Book Review: A Short History of Nearly Everything

Today's review is of a nonfiction book, which, I have to admit, I haven't finished yet. However, it's not like there's going to be some twist ending, so I think it's okay for me to be writing this now.

This fall, I'll be starting high school, and half the time I'll be at a special school for nerds (not really, but since it's for people that are good at math and science, so it's basically the same thing). They assigned us this book to read over the summer, and so far I'm loving it. It's called A Short History of Nearly Everything, and it's by Bill Bryson. It really is exactly what it sounds like. So far (I'm almost half way done) it's covered everything from the beginning of the universe to the discovery of tectonic plates. Chemistry, physics, geology, and even a bit of alchemy! The best part is, it's not written by a scientist, so the only time it gets really technical and confusing is when he's quoting someone else (and it's usually to make a point about how technical and confusing their book/paper was). He explains everything assuming that you only have common knowledge, and he explains it so you can actually understand it. (The humorous and slightly sarcastic tone doesn't hurt, either!) If you have any interest at all in science, you should check out A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson.

Have an awesome weekend, and I'll be back next week with another update!

Pants and Arms

Today is July 11th, or 7/11, which I think is pretty cool, even though I've only been in a 7/11 twice in my entire life. But that's not the point. So anyway, I'm posting a little earlier than normal today, since I did a good bit of work this morning:

Now Ron has legs and arms, as opposed to just legs. He could still have walked around, I suppose, but if he fell that would be it. Now he can catch himself, but he still can't see where he's going. (Okay, I think I need to take a second and remember that Ron is a two-dimensional picture made of floss. Give me a minute.)

And we're good! Tomorrow, I'm planning on posting a review of a big vat of nonfiction awesomeness! But maybe not. As we've established many times before, I almost never actually post what I plan. Have a great day, and I'll (possibly) talk to you tomorrow!

Angels

I'm writing this while I repeatedly rewatch the last ten minutes of The Angels Take Manhattan, because I apparently enjoy pain. And there's a lot of pain here. (I actually am looking for something, but I'm watching more of it than I need to. Like I said, I apparently enjoy pain. Plus, it's keeping my contacts wet.)

Anway, I finished (most of) Harry:

I'm down to the last three colors I don't have now, and I'll just finish those later. For now, I'm working on Ron's legs:

Oh the joys of uniforms. I'm pretty sure these legs are the same as Harry's (yeah, that sounds weird). Oh well, Hermione's in a skirt, so that'll be something new. Also, that picture is proof that I cannot count. Ever. So far, none of the corners have been in all the right places (top left corner of Harry was one stitch to the right, but I fixed it). Seeing as the rest of the pictures are probably the same, I'm just going to try to always start in the corner that's closest to the middle. That should keep it as close to the center as I can.

I'm off to go rewatch the end of Vincent and the Doctor. Wish me luck, and I'll talk to you soon!

Christmas Red

Here's what I've done today:

Now Harry has a head, a few pink splotches, and some white in the middle. I'm missing two colors of floss (they weren't in the store either of the past two times I've been there), so I just have a few more stitches I can do on Harry. I'll just move on to Ron or Hermione, and keep working on them until I'm able to get the last two colors. They do happen to be a large part of that white space, but it'll all work out in the end, I promise.

So about the Christmas Red thing. One of the colors I need for a whole one stitch of this (I think there's more of it on one of the other ones) is called Christmas Red, and as you would expect, it's a very bright shade of red. What number do you think it has? 666. That's right, someone that works for DMC has a very twisted, sick mind.

Have an awesome rest of your day, and I'll be back soon with another update!

It's Getting Harry in Here!

Actually, it's getting hot! Our AC broke last night, and with temperatures in the 90s, that makes one hot house! But it's okay, since I haven't stopped my stuff! (Yeah, that doesn't make sense. I'll just show you the picture, shall I?)

Remember these?

I'm not surprised if you don't, it's been a while! They're all part of my big Harry Potter cross stitch thing, and next is Harry! He's in the middle, right above all the house crests, and I started him yesterday, with some more work done this morning. I don't know if you can tell, but just in his pant, there's I think four different colors. And there's one color (which I haven't done yet) that is literally used for two stitches. Just two. Also, I'm not really sure what's going on with all the blue and brown, but I guess it will make more since when the rest of it is on there.

