elvis needs...boats?

I had so much fun this evening that I almost don't remember work today. :D

Twisted had a Lantern Moon trunk show this evening, which was a lot of fun. I've never seen so many people in the shop! They brought so much stuff, it was amazing. And beautiful. I coveted lots of things, but satisfied myself with just one gorgeous bag.

I also got to meet Michele and see Adam's Lizard Ridge. (It's GORGEOUS! I can't wait to see mine all finished and sewn together.)

OH! And I finished the Sorta Charade Socks at work this morning!

After Nik picked me up at Twisted, we went out for a bite to eat at Mickey Finn's. By the time we got home it was starting to get dark out, so I'm going to wait until tomorrow to take pictures of both the socks and the new bag. And maybe some other stuff. For now, you have links to click. :)

Good night!

A few blocks north of us on 72nd, there's a smallish commercial building on a corner. When I first moved in with Nik--a little over 3 years ago--it was a strip club of some sort. The strip club moved, "For Lease" signs went up and a while later a new business opened. The new place was called "Little Hands Learning Center," which made me think it was an education-related store or a daycare center or something like that. But then they hand-painted some advertising on the door that said "Kids books, toys, and clothing for sale" which really didn't help explain what the place actually WAS. Of course, I never went in to find out. It was just one of those mysteries you think about once in a while when you drive by on the way home from work.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the place eventually closed and the "For Lease" signs went up again.

Recently, we were driving by on our way home from work and I suddenly noticed a new sign: "Pins & Needles"

What?! I did a really fast double-take. Could it be a sewing shop? Or something else crafty? Within a few blocks of my HOUSE?

But...no. "Pins & Needles" is an acupuncture clinic!

Darn.

...I did just discover that there's a new shop down Woodstock from us, though, that looks promising. I think it's more art than craft, but it has prominent signs about classes. Will have to go check it out one of these days. :)

1. Which of Arabella Figg's cats ran out from under the car?

a. Tibbles

2. Which of the following is NOT one of Albus Dumbledore's middle names?

a. Ignatius

3. Which educational decree introduced a High Inquisitor to Hogwarts?

d. 23

4. Apart from Harry, Ron and Hermione, who was the first person to enter the Hog's Head that showed an interest in Harry's Defence Against the Dark Arts classes?

b. Neville Longbottom

5. In the first Quidditch match of the year which player attempted to score first?

a. Angelina Johnson

6. What kind of bush does Harry hide behind to listen to the news?

b. A hydrangea bush

7. Why is Mundungus Fletcher disguised as a woman when he witnesses the DA (Dumbledore's Army) meeting in the Hog's Head pub?

b. He was banned from the Hog’s Head pub 20 years ago.

8. When Harry and Cho go on their first date to Madam Puddifoot's in Hogsmeade, what is it decorated with for Valentine's Day?

c. Golden cherubs and pink confetti

9. How old is Sturgis Podmore and where does he live?

a. 38 and number 2 Laburnum Gardens Clapham

10. What did Fred and George Weasley do to Montague?

a. Forced him head-first into a Vanishing Cabinet on the first floor.

And pictures for the scavenger hunt...these are all screen captures from the movie. :)

The Weasley twins:



The Hog's Head Pub (inside):



Sirius Black:



Arthur Weasley and Harry:



Draco Malfoy:



(Had to give up, for now, on looking for a shot with Draco alone--he's hardly in that movie, it seems! If I find one, I'll swap this one out.)

(Don't worry, folks, I do these quite rarely.)

I've seen this one on several HSKS5 members' blogs, usually with a request for other members to also complete the meme. So, what the heck, here we go.

1. What was I doing 10 years ago? 10 years ago this week I was getting ready for my college graduation, and also gearing up for grad school. I actually finished my coursework after the winter quarter, so I had spring quarter off. I was really glad it worked out that way, because my grad school program--an intensive 12-month program with very little time off--started within two weeks of graduation.

2. What are 5 things on my to-do list today: These days, I seem to rarely HAVE 5 things on my to-do list. Or maybe I just think that because it's 9 pm and the only things on my to-do list now are 1) brush my teeth, and 2) go to bed. Oh, and 3) read for a little while before sleeping.

3. Snacks I enjoy: (in no particular order) Sunflower seeds, Life Savers, chocolate (especially dark chocolate), apples with peanut butter, chips (or wheat thins) and dip, ice cream...

