just maryse

Eight Years

HEY GUESS WHAT TODAY WAS!?????  IT'S MY 8 YEAR BLOGGING ANNIVERSARY!!!!!!

yessiree.

how has this blog improved my life? 

1. yesterday i spent some time with stitchy mcyarnpants at slater mill in pawtucket, rhode island and then we had a yummy dinner together. i met stitchy through this blog.

2. earlier today i whined with adrian over gchat while we both tried to do our taxes (i finished mine by the way. yay me). i met adrian through this here blog.

and

3. tonight when i discovered a moth in my yarn, and ended up throwing 25 skeins of yarn and one ripple blanket in the trash, did i cry?  no i did not. thanks to being distracted by the fact that i've had this blog for 8 years.  so thanks to that. 

and thanks to all of you for stopping by all of these years.

 

 

Pay No Attention to the Mess

sometimes when i read blogs i'm amazed by how beautiful people's environments are.  especially the design blogs.  everything nice and neat. and in it's place.  every detail carefully considered.  every item chosen with intent.

and because i hate clutter with the heat of 1000 suns (my clutter, not the clutter of others in their own homes) i get a little wistful.  oh, i think.  to live in such a space.  all you have to do is look at one of my pinterest boards to see what i mean. 

thing is, this is so far from my reality that sometimes i just get frustrated.

this is what i'm currently living with.

i can't stand it.  most of that crap is stuff i accumulated in the past 10 months.  and i have to find a place for it.  but even the book shelves make me twitchy.  i find the best thing to do right now is just walk out of the room and close the door.  i'll straighten up when i'm emotionally ready.  and no, you can't have any of my stash.  heh.

sometimes i gaze lovingly at my recently cleared off kitchen table as a palate cleanser.

 

Whatever I Want Wednesday

with close to 300 consecutive posts under my belt, i'm running out of ideas to write about.  because truth is, my life isn't particularly all that exciting.  or the part i'm comfortable sharing with you anyway.  so i thought i'd start a new series of blog post topics:  other blogs that i've just found.   (note:  this could just end up being a series of one.  i promise nothing).

anyway, i spend a lot of time on flickr and earlier today, i became intrigued by a photo of a woman wearing a crocheted cowl.  this one in fact.  so i went to her profile and followed the link to her blog.  written mostly in portuguese, a language that mocks me with it's similarities to french and spanish, yet which i can not read or understand, it's mostly a blog of colors and images and music. i haven't explored it very extensively, and haven't listened/watched any of the videos she posts, but i subscribed the moment i saw the header photo.  look how the shoes are laced!

check it out!

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day 291 -- because sometimes my life lacks a minimal level of beauty. 

W is for ....

Windows

i have a confession to make ...  i'm a bit of a peeping tom.  not in a gross, creepy sort of way, though.  really.  but more in a ... what kind of people live in that house? how have they decorated?  ooh i like the color of that wall  ... kind of way.    when i lived in boston, i used to enjoy walking through the backbay and the south end around dusk glancing through the windows to see what the interiors of these old brownstones were like.  it's a bit tougher to do out by me now since i'm usually driving by.   but i still take quick little peeks. 

i've always been interested in what's going on inside.  when i was a kid, i used to draw these elaborate house interiors on sheets of graph paper taped together so large that i needed to use a yardstick to make my measurements. 

i think that maybe that's why i like to read blogs.  in  a way, a blog is like looking into someone else's world, their stuff, their homes, their lives.  without the risk of being accused of being a little creepy.  usually. 

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i'm not exactly sure that i understand what's going on here -- but i'm going to do this because cate asked so nicely.  some guy has this project where he's trying to determine how fast a meme can get around the blogosphere.  i'm to beg you to link to his project page as well ... so i'm begging ... he's a poor graduate student FOR THE LOVE OF GOD!!! and then ping technorati.  be sure to post plenty of cat pictures ... i think he likes them.

this is what evil looks like by the way ... really. 

Good Stuff!

orsorry, no pictures yet.  but soon.

in the meantime ....

Go wish Elisa a Happy Birthday.  She's a grown-up today!

And who knew that my color-on-color scarf would bring me fame and fortune?!   I made Issue 2 of Eve's Yarnival!  

Change is Good

so i pretty much hate my blog name.  for those of you who don't know, i used to work part-time for a merchandiser with the initials C and B.  i used to call it Sac et Poubelle, which is french for...bag and trash.  it was much funnier in french, hunh hunh hunh hunh, because it didn't sound anything like what it was and instead sounded more like "diamonds and pearls" or "sweet smelling stuff and oodles of cashmere" or something like that.   *cough*  you had to be there.

when i put this here little blog together, i didn't have a name and although i knew i'd probably focus on knitting, i also knew it wouldn't be all about knitting because i'm not all about knitting.  YES PEOPLE, THERE ARE MULTIPLE LAYERS TO ME...

and when i put this here little blog together, i didn't expect to be introduced in public to real live other people as "oh this is bag 'n' trash."  the first time that happened i was at claudia's and i thought "ack!  what the fuck..that's even more awkward than my actual name!" and refused to wear a name tag because i felt like such a friggin' goober.

so now that i'm out and about with people, when they introduce me by my blog name, i get all skeeved out.   and with blogger bingo comming up.  gah!  changes need to be made.   apparently, stitchy felt the same because she told me so.

