What is it?

Here is my latest cross stitch project, and how (not) far I've gotten thus far - can you guess what it is?

The Decemberists/Mountain Man

Months ago, I heard a rumor the Decemberists were coming to town.  That was on a Friday.  The following Monday it was made official, and the date was announced - Feb. 7 at Uptown.  Prior to the date announcement my friend Katie (who lives in St. Louis) was talking of coming up to see the show, but when it turned out to be on a Monday she couldn't justify the 4-hour drive and/or missing work for it.

I was still bound & determined to go, until I got a bill from American Family for my homeowners' insurance.  I'd never gotten a bill from them, as it is supposed to be billed to my mortgage company.  I had to pay it in order to make sure my house stayed insured, and they are supposed to reimburse me after Wells Fargo pays them, 'within 3 weeks or so'.  Basically, I had no spending money.  So when The Wayward Blog posted that anyone could comment on their Decemberists Facebook post with why they should give you tickets, and they'd pick a winner, I figured I'd give it a shot.  I posted about the insurance mix-up, AND I WON!  WOOHOO!


So Jenny & I went.  AND THEY WERE AMAZING LIVE.  Also, Mountain Man was the opener.  It's 3 ladies and an acoustic guitar that 2 of them pass back & forth.  I really really enjoyed them.  I planned on buying the LP on my way out but they didn't take cards, and I didn't know my PIN to get cash out of the ATM (long story). 

So Mountain Man came out and wowed with their vocals.  They all had kind of old-fashioned voices, but in very different ways.  They were also great as far as crowd interaction.  They ate up the crowd's energy.  It was just a fun, light-hearted show.  The people behind me were making fun of them, but you know how hipsters are.  If they haven't heard of something, it's obviously because it sucks.  Before the show, I read a quick review of them that compared them to Fleet Foxes.  My first reaction was skepticism.  I love Fleet Foxes, and wasn't sure that anybody quite compared to them...but sure enough, it was a pretty apt comparison.  Only the female version.  Mountain Man's Facebook page lists their genre as night music, which is also pretty appropriate.  Check them out!

Then the Decemberists took the stage.  Having never seen them live, I wasn't sure what to expect.  My first impression was that they were a tight band, but didn't do much to engage the crowd.  A solid show, but a tad stuffy...which would have been disappointing after the humorous, if somewhat goofy, introduction from the mayor of Portland.  Luckily, I turned out to be VERY wrong.  After a few songs, Colin Meloy started talking to the audience more, and he and the drummer John were funny.  By the end of the set, when they closed with a version of  The Outfield's "Your Love" (You know it - 'I don't wanna lose your love, to-niiiiight'), with Colin on drums and John singing, I was smitten.  I wanted to take Colin home with me (not in a dirty way!  although that'd probably be okay too), and be best friends with Jenny (Conlee, the keyboardist/accordion player).  They were incredible live, I can't say that enough.

At one point Colin ended up in the right balcony, a la Ben & Tyler, with the owner of the Uptown and his family.  He stood above the crowd and played the guitar behind his head, showing off just a little bit.  Oh!  And Sara Watkins, that was a nice surprise!  Nobody is quite like her on the fiddle!
  
Anyway, I'm told they did 2 encores, but I had to find Jenny after the first one and we ended up leaving.  But I left happy.

Little Drummer Boy

It was a good weekend.

Andy is in Nashville, and I miss him, but I got to spend some time with the fam which is always usually good.  I played Rock Band with my parents.  My dad still refuses to sing, but they're both getting better at drums and guitar.

Dad & I had a 6-beer lunch (that's 3 each, not 6 each...should I have said 3-beer lunch?) at Grinder's.  If you've never been there, do yourself a favor and head to Crossroads.  It'd been far too long since I had their wings and Philly cheese, not to mention they have great beers on tap.  We met up with Mom and Krista afterward at Paul & Jack's in North Kansas City.  Their beer selection is not so great, but we tried 2 other bars before it which were both closed.  Mom had some food, and a family friend bartends, and they're pretty cheap, so it was a good time anyway.

Sunday was of course the Super Bowl.  Before that we made it to Agave to try their new breakfast menu, which we thoroughly enjoyed.  Krista came over and brought the boy, and he played in the music room.

