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Year Recap!

Well, hello everybody! I’ve been pretty much the worst blogger ever this year; this has turned more into a quarterly/semi-annual blog than something to actually keep you up to date on what’s going on. Well, I suppose I haven’t deleted it yet. Speaking of, welcome to eknightmusic version 2.0! Probably doesn’t look entirely different, but wordpress has been replaced with just html and jquery.

In other news, finished my first 6 months at GM! I’m taking the rest of the month off, so I’m looking forward to probably even longer of a break than I had while teaching. No plans other than visiting friends/family, but I’ll probably do plenty of crafting. I just bought 7 wall frames at Hobby Lobby, so I now have even more reason to get some pieces done. I’m signed up to have an artist table at Game Over’s Classic Game Fest 2014 in August, so I’m getting my big items prepared. I posted a while back about my “classified” project, so I can post about it now! Keep your eyes peeled in bookstores for “Star Trek Cross-Stitch” (or check it out on Amazon). It’s a book full of Star Trek cross stitch patterns, and I stitched the sampler that is pictured in the book. Bonus points if you tell me the misprint they made on my name!
star-trek

There’s another secret book in the works that I’ll hopefully be stitching another sample for. In other other news, we started remodeling our guest bathroom. We put down the tile in a weekend, and have been stuck getting it finished since then. We want to order a new countertop, but mostly have just been forgetting about it since we never go in there. Hopefully we can get it done over the break. Oh! While at Lowe’s getting remodel stuff, we got a new Stanley Plant! This one’s all grown up, so I generally call him Daddy Stanley. Thinking about letting him take over Stanley’s old Facebook page.

I think that mostly sums it up; I’ve been pretty busy with work and crafts. Life’s good! Tasha and Mark are good. Looking forward to a break, I’m pretty exhausted right now. We already watched all three Lord of the Rings extended editions over Thanksgiving break, so I don’t know what to watch 🙂 . Need to come up with some series’ to keep me occupied while I stitch. Ooh, also working on the t-shirt quilt of all my high school shirts. Hopefully will finish that over the break, too. That may warrant another post.

On to Phase Three!

Woohoo, done with school! (for now.) Done with Texas State, anyway. I finished my finals 10 days ago, but I’ve been enjoying my time off and relaxing (a.k.a. crafting) since then. Now that my brain has been able to decompress, I figured I should post an update. Ended up with all A’s, so that’s nice. I will start my new job in 30 days, so I get a nice break first!! Wow, I’ve needed it. I’ve finally gotten around to cleaning out the boxes from teaching middle school. When I packed up my desk/office, I left the stack of boxes in the spare room and there they sat for a year. I really haven’t had a good break since I left teaching (calling that phase one, returning to school = phase two, to explain the title.) Last summer, I started classes the Monday after school got out, and I got my tonsils out in the 2nd part of the summer, so I wasn’t feeling up to sorting through boxes. It’s honestly probably good that I waited this long to go through it, because now I felt in no way guilty about throwing away lesson plan notebooks or judge’s comment sheets. Really, not going to need those things again, and I needed a bit of emotional separation to be able to take that view. Mark and I (mostly Mark) painted the spare bedroom blue today. I can’t fully explain how nice it is to be able to do this stuff I’ve been thinking about for months and just not had the proper time/motivation. We also saw Star Trek: Into Darkness today. I recommend it. This is a really disjointed post, but that’s about how my brain is still functioning at this point. Or maybe it’s the paint fumes. Lastly, I’ve decided to leave Danger*Cakes after our show in New Mexico next month. This is hard for me to do, because I’ve really enjoyed it, but I figured with starting this new job I need to settle down a bit. Here’s a pic from our CD release party:
danger cakes

Hmm…so mostly, no idea what I’m going to be doing at this new job. I’d be nervous, but mostly I’m just excited to be trying something new. I’ll keep you posted!

Spring Semester – Busy Busy

Hello, world.

So… 2 AM, first blog post in 4 months sounds like a good idea. I’m not just staying up for no reason, my classes are all in the afternoon/evening this semester so I end up staying up late when I get home and sleeping in the next day. I’m currently working on stitching a lime cat. Game Over, the used game store I sell my game art at, is having an art show in March during SXSW, so I’ve been preparing tons of items to stock my table.

While the art show is most on my brain on the weekends, the biggest update since October is I accepted a job offer at GM! They are opening a new tech center in Austin and I’m going to start there in June, after I finish my certificate in May. The last day of class is April 29th this year, which is the first time I’ve ever heard of a semester ending in April. Unfortunately I still have finals spanning the next two weeks after that, but hopefully Mark and I will get to take a vacation to San Diego or Santa Monica before I start work.

In other news: pantry cookies are the best things ever. Buy 2 bars of Ghirardelli semi-sweet chocolate, and follow the recipe for the chocolate cookies, except use butterscotch chips instead of chocolate, and pecans instead of walnuts. They are outstanding. I am calling them as such because I wanted cookies and didn’t want to go to the store, so I made them out of random things I had in the pantry. Result = success.

Just to throw in some music news, so that this post covers all four categories of my blog, Mollie and I are playing/singing at the Ukulele Society meeting this week! First time I’ve volunteered to play, so I’m looking forward to it.

