Category Archives: Currently

Things I Love Right Now

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I love this post about young women’s power of linguistic change. (Thanks, Peter!)

I love this print on Anna Maria Horner’s new linen fabric.

I love this Lumineers cover from Nashville, it brought tears to my eyes. #sap

I love this book I am reading. Only four stories in and they’ve all been fantastic. (Also that is a great article with the authors.) (And here is the web site where they generated those stories [and more].)

I love this $190 scarf that comes in 1,557 tartans. I WOULD LIKE THEM ALL PLEASE.

I love SOME of these white ink tattoos. (Especially #1 on the arm altho I hear inner arm hurts like a mother and #2 on the back shoulders.)

(Yes this is totes an imitation of Bliss‘ “I heart” posts. Kudos. And also inspired by Maggie’s WONDERFUL “I Made This For You” posts that I look forward to every week.)

À la Super Eggplant, currently, I am…

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Teaching: Sixth-grade language arts! It’s just a maternity leave position and I 100% acquired it via nepotism…but hey I am getting paid to be a teacher for roughly seven weeks (only 2 left) and that’s better than if I hadn’t gotten any teaching this semester at all, which is what is really looked like was going to be the case.

Reading: A very very LOT of things. Thank you, full-hour morning commute and sometimes-longer afternoon one. I’m just about to start Bitterblue, book three in Kristin Cashore’s series (books 1 and 2 were wonderful) and I can’t wait!

Watching: I just did an epic rewatch of all four seasons of Everwood in just a couple of weeks. I had forgotten how whiny whiny OMG SO WHINY the first season is but it does get so very good after that and it’s really worth watching S1 so you have the entire Amy/Ephram story at your fingertips. The Bright/Hannah stuff from S3 to S4 is still oh so very awesome as well. I still have a couple episodes of Awake and Once Upon a Time to finish out from the past season waiting in my Hulu queue. And I really want to watch Tiny Furniture (on Netflix) now that Girls is getting such buzzity buzz. (Not that I’ll be able to watch that. Did I mention I finally got all the way rid of my cable some months back when it became clear I would not have a teaching job? [I had gotten rid of all the awesome channels back when I quit my job to go back for MA #2.])

Listening to: Kishi Bashi “151A”!!!. NPR’s Stephen Thompson just kept recommending it over and over on what seems like every podcast I listen to and although he is not my favorite person on any of those podcasts I finally gave it a chance and holy toledo it is just beautiful. So beautiful! Dang, I guess I might like you after all, Stephen Thompson.

Eating: A metric tonne of berries. Blue, black, straw, rasp… I am berrying it up over here.

Drinking: Magic Hat Elderberry, Magic Hat Pistil, Shiner Ruby Redbird, Lefthand Good JuJu (probably my very favorite these days), Fat Tire Shift… There’s more in the fridge but I am too lazy to go look. Suffice it to say, the options seem to be particularly plentiful and yummy these days. Hopefully for you as well. 🙂

Knitting: Technically I am testing a design for someone but it took me forever to even get started so I bet all the other testknitters will be done before I’m even halfway through. There are a couple other things on the needles but I haven’t looked at any of them in ages and by ages I do really mean many months.

Quilting: Just finished a doozy. Have three baby tops ready and waiting to be quilted. Hopefully I’ll get to those right quick so I can make another one for ME ME ME.

Sewing: About to make a second Renfrew (short sleeved and V-necked this time) and then going to do some ‘muslins’ of skirts (but not out of muslin!) and see how that goes.

Getting: Not much sleep. 5:40 a.m. wakeup call means I have to really try hard to curb my nightowl tendencies and sometimes that just doesn’t happen. Speaking of…it’s 12:45 and I’m getting picked up at 8:45 tomorrow to drag some stuff to Goodwill. So I’d best be on my way to bed right quick now. Laters, yo. 🙂

À la Super Eggplant, currently, I am…

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Attempting: To study for tomorrow’s Chemistry final. It would be really hard for me NOT to get an A in the class at this point (technically I think I could even get a B based on points alone without taking the final, if the professor were to allow that), but I have this secret desire to get 100 and beat my score from exam 2 (98). It probably won’t happen as I always make at least one silly mistake, but we’ll see!

Making: Not much.

Reading: I have done almost no non-school reading (I mean, seriously) but I did JUST read “Divergent” by Veronica Roth and it was fantastic!

Watching: Oh, summer TV. Such a frustrating season, when I have the time to watch and yet nothing is on. I am liking Haven again this summer, tolerating The Glades and In Plain Sight*, and not really liking White Collar AT ALL right now (sigh. so sad! it’s one of my favorite shows normally!). But this summer’s [White Collar] plots have all felt super rushed and sloppy to me and I’m not thrilled with how they’ve handled almost anything! Boo. I guess I am also watching Burn Notice but it’s not really pulling me in this season either. 🙁

*I find I can watch mediocre shows with mediocre expectations and not get pissed unlike say The Killing for which there were SUPER HIGH expectations, some created by itself, and then it SUCKED so bad that it wasn’t even mediocre. And thus became unwatchable.

I HAVE seen a bunch of movies this summer though so I just threw up a post with quickie reviews. I mean, why are you here if you don’t want to know what I thought? 🙂 Heh.