He's pretty good, I think, as far as 2 year olds go.  I don't know the capacity of the average 2 year old for a drum set, but he was keeping steady rhythms, AND he had a drumming face.  My friend Jake, an excellent drummer, once told me that the first step in becoming a good drummer was having a 'drumming face'.  You have to screw your face up, close an eye, stick a tongue out, and look as weird as humanly possible.  Apparently this helps you keep tempo...Maybe not, but in any case, the Z Man had his tongue stuck out and his face all shifted to one side.  I don't think I've ever seen him concentrate on something for so long, or maintain interest in any one thing for that long.  It was entertaining.

So the Super Bowl....we went to the aforementioned bartender friend's house; they have a party every year.  I don't remember much of the game, but I had a blast!  Also, I've always thought the Packers were my second favorite team, but I have to mention I found myself rooting for the Steelers.  Perhaps just because they were behind, and I like both teams.  I'd decided beforehand to root for whichever team was on defense.  Anyway, the moral of the story is that Andy and his black and gold blood seems to have rubbed off on me.  I'm still happy for the Packers, though, so - Go Pack Go!

I took this one on the toilet.

I thought I felt some civil unrest coming from my lower half!

Procrasturbator

Really I just like that word.
I have been sucking about taking pictures this week.  My main goal in life has become hiding from the cold, and there's just not much that's picture-worthy in that, unless you want to see pictures of Star Trek reruns and the many blankets on my bed.
In an attempt to make up for my shortcomings, I will share with you an excerpt from an email thread (loosely edited) between me and Andy from last Friday.

*Disclaimer: I should warn you that it is not in any way PC, and might offend some of the gentler folk out there.*

From: Angie
Sent: Friday, January 28, 2011 1:41 PM
To: Andy
Subject:

Ok.

I am having SERIOUSLY STANKY gas.  FYI.

From: Andy
Sent: Friday, January 28, 2011 1:43 PM
To: Angie
Subject: RE:

Fed (Ed.note: The person in the cube next to mine) must be your biggest fan right now.

(Ed. note: From this point forward I am just going to continue the color scheme and get rid of the headers to make this shorter...)

Hellllooooooo Milk Belly! 

He wasn’t here till a minute ago, but he’s about to get a facefull of rejected dairy. 

I am having DANGEROUS rumblings.  I’m a bit worried I’ll soon have a shart story too…..

 Use the handicapped stall.  That handle can come in real handy when you’re passing paddy water.

Such sage advice.  Thank you.

I'm here all week.

I LOVE YOU!

LMFAO!

Is that an Elmer’s glue bottle?  Who’s the irresponsible adult who left Elmer’s sitting around this pair?

The recipe card would look something like this:

DISASTER

Serves 8

2 mentally challenged adults

1 can cream soda

2 12-oz packages Tums

1 industrial-sized jar applesauce

1 bottle Elmer’s glue

Combine all ingredients.

LOL!

I can see that conversation starting with, “Let’s make a pizza!”

HAHA!  Ohhhh yes!

… It’s hard to tell what the one is doing above the bowl.  

Crushing a cigarette, looks like.

 LOL I thought the same thing!  Or rollin’ a j.  There’s just so much to take in.

The more I look at it, though, the less it looks like Elmer’s glue and the more it looks like a nasal decongestant inhaler.

Retard meth lab?

Yeah, and the Egyptians had flying saucers to build the pyramids.

A White February

We, like a large part of the country, got slammed with this crazy winter storm. It didn't really kick up until the afternoon, so I went in to work. The problem was, once I got there, they weren't being very accommodating of people who wanted to leave early. Eventually I did anyway. Andy said it was starting to get bad, and he didn't feel comfortable waiting any longer, so I left work about 1:15. I should have left sooner...or about 15 minutes later. Long story short, the roads were terrible. This mixed with rear wheel drive doesn't make for a pleasant trip home. It wasn't TOO bad until we got almost home. The state highway we live off of wasn't really plowed, and we got stuck in the turn lane. I had to get out and push, and eventually we made it through there. We then made it to the street we live on, which hadn't been plowed at all. We tried and tried to make it up the hill, and we were about to give up and park at the bottom, despite the fact that we'd get plowed in. We decided one more try, and ended up in the ditch.

