Gettin' Crafty

Hey Guys,

I've been feeling kind of down & crappy the last week or so, so to cheer myself up I've been reading LOTS of fashion blogs. Ok, maybe not the best way to cheer myself up because now all I'm doing is coveting a bunch of things I can't afford! But, by checking up with Jessica at What I Wore, I've been inspired to jazz up some old stuff in my wardrobe and make it a little more exciting.

Last winter, I did a ton of crocheting - nothing fancy, but I made some pretty awesome scarves for family and friends as Christmas presents (even though I was pretty bad at judging how much yearn I needed and some of them ended up taking FOREVER to finish until I could find another matching skein...) Being in the hospital and being stuck at home a lot has prompted me to take up crocheting again - this time, I might even go as far to get some patten books out of the library and *gasp* attempt a hat or two?!?

I spent a few days working on a scarf in a really beautiful deep blue yarn (at this point, the recipient shall remain nameless because it's a surprise and it's going in the mail today!) and I forgot how quickly it goes once I get into the groove of things. Of course, it was a little stop & go at the beginning - I kept pulling too tightly and started to end up with a trapezoid. Not really a good look for a scarf. The end product turned out much more nicely than I had hoped - I'd wanted to put a picture up, but I packed it up before I remembered to take one!

My mom did take this picture of me making it, though - just to prove that I actually can be crafty!

I also went through my closet a little bit to kind of reorganize and see what I had hidden in the back, and ended up finding a cream-colored Gap cardigan from back in high school that I haven't seen in years. I wore it around to the movies, and decided that with a little love, it could be awesome. So, yesterday Brian and I stopped at Michael's craft store and I picked up some really big rhinestones that I'm in the (very slow and tedious) process of sewing to the cuffs to sparkle it up. Theoretically, I want them to look like big gaudy bracelets... we'll see what happens in reality, but so far, so good...

In other news, Andrew moved back to college yesterday... I've been really sad about everyone going back to school since I'm going to be stuck here, but I've also got some good news in that department! After weeks of waiting, I got word from the French department AND the composition department at UC that I'm going to be approved to take some of the classes I requested! I'm still waiting to hear back from a couple of the professors I emailed, but at this point I'm approved to take French 250 (which is a basic class I need to take just to meet the minor requirement), French Civilization (which is an English-language class about French history until the 17th century - I'm SO excited about this one!) as well as Orchestration I (a music theory class I need for Music History... kind of nervous about this since I have absolutely no knowledge of orchestral instruments... oh, well...) AHHH! I'm so excited to be able to take some classes this fall! I'm still not at the 12-credit full-student load that the insurance company requires, so I might just be taking some random English or History classes that I don't need approval for, but I'm headed in the right direction (finally!)

Also, this was quite a movie-filled weekend! On Saturday, I went with my family to see Inglorious Basterds which was AMAZING. Definitely go see it. It's a little gory (then again, it is Quentin Tarantino, so what do you expect?) but it's also surprisingly hilarious. At first, there was a lot of nervous laughter in the theater (like... "Should I really be laughing at this?") but Tarantino presents everything SO well that there's no question when he's joking and when it should be serious. Go Go Go see it!

Yesterday since my parents and Andrew were moving him back to Bloomington, Brian and I decided to go see District 9. He'd been wanting to see it, and I hadn't heard much about it so we picked up an afternoon showing. It was pretty good - not exactly what I was expecting (I didn't really know what to expect, I guess) but I liked the parallels drawn between the plot in the movie and apartheid in South Africa. I also liked that it took place in Johannesburg, as opposed to in New York or DC or LA - it made it seem a little more "realistic." It was pretty violent (what else would you expect from an alien movie?) but all in all, not so bad...

Finally, I'm going to leave you with a picture of the waterfall in my backyard... Our house backs up to the woods, so we don't really have a backyard, but my parents built a beautiful deck around the trees and put a waterfall in against the back of the house. I LOVE to go sit out there, especially if I'm feeling a little down. It's like being in the middle of the jungle!

Well, I'm off to try and finish up this beading on my sweater... and then hopefully some lunch downtown with Stephanie! I haven't seen her since my internship ended, so I'm really hoping we'll be able to get together today (and maybe have some Indian... YUM!)

Lots of Love,

Lauren