Eventually, it did get too hot to have the cloth on my lap, so I decided to do some writing on my laptop. And since I'm just that smart, I wasn't thinking about the fact that the laptop gets pretty hot on it's own! Needless to say, that didn't last long, so I've kind of been bouncing around between things all afternoon. I can honestly say that I cannot wait to go to rehearsal tonight!

I hope you have a great day, and that you're able to stay cool! (Or warm, if anyone is reading this from the Southern Hemipshere!) Talk to you soon!

Wrists and Butter*

This is what happens when I don't post every time I plan to. I end up with pictures that should be on two separate posts all smushed (that should be a word) into one post. So bear with me, this might get confusing. 

A couple weeks ago, I started these Voodoo wrist warmers from Knitty. Once I started my mom's scarves, I put it in a drawer and ignored it (and never told you guys about it), but I picked it up on Wednesday afternoon and ended up finishing it that night.

Here it is on:

Just for the record, the awkward lump is my watch, not part of my arm (or the wrist warmer). Then yesterday, I started the second one:

which I finished a few hours ago. It was a little harder to get a good picture of this one:

because I'm stupid and I felt like it had to go on the other arm (which is my dominant arm). And here they are together:

Yes, the top one is a lot shorter than the bottom. Yes, it's extremely annoying. No, I'm not really sure how it happened, especially seeing as I measured them both the same way.

*Just a note about the title. I was thinking about how they make my wrists warm, and then I don't actually remember what I was thinking, but I do remember it had something to do with bread and butter. Oh! Maybe it was about making my wrists toasty, and then I thought about toast? I don't know. But I do know that it made sense when I wrote it.

Bright-Eyed and Bushy-Tailed

I know it's a lot earlier than I normally post, but I figured I would just do this now. Yesterday I told you that I went to Michaels on Sunday, and I had some stuff to show you guys. Let's start with this:

I want to start scrapbooking some of my memories from middle school: pictures, programs, movie tickets, stuff like that. My mom used to scrapbook, so she said she would help me get started. I basically just picked stuff with my school colors, red, white, and black (the paper inside the book is black). 

So after that, I was looking in this big bin of clearance yarn, and I found this:

It's this super soft, squishy, beautiful Bernat Bamboo yarn. It didn't have a tag on it, and I figured it would be pretty expensive, but since it was on clearance I figured I should just go for it. And I'm really happy I did, since it was only about $3 a ball, and it's so wonderful! Here's a close-up of the color:

Lovely, right? :) I think I'm going to make a thin little scarf out of it. It's so nice, I want to be able to feel it. (OK, so that sounded really weird, so I'm going to move on now.) I also got a little ball of torture:

After making all those scarves, I wanted to have one for my own. Yeah. I have issues. 

I also picked up a couple random things:

Some wire, and a thing of floss. The gold thing came off a necklace my mom got, but she had a different charm to put on it, so she gave that to me.

Now that all the scarves are done, I'm looking forward to starting some new stuff. I probably won't be using any of the yarn from this post, since I want a bit of a change from what I've been doing. Talk to you later!

You Have Been Assimilated

Sorry about that, but as you know, resistance is futile. So anyway, remember how on Friday I said I wanted to have Hugh done by Monday? I worked super fast, and I finished the knitting on Saturday afternoon. Then I stuck it in the washing machine with no detergent for about ten minutes. When I pulled it out, it weighed about twice as much as it should, and it took forever to wring it out. Once I got most of the water out, I laid it out on cardboard and towels:

(A few minutes after I took this, I got another piece of cardboard so the whole thing would be on it.) I left it there while I went to see some fireworks, and when I got home I ditched the cardboard and got fresh towels for the night. The next morning, it still was nowhere near being dry, so my mom and I hung it over a bunch of hangers on the shower rod. Then I figured I might as well do something while I waited, so I made this:

It's the final ruffle scarf for my mom (so I guess all the other ones should have been out of 18, not 17). Oh well. I'm just glad it's over, because just a few minutes ago I did this:

Hugh was finally dry, so I stitched up the ends, gave it to my mom, and it's all done now!

My mom and I went to Michaels on Sunday, since there was a really great coupon, and I'll show you what I got next time. Talk to you soon!