I'm so much nerdier than I thought...

I spent my evening last night with a bunch of lovely knitting ladies at our LYS (local yarn store) for a Potluck. My LYS has a potluck every second Tuesday of every month... but yesterday was a special occasion. Yesterday, we had Ysolda Teague at our shop! She's a designer of GORGEOUS sweaters and little stuffed animals. And apparently hates socks.

She was absolutely lovely... and I had such a wonderful time. It was my first potluck (and I made TRIPLE CHOCOLATE COOKIES and they were delicious) and hopefully the first of many. Ysolda was the first designer that I've met... I haven't made any of her sweaters YET, but there are at least four on my list (Vivian, Snow White, Matilda Jane, Coraline, and probably Through the Keyhole. I like the Little Bird sweater, but I think it might be a bit advanced for me yet). All of her sweaters you can see on her blog (which is linked above) as well as her other patterns. Since I've only made two sweaters... I'm sure I'll get around to Ysolda's sooner or later. I have three in the works at the moment (Wrenna from French Girl Knits, The ZickZack Tunic in Interweave Magazine Spring 2009, and Little Blue Sweater from Interweave Magazine Fall 2008). I haven't fully committed to LBS... and may instead do the Vivian... but we'll see. I keep finding that I'm making sweaters after I've seen people I know make them. Because then I'm like "OH THAT'S PRETTY! I NEED THAT!"

Tomorrow... is the start of the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival. Sounds like a grand time, right? Gene thinks I'm going to come home smelling of sheep poo. We (and by we, I certainly do not mean Gene and myself... I mean the knitting group and myself) are leaving at 6am... and since I've never been, I have no idea what to expect. But am super excited!

Apparently yarn and knitting is another thing to add to my nerdy nerdy list. I am also a theatre nerd... an X-Men nerd... a book nerd... a cooking nerd... and a tea snob. I'm sure my friends are all so proud.

Flashback to 1992

I haven't had my eyes checked since 2002, and even then...it was one of those "is the dot in the box, or out of the box" things. Not a full blown exam. I couldn't even tell you the last time I had a full blown eye exam. Probably 1995. That was the last time I wore glasses. I has glasses from 1992-1995. All of this stems back to being Gene's fault, again.

Gene was asking his friend about when he knew that he needed glasses. And his friend told Gene that it was when he told someone that when he drives, headlights look like stars. Now, this scared me a bit...because headlights have ALWAYS looked like stars to me at night. I thought that's how they were supposed to look since it was nighttime. Apparently not. Apparently they are supposed to be circles not fuzzy starbursty shapes. Oops. Also, since I'm at the computer for 40+ hours a week, after a while, I get really bad headaches from being at the computer for too long. Finally I decided I just needed to suck it up and get them checked.

So I go to my eye doctor... they take all these weird pictures with these machines and stuff, and when the exam starts with the doctor, he tells me that he has to NUMB MY EYE. Have you ever had anethesia on your eye? It's weird. It feels like there's a little tiny person holding onto your eyeball and they're trying to pull your eyes shut. So after my eyes are nice and numb, he sticks this bright light in my face and tells me to keep my eyes open. My eyes start freaking out... I'm trying my hardest to keep them open, but they're fluttering all over the place. Finally, he tells me not to blink, and he sticks this blue light ON MY EYEBALL. Weird. I didn't feel it. Apparently he was checking for glaucoma, which in a 24 yr old girl I would think is incredibly unusual, but because of the color of my eyes (new to me) he needed to check. My eyes are a very weird color... they're blue, brown, green, violet, with flecks of gold. I literally have every eye color in my iris...which is one of the first signs of glaucoma. No worries, I'm fine. I just have freakishly colored eyes.

After this, he tells me that he needs to dilate my eyes. "BUT I NEED TO DRIVE HOME!" Apparently, he says I'll be fine to drive. Luckily I only had to drive about 4 blocks, but I was still really paranoid. The worst part of the ordeal? When they used the word BIFOCALS. Yup. I go from no glasses to BIFOCALS. And in case you're wondering, "bifocals" isn't in Verizon's Word texting library. Because I sent my mother a text message that said "I need agencals." Since my eyes were dilated and I couldn't see a damn thing, I had no idea what I was typing. Also a bad idea? Having me pick out frames while my eyes are dilated. I'm pretty sure I look like a hot librarian. I could look like a big ol' nerd. We'll find out in 7-10 days when I get my glasses back.

Premios Dardo

Joanie over at Joanie's Random Ramblings tagged me on this Premios Dardo award! And it's a cool typewriter. Cool typewriters...always fun times. Here's how it goes:

Step 1: respond and rework -- answer the questions on your own blog, replace one question that you dislike with a question of your own invention, add one more question of your own.


Step 2: tag - eight other un-tagged people


1) What are you wearing right now?
Teal sweater that I need to darn, ATL jeans, sneakers, and my Christmas present (read: diamond pendant necklace) from Gene.


2) What is your biggest fear?
Being alone.


3) What is the one thing you're really nerdy about? And don't say you aren't nerdy, because let's face it... everyone is a little nerdy about at least one thing.
Okay. I was always a big X-Men fan. Collected the cards (until someone threw them away...), watched the cartoon, hated the movies... but never read the comics. I don't know that there was a comic store in my hometown, and if there was I don't think my mother would have bought me a bunch of comic books. But now I collect them. Only X-Men, and I'm way behind in my reading, but I can out-X-Men-trivia most people I know. I think this is why Gene and I have been together for so long... he finally found a girl who is nerdier than he is (I also remember the most obscure crap about LOST and have to go rewatch episodes after they've aired..because of a reference it may have possibly made. Gene's friends all mock me. But they loved me when I made the field of 64 of LOST. Man I need a life.)


