No Robots Here!

I like to think of myself as a creatures of many hobbies and next to no habits.

My aversion to the word "habit" is not necessarily because I think that habits are a bad thing, but rather that when I find myself falling into a habit I somehow stop feeling human.  Somewhere deep inside my mind is this fear, I suppose, that if I allow habits to stack up like the projects in my room eventually every day will just be a habit!  And when the whole day is a habit what's left to explore?

Then there's the whole problem of how difficult some habits are to break.  I mean, just think!  If one habit starts and then another stacks on top of that one, by the time you realize that you're day is literally just going through the motion of a million habits you're too busy trying to keep up with them all that you can't stop to make sure they're even necessary!
Now, I won't argue that creatures of habit can't get things done.  In fact, I believe quite the contrary.  Those of our human race who stick firmly to their "daily routine" are often the most productive.  I admit that about them, but I cannot conform.  You see, even with the promise of productivity and the comfort of being able to get up and know pretty well what the layout of your day is like...I just can't give up the chaos of living without habits.

Maybe I'm crazy -- something I wonder about quite often, -- but I love the little bit of insanity that comes with exploring each day as its own new entity.  To get up and not have a clue what each day will hold, aside from the running around campus to classes and such, is a thrill that I can't give up for the sake of knowing I'll get everything I need done by a reasonable time so that I can get a full night of sleep.  No, thank you!  I don't want to feel like a robot, I want to see each and every part of each day as a new adventure waiting for me to jump in and chase it.  I want to explore and wander and fail and learn from it all!

I'll take my sleep deprived mornings-after, sipping my tea and staring into space.  I'll take the sudden panic of remembering I have an appointment across town in five minutes or the days where I shower far too late in the day and so wake up with crazy-hair.  I'll take the lazy mornings and the cluttered room, the random happenings and the pleasant surprises, the adventures and chaos that comes with a life without habit.

kaJo

Okay, I have to admit that I do have one habit that I keep pretty consistently: I have a cup of tea every morning; however, I make an effort to switch that up sometimes by using different mugs, choosing different teas, adding cream or not...;)

Have a beautiful day, everyone!

New Day

     It never ceases to amaze me how in just the few hours of a day one can be tossed and jostled in a vast sea of rolling emotions.
     Suppose you wake up angry.  No reason, just initially frustrated with the day for having roused you at all.  You're irritable at your alarm for rolling you out of bed and nudging you to the bathroom to try and pull some rhyme and reason into your mess of hair and sleepy face.  Perhaps the bitterness wears off as you sip your tea and gather your keys, or as you stroll across campus, or as you sit quietly in class taking notes.  Anyway, somewhere along the line, amid the many trips up and down staircases, you discover you're no longer angry, just embarrassed.
     You're a child playing a game you don't quite understand.  Quietly you toy with the pieces, harmlessly wondering what significance they play in the scheme of things.   And when you're corrected in your attempts, it doesn't matter how kind words, you feel sheepish.  Shyly you put the pieces back and tuck your little hands under your legs to keep them from wandering.
     Maybe on the way home from classes it's the tune of your favorite song that brightens you, or the smell of cupcakes in the kitchen, or the furry smile of your best friend who's oh-so-glad you're home.  You shrug off a morning of sulking, still feeling the tingle of anger and the sting of foolishness, and make a real effort to give today a chance.  During the chaos of homework, family, chores, facebook, and general life, you manage to find laughter hiding away in little nooks and crannies and the evening is pleasant, happy even.
     And as you tuck everything away for the night, crawl under the covers, and sigh because you've survived another day, you feel peace.  Maybe it's not the most overwhelming or prominent of the emotions still fluttering around in you somewhere, but it's there.  Calm, quiet, peace.  Today has only lasted as long as it has lasted and tomorrow is new and bright and beautiful.

"Great is His faithfulness; His mercies are new every morning."

kaJo

Paddywacks: New Gloves and a Tam

Hi everyone!

Classes have just started back up and in all the craziness beforehand I have only managed to get a few things done this week for the shop.  So here they are:

Roller Girl Gloves - $26.67

Smoothie Gloves - $30.67

Afternoon - $16.68

I'm currently working on a couple of projects that I hope to have finished and photographed by the weekend.  I'll post pictures as soon as I can. :)

kaJo

Paddywacks: New Tams

I didn't get as many hats made this week as I would have liked but I'm still really happy with this batch. :)

Water and Wine - $15.50

Sea Weed - $19.50

Cobblestone - $19.50

Sandy Waters - $15.75

Boho Blues - $25.50

Custom Team Colors - $28.00
I'm usually not the type to do sports colors or custom orders
but these hats are so easy and fun to make that I decided to try it out.
Contact me for more information on ordering a hat with your team's colors!