I’ve made so many items recently I’m having a hard time picking one to feature here. I think I’ll go with my Neo Cortex stitch that won December’s villain’s cross stitch challenge vote:
neo

Update – 1st Real Semester

Well, it’s been a long time since I last posted, but I guess I feel like nothing as major as surgery or returning to college has happened in the past 3 months. I think I’ll try to post an update at least every month or so, just in case anyone’s interested in my progress.
First, school: Everything’s going well; digital logic is really hard. I’m actually currently studying for an exam on Saturday morning, which is probably how I ended up thinking now would be a great time to make a blog post. Same reason I baked cookies and cooked dinner last night, I think. Apparently procrastination leads to productivity.

Other news, crafts: I’m currently working on a Halloween sampler, which I certainly won’t finish until after Halloween, because I’m also working on a swap gift that’s also due on the 31st (basically like a craft pen pal, pretty cool.) I may post that when I finish it as well.
alphabet

Ooh, fun news: Mark got us tickets to Comic Con this weekend, which includes the entire cast of Star Trek TNG. I’m pretty upset that my exam is during Patrick Stewart’s Q&A, but I’ll get over it. Just means I need to do even more studying tonight because I won’t want to do it tomorrow when we’re seeing Marina Sirtis and Gates McFadden. Other news that makes me squee… going to see Jukebox the Ghost on Monday, and Regina Spektor the next Monday! (which is Mark and my 12th anniversary since we started dating. We’re coming up on the half of our lives together anniversary… need to plan something special for that. Maybe go to Europe 🙂 Assuming I have a job again at some point in the next two years… haha.) Aaaand final exciting concert-related news, bought tickets this morning to see Guster in January! Apparently it’s Erin’s Favorite Bands week.

Hmm.. other music news: I joined a band! I’m playing trumpet in an all-girl rockabilly/punk/blues band called Danger*Cakes. I’ve played with them in a handful of shows in Austin, San Marcos, and San Antonio. We’re signed (with a distribution deal), and our CD release party is next Friday!

Programming news: I’m learning Python and web app development (outside of my actual classes) and I’m looking forward to making some interactive games. I could just regress and make them in Flash, but I feel like pushing myself to do something new. I also really feel like I need to start working on Java again, now that I’m doing things with classes and objects in C++, it makes me want to dust off my OOP chops.

When I string it all together like that, and think that none of that had happened last time I posted, it makes it seem like a LOT has happened in the past 3 months! How about that.

I’ll leave you with a picture from ACL. Which one… rain day? Chili Peppers? I think Chili Peppers.
rhcp

Placemats! and Surgery!

In preparation for making a T-shirt quilt or two, I wanted to practice my quilting skills, particularly binding and quilting the layers together. I thought a great way to practice these would be to make a set of quilted placemats!

So far I’ve pieced together the top of one of them:
placemat

There will end up being a green, yellow/orange, and red one as well. I think I’m going to finish this one out though before starting piecing the others, just to try everything out.

I STILL haven’t finished the Donkey Kong stitch. I know, I know… I’ve been putting it off. But I have been working instead on a secret project. I’m stitching one of the patterns for a themed cross stitch book that will be coming out in March, and my stitch will be one of the demo photos! I’m actually really excited about this. I’ve always wondered who stitches the samples in those books, now I’ll be one of them!

I’ll elaborate more on the book once it’s de-classified 🙂 Update: see post Year Recap!

In other news, I got my tonsils out a week ago today. It was actually not as bad as I was bracing myself for. Particularly the surgery itself; I am really antsy/panicky when it comes to needles and anesthesia. I used to even get laughing gas at the dentist because I would stress out so much. I went into this one very mentally prepared, and it was no big deal at all. Zen is the way to go.

The hardest part of the recovery was trying to sleep. I propped a bunch of pillows up on my bed so I could sleep sitting up, because it felt really uncomfortable to lie down and I would tend to snore just breathing normally at first. Falling asleep wasn’t the problem — I made myself wake up every 4 hours to take more medicine and drink water because my throat would get too painfully dry if I didn’t. This means for a week straight, I never slept more than 4 hours, and typically I didn’t go back to sleep after taking more medicine until I got drowsy later. If you ever get this done, especially as an adult, they tell you to drink water like crazy, and it’s SO WORTH IT. Even though it hurts to swallow, do it, especially in the zone of the medicine when it doesn’t hurt too bad. I had to pee about every hour, but the throat pain never got unbearable.

Second hardest part was not being able to talk. My voice was so hoarse/just the vibration of speaking hurt so much that I just preferred not to do it. It makes it inconvenient to not be able to use a phone or speak to people, particularly when in public.

Yesterday evening though, I started to feel the scabs sloughing off, which just felt like swallowing little bits of food when I drank. Sorry to be gross, but I feel like documenting it for the sake of anyone who has this done in the future. This I knew was a good sign — almost better! I could even talk for a couple of hours, and I could tell my throat wasn’t as tight as it had been feeling.

I went to bed late as usual, after my 2 am dose, and set my alarm for 6, but when it went off I thought you know what, I don’t think I need it. Either at that point or later on, I realized I could sleep lying down now, so I chunked the extra pillows. And slept until 2 pm.

Needless to say my throat was super dry when I woke up after 12 hours, but I feel 100 times better than I have for the past week. Other than a dull, sore throat pain, I feel back to normal.

My best friends during this process: Mark (my husband), chicken Ramen, and a bag of frozen peas. Best flexible ice pack ever (for the front of my throat). I used that every day I think. I even kept the noodles in my Ramen today. I think I may be on some squishy solid food tomorrow, which is really exciting. I’ve been craving some Shipley’s donuts.