I don't know what to knit next

I just can't decide what to do next. I've been cranking out scarves like nobody's business and just almost finished the last one. I've still got to fringe it, but then I'm pretty much done.

I don't really know what to do....a hat? a purse? I think I want to make a booga bag and see how it turns out or a sophie, but can't decide....maybe a real sweater (as in more than a tank top)?????? I guess I'll be googling.

Put in another 4 1/2 hours at work today and have to do some serious work at home on the computer to make up for time lost....It's still so wierd being there. Again, love this lady I work with, but I might have to put up a half-cubicle wall or something to keep from going insane....I think I'll bring head-phones and plug into my tunes, maybe that will help. The whole (ok half) day I was like "what?" "huh?" "yeah" "sure".....repeat repeat repeat. AAAUUGGGHHHH! She won't stop TALKING and it's not loud enough that you can actually understand but not quiet enough that you can ignore....Oh and rolling downhill still. You think I'd remember that my chair rolls back with or without me and sit down a little more carefully, wouldn't you? I almost busted my butt today when I barely caught the edge of the chair right before I left. cripes. What's that? worker's comp? Can you get money for a broken butt?

I've got to put in a few hours here at home on work and then might mosey around and see what neat patterns are out there calling my name.

Went bowling tonight and we bowled the funniest team. They kicked our butts, but it was still fun. This one little older lady on the lanes next to us I swear to GOD had the best bowling outfit I've seen in some time. She had her long hair up in a bun, and had a pretty flashy red & black flame style retro shirt on with bright green pants and a FUR sleeveless jacket. Yup. MINK sleeveless jacket with all the smoky cruddy air and bowled in it all night. It might have been a touch cold when we got there, but I was stripping down to my t-shirt after the first few frames.

We have a new team member who brought her knitting along! I was so excited. She said she's knitted for about 4 years, but has never done anything other than scarves with plain old acrylic yarn and a baby blanket done in long rectangles sewed together. She never learned how to do a pearl stitch or increase or decrease......OH WHAT FUN we're going to have. She said her grandmother only knew the garter stitch and so that's all she's done. In about 10 minutes, she mastered the pearl and knit 2 together and bar increase and stitching into front & back of the stitch. I couldn't remember the SSK so said we'd try it next time. I'm a little teacher. woo hoo. I almost felt bad as her hubby made the comment he liked her only doing one thing as it kept her from spending any more money at the craft shop......I thought, oh darlin, you wait until she gets into a LYS..... poor thing.

I think it's my duty to corrupt those around me. Making my little corner of the world a bit more like me.

Working from home is kinda nice

I'm telling you, I could get used to this! I'm sitting in my new corner office (actually a computer stuck on a sad wal-mart computer table in the corner of my bedroom). Got the computer set up and it WORKS, do these miracles never end????? I'm telling you, the place just didn't work until EVERYONE was gone. Now we have clean floors, no bugs, filters that are not full of moldy chunks, clean fixtures in the kitchen, cheerful people, it's a bit unsettling as I was getting used to hiding from people's icy looks and nasty comments. I got to say, I LOVE LOVE LOVE working from home. Computer things never went the way they were supposed to as everything in the dungeon has been "adapted" to the point that computer techy-people get frightened trying to adjust anything. So, I was actually astonished that it all worked smooth as dog-snot. Ok, I don't actually know if dog snot is smooth or not, as our little dog seems to be snot-free for the most part. ick. sorry. Back to the office tomorrow.

Joey update, I think the newest antibiotic may be working as the little guy is much more onery and obnoxious again and SLEEPING at night, hallelujah! We go back for a re-check tomorrow.

Beth update, the child is still seriously addicted to the video game system here at home. Part of me enjoys that they like to play as they are giggling together and having a good time and I get so much done, but I'm going to seriously have to schedule time as she gets a bit BITCHY after playing too long. TWO female scorpios with strong personalities, no that should be FUN in the teenage years, right???? crap on a stick, I can't wait.

Knitting update (oh yeah, this WAS a knitting blog, wasn't it?????) I really REALLY tried to start on a warm project, but need to find a cute pattern for a hat. I just need to spend some time googling and I spent all my time online READING everyone else's blogs and just having a good ol' time. So, I have to admit I stitched a gauge for the original sexy tank I wanted to make when all this knitting stuff started. I have some amazing yarn that I got to make the backless tank and didn't work, and realized it would be PERFECT for the sexy tank & scarf, but I probably need to buy 2 more skeins before the LYS is out, but I'm NOT making it yet. Chubby chics should NOT have three knitted tank tops before a decent body-covering piece of clothing is knitted! ......trying to save $$ this year to take the kiddies on a real vacation and even for a down payment on my own home, so I've got to cut down on the yarn and KNITTING BOOK purchases.

My current stash is taking over all but one big drawer in the cedar-lined dresser and I'm forcing myself to FINISH items and start the ones I origninally bought the yarn for before getting more yarn, but OMG the call of the LYS....can't you hear it???? I just need 3 skeins of noro kureyon to make my booga bag and I'm afraid I can't get out of there with just that......must be strong.....must resist.......I keep focusing on my goals, but then I rationalize that now that I'm working shorter hours, I can't go out for lunch, so I'll be saving those $$...... We'll see. I might just get willpower yet.

Gotta tell you, it's also nice to be WARM with LIGHTS. God bless electricity. LOVE IT! We finally started melting today as it got around 40 or so and all the ice started falling off trees and such and another big ol ice storm is on its way.

Oh Lord, I have to say there's been another Kenny Rogers incident. NOT with the current Kenny who hasn't been seen or heard from in about a month now, but ANOTHER damn look-alike..... What is it about men in KC that turn into Kenny when they get older????? And why are they ALL attracted to me????? Do I look like one of Kenny's wives or something??? WTF? SO, Friday evening my cousin calls and sounds hungry and poor and offers to babysit for me Sat. night. I told him I can't really leave for the evening as Joey doesn't sleep well, etc, so he offered to just come over for a few hours and let me run some errands. Joey was feeling pretty good, so I said okie-dokie. My few friends here in town were either going out for a real evening or out of town (Mark & Russel were out with friends) so I took myself to the movies and went to a matinee. While there (by myself like a loser but not really minding) I'm in line for popcorn and this KENNY FREAKING ROGERS buys my popcorn & diet coke. I got up there and ordered and got ready to pay and the pimply kid said, "um ma'am" (yes, the little shit called me MA'AM) "this guy already said to buy whatever you wanted). I almost had a heart-attack as I thought it was my stalker-Kenny, but no, it's ANOTHER one. Hopefully not a stalker, very nice & polite. He said he noticed I was alone and my "beautiful eyes stunned" him. (ok, it's creepy I admit it). I said I was alone, but I was actually looking forward for a couple hours of peace & enjoying the alone-ness, but was very thankful for his kind gesture. He said he respected it, wasn't going to ask for my number, just wanted to do something nice and it made him feel good and thanked me. Then he went into a different theatre and I went in and sat my butt down and ate the free popcorn. IS THAT WIERD OR WHAT????? I did make sure to walk to the car in a crowd, but didn't run into my new friend. wierd. I made a promise to my best friend Jildo that I would never marry another guy that she didn't like and not get serious with any more bowlers (long stories there) and I think I'm making a promise to myself to NOT SPEND ANY TIME WITH MEN THAT RESEMBLE OLD COUNTRY SINGERS.

Maybe I can get on the "queer eye for the straight girl" show or "what not to wear" to get a make-over that allows men that are not 15-25 years older than me to crave this goddess.....bwaa haa haa haa

Long-ass boring post

I've missed my little blog and reading everyone else's stuff! What can I say? Life is a whirlwind.....yeah, right. I was tired, cold and grumpy and did not post for a variety of reasons, none of which resembled a whirlwind of social activity.

WARNING....THIS WILL BE A BORING POST, TOUGH.

SO, I think people are reading that shouldn't be, so no more on work for now. Except to say everyone's really REALLY happy there. It was almost freaky, but enjoyable until I thought about it and it was freaky again. I have to say I always thought I was one to roll with the punches, adjust to change, etc. Apparently I am an OLD GRUMPY ASS woman. I don't like being up in the middle of everything, I don't like that I sit by the back door with cold air streaming across my ankles and I especially don't like that I'm on on incline and keep rolling back and slamming into the damn shelving unit behind my desk. I don't like that my assistant, God love her, DOESN'T EVER FREAKING STOP TALKING.......AND TALKING......AND TALKING about NOTHING. She's a lovely lady, but I work with numbers and have to have minimal interruptions to be able to function. AAARRRRCCGGGGGHHHHHHH. Maybe I can use headphones and plug into my little radio stream without being rude?????? I don't know. I do love that I am going to be able to work from home, I am really lucky about that, but GOD I hate rolling backwards every time I don't pay attention. BUT, I've really not been at work much this week so it should really be fun next week when I have to actually SHOW UP. Monday was a pretty normal yet wierd day, Tues Joey came with me and I accomplished basically nothing other than a few tasks and then moving some of my crap from my QUIET ANTISOCIAL office to the middle of heck. Wednesday I worked a few hours, Thurs a few and Friday I didn't even try to get there. I did pick up the computer and am going to try to hook it up here at home, but it hasn't made it past the floor right inside the door. So much for my idea of making up hours yesterday or tonight. bwaaa haaa haa haa. At least everyone's happy. I'm telling you, it was wierd. The boss-man even bought us the world's biggest cinamon roll with cream chese icing that has ever been made. It was DIVINE and I dug right in.

What else? Joey's been battling ear infections that I swear are just getting worse with each new antibiotic they try. Poor little guy. He's a trooper and I think the most recent one is working. At least, he's sleeping at night and no longer running a fever. He goes back for a checkup Monday afternoon, so another short day at work for me. Beth's back, but majorly addicted to her game boy. I almost had to do an intervention with her tonight as she sassed me when it was time for her to shut down the nintendo 64 from Santa.....we had a little talk and decided she'll have a warning of 5 minutes to shut-down, one more warning at 1 min. and she'd better dang well shut down & save the machine or it's one day without any video games. Man, sometimes it's hard being a hard-ass.

