General Update - Again!

I can't believe how long it's been since I last posted a blog!

I did complete the 50K words for Nanowrimo, as a side note.  Also, the play I was in - The Crucible - went well.  It was the usual round of 'you-have-no-life' for a few months, and then outright plain crunch time during the actual shows.  It's a bit funny, but as much fun as I had being in the play (and I'd missed acting a lot), it was a bit of a relief when the play ended.  It seems ridiculous, but it's amazing how much it takes out of you to do acting.

In other news, I've moved!  I'm now living as far out of the city as possible (though still am stuck in the city, sadly), and am in a mountainous valley.  It's a much smaller city than I've ever lived in, which is nice.  I'm also driving a lot less, as I can easily walk to a bus that drops me off a couple hundred feet from my work entrance.  No more forty-five minute drive for a five-mile trip to the train station!

In more craft-related news, I've started working on more crocheting projects, in part due to the fact that I have a one-hour commute one way on the bus, and it's easy to crochet on the bus (as opposed to all of my other crafts).  I came across a pattern for a small clutch, eyeglasses case, hearts, and more (the clutch and glasses case will be in my etsy store soon.  3-d stuffed hearts to follow!).  Hearts are actually hard to find patterns for.  Or, more accurately, to find patterns that are simple to do and look like hearts.  I finally found one that's a basic single-crochet.  Although in the process of looking and trying out designs, I did end up re-learning how to make a granny square.

Re-learning how to stitch in the round turned out to be quite helpful, as I ran across a pattern (on Red Heart, which sells patterns as well as yarn) for a lace masquerade mask.  It's incredibly detailed work, and unless people are willing to drop fifty dollars or so for it, I don't think I'll end up selling it, but the pictures of the masks are beautiful and so far, with a quarter of the mask finished, it's lovely and intricate.  I'll post a picture when I finish. :)

Kern County Fair Contests

Once again, I find myself on the fairgrounds multiple times throughout the week. I've been attending the Kern County Fair since before I started high school (excepting when I was away for college, in a different state). When I was younger, I stuck to showing sheep, but now I'm doing (and have done) poetry, baking, and crocheting.

I've actually only done poetry once, and won second place. In general though, my poetry isn't really weird enough to fit in with that sort of forum, so I haven't done it since. Maybe some other year :).

With baking, this was my second year entering the apple pie competition, and I tried a different recipe this year - but I think it needed to have more flour. Too juicy. Tastes good (both of 'em), but neither won.

This year, in addition to the pies, I entered the sugar-free dessert contest. My parents have Xylitol, a sugar alcohol, to replace sugar (which adds fat to our bodies), and sugar-free chocolate chips (sweetened with maltitol, another sugar alcohol). Using these, I made a Pillsbury chocolate chip crescent roll copycat (not my recipe). Now yeast - single cell bacteria - when combined with sugar and water, eat the sugar. It won't eat sugar alcohols. For this recipe, the yeast and sugar are separated. So this particular recipe works fine with Xylitol. Taste-wise, there's no difference when Ii use sugar versus Xyloitol, and cooked maltitol chocolate chips are the same as regular ones. I think they're tasty little things, though they didn't win :(.

As I've been creating more and more crocheted items, I decided to go ahead and enter one this year. My latest completed project is a dragonfly barrette - here's a picture.
It was a bit of a spur of a moment entry (I was entering online), but as cute as it is, I really was hoping for something. And apparently, someone agreed with me, cause I got an honorable mention !!!! (glee!!!!) It's also for sale on at etsy.woolranch.com, if anyone's interested.

Bumbling Busy Bees

(I blame the absurbed title on life being hecting. And not writing enough poetry lately.)

Blarg, I've been exhausted recently. I've got two small jobs (one's temporary), school, etsy (at which I've gotten yet another order - squee!), ebay (http://tinyurl.com/wool-ranch - lookie! I'm wool_ranch there too!), and a dozen other things on my to-do list. Currently most of that's my future to-do list, but still, it's there for me to do. I mentioned blujay a couple posts back, which hasn't gotten me any orders, but still! Doin' stuff!

I really want to do more crocheted stuff, so I'm working on a afghan rag - using my own design. It's for myself, because I'm way to slow at crocheting to make it worth my while to do make 'em for customers :(. For the most part, cause I'm so busy, I'm just working on it a little bit every day or so (or at least, I mean to every day) to help myself relax. It's a little frustrating to not be able to do everything I'd like to (review my physics - yes, that's cool to some people - write my stories, etc), but sometime tiny like that's nice. At some point, I'll take a picture and put it up here, or over on twitter - which I'll update after this (promise!).

Anyway, most of that up there's my excuse for not posting lately - school and stuff keeps chasing blogging out of my mind. I don't mind being busy, I kinda like it actually, but too much of it and I get stressed. So things go on the backburners. (I think I have a dozen of those - sorta a requirement for writers, anyway).