A Day in the Life

I saw this "day in the life of" post several weeks ago and thought it would be fun-ish change of pace from all the knitting talk to give a glimpse of what I'm doing when I'm not knitting or talking about knitting.

So here was my Monday, yesterday:

7:15AM - 9:00AM: I am not a morning person, by the way
Morning wake-up call from Duck as he leaves for work. I stay in bed for 15 minutes to 1 hour longer. If I don't get up by 9:00am, then I either have no gigs or I am not caring much about the gigs I do have, heh (shhh). I really really wish I were the type of person who gets up at 5am, jogs a hundred miles, finishes writing a novel, and bakes a wedding cake from scratch before the sun breaks. But ALAS.

Today I get up at 7:45am, and the first thing I do is fire up the laptop and brush the teeth. Sometimes I will even start surfing before I brush. I am so addicted to the Internet that I would choose surfing over brushing my teeth after a whole night of drooling.

Depending on whether I will be seeing people other than Duck during the course of the day, I may or may not shower. But I will get dressed, even if the tempation to remain in one's pajamas is overwhelming. I do have standards. Despite the fact they are very sub-standard sort of standards.

I will definitely make a cup of coffee though. This is our coffee maker. For the last five years, we (as in Duck) buy raw coffee beans, roast them by hand (in an orville redenbacher popcorn maker), and use this fancy pants coffee maker to grind and make the perfect cup of joe with just a push of a button.

 8:00AM - 9:00AM: Breakfast
I have the same breakfast everyday: coffee, juice, and a bowl of yogurt with granola and fruit, sometimes bananas, sometimes peaches.

The yogurt has to be Brown Cow brand vanilla yogurt with cream on top (actually, we can't get it any other way). The granola must be Honey Gone Nuts from Whole Foods. The banana must not have any bruises.

I take my coffee with two spoonfuls of sugar and half 'n half, and I have to drink them from the mugs I bought in Santa Fe.

I take my breakfast upstairs to the office and officially start my day...

Office Space
I work from home, and this is my office. We painted it several years ago and I am rather regretting my choice of color. I wanted something bold and unconventional, but did it have to be so orange? We didn't even paint the trim a contrasting color to break up all that boldness.

One day this house will be futon-free.

The cats hang out with me here most of the day. They sleep in that comfy plush-filled wicker basket when they're not on the lookout for the neighborhood black cat who likes to visit our backyard.

Office Desk
We only put the shelving units (from IKEA) up this past weekend. There will be another long shelf that will run below the cubbies, and hopefully when that's in place the blocks won't look so goofy and free-floating. I also plan on "wallpapering" the white backs with some pretty Japanese silkscreen paper. And add a lot of plants. I also want a beta fish.

The desk, chair, and rolling cabinet I bought from my former company when they were liquidating an office they shut down. I like it. Spacious and ergonomic.

Office supplies
I listen to Howard everyday. He's totally my cup of tea...but not always. Sometimes the on-air shenanigans are too distracting, too annoying, and when that happens, I like to flip to over to the jazz/standards channel.

When I really have to zone out, I pop in the iPod earbuds and listen to Mozart. When music is directly plugged into the ears, I'm able to concentrate more.

I can't concentrate when it's quiet.

1:00pm - 2:00pm: Lunch
You know, I love to eat but I absolutely hate lunch. I will gladly spend 3 hours preparing dinner, but more than 10 minutes for lunch is a pain in the ass. More often than not I don't eat til 2 because I'm just too busy stop, or too lazy to figure out what the hell I want to eat.

In any case, lunch is either leftovers (I've been cooking dinner for 12 lately to ensure leftovers) or a sandwich. Today I make my favorite sandwich, the BLT. Depending on how busy I am, I will eat lunch in the office, or I will take it to the basement and eat it while watching a recorded television show.

View outside the window
I look to my left and, hi bird!

5:00pm Sunset
Must break for sunset. Sometimes they're eh, sometimes they're spectacular.

6:00pm - 9:00pm: Clocking out
Today I don't clock out til 9pm. That doesn't stop me from busting out the nightly glass of wine while I work. Duck gets home at around 5:30pm and today he makes dinner for me: another BLT sandwich that I eat while working.

I have had six to seven slabs of bacon - extra thick - and two avocados just today. And I have barely moved from my seat. Shoot me.

When I finally do get up from my desk, I mosey downstairs and spend another more couple of hours sitting on the basement couch while knitting and watching TV.

I sit until I have to haul myself up and go to bed, usually around 11:00-midnight.

It's been a tough, relatively immobile day. But my brain, my big big brain, it's on the move constantly.

Comments [31]
Filed Under: Life

Best birthday card ever

"Good luck." Bahahaha.

From my mom to Duck, whose birthday this year fell on Chinese New Year.

I used to draw my pigs like that too.

Comments [7]
Filed Under: Life

Eye Candy Friday

In case ya'll missed it, here's my 15 seconds of fame. Woo woo! This happened in October, and aired last week. There's me and Duck in the background. I'm not very clear but I think you can actually hear me going, "Heh heh heh." Yummy chile hot chocolate, delicious brunch at a hoppin' restaurant in beautiful Santa Fe with my boo -- what more can one ask for on a lazy Sunday morning? Oh and Duck was there too of course.

I have to say though, now that I've been watching more of her and her shows, will someone please tell her that it's OK to wear a turtleneck every now and again? It doesn't even have to be a turtleneck, it could simply be a buttoned-up shirt. Or a cardigan, zipped all the way up. A sweater whose neckline hangs no further than the neck, perhaps? 

