Crafty hobbies

While I was loading the dishwasher today I was thinking. In the past few years I have tended to pick up crafty hobbies. In college, I took up scrapbooking and cross-stitching. Last year, I began knitting.

Actually, I picked up crafty hobbies when I was younger too. There was the painting with the mini canvases and acrylic paint, the shirt decorating, the polymer clay sculpting, and the collage making.

Apparently I have a need to express myself creatively, and I have a limited attention span when it comes to crafty hobbies. The newest phase is only a desire so far. I want to sew. I want a sewing machine. Part of me justifies this by thinking that every woman who plans on having a family should have a sewing machine and know how to sew just a little. But the other part of me sees purses like this one, or this one, or this pillowcase skirt, or these aprons, and I just think - "I want to make that."

But I already have a bunch of knitting stuff in my closet and I want more. Besides the previously mentioned and now abandoned hobbies for which supplies were purchased. It just doesn't seem right to take up another.

Look-a-likes

During my college years, I was often told that I looked like someone else. A friend back home in Louisiana, some actress I'd never heard of, someone's sister, Janeane Garafolo, and once, my dentist said I looked like Madonna. That was weird. Even my brother once walked up to a girl in Chick-fil-a thinking she was me.

All these memories brought back by a trip to Wal-mart. The check-out girl there today said I looked like her cousin Ashley in Kentucky. Apparently Ashley even wears her hair short like I do.

Griffin

Once again, Matt and I spent the weekend out of town. Matt had a music conference in the Atlanta area and my mom and dad are south of Atlanta in Griffin, GA, the self-proclaimed "city of irises," so we left the kitty for a few days. Besides getting to spend time with my wonderful parents, we enjoyed big city delights like Applebee's, Target, Michael's, and Garden Ridge. There's a lot that Wal-mart just can't offer.

We attended my parents' church on Sunday, which was very nice. Many people seemed eager to meet us, and Matt said they had the best church choir he had ever heard. Pastor Craig presented an interesting and compelling message about Moses' encounter with God in Exodus 3.

Oh, and we are very thankful to my mom for some fantastic home cooking.

Fall...Autumn...Fall...Autumn

I hear that today is the first official day of Fall.

Fall has always been my favorite time of the year. Of course, I've lived in Florida my entire life up until a month ago, where "fall" just meant the humidity went down a bit and temps were no longer in the 90s.

Also, my entire life up until now I have called Fall Fall. But this year I think I will call it Autumn since we're already waking up to temperatures in the 40s. It gets nice during the day, but still...

I think I will like Autumn. But I think I will be cold.

Poncho to Be

Here's what I'm doing with the pretty red yarn. Ponchos are all over the stores, but there are also a lot of easy knit patterns, so I'm making one for myself. I'm trying out seed stitch for the first time and liking it.

Yummy red yarn

This is the yarn I'm working with right now. Because the only place around here to get yarn is Wal-mart, I have a limited selection, but I like this one. It's Caron Simply Soft Autumn Red. Pretty, right?

I've been knitting a hat.

I decided to post a bit about what I've been knitting recently. This is a ribbed hat I am almost done with. It was really easy and now all I have to do is sew up the back and it will be ready to wear.

My first day as a substitute teacher

There are many things in life I thought I would never be. Things like blonde, or a movie star, or a ballerina, or a singer, or an accountant, or a chemist. Substitute teacher was also on this list. Yet, now I am a substitute teacher.

I've been working part-time in the library at my husband's school (he's an actual teacher) and they were kind enough to offer me the opportunity to be on the substitute list and bring home, if not the bacon, at least (perhaps) some turkey jerky. Today I substituted for two American Literature classes, where I even had to lead a discussion on J. Hector St. John de Crevecoeur, two English I classes, and a yearbook class. I think I am too big a dork for this job. On several occasions, a student would just look at me blankly, and on several more occasions, they didn't stop talking. Nonetheless, no one laughed at me except when I cracked a joke, and no one did any harm to himself or others. I admire people who are or want to become teachers. It takes a lot of effort to be interesting and authoritative at the same time.

