Melyssa-with-a-Y

Last month, I read a great article in FastCompany magazine (I adore FastCompany! I tend to refer to their articles often) about a new kind of light bulb. Well, ok, it's not *new* exactly... it's a compact flourescent lightbulb. According to the article , this little item will "change the world." I thought, "eh, it can't be that great." Then I got my first month's electric bill. Ouch! (of course, it was over 100 degrees here for 24 days in August, that could explain part of it...) Turns out (I have just calculated), I paid for 51 kWh of light from my incandescent lightbulbs, just in the living room and my bedroom. I didn't notice that two of the bulbs in my bedroom were 100w until I went to switch them - no wonder it seemed so damn bright in there when I woke up in the morning! (I didn't count the ceiling fans in those rooms... apparently those use about 300 kWh per year, so that's another 50 kWh per month for my 2 most-used fans.) The...

It's not that I haven't been knitting... it's just that I haven't remembered to take any pictures. So here you have some evidence: I am almost done with the second sweater for Samantha. (about time, too, since I'm giving it to her next weekend!) I probably shouldn't post the pictures, because Jae & Teri read my blog, but they'll see it soon enough anyway. I still have to wash and block it, (and do the cuff on the right sleeve), and put a tag on it. But otherwise, pretty good, eh? Then there's the garterlac dishcloth . I love things with lines and angles. I haven't made anything from my modular knits book yet, but I saw this pattern and I thought it was pretty cool. When I was killing time last week, I picked up my multicolored sock yarn and decided to try it. I had to frog it and try again more than once... as it turned out, I had to rewrite a little of it to make it less confusing. It looks pretty neat! I like it. (The least creative thing, I ...

I am always in favor of giving money to support the Komen Foundation/breast cancer research - in fact, I'll probably be doing my 2nd Race for the Cure this year in Austin on November 5th . I also support Lee National Denim Day (although at my office jeans are not unusual most days)... October 6th this year. But here's a new twist: the 5th Annual Blogger Boobie-Thon gets under way next week. [don't worry, the main page is safe for office viewing...] Last year they raised over $9,000, split between the Komen Foundation and the Red Cross (for Katrina relief). They accept tame and not-so-tame photos from men and women, and display them anonymously. Last year, "almost 600 female and nearly 50 male photographs submitted to our photo sampler page * [NOT office friendly] And close to 300 photos were submitted to the pay-per-boobies page (access granted for those who donated $50 or more). " Charity is good for the soul, and in this case, the body. :)

Aren't these cute? Sweettooth has a "smiley collection" -- keyrings, bangles, charms, and necklaces: http://www.sweettoothdesigns.com/showitems.asp?deptcode1=506

The best thing that happened on Friday, before I left for the aiport, was that Dani came back from her 10-day trip to Europe!! :D Yay! I missed chatting with her. I kept starting to IM her and then realizing that she wasn't there. But of course now I won't be able to remember any of the cheeky things I was going to say. I hope she had a good time in London and Paris!! Can't wait to read all about it!

First, L'Shana Tovah Tikateyvu, Happy New Year 5767. I was invited to Houston to spend Rosh Hashanah with my parents freinds, Norman & Sheila. My parents met N&S when mom was pregnant with me, and S was pregnant with Andrew. (I'm 2 months older.) :) After spending the weekend with them, I can really understand why my dad and Norman are such good buddies, and why the four of them have such fun together. They're so alike: Dad and N. are the "goofy" ones, and Mom and S. are the "straight (wo)man" to all the jokes. Both of these men know exactly which buttons to push to set their wives off, and they do it with impugnity, because they think it's funny. (and the wives always rise to the challenge...) The "which street should I take to get there" discussion in the car is IDENTICAL - with N&S, my parents, even Kelly & Jeff. Everybody does it. I also recognize that the goofiness (see #1) is more pronounced when I'm around,...

Yes, I'm a crazy woman. I signed up for a Cooking Light Supper Club . There are about a dozen of us, and this month's meal is Indian food. We're meeting next Saturday night. I'd make chicken tikka masala, but there are already three other chicken dishes on the list. And I found a recipe for baked samosas , which ostensibly would be much healthier than fried ones. So I figured I'd do a trial run and see how they turned out. But, I forgot to print the recipe out at work, so I had to hook up my printer at home. Since I don't have a desk yet, I had to set it up on the dining room table.... which is very far from the living room, where the laptop has been living. Fortunately, I have a 25' ethernet cable [yes, I have a wireless router, but I didn't feel like setting that up right now, there's enough craziness going on!] I was smart and packed new printer cartridges in the box, but did I pack any paper? Naaah. I have all kinds of other paper - neon brig...