I mean we all get it, you have ta-ta's til Tuesday! Glorious, magnificent ta-ta's hanging above the stove, above the plate of food, ta-ta's dicing onions, ordering hot chocolate, drinking martinis, ta-ta's on a hike in Santa Fe, in a convertible in LA, everywhere, everyday, all the time! We know! We see! So enough already!

Comments [17]
Filed Under: Santa Fe

The color of luv

I'm knitting Monkey socks in the FA merino sock yarn for my BFF. Originally I was making these for her but decided she really needed a pair of more vibrant socks (or, I really needed an excuse to buy more sock yarn). The autumn colorway is appropriately va-va-va-voom, and as a bonus, the yarn is covered in cat hair. More natural fibers for everyone! As soon as I untied the knots that held the skein together, the whole thing immediately tangled, and it was over before even a full revolution of winding could be made. It's amazing really, how a project can be so hopeless before it even starts. Only for the sheer love for my BFF could I have willingly spent three terrible hours untangling and winding. And out of sheer frustration during the three hours did I let the yarn drag itself all over the couch and the floor, picking up all that cat hair like a magnet. Oh those cats. How they shed.

Comments [20]
Filed Under: Socks

Sadly, the most curvaceous part of my body

Simple stockinette stitch self-striping sock using Yarntini in pure fall.

And yes my toes. They are long. So very, very long.

Comments [14]
Filed Under: Socks

The ultimate candy store

I was here. And I bought...nothing!

So proud of myself.

Comments [12]
Filed Under: General Knitting | Travel | NYC

Must-see television

Remember this? While briefly living in Santa Fe, New Mexico this past fall, Duck and I had brunch at the ChocolateMaven one Sunday morning to find there a small crew and one Ms. Italian HotPants filming a segment for her new upcoming show.

Well the show is finally running, and the Santa Fe episode -featuring YOURS TRULY - will be on. TONIGHT. OK, so "featuring" might be an slight exaggeration, but if my mug is on TV for longer than 1 second, than it's good enough for me!

The scene where she walks in the restaurant for the "first" time and does her "Oh wooow!" (don't know if she will, but she everything seems to excite her), keep in mind that she filmed that two dozen times, while a small mob of hungry, cold patrons huddling outside in the parking lot. When I watch these kinds of shows I always think the scenes totally seamless and not at all choreographed.

I'm the Asian girl wearing the grey sweater. You'll see the backside of Duck's very metrosexual white shirt with small flowers all over it. If you blink you'll probably miss us. So don't blink!

So if you're in the US and you have the F00DNetwork, the show is on tonight at 9:30pm. I'll be missing it as we're heading off to NYC for the weekend in just a few. So watch and report back!

Comments [10]
Filed Under: Life | Travel | Santa Fe

Two!

Happy Birthday Yarn Cake for everyone!

My first post two years ago today. I just started knitting and maybe you can tell that I was rather ecstatic over completing my first sweater (there was a lot of squealing). Two years later and knitting still gets me excited in that "eeeYAAAAAAAAAAH!" sort of way.

Thank you to everyone who has taken the time to share your love of knitting with me!

Comments [39]
Filed Under: General Knitting

I lasted 34 days

What we have here is a skein Fleece Artist Merino Sock yarn in Autumn. I've been very curious to try it, and by the looks of it it will probably be no different than CTH, Koigu, et al.

I bought new yarn. Shut up. I just can't resist a good sale.

Game over! Thanks for playing!

Does it count though if I bought this yarn at the behest of a friend who wants socks for her birthday, which is this weekend, and since I'm way behind already these are going straight onto the needles and will therefore have no chance of marinating in the stash...or am I just making excuses at this point?

(PS: My own addendum to the knit-from-your-stash rules forbade yarn in ALL forms, so that included sock yarn, gifted yarn, and yarn to be gifted. Yes I have quickly realized these rules are seriously flawed. And they make no sense. If you were to gift me yarn, would I then have to decline it? 'Course not. That would be rude.)

Before the yarn could be wound, I took it back to my Fancy Pants Photography Studio so it could have its official portrait taken. 

The yarn was subjected to many minutes of sitting very very still inside this state-of-the-art lighting box during the shoot.

But all that hard work in front and behind the camera is worth it.

Heh. I might have added another skein into my shopping cart... another FA sock yarn in Forest.

Comments [21]
Filed Under: General Knitting | Yarn Stash

Where there's green, there's purple.

A scarf came in the mail today! And here I am modeling it, with my new purple peacoat, indoors, because it's too cold - not to mention very unsafe - to go outside.

Thank you Elemmaciltur for sending this beauty over! He wasn't so into the So-Called Scarf he made, but I was, and half-jokingly commented that I would take it if he didn't think he could wear it. First, I need a scarf. Second, it's in a pattern that I've been wanting to knit myself, if I could ever yank myself away from knitting socks. Third and MOST excitingly, it's got my #1 all-time Never Realized It Was My Favorite Color Combination Until I Looked Around My House and Realized Everything Is That Combination color combination - green and purple! Purple and green!

OK so the colors are really more magenta and green, but close enough. I love it. Magenta is like a drop of blue away from being purple anyway. They all compliment each other very nicely.

By themselves purple and green are not my favorite colors. But I naturally gravitate to them when they're together. They're everywhere.

My purple peacoat, lined in apple-green goodness.

Ah purple and green. You're the perfect couple.

In my purple coat with my green-magenta-almost-purple scarf on my purple and moss couch in my green living room with purple curtains that's adjacent to my dining room. Which by the way is purple.

Thanks again Elemmaciltur for the beautiful scarf! It will be well-loved and well-worn.

Comments [22]
Filed Under: General Knitting | Life