4. Places I’ve lived: California (my first 35 years, most--but not all--of which was spent in the general vicinity of San Jose) and Oregon (for the last 7 years). I lived in Southern Oregon for my first two years, then moved to the Portland area. I can hardly believe that I've been in Portland for almost 5 years now!

5. Things I would do if I were a billionaire: Buy a big plot of land and build a bunch of houses that are close enough to visit back and forth, but not right on top of each other. Then move our families into them. Give lots of money to good causes (like breast cancer research, libraries, AIDS programs in Africa...). Travel.

6. Who I want to know more about: any other HSKS5 members who've yet to do this. Oh, and specifically Narcissa Shrivelfigs. (Might as well help out your spoiler a bit, right? :D)

In yesterday's Daily Prophet, Headmistress Wartbobble asked us to talk a bit about Care of Magical Creatures and the books required for the class.

As a first year, the required reading is this book:



I don't have the second one yet, but I've seen it around. Third years are required to read this scary-looking book:




Doesn't it look like it's going to try to eat you if you touch it? shivers

I haven't seen very many of those magical creatures in person yet, but I do love Hippogriffs. Aren't they just amazing?

I hope to get a chance to see lots of other magical creatures...but I might not want to get too close to some of them!

In other news...

I'm afraid my parents aren't too happy with my new purple hair. I have no idea how they found out so quickly, but I got a howler from Mum this morning at breakfast. How embarrassing!

I love my purple hair, and don't see why my parents should care what color my hair is. Hmph.

Emma asked us to post a "first" in knitting, and initially I couldn't really think of anything. I'm pretty adventurous, so there isn't much I've never tried. Perhaps my imagination is failing me, though. :D

However, I did recently learn a new technique which I used on my Twisted Sky Socks: knitting socks on two circular needles. Here they are again:



I love this technique so much that I've also used it for my latest pair, the Sorta Charade Socks:



These aren't quite finished yet--I'll get a much better picture once they are.

The Sorta Charade Socks are another first for me. I started out making a pair of the popular Charade Socks (I think you have to be on Ravelry to get the pattern), but ended up adapting that pattern to the sky architecture (used in my Twisted Sky Socks) from Cat Bordhi's book, New Pathways for Sock Knitters. Basically, I ended up taking the stitch pattern from Charade and putting into the Master Sky sock architecture from the book. Not quite an original design, but fun and unique!

Andromache here...

Remember the "trouble" with the potion last week? Once Emma got used to it, she actually really liked the beautiful teal shade her hair turned. So we decided to make some changes and try it out on me, too. Check out Emma's blog for a picture that shows the lovely purple shade we turned my hair! I love it! It's just what I had in mind--we must be getting good at these color potions. (I have to give most of the credit to Emma and Patonga, though--as a first year, I'm learning a lot from them!)

The week was a bit grueling, but it's finally Friday. Yay! And it's a 3-day weekend! YAY!

And even better, I actually get ALL THREE days off!

[For those of you new to my blog...let's just say that there are certain things that really suck about working in payroll. For instance: holidays. Most of the time, holidays force us to either work on the holiday, or work an extra day during the week to make up for having had the holiday off. People have to get paid on time, holiday or no! Memorial Day--this year anyway--does not interfere with our payroll schedule. Yay!]

I made it to Twisted three days in a row this week! The weather has been pretty yucky, so I've been taking the bus even though it's only a little over a mile from my office. I get off the bus about a block and a half from the shop, crossing two small streets. You'd think that'd be a pretty safe way to go, wouldn't you?

I almost got run over today.

The bus lets me off on a two lane, one-way street. I always cross the side street first, to give the bus a chance to get by and because I have to wait for the rest of the traffic to clear anyway before I can cross the one-way street. So, as usual, I waited for all the traffic to clear (there's a traffic signal at the previous intersection) and then crossed the street. I made it halfway across when a woman driving a huge silver SUV turned left onto the one-way street from the other side. She stopped in time, with tires squealing as I jumped sideways away from her car.

I don't think she was any closer to me than, oh, 6 feet, but it was scary!

Now I'm looking forward to a quiet weekend, with lots of time to rest. And lots of knitting, I hope.

Yesterday was the first time I've missed posting something during the whole month of May. Between just being exhausted and then being up late watching American Idol (I had to see if David Cook was going to beat David Archuleta!), I just lost track and went to bed without posting. Oh well, I'm still doing quite well on my self-imposed "post once a day" goal.