Creme-Brulee - $15.50

That's it for this week!  Watch for these beauties in the shop soon! :)

kaJo

Paddywacks: New Tams and Gloves!!!

Hello everyone,

I've been busy with the shop and making hats and gloves and things over the past month and just haven't gotten around to posting.  Anyways, here's what's new to Paddywacks:

Forest - $15.50

Lollipop - $17.50

Pumpkin Pie - $14.50

Smoothie - $17.50

Roller-Girl - $17.50

Autumn (gloves) - $24.00

Autumn (hat) - $17.50

Autumn (set) - $36.88

Aurora - $15.50

Spellbound - $19.00

Copper Strings - $17.00

Nautical Navy - $14.50

Groovy - $10.99

Watermelon - $18.50

Firefighter - $15.75

Hey There Sailor - $15.50

Cream - $14.50

Boutique - $14.50

Icy Blues - $26.67

More coming soon!

Kate

Vacation Day 3: Athens by Night

Well, that was certainly something...

We went to this cramped little resturant in the middle of the Placca with a group of about twenty-five people. There was this disgusting national drink, call ouzo, I'm not sure of the spelling on that. It tasted like licorice and I could only drink about four sips before I had to pour it out. Unfortunately after I did that my water tasted like it anyways so all I had was wine. We started dinner with giant beans (seriously, that's their name), which tasted like beans, bread with something on it that tasted like cabbage smotherered in the sauce from gyros, a bean paste stuff, and something else that I can't quite remember.

The second course was Greek sausages, calimari, sausage wrapped in olive leaves, this cheesy meaty stuff, and a crispy bread triangle. They were all very odd but not inedible, unless you ask Savannah, who skipped that course completely because she didn't like any of it. Meanwhile, there was music, singing -- which was lovely --, and dancing -- which was just as good, especially since one of the dancers was one of those stunning Greek men I told you about. Heeelllllo! Most of the dances involved starting really slow-like, doing lots of kicks and running in circles, and then near the end speeding up to as fast as possible and repeating everything that was done slowly. It was kind of predictable but very fun to watch. Anyways, Savannah thoroughly enjoyed herself and joined in almost every chance she got. I, on the other hand, sat happily in my seat, praying to not be called upon, and gave a hearty "Opah" whenever it was required.

The third course was amazing. It was beef stew that came in a hot bowl with feta cheese crumbled over it. Oh! it was some of the best stuff I have ever eaten. Sadly, when I was about two-thirds done, I stopped to watch the charming dancer and the waiter snuck up and took the rest of it away. :( That mishap was followed by another...the dancer was calling girls up on stage to dance and I somehow ended up there. It was a nightmare. I think my wrist broke a couple of times, I was jammed against a bunch of people that I didn't know, there was bouncing, and I was hot. When I got to my seat I felt truly glad to see it again and sat gratefully for the fourth course, which was fruit.

This course was rather boring, just honeydew melon and watermelon, but it was a nice way to refresh your mouth after all the other unfamiliar flavors. After that I somehow ended up on stage again...being led by the hand in a long curving line around the room, knocked around from front to back when people would either run into me or stop in front of me. I was hot and very uncomfortable and, again, extremely happy when it was over.

Dessert was teeny tiny donuts covered in powdered sugar and honey. They were delicious, I think I had five. After that they danced the dance "where the men, they break the plates." It was fun, but it seems like a terrible idea to me because they dance around on the shards of glass afterwards...it concerned me a bit.

As we walked back to the bus there was a girl selling flowers, dad bought two roses for mom, which was really sweet. We piled out in front of our hotel, bidding Vassiliki goodbye until tomorrow and hustled up to the rooms to shower and go to bed.

That's all for now!

Kate

Vacation: Days 1 & 2

I'll start at the beginning.

When we were leaving on Tuesday morning, saying our goodbyes and everything, Sam got a little teary eyed.  This just about killed Sabry and me, but we managed to leave anyway.  

Getting into the airport at Nashiville was fairly typical -- I had a terrible turkey sandwich for lunch -- our plane was delayed a bit and tensions rose due to the short layover in Atlanta.  Once we landed in Atlanta, we raced to our next plane and made it with a little time to spare.  

The ride was cramped and long, I'm not looking forward to flying back.  I knitted and got one of my gloves finished and the other mostly done -- I haven't touched it since landing because it's way too hot -- but mostly I watched movies.  Near the end of the flight I watched a really cute movie called "A Monster in Paris".  It was about a giant singing flea...but totally worth watching, I'm going to have to see if I can get ahold of a copy sometime.  

We almost missed our flight in Paris because the terminals were labeled all crazy-like.  We were told to go to D72...so we did, except that there are actually two different D72s and we went to the wrong one.  Dad found this out as the last of the passengers on our real flight were boarding and he happened to be strolling around.  They really should think about announcing what is going on like every other airport, but they seem to think that would be too convenient.  They are French, after all.

