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Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in
Mabiana's LiveJournal:
| Saturday, July 4th, 2009 | |
| 2:04 pm | Knitted top Dear scrapbook, this not believing I am logged into lj is getting really obnoxious. I've finished a top:  It was actually finished weeks ago, but then I decided I wanted to have sleeves on it. Knitting them was interrupted by the Appartment Painting Of Doom, and then, when I was almost finished with them, I decided I'd rather have it without after all. Not sure what I'll do with the partial sleeves now, maybe I'll try to make a short-sleeved shrug. I'm not entirely happy with it. I was trying to knit this, but since this knitting book is absolutely not to be had here, not even used on the internet :-( (if anyone of you with access to those US knitting stores it is supposed to be available at sees it and would be willing to buy it for me, or even has it and could make xerocopies for me, I'd be internally grateful), I had to guess along. Lucikly, I had the basic pattern for the braid in a previous book by that designer, but it looked so tiny with my yarn that I doubled it, which I didn't do accurately enough, it's a bit staunched. And I shouldn't have doubled the space between the middle cables, too. Now that I am looking at it again I also think my yarn might not have been that much thinner than the original after all either, and it might have worked fine with the original size. As I have been improvising, I'm now not sure if I should link it to that pattern on Ravelry - what do you think? Despite the awful thunderstorms last night it is hot yet again with the sky looking slightly threatening, and there are supposed to be more thunderstorms later. I hope they don't get that bad, I am meeting D. in town tonight... At least we'll spend most of the time at the planetarium, which is hopefully more waterproof than the HdM. ;-) Current Mood:  hotCurrent Music: Simple Minds: Graffiti Soul |
| Friday, July 3rd, 2009 | |
| 7:59 pm | LOL. I just noticed that there is a YouTube vid embedded in an article about the thunderstorms this afternoon, showing a flooded "HdM". Strange, I thought, is there any other institution with the abbrevation HdM than the university I went to under its fancy new name? It took me minutes to realize that this *is* it, in its fancy new building... :-D (Now with additional waterfall, even. ;-) I hope they can keep their library dry...) Having heard so many severe thunderstorm warnings, I left work early to avoid the worst, and of course got right into the middle of it. When changing it took me about three steps from the bus to the roofed waiting area, and this was enough to get me wet down to my underpants and turn my umbrella inside out. It was as if someone was pouring buckets of water onto us... And it didn't help to be under the roof either as it was raining sideways, the rain reached even down to the bottom of the escalator of the underground station. Now that I am safely at home the sun is shining again... Edit: Ah. Now that I have unnecessarily strained my braincells they have added the information what HdM is to the article. ;-) |
| Saturday, June 27th, 2009 | |
| 8:25 pm | I was going to spend the day mostly being lazy and enjoying not to have to go out, but somehow ended up altering/repairing clothes. I actually managed to cut off too much of my new dress. :-( Apparently, Bodie and Doyle are too distracting for me to accurately do this while watching. ;-) Luckily, I had made a very generous seam and could make it a lot better by undoing it and making it as narrow as possible, so it is now only a touch shorter than I'd like and someone else probably wouldn't find anything wrong with it, the proportions of the dress (it has a second, somewhat shorter layer of cloth on top) are now right again. I also had a visit from the nice old lady who lives a floor down, who came up just to thank me for the little plant I put in front of every neighbours' door to apologize for the noise on the Sunday the painter of doom scraped the wallpaper off my bathroom ceiling. :-) Of course she rang when I cleaned my bathroom floor only wearing underwear, to not unnecessarily get clothes wet, so I had to frantically search for something decent to wear when it rang... Last night D. invited me and a friend of hers to celebrate her birthday at the usual Thai restaurant. It was a very nice evening, despite the fact that I don't have much in common with the friend and only see her once a year for D's birthday, and that I was awfully tired (I seem to be a bit too dependent on my daily dose of black tea ;-) , which I didn't get yesterday when being too occupied away from my desk with preparations for the work anniversary). They definitely have another cook though, I always eat the same and the last two times it has tasted noticeably different, there's a note of lemon (alas making me think of my bathroom cleaning agent) that wasn't there before. We plan to eat there again in a week, maybe that will finally motivate me to try another dish. ;-) I'm all confused by having to go to work tomorrow - strangely, my subconsciousness has turned this into thinking I'll still need to go somewhere *today*... |
| Thursday, June 11th, 2009 | |