This has been another of those crazy work weeks where I work way, way too late one of the days and then struggle to balance it out the rest of the week. And sleep enough to overcome it. I'll be going to bed very shortly in an effort to make Friday feel less awful than Thursday did.

Yesterday after work was nice, though--I left a little bit early and went to Twisted. Tammy and Kim joined me a while later and we chatted and knitted until Nik came to take me home. It was so nice seeing them! It's been ages.

My second Sorta Charade sock is well underway now--the leg is done, and I'm starting on the ankle. I've also been making a little progress on Mom's Follow the Leader shawl. I have a few things coming up that are going to pull my attention away from all these awesome works in progress, though, I think. I may finish the sock this weekend, but then I have things to work on for the HSKS5 swap (even though it's a sock KIT swap, there's still a handmade component to the swap--which, don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining about! I'm even looking forward to it, but it's yet another thing to add to a queue which is looking a bit daunting right now). And I'm taking a class starting next weekend, so I'll have a project to work on for that, too.

Oh well--I'm sure I'll figure out how to juggle everything. I just don't want Mom's shawl to keep getting shoved to the bottom of the list! Better work on it a bunch this coming week...haha.

I was surprised while catching up on blogs from work today to find out that I won the first Ravenclaw House Prize for this term! And all I had to do was post my biography last week...(names were drawn from those who completed that homework assignment). Yay! I can't remember the last time I won something.

On a related topic (sort of), I've been laughing at myself recently because every time a House Quiz is posted, I want to complete it. This week the Hufflepuff Quiz was anagrams. Ooh, fun! Tonight the Slytherin Quiz is Order of the Phoenix trivia. Ooh, fun!

I'm impatient for the next Ravenclaw homework, and I completed this week's before 5 am Monday morning, I think.

...these may be strong clues as to why I sorted into Ravenclaw, no?

:D

Haha. I just mapped an address for Nik, which turned out to not be all that far from our house (sadly, it was in reaction to some crime story on the news...). While looking at just how close to our house it was, I noticed something...



The latest Google image of our neighborhood shows our roof in progress from last summer! Too funny. That means I can pinpoint when that photo was taken almost to the specific day.

Andromache dropping in again...

Remember that snoring problem I talked about in my last post? Well, Emma, Patonga, and I put our Ravenclaw heads together over the weekend and came up with a Silencing potion to keep Emma's snoring quiet so Patonga and I can sleep. And Emma tried it last night, and it worked!

Um, except it turned out there was one slightly...unexpected side effect. I'm sorry, Emma! No one will notice, will they, Patonga?

...perhaps we should work on a slight alteration to the potion, girls.

You know, putting a misspelled word in a cryptogram is a little mean... :P

Here's the solution to the Ravenclaw House Quiz:

It's a good kind of tired today, though. I went out with Nik this morning to do some yardwork. There's still lots more than needs to be done, but I pulled out some of the worst of the weeds and poisoned the ones that are growing in places like seams in the sidewalk while Nik mowed the back and side yards.

Then we moved a bookshelf (which we're using as a clothes shelf in our temporary bedroom) and built one of those little 3x3 cube thingies. The room we're living in right now is pretty tiny--now that we have all the shelving in there with our bed, there's only a rather narrow space in which to walk. However, we finally have somewhere to put all our clothes. It'll be a lot nicer than everything hanging off the bed's footboard, which is pretty much what we've been doing since we moved into the room in March. (The room does have a closet, but it's tiny and we need to put another pole in before it'll really be useful--the current pole is too high for me.)

Next step: actually putting all the clothes away. :)

Quick note to those who read my blog but are not involved with HSKS5: I'm going to be sharing my blog with my Ravenclaw alter-ego, Andromache Tonks, for a while. I'll try to label all such posts appropriately so you'll know to just skip on by. :)

A Note from Andromache:

I'm a first-year at Hogwarts and, wow, this place is so confusing! I assume it'll get better, but this first week has felt like I'm just spinning around trying to find my bearings. I've finally figured out how to get to the Ravenclaw dorms and have found out who my roommates are: Emma Scrimgeour and Patonga Pinkstone.

We have a little problem in our dorm, though, because Emma snores! So far it hasn't been too bad, but she says it happens when she's really tired. She's already snoring and the term has only just started--I'll be lucky if I get any sleep once the real studying begins!

We've decided that we need to make a Silencing Potion to quiet Emma's snoring and give Patonga and I a good night's sleep.

Hey Patonga, how are you at potions?