so last night, over a meal of less than stellar lobster enchiladas, we brainstormed.  (brainstorming with stitchy is fun because it reminds me of being young and a little crazy and staying up all night in college with your friends and not being afraid to talk outloud about your really whacked out ideas that sound so totally brilliant -- and in the case of stitchy usually are -- and you're a little drunk on the brilliance and the genius and the run on sentences and the excitement of the brilliance and the beer. or the kool-aid grain punch).

in the next few days, i'll be making a few changes. if you have me in your bloglines, you'll notice that my listing now reads "bag 'n' trash -- home of the yarn monster."  my mini tag has been replaced with my little yarn monster mascot (although i may go back to the mini picture because i miss seeing my mini there) and i'll make a brand new banner and button (i've never had a blog button!) once i figure out how to make them in photoshop elements 4.

i've also gotten my own domain name.  woo-hoo me with the technology!  (i'm not afraid of math, but i am afraid of the internet technology stuff -- vector calculus is easy compared to this programming shit even if in typepad it's designed so a monkey could do it.)  anyway, you can also reach this blog now from .....

www.theyarnmonster.com!!! ta-daa!!!

although the old address will work as well.

i think it fits.  i make yarn monsters.  i love yarn the way the cookie monster loves cookies.

it's all about the yarn here whether i knit it, spin it, crochet it, stitch it, tell it, or read it.

so...what i want to know is ...

what should the final name of the blog be?

the yarn monster cafe?
home of the yarn monster?
casa de yarn monster?
chez yarn monster?

or should i keep it simple and just call it "the yarn monster"

anyone?   anyone?

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well it appears that there's a yarnmonster out there alread.  i didn't check for "yarnmonster."   

so my name change is back on the shelf.

anyone want a domain name?

oh well.

it was fun while it lasted.

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ok i'm back.

i think i'm going to go with

"monster yarn" 

i checked

i think it'll work

Forty-Five More Days

so are you going?

i am....

and i'm playing..

oh and look!  stitchy's been interviewed now by the local press!   

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in other news...spinning progress

roving that i kool-aid dyed with  2 packets of cherry and 1 packet of grape  (i think).   

it looks a little bit better than the yarn monster.  and i like the color.

 

 

napoleon, however, is not impressed.

Bad Publicity

i'm an average knit/life blogger.  i have my little circle of pals (hi pals!!) who read me regularly, and i imagine a larger group of lurkers who come out every so often to comment when i'm ranting about bathroom etiquette or show pictures of my dog.  yarn harlot has commented (oh yes she has!) and crazy aunt purl and i are *like this*.  i blog because it's fun for me.  i don't try to win any awards (i don't have the time, patience, nor the talent to even compete) and i've gotten much more out of this experience than i ever thought possible.  on average i get about 150 hits a day that i can tell (not counting bloglines).  not too shabby. 

so imagine my surprise when i checked my stats and saw that in the past 12 hours or so, i've gotten over 800 1000 hits!  so i investigated....

grumperina is dissing me.  AND SO ARE HER COMMENTERS!!!  ok one commenter.  but still.  so now 800+ people think i'm lame.  and at least two people have come out and said that my work is crap.  fine. be that way.  have they bothered to look at my other work?  probably not.  whatever. i don't care what they think of me. 

my mother loves me.

stitchy says my mother thinks i suck too. 

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update:  ok, before this gets out of hand.  not that it's close or anything.  as kate says, one of the problems with the internet is the lack of voice tone and facial expressions. (and of course the possibility that i'm not nearly as funny as i think i am).  i'm not upset.  i'm not hurt.  it's all good.

Technical Help Requested

so i've been doing a little housekeeping here  -- i've added a couple more photo albums , gotten rid of some clutter -- but one thing that i'd really like to have is a proper banner.  my banner is boring and frankly looks like ass.

typepad makes it all nice and easy to put up a proper banner -- but i can't seem to get the size of the picture needed to upload quite right.  can someone please advise?

thanks!

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 thanks everyone for your help and advice -- i see what you mean about the border.  for now, it'll have to do.   other than that though, i don't think it looks too bad. 

9:11

look who links to me!  someone from Turkey!  isn't that cool?  i don't know anything about this person, because, well, i don't read Turkish ... but it's certainly a pretty blog!  hi turkish person who links to my blog!  if you speak english ou si tu parles le Francais, please say hello! 

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in other news:  i started work on this crocheted throw yesterday.   

in a couple of weeks, my work is sponsoring a silent auction with all proceeds going to one of the katrina victim charities -- which one hasn't been decided.  i'm hoping someone bids on it.

every now and again, i still get a little bit freaked when i look at a clock and it reads 9:11.   so i'm a little surprised that i didn't realize what today was until early this afternoon. i learned of the attacks while riding the number 1 bus on the stretch of mass ave between boylston street and symphony hall.  j was home and he called me on my cell phone to tell me about the first plane.  we both dismissed it as a tragic accident.  minutes later he called me again.  that evening after work -- a day spent doing everything but working -- my friend kate and i went to a candlight vigil at the christian science reflecting pool.  then i went home.  j and i spent 6 hours on the phone, often times saying nothing, just watching the attacks over and over again.  we started dating 9 days later.