| 11:42 pm | Zoo Hm. First the general layout for lj that I had selected (the very oldest one with all the colours) seems to have disappeared, then I have the hardest time convincing scrapbook that yes, indeed I am most certainly logged in... Today, I saw the colleagues despite it being a bank holiday - we went to the Wilhelma (combination of zoo and botanical garden) together to celebrate various anniversaries and other occasions. One of the part-time colleagues is a volunteer there, so we got an exclusive tour, which was very interesting. We heard for example that the elephants like to steal things from their keepers and then barter them back for goodies. :-D I didn't want to leave yet when the colleagues wanted to go, so I stayed another hour and visited some of the animals we had skipped and which I had always visited when I went to the Wilhelma as a child with my parents (I had to fight getting mopey at the thought that the zoo visiting days with my parents were definitely over now). I especially wanted to see the bears, but they didn't want to see me, all I saw was the bum of an icebear through the door of its house. ;-) But at least I still got to see the birds of prey and the parrots.  Come to the zoo with me! - More pictures are here. Current Mood:  tired |
| Saturday, June 6th, 2009 | |
| 7:55 pm | I've spend the day doing laundry and making the appartment decent enough for Monsieur Du 'ast so eine schöne Stimme to come on Monday and see if despite the need to move die viele Schronk it can be painted in one day. Tomorrow, I theoretically will finally meet the relatives, although I found out this morning through my mother that the sister-in-law whose birthday we are going to celebrate has caught the stomach flu from her grandchild, so I'm prepared for getting a cancellation. I was woken up this morning at six by a small bird sitting on the outside frame of the bedroom skylight and knocking against the glass. I think it tried to summon me to fill up the food on the balcony, but I was all stubborn and still stayed in bed for two more hours. ;-) ( Some bird photos ) Current Mood:  anxious |
| Friday, June 5th, 2009 | |
| 7:56 pm | O.O Oh dear. *g* So, I have been thinking for years that at some point I should get the appartment painted, but with having 973950099445 things that would have to be moved away (and where to...) in it I always postponed. Now my colleague had her new appartment painted by her friend's boyfriend and was full of praise for him, and I asked for details and she passed on messages between us, so I knew that the price was very ok and he seemed very helpful with the moving of furniture I can't on my own, and he would only be available for a limited time, and somehow this took on a life of its own and I found myself having a painter. I still dithered for two days because that was a bit too sudden for my taste ;-) , but after even my mother told me that I'd be stupid to not hire a trained painter for that price tonight I decided to make an appointment for the week after the next for painting and for next Monday for him to assess how long he'll need and if wallpaper needs to be replaced, too (there's water damage on my bathroom ceiling). I just called him. Meep? I knew we might have a slight communication problem due to him not being that good at German (he's French) and my bit of French having ceased to exist long ago, but I thought for the practical part we should be able to pantomime, and assumed just making an appointment shouldn't be hard. Um. The first problem was that I only had a cell phone number and the connection was horrible, there was a loud noise all the time, so even if the conversation had been entirely in German I'd have had trouble understanding accoustically. The second problem was that that didn't bother him the slightest and he talked and talked and talked and talked and talked... and most of the time I had no idea what he was saying. O.o I'm fairly certain we got the dates for both the viewing of the appartment right and the actual painting because I repeated it about ten times during the phone call, and I sent a text message with my address and the time for the Monday appointment just to be on the safe side. But he also told me about adhesive tape and bus connections and "papier" and lots of other things I did not understand... And that I have a beautiful voice. Several times. O.o (I know from my colleague that her friend is rather jealous, probably with reason because he is 49 and she is 68, but with the bit of flirting I actually understood that he did with me I guess that's not the only reason). Meep? And here I had thought great, with the language problems there won't be any small talking and I can just sit into a corner and read a book while he paints... |
| Wednesday, June 3rd, 2009 | |