A neighbor and I tried to push out, but the way the wheels were stuck it just made things worse. I called a tow truck, and they said it'd be 30 minutes. As I was on the phone with them, here comes the plow. They did a round and then stopped and said they weren't allowed to hook up chains but they'd help try to push. As I was explaining that only made matters worse, a neighbor stopped on his way home and said he had chains and would run up and get them. He got back and started talking to Andy. He said, 'I'm no physics major, but I don't think I can pull you guys up the hill....', which was pretty true. They decided to pull us out of the ditch down the hill. After a lot of flopping around in the snow, they found something to hook onto under the Mustang and they were off. I stood in another neighbor's driveway and we watched.

Andy & the neighbor, hooking up ;)

He got him out, and the neighbor I was next to said something to the effect of 'All right, he got him out!', and I was watching and replied, "Yeah, now if Andy can get his car stopped before he hits the truck," which was punctuated by the sound of the 2 cars hitting. Our neighbor, who we think is named Justin(?) pulled Andy out & stopped and Andy had too much momentum and not enough traction and sailed right into his trailer hitch. Luckily it didn't do anything to the truck, but the hitch mount poked a square hole right in Andy's rear bumper. Definitely a huge bummer. Come to find out, the tow trucks were gouging people for $300/ditch, so in the grand scheme of things I guess it's alright. The bumper will surely cost more than that, but it's not money we have to come up with TODAY, so that part is at least a relief. Even after all of that, we had to push the car up the hill to my house, and at that point it had been plowed.

When we got home I was exhausted and dirty and freezing. We hunkered down in our pajamas and just hid out from the cold. In the early evening we heard something outside, and another neighbor was blading the driveway for us!!!

Neighbors make rural living preferable.

So now we're trying to figure out something to make/buy for them. Andy's thinking of smoking some stuff. Shocking, I know, but I think that would be pretty cool - way better than baking cookies or something like that...

Be safe out there. Or better yet, don't go out there.

Yadda Yadda

This weekend is shaping up to be seriously boring. I had loose plans with 2 or 3 people, and it seems none are materializing. I'm (mostly) okay with that; I don't mind a bum-around-the-house-in-my-PJs sort of weekend here and there, especially when it's winter outside. I would have liked to have gotten outside today, as it was nicer out than it has been or will be in a while. I couldn't think of anything to do out there, though. I probably could have crawled under the porch and destroyed the wasp's nests while they're empty - but what a yucky way to spend a Saturday! Instead, I watched The Social Network, and worked on some new cross-stitch patterns. I have one in particular that I love, the other one I worked on didn't turn out so well. I have some ideas to re-do it, though. I think I'll have to use smaller graph paper and aida for that one.

Anyway, I made myself some pickle nachos. That's the picture I chose for today, because it represents just how very little excitement I've had in my life over the past 24 hours. I thought a picture of the pattern might be misleadingly 'fun'.


I could have sworn I'd talked about pickle nachos here before, but I can't find where that's the case.

Andy saw on TV a while ago a show about the origin of 'bar foods', one of which was the nacho. He then came home and made these for me. He doesn't eat pickles (weirdo), but he said the original nacho was just fried corn tortilla triangles, with cheddar cheese melted on top and pickles on each triangle. Everything I've found on the Interwebs says it was just melted cheese and pickled jalapenos, so I'm wondering if he just misheard. However it happened, he made them for me and I've been addicted ever since!

You should try it!

This picture is my lazy version, with tortilla chips. When he makes them for me he always makes the chips from tortillas. Awww...

Petes-ah!

We met my parents for beer tasting, and we were planning to go to get some greasy In-a-Tub tacos afterward, but they gave us this:



so we all went to Pizza Shoppe. It was nice; it felt like we hadn't seen them much in a while. Everyone's hunkered down for the winter, I suppose.

"Making Love"

Valentine's Day is rapidly approaching, and we are poor. Andy & I have agreed we'll just have a nice dinner and exchange cards. I ordered a letterpress card from Etsy, and I'm sort of thinking of trying to make him something. Had I planned better, I'd have saved the Edward Sharpe cross-stitch and given it to him now, but of course I did not.

