Things I have learned today:

Boiling vinegar in a pot to try to clean out cooked on food doesn't really work. It does smell really nasty.

 

Boiling soapy works amazingly well, and smells much better. _

Yesterday, while walking on the beach by our rental house in Plymouth, I went wading in my crocs. It seemed like such a brilliant idea at the time, but then my feet were twisting in my wet plastic shoes as I continued to try to clamber over rocks. (I like beaches with sand, not boulders. Boulders are annoying.) I was fine for the rest of the time on the beach. To get on and off of the beach, we have to go up/down this rather steep boat ramp. As soon as I had climbed back onto the concrete boat ramp, my feet just completely slipped under me. I tore up my big toe pretty badly (not deep, it just like tore at the callouses on the bottom of my toe) and I skinned my knee and elbow. I jammed a pinkie finger (but it mostly feeling better now), and I have a bruise on my leg where there were rocks in my pockets (there are no seashells on this beach, but there are some pretty rocks, and we were collecting pretty rocks. There are a lot of pink ones, and a lot of quartz) either from the impact of the fall or of my jeans pulling tightly over it while I sat there and collected my wits. My stepdad went back to the house to get bandaids and a pair of dry shoes, and my mom sat with me. We bandaged my foot and I stood up and walked about fifteen feet (tops) before suddenly everything got very very bright and I was very very dizzy and I thought I might throw up or pass out and I sat on the ground and put my head down. And then Chris backed is car down to get me, rather than trying to have me walk back up. My finger mostly feels better, but my toe hurts, especially when I walk. I've been unconciously holding my toe up while walking so it's not getting direct contact with the ground, and so my ankle is starting to hurt a little from me walking funny. Falling hurt, but wasn't, you know, scary. The feeling like I was going to faint was quite scary, cause that has never ever happened to me. I don't like blood, and I can't watch it when my own blood is drawn, but it's never made me get all weird in the head like that. _

I suspect that my aversion to eating breakfast actually stems from my body's desire to not be awake before 10. I tend to be famished at the time I would eat breakfast if I got up at 10. But, at 7, just opening a bag of bagels (for my sister) makes my stomach turn. _

Yesterday, my stepdad's dog peed on one of my pillows (today he peed on my kite. I yelled, and he was very very contrite). So, after cleaning up the floor under the pee on the pillow, I put the pillow in the washing machine. It got all fluffy, far beyond what I have ever been able to do to fluff out the pillow (I am allergic to feathers, so all my pillows are full of fake things). I was very happy. And then I tried to dry it. I have run it through the dryer like five times, and I'm still pretty sure it's damp. Stupid pillow. Probably if I were drying with, oh, say, heat, it would dry, but no... _

So, I think that part of why the Chinese Women's Gymnastic team looks like it's made up by a bunch of 12 year olds has to do with their hair line. It doesn't look like it's filled in properly, which I associate with small children. Also, I swear one of them doesn't have all her adult teeth in. _

And my other project, which I am working very hard on finishing before the Olympics are over:



Detail shots:



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I was working on this knitting project before moving. It's done, except for blocking. It's made of cashmere and silk.



And close up:

_

I love Olympics gymnastics, and am very glad that is is coming back tonight. I used to only like the pretty sports in the Olympics (gymnastics in the summer, figure skating/dancing in the winter), but last time around I got into the swimming too. And beach volleyball is fun to watch (our women are amazing!). And, once it is on, I will watch just about anything they're showing, so...The Olympics make me happy. I have tried to roll my eyes and be annoyed with Michael Phelps, but he is amazing (even if I do deny that phenom is an actual word. Phenomenon is a noun, and singular, dammit, why do you need to shorten it?) so I got over it. And I'm glad that there are less sob stories this year than there often are, but I did like the one about the woman from Zimbabwe who medalled in swimming in Athens and was the first swimmer to ever get a medal from Zimbabwe, but it was less like the stories they used to tell that were designed to make you feel bad for the athletes, and more about how the Olympics are awesome.  And, while I am generally opposed to calling someone in the middle of the night, calling your mom in the middle of the night to let her know that you just won a gold medal at the Olympics is perfectly acceptable.

By the way, NBC, if you show Carter in the previews for the new season of ER and talk about surprise returns, it's not really going to be a surprise when he comes back. And, frankly, unless George Clooney actually is coming back and saying he wouldn't was meant to throw people off, I'm still not going to care enough to watch the final season of your show. _

I love the Olympics. _

For whatever reason, I read a review, and then wikipedia's plot summary of Stephanie Meyers' new book. It sounds like Anne Rice's Mayfair witch novels, only with vampires. For whatever reason, this annoys me even more than the incredible dullness of Twlight. (I feel vaguely okay with dissing Ms. Meyers given that I did in fact try to read her book and that I can sit through some amazing crap. )

 

((I don't diss Philip Pullman quite as much as I used to, but god that man can't finish a trilogy. I had sworn off of him given the crappiness of The Tiger in the Well, and a little bregrudgingly read and enjoyed The Northern Lights. At least he can write beginnings that keep you reading through a series.)) _