What else, AH YES.....ice storm hit kc Tues. night and one little tiny strip of a road was left without power for 3 days & 2 nights. FROZE MY LIVING ASS OFF........actually, I think the cold helped my body put another layer of blubber on it to try to conserve warmth. KNITTING TIP FOR BEGINNING KNITTERS....if it's fall or winter when you learn to knit, make a damn hat and pair of mittens before you complete 2 tank tops and a backless sweater that would fit Fat Albert.....I was laying there shivering and thinking I DON'T EVEN HAVE A STINKING HAT TO WEAR, I was deliberating whether I really wanted to go back to the cold cold back part of the house far from the wood stove to pull out those damn tank tops & backless sweater to wrap around my head or if I'd rather just lay there shivering..... Sad, isn't it? I did get my scarf wrapped around the head, but it wasn't the same somehow.

And a repeat of the BEE INCIDENT occurred. For those of you newer readers, bees freeze and then they wake up when they get warm again. How do I know this you ask? Because in our last ice storm of 2 years ago, we were without power for 13 days. THIRTEEN DAYS. After about 10 nights of walking all the way to the backdoor to the wood box to drag logs to put into our wood stove, I thought I'd get smart and drag a bunch of wood over right next to the fire, so I could only be out of the sleeping bag for a few minutes.....woke up around 2am to put in more wood and saw a moving shadow on a log, thought, "oh crap, it's a spider" and got out my shoe. [before continuing let me tell you I have learned to kill spiders well. I do not enjoy them, but I can do it now. They still give me chills and a heart-attack, but I am a tough little momma. I canNOT deal with any form of the bee family, but my most dreaded psycho-level fear is of the hornet] Let's just say it was NOT a spider, but there was a freaking hornet warming itself up, flexing its wings and moving it's big-ass stinger up and down like it was getting ready for fun......then I saw that ALL the logs (at least 20) were COVERED WITH MOVING SHADOWS....crap, I've got chills now just typing this.....I am telling you I silent screamed and screamed and screamed and tried not to make any noise while having a MAJOR FREAKING BREAKDOWN.....basically all the wood went out into the ice and snow and I survived.........so, you guessed it, I learned my lesson this year and inspected the wood pile pretty well, and kept the wood box by the back door in the cold, but apparently we were getting a bit warmer than usual in the house as there was a moving shadow again. I wasn't able to kill it as I could hardly breathe myself, but at about 3am on the 2nd night without power, I was able to scoop it into a bowl and snap a lid on it and threw it in the trash. I lose more tupperware that way....Why does that shit only happen in the middle of the night???? My fear is that I didn't catch them all and there's a hornet laying hornet babies somewhere inside my house.......OH CRAP....

What else have I done instead of blogging??? OH, I finally got my knit-along tank done and seamed together. Of course, I finished it with COLD fingers (no, I not only did not make a hat or mittens but did not make those cool fingerless gloves that would have been so perfect for sitting in the cold and knitting during the last few days). Nothing stranger than completing a ribbon tank top when you can see your breath. What can I say? I was still psyched that it was done. And, it's only a bit big, which still seems to fit well. I also seamed up the Yarn Girls' Guide to knits city tank which also fits, amazing but true. I'll add pics soon, I'm just lucky to have my lazy ass sitting in front of a keyboard for now.

OH, also chubby people are not warmer than skinny people. I thought that that extra layer of fat I've added this last year could finally prove its worth but it failed me.

SLEEP SLEEP SLEEP that's mostly what I've done these last few weeks. I realized that when the dark grey shirt I am wearing really pull out the color in the bags under my eyes, it's time to get more rest.

OH, one more work note. HOLY CRAP we have a CLEAN FLOOR, actually 3 of them. The boss-man's son came in and cleaned for us and moved furniture and was basically slave labor and was AMAZING. He swept, mopped, stripped and waxed the bathroom floors, cleaned the toilets, walls, sinks, moved furniture and cleaned UNDER it and we have floors that are not green any more. AND we have NEW CLEAN filters on the humidifier. It's just not the same at all. It's pretty pleasant. FRIGHTENING, isn't it??? AND Miss Hateful apparently did a number on our phone system in her last week at work. It was almost funny, but wasn't, but I had to laugh anyway and give the biotch credit. She not only messed them up so NOTHING worked, and when you tried to fix it it got worse, but ALSO went to each and every little booklet in the entire dungeon and punched out the little programming card. I tried to get info online, but the system is so old, they were not able to help. Bossman finally got someone at the phone system co to help him out, but it took an entire day to get it going again. I thought bossman was going to have Miss Hateful arrested. It was amazing. Final twist of irony is that I now sit in her area. I changed the chair, I have a more comfy one, plus she probably put voodoo hexes on it or burried glass shards in it or something. Maybe she was pleasant before she had to work on a hill and slam into the damn desk behind her???? yeah right, she was probably a biotch as an infant. Can't you just see her stealing the good juice bottles and rattles from the other babies in the trailer park? MEOW, sorry, I'm a bit catty late at night, actually I'm a big bitchy all the time.

Tried staring the eating healthy foods and exercising kick again, realized it just wasn't going to fly. So now the new plan is to still eat the regular crap I eat, just include a butt-load of veggies and fruit and protein and I'm drinking some strange mango-antioxidant juice thing that's supposed to save me from free-radicals or something. Who knows? I still think I can work out a way to exercise and knit at the same time and I don't think I'm the only one as in the Knit.1 mag there was an ad for an apron that you can wear that lets you run your yarn from it as you walk around.....more on this idea later....

That's it, no more. Sorry to all for the long post and for typing ass at least 4 or 5 times.

I miss my dungeonites, it's wierd wierd wierd down there but I'm so glad you got out and Amanda, I'm stinking JEALOUS that you got the GREAT job that even called you to say don't worry about driving in the bad weather, take the day off...YEAH FOR YOU!!! C, enjoy the PEACE and QUIET and sleeping in. dammit. My afternoon beverage run is just not the same.

And the dungeon goes on....

Well, I've got to say I don't miss a couple of the people that are no longer dungeon-ites after the big layoff right before Xmas, but I do miss my other peeps.... And, apparently I didn't realize how good I had it (did I just say that? WTF?) No, really, I am not yet moved from my nice quiet corner office out to the middle of everything yet, but it SMELLS out there and there's NO WALLS and I'm a baby. It's all old mold smell coming up from the carpet, smells like a dead cat.

A few mysteries solved...

#1...The bathroom skank makes sense now as they were not only paying Miss Hateful to NOT clean anything (she did empty the trash, but that was IT) they were also giving her extra $$ to provide for the cleaning SUPPLIES. When I'd finally had enough and was going to clean last week, I tried to find supplies and found the only thing resembling a cleaning product was the mold-encrusted toilet bowl brush and a can of lysol. Period. scary huh? I'm donating a few supplies and plan to go in with gloves and get down to a layer of linoleum that isn't green or yellow or orange. ICK.

#2...Hmmmmm why were we always getting sick here (besides the organisms growing in the kitchen & bathroom?) AH YES.....the air filters on the humidifier (the ones I asked about and was told, oh yes, we change them each season) have not been made in 10 years. They are ORANGE with mold and had things attached to them. It was finally figured out that they ran "clean water" through them and sprayed with lysol. HMMMMMmmmm.. I think I'm going to measure them and take my problem to a cute guy at the local hardware store or head to a farm supply shop and flirt until some guy can find me a substitute. ICK ICK ICK ICK ICK

Knitted my ass off this weekend only for fun. Did NOT get the scarves done for sister in laws, but remembered my 2 not-yet-felted noro party bags I'd made and not put together. Stayed up until about 2am Thurs morning and got them put together and felted them over lunch and once I got home, dried them in the dryer (I KNOW you're not supposed to do that, but I didn't care and it even felted a little more) and wrapped them up. Finished my aunt from KC's scarf, got it fringed last night, fringed Joey's camo-looking scarf and it is COOL, and finished one sister in law's scarf but was tired of fringing, so put it off for another day.

New year's was fun, but a bit strange. I went to Mark & Russell's and until 11pm was the 7th wheel. Three other couples, but not any couples, no, I was the ONE straight one there. It was so funny, they were really sweet as could be, Mark & Russell, a couple of girls I'd met a few times and Richie & Chad, a very funny couple who had me cracking up all night. Once all the straight & other gay people showed up around 11-11:30, I had to hit the road to get home as my dad would wait up and was exhausted after our family's plans. I know, I know, I'm 36 but my dad still waits up if they're home on the weekends. At first I thought he was worried I'd be on the road with the drunks, then I realized they were worried as they thought I'd be the drunk on the road with the normal people. HAH. Ah well, I behaved myself, only had a few shots and they were early in the eve, and got home by midnight, kissed my Joey on the head, said a prayer that my Beth get home safe and went to bed. What a wild woman I am.

Back out to the mold, got to get moving in.....movin down....to the front side.....to the deluxe corner below the ground.....mooooovin on down..... sign it with me now....

The worst blind date in the history of man

Dang blogger......I had a nice LONG post last night, of course did not think to save it somewhere else first, and blogger ATE it. Stinking blogger. Here's the 2nd time around.

First, I had a lovely evening with my old friend Bill. We ate Italian at a quaint little restaurant with the WORST bartender and WORST waitress ever until they got their tips after dinner and then we decided to get a bottle of wine.....then they were stinking all over us. NOTE to self.....when eating out somewhere nice, tip BEFORE the meal so you can get that service WHILE TRYING TO GET your food. Very nice evening, he's off to Hilton Head, SC now, so I have a nice place to go visit sometime.

OK, a few posts ago I recounted the 2nd worst blind date in the history of woman-hood and have had a few requests for the winner of the contest. I actually DID win a radio station contest and got a free dinner & movie for 2 as a result of telling the story a few years ago. Here it goes. If anyone can top me, I'd love to hear it. I do know many women have been raped or other horrible things happen on dates, but this is the worst of any non-criminal blind date I've ever heard about.

A long, long time ago when I was 20 yrs old, I was home from college for the summer and a girlfriend did the "oh, my boyfriend's cousin is in town and we can't go out tonight unless you go out with his cousin....." so I said I'd at least meet the guy. He was cute, seemed relatively intelligent and said he had an extra ticket to an event at Kemper Arena, so I said what the heck, ok.......famous last words, right?

So, he picks me up in an old restored blue mustang convertible and I'm thinking oh, this'll be fun......then we drive to his relative's house so I can MEET his parents. ON A BLIND DATE. Ok, I thought that was a bit wierd, but no biggie. Then when we leave, his dad and little 10 yr old brother come outside with us and everyone gets into this station wagon complete with the fake wood siding peeling off. I was told they had the other tickets, so we'll all go together. Again, a bit wierd, but I'm a trooper. We park about a mile or THREE from Kemper in the HOOD as daddy doesn't want to spring for the $5 for parking and won't take money from a lady. (see how long ago this was? parking now is at least $15 per event there) BEFORE we go any further, you need to realize this is the late 80's and it was a time of preppy Gap people and penny loafers and big hair.

