Pixie Purls

Well my wednesday night was event filled. Long story short my neighbors 17yo son came over my house all bloodied up saying his dad had assulted him and wanting to use my phone to call 911. I let him in and was very afraid the dad would come over. I don't really know what happend, but I heard what the kid told the 911 person. He was extermly polite to me and apoligized and thanked me. He was the one in my lasts posts photos who helped the husband put together that swing. Also when the kid came to my door the lights went on and off and my cell phone failed the dial my husband 3 times in a row. Needless to say it freaked me out. Worse off it was 8:50pm and husband wasn't home yet because of a deadline at work.

I have no idea if they arrested the dad but I havn't seen one peep of activity at his house sense. I'm afraid now the dad might want to A) come over to explain etc or B) be mad I got involved. I tried to stay out of it as much as possible. I listened to the kid tell 911 some stuff but when he got detailed about his family history I left the room to give him privacy. His face was bloody from being hit and his hand was messed up because he slammed it into his dads car window. Some sort of ambulance like vehicle did come into my driveway but they left a little while later so I guess he wasn't hurt.

So for the last 2 nights I have stayed hidden in my house praying no one comes to the door. For all I know the dad went to jail and isn't even around. It's all very disturbing. I live in a very calm neighborhood with lots of retired people. It just put a shock through me, and I'm still nervouse.

So on to happier things...

Here you can see the keyboard/piano I got, Tala (pro-nounce Tah-Lah) was very excited by my playing and then wanted to rub her face all over the chair while I got ready for bed. She doesn't normally come into the bedroom at night so it was nice to get some photos of her being silly. I read all up on the internets this week and learned where the notes are on the keyboard and took an intro lesson and I played "Happy Birthday" by reading the notes. I was so proud!! So silly yes, but fun. Then I memorized it and when I got home today I played it on my first try without having to read! My first lesson is tommorow, I really hope its more fun then the guitar lessons.

Today was sooo pretty I had to get out for lunch and go to my favorite Italian resturant in Atlanta. "Artuzzi's" is beyond yummy.

I hope tommorow is just as pretty! I'm stting here hidding out in my bedroom again waiting for the husbeast to get home!

Posted by pixie at 06:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

Thousands of Japanese have been swindled in a scam in which they were sold Australian and British sheep and told they were poodles.

Read more

Posted by pixie at 11:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

So this morning I was laying in bed on my computer when I spied an extremely alive scorpion right down on the floor by my bed, I screamed, husband came and killed it. At that point I decide yah know, maybe the living room sounded like a better idea.

So around noon I went into the living room and played on the piano for a bit. Was more fun then I expected! Now I have to force myself to practice every day. So after about half an hour of that I got online and was talking to mouse and she was talking about spinning outside on her patio. I decided that sounded like a darned good idea.

So I ran out to Kroger with the intentions of getting an umbrella for our patio. It was really hot out and the sun is strong out in Georgia. I wound up bringing home a swing with a cover. The husband got "stuck" talking to our very nice neighbor and his son in the driveway. I paced around the house for nearly an hour, going outside and in again trying to get him to stop talking!

He talked to that neighbor for damn near 2 hours, so i went out and asked if they wanted to help us put the swing together. So the neighbor told his 18 year old son to help us.

It then took them well over an hour to put the dang thing together. As I predicated by the time it was up, the sun was setting and no longer a problem.

I fed them so they would hurry up.

At 6:30pm everything was completed, and I no longer needed the cover on the swing, but the swing was nice!

So I spun a little bit, it was fun! Some pretty BFL/Merino that I believe I got form Jen or Claudia.

The sun simply makes this yarn glow, inside it's more of an aqua blue. I am hoping I could knit a little baby hat out of it. There is plenty of roving for many hats, maybe a little sweater. Lets not get ahead of ourselves now shall we?

And so for today I thank the scorpion, that motivated me to get off my ass and go enjoy the outdoors!

This post was brought to you by the extraordinary construction abilities of my hunky husband (and our neighbor).

Posted by pixie at 07:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

Look it's a willow!