4) Who is the last person you hugged?
Gene.


5) What websites to you visit when you go online?
blogger, facebook, and ctrl-alt-del which is my favorite web-comic. It's nerdy like me.


6) What was the last item you bought?
Pictures. I went to Happy Harrys and had pictures developed from when I met OAR a few months ago with my cousin. I'm going to put the pictures with the authographed concert ticket and make a shadow box.


7) If you could go anywhere in the world, where would you go?
Ireland to see Colleen...and Hawaii. But be warned that if i'm going to Hawaii, I'm coming back married. Just sayin'


8) If you woke up tomorrow and were a boy, what is the first thing you would do and why?
First, I'd call becklette and say "i'm a real boy" then I'd go to Atlantic City and get respected as a poker player. People like to think I'm weak because I'm female. Then I take their money.


9) Has a celebrity's hair cut ever influenced your own hairstyle?
Not really? I mean, I never had "The Rachel" or anything. I was more influenced by people in my life. And it usually leads to bad haircuts. Like when I convinced my mother to cut my hair to my earlobes and shave the back of my head because that's how
my cousin Patty and my friend Whitney had their hair. It was a REALLY bad idea, and took 2 years to grow out.


10) What is your most embarassing moment?
This really isn't all that embarassing, but I think I've managed to avoid severe public humiliation pretty well so far. My junior year of high school, i had my first lead in a play... I was Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz. And you know that line that Dorothy has when she gets into Oz? Probably the most quoted line from that movie? "Toto, we must be over the rainbow!" Well opening night I was not "over the rainbow." No. Not this Dorothy. This Dorothy was "INSIDE the rainbow!" Dorothy took a bit too much acid during the tornado.


11) What was the last movie you watched?
Frost/Nixon. it was wonderful. Frank Langella amazes me.


12) If you had a whole day to yourself with no work, commitments, or interruptions what would you do?
I would knit a lot. And catch up on my X-Men reading.


13) If you were to win the Powerball, what would you do with the money (besides invest it)?
I'd pay off my mortgage and my exorbatent student loans, and Gene's loans... buy my mom's house... and get married. And renovate my house to get rid of the ugly blue bathroom.


14) If you could convince everyone you knew to read one book... what book would it be, and why?
"It's Always Something" by Gilda Radner. It's one of my favorite books, and it completely changed my life even though I don't have cancer. And it isn't all sad, I promise. Don't get me wrong, some of it is totally heartwrenching, but Gilda is, well, Gilda... so there are parts that are hilarious. Only she could make cancer funny. And the love story between her and Gene Wilder really warms my heart.


Okay. tag time! I'm tagging:

1. becklette at how the beck...
2. Ali at Kitchy Shop News
3. Melissa at Put Me In Your Suitcase
4. Al at Because It's The Same Backwards and Forwards...
5. Jorge at Dispatches From the Island (he probably won't, but, he's awesome and hilarious so you should check out his blog)
6. Ben at No Ordinary Rollercoaster
7. Cake Wrecks because funny cake pictures make every day better
8. Di at DiSpace

So. Thar ya go.

I've fallen madly in love with a fictional vampire... in a completely unhealthy way.

I don't know how I missed this book before now. I'm quite the avid reader... I tend to go on reading binges and read nonstop for weeks. And usually it's a series... and of course I need to read up to the most recent so I'm all caught up. I love series books... and I love the supernatural... and I love romance. So I'm really baffled as to how I missed the existence of Twilight for three whole years.

This book is... incredible. I read an article about the upcoming movie in EW a few weeks ago, and made the decision to read it. While I was waiting for a prescription to be filled the other day, I wandered over to Borders, stumbled across it, and figured now's a good a time as any. Two days later I was buying New Moon and Eclipse. That was yesterday. Yesterday, at 2:00... I bought New Moon while on my way to the doctor's office. I read 100 pages waiting for the doctor to come in... and once I got home from work, I had finished the book. This morning, I was wide awake at 5AM thanks to the nine mosquito bites on my right foot... so I read... 250 pages in Eclipse, which is about half the book. I literally can't put them down.

There have only been two authors that can get me like this. J.K. Rowling and Diana Gabaldon. And Stephenie Meyer basically has the best of both worlds....the supernatural that I loved in J.K. Rowling and the love story that makes your bones ache from the Outlandish series by Diana Gabaldon. I get really rude when I read like this... I don't talk to people... I just sit and read for probably 5 hours straight. I forgot to eat dinner yesterday because I was so engrossed. I ended up eating something much later than usual, but I mean... that's how focused I get when I read a book like this. It amazes me that someone can write like this. PLUS! Her grammar is IMPECCABLE! I love good grammar.

If you've been curious about it... read it. If you want to see the movie just a little... read it. If you love love love vampires... read it. And really, it isn't a "vampire" book. It's a heartwrenching once in a lifetime love story (with absolutely no sex whatsoever. The author is Mormon. She isn't going to have premarital VAMPIRE sex). Stephenie Meyer makes vampires sexy. Sexier than Angel. And that's hard. The other thing that I love is all of the literary references she makes. She's clearly a book nerd like me. Between Bronte, Shakespeare, Robert Frost, and Jane Austen... I couldn't be happier. And even though I have to sit at work for the next seven hours NOT reading, it's the only thing I'm thinking about. Man...I am such a nerd.