Last night, I SEWED. On a MACHINE.

The class was SO MUCH FUN! I had a blast picking my fabric – I could have spent hours and hundreds on dollars on cute fabric, but I will settle for learning first.

I was terrified to begin – when we powered on our machines, mine beeped at me (probably to imply that my mother is a prostitute). Apparently this was supposed to happen though, and Thea (our instructor) and Lili (Mistress of Thread) assured me I hadn’t broken anything. We walked through the parts of the machine, loaded up our bobbin with thread, and got the machine all ready to work. Before we started in on our bags, we practiced stitching on some scraps until we were comfortable, and then it was time to begin.

We laid out our fabric, pinned our patterns and began cutting. I was surprised at how many steps there were, but each step was easy to do and made sense in the end. To my utter surprise, the act of sewing via machine was not difficult – I had instinctively chosen the one machine in the shop that was a) different from the others, and b) idiot-friendly: instead of a speed dial, I had a slider that went from tortoise to hare. By the time the night was over, I was almost a quarter of the way to hare; such was my confidence in my new abilities. It was amazing! I bought a punch card for ten hours of machine time at Spool of Thread – I am itching to go back and practice some more. Tote bags for everyone!

I’m still a little bit afraid of sewing machines, though – it’s the act of bobbining and threading that scares me to no end. I’ll practice a few more times at the shop before I attempt to use my own machine, and then I’ll be off – I’m already starting to make modifications to the tote bag recipe in my head. So much fun!

So, how’d it turn out?

Friggin’ awesome.

My bag is made of mushrooms:

feed your head

The bag is reversible, too:

hedgehogs !!!

And because I had to be different, I chose a third material for my straps:

my tote bag is all about woodland creatures

It all came together nicely:

it's so totey!

It looks great to AND fro:

just me and my hedgehogs, totin' around

Why did I choose hedgehogs, you ask?

The whole thing was so much fun. I want to take more classes, and I totally recommend it to anyone who wants to learn how to sew – our instructor was great; walking us through every step and providing help any time we needed it. My bag looks amazing – if not for my slightly crooked strap seams, you’d never know it was made by a total idiot. I MADE A THING! HOORAY!

so pleased!

This ends now (or more specifically, tonight by 9:30).

Very soon, I will stand proud and no longer be paralyzed with fear when I think about using a sewing machine. Tonight at 6:30, I’ll be taking Sewing 101 at Spool of Thread – and once and for all, I will cast off the shackles of terror and conquer my fears like a man learning how to make a tote bag with squirrels on it. I’ve been planning on overcoming my fear of sewing for some time now, but simply buying a sewing machine wasn’t enough (especially since I pawned it off on Heather because I was too afraid to touch it). No, I need someone to force me to confront the very core of my phobia, and much like an arachibutyrophobe being forced into a singalong, I WILL OVERCOME! Viva la sewing revolución!

The prophecy of Saturday has come to pass, and I was indeed asked to relocate this morning by my new boss. It’s not so bad – my new desk is big, and with the help of some stolen furniture, I’ve built myself a toy-covered Fortress of Solitude. People keep stopping by my new desk and marveling at the sheer amount of crap I have, and how quickly I’ve moved in and made myself at home. I can’t work when I’m only partially set up, so I just dove in and got busy. Sure, I haven’t done any actual work today – but at least my gnomes are in place and my internet is good. That’s about all you can really ask of me.

these are business-related gnomes, okay

I am around 20 months late to hop on this bandwagon, but I just saw it yesterday (via @manx_cat) and it tickled me in inappropriate ways:

click to embiggen

Between this and @colene‘s epic trip, I am struck with an irresistible urge to visit New York. I can scoot there from here, right?

It’s Thanksgiving up here in Canada, and I am enjoying a leisurely Sunday afternoon before a potluck dinner with some of my favourite people in the world. I am warm (or I would be, if I wasn’t naked), fed, and full of Diet Coke. Life is good.

I am thankful for these things:

• The people I know
• Having a good job at a good company
• My incredible friends
• Ed
• Living in one of the most incredible cities in the world
• Being Canadian and therefore free to live and love how I want
• My three rotten cats
• My entire life, which is pretty fucking awesome
• Having an audience for my ten year project in internet egotism
• Diet Coke

Happy a happy turkey, y’all.

I’m a big advocate of accepting change, but when the change happens to me I am full of freaking out.

Yesterday at work, my boss told me that I have been transferred – or as I like to think of it, “gifted” – to another department, and will no longer be reporting to him. This isn’t a bad thing by any stretch of the imagination, but it sent me into an evening-long anxiety attack all the same. Things are going swimmingly at work – I like the stuff I’m doing, people rarely ask me to do stupid things, and I like my boss. He tends to leave me to my own sometimes nefarious devices with the odd request thrown here and there, and admirably dealt with my major hissyfit over my xxxtreme dissatisfaction a few months back. However, I’ve worked my magic over half the company for almost three years, and it’s time to start looking at the terrible and wholly incorrect things the REST of the company is doing and whip them into shape under my (tiny) iron fist. So, my headcount has been gifted to another department – and I am not at all certain that this entire thing is not a huge karmic bite in the ass.

I’ve been transferred to the “People and Culture” team.