It turns out not to be a concert, the "event" was Hulk Hogan had come to KC for a big wrestling match. This was BEFORE wrestling had become this strangely almost cool because it's so fake thing. NOPE, this was back when people truly believed everything that happened in that ring was REAL. We truck up to the tip top of the arena and sit amongst what I swear to God is the reunion from Deliverance. My date springs for ONE coke for the four of us and suddenly I wasn't too thirsty. These people went CRAZY. The scene is one little girl in penny loafers and a Gap button down and about 8,000 people in stained wife-beater's (nasty white tank tops that didn't cover their bellies), ripped jeans, no sleeves and that fun long skanky hair in the back with feathered sides (men and women both).... We sat next to this lovely lady in her 60's who had no lower front teeth. She was able to spit chaw through the hole and I figured I'd better hold my purse in my lap. Next to her was her 80-something yr old mom who kept screaming "rip his balls off Hulk" through the entire 3 hour event, even when only women were in the ring. She also swung her metal cane around in the air and beat it on the backs of the seats around us. I did see the famous Hulk and I think he won, can't really remember, but I also saw a bunch of midgits fight the largest woman I ever saw and she sat on a few of them at one point. SO, in a nutshell, I was surrounded by crazies who looked like there had been a bit too much playing in the same gene pool and this crazy old lady cracked me on the shin with her cane telling me to "watch my balls or they'll get ripped off too" while her daughter was spitting juices and trying to teach me how I could learn even though I was unlucky enough to still have all my teeth. It was a bit of a culture shock for this sheltered little Johnson County girl, but again, I come from tough stock so I just people watched, and dodged the spit and blood and all that. There were at least 4 serious fights in the stands and you had to watch out for people getting thrown through the air as well.

So, the long LONG night comes to a close and I sigh a little sigh of relief. But, wait, there's more......instead of walking with the thousands of people to our car we walk to the back of Kemper to stand in a line with about 15 other losers. There the three men I'm with (skinny 10 yr old kid, chubby HAIRY creepy dad, and my date who looked ok until he started dancing around) TAKE THEIR SHIRTS OFF and stand outside the back door for ANOTHER 2 FREAKING HOURS so they can flex while Hulk is escorted into his limo. Hulk was surrounded by about 10 body guards, so you couldn't actually see the guy anyway, buy my little date with a pimply chest & back was flexing next to his dad and brother and they were yelling "rrrrrr, arrrrgh, and Hey Hulkster" and other fun things.

After convincing the guy that I really wasn't up for another wild evening out, I politely thanked him for the evening, dodged a sloppy kiss that ended up with his tongue slurping the side of my face and didn't take any more phone calls......THIS EINSTEIN thinks, oh no, she must be being held captive against her will and came to rescue me from my home. I swear to GOD, the guy was nuts. He comes by our house in a quiet little suburban town where there's more police than actual residents and very little crime so they don't have a whole lot to do.....and the guy tries to break into what he thought was my bedroom window. It was not. The evening ended up with my father (who is the sweetest most peaceful man you'd ever meet in your life) holding a shot gun on the guy asking him to get the heck off our land (just like in the old western shows) (no the gun was not loaded) and about 4 cop cars pull up to escort the guy out of the city limits.

Is it any wonder it took me another 15 years to go on a blind date? And with the track record of 2 blind dates, 2 crazy psychopaths, I'm not thinking any more of these will be in the future.

I'm here, I'm here...

I'm here, but haven't blogged or read anyone's blogs lately and I'm jonsin' to see what's going on and who got what done for Xmas and who's still insanely thinking they can make deadlines like me!

I'm here, but I'm working my butt off and I'm knitting my fingers off. Our family Xmas celebration was moved to this Thursday eve (THREE FREAKING DAYS OFF) and I was overly generous thinking oh, I can just crank out a few more scarves later.....CRAP. THEN I forgot all the LYS's are CLOSED on Mondays, so I got NOTHING accomplished last night, no, that's not true. I completed a quite ugly fluffy scarf with a red/black bernat boa yarn that could have been pretty by itself but I thought I'd mix in my black squiggle just like I have been doing with the splash...but the splash and boa are not really interchangeable, so it's U.G.L.Y....(everybody now, U...G...L...Y...You ain't got no alibi.....) I know, flashbacks from marching band cheers in high school, didn't you know I was a geek back then? and now if I care to admit it.

MORE LATER including fabulous pics of the scarf women....My aunt, the one who retired so she can become "the Knitress" is knitting something for everyone she's related to...and we have a big-ass Catholic family, so the chick has her work cut out for her...anyway, she made me a gorgeous black silky soft warm scarf with a pretty silvery black boucle and a black eyelash that is DIVINE.... and I'm lovin it, especially as all the scarves I liked and wanted to keep for little ol me have been given in presents....actually those I had made for my brother's wife and the other bro's wife to be were given away.....and they want the Schaeffer yarn scarves, NOT the fast 4 hour ones, not really sure how much these little fingers can knit, but we'll see.

Work's its own little unusual place right now. It will sure be quiet next week with just the three of us with local boss man....oh, right, it WON'T be quiet as the other big bosses are coming back to "help out". I won't have the nice corner office to hide in any longer, so will be right out there in view, which always means more work...I should be glad I have a job, but man that unemployment was sounding good...state of KS even pays for college education up to $3000/year....hmmmmmm....Ah well, they won't let go of me until the whole shebbang is gone.

Merry Merry Knitmas & greetings from a psycho

HOLY CRAP there's not much time left before Christmas. Tonight I've got to sew in some ends on a butt-load of scarves & purses & crap. I should do it as soon as I'm done with a project, but of course, I put them all off for LATER. I've also got to sew the noro party purses together and get them felted. Hopefully they'll be dry by the time we have our little family Xmas a few days after the big day.

So, I get the mail yesterday and find all these lovely Christmas cards from family and friends (I almost never get cards out and figure I'd better at least send a few this year or no one will send me any more)...and get all warm & fuzzy feeling reading the dreaded family update letters and laughing at pictures and such, when I get to a card with no return address. Thinking, ah, it's probably from a lazy person like me, open it and it's from Lavere (yes that's actually his real name) some normal card with "love Lavere" written in it. Creepy. OK, the story behind this is he was the 2nd worst blind date EVER IN THE HISTORY OF BLIND DATES....the best friend of one of the bowling center managers I used to work with when I worked in the district office, said he had a nice friend, who just wanted an evening out with no strings attached and he thought we'd be "perfect" for each other. Apparently this manager guy thought I was a total psychotic schizophrenic sociopath as that's what this guy was. FREAKY. We went to lunch (I normally drive myself at dates or drive the guy too so I can leave if I want) and he met me at work and I can't even describe the hour. It was a strange lunch with conversations of about every off-limits topic, how girls that happen to get raped need to have the baby as it's cleansing for them, other strange strange things like that....and I was like looking at this guy with my mouth hanging open in shock the whole time. If I politely tried to change the subject, he'd come out with another one. I cut the time short, figured I'd better not leave the creep at the restaurant because his best friend was waiting to go play golf with him back at work, so drive him back and he won't get out of my car. I swear to God, he won't get out. I finally say, you know, I have to go back to work...inSIDE the building...OUT of the car...and he's still going on about how homeless people actually want to be cold and it is offensive to them to give money or clothing....and he's answering himself like I'm talking and I'm not saying anything. I finally take my purse out of the blazer and go inside to work and tell his freaky-ass best friend to get him the hell out of my car. Then he comes inside CRYING tears running down his face because he thought he may have offended me and he couldn't live with himself...(thinking GOOD, maybe a life without you in it would be safer) but I did not say anything but "oh, no it was lovely thanks". ICK. Time goes on and about every other month a teddy bear or card arrived at the office with no name attached or he'd stand at the other end of the building from our office just talking with his friend and looking like he's not aware of me and then pointing at me like you do in jr. high. After a few talks with his friend that I really REALLY don't want anything to do with him and his friend thinks he just doesn't do well in relationships because he "tries too hard". ICK. SO, I get the new job here in the dungeon and on my last day at the old job I get an envelope with a black thong with my name in beads up the back butt-floss string with no name. CAN WE ALL SAY ICK????? So, let's just say the card is NOT hanging on the door with all the rest lest the psychoticness is catching. My old boss from that job (yes the one I've gone out with a few times lately) told the manager early on to keep his friend away from me or he'd be arrested or physically hurt and that I was actually seeing someone so to give up. I'm not even worrying that the guy has my freaking address to send the card to as I got the same card last year. What the hell? HOW do I attract these people??????? I'm just really hoping not to end up a story on Law & Order some day.

Another post I'll tell you all the story of the WORST blind date ever from when I was 20. Needless to say, I go on no more blind dates. Would you????

Dang Blogger

I'm still here, just have to do some streamlining on my blogger stuff as I can't get much to show up yet.

Work is pretty interesting...Congrats to Miss Amanda for going out and getting her dream job on the Plaza in the Arts with PAID personal days each stinking month and sick days each stinking month and tons of vacation and they shut down between Christmas and New Years and she'll be surrounded by fabulously gay friends, fabulously rich people and other energetic musical types. YEAH FOR YOU! You can't tell I'm jealous can you? When I was a little girl I always said, "When I grow up, I want to work with natural gas and electricity contracts in a dungeon" Can't you just hear mini me? NO, really, I'm glad to have the job now and am lucky to able to work from home when I need to. It really has worked out great for the both of us.

I think I have knitters elbow.....OW OW OW OW OW.

Quick details of Sat. night. The backless bling bling is officially DEAD. I got the back done, seamed the sides and it was freaking HUGE. I was able to mess with the back to get it tight enough, but if I leaned over, all this extra fabric went flying out to show the stick-on boobs. NOPE. Went to Black & White and found the most amazing black top with sexy brooch and chain straps and a matching bracelet and sexy little black purse....Pics soon I promise!