| 8:45 pm | There's a questionnaire meme going around with one of the questions being "[Have you ever] tripped on mushrooms?" and I have to shamefully admit that after reading it the first time I was wondering just how big mushrooms can get in the US that you can fall over them... It took several minutes and reading it elsewhere again until it dawned. Don't mailorder in haste; I wanted to treat myself to a top using a discount advertised by snailmail and ordered via their website, but as I was in a hurry did not notice until I got the confirmation email that it was not a general discount, but one one could only get when entering a code number. I've emailed them if I can also give them the code afterwards, or if they could cancel the order and I'd make a new one, but haven't gotten an answer yet. The bill (for the full price) was in the mail today, so I should get the parcel tomorrow. I guess I really can't insist on getting the discount and feel quite stupid for making such a mistake, but I hope they give me some kind of answer soon... Current Mood:  exhausted |
| Sunday, May 31st, 2009 | |
| 6:09 pm | I once learned that a computer will boot from diskette/cd if one is inside - I assume that's obsolete? My laptop booted perfectly fine even though I had forgotten an audio cd in it when I first filled the mp3-player and only noticed when I wanted to copy another one today. Just finished the latest knitting project, a sleeveless top, and it looks absolutely awful on me. Will have to undo the top third on both back and front. There was initially a relative meeting planned for today, but with the rather disorganized planning parts of my family do *SIGH!* ;-) I waited in vain for a call yesterday when I would be fetched, so finally assumed there won't be one. Today I heard from my mother that my half-brother had actually thought it would take place tomorrow (parts of this family are also not so good at communication ;-) ), but now it looks like it will be a dinner next Sunday. I'd have preferred another date but I'll only believe it when I'm sitting at that table anyway. ;-) I watched a cute scene earlier; hearing much chirping on the balcony I assumed the birds were fighting over the food again, but it turned out that one titmouse kept flying down to the food and then up to a higher twig to its waiting partner to feed it. :-) Ok, I guess I should start unravelling now... |
| Wednesday, May 27th, 2009 | |
| 8:07 pm | Why do so many people think that if they finally return the book they have been fined for, the fine won't be charged anymore? Surely it must be obvious that if the fine was an alternative to returning the book, it would have to be much higher... Whenever I read/hear someone say how much less maintenance short hair in comparision to long hair is, I start wondering if I'm maybe missing a vital part of hair grooming? ;-) It's been two decades since I had short hair, but I remember it being highly annoying. Every morning it had adopted some really strange shapes during the night, partially standing up and partially hanging down limply depending on how I had been lying, and I would forever battle against it with water and blow-dryer to at least make it look symetric, if not actually how it was supposed to look. And I always had to blow-dry it after washing so it didn't look stupid from the beginning, although that might have been the hairstyle. The long hair is prevented by gravity from developing a life of its own, it only requires brushing and putting a clasp in in the morning and I am done. Ok, maybe it looks like it, too... ;-) I currently have wild roses in front of my office window. :-) Without a doubt this will mean the gardener will come by soon and rip them out (and concerning all the other stuff that has sown itself out, I certainly wouldn't protest), but for now I have wild roses. Current Mood: itchy - the stinging insects, they do love me... |
| Monday, May 25th, 2009 | |
| 1:01 pm | I hate hot weather. 1.) It's hot. 2.) I can't sleep because it's hot and feel like a zombie during the day. 3.) My colleagues feel the urge to open all windows and let not only the worst of the midday heat inside our previously cool basement rooms, but also bees and wasps and other horrible creatures, who then don't have the decency to hide under *their* desks and attack *their* toes, but pick mine. And then they hide under my dress so I at first wonder if I have been bitten by an invisible human-eating monster until I get the idea to shake it out. On the positive side, I'm significantly more awake now. ;-) Note to self: deposit gel pillow thing in the work fridge so you don't have to use a package of cheese for cooling stings. |
| Sunday, May 24th, 2009 | |
| 8:19 pm | Only I can turn hanging up one poster in rearranging pictures *and* rearranging the bookshelf all afternoon. (I might have bought a Star Trek 11 poster after seeing the movie a second time yesterday *cough* ;-) ) Now I am melting and my Sunday is gone. And I wonder if it didn't all look better before... I'm not daring to say this aloud, but it seems my sewing machine is working again. I was about to pick up the phone to call the first repair service yesterday morning and decided to just take apart what I could on my own one more time - I still didn't see anything wrong this time, but after that it mysteriously worked, and it still did this morning when I shortened a dress. Not really trusting the peace yet, but for now - yay! :-))) Current Mood: hotCurrent Music: Love Actually DVD |
| Friday, May 22nd, 2009 | |
