Pundar 4: Loo pipes and laundry roof, done!

Hi everyone! I'll just make this a quick one. I am very. very happy with how quickly the house is coming to form, and quite amazed at it all, really.

These made my day:

Behold the loo valve. It drips no more. We can now flush in peace, and not worry about the water bill. Huzzah!

And the bathroom sink's water trap. It drips no more! Huzzah!

And the laundry area roof. See that nice, new sheet of corrugated galvanized iron? An ugly, brittle plastic roof used to occupy that space, and now, the washing machine need not fear drippy water damage. Huzzah! (There is still the question of the soft, flaky wooden roof next to it, though. Best we work on that too, and soon.)

A wooden kitchen counter extension fit for a gas range and then some! If you'll look closely, there a small hole in the middle on the edge sticking to the wall. Kudos to Mang Julio for thinking about the gas pipe. And look at all that space down below! Huzzah!

The man responsible for it all -- Mang Julio! (or his back, at least.) Huzzah! Huzzah! Huzzah!

We've also enjoyed buying a few appliances to make the bareness more forgiving, like this bright and shiny microwave (heated homecooked meals! popcorn! er... and sponge disinfecting!),

and this beautiful DVD player. The first one, after having served us faithfully -- with the habitual coughing and wheezing that is to be expected of China-made items -- had at last decided to give up the Great Machine Spirit within it. What fascinates me the most is the additional USB port in front.It is allegedly meant to play video files from any USB drive you plug into it. Hmmm! This will be a worthy experiment indeed.

Looking at the player now, it makes me think of a Manta Ray. Or a Great black whale shark.

The next project in line will be this. Mang Julio had taken the dimensions of the cupboard last I saw him, and I bet he's working on the base and the shelves right now, sawing, gluing pieces together, hammering away atop his own home. He said it was a cheap trick the first builders had done, scrimping on materials and using plywood boards that thin. Why, you can practically see it peeling apart like the pages of a water-damaged book.

When that's done, he'll haul it onto a vehicle, ship it to our house, and install it.

The man. is amazing. We want to buy him shoes. Or anything he and his family needs, for that matter.

Kell's Monsters

my good friend Kell asked me to craft a pair of the Monster Eye slippers for his lovely lady, and I'm really happy to say they're on their way to completion! I just need to crochet the irises, the other eyeball, and eyelids, and Done!

Sadly, the camera was drained of juice just before I could take a snapshot of the finished parts, so here is one bootie, er, slipper.

Makes me think of Link from Legend of Zelda. :)

Update:  Finally! the two socks and an unstuffed eyeball:

Hmm. Is it just me, or the eyeball seems too small? Odd.

Bigger eyeballs. Got it.

Webbie Spotlight: Stanley Jordan

My good friend Mikhal sent me this video on StumbleUpon a few days ago. I don't know just how many guitarists out there play on their fretboards, but I love this guy's jazz. It tickles me that James liked Stanley Jordan's music with the first few videos he saw.


Here's guitar virtuoso Stanley Jordan playing his rendition of Eleanor Rigby:

Here's the artist's take on one of James' favorite songs The Sound of Silence.

Webbie Spotlight: Wordl-deedoo

From Clair.

according to Wordl, This is my blog:



this too, simply because I like the colors and the font:

Everybody's Free.

And because it deserves more than just a link.

knitting + furry critters = <3

Sometimes, I must learn to understand that...

... some things may not really be as huge and fearsome as they seem to be.

... friends do come and go, but stick with the ones who you feel good hanging around with and who support you, and maybe give you some tough coach talk to set you straight and give you some backbone.

... Don't be reckless with other people's hearts. Don't put up with people who are reckless with yours.

... Remember compliments you've received. Forget the Insults. If you've succeeded in doing this, tell me how.

.. Housework can be good exercise. Never fear it.

... Building something beautiful takes patience. So goes with clothing. So goes with a house.

... It's perfectly okay to gush or melt over a pretty knitting project while your boyfriend levels up on his DS beside you.

... Finding the pattern to said pretty project can give you a creative orgasm. It's so close, you can almost just so barely touch it.

... a man really loves you when he doesn't mind you going into a creative orgasm. In fact, he may even coo in approval. At the project, I mean.

... staring at cuddly creatures -- panacea for fears and heartaches.

>_<################

Dear Blogger:

Sometimes you do the horriblest things.

I'd written a very long post that I mistakenly Select All-ed and erased. And you went ahead and Saved the damned draft.

I will take this as a sign that you want me to head home, see to the laundry, and perhaps see to some much-needed sleep. I withdraw for now.

We still have a score to settle, you and I.

Pundar 3: Home Improvement

At last! Heave-ho to fixing the apartment! A fresh roof above our heads and a happy loo may seem like slow starts, but they are indeed starts in themselves.

First off, we now revel in having a whole, repainted, and fortified roof above our heads. Yes, I do say revel in with with all the vim and vigor and lust in the phrase, and believe me, if you've toughed out sleeping on a cold, wet bed from a leaky ceiling from god-knows-what-happened to the roof, you'd use the word too. I cannot help myself from gushing over how Mang Julio and his men did such a bang-up job. It cost us quite a pretty penny though -- the P12k my folks from the US sent over went entirely to this project, but ye gods, it's finally done!

