the way we move.

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I Still Like You, Priceline

I clearly remember one summer when I was about twenty years old & was planning on visiting San Diego with some friends of mine. When I informed my parents of the hotel we had booked, my dad basically said, "No, you are not staying there". Because it was kind of gross & probably not safe, but we didn't really have money to spend on a hotel, we wanted to use our money for more fun & exciting things!

Even now, I still get restless. Being in one place too long gets me all fidgety so I am usually in a state of feeling like I've got to go somewhere.

Tired driving is undesirable nor do I have many friends, especially not any who live in other cities. So hotels save the day, but here is another fun fact, I am not rich.

This is why I have come to really enjoy using Priceline's, "Name Your Own Price" thing when I need to find a hotel & I would definitely recommend this method. Basically, you tell the website where you want to stay, how many stars you would like your hotel to be, it gives you a map of which areas you might like, you give it a price, & it comes back either telling you to try changing something or that your offer has been accepted.

The catch is that you have no idea what hotel you just bid for, but you have to agree to follow through with your offer.

I've used Priceline's hotel bidding about three or four times & have been really happy with it. I used it for this recent quick trip to Los Angeles & was quite pleased at the hotel I ended up getting a reservation with, the Westin Bonaventure.

The room was clean, not the quietest but nothing intolerable, & the staff were all very friendly. The hotel is made up of window-walled towers so there were plenty of nice views.

On one of the upper floors, there was a revolving lounge which again, gave us really nice views of various city lights.

As with every time I use this method of finding a hotel, I keep thinking, "Maybe this will be the time they give me a horrible hotel & I never want to use Priceline again!", but that time wasn't this time, I still like you, Priceline.

On the Road

Last weekend I took a little visit to Los Angeles in an attempt to get a better feel for the city that I'll be living in since moving day is approaching faster than I imagined it would.

Anyway, one thing that really amazes me about California is the fact that so much of it is essentially empty space. Somehow people stretched roads, telephone poles, & wires over these really vast spaces, connecting every city & that idea really appeals to me.

Because I so love the romance of the open road & did not have to drive on this one (thanks so much, Becca!!!), I ended up with a zillion blurry snapshots of the hills & fields we passed on our way south. Here are a few of my favorites:

This was not long after we took off. We found this port-a-potty with toilet paper attached to be quite hilarious until the toilet paper actually flew off & hit our car. In retrospect, we should have seen that one coming.

So cliche, but doesn't everyone need to take a picture like this once in their lifetime?

Afghans Away!

Working in between other projects, I am making great progress on this afghan! It's proving to be really easy to make because the square design is simple & because the individual pieces are so small, it's a very portable project. While I imagined it being so hot in the summer would really put me off the idea of putting together a blanket, it actually isn't bad if I save the stitching together of squares for the evening hours. Plus working on it in the summer may actually be perfect as it's likely to be all finished when the cooler weather hits & ready to snuggle up with!

Again, the pattern I'm using for the squares is "Vintage Wheel Square" by Kathy North.

Tiny Trees

A tiny little embroidery piece I made. The hoop is only about five inches in diameter, the simple little forest scene is something I doodled in a notebook & copied on the fabric. This was so enjoyable to make at every step: daydreaming of past visits to the woods, making stick figure trees on paper with ink, choosing the colors, & making the stitches! I think making up my own, simple designs is infinitely more fun than searching around for a nice image to embroider.

What it Means to be Made of Gold

More tinkering with the mandolin. I really love this instrument, it's a lot of fun to play & the sound is definitely different than guitar. I hope to get more into playing guitar again some time soon, but it goes back to my theory about how sometimes music is like a needy significant other. When it's good, it's great! You're having an excellent time, you can't wait to see them again, everything is so magical & wonderful & you can't even believe you have something so good.

But then when it's bad, it is a nightmare! Nothing you do is right & it's all boo hoos & you don't love mes. My guitar playing has been in that bad kind of funk for a while, maybe if I buy it flowers?

At any rate, I made the video of the audio (where are you, Dictaphone?!?!) into a really audio (this makes no sense, I know) & added a video from this time I was driving home & thought the sky was looking pretty but for some reason taking pictures distorted all the colors but video was fine. Basically, I had no clue what to do with the driving video so that's why it is the way it is. I also realized that I can make the audio from the video into real audio (again with the not making sense) so if I can figure out how to stream audio on this thing or make things downloadable, then maybe I won't have to post them as videos anymore which would be great!

Sampler

A long long long time ago, I was given this little embroidery sampler. Basically, the owner felt they would never complete it (or start actually) & decided that I probably would. For various reasons, it took me ages to finish this thing! It was my embroidering bane of existence for ages! Anyone I might have spoken with in the past has probably heard me mumbling on about this. Kind of large compared to anything else I've embroidered & quite detailed! In fact, this was what really made me want to start creating my own designs to embroider, I would never draw anything with this much detail! At any rate, I am very happy to have finished this little thing but am now wondering what I ought to do with the piece now.

to be here.

Listen.

I love making mixes for friends, but sometimes lack of supplies & time prevents me from sharing them with everyone, so I've really been enjoying 8tracks. Here is a mix I made today, lots of folk musicians & singer-songwriters. Click on "listen" to go to the mix.