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January 31, 2008
Skeptics Ahoy!
So, I've been a bad blogger of late. And I'm going to continue being a bad blogger by doing nothing more today than posting some links. I've been spending a lot of time over at the Skepchick blog and enjoying the information and the virtual company. As they've reported there, the 79th Skeptic's Circle is up, and The Amaz!ng Meeting just ended in Florida (for those of you who don't know, this is a really incredible-sounding semi-annual Skeptics' conference of sort spearheaded by James Randi.)
This whole atheist/skeptic community thing has become a bigger and bigger interest of mine over the last couple of years, and though I don't blog about it too much, it is something I'm starting to feel more passionate about and hope to devote more of my time to in the future. And a few of these people are also knitters, which just kind of sealed the deal for me. Seriously.
Posted by mwashburn at 09:17 PM | Comments (3)
January 29, 2008
Open Mouth, Insert Foot
Me on Sunday: "Yeah, Adam and the Bug both had that awful cold and I totally stayed healthy! I can't believe it! It's so great! This never happens!"
Me today: "Sniffle. Ugh. Hack. Ow."
Me on Sunday: "Yeah, Lily has slept all night in her own bed for five days straight in the last week!! I can't believe it! She's finally sleeping all night and so am I!!!"
Me today: "Uh, yeah. Lily's been up crying at midnight every night since Saturday. I slept in her room last night because she wouldn't settle back down" Oh, and see first item. Fffthlt.
Posted by mwashburn at 08:16 AM | Comments (0)
January 26, 2008
Little Bits of Creation
I managed to spend a short amount of time painting today. Here's the results (keep in mind this is a badly lit photo and this is just the very barest foundation of the painting; just a sketch really, blocked in):
It was inspired by a "happy accident" photo my mom took of the carousel at the Phoenix Zoo when we were there:
Lily spent a little time working as well:
This is one of her very first representational drawings. It's of chalk, so I wanted to capture it. It's a plate with some food on it (she made individual strands of spaghetti, then erased them, then put something called "dot food" on the plate). To the left and right of the plate you can see napkins, utensils, etc.
And here's an update on my knitting. I finished the cabled mitts, but left them at work (where I've been wearing them constantly), so alas, no photo. But here's the progress so far on Adam's socks:
Posted by mwashburn at 04:03 PM | Comments (3)
January 25, 2008
Thoughts on Boxing
I've actually been thinking a lot about martial arts and boxing lately. I really miss the training, the people I worked out with (and, of course, the self-confidence that comes with knowing you can throw a grown man to the ground and choke him unconscious in less than 30 seconds). I suppose many would find my martial arts and boxing obsession odd for a woman, but I think it's a combination of a lot of things for me. I never liked team sports, so when I found martial arts it was like a whole new world of enjoying exercise opened up to me. It helped me get in really good shape, I made a lot of great friends, and it was something that not everyone did.
Other than watching some old Muhammed Ali fights, I never watched a whole lot of heavyweight boxing. A lot of people say that it's gotten too commercialized, that a lot of the spirit of the training has been lost, but now there are a lot of up-and-comers who seem to be bringing some life back to the sport. The Oscar de la Hoya/Floyd Mayweather fight broke all Pay-Per-View records, and the proposed rematch this fall is looking to match it. Here's a link to get Oscar De La Hoya vs Floyd Mayweather Jr. tickets, if seeing it live is your thing.
I think whether you're watching UFC/Mixed Martial Arts style fighting or professional boxing, it's more enjoyable to watch people who really know what they're doing and are really on top of their game. There has been a lot of controversy over UFC-style fighting, but here's the thing... now that it's gone pro, it's pretty darn safe. The bar-room "ultimate fights" that go on can be pretty bad, because there's no regulation of equal matchups, weight classes, or ability levels. And the other thing is the blood. People freak out about the blood. There's less of that now that so many people are training in jiu jitsu and have a good ground game. What happens when you don't wear boxing gloves is that skin ends up splitting from punches. It's ugly, but actually does less damage than 16-oz boxing gloves. Those rattle your brain, which causes knockouts, and can cause swelling and long-term damage to the brain. But it's all safer than Nascar, statistically speaking.
I really need to re-read Joyce Carol Oates' On Boxing. There's another woman obsessed with the sport. Her book is a really great ode to boxing that also explores a lot of the racial, class, and social politics that go with it. Really interesting stuff. I also think it's awesome that more women are getting into boxing and mixed martial arts. Although I think as long as there are ring card girls, it's going to be hard for female athletes to get the respect they deserve. We can be warriors too, dammit.
