon searching for the website, i came across this blog and its rather rude comments. i agree it was quite expensive and rather far away from port jeff, but totally worth it. and now for your viewing pleasure:

calamari from the deli counter. complete with baby octopus

fried mac and cheese balls!!!!!

quilt #1ish

i started my first official quilt this weekend. i have made several unplanned quilts before [not "crazy"] but never one from an actual pattern. of course i changed stuff from the original parttern... like # of blocks, size of blocks, color pattern... etc. more realistically i had no idea how much fabric i would need and it turns out 4 fat quarters werent nearly enough. it still needs a border, im thinking white to match the middle, the actual "quilting" part to hold on the back i have yet to buy, and a binding/edging of some sort.

so basically i have the pain in the ass part done. ie cutting out squares/triangles. and its not quite as perfect as i would have liked but i managed to put a dent in my rotary blade by running over a button. so now its fucked and i need to buy a new blade but too lazy.

and now the obvious but captioned progression:

triangles

squares

rectangles

done. sorta. it is currently 53"x28" which is an awkward size to say the least. i plan on adding a row of white squares down each side which should bring it to 42" wide. but umm like most of the crafts i do.. it started out with a sweet idea and kind of petered out towards the end. better luck next time right?

new calendar

i now have 4 wall calendars. 2 at work-defenders of wildlife from sarah and a vintage burpee; and 2 at home-the gift of zen from the mums and angry little girls from my sister. i just got the last one last week and it being february already... i missed the january page.

id never heard of the weekly comic strip, but the little asian girl in red is most definately me.