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Chrystalla burst into the office waving frantically.

Her: That knitting author… You know, the Epstein lady?!
Me: Who, Nicky Epstein? What about her?
Her: SHE’S HERE!

And that’s how I met Nicky Epstein, famous author of books such as Knitting on the Edge and many more. She and her husband just got into Sydney yesterday, and Tapestry Craft was one of their first stops. They’re so nice! Nicky’s writing a new book on knitting in Australia and they’re doing research for it. Then she’s heading to Melbourne for the start of the 2007 Vogue Knitting tour of Australia and New Zealand, which she’s hosting. They’ll be back in Sydney in a couple weeks, so I suggested that we should host an event for them! Nicky gave me the PR contact details so hopefully we can set something up. I’ll let you know as soon as things are decided…

Email Bankruptcy
Yesterday I realized that I had over 3000 messages in my Gmail Inbox, and that the items that needed action (replies, etc) were being buried in the pile. It was time to declare email bankruptcy. So I clicked on “Select: All”, and then clicked the option to select everything in my Inbox. Then I clicked the “Archive” button. Voila! It’s all gone. Then I created a new label called “@Pending” (the @ symbol is to make it get listed first alphabetically). I went through the archive and found the stuff that needed action, adding it to the “@Pending” list. I’ve now got a sparklingly empty Inbox and a pending list of 14 things that need my attention. When new messages come in, I’m forcing myself to decide immediately whether it requires action, and if it doesn’t, whether I’m going to archive or delete. I can already feel the psychic benefits of being so organised; it’s like a big source of guilt has been removed just by hiding all those old messages. I recommend it!

Come on, Stella!*
My sister has finally dropped her bombshell, so I guess it’s okay to break radio silence. (IT’S BEEN KILLING ME.) That ain’t her gallbladder, folks! (Though it bears more than a passing resemblance.) Yes, yours truly is going to be an aunt AGAIN. Though it’s a little sooner than they’d planned, Amy and Dan will be welcoming another undoubtedly adorable baby to the world next April. And with my brother and his wife due later this year… we’ve got babies popping up everywhere! (But not here.) MAZEL TOV!

* Last year when we were all questioning the name “Penn,” my sister jokingly told me that they needed to have him a sister named “Stella” to complete the pun. I think this would be BRILLIANT.

Australian Idol
I can’t help it. I’ve been sucked in again. The guys on Sunday were pretty boring though, with the exception of crazy-ass Husny. The girls were a lot better. Tarisai and Cheray were my favorites, but I thought Lana did pretty well too. (I’m hoping Cheray will make it as a wildcard.) Tonight my favorites were definitely Ben the Emo Kid and Marty the Hot Surfer. (I’m downloading Marty’s song as we speak.) I may even have to throw them some votes…

I just peeked out the door to see the lunar eclipse. Contrary to the naysayers, it was still perfectly visible from our apartment in the light-polluted city. Now I’m waiting for my latent mutant powers to emerge…

Michelle knitted Trogdor. That is too cool!

America’s Worst Colleges. I’ll admit that the Domer in me had a good laugh at Michigan State’s prominent placement.

Cat. Stew. Ew.

Finishing the Bryson book last week put me in the perfect mood for the Fifties Fair yesterday. The Snook and I caught the train to Turramurra and then the shuttle bus over to the Rose Seidler House. Luckily we’d followed advice and gotten there relatively early, so we didn’t have to wait long to get in. We ran into Morgan and some of the other Sydney photobloggers pretty quickly. After delivering the tea cosies to the Snook’s aunt’s stall (as pictured), we set off to see the sights. I’ve put a few photos up on Flickr. Yeah, there were a lot of dressed up hipsters. Some of the costumes were great, though a lot of the tats and hair colours were pretty anachronistic! We also met up with Amy and Bex (who has a sadly unflattering photo of yours truly here). I’m sure there’ll be more photos popping up soon…