Last night, Z took Patrick and I to Mi Piace in Pasadena. It was to thank Patrick for helping do a colloquium on short notice; I just tagged along. It was really nice! And the prices started at Olive Garden level, though some of the meat dishes were up in the $30 range. The desserts had a lot of cream and mousse and fancy decorative sauces. It was just a nice place to go.

We walked around Old Pasadena a little, and it made me wish that I were more motivated to get out of Claremont and take advantage of being in Southern California. There are lots of fun things to do in the area, but I'm happy sitting at home watching TV and talking with Patrick. I'm not too broken up about not fully exploring Pasadena and LA while I was in college. I'll get plenty of exploring chances in Boston. Oh yeah, and Z looks nothing like that picture on her page. She should have a word with the CS webmaster.

We stopped at Restoration Hardware so Z could get a lamp she'd had her eye on, and I decided that if I ever get to design my own house, I want a round room in it. You know, like a hallway, but round, and it connects four rooms instead of two. And it should have a skylight. Then my kids can ride their tricycles around and around in the room and scratch up the hardwood floors. Hmmm...I need to think these things out more.

Z lived in Boston for a few years, and she said she really loved it. In fact, everyone I've talked to said they loved Boston. I like that. I'm pretty excited to start living on the East Coast. It's only a month away, so I'd better be getting mentally ready by now.

P.S. Jessica is nice (I'm referring to her comforting note in my guestbook). I hope she gets over her cold soon!

I finished the jean skirt tonight. The back is still a little weird, but I like it. I love the fact that I have a skirt with real pockets. Finally!

Oh boy! I'm going to make Patrick some pajama pants (using a pseudo-pattern based on another pair of pants he has...maybe I'll post my pattern here later). This afternoon, I found this great robot flannel at reprodepotfabrics.com, and I decided to ask him if he liked it rather than just buying it and surprising him with it. Luckily, he likes it...too bad there's no surprise now!

For this project, I used an old pair of LEI jeans that had torn knees. There are good instructions for this project at Not Martha (also at Get Crafty). I also drew inspiration from this skirt. Mine isn't as nice, but it also didn't cost $200! I trimmed my skirt with ribbon and pre-beaded fringe from JoAnn.

The finished skirt, front

The finished skirt, back

The back of the skirt before I took it in more

Materials for the skirt (old jeans, ribbon, and bead fringe)

I worked on my jean skirt tonight. I like how it turned out, but I need to buy more fringe (to fill in the middle parts) and take in the back a little more. I'll probably get to those small tasks mid-week. Thanks to Patrick for taking pictures of me looking awkward!

Patrick and I agreed today that we have it good right now. We've got plenty of food (just went grocery shopping and came back with tons of fresh fruit and vegetables), a nice place to live, time to relax, and each other's company. This is great...I'm sad it has to end so soon. It was my choice to go to MIT though...I'm still not regretting it; if I'd chosen Stanford, I would have always wondered what MIT would have been like.

That fat lizard that tried to come in this morning is still out in front of our apartment. It's just sitting there, watching the door. I think it's one of these lizards. It's nice that it prevents lyme disease, but I wish it would stop watching us!

You know, I'm pretty sure it's a female. She's been digging a burrow outside the door in the dirt, and she doesn't have the blue belly markings that males do. Damn, I bet she's pregnant and looking for a place to put her eggs (they lay their eggs in early July and they hatch in mid-August). We don't have to worry about the lizard babies because we'll be gone by the time they hatch, but I'm worried the mom is going to run in our apartment any time she gets a chance. Oh well...

We had some lizard drama this morning. Okay, so I had the drama, and Patrick laughed hysterically at me. See, this morning I made pancakes, and I went outside to throw the leftovers away, but just as I opened the door, a lizard ran toward it. I closed it, but the lizard ran up onto the inside of the screen door and wouldn't move. So then I opened the screen door, but then the lizard squeezed under our regular door, but it couldn't get all the way under because there's a metal strip underneath. So I couldn't go inside because the lizard would come in with me. We finally got him to go away, but it was a harrowing experience.

We also had a lizard sneak in yesterday afternoon when our regular door was open. There's a gap at the bottom of the screen door big enough for a lizard to slip under (you can see it in the picture), and he just ran on into our living room and looked confused. That first guy didn't give us any trouble; he just ran right back out with only a little prompting. The lizard today though, he was stubborn. He didn't want to go anywhere.

Lizards freak me out because they can move so fast, and I'm always afraid they'll run right up my leg and bite my eyes out or something. Patrick isn't afraid of them, but to humor me, he covered up the gap under the screen door with a duct tape flap. Hopefully the lizards aren't smart enough to get around it. Ugh...

That's one of the pictures I took yesterday. It's the koi pond in Hixon Court at Mudd. There are more (pop ups): jacaranda trees and Sprague library, koi coming to check me out, and pretty flowers and more koi. Even though people complain about the blocky architecture, Mudd has lots of pretty things too. It's too bad all the green landscaping has to be maintained a lot because we're in Southern California where it's dry.