I didn't sleep on any of the flights except for the last one, and that was only for ten minutes or so.  I just can't seem to get comfortable on airplanes.  I probably wouldn't have slept at all if I hadn't been falling periodically into a deep coma every few minutes from lack of sleep and knocking my face on the plane window.  I finally decided that I was just too tired to avoid looking like an idiot every couple of minutes and let myself doze off.  Unfortunately, mom lost her glasses and had to wake me up to tell me (dad ended up finding them).  I couldn't sleep after that.

When we landed everything went really smoothly.  We got all of our baggage, found our guide, Vassaliki -- she's amazing and very funny, -- and left for our hotel.  Athens is amazing.  The streets are narrow, the houses are stacked like pancakes, and there are orange trees growing down every street.  When you look across the city it sparkles in the sunlight because of all the metal chimneys.  The streets have little European cars parked along every square inch and the sidewalks, if they aren't covered in motorcycles, are only a foot or so wide.  There's a law in Athens that requires the houses, buildings, and apartments only be built to a certain height so that wherever you are in the city you can look up and see the acropolis.  ...This sounds really amazing and romantic, but it doesn't work at all.  All the houses are about the same height, but you totally can't see the acropolis from anywhere in the city.  Just from most places that are fairly close to the base of the hill, or if you're in just the right spot on just the right street.  But I'm not complaining.  

During the ride I also noticed that the majority of young Grecian men are absolutely stunning...or shaped like slightly overweight American women...but most of them are gorgeous.  Seriously, I've never seen a race where the men can all look so different and they're still just so handsome.  I noticed this trend right before my forehead knocked into the window of the bus as I fell asleep again.  I tried to stay awake to see if it was a figment of my imagination or what, but this only resulted in my face hitting the window three or four more times before I gave up and tried to sleep for the rest of the bus-ride.

Our hotel is lovely, though our rooms don't face the Parthanon, so we have to wander quite a ways down the street to get a view of it.  The AC in the girls' room doesn't work very well, which is a little troublesome to me and the sheets are a really crazy texture that kinda freaks me out.  But everything feels really clean and neat and in the basement there are a bunch of old ruins from ancient Athens.  

We all pretty much passed out when we got here, we had a meeting at 6 that dad woke us up for.  Vassiliki when she saw all of us looking like we had just been woken from the dead laughed and apologized profusely for the inconvenience.  During the meeting she informed us that we should try to stay up late that night to get our biological clocks reset...I think we made it until ten-ish.  I tried to read to keep myself awake, but my eyes kept crossing so that I was reading two different pages at the same time.  I gave up after about thirty minutes and a couple of instances of my face hitting the book, and went to sleep.

I woke up around 2, which was a real disappointment to me since I was so thoroughly exhausted.  However, I was able to force myself back to sleep...until about 2:30 when Savannah sat up and announced to us that she hadn't been asleep for an hour and it was really upsetting her.  She spent basically the rest of the night rummaging through the room for things to do, crying out of frustration, and being a general nuisance to Sabry and me.  Can you tell I'm a little irked by this?  I managed to doze off and on for the rest of the night, only really falling into a deep sleep again around 5, which was about when Savannah laid back down, I think. 

Our wake up call was at 8, which shocked me awake from a dream that I can't quite remember.  I vaguely remember the receptionist telling me to press a button on the phone, which I did and promptly hung up.  I then lay there for a minute to two and wondered if I had done it correctly or if she would call back and make me do it again.  Finally, I sat up wearily, still feeling like I could still sleep for hours, and woke the other two.  We dressed and headed to breakfast, which was delicious.  I had eggs, yogurt, weird little sausages, bacon, and a weird cake-like bread.  Sabry and I also got some warm tea, which was a great comfort because I needed something with caffeine and, as a rule, don't drink hot coffee.  

Our tour of the acropolis started after that.  It was hot today, 32 C, and there is very little shade to be had up there.  The Parthanon is about what I expected, only a bit bigger and much less white.  The other buildings around the acropolis were beautiful, as well, but my favorite thing we saw was the ancient, blessed olive tree.  This tree has been there for...a really long time.  It was said to be a gift from Athena when she won the fight against Poseidon for the rights to the city.  So I guess it's been there since the pantheon of gods were introduced, or shortly after.  o.O  It's really freaking old.  Also, it was completely burned down in 480 BC and after two or three years started growing again; it has been destroyed several times but it always grows back or someone saves a piece of it and replants it.

My other favorite thing that we only kind of got to see was the old amphitheater, or its ruins, rather.  We looked down on it from the acropolis and even from that far away it was stunning.   There is another amphitheater not far from it that has been cleaned and restored, but I didn't like it as much even though it's bigger and much more impressive looking.