Later,
C

So THAT's how they make ice cream

More fun

Well, another day down here. I was suffering a bit of the "survivor's guilt" but then realized it's just a job and life goes on. I have to admit I woke up with a case of the "something crawled up my butt and died" syndrome today from a bit of stress thinking about the next few months at work. But, life goes on. I was feeling the worst about the timing of the layoffs here, but the woman who's hit the hardest (who's husband is not working) actually pointed out that it probably saved her a ton. If she hadn't known until January, she would have over-spent on Christmas like we Americans always do, and then been devastated in January when she would have had to pay the bills. So, she's going to scale back the holidays to the things it should be, like joy, family, etc. and is actually working hard to make the transition easier for those of us left behind. I don't know if I'd be that helpful or not if it were me.

After re-knitting the frogged back of the backless bling bling, I realized the pattern was NOT wrong, I was merely RETARDED. SO, after knitting one half THREE times, I thought "huh, that's what you do" and got it done right. Finished at about 1am and need to put it together tonight and get the ribbing along the edges done before Sat. night. I sure hope this damn thing fits after all these "learning opportunities" aka frog times. I can now put stitches back on the needles with ease....frog frog frog it.

Said goodbye to my daughter this morning for her trip to New Mexico. We'll miss her, but she has an unbelievable time down there as her Grandma N. does Christmas like nobody's business. It's the most commercialized, crammed with WAY TOO MANY presents, and UNBELIEVABLE cookies and goodies and such, that it's incredible. I actually still miss Xmas at her house, just don't miss the being-married-to-her-son thing. Joey got some bday presents dropped off for him and doesn't really mind not going this year as I told him he can open one when we get home tonight. We're planning his bday party for Sunday at the same little gymnastics place where Beth had her party. I'm jumping on the giant trampoline as long as my head is not hurting from the big Xmas party Sat. night.

Wow, big work update

OK, so the dungeon's going to be a bit chillier for the next 2 weeks and a whole lot emptier in Jan 2005. Nutshell version, everyone's gone but me and two administrative assistants and the owners. WOW. Miss Amanda is still here with me, and another very sweet woman as well. The next two weeks are going to be horrible. People are mad, sad, crying, quiet, loud, and all the rest. They have to work through the 31st. One woman's husband isn't working right now, and I really REALLY feel bad for her. They will get small severance packages (I think 2 weeks pay) and KS pays well for unemployment, I think it's $350/week, but man, what a surprise right before Christmas.

The not-funny part (for some reason I thought it was funny anyway) is that I'm sitting across from the big three wearing a Sam Adams sweatshirt with a chocolate stain by the neck where my son apparently wiped his face on my during my hug this am, a pony tail, minimal makeup, tennies and faded jeans with cutoff edge that's all stringy.... The last 2 days I've dressed in business attire, with the clients coming and my court date, so today I pick the day to rebel. I'm not even wearing a BRA! THIS is the woman you're putting in charge of the accounting and basically the company? How scary is that? I'm sure they were thinking, nope, this one just can't do it, let's make the sr. analyst do it all..... Ah well. My friend is handling things pretty well, as we pretty much figured we'd all be gone in the new year anyway, but she's almost giddy.

I just had it pointed out to me that without our Controller here any longer, I'm the one that gets all the daily phone calls & stress from the big dogs. He also does ALL the backup and computer stuff.....crap.

The good thing is that I'll be set up to dial in from home to the system should Joey get sick or need to go to the hospital I'll be able to work remotely. That is pretty cool.

wow

Court, men and backless bling

Court went WELL for me. I could've really taken the guy for a lot more $$, but I just wanted it DONE and fair. SO, the ex never even talked with his attorney (or paid anything past the retainer I'm guessing) for the last 2 weeks. His lawyer was the one trying to get it settled and I gave him the ex's cell phone # as he didn't even have it. They went back & forth and I gave the guy credits for traveling expenses and food and hotel rooms, etc. but it worked out to not too much difference in the bottom dollar. I now get extra added to help cover the monthly out-of-pocket since Mr. Man decided he was living in poverty and just couldn't pay it but will hope to soon...... HAH. Well, if he goes over the yearly amount, I send a bill certified and if he doesn't pay, it goes to the courts and he either pays or goes to jail. It sounds terrible, but you have to realize he hasn't paid one penny for out of pocket medical expenses in over 4 years and I've been paying almost $3000/year for Joey's stuff. The best part of the day had to be when his lawyer finally got the ex on the cell phone and said, "I'm signing this now, ok? NO NO NO I'm signing this NOW OK?" then clicked the phone off. I didn't say a word. Everyone signed and it's all done and now I'm getting more than twice what I was before and am happy. :) I asked his laywer if he needed to let Mr. Man know to talk with his bancruptsy lawyer about the increase of our child support so it doesn't garnish his entire paycheck, and he said, "Darlin, it's not my problem any more, let him figure it out." Don't piss off your own laywer. Not a good idea! PLUS if the knucklehead had signed the stupid proposal I had been trying to get him to sign up until 2 days ago, it would have been $150 cheaper a month for him. OK, I admit it, I was doing a bit of evil Bwaaa Haaa Haaa laughing as I drove down the road, I couldn't help it. Score one for the good girls!

MEN....what can I say???? CRAP Well, the other night at the bowling alley I ran into Kenny Rogers aka stalker man, who wanted to give me a Xmas card with "a little something for the kids" and told him very nicely, no thank you, I think it best that you go have a nice Christmas holiday with your family and I really need to concentrate on my family without any outside MARRIED influences, but thank you for thinking of me and now stop thinking of me. ICK. I gave all the details of where this guy lives, his name, cell # to Russell in case I ever turn up missing. I don't feel threatened by him at all, but you gotta watch out with the creepies.

My old friend Bill (ok, the one who used to be my boss at the old job) is back in town for a week or so finishing up his training of the new Dist. Mgr, so I invited him to go with me to the big party Sat. night with my friends. I know I'm going to get teased as he's 11 yrs older than me, but I think it should be fun. I almost didn't ask him but figured, what the heck. I'm getting pissy in my old age. I'm not really worrying about what people think so much any more. We'll see.

Italian Stallion called to say howdy and see what the social life had planned. We may or may not hook up for a night of good food, good drinks at the Cigar Box (small club in downtown KC owned by one of his godfathers) and dancing.... Probably not until between Xmas and New Year's, but it could be fun.

Backless Bling Bling is causing a great deal of cussing from the south part of KC. Can you hear me from there? OH HOLY HELL. I was all excited, cranked out the back, it looked strange, but I thought, oh I'm sure it's fine....went to the LYS, and found a very nice & patient girl who taught me the mattress stitch, and how to pick up stitches, stitched it up and realized it was FUXXED UP and not fixable. With the help of 2 seasoned knitters, we got it back down to the original 10 rows of ribbing and I'm adapting the pattern as I go. YUP, it scares me too. I now have to redo the back, get the dang thing together and then pick up a million stitches and do some ribbing all around. I am wearing this dang thing if I have to duck tape it to my body. Hey, duck tape is silver too, right? CRAP! That's what I'll be doing all night tonight & Friday night and Sat day. Or, I'll cave and go to old navy and buy something flimsy and flirty, but I WANNA WEAR MY BLING BLING DAMMIT.

Big bosses are here in KC a few days early, woo hoo. They're in the conference room conferencing. I'd better get back to cranking out the work.

Send me fast knitting thoughts, maybe it'll help!

A positive creative quote for the day

"To be surrounded by beautiful things has much influence upon the human creature; to make beautiful things has more."
---Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Hi Ho, Hi Ho, It's off to court we go

Well, I plan on getting the last few rows of the backless bling bling done as I wait outside the courtroom for my child support hearing. Can't freaking wait. Nutshell story, "It's so hard supporting two families"....Zero $$ for his share of 50% of out-of-pocket medical expenses for the last 4 years which are more than $180/month for medicine copays plus any dr. visit copays & 20% of bills....Child support still based on zero child care expenses (now I'm paying for 2 kids' child care) and incomes of both are raised. I turned mine in and we got his bancruptsy papers to use as his proof of increased income.....UGH. I tried to settle over and over, but he figures he'll just tell the judge how hard it is and is pleading "poverty"....(as he's driving their new minivan with the doors that open and engine starts by remote into their new house they had built in the nicest suburb of western Albuquerque) I swear to God, he's pleading poverty. I get $374/month for TWO kids, one of whom is chronically ill and I pay more than that for ONE of the kid's childcare monthly. I make LESS than him and pay ALL the out of pocket fees and ALL the child care and HE's living in poverty?????? Get over yourself. OK, sorry for the venting, but it had to come out or I was going to get a bit bitter. Now I'm just like "BRING IT ON BABY" and "have a nice day". *smiling sweetly*

Back to knitting, I'm cranking out that damn backless tank, but am REALLY pushing it to be able to wear it Sat night....3 FREAKING DAYS AWAY....nope, not stressed, especially as I don't exactly know if it will fit or stay on or show too much skin, or if my back will look chubby or slender, and AAAAUUUUGGGGHHHH. It's getting made anyway and I might be wearing some ugly-ass thing instead, we'll see. I've got about 6 little rows left on the back left side, and need to stitch the side seams and then learn to pick up stitches and knit about an inch of ribbing all around so it won't go flopping off and show more skin than anyone wants to see, it may happen yet.

Trying to behave myself today, and present the nice little single mom image and not the chic I really feel like today, shown below:

Backless Bling Bling half-way done!

WOO HOO, I've got the front done on the backless tank I want to wear Sat. night out to the big Xmas party with my friends. I've got the bottom back ribbing almost done, and now have to figure out how to pick up stitches and get the thing done and see if it is decent to wear or not. I am LOVING the lion brand Glitterspun yarn! It's easier to work with than the more expensive crap I swatched in the LYS. I really REALLY want this thing to work. I think it may actually fit, I keep holding up the pieces and it seems to work so far, just have to add the black ribbing all around the edges and bottom!! I still have to pick up some beads for the little string across the lower back too, but I want to make sure the dang thing fits first.

Kids & I had a pretty good weekend, another birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese (aka Mother's Migraine) WOW that place is LOUD. I'm scrounging around to find a place for Joey's bday party and REALLY hoping it won't have to be there, but we may be on our way......it's like Vegas for kids. The noises of the ding ding ding ding, the funky music in the background, no clocks, no windows, set up in a maze so you have to work to find the door, tokens you cram in the slot over and over, kids hopped up on free refills of pop, yup, get them addicted young. I actually overheard a kid telling his mom "just a few more dollars, mom, I almost hit the jackpot...it's ready for me to hit the jackpot..." What's that 800 gambling line again????? I have to admit I did my share of skee-ball, shot a few dinosaurs, and played some air hockey too.