Here is the sheep quilt with 2 complete sqaures (9 sqaures each block)

The "thread" on top is super sweet. It's from some other country and I don't have it handy to tell you the brand but I got it in Australia and then ordered a color card of the internet to get this perfect purple. I suppose it's not technically a purple but thats what we will say for now. I grabbed this fabric at Joanne's on a whim to get back into quilting on some cheap fabric, sheep are always good. Okay so back to the thread, it's thick and for hand quilting. It creates a fun chunky quilting fabric, modern and quick. It've seen it advertised as crochet thread.

It ain't much...

Lookit! Actually knitting. I was lazy so I started with a left front of a baby cardi, and of course the stupid directions came to a part that said "Knit to match height of back" omg fab... so I put it on some temp thread and started the back. The white yarn is for another possible knit. I have been working on this for like umm probably 3 weeks. Sad isn't it? I barely touch it, but it's better then nothing I suppose. I got it at knitch in Atlanta a few weeks ago when I met Claudia and Melissa. Jen never made it cause she was doing sheep things. I have a craving for that knitch flavor of coffee they sell, isn't that weird?? I want it, BAD. To bad I don't live remotley close to that shop.

The CAM CAM!

Ahh I now own a video camera, life is complete.

That's the first video I took with it, Willow was all wanting to be the start. The video also shows my other new toy, my new Canon Powershot Elph SID800 IS. Once again, life is complete. Now I have a digital camera that I can print decent size prints with.

So I went on this buying binge right, it's not like I hadn't saved up the money... but normally I don't go THAT insane all in one week. I think it's like some kind of last hurrah to get myself stuff I have wanted. I know once things change I won't be buying myself much of anything. Plus all of this can be used and will be used a whole heck of a lot!

So about my buying binge, I went crazy and got one truley insane purchase. My husband is hoping it's the last of my insanity. He just shook his head when I told him what I had done, normally I discuss purchases with him and it was so left field.

Yamaha YPT400MS Portable Electronic Keyboard with 61 Full Size Touch Sensitive Keys and Keyboard Stand

Um, wtf was I thinking? Okay well I have wanted to learn an instrument for years, I tried guitar and it didn't work out. I thought man wouldn't it be cool to take piano lessons this summer?? The baby could hear me practice and learn! I never got to learn an instrument as a child and I will want my child too, and I can't be a hypocrite and make them if I don't know how... right? RIGHT?

I know ya'll are laughin at me... :) I did fully research each purchase so I feel pretty good about them.

Posted by pixie at 09:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

I have two bones to pick today, two things really frustrating me.

A) I am so sick to the core of my being of seeing photos of that psycho kid holding his guns, I am sick of hearing his nonsensical tirades on the radio or the video on the TV. All the media is doing is presenting the image to all of America exactly the way that psycho killer wanted them too. Why in gods name would you keep putting those photos and videos out there?? Fine talk about it, but why in the world beyond that first day would people keep publishing that. I change the radio and TV station ever single time I hear it or see it. I don't mind if they want to "talk" about it, I think you get the part that is frustrating me. For some reason this is bothering me way more then 9-11 and I have no idea why. It might be because I'm more emotional or simply because it seems even more senseless because it wasn't another country attacking us, but one of our own.

B) I am super angry at amazon.com right now. I have 3 packages that I have sent to myself which all used that super cheap overnight thing. Well Amazon didn't say it but they all require a signature! I work full time so there is no way for me to be home. So I called UPS yesterday and had them hold the camcorder for me and I can get that at lunch. So I can't login to amazon.com I think they are having some sort of website issue. So I go to the "Contact" section so I can write them some feedback and to e-mail them you have to LOGIN... WTF! And the "call" button, you have to login!! I can't login and it won't let me reset my password, it just says "you can't do that right now". Can anyone else login to amazon.com right now?? Also I know by writing this blog entry I risk getting hate comments, any time I complain about a major company and how I had a bad customer experience with them I wind up getting random hate e-mails from employees of the company. BRING IT ON! Don't mess with a pregnant lady!!! I will p0wn you!!!

I would show you my quilting and other stuff, but I can't because I still don't have my new camera and I ran out of batteries on my old one.