If you know of any good homemade Valentine gift ideas let me know. I have a few things up my sleeve, but since I just sent the link to my blog to Andy this past week I'll refrain from posting them for now.

Broken Promises

We are trying to figure out which ugly sweaters to wear and what to wear them with for tomorrow. It will be week 4 of Ugly Sweater Fridays at work. Andy had chosen his sweater but had to figure out what to wear under it. I convinced him to try it with my mock turtleneck. I thought it looked good, but he decided against it. However, before he took it off I made him pose for a picture. I don't know if it's the tattoos against the sleeveless turtleneck or what, but I couldn't stop laughing when he was walking around in just this:

I promised him I wouldn't show anybody this, but it's the only picture I took all day and I didn't want you all (all zero of you!) to think I'd fallen off the wagon.

Sorry babe.

Largely Frozen

When we got home from Audrey's apartment last night, I noticed this:

MONSTER-CICLE!

Sister Re-Lo

Well, I guess the trial period was a bust. My sister decided to move in with her friend instead. I am unsurprised, and slightly annoyed. I wasn't dying for a roommate by any means, but I think he's kind of ripping her off/taking advantage of the fact that she'd do anything for him. The good news is it is very close to her work so hopefully that pans out. Good thing, since she won't have enough money to put gas in her car once she splits rent with him so she can sleep in an open dining area.

Anyway, she's excited and I don't want to take that away from her. She had us all over for tacos tonight, and I loves me a good taco night. I think that I probably talk about tacos on here far more than should be normal... Huh. It's a nice place, but barren. I think she'll turn it into something more home-y, and we've all already offered to give her some extra stuff we have. After we had dinner, the old folks left but Andy & I stayed and we all played Spades. It was a nice evening.

So Damn Exciting

Friday night at my house.

...And we're back!

My phone seems to have recovered from whatever was ailing it, so stay tuned for posts. I will be dating them accordingly. Happy Phriday!

SNOW!

Toes in the sand....sort of.

I have to say, except for whole the trying to go places thing, I enjoy the snow. I want to play in it. And when it's dry and powdery like it has been this year I want to sled. When it's wet, I want to build a snowman. Andy does not share in any of these desires. He does not think, like I do, that there are few things more beautiful than undisturbed snow.

Something neither of us desires and must be done, though, is shoveling the driveway. After a sick day in the house today, we realized we had to dig ourselves a hole if we wanted to leave in the morning. We headed outside to shovel in the dark, and a quick 2 hours later we had a path cleared.

As you can see, I got sidetracked. My Wellies sure look dirty in the snow!!

Hydro-Powah!

Yesterday, my coworker gave me this sweet calculator:


I know, right about now you're thinking, "There is nothing sweet about that calculator but the green buttons, and THAT'S certainly nothing worth blogging about." Well, friends, don't judge this book by its cover, check THIS out:

It is water-powered! Seriously, you unscrew that and fill the clear part about 3/4 with water and you're good to go. I don't know how long that amount of water will last, but so far she's going strong!

I'm probably overly excited about this, but it seems to me like a pretty damn cool advance!

I've been taking pictures, but my phone is not cooperating. It won't open the gallery for me to send them. I'm working on the problem, but just wanted to let you know that I'm not slacking off this time! I promise!!!

Day & Night

I took several pictures today and couldn't decide which to use. I narrowed it down to 2 but I can't choose out of them, so I'll tell you about both.

Tonight we hosted a board game night at the house, and so I spent the day getting a lot of cleaning done. Sunday is always my cleaning day anyway. Having been feeling pretty crummy this past week and trying not to get sick, I wasn't feeling like cleaning, so to get myself in the mood I started off by hanging the wall decals Mom got me for Christmas:

I like them. This is in the spare bedroom/computer room, and we've been spending a lot of time in there lately so I wanted to put some more of 'us' in that room. When I first bought my house my cousin moved into this room, and it's the only room we haven't repainted or done really anything with so I figured hanging pictures and cheerful things was a good route to go. I also hung a tie dye 'curtain', which does nothing to block the sun but it looks cute!

