Here's What Happened

Sorry for the long absence, last week was when all the new teachers arrive in Philadelphia, and we have a week of welcome/orientation/get-ready-to-work-your-butt-off programming that consists of sessions and events from 8 am to 9 or 10 pm every day - not counting the fact that staff members need to arrive before sessions start to set up, and stay after they end to clean up. I exceeded the maximum amount of hours I'm supposed to be allowed to work in a week by Wednesday, so I had yesterday off to compensate. I spent it doing really exciting things, like the laundry and getting a haircut. Woo!

Anyway, the real excitement was the week before last, and I think most of you know me and therefore already know that Ben and I got engaged. It's actually wasn't a big surprise, given that (1) we bought a house together, so we already had the "okay this union is going to be permanent" discussion, and (2) we picked out the ring together about a month ago.

After we picked out the ring, I wasn't sure when Ben was going to get it, or how long it would take to get it re-sized, so while I knew it was coming I wasn't sure when. I kind of thought he would wait until after my insane work week, or possibly until July 16 (since after Harry Potter 7 part 2 comes out on July 15, after which I have nothing left to live for). But two weeks ago he came home and started acting all fidgety and weird, and after he had spent about 10 minutes pacing around the apartment and driving me crazy with his hyperactivity (I believe I snapped "if you want something to do, why don't you at least be useful and clean the oven?!"), he pulled it out of his pocket and said "okay, I got the ring today, will you marry me?"

Then I said no and laughed in his face.

Just kidding! Although that would have been really funny*. I obviously said yes, and he said "good, then you can have dinner!" Then he went to the hallway and retrieved the takeout food from my favorite Philly restaurant that he had stashed there. So it was great because I got to stay in my pajamas the whole time, and then have an artichoke afterward.

I tried to take a picture of my ring because it has neat engravings, but my cheap digital camera is very confused by the fact that it is both small and shiny, and can't figure out how to focus on it. Oh well.


* When I finally told Ben I was interested in him romantically after having rejected his advances a few times before that, he said "if this is a joke, it isn't funny." I wish I had been quick enough to respond to his proposal with that line.

Going Away Present

I am in love with my manager at work, but she is leaving next week to start a new job and move to Minneapolis. I am too depressed to talk about it, but I made her a going away present:

I'm still not sure if I am happy with the spacing between the different components, but I am proud of myself because I put together the design entirely using free patterns I found online - the big "LB" is StitchPoint's "Paris" alphabet, the words are Victoria Sampler's backstitch alphabet, and the rest is from Kincavel Krosses' Birds and Blooms sampler. I especially like the bird's swirly tail, and the little dots around it:

 

Off to drown my sorrows in more cross stitch...

Bike Polo

This weekend my friend Kevin had a bike polo tournament in Philly, so I got to see bike polo for the first time. I thought it would be easy to find him there because he's tall, has a beard and a bunch of tattoos, but it turns out those features are required of all bike polo players.

They put cut up cardboard on their wheels so the mallets don't get stuck in the spokes. Kevin took that guy's face from a political poster, but he doesn't know who he is, what he was running for, or if he won.

I felt very cool because the tournament was under a bridge and next to some abandoned buildings, which created quite a hip vibe.

I also felt very uncool, because holy crap bike polo is intense and I thought I was going to see someone die.

Look how close they are to each other! On moving bikes! While swinging sticks!

Once I got over being scared of someone going over their handlebars and breaking their neck, it was a very fun day. I have zero hand-eye coordination and couldn't hit a ball into a goal from a few feet away, so I was impressed by how many people did it from across the court while riding a bike.

How anyone does this game on horseback is still a mystery to me...

What Ben does all day

Ben's lab was recently featured on some robot website - there are several neat videos on the page, and the last one is Ben's work. When the robot uprising comes and they are able to effortlessly open the doors to our homes, now you know who to thank!

Full on cross stitch all the way across the sampler

I just finished my second steotch cross stitch sampler!

I thought it would be much quicker than the last one, but the design's simplicity is deceptive - it took a really long time to do the border, with each word being a different color.

Here's the back, which is a lot less messy than my last one:

You can see how many times I had to change color from all the little tufts of thread, each of which is the start of a new piece.

Now I need a new project! I'm thinking about something along these lines...

Weekend Project

A guy I work with is leaving for a new job soon. Throughout the year we've had a mock-antagonistic relationship with each other (mostly consisting of practical jokes and other such tomfoolery), so over the weekend I made him a going away present:

goodbye my nemesis

I was very proud of myself for designing something new using elements of the last sampler I made, and for whipping the whole thing out in about a day. I'm turning into a real cross-stitcher!

And most importantly, it was well-received by my nemesis and our coworkers.