The statue in the middle of the pond is known as the Venus de Mudd (ha ha). People like to say that the woman and the gargoyles on the fountain represent the ratio of men to women at Mudd (used to be 4:1, but it's gotten much better--or worse, depending on who you are--recently). I like the statue because she's all curvy, but the gargoyles still drool over her.

I'm doing laundry, but there's a big bug (probably a cricket) in the laundry room. At first I thought it was dead, but then when I came back, it was gone, so it must have been alive. Ugh...

Uh oh...freaking out about grad school again. I don't want to make new friends! What if I'm not smart enough? Actually, I probably have the capacity to do well, but not the knowledge that other people are coming in with, being a chemist and not a materials scientist. I know, I shouldn't worry about it, but it's such a big change. Hopefully I'll read this entry in a few months and will laugh at how I was worried about nothing. Still scared though...at least Patrick understands. We're both afraid of change :)

I made chocolate chip-toffee cookies tonight (the recipe was on the back of the toffee chip bag). They're very good, but I feel guilty for eating them. How silly is that? I sent a few upstairs (to the OG suite annex) and we're going to work out tomorrow afternoon, so that makes up for the yummy cookies. Jeez, I should really learn to be content with my choices once I've made them. But no, I have trouble being completely content with life. Huh...

I took pictures today; maybe I'll share them tomorrow.

I was inspired to sew my own knitting needle holder by this girl. The pattern I drew for it is here. It holds straight needles in the upper tier and circulars in the lower tier. The top flap folds down, then the whole thing folds into thirds for easy transportation. Best of all, it requires a small amount of fabric, but it'll still occupy a decent amount of time. I made it out of sparkly denim and lined it with a red/blue cotton weave.

All my needles in their new home

Case open with the flap down

Detail of ribbon attachment.

I sewed two 16 inch pieces of ribbon on the outside of the case to close it. I sewed each piece on so that there was a short end (4 inches) and a long end (12 inches). The 12 inch end wraps around the case and ties to the 4 inch end. Make sense? Probably not...

Needle case tied closed with ribbons

Materials for knitting needle case (sparkly denim, cotton, and ribbon for tying it closed)

I finally found out what the trees are that are all over the Inland Empire (wow, awkward sentence!). They're jacarandas, and they have pretty purple flowers that fall down in the summer and make everything purple. I like that. I was going to take pictures of some of the jacarandas around Mudd, but I forgot.

I made my knitting needle case!

And I put up a picture of my progress on the Angell Street sweater. Here it is. The yarn isn't really that color, but it's a close approximation.

And I added a permalink to each entry. If you click on the time it was written, you get a link that you can use to reference the entry. Like anybody links to my journal...hah!

Look what I got in the mail today!

I am pleased to report that Patternworks is plenty competent. My only complaint is that I didn't get an automatic confirmation of my order when I placed it. Other than that, I like them a lot!

I have a shoe dilemma. I need to wear closed-toe shoes to work, but I don't like wearing socks in the summer time. So I need some sort of mule-type shoe. I went to awful Ontario Mills to look for cheapo shoes, but couldn't commit enough to spend $40 on a pair. I found a pair at Bakers Shoes that aren't on their website; they're that crazy bowling shoe style and they had an ankle strap and no backs (that means no hurty ankles from breaking in the shoes). They were really comfy, but I was worried I'd feel silly wearing them because they're trendy and I'm not. Plus they were $35. So I left the mall empty-handed. I found a few pairs that looked good on the Nine West website, but their outlet store didn't have any that I liked. Oh well, no shoes for me.

Oh yeah, and we got Vanilla Coke at Vons (they only have 12 can packs). It tastes good, though the vanilla taste is pretty subtle. The carbonation overwhelms my tastebuds; I'm not used to Coke. I'll have to work on that, since we have 11 cans left!

Well, I didn't get any of my projects done this weekend, but I had a good time. We went and saw Minority Report with Erin and Harley, and it was a good movie. I also made applesauce from scratch and we bought and played Trivial Pursuit. The only bad part of the weekend was that our kitchen sink is clogged, but Patrick's in charge of fixing it. Good weekend...too bad it's already over!

I just had a fun time shopping at Jo Ann. In addition to stuff for the jean skirt, I also got supplies to make a knitting needle case and corduroy to make those pants I've been thinking about.

Now that I have all this fun stuff to do, I feel like sitting around and not doing anything for a while. Sounds like a plan...

Today, I think I'm going to make Patrick's old jeans into a jean skirt for me. I know it's all trendy, but he was going to throw them out, so I might as well try! The only potential problem is that they are a little big for me, so I'll have to figure out how to get around that. I want to make something like this (it boggles the mind that it once cost $200 and now it's on "clearance" for $70). There are instructions on making skirts out of jeans all over the place. So all I have to do is go to Jo Ann's and get a heavy duty sewing maching needle and some trim. I think I can handle that...