In any case, as I don't have Pay-Per-View, I doubt I'll be watching the de la Hoya/Mayweather fight live, but who knows, I might check it out online later. Stay tuned.
Posted by mwashburn at 09:04 AM | Comments (0)
Cheating Update
Well, old gym, it's over. Two workouts (including a kick-ass Pilates class) pushed me over the edge. I canceled my membership. That's pretty final. I feel a little twinge of guilt, but then again maybe that's just the soreness in my abs from training with someone who knows what the hell they're doing.
It's time for me to get started training for the Ringing In Spring 5K as well. I kinda have to do it this year, since now I have last year's time to beat. I am in better shape than I was last year (um, I think). Maybe not better running-shape, but better overall shape. And somehow, the plateau is over and I've shed 2 pounds!! I know it's only two pounds, but when Lily weaned my weight started to creep up and I felt a sense of panic. But I think it was just my metabolism readjusting, and I tried to stay calm and now it has worked itself out. I've always been obsessed with my weight, but I try to fight it through exercise, focusing on strength/fitness rather than actual weight in pounds, and not owning a scale. I am critically diet-impaired. The word diet makes me get hives, and being hungry is worse than having bamboo slivers shoved under my fingernails. So there you have it.
The point of this whole tale is that I'm excited to simply have somewhere different to work out, a different kind of workout to do, and new goals to work on. See you in swimsuit season!!
Posted by mwashburn at 07:23 AM | Comments (0)
January 23, 2008
Please, Lord, Save Me From Tahoma
No, Tahoma the font, not Tahoma the city.
I really wish Microsoft Windows came with some sort of tutorial on why screen-designed fonts are a poor choice for print, and explaining that all serif fonts are not Times New Roman.
sigh. Can I go home now? I'm obviously not needed in the workaday world. Not when people have MSPublisher.
Posted by mwashburn at 03:46 PM | Comments (0)
January 22, 2008
Cheating
Well, I'm sorry old gym. I went and tried out that other New Gym today. Your flabby trainers, oldster music, and outdated equipment just weren't doing it for me any more. At 5:40 am I got on my running shoes, drove to the other side of town, and sweated somewhere else. It was a brightly lit place where the free weights were right next to the Nautilus machines. There were five wide-screen TVs with earphone jacks on the exercise equipment (and none of them were showing Fox News). There were people who actually looked in shape. I got my own locker AND lock. I'll go back for more. I get to take Pilates for FREE on Thursday. I'm sorry, old gym. I think it's over. Looks like I'm going to need to buy some new gym clothes.
Posted by mwashburn at 07:37 AM | Comments (0)
January 18, 2008
Some Sewing I Could Handle
They want $395 for this bedcovering at Ouno Design
(thanks apartmenttherapy)
It's beautiful, and "upcycled" from vintage scarves. I am always oohing and aahing at scarf finds at various thrift shops, but don't usually buy them for fear of not knowing what to do with them. Now I know. I'm going to have yet more bedcovers! Yay! The one I made last summer was just backed with an inexpensive sheet (I bought a sheet one size bigger than the bed the cover was to be for) and that would probably work well with this idea too, especially if I quilted around each square. Not that I have time for another project, mind you. But at least I have an excuse for some collecting. And I'm thinking why not border it with all those vintage ties I want to buy all the time!
Posted by mwashburn at 02:02 PM | Comments (0)
January 15, 2008
School Fundraising
Anyone with kids in school has been through one awful fundraiser or another.
This year Bug's school had both a Scholastic Book Fair (halfway decent, but lots of books with Disney Princesses or other characters I don't want to push on my 2-year-old) and a Yankee Candle fundraiser (decent quality merchandise at least, but again, more crap no one needs). We are also enrolled with Upromise so that as we go about our normal shopping, some purchases credit cash back to a college savings account. I like that kind of arrangement, though we don't do quite enough brand name shopping to make it really work for us.
What I didn't know is that you can contribute to school fundraising programs in a similar way with a program called Schoolpop. You can get a Visa card or shop online, and there are some stores I actually use enrolled in the program (including amazon.com. It's great that companies are giving money back, and that people can select their own schools to give to (if they're participating). I guess as retailers get bigger and bigger (and therefore have locations pretty much everywhere) this gets easier to do. And how much better than sending the poor kids home as salespeople to push crappy wrapping paper on their parents' co-workers!
They also have a program for schools to earn money through recycling of cell phones and printer cartridges. I'll need to do a little more research to find out what the company's overhead is, but on first glance it looks pretty good in concept.
