Star Monkeybrass The name is a long story. The blog is just me.

I watched American Idol for the first time all season this week, just in time for the final performances. When JLo said Phillip-squared was doing something that wasn’t on the radio right now, it bothered me. She might be right, but there are people out there doing what he does (whether it be that ki

I started this sweater last year because I wanted a nice springtime sweater right then. I had grand delusions of being able to wear it before the weather got too warm. Then I got stuck in stockinette hell. Once I got through all the holiday knitting (let’s pretend like I haven’t completely stalled o

A few days ago, I noticed some interesting tidbits coming through my twitter stream – the Corpse Flower at Missouri Botanical Gardens was about to bloom. I briefly thought that maybe I would venture out to see it when it bloomed, but then didn’t really think much about it for the rest of my weekend,

I read a blog post earlier this week that echoed some of my recent thoughts on writing here regularly. Life is happening, but the little things I might want to share are things that don’t make for interesting writing. I’ve knit my fingers down to the nubs (not literally). My dad was sick & in [...]

Last weekend, I attended a baby shower at Kakao that also included a chocolate tasting. Of course, as I was getting out of my car, the tornado sirens went off in Maplewood. I booked it the two blocks to the shop & managed to get inside shortly before the skies opened up. The chocolate tasting [...]

It’s been a busy couple of weeks around here, which led to not much time to chat. So, the short version of events: Our Relay For Life event was this weekend. In a moment of insanity or brilliance, I offered to bake cupcakes for us to sell there. My coworkers provided the supplies & I [...]

Over the weekend, I attended my first Seder(s) at Mindy & E’s place. Mindy is usually back home for the start of Passover, so this was also her first year hosting. I had a lot of fun (until I wasn’t watching where I was walking & fell off the sidewalk. Again. My knee still hurts [...]

I’m on quite the kick with Veera’s patterns – she just keeps designing things that I like & I keep knitting them. In fact, I have 2 more of her designs on the needles right now, both of which I hope to finish once I’m back in full-on selfish knitting mode (I have some other [...]

A couple months ago, Rachel put out a call for sample knitters & I volunteered. “Can you do something in laceweight yarn?” she asked. “Of course!” said I. More discussion & we settled on Alcea, a lovely little shawl. That is knit from the bottom up. I messed up on the first row twice. As [...]

A couple months ago, we soup cookoff/fundraiser at work to raise money for Relay For Life. As we had about eighty billion leftover desserts after our chili cookoff in the Fall, I was put in charge of the dessert table to keep things under control. In the end, this meant that I made 100 cupcakes [...