| 7:32 pm | This is not my week. :-( First, my DVD player did something strange today, but I have hope that was a one time occurance. Then, my stereo refused to play my new CD from a certain point on, and now I have to figure out if it's the stereo or the CD. I didn't get very far with that, because after spending a lot of time measuring, marking, cutting of and pinning four summer pants I was finally going to shorten today because I really need them now, I discovered my sewing machine is broken. $%$§§&/&!!!!!! It seems to be a mechanical problem, something seems to be blocked.There's nothing stuck in it, so I assume something broke off or got bent. Now I first have to find a store that repairs it (it was too expensive to just give up on it and buy a new one despite its age), because I bought it when I still lived at home and that store has according to my mother moved anyway. And of course the stupid thing is awfully heavy and I don't have a car, so it should ideally be one that fetches and brings the thing, which means I'll need to take time off from work for that. I have the suspicion it must have broken when I turned down the needle last time I put it away, because up until then it worked fine, and now my mother says that one doesn't do that at all. I have no idea why I'm always doing it then, either I have mentally added it to putting down the foot thing or they told me at the store I bought it. Anyway, obviously it isn't necessary in the first place. To add insult to injury, I discovered that one of the pants which I hadn't actually tried on, because I had already tried on and decided to buy one in another colour, too, doesn't have a button. It didn't fall off, but has obviously not been sewn on in the first place. And now I guess I'll spend the evening seaming at least one of the pants by hand. Current Mood:  sad |
| Thursday, May 21st, 2009 | |
| 2:22 pm | I'm out of order today, which is annoying since it is a bank holiday. ;-) I woke up with rather bad cramps at 4 am from a dream about visiting ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} seachanges, in which she owned an inflatable house that when not inflated was the size of a book, and for some reason I had to get inside on my own and completely failed at getting it properly inflated. *is once again weirded out about her subconsciousess ;-) * Now I'm also battling a slight migraine, so I'm spending the day in front of the tv watching Star Trek Enterprise, drinking tea and knitting. I knew that real cats sometimes leave their owners, but I had no idea knitted ones can do the same. ;-) A friend pointed me to this cute knitting project a few days ago, which made me remember the little cat I once knitted and I started wondering where it is. It used to live at the head of my bed, and I am certain I have not knowingly taken it anywhere else. I can't find it anywhere else either. I thought it had just slipped under the bed when it had fallen off and I maybe had shoven it underneath with one of the boxes I have stashed there, but it's not there either, as far as I can see without pulling out everything (which is a lot ;-) ), and I'm not feeling up to that today. If I didn't have the photo, I'd start wondering if I maybe just imagined knitting it... ;-) Current Mood:  sore |
| Sunday, May 17th, 2009 | |
| 1:26 pm | Instead of doing things like getting dressed, or clearing up the appartment, this morning I continued making jewelry from last night ;-)   ( For anyone who still wants to see birdies, this morning's photos ) |
| Saturday, May 16th, 2009 | |
| 5:14 pm | Baby boots and birdies I vacuumed the staircase earlier, only to hear when I came out of the shower my next door neighbour just finishing vacuuming the same spot. I could have sworn my turn was in the middle of the month... I wonder how often we have now cleaned right after each other. Yesterday, IT had server problems, resulting in the library data not being accessible after lunch break. Joy. I tried out the new beta version of the Europeana website for a while ( flower photos ) Today, I finished knitting the baby shoes I've been making for a schoolfriend's baby that is due next month.  ( baby shoes modelled by my old doll ) I'm not sure why, but the first attempt came out quite gigantic even though I used the needles the pattern I used for the lower part told me and I knit very tight. Only when I switched to needles two sizes smaller and a thinner yarn they came out actually baby sized. ( And I photographed birdies. ;-) ) I tried to get a picture of the magpie that has turned up twice now, but it wasn't cooperative. ;-) It's interesting how the woodpecker's behaviour has changed, initially they just flew to the food sneakily, grabbed a bite and then flew off. Now they first sit down and do some macho screeching before munching at length, and are almost too cheeky to the other birds... |
| Thursday, May 14th, 2009 | |