I haven't registered yet to see if Bug's school is participating, but I will. I think it's important to still be actively involved in your kids' school, whatever that means, but at the same time if programs like Schoolpop help them earn a little more money, all the better.
Posted by mwashburn at 07:16 AM | Comments (1)
Mmmmmm.... Food
We had a really lovely weekend, filled with food and drink. Our friends from Urbana, IL came up for a visit on Saturday. They love food and drink as much as we do, so it seems like a pattern for their visits is emerging. They arrive, we cook, eat, and drink for a period of about 24 hours, we all go for a nice walk, then they head home. The menu this time was venison chili, red lentil soup, fresh baked rye bread, and of course assorted beers, wines, crackers, and cheeses while we waited for it all to cook up. I didn't stress on dessert, we just had some Peppermint Jo Jo's from Trader Joe's. If you've never had these things... well, they've inspired everything from blog posts to poetry to desperate searches around the holidays. Imagine an Oreo with no trans fats, no high fructose corn syrup, and peppermint chips in the cream filling. The. Best.
Anyway, after eating and drinking for about six hours straight, we were tired and went to bed. The bug had asked Adam the day before, when he was making up the bed in the guest room, "Are A and J going to sleep next to each other?" "Yes, they're married, like Mommy and Daddy." Bug thought for a minute and then asked, "Are they friends?" She cracks me up.
Sunday morning we got up and had a hearty breakfast of Belgian waffles, fruit, and mimosas (finally used up that bottle of champagne from my birthday party... oy). Then it was time to say goodbye. We always enjoy a weekend of intellectual discussion, politics, atheism, and people who play with the Bug constantly despite professing an aversion to children.
Posted by mwashburn at 07:06 AM | Comments (0)
January 09, 2008
If Only I Liked to Sew
I often think of all the wondrous things I would do if only I actually *enjoyed* using my little sewing machine.
I would buy yards and yards of upholstery fabric, cover my couch, chairs, make an upholstered headboard, new curtains, you name it. I could even cover my lampshades in discount Scalamandre fabric in a lovely animal print. But, unfortunately, I've learned a couple of things. One, I really don't enjoy sewing. Too much process, too much setup. Second, by the time I buy fabric I like, I've spent more than I would have to just buy the darn thing finished. I learned that one last year with my "must have" holiday placemats. But with websites like Design Diva Fabrics I think that what would be feasible is designating myself an interior designer, sourcing fabric, and having someone else do the grunt work of actually sewing my fabulous creations.
It's hard to find good quality fabrics, and when you do the prices can be really outrageous. But there are always deals to be had on the web and Design Diva seems to have a huge selection, including some really cool vintage fabrics and non-yucky kids' prints. You can also browse by designer, type, style, etc., which is pretty cool. It can be really hard to tell if you like a fabric without actually seeing and touching it (I'm a very touchy-feeling person when it comes to choosing fabrics), but this website has pretty good photos with multiple views of each fabric. If you're a DIY-er, it's one to check out.
Posted by mwashburn at 09:14 AM | Comments (1)
January 07, 2008
Freaky Monday
It's Monday. It's early January in Northwest Indiana. It's 60 degrees out. We're having a thunder storm.
But I digress. Dinner tonight was delicious venison burgers, accompanied by roasted sweet potatoes with cumin, spinach-feta salad, and Samuel Adams Cranberry Lambic (went *really* well with the venison, I might add). Through some strange twist of fate we ended up getting our bathtub re-caulked last week by the friend-of-a-friend who did the tile install, FOR FREE, and then he invited us over for the evening and gave us a freezer full of venison. He's a hunter, and his wife is fed up with the entire deep freeze full of meat that has been accumulating.
Now, I'm sort of a fair-weather vegetarian. I was a full-fledged vegetarian for at least 7 years, ate no flesh aside from fish for another 5, and have dabbled in meat eating for about the last 5. However, especially after reading the excellent The Omnivore's Dilemma I have been especially fussy about the meat I eat, generally eschewing beef and treading lightly where chicken, pork, and fish are concerned. Recently I even decided that I was going to forego any meat I wouldn't be willing to slaughter myself, which pretty much limited me to fish and fowl.