I was doing the guilty-feeling-single-mom thing and VOLUNTEERED to be cookie mom for my daughter's brownie troop. What kind of crack was I smoking?????? I must have been thinking, Oh, I was a girl scout forever, how hard could it be????? OH HOLY HELL no more cookie mom......this branch is like a bunch of nazi's. I should have known better as we pissed off the 5th grade moms that we went camping with when we let our girls run around playing follow the leader and sing songs that were not officially girl scout material at the exact scheduled time. They were freaky and I laughed it off.....NOPE, they're all nazi's here in Johnson County. If I can get the freaking few parents left to turn in their orders I should have this monkey off my back..... I do LOVE the moms in my daughter's group as we're all pretty laid back and as long as the girls have fun, do some community service and learn a few things, we're happy.

One comment on Miss Hateful. I know I've been trying to be "above" all the crap, but I've just got to say something. Our delicate balance of craziness down in the dungeon is seriously out of whack today. One of the happy people came back for a week, we LOVE her, YEAH. But, Miss Hateful is wearing a pretty little sweater in baby pastels of blue & pink. Nope. I'm sorry. That much hate cannot wear baby blue & pink. It just freaks me out. It's like I'm getting death looks from the rugrats.

The newest Hallmark Holiday Special....

Aint no Christmas cause Momma's a yarn junkie.....coming soon on Hallmark....

Hoping to avoid that becoming our family holiday! For those of you without LYS's near by, try JoAnn etc. craft stores! There's all this new funky yarns there. Some are the bernat brand, some Lion Brand, but there's a bunch of JoAnn Exclusive stuff. Some looks pretty close to the squiggle and could be combined with the bernat boa for a quick scarf like the 4 hour scarves I've been making. I got 2 skeins of the boa in a red & black combo thing and am going to try it out to see how it looks. Also found some great Lion Brand Glitterspun and it's working up better than the yarn I got at Knit Wits on sale, so I'm going to try to crank out the backless tank and see.....the gauge is close, but I have yet to knit something that actually fits me, so I'll either have the sexiest thing on earth to wear, or I'll be stressing....AND the party's in ONE WEEK and I've never picked up stitches before, but I know where to find the ladies who can teach me......should be interesting.

Trapped deep inside this eddie bauer jeans & sweatshirt wearing mom lurks the soul of a party girl.......I really want to make & wear this tank....party party party.

NOT partying tonight, but am getting out of the house for a bit. My cousin's coming over to watch the kiddos and I'm bringing my bling bling tank to Mark & Russell's where Russell's fighting a deadline of restringing an old barbie head. (no that's really not as bad as it sounds, he is a barbie-a-holic and also has the talent of re-poking through the hair and fixing it up on old bald barbie heads.) Apparently there's a lot of money in old barbie doll heads, so iffn you find some at a garage sale, buy them and sell them on eBay! SO, our big evening is going to be eating, working on our projects and watching dvds. Can't wait!

Here's bling bling:

More things I've learned

OK, more tidbits, then back to work.

#1...The hand gesture for Fxxx You in Mandarin Sign Language (chinese) is saving my life. In my whole life I think I've flipped off 2 people only, but lately here in the dungeon, Miss Hateful has been exceptionally fun to be around and I've felt the urge of my middle finger wanting to spring up and shoot into the air on a regular basis. I actually had to hold my hands together when I turned the corner down here the other day. Rich's girlfriend teaches sign language at JCCC and is also learning to sign in other languages, so at Alison's going away party, I learned this little fun gem. Now, instead of screaming inside when faced with the witch, I just do my little hand thing and feel all better inside. I know, it's just Christmas-y down here.

#2...I can not be trusted inside a yarn store. NO. I can't even go inside one until 2005. period. I just needed 2 balls of black squiggle to complete 2 more scarves, and I ended up with this great SALE yarn that would be perfect for the sexy backless tank that I can in NO way finish by the 18th. That's ONE WEEK away. It has a million stitches, and the entire edging is done by picking up stitches, which I have NOT learned yet....but OH YEAH, I get the yarn ANYWAY just in case.... Knitted myself almost crippled last night and only ended up with about 3" from the bottom up done. Did I tell you I ALREADY found yarn that I thought would work for the sweater (since no one has any of the Diva yarn used on the original pattern any more?) BUT it just didn't quite seem to work, so I think I may be able to use it on the sexy tank I tried to start about 3 months ago.....MORE yarn stuck in the stash.

#3...The same muscles that are used to hold smaller needles are the same ones you need to use to hold a tweezers to pluck your eyebrows. After knitting myself into this old lady crippled bird claw hand thing, I am washing my face before bed and think, WOW, it's been a long time since I looked at my eyebrows and they were scary. Picked up the tweezermans and promptly dropped them into the sink each time I tried to pluck. So, now I'm crippled and hairy. SEXY. Just what you need to go with a sexy tank top....

#4...Dropping to 32-35 hours a week has been the most uplifting thing I've ever done in my life. I didn't realize what the lack of fresh air and NO windows and NO sunshine and DISMAL people were all doing to me. I breathe easier each morning knowing I get to leave earlier at the end of the day and it's not so scary descending into the bowels of Olathe's industrial district.

#5...I'm getting this from Santa Claus this year. Santa also told me I'm not getting any more presents at all, so be thankful...Santa was convinced that I needed to test it out in case we need to use the 15-day return period, and I'm not giving it back. He can wrap the empty box. I'm using it for my goodies and my kiddos and holdiays and crazy people I see on the street and anything else I want....pictures coming soon, look out! I LOVE this little thing....fits in my pocket, has a GREAT big screen on its back and takes fabulous pics! WOO HOO!

Wise things I've learned

#1...children that you have to drag out of bed at 6:45am M-F will be awake and bouncing off the ceiling at 6:00am on Sat. and Sunday mornings.

#2...I cannot eat popcorn without eating chocolate afterwards. A lot of chocolate, not just a bite to cancel the saltyness.

#3...High heeled wooden clogs are NOT the cure for slight shin splints. They actually encourage more pain. Don't do it.

#4...I cannot get anything done early in a well planned manner. It has to be last minute, stressful running around "the sky if falling" kind of things to get my creativity to kick in. If I do actually get something done early, it will suck.

#5...Men over 40 should NOT wear roller skates in public with little shorts. period. And if they do, they should NOT knock me off my bike on the bike trails without serious repercussions. Flamboyantly gay men in their 30's to early 40's may be allowed, but they'd better be damn pretty. I am still pissed about the chubby idiot who took me out...(story below)

#6...Women over 40 should NOT wear pigtails on the sides of their heads. It is not cute, it is actually quite frightening. A classic little low pony-tail is acceptable.

#8...A 70 yr old woman can still kick the crap out of a 36 yr old bowling goddess-to-be. I shot 650 (averaged 216 over 3 games) in the ladies' scratch league Monday night and got my butt handed to me by a lady in her 70's. As I moaned about us losing points to these wonderful yet OLDER than us ladies, another one came up to tell me she just turned 80 (she shot 680) and did I feel any better? NOPE! I did appreciate her spunk, though, and told her I'd like to be able to whoop up on younger ladies when I'm her age. Actually, I'd like to whoop up on them NOW.

#9...When you start cranking out scarves, scarves, scarves, it's easy to lose track. I've now got enough to give and then some...and I want to make more, it's like a disease....stop me....please....it's too late to sell them, so if I can resist, I can be really ready for a bazaar or something next year, but I'm afraid I want to wear them ALL myself....so I'm a bit selfish & spoiled, so what?

For those of you newer readers, here's the bike vs. roller-blading old guy story from July 2004:

Survived a 10 mile bike ride around the trails of O.P. on Sunday. I have some serious battle scars to prove it. I was actually doing pretty well, only had to walk up one hill, was almost feeling cocky...then I tried to cross this little overpass-thing next to Metcalf Ave. It's one of the skinniest yet on the trails. I'm almost across when this overweight old guy that did not resemble Kenny Rogers in any fashion (so no redeeming qualities here) on ROLLER BLADES starts across. I shout out, wait, hold on, I'm almost done....oh no, he says don't worry, there's plenty of room. Did I say he was OVERWEIGHT???? also very wobbly. Men over 30 should not be on rollerblades unless they are HOT and GAY, enough said. YUP, you can imagine the fun, he wobbles his big self along, NO ROOM to pass, clips my wheel and I bash back and forth like a pingpong ball from the sharp metal fence to the cement barrier. I learned that helmets work much better when they are buckled, good for me I buckled that day. Also learned that you should probably pack some bandaids or gauze or such in the cute little seat pack thing I bought, not just lip gloss, keys and phone. I ended up leaving a flap of elbow skin on the fence, probably a dent from my helmet on the cement barrier, a nice little trail of blood from the said elbow and knees along with two massive funky round bruises on the inside of my knees, not sure how I got those, guess it was from smacking the bike??? I should have left my foot up the guy's big old butt, but I just smiled as he skated by when he said "oops, I guess we didn't quite fit, huh???" If I wasn't wrapped in metal and suffering a partial concussion and slow and rather chubby myself, I would have run at the guy. NEXT time I'm taking him OUT. No more nice chic.

Signs that winter's here

#1...Children are behaving because "Santa knows when you've been good or bad."

#2...Christmas lights are twinkling on homes throughout the city.

#3...The smell of wood fireplaces burning on a cold evening.

#4...Knitters are cranking out scarves, scarves, scarves and hats, hats, hats frantically counting down the days until Christmas.

#5...EVERYONE EVERYWHERE is playing Christmas carols.

#6...My white trash Wal-Mart denim coat with the VERY faux fur collar & cuffs comes out of the closet. Yup, I'm stylin, but I'm warm. The faux fur is starting to resemble a white dog that badly needs a wash and is looking kind of scraggly and dirty off-white...it is clean, but that's about as good as it gets.

Knitting update is pretty boring....scarves, scarves, scarves....and a few more scarves. I'll add a pic soon. I was not even wanting to turn on my computer this weekend. I'm going to have a hard time giving away the newest Schaeffer bumpy scarf I made as it's DIVINE....we'll see, it might have to be a present for myself....along with the other butt-load of presents of knitted projects in progress...