Secondly, we had the sliding front door's lock replaced with a stout, staunch dead bolt lock. (And in good time it was -- it didn't help that the old lock kept unlocking itself when I was alone on the first floor. The howling wind of last Friday's galestorm -- exactly on October 31st -- did not help matters or my nerves.) The argent lock now sits on the door like some grim gatekeeper set to question all those who would dare pass its portal -- even me. For short, the lock often refuses to open after a few twists, until one final pleading fiddle sets it aright. Now I'm set to wonder whether it's got itself confused for a rotating combination vault lock instead. Hmm...

Thridly, bathroom cosmetics. I'll let the video do the talking.

Call it Sulfur, Jejune, or Sour Yellow. I call it UltraHyperRadioactiveCanaryLemon and I love it!

Seeing to the bathroom sink's pipes, the toilet's flusher and the bidet will come next, but all in good time (and resource-pooling).

I must say, I'm beginning to rather quite enjoy getting the house back in order. There's a certain sense of achievement to it, and a feeling of making the living space irrevocably yours, piece by piece. This is my living space and my domain, and by ensuring everything is in good form and harmony, I make it so.

To adapt a phrase from Mel Brooks, it's good to be the queen.

The Cumulus Scarf: Pre-Ondoy Post

... Or the Cotton Candy Cumulus Scarf, as renamed by Clair.

Here's the second scarf Clair commissioned me to make for her. I understand that one of the scarves is now keeping a good friend of hers quite warm in the US. Glad to hear that -- it's always nice to know that the things you create make not not just one person, but two people, happy. :)

Sweet 26 Almighty!

Happy birthday to me a long time ago. It's been 10 days since I turned 26, and Life as always happens while you make plans.

The best things about my birthday, in no particular order:

1. Four days of rest (sort of). I took the liberty of going on leave on my birthday and the day before -- the dates would be October 15 and 16, Thursday and Friday respectively. Follow that up with Saturday and Sunday. 


2. Dinner with my dad, grandmother and brother in Cyma. I'm glad I listened to my office pals on this one. I don't really get to see my dad and my folks often, and so I was totally looking forward to this. Cyma had very good Greek and vegetarian food to offer, and by god did we love it. My dad's meatless moussaka looked mighty interesting, and the stuffed grape leaves were lusciously savory. (Wow, pine nuts and rice!) I fully recommend getting the bottomless lemonade -- you can never go wrong with freshly-squeezed lemon juice. Seriously. 


3. Being woken up to cuddles from James. My boyfriend came home to me on Friday morning, with a number of sweet gifts in tow: A lucky Mikuru gashopon capsule toy (I say lucky because he got the exact toy I wanted on the first try), a fresh deck of Magic: The Gathering playing cards from the Zendikar expansion (to replace the others that got swept away by the flood), and a boxful of silvanas -- my favorite!  We spent the rest of the day chillaxing: a few games to test our new decks out, having a simple meal of chicken sopas and rice, and watching anime together. 


4. Sometime in the day, I snuck out to buy cake and iced tea -- the iced tea was to accompany the pizza for dinner (yebba! Horray for Domino's!), and the cake was for distributing to folks within the compound. That's the cake above. It was the only Strawberry Fudge number, the lonely lolita in a sea of teddy boy chocolates and mochas. So I promptly took her home, cut her up, and shared the spoils, and gobbled her up. Yum. (Note to self: Never ever sneak out again, at least without James knowing. It's liable to give him a fright and send him searching the streets for me.) 


5. Making the box of silvanas last until the end of the next week. Mmmm. 


6. Getting the house's repairs started. Finally! Through the kindness of my workmate Irl and his wife Ditas, they recommended their carpenter to me, and I do feel I have struck gold with him. Mang Julio is super-efficient, honest, and never fails to amaze us with his skills. I'm just glad James knows how to talk shop with him, because I'd be lost with all the carpentry jargon! Awesome non-leaky roof coming up! After that, there's the getting the bathrom door un-warped and setting it flush against the jamb, then the pipes and getting the loo a proper lever-flush. (Okay, so it's really not within those four rest days, but c'mon! That's like an achievement for me.) 



7.  Scott Westerfeld's Leviathan. The other girls can keep their glittering vampires. My fantasy involves clankers and beasties and steam. Lots of steam.   


8. Making plans for the first floor renovation. Now, I'm thinking of turning the first floor into something closer to an atelier/informal entertainment spot rather than a traditional lounge with couches and all. First three items that come to mind: 

• A large, sturdy wooden table that can serve as an all around working surface -- food preparation, textile cutting, sewing space, you name it. I'd also want it to serve as a dining table, and I'd want it strong enough to support a full grown man. 
• Bring my mother's Indian silk carpet down, set it in the living room, and that where we entertain our guests. Pillows are a must. And yet, the biggest (and possibly most expensive) one of all -- 
• Murals on the walls. I'm not talking about a thin strip across the middle, I'm talking about large, loud and crazy, cover-the-entire-wall-and-possibly-the-fixtures-too murals. The sunshine yellow my mother chose for the walls are already chipping and peeling all over, and it's driving me nuts! I'm thinking of wire dress forms, Giant octopi, and bright colors. James has already expressed that "yes, I will look at you weird if you paint a giant octopus on your wall." Hee. 

There have also been other crazy hijinks along the way, both family- and apartment-wise, but it's mostly been all good.

Do I feel 26? do I feel any more grown up than I did when I turned 25? Nooooooooooot really. for now, I'd like to invoke my Facebook stat on the my birthday:

Here's to another year of adventure, comedy, and romance with an all-star cast! (of course, that includes you too!) Huzzah! Huzzah! Huzzah!