So then we had people over for board games. There ended up being 8 of us, which was probably the perfect size for something like that. We played Apples to Apples, Taboo, and Quelf. All are great games in a group setting, and good 'icebreaker' type games if not everyone knows each other. So I'll leave you with a picture from our game of Quelf. Andy drew a card that dictated he do ballet until the timer ran out:

Furniture

So I went furniture shopping with my parents. It was not presented to me as such, but it turned out to be an overall experience alright. Painful at times, though.

Dad is about to get his bonus, and has already more or less decided how he wants to spend it: on kitchen wares and musical gear. I approve. So the first leg of our journey was in search of kitchenware.

We headed downtown to check out Index Restaurant Supply, on a friend of the family's recommendation. We had a suspicion that it might not be open on the weekends, but we gave 'er a shot anyway...Suspicion confirmed.

Afterward, we attempted to go to Ambrosi Bros., a place off of Main that basically refurbishes cutlery and sells it. I was really interested to check it out, and especially the price range...hoping to walk out with 1 super badass knife...but alas, they are only open Monday-Friday as well.

So we were off to Nebraska Furniture Mart! We wandered through fake living room after fake living room, with several requirements: 1) no velour-ish microfiber, 2) Pillow backs NOT allowed, and 3) No sectionals. It doesn't seem like these are very stringent requirements, but it is next to impossible to find a sofa that meets these criteria, isn't hideous, and isn't over $1000.

Hours later, after quite possibly having walked several miles back and forth, we found a great grey couch. It was classy and affordable. Problem was, in its fake living room setting it was paired with an accent chair that cost nearly as much as the couch. We headed to the chair section and found 2 accent chairs that should match pretty well, and they recline and were on super sale. To be delivered next Saturday! Huzzah! Hopefully the pieces are all actually nice, and we weren't just hasty in our desperation, exhaustion, and hunger.

Mom, in a gigantic and wonderful 'chair'

After that, we attempted to go to Cheeseburger in Paradise for dinner, but it was packed. We were all starving, after not getting lunch (a long story/dramafest that shan't be mentioned here), and I hadn't had breakfast either, and we remembered the gem on the other side of the interstate - Frontier Steakhouse.

Long ago, Andy & I had driven by there and mentioned we wanted to check it out some time. The next time we were in the area with my family, we all stopped there and loved it. They have these awesome fried green beans, and the people are just really nice and the food is all really good. Also, it was opened by a local musician so that part made us all insta-happy, of course. Dennis Laffoon, the drummer of the band Shooting Star, owns the joint and actually seated us this visit. Shooting Star was popular in the 80's and he totally looks the part of the aged 80's rocker. I want to be his friend. And continue to eat at his restaurant.

Kitteh.

So a couple days ago I get a text message from my sister: "Do you still need a roommate?" First of all, I don't know what she means by still since I never said I needed a roommate, but I figured I'd play. TURNS OUT, she and her friend Amanda found a kitten by a dumpster at Amanda's apartment complex. Amanda couldn't keep it unless she wanted to pay a pet deposit somewhere in the neighborhood of $300 *It should be noted here that my sister is very prone to exaggeration.* The only reason Audrey wanted to move in to my house was so she could keep it.

Why this is a bad idea:

1.) I don't really like cats. I mean they're okay as a critter, some of them, but until they can go outside or in the toilet, I won't have one.

2.) I have a dog...a dog who is already somewhat neurotic. One time I saved a kitten from work because it was like 11 days old and noisy, and somehow Yoshimi (my dog) switched into this maternal mode and was actually pretty sweet. Since then she's gotten older and grouchier, and had less contact with other animals. Plus she's kind of a chicken.

3.) My sister works all the time. I'm no dummy, I'm going to get stuck with this stupid cat all the time while she's at work. She'll sleep in with the cat in the bed, presumably, and that will be the extent of their interaction.

Finally, I relented. I told her we could do a trial run, she could decide if the extra time to get to work and back was going to work for her, etc. I also said that the cat was to live in the basement when nobody was home, until we could come up with a better solution, and that I wasn't going to be taking care of it. If she didn't, I'd just set the cat outside (I probably couldn't do that, but hopefully Audrey believes my empty threats...).

She brought her over that night, and so far the cat has mostly been a giant bitch. This is the first she really let me hold her. My dog is terrified of her because she hisses if she can even see her. Audrey has named it Skids for the time being, "because she's skittish".

This could get interesting...