Quick project

To celebrate my newly acquired freedom, I did what most people do: I brought out the sewing machine. I've been thinking about this design, from the new Denyse Schmidt Quilts book, for a while, so I sliced up some fabric scraps. I do have one piece of advice for anyone that makes these: it doesn't work so well if you fold the card in half and then sew the fabric on. Not that I would know that from experience or anything.

Of endings, birthdays, and dinosaurs

One word cannot possibly illustrate the relief I feel now that my first year of grad school is over, but I'll try: whew! The French exam has been successfully failed (I think), papers have been turned in, final parties have been attended. And for those of you who may have thought to yourself, "Geez, Sarah sure complains a lot about all that reading she has to do," I present to you this:

That would be my photocopied reading for 4 classes (it doesn't include many, many books.) Let this be a lesson to all of you, particularly those who think grad school would be "a good idea" or especially "fun."

In other news, I celebrated my "golden" birthday recently (25 on 25!) and received not one but TWO handmade gifts! The first one came all the way from Mongolia.

This was knitted by the world's most unlikely knitter, and it is what I believe to be her first finished project ever! How special am I? I think its something like camel hair, which makes it just about the coolest thing ever. My second handmade present came from my boyfriend's mom, who cross-stitched me this:

("Welcome friends" for non-Spanish speakers.) Also, one of the coolest things ever. When your boyfriend's mom starts cross-stitching for you, you have to feel special.

And finally, I did some handmade gift-giving of my own. This dinosaur went to live with someone who has the exact same birthday as me! Rwrrrrr...

(For the knitters, the pattern is from xtreme-knitting.com, link above. Size 6 Susan Bates really short circulars, on the squeekiest of all yarns, Red Heart.)

How to Feel Rich Without Actually Being So

If you follow celebrity gossip as religiously as I do (and you SHOULD), you may have heard that billionaire Brandon Davis was taped telling Paris Hilton regarding Lindsay Lohan, "I think she's worth about seven million, which means she's really poor. It's disgusting. She lives in a motel." (I just realized, "Paris Hilton" is totally the name of a hotel too!) If $7,000,000=poor, then I really should be dead, having succummed to scurvy because I could not feed myself on my meager pennies.

And what does this have to do with anything? Well, it has to do with a class trip I took to Longwood Gardens last week. Longwood was previously owned by the Duponts, who pretty much owned everything in eastern Pennsylvania and Delaware at one point in time. Although Dupont probably didn't make fun of people who had $7 million, he did built a 175-room mansion on his 2500 acre estate, which is basically the same thing. Luckily for us, however, Longwood gardens (not the same thing as his house) is now open to the public, so everyone who has $16 can feel rich too.

I began my exploration by walking out of my huge conservatory to observe my multiple fountains. (Although they suck because they don't shoot 240 feet into the air and dance to music like the ones in Las Vegas. The Duponts have no taste, really.)

I then strolled through many well-groomed trees (some with Christmas lights still on them!), and toured the inside of one of the many homes on the property. I saw the Italian Water Garden, and a large pond that had actual fish in it. I was a little disappointed. For a place with a $10 million budget, I at least expected baby sharks and clown fish. I wandered on back to my massive conservatory and saw THE COOLEST BONSAI TREES EVER. Mr. Miagi has nothing on this:

My favorite room overall was the "silver garden," featuring mostly cacti and the biggest agave I've ever seen. I find it ironic that after living in New Mexico for two years, I had to come to Pennsylvania to see a giant agave. I guess rich people think its a fun challenge to raise non-native plant species to giant proportions. (Come to think of it, I DO have a 50-foot saguaro on the porch. . .)

And finally, I was forced to engage in some predicable tourist behavior: taking close-up flower pictures. They make you sign a form when you go in saying that you will do this. True story.