I realized I never mentioned that I saw The Bourne Identity last weekend. I liked it. Especially Franka Potente. I wish that if I hacked off all my hair, it would look like hers did when she cut it all off. Plus I liked her purple scarf. And her dye job at the beginning of the movie was way cool. And she's German. For those and many other reasons, I enjoyed the movie...

Oh, and I'd decided not to mention that I've been watching American Idol because I wanted to preserve your respect for me, but I give up. I've been watching and enjoying it. I enjoy all reality shows. I'm sorry...Anyway, I'm really happy that Ryan Starr moved on to the next round. I love her rock star outfits and looong torso (okay, I just wish I had such a long torso, I don't really love it). She looks like she should be famous and she even has a good name for being famous. Now you know my dirty little secret.

Last night, after much thought, I decided to go ahead and buy yarn (Unger Utopia in Pomegranate--cheap and machine washable) and a sweater pattern (actually, I got the Berroco 210 book, so that's three patterns I'm interested in; Angell Street is what the current yarn is for) from Patternworks. The yarn was way cheap ($11 for the whole sweater!), but then I spent $20 on the book and two pairs of knitting needles. But I consider those to be investments in my knitting future, since they're reusable. I decided it was okay if I spend $30 on knitting stuff because it'll keep me entertained in the AFM room for at least a few weeks (each picture on the atomic force microscope takes 7 minutes to scan, and I can either just sit there during that time, or I can entertain myself).

I'm excited about my research again because we've found a new problem we'd like to investigate. For the last week or so, I was just making samples without any good reason, just to keep myself busy and hoping that I might stumble upon something we hadn't discovered yet. I like having direction and motivation much better!

This sweater took a long time! It's made out of Caron cheap-ass worsted weight light blue yarn and is based on a pattern my mom tore out of a magazine in the 70's. The trim is Adriafil Stars in Ballet Blue. The buttons were made by single crocheting over plastic rings (I couldn't find any buttons I liked and the pattern recommended using plastic rings). Too bad I ran out of yarn while working on the sleeves and the new yarn I got didn't quite match the old stuff. Oh well!

Me wearing the sweater (I was making a goofy face)

The finished sweater jacket

Both front pieces of sweater

Left front of sweater before fixing ribbing

Back of sweater

I'm writing this entry mainly so I remember to visit The Yarn Company website again (looks like you have to order over the phone, but it's a nice website). But while I'm here...

I opened up the Langmuir Blodgett trough today (I didn't open up the trough itself, I opened the box that has the motor that drives the barriers for the trough). It did absolutely no good; we couldn't figure out why the barriers are misbehaving. But on the bright side, I also didn't make the problem any worse. Good thing too; apparently LB troughs are very expensive and they are definitely not easy to come by. We (the Baker lab) got ours from KSV instruments, which (as far as I can tell) has only two customer service people in the US (but lots in Finland!). They must be busy.

Heh, that was a boring entry. I doubt that a single person among you is interested in Langmuir Blodgett troughs. Sorry to waste your time! Hmmm...any more interesting news? Nope, not that I can think of.

Update: Here's a picture of the LB trough's barrier holder to liven up the post a little. Woo!

Oh boy! I'm almost done with my sweater jacket! Today I knit the trim on the sleeves with the Adriafil Stars yarn. It's so nice and soft and sparkly. And I started sewing up the seams, but now my wrists are hurting, so I stopped. I'll take a picture once it's all done...how exciting!

Making the apple pie last night reminded me that I want an apple peeler/corer/slicer at some point in my domestic career. Patrick took care of the apple preparing duties last night, but it would be fun to have a gadget specifically for that task. Then I could make chunky applesauce too...that's one of the foods I remember loving when I visited my grandma's house as a child (that and homemade granola).

I'm so excited that I get my own kitchen at MIT...I wish I'd have more money to buy fun kitchen stuff, but I guess that's the kind of thing that'll have to wait until I'm out of grad school.

I dyed my hair tonight. If you recall, at the beginning of May I tried dyeing it brown with sucky results. This time, I tried a darker shade, and my hair is actually brown. I think I like it...Patrick helped me with it, so the color is nice and even. What a nice guy. I made him a Dutch Apple Pie in exchange. I'm thinking of growing out my bangs again (even though I've only had them for 6 months) and maybe growing my hair a little longer. Or maybe I'll cut it shorter. I can never decide!

The picture's all weird and crooked, but it's the best one I took. Our mirror is dirty; maybe I'll take some Windex to it later.

Okay, I can be a little less worried now...I just made reservations at another hostel, this time from August 15-30. Since the Boston hostel only lets you stay with them for 14 days per season, I had to go with another place--the Prescott Hotel/Hostel--for the second half of August. The guy on the phone was really nice, and the website makes it look good. I'm a little scared about showing up in Boston and having these places deny that I ever had a reservation, but that's an irrational fear. A more rational fear is that I won't have enough to pay for them. I'm not too worried about that though--I just can't splurge and buy a laptop or something in the next few months. What an adventure...I'm not used to adventures.