Posted by pixie at 09:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)

As a young adolescent I dreamed of one day being a Cinematographer or a film editor. I specifically wanted to edit movie previews. I thought it was so neat when someone truly captures the feeling of a movie and makes a preview that simply pulls you to the movie theater. I took video classes and communications classes in High school and I selected my college because it had a "Multimedia" degree which involved video and audio editing. The internet was just starting then, I had no idea my skill set would lead me into web development instead of video/film stuff.

So I have always loved movies and video and camcorders. I haven’t purchased one in a very long time. So I have been sitting and waiting for those stupid tape camcorders to move on to the next generation. Sony just release a new line of HDD (Hard Disk Drive, it has nothing to do with High Def) and they start around $500 bucks.

So I got my bonus at work before we left for Australia, and I only spent my other saved up cash on the trip. That still leaves my bonus. I plan on carpeting our bedrooms with that bonus but I also had spent to spend a little bit of it on a new camcorder. I want to have video of my husband and I of our first house and us in our 20's (I won't be in my 20's much longer so I better get a move on!).

So this Friday I have what they call the "Big U/S" aka the big ultrasound event in which you determine the gender of the baby. I know some places give you tapes but other places aren’t allowed too, so most modern girls are bringing along their camcorders and recording the "show".

I would love to be able to "youtube it" so my parents can see it! So I just ordered myself a camcorder. I did lots of research so if you’re in the game for one here is the low down.

Sony Handycam DCR-SR62

It retails for $649 but Amazon.com sells it for $580 which is a darn good price as Wal-Mart isn't even discounting it. Here are the important details: the 1/6-inch Advanced HAD (Hole Accumulation Diode) CCD with 690K effective video pixels provides stunning detail and clarity, for exceptional video (up to 520 lines of horizontal resolution) and still image performance. Realize great-looking digital still images with 1,000k effective pixels.

If you go one model down (and save $100) it goes down to 320k or something efp, even if you don't know what that means, by simple math it's clear it's half the quality. So it makes sense to go spend that $100. For $150 more you get this: DCR-SR200 - The 1/3-inch ClearVid CMOS sensor with 1990K effective pixels provides stunning detail and clarity for exceptional video (up to 530 lines of horizontal resolution) and still image performance. The Mega pixel technology enhances your digital videos and digital still (3980K) photography performance.

Now that WAY better, but then you are spending nearly $750 dollars. I really didn't want to spend over $600 so I made the very hard choice to get the DCR-SR62. I still almost wish I could re-do the order but I did overnight shipping (only $3.99 with that free Amazon prime demo!) so it's too late to undo it, but I think that's for the best. I really didn't want to be spending that much on a camcorder. I'm a techno gadget girl so you can understand my plight!

So oh yeah, these camera's are HDD (hard disk drive) that means they don't use TAPES!! No tapes to buy ever again!! EVER! The model I am getting with the 30gig hard drive fits 7 hours of video, freaking fantastic! I'm thrilled. I told two co-workers about it and they both already bought one. I just wanted to get it before Friday. You can get High Def HDD camcorders but they are over the $1,000 range. No thanks, I don't even have an HD TV. We bought one, well our MIL/FIL got it for us as a wedding present, but I was so mad john Stewart looked so bad in HD because we didn't have HD DirecTV we immediately took it back and got two normal TV’s in its place. I am one of those people who despite being a serious gadget geek I refuse to buy first gen crappy stuff. I won't get an HD TV until all basic cable packages are HD and all stations are broadcasting in HD. These HDD camcorders aren’t the first go round, the first go round was awful and wasn't even into "mega pixels" which if you are familiar is like digital camera's. So this one I am getting is 1 mega pixel, you can imagine that 3 years from now there will be 5 to 10 mega pixel camcorders coming out, another reason I'm not going to spend more money on it.

Okay that's enough of a techie rant for you all but I thought some of the less geeky folks might be interested. You just plug this thing into your laptop and there is a 1 touch button that burns a DVD for you :) sweetness!

ps. there has been knitting but I don't want to jinx myself :) lol so that's all I will say for now!

Posted by pixie at 02:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Scientists have created the world's first human-sheep chimera - which has the body of a sheep and half-human organs.

Um can you say freaky??

Posted by pixie at 11:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)