Life update--> Yesterday was my first "part-time" day! I have to tell you, there was nothing like it. I'm working from 8-2:45 M-F and a few hours on Sat. to get to about 35 hours. I normally leave work at 5:01, drive across KC, picking up 2 kids from 2 different schools and make it home at almost 6:00pm when it's dark, do Joey's "shaking" (his Vest airway treatment), cook fast, eat fast, homework, bath, bed, collapse on couch to knit & eat until bed around midnight and get up at 6:00am to do it all over again... NOW yesterday was beautiful. I calmly drove across the city at 2:45pm with NO traffic whatsoever, got to Beth's school with about 10 min's to spare and read a magazine, went in to the school and looked at all the new artwork on the bulletin boards, got my daughter, got my son picked up, toodled on home. We ate an actual meal of cooked food at a TABLE, kids got along and didn't fuss at each other, we got homework done, and they worked on their little cardboard coloring/book house thing I bought at Wal-Mart for $10, Beth made a finger-knit string to wear in her hair to school, I went out to bowl with my old ladies and everyone was sunshine & roses. LOVING it! It was such a nice change of pace, it's amazing what a few hours can do!

Gotta work a bit harder here at work, though to make up for less time on the job, so back to it.

Vibrator Cosy from Gilneas...LOVE IT!

OH, I laughed on this one...Gilneas Knits. I added her to my list of knit blogs to read. She's got some cute original patterns too! NOW my girlfriends are getting these cute little bags that could be a cute bar bag, but are actually felted Vibrator Cosies! I immediately thought of a certain girlfriend who had a story about her suitcase being left open on the bed at her mother-in-law's house and ..... yup, out came the vibrator to the family in the hands of a small child who thought it was a "fun toy"." Well, the child was right, but looking back, if she had a cute little cozy to keep your little unmentionables out of sight, the whole scene could have been avoided....HAH!

Definitely for the girl who has everything...

I'm also making her hat with the top open for your pony-tail. I think I'll adapt it a bit, we'll see. It'll have to wait as now I'm a scarf-making FOOL. Last night I finished Mom's scarf and a black & white squiggle & black splash scarf....LOVING the 2 1/2 hour pattern (still takes me about 4 hours, but still love it!) These scarves turn out soft, fluffy, LONG and fabulous! Too bad I waited so freaking late to get started on Xmas stuff or I could have been selling the stuff! Maybe next year! Took pics, but didn't get them uploaded yet, I'll be working on the old blog this weekend and promise to post then.

Phoebe hat that only uses one skein of Noro Kureyon!!! LOVE this girl's stuff--

Our little doggie has sure melted right in with the family. It's like Miles has always been here. He's so gentle with the kids and it's nice company to have the little guy curled up on the floor next to my feet & knitting basket!

Wanna see what my goal is for the big "Annual Asian Refugee Christmas Party" aka the night this tall white girl goes out with my group of friends and eats and drinks and dances till dawn (only once a year, don't worry!) Daring Diva Halter I've got to not only get the thing knit, but I've got to do some serious push-ups and arm work to get away with this one....but it COULD happen, we'll see.....This is one of the reason I got the stick-on boobies from hsn.com!



Marnie MacLean's Free Knitting Patterns these are STYLISH and cute!

Moth & Silverfish proofing stash & sweaters

BEST place on the web for knitting info from other knitters!!!!
Knitters Review
The forums are amazing and there's just good stuff there!

OK, my post on knitters review gave some good tips. It could have been a stinking SILVERFISH bug. ick. Apparently they are attracted to papers, books and EAT WOOL too. A few other readers had silverfish eat holes in wool garmets that were in bags on the floor... (my sweater was in a tote bag on the floor next to the boxes of paper crap I have to get through, so it could well have been)

At this point, I don't care what disgusting thing it was, I keep a clean house and it creeps me out and it PISSES ME OFF....so

Tips for avoiding this mess from knitters the world over...

**Cedar chips & dried Lavender sachets (but make sure they don't touch yarn or clothing directly or it can stain.

**Yardley's English Lavender Soap bars put in with wool yarns & garmets (I like this one as it's EASY and smells good)

**strong smelling dryer sheets (again not touching garmets or yarn)

**Eucalan Woolwash or other wool washes sold at your LYS, supposed to leave a hint of eucalyptus oil that repels moths.

My favorite tip at avoiding silverfish was to move to Minnesota as that's too far north for them apparently. I'm sure moths are up there and the size of their mosquitos frighten me a bit...

Feeling better now, listening to 99 Red Balloons on live365.com and be-bopping to my good upbeat 80's....so now the tunes match my fashion sense....

Moth War Update

The battle is on. A moth attacked my Ann Taylor cashmere sweater (got on SALE this summer for $20 instead of $90!!!!!! CRAP)....the little critters get what they deserve. Just call me "W", I'm going to blow them off the map....or out of the closet...or at least out of my stash.

All yarn is now in the deep freeze, keeping company with half a cow. I'm hoping the little moths to be are not like bees and you can freeze them, then come back to life once they warm up. We'll see..... *sob* my poor yarn...

All wool sweaters are on their way to the laundromat where my friend's wife works...going to work the sympathy thing and beg for extra coupons to afford it. THEN I hear that dry cleaning may or may not kill moth babies....CRAP

Of course this has to happen in the closet that is CRAMMED to burst with CRAP...old clothes...current clothes, art projects of the kids, boxes of clutter that I couldn't stand looking at any longer, so stuck them there to "get to later." Guess it's later now. Dammit.

BUT, on a good note, mom saw the scarf I was working on and kind of sighed and petted it...I said, mom, is this something you would wear? and she said yes, but you keep knitting for your presents...and I said, we picked this out for YOU, just be surprised for the kids, ok? They helped pick out the yarn and I tell you it looks GOOD! I'll add a pic tonight. I gave up last night at 11:30pm to get to bed. It's only got a few more rows left then bind off and handed to kiddos for their unique brand of gift wrapping. We go through more tape in our home than what is used my half the KC metro area.

Work update...still no word on my email saying I need to reduce hours starting next week. Not really surprised, it's about what I expected, so I am just going to do it. If they don't like it I imagine I'll hear sometime. People have been in this frenzied Christmas/Psycho/Super-bitchy mood and I'm staying the heck out of the way. Everybody sing now..."It's beginning to look a lot like BITCHmas...Everywhere you go...." wooh. Amanda, stay strong up there! I'm glad new girl's nice! Maybe it will tip the evil attitude balance to normal range???

2 1/2 hour scarf my butt...

So, either I'm the world's slowest knitter, or I'm retarded....or both. Worked about 2 1/2 hours last night on a new scarf for my mom for xmas out of splash and another yarn (that I swear is a cousin to the Satan's Knots I used on the boob tube) for about 2 1/2 hours while watching NYPD Blue and the Daily Show and Seinfeld and Will & Grace (love all of those) and I've got about 4 feet done. I hope to finish tonight. It's a bit flashier than I think my mom would normally pick out for herself, but it's mostly blues & navy and soft and should be nice...we'll see. I'll add pics later.

I'm chopping the edge of said boob tube so I can get the dang thing ON and still move my arms. It doesn't unravel, so I'm thinking I'm wearing it as is....if I somehow end up being able to frog it, I'm going to try to re-bind off a TON looser.

My big heart-attack this am????? Got the bag of sweaters & shirts to take to the dry cleaners out from the bottom of the same closet that has most of my stash of yarns.....and there's a perfect little MOTH HOLE in the front of my cashmere sweater from Ann Taylors.....FREAKING OUT NOW....not ONLY is my fave sweater EVER ruined, but there may be an infestation of little moth larvae critters EATING MY YARN AS I TYPE.... I didn't know WHAT to do....do I move the yarn and infect other yarn??? is it infected??? can I microwave it to kill anything that may be eating in there????? *SCREAM* *STOMP* *CUSS* etc..... I put a help please scream on the knitters forum also, but if anyone has any ideas of what to do, I'd love to hear it!!!

CRAP

MMMmmmmmm fajitas!

Heaven, thy name is grilled steak stufft burrito from Taco Bell....mmmmmmmm

Ran & got the needles, and only ONE extra skein of splash furry yarn to crank out another quick scarf xmas present. HEY, that was pretty good for me.

Sent an email to the big bosses stating I have to go down to 32 hours/week....haven't heard back anything. I think their idea of "we'll work with you and pay you on an hourly basis" meant if I hit 39 hrs one week of the month, not 32 hrs each week, but we'll see. Kids just are in school & aftercare too freaking long and it's wearing out Joey and stressing out Beth. Some parts of single-momma-dom do suck, but there's a lot of highlights.

Please be nice Mr. Bush

OK, Mr. Bush, enjoy your trip to Canada. Please, please, please, PLEASE BE NICE. Do not piss off one of the few countries that don't want to blow us up. PLEASE. We like Canada. Canada tolerates us. Good enough.

Martha's coming back to TV! Woo hoo! OK, the bit about a survivor-style/apprentice thing scares me a bit, but I miss my MSL daily fix!
Martha Stewart Eyeing Return to TV

Knitting, couldn't get anything done last night as I finished the nanowrimo baby. woo hoo.

Need to get some BIG double-pointed needles for the bernat boa I picked up yesterday. I may be running to Knit Wits for lunch today, but I'm also STARVING TO DEATH...so I'd have to do it FAST. Good thing I'm about broke and my little pennies & nickels won't buy any more yarn....

I did start another Schaeffer yarn scarf for another Xmas present, but those take a LONG time, and I want to be cranking out the little novelty yarn one-skein one-night puppies....

a little dungeon ranting

If I don't rant a bit, I might just explode, which BTW would NOT be a pretty sight what with the tummy troubles combined with the crap I've been inhaling lately.

Dungeon-bathroom update...I gave up on trying to get Miss Hateful who gets PAID for cleaning the bathroom to actually clean something...the mold, the stains, the ick, I just don't look and wash my hands VERY well...even though we've all been sick, hmmmmm I wonder wonder wonder why....OK, back to the update: My daughter came to work with me Friday and the first time we went in for a break, she said, "Mom, what's all the green stuff on the floor around the toilet?" OMG I don't keep the world's cleanest home by ANY means, and have been known to lightly swipe the bathroom with a baby wipe and call it good, but CRIPES, for a 8 year old girl to notice the green mold??? ick. OH and funny thing was someone higher-up was saying how if Miss Hateful (ok she used the witch's actual name there) was doing well, the first thing to go would be her after-hours cleaning job. I thought, yeah, right, the witch gets paid to do NOTHING.