The irony in my fascination with venison is that it is venison that was the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back many moons ago. During my formative years, I lived in the country where we had a huge garen and kept chickens and a couple of pigs. These guys were my pets, and my twelve-year-old self was horrified when it came time to chop their heads off. My evil ex-stepfather and my father were/are both hunters, and walking into a garage with a day's kill hanging one evening was just too much for me to take. I didn't touch meat again until I was in college. Now my semi-vegetarianism isn't as much about empathy with the animals as it is health and environmental concerns. Which is why venison is perfect. If you can get past the whole Bambi thing, venison fulfills all my main criteria for meat: it led a happy life, it hasn't been force-fed an unnatural diet, it hasn't been raised in a way that negatively impacts the environment, and all in all it's an extremely healthy meat (low in saturated fat, high in protein and omegas, on and on). I don't have the means or the drive to go out and get a deer myself, so I'll have to rely on friends and acquaintances who do to get my meat. I'm happy to rely on my bartering skills as an amateur farmer/gatherer and go from there.
Does picking up a case of Coors Lite at Costco count as gathering?
Posted by mwashburn at 07:56 PM | Comments (4)
January 06, 2008
Holy Shit, I'm Cabling!
Got fed up with the lace handwarmers I was working on, and like Manna from Heaven this gorgeous Malabrigo yarn appeared, a Christmas gift from Patita, and I decided to finally give cabling a try. I'm pretty pleased with the results thus far, though slightly distracted by the fact that I've now also cast on for another attempt at some socks for Adam.
Posted by mwashburn at 02:05 PM | Comments (5)
January 03, 2008
Yet More Randomness!
I thought I would have more profound thoughts going into the new year, but instead I've hit the ground running and have my brain thoroughly immersed in artistic ventures. My first order of business is to get my shit together for the Union Street Gallery juried show deadline coming up.
Second, I wanted to mention a local artist I've had the opportunity to meet lately. He's actually a law student, but has suddenly found a lot of success with his artwork, which is really fantastic. I bring you Justin Vining. And he's just as excited about the Edward Hopper exhibition at the Art Institute as I am. I may wait until March to go, so I can see the Ed Ruscha show at the same time.
In other news, Skepchick posted a great link yesterday about why atheists are so angry and I found myself agreeing with every word of it. I'm still really struggling to decide what I think about the New Atheist movement, and really enjoyed this article in last month's Harper's, which talks about the difference between Secularism and Secularization and why Secular Humanism owes such a debt to the culture of Christianity. I still can't get past my feeling that any non-theist movement is doomed to fail if it sets itself up as an intellectual movement, which I think a lot of great atheist thinkers are unwittingly doing. But any time you have people who are (and yes, we are) oppressed, the first step of "coming out" is bound to have to do with announcing your presence and fighting for your identity (and being righteously angry). I'm not sure, however, that demanding the end of religion is a feasible strategy at this point. But anyway, read Greta Christina's post.
I apologize for the lack of Christmas Vacation content. I was hoping Adam would cover our Tucson road trip, and this weekend I swear I'll get the Lilybug site updated with some new photos. We actually don't HAVE all the photos yet, as I'm awaiting a CD full from Nana and Papa.
Posted by mwashburn at 07:01 AM | Comments (1)
Childhood Memories
When I was a kid, I started taking piano lessons at around age 5. I continued for the next 12 years. Piano gave me a huge appreciation for classical music, and taught me to read music (I also went on to play trumpet in Jazz band, marching band, and orchestra in high school).
I would really love for the Bug to have the same opportunity, so I've already started thinking about the fact that I want a house I can fit a piano in someday. We apparently have some Suzuki Method instructors around here, but I've often wondered if I could manage to give her lessons on my own, at least to start. I'd need to brush up a little bit on theory, but there are so many resources out there. I even found Piano lessons & piano chords online. With that kind of resource I'm sure I could get her started and brush up myself. I'm sure listening to a new music student is a little rough on the ears, but I know I'm owed some payback for what I put my parents through (the trumpet especially), though eventually I got pretty good. Playpiano.com looks like it would be a good addition to basic, dry music theory and practice. I remember doing scales endlessly, and I think sometimes it's frustrating for new students to go through all that when all they want to do is play a song. I'm a big believer in learning the fundamentals (and music reading) first, but why not learn some fun (and useful) stuff along the way?
Who knows, maybe despite my best efforts to have a daughter who plays piano and takes tae kwon do lessons I'll end up with a flute-playing ballerina cheerleader, but as long as she's doing something I'll be happy.
Posted by mwashburn at 06:00 AM | Comments (4)
January 02, 2008
New Year's Resolutions
1. Draw more at work
2. Draw more at home
3. Draw more, even if it's pointless doodles
4. Try to improve my attention span
5. Quit being so angry
6. Be angrier
7. What was this list about?
Posted by mwashburn at 04:37 PM | Comments (0)