Warm Hands

Now that its mid-May, I thought I should knit myself some fingerless gloves to keep my hands warm while I type all winter. Oh whoops, that's what I thought 3 months ago. What I thought in mid-May was "Those stupid gloves on the floor are really annoying. Maybe I should finish them so I can put them away in a drawer and forget I have them." Anyway, they're an alpaca-merino-silk blend, which in all truthfulness, should make you drool. And if it doesn't, well, you were obviously born without your yarn gene, and I feel sorry for you. (Edited to add: Click here for the pattern)

Maryland Sheep and Wool

Sheep are cool. This Saturday I headed to Maryland Sheep and Wool, for some serious sheep gazing and yarn grazing with my knitting buddy, reluctantMANGO. I saw lots of sheep, of course:

I also witnessed my first livestock auction, which was AWESOME, by the way. See that guy with the camo hat? He bought a lot of sheep.

And yarn? Oh yes, yarn. Knitters are crazy about yarn. There's a very popular sock yarn out right now, "Socks that Rock," which runs about $20 for an amount to make one pair of socks. $20 for a pair of socks, you say? That's crazy! Well, 800 skeins of yarn sold out in one hour. AHH!

We have socks!

Oooh, one step closer to my dream of only wearing hand-knit socks. Check out that short-row heel, baby! I know you're jealous. And no, I won't knit you socks. These are comprised of somewhere around 8,460 stitches apiece. And I have child-sized feet. And I'm a big dork for actually calculating how many stitches are in my socks. (Knitpicks Simple Stripes, size 2 needles.)

Aloe drink

A few weeks ago I discovered culinary heaven. A combination farmer's market/Mexican/Korean grocery store in the same building as a cell phone store, Caribbean restaurant and sword merchant. (The Newark Farmer's Market - a horribly deceiving name.) The prices there are so cheap, that I have a hard time spending enough money there. They have a $10 minimum on credit card purchases (I'll ignore the fact that that's illegal for now), so I wandered trying to find things to buy. $1.00 for five pounds of potatoes, $.25 bananas . . . it doesn't really add up. I get to the register, and my total is $9.21. "Can't I just use a card for that?," I ask. Nope, the non-English-speaking checker tells me - I figure it would just be easier to buy something else than to argue with her over 80 cents. So I reach for the closest thing. This.

Aloe drink. See the floaties? Should I drink this? Ingredients: Pure water, aloe vera gel, fructose, honey, cirteic acid, calcium lactate, vitamin c, stabilizer, natural flavoring content of aloe vere gel - 10%. (All those ingredients are spelled like they are on the bottle - aloe vere gel? Cirteic acid? There's no such thing. I checked.) If they couldn't even spell the ingredients correctly, should I drink something that has the potential to kill me? I did see someone else buy it. The outcome is still pending.

Lest you think I'm slacking off on my knitting, I'm not. I'm just writing a paper this week. Accompanied by an almost finished pair of socks.

Wild Kingdom

Remember that kid all through grade school that refused to take anything seriously, made fun of the teachers, and was a general nuisance but sometimes funny? Today I realized that I'm TOTALLY that kid. So far in my very serious art history classes I've managed to bring up mullets, Paris Hilton, art historian celebrity death match, and make fun of prominent art historians. Today, a very well-respected art historian gave a lecture, and my professor said, "You all should really go, I hear he's giving public talks less and less." To which I responded, "Well I heard that's because he's really old and he's going to die at any moment." Everyone gave a forced chuckle, slightly embarrassed that I dared to state the obvious. (It was true, by the way, he could have died right there giving the lecture. Which would have made my joke slightly less funny.)

Last weekend I visited the Philadelphia Zoo, which could have been titled "Stroller Fest 2006." Seriously, they should rent massive strollers to non-parents just for self-defensive purposes. One lady had TRIPLETS in a stroller. How was I supposed to see the elephants with that kind of competition? On a "ranger sarah" note, the conditions for these animals was really horrible. I'm perfectly happy living in a glass enclosure with a feces-and-lettuce covered tile floor, but that type of living condition shouldn't be imposed on monkeys. And bats in a cage??? While I did like seeing some giant bats, something with a 3-foot wingspan should not be IN A CAGE. And then there's the fact that the zoo's food service is sponsored by Nathan's Famous hot dogs, meaning that a person with vegetarian tendencies gets to choose between french fries or a soft pretzel. I was halfway tempted to jump the fence and retrieve a piece of crunchy lettuce from the gorilla enclosure. As my brother said, "This zoo not only likes to show animals, it likes to eat them too!" Here's some highlights:

Toads and Quilts

From the way I complain about my colleagues stoic nature, (I can't believe I said colleagues) you wouldn't know that I'm currently taking the BEST CLASS EVER. This would be Museum Education and Interpretation, in which graduate students are encouraged to act like preschoolers and get muddy. A few weeks ago we took a field trip to the Delaware Art Museum where we created cardboard houses using massive amounts of glitter, and today I hung out with 3rd graders at the Delaware Nature Society. We caught a toad! It looked like this:

I didn't take this picture, of course, but I did get to hold a squirmy toad. (I snatched him up when one kid shouted "Hey guys I found a snake I found a snake!!" (It was a black stick.) Of course after holding him, I dropped him back into the marsh (the toad, not the kid), and wiped my hands off on my pants. In the distance I heard an 8-year-old boy say "EWW I can't believe I touched a toad! I'm totally using my hand sanitizer when I get back to the bus!" Then I took my hand and laughing maniacally, rubbed it all over his face. (All right, I didn't, but the story would have been SO much funnier that way.)

In a completely different vein of events, this weekend I interviewed quilters for an awesome project, Quilters' S.O.S. (Save Our Stories.) There are currently about 500 interviews online of all types of quilters, all who have amazing stories. I interviewed Eileen Lauterborn and Julia Pfaff, both who put me to shame with their creativity. Then I rubbed a toad on their faces. Ok FINE, but can you tell I really want to do that to somebody? I was inspired enough to finally finish my group quilt, started last summer at Carlsbad. A group of us crafty girls got together and swapped squares, so I can't take credibility for all of them. Here's my quilt out on a lovely afternoon walk:

The Internet

I spent 20 hours a week scanning and photoshopping slides of everything from Italian Renaissance architecture to 1960s Playboy shots. Well, at least I'm supposed to . . . when I can't look at another column, I frequently wander off into the internet. If you, too, find yourself with the need to procrastinate, here are some particularly fun sites I've found.

Last.fm
If you're not on your home computer, you can type in musical artists that you like, and the website will give you suggestions for music you might also like. You can also do the same thing to make a personalized radio station! (You will have to download a small player.) You can also browse other people's radio stations, such as my current favorite "Female Fronted Metal." (Seriously.) If you have iTunes, you can download a plug-in that will track the music you listen to the most, and every week the site will give you recommendations based on what you like. It's great!

The Superficial
Celebrity gossip! This blog is obviously written by a man, but it is hilarious. Check out the video of puppets reenacting the Naomi Campbell assistant-beating scandal. Awesome.

Magazine Price Search
I just bought a subscription to "OK" magazine (can you tell I'm into celebrity gossip right now?) for $4.07. That's right, 51 issues for 4 bucks. I also got a subscription to Vegetarian Times (which has really good recipes, by the way) for $2.99. I like to browse around, drool over magazines I want, and then realize that I don't have time to read the four I already get.

What Should I Read Next?
This is sort of like Last.fm, but for books. To be honest, it gave me some really weird suggestions - but the best thing to do is make a list of your favorite books. Then, the site will compare your list with other people's, and you can look at those which have the most matches. At the very least, it will remind you of things you really wanted to read but forgot about.

Craftster
Even if you're not a "craftster," this site has so much on it it can keep you occupied for hours. Basically, people post pictures of things they've made; there are sections on painting, interior design, ceramics, bookmaking, knitting, crocheting, quilting, cross stitching, clothing, gardening. . . and a lot more.

In other news . . . Spring in Delaware is not a happy gradual change with birds chirping and squirrels dancing around. It's a battle. One day, it will be 70 degrees. The next, you'll wake up, put on a t-shirt, and walk outside into snow. Then the next you'll be walking around Philadelphia in 39-degree pouring rain, and a bus will splash you like you're in a movie. This is stupid. I'm moving to New Mexico.

I won't be working in Arizona this summer, because the museum would not hire me for the second time. Although, now I won't have to make $75 a week and live in a chicken coop and go outside to the bathroom. It's for the best.