When we finally got back to the hotel today I felt sticky, hot, and incredibly tired.  But, instead of resting, I freshened up and then dad, Sabry, and I left to explore a bit.  We exchanged some money, which was expensive, and then went to have lunch.  Last night we tried to have gyros...but it didn't quite work out.  We didn't communicate well and dad managed to order a "gyro pie", which is possibly the most inconvenient thing to try and eat and also not at all a pie.  Sabry, Savannah, and I accidentally ordered Fanta to drink and the gyros didn't come with lamb.  However, we're discovering that it is almost impossible to find a place that serves gyros with lamb because lamb is too expensive.  They mostly come with pork, which is really delicious.  

At lunch we had fabulous gyros.  They were just perfect, even though they were pork, and if I don't manage to get another while we're here I will be truly saddened. 

The three of us then went walking around the Placca, which is a tourist shopping area.  Some of the things were really interesting, especially a jewelry shop that I'm going to have to get something from, and some really stunning dresses that I've seen all over the place.  There was also a shop with leather sandals that were pretty, but they didn't seem very well made.

Now, we're back in the hotel, waiting to meet our guide for dinner.  Tonight we're going on something called Athens by Night.  We're going to dine at a place where we can sample all of the traditional Greek cuisine, listen to traditional Grecian music, watch dancing, and just have "a great, casual, Greek evening."  I'm a little nervous about this because it was implied that the musicians and dancers might ask us to join them and dance...which I'm not entirely comfortable with in my sleep-deprived state, but we'll see.  We're not scheduled to get back to the room until 11...which is also a little worrisome to me because I'll need to shower after that and I'm not sure I'll be able to stay awake.

Anyways, I'm having a great time and I've been taking lots of pictures.  We leave tomorrow at 12 on the cruise and head straight for Istanbul :).

More tomorrow! :)

Kate

We're Back, Sorry About That

Sorry about the disappearance, we got lost in preparation for our vacation, which was amazing.  We've been home a little over a week now and are still getting back into the groove of things.  

Life is good.  Vacation was exactly what we needed.  My sisters and I got to spend a lot of time together -- lots of bonding time, you know -- and mom and dad got a chance to relax and have fun.  It was really something.

I did keep a "journal" of our adventures and I'll be sure to post the first entry either later this afternoon or tomorrow morning.  

Today I'm starting on a project for my booth display...if it turns out well I'll post pictures. :)

Kate

Veggies

I desperately wish that I enjoyed fresh, raw veggies more than I do. O.o

Kate

Paddywacks: New Rings - Custom Stamping

Hello everyone!

It's been a busy week around here.  I've been all over the place try to round up various items for displays and new crafts.  In all the chaos I decided to try out a new type of jewelry on a whim and I'm pretty happy with the results!  My new hand stamped, customizable rings, bracelets, and pendants will be going up in the shop this week as quickly as I can get them up.  Right now, here are pictures of the ones I have made already.

Hunger Games inspired
-Peeta
-Mockingjay
-May the odds be ever in your favor.

Cowboy Bebop inspired
-Three, two, one, lets jam
-See you, space cowboy

Einstein Quote:
"Great idea often
recieve violet opposition
from mediocre minds."

Skyrim inspired
-Dragonborn

Imagine

Be the Change

Tolkien Quote:
"Not all who wander are lost"

Never a failure,
Always a lesson.

Portal Inspired:
"The cake is a lie"

New Soul

Create

 

Peace

Explore

Live Laugh Love

-Faith
-Hope
-Love
-Believe (not pictured)

If you have a phrase that you would like stamped onto a ring let me know and I will be more than happy to work something out with you!

Kate

Paddywacks: New Shawls and Hats

Hello everyone,

so sorry about the long wait.  I'm not sure what has happened to my motivation level lately aside from it being basically non-existent.  Anyways, after many tries I finally got some pictures that I really liked of my newest shawl and the hats I've been making.

What do you think?

Key Lime - Shawl

This shawl is made with cotton yarn that is oh-so-soft.  I picked it up for the colors and couldn't put it down because it felt so wonderful.  I have the same yarn in blues and oranges that I'll be making in the next couple of months.

In the meantime, a new design has kind of taken over my needles.  I've been told I should make these for about a year now and I finally got around to it.  They are mostly made from a wonderful yarn that is a blend of wool and silk, although some are just cotton.  I don't know what Meadow is made from because I've had that yarn for so long that I lost the tag and Berry Picking is made from an acrylic/wool blend. Anyway, check out these boho hats!

Indie Caravan

Berry Picking

Rain

Lemonade

Raspberry Lemonade

Sundrop

Meadow

Key Lime - Hat

The Key Lime hat and shawl match, they're both made from the same awesome cotton yarn and they look great together:

Have a great day!

Kate

P.S. What do you think of my new hair?