My 30th birthday came and went, and all in all, it was a pretty good birthday. Whateley had no idea what to get for me as a present, so he just said, "I'm forcing you to spend money, now get what you've always wanted but never bought."

So I got myself a sewing machine.

I'm so lame, but ever since I started watching Project Runway, I've always wanted to make my own clothes. Well, I've been "designing" since I was a kid, but it's mostly me doodling characters, usually women, and coming up with costume ideas for what they're wearing. I used to take old clothing scraps and make fugly Barbie clothes out of them. Anyway, since Whateley made a mandate, I went ahead and got the best sewing machine I could find at Target.

I also got some fabric and a pattern for a nice, simple dress, and I was thinking, I'll have this done and ready in no time! Then I actually opened the pattern and started reading the directions. Let me tell you, sewing is a lot more complex than it looks! Actually, the hardest part is all the terminology that has developed since the invention of the sewing machine, and the people who write the patterns just use them like a sailor littering their speech with "colorful" language.

So my machine has yet to be set up, and instead, for the past week, I've been poring over Sewing for Dummies, which, unfortunately, contains way too much of the same terminology and a dearth of illustrations. So I picked up another book that proudly proclaimed on the cover that it had over 1100 photo illustrations. It helped a lot.

Anyway, I think I've got the book knowledge for this stuff. Now it's just a matter of sitting down to actually make the dress. I got some extra fabric since I fully expect me to mess up a lot. I thought about getting a really simple pattern, like a tank top or pajama pants, to start off with. But then I thought, that stuff is usually ugly and frumpy and I'll never wear it, so I'd much rather struggle and take a longer time with my first project, especially if it seems like it'll be something I'll actually wear.

There's a small part in the back of my brain thinking, maybe I'll get good enough to get on Project Runway! But I don't think I'll devote enough time to it to get that good. And with my luck, I would end up being the person they portray as bitchy.

My computer's back to the way it was. I ended up reinstalling Windows XP on Xeowolf's loaned computer, but there's an odd issue with XP. Mainly, when it first shipped, it really didn't know how to handle networking. I believe all that got resolved with service pack 1. But the stupid part of XP out of the box is, it usually can't connect to the internet to download all the updates. So after a couple of days of trying like mad to get the computer to recognize the ethernet drivers, or even using a ghetto USB wireless networking card, I got frustrated and turned my borked computer back on.

Apparently, a few days shut off gave it a good slap to the face or something, because the mouse and keyboard started being recognized. I just booted up the computer as usual, and everything was back to normal. I think it was the WoW gaming mouse that I had gotten. It's kinda nice cuz it has a lot of the WoW commands pre-programmed, and it's got 16 buttons along with an LCD color changer. But it may have been the cause of my computer borking out. When I plugged it into Xeowolf's computer, it made the keyboard totally lag. So I switched it out with Whateley's old mouse, and then it stopped mis-behaving.

Anyway, next on my agenda regarding my computer is a fresh install of Vista, and hopefully my months-old monitor problem will get solved too. I'm also hoping to get some digital art software installed. My art skills are getting a bit rusty.