• I am terrible with people
• I have no culture
• “People and Culture” is our fancy way of saying “Human Resources”, and as a walking HR violation I can’t help but feel like I’m walking into a trap

I have a meeting with my new boss on Tuesday, and I will find out what is what. I’m mostly concerned that there’s a new desk in my immediate future – instead of my lovely secret currently-temp-filled hidey hole, I am almost certain I’m going to be moved into the large desk outside the VP’s office. Yeah, bigger desk .. with no window, no wall behind me, and utterly in the open. I’m getting all agoraphobic just thinking about it. But .. change is good, right? I can do this. I’m just so totally awesome that my old department couldn’t handle it, is all.

breathe.

Dear Apple:

I would like to bring the seriousness of your false advertising to your attention. While I am not requesting a refund – you will pry my iPhone out of my tiny, clammy hands – I do hope that this letter will force you to Do Something about the misleading claims made by your company.

I have been using your “Facetime” video phone feature a lot over the last few days, and I am extremely disheartened to note that my Facetime experiences contained none of the following:

• News that my spouse is finally pregnant, meaning fatherhood is at last within my reach
• Fat babies crawling across the floor and waving hello to Business Trip Dad
• Grandparents admiring graduation gowns
• Fashion advice
• Ultrasounds being shown to extremely photogenic soliders on a tour of duty
• Heartwarmingly funny fathers (who are barely older than their teenage children) reacting to a drastic haircut and/or new braces
• Crystal clear high definition picture

Based on your constant advertising for the iPhone 4 and Facetime, I had a reasonable expectation to see some, if not all, of the things your commercials promised. I do not recall your campaign featuring choppy, pixelated images that freeze and drop calls at random, or a strange echo that comes from using the speaker phone.

Also, there was a great deal more penis in my Facetime experience than previously advertised.

In all fairness to consumers, I really think you ought to redo the Facetime commercials on television to show real people, really using the product. Simulated images and happy, wholesome people sharing gooey snippets of life’s big moments in crystal clarity is just not the reality: you should be showing grainy tits and cocks at 4 frames per second, and maybe people illegally streaming live concert footage for their friends who couldn’t get in. This sappy Oxygen Network stuff just doesn’t happen in the real world.

So much cock!

Sincerely,

Kimli

.. I want to go back to isolation in the boardroom, please.

I’ve been back for 3 hours and I remember why I was so happy to move in the first place – the temps talk. A lot. And they chew, and move, and breathe, and they’re in my bubble. I shouldn’t have to cram earphones in to block out a conversation about ice cubes – I just want to work in peace.

I miss having my own office.

No more exile!

I’ve been working out of a boardroom due to a project for the last few weeks, but today I had my final boardroom training session so I immediately packed up and went back to my desk. I missed all my stuff. As fun as it was to work out of a new location for a while, it quickly got annoying (and lonely). Hooray! Status quo!

I have the house to myself as Ed is on a business trip, but I don’t have time to relax. I was so tired yesterday that I did nothing at all in the evening, which actually didn’t help – getting out of bed this morning took a Herculean effort that barely succeeded. Tonight there is no time for nothing – Shan and I are going to the K-oS show at the Venue. I enjoy a few K-oS songs but I’m really there to see the opening act (Astronautalis), who we are successfully stalking each time he comes through Vancouver. It should be a great show – I just hope I can come up with enough energy to properly enjoy it. If I can’t handle it, I always have the option of just staying for the opening act .. seems like kind of a waste, but I’m old and tired and Thursday night is no time for rocking out.

Ooh, long weekend coming up. That will help – I can sleepwalk through Friday, then.

please take me seriously

i do what a must (with a crowbar) because i can

You urgently need a man thong, preferably in gold lamé or sequins. You’re writing a blog post about home décor and want to use the term “honey pot”, but have a sneaking suspicion that you could be misconstrued. Someone asks you if you’d like to touch their merkin, but you’re not sure what your answer should be. What do you do? Where do you go in your time of need? Who will gently help you with all the things you’re terrified to ask?

Me, of course.

I love that I’m like a one-stop shop for anything even slightly salacious – if you need to know what it is, where it should be inserted, and how you can get one NOW, I’m your girl. Two of the three scenarios in the opening paragraph happened this morning, from different people over different messaging tools and for some weird reason, at the same time. Seriously, this makes me incredibly happy. I’m glad that all the brain power and fleshy disk space I’ve used up to memorize a Wikipedia’s worth of bawdy knowledge is so handy not just to myself, but my friends. The precociousness of my talent for the ribald that I first showed my proud father and mortified brother at 14 has blossomed into a beautiful, gushing fountain of hot, thick knowledge that spurts out from betwixt my lips and fingers in a sticky droplets to be lapped up by those around me, and it. is. awesome.

instagram is kind of fantastic - check it out

One of these days, someone is going to catch on:

yes i realize the inconsistencies in the email address; shut up

This isn’t the first time I’ve done this, and it won’t be the last. Granted, this time I did need help from Twitter to come up with fake company names – I’m tired, okay. People came up with some great ones though, and now I’ll have enough fodder for my next set of horrible CRM manuals! It’s the only thing that keeps me sane!

wait, was she actually BORN on naboo? get me a nerd to answer that, stat!