Every year, music fans flock to Austin for a 3-day festival called Austin City Limits . Thousands of people. Hundreds of bands. And at least this year, less dust and more rain. People get three day passes and while away the hours sitting on the lawn, rocking out to bands from 11am to 10pm. Just thinking about it is exhausting! By the time I tried to get tickets, the 3-day passes were gone -- probably a good thing. I got myself a one-day pass for Sunday . KT Tunstall, Buckwheat Zydeco, Matisyahu and the BoDeans, among others... sounded like a great plan. But of course, it was HOT. and muggy, and raining on and off. I went to my favorite class at the gym (20/20 hindsight: either go to ACL or the gym, but not both on the same day!) came home and showered, and finally moseyed down there by about 3:30pm -- Marcia was nice enough to tell me where to park in walking distance to the festival. I heard a little bit of Jack Ingram, then had some food and went to hear Patrice Pike . She used to ...

My 10 Names Meme 1. YOUR ROCK STAR NAME: (pet and current street name) Rocky Wendel 2. YOUR MOVIE STAR NAME: (grandfather/grandmother on your moms side, your favorite candy) Ruthie Take 5 (hah, that's what they'd say to me if I tried to act!) 3. YOUR "FLY Guy/Girl" NAME: (first initial of last name, first three letters of your middle name) F. Bet (that's not too bad) 4. YOUR DETECTIVE NAME: (favorite color, favorite animal) Red Wombat (eh. not so much) 5. YOUR SOAP OPERA NAME: (middle name, city where you were born) Beth Washington 6. YOUR STAR WARS NAME: (the first 3 letters of your last name, first 2 letters of your first name, first 2 letters of mom's maiden name and first 3 letters of the town you grew up in.) Framefewas (possibly.... somebody go ask George Lucas if I can have a part in the next movie!) 7. SUPERHERO NAME: ("The", your favorite color, favorite drink) The Red Fresca (that's not so bad - I wonder what my super-power would ...

Hasbro has decided to update Monopoly. The new game is called Monopoly: Here & Now . Instead of being the top hat or the little scotty dog, you can now scoot around the board as a cup of Starbucks coffee or a Labradoodle. hunh? Interestingly, this isn't a marketing scheme for Monopoly -- the company chose the new "icons" to use as playing pieces, and isn't making any product placement dollars. They asked the companies for permission to use their names & logos - who would refuse? Check out the Businessweek slideshow about the new pieces. I was wondering why they picked New Balance instead of Nike... surely the "swoosh" is as identifiable as the big N, if not more? But the answer is, NB still makes their shoes in the US. a-hah. But if that's the criteria, why not brand the laptop as a Dell? (ok, maybe I'm biased because I'm living in Dell country now!) Does Motorola produce the RAZR in the U.S.? (Based on the size of the pieces, I'm b...

It's generally annoying when a tv commercial uses one of my favorite songs, like the Cingular ad that is now using Peter Gabriel's Solsbury Hill . (Just ask my sister-in-law, she made a list of ELO songs she heard on tv ads!) But this one went too far! Rooms to Go is using "Tomorrow" from Annie ! I just can't deal. I used to want to BE Annie, and I used to sing that song all the time! It totally threw me to hear the woman singing it on tv. UGH. And [non-sequitur alert!] yet more problems with my water service... apparently there was a leak (again) in a pipe between my house and the one next door... and being that I'm uphill from the leak, I wasn't getting any water. I called last night and the guy told me the leak "shouldn't be affecting me" and I needed to call a plumber. Riiiight. So I called back again this morning (when the toilet flushed and then didn't refill), because clearly the leak WAS affecting me (told ya!) and so they...

(thanks to Jude for sending this along... it was too funny to pass up.) FUN FOR LEXOPHILES (LOVERS OF WORDS): 1. A bicycle can't stand alone; it is two tired. 2. A will is a dead giveaway. 3. Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana. 4. A backward poet writes inverse. 5. In a democracy it's your vote that counts; in feudalism, it's your Count that votes. 6. A chicken crossing the road: poultry in motion. (Ha! they used that line in Chicken Run !) 7. If you don't pay your exorcist you can get repossessed. 8. With her marriage she got a new name and a dress. 9. Show me a piano falling down a mine shaft and I'll show you A-flat miner. 10. When a clock is hungry it goes back four seconds. 11. The guy who fell onto an upholstery machine was fully recovered. 12. A grenade fell onto a kitchen floor in France resulted in Linoleum Blownapart. 13. You are stuck with your debt if you can't budge it. 14. Local Area Network in Australia: The LAN down under. 15. ...

(with apologies to Paul Harvey) In the tale of the week in DC, I think I left off when the bbq was delivered from Rockland's for the CASC dinner at the house. That was quite tasty. But since it was Tuesday, I had somewhere to be by 8:30pm! [At brunch on Sunday, the girls decided we had to do a "surprise inspection" on the boys at RiRa on trivia night - provided I could escape casa Fratkin.] Dad was nice enough to lend me his car (and I was well-behaved and brought it home safe and sound). Even with the help of "the trinity" - Patrick, Dallan and John - we came in third. Dallan went so far as to tell me that we "didn't suck too badly." But, we had a BLAST - we were laughing so hard there were tears streaming down Dani's face - and it was fantastic to spend more time with the girls (and the boys) again. Our downfall I think was the music round, and we weren't clever enough to use "Dallan loves Patrick" as one of our answers. (i...

