Housekeeping, Etc.

Okay...first of all, new feature! My new year's resolution (made in February, per true Josie tradition) is to photograph and post everything I knit and/or make so I have a record of it. I have made a lot of cool stuff over the years, and much of it has been given away without my making any record of it. When I'm saying I made cool stuff, I'm not talking reindeer sweaters with jingle bells on the antlers, okay, I'm talking shit made on needles so small they bend as I knit, and lots of relief work with crazy patterning and other cool stuff. Obviously not everything is awesome, but what can you do? So, to supplement the new plan, I'm putting a box on the blog with my Current Work in Progress, which I'm hoping will guilt me into working fairly quickly and taking pictures.

Secondly, Celia tagged me on a meme.

I'm not going to lie, "memes" are in the corner of the Internet that my old man self does not venture, so I'm just following the directions and leaving it there. I am not hip enough to have a lot of blogger friends, so just consider yourself tagged if you feel so inclined.

THE RULES:
1. Once you are tagged, link back to the person who tagged you.
2. Post THE RULES on your blog.
3. Post 7 weird or random facts about yourself on your blog.
4. Tag 7 people and link to them.
5. Comment on their blog to let them know they have been tagged.

1. I lived in England for a year when I was 7 with my family. We did a houseswap with a completely batshit crazy family who randomly came back to England mid-year and demanded their keys/house/car back. Despite the crazies, it was an awesome year, I luckily remember a good amount of it, and have been able to both stay in touch with some of our friends over there and go visit several times.

2. My family is Quaker. My mom and I are pretty much the only ones who practice with any kind of regularity, but we all grew up in the Worcester Meeting, where I still attend. I do not "dress like that," I'm not a weird hippie (well, not in the way people think Quakers are), I'm not Amish, and I'm not a Jehovah's Witness. I literally get these questions every week, and some I understand, some I don't. Your random Quaker Trivia for the day: Nixon and Hoover were both Quakers. Nixon didn't attend ANY Meeting, even for gladhanding, while he was President, and let me tell you, there are still some DC Quakers who are no-fooling-pissed about this.

3. My cat, Cady, is named after Elizabeth Cady Stanton, because I am that awesome.

4. I have taken tons of classes in calligraphy (amongst other things) at the Worcester Art Museum, and plan to address my own wedding invitations. I also designed the font I used on my tattoo (more on that later), and the coolest thing I've lettered was my grandmother's wedding certificate for her re-marriage at the age of 71 (go Mormor!).

5. I have a tattoo on my lower back that says "Deus Ex Machina" in a circle, closed with a Celtic trinity knot. I got the tattoo in my little brother's room when a work friend's twin sister came by to do it for me. I chose the phrase because I like to believe that everything will be okay...that even when you're totally In The Shit and everything looks horrendous, at any moment something or someone could show up and make it all better.

6. When I was in second grade, my Mom actually met with my teacher in a tearful conference about my handwriting. Apparently it was so horrendous that my Mom thought I was going to be weirdly crippled and unable to communicate with the outside world. For those who have not seen my handwriting currently, I offer the current anecdote: a while back, I wrote a brief note to our neighbors, explaining that I hate the Aquafresh-green chainlink fence that divides our property and hope to replace it or grow something on it so it's less ugly, and thus wanted to talk to them about it since it would affect both of us. The husband nearly threw out the card because he thought it was a preprinted envelope from some gardening company. Turns out that just like Mrs. Leedale the Second Grade Teacher told Mom in the 1990s, my handwriting turned out just fine.

7. When I was a junior in high school, I went to Egypt with my Dad, who worked with the USAID project over there. It was one of the coolest trips I have ever been on, and I actually liked it so much that I considered attending the American University in Cairo. Luckily, I eventually thought better of it, and instead wound up going to the American University in DC.