2013 is the Year of Colorwork

I say this every year, but this year I super mean it.

I'm going to bust into my stash of yarn. It's really going to happen this year.

I discovered color work! Stranded color work is actually a lot easier than I thought. Looks like practicing all those years finally paid off.

This will become a cowl.

And this will be a really long scarf.

This will be a good year.

My Etsy shop!

I opened up my Etsy shop finally!

Here is it!

Go look at it!

That, and I finally caved in and bought the game Bayonetta for the XBox 360. It is ridiculously fun!

I'm starting to feel a bit overwhelmed!

I've finally decided that maybe I have too much yarn and other textile crafts.

So for now, I'm vowing not to buy anything until the end of the year! Whatever I want to make, I'll make from my own stash first!

And that is the news of the day.

Maomao's my Bubu!

As much as I want to say that I'm above that "my pet is the cutest" craze, I'm not! My Maomao is so cute!

I accomplished a lot today! I got five (very substantial) pages done on my thesis, cooked a four course meal, cleaned the kitchen, and even made a candle.

I tried my hand again at stir-fried eggplants. Every time I make them, they end up soggy. However, when I was in China four or five years ago, one of my aunts told me that I had to dry it first. What she does is cut them and let them dry for eight+ hours under the sun. I never tried it, but kept it in mind. And today, I did try it! Of course I didn't have eight hours, but two or three under the TX sun worked fairly well. They were a lot less mushy when they finished sunning, and I substituted the pork with fried tofu. It turned out well! Joey doesn't like it, but then again, he doesn't like most of my Chinese dishes.

I also made hot and sour soup, catfish, and a milk-tea. And now I have leftovers for the rest of the week. Yea for accomplishments!

Other than that, summer is coming to an end. When June first started, I thought it was never going to be August, so I waited and lounged and lazed around the apartment and did nothing. Then August hit and I didn't do crap all that time! Oops!

But I did do this:


Aww! The squid and octopus are for Joey, and the rabbit was just an experiment so stuffed animals.

That and I just lost my husband to StarCraft II.

A new goal

For the past couple years, Joey and I have been spending the winter holidays far away from home. While that has been fun, Seattle and Beijing were absolutely fantastic, I really want to spend it at home this time. Also, I want to go all out on decoration this year!

That's right, once December hits, I'm going to make sure no piece of our apartment is going to show underneath all the decoration! I want tinsel and ornaments everywhere! EVERYWHERE!

So I have to start collecting now.

This year, I'm going to celebrate Christmas until I'm blue in the face.

I just finished this!

A Legend of Zelda: Link to the Past cross stitch towel! Yea!

I got back into cross stitch a week ago. Lauren found one of my old cross stitch kits that I misplaced over two years ago. I'm currently very into video game themed crafts. In fact, my next project is a line of head shots of Saint Seiya characters! It'll look quite nice when I finish it someday.

Humph!

Pet peeve number 39:

"I'm taking Chinese at school, but only because they're not offering Japanese."

Grr!!

What the hell?? What's so bad about Chinese that it's considered a fall-back option for Japanese. It's two different but equal languages, people! For people who say that, do they realize that Kanji IS traditional Chinese? It's not like Chinese is some inferior version of Japanese. And also, for anyone who tells me any more Japanese equivalence of a Chinese word when I didn't ask for a translation are going to receive a butt-kicking from Joey.

Aaah!!!

I'm Chinese, but I hold no crazy thought that the language holds any superiority to any other language. It's just as easy and hard to learn as any other language. If you grow up with it, it's going to be easier to learn it.

So here's my thought of the day, for anyone who says:

"I'm taking X only because Y isn't offered."

should probably STFU. Because you know... it sounds rude.

//hops off soap-box