I am absolutely exhausted, but I had to post this. A great experience on JetBlue today, flying from Dulles to Boston for Judy's shower -- although it had more to do with the tv on the back of the seat than the flight crew: We were taking off a little early. As my plane was taxiing to the runway and starting to take off, I was able to watch the Space Shuttle Atlantis launch live on Fox News. We lifted off just as the shuttle was hitting "go for throttle up" (which is the scary part, because that's the point when the Challenger blew up). It was exhilarating to watch the shuttle go up and feel the plane taking off at the same time. I had a stupid grin on my face the whole time. Ok, so the G-forces on the astronauts were a little more powerful than the ones hitting me... it was still fun. I'll have to take a picture tomorrow - Thrifty didn't have any economy-sized cars to give me today, so instead I'm driving a Jeep Commander . It's like a Jeep Cherokee on...

Been back in DC for a few days... here's a quick recap: J. picked me up from the airport on Saturday afternoon (Thanks, JD!) and brought me to his house so I could hang out with K. and "Hannah banana." I have to say, it was heartwarming that the little one was so excited to see me! She was sooo excited that she didn't stop talking for the whole four hours I was with her! I should have taken a picture or two, but I was too tired, either from flying or from being on the receiving end of all that Hannah energy. Wow. I brought her a little stuffed armadillo - I figured she didn't need another teddy bear - and she knew exactly what it was! (Apparently there was a Dora/Diego show about armadillos, there's even a song!) So that was a big hit. Then we played with puffy stickers, read books, and generally jumped around for a while, until it was time for me to go to Bailey's to watch the first USC football game of the season. Woo hoo! USC won ! Bailey's was pack...

Triple-A Baseball is so much fun! We had our office "end of the year" pa rty last night (the UT fiscal year is 9/1 - 8/31) at the Dell Diamond, home of the Round Rock Express . (Affiliated with the Houston Astros.) I've been to a few other minor league stadiums -- The Potomac Cannons - now the Potomac Nationals, and the Hagerstown Suns -- and this one is by far the best. It doesn' t make a lot of sense to me that the Express is in the Pacific Coast League, but I'm sure there's a reason. Then again, our opponent was the Memphis Redbirds (which is cool, cuz M and I saw their stadium when we were in Memphis!) and they're nowhere near the Pacific Coast either. We had the picnic area to ourselves (and free beer/soda, burgers and dogs), at the end of the first base line just past the foul pole. Unfortunately, the picnic area is right next to the pool - yes, there's a pool at the ballpark - and we didn't get to go in it. It just didn't seem fair, tau...

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Wouldn't you know it, we finally get some rain in Austin (and I mean RAIN... it was pouring when I woke up this morning!) and in the midst of the deluge, there's no water coming from the taps in my house. hunh? Chalk up another new experience - calling the utility company to see what the hell is going on! Turns out there was a water main break between my house and the house next door. D'oh! The utility guy stopped by as I was eating breakfast and promised that the water would be fixed by the time I got home tonight. We'll see how that goes. In the meantime, I have "Aqua Jog Challenge" at the gym tonight, so at least I'll get in a shower there if I can't have one at home. ;) Things I never saw from my kitchen window in VA: (well, ok, my kitchen didn't actually have a window) a family of deer - a mom and 2 does - trotted by while I was making dinner last night. :) Wasn't fast enough on the camera to get a pic, although I suspect opening the b...

I love this Onion headline today: National Organization For Women Turns 39 Again http://www.theonion.com/content/node/51848

Stolen from Stick The things I've done are in bold and blue. **NOTE: The RSS feed of this page for some reason hasn't un-bolded some of Stick's answers. (I do not have any piercings other than my ears, for example.) 01. Bought everyone in the bar a drink 02. Swam with wild dolphins 03. Climbed a mountain 04. Taken a Ferrari for a test drive 05. Been inside the Great Pyramid 06. Held a tarantula 07. Taken a candlelit bath with someone 08. Said 'I love you' and meant it 09. Hugged a tree 10. Bungee jumped 11. Visited Paris 12. Watched a lightning storm at sea 13. Stayed up all night long and saw the sun rise 14. Seen the Northern Lights 15. Gone to a huge sports game 16. Walked the stairs to the top of the leaning Tower of Pisa 17. Grown and eaten your own vegetables 18. Touched an iceberg 19. Slept under the stars 20. Changed a baby's diaper 21. Taken a trip in a hot air balloon 22. Watched a meteor shower 23. Gotten drunk on champagne 24. Given more than you c...