Even though I may not have thought I could be a sub, it wasn't so bad. And I'm getting $50.

The big rain

So, this was the weekend of big rain and no power - at least for part of it.

It all started Thursday when there were tornado warnings and lots of wind and rain. Power went out and I got sent home from work in the library. Matt (that's my husband) and I lit a bunch of candles and tried to put together a puzzle that was way too hard, even if we'd had sufficient lighting. The fun part was when we got to try to eat the stuff in the fridge that was going to go bad. The not fun part was waking up Friday morning and still having no power.

But, they cancelled school so we were both free for the day and went to explore Asheville. It took longer than expected because of an unfortunate detour through some very flooded mountain area. There were houses that were literally about to wash away. We did enjoy Asheville, for the most part, mainly because of the access to real shopping, like a mall and Ross and TJ Maxx - two of my favorite stores. Downtown Asheville is real cute, but not so much fun in the rain.

We made the sad discovery that people from Asheville don't understand that when traffic lights aren't working due to lack of power, you treat intersections like a four-way stop. Negotiating the parts of town with no electricity was interesting.

Power was back on when we got home on Friday, but went out a few more times Saturday. By the way, the weather on Saturday and Sunday was beautiful. Everything was clear and crisp. So rain's not all bad, after all.

We also bought a digital camera this weekend for a very good price, so expect pictures here soon.

My weekend

I just realized that I've been sitting in an empty school library for almost two hours. It's nice that I'm getting paid to check my e-mail, but I wish I could be doing librarian-y things. I would even happily shelve books. But...since I won't be doing any of that, I'll write about my weekend. This was the first weekend since Matt and I moved to GA that we had to ourselves. No visitors (though we enjoyed you all - Rick, Lydia, Will, John, Matt's mom, Randa). No extra work for Matt. No going off to visit family.

I was very excited about this weekend that was ours. I came up with the plan to hike Glen Falls, eat a picnic lunch, and spend the afternoon in nearby Highlands, NC. The three Falls were beautiful and we very much enjoyed the hike down. The hike back up the steep trail was more than I bargained for. Seems I always overestimate my fitness. We made up for it by sipping delicous frozen chai from Buck's Coffee Cafe.

Sunday morning we were back in Highlands to visit First Baptist Church of Highlands. It was very nice, but small, and overall, not the church for us. Lunch was at a barbeque joint as we were on our way to beautiful Sapphire, NC for The Offering, a sort of mini-festival featuring worship artists. For ten bucks we got to hang out on a really beautiful grassy hillside by a lake with mountain views and enjoy some very good music. We mainly wanted to see Shane and Shane, who did a fantastic set under the stars. I also enjoyed Todd Agnew and Charlie Hall. I have to say that it has been a long time since my corporate worship through song felt so joyful, and I'm grateful for the opportunity.

Boo to the Subway in Cashiers, NC for running out of bread when several hungry youth groups descended on them. If you are a sandwich place, bread is important, is it not?

New Knitty!

As I was adding knitty.com to my links section, I figured I'd head on over there and see what was going on. Oh my! New fall patterns are up already! I was planning to post about my weekend, but now I am drooling over patterns that are beyond my current knitting abilities, but look so adorable! This scarf! This bag! This sweater! This wrap! Sigh...

By the way, my husband told me this weekend that he was a little embarrassed of my knitting. Apparently he thinks it's dorky. Eventually I talked him out of that view, but now I'm not sure if he deserves a new Mo-made scarf for this winter or not. :-)

Finally...

After a few years of reading blogs, and admiring the people who have the time and abundance of thoughts to fill up a blog, I am starting finally starting one. Being underemployed and in a fairly new town (we've been here just over a month), I now have the time. We'll see about the abundance of thoughts.

First thought - northeast Georgia is much, much prettier than Florida, where I lived my entire life up till now. Besides the fact that this area is not so beseiged by hurricanes, it has mountains! And waterfalls! And gorgeous sunny, but not hot, weather.

We may not have friends yet, but we do have a nice view.