| 6:55 pm | I just spend several minutes waiting in front of the parcel automate until I could get the small package that I had gotten an email-notification for earlier in the day when it came by letter post, because the parcel post man was filling it with parcels just when I came. And then I came home and found one of those blue notification cards in my mailbox that a parcel had been forwarded to the parcel automate today. So, apparently I have patiently standing beside him while he fed my own parcel into it... Well, the walk again to the automate tomorrow will be good for my health. ;-) The boss pointed out a shop that sells the knitting and crotcheting projects of a group of "grandmothers" today, and if the makers of NCIS ever need a fitting toilet paper roll cover for Abby, I could now tell them where they can get one. ;-) I'm also quite impressed with the idea to crotchet Stuttgart's tv tower, and the pretzel bags are an interesting idea, too... ;-) If it's still there when I reach retirement age, I'll ask if they let a knitting elderly lady without grandchildren join, too. ;-) And I found out this morning that it's actually two spotted woodpeckers that visit my balcony (I'll definitely be out of food soon though, the most popular kind is already gone - I feel a bit tempted to get more and continue feeding outside feeding season just to not disappoint the woodpeckers...). I had been wondering because it sometimes looked a bit rough, as if it were an older bird, and this morning that one came only seconds after the better looking one had flown off. Alas, it then spotted me, I have to get better at this staying motionless and looking invisible thing. ;-) |
| Sunday, May 10th, 2009 | |
| 6:41 pm | Hooded cardigan These daily thunderstorms are a bit annoying - I just got soaking wet because I had to run onto the balcony and save my baby sunflowers from the hail. I finished the latest knitting project yesterday morning and wore it when I went to see Star Trek (squeeee! ;-) ) with D., and on our way to a restaurant afterwards a stranger on the underground complimented me on it. That was the first time a man complimented me on a knitting project... I of course have some things to complain about it (although I am mostly satisfied with it). *g* I loosely followed this pattern (German version), but had to improvise due to having thinner yarn, hence also adding the two small braids beside the broad one.  ( more, with additional pictures ) ( Also, flowers in my neighbourhood last night ) Current Music: the musical Elisabeth on DVD. *cough* For the third time in a row. /o\ |
| Wednesday, May 6th, 2009 | |
| 10:46 pm | Oooohhhh... If I were tall, I'd totally buy this elephant dress. But it's no use for me, cutting off enough so I wouldn't fall over the seam would spoil the design... [I was awfully tired all day. Now that I could go to sleep, I am of course way too awake...] |
| 7:27 pm | I'm really cut off from the flow of information in the building I live in. Most neighbours are retired and aren't going in and out at the times I do and I often don't see anyone of them for weeks, and since I'm "only" a renter when all except the attic flats are owned by the people who live in them I rely on my landlord to get any information that concerns the building. It generally doesn't bother me, I can live without the smalltalk, but it is odd that after months of seeing one of the letter boxes sealed with sticky tape I find out only tonight when I finally have the opportunity to ask the downstairs neighbour on the street that the gentleman living in that appartment has in fact died. In Paris, apparently, but that is all I know because I ambushed her on the way to catch a train and she had no time to tell me more. He seemed to be a nice man, he was always very friendly when we met. Today was a better day at work than yesterday, but it would be really helpful if IT would just quickly send an email and inform all users when they are doing something in the network that will slow down everything to a crawl for the whole day, so we don't only find out what is going on when the boss finally complains to the hotline at 3 pm. If not for sparing our nerves, then at least so we don't look like idiots to our patrons when we helplessly stare at the screen while they wait. Should I decide to join this century regarding music during commute ;-) , are there brands that are recommendable when getting an mp3-player to avoid compatibility issues when buying music online? Can I expect to get the content of any CD I own copied onto it when not having done such a thing ever before, or are there likely to be problems with copyright protection mechanisms? Will it be very complicated? Current Mood:  hungry |
| Saturday, May 2nd, 2009 | |
| 9:24 pm | It seems everyone was in town today, it was nearly impossible to walk quickly through the pedestrian zone and when I had to buy socks because my woolen ones where most definitely too warm for the weather, I had to wait forever in line in front of the check-out counter. D. and I went to see X-Men Origins: Wolverine this afternoon. I was a bit worried when she hid behind her hand quite so often because it had been my idea to see it and I'm aware that things I can watch without even blinking make her hide behind the sofa, but from how she chatted with me about the movie afterwards she obviously enjoyed it a lot, too. Ok, maybe not quite as much as I did. ;-) We felt rewarded for our habit to stay seated until the last line of the credits are gone and the movie is truly over, because with us it were only four people left in the cinema to see the very last scene then. Afterwards, we went to a restaurant we hadn't visited in a long time, and I had very good asparagus, although the sauce was a bit too heavy for my taste. It really was a fun afternoon and evening. :-) Current Mood:  cheerful |