These guys do some very cool stuff. They have been preforming at the last two events I've gone to to sell skirts. They've been doing the same show, but it's still really impressive. If you ever get the chance, you should go check it out. _

These guys do some very cool stuff. They have been preforming at the last two events I've gone to to sell skirts. They've been doing the same show, but it's still really impressive. If you ever get the chance, you should go check it out. _

We stumbled into my parents' house last night at 3:30, brought in my laptop, plants, and Brianne's overnight bag. I wanted to just sort of pass out on a bed, but Jamie made me help her clear my stuff out of a car, and we didn't wind up going to bed until after 4. Then I was woken up before 9 to find out where to return the U-Haul, and I had to clear my stuff out of that (most of my stuff that was in the U-Haul is in a storage unit. It's supposed to be there, but there were also a few boxes that I forgot to write "do not store" on that I wanted. Possibly it is in fact only one, and I was kicking myself for it all of my toiletry stuff is in this box, including make-up, which could be easy to replace (ha! it does include the eye shadow that I spent weeks looking for) and my nice shampoo, and, more importantly, all of my medicine). Blah. And then I had to help my mom load up a car with skirt stuff. I have been thoroughly unproductive since then. I spent a lot of the day spaced out in front of hulu, half chatting with my brother, and entering information into a spreadsheet. I soaked in their hottub, but it wasn't very hot (it is summer, they turned the heat down). And I napped. I slept for like three hours. I had fallen asleep at five, and when I woke up at eight I wondered if I let myself go back to sleep if I would sleep through the night (my guess is yes). I played with the beads I got to use for my Knitting Olympics project. I dumped them all in a container and swirled them around and experimented with the most ridiculously small crochet hook I have ever seen (it has a diameter of 0.6 mm) to see if it could in fact jab through the holes of these small beads (yes).

At some point, I might be able to blog about something other than extreme exhaustion. But not for a while. Tomorrow I am going to sell skirts at a music festival in Bethlehem. _

Update. Brianne came back with tissues and claritan and a bottled frappucino to keep me awake tomorrow and orange/pineapple juice to keep me from getting sick. Because she is awesome. Also she has been pouring me wine. _

I haven't slept a full eight hours a night in a week. Normally, this would give me a rather nasty cold, but I haven't had time to be sick yet. I have spent most of today feeling like I might throw up from exhaustion, and people have been sort of forcing coke (caffeine! and sugar!) and food on me at intervals so that I will continue to work. I have had several break downs where I wound up bawling on the phone to my mother about how I can't pack. (This is true. I'm utterly convinced that I have a mental disability when it comes to the ability to organize stuff and pack things into boxes. Left to my own, I will sit there and sort out eye shadows or untangle balls of yarn.) When we finally had the truck loaded up, Brianne accidentally loaded my overnight bag including my blanket and change of underwear. I packed my allergy meds, and then attacked a three year build up of dust while Brianne attacked the bathroom with the cleanser that finally drove me to using my medical insurance (Lara nearly took me to the ER the last time I tried to clean the bathroom, because I was so asthmatic it was a little scary). I convinced myself that I had packed all of my inhalers, but then at the last minute, I found one, and was so hugely relieved. I am still sneezing my head off and just got Brianne to run off to 7-11 to get me tissues and knock-off claritan (if they have it at 7-11), but at least my lungs are working at full capacity. And now I will fall into a deep slumber on the couch cushions, with some of the blankets we will be taking to Goodwill toorrow. _

If I were a remotely sensible person, I wouldn't have packed all my allergy medicine in the U-Haul. _

I hate packing. I think I actually am incapable of packing without direct supervision. Brianne tried to suggest that next time I try to pack, I try starting earlier than two days before I'm scheduled to pick up the U-Haul. I really don't think that would help me at all; I would just wind up with my bedroom and house in complete disarray while I tried to pack for a week (or however long) rather than just two days. I would still go in my room and stand there and stare and have no clue at all what I'm supposed to do next. And as easy and obvious as it seems it comes to most people, I need someone to stand there and say "Tori, what do you want to do with these pants, are we keeping them, throwing them away, or giving them to Goodwill?" (I won't give anything to Goodwill that has holes) while I try to come up with other things to do. (Generally, this involve trying to compress down the clothes I wear all the time, and therefore, will, of course, be coming along.) I really really hate this. _

Jamie and I geeked out this morning and sat on either side of my grandmother's living room with our laptops and headphones and she watched Bones and I watched Angel on hulu. We felt very silly, but after a weekend of standing around in mud and straw selling skirts and being social, it was very nice to be unsocial. We also found the irony of us both having randomly decided to watch shows starring David Boreanaz to be kind of amusing. _

A little early don't you think?
_

I may sneer at and depsise Twilight, but I'm really hardly in a position to judge, given that I have read every one of Charlaine Harris's Sookie Stackhouse books (except the hardback, because I don't buy hardbacks unless it's really worth it, and hers aren't). And the fact that HBO's series based on the books is going to be coming out this fall makes me absurdly happy. _