Xmas decorations update...I know we're a bit tight down here, but for the love of all that is holy, can't we at least re-wrap a couple of the SAME freaking envelope & letterhead boxes that are ALL wrapped with the SAME 1982 greyed-green discount roll of wrapping paper that have been pulled out of storage each year to put under the tree complete with the SAME 1982 decorations that keep coming back like Chucky in those horror movies????? SOME ugly santas and satanic-looking elves really SHOULD be put to rest instead of brought out JUST BECAUSE WE STILL HAVE THEM.

Almost done, don't worry

my main rant, I can't bring myself to type, I keep erasing it and let's just say "ADAPTATION IS NOT ALWAYS A GOOD THING." and let it go at that. period.

DRIVING RANT-->
In not necessarily a bad mood, just kind of mellow, driving at lunch to get some bernat boa yarn from Michael's and get stuck behind this guy in a pretty little suv thing with a black bumper-sticker on it with a pretty W. I don't pay too much attention until I almost rear-end the idiot as he's one of those who like to hit the gas, talk on the phone, and slam on the brakes, repeat, repeat. After the 2nd time of getting too close to his butt-end, I read the sticker and it's some crap about "W, STILL the president." What the hell? I get a bit miffed and change lanes before I hit him on purpose for his combo of bad driving skills, non ability to talk and drive and his smugness of JUST IN CASE I was not aware, oh yeah, Mr. Bush is still the Pres. I decided I really didn't want to buy him a new vehicle so I change lanes and get behind Bubba. Not bubba as in ex-pres Clinton, nope this is Bubba as in he can't remember his real name. TWO, yes TWO gun racks because one is never enough, on his old pickup truck with rope & ducktape holding the tail-gate of his truck on and a HOME-MADE camouflage paint job. Nothing says "scary milia-man" like a homemade camo paint job. Decided not to hit this guy in the rear end either as I wanted to live another day.

Got to Michaels and found they have Bernat Boa on sale for $3.99/skein. I'm going to try to knit an icord boa/scarf with one skein, but think I might need 2 knitted together for the right weight, we'll see. Got the idea on Just One More Row.

Have good hair today and no where to go, walked to the corner store and got a KING SIZED 3 muskateers and haven't eaten it yet, trying to only eat half, we'll see.

49,562 words on nanowrimo

SO, I cheated a LOT, I'm still getting the dang thing done and having a record of my ramblings. My nanowrimo is the write-a-50,000-word-novel-in-30-days crap I tried this Nov. (not enough to do in my life, you know). I was going to do an extended blog, chic-lit kind of thing with extra details of strange kharma crap that happens in this single momma 36yr old chic's life (aka mine). Added a few stories/essays whatever from memories like "pilates makes you poop", "the worst blind-date EVER, I even won a radio contest because of it", "how to know when you're dating a terrorist" and other fun little things to add to the blog entries I was writing here. The cheatering came as I got closer to Nov. and had less time, I added October's entries in too. As it's only to see if you can do it, I have no moral probs with adding my own writings just not from the 30 day period, so I've now got 438 words to write today and send them off. I'm actually glad I did it.

FINISHED OBJECT ALERT!!!!
OK, I actually have 2, but I can only officially call one "finished". The "2 hour" scarf I tried to find, but the only colors in splash were these obnoxious yellow/baby poop green/orange things that JUST weren't quite what I was looking for in a good Xmas present...so I substituted some other hairy/eyelash thing that was pretty close in a rich brown to go with this cool brown mix of squiggle. It actually took me more like 3 1/2 to 4 hrs, but it's DONE. Crappy pic, sorry, I was trying to hold the new doggie and Dad got only part of the pic in there. It's actually about 9 feet long and maybe 5" wide and CUTE.



FO almost....no pics...Bound off the boob tube, all pleased with myself, so excited, then noticed it was a bit of a tight bind-off row, thought oh well, put it on and COULDN'T MOVE MY ARMS! I tried to take a pic of myself, you know, hold the camera out in front of me, but I couldn't raise my elbows from being crammed in against the ribcage.......and of COURSE this was SATAN's KNOT THREAD, so no hope of frogging the bind-off....tried, but cussed and stomped and threw it across the room and think I may take it to Knit Wits to see if they take pity on me and one of their guru's can rip the dang thing out...otherwise, I'm just going to make cuts in the bottom row about every 10 stitches and wear the damn thing ANYWAY, it's not like it will unravel or anything.....UGH.

3rd piece of news, we have a new doggie! Miles the dog is a shitzu and 2 1/2 yrs old and was given to the kids & I from Uncle Will, who's now living down in Florida. It about tore him up, but he thought since he's working long hours, has NO yard (sand & palm trees & cement) and the kids & I were starting to look for a dog, Miles would enjoy living with us. I think Will called 3 times to check on Miles since Sat. night. This is quite possibly the sweetest already trained dog I've ever met in my life and we LOVE him. Now Uncle Will has an even better reason to visit KC more often!

Happy Turkey Day!

Happy Thanksgiving from Super Turkey!

Let it snow! & Free 2 hour scarf pattern

We woke up to the first snow of the season, about 4-6" of pure winter wonderland outside! Since I was given exactly 24 hours to recover from bronchitis, I wasn't due at work until noon so we had time to play! Meet snowman Fred:

Birthday girls each wearing our scarves, aren't we fashionistas? DON'T look at the hair, as I'd been rained on at least 3 times that day.



And we can't forget Joe Cool himself:




And, just in case we forgot this was a knitting blog, here's what's going on:
Boob Tube only has about 2 inches left and pic of the fabric is below right with the UFO's in side column. Knit along tank is going very well, pic is down below on right as well. Since I have about 4 more scarves to make for Xmas presents and NOT enough time to do them, I found another COOL free pattern that's supposed to be a 2hr project....

Splash + Squiggle 2 hour scarf from Crystal Yarns free patterns. It's supposed to only use one ball of each yarn, knit together on sz 17 needles, so I thought I'd give it a try as it looks CUTE! Click the pic to get to the pattern:




I really need to update more free links on the free knitting patterns page, but for now, here's about a MILLION free patterns from the crystal yarns site, there's some really cute stuff in there!

Crystal Yarns Free Patterns

sickie

Well, I finally got the crap that's been recycled in our bad air in the dungeon for the last month. I've actually been coughing at night for a few weeks now, but never really felt bad until today. I've been tired, but I thought it was just due to being up a lot at night. Right after the bigbosses said "we'll work with you as long as we can" on my missing work & making up time, etc. You guessed it, I'm pushing the stinking envelope. I started feeling worse and worse and NOT EVEN HUNGRY...that's usually a MAJOR sign for me (I'm even hungry when I'm hurling with the flu)...my lungs started burning when I breathed and it felt like a 300 lb man was standing on my chest, so I took myself to the walk-in clinic for oh, let's see...2 1/2 hours...and found that I got myself a case of bronchitis that is dangerously close to turning to walking pneumonia. Got some antibiotics and a coughn syrup with narcotics in it to help me sleep (cool, narcotic cough syrup sounds so bad-ass) and I was told that the three owners had a meeting about it and decided I could have the 24 hours until I was no longer contaigous to recover. I'm to be back at work tomorrow at noon. wow.

It's a good thing I'm knitting now or all these stinking dr. office visits could get kind of boring. I cranked out some more of the boob tube and the ball of satan knot thread is getting much smaller. I might be able to finish it today. Didn't make it to Knit Wits to seam my tank, but hope to next week. Worked a bit tonight on the knitalong tank and I'm starting to really like it.

OH, the most exciting part of my day...sitting knitting with said satans knots and it somehow was captivating the prettiest, funniest little baby girl. She had to be about 8 months old, just able to start getting around but her mom had a death grip on her to keep her from touching anything in the waiting room. She was just cooing and giggling and watching that yarn move around as I pulled it from the ball...the mom & grandma turned away from this strange guy that kept making faces at her and was kind of creeping me out. She just kept giggling at me and we'd smile and all that. The mom & grandma gave me their smile of approval and then I got a FREAKING splinter in the tip of my pointer finger from the dang split tip of the needle and it HURT. I'm afraid a "son of a BXXCH" escaped from me quite distinctly and the gasps were combined with looks of horror and the momma putting her hands over the baby's ears, I swear to God. I apologized and kind of chuckled. I thought it was funny, I mean, she's not even talking yet, but still I said I was sorry and I AM a very good momma figure myself. Well, the baby kept trying to squirm to look at the yarn & me trying to pull a splinter out of said finger and the mom would not even let the kid look in my direction. It was a major wreslting match and the pouty kid was winning. When they called my name the grandma said under her breath "Thank God she's gone". Jeez, I'm a threat to grandmas now???

sorry, lame story but I'm tired & sipped my narcotics & am going to bed so I can complete the healing process in my determined 24 hours on schedule.

Girl's Night Out

Thanks to the Fabulous Miss Amanda for arranging our girls' night out! I got to meet the famous Liz which was fun too! We saw the new Bridget Jones movie and I have to admit I laughed, I cried a tear or two and then laughed again. I do have to say DAMN those happily ever movies with rich, gorgeous men who love their women enough to fight for them....you KNEW how it would turn out, but I still absolutely loved it. I figured my life isn't much different, except that I don't live in an unbelieably cool flat in London, I've got 2 kids, I don't have a job that lets me travel over the world, or have two gorgeous, stinking rich brittish men fighting over me, but I do have a fabulously gay friend or four and a few other obnoxious girlfriends that give me lots of life advice and drink with me occasionally, and I journal and I'm clumsy and a bit inappropriate. Yup, two peas in a pod. Anyway, I highly recommend the movie for a fun feel-good flick.

KNITTING-->Knitting away on the boob tube, ignoring the tank-along, and I'm taking the summer in the city tank front & back to Knit Wits tomorrow.

WORK-->YES! I totally skated out of any big meetings other than the regular Monday Morning Meeting official thing which was NOT a lot of fun. You know, I can't help but like the big boss lady. It's a strange place to work, our little dungeon, but I can't say it's boring by any means. I actually did a little "I'm not in the conference room.....I'm not in the conference room..." dance this afternoon. Lots of meetings and lots of decisions and lots of stress, and I very wisely kept OUT of the majority of it. Even though I believe the local bossman is getting a bit tired of me, the big lady still likes me, so now apparently they'll work with me and let me work as much as I can and will "work with me as long as possible" and it was like no big whoop. AS IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN, minus the "little talk" crap threatened and never followed through on last week. That makes no sense, but it does in dungeon-speak.