Listening to: STILL obsessed with the new Bon Iver which I LOVELOVELOVE. (Especially after we went to Milwaukee to see him/them in concert the other weekend. Blew the roof off.) Not listening to much else, just an occasional spin through The Weeknd (that link lets you download their album, BTW). Oh and also the new Beyonce. I’ve been doing a lot of bus-commute iPod listening but mostly to super old playlists of my own (Airplane Alphabet Soup 2007 anyone?). Don’t know why but those are the songs I’ve been wanting lately.

Failing at: Losing weight.

À la Super Eggplant, currently, I am…

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Attempting: To drink only water. If you know how I feel about water, you know how horrifying this is.

Making: Lots and lots of quilt blocks. Would like to finish another quilt for ME ME ME and then two more baby cousins. Plus I have some other things percolating. Knitting has fallen off the radar for now.

Reading: I’m almost finished with One Bullet Away by Nathaniel Fick, which I am reading after reading Generation Kill by Evan Wright, after rewatching that HBO series (so fantastic). I am Oorahing around my apartment for every tiny accomplishment and berating myself for my lack of physical fitness. This is what reading about Marines will do to you.

Watching: I have rewatched a TON of stuff during vacation: all four seasons of BSG, the three (so far) seasons of SOA (Sons of Anarchy), the only one brilliant season of Standoff, Generation Kill, Life. I am really excited that White Collar returns on Tuesday because current TV offerings are definitely in the doldrums.

Listening to: The new Bon Iver which I LOVELOVELOVE. The new Death Cab which is good but pales in comparison to the Bon Iver. The new Submarines which is so! much! fun!
Failing at: Losing weight.

À la Super Eggplant, currently, I am…

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Eating: Mostly drinking. Black Cherry Soda. Yummers.
Making: Gaaah, have fallen off the wagon on all craft projects but will hopefully finish up an overdue baby quilt this weekend. Send me some motivation, puh-lease.
Reading: Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray. Ah, yes, the BIG ‘UN of our challenge books this year. It’s actually going pretty fast when I actually read it…but have been doing a lot of El train crossword-ing so I haven’t quite devoted myself to it yet. But I like it more than I expected to!
Watching: Finally finished Band of HottiesBrothers. Sigh. So Good. Warehouse 13 just started; I liked the first one! At least enough to keep watching.
Listening to: Pete Yorn “Back and Fourth”. Empy Orchestra “Here Lies Empty Orchestra”. Fuel/Friends latest mix. Eminem.
Failing at: Not freaking out.

À la Super Eggplant, currently, I am…

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Eating: Today: nothing. Tomorrow: a cake like this one, I hope.

Making: Good week for dreaming of projects a-plenty. Bad week for actual crafting.

Reading: Just started this month’s challenge book: “Motherless Brooklyn” by Jonathan Lethem. Loving all the Tourettes’ word experiments.

Watching: New season of Burn Notice, yippee. Also about to start in on the Band of Brothers DVDs. For real this time.

Listening to: “Orange Sky” and “All of My Days” (Alexi Murdoch, both) back to back to back. Thanks to seeing “Away We Go” last night (a: it was AWESOME and b: Murdoch was basically the entire soundtrack), I just can’t listen to anything else.

Failing at: Focus. Control. Willpower. The usual.

À la Super Eggplant, currently, I am…

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Eating: I’m drinking so many calories, there is no room left for eating. Bygones.

Making: Finishing the second of the two baby boy quilts. And an awesomely cute pair of wrist warmers that are sadly not for me. Sigh.

Reading: Another Dublin purchase “Eureka Street” by Robert McLiam Wilson. It’s self deprecating and fun and I quite like both the scruffy narrators/heros.

Watching: All the TV there is available to watch. Plus lots of old movies on random cable channels now that I got rid of all my 975 movie channels, in a preemptive “I may have no income soon” move. Oldies like Top Gun. Ah, Top Gun.

Listening to: New Great Lake Swimmers “Lost Channels” which I LOVE; new U2 “No Line on the Horizon” which I like a lot of; and an awesome new playlist made by yours truly on which I mixed in a few oldies more than my norm. Shouldn’t EVERY song sample the BeeGees? SHOULDN’T THEY ALL? Want a new mix? Got something I’d like in trade? E-mail me and we’ll see.

Failing at: Restraining addictions. Of many kinds.

À la Super Eggplant, currently, I am…

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Eating: Doing way more drinking than eating. Liquid calories, they’re delish.

Making: The last of the Fab Five hats. Two baby boy quilts. Whatevs.

Reading: I just finished one GREAT and one pretty good book (“Little Bee” by Chris Cleave and “City of Glass” by Cassandra Clare) and today I’m going to start “Then We Came to the End” by Joshua Ferris (Dad’s and my challenge book for April).

Watching: BStarG. I went back to the beginning again. There are some nice resonances to the very first five eps or so in the finale. It’s nice to go back. Also I am loving this season of Lost. Sawyer is awesome*.

Listening to: An AWESOME* album I bought in Dublin. Mick Flannery “White Lies”. Over and over. Particularly “Wait Here”. Swoon.

Failing at: Being cooperative instead of confrontational. (This may be a bit of an in-joke. But I trust you can figure it out. And honestly, I’m not interested in NOT failing at that. At all.)

*This month’s most overused word. Odd, since there’s very little AWESOMEness happenin’ here. If any.