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November 10, 2024 7:43 PM

I'm in my granny phase

On February 25, I went into a Half Priced Books store with my sister, and I impulsively bought the Unofficial Make Your Own Harry Styles crochet kit. I looked at it thinking, this would be a great white elephant gift! And it was half off! I had never crocheted before, but by the time we walked out of the store I had decided that I was going to make Harry Styles. My sister had been going through a tough time, so I told her "If you're ever feeling sad, just remember, Harry Styles is waiting for you".

When I finally opened the box, I realized that this crochet kit was absolutely NOT for beginners. It was like reading a whole different language. Everything is abbreviated! sc, dc2tog, blo, right side, wrong side, magic circle??? But I had already made the silly decision to buy a crochet kit, so I was going to learn how to crochet. I knew about this thing called The Woobles because my aunt had done it, so I looked it up, and I ordered the absolute easiest wooble possible: Kiki the chick. It was $35, which is more than twice the amount I paid for soon-to-be-Harry Styles.

The label on the Woobles bag said that this was estimated to take 3-8 hours to crochet. It took me weeks. Crocheting is all about counting. If you lose count, you end up with the wrong number of stitches and your amigurumi ends up looking real wonky. So I would try to stitch one row of stitches, and I would check my work and realize I counted wrong, and then I would start all over, and I would do this over and over. But I did it, and Kiki did not turn out too bad at all. Kiki is the easiest wooble to make though, so I figured I would try something a little harder and I ordered a shark kit along with some accessories.

Somewhere along in this process, things just clicked and I was really enjoying myself. I ended up buying even more woobles! I must have spent like $200 on these Woobles! But I needed to graduate from buying really expensive crochet kits. I wanted to take the next step in my crocheting journey, and I bought my own yarn. I paid like, $2 for the cheapest skein of yarn that I could get at Michael's. And then I made an octopus from it. Turns out this crocheting hobby is actually pretty affordable if you buy your own yarn. I also made a strawberry and a uterus, which was a special request from my sister!

I was finally at the point where I had learned a few different crochet techniques and I could read patterns on my own. So a few weeks ago, I finally opened the Harry Styles box. Harry Styles was definitely much harder than all the other things I crocheted. And the yarn that came in this kit was pretty terrible and the colors didn't match the picture. I didn't have very high hopes for myself, especially after looking at other peoples' attempts at this on Tiktok.

But I just took this one piece at a time. First the arms, then the legs, then stitching the legs together, then the torso...it was coming along! I would sit on the couch and crochet Harry Styles while also listening to Harry Styles. And I did it! Yeah, I messed up a few times. One of the shoes is coming loose and the top of the pants is a little janky and the butterfly tattoo is...not great. But I'm pretty freaking proud of myself. I thought this was going to be this huge project that I would slog over for months, but I actually just made steady progress over the course of a few weeks.

And now that I'm finally done with Harry Styles, I don't want to stop crocheting. I've got lots of ideas in my head for more things I want to try and make (from patterns. I don't know how to create my own patterns, but maybe one day). I didn't expect to have such a life changing moment from going into a Half Priced Books store, but I'm so glad for Harry Styles and so excited about my new hobby.

June 20, 2024 7:31 PM

More songs I'm digging right now

Walk off the Earth - On The Road

While a lot of WOTE's music is fun and upbeat, every once in a while they put out a song that's a little different. When I first heard a snippet of this, I was immediately hooked in. I think it's one of my favorites of theirs.

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Kris Allen - Guinevere

Kris Allen won American Idol season 8, and when the show was airing I was obsessed. I haven't really paid attention to what he's been up to now, but I happened to catch that he was working on a new album and I decided to listen to this. The song is fun and the video is a little silly, and now I'm really looking forward to the full album when it comes out.

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David Archuleta - Hell Together

Here's one from another former Idol contestant. I was never a huge fan of David Archuleta, but I actually have been keeping up with his new music. It's been so cool to see how much he has grown as a person since he was on the show.

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Bark Point., Rev Ezra - Sabbatical

One of my co-workers had his last day of work yesterday, and he's now pursuing music full-time. I checked out his website, and I saw this song that he worked on with another band, and as I listened to the lyrics, I thought "I felt that".

May 27, 2024 4:30 PM

Jigsaw puzzles

I used to love doing jigsaw puzzles. I remember the first 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle I ever finished. I was in middle school. It was a collage of stamps. It was honestly a pretty easy puzzle, but I swear it took me months. I was immediately hooked though, and people around me must have noticed it too because I started getting puzzles as gifts.

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One Christmas, I remember getting one of those huge boxes with 12 jigsaw puzzles in them, 500 - 1000 pieces each. I would finish a whole jigsaw puzzle in one day, and I was done all of them by the time winter break was over. My family would keep all the finished puzzles, intending to eventually hang them up one day. We never did. I never cared for the finished product. I just thought that putting pieces in their proper place was fun.

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I didn't really do as much jisgaw puzzling once I left college, but the craze started up again when one of the admins at work left a jigsaw puzzle out in the cafe. I thought it was just going to be a one-time thing, but when we finished the puzzle, another one was brought out. And another one after that. And we're still getting new jigsaw puzzles in the cafe today!

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My favorite one was a photo of a hot air balloon, and the reverse side of the puzzle was that same hot air balloon, but rotated 90 degrees. It was a really hard puzzle, and many of my co-workers frequently put pieces in the wrong place, and I had to fix them. I was known as one of the most avid jigsaw puzzlers at work.

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But then something happened. I don't know if I could really pinpoint when it happened, but I stopped working on the puzzles. There were too many, and I was way too busy with actual work things. GSG broke me.

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Every once in a while, I would walk over to the current puzzle, and I'd put a single piece in its place. That was all I could ever do at once. I wasn't really feeling the puzzles, but my co-workers would often work on them together, and I wanted to be a part of it. So I tried to just contribute at least one piece to each new puzzle that came out.

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And that continued for years. Once COVID hit, barely anyone was coming into the office, and the same puzzle would sit unfinished for many, many months.

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And then all of a sudden, just about a month ago, another switch seemed to go off in my brain. I was coming into work more regularly again, and I noticed that the puzzle in the office was a really pretty painting of the beach, with a turtle and a bunch of colorful seashells. I did my usual connecting of two pieces together, but instead of going back to my computer, I picked up another piece. And another. And another. I wanted to keep working on the puzzle. And the next time that I was in the office, I wanted to work on it again until it was done.

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I knew it wasn't just this particular puzzle that grabbed me, because after I finished the beach puzzle, I felt a little tinge of excitement when I saw that there was a new puzzle sitting out.

January 7, 2024 4:19 PM

2024

It is one week into the new year, and I have already gotten sick and stressed out by work. I think my body is telling me I need to relax.

December 10, 2023 6:53 PM

ssl cert

Okay, now I've fixed the SSL cert renewal. Hopefully 😬