MAN, old Belly-Boy here in KC Chiefs land is nasty. That big ol hairy belly painted up and boucing around while belly boy is cheering & dancing in the COLD on Monday Night Football. Poor chiefs. I'm afraid I would have given up and put on a damn coat if I were him. He's either a very loyal fan or had too much alcohol to mind. No way could I go buck nekkid in the KC cold at night...

Gotta get typing on the old nanowrimo. I cheated a bit by including some older writing, but really not too much, and now I'm getting serious. GONNA do it. It's gotten personal here. me against the dang words.

SSSHHHHH be very very quiet....

It's day one of the big bosses in town. I NEED to learn to keep my BIG MOUTH SHUT sometime. I was just offering all kinds of opinions in our big Monday meeting today. stupid stupid stupid

I need to learn by example from the wise one and keep my mouth shut, stay under the radar and go back to my little corner and maybe no one will notice me. As she put it when I finally did NOT do something stupid.......said "Ah, very wise, grasshopper"

KNITTING update--> I was CRANKING out some serious knitting this weekend! I forced myself to try to battle the clutter that is drowning me in the house, but only got my bedroom done. I considered moving on to another room, then saw my tank top calling me .... knit me .... you're almost done ... just a few more rows.... and I caved. I got the front & back DONE on the summer in the city tank done and now have to sew the sides and crochet the straps and armholes, neckholes and bottom. Nothing like finishing a SUMMER tank top made of WOOL in NOVEMBER. Ah well, why should my life start making sense now? Don't exactly know how to do the stitching, am going to take it over lunch to Knit Wits tomorrow over lunch and see if one of the customers sitting around the table will take pity on me. (that's how I learn all my tricks)

Also got about 3 feet done on another aunt's scarf for xmas and did NONE of my ribbon knitalong, will work on it later.

I FOUND ANOTHER LYS! ok, apparently it's BEEN there, but I didn't know until yesterday. The Studio, on the west end of the plaza, 316 W 47th Street, looks TASTY. I didn't let myself actually open the door. I walked by and drooled in the windows. I can't afford to spend another penny on yarn until I start eBay-ing again. A lady knitting on her scarf at the McDonald's tubes said she got her yarn there and I had to do a drive-by.

KIP-->This weekend I ran into THREE different ladies all knitting in public or KIP. I often KIP and this weekend NEVER had any of my works in progress along this time, but it was still fun! There's something neat about being able to talk with a total stranger and suddenly it's like the 50's and you're neighbors talking over the backyard fence. I don't know how to describe it, but knitting has added a lot to my life. I've made friends through the internet, through yarn shops and total strangers, it makes you all warm & fuzzy and hopeful for the future. OK, I know, I know, TOO MUCH TOUCHY FEELY CRAP. Anyway, Nicholas's mom (one of my son's friends) was working on a scarf at Chuck E. Cheese's during a bday party, an older lady was working on a lacy shawl at Half-Price Books and a mother was working on her hubby's scarf at McDonalds while her son and my children ran around screaming and giggling and going crazy.

Damn Jazzercise Chics

DANG those jazzercise chics can move it! I got invited along to Miss T's birthday celebration at Raul's Velvet Room and shook my booty to all the good ones like ... she's a brick.....house..... and ......what I like about you....you really know how to dance..... and that song from the queen movie dancing queen? or something....it was the song in the movie where the 2 girls dressed up like guys dressing up like women to hide from the mob, can't remember the name, but the whole bar stood up and rose it's arms to the sky and sang.....dance with me.....can't remember, dangit.

ANYWAY, thanks to Miss T, I'm SO going to have to start jazzercising. Those chics were all at least 10-15 yrs older than me an FULL of freaking energy and cute as buttons. We had a BLAST!

ALSO a funny side, one of the girls was very proud of her cleavage and I thought it was a bit strange, but hey, if I had cleavage, I'd be happy too, so I kept my mouth shut. Then she said she BOUGHT her boobies. I have the "curves" or some such crap from victoria's secret that never stay put in your bra and so I never wear them, but these are sticky no strap boobies that stick to you and give you cleavage and are a trip! I bought me some boobies tonight. $24.95 from www.hsn.com.

see my new boobies

HAH, now I really need to finish my sexy tank & the city tank & the knitalong tank...cripes.

Golden Dog, and my bright exercise/knitting idea

First, "Golden Dog" aka Joey, did great in his Thanksgiving production at the preschool. WHAT a trip! Those 4 & 5 yr olds worked so hard at making native american decorations & costumes and turkeys and all the good stuff. They sang Thanksgiving songs (yes, they DO exist) and said poems and my fave was the 5 Fat Turkeys...

Five Fat Turkeys, sitting on the fence
The first one said, "I'm so immense."
The second one said, "I can gobble at you."
The third one said, "Well, I can gobble too."
The fourth one said, "I can spread my tail."
The fifth one said, "Don't catch it on a nail."
Along came a farmer with something to say,
"Turkeys are the best on Thanksgiving Day"

There was something else about being a little Cherokee and having a bow & arrow and at the end they scream at the top of their lungs, "Bears and buffalos you'd better watch out."

Now, these and about 10 other songs were "sung" by the little ones...in other words, shouted at us to the point that you only knew the songs were over when it got quiet.

The truly entertaining thing was the parents & grandparents in the audience. I mean, I think my kid's cute and I enjoy it but HOLY CRAP PEOPLE, they're just kids. Video cameras, digitals, disposables, UNREAL. Then there was overhearing all the moms bragging about their kids' "work" in their acting classes, gymastics, etc. preparing them for success in the "real world". I figured I'd shelter my munchkins from the "real world" as long as humanly possible and allow them to be KIDS that just hang out and play in the dirt, swing, and be bored. Did you notice NO children are allowed to be bored anymore? to have to come up with their own imaginative ways to entertain themselves??? My poor kids. They have that opportunity more than they would like, but it's really amazing the games they can come up with if I just turn off the damn tv and leave them alone once in a while.

Ran home, put the kids to bed, and mom & dad VERY nicely offered to listen for them so I could run out and meet Alison at her goodbye last night in kc. Sad, but fun too and now I have another reason to take a trip to Denver! She'll wipe that city out of expensive tiny sized shoes in no time.

When I got home, I realized I didn't have time to exercise AND knit before bed. I got this great idea last night...why not COMBINE the knitting I love with the exercise I don't particularly care for??? I could get my knitting projects done while getting all fit & trim....(Did I mention I'm extremely NOT graceful)

So, first I thought I'd try the treadmill. How hard could it be? I normally multitask and do 4-10 things at once, so no biggie, right??? Am I the only idiot or has anyone else done this??? After realizing I had to time my steps with the stitches, it was almost do-able, but I about had a heart attack and then later almost impaled myself on the ONE pair of beautiful rosewood needles I have and decided to try something else. I had quite the setup, though. A kid's plastic bucket hanging from a hook on the treadmill kept the yarn, and I was only trying to work on another straight garter stitch scarf, but it was a no go.

Next I thought I could do the stationary bike. That wasn't too bad, used the same bucket to hold yarn off one of the handles, but again the timing had to be just right for me to stitch and pedal and not get all caddywampus. I actually fell off the stinking bike. ONTO the ground. Too much work.

Decided to sit on my butt on the couch AS GOD INTENDED while knitting and compromised by doing lunges & pushups whenever commercials came on. Then I got lazy and just sat there knitting away.

Ended up almost finished with my boob tube, only have about two inches left, hope to get it done tomorrow. Back to rewarding myself by sitting & knitting AFTER the time on the treadmill...crap.



Taking the kids to see spongebob this weekend, should be fun! Is it 5:00 yet?????? Hoping Amanda is enjoying her day off from the dungeon, what am I thinking, of COURSE she is! Knock em dead at your sing thing!

I'm actually going OUT tonight. Woo hoo. Going to head out to meet a few girls at Raul's velvet club to dance to the disco band and then trying to get Russell to go out too (if we can drag Mark out of the house, otherwise I might just kidnap Russell anyway!).

Letter to Dubbya

OK, I know the election's over, and I shouldn't be concerned that the new "family values" movement that is taking over the country shouldn't scare me into investigating living conditions in Canada, but part of me still likes to THINK and LAUGH and debate a bit. Even though the current trend is frighteningly similar to how Hitler's army of young SS teens began....using the Bible as literal translations, anyone with a differing view is a traitor, etc.....

You might have seen this already in email form, but I got a kick out the post on Homegrown Daisy's entry today. I have to admit I'm a bit too silly today to function in the normal world, and in my head this voice like a combo of old Beavis & Butthead and southpark characters was saying..."smite them....smite them all...he he he..." I blame the stinking new diet/exercise plan I began...serious chocolate withdrawal is not a pretty thing.....smite them....smite them all!

Letter to Dubbya

I promise to get back to work, try to act normal and my next entry will be official knitting updates & life updates and all that.

I also need to apologize to my Christian friends. I'm a good ol Catholic girl, so I am not ever really sure if I qualify as a "Christian". I do believe in God and the Bible has some good stuff in it, but when people get preachy and literal on pointing out how OTHERS are sinning and must be ostracized, I get a pit pissy.

Stephanie's Turkey

HA! Here's Stephanie's Happy Turkey Day Photo....she was the one who got me hooked on the ol blogging world.

Is she creative or what? CRACKED me up, so I thought I'd steal her pic and share. :)

more pics

Here's more goodies. Pics from Huyen's baby shower last Sat. Adam caught me at my best, chowing down.... although it was a good hair day, and I'm wearing the wild stuff mix/max skinny scarf....


Here's Adam & Phuong


Alison & Rich


Huyen (mommy to be) and Phuong


Phuong holding Lili's daughter Trinity


and did I mention we not only eat a lot at our get-togethers, but we DRINK as well?
Alison & Phuong modeling baby clothes, yes those are baby undies on Phuong's head.


These are the girls who've taken me into their circle of friendship and I just love them to pieces. I have exactly 4 weeks to get my sexy tank done and lose some weight so I don't look like the token beached whale at the Asian Refugee Annual Christmas Party this year!

Normally when I go out, I'm the Mary and am with a few Rhodas....but with these damn skinny, pretty chics, I'm the BIG OL RHODA! Damn. Ah well, it keeps me humble.

One of my other friends sent me the portrait she made when she filled in answers to questions for me...

Did anyone else notice I was FREAKING EATING in it too??? She can't find the website she made it, so I might go mosey around google and see if I can find it...paybacks are a bitch!